Just Some Random Thoughts - Blog Posts

I rode a bike today

For the first time of my life. And it felt so great! Wonderful. The minute I figured out how to keep the balance, the minute I gained control of the handlebar, I realised that nothing can stop me from gaining control of my life as well. So as the wind was blowing my hair away from my face, I headed to the end of the path. And I don't care how ridiculously dramatic this may sound, but this was one of the joyest moments of my life

Listening to classical music while studying is definetely not an effective way to learn

I get too distracted and just vibing to my favorite bangers, so I barely focus on the actual study, so it's actually perfect

10000/10 would recommend

You just go YEAAAH MHMMMM HEHEHHEHEHE DAAAAANG

So yeah that's how you go to summer school at the end of the year ^^

This shot blows me away. Gabriel trying to connect to Adrien for selfish reasons, Nathalie still bound by her assisting device, Adrien looking worried at the head of the table, unaware of everything happening around him all while a picture of Emilie, stark white against the dark cabinet, stares at them.

Emilie's photo is like a constant reminder of a curse they can't escape. She is quite literally hanging over them because Gabriel can't move on which brings down everyone around him.

...

But how can Gabriel stop? She's staring right at him and he won't turn away.

I'm sure someone's thought of this before and maybe even done something with it, but I've had this idea in my docs and want to share - just about the possibility of an AU where the OUAW crew don't turn in Torbek for whatever reason - maybe they just don't do it in time or they just get super distracted by something or other and forget - and Frost ends up taking his place...

Just pondering about how differently things could have gone, how Frost would have dealt with it as opposed to Torbek. He'd probably handle it a lot better (though there is the very interesting possibility of if he didn't handle it any better) and maybe he'd even learn about the witchlight during the process

It could be kind of funny if he came back wayyyyy sooner than expected because of the way the time slowed and he just managed to finish the entire quest on his own before they even got into the feywild

Butttt, there's also the interesting possibility of that not happening and the crew find him disheveled and affected by the witchlight, perhaps more feral than before. Maybe the first indication is the way his eyes glow pink. Maybe they'd attach the witchlight differently, idk, I haven't thought that far. Maybe he'd be more distant than before, maybe he'd be more clingy. Maybe the witchlight affects him all the same and he attacks them (maybe he knows that he's attacking them but he can't do anything to stop it and he just has to watch), Gricko having to try and tame him like some kind of wild animal - I feel like there are many possibilities and they're all interesting.

Maybe I'll write something about this one day, but I don't know if I could do it justice - but hey, there are some thoughts!

I shared this idea on the Discord but thought I’d put it here, too (preemptive angst warning, sorry): Lost In Your Eyes Tarquin time loop fic where he goes back to the start of his journey over and over again any time anyone dies (I imagine the first day he doesn’t believe it. He has dreams like this all the time. But then he gets through one day. And then another. And then realizes that maybe this is real? And after the first loop and first successful save he realizes that maybe there is a chance. Maybe this is his second chance) and finally gets a chance to save everyone…!

…Only to wake up from some kind of coma or something and figure out it’s all fake. He never managed to save anyone. They’ve been dead for years.

I imagine him finally getting onto land and seeing Amanda again. He saves her life by protecting her and falls unconscious - he wakes up in a hospital. He’s drowsy and confused but he asks the first employee he sees about Amanda - only to get a response that they don’t know any Amanda… He is in denial about this the entire time.

Eventually they let him out and he searches for her (and the rest of his crew). She has to be out there somewhere - there has to be some reason no one came to visit him. Maybe they were waiting for him. He saved them, after all.

I imagine he runs into Amanda’s mother, who is not happy to see him, and she tells him that Amanda’s been dead for years and it’s his fault, angry that he would even suggest that she could be alive after all this time and give her false hope, and Tarquin is just devastated.

Collecting my angsty thoughts about Tarquin from Lost In Your Eyes and his guilt about everything and putting them here because I NEED to talk about them

SUUUUPER long post after the read more just so you know (oh, and mentions of death, guilt, hallucinations, and angst and all that fun stuff - so keep that in mind before you continue)

Anyway, I love Lost In Your Eyes and have so many thoughts, so here they are transcribed from the discussion on the Discord (practically just me talking to myself but hey. Also, wow, hi, I realize if you're on the Discord you might have no idea who I am because this is the one social I have that's not the same username so I can hide from my IRL friends just in case - anyway, I'm Shadow. Continue forth with this knowledge my friends):

I wrote about it a bit in my fix-it fic, but I love considering how guilty Tarquin must feel about losing his entire crew. That’s 53 people he lost. People he cared about and knew by name - and I imagine him to have cared about every single one of them. Imagining how it would slowly break his spirits over time watching them pass one by one and not being able to do anything about it. And yet he has to ignore his emotions because he has the remaining crew members to care about and to keep alive - he can’t fail them, too (though he soon proves to himself that he very much can over and over and over again, no matter how hard he tries. He can’t understand why he can’t just keep them alive)

By the time there’s only 3 of them, he’s barely keeping himself together. The dread he feels as the number ticks down to 2 remaining isn’t comparable to anything in the world (Imagine him by that crew member's side, desperately trying to hold himself together and stop himself from crying as he silently begs for him to stay with them. Because they're so close to land. And after it doesn't work - because of course it doesn't - he sits there on the floor holding the hand of his second to last remaining crew member, which is already becoming colder by the second - and cries) - they’d been so close to getting even 3 of them to safety, and yet he couldn’t even do that.

And then the last one dies (and to make it worse, he dies right after an act of pure betrayal, taking down his beloved Amanda in the process, which could not have been easy for him to process. They'd been traveling together for 3 years, he probably trusted him the most, and then he does that? Without explanation? It must have hurt so bad) and it’s just him and he hates it. He doesn’t think he deserved to survive as opposed to everyone else. He could have taken someone’s place. He was the captain, he should have put his crew first.

He has nightmares for the rest of his life about every member of his crew at least once. He remembers all of their faces so vividly. They’re begging for help, for him to do something. To save them. And he never can. He's just forced to watch.

It doesn’t help that the same thing happened to Amanda. He finally gets to her and yet, she dies, too. He couldn’t save his crew and he couldn’t save Amanda - the one person in the world that he should be able to save, even if he couldn’t save everyone else. He feels like everyone he grows to care about will befall the terrible fate of death and there’s nothing he can do about it. He blames himself endlessly for her death, wondering if he could have saved her (and the rest of his crew) if he’d just done something differently. He regrets ever even leaving when he could have just stayed with Amanda and nothing would have gone this way

And I feel like he'd be terrified to make any future friendships or connections because he thinks that he's going to end up getting them killed in one way or another - and so he ends up isolating himself. Maybe he deliberately spends another 3 or more years at sea on his own. Maybe it's a way for him to feel like he's making up for their deaths or asking for forgiveness or whatever but it just makes him feel worse in the end

Oh and I imagine he hates sailing now, too but he does it anyway because he feels like he has to. Because if he stops he has to find something else to do and he doesn't know what else he could do (though he's starting to doubt he can even sail, either). Any joy he used to feel from having the wind in his face and the smell of the ocean is gone. Maybe the smell of salt makes him feel sick now

Thinking about Tarquin watching the waves for those 3 other years he goes back out on his own wondering why they haven't consumed him yet. Why they decide to spare him even after everything he's done and how he doesn't deserve their mercy. How he would almost rather the waves be harsh and unforgiving. Maybe the challenge would distract him. Maybe it would make it easier to pretend that surviving the tough storms would be like his crew was forgiving him, even a little bit

(I had a whole thing in my fic about how he feels like he doesn't deserve to sail anymore and that Amanda would be so much better at it because she managed to do his 3 year journey in so much less time. And on her own - and yet he could barely even get 3 people across the ocean alive even after his years of experience. I think if she did somehow survive and they needed to return, he would have stepped down from his position as captain and made her do all of the sailing of the ship feeling as though he wasn't worthy of the position and that she was just so much better at it)

Imagining Tarquin during his time alone at sea hallucinating members of his crew or Amanda - especially Amanda. How much it would hurt him to realize that they were fake. Maybe at some point he's so disoriented for one reason or another he mistakes the hallucination as real and breaks when he realizes it's not. The amount of hope he would feel - however futile or impossible - thinking that someone of his crew managed to survive despite everything. And then it disappears and suddenly he's so terribly alone again

Imagining him in front of the hallucination of Amanda begging for forgiveness. Maybe the hallucination accepts (Amanda would) but maybe it’s more Tarquin’s perception of how he thinks she’d react and so she doesn’t accept and he understands why she wouldn’t. Maybe he even thinks he deserves it. Maybe it even convinces him that Amanda hates him now. Whatever happens I think it would break his spirits even more

Meanwhile, Amanda watching from the afterlife with sadness watching Tarquin’s mental state decline over time and being unable to do anything about it

Actually, imagining her actually being on the boat with him as a ghost. She can’t do anything to support him physically, of course, but she’s trying her best to protect him, hoping that somehow he can sense her there - maybe that’s why his boat is so safe despite everything

Maybe Tarquin actually sees her ghost one time but he doesn’t believe it’s real - because it can’t be - but he talks to her anyways because that’s what he’s done every other time he’s seen her. And she tries so hard to be there for him, trying to comfort him. He can’t feel her touch, but he imagines it anyways. And for the briefest of moments it’s like she’s there again. For that brief moment - nothing more than a second - everything is okay again. And then it’s not. Because she’s not really there.

He can’t hear her desperate attempts to try and get him to just take care of himself

An in a different universe, imagining Tarquin eventually deciding to head home after the events of the play. He realizes he needs to tell all of the families of his crew about how their family members are dead. They probably knew the risks but he still feels terrible thinking about telling them (even if they don’t know his entire crew died). But he feels obligated to tell them, because that was their family member.

Thinking about him realizing he’ll need to tell Amanda’s mother that she’s dead. He knows he can’t wait to do that because that’s her mother. So one of the first things he does when he gets back is goes to Amanda’s house (what was Amanda’s house, he supposes) and knocks on the door. She is not excited to see him and probably asks about Amanda, but he asks to be let in so they can talk because he can’t do this outside and it feels more respectful if they’re both sitting. He’s not very good at hiding his grief - he almost certainly hasn’t been sleeping well - and so she lets him in.

And then he has to tell her. He probably has to force the words out because he doesn’t want to say them. Maybe he’s still in denial, but either way saying them aloud hurts him even more. Amanda’s mother is almost certainly angry at him (because of course she is. She always had this negative impression of him in the first place and this just proves all of her worries - how Amanda should have never been with Tarquin in the first place. Hell, maybe Tarquin even agrees with her now. Because if he hadn’t fallen in love with her, then maybe she would have still been alive. And even if they weren’t together, at least Amanda would have been happy and alive doing something different and with someone else), and he certainly doesn’t make himself sound much better, after all, he’s been blaming himself for her death this entire time. And so he sits there and just takes it as she yells at him, and he probably thinks he deserves it.

That was a lot, but I just have so many thoughts and I need to put them somewhere - thank you so much for reading my crazy collection of thoughts, I hope it didn't hurt too much

I absolutely love the moments in the recent plays where a child gets into a fight with their parent and then right after is like "I'm sorry, I still love you"

I think it happened in the most recent one of The Pilot's Final Flight with Michael and his mother (given, he was like. 23 in that scene, but the point still stands) and Green Leaves on a Summer's Day and I can't get over it. I just love how they still want it to be known to their parent that they still care and love them even after a fight. More good family dynamics please (ignoring that things got physical in Green Leaves on a Summer's Day-)

Sometimes I wonder what the AO3 tag wranglers thing about the SFTH fandom- we probably make things so difficult for them- just think about how many characters don’t have names, that in it of itself can’t make things easy

Anyway, thank you AO3 tag wranglers for dealing with the fandom. I love the tag wranglers

One year for class we read “Much Ado About Nothing” by Shakespeare, and all I’ll say is, Clarissa and Mark (from Clarissa’s DIY Wedding) reallllly remind me of Hero and Claudio (I think that was his name)

Anyway, my class did a vote on if/how long we thought the other pair and Hero and Claudio would last and people were not confident in them (Hero and Claudio, that was) lasting soooooo take that as you will

Got the sudden urge to post so here we are

Thinking about The Unrelenting Aubergine again too much- as much as I love Ditch (they consume so much of my brain) I would love to see more stuff about James - especially his dynamic with Titch, but maybe also his dynamic with Margaery

And just more stuff about Margaery in general - I love her, she is amazing. I want more fics just about her (I’d write them but I don’t know what I’d write 😭 I’d write the James and Titch stuff too, and I have some ideas, but not how I’d write them and they’re just general concepts. I’d love to hear more, too)

So I recently watched both Sonic Movies cause I was on a plane and never got the chance to, and wow. Anyway, brain rot hit hard for Stobotnik and so I'll just throw these concepts out into the void of Tumblr for you all, I guess

So like, from the first movie Robotnik's all like "Tell me you should've stopped them" or whatever so it would be kind cool if in the third movie for some parallels (ignoring all the other stuff that would entail, idk I'm tired) either:

Robotnik finds himself in the same position as Stone and has to decide between going after them or checking on Stone (I like to imagine he like shoots at them or orders some robots or whatever to go after them before rushing inside thinking to himself about how he was scolding Stone about this not too long ago and how he should probably go after them still, but... Stone. Or if you're a fan of angst, Robotnik does go after them after some brief deliberation but it turns out Stone is actually really hurt and does need help.)

Or more realistically, somehow Stone is in the situation again and also has to decide the same thing, but like, he remembers how Robotnik wanted him to go after them, so he doesn't go and check because he wants to follow orders or whatever. Idk how Robotnik would really be but I like to imagine he's actually pretty hurt and just kinda waiting like 'where the hell is Stone???' Not realizing that he's just not going to be there

I dunno, use that however I just like those concepts and aren't gonna use them for anything, so I thought I might as well share. Feel free to use them