#dot talk

[estravai]

jonathan sims and his many jo(h)ns

#spent too long on this lol #the magnus archives #re: dracula #the mechanisms #jonny sims #jonathan sims #john seward #jonny d'ville #dot talk #image id in alt text

[tiredassmage]

actually kind of in a tyr-thoughts era in general and one of my other not yet deeply explored spitball against the wall thoughts is it low-key fascinates me that what sticks about the moniker of cipher nine to him is 'nine.'

i've often seen it interpreted - and for good reason - that cipher is the part that sticks. the (how i tend to read it, anyway) what you were, rather than any sense of who, maybe. and it's not that tyr is entirely without this aspect of it as well. part of why he continues to go by nine well after imperial intelligence is a fading gripe in the back of peoples' throats is because there is always a part of him that will identify as a cipher agent. he will always be what imperial intelligence made him, what he made himself for the sake of imperial intelligence. tyr will take a sense of pride in that organization and his role within with him to the grave, most likely.

and... i was originally thinking of this as separate of my reflection on him and the minister's relationship again [there was agent posting in the tag and i got in my feelings again, okay? naturally], but it... it's kind of a part of that, i guess.

because to say tyr carries a pride of his role kind of requires the foundations upon why he feels that way. when tyr says 'imperial intelligence never betrayed me,' to him, that's true. in his narrative of events, that is something he can say without regret.

because the minister saying to him about the castellans, 'if i hadn't [approved them], you'd be dead' tracks with tyr's understanding of the empire and his personal distaste for the sith. tyr doesn't expect the man to grovel for his forgiveness or waver from the line that it was his duty to obey 1) because that's not the kind of man he knows the minister to be and 2) because tyr doesn't actually expect him to regret it in... the sense that the minister has always looked out for him. has done the best that he can for nine, even if his hands have been bound by circumstance and their positions and their overseers. 'if i hadn't, you'd be dead' is both a conceivably true and possible outcome to tyr's understanding of his role as an imperial and a cipher agent and the double-meaning unsaid of 'your life was valuable enough to compromise to save.'

frankly, i think the minister could've shot tyr himself, if it'd ever come to it, and tyr would still be loyal to him. tyr's faith in what that man will ask of him is that complete, so unshakably of the mind that the minister would never ask something of him that would unduly harm him. he trusts the older man's judgement so completely he'd expect that, whatever the decision would be, it was made with tyr's best interest at its heart, even if they'll never be able to say as much to one another.

and perhaps only a cipher would call that kind of double-meaning woven in between spoken and unspoken words 'honesty' and 'reliability' and 'trust,' but. for the longest time, it was the only kind of authenticity tyr really had available to him. they had a mutual understanding of one another. my interpretation of that relationship is that it really was both ways - tyr would answer every call the old man asked of him because he trusted the minister would never ask anything unduly of him, and the minister was conscious to be careful of what he asked because he knew tyr was loyal. the silas denver melvin 'dead dogs are just happy you're here' kind of loyal.

whatever he asked, tyr - nine - would've reshaped his spine to see it done. simply because of who was asking. simply because the man believed strongly enough in what they were doing, and who he was directly doing it for.

so. that's why nine. because for all that being used that way by their enemies, that being held under by the empire that raised him and a representation of the sis, the republic did to him, nine is just as much on tyr's own hands. nine because tyr needs anyone who will accept him to accept his own commitments to intelligence, to recognize him as complacent - and willing - in his own training. nine because even with his teeth bloodied, tyr hunted the cabal because they nearly - and then did - gut intelligence. nine as the last badge of the people that made him, for better and for worse.

nine because who he is will never perfectly fit their what, because most ciphers don't survive past year five. and he'll never forgive them for taking the place that made him.

#dot talk #ch: tyr #imperial agent #swtor #yea i'll. put this one in the main tag bc hrhrghghgh excuse me i just have so many feelings about him #and agent in general and the many many interpretations that come out of it

[phobidawg]

dot phobidawg on tumblr???? it’s more likely than you think !!!

BAHAH literally my revival era??!?!?!?!?

#i log into tumblr for the first time and months and rin is ON IT #literally spotted #ngl this is the supreme social media platform to all of them i should become a Tumblr Girlie again #miss it here :(( #orionhong #asks #dot talk

[space-unicorn-dot]

What are your Top 3 controversial Swtor opinions?

Is it bad that I giggled that I got one of these? xD Everyone's has been so interesting to read and I have been low-key trying to figure out mine in preparation, lmao. I don't actually know how controversial or hot takes any of my opinions are, but I think these are the ones.

1. While I think Shadow of Revan is probably my favorite expansion, I genuinely enjoy KOTET/KOTFE on the whole. Low-key I joked with myself that half the reason I have so many characters is so that I constantly have one actively somewhere between SOR and KOTFE because it's my favorite stretch of the game.

There's even a sliver of appreciation in my heart for confronting a choice like Torian & Vette one and I'll express why, but I will preface with I understand, too, where people have taken issue with it.

I think my frame of reference on it is based primarily from Jedi Consular being my first class story (and I ran the whole game practically straight through on that character, for the most part, so there's a lot I've learned about making that easier on me since then, lol), and an almost purely LS Consular, at that. Okay, that kind of gets into a second take, I think, so let me stay on topic. Anyway, the TLDR in reference to this specific choice is that it wasn't one I felt like I'd confronted anywhere else at the time I first saw it, so I appreciated it for its difference and having a rather immediate consequence.

2. Preface: Jedi Consular is still one of my favorite class stories. Probably my second favorite? But, the real take that I almost stumbled into in #1 is that there were times where I was really expecting... Okay, idk really how to word this one because I'm kinda like ehhh about my own opinion, but I think the short of it is that it was really easy to be "the good guy." There were proposed potential consequences (say, some 'bad guy' got away, for the moment), but I felt largely like I was able to 'save everyone.' And I don't find this bad, necessarily. It is, I think, ultimately what I wanted from the story. I wanna root for the good guys and have them sometimes miraculously pull off everything, y'know? I don't think it affected my decisions for that character - he was always meant to be an almost entirely LS character, but I do remember a few moments where I sort of teasingly wondered just how good I'd get away with being good.

Part of the reason I want to replay this class is to sort of re-gauge my feelings on this to see if I still feel that way or if my memory is just kind of suffering from not quite understanding the media the way I do now with more characters/experience. SW in general is something I've enjoyed casually before, but never as in-depth as I have now that I've fallen head over heels for this pixel dress up simulator, I mean Star Wars game. Bonus(?) from that I guess is that SWTOR has probably been my favorite engagement with SW, lol. It shows off other aspects of the universe in a way the movies didn't/couldn't because that wasn't their purpose, but it is SWTOR's in the class stories (and that's hella neat of it, imo).

3. Jedi Knight is not nearly as good as I've seen it described sometimes. I'd personally probably put it in my bottom four rather than my top four. That said, on a second pass through it with another character where I gave myself more time, I did enjoy it more and I appreciate it equally with the other class stories. It's still not my least favorite (though that sort of unfairly implies I find one significantly subpar and now that I almost have BH finished which was my last one, I don't think there's one that's wildly removed, but I still have preferences), but I still find it a bit try-hard on the LS/DS front. It very clearly wants that to be a problem and the elements to build it into one are present, I think (I'm satisfied with how it played out with my 2nd character, for example), but it could be more organic. It could be more.

Sub-opinion of this is that I'm actually not as sold on Orgus as I am Yuon Par, I'm so sorry, old man. I'd die for Yuon Par, no questions. But I haven't yet connected with Orgus the same way I have with a lot of other characters - generally at least one or two from each class story, I think. Which is fine, too, I think because you're just naturally not going to be best buddies with everyone, but I always felt like there was still a certain distance between him and the JK in my experience that kept me from being fully invested in the dynamic. Neither of my Knights will talk bad about him, but I think both would say they wish they knew him better and I always have hesitated to have them state that he was their best teacher. He's a good teacher, a good character, I did decide I was too hard on him on my first playthrough, but eh. As a player, I can play favorites like that. xD

#swtor #answered #dot talk #and i'll put this on my sideblog in a sec too #this was fun lol

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Tim is the first to find out the Red Hood’s identity and from then on sticks to Jason during patrol like glue (much to Jason’s chagrin, dammit, it would feel wrong to beat up Robin when he’s that starry eyed…)

Cue: PANIC from the rest of the Batfamily, who still think Hood is a forty-something year old crime lord and now assume they’re dating.

#misunderstandings #miscommunication #protective batfamily #dick is NOT having it #neither is Bruce #I connected the dots- YOU CONNECTED SHIT #I connected them #Tim is very confused about all the ‘you can tell us if anything is wrong’ talks #are they talking about the one time Jason shot at him? because honestly it was pretty obvious he wasn’t even trying to hit him it’s FINE #if I see anybody add something that comes even CLOSE to ship bashing I shall make this Jaytim out of spite #no bashin in this house nah-uh #maybe some mild joker bashing #but it’s still ok if you like him #let’s keep this ✨harmonious✨ #jason todd #dick grayson #batfam #bruce wayne #robin #tim drake #red hood #fic #Nightwing #Batman #prompts #this is part of my fic roster btw hehe

[spawnnfrog]

she has batburger

#my doodles #Stephanie brown #spoiler #batgirl #robin #Batman #dc comics #dc fanart #the dots on her face are acne thank you very much #bro those masks must be greasy #AND SPOILER HAS A FULL MASK?? yeah hell nah #in a universe where Tim was allowed to talk to his vigilante fellas he bought steph this burger as congratulations on being robin

[housecow]

Finding your old posts around tumblr is actually the hottest thing as you look chubby still but sooo much smaller than you do now😳

i knowww!!! like. i was fs never small but from march 2022

to july 2023??!

struggling to fit everything into the photo 🥰

#2nd photo … the little red dots are the start of stretch marks hehe #talk #ask #anon #feedism.

[akans-dead-at-sea]

It's alright

30 second timelapse:

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd fanart #our flag means death #“I am a brave boy and will NOT cry while getting reference screenshots of Ed” he said. #*barely manages to hit Win+Shift+S through the fucking tears* #I'm sorry but this is the only decent OFMD fanart I got in me for now #I'm shit at drawing people with faces/head and I still gotta learn and find a style but god knows the gay pirates are gonna help me practic #I still need to recover from this scene- this episode- this season- this show goddamnit #ngl at first I liked how I drew Ed's hair but the more I look at it now the less I like it >:C #did I forget to post this? no nope nuh uh I don't know what you're talking about #this absolutely blew up on twitter- lowkey hope tumblr dot com likes it too :> #ed teach #stede bonnet #gentlebeard #ofmd s2e8 #tw blood #blood #akans art

[solcarow]

Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto // Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint by Sing Shong

#sorry for the long post insert gyaru dog dot jpg #it didn’t really look nice when i put pages w eo #ik this is pretty shoddily put together but . u see the vision dont u #even put a bit of effort into stitching screenshots together to keep it in the image limit .. #speaking of the limit #i wouldve added middle school fujino + 13yo hsy parallels if i could but alas #and also orv + fujino kicking the axe guy #took me 3 hours to put this together bc i took so long rereading the museum fight …. I HATE THEMMM #god i remember reading look back the morning it was released online and getting my shit . Wrecked . into irreparable irreversible shambles #solar-talks #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv #han sooyoung #look back #look back manga #look back spoilers

[introspectivememories]

been watching mashle and oh my god, the eugenics???? the way lance's parents were so ready to give up their daughter??? no second thought???? just "why did this child have to be born to us?"???? um everyone talking in mash's face about how non-magic people are inherently worthless???? the triple line dude fucking making dolls out of people and somehow no one??? is??? checking him???? and then when questioned immediately jumping into "well humans are little more than mindless beasts and i will become a creator deity and reshape the world in my liking!"????? the, um, corruption in the government??? the way this story is so clearly "h*rry p*tter if it was actually funny"??? the slytherin coded characters are blood purists???? they took out hufflepuff??? one of the magia lupus' mage's powerset was just big shuriken???? another one is rip off kisame???? lance is a siscon and the first thing mash says is "that doesn't make it better"???? lemon is genuinely so fuckin funny??? dot is incel-coded but like in a funny way??? dot says that lance is playing life on "easy mode" cause lance has a good face??? dot likes tea??? dot has good manners??? everybody only has one spell they can use??? finn ames is like if you transported is regular human into this stupid ass world??? i think the old man and the cop have explored each others bodies.

#so many baffling things #the show is genuinely funny tho #mash and lance have something going on and i stg this isn't just me putting my shipping goggles on #also lance is a siscon but like in the most non-weirdest way possible??? like he just doesn't want his baby sis to die #and like yeah the power of her photo is enough for him to fling himself backward into a wall hard enough that it cracks #but he's not like in love with her or whatever. bare minimum victories ig #also when the rap starts it gets sooo hype #not to talk about h*rry p*tter in 2024 but why did they take out hufflepuff?? #that was the only good house #everybody else in that world seem insufferable but hufflepuff seemed like you could get along with them #also they need to stop talking shit about non-magic people in front of mash's face #mashle magic and muscles #mashle #lemon irvine #dot barrett #finn ames #mash burnedead #lance crown

[estravai]

tma time travel fix it fic where tim is horrified by archivist!jon and confronts future martin like

tim: and what you’re okay with this? you’re a monsterfucker now?

future martin, affronted: i am not a monsterfucker

tim: huh? i thought-

future martin: jon’s asexual. i’m a monsterlover

#the magnus archives #jonmartin #dot talk

[tiredassmage]

actually have i ever told all of y'all i sort of panic-buttoned when i realized tyr didn't have a middle name and i wanted one for that piece i wrote about his old man having to recruit him into intelligence?

so anyway. tyr's middle name is vaiken. yes. yes after that. do of this what you will.

he rarely ever uses it and i think at this point its probably one of lana's secret blackmail points that she knows it and i think you'd see tyr deckard nearly pass away if she ever used it on him in public.

#dot talk #ch: tyr #the beloved response of my one friend was to essentially clown hat on this for a good twenty minutes #INCREDIBLY fond memories tyr's entire name is a series of fucking accidents on my part #and yet SOMEHOW it all fucking WORKS THEMATICALLY #anyway good night and good news #naturally now i'm thinking about instances where lana might have full named him for his bullshit #and theron not knowing this information because tyr never discusses it nearly choking on his caf about it #it'd be funny. like listen. listen it'd be fucking hilarious-

[space-unicorn-dot]

“ma melava halani” from the WIP ask game 👀 I’ve been on a DA spiral lately sooo I’m curious

I'd say this is one of the ones I totally forgot existed, but it has actually been almost two years since I started this one probably either while I was still playing Inquisition or shortly after. Probably after; Inquisition was my first Dragon Age game and it's still the only one I've finished. I've started Origins like two or three times now, but I haven't stuck it out yet, partially because I had some laptop issues and Steam kinda ate my progress the first two times when that happened, so that's messed with me a bit, lol.

Anyway, I'm not sure exactly when I set this piece except for clearly sometime after the move to Skyhold, but from a gloss over it, it was a piece between my Lavellan mage Inquisitor, Hallaren, and Cassandra, the pair of which I will still die for, they were literally perfect and I am still emotional about sunset balcony cuddles at Skyhold, okay? I'll never NOT be emotional about this.

This was my EVERYTHING, okay. Me totally throwing off the main plot for a solid 3 hours, minimum, just so Hallaren could go find his crush some poetry bc he was so head over heels with a woman that could have snapped him like the toothpick that he is.

What I'm learning from this is that, even 2 years later, I'm still insane for them. You're getting my shitty tv screens whether you want them or not bc boy hOWDY do I LOVE these two.

I want all of the historians for the Inquisition to know that it wasn't the plot that was the biggest thing this boy ever pulled off. THIS. This right here is the SMOOTHEST thing Hallaren has ever pulled off in his entire life full stop. Words do not exist in any language to express his delight that she allowed him that level of trust.

Will I ever actually go back and finish or publish any of this stuff in full? Prooobbabblly not. But I will give you a snippet below the cut (so this doesn't get too long on peoples' dashes) because I still think they're really cute and this isn't a super awkward piece, I don't think, even after not having seen it for almost 2 years.

Anyway, enough of me squealing about Hallaren being utterly smitten and more actual writing about them together below.

And this is from the wip ask meme (le eyes emoji)!

---

He enjoyed this… The comfortable silence, neither of them feeling compelled to fill it. They simply… were. Night danced gently against the colorful glass panes, drawn closed to keep out the night’s cold, and the fire flickered steadily across the room, casting its embrace softly over the room, setting aglow what they had not tucked into the safety of the blankets.

The Inquisitor’s eyes fell closed as Cassandra delicately traced the intricate lines across his face. With the memory of the frigid journey here, lost in endless snows, praying to whatever god may have chosen to listen… the warmth and comfort of having her near was all the more special.

“May I ask you what it means..?” Even gentle and quiet for their proximity, her voice was still strong. Something he admired about her. How she never seemed to flinch from her actions or what she encountered, even when it shook her.

The firelight reflected in her dark eyes enchanted him as much as the delicate pattern framing his features did her. A smile settled across his lips to behold the sight, and her fingers still gently brushing across his cheek offered the subject her words had not. “My people call it vallaslin,” he said. “It is one of our traditions… A sort of… right of passage, I believe you’d call it.”

Cassandra arched a brow, the earnestness of her curiosity burning in her eyes. A more open side to the Seeker he believed few could read, given how rare it was to see in the first place. He would be lying if he were to say he hadn’t sought it out after his first glimpse of it in Haven. His reasoning at the time had simply been trust, wanting to build a friendship with those that he would aid and would aid him in return, but it had rather quickly become one of his favorite things.

One of the most beautiful things.

#answered #dot talk #dot writing #wip ask meme

[coquelicoq]

what i like especially about the pronouns in the goblin emperor is that this language doesn't just have the T-V distinction (aka informal vs. formal second-person pronouns, in this case 'thou' vs. 'you'), it also has informal and formal first-person pronouns. having BOTH of these distinctions in the same language lets you fine-tune your tone by mixing and matching. with only one axis of formality, when you use informal pronouns, are you being familiar in an intimate way, or in an insolent or dismissive way? when you use formal pronouns, are you being polite or standoffish? you can't tell just from the pronouns; there's ambiguity. but a language where you can use a formal first-person pronoun in the same sentence as an informal second-person pronoun allows you to distance yourself (via the formal first) while also being familiar (via the informal second), thereby achieving the conversational tenor known to linguists as Fuck Thee Specifically.

#just kidding i don't know what linguists call that tenor. or any tenors. i'm not totally positive what a tenor even is #but i can't let that stop me from writing a jokey post on tumblr dot com #register is a very interesting area of linguistics that i know very little about #so i'm probably revealing the depths of my vast ignorance here to all the sociolinguists who surely hang on my every word #but i've always thought of the formal/informal pronoun thing as being about two things: intimacy-distance & rudeness-politeness #and of course you can usually tell from context whether a formal pronoun is meant to indicate distance or politeness #(plus distance and politeness are related to each other (to various degrees depending on culture)) #but it seems like it would be cool to have a built-in alignment chart of sorts just for pronoun combos #instead of prep jock nerd goth...why not try intimate self-effacing polite superior? #the goblin emperor #pronouns #register #sociolinguistics #my posts #f #anyway i know i said i wasn't going to reread the goblin emperor...but guess what. lol #and i edited my tags on that earlier post but fyi the language DOES distinguish between plural and formal singular pronouns #i had said i thought it used the same pronouns for plural and formal but i just wasn't paying close enough attention #so anyway i just reread the part where maia is talking to setheris in formal first and informal second #and you can see setheris going ohhh shit. oh shit oh shit oh shit #i'm in biiiiiig trouble #you sure are dude. that's the Time to Grovel signal #it's interesting because at the very beginning of the book when i first saw the formal first used i just thought it was the royal we #because i knew the main character was supposed to be royalty #but then EVERYONE was doing it. so it's not the royal we it's just the formal we #however. this does make me realize that the way the royal we would function in a language that retains the t-v distinction #is the same way i'm describing here. it's just reserving that particular tone (i'm better than you and am displeased with you) #for royalty only. which makes sense given royalty's whole deal

[cocosnowlo-drawings]

Someone said they look like the three Musketeers in this weeks’ episode and this image immediately got stuck in my head :D

#minus the pokemon cuz I honestly fail so hard at drawing them #can we talk about the level of epicness in that scene though #pokemon #pokemon horizons #anipoke #pokeani #pokemon liko #pokemon Roy #pokemon dot #trainer liko #trainer roy #cocosnowlo

[tantamounttoflirtation]

Hannibal saying "I was worried you were dead" in Fromage and then saying "I don't care about the lives you save; I care about your life" in the NEXT FUCKING EPISODE. I'm going to explode they make me sick

#h talks #he got a reality check for sure #like he was so worried about Will that in the next ep he had to clarify how much he cares about him. #GOD DAMNIT. I fucking hate them both (affectionate) #hiiiii I'm feeling totally normal about them tonight I can't believe I never connected these dots #nbc Hannibal #Hannigram #anyways ME AND WHO