#and yet can't be near one

[south-sea]

i think a lot of people don’t always realize the difference between “this is how i interpret canon” and “this is how i want to write it because that’s what’s fun to me”. a lot of times the latter is all headcanons or AUs are, not an indication of what the writer thinks “is” or “should be” canon

more power to those who are super tuned into actual canon and know these details like the back of their hand, but sometimes people just wanna use a series as a sandbox, not a ruleset. genuinely nothing but respect for people who ARE that knowledgeable, but i and a lot of other people are just here to have fun with characters we enjoy—and want to put them in more accessible settings

[ryllen]

anđeo is such a joke . png  he who spent his entiire life before as a soldier was fascinated with how girls in peaceful side of town can be so cute & fluffy when they are not in constant survival mode. so, he aimed to be with one, instead of the mature, tough type that was the only type he ever saw during his soldier time. but here we are, watching him swallowing his own spit

[verbjectives]

🫠🫠🫠 nothing like needing to be up by 3am that makes getting any actual sleep impossible

[anne-bsd-bibliophile]

"Nobody's perfect" is such a common phrase, but depending on how it is used it can be very toxic.

I grew up in a very religious Mormon community with strict standards. For as long as I remember, I was told that people sin every day and so we have to repent of our sins every day as well. That's what "nobody's perfect" meant to them. Instead of the phrase being used to console or encourage, I mostly heard it as a way of passing judgement. "So-and-so is great, but nobody's perfect. They have plenty of shortcomings they should be working on as well." Many of my family, friends, and neighbors did everything they could to hide their own "sins" while looking down on others for whatever "sins" they must be committing, because everyone apparently sins every day.

And that's what I grew up believing. I thought I had to be perfect, because the goal was to get through the day sin free, or at least that's how I saw it. If I did everything I was told to do by my parents, teachers, and church leaders then I would be considered a good person, right? Actually, when I was a little older I learned that my unconscious thoughts were apparently full of sin as well! And my human desires were also sinful. And anything I did purely for myself was considered selfish. I remember being taught multiple times that there were good, better, and best uses of my time. Reading a book for fun was good, reading a book to learn and improve myself was better, and reading scriptures was best. So now I had to feel guilty for my unconscious thoughts I couldn't control, my body doing what it was built to do, and I had to feel guilty for having any fun or putting myself first.

As an adult I realized all of what I'd believed to be true my entire upbringing was bullshit. There is absolutely no way any person could avoid "sinning" if everything about me was considered wrong the way they made it sound. And because I wasn't perfect, because "nobody's perfect", I was made to feel like I had to make myself into as near a perfect being as I could manage in order to deserve even a morsel of acceptance or praise. But even that little bit of value I'd earned for myself wasn't worth anything because I would be reminded again and again that "nobody's perfect", meaning I'm not perfect, meaning I hadn't really earned anything in the end. All this made me feel like I was worthless and I couldn't do anything to change that.

Everything changed for me when I started learning about emotional abuse. My father was a diagnosed narcissist and he was very good at being emotionally abusive, so I had to learn how to deal with that. While I was reading about narcissistic abuse, I also realized that the religion I grew up in used the same tactics. I learned at church that everything about me was sinful. Literally. The list of sins in endless. I eventually realized that if you twist anything a certain way you can make it look like a sin, which then gives you a reason to look down on anyone who is committing that "sin." So no matter how "good" I was, I would never be good enough to anyone who was looking at me through the lens of "nobody is perfect because we are all sinners."

I remember sitting in church next to my mom one day when a woman who lived down the street was speaking. She was describing how she always felt like she wasn't good enough, she belittled herself and her accomplishments, put herself down, and made a public display of how guilty she felt and how that was why she was so humble and could feel closer to Christ. I looked at my mom and whispered, "It sounds like she's been emotionally abused." From the typical Mormon perspective, what this woman was expressing showed how humble she was. But now I could recognize that from another perspective what she said showed signs that she was a victim of emotional abuse.

Alan Watts said it better than I ever could: "Christianity institutionalized guilt as a virtue." I was taught to feel guilty even for just existing in order to make me feel indebted to God at church and my narcissistic father at home. Once I recognized how toxic that way of thinking was I couldn't bring myself to even pretend I was religious anymore. Now my way of thinking is more along the lines of, "Nobody is meant to be perfect, which is what makes everyone perfect in their own way." Instead of needing to be good enough, I'm learning to recognize the inherent value in everyone, including myself.

[bylertruther]

crazy how people will see you bring up literal scenes from the show, quotes by the duffers, actors, casting director, and costume dept, as well as the stranger things bible/first pitch, and be like "you're so dumb and offensive, that's NOT will, i'm so sick of will being babied and 'fEmiNizEd' blah blah blah" like girl maybe you just don't like women or will byers. have you ever considered that?

maybe YOU'RE the one failing to watch this show with your eyes and ears open if you're out here straight up denying scenes from the show itself. maybe YOU'RE the one failing to see that will has always been brave not despite his fear but because of it, and it's LITERALLY his bravery that inspires mike to start a search party and kickstarts the show. maybe YOU'RE the one that has super regressive, small-minded, and one-dimensional views on what bravery looks like, what strength looks like, and all the different ways there are to be not only a man, but a person in general.

like i just don't know how you can think you possibly know more than the actual people that make this show and dedicate literal years of their lives to making it the best it can possibly be and most accurate to their creative vision LOL like. sometimes you're just wrong!!! suck it up and go find another character that you'd actually like more instead of taking one that's impressively complex and cared for in ways that we seldom see in media!! much less media as globally popular and impactful as this one is, and esp not when it comes to gay male characters!!

will is complex and layered and beloved by many precisely because of that very complexity and capacity to be many things at once that you are so bafflingly intent on erasing!! if you find yourself disagreeing with canon & the creators to the point where you have to completely remove his most important traits and reject the literal show itself, then the fact of the matter is that you just don't like him!! AND THAT'S OKAY! but at least be honest with yourself instead of digging yourself deeper and deeper into a pit of denial and trying to make it seem like the duffers are the crazy ones here and not the fucking stranger things equivalent to flat earthers like 🤦‍♂️

[aro-aizawa]

me, whenever i figure a plot twist in a 20 year old anime: oh wow i am SO big brained rn i am such a genius

me, two minutes later, conpletely blindsided by a major plot twist:

[sensitivegoblin]

I'd do anything to have a teasing voice in my ear

[seyaryminamoto]

From what I remember in your story, even taking Iroh's initial biases into account I thought part of his intense hostility leading up to his report to Ozai was that he was truly convinced that Azula's true nature was either no better or even significantly worse than Ozai's due to the Iroh's suspicions arc. Azula herself told Sokka she was worried that by throwing him of the trail of their relationship that she may have brought the worst out of him. Honestly this was probably my favorite exploration of their conflict, because if they were truly able to trust each other and talk they could have avoided so much pain and trouble, but both of them over the course of the story had developed genuine and/or biased reasons not to trust one another and viewed themselves as doing the right thing despite their actions ultimately resulting in the worst outcome. Azula was trying to prevent a known adversary from having ammunition to ruin their lives and future plans, and Iroh believed that he was essentially hindering the fire nation by turning what he thought were essentially two Evil Ozais with a good relationship with one another into enemies. I can't lie that I'm not slightly disappointed that in the latest chapter that this aspect of their conflict wasn't brought up more explicitly in the conversation with Zuko when Iroh was talking about his biases. Was I personally thinking that the dynamic was more significant than it actually was or is that dynamic being saved for a future conversation Iroh may have with Sokka and Azula?

Uuuuuh, as for the last question... I don't really know if I'll bring it up some more since I do think I've had Iroh acknowledge why and how he fucked up in that respect in the past + exteriorized that if Azula had acted differently he might just have done it too? Am I crazy for thinking so? Did I write that or didn't I? That's a complicated game to play when you're almost at 5 million words of a story... 🤣

Azula and Iroh miiiight have one more conversation in the future and maybe this will come up there, but I haven't written it yet so I won't make any promises on that front. Admittedly, I don't expect their future encounter to be particularly fruitful. Iroh is 100% genuine in what he has understood and learned, though, that can't be denied and I always have hoped to portray him not as a super wicked villain but as a character who thinks he understands far more than he actually does, with motivations that push him into making mistakes he very much comes to regret.

This being said, the Azula-Iroh and Zuko-Ozai parallels in this story are and always have been 100% intentional. Those two tugs-of-war have been going on forever, and the crux of them was very much the fact that Azula and Iroh distrusted and second-guessed and suspected each other soooo much... because they have similar natures, similar thought processes, and they're both intellectual, suspicious, hiding what's REALLY going on underneath the surface, and immediately wary when they recognize all those traits in each other too. Likewise, Zuko and Ozai have some REALLY ugly parallels and one of those parallels, already given away by the chapter you sent this ask over, is going to be the driving force of the conflict between those two, much as a similar thing was the driving force between Iroh and Azula, in its own way: the more they fight to push the other away, the harder they reject the other, the more they end up embodying the flaws they see in that other person, to an extent where they could do absolutely TERRIBLE things just out of wanting to push the other one as far away as possible.

So yeah, the point was never for Iroh to feel like some sadistic mustache-twirling villain who wanted Azula to suffer just for shits and giggles. He had his reasons to do what he did. Doesn't mean he was right. Doesn't mean he should've done it. What it means is it made sense in his head due to his biases, the information he had at hand at the moment, and the particularly awful relationship he had with Azula. Likewise, Azula's rejection of Iroh back in "Iroh's suspicions" caused her uncertainty and anguish because she KNEW she had taken it too far. She was afraid of the consequences. A part of her KNEW that if she acted differently, there was a chance, however slim, that Iroh might not have made the choice he did. And that's why this is such a messed up situation! :')

Ultimately, I want my characters to have motivations that just... add up. That can be traced. That, upon looking at their actions and choices, anyone can go "oh yeah, this is why they did whatever they did". This is good when it comes to establishing ultimate goals, and it's also good when you want to put characters to the test: how far are they willing to go, what are they ready to do to achieve whatever they're trying to achieve? How much are they willing to sacrifice for it? And the answers to those questions can be VERY extreme and painful. Just so, we can find characters who decide to back down and simply surrender over their goals when they realize that there are other things that matter more. But it's a manner of game a writer plays when it comes to gauging and figuring out what a character wants vs. needs, what a character will fight for and what it will take for them to surrender, and so on. Fundamentally, that's how I built up Iroh and Azula's chaotic dynamic. Whatever comes from that in the future, ultimately, their biggest problem may just be that they were just too smart for their own good, tried to outsmart each other a little too much, and never allowed themselves to just... accept each other properly. They came close to it once, yes! But... they failed. And it's depressing as hell, but complicated characters will always be challenging this way...

[anipgarden]

Catch me out here making posts on how to collect milkweed seeds because I'm hoping at least SOMEONE out there has good luck

*collapses to the ground* my fuckin swamp milkweeds got Heat Waved and barely even flowered, let alone got pollinated.... I'll have to see if my root stock ones or Swampy even come back next year, but this year definitely isn't the Year of the Ani Swamp Milkweed Success

[kittlyns]

Sunday is legitimately my migraine day

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

if you end up watching wot pls feel free to yell in my direction i am so normal about it 🙃

oh god i am SENSING which exact characters are gonna become my blorbos. adshjsfdhiuahiusuhsuh. i can feel it creeping up on me. one day i will just say fuck it and watch it and i will be so normal about it too.

[vitamiiiiins]

the thing about lavi mentions in dgm right now is that it's like a beautiful drop of water on your tongue after being lost in the desert and yet also once that high wears off you are dying for just another more sip. please. just a cup full. just a pitcher. just an entire oasis . please

[youremyonlyhope]

why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up

[whatudottu]

Bare with me, I've got an idea that combines TFP Shockwave's invention of the cortical psychic patch, what motivation a Shattered Glass Shockwave might have made it, plus more broad cybertronian biology headcanons and how it lead to the invention of the cortical psychic patch in the first place-

Um... let's go!

To start, let's go in reverse order by talking cybertronian biology, or more specifically the more wire based functions of a more literal less sex version of interface panels. Because cybertronians are biomechanical aliens who's only method of 'reproduction' canonically (in most series) is through being birthed by the planet itself - on hold while Primus and Cybertron are dead - when I say 'interface panels' I mean panels housing plugs and ports that are typically there for medical stuff and otherwise data transfers or for use in hardware depending on the individual. The number of panels is relatively consistent and the number of in/out connections depends on the size of the bot (more for larger frames, less for smaller) and are kinda paired to whatever systems they are nearest location wise; two on either side of the hips or one each at the top of the legs, two on either side of the chest or one each at the top of the arms.

Depending on the location you can read the diagnostics of that part of the frame in more detail than if you tried investigating the same part in an entirely different panel; you're gonna get a more accurate read on damages to the left arm in the left arm panels then you are on the right leg. And for particular frames, the interface panels are used to control objects using the relevant limb or part - like a robotic arm to lift things heavier than your frame can handle - and probably even to have your frame be used AS a limb; combiner limbs would connect to whoever's the main body and interface with the relevant limb panel.

But there are panels that are explicitly medical use only, that being internal panels adjunct to the sparkchamber as well as another for specific monitoring of a cybertronian's organs, and paneling at the back of the helm or where it meets the neck for the processor and all the delicate software it holds. Bots with medical programing like Ratchet can interface with those panels directly in the event of a lack of resources (AKA the entirety of Transformers: Prime), and in fact the panel along the sparkchamber would be the easiest way to get a general systems check on a patient. Mecha like Knock Out who may or may not have actual history with being a medical doctor probably would have a harder time directly interfacing with the more delicate sparkchamber, organ, and processor panels, but he and Ratchet (and other bots with even the vaguest sense of medical training) can set up a line running to a monitor or sparkreader or any other medical hardware to fully take in a data analysis, even if it means more resources are used or that vulnerabilities could be introduced.

To the processor panel, much like brain surgery you kinda need a signal in the first place in order to get a read on it's damages, hardware or software. A spark read can let you know if the body is alive and all the damages that IT can diagnose for a general check, but operating on an offline or barely awake processor can lead to issues that you may not even be aware of at the time of procedure. It's why a direct connection (with appropriate medical coding) is better for processor diagnosis as the hardware bypass might have a signal delay between patient and doctor.

And here's where the cortical psychic patch comes in.

When Megan was otherwise comatose, the cortical psychic patch was able to allow access into his processor that had been percolating with activity (one described by Knock Out to be like 'a dream he may never wake from'), and though far from being an actual medical use of the patch it did allow for a non-medical bot to access the processor of a very much comatose patient. It was even Ratchet himself - resident medic of the Autobots - that knew how to create the patch even if it was banned for Autobot use.

Keeping in this reverse order, perhaps a SG Shockwave had invented the cortical psychic patch for an intended medical use, a tool meant for mecha who may not have been forged nor coded to BE medics but have enough training to be such (typically self-taught in the early stages of revolution, then mentored by forged medics when the war really picked up speed) in order to allow direct access to the processor interface panel. The design of it would be - rather than a plug that just magnetically sticks on to the back of a cybertronian's head - would be a series of plugs and ports of mostly universal design, adjustable to a degree for multiple frames, allowing the medic irrespective of coding to have full access to diagnose what the fuck is up with the processor.

Unfortuneately for SG Shockers (and fully intentional by TFP Shockwave) the patch isn't quite as synonymous as the medic's coding is to processor interfacing, being rather invasive of a connection even as it is, let alone the patch being more of a hardware connection which in of itself introduces vulnerabilities. Heck, it's not even safe for the operator themselves to use the patch, seeing as how Bumblebee got a head full of Megan; I mean, Bumblebee isn't a trained medic, but the fact that it happened at all is evidence to it's flaws. And that's to a patient who isn't of mind enough to struggle, Shockwave himself says that resisting the patch may cause damage to the patient/subject, combine that with the second option of 'let it happen and let them walk unabated in your head' and you're pretty much shit out of luck.

The base Shockwave would most certainly be fully aware of the intent, a direct hardline to an individual's processor is most definitely a connection to some very vulnerable software and thus information, the cortical psychic patch probably battling a lot of firewalls off with the ease of a medical interface. And in the base TFP universe, Autobots with only recent war-based medical training as opposed to previous education probably early on DID resort to using the patch as a crutch, Ratchet after all knew how to make one. It's probably a combination of Shockwave's brutal interrogation method USING the cortical psychic patch and the relatively inexperienced Autobot medics opting to use direct processor interface rather than the comparably safer hardware bypass that lead to it's banned status in the Autobot ranks, too many 'Bots were having trauma responses at the hands of young medic's servo's who didn't know any better and actively resisting the patch, which just so happened to lead to more Autobot casualties and thus probably shellshocking the medics in training to get them to fear the daunting prospect of actually losing a patient by THEIR OWN hands.

It's one thing to be using a tool made by someone who has been known to do lots of dubious shit, it's another to see a tool that you made to help be manipulated into an interrogation technique, made all the worse now that you have significantly more emotional capacity to not only feel guilty but feel solely responsible for the patch induced trauma of your own allies; the cortical psychic patch was banned by the Shattered Glass Decepticons for about similar reasons, but it's near worse for a lot of medics (even the experienced ones) had been relying on it solely for the fact that they weren't forged with the coding. The stagnated use of the cortical psychic patch in the base verse was mostly because Shockwave himself had been the inventor of it and main user of the patch, the Autobots avoiding it's use for the ban and the Decepticons not very experienced with the tool. In Shattered Glass however, the only real limit to it's perpetuity would be if the Autobots managed to learn how to create the patch at all, which if even in the base verse Ratchet knew how to make one, probably means that there's more than enough patch use in SG even if Shockwave gets caught in a spacebridge explosion or not.

And that's that I think- funny to talk about interface panels in a transformers post without doing it in a sex way haha- I just want these guys to be alien 😫

[kakusu-shipping]

Speed Ran through Mario Galaxy 2 Yesterday while sick because I couldn't remember why I disliked it so much and wanted to see if that was just younger me being biased. It was not.

But I regained my love for Lubba and Dino Piranha, so that's something at least.

[ardentpoop]

hey. hello. are you getting this. is it obvious enough yet.