#almost all of these are me self projecting in some kind of way .. LMAO

[moodymisty]

Hello, Mortarion simp club member #7 here. First off, sorry for the fungus.

Secondly, imagine word getting to The Emperor that Mortarion had found a partner. None of the primarchs ever got married (except for Fulgrim) so I’d imagine it’d be big news. To find out that any of his sons, let alone shit-bag himself, found someone to love would shake him to his core.

Now, I am a very small woman so it might just be projecting, but just imagining The Emperor of Mankind staring you down and shaking his head like,

“This is inhumane. It’s almost comical, how absurd this is. How have you not been ripped in half, or accidentally crushed underfoot?”

I know deep in my soul that Morty would be the most gentle of the primarchs because he’s never had anyone be gentle with him before. That man would start sobbing immediately if he so much as accidentally bumped into you. Full on ‘please don’t leave me’ breakdown if he hurts you in any way.

The fungus is amungus.

Honestly given the way that the Emperor thinks of Mortarion as sort of a failure among his 'sons', and has just abandoned any possibility of him achieving greatness, him accomplishing something so 'odd' would definitely get a query or two. This behavior sounds more like Sanguinius or Fulgrim, not Mortarion.

Also the Emperor saying that it's 'inhumane' fucking killed me. I don't know why him saying that in response to one of the Primarchs picking up a lover is so fucking funny but also kind of accurate? I mean, pulling a normal human into what is basically a small pantheon of demigods isn't exactly a good idea. Not to mention the dangers involved that you could go on about for hours. Both being around and with a Primarch. It's less that The Emperor would ever care about a singular human, but he more so just finds the absurdity of it, amusing. Or as amusing as someone like him can.

I definitely think out of all the (future) heretic Primarchs, Mortarion, Fulgrim, Magnus, and Lorgar would probably both be the most gentle. He's also horrifically damaged (which Primarch isn't lmao) and has a slew of self image issues. He might not cry, but he'll sure as hell give you the stars as long as you don't drop to the wayside like everyone else in his life. You're the figurative jewel of his eye, and nothing will take you away from him.

He loves you, you love him, it's awful and harmful and will probably end terribly but damn does it taste good.

Also, a snippet to go with this. Enjoy.

Mortarion/Fem!Reader, No extreme warnings apart from typical 40kness and hinting at a toxic, obsessive relationship. I'm actually really coming around to liking Morty, if I never get a chance I really want to write some of my personal ideas for him

That meeting still lingers on your mind. You look out the window and wring your hands, trying to figure out why your heart continues to pound so hard against your chest. When it doesn't stop, you sit down and fail to try and stop your mind from running it through once again.

You met The Emperor.

You met the father- or simply creator as some of the Primarchs refer to him- to the Primarch you could possibly call your beloved.

It had been a surprise meeting; You were already so worn and tired from speaking to Primarch Fulgrim, shoulders tense and mind strained. While you might be close to Mortarion, being in the presence of Primarchs is still such an intense and formal ordeal, that forces you to carefully watch your words, your tone, your body language.

Just as The Phoenician seemed to be getting bored of you, as you kept politely avoiding giving him any worthwhile and intimate details about Mortarion, The Emperor had apparently come to see the lover of his fourteenth son; The first of them to ever take someone that could be potentially called a consort. It has been the rumor of the palace for days now, and it's seems to have spread now even to the Golden Throne.

He only ever spoke one sentence to you. And it will likely remain the only one. You would delude yourself into thinking that you have any business with The Emperor, beyond what little falls from Mortarion's lips. Either way, his words and voice with stay within your mind for as long as you live.

He looked down on you, barely able to reach his hips, and almost seemed to sigh. As much as a man such as him could. When you dared look at him, seeing any emotion on a man so borderline ethereal seemed so out of place. Though it was only there for a moment, and then his expression turned to that non-emotion of cold stoicism.

"I should not be surprised, to see he chose someone so small they cannot think to stand against him."

You decided to keep your head respectfully bowed in his presence, but you can't help but furrow your brow ever the slightest at his cryptic speech.

"You fraternize with the most fractured of all my sons. Do be careful with him."

Did he mean to be careful around him? Or to be careful with him? How could someone that in the grandness of things, as insignificant as you, be able to do either?

You pull yourself from being lost in your own thoughts and look out over the palace skyline, seeing nothing but golden peaks as far as the eye can see. It's inconceivable in size, that just viewing it doesn't give even the slightest hint as to it's sheer scale. And from what little you've heard, it's not even close to it's completion. New Praetorian Rogal Dorn has been continuing it's construction for years now, and will likely continue for decades more.

The soft sound of a door opening forces you to look towards it. Mortarion enters, and instantly comes closer. You haven't seen him since you had first encountered Fulgrim. You assume he had more urgent matters than batting away his fellow Primarchs away from the new thing of interest.

Your face softens as he comes closer, seeing his shoulders rolled forward slightly. The way he looks is a dead giveaway that he is in a terrible mood; Not uncommon whenever his so called brothers are involved. You assume that he is going to want a moment alone, and get up to take your leave. You'd heard nothing but his lamenting about hating the idea of returning to Terra for days now, but it seems you're wrong.

Before you have a chance to step away and leave the massive room that serves as the most private of his chambers, Mortarion quickly snatches your arm at the wrist. Though given the size of his hand in comparison to yours, his hand grasps a significant portion of your forearm.

"Do not leave."

You look at him, the way his grey hair shadows his thin face, and how he seems even more drained of energy. He towers over you, but yet he seems almost ungainly and defeated.

The Pale King orders you, but his words are almost dipped in something you might consider calling desperation.

He has told you before that interacting with his fellow Primarchs and The Emperor foremost is something he hates most. That it all reminds him of stolen revenge and his dead world, how he's overcast by the shadows of men like Sanguinius and Horus. You knew he would be more fragile, harder to deal with, but you didn't expect him to seem almost, humiliated. You're used to him being impossible to contend with, spiteful, hateful, angry; Not this.

His hand grips tighter when you don't immediately come back, enough that it begins to hurt. You sit back down and he lets go, only to cup his hand tightly around your jaw. He tilts your head up to look at him. It hurts your neck a bit from the intense angle, and your much smaller hands grip his wrist to try and gain leverage.

You watch his eyes glance over your face, his own slum and demoralized. His grip on your face softens just a bit so he isn't yanking you around like some sort of doll. At least not as much.

He sighs, and leans down enough so that his forehead touches yours, long strands of limp grey hair brushing against your face, and nothing more is said.

#I put sons in quotes because Emps has made it very clear that he does not see them as his children let alone as anything more than tools #mortarion simp club meetup #mortarion x reader #primarch x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #reader insert #reader #mywriting

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

ok so self indulgent putting-my-oc-in-a-dumb-au doodles time, featuring the short song from over the garden wall, 'The Beast'

ok au concept:

takes place in the canon events of Security Breach, but Sun is the one helping y/n or Gregory or whoever. He's doing it partly out of selfishness, though- he wants out of the pizza plex almost more than you do, and he's actively hiding Moon's existence, and his relation to him, from you, even as it becomes clearer and clearer that doing so puts you in serious danger. insert Hazel- in this au, a scrapped concept for a character that would work in the Daycare-section of the plex, in the same way Foxy would've had a space there, too. Her project was cut while she was still in a beta phase, leaving her a bare-bones animatronic, barely above an endoskeleton with a few shell pieces fixed on. Though not infected with the virus, she's been stuck beneath the main plex for who knows how long, seething and spiteful and waiting. Waiting. Waiting. When Sun and Y/n or whoever come along to her portion of the plex (probably by some kind of accident), she lets herself be known, gives her name, chides Sun for not telling his 'new best buddy' about her, then switches to comment that maybe he doesnt even remember her, it sure is EASY to forget little things like that, isn't it, Sun? It's just so easy to let such trivial bits of information slip your mind, Sun? Isn't it? Sun is like 'DONT trust this animatronic, theyre not supposed to still exist, they were put out of commission a long time ago, theyre clearly corrupted and out of order, lets get OUT OF HERE LIKE RIGHT NOW,' and Hazel chooses right then to warn y/n about Moon 'since Sun apparently couldn't baaaare to talk about just what He's Done :) but I'm sure you can trust him <3' and then Hazel just. leaves. and isn't seen again! Does she escape?? Does she stay to burn in the rubble? Is she killed by a falling ceiling tile???? who knows!!! I just like the idea of her being like 'hey whats uppppp dont trust this dude lmao he's killed kids just like the rest of them have, aight peace motherfuckas' and NEVER SHOWING UP AGAIN sdfjsjkdhfsj its just so funny to me

alright thats it ig lmao idk i just like the drama of it all thank u for humoring me by reading this far LMAO

#bones of a rabbit #bones of a rabbit au #fnaf au #liar liar au #hazel the daycare hare #hazy daysy #fnaf oc #oc x canon #fnaf sun x y/n #fnaf sun x oc #canon typical violence #sketches #doodles #self insert #self indulgent #rambles #au rambles #overly long rambling abt ideas that will never go anywhere my beloved uwu

[lillysilvermoon]

Messages for Eclipse Season

Please read the description below!!

Hi guys! 👋 I know, has been too long, but uni is taken all my energy 🥲 BUT, I had to come here to give yall this message, will be quick (at least that's what they told me lol) but important. I'll say this right away: Aries, libra, Pisces and scorpio probably will feel with more intensity this eclipse and its effects).

Now, this is super unusual but for each pile Selene, Nyx and Hades have a message, I don't know which one will be but it's a message from them related to the eclipse, I've never done this before so I hope yall liked and this reaches everyone who the message is meant for. Shall we?

Pile 1

Messenger: Selene, Goddess of the Moon

Change is on the way and yall need to prepare for this, for what I see here either you are in a hard moment right now (eight or Swords) feeling like you have no choice, helpless or after the eclipse this is how you will feel for some reason (probably the changes that will occurs) but don't worry, you can't see the bigger picture but this is for your own good, it will teach you a lesson. After this you can expect to be much more empowered, strong and independent (or this is what this change want you to learn in order to receive what you want, because right there is a lesson you need to learn). After the storm there ir always a rainbow, a new beginning and can be romantic (ace of cups almost always is about romantic beginnings) or just related to a new beginning emotionally.

Also, if you are working on something, congratulations!!! All your efforts will be paying off, probably dome kind of collab will come for you and will be a very successful project. (P.S: this is specific I guess but: no more fights, you will be in peace soon, no fights, no stress, this domestic related I think.)

Signs: books, Aries, Gemini, days 7, 12 and 8, Saturn.

Pile 2

Messenger: Hades, God of the Dead and King of the Underworld

This eclipse will bring you financial changes, I think actually just a confirmation lmao all of you already know how well succeed you will be. Well, this is your confirmation: you >will< be succeed, very succeed. If you made a spell with Him or have petitioned to Him in financial matters, yes, He will help you. You can 100% expect some improvement in your business life, career, good opportunity for investments and all thing related to gain money. But, for some of you, and this is a small portion, you need to take better care of your shadow self, learn more about you shadow is necessary and very important and He want you to give this more attention - He is being very serious... it's actually very important, no jokes - and your emotions in general, please make some effort to know yourself better, know how to regulate your emotions, you needed it.

"You are doing great, stop overstress yourself thinking everyone is mad at you, they aren't! And you think I am you can just ask you know" (Pile 2 can we be friends please???? You&me = twins I'm the same 🤡)

Signs: 66, 99, 5, Jupiter, scorpio, Taurus, Capricorn and Sagittarius, rivers and water places are important (not astrological speaking, real life).

Pile 3

Messenger: Nyx, Goddess of the night

Either you are facing some challenges in work or personal life or just in life in general, but you are being assertive and determined, or this is what the Eclipse Season will bring to you. Just know that you have the energy to endure it and you WILL succeed, be sure of this and never ever doubt yourself again, you will learn to be more independent and stand up for yourself, communicate your boundaries clearly and base your decisions less in your emotions and more in facts. If you have faced all of this the Eclipse you bring you to calmer waters and reach the end of a very difficult period (in this case this is the change the eclipse your bring, honestly? I fell like this pile is very 50/50 with half in the first case and the other half in this one). A lot of you is feeling down and deflated after going through this tough time, she asks yall (from both situations) to stay in tune with your intuition, your inner guidance because doing this yall will be victorious.

Signs: Pisces, taurus, Gemini and Aquarius, 12, 8, 5, 4, Pluto, Saturn, mountains.

#witchcraft #witch #tarotcommunity #tarotreader #greek pantheon #tarot readers of tumblr #tarot reading #free tarot #free readings #hades god of the underworld #hades tarot #selene tarot #Nyx tarot #nyx goddess #selene deity #tarot spread #daily tarot #tarot cards #tarot #love tarot free #tarot free reading #pick a pile #pick a card

[just-a-carrot]

Helloooo!!! I was looking for inspo for my own visual novel a little while back, it's set in a ballroom so eventually the keywords lead me to discovering save the last dance (and itch.io in general im a total noob to this lmao) i dont know what it was but it just like took a vice grip around me INSTANTLYY.

So I downloaded the main game today and I am actually silently cursing you because I got nothing done all day I was just like transfixed. The artstyle grew on me alot, and oh godd the character designs... God I love the designs, espcially Genzhou's. There's just so much love (even in every gruesome death scene lol) put into this it's almost difficult not to get obssesed...

Also sidenote I found it kind of encouraging almost to see that you're (self-proclaimed) older, I found that really inspirational lol. There's something that just makes me want to create and actually sit down and learn when I play your games. I guess I've always had this feeling of having all the time in the world but recently I've been feeling almost like it's too late to learn new skills (which is kind if ridicolius since I'm like smack dab in the middle of gen z). Regardless I guess your work made me realize the artistry in visual novels, I could keep going but I tend to ramble lol

ahhhhhhhh this is so sweet!! i got very weepy reading this, especially as i'm already feeling quite soft today as it was a bit of an anxious one... 😭💕

that's fascinating that you found StLD first searching for ballroom stuff!! i am always curious how people first find out about any of my games. i'm happy you enjoyed it, especially enough to go play the main game sob. i'm incredibly touched

and i'm even more touched that you've been enjoying the main game so much 😭💕💕💕 especially all the kind words about the art!! i've grown more confident in my art more recently but especially in the beginning stages of the game i was incredibly self-conscious and worried about it because it was rather odd-looking and didn't match any other typical VN styles. so that's really sweet of you to say. this game certainly has had a lot of love put into it (and blood, sweat, tears, my entire life... etc.). it is very much a big passion project and my eyes were perhaps too big when i got started, but because it dug itself so deep into my psyche and i also made some good decisions like releasing in parts, etc., i've been able to keep working on it until the end despite it taking me like 2.5+ years so far. i'm not even sure i can put into words what this game and chars have done for me and my life and the many journeys and discoveries i've made along the way

dkjfalsdkf yes... i am a millenial, i will say that much. though i don't often feel like one. except for the fact that i often have no idea what people are talking about or referencing and tend to be awkward and confused most of the time LOL this is also why my characters are all older, as well. i sometimes feel a bit strange since i feel much older than many of the others in the VN dev sphere (well, perhaps in age only, not really in mental maturity maybe LKDJAFLKDS). if this can give inspiration to others that are also a bit older though, then i am glad 🤣 i have spent much of my life going from thing to thing and never really knowing exactly what i want to do. case in point my current job has nothing to do with my master's degree. though the one constant has always been creation of some kind, whether it's drawing or writing (and now with games, doing both of those on top of scripting and coding and a bajillion other things lol). i don't think you should ever feel "too old" to do something. or to get started doing something. or to feel like you "haven't done enough" etc. i say this so strongly because i also try to reassure myself sometimes perhaps LOL it's also ok if you don't know what you want to do so you're just trying out different ideas that you're passionate about. so many of us just wanna find something that makes us feel fulfilled and passionate, that makes our hearts ache, that fills us with joy and motivation. so if you can find something that does that for you, no matter how old you are, grab it and don't ever let go lkdajfalskd

at any rate, i'm glad i could also help you discover more about VNs in general. i hope it will be helpful as you work on your own games!!! 💕

#ask: ow #ask: vn dev

[furby-organist]

// spoilers, some thots, differences between canon and my worldbuilding. adhd style rambling.

- Contrary to like, the pilot and Alastor comic, there was a lot less of Alastor terrifying the shit out of everyone with his presence. I wonder if this is because the people he's seen interacting with are a) The hotel peeps, who are largely a self-selecting group of people who are okay interacting with him, and b) other overlords. Anyway, "almost everyone is terrified of Alastor and he is deeply lonely" is still a very important part of this blog and his development and I'm not changing it.

- Alexa is not an overlord. I'm pretty sure that the team (or Viv?) had said that Alastor wasn't a proper Overlord because he doesn't hold territory, but he's very powerful. Not sure if the series will clarify further or if they've decided he's an overlord. Alexa will continue to not be an Overlord. He controls radio as a mechanism and has the only radio tower in the area but he doesn't control actual territory.

- I was expecting Vaggie and Alastor to butt heads way more haha! Vaggie was not malding as much as I expected!

- I had really hoped to see more Alastor/Angel chaos interaction, especially because we got some fun stuff out of the Hunicast. They seem to get along okay. Though it looks like Angel + Husk are getting pretty chummy and Husk has beef with Alastor

(and they like... paralleled Alastor to Valentino? Which is INSANE to me... listen Alastor sucks as a person, and having his freak ass own your soul can't be fun, but there is a MASSIVE difference between the circumstances that had Husk sign over his soul and Angel sign over his soul. Like one is overlord-on-overlord violence and the other is, like, exploitation of structural violence at minimum. "I'll make you a star, I'll make you rich" etc etc. And there's a MASSIVE difference between the abuse & control that Val does and Alastor doing Diet Labor Trafficking by voluntelling Husk as a bartender.)

so I do wonder in canon how Angel and Alastor COULD be friends if the implied parallel is Husk (or anyone) befriending Valentino. Girl that is insane.

Whatever, I am on the radiodust train until I mf die, Alastor/Angel besties train, chaos friends, I think the funniest possible development on this blog is that (after canonically pulling up to the hotel and being like "girl you are delulu. This is a dumpster fire. and I want front row seats" and Vaggie was like "this freak is going to ruin this project") that he clown tax evasion married the ONE RESIDENT. They went "we could make each other worse. we could make all of this worse" (they did not make each other worse but hell certainly suffers when they open their mouths)

- I've talked extensively in the past on this blog about abuse and how Local Alastor thinks a situation like Angel's should be handled and it's not like how Charlie does Lmao bless her.

- I thought it was so funny that Alastor was like "now I have to go to the tailor" bitch your coat was already raggedy and you came back with a raggedy ass coat.

- Also... Alastor behaved a lot more than I thought he would? He was pretty down to do the job of disposing of the egg bois, even humanely, like he didn't really put up too many fights! Idk he was a behaved manager. I think he is having a good time at the hotel. I love that for his freak ass

- I love how him doing freaky ass facial expressions/lighting is mostly like, Something He Does and most of everyone just kind of accepts it. He really is out here saying wild shit too. "I pulled some limbs too. Hahaha!" lmao yesss Alexa randomly saying morbid ass shit bc he didn't think it through how it comes off was definitely a Thing that's happened and will continue to happen.

#a ritual in the garden soil (headcanon)

[finniestoncrane]

For the dark/angst prompts: Could you do ❛why do you have to make everyone hate you?❜ with a reader who has feelings for arkham!Riddler? Maybe they were starting to get close, but he's been pushing them away recently.

Unsurprising

Arkham!Riddler x GN!Reader, word count: 1.2k here i come to ruin my day and yours 💜 do a little dance to pretend this didn't hurt me to write because omg i love him lmao i hope this was ok! i don't know if i'm any good at angst or emotional stuff, i did hurt my own feelings though! request info • prompt list • send me a request • kofi • masterlist minors DNI!! 🔞 cw for nsfw stuff: uh eddie says some really mean things to reader obviously, and there's a lil bit of self-loathing, lots of angst i think (i hope!)

Edward Nigma had moods, and they fluctuated frequently. He was a brilliant man with a brilliant mind, but he was not without his difficulties, difficulties which were beyond the “psychotic villain” shtick. Yet in spite of them all, you still found yourself hanging on his every word, no matter how sharp or nasty those words were. Still vying for his attention, despite his focus on you often leading to a lecture or a significantly bruising tear down of your services and abilities, having a catastrophic effect on your ego and self-worth. Still oddly drawn to him, his dishevelled appearance, his gritted teeth in an almost permanent snarl, brows always scowling.

You had foolishly let yourself fall for him, and, even more stupidly, convinced yourself that you could potentially have him feel the same way about you. Credit to your perseverance, he did seem to be warming up to you. He was slightly warmer, willing to offer at least a backhanded compliment in lieu of actual praise. The more he began to trust you, in skill and in secrecy, the more he would allow you to help with his projects. He had even begun saying good morning and good evening to you. If you kept this up, in five years he might be willing to tell you that he valued your assistance. In twenty, he might hold your hand. And you were more than willing to wait.

Your desire for connection with Edward came from love, lust, or concern. Or all of the above? You were never really sure. You cared deeply for him, almost immediately. He was a loner, and you truly felt that maybe some human contact, a friendship, would do him a world of good. But Edward Nigma systematically pushed people away, through force of habit, compulsion or something deeper, something more troubling embedded within his very soul.

He didn’t need friends, he would say. Didn’t want them. No one was good enough to hold his attentions, not worthy enough to hear his inner thoughts and ideas, not clever enough to carry a conversation with him.

But you, he would at least grunt at, and you found that you were even grateful for him spewing his vitriolic attacks at you. And over the past few months, he had started to offer you coffee, deigning to pour you a mug when he was in one of his lighter moods. He would often pose a riddle, for your entertainment and for his, delighting if you couldn’t solve it, but interestingly, equally delighted when you did.

And he must have cared for you, on some level. Anytime you got hurt, always a minor injury really, he would chastise you, remind you to be careful, tell you that you were foolish. He would never ask if you were ok, but you figured his barking reminders to watch yourself and mind your clumsy fingers were the way he showed it. After all, you worked through the pain and tended your own wounds. It hardly interfered with his work beyond a brief interruption. And even at that, recently, he had begun offering you a kind smile when you apologised for any interruptions. It was…odd. But pleasantly so. Like he was really beginning to change, to see you as human, someone he could be, even the tiniest bit, vulnerable around.

Which is why it had shocked you when he had thrown down his tools and stomped towards you where you crouched below the steel frame of one of Edward’s great inventions which he had graciously allowed you to assist with.

“Oops! Got that file a little to close to the old fingers there, I think it’s just a graze but-”

You managed to get out a few brief words before he began spitting his anger at you.

“You are an imbecile, a detriment to my concentration, my work…to mankind!”

Upon hearing his strangely dramatic and very prose-like insult, you giggled nervously, trying to ascertain whether he was joking or not. But he never was, so why you thought he would be this time, you had no idea.

“Don’t laugh. It’s not funny. It’s never been funny. Do you think it’s a positive trait? Your idiocy? Do others find it sweet? Adorable? To be burdened with someone so clumsy, so incapable of completing a simple task? Is it endearing to them, the way you stutter through life?”

“Hey, I don’t-”

“Do not. Interrupt me.”

His voice was hushed, gravelly, deeper in pitch than it usually was. So quickly, the Edward you had thought you were getting to know, the one who was learning to allow just a sliver of humanity in, was gone. Vanished completely in a quivering rage.

“Edward, I’m sorry! It was an accident. Do you think I wanted to hurt myself?”

“I think you would do anything for attention.”

“Wow.”

“I think you are a vicious, manipulative creature that’s embedded itself into my space, sucking the life out of me for purposes even I’m not intelligent enough to understand.”

The threat of tears loomed, your vision lightly blurring as they formed, btu you choked them back, worried that it might only spur him on, to reinforce his assertion that you were somehow manipulating him.

“Do you work for him? The detective?”

“You think so little of me? That I’d deceive you like that? You know me better than that.”

“I don’t know you at all.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.” He smiled, a cruel upturn on the corner of his thin lips. “I look at a note with your name on it every morning, to help me remember. You mean so little to me.”

“Eddie…”

“Less than that.”

“Please.”

“You mean nothing to me.”

Tears began falling, but they were only painting a face that was twisted in fury. You knew he meant none of it. This was another of his attempts to push someone away, someone who had worked hard to get through, who had succeeded. And he was obviously so angry that he let himself be supposedly tricked by your kindness and good intentions that he was intent on destroying you. And you were going to let him, because in your moments of grief, you realised what you really wanted all along was for Edward to be happy. And if being alone and miserable brought him that, even fleetingly, until the next poor soul who fell for him, then you could provide it with him. But not before allowing yourself the opportunity to have him consider himself, deeply and fully.

“Why do you have to make everyone hate you?”

“Do you want an answer to that?”

“No, but I think you do.”

Turning from him, you felt your heart beat harder, as though signifying the end of a movement, the last beat in a performance piece you had been practising for months, trying to successfully play at a recital that was doomed from the beginning. And so, you left, shattered and broken, a lesson learned.

Your words weighed heavy on Edward’s mind though, as he stood alone, seething, chest rising and falling with his heavy breaths. In his workshop, silent bar the churning voltage and constant whirring of machinery he answered, solving the riddle of himself.

“Because it’s easier.”

#finnie writes #riddler #the riddler #batman #riddler imagine #the riddler imagine #riddler smut #fanfic #the riddler fanfic #riddler fanfic #riddler x reader #riddler x you #edward nygma #edward nigma #edward nashton #arkham #arkham riddler #arkham!riddler #arkhamverse #the riddler fanfiction

[coffeeghoulie]

Mushy May Day 30: Love Letters

AKA the fic I let get extra self-indulgent because it’s my birthday present to myself lmao. Geode is a little earth ghoul oc I’ve had rotating in my head for about a month and a half, and I figured I’d write something about them for today. I’d like to draw them at some point, when I’m actually in the mood to draw.

Mushy May put together by @forlorn-crows  

Pairing: Swiss/Geode (OC)

Rating: Teen

Words: 2178

Contains: Dew stirring shit and a panic attack

***

Geode is a quiet ghoul, which makes sense, given that they work the library desk, where it’s expected the patrons are quiet as well. 

It’s a slow day, and on slow days, when Sister Imperator or the other upper clergy members aren’t around, Geode journals. Their journal is their prized possession, a book of high quality paper bound in soft, red leather. They have a collection of nice fountain pens in their bag, but the one they’ve selected today is filled with purple ink. 

Geode plays with the end of their braid as they write. Their hair fades from dark grey at the roots to a snow white, always braided back between their horns, where they get their name. A set of curling ram’s horns, but one broken from an incident not long after they were summoned, revealing purple crystal growth on the hollow inside. 

They write about anything that filters through their mind, but today their mind goes to Swiss, because for some reason they can’t keep him out of their mind. He was there when they were summoned almost a year ago. He had been the first fellow ghoul they had met Up Top, had given them the tour of the abbey. 

Geode still doesn’t know why a band ghoul was tasked with showing them of all people around, seeing as they have nothing to do with the Ghost Project, besides hanging out with the ghoulettes every once in a while. It doesn’t stop them from replaying the memory of Swiss taking their hand as the two of them walked down the hallways, of how kind his eyes were as he looked at them, helping them to their feet in the summoning circle. 

They write down everything they want to say to him, that they’re too shy(? Nervous? Embarrassed? They don’t know) to say to his face. He’s never going to read it. How could he? It’s their journal, for Satanas’ sake. 

The bell at the top of the door chimes, and Geode jolts up from their journal. It’s just Sunny and Dew, a pair that normally makes Geode worry about the books, but the way that Sunny is grinning as she approaches their desk makes that worry disintegrate. 

“Morning, Geo!” Sunny chimes, “Mountain wanted me to check out a book for him, but I have no clue where the botany section is. He wrote down the title and the author for me.”

She passes Geode a note, written in Mountain’s scrawling handwriting. Fortunately, they have plenty of experience decoding people’s handwriting, and they know exactly which book he wants. 

They come out from behind the desk, leaving their journal open so that the wet ink doesn’t smudge. “I’ll show you where you want to be looking, follow me.”

Geode leads Sunny back to the botany section while Dew hangs behind at the front desk, and with two sets of eyes, they find the book Mountain wants rather quickly. They return up front, and Geode checks it out. “Okay, so this’ll be due in two weeks, please make sure Mountain knows because otherwise we both know this will end up in the greenhouse and we’ll never see it again,” Geode laughs, handing Sunny the thick tome. 

“Thanks for the help, Geo. Do you want to hang out with me and the girls tonight?” 

“Oh, absolutely. Once I get off of my shift. Same common room as last time?”

Sunny nods, grinning. “See you then!”

The two of them leave, and Geode turns back to where they think they’ve left their journal. 

It’s not there. 

Geode’s not incredibly worried, however. Their sense of object permanence is iffy at best. They’ve lost their glasses wearing them. Not wearing them on top of their head and forgetting about them, like Aether’s prone to do with his reading glasses, but wearing them on their face. They’ve probably just put the journal away and forgotten. It will turn back up. The things they lose always do.

After their shift ends, the sun having just set, Geode makes their way to the band ghouls’ common room. Sunshine, Cirrus, and Cumulus are all there already, chatting on two of the loveseats. 

“Oh, hey, Geo!” Sunny calls, waving them over. “Mountain says thank you for the help. He promises it’s not going to the greenhouse this time.”

Geode laughs, sitting down on the loveseat next to Cumulus, easing their way into the ghoulettes’ conversation. 

After a while, the door to the common room opens. It isn’t sudden, or slammed open, but Geode’s head still snaps up to see who it is. They immediately regret this as they make eye contact with Swiss, grey meeting gold. Their heart starts rattling at their ribcage as they look away frantically, before their eyes land on what Swiss’s holding: a red, leatherbound notebook. Their journal. Where they were writing a fucking love letter to-

“Oh, fuck,” they whisper. “Oh, shit.”

Cumulus turns to face them. “What’s wrong, Gee?” 

Geode swallows hard, quickly tying off the braid they were putting into her hair. “Lus, Sunny, Cir, I know I promised we were going to hang out, I’ll make it up to you, but I’ve gotta get some fresh air.”

“Alright,” Cumulus says, patting their arm. “Feel better, okay?”

Geode nods, getting up from the loveseat. Swiss walks towards them. Dew is right behind him. Geode tries to be nonchalant as they turn around and leave through the other door, latching it behind them.

It’s no use to make a scene inside of the abbey, so Geode keeps walking, picking up the pace. They hear the door open behind them and don’t dare turn around. They know the smell of their anxiety is turning acrid, leaving an obvious trail. Hopefully, once they get outside, the breeze will throw off the scent. 

There’s a set of footsteps following after them, and even though it sets Geode’s heart on fire, knowing they’re being followed, at least it’s only one set. They reach the door to the gardens, and spare a look behind them. Swiss is rounding the last corner, and he catches sight of them, his face lighting up with an expression they’re too far away to place. Geode’s eyes go wide and they shove the garden door open. 

They’re not the most athletic ghoul, but they break into a sprint as soon as the cool night air hits them, darting through the lilac bushes, no clear destination in mind. Swiss is taller than them by a long shot. If they want to lose him, they have to go.

They hear the door behind them slam open, and a yelp leaves their mouth involuntarily. They break out of the gardens, paws skittering across the mulched path down to the lake. The full moon shines brightly down, reflecting off of the still surface of the water. 

The old gazebo is their best bet. Geode could be brave and try to make it into the woods, but the treeline starts on the other side of the lake. With the full moon and the long sprint, Swiss could probably see them from a mile away. 

Geode scrambles up the steps of the gazebo, pressing their back against one of the posts and sliding until they’re on the ground, drawing their knees to their chest. They press one hand over their mouth, trying desperately to slow their breathing, and the other grips onto their broken horn, the sharp edges digging into their palm. Their tail lashes behind them. 

“Geo?” Swiss’s voice echoes out over the lake. “Geode! Where are you?”

Geode whines, pressing their hand tighter against their mouth. His voice gets closer, footsteps crunching on the mulch. They pause, and then resume at a much quicker pace, getting louder with every second. 

Swiss walks up the gazebo steps, sitting down right next to Geode, his feet resting on the second step. Geode can’t bring themselves to look over at him as the scent of cloves and honey fills their nose. 

“Hey. I was just trying to give you this.” Swiss says softly, pulling their journal out of his sweatshirt pocket and handing it to them. “Dew took it while you were helping Sunny. Trying to start shit for no reason. I’ll get him to apologize, promise.”

Geode tries their best not to rip it out of his hands, and clutches onto the notebook. “Thanks,” they say, feeling a lump starting to rise up their throat. 

Swiss takes a deep breath through his nose, his eyes narrowing. “Geo, can I see your hand?”

“Huh?” They whisper.

“Let me see your hand, Geo,” Swiss says, reaching out with one of his own. 

Geode lets go of the notebook, placing their hand in his hesitantly.

“Oh, Geo, you’re bleeding,” Swiss says, running a finger along a cut that they didn’t notice they had. Their horn’s broken edges had dug into their palm, and they didn’t even notice that it had broken the skin. “May I?” 

“Huh?” Geode asks. With him holding their hand, their brain’s misfiring. 

“Can I use what quintessence I’ve got to heal that cut?” Swiss tries again. 

They swallow hard and nod. Swiss’s brow furrows as he focuses, running his finger gently along the cut. Geode shudders as the static of his quintessence jumps up their arm, running up and down their spine. The cut stitches itself back together, and Geode expects Swiss to let go of their hand. He doesn’t. He traces his thumb back and forth across their palm, like they’re something fragile, delicate. 

Geode’s eyes start to water. They’re so tired, and they can’t stifle the sob that escapes them in time. 

“Geo, babydoll, are you okay?” Swiss asks. 

They laugh wetly, even as the nickname sends a shock up their spine. “No. I’m really not.”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, and Geode’s surprised to hear genuine concern and confusion in his voice. “You smell afraid. Are you scared of me?” His voice goes small, and he starts to pull away from them. 

Geode shakes their head frantically, not willing to lose the contact. “Not scared of you. Satanas, you make me incredibly nervous, but I’m not scared of you.”

“Oh, sweetheart, then what’s wrong?”

“You know what’s wrong, Swiss,” they whisper. “You read what I wrote about you.”

“Huh?” He leans back, resting some of his weight on the hand not still holding Geode’s. “I didn’t read anything. Dew wanted me to read it, but it’s your journal, Geo. I wasn’t going to.”

“Oh, fuck,” they laugh. “Oh, you’re fucking kidding me.”

“What?”

Geode sighs, running their hand over their braid. “You know what, I might as well just show you. Damage’s already done.” They reluctantly take their hand out of Swiss’s to flip open their journal to where they left off. They hand it back to Swiss. “Read this for me?”

Swiss nods, starting to read quietly out loud as Geode buries their burning face into their thighs. “Swiss, I don’t think I’ll ever be brave enough to give you this letter. You were the first ghoul I met Up Top, after my summoning. You were so kind, and sweet to me, a stranger. I think I fell in love with you then, the first time I saw you, that afternoon you spent to show me around this place. 

I’m not really part of your pack, I’m just the ghoul the clergy summoned to run the library. I exist on the fringes of your periphery. But you? You shine like the sun and the moon and I am just the dull exterior. You sing like an unholy angel, and I’d love more than anything to be yours. I’ve loved you quietly, from a distance, this last year that I’ve spent Up Top. You’ve bewitched me, heart and soul.

If I’ve overstepped, if I’ve crossed the line, please disregard all of this. Forget you ever read it.

Yours, if you’ll have me, Geode.”

There’s a long silence as Swiss finishes reading the letter. Geode digs their claws into their shins, trying desperately not to cry. They fail. 

“Hey, Geo,” Swiss whispers, setting a hand on their knee, smoothing his thumb back and forth. “Can you look at me, sweetheart?”

Geode swallows hard. Raises their head. Swiss’s brow furrows as they make eye contact, and he hums, moving his hand up to cup their cheek, wiping a stray tear away with his thumb. “Oh, don’t cry, babydoll, it’s okay.”

“I didn’t want it to go like this,” they whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, gem,” he says. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I should have said something earlier. I thought you were afraid of me, so I tried to give you space. I would have you, Geode, however you want me to.”

Geode barks out a laugh, leaning into Swiss’s hand. “Father Below, I’m such an idiot.”

“We both were,” Swiss smiles, his eyes crinkling. “You wanna go back inside?”

They shake their head. “Not right now. I want to sit out here with you for a bit.”

“Then we shall.”

#mushy may #my writing #swiss ghoul #original ghoul character #swiss/oc #happy birthday to me lmao #the band ghost fanfiction #the band ghost

[bleachbleachbleach]

10/9 - 10/22/2023

✅ Renji chapter - DONE* ✅ Chapters 1-6 reread/revise - DONE

Highlights

Some of this actually reads very well--at the sentential level, sometimes even the chapter level. I was pleasantly surprised by Rukia's, Hinamori's, and Akon's chapters.

There are portions of this fic that are kind of histrionic about use of tense (looking at you, Hinamori. Girl.), but on read-through now I think it works and I kind of like it.

Reading back it was fun to see what kinds of personal hangups were informing everyone's interactions and who was projecting what on whom. The order in which information appears (or is revised) based on whose POV chapter it was was cool, too!

I know there are critiques of the impact of film on writing, and I am sometimes self-conscious about how thoroughly my writing has been informed by writing for one singular TV fandom. That being said, having spent almost 15 years in a TV fandom, I always feel very validated when I can fix something by thinking about it in terms of TV constraints--like, oh, we can't do that scene because we don't have the time/budget to prep that scene again or put those actors on the call sheet. I may not be subject to those constraints but sometimes I'm like, "OH that makes this easier and less insane. Problem solved!"

Lowlights

Oh god, the Renji chapter is R O U G H. ngl feeling pretty betrayed, Abarai. So is the end of Matsumoto's chapter, which I knew going in, and which I then tried to revise last night, during which time I was apparently not mentally right, and now it s VERY weird and much worse!!

Aside from that, I'm... not convinced this story works, at the macro level. I don't know if there is a way to make it work better, outside of simply writing a different story. I don't feel like taking it down to studs is the move, and I think I should probably just keep going with it as-is and suffer the potential consequence of being disappointed. And then write a different story. SUCKS THO BECAUSE I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS ONE FOR YEARS.

Maybe this is a mid-light, rather than a lowlight: I feel willing to be convinced, or at least willing to take a chance on, the idea that part of my "eh I don't know if that works" is just me assuming this story is meant to be something that it is not, in fact, meant to be. Correspondingly, I think some of the things where I'm like "that's Not Right, that's not how that's supposed to work" may just be my writing style. For better? For worse? Jury's out, but it might just be me. It might be the work, and not what needs to be fixed.

Chapter 7 Rukia will close out Part 1. There's effectively two scenes left to do--maybe three if I decide to be weird about it--one of which I think about all the time and one of which is all vibes and "lmao fuck if I know" right now, so we'll see how those go.

One thing I'm feeling preemptively daunted by is how much less I already have written of Part 2 versus Part 3, but seeing as I'm probably not going to be done with Rukia 7 by next update anyway, what does it matter! It doesn't! Not yet!

ETA: Actually, one more thing. In my working document I've inserted anchors so I can flip between scenes more easily. These are NOT official scene breaks nor will these scene titles feature in the final product, but they feel like amusingly bad DVD chapter titles (remember DVDs? Chapter menus? DVD makers for some reason feeling that these chapters needed to be titled?):

#stories for the sea

[corvigae]

👍🩵🎵

I'm gonna take this as three separate songs lol

1 - Follow My Feet by The Unlikely Candidates

Oh man I've already made a post before about how this song is such a good Dark Urge song in general, but the general gist is that it's a song about finding yourself between making choices in life that are selfish and hurtful but easy, or making choices that benefit others but are exceptionally hard, and just deciding what kind of person you want to be and which influences around you you want to follow, and damn if that doesn't describe the whole Dark Urge storyline and therefore Page's storyline by extension.

Her brain and even her own body are constantly telling her to do terrible things and to unrepentantly kill, and it would be so easy to just give in, to just accept what comes naturally to her and become a monster, but she really doesn't want to do that; she wants to be kind and "normal" and to help these new people she's met who trust her, and so she makes the conscious effort to fight against her own nature every day.

2 - Lose Your Head by Vane Lily

[[SPOILERS FOR THE BG3 DARK URGE STORYLINE]] OH BOY WE'RE DIGGING DEEP FOR THIS ONE

I live as a lamb for the lucidly damned

Still losing my grip from this body

They all point and laugh, but can you be mad?

I'm just not the way that they want me

I'm running from time, but really, I'm fine

I'm not gonna lie, I'm pissed that

God made me this way in a morbid exchange

Of theatrics and heavenly fate

So the canon story for Durge is that after The Urge awoke in them, they killed their foster family and eventually found their way back to the Bhaalist temple (as an adult, from what I've heard?), where they became the leader. My headcanon for Page is a little more involved than that. So first off, Page was always predisposed to resisting The Dark Urge, and had been feeling it start to creep in as she was growing up, starting some time around her preteen years. This resistance was obviously infuriating to Bhaal, since Durge was his personal pet project, so some time around her early teens he possessed her, forcing her to kill her whole family, similarly to how you get possessed to kill Alfira/Quill and potentially your love interest in the game. After Page comes to and realizes with horror what she's been forced to do, instead of just hearing Scaleritas' voice he actually appears before her for the first time and leads her to the Bhaalist temple, because now that she has literally no one and is at her most impressionable, it's the perfect time to indoctrinate her and shape her into what she's supposed to be - Bhaal's Chosen.

From there she's raised in an extremely restrictive environment, and as much as she wants to fight, wants to cling to her own personhood and kindness, the fear of punishment from her tutors, peers, and Bhaal himself eventually beats her down into a quiet submission. She acts how they want her to act, is who they want her to be, and is the perfect killing machine they mold her into, all the while repressing her actual self so much that she becomes almost entirely numbed to it all. But deep, deep down, even after decades upon decades of it all, there's still that scared little girl who just wants a home, who desperately wants both to love and be loved and to finally feel safe.

Which is all to say the song is about religious trauma, repression, and wanting a loving family lmao

3 - Limp by Sumo Cyco

Yeah there's really not that much to say about this one past that it's a song about feeling like you wanna kill people and that's the Dark Urge's whole Thing lol

#page turner #some songs on this playlist go deeper than others lol #my ocs #oc stuff

[quitefair]

Fanfiction Writer Questions!

Was tagged by the very lovely @optiwashere some time ago, and I've only just had the chance to sit down and take a crack at this!

Not gonna tag anybody, but if you read this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged!

(Also this is talking about a lot of fics that I've written but not published because well... that's just how it's been lmao...

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

13 at the moment. I’ve deleted a few things that I’m not entirely proud of/works that I’m planning on rewriting and improving upon.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

26,031 (my WIP folder has almost 100k words, if we want any comparison)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly Dragon Age! Although AO3 is misleading… I’ve only got 7 fics on there for Dragon Age. But these don’t include the ones I’ve deleted and also the literal hundreds of WIP documents in my writing folder. It’s become quite a problem. I’ve also been writing for Baldur’s Gate 3 a bit more recently, but those fics are on hold because of lack of time/motivation/the fact I’ve not finished the game yet and want to do my research and understand characterisation and plot better.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. a lesson in grief (T-rated, Vi/Caitlyn from Arcane) 2. slip away (G-rated Gen-fic from Hades 2020) 3. Names (G-rated Fenris/Female Hawke from Dragon Age) 4. Anxious Grief (T-rated, Cassandra Pentaghast/Male Cadash from Dragon Age) 5. Fear and Forgiveness (G-rated, Dorian Pavus/Male Adaar from Dragon Age)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to! Every single comment I get is like fuel to my brain so I love and appreciate each one!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I think I did toy around with a fic where I left Hawke in the Fade. The process of getting into Fenris’ headspace during that was way too painful for me to continue.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of my fics tend towards happy endings, even if they pack a lot of angst in the body of em. Of the ones I’ve got published, I’d say Names.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven’t, but then again I post so rarely and sporadically so people forget I even exist huhu.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

… Yes… (and that’s all im gonna say)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I’ve not written crossovers per se, I’m more of an AU kinda guy. Though there’s definitely an ancient story I wrote back when I was like 13 that had like, every single bit of media I’d ever loved merged into one, and the excuse was that I’d just read His Dark Materials and wanted my own universe where everything I loved existed at once. COMPLETELY self-indulgent shit.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know…

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! At least not that I know of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Again no… I’ve not done a lot of stuff huhu!

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

It’s the one and only. The girls that live rent free in my head. The girls that deserve everything. (It’s Josephine Montilyet/my Inquisitor from Dragon Age Inquisition)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

It’s the Dragon Age Inquisition rewrite I’ve been complaining about for the longest time. It’s become the pet project I keep poking at whenever I have the energy to. All my Tashak/Josephine fics are set within this, and honestly at this point, instead of making one large fic, I might as well just post the disjointed chapters separately even if they don’t make sense. I’ve got WIPs in the folder from 2016. It’s out of control.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I’d like to think I’m good at descriptive writing, at drawing the reader into the scene and pulling them along with the story.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I’m so bad at dialogue it’s not even funny. Also, my writing can tend towards too much rambling – I guess that’s just because it’s the way my brain works.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

The only other language I’m fluent in is Malay, and I really can’t imagine myself writing in that unless in very specific circumstances.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Dang, I think it was probably for BIONICLE. Way back when I was like, in secondary school.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Published? Names. There’s stuff in there I still feel jealous of, even today. Unpublished – a bunch of stuff for Aforementioned Dragon Age Rewrite. I should really post stuff from there at some point LMAO…

#meera talks #my writing #WAHOO ive been in a good mood and sorting out my writing folders...... its been getting me excited to publish stuff again #whether or not if happens.... we'll see!

[spiteless-xo]

Im so sorry this ramble is so long but here u go🙁

The absolute terror that came over me when i saw the email notification for the new chapter😭😭😭ok before i read im gonna put my final insights here,, ive literally been scrambling around my house procrastinating reading it bc im TERRIFIED and honestly im so sad its ending,, ive been reading since like february??? I think???Idk atp but i cannot express how much ive loved this story i wish it couldve just continued forever🥲🥲

Ok my predictions are that this will not be a one way path ik tiff is evil and likes to fuck w our feelings😞 i think smt twisted like reader picking eren but eren not picking reader could happen BC HE REALISED HIS SELF WORTH MAYBE😭😭but im not intricate enough to actually use that to decide but i honestly am at a loss i have no clue,, its an honest gamble but i do think eren is endgame??? Help i have no clue😭 but i do remember someone analysing the smells? Vanilla is more home and comfort so like a foundation? And citrus was for summer and things but i was thinking how summer is a temporary thing where people live out crazy activities for the sake of it but the whole thing abt it is that its temporary like we always have to go back HOME to our foundation aka vanilla aka eren????

Thing is ive been eren for endgame since DAYY ONEE i only almost switched up once during the arc with erens confession (idky😞) but other than that ive stayed loyal LMAO idk if im just being delusional tho convincing myself I think she'll end up with eren but

ALSO my other point right

I wanna take this back to tiff bc she IS the author😋 from what ive seen in her tumblr,, a lot of the reader owns resemblance to tiff?? She's mentioned a lot how the readers job is based off her irl experience in an office and some of the readers habits shes claimed to have herself i remember she was saying how people bashing the reader made her think like 'wait thats kind of me tho’ i remember it too vaguely to quote but ANYWAY off the basis that the reader is in some aspects (not all) a projection in some ways?? Its gonna influence,, we ALL know tiff is a strong jean girl😭 we love that and so u'd think jean would be picked BUT in between chapters i saw a few tumblr posts abt her growing liking for eren? I wont deny that she is DEFINITELY still a jean girl but i think for some form of variation in her work bc i think as far as i know she only has one other eren story on her ao3 and so i think her growing crush ok eren may be enough to win her over for just this fic even if jean remains her favourite?? I have like ten million other theories but i need to read the chapter now i will be back😋😋 (im so scared im shitting my pants)

-

Im back!! its been like 6 days since i read it but i just didnt have time to write out my reaction after bc i was so fucking immersed i lost track of time and was late to meet up w my friends💀💀💀anyway it was such rollercoaster omd😭 the letters from jean we’re honestly so cute and i think the year time skip made everything all the more realistic in her choice bc she frl needed that break😭 OMD AND THE WAY I WAS PANICKING when that girl came out the elevator istg i thought it was mikasa,, with all generic eren fanfics if theres ever a third party to make the reader jealous theres some unspoken rule to never use mikasa for some reason and i was dying thinking it was gonna be her😭😭 commonly people use historia so when even a mention of eren having a new gf came up my mind shot to historia i swear i was worrying just as much as the reader💀 anyway back to jeans letters i was honestly like getting a bit swayed that i wouldnt even be upset if reader ended up w jean and especially considering how offstandish eren was when reader went to see him at first he was like not following up on anything like he was rushing to see his stupid gf (it was armin🎉🎉🥳) AND THE READER WAS SO CUTE FOR THAT GUNDAM (tysm tiff its such a silly headcanon that eren collects those and builds them i can see it HELP) and i think it was so cute seeing the reader and sasha as bsfs more bc i think there was long periods of time that that relationship w sasha wasnt as strongly shown so its so nice AND OMGOGMOGM LEVI????? U made the dynamic w them so well how he has that small bit of warmth telling her she can work there whenever she needs its the cutest thing ever i love it more than ever and the way levi talks abt petra UGH u made everything so endearing, and istg the reader has never been real until this chapter bc she is so right saying that a bunch of paper doesnt change him bc I KNEW AS SOON AS HE SAID HE NEVER LEFT TITAN AND BECAME BASICALLY HIS DAD that he was not gonna be endgame,, i always had the theory that titan and the kirstein status is a metaphor for the status jean has from the reader bc shes loved him for so long thinking hes someone that hes really not,, jean was painfully aware how he could make any mistake at work and have no punishment similarly to how even if he hurts the reader she will always forgive him so if he couldnt avoid reaping the benefits of his kirstein status then it means he’d continue to take advantage of the reader but thing is this status dissolved when she took that year away from him which is why I appreciate how realistic it all is logic wise,, Eren evidently changed and omg i wanna know abt the pictures on his wall bc when reader was first there there was mention how there were no family pictures or any sign of him really living there but when she came back there were pictures,, i was trying to figure out the meaning but i cant get my finger on it😭 my guess is that he found more purpose in life?? Idk bc that seems so vague and farfetched i was wondering what ur intentions were with that🙆‍♀️ and i had a theory AGES AGO that piecks ‘bad bf’ before jean or smt was zeke?? Bc knowing how zeke was in that gc and stuff like that it sounded like smt was gonna link together? I just think the added details abt piecks past was left unfinished so i was also wondering abt that😋 anyway ugh the ending was also so cute usually i hate when characters dance in fanfics but it was so cute and fitting for the moment like THEM AT THE POINT omg i loved it i love u thank you SO MUCH tiff for an amazing story i hope u have a good day bb❤️❤️❤️

omg thank you for a such a lovely message 🥰💗🥰💗 i’ll hide my response under a cut here because it’s long

reading since february!! omg that’s like the beginning! i think i dropped the first chapter on valentine’s day

“tiff is evil and likes to fuck with our feelings” 💀💀💀 yes.

ugh the smells!!!!! that was my biggest slip up frfr 🙈 i said way too much when i responded to that ask because i was so excited someone asked!! and you guys were all right of course. eren was home and jean was just temporary (like the summer season)

lmao ok literally. i was still a hardcore jean girlie when i started writing tbaw and even after i decided it was gonna end w eren. so throughout writing tbaw….. i literally fell in love w eren jaeger 🙈 and i almost fell out of love w jean!!! tbaw!jean is so awful he almost ruined jean completely for me

hehehe yes yes you’re 100% right w jean. he’s so used to taking advantage and never getting punished (w reader and titan) that he doesn’t really see a point in changing because tbh his life is pretty good?? but then when reader spent time away from him, her blind infatuation w him wore off and then when he tried to pull that same shit again, she’s like nah bro.

ok this is probably not clear at all, but the deal w eren’s apartment is that in the beginning it’s very sanitized and show-homey because he feels distant and detached from his friends/family after the death of his mom and becoming close w zeke. he’s like internally ashamed of the way he’s acting because he knows he’s in the wrong so he’s almost punishing himself by distancing himself from everyone.

and then after a year when he’s changed and the pictures are on the wall, its because hes worked his way out of that hole of self loathing and is happy with the person he is now. so he’s able to feel more comfortable, even in the privacy of his own home, and having his mom “watch over him” in a sense, and cherishing his previous relationship w jean and his ongoing friendship w armin, etc etc.

yes!! pieck’s bad bf was zeke! i was originally going to have her have a bigger role in tbaw to show like how eren’s past behaviour can affect people, since she was a victim of that treatment when she dated zeke. but i scrapped it because it would’ve extended the story so much and also i didn’t really like writing pieck lol

so there are like lil bits and pieces about the pieck/zeke relationship and how the way he treated her makes her seek validation in men, but it’s super underdeveloped in tbaw.

thank you again for such a lovely comment!! i’m glad you enjoyed it 🥰💗

#tiff.ask #tbaw.fic #aot #usuibu

[code-es]

let today = new Date(14 January 2023)

Lately (like one week lmao) I have been feeling a bit down about my coding, so I haven't been as active as I'd like to here. I think it's important to also post about my shortcomings and the times that stuff is not just smooth sailing, to show a nuanced image that life is not just super productive and successful all the time. My group project has gone ok, here is (almost) the final site -- still a bit wonky in some parts, and definitively not mobile first lol.

During this project, I felt incapable, and still do to some degree. This was because one member in my team already knows react (the framework we are using) from before, and therefore could advance with the components much quicker than the rest, which left me to mainly do CSS.

Thus it's easy for me to think I haven't really learned anything, and stress about my upcoming assessment next week. In reality -- I have learned so much, about git, github, npm, packages, debugging, managing and working in a team, merging branches, structuring a project and finally: I have also learned a lot of react. Working in tech is much more than hard skills, it's also about the soft skills and problem solving -- something a guest lecturer talked about to us, and I'm planning on making a post about this soon. Looking back at my knowledge from 3 weeks ago when we started, I am so much further ahead in react than I was then! ...At least that's what I'm trying to convince myself, because sometimes it feels like an impossible task, and like I'll never learn to use all of these react hooks.

As a woman in this male-dominated branch, I am always so empowered logging onto tumblr and see you all in this community do such great stuff. It makes me also want to do better, and stay active.

My hope with this post is to show that struggling is ok (mostly to myself), and that we will get back up. A quote which has stuck with me from a podcast about psychology I listened to is: Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional I think it resonated with me because I tend to fall into these abysses of self-pity-suffering when i experience something painful; I want to learn how to better recognize when this happens and make my way up from there, and not get stuck.

This was pretty long, so thank you if you read all of it, and I hope you all have a good weekend, remember to rest and be kind to yourselves!! <3

#codeblr #studyblr #studying

[fallout-lou-begas]

Less people know me on tumblr than they do on twitter so I feel a bit safer using this as, like, yknow, a blog that is personal, and something that’s been eating at me for a while is that the pencils to the first two pages of the next IKROAH have been done for a while but when I tried to ink them I fucked it up so bad that I’ll probably just have to completely redraw them, and I don’t think anything that discouraging has happened to me before since I started drawing back in 2020. It’s just been really hard to motivate myself for the mulligan when I’m already worried about messing the inks up again, and also I’ve been under a heat advisory for the past week and change so I’m already too hot and sweaty to be motivated to do much of anything lmfao

I remember when IKROAH first started I would put out issues every two weeks or so, and then once per month, and treated that as almost like a schedule or a deadline, which was insane! All while working the same full-time job that I do now! Admittedly that pace was only achievable because frankly my art was worse and sloppier and while impatience is definitely still my biggest weakness as an artist, I have undoubtedly improved over time but at a certain point making art better means taking more time on it. It’s created this weird conflicting feeling where art and comic pages aren’t something that I can just bang out in a day or a few days anymore, and even relatively small projects are pretty big time and attention investments. Obviously I could revert this by just embracing drawing more shittily but, like, come on, I have my own standards. And this isn’t insurmountable and doesn’t mean that I hate drawing now, not at all, but this change in my relationship to my art and my art-making has definitely been on my mind a lot, especially as I’m aware of how much I’d rather just play video games or hang out with my husband whenever I’m not at my job. Because that’s a big part of it, the increase in how much art feels like “work” means I don’t want to do it as much in my leisure time. It’s good work, it’s work that I love doing (much more than my actual job lmao), but it’s still work and lately I haven’t wanted to work!

It’s another funny balance. A wise friend of mine once said, bluntly, that you do it or it doesn’t get done. This applies to making and finishing art of any kind, reading books, cleaning house, developing skills, etc., and applies even if you’re sick or busy or distracted by myriad other things. If the only people who ever made and finished art were the idle people with the luxury of all the time in the world, we’d only have pretty shitty and boring art. So unfortunately the only way to get good art or to make it is to power through feelings of overwork or sickness or exhaustion or whatever is ailing you and make it anyway. Intellectually, I know this, but emotionally(?) I’m just dealing with a real lack of steam ever since I finished a zine at the start of May. It’s not like I depend on commissions or print sales for income or anything, anyway, so it’s not like I have an urgent need to be drawing, either, the way some other artists might be.

These thoughts don’t really have a point. I suppose I’m just self-conscious about falling off such a meaningful hobby to me for so long, about not Making Things, especially as someone who generally figured that she Makes Things? But it doesn’t feel like burnout or loss of interest, it just feels like I’m doing what I want to do and enjoying it and I just don’t want to make art as much as I used to. Maybe if I got paid my current salary to work on comics eight hours a day instead of doing data entry I’d get a lot more art done but that just goes back to the previous paragraph lol. I don’t really need any kind of “chin up lou, i’m sure you’ll be able to draw again soon” or “it’s okay take all the time you need” kinds of comments because I feel like I know these things already and I’m just Posting Through It

Anyway how’s your summer going

#louposting

[dkniade]

Sadbedo sitting at a camp in Dragonspine

Stress relief piece that I finished the next day.

Drafted on 08-08-2022. 2:22 AM. I’m calmer now.

art and writing process utc.

Drawing Albedo in full took some time BECAUSE OF ALL THE DETAILS ON THIS MAN but it’s fine. I’m slowly getting used to his design! His boots are kind of funky…

Drawing Albedo in full took some time BECAUSE OF ALL THE DETAILS ON THIS MAN but it’s fine. I’m slowly getting used to his design! His boots are kind of funky…

Anyway my process here was basically pose sketch > cleaner sketch > base colours (all on top of a screen layer because the screenshot was too dark to see things clearly)

And then the fun part. AMBIENCE.

I made the glow of the fire to be warmer and brighter since I wanted more warm colours (and for Albedo to stare into a fire, whatever underlying message that might imply, haha…)

My layers look like this

But I think for this first one the airbrushed orange colour on the “haze” screen layer was too strong so the light on the boots ended up too hazy for my preference (not shiny enough). Must’ve added shading to bring out the form instead of just the overlay lighting with airbrush… The highlights on colour dodge make the gloves and boots look more shiny which is nice. I also added some teal behind Albedo so the background isn’t too dark and has a softer look.

By now I’ve also added a snow layer. Originally I tried using motion blur on the snow but then it looked like Albedo was stranded in a snowstorm instead of just sitting there, reflecting and being sad. It’s… a Contemplation in Snow you could say lmao

And finally, the dialogue, because I love writing dialogues. Let’s see… Technical stuff aside, I went to Dragonspine for comfort, a change of scenery, and for some nice music (I know the region’s OSTs so well I can almost name each over world track by ear lmao)

“Although a dangerous place, this mountain provides me an odd sense of comfort.”

“I suppose you can call it an escape from life’s… complexities.”

“How does it feel to be sleeping beneath the snow like this, Durin?”

Since this was meant for stress relief due to personal reasons, the first two lines reflect my feelings directly for Dragonspine. Now, the line about Durin was meant to show a sort of emotional (?) connection Albedo has with Durin, and hinting at him worrying that he might die on the mountain under maybe the Traveler’s blade. (“If one day I lose control…” Y’know how it goes.)

Out of the three lines, I came up with this line first, actually... Metaphorically speaking, it’s about my… loneliness? It’s rare for me to find people in my friend circle that enjoy media and/or literary analysis on this stuff, so sometimes I feel this way. (But not to such a dark extent, of course!)

Other lines I had considered were something along the lines of a physical report (something I do when I’m nervous, for example checking my pulse) like,

“Breathing: Difficult. Heartbeat: Escalating.”

“How should I return these vital signs to normal, exactly?”

But since it was originally just meant to be a self-indulgent “project onto Albedo because I’m sad” thing, I decided to go the usual way of feelings and metaphors… Me talking about my art process does sound rather analytical but trust me when I say my poetry is filled with extended metaphors. (You can find more of them on IG under the same handle.)

Thank you for reading this! I enjoy talking about my thought process for my artworks and written works just as much as I do for translation, if not more. With that said, please take care.

#dusk fan art #okay to reblog #Albedo #albedo kreideprinz #Dragonspine #Genshin impact

[life-with-geo]

January 8th

Hi, I’m back (almost started with hi guys, then remembered I have no followers lmao). It's been a week since I posted last, and I think I'm going to start posting every Sunday at 9:30 PM, essentially right before I go to bed. To be honest I don't know how long I’m going to be able to keep that schedule up, I might be taking on too much, but hey, we shall see, things change all the time. 

In the week thats passed, not too much has happened. School started back up on the second, unfortunately, and I’m already drained. Ever since my visit to the hospital, everything is so much more draining than before. I hope eventually I’m able to pick myself back up from this burnout, but apparently, the time it takes to recover from burnout is about 3-5 years. I don't have 3-5 years to heal from all this lol. 

We had a project due the day after we came back to my AP Lit class, our personal portfolio. I had a lot of fun writing it over the semester, but I also hated it. It took me through a lot of emotions and lore related to my past. I talked about my mom, my most recent failed relationship, and my failed friendships, all of which made me sad. I also talked about my grandma though, and my wonderful stepmom, so I think overall it kinda works out in a way. I think the worst part was putting the pictures into the binder. Pictures of my biological mom (you'll hear about her eventually) as well as pictures of my grandma. I may have been a little petty and attacked my ex in the portfolio, which is funny considering hes in that class and everyone can read them. I wonder if he will approach me about it, I doubt it, he's kind of a coward. 

On a much more positive note, things have become slightly more serious with this guy I’m talking to. Some might say it is FAR too soon to be talking to another guy fresh out of a relationship, but it’s been over a month now since the last one, and I’m too much of an all-or-nothing person to be hurt by one guy for too long. Or girl. I just struggle with attachment stuff. ANYWAYS. He’s way different than any guy I've ever talked to, and tbh, its refreshing. He's kind and gentle, but also ambitious and driven. It's something I've always wanted in a partner. I really hope it goes somewhere because he is genuinely so amazing lol. 

This week in the mental health section we have…journaling. Now I know a lot of people just say journal to get your feelings out there but people don't actually talk about the psychology behind journaling, the benefits of it, and WHY it helps. I know this is a pretty basic thing to talk about but its my first post with this little section added so bear with me, it's fine. 

There are a lot of different ways to journal and different kinds of journaling, and it really doesn't matter which one you do, it varies on your needs and what you’re trying to prioritize. I personally bullet journal and have another separate journal for my thoughts and feelings. So a lot of people wonder how journaling can actually be beneficial and I did a lil bit of research and fouuuuund… depending on the kind of journaling you do, it can be either just a release of emotions, it can help track symptoms of mental illness (or physical illness if you suffer from medical conditions, you can track if it’s getting worse or not, especially helpful in cases of people with chronic illness, but again, it varies person to person). Journaling can even help to identify negative self-talk that you may do unknowingly, and you can put in the work to change those negative thoughts into something positive. (All of this information is from a study posted by the University of Rochester Medical Center).

So to focus on the benefits of regular (“regular”) journaling, I’m mostly just going to talk about how it can be done and what to recognize in your journal entries (ITS ALWAYS HELPFUL TO GO BACK AND REREAD THEM EVEN IF IT HURTS, you can see how far you've come, and see what’s changed and whats benefited you throughout your writing journey). Journaling can be instrumental in the progression towards certain goals, as it is an internal reflection, slightly different from a diary, which can be defined as writing about the events of a day, and is mostly a daily thing. Journaling doesn't have to be a daily thing, it can be something you do more often when you’re having a rough time, with long entries full of crossed-out words and scribbles, versus the times you’re doing okay and when the entries are shorter and the words are neater. Either way, journaling is very good for self-reflection, helping you identify triggers and other things that may cause you any amount of emotional stress.

I think my favorite kind of journaling is bullet journaling, which I’ve only been doing for a short while but it’s very different from my thoughts and feelings journal. My bullet journal is something I use to keep track of assignments and also my habits, my reading, and things I've watched, I might start using it to track screen time. I also use it to track the story I’ve begun and this blog as well. It’s becoming very helpful when it comes to the planning of my future and the progression of my goals. I personally never found my thoughts and feelings journal to be very helpful when it came to goal progression, but it’s different for everyone.

One of the best parts of a bullet journal is the creative freedom that comes with it, of course, that’s not for everyone, and some people may simply choose a more minimalistic setup, or they may just not bullet journal at all, but that’s seriously one of the most therapeutic parts. Its a very chill process, I personally stole my setup from a YouTuber who I like, so it’s not my own creativity, but thats something Id like to do someday. 

Anyway, that wraps up this week's post, we shall see how this does, I might mess around with the length of posts, as this one got pretty long. See you next Sunday :)

#beginner writer #wattpad #wattpad story #writers on tumblr #journal #journaling #journal entry #mental health #positive mental attitude #coping skills #coping mechanism

[brittlebutch]

So THAT’S what he meant by “you missed one”! I’d thought he was referring to himself, but that still didn’t feel like it was the right interpretation.

I still have some questions, though: If Alex didn’t want to drag anyone else into this, why give Jay the tapes at all? Why not just say he’d already burned/lost them? I forget which entry it is, but there’s that one with the footage of Alex’s birthday party when he’s a kid—if The Operator’s there, does that mean he’s wrong and Tim isn’t the (only) source?

Less of a question and more of an angsty theory: What if Tim’s meds were helping somehow, but Brian just started taking them too late to reverse the damage The Operator has done? It’s possible that prolonged exposure caused the issues you mentioned, and he’s a shell of his former self (though still trying to help) like Tim said.

(If you’ve got any, I’d love some Brian and Tim fic recs—platonic or otherwise—where Brian lives. He was Tim’s best friend, and to have it end like that—I’m emotional and fully in denial. He’s fine, they’re fine.

Everything is fine. 😉)

Yay I'm glad it was able to help!! Going to answer your questions under a cut again because Spoilers and also I'm incapable of being brief lmao

Alex giving Jay the tapes is one of those things where it's hard to tell if it's a character beat (ie; Alex maybe thought he'd already burned most of the Operator related footage and just didn't realize there was more mixed in with the film project footage, OR just that he really did anticipate successfully killing Jay that evening and was like 'it's not like it's going to matter' and it's almost a 'one nice things before you go' moment) or if it's a moment of Operator influence (which has been shown to impact impulsivity and the ability to think clearly).

The Doyalist explanation though is just that the Marble Hornets project was started by planning out season 1 alone, which was organized and filmed as a more or less complete story that the creators decided to unfold further after videos had already been posted. It's likely that Alex's motivations and intentions weren't actually worked out in any detail (since the planning of season 1 was mostly done in terms of Shots and Footage as opposed to unfolded character dynamics) until around season 2 and beyond. Alex probably wouldn't have acquiesced and gave Jay the tapes, but because that was the Whole Beat that kicked off the series to begin with, it has to be left as a minor contradiction in his character goals as we learn of them later lol]]]

As for enttry #37, I'm kind of of the opinion that the Operator was not actually physically present in that footage; I tend to see it as something Brian edited into the footage to make a point. Sometimes I do wonder if Alex was haunted by the Operator as long as Tim was, but the way season 3 unfolds regarding that topic (Uncovering Tim's history, Tim's speculation, and Alex's agreement with it) makes me personally lean into the notion that Tim alone was the source as they entered college. To me, it feels like Alex's reactions to and goals drawn from his encounters with the Operator throughout the whole series weren't well-worn, you know? He doesn't seem used/adjusted to these things or able to rationalize they're existence as like 'some kind of childhood hallucination', it feels New to him, which is part of the reason why he reacts the way he does.

Also, the kind of hazy/staticky appearance to the Operator in enttrry 37 (and the fact that no one in the room reacts to it) makes it feel like a standard totheark edit rather than plain footage <- the Operator is always a tangible presence when it shows up, it's never ethereal or vague it's something with weight in the frame because it is there physically. If it had been Actually present at that party, then I don't think we should have been able to see it at all because there were no lights on (and it's not bringing a light source with it lol) during that shot. So I'm of the opinion that Brian took advantage of the blank dark footage to Edit in footage of the Operator, to make a point about how he thought Alex was the source of it (another reason he's so stung by the uncovering of Tim's medical records - because it would have forced him to re-contextualize some of his opinion of Alex)

That is possible! Without getting too far into comic spoilers, we have found out that Brian's exposure to the Ark has resulted in him losing tangible pieces of himself. By the time he dies, there was little (if anything) left for it to take; so it is possible that the damage was just too much to recover from anymore.

As for fic recs! I do have a few :3 I don't have a lot of fluff ones per se, because the angry/complicated character dynamics in this series are a huge draw for me, but I do have a couple Brian Lives Tim&Brian recs: GrenadeFestival's "Eutychus" and sp4rrowbird's "Unpayable Debt". One of my own Marble Hornets series is an Everybody Lives one that has a couple of Tim&Brian-centric fics so far - Making Strange With one Another.

#love these questions btw #mh lb