#i've been doing this for 20 fucking years

[skittishandi]

whump intro :)

Hi! Long-time lurker, here finally decided to make a blog to interact with the community!

My name is andi, or ANDI (Andy with capital A and ending in Y just makes me uncomfy for some reason, can't explain why) I'm 28 years old and go by she/her pronouns.

I've always loved whump, even before I knew there was a term for it. As a teenager, I'd spend hours googling TV shows and movies where characters got beaten up or tied up (something about bondage and restraints always scratched an inch in my brain).

At first, my love for whump focused on physical whump: restraints of all kinds, pain, kidnapping and a good beat up. But over time, the psychological aspect of it grew on me too: fear, crying, manipulation, etc.

Writing has always been a passion of mine, I've always been a writer, not an exceptional one, but a writer nevertheless. I even participated in NaNoWriMo (fuck them) every year when I was younger, I think I won 5 years in a row. I stopped doing it in my early 20s to focus on fanfiction. (again fuck nanowrimo!)

When I finally discovered the term whump, I started to read fanfics that contained some sort of whump, then I discovered that people were writing their own stories, in their own world, with their own characters. I was hooked. I followed a few creators and found the whump community super welcoming and supportive. I always wanted to be part of it but let fear and my chronic shyness hold me back.

With Whumptober approaching, I've decided to step out of my comfort zone and participate. I'm giving myself a chance to get out there and share some of my original work this October.

Anyway (I'm a yapper).

My favorite whump tropes are:

Restraints/Bondage

Sensory deprivation

Sleep/Food deprivation

Hybrid whumpee

Pet whump

Whumper turned whumpee

Defiant whumpee

Kidnapping

Needless to say, I do enjoy some NSFW content and will post some of my own in the future, so heads up for that :)

[fuck-customers]

I'm so devastated

I LOVED this job when I first started 4 years ago. It was a bit tedious work but the culture of the company more than made up for it

I really felt like they cared. They looked out for us during the pandemic, sending care packages and organizing online social events that were actually fun.

The benefits were amazing, I was even able to get gender-affirming care through them, I came out as non-binary and it was welcomed!

It was truly a wonderful place to work.

And then the founder left. Retired to focus on his side business. And I felt it then, I knew things were going to go badly.

Sure enough, slowly but surely, things started to change.

They forced everyone into a hybrid model, even though before it was a choice to WFH. They did it in the name of culture and making meetings easier, but half my team is across the country. Most days I'm alone and I talk to nobody for all 8 hours.

They split my department in half, outsourcing 80% of the work to another company, who don't know how to handle the issues properly and it shows. Our customer satisfaction dropped SIGNIFICANTLY and I'm spending most of my day fixing mistakes the other company made.

Then they started backing these projects that everyone knew wasn't going to work, and sure enough, they didn't, and they laid off 20 people in the name of "being streamlined and nimble" (their exact words).

My husband (who worked at the same company in a different department) got fired because of an executive throwing a tantrum. It was either him or his whole team and he took the blame so they wouldn't all lose their jobs.

And because they swapped to a merit based raise increase (aka constantly be doing more work year over year) I haven't gotten a raise in 3 years and I barely get enough to cover our bills alone BARELY but my husband's unemployment is about to run out cause the gaming industry SUCKS and finding a job is really hard, and I'm not sure how we're going to get food.

I've been working every overtime and holiday shift they'll approve, but I'm also trying to lose weight so I can qualify for a necessary surgery, and I'm just so fucking exhausted all the damn time.

I hate this place. And it's so much worse because I used to love it. It used to be amazing. I used to think I would be there for a long time, at least until I got my own business up.

They crushed that dream too. Had to drain everything I'd saved up for it.

I hate them so much

Posted by admin Rodney

[jemandthesingalongs]

so a second article has hit the da fandom and i'm in the part of the "this is genuinely so disappointing i'm considering not actually preordering/playing on release". i'm sure i'll come to terms with it and still get it but this really has been such a blow to my sheer enthusiasm that is like...incredible really for me as a fan invested in this franchise for over a decade to put me (and others) so low lmao

(under a cut bc it got stupidly long, a cookie if you read all of it)

one of the big "reasons" i've seen parroted by the fandom and the justification from the devs is (paraphrasing) you're in the north and all of these major decisions are in the south, which is frankly, stupid? sure, the choices of the divine wouldn't matter too much (if the circles are disbanded or not, for example) but the divine choice itself, should matter? the throne of ferelden? orlais??? these are major characters!

whoever is the sitting ruler of ferelden, regardless of the choice, has obv, lived through a blight not 20 some odd years prior. so one could imagine they would be invested in this, you know, double blight is going on and would like to help or help for their country? given the fact one of the last of the two archdemon prisons is canonly within ferelden!! marketing has also started the blight has spread across thedas, so one would think the current world leaders would be supporting or at least looking to the group seemingly working on stopping the blight. but i guess not since it's not a choice.

even setting aside the lore and plot significance of the majority of choices, even if it truly did not matter, you can say the exact same for choices within dai itself, however the devs knew the desire to have that impact + fan service, even minor, still superseded lore and plot significance. the hof letter and mentions by their romance partner is clearly fan service (since tbh i doubt leliana or morrigan would willingly talk about their partner themselves) but it was also telling you, the player, where your mc was. another example is there is no impact who the sitting king of orzammar is, but the game still mentions in a codex the consequences of that choice, even if the anvil was kept or not in ambient dialogue.

these and many more mattered, not in a world shaping way, but to tell you, the player, yes you played in this world and here's the acknowledgement of it, thank you. i didn't need to decide the fate of the world to enjoy leliana talking about my warden or varric supporting templars because my hawke did, because it still felt like i mattered, that yes this is a world i changed, even in a small way, that i lived in it.

and they removed all of that.

like, hell it was even a good way to "check-in" in choices and characters without dedicating entire plot beats to them! the epilogue for a non-divine!romanced leliana heavily implies she and the warden are still doing their own things but meeting up when hey can. that aside the cure? the fucking cure??? did they find it? did they share it with the other wardens? was it suppressed? the other members of the inquisition were invested in stopping solas, what about them? since you are literally going to their turf, is dorian, josephine, isabela, and even bull okay? is zevran or fenris going to be ignored? fenris had a whole comic about him!

the only way i can take this is being told to no longer be invested in previous material, even material leading up to this game. even if i know that's not really the truth, it really feels that way.

i don't even like the excuse for getting newbies into the series, because, well, dai did that fine WITH returning characters and overall plots lol? there's a loss of some context and dai itself had writing flaws with this method, but it did show you could have both returning and new players work fine, and not alienate said new players despite it being the 3rd game.

speaking of dai, why bother making the choices so endgame linear if they wouldn't of even mattered? why no matter your choice of divine, another group rises up to oppose her? why have the grey wardens going quiet and possibly on the brink of civil war, exiled or no? i had assumed at the time the bottlenecking was future proofing to create less variables, and i guess i was wrong since there are no more variables lol!

i'm genuinely not sure what they truly thought would be the reaction, given they are still trying to pull returning players via the marketing? like. varric, harding, morrigan returning, the focus on the grey wardens as a group (and likely why davrin gets such a spotlight) are all indications for returning players. fuck even solas, no matter what you feel about him, is a returning npc! to resolve his plot!!!

i never truly believed we would see big huge cameos, i did expect the divine, those who live in the north, but otherwise simple codex entries or letters if anything.

but to have.......nothing? be left with nothing? burns.

i do mean this completely honestly: what is the point of investing myself, my time, my money, hell even just interest in this series anymore? without the impact of previous games (or a better lore reason, such as a longer timeskip than 5 fucking years since the last dlc) then this is your run of the mill rpg with better writing than most, but that's all it'd really have. i didn't fully play or get into the series because of the decisions carrying over, but it sure as fuck kept me and others coming back. if this is the norm going forward past da4 then well, might as well pick any other rpg series.

[insipid-drivel]

Sigh. Another day of firing potential OBGYNs for preferring to save my uterus instead of my life.

[hellishfig]

so much happened this episode...

i spent the whole time kristen was talking to naradriel fucking convinced that nara had done the spies/spy's tongue curse/agreement on that 3 week retreat with her family and been taking devil's nectar/honey to start to believe the lie that she believes in wolf song and loves tracker

when emily mentioned spies/spy's tongue i got incredibly excitwd and then was immediately crestfallen when she was talking about the gods

but clearly something is up with the gods! AND ADAINE LEARNED THE NAME OF THE DEAD GOD! and everything went IMMEDIATELY WRONG!!!

the moon attacking fig's curse! adaine counterspelling it! the curse on fig being broken, sort of not quite maybe! baron's return!

i'm so excited for next episode, but having minis for baron... seeing his fucking. skeleton smile as a weird little boy. and then his final form of long, snaking limbs of bone with that same smiling face... terrifying! i look forward to it!

final thought is that i hope the werewolf we saw isn't jawbone, but also i think it is jawbone and that makes me nervous about emotional damage, which is turn actually makes me hope that it is jawbone bc i enjoy pain and suffering in my stories

[astromechs]

once again star wars fandom coming in clutch to prove that it doesn't understand nuance

[girlwiththegreenhat]

every time i take a peek through the transformers section at target, i miss the transformers animated toyline a little more

[getvalentined]

Just so everyone understands why I'm losing my goddamn mind over finally getting a clean copy of Veld's character portrait from which to sample colors, I wanna show you a comparison.

Here's the palette I was using, sampled from scans and screenshots and a copy of his character portrait originally sourced sometime before 2007:

Top half is all skintones, while the bottom half is three shades used for hair and three shades used for eyes.

...And here's the new one, sampled from that shockingly clean copy of his character portrait sourced in 2019:

I'm getting over it (I like the updated palette, I really do) but I still kinda want to jump into the sun.

[sisterdivinium]

I hadn't sat down to rewatch s2 in a while and now that I'm doing it (for pure entertainment purposes but also for ref for a fic I'm not even working on yet as I have been run down by the VtM doctor superion AU after writing the gen VtM WN AU ahem) I'm kind of amazed at how the feelings are all still there. The excitement, the laughter, the hatred I have for Vincent...

Ah, this show. There is nothing like it.

[saronchan]

@kelean tagged me to make a poll with 5 of my faves!! And let people choose their faves out of them. Thank you dear

Tagging @mrianne @zlotc @gay-melon @xiabnuy to do it next <3

[dixidin]

My sincere reaction after realizing ranboo is now 20:

[penisbilt]

the bittersweet but absolute flood of relief that comes from admitting defeat at living independently, to have to move back in with parents. we tried! we gave it our best shot for almost 3 years! but living like this (being on our own) is just not possible for us at this time of our lives. we've finally proved it to ourselves that we can't do it. it'll be okay to let ourselves rest now

[enhanced-operatives-division]

One day I'll draw the ieytd cast with all the flower imagery i want

[yellowocaballero]

Would you write anything with/about Spider-man 2099? 👀

This ask made me scroll back in my blog and go, "Wait did I actually write the entire manifesto on why Miguel is a communist icon because I thought I had refrained from that."

I'm 95% sure that I did, in fact, refrain from explaining why there are only two good superhero media (The Incredible Hulk 1977 and Spider-man 2099) because they are the only two truly socialist superhero media. I must have mentioned that I fucking loved Spider-man 2099 somewhere. Because I fucking do. Miguel is THE character of all time. I love Spider-Man, I love characters who are COMPLETE DICKS, I love guys who just kinda wanna go home and sleep.

I absolutely would write something for him, I fucking love that guy. I haven't had a really solid idea yet, one that would make a story that would get off the ground, but if the stars align then hell yeah. Miguel is the perfect superhero because he never once tries to stop anybody from robbing a bank, committing a crime, disturbing the peace, etc. He will only ever do anything helpful if it fucks over Cyberpunk Dystopia Evil Corp, because he hates them, or if his brother nags him to do something about systematic oppression. Over the course of all of Spider-Man 2099 he stops ONE mugging. Because a cop was mugging a woman. So he could beat up the cop. Character of ALL TIME.

....this isn't a story idea but I was absolutely joking about hypothetically:

imagining one of those tepid-ass mcu spider-man fanfic where there's a class field trip to stark industies or something and peter's outed as Tony Stark's Baby Son Boy, of which there are literally 500 and every one is exactly the same I don't read mcu peter fanfic anyway

tropey fic where peter's doing that tropey hijinky runs away from crowd of friends to hide in a broom closet and preserve his secret identity

except he just opens the door to an abandoned wet lab to see miguel electrocuting a rat or something

peter is fucking convinced dr ohara is a mad scientist stealing starktech genetic secrets. tony doesn't listen because he thinks peters feelings are just hurt after miguel called him the saltine cracker of nepotism. miguel is, of course, stealing starktech time travel technology. meanwhile a guy in a black spider suit is firebombing the NYPD

miguel assumes that the richer and more important you are, the more evil you are. faced with involuntary time travel, he is operating under his standard MO of finding the most evil corporation in the tristate area and looking them up on glassdoor. working under this assumption, miguel assumes itll be too much work to go ahead and kill tony stark in the name of the proletariat but he does slowly sabotage their entire genetics division.

MJ threatens to break up with Peter if he tries to stop the NYPD from being firebombed

[dkettchen]

“I don’t even have a name in my own story”

ok but in said story’s defense: neither does Cinderella. Cinderella as a name is smth the english came up with for their translation, Aschenputtel is a (derogatory) job description, not a name

[elijasz]

For 5 years I've been told I was too young to get my tubes tied by several doctors and now my partner, who's several years younger, is getting the procedure done. Medical malpractice my ass, I'll show you some medical malpractice next time I see you fuckers. If I'm not grown enough to decide I don't want children in my mid 20s you're not grown enough to be doctors.

(I'm really happy for my partner and I won't be getting anything done atm because insurance will pay part of my hysterectomy if I want to medically transition but MAN I wish these doctors some bad luck that only affects them and not their patients)