#what in the plato's cave

[adhd-merlin]

when arthur opens the door and the sunlight spills onto merlin but he justs stares at arthur's shadow and doesn't turn until arthur calls his name and then arthur says "it's a new day". do you ever think about it.

[sneckoil]

playing house. when house isn't around. (as overburdened friends do)

[fluffypotatey]

OOOH okay thank you for reminding me half the things I forgot. ha-! allegory of the cave is Greek you say? So is Pandora's Box if that wasn't translated for localization, if he said that literally then Nines, what era are you from LOL. special shout out to the person who said they were like, a past life of MK oh wait yeah that was you Fluffs. that + him being tired of being the hero. what is wrong with that guy....anyways. Nuwa!! the way she coils around people is very, "snake eats tiny dot to get bigger" that game, also just general trapping hmm. like he SEEMS NICE bc they wanted MK is live a little and brought his stone to life??? but was super clumsy and ended up cracking it. also Wukong HOW did you not notice, were you on the journey? was Macky already too dead to protect FFM? there has been a murder!! the subtle expressions, the lingering on their contemplative looks where you just know they're getting a no good idea, when they start covering the eyes and making characters turn their faces. it doesn't matter how still they are. we could see the EXACT thoughts cooking up in there and it's gah- T^T "and the way Macky mourned Wukong privately while everyone else cried for MK (bc they assumed the Pillar repairing itsef meant swk failed) since he knew the Monkey King would try to take MK’s place-" ^^ super valid take, but I raise you: "Macky assumed MK DID do it and was mourning for SWK because he knows how much it would have destroyed him to watch MK sacrifice himself in front of his eyes. that SWK would have tried his absolute hardest yet seems to have failed and it hurts, especially considering their last conversation on MK" :D

YOUR TAKE ALSO WORKS 🤧 BUT LIKE EITHER WAY I WILL FOREVER BE TAKEN ABACK BY HOW GUT WRENCHED MACKY SOUNDED FHERE

lmk what was the point????? TO KILL ME???? BECAUSE IF IS WORKING

yes! Pandora’s box is also Greek! Pandora, a woman created to be the wife of Prometheus’ brother’s wife in the spite of the gods who wanted vengeance on the titan for giving the mortals fire (look what you’ve done. you’ve unlocked my Greek mythos obsession a day early). Pandora was created with beauty, submissiveness, obedience, and curiosity. and it was that curiosity that the gods exploited

“here is a gift from the gods!” they told her and her husband. “under no circumstance do you open it,” they said with a hollow smile before leaving.

and poor Pandora, who did not know her own role in the fall mortals, opened the box at the behest of her burning curiosity, unleashing all hells of bad omens while Hope remained veer loyal in the box Pandora clutched tightly.

“oh you foolish girl!” her husband cried, the effects quickly taking place in him and the rest of humanity. “you just had to open it for your own selfish needs.”

and here we are in s5 with Nines referencing both the Allegory of the Cave and Pandora’s Box. two stories that are about the blessings and curses that come with understanding the world around you. leaving the cave meant leaving the reality forced upon you, but opening Pandora’s box meant unleashing horrors you could no longer be ignorant of in your humble home

MK has already stepped out of the cave but denies it’s reality, not yet ready for the truth it holds. despite this, he already opened her box and whether or not he accepts the “true” reality, MK will find new consequences for unleashing the power of the colored stones on the whole of the earth.

[starwarmth]

We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss Havisham still had Estella’s arm drawn through her own, and still clutched Estella’s hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself. She had shown a proud impatience more than once before, and had rather endured that fierce affection than accepted or returned it.

“What!” said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, “are you tired of me?”

“Only a little tired of myself,” replied Estella, disengaging her arm, and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at the fire.

“Speak the truth, you ingrate!” cried Miss Havisham, passionately striking her stick upon the floor; “you are tired of me.”

Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was almost cruel.

“You stock and stone!” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “You cold, cold heart!”

“What?” said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; “do you reproach me for being cold? You?”

“Are you not?” was the fierce retort.

“You should know,” said Estella. “I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me.”

“O, look at her, look at her!” cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; “Look at her, so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!”

“At least I was no party to the compact,” said Estella, “for if I could walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to you. What would you have?”

“Love,” replied the other.

“You have it.”

“I have not,” said Miss Havisham.

“Mother by adoption,” retorted Estella, never departing from the easy grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never yielding either to anger or tenderness, “Mother by adoption, I have said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I have nothing. And if you ask me to give you what you never gave me, my gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.”

“Did I never give her love!” cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me. “Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me mad, let her call me mad!”

“Why should I call you mad,” returned Estella, “I, of all people? Does any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well as I do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool that is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up into your face, when your face was strange and frightened me!”

“Soon forgotten!” moaned Miss Havisham. “Times soon forgotten!”

“No, not forgotten,” retorted Estella. “Not forgotten, but treasured up in my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching? When have you found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving admission here,” she touched her bosom with her hand, “to anything that you excluded? Be just to me.”

“So proud, so proud!” moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her grey hair with both her hands.

“Who taught me to be proud?” returned Estella. “Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?”

“So hard, so hard!” moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action.

“Who taught me to be hard?” returned Estella. “Who praised me when I learnt my lesson?”

“But to be proud and hard to me!” Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as she stretched out her arms. “Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud and hard to me!”

Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but was not otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked down at the fire again.

“I cannot think,” said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence “why you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a separation. I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I have never been unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never shown any weakness that I can charge myself with.”

“Would it be weakness to return my love?” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “But yes, yes, she would call it so!”

“I begin to think,” said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment of calm wonder, “that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she had never once seen your face—if you had done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry?”

Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low moaning, and swaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer.

“Or,” said Estella, ”—which is a nearer case—if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her;—if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?”

Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see her face), but still made no answer.

“So,” said Estella, “I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”

Great Expectations, ch. 38

[diddlesnap]

what is with ppl insisting katniss is bi on posts abt ppl headcanoning her as a lesbian like 😭😭😭 shes actually written to be heterosexual. so we're both wrong. let's move on.

[i-miss-breathing]

I’m on episode 8

Good stuff

*sobs in corner*

Fucking love this snake dude, forgot his name already but his mannerisms have entranced me, the way he speaks, the way he moves, his facial expressions, what he’s saying, it’s all a bit hesitant and careful which makes his whole element of being a creature from the chaos beyond so interesting already and I just met him like five minutes ago AUGH!!!

[shyce-overgod]

[luxlightly]

A real statement I heard that's honestly terrifying: "Tik tok forced brands to be more honest and real with people because tik tok doesn't accept fakeness and that's why propaganda doesn't work on us"

This was said by an adult who claimed to study marketing trends. Do...do people actually think those "hey guys!!! checking out these new Doritos™! Hashtag yum am I right?" videos by brands are real? I get so angry at those videos because they're so insidious in their attempt to appear like friends or fellow average people and not scripted actors, going so far as to fake things like poor lighting or stumbling words, but I didn't think anyone actually BOUGHT it.

And before anyone is like "lol just don't go on tik tok", this is clearly not an app specific issue. And I'm sure that plenty of people know better than to think that brand videos are real or assume that, because you can't tell the difference between a real person and an actor, it means that you can't be fooled by propaganda. And I recognize that it's certainly not an issue entirely divided on generational lines. But it is a disturbing trend in advertisement that has consequences, especially for those who grew up with it. Younger people will get freaked out by giving a second of clear audio before speaking in a recording because it sounds "faked" to them. "The millennial pause" indicates pretty clearly "I am filming something and presenting information and making sure that it doesn't get cut off by leaving a second of audio in case something goes wrong and needs to be edited". They don't get it's done intentionally or why and don't like the explanation when they get it. They get freaked out by presentation voices. Or at least find them off-putting. Anything that says "I'm recording this to give information clearly and concisely" reads as disingenuous to people who grew up in a world where advertisers and brands carefully construct a facade of being a "normal, flawed person, just like you! You can totally trust me! Treat me like a person instead of a brand that wants your money!" Intentional imperfection and careful replication of candid endorsements skeeve me out. People like me, who didn't grow up with it, feel weirded out by them. It's a lie and we don't like it. It feels MORE fake because of how clearly it's trying to appear real. But if you've grown up with nothing else, I guess anything that intentionally tells the viewer that the subject is presenting information formally reads as "they have an agenda". Anyone recording has an agenda. Even if that agenda is just "tell people about my new dog". When you stop believing that, you don't get more immune to propaganda, you stop being able to recognize it at all.

[kamil-a]

end of s4 spoilers hale fic hiiii

when jacob hale looks up, he sees the sky.

it's a brilliant shade of blue. higher up than any ceiling, crisscrossed by wires here and there between buildings. puffs of white, clouds, float lazily across. it makes him dizzy to look at. he sits down heavily on the concrete before he falls.

concrete, there's another new one. well, technically not new, he thinks, but.... no, new, it can be new. as far as he's concerned he's never ever seen it before. he's seen tile and linoleum and sometimes carpet and metal and the rough, chalky surface of typhon itself, but not sidewalk. it's harsh and scratches his hands.

wind. birdsong. he's behind a building, alone save for a few full garbage bins (aerolith standard, familiar) but he can hear the chatter of people walking around, probably doing a great deal better getting out of their pods than he. the rattle rattle rushing-by of people with stretchers for those who have done worse.

uncontrollably, he starts to cry. the sky blurs. he curls up, buries his face in his knees. the fabric of his pants is familiar against his cheek. he cries even more.

he half-expects (hopes?) any second now to hear a whirr from inside his head, and for the tears to stop like a faucet turned off- do not waste fluids, a lecture on the dangers of dehydration. it doesn't happen, of course. he keeps crying. he can't stop it alone.

eventually- he has no idea how long- there is a sound, a chime in his head. general notice. it is sunset, speaker informs everyone. hale lets the broadcast wash over him. your schedule will be delivered individually. you should be wherever you're supposed to be when the sun goes down.

and then, softer, just to him- i recommend watching.

so he looks, of course.

it isn't the quick dimming of lights he's used to. slowly, the sky begins to change. it's almost too subtle to notice it until suddenly there it is, the sky lit up in pinks and oranges. more colors he's never seen before. it's breathtaking. (every breath he does take smells of something new.) he wants to look away, hide his face in his hands, but it has been recommended that he watch this. so he looks. of course.

when it is finally all dark-

well, what did you think of your first sunset?

there is even more of a smile than usual in speaker's voice.

"i-" hale coughs, unused to speaking. his throat is dry. he tries again. it waits for him.

"it's beautiful," he says, more because he thinks it's what speaker wants to hear than anything else. it's objectively true, though. it is beautiful. he just doesn't know what to think about it.

his stomach twists.

you must be hungry, speaker says, but he really doesn't want to eat right now. well, speaker has all the data. perhaps he is hungry.

i would have you report to the cafeteria, but... in this case, i think your current location is an advantage. you will want to stay inconspicuous, and there is very low traffic to this area until the garbage gets removed tomorrow morning. I'll have something brought out to you.

he sits. he thinks about food. fine, maybe he's hungry. after a few minutes a small construct (is that what he looked like?) rolls out to him bearing a container and a large bottle, before sweeping up some loose dirt and litter and rolling away.

I gave you more than your usual hydration portion to account for the lost fluids, speaker explains. the practicality grounds him. he starts out with a sip of whatever it is- the same electrolyte solution as he's used to. emboldened, he opens the container. vegetables, thats something he knows. instant mashed potato. the protein source is unfamiliar, but the smell makes his mouth water. speaker is thrilled about it, so he's fortunately saved from having to ask.

aerolith dynamics is proud to inform you that that is grilled salmon you've got on your plate! So recently brought back from extinction, and immediately jumped to the top three in favorite protein source surveys among our earth division. go on, have a bite.

he bites. chews slowly, swallows. it's not bad. he couldn't say what's in it. salt, perhaps.... lemon?

you don't get that on typhon, do you! speaker sounds smug.

"I've had fish," he says automatically. he doesn't like the dig at typhon's food. he can't explain why. he just doesn't. he takes another bite so speaker won't ask him about it and he doesn't have to admit that the lab-synthezised "tuna fish" sandwich he and some other brave souls tried out at lunch for a week before it was recalled didn't resemble this whatsoever. and that this probably tastes, objectively, way better. his stomach churns. he feels sick. you dont simply skip a meal at aerolith and waste valuable food, and throw off your nutrition plan. he forces a bite of mashed potato into his mouth.

your brain needs proper nutrition to run. as he eats and drinks he can start to see the shape of what bothers him, and it's so stupid. it's embarassing. he can't tell speaker, can't risk insulting it, but he can think the words at least. speaker is in his head but not, you know, in his head.

he's earthstained.

literally- as in, the gravel in his boots and the dirt on the back of his pants. but also, it has only been a few hours and already he has looked up at the sky. he has seen his first sunset, and tomorrow he will probably see his first sunrise. he knows how dark the night gets, the sounds of birds. every breath he takes smells of earth.

when things go back to normal, he-

they won't. not his normal, anyway. he's going to be "set free".

but- he cant help but imagine going back to the only life he knows- if he did ever go back. he would be like all the others, another resident who sighs and says they miss clouds, they miss birds, that they miss the way the air smells after it rains, the air smells so sterile here. someone would say they miss being able to watch the sunset and he would agree. and he would miss the sunset too.

he- sven-he, not hale-he- had been asked for feedback, that time with the tuna sandwich. he'd been the first to take a bite, and he'd said "it's good", earning various doubtful looks from everyone else (and one the nutrition technician will be delighted to hear that, thank you for your feedback.) the person sitting across from him took a bite next. they chewed it thoughtfully, swallowed, and said "it's not bad, but it's not the real thing."

he forces into his mouth another bite of the real thing.

sayer would probably know a story about this.

[tellherium]

We fall asleep in a mess all our own. Usually, she closes her eyes first, but I am learning to trust this couch. She closes her eyes first. I am learning that shared space can be safe. She started buying plastic plants. Like me, they will never give up on her. Like her, they will never give up on me.

[magpiesbones]

worst thing about being disabled is that now I am fully and completely aware of exactly how much I am worth to everyone I know. And it is not a lot!!

[rebornrosess]

glass animals lyrics are only meant to be understood by stoned people or gay people. if you’re both then you get to start hearing shapes and seeing the hat man.

[lord-shitbox]

Pace around kitchen by hanging lantern-light at 3:30 am hours. Thinking once again about how I'm starved of things like affection & excitement in real life -> I seek them out or create them in fiction to supplement -> it doesn't really work -> when opportunity presents itself, I cannot stomach those things in reality (for example, actually meeting new people) -> I am starved of things like affection -> I seek them ou

[evolvingmonkey]

Zany Love Theories: Agathon's Symposium, Athens' Wildest Party

just imagine you are in Athens at the most epic party of the year - it's Agathon's big win in a dramatic competition, and he's throwing a symposium to celebrate. Here's a quick recap of the wild night:

Agathon's Symposium was THE event to be at. The room was adorned with laurel wreaths, overflowing goblets of wine, and an abundance of mouthwatering dishes. Socrates, the resident philosopher and party crasher, decided it was the perfect time to ask some deep questions. He started grilling the guests on love like it was a juicy kebab.

Phaedrus began with a romantic speech about love inspiring great deeds, serenading the crowd with verses about how love can make you brave enough to challenge a Minotaur to win the heart of your beloved. He passionately waves a scroll and might even brandish a makeshift sword for dramatic effect. He extols the virtues of a lover who's motivated by the desire to win the admiration of their beloved. He believes love can inspire individuals to perform noble and courageous acts, such as risking their lives in battle to earn the respect of their beloved. while Pausanias rambled on about "heavenly" and "common" forms of love. He suggests that "heavenly love" requires wearing angel wings and spouting philosophy, while "common love" is more like a fiery tango under the moonlight.

Aristophanes, the class clown of the Symposium, stole the show with a bizarre yet hilarious story about humans originally having four legs. Believing love is the quest to find your dance partner with whom you'll groove through life.

Then, Eryximachus, the physician, chipped in with a quirky theory about love as the balance of bodily fluids. Love, he says, is all about the right blend of bodily "ingredients." He recommends a pinch of intellectual stimulation, a dash of physical attraction, and just a sprinkle of cosmic harmony. Stir well, and voila, you have a love potion!

In jumps in Socrates, questioning everyone's theories with an endless stream of "Why?" and "What if?" He's like the ultimate party crasher, turning everyone's wild theories into thought-provoking puzzles.

Just when things were getting a bit too serious, the charismatic Alcibiades stormed in, clearly having had one too many cups of wine. He declared his love for Socrates like he's in an ancient Greek soap opera, causing a mix of laughter and awkward tension.

The Symposium was like a combination of a TED Talk, a stand-up comedy show, and a soap opera all rolled into one wild Athenian night.

[green-mountain-goose]

whatever happens i cant fail is an *abysmal* strategy for living life. and yet rn....

[they-call-me-hippie]

Yeah I can tell people have lost their grasp on basic ongoing forms of oppression when they say things like "hatred of men and masculinity is one of the reasons trans women, BIPOC and Jewish men are persecuted" like what a non-sequiteur. Imagine being so ignorant of power structures in your attempt to """progressively""" defend men that you become transphobic