#my dolls: mass effect

[c-rowlesdraws]

pajamas!! And with some careful camera work, if she's sitting at her desk, nobody on a work-related video call will know she's not wearing real pants.

[bardspeak]

Not pictured: Peebee about to throw a wrench at them.

[rockatanskette]

My brother just said I was his best source for information on Superwholock and I don't know how to take that but it does NOT feel like a compliment.

[dcxdpdabbles]

#Holiday Requests your blogs are the sole reason i visit tumblr in the first place. Thank you for feeding my dcxdp brain rot the appreciation is very much reciprocated and i’d like to humbly request a continuation for Jason’s Doll or Mr. Flavor!

After the smear campaign had been dealt with, Tim took time to carefully convince his employees that Scarecrow had somehow dosed the whole building in Fear Gas; that way, they would return to work once he gave everyone a month off with pay to "clean out the vents".

He did not want people to walk away thinking Danny the doll was by any means haunted. It would undo every last attempt to fix Jason's image, which he had carefully constructed.

In a city like Gotham, being dosed with gas was so common that no one batted an eye when Tim called them back. Many of the employees were overjoyed by the paid vacation.

The young CEO had even gone as far as to spread rumors that no one really saw the alleged doll, causing people to assume there was mass hysteria. Everyone was happier this way.

He felt like he could finally relax after weeks of meticulous planning. He went into work assuming the only stress he would experience would be the typical CEO kind.

Then Jason, needing a favor, marched into his office within the first hour.

Tim stares at the doll sitting on his office desk, feeling the blood drain from his face as his brother happily chatters.

"He usually likes to sit by windows. Don't forget to clean him with a damp, warm cloth; his clothes are machine washable." Jason said, laying out some of Danny's tea cup sets. Apparently, his brother had been shopping. "Danny usually has his tea daily at one, but if you're working, I'm sure he'll understand. He can wait."

"Jay..."Tim started feeling Danny staring into his soul. He knew a soul existed, but that didn't stop the thing from being unnerving. Was Danny made entirely of Fear Gas? "Are you sure you can't take Danny with you?"

"I want to." Jason sighed, tracing the fabric of Danny's hair. "But we aren't sure if space travel will worsen Danny's chances of recovery. Normally, I wouldn't take any jobs outside Gotham, but Roy needs help."

Danny's head jerked as if the porcelain neck of the doll had broken, the little head falling to the side, facing Jason. Familiar whispers of hell fill the air, making Tim's stomach drop.

He leans further into the plush of his office chair, wanting to get as far away from Danny as possible while Jason smiles.

"Thank you for understanding, " he tells Danny with a fondness usually reserved for lovers. Tim might have found it sweet if it had not been that he was terrified of Jason's undead boyfriend.

"Please don't leave," He whispers, uncaring how pathetic his voice sounded.

"You're going to find Tim." Jason laughs, shaking his head. "Danny says he likes you!"

Tim's eyes slid over to the doll, feeling himself jump a little when he realized he had turned in his direction. Without a sound. Without Tim, for all his training, even noticing the movement.

There was a moment when he felt like something with sharp teeth grinning at him. The sensation came from behind his left shoulder, and he jerked around, hand flying to his hidden expandable staff in his left pocket. Nothing but the cream color of his wall stares back at him.

He slowly turns back to his guest, Danny, quite suddenly right in front of him, sitting on his laptop. Its slightly watery eyes- painted with the effect- were mere inches from Tim's nose.

The sensation of being watched by a predatory grows. A whimper leaves Tim's lips against his will just as Jason checks his phone and shoulders his travel bag. "Alright, I have to head out. Artemis is on the way here to pick me up. Thanks again, Tim."

"No." He whispers, unable to look away from his own reflection in Danny's eyes. He looks petrified. "Don't leave me here with him."

"Bye, Danny. See you in two weeks." Jason grabs the doll's head in a quick one-arm hug.

A scratching wail from down the hall makes Tim nearly fall over, but Jason only blushes as he leans closer. "I love you too."

Before Tim can find the courage to throw Danny back at him, his brother is up and out the door. Soon, his office is left in utter silence as the duo observe one another.

Tim only dared move an inch once Tam knocked on his door. "Morning, Tim. You're nine o'clock is here; I sent you the required documents for the meeting, and is that a doll?"

Her voice trails off from her typical professional pitch to the one he is used to hearing when the pair reminisce about the time they ran from assassins together. It's far more casual, with just the hints of judgment that Tim can appreciate because it means she's not above calling his bullshit out.

"This...is Danny," He hears himself introduce. "Danny, this is Tam."

His PA cooks one hip, raises a brow, and gestures at the desk where the doll sits. "I thought the rumors about the haunted doll resulted from the night job misunderstanding?"

"No. I worked to cover them up."

Tam rolls the information around in her head before looking at her tablet with a wide smile. "You do not pay me enough to handle haunted dolls. I have to be in conference room 103 in five minutes. I have to check on our coffee orders."

"But Tam-"

"No." She slams the door close. The click-clack of her heels echoes as she struts away, and Tim is left staring longingly at the blurred windows of his glass doors. He looks back at Danny, who has moved again.

This time, the cold porcelain is pressing into his left cheek because Danny is suddenly there. Standing on the arm of his office chair and leaning on Tim's face.

The scream that ripped out of his throat had the security running to his office and Tam dialing the Bats in ten seconds. It didn't help that the scream had traveled through the vents, echoing into the building as every employee looked up from their cubicle with a jump.

"What was that?"

"A little girl go hurt on level seventy-four."

"Isn't that the CEO's floor?"

"Must be one of the thousands of kids the Waynes bring to those charity events."

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: The Blind Demon

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

( A continuation of Humans are weird: An army of heroes )

“Where is our empress?”

It was the one question the human delegation would not relent on. Despite the Sygonic diplomat’s best attempts to steer the conversation towards more fruitful topics, such as a cease fire between their two powers or even a complete cessation of hostilities, the human’s would not open discussion until they could verify the state of their captive empress. A notion lead delegate Harken was doing everything in his power to avoid.

Before the war between the Sygonic and Terran Empire had broken out their empress, Imelia Asghar, had surrendered herself to the Sygonic people. Officially she stated her reasoning was that she would not risk the lives of her people in war without risking her own, but in reality Harken and many of his colleagues suspected it was more of a propaganda tool for the human masses.

Things had been going well with her as their captive. The Sygonic Senate had afforded her every luxury, going so far as to treat her as a noble guest rather than the ruler of their sworn enemies. They couldn’t decide on if to use her as a bargaining chip down the road with the Terran government or political pawn, but they wagered for the interim keeping her happy would keep all parties content for now.  

Then Lord Commander Abarax Caston had demanded a meeting and things went straight to hell.

During their discussion the empress goaded and prodded at the lord commander’s ego and intellect, or lack of, until Caston took hold of a glass bottle and threw it at the empress. The bottle smashed against her face with such force that one eye ruptured into a gory mess and her face was scared with a dozen glass shards slicing her skin.

Medical professionals from across the Sygonic domain had been transported to tend to her but even with the physical injuries healed and a freshly cloned eye the damage was already beyond fixing. All the empress needed to do was to open her mouth and tell her people that she had been brutalized by none other than the Lord Commander himself and the peace talks would fall apart like quicksand beneath their feet. 

“As I’ve said before,” the Sygonic diplomat repeated yet again, “Empress Asghar is currently unable to attend this meeting and we should proceed without her.”

The human diplomats shared several expressions ranging from disbelief to sheer outrage.

“How can we negotiate in good faith when you will not present our head of state to us?” the lead human diplomat, “Conner” the Sygonic diplomat thought their name was, spoke. “How can we be sure she is even alive?”

With the concern finally spoken aloud it spread like a virus through the entire human delegation. If he did not act soon they would most likely leave and the peace talks would-

With a loud groan the door to the room slowly opened cutting off the growing murmurs of discontent and drawing the eyes of everyone in the chamber.

“Please do sit down, gentlemen.” The voice was soft yet authoritative as the speaker slowly entered the room. “I was hardly worth this much commotion even before I became a prisoner.”

To the relief of all, Empress Imelia Asghar strode into the room. She wore a flowing gown of the richest emerald and a simple crimson Fascinator Hat that made her the center of attention immediately with hardly any effort. The calming effect she had over her delegation was not lost on the Sygonic delegates, but it was only momentary as the humans noticed something off-putting.

Asghar’s face was hidden behind a mask of pure marble white carved to her exact likeness. In place of her eyes were two pitch black lens’s that hid her eyes. It was like looking into the eyes of a doll and it quickly dampened the human’s enthusiasm to see their empress.

Why is she wearing a mask? The Sygonic diplomat thought to themselves. The surgeries should have repaired any physical damage.

“Empress Asghar….is that you?” one of the human’s asked uncertainly.

The empress took a seat on the Sygonic side to symbolize her continued imprisonment and turned her gaze across the table to the human delegate.

“Have you so quickly forgotten me Bradlin? And here I thought you were my favorite diplomat.”

Her coy response left Bradlin flatfooted and bumbling as he was unsure of what to say next. The other diplomats were not so easily dissuaded though.

“He does make a good point, we need to first confirm your identity.”

With a nod Bradlin pulled out a small scanning device and swept it over the empress. It beeped several times before flashing bright green.

“Scans say it is our Empress.” Bradlin said, though he still looked unconvinced.

“Would you kindly remove your mask for facial recognition?”

It was here the empress appeared to hesitate. Nothing verbally said but her body language tensed for the briefest of moments.

“The scans should have been enough.” Asghar replied with a hint of annoyance.

“Scanners can be fooled,” the diplomat countered, “and as you said we are your favorite diplomats; who better would recognize you?”

Tilting her head to look at the Sygonic delegates, Asghar slowly reached up and removed the stone mask. A collective gasp of horror came from the humans as they laid eyes on their empress once more.

Her face was a patchwork of cuts and gashes; some still fresh and leaking thin trails of blood. A collection of purple and greens dotted her face from deep swelling bruises. Her lips were split in several places but worst of all was the hollowed eye sockets that gazed out at the gathered dignitaries.

“What in the seven hells have they done to you!?”

Bradlin directed the question at his empress but his gaze was squarely directed at the Sygonic delegates. “Is this what you do to your prisoners!?!”

The Sygonic’s had no response and stammered fruitlessly. None of this made sense. The empress was perfectly fine after her surgeries; they had even seen her in person and she had shown nothing but perfect health.

“It is nothing I cannot endure for my people.” Empress Asghar replied as she picked up the mask and returned it to her face.

“There has been a grave misunderstanding.” The Sygonic’s began but the humans would hear none of it.

“You sick monsters will pay for this! Guards, get in here!!”

From outside the room a platoon of human guards followed shortly by their opposite numbers of the Sygonic guards. The pair drew weapons and pointed at each other while shouting orders back and forth. Several delegates ducked under the table or hid behind chairs as the tension continued to mount.

“ENOUGH!”

The gathered rabble was silenced by the dominating voice of the empress as she stood up from her chair.

“This is a place of diplomacy! Put away your weapons and stop acting like children!”

“But Empress-“ Bradlin countered.

“But nothing!” Asghar silenced him. “We are Terran’s, and we do not forsake the code of diplomacy for anything.”

No one dared move for fear of starting a war as the empress’s words slowly calmed the heads of her delegates, the fate of the war hung by the thinnest of threads. ----------------------------------------------

The meeting broke up not long after that. The humans visible deterred about the treatment of their empress and were already spreading news of her treatment back to the entire Terran Empire. The Sygonic delegation was all but assured that the war would not cease any time soon as a result of her viewing.

As the empress walked by the lead delegate grabbed her by the wrist.

“What did you do?!” they demanded. “You were healed, your injuries things of memory!”

The cold mask of the empress turned to face the delegate.

“They were.” She admitted. “So I inflicted these wounds on myself.”

The delegate let go of her and took a step back in horror.

“How do you think my people will react when they hear you have not only tortured their beloved empress, but have brutalized her in unimaginable ways and yet still remains unbroken?”

She took the stone mask off and revealed a bloody smile; the very act of smiling opening wounds and causing small streams of blood to run between her teeth.

“Did you think I would sweep my treatment under the carpet and act as if nothing happened? Did you think your surgeries and cloned eye would earn you my sympathy?”

The delegate looked into the hollow eyes of the empress as she shook her head. “Your Lord Commander signed your death warrants the moment he struck me, and I have just provided the final nail in your coffin.”

[mourn-and-watch]

in all seriousness, dragon age being almost officially dead to me is, like, whatever. i'm used to hanging out in dead fandoms because i'm usually extremely late to the party so i think i'll manage. i was excited for veilguard but even if it was bad bad for me (which it wasn't. i have my problems with it but they didn't ruin the franchise for me) i would also manage because dragon age to me always was extremely flawed but had an enormous potential for fan content. at some point i started to treat it like my favourite fantasy playground where i can smash pre-existing barbie dolls with the ones i made myself. all my barbie dolls are in place and i still can do whatever i want (and i plan to continue to do so) and, i guess, i shouldn't be upset.

i am upset, however. for all the devs affected by laid-offs, but especially the writers. these people created dragon age as we know it, and it's been a messy series in every aspect, including the writing, it's been insensitive at times, at times dumb and undercooked, but there was always an immense amount of potential that's been inspiring fans for years, and also a feeling that all, or at least the most of it was created with genuine passion. and realizing that there is no one left from the team that made dragon age what it is, every installment of it, is just. genuinely sad. and it's not a theseus ship dilemma, because it's not like they were slowly replaced one by one. they were just fired. this ship is destined to sink, it's falling apart in front of our eyes because neither ea nor bioware cares about writing. not many companies do nowadays, to be honest. and it's kinda devastating. grifters will celebrate that like a "downfall of woke slop", but they'll get only more ai slop instead, lol, because good writing doesn't guarantee good sells. best selling games of 2024 are shooters and sports games. and elden ring which is a nice exception, but an exception nevertheless.

i don't think mass effect will save bioware at this point. even if it's an absolute banger it still has to meet ea's expectations. which are unrealistic, to say the least. also people who wrote characters like mordin, tali, legion, thane, garrus and liara are all gone. either they left themselves or were laid off. like, if you want "old bioware magic" to return, there is none. the same people who wrote your favourite characters and storylines in da/me were also working on veilguard. i may be wrong, but somehow i think they didn't all lose their ability to write here because they went woke or whatever. i think the inconsistent quality of datv writing that can only be described as 'we're so back/it's so over' pic is a consequence of multiple rewrites, constant director changes and shitty decisions, both internal and coming from bioware/ea higher-ups. i also may be wrong, but it wouldn't be such a big problem if writing wasn't at the bottom of priority list.

if i recall correctly, when gaider left willingly, he highlighted that bioware didn't treat its writers seriously at that point. and i'd say that tracks. like, from countless veilguard rewrites and scrapped ideas to lay-offs of every single studio veteran.

idk what else there is to say. i'll cheer for every studio that value its writers and i hope all ex-bioware devs will be able to do something new and exciting. i also doubt bioware is the last studio that will experience such a decline in the years to come. the narrative of this shitshow will also be twisted into 'go woke go broke' and it already slightly draws me insane. fuck ea fuck bioware fuck grifters. also i beg everyone to start appreciating writing as a craft because otherwise it's only going to get worse!

[starmosaics]

Many Rohinis are known for being in the public eye and having an infectious presence— whether it’s good or bad, eyes are on them, but from my observations and my own personal experience along with having loved ones with Rohini placements, most of us feel like we’re playing a part.

You can find Rohinis sometimes unknowingly play into someone’s projections or fantasies of them, other times they’re entirely aware. This may leave the Rohini native feeling alone and misunderstood because of their tendency to show people what they want to see, not who they actually are within. I feel like people tend to have this “idea” about Rohinis that can be so far off from the reality that at times the Rohini native may unconsciously absorb whatever that idea of them is. The Moon is receptive meaning it is constantly receiving stimuli and is sensitive to its environment; it can be easily influenced. Rohinis also receive a lot of passivity, jealousy and anger from people when they don’t match that person’s idea of them. However you perceive a Rohini to be, in worst cases the Rohini can mirror it back to you as we know the Moon reflects.

Marilyn Monroe for example had a Rohini Sun and was either loved or totally loathed by the public and had this reputation for being this beautiful and sensual actress. She often publicly portrayed herself as this innocent woman with a teasing presence that made men go crazy for her, yet she had a very sorrowful and vulnerable side that not many people got to see.

She was known for something called “The Marilyn Monroe Effect” where she would alter herself into a persona which caught people’s eyes. Essentially, Marilyn was wearing a mask. She was a character perceived as a sex symbol by the male gaze.

In her journal entries, Marilyn wrote about loneliness. Bette Davis also said she could sense Marilyn’s loneliness when asked about the actress as she and Marilyn starred in a film together.

Another example is Rohini Sun Priscilla Beaulieu who was 14 when she met her future husband Elvis Presley who was significantly older than her. She was heavily idealized by Elvis and was deemed to have an innocence that Elvis favored. Elvis claimed that he could “train her anyway he wanted.” He ended up doing exactly that; molding her into his fantasy wife, treating her as if she was a doll. He made her dress a certain way, he made her wear makeup and told her to dye her hair and she willingly did out of love for Elvis to embody being “the perfect wife”. Once again, here’s an example of a Rohini playing a role and being shaped by those surrounding them. She also had a lot of Elvis’ fans show disdain towards her as she was dating one of the biggest stars at the time.

In the 2023 film “Priscilla” directed by Sofia Coppola, based on Priscilla’s book “Elvis and Me”, it dives into Priscilla’s backstory. The director perfectly depicts how lonely Priscilla was standing beside Elvis. Many of the scenes within this film show Priscilla being alone in a large empty house.

Rohinis often put their best foot forward to show the world and those they love much like Marilyn and Priscilla did and as a Rohini Sun myself, I can heavily relate. It would make sense for people with this nakshatra in their charts to do such since Rohini is Lunar in nature and the Moon has a mysterious and deep side; being selective as to what you present to the masses (Moon rules masses). There’s a very soft, vulnerable and somewhat melancholic side of Rohini that they possess.

It’s a very vulnerable thing to unmask and show the real and raw unfiltered self when you’re idealized by others or expected to show up a certain way, and it can be a very isolating feeling to not feel understood by anybody which is a very familiar phenomenon to those with Rohini placements. When people don't grasp your nature, thoughts and feelings, it can create a profound sense of isolation, making you feel alone even when surrounded by others, which is what I meant by in an earlier post about how Rohinis may feel alone in a room full of people. To be unknown or misunderstood is to be lonely.

[dolphin-diaries]

How To Prevent Detransition In Five Simple Steps (Part 1)

Originally published on Dolphin Diaries.

What do you think of when you hear ‘detransitioner’?

The Right, likely. Grift and pantomime for clout, such as that of a certain doll or the world’s most Korean and Christian man. Coercion; forced detransition.

What do you think of, say, when you consider willing and genuine detransition? If you could look at Chloe Cole past her rhetoric, her ideological allegiance, her utter lack of compassion for those outside of it—what do you see?

Is it regret? Self-hatred? Pity, maybe? A correction of a shameful (stupid, even) mistake? A bizarre decision you struggle to imagine yourself—or anyone—making? A web of uncanny, discomfiting choices, written in flesh?

Maybe, if you’re trans yourself, you might also see your own fears. Not necessarily forced detransition—that wouldn’t make you like her. No, maybe you look at your past doubts and wonder if you could’ve been her, under different circumstances. Or maybe, it’s merely the thought of something that brought you great joy—your transition, the alteration of your body, your freedom—being broken, hated, turned inside-out. Like a shredded garment.

Perhaps you’re just unnerved to see it undone.

Detransition, in the eyes of the masses, is an undoing. That implies discontent, and since this discontent is over transition—something not only voluntary but often hard-won—it also implies that transition itself was a mistake. Seemingly, a preventable one.

And so there is only one conclusion: detransitioners must be prevented. I must be prevented. I am a stain on the medical, social, and queer establishments that have created me, whether you look at it from the Right or the Left. The ‘reverse’ dysphoria I feel is, by all accounts, utterly preventable. Naturally, then, we must attempt to prevent it.

The belief about detransitioners is that they need medical gatekeeping to prevent them from having transitioned—a more robust system of checks that would’ve helped them realise they were never trans. Or perhaps, that they need the topic of transness altogether excised from the zeitgeist. For instance, a known detrans grifter Maia Poet tweeted she is retrospectively grateful to her parents for having hyper-surveilled her after she came out as trans. She still socially transitioned and continued to identify as trans for twelve years afterwards, so it can’t have helped in the way she wanted, but she’s still grateful for, uh. Something. Whatever it is that was accomplished, which, it seems, was not a lot.

Well, no one was expecting cutting social commentary or lucid solutions from Ms. Israeli Sellout Poet, so never mind her. Let us put the grift aside.

That is the knee-jerk response, isn’t it? Make fun of the loud and stupid and obviously wrong ones?

That has its place, but let me assure you, detransitioners exist outside of TV and Twitter. Most are disinterested in sharing a pedestal with Maia or Chloe, regardless of what they believe. Let us even put myself aside as a singular subject. Let us examine what is normally either cynically weaponised by the Right, or else timidly swept under the rug. Because if you allow the idea that willing detransitioners truly exist—and they do, I assure you; if I turned my screen off, I’d be looking at one—then you must also allow the possibility of, well…

Transition regret.

Allow yourself compassion for a detransitioner—a random, regular person—that is staring at rock bottom and finding that their transition took them there. If I were them, I’d surely ask what could’ve been done to prevent that. What could’ve been done so that I never existed such as I am.

A very rock-bottom kind of question, I know. But the only way out is through.

So what is the most effective way to prevent detransition? What has been done to that end? How is transition handled, and what does that mean for detransition?

1. The Doctor Will See You Now

Over the past few months, I’ve spent a good chunk of my god-given procrastination allowance on scrolling online detrans communities that explicitly ban transphobia. You may call that biased, but I’ve found that detrans spaces which make no such explicit attempts are swiftly overrun by Gender Criticals. Not even detrans ones; the topic is hot-button and embarrassing enough to encourage unmitigated manipulation of the audience. It’s a bit like browsing spaces for discussion of cosmetic surgery. When an issue is too unseemly to be spoken of in polite society, the snake oil salesman can peddle whatever the hell he wants. By contrast, trans-positive detrans spaces tend to be smaller, less fraught, and more diverse in issues discussed and feelings expressed.

(To be clear, I will not quote anyone here. While their accounts were told neither in privacy nor in confidence, online messages in small communities carry a presumption of anonymity and non-disclosure, which I intend to maintain.)

Indeed, a sizeable number of even explicitly trans-positive detransitioners express some desire for a prior intervention. A therapist or psychiatrist that would’ve entertained alternatives, or questioned why their patient wanted to transition. It’s not uncommon, when queried by people unsure of surgery or HRT, for such detransitioners to advise waiting until total certainty is achieved. Unlike GCs, though, they often lament the lack of medical professionals that will neither attempt to do conversion therapy nor consider detransition an untouchable topic.

(As I’ve alluded to before, it is difficult enough in many places to find a therapist that even knows Trans 101. ‘Advanced stuff,’ like detransition, is beyond contemplation. It’s not that skilled-enough professionals don’t exist, but that there is no resource for finding them.)

There is a common denominator among such detrans people. They are often—though not always—young transitioners, having done so either in high school or shortly after. They’re usually from countries that have an informed consent model of transition care. Under this model, a doctor does not diagnose with gender dysphoria—or indeed anything at all—but merely provides assistance in alteration of sexual characteristics. That’s the idea, anyway; reality varies and often does not quite match that ideal, but by and large, the doctor’s job is then mainly to explain what the patient is signing up for. What intervention or investigation exists, if any, is minimal or perfunctory.

From a purely technical perspective, these detransitioners are asking for something that wasn’t this doctor’s job to do. But it is a fairly heartless argument to make. “Well, if your dysphoria wasn’t actually dysphoria, you should’ve gone to a therapist instead!”—rather silly, isn’t it? Easily refuted with: “If I knew then what was wrong with me, I wouldn’t be here.” And anyway, just because that is how the system works does not necessarily mean that is how it should work.

There is a wrinkle here, though. Informed consent may be the norm in, say, the USA—for now, anyway—but it is not worldwide. In most places you ought to receive a gender dysphoria (or transsexualism, if the updated DSM is yet to be adopted) diagnosis before access to medical transition is permitted. So how does the diagnostic model hold up when it comes to detransition?

2. Hoops and Hoops and Hoops

As I mentioned in my first essay, I am a young-ish transitioner from a country that very much does not practice informed consent. I started transitioning medically at 19, which is young for an adult transitioner but post-pubertal nonetheless. However, transitioning in adolescence would’ve been functionally impossible for me. Even if my parents were supportive and I somehow found a doctor to prescribe me blockers/hormones—the latter of which is monumentally unlikely, as it was illegal—it would still basically mean social death. So, in effect, I transitioned as young as was humanly possible.

The procedure to acquire legal access to hormone replacement therapy was pretty antiquated during my time. Internment in a psychiatric ward, a prior real-life test, the nine yards. (For the unaware, a ‘real-life test’ is a requirement to have lived as your desired gender for several years prior to any medical transition.) I was diagnosed rather thoroughly both for presence of gender dysphoria and an absence of alternative explanations, such as schizophrenia, BPD, autism, and, put colloquially, mummy or daddy issues—having a ‘broken family’ was a strike against the transsexualism diagnosis. Anxiety or depression was also a no-no. Under this particular model, literally any other condition is a contradiction to transsexualism. You are to be deeply distressed about your genitals and assigned gender stereotype, and absolutely nothing else at all.

Because yes, naturally the pathologisation of gender entails reliance on stereotype and archetype. What makes a man or a woman, after all? When the goal is to have transsexualism as the last possible resort, it’s not enough to merely wish for a different set of genitals or breasts or to describe oneself as a man or woman—gender must be dissected. And that dissection, inevitably, leads to ‘bitches be crazy.’ Man like car, woman like kitchen. Man fucks woman, subject verb object. Et cetera.

Of course, declaring any ‘irregular’ thoughts about gender to be the sole purview of a perfect and utterly healthy citizen, is just cruel. Gender conformity is a violently enforced social protocol. Therefore people that run up against it—trans or not—are highly likely to be made maladjusted. To deny them care on that basis alone is inhumane. If you are found too ‘wrong’ to be transsexual, you will then be told to go treat whatever is wrong with you—your symptom, not your cause. Gender will not be entertained.

Now, that the psychiatric treatment of gender dysphoria is inhumane, dated, and deliberately difficult and arcane, is not news. It is designed to prevent transition first and foremost and also secondly and thirdly, and only lastly to enable it. Some young people in the US may feel enough distance from such treatment as to not understand what it truly entails. To some it is buried history. Most, though, even when unaware of what such procedures are or were, understand they are/were bad. Nebulously bad or specifically bad (mostly the former), but bad nonetheless.

So here’s the first question: does this work? Does this ensure those that truly need transition can do it, and none that don’t, can’t?

I can obviously just point to myself and be done with it, but one person can be anything from an anomaly to a fun fact, just not a tendency. So let’s work through this.

Obviously such procedures do not prevent all transition. Do they reduce the number of transitioners? It is impossible to count for sure, but certainly such procedures generally exist in societies that are not amenable to trans people, and therefore some plainly do not survive long enough to try. It does not matter whether they would’ve eventually detransitioned or not; severe psychiatric procedure does not coexist with widely available, comprehensive therapy. It does not matter because no one will ever find out.

What of those that do survive, though? One extreme conclusion to make is, if you can survive without something, you do not need it. I’m not particularly interested in a survival-only existence as I do not live in a cave and hunt mammoth. (And even prehistoric people made jewellery and painted cave walls with art, so clearly they cared about things beyond sheer necessity, too.) So that aside, how do the lives of those that actually engage with the procedure pan out?

Naturally, one of the results of such procedures is the delaying of access. Some things, like hormones, you can get on the sly, but surgeries you simply cannot receive without either the doctor’s permission or a great—and I do mean great—deal of money. The procedure is designed to take several years before any access can be granted at all, assuming you go through it swiftly and successfully. The more stringent the procedure, the fewer doctors can do it; a degree of waiting is involved even before it begins. In my country’s case in particular, transition is fully paid for by the patient—there is neither state nor insurance coverage, at all, for anything. Even doctor visits in government-sponsored institutions are de facto paid because you need to grease some palms for someone to bother. No, there’s no suing the doctor that won’t treat you without the agreed-upon bribe; you can’t afford it and you won’t win. Therefore there’s also risk of further depression and suicide as great financial burden falls on people that, as a rule, have below-average funds, poor employability, and no family support. But assuming you soldier through, the overall result is a transition timeline that spans about a decade or two. The bulk of social transition will happen in the first five years, whereas surgical interventions, due to cost and laborious approval processes, fall on the last years.

This can be seen as a boon to detransitioners. Delay in access means more time to change your mind, hypothetically. The fact that surgeries are generally impossible until many years in transition means—hypothetically—there’s less chance you’ll end up with changes that cannot be reversed or amended without further surgical intervention, or at all.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous essay, I do believe such calculus to be heavily hindsight-skewed, favouring present lack of regret and dysphoria over past misery and the humiliation of the psychiatric grinder. It’s a little like getting hit with a hammer to the head and then falling madly in love with the doctor treating you. Sure, in hindsight it softens the blow of the head trauma, but you still wouldn’t recommend anyone walk around with a sticker on their back saying ‘Hit Me.’

I can understand, however, how a detrans person who never went through any of that, now deep in dysphoria blues, could find such an argument empty air. Infuriating, even. Perhaps they’d even say they’d gladly be a bit miserable for a couple years so long as they didn’t have to deal with all this now. Grass, greener, et cetera. So let us say this really is a possible advantage of the procedure—

If it actually makes you less likely to go through with transition once you begin the procedure and uncover doubts creeping in.

Does it?

3. A Patient Is A Person

There’s an elephant in the room, though not many notice it. To a cis person it may well be invisible. You might’ve spotted it when I first flippantly described the procedure I went through and mentioned a real-life test. Most people cannot be reliably and consistently integrated into society as the ‘opposite’ gender until they have some kind of physical intervention. Especially not in places that are highly transphobic, where being visibly trans is either not an option or a very dangerous one. But clearly, people do pass this ‘real-life test’ somehow. Is it really only the most androgynous among us that are allowed to transition under such procedure?

Well, no. Although doctors will be more charitable if you already seem like a ‘lost cause’ to your birth sex. Nothing wasted and so on. But like I said, you can always get hormones on the sly. It’s not even hard or prohibitively expensive.

That’s not the only issue with the procedure. How do you reconcile putting all this time and money into a (marginalised) diagnosis with (often precarious) employment? Why are trans patients supposed to have a singular script for their lives and genders, whereas cis people are permitted variance?

In the end, how do you prove to someone else that transition is right for you? Is it really all the silly quizzes and the identically heart-wrenching stories? Eh. Not exactly. In my experience, the doctor makes half their mind up the moment they look at you. And most every patient seems like a regular cis person—a fertile woman, a boy that can be made a man—and so the knee-jerk response is to help you stay that way, no matter how you feel. So there are two options: memorise a rote script of suffering and hope for the best, or, much more reliably and painlessly—

Already look like a transsexual.

Put plainly, the current diagnostic model of transition only works when you’re already transitioning. To access transition you must’ve already done so. Yes, we all simply pretend. Yes, people just memorise whether they’re supposed to like cars or kitchens and how they should describe their sex lives. Of course they do. People seeking transition are human.

You can wag your finger however much you want and insist that people must follow protocol, and whatever happens as a result of disobedience is their own damn fault. The empirical fact is, protocol as written is un-follow-able. Because it is un-follow-able, no one actually follows it.

The result of a system whose first and foremost purpose is to make as few people transition as possible, is very simple: everyone lies. No one trusts doctors. No one in their right mind would go to a doctor that controls their legal gender marker based on the patient’s tales of masturbation, and then bare their true gender feelings with an expectation of help. Even the doctors themselves do not care how you really feel or whether you’re lying. They know the system is faulty, they know none of this is human or nice, but they also don’t understand why anyone would transition and they don’t care to. They have a hundred more patients, a thousand more protocols that are also neither human nor nice. This is psychiatry, and you are an annoying and rare brand of crazy, one that’s both utterly perverse and—they know—not actually crazy, not hallucinating or threatening suicide (and if you do: you can’t, remember?). What you’re doing is wasting a bed and their time. So all they want is their bribe, maybe a dissertation subject, and for you to cooperate and be gone.

What actually decides access to transition? A little bit of luck, a little bit of social acceptance in one’s immediate social circles, but chief among all: money.

If we must prevent the possibility of detransition at all cost, surely financial disincentive still works? Not the way you’d want it to. The only thing cost barriers ensure is that the rich can do whatever they want on a whim, and the poor can’t have even that which they desperately need. That is the only social balance money can buy.

And what decides eventual detransition?

The truth is, at least for me, it wasn’t regret. I’ve lived a long while in trans circles shaped by such transmedicalism. And if I’ve learned one thing, it’s this:

Transition regret was everywhere.

It is not at all unique to detransitioners. Certainly wasn’t in my circles. Many trans people who were also my contemporaries and fellow countrypersons had something or other they regretted about their transition. Some had even found the whole process extremely traumatic. They regretted not allowing themselves any femininity/masculinity that ‘contravened’ their desired gender. They got haircuts, clothes, friends, surgeries—anything related to gender, which is everything—only and solely because of the need to transition under very strict guidelines. Sometimes consciously, sometimes not. We lie to the doctors, yes, but that does not mean we are untouched by the transition procedure at our heart. The procedure is long and complex, and thus at a certain point, it occupies a lot of your attention and time. You live and breathe the sex questionnaires and psych visits whether you want to or not. And, as I’ve established, no one in the whole hospital cares how you truly feel about your gender—so for a while, you may stop caring too. It’s a matter of survival. Not just in the sense of access to transition, but in the very banal calculus of things that will and won’t get you beat up in an alley. At some point it’s only human to mentally check out.

In other words, everyone was fucking miserable. Trans, detrans—everyone.

People transition because they want to. Because everyone wishes to be an architect of their own fate and body, insofar as they can, and for some that involves choosing which way their body grows and ages. How it occupies the mould of sex. And when barriers are put between you and your agency, what follows is not obedience. You are human; you are not an algorithmic machine; you do not simply obey, you choose. So what do most people choose when they want something very badly and are told they cannot have it? They resist, of course. Resist, lie, scheme. And resistance to stringent protocol takes a lot out of you.

If doubt starts whispering in your head and you’re not listening, will you even hear it?

Put plainly, there’s no space for gender feelings in survival mode. What the diagnostic procedure causes is precisely that. It does not matter whether one’s need to transition is caused by some sort of True Transsexualism or trauma or misogyny or self-delusion or a secret millionth thing. You want it, and there’s no resource, no space, and no help for you to dissect that need. No time, either, because everything costs years—be it in money, in waiting, or your own life. You have an acute need and a difficult path to it. That is all.

And when all is said and done, and now you want to detransition? You’ve spent years to transition in the first place. You’ve invested great effort and great money, even if you’re not yet ‘done.’ You’ve likely lost family members and friends. Sunk cost is a hell of a weight, and sunk cost is precisely what the diagnostic model—a prevention model—engineers in spades.

4. A Dream of Utopia

So the informed consent model has no oversight, and the diagnostic model is a horrible grinder. Informed consent seems to be the patented harm reduction choice of the two. But surely those are not the only things that can exist? Surely we can dream of more than just ‘less harm’? Can there not be some sort of prior screening by an actually humane doctor who understands both trans and detrans needs? No quizzes about masturbation or kitchens or cars or whether you demanded to be called ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ at age four—just a robust way to determine whether you actually have gender dysphoria or not?

Let us say it is possible. When detrans people ask for qualified, humane, non-transphobic aid in helping them through their feelings on sex/gender, they are not asking for the impossible. Their need is one that must be answered in a just and caring world; it is already being answered for trans people, so why should the detrans be any different? And from there, you might think, it follows that it’s possible to attempt a system whose aim is some reasonably brief and minimally invasive pre-screening, which would filter out would-be detransitioners and enable trans people to pursue their transitions.

It is possible to attempt that. But.

All systems of restriction and access have a problem: there’s a power dynamic at play. Transition is often a pretty acute need. Doctors can make mistakes, they’re only human. Who is to decide what is real gender dysphoria? What if the doctors are not so humane? What if they enjoy holding power more than they enjoy helping? ‘Just don’t hire them’ isn’t really an answer—if we knew how ‘not to hire bad people,’ we’d have already colonised Pluto.

That doesn’t mean no system of restriction has its place. Access to weapons has similar problems, but most people would agree it’s probably not right for them to know nuclear codes anyway. Obviously no one worth listening to would compare detransition to guns or nukes, but let’s say, for the sake of the argument, that the possibility of detransition is so utterly undesirable that, if a prevention system could exist, it must.

The question remains: what makes gender dysphoria real?

The answer is very simple. Ultimately, it will always only be real because you said so. Because the patient said so—not the doctor.

If you’re a medical professional, you know how much of your diagnostic work relies on patient testimony. How you must at times cajole them into being honest, or to decode what exactly ‘bubbling pain in the liver’ means. Those unfamiliar with the medical world often imagine there’s always some kind of screening that can determine with certainty if the patient is lying or misguided or unsure. And yes, even if John insists he never put that Christmas ornament up his arse, the X-Ray will show it one way or another. But in many cases, it’s not that simple, and patient testimony is crucial.

When it comes to psychology and psychiatry, this issue could not be more acute. Often there is nothing else to go on at all. That doesn’t mean therapists are just useless soundboxes—but neither are there Top 10 Signs My Patient Is Actually A Narcissist. Nor are there actually body language experts that will totally tell you you’re being delusional; peddlers of simple and exact solutions are, as a rule, charlatans.

In short, therapists and psychiatrists are not mind readers. They are only analysing what you are saying about your own mind, and what you’re doing about it. They can aid you in interpreting yourself, but at the end of the day, you’re still the one doing it.

And here’s the kicker: no single issue faced by detransitioners is something trans people do not experience. Some detrans people first transition as a form of self-harm after sexual assault; but childhood sexual trauma is common among trans people who are happy in their transitions, too. Many detrans women felt pushed out of their gender by internalised misogyny and the impossibility of envisioning happy lives as women; but all those that are brought up or grow up as girls experience misogyny, including trans men and trans women. Detrans people often cite only wanting to transition after they learn of the possibility of transition and not from early childhood, as if that is evidence—but many trans people do not seek transition until they learn of its existence, too.

Trans people doubt their transitions all the time. Feel unhappy with their transitions, at least sometimes. And they self-harm via detransition too—a lot. The idea that none of this happens, or only happens very rarely, is a fiction recited for the sake of self-defence and attaining civil rights in a hostile world. Spending any time in trans spaces will tell you the truth is much more nuanced. And even so, even still, only some of those people detransition. And only some of those do so completely of their own free will, and not out of despair or a successful right-wing pipeline.

For every seemingly telltale sign of future detransition, there are numerous counterexamples. In fact a trans person can have all those signs at once, and nonetheless remain trans. Diagnostic criteria for a condition requires a list of symptoms, and if no number of those can be definitive? That means there can be no diagnosis. No (medical) condition.

In other words, resources, attention, and qualified aid can all accommodate detrans people exactly as it does trans people. Procedure cannot. Just like it can’t satisfactorily accommodate trans people. It is a dead end to treat the matter of gender as if it is a disorder, an ailment of the individual, rather than an exercise of agency against a society which enforces sex/gender.

Additionally, I have so far spoken in extremes. Real and not-real trans people; detransitioners that utterly regret their transition and wish it never happened. It was necessary for the argument. But many detransitioners do not have such black-and-white feelings about their past. Some are nonbinary and unhappy with either ‘man’ or ‘woman’; some do not maintain that their gender dysphoria wasn’t actually real; some even reject the label ‘detrans’ on principle, even though they have verifiably detransitioned. I have not mentioned any such case because I wished to argue that even the most ‘textbook,’ most acutely regretful case of detransition has little to gain and much to lose in a gatekeeping-first transition system. However, I must also point out that the ‘textbook case’ is the only case that can envision any gain at all. It isn’t real, but it’s a lovely mirage. To the rest of us, there isn’t even that.

5. I Have Bad News—Or Do I?

Yes, what I am saying is that detransition is inevitable. I’m saying its negatives can be curtailed by therapeutic and medical care that accommodates for detrans people—as much is true for trans people—but, regardless of how preventable detransition may seem, there is no way to simply solve it. Detransition can only be vanished by going back in time and making medicine freeze at the turn of the twentieth century, before such things as exogenous hormones were invented. Even a full ban on transition would be just a costly inconvenience, but ultimately not a magic bullet. People do banned things because they want to all the damn time. Oh, and I guess we’d also have to sterilise every single female horse.

So does that mean detransitioners are necessary collateral damage?

Only if you think detransition is inherently, inevitably, invariably undesirable and bad.

When you discover you want to detransition, it can be hard to accept for a myriad of reasons. Sunk cost, fear of ostracisation, shame, or even because you have no idea what detransition can look like and you don’t know what to do. And then there’s dysphoria and dealing with the wider society’s disgust and I-told-you-so’s. Some amount of what one might call a ‘bad time’ is unavoidable.

But why? What makes wanting to detransition—not resigning to it; wanting it—bad? What makes it socially reviled and pitiable? What makes going through it feel so difficult? How is the shame of detransition engineered—and what for?

See you in Part 2.

[jazzajazzjazz]

She’s here and will smear the walls with you if you stand in her way! Jack is one of my favourite Mass Effect characters and I’ve wanted to make a doll of her for ages. Hope you enjoy!

Everything made by me expect the following:

* Trousers - Kosucas on etsy, modified by me

* Boots - standard Monster High (not sure which doll), modified by me

* Stand - modified basic Monster High doll stand

Original doll is a second hand Cleo de Nile

————————

If you’d like to support a struggling artist commissions are always open (unless otherwise stated) and a link to my Kofi is in my pinned post. ♥

[deadpeopleinc]

Even more marauders era headcanons/fun facts from my au for them (some are really out of context)

There are 4 small clown dolls in the Gryffindor common room that are moved around daily solely to scare James

Remus had a buzz cut in 1st year and will pretend he doesn't know what your talking about if you bring it up

Regulus never really came out about being trans, he just kinda showed up one year as a boy and everyone was too scared of the Black family to question it

This then led to rumors that Regulus pre-transition was a different family member who was kicked out

That led to Sirius (somehow) managing to convince the entire Hogwarts population that Regulus was always there, and that his younger sister was a mass hallucination/Mandela effect

Every 'conversation' between Peter and Remus makes it seem like they don't even like each other, they're each other's favorites

James and Remus can't sit through horror movies without at least a little tears of fear

James is a childhood friend to like a fourth of Hogwarts

Barty never pulls a prank that is completely safe, a chance of death is essential

Concealing charms don't work on animingus forms, so Sirius had to come up with a bullshit excuse as to why his dog form is half white

Peter and Remus were cheerleaders in 3rd year after James and Sirius dared them to. This dare only happened bc they refused to play quidditch

Dorcas managed to hide her and Marlene's relationship for 8 months, solely bc of how unobservant her friends are

Mary was a theater kid and will cry if you bring it up

Sirius knew about jegulus before they even got together, but it took them months to actually tell him bc Sirius had a habit of pretending he was bothered by the idea and they thought he was being genuine

Narcissa has star based nicknames for everyone in her family

Sirius took up calling Narcissa Polaris so she wouldn't feel left out bc she's the only one without a star name

No one actually knows why Narcissa wasn't given a star name, not even the rest of the Black family

Barty likes to pretend the fact that both of his 'crushes' (Evan being his boyfriend) being blonde with blue eyes says nothing about his type

Peter can't tell the difference between when someone is genuinely flirting with him or making fun of him, rosekiller's aggressive flirting doesn't help

Sirius is weirdly into origami

Lucius and Narcissa treat Snape like their practice child

Marlene and James 'dated' when they were like 6 bc they thought it meant they got their family's money quicker

Sirius has a sweet tooth, Snape does too and they both hate it because of that

James is, surprisingly, more of an introvert than a extrovert

Sirius knows he's actually a Slytherin and won't wear green because he thinks it'll make it obvious to everyone else, it wouldn't

It's extra devastating because green is definitely his color

Regulus was supposed to be a Gryffindor and everyone can tell

Like he acts like every other Slytherin, he just has a vibe about him

Snape gossips with almost every professor and painting at Hogwarts

There's an incident board in the infirmary dedicated to the marauders

Lily keeps a small bag of cat treats for the strays at Hogwarts

Remus is allergic to pinecones

Peter is Russian and grew up there, but he can't stand the cold

Once again, that is it for now. These are fun to make so there will be more, but alas, I bid my farewells (for now)

[mariamakeslemons]

141 and Video games

A silly little thought, partially due to having picked back up my 3DS and playing some older DS games...

-Price, I feel, is about mid-to-late thirties by 2019. So, he was at least born around 1984-ish.

-His first game would have been Sonic the Hedgehog 2, played on a schoolmate's Genesis. He was shit.

-I feel like he was a playstation teen, having the one at home as a kid before getting the two as a Christmas gift from his mum. He played the shit out of Sons of Liberty.

-However, only a small handful of games really caught his interest. Price feels like he's too old for video games (he's not) and he's too mature for them too (he's really not).

-If someone gave him a strategy rpg, you wouldn't see him for a week. Then he'd show back up and explain how to play the game in the most ruthless manner.

-Ghost grew up poor, so he never really had video games. Didn't really have mates that were willing to let him play with theirs.

-Can't miss what you never had, right?

-He would have one "date" (whether he is actually dating them or not is up in the air) who collected older video games and encouraged him to play with them during an at home date night.

-Ghost would fall in love with Nintendo's more low stakes games. Animal Crossing and Pokemon both have no traumas that make him need to leave the room.

-Soap and Gaz were invited to Ghost's New Horizons island and they were shocked at how good the island looks.

-Pretty, popular Gaz grew up playing Yugioh and Pokemon TCGs. Everyone wanted to play against him, with the winner getting something from the loser (the other kids wanted a kiss to the cheek if only to brag)

-Too bad for them, Gaz has always had a strategic mind that makes him almost unbeatable in any pvp games.

-He talks about playing all the popular games, and he does, but he's super nostalgic about the older, more obscure platformers. Think Vince the VooDoo Doll and Jak and Daxter as a range of obscurity to popularity.

-Challenge him to a platformer race, because that's where Gaz's weakness in games is. The man is terrible at them, but he loves them all the same.

-Video games? With Soap? Lord...

-With his big family, video games weren't a fun pass time. It was war. His little sister wanted to play Animal Crossing, his little brother fought with his older brother to play a mature warshooter, his older sister wanted to veg out with Katamari Damacy.

-He fell in love with Mass Effect and Dragon Age, enjoying the stories and how the games changed based off choices. Also, he can explode things with fire. Always a good time.

-Soap only picks up Nintendo due to Ghost, and he ends up playing things like Fire Emblem and Splatoon.

-Don't invite him to your New Horizons island. He is a menace and will hide pitfalls all over the place and sneak inappropriate things into said island (fake nude statues, creatively dropped items, etc.) He's the worst. Ghost will tell you.

[fantasy-relax]

If I write about Resident Evil Village assume that Mother Miranda is a good mother and the lords are found family. Because if I'm cooking I'm Gonna use any spice I want to.

Their morals are still messed up, they are messed up. But they are smarter. You need subjects with the will to live so you get more subjects to experiment, so manipulation of the masses, Blablaba.

Anyway. Little thing I thought:

Dimitrescu experiment only in women, Moreau in men. Donna in her dolls(inorganic material) mostly but sometimes in humans. Heisenberg in the dead. The ladies and lord give their dead subjects to Miranda or Heisenberg.

So Donna experiments involve the effect of certain plants in the body and in the cadou. And sometimes if she is bored or curious will include a lot of funny games (mental torture).

Donna using her dolls to carry a dead man.

With Heisenberg.

Karl: This fucker is a midget! Is useless for me!

Donna tilt her head.

Angie: Sorry for not feed your size kink you ungrateful shit.

Karl: I don't have a size kink!

Donna looking around to all the soldats that are beefy tall men. Then keep her veiled head directly in her little brother direction, her face is covered but is seem like she is saying "really?".

Karl blushing: let him and get the fuck out!

Donna just keep looking at him.

Karl crossing his arms: Danke Schwester. Now fuck off!

With Dimitrescu.

Daniela munching an arm: Auntie this delicious!

Bela drinking wine: although is a little spicy.

Cassandra dipping a eyeball in the blood from the open chest: I like it!

Alcina eating a finger: What did you use this time?

Angie: Fox glove, Aconite and Hemlock! It was fun!

Daniela: I can't feel my face

Donna:... Maybe too much Aconite.

With Miranda

Miranda: Donna...

Angie looking at the floor: Donna is not here.

Miranda in mother voice: Donna.

Donna appearing from the thin air with her head bowed and holding her hands on front of her skirt.

Miranda hiding her flinch, sighs: Donna I told you to make him more Tame not destroy his mind completely!

Angie signaling the catatonic man in the floor: He's tame!

Miranda with her arms in her hips.

Donna moves her head to the side.

Angie kicking the floor: I just wanted to play with him a little. I don't had any playmates this week!

Miranda sighing: I would send someone to you tomorrow.

Donna rise her head at Miranda direction.

Angie jumping excited: Yes!

Miranda pointing at the man: But you have to repair his mind

Donna put her hands at her side.

Angie stomping: But is boring!

Miranda crossing her arms and frowning.

Donna sighs audibly but nods, dolls come to pick up the man.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

What R# Means: The ABC's of Fear.

The grading system used by the OIAR is one of TMAGP's more central mysteries. The show is rife with administrative work that's obfuscated even to the employees that assign each case's rating.

I have my own theory about DPHW that I think is proving more and more likely each episode, but as of yet I don't think a comprehensive theory on CAT# or R# has been given. CAT# is still proving a hard to crack but I now think I can take a strong stab at the meaning behind R#.

Spoilers for TMAGP 1-7 below the cut.

For the people who aren't keeping close track of this I'll break down how those terms are used. Each incident the OIAR assesses is assigned a case number in the following format CAT#R#DPHW. CAT, short for Category, is assigned a value of 1, 2, 3, or any combination of those three digits (12, 13, etc.). R, short for Rank, are graded C, BC, B, AB, A, or S (potentially AS but it's not come up). For DPHW each letter is a category itself and replaced with a digit from 0-9 for its grading. So there are 6 separate statistics that the OIAR uses to assess each incident.

If I'm correct about DPHW it's a ranking based on the qualities the incident presents. That's obviously very valuable information. Because of how CAT# is formatted we know it's likely three non-mutually exclusive facets. I had some idea about what it could be but it's proving quite tricky to nail down.

However it's R# that is the topic of today's post and it's something I've had a few ideas on before. We know can assume from its formatting it's a linear scale. C is the "worst/weakest/etc." while S is the "best/strongest/etc.". Initially, I thought that R# was simply a straight forward ranking of potency or threat. Higher the rank, spookier the incident. Very early on that seemed like a strong idea. It was quickly disproven but I then had the idea that Rank was instead the scale of the effect. Higher the rank, wider the incident. Also quickly disproven.

Now I'm thinking it's graded on how hard it is to deny an incident's supernatural nature. Simply put, an outside observer can more readily find a believable rational explanation for an incident of lower rank than of higher rank. Either via their own conviction to believe the supernatural isn't real, or based on the story the OIAR cooks up to explain it.

For that to make sense it needs to tick two boxes. It needs to be able to be pre-assigned to an incident as all CAT#R#DPHW's seem to be, and it needs to be useful information to track. As they're operating under the assumption that CAT#R#DPHW's can be pre-assigned then they're operating under the assumption that each type of incident is relatively stable. Meaning that the likelihood that it can be rationally explained is also relatively stable. Tick 1. There is also a really strong reason for the OIAR to use this as a grade. They're the Office of Incident Assessment and Response, the Response Department might be dead but it was a part of the initial plan. Grading each incident on how likely they are to cause concern should the details go public is very useful for deciding how to approach any given case. Tick 2.

It being useful is all well and good but it does also need to have some evidence so let's look at our highest ranked incident to this point: CAT23RAB2155 - Transformation (Eye) -/- Trespass. A man grew eyes over his body. That's pretty tricky to explain away as a medical mystery. On the other end of the scale we've got CAT2RC1157 - Dolls (Watching), or CAT2RC3338 -Agglomeration (Miscellany) -/- Congregation†. Just a creepy doll and some crappy antiques. I think of all the incidents the one that's the least immediate fit is CAT3C7494 - Collection (Blood) -/- Musical. Most of that incident is very easy to slot in here. "It's just a violin that has sharp strings, so what?". But it's also a violin that made some people eat some other people. However, mass hysteria events do get reported every so often IRL and do have a very long history. So in the grand scheme of things I don't think the details of the event are necessarily all that outlandish. It's really in the realms of urban legend and witch hunts than it is definitive proof of the supernatural.

With all that out the way this is the broad strokes of how I could see this breaking down. C ranks are things you can entirely write off as urban legends, freak accidents, and stress. Potentially things that might not need any covering up at all. I think the majority of events people could entirely say didn't happen will end up in C. "Of course the doll wasn't watching you, dolls aren't alive". B ranks are things that are harder to entirely discount as things that happened but are themselves still relatively easy to excuse as mundane. "Sure, the circumstances of that blogger's disappearance are strange but people go missing all the time, doesn't mean a monster did it". We don't have any A ranks but given the AB rank we do have I'd say A's are things in which no rational explanation can account for it, and as such require more extensive covering up, if it indeed happened. "Okay, maybe the supernatural is real because people don't just grow eyes like that".

As I mentioned early, an S rank does exist. We've not seen this attributed to anything in the show yet and so it might prove to be a special case. However on Klaus' sheet‡ from the ARG it's attributed to an interesting incident. A CAT1RS[No DPHW] with the note Mr. B. And, well, if you know, you know.

From Klaus' sheet we also know that the higher ranked incidents happen less often than lower ones and that idea generally tracks with what we know of TMP and TMA. The supernatural tends to be something you can explain away. It often is explained away. Incredibly overt manifestations are a rarity.

This one will be a slow burn to see if it bears out. Much like with DPHW's it's only really interesting when things go against the theory. I'm not as certain on this one as I am the DPHW theory but I do think it's got legs with our current data.

† This did also feature people who seemed to erase their physical features from your memory after you interacted with them. This isn't something I mention in the theory because it's not taken into account by the header and case number. A major flaw in the OIAR's methodology here is that all incidents are only ever one thing. So the case number is based solely on the presence of lots of miscellaneous objects, rather than the mind-wiping people carrying them.

‡I have made an incident master doc here, containing all the current cases, their CAT#'s, R#'s, DPHW's, etc. It has about as much information on each as I think is reasonable, including who narrates it, a link to its episode, and any other relevant notes, as well as headers for incidents we didn't hear. Additionally it also contains the Klaus sheet (German and English) and links to it when an incident matches. It will be updated each episode after the episode is publicly available.

[sundogsandrainbows]

Hi, I'm sorry to write to you out of the blue, but Of Elves and Humans was the first DA longfic that got me hooked back in 2011 when I, as a dumb teen, happened to pick up DAO. Ever since then, the DA universe has been a constant fixation of mine and my admiration for you as a writer as well as someone who isn’t afraid to call out the franchise's flaws has never wavered. Now that Bioware decided to take a massive shit on everything pre-DAV and their oldest fans specifically, I'm really devastated and feel like a fool for having been so invested in DA and its lore for those past 13 years. It’s incredibly encouraging, however, to see you keep on keeping on. "So since they spat in my face like this I ignore this atrocity of a game even exists" is where I hope to be at soon, too. Thank you.

(First of all apologies for the late reply, I put it in my drafts when i was too tired to complete it, and then my adhd brain forgot it existed due to being distracted by new shinies 😂☠)

But aww omg i cannot believe i was the gateway drug into dragon age, or rather the old version of my story on FFN was. I am so very honored <3 And nonnie, I feel you. I am invested in DA as a series since DA:O's release in 2009, like I bought it on a whim for XBox because I liked Mass Effect 1 sm. So that is 15 yrs of my life i spent loving and discussing a thing while still being critical of the thing, but now i feel so very protective of the world, lore and its characters that "New Bioware" has decided to take a massive dump of shit on, and not only the games but the old fans I feel are treated with disdain too and do not matter to them any longer.

Long, subjective rant about current bioware aka the shambling corpse of its former self and talent incoming. Spoilers for Veilguard bc i don't give a fuck to avoid them :D You (general you, not you in particular dearest nonny <3) should use your time better than to play this shit anyhow 😂

It feels like calculated malice of new Bioware to apply the scorched earth tactics to offscreen destroy everything that old fans and fans of the other games in general held dear, and was supposed to suck out the enjoyment of DAO, DA2 and DAI. Like it is obvious they plan to create a sequel on DA's scorched bones, but jfc, you can do so story-wise without spitting everyone loving what old bioware has built in the face after dropkicking them. But to me that is part of the problem, since if i remember correctly and i wish i could find the bit... they praised Veilguard as "The best Dragon Age game ever", with the most interesting companions and best most improved combat system, comparing it to the other three games in a near smug fashion. There is marketing and there is putting the other games down to prop up your most favorite and only child mattering and they were definitely doing the latter. And don't get me started on the whole "Who is Zevran" debacle or we are gonna here all day.

Bottom line is new/current devs and writer do not give a shit about and very possibly have never played any other game than Inquisition, and you cannot tell me otherwise. And since a lot of devs/writer have left since the start of this project that would become this abysmal game, I also have the impression that there is a lot of underlying resentment toward what these former colleagues have created and so they piss on it in order to make it fully theirs now. Like dogs marking their territory, and well that did not work out, imo. At all.

Ever since they announced respecting our past choices by ignoring them (????) it was clear to me that I would not play Veilguard but just watch a playthrough and all spoilers and then move on. And everything i saw before release was shocking... like i was flabbergasted at how baaaad the dialogue was, which as a writer myself is super important to me in my story. There was no subtext, characters just blurt out everything they think and feel, like a lifeless doll you squeeze and words tumbling out and just as natural. It is stilted, awkward and 80% of it exists for info dump or info dumb rather as they keep repeating the same shit they just told you a few seconds ago as if you as the player are braindead. Here is a good example of what i mean.

Jfc, who edited this crap? There is so much superfluous dialogue that adds nothing to a scene but annoyance for the player and says nothing at all. Just pure senseless yapping in the most cringy way. Why was no one there to trim this nonsense as you should as a writer/editor? Hell, they really disregarded every simple and basic writing rule (everything is told never SHOWN for example especially in dialogue) which really made me question their competence in what they were doing and thus the quality of the upcoming game but i still held out hope for it to not be that bad.

Well shit, it was even worse. In all regards. Especially the writing that cringed this writer into a new dimension with its incoherent incompetence. Jfc. they got paid for that? I'm convinced the majority of fandom writer can do much better, even unpaid. Hell my cat just by walking over the keyboard can manage a better draft and script...💀

But I digress. That is a rant for another time. Point is, nonny, despite my defiant words, I struggled too for days after i got to know the full extent of Bioware's spiteful fuckery to even look at anything da related, in my case my Alistair/Mahariel longfic. I was really down for a few days, ngl. Then again, there is nothing better than spite fueling my creativity to prove "i can write better" soooo in the end and with the help of the much better first version of DA4 in the artbook, I was able to exorcise the demons and feverdream-mindfuck of mediocrity sold to me as a turd with gold-glitter that is this game.

I have successfully now rejected its existence, filled the void with the version that should have been from the artbook and vowed to give no fucks what bioware is doing or saying and infinitely more fucks when writing my own version of thedas and the version of DA4 that should be. REWRITES BBY hell yeah. So OEAH:R is just the beginning of a verse-wise rewrite. But if you need a pick me up, nonny, you are very much welcome to take a trip down memory lane to Dragon 9:30 and see how much this iteration of the story differs from my first one back in the days. Because in this house of mine, we grow and learn as writers, unlike bioware where writer ego reigns surpreme (oh boy and does it ever show in VG) aka eating their own turds and tell themselves it is the finest chocolate 💀

There is still a lot of good about DA out there, but we have to accept it does not come from Bioware any longer. Instead it came, comes and will come from the fans and creators of art and texts and words defying their bullshit with their love and respect for the world, its lore and characters. Also very unlike Bioware.

As we should <3

[jslittlebirdie]

pairing: ledger!joker x GN!reader

summary: You and J spend Halloween together carving a pumpkin and playfully teasing each other.

word count: 679

warnings: slightly graphic language, a bit of innuendo at the end of the drabble

A/N: I haven't written and posted anything in forever. The burnout is hitting hard. So I'm not sure if this little thing turned out well or not. But I want to try to somehow get my creativity and inspiration back. Maybe someone will like it a little bit.

taglist: @alittlesmartcookie @ajokeformur-ray @these-written-reveries

Carving Time

A loud, wet squelching noise echoed through the room as he plunged the blade deeper and deeper into the soft flesh. A greenish strand of hair stuck to his forehead where the sticky, thick liquid had splashed into his face. He frowned in concentration, but his toothy grin gave away just how much he enjoyed it. You watched him with wide eyes, following every single one of his skillful movements. Anyone else would have been frightened by this sight, but not you. You were almost hypnotized, perhaps staring a bit too much at his hands.

A few more well-aimed knife stabs and the sinister deed was done. He smacked his lips in satisfaction and put the knife down. Almost immediately his attention was back on you, dark brown eyes piercing into your soul, causing you to look away, caught, and making him chuckle with amusement. Heat rose in your cheeks, but you tried to ignore it. It was silly and endearing that after all this time he still had the same effect on you. He would probably never say it out loud, but he loved it.

"Was that it, toots? Or is there more I have to take care of, hm? Just say the word and I'll make sure that nothing else will bother ya."

Something in his voice made you shudder, but you leaned in to give him a small peck on his cheek. If you listened carefully enough though, you could hear him softly grumbling under his breath. You would probably have to give him some proper kisses later to make up for it. Especially considering what you were planning to do. "No, no. Thank you, J. I can do the rest alone."

Thanks to his help, you could finally open the cavity. A sweetish foul scent flooded your sinuses and made you cough. But you shrugged it off. Maybe it was a little too unorthodox, but you preferred to use a big spoon to get rid of the guts. And when nothing helped, you stuck your hand in the opening to remove the last remnants. A sensory nightmare, the way the masses felt between your fingers. Slimey and gooey. You grimaced in disgust.

J cackled next to you when he noticed your reaction. You were just too adorable. "Seems like ya need some more training, doll."

You decided to just ignore him. You would get your sweet revenge soon enough. You paused to examine your work and when you thought it was good enough, you reached for the knife. But J was quick to grab your wrist and stop you. He tsk-ed at you and shook his head when he saw your questioning look.

"Not this one. Don't wantcha to get hurt." He rummaged in one of the countless pockets of his royal purple coat until he pulled out a small ordinary kitchen knife. "That's way better."

You huffed. But at the same time, it made your heart feel all warm and fluffy that he cared so much about you. For a brief moment, you questioned your idea. But it was just too good to stop now. Why should it always be him teasing you? Why not the other way around? You smiled innocently at him and then took the smaller knife from him. Luckily, this part of the work didn't take too long. Only a few more cuts were needed to get the desired result.

Finally, you turned around the fully carved pumpkin so that he could see it. You watched him closely, a mischievous grin tugging at your lips. And you got exactly the reaction you expected, it seemed like he liked your Batman pumpkin. His smile immediately dropped and his gaze snapped to you, dark eyes even darker than usual. Once again, anyone else would have been frightened by this sight. But you trusted him. You knew him good enough to see the playful and challenging glint in the darkness of his beautiful eyes. It made you giggle and squeal with anticipation.

"I'll give you a ten second head start. One, two..."

[aeroblossom]

midori occupies every crevice in my brain. so here is some aimless and scattered rambling. it is absolutely not organized, and this is a continuation of my last post. please don't come for me

when alice 'killed' him, he didn't bleed. later in the secret repair room, you find a repaired head that reported a broken left eye, which matches what happened to the midori that alice pushed into the fence. the original midori was gone before he even began to recruit the cast. the only surviving bit of his human body we know of were attached to mai, but even mai ends up drilled or otherwise dies after the last trial.

more than half of him is doll, and the only evidence of his humanity has been destroyed. midori creates and destroys dolls of himself and the others as easy as breathing, abuses and torments people and watches them contort mentally and physically with great interest. he despises his entertainment coming to an end. he's aloof most of the time, unless he's bullying the cast and enjoying himself, or angry, disturbed somehow.

i have half a guess that the midoris that recruited the cast are not the same, but rather several different dolls of himself. this way, not only would he have discarded his physical humanity, but also minimized any consequences of him dying. on the one hand, he has trivialized the life of others as well as others, boldly inviting everyone to try and kill him. on the other, he is human yet at heart, fearing death like any other. trivialized is the less than half of him that is still human, like a majority vote, as he is. the game is a great criticism of democracy - the majority decide for everyone. a collective mass with no space for anyone's individual choice, with the few protesting voices silenced. they are trivialized.

an empty human, soulless. a doll. an aloof, empty husk that finds enjoyment only in controlling and torturing. perhaps he feels alive. perhaps he feels the fear of death and remembers his vulnerability, but from a safe distance, able to detach himself from it.

him having multiple replacements for himself would also mean he is, in a way, immortal. i assume every midori has the same personality, at least. that would be shedding the final layer of being human: mortality.

but one thing remains - shin tsukimi, living with midori's real name and a living caricature of who sou hiyori was. midori is a bit obsessed with him and who he was before he stole midori's name and adopted his general demeanor - the ai shin is a timid, but kind and sweet presence, like shin before the game. midori remarks that he regrets not being able to be the one who kills him. as infatuated as he is with the kindly ai shin, his love of control is first, and when pushed far enough, he 'kills' the ai shin too.

but why this, seemingly, immense need to lose one's humanity? something to do with what he was as a normal human at the beginning of everything? does being human impede him somehow? though regardless of how much he runs from it, he ends up with the very human fear of death all the same, a lack of control over his destiny, a lack of control in general. he loses all composure once he's seen through. the dolls establish that they have a right to make their own choices, and thus that makes them human - breaking shackles, freeing themselves of their circumstances, of control. this was midori's trump card over them - the ultimate trap, death. he puppeteered them by abusing their human psyches and weaknesses and hanging it over their necks like a guillotine, until the same guillotine chopped off his own head in the end.

having seen kai's episode, i wonder what kind of effect his mother had on him. i'll call her mrs hiyori. in her first interaction with gashu, she seems the picture of a great mother, giving him the right advice for kai and sei. gashu takes it to heart, and the results are extremely positive as well. but once the objective is complete, her attitude flips on its head. she suffocates gashu with his circumstances. she forces him to choose one, not the other. she changes as she sees fit, displaying that same suave manipulation midori is famous for. i don't think i covered nearly everything i wanted to say, but this will do for now