#if anyone has any thoughts

[babble-witch]

Thinking about:

Valuing autonomy as a core belief, and how to balance that with creating servitors or thoughtforms. Sentience without autonomy doesn't feel right. Maybe creating then forming deal? Power imbalances being natural to a degree, but how to work with that ethically.

Also: everyone else I work with has the option to stop working with me. The only energy I use other than myself other than that (in my charms, for example) are usually more passive "leeching." Kind of like using a water wheel in a river (I've used highways this way, for example). How does that fit into this framework. Hm.

[insomniac-crow]

keep coming up with metaphors and analogies to separate certain aspects of my consciousness (?) from me and it's causing a lot of confusion

A. Literally- if X is the voice inside my head that embodies Y aspect of myself, then which parts are left over for me? Am I just the body?

B. Is thought even real. I mean, we're a lump of atoms and my brain is just a chunk of fatty meat. Literally what is real. Nothing. How am I real.

C. Also the constant worry that this is an unhealthy way to be thinking and I should shut it off before it turns into a huge mental mess and like. Talk to someone about it.

help

[haetrack]

guys can u believe i’m doing ACTUAL hard hours like little short posts… like who would’ve thought

[indigo6f00ff]

need to share an experience i had 30 minutes ago

(edit: thanks to @walks-the-ages for providing and reminding me to put alt text, sorry it slips my mind alot lol)

[chamerionwrites]

Honestly this gets at my chiefest complaint/frustration/discomfort with fandom as a whole. Which is: in their rush to defend the artistic merit of fanworks I think a ton of people have really valorized transformation and remixing and reinterpretation in and of themselves, when imo those are all quite neutral actions. When done well, they can expand and build upon and subvert meaning in really powerful and thought-provoking (and fun!) ways. When done poorly, they are just as likely to flatten and oversimplify and decontextualize and completely erase meaning. The simple act of changing something does not imbue the choice to do so with creative validity. It is entirely possible for a cover song to be bad (or just boring!). To exactly the same degree that it is possible to transform a pretty shallow and straightforward work into something deeper and more nuanced and subversive, is possible to transform a work into a vastly shallower and less interesting shadow of itself. As with nearly everything in art, it's all about the execution!

But the second you voice this position (which should honestly be a pretty uncontroversial one imo), you get people shrieking at you about being gatekeep-y and pretentious and betraying the sacred fandom etiquette of Don't-Like-Don't-Read.

And like...listen. I was not raised in a barn. I am 150% capable of quietly back-buttoning out of a fanfic I think is bad or boring - which is exactly what I do when I encounter them - and I am obviously not advocating for stupid ships wars or any kind of harassment or leaving hatemail in people's AO3 inboxes. (Which some people will also accuse you of the second you say anything less than lavishly positive about fandom, in true piss-on-the-poor fashion.) Literally all I am saying is that you can't have your cake and eat it too - that if fandom and fanworks (in the broadest sense) have artistic merit then fandom and fanworks (in the broadest sense) are fair game for artistic critique. Which means, in practice, that I can go on my own blog and make a post exactly like this one - critiquing broad trends, or stating that some interpretations are bad actually, or pointing out that subverting or talking back to or reading against the grain of canon is very different from simply ignoring it, or saying "fandom's culture of collage/remix/fuck-canon-I-do-what-I-want can lend itself to to really creative and interesting art but also to a lot of really bland homogenized cut-n-paste art, not to mention some pretty troubling decontextualization." And that if you feel this rains on your personal parade, you are then free to DLDR by back-buttoning out of my blog and/or blocking me so you never have to see my hot takes again, rather than clamoring in my notes about how I should let people enjoy things.

[mossymage]

The first seedling 🌱🍅

[petricorah]

*pretending like i haven't been biting at the bars of my enclosure all week* so neat show, huh? [id in alt]

[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.

[catastrxblues]

(X) please consider donating if you can

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

wow guys, i cant believe the player character from hit mascot horror game Poppy Playtime actually saved all monsters, killed the Prototype and left with their newfound family! cant wait to see how the authorities will react to this weird family that just formed!

[lazylittledragon]

so uhhhhhhhh. not to be cryptic and bitchy on main but congratulations to everyone in my messages for like 5 months on being right i guess

[ultimate-potato-god]

Birds hold so much symbolism in the Hunger Games. There’s mockingjays and doves and geese and ducks and canaries and in almost every way they represent something good or positive or rebellious or hopeful.

So there is something incredibly horrific about Maysilee Donner- the original reluctant owner of the mockingjay pin, the owner of a caged canary, who was hated by the original owner of the geese (the dove herself)- being killed by birds the color of the bubblegum she never wanted to sell.

Her final poster.

[hailsatanacab]

A Persuasive Argument - dpxdc

"Great!" Danny says, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. The dinner table falls silent as everyone looks towards him. It's a full house today and, honestly, Danny's a little nervous. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today."

"It's dinnertime. In our house." Duke mutters, while doing a very bad job of concealing his yawn. He holds his fork poised over the braised beef, but, just like everyone else, still looks towards Danny before tucking in. It's intriguing enough to wait.

"Yeah, no one misses Alfie's dinner." Dick says, with a brilliant smile that Danny can't help but return.

"Precisely! What better time to talk to you all than when you're all actually here!"

"Wait, I thought you came round to work on our English essays?" Tim asks, blinking owlishly.

"I'm afraid I've lured you here under false pretences, Tim."

"This is where I live."

"I would still really appreciate help on that essay though, I mean, what the hell is Hamlet even about? I just don't get that old time-y language, like 'Hark! A ghost hath killed me!' - absolute rubbish, what does that even mean?"

"The ghost never kills anyone in Hamlet, he's there to tell Hamlet that he was murdered. Have you actually read it?"

"No, but it sounds like you have. Tim, I want this guy to help me with my essay instead. I know for a fact that you haven't read Hamlet, either."

"So? We don't need Jason, I've read the Sparknotes."

"Hi Jason, I'm Danny, pleasure to meet you, summarise Hamlet in three sentences or less."

"Am I auditioning to help you write your essays? I can't believe you’ve gone through your whole school life without reading it, it’s good!"

"Hamlet, along with a number of other classics, was banned in our house because it portrayed ghosts as intelligent and sympathetic beings rather than evil, animalistic beasts. I didn’t even get to see The Muppet's Christmas Carol until last year with Tim! It was surprisingly good, and I hate Christmas because everyone always argued and it sucked. But we're getting off topic. I—"

"No, no, please go back to that, because what the fu—"

"Boys, please." Bruce interrupts, looking to the world as if he wants to hang his head in his hands. "Danny, you were about to say something?"

"Oh, yeah, Mr. Wayne! Thanks!"

"Please, call me Bruce."

"Well, that very succinctly brings me to my point, because I'd actually really like to call you dad."

Nobody says a word. Nobody even blinks, all as shocked as the other, watching open-mouthed as Danny pulls his laptop out from beside his chair. Bruce can definitely feel a headache coming on.

"Before you say anything, I've prepared a 69 slide PowerPoint presentation on why you, Bruce Wayne, should adopt me, Danny Last-Name-Pending. Please save your questions, comments, and verdict until the end, thank you."

[g00seg1raffe]

I feel like it's not addressed enough that Obi-Wan was so not ready for Anakin at the end of TPM. He wasn't quite ready to be a Knight, let alone take a Padawan, let alone Anakin.

Like, imagine you're 25 years old, already dealing with plenty of issues from your shitshow of a teen-to-young-adult experience when your Master - your father, your friend, your teacher, your guardian of 12 years, who you didn't always have the best relationship with but goddamn it you tried so hard and overcame so much to get to where you are - is literally murdered in front of you by a fucking demon, the ancient bogeymen of all your childhood stories who are suddenly very real and killing the people you love. Everyone looks at you now with so much awe and fear because, in a haze of grief and panic, you managed to become the first to kill a demon in a millennium - which is somehow that's enough of a qualification to immediately graduate your apprenticeship with full honours even though you never actually got the chance to finish it. Five minutes of pure terror turned your life upside down, and now you have to shoulder the burdens of a knighthood that you know you're not ready for, and find some way to live with the crushing expectations that come with your newfound, accidental and very unwanted semi-legendary status. And, if that wasn't enough already, within 24 hours of all this going down, you're also legally responsibly for raising a hyperactive 9 year old ex-slave Child of Prophesy with crippling CPTSD and more power than god. You somehow, somehow have to raise this boy to be both a good Knight - which you haven't had a chance to figure out how to be yourself yet - and a functional person - which was never and easy thing for you to be but is getting harder by the day. You desperately want to do right by your new Padawan and honour your Master's dying wish but you're not ready for any of this, you didn't ask for it, and you're trying so hard to not repeat Qui-Gon's mistakes whilst also being painfully aware that you can never live up to what he could have been. Then there's homework and missions and nightmares and you worry that Anakin isn't making friends and you haven't slept more than 3 hours a night in weeks and the President of the Galaxy is pressuring you for some Private Alone Time with your child -

How the fuck is anyone supposed to handle that?

[melrosing]

thinking about how lancel, in trying to become Jaime, actually kind of did! he was manipulated into a role too big for him to truly reckon with, got lost in the corruption of court, became a pawn for powers greater than himself, and in finally wresting himself from those hands he simply sank deeper into his own trauma and turned his back on everything else just to wallow in it all. in fact I think loras and lancel are the past selves that kind of book end Jaime’s arc that spans his return to KL in ASOS and his travels through the Riverlands in AFFC. Loras is kind of a flattering projection of self: he’s strong, beautiful, as good as he thinks he is and sure of himself. Lancel, on the other end of his trials, is essentially the opposite. he’s weak, cowed, tormented and terrified. but they both make up the person Jaime was on that bridge from boyhood to manhood and he has to reckon w both to truly grow from them

[peace-hunter]

tfone au where OP is created as the last of the primes but way after them, a sparkling born at what were thought to be the last days of the war against the quintessons, the beginning of a new generation of peace after eons of war. a child meant to be loved and raised knowing nothing of war nor sacrifice.

he's kept mostly out of the spotlight by his siblings, who don't wish to expose him to everyone's optics so young, and want to wait until the war is done and over to properly introduce him to their people.

except of course the primes are betrayed and murdered by sentinel, the war is lost and everyone who knows and cared for the truth is either banished or outright killed in order to suppress it.

and the high guard, the ones the primes trusted the most, the ones that were supposed to protect them, the ones who failed in their most important duty, have to make a choice. to take the last prime, their last hope, with them to the surface, a hostile environment where there's little to no supplies and where they'll be hunted down by both sentinel and the quintessons as the biggest threat to their regimen.

or hide him in plain sight. place him where sentinel won't think to look for him. one more sparkling among many. and hope it will be enough to keep him alive. pray to primus that he'll protect his last child long enough for them to come back for him when it's safer (even if most of them have already lost their faith on him when he allowed the rest of his children to be massacred like that)

they almost lose their resolve when they realize they will have to take the little one's cog away in order to make him blend in with the rest of the newborns (and oh do they burn with murderous intent when they see what sentinel has done to their people but it's not the time yet-) but in the end they decide an impaired little prime is better than a dead one.

and so in the chaos of thirteen dead primes and a sudden energon crisis, a little sparkling who very few mechs really knew about and even fewer had seen completely vanishes. and in the depths of iacon a mech in charge of a new batch of newborns scratches their helm in confusion as they realize they must have miscounted the first time.

optimus prime is quietly erased from any official records by sentinel, written off as dead when they find a sparkling's frame mangled beyond recognition after an attack on the base of those rebels that insist on being a thorn on his side. killing the sparkling hadn't been precisely in his plans, he probably could've found some use for it after all, but he's not particularly upset about it either.

and orion pax grows up with an ache on his spark that tells him he's missing something far more important than a t-cog and dreams of gentle and loving hands, cradling him against the frames of mechs he cannot recall the faces of.