Flat Dreams - Blog Posts

"A villain can't have a happy ending."

But "the villain is the hero whose story hasn't been told."

So what happens when the author tells the story of the villain?

He stops being a villain and becomes just another character.

So now he has the opportunity to get his happy ending...

I continue to practice digital art.)

You know, I have a tradition of re-watching “Gravity Falls” every summer, which appeared back when the first season was just coming out.

But since I read Flat Dreams a few years ago and, one might say, EVERYTHING related to this amazing fanfic, the item “re-watch Gravity Falls” has also added the item “re-read Flat World, etc.”

I can’t find words to express my gratitude not only for the "best summer", but also for this masterpiece among fanfictions!!!

And every time, like the first time, my heart breaks into pieces at this moment... (/T~T)/

“Sleep,” he says. “I am here.”

A Fanfic Writer Appreciation Day rec-list

So, I heard people are celebrating fanfic authors today, and I wanted to take the time to share some of my all-time favorites! (all are Gravity Falls)

Blind Faith, by @pinesinthewoods

Behold, the fic that firmly dragged me into the Gravity Falls fandom! I remember scrolling through GF fics on Ao3 for the first time, and this was one of the very first I read. It’s dark, has heaps of glorious Stan twin angst, and still lingers in my mind to this day.

Towards the Sun, by @pinesinthewoods and @notthistimespock

Out of every single fic I’ve ever read, this one succeeds the most in getting inside the character’s heads. A bit of a canon divergence where, to save Stanley, Ford must confront his brother’s darker side within the mindscape. (Admission: I cried on multiple occasions while reading this.)

Flat Dreams, by PengyChan

I once told myself I’d never feel pity for a triangle. I was bitterly wrong. An amazing imagining of Bill’s childhood, early life, and rise to power… with lots of inspiration from Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatland. 

Stars and Trees, by jikanet_tanaka

A set of small scenes and vignettes of Stan’s life, from childhood to present. All of them are focused on the theme of family, and how Stanley relates to the idea over time. They’re very feels-y and sweet, and characterize Stan so well! 

The Wind in Visions, by @the-stan-twin and @the-ford-twin

Ah, where do I start with this? Probably the most pure examples of Fiddauthor and Mabifica I can think of. I adore the heaps and heaps of Pines family bonding in this and the slice-of-life feel it has… and yet there’s this feeling of something serious building in the horizon, and wow, I can’t wait to see what happens next with that!

Blue Bayou, by The_Lionheart (@icefeels)

The most fascinating take I’ve seen on Ford’s multiverse years. It features a very well developed OC, (honestly one of the best I’ve seen in this fandom), who becomes Ford’s traveling partner. Their interplay is equal parts hilarious and emotional at times, and is very deep without seeming forced. I really recommend this- it could use SO much more love! (It only has about 100 hits… and that needs to be changed ASAP! :D)

The Triboelectric Effect, by @aroford

An amazing what-if centering around the idea of Stan and Ford accidentally swapping bodies on the electron carpet, way back in ‘82…

Bill and his (dead) brooooooooooooos

I want to specify this Steve is the one from the Steve was there AU

Gravity Falls yippeeee

This is probably going to get barely any likes, BUT WHATEVER

I DONT NEED LOTS OF LIKES TO DEFINE MY ART!!!

redraw of will wood's SELF-iSH album but with bil cifer 🥰 ft epic references bc this album is very flat dreams coded

oh man this is so old. this is a bit from a flat dreams animatic i worked on like ten months ago but didn't finish. maybe one day.

until then, have lil billy boi trying to cheer up his bro

That Time I Gave My Philosophy Professor an Existential Crisis

At one point in the online spring semester of 2021, I received an announcement from my philosophy professor at 4am. 4am?!! Apparently, the discussion essay I provided with my perspective on the week's topic of Reality had given him a crisis. at least, a mild one.

I was thinking about that ordeal as I've been working on reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott again (lil shapes society inhabiting a 2D plane?? flat dreams brainrot UH) and the satirical book definitely loves to demonstrate that we can't fully understand true reality or other dimensions as we're stuck to own perspectives. We had covered Flatland in our philosophy class, and I had already been interested in it since 2020 :)

I dug up that year-old philosophy essay and I'm still proud of it, so I shall share it here. Initially I had absolutely-618%-for-sure procrastinated on writing this until the hour before it was due, so there were a few grammatical errors I fixed for its Tumblr debut.

With the context below it might be a bit easier to see why I've been fascinated by the concepts of Flatland and Flat Dreams for those familiar with it, though that stuff is still hecka cool on its own! And hey, if you wanna check out the essay below, maybe it'll give you an existential crisis too (uh kinda hopefully not I guess but at this rate Anything Is Possible)

-----

Oh man, this week's topic has me so hyped, I've been obsessed with Flatland, the concepts of reality & other dimensions for a while now. I absolutely enjoyed the 2007 Flatland: The Film, it's on YouTube and I highly recommend it :D

As for dealing with the concept of reality....

What if there was something embedded into your experience of reality that you were unaware of? And what if this experience was "abnormal"? 

Enter: positive visual phenomena. Such as hallucinations, palinopsia (seeing images after they are gone), and illusions. But specifically, visual snow.

Wikipedia defines it as "Visual snow, also known as visual static, is a condition in which people see white or black dots in parts or the whole of their visual fields." Nobody knows what causes this static, and it doesn't show up on any type of medical test. Sometimes visual snow can be a symptom of a migraine, or someone might develop the condition of visual snow syndrome and have it forever alter their vision and the way they experience reality. Or, some people might have had this condition placing static over their entire life, and likely don't realize it is abnormal - since it is all they have ever known.

Like me.

I accidentally stumbled across a definition of visual snow in November 2020 from the YouTube channel PsychToGo. (https://youtu.be/NssIITHZ28Y?t=129)

After giving a short description of what visual snow syndrome was, the video noted that "the majority [of those with visual snow] might not even notice it."

I paused the video and thought for a moment. I stared at the white page of my notebook, and yeah - there was a thin layer of static over it. Wait, not everybody sees like this? I just thought it was normal, like eyes not being able to fully process what is in reality around us? I also questioned my awareness of the static, how would I know there was static if this is all I've ever seen? When I was younger, I used to think there was dust constantly floating around a room (but it was static) and when I talked with my eye doctor as a kid about seeing dots, it's possible she mistook my description for floaters and brushed it off as "normal."

My mind was blown and I kept questioning reality - that is, how every person experiences it. The fact that my eyes experience reality in a slightly way than the majority of everyone else is insane. And there is no way for me to experience a visual reality in the "normal" static-free way... right?

Here's an even crazier part about all of this. Several people with visual snow discovered that when they watched television static for a bit and looked away, their own visual snow disappeared temporarily. Sounds counterintuitive, right? Watching static helps get rid of static, even if just for a few seconds? On another YouTube deep dive, I discovered a video of just static for "Visual Snow Relief"

Out of curiosity, I decided to watch it a bit.

After about three minutes of staring at static, I got bored and looked away. AND MY VISION WAS CLEAR. It felt like upgrading from an HD TV or a 4K TV or something - the static was gone for mere seconds and I could see the beautiful, clear picture of the world that everyone else experiences. A glimpse of the "normal" visual perception of reality.

Soon my static came back into view and I was back to my regular visual snow perception of the world. But I got to thinking: What if there was some way we are able to remove a limitation in our perception and better experience reality? We may never know.

haha funny shapes and cool effects go brr nothing to cry about here no-siree

lolll year old fanart/meme thing from the peak point of my flat dreams / flatland obsession

oddly information gained did end up helping me with a philosophy assignment i got later on, hah

Aspen, my gravity falls line oc,

In this au

Bill has hexagon and line friends, line friend is pregnant with hexagons baby, line friend is heavily pregnant, due in two weeks.

Bill destroys dimension forgetting they’re there. He finds them quickly, but not soon enough and by some miracle (axolotls power, he didn’t wanna leave bill as the last of his race (it must be incredibly lonely to be the last like that little Hawaii bird except definitely not calling for a mate) so he gave him a child) the unborn aspen survives.

He then decides to use his powers to keep baby aspen alive outside of his mother (not needed for long since aspen is so developed) and then raises her, being transparent about their past and family. (bills evil not a monster, hes gonna let a kid (especially one of his species) know about their world and family)

Bill found the henchmaniacs in an already formed group about four days after burning his dimension down. (The group was mostly for safety so no one really knew each other well, they just hung out in the same general areas) He forced suggested a couple rules (and scared the henchmaniacs with his power) and they made him leader.

It only took a year before they were all family.

The family!

Kryptos: big brother to aspen

8-ball: awkward uncle

Teeth: pet

Pyronica: nothing close but not strangers either

Amorphous shape: Aspens gossiping/relaxing/venting buddy, Aspen will also take her to parties. (bill makes them take someone. Due to amorphous shapes laid back nature she don’t really care what aspen does at said parties. Her job is to keep Aspen alive, not make sure she doesn’t do stupid stuff)

Pacifire and hectorgon: Aspen really only talks to them if someone else is around, nothing against them they just don’t click

Keyhole: Aspen is the nicest to him. He’s an introvert but if he had to choose someone to interact with, it’d be Aspen.

Xanthar: Gives Aspen advice. Personal couch/bed or Aspen when they travel much to his dismay. (Bill wont let him shake Aspen off)

Eye bats: Aspen adores them

Jessie: Bills go to babysitter for baby Aspen. She helped bill learn how to care for kids. (she was an oldest sibling and had experience with babies) She had a short lived sort of almost thing with bill (before she left) She was around him constantly, and joked about Aspen being their (Jessie and bills) kid, sometimes they’d cuddle with Aspen because he would cry if both of their “parents” weren’t around. Jessie would’ve been the one to teach Aspen if she didn’t leave

And finally, aspens beta design

Ok first of all if you haven't already go read @pengychan 's fic Flat Dreams. It was the most commonly accepted Bill backstory until TBoB and is still my favorite fic ever written. This will make no sense if you haven't!

Whew! Still moving around but happy to have my tablet back. Of course immediately drew triangles. Was in a Liam mood for some reason so here's a take on a Liam-joins-Bill scenario! More doodles and rambles under the cut :]

Bottom left is my take on a Euclydian Liam. Irregulars aren't executed in Euclydia but they're sort of akin to fat people where they face constant, normalized discrimination and are often the butt of the joke. After birth, parents are socially pressured to attempt to fix their child's asymmetry via surgery or shape-correcting braces and are often made to feel ashamed if they cannot, a shame that transfers onto the Irregular once they reach adulthood.

Given how extreme Liam's asymmetry is, he would typically be a candidate for surgery, but the presence of the brick pattern on his longest angle indicates that that's where his lungs are (think of the pattern as something akin to gill slits or indents for spiracles; they breathe through the seams [source]), so instead he gets a brace.

It's not a very good brace. It's a cheap one for the lower class and pretty uncomfortable as all it really does is squeeze really hard. Not super happy with this design so have been brainstorming better ones; I hc Kryptos as having one of these braces too so he's my inspiration!

Bottom right is just the two Getting Scared™ together. Bill has psychotic episodes, Liam has dissociative episodes, and it kinda ends up triggering them both in a big meltdown cycle. Bill starts clawing at his own face and behaving erratically -> this triggers Liam's fear of him and makes him dissociate -> Bill sees Liam's gone away which triggers his own terror of losing him again -> repeat forever!

Alas, as hard as it is being together, it's harder being apart

Grief is a hole in the chest

What even IS that thing put it outside

"If he was going to get what he wanted from the Gun God, he would need to turn up the charm, and that would mean staying the night when Venuz asked. Considering his options in his limited state of power, Bill figured that it was either lie there for twelve hours staring at the ceiling or indulge in some shut-eye.

And so, for the first time in eons, the king of nightmares slept."

~~~

Man I just wanted to give context to this piece and wrote a whole drabble fic lmao. TL;DR Bill falls asleep at Venuz's place, has a nightmare and remembers all the events he erased in the fic Flat Dreams (which is totally legendary and you should go read it right now). He is not at all prepared to handle it

I really love this piece and it's deeply personal to me. I've been in an art block and this finally not only restored my confidence in my abilities but served to vent some really, really hard emotions I've been feeling lately after my mother's passing. I hope the heart in it shines through and you enjoy it as much as I do. Much love :) ❤️🧡💛

Version without text/border under the cut

i wish there was a 'Follow But Again' button so i could follow you harder im seriously obsessed with your gravity falls art

(((((im the one who you offered to talk about flat dreams ith btw :>))))

Awww thank you so much!! That means a ton to me, so glad you enjoy 🥺🥺

Also hello again! When I finished that fic I had to physically get up and go for a night drive and lived life in a hollow stupor for the next three days. Pain agony. I didn't think it was possible for me to actually feel bad for the bastard triangle

RIP Liam he just like me fr

Gravity Falls meme dump because maybe someone out there shares my questionable sense of humor

I finally read Flat Dreams and I’m still coping 

Hey @flynns-hellhole hey @amystarrstuff  how you doin :)

flat dreams sketches!!!💥

OK this is actually a new post I did today for Bill's debut/birthday!

Le comic is under more. (I hope- I still dk how tumblr wo rk s)