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Transcript:
Over the next couple of days, their suspicions were confirmed.
A blood test showed that, yes, Dawn was pregnant.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.
Phoenix hoped she was wrong, that she was just scared.
Even as her migraines and nausea began to subside, Dawn became more fearful than relieved.
Given her risk factors, her doctor recommended an early ultrasound.
Though Dawn had tried to prepare herself for what she believed to be inevitable, nothing could prepare them for the moment the doctor looked up at them, with sympathy in her eyes, and told them she was unable to detect a heartbeat.
When they arrive home, it doesn’t feel like the same place they left.
It feels emptier in a way they can’t quite explain.
Phoenix: Can I get you anything?
Dawn: No, I just want to lie down.
Once in the bedroom, Dawn sits on the end of the bed and begins to cry.
Dawn: Do you think it’s my fault?
Phoenix: What? No, of course not.
Dawn: Climbing Mt. Komorebi, what if it was too much? What if I…?
Phoenix: No. Dawn, there’s no way we could’ve known. And there’s no way to know if turning back would’ve made a difference. It’s not your fault. It just wasn’t meant to be this time.
Dawn: Since when do you believe in “meant to be”?
Phoenix: Since now.
And something about the look in his eyes told her that he wasn’t just saying it, he really meant it.
Meanwhile, she didn’t know what she believed in anymore.
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Pharma's place in a Functionist society (headcanon)
So I've talked in some previous posts about all the reasons that Pharma isn't a functionist because canon never showed him espousing functionist ideals + he's actually in a place to be a victim of functionism. And I've been working on a Pharma-centric oneshot that made me put into words the best metaphor I can think of for Pharma's relationship with Functionism:
He doesn't support Functionism, but is simultaneously a beneficiary of it and also marginalized by it, because his position of being forged both a doctor and a jet basically turns him into a "token minority" of sorts.
I know that sounds kind of silly or maybe like a clumsy political allegory, but hear me out. There are a couple facts about Pharma and the circumstances of his forging that put him at the crossroads between privilege and marginalization within Functionism:
Tyrest says that Pharma was "famous for being forged." Not famous for being a forged medic-- otherwise surely Ratchet would be just as noteworthy-- but famous for being FORGED. But also, note that this is an opinion that SOCIETY had about Pharma, not something that Pharma espouses about himself. (For the sake of an example, Pharma isn't Starscream, who has an explicit, deep-seated need for others' love and approval. Pharma himself doesn't express any opinions on his own popularity or convey that fame/adoration is something he wants.)
Functionism on Cybertron held that if someone was born with a certain alt-mode, they can/should only have certain jobs. For people born with flight alt-modes, those people were almost always regulated to military or transportation/courier jobs
SIMULTANEOUSLY, Pharma was forged with medic hands, which under a Functionist society were viewed as the peak of medical care and all the best doctors were forged or at least had a "special something" that non-forged hands lacked (according to Ratchet).
So taken in combination, this means that from the moment of Pharma's birth, he straddled a line of Functionism between two different "predestined" paths for him, where he was simultaneously forged to be a doctor and also forged to fly, fitting into BOTH of these categories despite norms of Functionism which say you're one or the other. And I speculate that the reason Pharma is "famous for being forged" is precisely because of those lines he straddles: his very existence is a contradiction, but he was also FORGED that way. The same creed that dictated the two different functions of "hands" and "alt-mode" also says that Pharma should be what he was born to be. What he was born to be was a forged medic jet.
In my opinion, I think that being "famous for being forged" is sort of like a token-minority situation for Pharma, where perhaps Pharma was seen as a curiosity or even something exotic, not just as a person. Maybe because he was a jet and people assumed jets were only soldiers/transportation, a lot of his achievements were put in the light of "Oh, he's a really amazing doctor, for a jet" or "It's crazy that he's a doctor AND a jet at the same time". The attention Pharma received for the unique circumstances of his birth WAS positive, but it would've likely been framed in a bit of a condescending way, as if Pharma is noteworthy and famous not for being a good doctor, but for being a good doctor despite being born a jet.
So I would say that as far as Pharma's personal experience with Functionism, he simultaneously experienced privilege and marginalization. He enjoyed the privileges of being a medic while avoiding the restrictions of being a flight frame. However, a lot of the idolization and attention he received would have also come from a place of tokenizing Pharma: he's "famous for being forged," because in this society he's defying expectations merely for existing as himself. That is to say, Pharma in a Functionist society wasn't treated as remarkable because of who he is as a person and how hard he worked to be a good doctor; he was treated as remarkable for the circumstances of his forging, something he had no control over and can't change, and apparently Pharma being a forged medic jet is such a noteworthy origin that he's "famous" for it.
The above paragraph is purely headcanon, of course, but I like to imagine that part of Pharma's reason for having a big ego isn't out of simple vanity or insecurity, but because of a sort of "gifted student" syndrome, in a sense. From the moment he was forged he was treated as a rarity and an incredible phenomenon, and he would have had to work incredibly hard to be seen as "an incredible doctor" in his own right rather than just "that forged medic jet." Maybe, as a jet, he also had something to prove; he had to show to a Functionist society that being a jet doesn't make him an inferior doctor and that his alt-mode has nothing to do with his skills at his profession.
That is to say, I don't think Pharma would have been openly anti-Functionist, or had many opinions about it at all. I actually lean towards the interpretation that Pharma basically saw himself as getting lucky with the way he was forged and being content with the fact that he'd managed to carve out a reputation for himself as being incredibly skilled. However, Pharma not getting involved politically in Functionism doesn't change the fact that he WOULD have had a very complicated relationship with Functionism, in that alt-mode discrimination would have had an effect on him even though he was in the scientific/medical class and supposedly privileged.
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i see even comedy that doesn't typically "punch down" has circled back around to using crackhead/crackwhore as a joke. i'm so exhausted by you all. you are so cruel, so casually callous, it's worrisome. you don't realize how easily that could be you. you think you're so superior, so pure, so intelligent as if addiction cares about how smart you are or what you do in life. as if this entire country (usamerica) is not machinated in a way to get people hooked on painkillers. as if the docuseries industry isn't busting with expositions that reveal the wide-ranging sprawl of addiction here and exactly how manipulated we have been. as if loads of people in "white collar" jobs aren't addicts. as if loads of stay at home parents aren't addicts. as if addicts can't have pearly smiles and collect a paycheck. as if there's any real merit between the person who got into a party drug as an impressionable kid then couldn't stop and the lawyer who started doing coke to stay awake for 80-hour workweeks then couldn't stop and the unsuspecting patient who was prescribed opioids by a doctor then couldn't stop. there's not. no one is better than anyone else. addiction is leveling. equalizing.
and the worst part is you are one, too, you up there on your high horse. you're addicted to something. something in this world has its claws in you, its grip on you, that you want to stop but can't, that you could not stop without support. so shut up. shut the fuck up. the people you call crackwhores, meth heads, junkies, etc. they are real fucking people. we are real fucking people just like you. we are real people who deserve your fucking respect and compassion. we are just people who are trying to exist within a system that is trying to eat us alive, just like the rest of you. it's not cute. it's not fucking cute. it's not cool. stop fucking laughing.
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Holmes and Watson acting out the "murder" in the BBC Radio version of Lion's Mane...
[Holmes does a (fake) scream, Watson rushes to him]
"Excellent Watson, my actions to the inch."
"i thought you were supposed to be dead! 🤨"
"Not quite."
"How close?"
"Very close."
"Well, then"
"Oh sorry."
[Audio of Holmes laying down]
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I will not suffer alone sO-
Edmont singing Leaves From The Vine for Haurchefant.
Little soldier boy
Come marching home
Brave soldier boy
Comes marching home
Here's a full version of the song bc I hate myself
Like... it fits doesn't it? Do you think Edmont regretted caring more for his country and prestige in that moment? Bro is not winning any father of the year awards but he loves his boys and he fucked up bigtime. Edmont is a terrible father but to me he loves them. I think subconsciously in the back of his mind he also tried to put the Fortemps name before any of them. But when Haurchefant died I like to think he was like "Oh shit. I don't care about the Fortemps legacy anymore I just want my sons to be safe."
ALSO DO YOU THINK ARTOIREL AND EDMONT REGRET NOT DEFENDING HAURCHEFANT WHILE HE WAS GROWING UP BEING COLLECTIVELY BULLIED BY ISHGARD'S NOBILITY!? I am so fucking normal abt Haurchefant and the Fortemps you have no idea
And to think it still says Greystone on his grave :(
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