#like how do THEY conceptualise it?

[butchviking]

honest to god i forget so many ppl still think being trans is smthn innate to u n something u 'figure out' rather than a decision u actively make. thats so crazy wtf do they think is inside them

[langernameohnebedeutung]

My crowfriends came so close today <3 I love watching their trust in me develop

[raineandsky]

#67

The hero can hear the museum alarms wailing despondently even from outside. They thank the agency driver before getting out of the car, surveying the area. It all looks fine at the front. The criminal must have gotten in through the back somewhere.

They make their way to the rear, pleased to find a catering door swinging open in the late-night breeze. They trundle in, unbothered. It’s odd being in such a tourist trap so late, seeing it so empty. Everything seems to be intact. They’re not entirely sure what they’re really looking for.

Then—out the corner of their eye, a figure darting across a corridor nearby. Their head snaps to the side, peering through the slowly blinking red lights. Then another; a person staggers unmistakably across the gap in the corridor.

“Hey!” the hero shouts, even though they shouldn’t. They dart down the corridor, skidding to a halt at the end and quickly checking their chances of success.

Two are making their getaway in the direction they were expecting. Three more that hadn’t the time to cross are fleeing in the opposite direction. Whatever happens, the hero isn’t going to win this one.

They start after the closest person, lagging behind the rest a little. A giant vase clamped in their arms is dangerously slowing them down, and the hero decides that this is going to have to be their win. 

The hero grabs a fistful of the criminal’s hoodie, earning a horrified yelp as they tug them backwards. The vase loosens from their grip and bounces off the tiled floor with surprising sturdiness.

“Alright, I’m afraid you’re under arrest,” the hero starts with a scowl, pulling the criminal around to face them. “I don’t think your friends will be too—”

The words die on their tongue when the criminal finally turns to stare up at them. Wow, they have the sweetest dark brown eyes, almost the colour of the night sky. It kind of makes the hero wish they could see the rest of them, but the black mask is obscuring the rest of their face.

“You, uh…” the hero starts awkwardly. “You have beautiful eyes.”

There’s a slightly confused crease in the criminal’s brow. That’s fair, to be honest. They probably expected to be arrested, and the hero’s standing here fawning over the one feature they can see on this stranger. Embarrassing.

They realise all too late that the criminal is breaking away from them. They snap back to the present as they wring their hoodie from the hero’s grasp, and they waste no time bolting down the corridor as soon as they’re free. The hero lets them, a little startled and flustered at their own stupid thoughts.

The criminal pauses at the junction in the hall, surprised to only hear their own footsteps echoing off the walls. They turn back to stare at the hero, almost expectant, and the hero stares back until the criminal decides to make the most of their luck and flee.

The hero glances down at the vase at their feet. The agency’s going to be disappointed in one rescued valuable. It even has a crack in its side.

[piierrote]

my favourite thing about art is that you can in fact make the same thing over and over again if u want. u can revisit the same story or the same concepts or themes or even just the same literal piece again and again limitlessly if u want to. nothing matters it’s not against the rules u can just do it

[empressofmankind]

"(this) game doesn't need a pause button"

Tell me you have no life, without telling me you have no life. And no disability or concept of disability, for that matter

Every time someone goes "hurdur it doesn't need a pause button", I just want to punch them in the face. Maybe YOU don't. But if the existence of a pause button makes you feel insecure because it makes a game "easy", maybe the problem is you? And not the pause button.

[fellhellion]

[vampiresuns]

having a tav that's a Lloth-sworn life domain cleric of a noble background who before getting yeeted into the nautiloid was a sacrificial priestess (gn) during one of the cycles of Drow society and had their own altar and temple under their care, means Solune would have the most insane however many minutes they spent interacting with Minthara and I am obsessed about it. As far as I'm conceptualising it, I'm thinking of Lloth as extremely Ungoliant-like. Goddess of hunger, goddess of wanting and consumption, goddess of excess and exuberance, goddess who unmasked the hypocritical gods of starvation, guilt and purity into a society that cherishes a certain kind of clarity about the double standard they impose. For Drow are evil for their wars and their wanting and their taking, but those other people with their other gods kill, warmonger and enslave with no regard and no self-awareness, calling the indignation about receiving scraps from a bunch of silent, unrepentant gods, "guilt and shame". There is violence in denial and her Children will not suffer it.

In the season of Life, they do not sacrifice the unwilling. It is taboo. The only sacrifice that matters is the desire to be devoured and destroyed by the things you love the most.

And Solune sees Minthara and is like fucking finally, someone rational enough to get what I'm going through, that they're losing their mind that their life was taken from them and if they become this other thing, if they transform, if they do not remain Luxe Solune Mizzmyrra, Life Knife of Lloth, they're never going to be able to be reintegrated into that life. They will die away from home, from their temple, from their (first) spouse, from their mother and their siblings and there won't be the day when they too succumb to the knife, when it is time, when the day they no longer feel hunger comes.

And then the parasite gives them an in into Minthara thinking she was raised from the darkness into a FALSE GOD? One thing you do not do is steal from Lady Lloth, and oh my god, there could've been a time, a chance that existed only in ignorance, of Solune lending a hand to Minthara but this to them is unforgivable because Solune is genuinely a good friend to their friends, but if you keep peeking into whatever mindset nobility and religious authority has given them it's like realising your friend is a cesspool of "what the actual and everliving fuck", and when the knife of the morningstar priestess comes down on Minthara it won't be with love but with absolute rage, grief and disgust and I will be thinking about this for evermore. Thanks, I'm not well

[mostlykind]

how do you stay hopeful when every powerful force is against you, and mainstream media yields to their wants and needs, when every step forward is met with brutalisation forcing you 10 steps back, and sympathy is only extended to the oppressor

[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 😫

[padfootastic]

Unpopular opinion time! I'm queer and super here for queer rep always, but the newest/youngest wave of MWPP fans needs to understand that there just wouldn't have been 5-15 openly queer/trans/gnc students running around Hogwarts in the 1970s. Even if one or all of them had the wherewithal to understand that about their identity in the first place, it wouldn't have been safe to be openly out in that context. Hell, it was illegal to be gay in Scotland until 1981.

So this unpopular opinion is a 2-parter, which is also that fic is way more interesting when it depicts queerness as understanding its context. Sure it can be there, it always has been, but this is a conservative boarding school in 1970s Scotland and is so much more interesting when that's acknowledged.

oooooh okay, so. we’re really getting into it, huh?

i think i’m gonna go with…neutral on this. not because i don’t have opinions, but bc i have too many of them.

so, for one, funnily enough im not big on realism in fiction (esp set in other universes like hp’s wizarding world) and that translates into a lot of freedom to move around in terms of identity hcs. one of my favs, for eg, is that homosexual relationships aren’t a big deal bc say, fertility potions & pregnancy spells, yeah? another longstanding hc i have that i staunchly believe in is complete gender equality/lack of sexism in the WW. so, if u hc it as being open to all sexual/gender orientations bc, magic, then u completely (and happily) sidestep the whole ‘queerness in 19th ce britain’ yeah? the whole illegal thing is also a bit iffy too bc i personally consider the WW to be a v distinct society with its own everything but that’s a personal hc tbf.

having said that—i get so annoyed by some representation lol

i mean, people write what they want as they should but sometimes it comes off so fkn hollow. like they’re doing it because they should, not bc it’s their wish. and there’s all sorts of sociological reasons behind it and why i’m so annoyed by that but the baseline is this: queer rep becomes more virtue signalling that robs itself of all its virtue and i don’t…vibe with that.

Send me unpopular opinions!

[deepspaceclawstation]

I feel so stupid rn

[odetolovers]

shaking crying screaming

[tyrannuspitch]

i've said this before, and like i know it's hard to account for every possible family setup. but i do think the fact that almost all research on childhood emotional development focuses exclusively on parents/guardians is genuinely a problem. seriously, do none of you people have siblings? if there are four to five people in an average household why do you think only the relationships between three of them matter?

[electropath]

psydney lives in permanent video game brain so you’re standing there explaining how to perform a task and she registers it as QTE instructions

[fellhellion]

as funny as lyla trying to kill miguel w hammers was and i appreciate that plot point as an introduction to xina, i kind of wish she'd been able to retain her implied self actualisation and it wasn't just relegated to discord's influence. lyla connecting herself into the wider web and being subsumed by the sheer amount of suffering being reported on the news, snagging on a common english pangram again and again, before she's utterly overwhelmed and cries out for miguel as she shuts down? its such an interesting little character moment in conjuction with the fact that the first thought she ever conjures for herself is just...that she loves miguel, she loves perhaps the closest thing they both have to a friend.

[epicdogymoment]

duuuude. having a brain that doesnt work properly is so fun