#not that i actually expect anyone to read this lmao

[toointojoelmiller]

🦒🦋🦒hello tumblr people 🦋🦒🦋

just dropping a lil personal note which feels weird but

I can't make gifs on my current computer set up which makes me sad lol. it was so fun. I am also missing writing and posting my lil fics sooo much. ur girl is strugglin

and it's extremely hard for me to make progress on writing right now. I'm still swimmin my way through the constant chronic stress fog and PTSD shit and I am doing ~*~Better*~* in that I'm medicated and not actively crying 24/7 and I'm going to work full time again, but the coping is a struggle, the executive dysfunction is a struggle, the getting up to walk around if I'm not at work is a struggle, and work is about as demanding as it has been which uh, not chill. ... lots more I don't even feel like complaining about cause the bottom line is it all sucks ass lmao. you get the jist.

Please understand that my stories aren't abandoned, I pick away at them every night, I literally fantasize about being able to have the time to write enough to be making faster progress. I am so excited for where they are going and I have so much planned, and i just.. my brain noodle got cooked for too long.

my job involves pretty regular exposure to vicarious trauma and straight ass trauma ... so writing traumatic fic is hard sometimes too. (even tho I love it lol and sometimes it feels like therapy)

long story short, I am very good at twisting myself up in knots over what i imagine another person might feel and I know a lot of people have loyally followed please don't go and enjoyed it. I loved getting to interact so much and update so frequently, it was a huge source of fun and happiness for me that i loved for months and months! so I miss it, and it really sucks to feel like I'm leaving people hanging now.

but right now I just really need to focus on making sure i get don't get depressed again (mentally ill ones will know🤘) .

and I'm also very particular and when I rush out a chapter I never like how it turned out so.. I'm not gonna do that anymore. bleh. so... picture my future updates like a very small slug... very far away... crawlin but like give it a while

[kagoutiss]

green beetle black beetle

[zazikels]

the fact is, if varric lives (and that's an if bc maybe solas does kill him lmao idk how much to trust that minimap reveal) it IS weird that you can't customise a hawke or account for the decision because it would be a little weird if a man who has lived through a wannabe god + blight dragon attacking warden fortress has nothing to say about ghilan'nain and her blight dragon attacking a warden fortress, especially if he potentially lost his best friend (Hawke). It's not outlandish for people to be a little disappointed to not get some customisation there because the choices are not equal to varric. the loss of hawke is obviously a bigger impact on him than whichever warden is there. given varric's personality, it's not outlandish to expect him to talk about it with Rook either especially considering weisshaupt is a thing that happens in the game. if he dies beforehand it doesn't matter, but if he's going to be around? yeah you'd think he'd be talking about it here.

speaking of weisshaupt, A PLACE YOU GET TO GO, a hero of ferelden who made the ultimate sacrifice IS FUCKING INTERRED THERE. But it's just "whining" to expect a nod (esp one that you can customise so it's your hero of ferelden) i guess.

regardless of whether morrigan has mythal or not, who she is as a person does change based on whether she was romanced and whether she had a child. it is natural that this matters and people aren't stupid to be tentatively concerned that nothing of her history is "required" but she's apparently this important vip character who will have more involvement in the game than you expect. like you are allowed to ask: okay what does this mean, what will she be like, will she be the same character i've loved across multiple games?

people are allowed to be upset or concerned that a game series that historically took your choices and your decisions into account has watered that down to 3 choices when certain choices that WOULD impact characters that appear in THIS game aren't. (and to be clear being upset does not mean harassing the devs, don't do that).

[rigginsstreet]

*alexa play he had it coming*

[rmbunnie]

Another little inconsequential red hood thing and I'll admit that I'm decently biased but it irks me to see the whole "Jason can't shut up about his death/he makes his death everyone else's problem" take really frequently because he simply does not do that enough for it to be a thing in like any actual Red Hood story.

It's a thing you see sometimes in modern annuals/comics with large casts, particularly if a writer doesn't seem super confident with writing all of the characters that they're working with or if he's just a background character in this one, because with comics it's quicker to reduce a character to recognizable landmarks than to try and work out a whole new complex voice if you don't really need to, so it's tire iron, Jane Austen, Joker, and death, and it's all written out in dialogue because every character in a group event can't have their own internal monologue, but like. That's pretty much it. UTRH is the establishing event for Jason Todd post death so of course a lot of it is about his death, although it's arguably about the lack of response to his death more than his death itself, and he certainly makes it Bruce's issue but one beef doesn't make a trend. Plus if his death is anyone's issue beyond his own Bruce and Joker are like the number one guys whose issue it is. He THINKS about his death a ton in Lost Days, but it doesn't really reflect externally on any of his interactions besides with Joker, which again, that's justified and relevant beef. Teen Titans 29 is more about his place in the hero community/feeling like he was an outsider even before the bomb/Tim being the new robin than about his death, and side note, that being counted as an attempt on Tim's life also bugs me. He beat him up and then left of his own volition. That's not an assassination attempt its called a fight, albeit a sneaky and unfair one. But anyways. I can't speak on Battle for the Cowl because i haven't read it, both that and Batman and Robin 2009 don't really compel me, but it's entirely possible that's an outlier to my point seeing as I kinda sorta haven't read it and don't care to lmao. Even New 52 (although HIGHLY unpopular) and Rebirth/Dawn of DC/Whatever we're doing now Red Hood content don't really have him talking to people about it besides the occasional little quips. He might make stances that were developed because of his death other people's problem, like in the Mia Dearden Green Arrow situation with the "getting involved in other people's business" issue, but acting like he makes specifically his death everyone else's problem is ignoring all of the perfectly valid actually canon things he makes other people's problem. Most of the unpleasant traits he brings to the table are a result of his death and the sense of abandonment and betrayal that came with it, but that doesn't mean he's bringing his death into it when he acts unpleasantly any more than he's bringing his birth into it when he shows up in the first place. The consequences do not equal the event. All this to say it's irritating when people say the character is grating because he doesn't stop whining about his death when that kinda just indicates to me that they're working off fanon based on fanon based on kinda mid batman annual.

[burntblueberrywaffles]

Me planning out an Anidala fic: am I making them move too fast?

Also me, remembering they canonically got married after five days of awful flirting in canon: no, I think we’re good

Pls don’t check my math on this btw, I am lazy and will not research SW timelines. We are here for vibes not facts)

[phagodyke]

the masculine urge to take a saucepan off thr draining board and bash myself repeatedly over the head with it until I pass out and no longer have to experience feeling Bad 😍

[deus-ex-mona]

anyways since april the first is almost over, happy ken day to dot barrett and dot barrett alone

[spocks-kaathyra]

.

[90sbee]

Hey, quick post to let you know I've got something new up, only on ao3.

DO read the tags. And mostly keep in mind:

Fem!OC (not x Reader this week)

Dubcon/noncon (depending on how you interpret it, personally I had dubcon in mind)

somehow OOC Leon

Also yes, this is indeed subby!Plagas!Leon.

[wickedhawtwexler]

my stupid book is literally going to be a thousand pages long HELP

[izzy-b-hands]

Didn't think the 1989 version of The Woman In Black would be scarier than the one with Dan Radcliffe in it

I was Wrong flkjdsafkldsja, but I'm delighted to have been wrong. I had missed getting scared with more practical effects/careful timing of things in the background of shots appearing and disappearing, and this one scratches that itch well.

[catboii]

← Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 → Full Thread

[Day ####]

It’s been several days since there were any markable concerns. No breaches, no alerts, no deaths on the clock... Everything has been running smoothly. As it should. 

The Overseer of the current area leads their Agents through the corridors, writing up directives for the daily observations and handing them to the respective Agent.

The Anomalies here are usually very quiet, although sometimes, one of them will just sort of- change… Wake up… And then they completely flip. You can’t trust them. Sometimes Agents have underestimated what seemed like a normal inanimate object, like the hairbrush that hypnotises people, pulling them with psychic tendrils into its room, so that they'll brush their hair with it, then two weeks later they'll wake up from a coma; or a small animal, like the mouse that turned out to eat concrete and burrowed out by nibbling around the steel reinforcements before anyone noticed. There was so much paperwork...

Most of the chambers look the same, bland, metallic grey inside and out, the only difference being the cautionary and instructional stickers of varying sizes, shapes and colours, on the corridor-side of their doors. Some have more than others, and some seem to tell a story. 'No eye contact', 'No turning your back', 'No auditory interaction', 'Unconfirmed: Inanimate', etc; the list could be endless as more instructions are being discovered and printed every day, although it's not a fast process as the braille needs to be sized and punched correctly. Whenever something is Suspected, they use a medium sized Yellow sticker, with a dashed border for the colourblind. If something is confirmed, then it’s a larger sized Red sticker with a bold border. There are the occasional smaller, Green stickers, with a wavy line as a border; this makes them look more whimsical and friendly, although doesn’t mean that whatever is being contained is safe, just that the action is ‘safe’, such as 'Safe: Eye contact', 'Safe: Slow movement', 'Safe: Liquid exposure'. As it’s quite difficult to confirm that something truly is ‘safe’, there aren’t as many Green stickers as the others, and they’re easy to peel off, in case something turns out to not actually be safe... There are alot of Yellow stickers through the halls, as it’s all too easy to have an unconfirmed suspicion, rather than to prove that something is safe or not. 

After a few Agents are sent on their assignments, the Overseer leads the remaining toward another bland silver door, with the usual square viewing window and several Yellow stickers: the expected, and potentially obvious instructions when approaching any wild animal, ‘maybe don’t touch or feed this thing, it might bite, but we’re not sure’. There are also some White and, some rarer, Black stickers though. The White stickers are confirmed guidelines, Agents normally call the neat little sections of White stickers Biogs, as they’re a bit like summaries, and you need a better name than ‘what do their Whites say?’ when discussing cases with your peers. The Black stickers, however, are important notes to keep in mind if you have to go into the room. These are always very specific, but usually a little cryptic, as if their info is on a need to know basis. Which it sort of is, as they only get explained to you if you’re the one going in. 

Most Anomalies in this section have the White 'Does not eat' sticker, as they’re inanimate objects (less of an instruction, just an observation that it doesn’t need to be fed, although someone must have tried, to be able to confirm it, which summons amusing images of Agents trying to coax mysterious Diaries or amulets to nibble on some fruit or a raw steak), but this one also has this sticker, and it appears to be some kind of small animal. Trying to peer through the door window, Agent 23 thinks it looks like a crow sitting in the middle of the floor, although there are too many layers of thick, toughened glass to get a clear view from this distance. There also appears to be a large, Red, octagonal sticker ,right beside the White one that looks like the 'Do not approach' instruction, based on the size and shape, but it’s covered by a Black sticker frantically scribbled over with what looks like black sharpie? As if someone was trying to take it back, but didn’t have the right sticker to hand. The white text is still easily readable, and says 'Caution level C-3'. The Caution level 'C' stickers are reserved for the Anomalies that have shown cannibalistic traits, which is a rabbit hole of a definition when you consider that these Anomalies aren’t human, and eating other animals is a perfectly normal carnivore activity… for animals. 

But why would a creature that doesn’t eat, according to that White sticker, show interest in eating other creatures..? 

Moreover, the level is a scale, like 1:1 or 1:10 in scale models. 'C-1' is for creatures that will attack and/or eat other creatures the same size as them, 'C-0.5' would mean creatures half their size, etc. So 'C-3' means that it’s 'shown an interest' in attacking and eating something three times its own size. Which, based on how small it is, doesn’t sound too worrisome. And besides, this must have been observed before it was put into containment...

As the Overseer looks over the paperwork left hooked on the door, a couple of the Agents peer through to the chamber. There are three interlock doors, which seems excessive for such a small creature. Two is perfectly fine for most of the other, larger Anomalies. Besides, the extra door space takes away some of the chamber space, leaving it alot smaller, even if the creature inside isn’t very big itself. There aren’t any perches or furniture inside, nothing for enrichment. There are also two chairs outside the doors, one either side, when there are usually just two. Only one is the metal kind with the little document shelf under the seat though, the other doesn’t look like it belongs here, more like it’d been dragged from somewhere else, possibly a staff room on another floor, since the ones on this floor are cushioned. 

“Alright,” the Overseer starts confidently, “have any of you had any experience with this Anomaly?” Two of the six Agents raise their hands, one being Agent 23, a low level Agent who'd been working at the Facility for three years so far. “Perfect. Now please lower your hand if any of those experiences have been negative in any way, if you have verbally expressed any negative thoughts around this doorway, or if you may have been overheard disciplining another Anomaly or member of staff in this hallway, at all”, they slightly raise their voice at the end, as if to emphasise how important this was. Agent 23 keeps her hand raised, but she couldn’t see why any of the staff would do anything like that; however, the other Agent had already lowered his hand, but Agent 23 wasn’t sure at which point of the statement. The Overseer looks down at the clipboard, ‘uh-huh’s to themself a few times, then hangs it back on the designated hook. “Alright. You may lower your hand now. The rest of you, I trust you have jobs to do, you’re dismissed. Agent 23, I’ll instruct you on your tasks for the next…” they pause, as if thinking, “week. If all goes well”. 

The instructions sound like the usual, to observe the Anomaly through the cameras and the door windows, to record everything on the sheet every hour. Although there are also extra, lined sheets to fill in if the Anomaly tries to communicate. Any sign of intelligence should be recorded. It's been reported to react to the verbal greetings given by the Agents through the intercom, and if someone gets close to the glass, sometimes it seems to be looking toward the door. The Overseer has instructed 23 to actually try to get it to respond this time, however she can. If it looks like it’s reacting to the intercom, to continue talking, to see if it’s just the noise, or if it’s the actual speech it recognises. There are the odd notes in the ‘Guide’ that say that it has been observed to obey basic commands such as ‘step away from the door’, ‘stand still’ and such like. 

All of the initial pages in the observation log seem to have been crudely torn out, then the first intact pages have nothing written on them aside from the first boxes having mention of observations being difficult, due to the Anomaly being ‘outside’. 23 decides this must mean before it was put into containment, and was just being observed; because if it had breached containment, then there would be far more paperwork, and more Red stickers on the door. Breachers normally went to a far more secure floor several stories lower, and had their own guards stationed at every checkpoint. The pages documenting the last month or so are all basically uneventful, and nothing of note jumps out at her. 

As 23 turns on the intercom to read the obligatory greeting statement, there’s a slight electrical crackle-buzz as the speaker turns on, and a red LED indicator light at the bottom lights up. The small, crow-like creature turns its head toward the soft sound, its eyes dull and reflectionless, staring slightly off from the main door camera, as the intercom speaker is about a foot underneath. “Greetings. I’m Agent 23,” she begins, trying to sound casual, though professional, as if she doesn’t feel the least bit silly trying to talk to a bird, who probably doesn’t understand anything she’s saying, “I’ll be observing you today. I’ll be here for-” she briefly flicks her eyes down from the monitor to check her notes, quickly counting the start to finish times in her head, “Six hours. Please go about your business as normal.” She lets go of the intercom button, and it makes that same quiet crackle, then silence resumes. 

The creature keeps staring toward the speaker for a moment, then, as 23 observes as instructed, she thinks it glances up to the main camera, but it keeps turning, openly facing one of the side cameras, just staring toward it for what feels like the longest moment. 23 starts to wonder if it can somehow see her, and that its watching her, so she makes a little waving motion with her hand at the monitor to see if it'll react… But then it turns to face the back wall, away from the three cameras pointing toward it, and stays facing that direction.

The rest of the day is relatively uneventful, another Agent nearby makes a breakthrough when they say they got a recording of an inanimate object moving, and they furiously scribble in their observational notes. 23’s ward just sits there, once or twice taking a few slow steps toward one side of the room, a few hours later going to the other side. 

Once it’s time to finish up, she stands, stretching her arms above her head, making a little squeak noise through her nose as her spine pops, and when she turns toward the intercom, she notices the creature on the camera monitor, looking toward the door. Perhaps it could see her shadow move? She pauses briefly before pressing the intercom, there’s no movement at the buzz this time, not even a twitch. “This is Agent 23. I have concluded today’s observations. I will be returning tomorrow. Thankyou for your cooperation.”

[martyrbat]

👍👍

[thomastair]

saw your post on matthew's alcoholism but I don't know if it's pre- or post-cot! just wondering if you still think the same after cot and what you think about alastair's involvement in his recovery

that was posted pre chot! i honestly thought it was pretty well done considering there was one book and a bunch of other storylines to wrap up. i thought alastair's role in his storyline was also basically what i would have wanted (offering some advice but overall not putting himself in a position to be more involved than he was comfortable with). i think matthew removing himself from london at the end and giving himself and the people he'd hurt space and time was probably for the best and there's definitely a lot unsaid there about everyone benefiting from that. i also think the letter he sends to james in the special edition was a pretty good representation of what happens when you develop other addictions to avoid relapsing (in matthew's case coffee) and i didn't have many complaints about the storyline on the whole!

[barbieaiden]

Honestly, i'd love to read your writing bc your ocs are *chefs kiss* and i love them very much, so if you ever want to share it with someone.... just say and i'll be 👀watching👀you👀

aaa thank you so muuuuch<3 you have no idea how much that means to me. i'm just. ugh i get so worried about sharing my writing lmao