#I'm theorizing basically

[snekjoy]

I genuinely can't believe that the rannett windblume thing happened, like???

They get trapped in a cage together, which is just. Such a romcom trope and then while they're there Bennett gives Razor all his food because he's worried for him ANS THEN THEY WRITE A LOVE POEM TOGETHER

Like it's not even me going "Oh this is a love poem bc I say so" THE POINT IS THEY WERE WRITING LOVE POEMS, TRAVELLER SAID IT WAS FULL OF ROMANCE, AND

THE POEM IS ABOUT RAZOR

"You and the Mare Jivari

So close and yet so far

One at the edge of the world

The other in the center of my heart

Wolfhook and dandelion

My Windblume offering to you."

That's so fucking romantic and Bennett needed another windblume to use than dandelion so what does he do? Think of another flower himself, like his ascension mats or something? NO HE ASKS RAZOR AND PUTS RAZOR'S WINDBLUME INTO THE POEM!

People's choice of windblume is a personal thing!! Most Mondstadters have their own idea of what the windblume is so Bennett including Razor's choice (which is entirely unconventional in that it's not a flower and is only in Wolvendom) makes the poem so personalised to Razor!! He could even have said Windwheel asters or something bc those are his ascension flowers but NO! He made the poem about Razor's Windblume choice!! (And his ascension mats)

Let me ask you: if someone is giving someone else a windblume and they choose a Wolfhook, would you assume that the person receiving or giving the Wolfhook is the one character we know to live in Wolvendom, aka the only place Wolfhooks grow? Yeah you would assume that wouldn't you, so why is Bennett writing about giving someone a Wolfhook as windblume in a romantic context if it's not about Razor???

And then the most damning piece of evidence: RAZOR SAID THE POEM MADE HIM FEEL WARM AND TINGLY!! GAYASS

And don't think I didn't notice that the first few lines of the poem are about the contrast between the emotional and physical difference between the person the poem is about and Bennett. Razor lives in Wolvendom, putting him physically distant from Bennett, but they're "friends" anyway!! They hang out!! They write love poems about each other!! Bennett speaks to Razor in a way softer voice than anyone else!! They're close!!

Also, while Bennett was writing this poem he was "so close and yet so far" from Razor because they were IN THE SAME CAGE BUT DIFFERENT COMPARTMENTS. That makes them close, but unable to actually be next to each other!!

Also, after this, Venti says the poem is good and invites Bennett back to go to a bar and celebrate. Bennett declines, not because he doesn't like drinking or because he has some vague other thing to do but because he wants to go explore with Razor specifically. They then disappear and appear next in the cutscene, where Bennett is teaching Razor all about adventuring and says "WE need to bring more food next time, or you'll go hungry!" HE MEANS THEY'RE GONNA CONTINUE TO HANG OUT AND THAT THE NEXT TIME WILL BE WITH RAZOR AND HE WANTS TO ACCOMMODATE FOR RAZOR'S QUIRKS LIKE HOW HE CAN EAT LOADS AND STILL BE HUNGRY!! HE'S MAKING CHANGES TO HIS OWN LIFE TO BETTER FIT RAZOR!!

And Razor also makes changes for Bennett!! He doesn't like loud stuff or people who talk too much (which makes me think he's autistic but we move that's a different post) and the reason he was at the Thousand Winds Temple in the first place was because Wolvendom was too loud! This establishes he struggles with loud noises, or the fact that the hunters in Wolvendom talk too much.

BENNETT TALKS A LOT. Just saying

Also, in the cutscene for that Windblume, they're headed into the city. We know the city is filled with people, especially during a festival, probably way more people than Wolvendom, but he still goes because Bennett is there. He's following Bennett into somewhere that makes him uncomfortable, which means he trusts him already!!

Also, in his voiceline about Bennett, he says he talks a lot. He acknowledges that Bennett talks a lot but he doesn't have an issue with it! He says "eat with him, never full" which could either mean Bennett keeps stopping to talk or that Razor doesn't want to stop hanging out, so he's never full because he doesn't want to be done with the meal. It could also mean that he's never "full" or sick of Bennett's talking which is just adorable.

Also, in the susbedo event, Paimon asks Bennett where Razor is, meaning whenever she sees Bennett she expects to see Razor. You realise this means they probably hang out so often people see them as a pair? Inseparable?

IN CONCLUSION they're so in love they're basically canon, they have so many signs and hints and stuff that suggests they're way closer to each other than anyone else. Basically whenever we see one of them, they're with the other or the other one is close behind. They're so in love u guys

[crystalkitty1220]

Man I wonder where the leader of the fear realm could've gone, it's alMOST LIKE NEVIN HAS AN

[bouncybrain]

Honkai Star Rail: CHECK OUT OUR TURN-BASED COMBAT! SUPER COOL CHARACTERS! WOW LOOK AT THAT ATTACK IT'S SO COOL! BE IN AWE OF OUR COMBAT ANIMATIONS!

Honkai Star Rail's latest update: oh you've been playing for four hours? How was that singular fight? Did you like it? Here's another six hours of cutscenes/cinematics/dialogue so long the box needs to scroll :)

[reanimaheart]

hi. i'm back from practicing brain surgery.

[smol-blue-bird]

there is nothing funnier to me than reading people's thoughts on Foundation every Friday, because it's always a 50/50 split between "this show is god-awful and season 2 is horrible" and "this show is the best thing ever to grace my eyeballs and season 2 is a huge improvement"

[luigra]

!! what headcanons do you have for team hillscrafted? :0

the first and most major headcanon is that it's a team that exists at all

[apatheticlexicographer]

welp, it finally happened. i think i'm getting bored of byler T_T

or at least most of the fandom's interpretation of them??? things have been dry recently but even tho there's been a bunch of new fancontent with byler week... yeah idk it aint clickin anymore. no shade to any of the creators in the fandom, y'all amazing, but i simply do not resonate with a lot of the takes that have been set into fanon by now

actually the last time i read a byler fic even to catch up on my subs was a couple weeks ago at this point

i still care abt them a lot in theory??? ig i enjoy how i perceive them from the show, but not so much consuming how others perceive them. i've still been having the occasional Blorbo Thoughts that i never feel like sharing and i have a few AUs i've been working on and a few more that are only conceptual, all of which i still find fun to think abt. i was literally doing some planning of a couple today. but straight canonverse as bylers interpret it has been sucked drier than a dust bunny for me. going thru the fics i've marked for later has felt more and more like a chore for months now, and if i scroll thru the tag itself on tumblr to see what's happening outside my mutualcule i just feel drained

i'm not leaving the fandom in the sense of completely disengaging myself from interacting with it. i still want to keep up with the news and i might give a bit more of a shit once filming starts. i also don't want to abandon any of my projects, both published and unpublished. but if i let myself get burnt out on the fandom completely then i'm not gonna be able to muster myself to care whatsoever about canon for years probably, which would really fucking suck bc i've loved this show since i was 12 years old and the byler side to my enjoyment started not even a year ago

so like. idrk what i'm saying. i've been mostly reading fic for other media for months now but i'm not fixated on any of them enough to get into the actual fandom space, i just need the detox. i'll probably be on tumblr just as much bc this is still my home but idk to what degree i'll consider myself to be IN the fandom as opposed to just happening to exist parallel to it

it's not rlly a surprise bc my interests consistently last abt a year but still. realizing that something that has brought u joy for months and months suddenly not only doesn't enthuse u anymore but actively BORES u to dedicate much of ur attention to Fucking Sucks. i always forget how much i hate it when my hyperfixations die :[[[

(of course all of this may change on a whim in a couple of weeks when i stop being so burnt out by cramming to finish schoolwork lmfao)

[trans-axolotl]

one of the reasons it's really hard for a lot of intersex people when intersex topics are on the news cycle is because the public's reaction reveals how little anyone knows or cares about intersex people, including people who call themselves our allies. almost every time intersex topics are trending, the discourse surrounding them is filled with misinformation. people who only learned today what the word intersex means jump into conversations and act like an authority. endosex/dyadic/perisex people get tripped up over things that are basically intersex 101, with tons of endosex people incorrectly arguing about the definition of intersex, who "counts," DSD terminology, and so much more. i've seen multiple endosex people say today that they've been "warning intersex people" and that we should have known that transphobia would catch up with us eventually, which is an absolutely absurd thing to say given the fact that consistently over the past ten years, it has often been intersex people sounding the alarm on sex-testing policies and also the fact that many, many intersex people are also trans, and already are facing the impacts of transphobia. there is an absolute failure from the general public to take intersex identity seriously; people seem not even able to fathom that intersex people have a community, history, and our own political resources. instead, endosex people somehow seem to think they're helping by bringing up half-remembered information from their high school biology class which usually isn't even relevant at all.

and this frustrates me so fucking much. not because i want to deny the impacts of transphobic oppression--i'm a trans intersex person, trust me when i say i am intimately aware of transphobia. this frustrates me because there is no way we can achieve collective liberation if our "allies" fail to even engage with basic intersex topics and are seemingly unaware of the many forms of intersex oppression that we are already facing every fucking day. if you are not aware of compulsory dyadism, if you are not aware of interphobia, if you are not aware of the many different ways that intersex people are directly and often violently targeted--how the fuck do you think we're going to dismantle all of these systems of oppression?

if you were truly an intersex ally, you would already KNOW that this is not new, and would not be surprised--interphobia in sports has been going on for decades. you would know that we do have a community, an identity, a history--you would have already read/listened/watched to intersex resources that give you the background information you need for allyship. you would know that although there is a really distinct lack of resources and political education, that intersex people ARE developing a political understanding of ourselves and our oppression--Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr and their framework of compulsory dyadism is one example of how we're theorizing our oppression. It's absolutely fucking wild to me how few people I've seen actually use words like "interphobia" "intersexism" "compulsory dyadism" or "intersex oppression"--endosex people are seemingly incapable of recognizing that there is already an entrenched system of oppression towards intersex people that violently reshapes our bodies, restricts our autonomy, and attempts to eradicate intersex through a variety of medical and legal means.

you cannot treat intersex people like an afterthought. not just because we're meaningful parts of your community and deserving of solidarity, but also because intersex oppression impacts everyone!!! especially trans community--trans people will not be free until intersex people are free, so much of transphobia is shaped by compulsory dyadism, the mythical sex binary, all these ideas of enforced "biological sex" that are just as fake as the gender binary.

it makes me absolutely fucking livid every time this shit happens because it becomes so abundantly clear to me how little the average endosex person knows about intersex issues and also how little the average endosex person cares about changing that. i don't know what to say to get you to care, to get you to change that, but we fucking need it to happen and i, personally, am tired of constantly being grateful when i meet an endosex person who knows the bare minimum. i think we have a right to expect better and to demand that if you're going to call yourself our ally, you actually fucking listen to us when we tell you what that means.

okay for endosex people to reblog.

[cassowarycutie]

When fanfic authors straight up lie in the tags 👀

[lordofthestrix]

❝  why do you stick around?  what is it you think you see in me?  ❞

"Are you revealing your sentimental side to me, Mikaelson cub?" While their agreement proved to be surprisingly triumphant so far, sardonic remarks and prideful stances were still cordially exchanged during these reunions. Her question emanated insinuations of novelty that disrupted their common language. "And I presume you are expecting to hear some vapid platitude concerning the potential of your chimeric nature?" Tristan examined her for a moment. Not with eyes that ignored the real response to her curiosity but a gaze carefully considering how much to answer. "Have you ever given any thought to the true essence of a birthright? I'm not speaking of its superficial facets. The power it imbues upon our hands or the whispering murmurs of those comparing how close we are to the most vicious aspects of our father it attracts. I'm referring to its heart. History, both seen and experienced, taught me that the heart of a birthright is the promise of an oncoming storm. And that such rabid winds tend to arrive before we are prepared for them." Shades of past and present intertwined. "Some flee from the storm to never stop running. Cowards and survivors. Some confront it in all of their heroic or foolish righteousness. White knights. Some employ and adopt more treacherous tactics for their victory. Black knight. As for the fourth path...The less traveled one of them all..." He offered her a meaningful look.

"You are painfully literal in execution but it had been a while since the last time I met someone who took the same path I once did. There aren't many of us at all. Those whose impulse is to receive the raging gales that either threaten or have already ravished our existence only to extend a warning notification. There must have been some confusion. I'll be the storm in this play." His stare finally abandoned her in the nonchalant conclusion. "It wouldn't be altogether lunacy to theorize I respect that common ground. If we were getting sentimental...Some would go as far as to propose I have grown to occasionally enjoy that about you."

@cursedbcrn

[sleepingingarden]

hiii tumblr i'm back i hope my mooties find this

A little bit about me: I'm Ani (she/they), a 20 year old digital artist who had a tumblr for a bit but went inactive. I'm returning now with a fresh account to keep things simple. You may remember me as @/aaliendna with my old acc, or know me from twitter or TH as @/dollyinspace!

I mainly post fnaf related stuff; I've been in the fandom for several years now but I mostly just take the basic concepts of fnaf and run with my own aus, as opposed to theorizing or getting into the actual games. lmao. I also may occasionally post other fandoms, nonfandom OCs who are very special to me, or advertise adopts or OCs I'm selling. I'm excited to be back and find some old and new friends! 💗

(attached is a cute doodle i did awhile back, for engagement! enjoy!)

[jewish-vents]

The wikipedia vandalism worries me so much. Even if it stops, it'll take ages to fix it all and the damage will already have been done. And goyim are just gonna start conspiracy theorizing about how the big bad scary Jews are "censoring" wikipedia and they're gonna do everything they can to discredit actual accurate information in favor of their antisemitic bullshit.

I've basically been hoarding as much Jewish knowledge as I can. I'm filling hard drives and bookshelves with every scrap I can find before goyim can scrub it from the internet and ban it from bookstores and libraries (whether legally or through pressure and intimidation). I don't know what else to do. They're trying to erase us from history so that it'll be easier to kill us and pretend it never happened. I refuse to let them get away with it.

.

[txttletale]

niceys positive anon!! i don't agree with you on everything but you are so clearly like well read and well rounded that you've helped me think through a lot of my own inconsistencies and hypocrises in my own political and social thought, even if i do have slightly different conclusions at times then u (mainly because i believe there's more of a place for idealism and 'mind politics' than u do). anyway this is a preamble to ask if you have recommended reading in the past and if not if you had any recommended reading? there's some obvious like Read Marx but beyond that im always a little lost wading through theory and given you seem well read and i always admire your takes, i wondered about your recs

it's been a while since i've done a big reading list post so--bearing in mind that my specific areas of 'expertise' (i say that in huge quotation marks obvsies i'm just a girlblogger) are imperialism and media studies, here are some books and essays/pamphlets i recommend. the bolded ones are ones that i consider foundational to my politics

BASICS OF MARXISM

friedrich engels, principles of commmunism

friedrich engels, socialism: utopian & scientific

karl marx, the german ideology

karl marx, wage labour & capital

mao zedong, on contradiction

nikolai bukharin, anarchy and scientific communism

rosa luxemburg, reform or revolution?

v.i lenin, left-wing communism: an infantile disorder

v.i. lenin, the state & revolution

v.i. lenin, what is to be done?

IMPERIALISM

aijaz ahmed, iraq, afghanistan, and the imperialism of our time

albert memmi, the colonizer and the colonized

che guevara, on socialism and internationalism (ed. aijaz ahmad)

eduardo galeano, the open veins of latin america

edward said, orientalism

fernando cardoso, dependency and development in latin america

frantz fanon, black skin, white masks

frantz fanon, the wretched of the earth

greg grandin, empire's workshop

kwame nkrumah, neocolonialism, the last stage of imperialism

michael parenti, against empire

naomi klein, the shock doctrine

ruy mauro marini, the dialectics of dependency

v.i. lenin, imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism

vijay prashad, red star over the third world

vincent bevins, the jakarta method

walter rodney, how europe underdeveloped africa

william blum, killing hope

zak cope, divided world divided class

zak cope, the wealth of (some) nations

MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES

antonio gramsci, the prison notebooks

ed. mick gidley, representing others: white views of indigenous peoples

ed. stuart hall, representation: cultural representations and signifying pratices

gilles deleuze & felix guattari, capitalism & schizophrenia

jacques derrida, margins of philosophy

jacques derrida, speech and phenomena

michael parenti, inventing reality

michel foucault, disicipline and punish

michel foucault, the archeology of knowledge

natasha schull, addiction by design

nick snricek, platform capitalism

noam chomsky and edward herman, manufacturing consent

regis tove stella, imagining the other

richard sennett and jonathan cobb, the hidden injuries of class

safiya umoja noble, algoriths of oppression

stuart hall, cultural studies 1983: a theoretical history

theodor adorno and max horkheimer, the culture industry

walter benjamin, the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction

OTHER

angela davis, women, race, and class

anna louise strong, cash and violence in laos and vietnam

anna louise strong, the soviets expected it

anna louise strong, when serfs stood up in tibet

carrie hamilton, sexual revolutions in cuba

chris chitty, sexual hegemony

christian fuchs, theorizing and analysing digital labor

eds. jules joanne gleeson and elle o'rourke, transgender marxism

elaine scarry, the body in pain

jules joanne gleeson, this infamous proposal

michael parenti, blackshirts & reds

paulo freire, pedagogy of the oppressed

peter drucker, warped: gay normality and queer anticapitalism

rosemary hennessy, profit and pleasure

sophie lewis, abolish the family

suzy kim, everyday life in the north korean revolution

walter rodney, the russian revolution: a view from the third world

[blueskittlesart]

without dropping anything super specific what do you think of EoW's story? in particular i'm kinda worried over if they made Zelda basically replaceable with any other silent protag and i'm holding back on getting the game if that's the case...

I think they handled a playable zelda incredibly well actually! In particular I was impressed that although she is a silent protagonist, she is NOT link, and the game takes care to remind you of that in everything from dialog to physical gameplay. Though she does technically have the ability to wield link's sword, in practice it's almost always more practical to use echoes, her own unique form of gameplay, to get through combat instead, which is a good reminder to the player that this isn't link's story, and we're not going to be able to beat it link's way. You're required to be ZELDA and think like zelda, utilizing mechanics unique to her, in order to progress through the story, and those mechanics emphasize creative problem-solving in a way that clearly envokes her core trait of wisdom. so in that regard i'd say she's definitely a unique protagonist and I never felt like she could have been replaced with someone else! (mild spoilery note: in the final battle you do actually have link fighting alongside you, and because of that, your sword ability is removed entirely, meaning you HAVE to end the game on zelda's terms, with zelda's abilities, which I thought was a nice touch.)

In terms of actual story, it's honestly a fairly classic zelda formula, but the twists and turns were well-written and kept me VERY engaged throughout. The act of searching for link felt different not because chasing after a captured friend is uncommon in a loz game, but because HE was different. The things you learn about link and how he ended up in this story compel you to keep searching for him in a way that you almost... don't need when you're link chasing zelda, because OF COURSE the hero is going to go after the princess. but this game had to engineer a situation in which the PRINCESS wanted to go after the HERO, and a hero she'd never met before at that. and that to me is what made the story interesting.

I will say, don't go into this game expecting it to have the same amount of story as a 3d installment like botw or totk. this is a topdown classic-style game, and it treats itself like one. the story is good, but it's not pushing the boundaries of the genre or anything. eow is a game that knows what it is and what it wants to do, and it does it exceptionally well. I think where the game really shines is in the implied narrative of the worldbuilding--pieces of personal memorabilia in characters' houses, little hints of the past and references to previous games in map design and details that allow you as the player to theorize and put together the less overt pieces of the story on your own. this has always been one of the things that I personally really enjoy about zelda games, so I absolutely LOVE how much detail is left for the player to find in eow if they're paying attention.

[kcwriter-blog]

I've been thinking about how we the players know so little about Solas compared to what the writers and developers know about him and how that affects the way he is written.

I mean we know he is an ancient elf. We know he was powerful enough and skilled enough to create the Veil. We know he and Mythal were friends. He doesn't seem to have liked Andruil and Falon'Din much. Skyhold belonged to him. He removed vallislin. He tried to free slaves. He had kind of an underground railroad thing going. He seems to have had a lot of money secreted away. He painted even back in Arlathan. A lot of statues seem to have been made of him. People in the Vir Dirthara knew he created the Veil but were surprised that he would do something like that. He seems to have always had an affinity for the Fade and spirits. He enjoyed whatever version of the Game nobles in Arlathan played. He was cocky and hot blooded, always spoiling for a fight. He is capable of love and friendship.

I think that's all and it really isn't much. Everything else anyone says about him is pure speculation. It makes meta fun but its easy to get too caught up in our own ideas.

We speculate about him based on things we learn from his personal quests and what we see in Trespasser but we don't know anything for sure. Was he a slave? Was he a spirit called out of the Fade by Mythal and given a body? Did he manifest a body like Cole? Was he just a normal elf born in a small village to the north? Was he a noble and privileged or did he work his way up? Did he join the fight against the Titans? Was he a genius who theorized that the waking world and Fade could be separated? Did he use untried magic because his back was against the wall and he couldn't think of any other way to save the world? Was he a friend of the Evanuris so they trusted him enough to fall into his trap? Was he one of them?

So many questions. The writers have tried to portray him sympathetically. They want us to empathize with him. And I have to ask myself why? He is one of the antagonists. Wouldn't it be easier to portray him as not having any redeeming qualities? And yet, he is basically described as the hero who lived long enough to become the villain.

I know his detractors believe he is a genocidal, racist maniac but that doesn’t track with everything we learn about him as high approval or romanced Inquisitors. It certainly isn’t born out by his statement that he is doing his best to minimize the damage.

He truly believes what he is doing is best for the world and is willing to break it and remake it. What does he know? But more importantly, what do the writers know? Fen' Harel has existed since Origins. Devs have always planned for him to make an appearance. That means the valleslin has always been a mark of slavery even if the Dalish didn't know. The Creators have always been horrible, slave owners even if the Dalish don't remember. Which means Solas has always been the rebel fighting for what he believes is right.

Why do the writers see him not so much as the villain (although Epler uses that word constantly - he is usually the only one though) as they do a somewhat noble person who keeps making mistakes? Why is he portrayed as just a sad man who can't see past his regret and guilt. What was he like? What changed him? What did he know about the Veil before he put it up?

I get that a lot of people don't like the idea of being tied to him in Veilguard but maybe the writers did that so we have no choice but to get to know him - the good and the bad. Maybe we finally get to know Solas the way the writers and developers know him. I'm looking forward to that.

[nukacourier]

genuine question, what do you mean by babying danse?

I like him quite a lot and seen a considerable amount of content, but I might've just not noticed?? what you're talking about specifically

What I mean is people basically pulling the "he's my baby boy he'd never do anything wrong" shit. And the way people talk about him (calling him a "himbo", and as said "baby boy", saying he's just a sad guy who's misunderstood, etc) reads deeply as infantilization especially considering. As said. He's a grown man who literally upholds fascist ideals and only left the Brotherhood because he'd literally die otherwise

I'm not saying people aren't allowed to explore a softer side of him or theorize how a redemption arc for him would go. But the way I often see him (mis)characterized as being a stupid, gentle, "doesn't know what he's doing is wrong :(" type of guy REEKS of "autistic people are basically like children and don't know if they're doing something bad", especially since I've seen people on multiple platforms claim him and Maxon are "son and father figure" despite him being older than Maxon, just because he's subservient to him and they're vaguely friends

(But since fans read him as autistic OBVIOUSLY that means Maxon is like a caretaker for this poor misguided soul and not literally his boss and commander /sarcasm)

Like. If you haven't seen this stuff, good for you. But basically every time I've seen a post about him that isn't tearing into him for being a BOS member is basically like what I mentioned in one degree or another. If you actually look at the way people talk about him, it becomes obvious

Plus, you notice this when it's not just one character this happens to. I've seen it happen with Arcade (thankfully that's died down in recent years), Preston, and currently Maximus from the show. Just an endless cycle of people denying autonomy from characters who are read as awkward and/or autistic

(I'm sure other people would have more examples on hand. So if you do, feel free to reblog this and add them)