#thinking deep things

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

[aerequets]

cost and benefit

[zeropro]

got anymore Sunstorm headcanons?

In my au, a mech's designation is part of their spark coding, they online with a unique designation. Of course, bots can change their name later, and it happens often. The headcanon is that Sunstorm, being a clone of Starscream, has a near identical spark signature, resulting in a bunch of copied coding. Shockwave is not amused.

[welcometothevoiddarling]

i still remember your phone number. I remember the feeling of calling, listening to the dial tone, the small burst of anxiety as I prepared what I'd say to whoever picked up – Hi X, can I speak to X please? I can't remember if we used to make small talk.

And I can remember the expression on my dad's face when I'd been on the phone for hours, so long it was now sweaty and numb against my ear. I can remember pacing or sitting on the stairs. I can remember the vague outlines of the computer game we used to play. I remember the beginning of what was probably a deeply rooted need for control, feeling like I had to collect all the gold possible.

But you know what I can't remember. For the love of me, I cannot remember a single conversation we had. I have no idea what we spoke about. What was so pressing back then that it couldn't wait two days until I'd see you again. How fluid and natural was our friendship that I never got cold feet, that I could've spoken for hours and hours and hours? I never got bored, or had enough, or felt awkward. I have forgotten our friendship. I don't carry it anymore.

And it was years long. It was an insignia. It was so important to me for so long. But for the life of me I cannot remember it. Only the pieces around it.

It's not far off, the next chapter. We used to sit on the messenger for hours too. We would end up in conversations about childhood and trauma and I would never want to end it. I'd just need to eat or shower or it would just need to stop. But then it would pick up again a few hours later. And I'd see you every day. We'd hang out every hour, barring only those we didn't have classes together. I was lost until I was sat with you. I had everything I needed when I had you. You were broken in the same ways I wasn't, and I was needy for things you had never found difficult or tiring. We completed each other for a period of time. I can remember the feeling if I try. I don't know if I could do it again.

First she chose something better. I got boring. Then I guess I chose something better, you didn't get boring, but if I'm being honest, I probably didn't value you enough, truly. And now I'm not chosen at all. I'm the people it was easier to not think too hard about. To not consider what it's like to the bystander in a trio. The acute pain that comes with knowing that there's nothing you can do about being second best. I still read the group chat name and feel slightly guilty, I didn't even try and hide it. It's just life I guess, it's just learning all the different roles and how to play them and what it feels like to be them.

This might be the least confused and painful it's ever been. Because I'm older, because I know what it's like. Because I've just thought that one day they may look back like I am now, and wonder how that friendship felt. Time dooms us all in the end.

But someday I'd love to ask you, what did we talk about? What was it all about? What did you like about me? What did I like about you? Did you get bored of me? Did I change? Did you? But really, most importantly, did I make small talk with your mum? Lol, I'd love to leave it there. There's some anecdotes I want to keep just for me I think. I wonder if you do the same. I don't know if we'd get on anymore, if we're people who grew the same way. I'd have been so interested in the timeline where you were here. What would that have looked like, friend?

I wonder what would happen if I called again, out of the blue, just for old times sake?

[teshiee]

ermmm your honor im normal about them i swear

[starridge]

dropping this and fleeing like a deer in the woods

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF movie Vanessa’s thoughts when meeting Abby..

[tinartss]

akademiya shenanigans

[occudo]

Sassy Siren!Jon and down to earth water Siren!Tim

based on @just-prime 's ask

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Stargazing, at the edge of the unknown.

[chapollynh]

I finished DS9 and here's my first offering to the fandom.

The show is just SO GOOD!! I wanna talk about it so bad, so I will spam the tags quite a bit... My bad. Also, the people who said Bashir would get better - you were right, he became a lot more fun! Plus he's got a teddy bear, that's peak character right there.

[to-be-a-dreamer]

I can’t stand that TikTok trend that’s like “just saw Hadestown and my boyfriend is walking the entire way back to the hotel without looking back at me to prove Orpheus was a chump” because not only do they not get the whole point of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth they also Were Not Paying Attention to the musical they just saw.

Hate people who see WSS as “just a Romeo and Juliet retelling”. Hate people who see Hadestown as “Just an Orpheus and Eurydice retelling”.

Hate people who watch a musical that takes a classic story everyone knows and uses it to explore/critique our modern society and only see it as a funky retelling.

Not Getting The Point of WSS is one thing because it’s more subtle and it can be really easy to just see it as a modern R&J, especially if you don’t really know R&J.

How the fuck do you watch Hadestown and see it as just an O&E retelling? It is one of the most heavy-handed political musicals out there how are so many people missing the point?

Orpheus has to fail. Not because that’s how the Greek myth ends but because that’s the whole point of the message of Hadestown.

Social reform is hard. Changing the world is one of the most challenging things you can try to do. So often we see people try to make a difference in society, to change some kind of injustice in the world. And so often we see those people fail. It can feel so impossible to actually do some good in this fucked up world because we see these people who are smarter and stronger and more qualified than us fail over and over again.

Why do we even keep trying?

Because we have to.

Because one day, someone will try and they’ll succeed.

One day Orpheus won’t turn around.

One day the people of Hadestown will get to see someone escape and they’ll know they can escape too. Only then does the world get to change.

So we have to try. We have to keep singing the sad song, no matter how many times Orpheus turns around, because one day he won’t.

In the Greek myth, Orpheus fails because he loves Eurydice.

In Hadestown, Orpheus fails because we fail.

We try and we fail to make a difference. We try and we fail to change the world for the better. We try to see the world for what it could be and it keeps letting us down.

But we don’t give up. We don’t stop singing.

Hadestown is genuinely one of the best musicals ever. Full stop. This musical is one of the reasons i wish I was smarter because I would love to be able to do an entire thesis on this show and all the themes and messages in it. Some of them are subtle. Some of them aren’t.

It is not just an Orpheus and Eurydice retelling. I am begging people to hear the real message.

Never stop trying to change the world.

One day we’ll make it out of Hadestown.

We just have to keep singing the song.

[ghost-kings-court-jester]

Something I think people are sleeping on Hua Cheng and his shapeshifting. I’m re reading and it’s really clear to me that Hua Cheng (who yes has self esteem issues) also does his disguises for fun. Like one of the things we first hear about him in this:

“The name Hua Cheng was very obviously fake, and his appearance was most likely fake too. In the rumors, he was sometimes a twisted boy given to capricious mood changes, sometimes a gentle and mannered handsome young man, sometimes a gorgeous seductress with a venomous heart, anything goes!”

Then later he appears in one of these forms. Like if you read the scenes of Xie Lian checking his disguise he is both giggling and twirling his hair at how smart his Gege is and how good his disguise is. He enjoys looking like a young pretty boy master with boyish charm. He literally changes shape just to play with his clothes. He switches forms I think at least 10 times in the novels possibly more (I’m rereading so I can’t actually remember) but like he has fun with it.

Like yes he does have self esteem issues creating the disguises would definitely be a part of that, but far too often I’ve seen the idea floated around that that’s the only reason he changes forms. Or if he does change forms it’s for self consciousness and for strategic purposes and Xie Lian helps him get over that. Like it seems to me a lot of people think when Hualian get married he never wears one when he’s only around Xie Lian and I just don’t think that’s the case.

Like yeah he does mostly take his true form with Xie Lian but I think that’s mostly because they are getting to know each other and he’s probably tired of masks being between them.

Genuinely he never stops changing forms completely once the reveal of his true form has happened.

Even when he’s forced to be shaped like a child he chooses a full fancy baby outfit and styled hair. He plays with his outfits and hair styles frequently and you’re trying to tell me that man is going to live out most of his married life in just one body type. You think he’s going to completely ignore woman’s clothing because I don’t. A female form is mentioned and I know there’s no way he doesn’t have a thousand outfits for her as well.

And while yes I do love the gender fuckery of it for my own headcannons I can also see him putting on his disguises like drag or to put on a persona to act. I think he just likes playing around and switching shapes because like everything Hua Cheng does he doesn’t go in for half measures. He doesn’t seem like some effort into learning how to shapeshift so perfectly it confuses even XL just because he’s self conscious of his own looks. Like that doesn’t really fit his personality.

Basically what I’m trying to say is my guy is fashionista playing dress up with himself as his own Barbie doll. Let him have fun! Stop making him using his disguises as an obstacle he has to overcome. Not everything has to be that serious.

[welcometothevoiddarling]

young royals; thoughts on love and duty

Writing to have a record of what I thought, although I've read some amazingly written takes, I don't know how this will compare.

Only that I think young royals does such an interesting job exploring young love and infatuation alongside, life and duty and experiences. Wille falls in love with Simon because he is outspoken in a school that is scared of him and his presence. Simon is new and exciting. And Simon falls in love with Willie, specifically at the football game, because he's pretty and interested and takes time to know him and see him, in a place that usually couldn't care less about him. They both choose to ignore parts of each other in favour of falling in love, but I'd argue perhaps Simon does more to ignore how Wilhelm represents everything he stands against, because standing against something in principle, and choosing to stand in the way of intoxicating feelings are two different things. For Willie early in S1, loving Simon isn't as radical as it later becomes, he is interesting and new and everything he doesn't get to be. Loving Simon is not a sacrifice of himself yet – at least not until later S1,S2 and now S3.

I see some of myself in Simon, because as a viewer it was easy for me to root for S1 Wilhelm, whilst also being slightly shocked how easily and quickly Simon fell, but reflecting I do the same everytime I get a crush on a white man, someone who represents structures that hurt me in everything I do. Sometimes even the man in question personally upholds them, or has hurt me via them, and yet it doesn't completely quell the society driven desire to be loved by your oppressors. And to seize any sign of love or valuation with open arms, no matter how much you objectively know you shouldn't want to, because being told something is valuable and precious easily becomes subconscious.

It's easy to fall in love, to ride waves of external forces hellbent against you, and to hold your mutual connection to each other as some sacrosanct bond, to forever be unfailing. But all love, adoration, or infatuation is ultimately confronted by time. It was obvious from the start that Wilmon would have to travel very far towards each other to properly understand one another. Both have to unlearn deeply embedded narratives they have taught themselves, something which is deeply painful because doing so necessarily upends the good parts of life along with the bad.

The institutions of love and marriage within capitalist society are so interesting because they perform dual functions. On the one hand, we marry, signing ourselves up to the state as partners, in order to create orderly separation between the private and public sphere, which conveniently creates a new generation similarly engrained in this ritual. It's a religious turned economic institution that whilst I haven't researched it thoroughly, evidently doesn't escape the underlying foundations of control over female bodies and minds, and subsequently children, and now also economic and class control too. It's a formality, a structure designed to profit those who control it. But then we tell the story of love over the top of it. Real people fall in love, and experience something tangible. Humans necessarily need community and connection to thrive. It's no accident that marrying and creating family and community, deriving from such, has sustained human life. Love is real. But the narrative love is given, the way it is taught, doesn't do it justice. We expect to fall in love and marry, and love will carry us through the duty and obligations of marriage. Love acts as the plaster we put on top of the harsh realities and difficulties of the institution of marriage. When traditional ideas about virtue, class, childhood etc. remain and fester longer than they should, it's because the story of love is doing all the work. When more and more marriages break down in divorce or abuse and trauma, it's because the narrative of love failed to hold strong enough. We are trapped in systems, kept there because we think they're the only way to access this wonderful human experience, but in reality, it was the faint truth of the human experience which allowed those systems to flourish in the first place. It is humanity which came first, not the systems it created.

This is a long tangent to say that the depiction of young love is media always frustrates me, because it's always all consuming and inevitable and wonderous, but never realistic about difficulty and strife. Often we only see the story of love, and not the structures underneath it.

Wilmon is fumbling in the dark, trying to hold onto the human connection which saved each of them in moments of darkness, and having some finally caught hold of each other, it's only now clear how painful it is hold anything different to yourself. They are opposites in every possible way, right down to the experiences they have as siblings. In the way that kathony-bridgerton found connection in their shared familial roles, Wilmon have only ever know what the other never knew.

It's never left me, the idea that people stay in your life so much as you remain growing in the same direction. Committing to a person feels like a lie on one hand, because how might you ever guarantee to grow such a way. But I guess committing, is deciding that the experiences that shape you from here on, will be chosen by you such that you mould so that your partner may still hold you. Of course one can never know what may come, but where there is choice, there can be commitment. Really where love and duty intersect is when you can say that you will try and do all in your power to keep choosing someone.

In the same way it's difficult to choose to ignore feelings for a Prince, even when feeling anything for a Prince misaligns with everything else you feel, it's equally hard to choose to continue to experience things that make you holdable, when they also change you, and hurt you in the process. But also, to be loved is to be changed, hopefully for the good.

I guess what my thoughts are, are that young love is usually all about love. It ignores that one ever needs to change in order to love and be loved. It pedals the same story that allows marriage and family to be regarded as natural, irreplaceable manifestations and not constructs ultimately benefitting a societal purpose. Duty and obligation seen harshly through the monarchical/class/ LGBTQ+ narrative, which is a love story at it's core, shows how love is won and lost without winners or losers.

A good ending to this story now, isn't just one where love is won. I wouldn't feel satisfied currently if Wilmon simply stayed in love, ignoring the difficulties in their relationship. A good ending would be one where the characters confront their agency within their own love story and acknowledge and choose the people they become when they choose to love.

(Of course there's also the fact that this is not even a full year on from Erik's death, major mental health issues, grief, trauma, abuse, all play a part in masking and impeding agency, so perhaps understandable if one episode doesn't succinctly conveniently package that all up......but yanno.......maybe?........)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[snarkspawn]

O displaced soul, where does your path now lead?