so sickly sweet it burns

[cocoa]

edit: march 29th is one year of billie eilish's debut album "WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?" so stream while u read pls 😁✌️

username: Colour54
name: Dominique Bobezac
gender: nonbinary, uses any pronouns {using she/her for the purposes of consistency in this entry}

part 1, accessories:
compilation, includes images w/o slime to represent how it would look once on. men's/women's versions represent their NB identity
all art & designs by me

women's hat and bow version:



men's hat and bowtie version:

accessory explanation:

Bright colors are the norm where Dominique is from, and she's taken that status quo and turned it to the extreme. She doesn't have a favorite color: she either hates or loves every color equally. She loves design that catches the eye, and has tailored most of her own work in her long hours of (unemployed) free time.

- women's hat: she stole the base purple hat & painted on the yellow and green dots, as well as attached the feathers. she created the fabric roses herself with a lot of time & effort.

- women's bow: purchased base, sewed in turquoise coloring and attached the gold runic fabric. the runes can be invoked to either cool or warm herself

- glasses/goggles: alternates; goggles are good for anonymity and experiments, her glasses are best for helping her poor eyesight. she dislikes contacts

- men's hat: originally a purple hat, she spent a long time stiching the color into this one as well as cutting out the hole for her horn

- men's bowtie: bought directly from a market when she was feeling especially masculine

- corset: made from scratch, and her pride and joy, Dominique spent many hours attaching blue scales over purple fabric & the purple gems, layering yellow fabric and crafting the dark blue and red flower attachments. Dominique hates having her goop and bones exposed from years of shame and discomfort, and rarely goes any time without wearing a corset. She wears a plainer one during sleep.

- cape: designed with protective runes to keep her tail hidden, her cape is a decorative work meant to keep the "unsightly" parts of herself hidden.

- gears (front & back legs over goop): a magic & science powered invention designed to use air pressure to keep her goop from dripping. if you look into the gears, you will be hypnotized by her spell

- nails: to look less scary + stylish!

[313/300 words]

[cocoa]

There was a time that every epiphany seemed grand, every detail seemed to be scribbled over in red highlighter pen, every little thing was underlined in thick black lines just to spite me, and angry words would weave their way through my mind. Home, and my childhood - it was…

Bubblegum skies, glowing in my eyes
Cotton candy clouds, floating in the sky
And how brilliant it was to jump on elastic ground
How brilliant it would be, if I had one piece in me that could glow

I felt the way they violated me that day
Shoved their hands through my limbs and laughed
Pulled out, goop coating their hands
It didn’t hurt but it hurt something else inside of me
From the way they pinned my exposed spine to the ground
Joked about carving their initials there, watched me with leering eyes

I didn’t feel the way my mother never came
My earliest memories were so starkly empty
That sometimes I imagine if I could remember it would be blank walls
And me, crying out for food and care, and no one answering

I remember what she taught me, when she was there
To smile, to say please and thank you
Even as her eyes looked back at me, hazy with alcohol
She’d say it would get me what I wanted

It wasn’t always true
Those boys wouldn’t stop when I said please and smiled
But the teachers, when I looked up so sweetly,
Always gave me whatever I needed

I don’t care about other people
Because other people never cared much about me
Sometimes I get really angry, or really excited, or really sad
But just like my mom taught me, I just smile through it
I think it’s supposed to make you happier but it just makes me angrier
So my smiles turned into daggers to be used against the world

As an adult
I’m left unusually empty
And sickly sweet

[cocoa]

Dominique smiled at a stranger, in a world far away from home.

Magic - oh, how brilliant it was! The way it could bring her across worlds, and twist reality around her like thin paper. There was nothing more sweet than that rush of power that came when people stared into her gears and wavered on their feet before the most dazzlingly beautiful smile stretched across their faces. It was the greatest of treats for Dominique: to watch them feel such joy from her hypnosis even as she took a step forward with her own smile, sickly sweet, and opened her very special kit. “Very, very special indeed, the things you’re doing for me. Thank you very much,” she said to the air. The kalon in front of her was quite thoroughly enraptured in her illusion, after all.

And her illusions were so simple! Theme parks, ferris wheels that stretched to the limit of the sky, giving the most grandiose views of the sunset, the sunrise, the Himalayas of Earth; whatever they so desired! She gave them bubblegum skies, cotton-candy clouds, just like her homeland. She gave them love, in the form of a man or a woman or something else entirely, in any form of love any sentient being could wish for. And oh, how simple a thing it was to do. The people of the Vekar Empire and of Earth or anywhere she wandered could be so endlessly simple. Such illusions could have never satisfied someone from her homeland.

Perhaps that is why she ended up so messed up, after all. She was taught that nothing would ever be enough, one way or another.

With a thrill held only by the most self-destructive, self-hating of souls, Dominique jabbed a syringe into the hypnositized’s kalon’s arm with a menacing half-growl of a smile. “Thank you for your contribution,” she offered as they collapsed onto the ground with a shudder and a jerk. She watched the goop on their paws shrink away and flake. Dominique’s grin grew even wider, her hand reaching up to pull her hat down to hide the glee on her face.

“Finally, a success.”

[cocoa]

For Azrael, it had all begun in 2189, Earth-years, on the sordid, stinking of oil-and-vomit streets of the Vekar Empire. They had found a body, mutated to the point of horror. Newspapers had quickly dismissed the first death as either accident or suicide. Such gruesome deaths weren’t uncommon in the Vekar Empire, where technological and magical experiments could easily go wrong. It was a glaring flaw in the empire’s system, but the Vekar Empire had always been far from a perfect place. At least it had the tech-magic advances to boast for it all.

That is, until it happened again. Another body, this time, limbs turned into a bloody, misformed goop. And then another: their claws unnaturally extended out so far that they stabbed themself. One was even thought to be unrelated, a heart attack - until they realized the cause of the heart attack was due to a freezing of every part of the body’s systems. All the murders could be linked with one trait: a spiraling, delirious smile plastered onto their faces, as if their greatest joy had been achieved at the moment of their death.

People first suspected some kind of mass suicide cult. That was, until the DNA tests came through: each of the suspects had been injected with a serum with a similar makeup, but not identical. It was a clear sign that the murders were experimental subjects, not suicides.

As the head Knight Detective on the job, recruited by the Vekar Empire’s royalty themselves, straight out of the ranks of Dienan Royal Knights, Serving in Honor to His Highness, King Callum, it was Azrael’s job to figure out who in the Great Dragon’s name was the culprit of these murders.

Number one on his list was the mafia: testing out a new drug to sell to the population or within the underground world at a later date. They had both the resources and manpower to pull off such an operation. Number two on his list was some low-down, cult organization. Number three was a rogue.

The good thing about the first option was that the mafia was an easy find. Small cults and rogue culprits could be much harder to identify if they didn’t even know where to start looking. There was any manner of suspects: people born in Hasnetania and the Vekar Empire, or citizens from entirely differently galaxies, crossed through the newly-opened Warp Gate, courtesy of thousands of years of knowledge of alien civilizations and the high-tech scientists of Sloniris. Opening it had been a dangerous gamble, but so far, it had only been a blessing to their small world.

Azrael frowned deeply as he stamped his approval on the most newly printed decree: the temporary closing of the Warp Gate, until the murders were solved. At that moment, the gate had already been closed, to catch their potential murderer off guard. There was no way they could have left already: the last murder had been reported a mere five minutes ago.

Now, Azrael thought as he leaned back in his chair, scratching at the orange fur on his chin, it was down to the matter of finding this serial killer. The knight force wouldn’t be enough to cover the entirety of the Vekar Empire’s capital: it was time to employ the people.

[cocoa]

Dominique walked with a skip to her step, smiling and tipping her hat to any passerby on the streets she saw. Oh, what a wonderful day it was! Success at last! Only now to use it on herself, of course.

The passersbys smiled back at her act, and at her brilliant, bright clothes. One stopped to ask if she was part of the circus, to which Dominique smiled and with a grin introduced herself as “Mx. Bobezac, yes! That’s me! The walking circus! Any delight you want, any time!” and to that, the stranger lit up in excitement. But Dominique couldn’t entertain them tonight, so she tsked and waved a finger and said, “Next time, next time! I’ve business to attend to, I’m so very sorry!” She plastered on one of her sweetest smiles, and the stranger melted right into it, their eyes shining with apology.

When she returned to her dingy apartment full of potions and science equipment, she grinned, quickly getting to work on mixing blood and DNA and a million other ingredients into the same serum, at a stronger dose than she had used on the kalon earlier that day.

When she was done, she injected it without further ado. She had wanted to do this ever since that day on the playground, with those sneering children looking down at her.

Her goop limbs flaked away, and the goop around her ribcage dried up and fell into ash on the bottom of the floor. With wide eyes, Dominique grabbed her prosthetics with her toes and inserted them with ease, magic gluing them to her body, fully-functional. She had slaved away with the best of the body auto mechanics industry for months on these babies! With quick hands, she inserted the connector for her back legs and a cast to fill out her chest before putting back on her tunic and cloak, along with brand new, elaborate cuffs for her arms.

Dominique sat back and marveled at the beauty of it all, the freeing-ness of it, before whooping for joy. To anyone else, it would be seen as a bitter joy. It was one borne of the need to fix herself after years of unfilling life, at the consequence of many other, innocent lives.

But Dominique did not care for such things, not when the joy blinded her eyesight with stars and her neighbor knocked on her door, and Dominique gleefully answered, showing off her brand-new limbs. Her neighbor smiled, and said, “Yes, it is quite wonderful! I’ve never seen past your wonderfully bright gears, perhaps you should show off this style more often!” To which Dominique answered with a smile and a thank you, of course, before closing the door.

No-one of the Vekar Empire had ever seen the true form of arms, not since she constructed her hypnosis gears. Finally, she no longer had to wear those clunky things.

[cocoa]

Until three days later, when in public, talking to a Knight officer about the murders of all things, that goop began seeping into her gears and causing Dominique’s arm to fall limp.

“Are you alright, Mx. Bobezac?” The officer asked, concern in his eyes. Bobezac was nothing but an upstanding, kind citizen to him: in fact, she had just been helpfully giving him advice for the investigation. Likely a rogue, she’d said. But I wouldn’t worry too much! Another officer will catch them soon, or they will go away on their own, she’d said.

Dominique smiled sweetly at the officer, crinkling the edge of her eyelids even as she felt what was inside of her shutting down, going quiet with a great whip of sorrow straight to her heart. “Not a problem, sir. I just don't feel very well at the moment, I really think I should be heading home. Hope everything will turn out alright. Thank you!” With one final strained smile and her arm cradled to her chest, Dominique made for a brisk walk home, panic weighing her down behind her sweet mask.

When she got home, she curled into the floor and watched as her prosthetics were forced out of her arms in shambles, her natural-born goop creeping back in to fill the gaps.

She didn’t leave the apartment for days, after that. Dominique stared at her broken work, the moment rewinding again and again in her mind. She was used to this, her face pressed against the floor, her stomach gnawing with hunger and her mouth dry with thirst. The depression paralyzed her, only rarely getting onto her feet for water. It was a cycle she had experienced much of her life: the most wonderful of highs brought down to the lowest of lows.

Dominique closed her eyes and let it pass.

[cocoa]

Some days later - Dominique isn’t sure how long has passed, or if it is even days, or weeks, or hours - she found herself sitting at the bar of her apartment, mess cleaned up and old gears on. She grimaced, a rare look on her near-constantly smiling face. But she had a job to do, messes to clean.

The weight of her past and future weighed down on her, and she knew if she wanted to have any chance of living her life outside of bars, she had to “find” the killer. Slowly, a smile grew on her face as she twirled a pen around her finger. Her cursed goop finger. But well, she’d failed. She’d had her moment of loveliness. She thought of administering the serum for the rest of her life, but…

That would probably kill her. And Dominique wanted to live a bit longer, if only to make a living hell out of some people’s lives.

It took a bit of searching, but Dominique found her suspect soon enough: someone she had been planning on using as a test subject, in fact. The human had pink goop a similar shade to her own - something that would match up with the goop found at one of her crime scenes. All that was left was a bit of hypnosis, and her plan would be complete.

[cocoa]

“Case closed!” Azrael declared relief in his tone. His announcement was met by cheers of the surrounding knights that had worked on the case with him. “It’s taken nearly two years of this cat and mouse chase, and in the end they just end up turning themselves in. Who would’ve imagined?”

They were behind bars, now. They had just walked into the station and admitted to the crimes, and under further testing, it had been decided they had not been coerced into anything: they truly believed what they were saying. The detail they gave them, too, on how the murders were administered was… frightening. And the entire time - they looked so happy about it. A little smile in the corner of their mouth. A crazy rogue it was, then.

That’s what Azrael told his officers as he eyed their anonymous tip, Dominique Bobezac, sitting in the corner. He smiled.

“The Warp Gate is reopened, the public put at ease. All’s well and end's well, folks!”

[cocoa]

Walking out of the meeting with a victorious smile on her face, Dominique cracked her goopy knuckles with a sweet smile, thinking of all her polite thanks to the officers in the department. They really had no idea! She truly was brilliant, wasn’t she?

Ordering a sweet from a local stand, Dominique hurried down the street, eager to get to the Warp Gate and leave this town. She wasn’t quite that arrogant: only the Great Dragon, or the humans’ God knew just how long her hypnosis would last past the first couple years. It acted quite similar to her gears: a ring nailed into their ring finger, hypnosis magic ingrained so deeply that they were simultaneously having the best day of their life and confessing to multiple murders in frightening detail every hour. It was some of her best magic work yet, Dominique thought. Regardless, she wasn’t ready to take that risk of staying.

Smiling, Dominique skipped up the steps to the Warp Gate, and then stopped at the third step. Slowly, she ascended the last step, leaning forward to examine the marvel it was: the glorious, shifting blue currents that made up the fabric of the universe-portal. Squinting, she leaned forward more: there was something…

She placed a goopy paw against the portal to initialize the warp, and everything went gray.

[cocoa]

Dominique heaved in a breath: the air seemed heavy. Unnatural. Something was wrong: it was as if all of the magic in the air had been drained out.

Wincing, she tried to move, and realized her face was shoved against the concrete. Wait. This wasn’t how the warp worked.

Her paws - they were locked in handcuffs - her legs too -

She looked up. Azrael! She could work her way out of this - no way she had come to arrest her. So, she widened her eyes and smiled. “Sir Knight, I think there has been a mistake. Could you please remove these restraints?”

He did not smile back. Tendrils of dread ran up Dominique’s arms, causing her to shiver. He spoke.

“Did you really think you’d get off that easy? There is so much evidence that points towards you. Traces of pink goop on the crime scene. You, being a foreign, eccentric rogue that while well-appreciated, nobody knows personally. And, of course, the damning evidence: framing someone who is on our potential victim watch list.” Dominique looked up at him, eyes wide. “It was when you were out in your room for a while. We had a search warrant for your house - walked in, found you out of it on the floor. We put a reality illusion spell on you: it would show you only how you wanted things to go, and we would see just what that is. Of course, the entire time you’ve just been walking around town aimlessly, to the confusion of the residents.” He shook his head. “A bit cruel, but in this city, most anything is legal, bar what you’ve done. It’s over.”

Dominique’s eyes shuttered, a sad smile still on her face. “And what are you going to do with me now I’m stuck in your little empire, Sir Knight?”

Azrael struck her with a stern look. “Community service. There’s no use for prisons here we can just use magical apparatus to chain your magic and range of motion; and we all know your skill is in hypnosis and… whatever you’ve been researching, not jailbreaking. So, I hope you enjoy your new job of cleaning up this mess of a city!”

Azrael nodded to some of the people around him who stepped forward and rolled up Dominique’s sleeves up to the furred skin of her shoulder, just where the goop met her skin. They began tattooing restrictive runes into the space. Dominique watched them, eyes wild, her smile wavering.

“Don’t worry. You’ll have lots of practice to try and charm up the people here, now they know all your crimes.”

And everything broke down in Dominique’s world, again.

Her smile stayed, frozen.




In the time after,
I smile sweetly and pray
It will be enough .