#i like them in a very abstract what if way

[communist-ojou-sama]

Why is stuff like hard drugs and sex work illegal? Wouldn't the bourgeoisie want these things to be legal so they could control them and make money off them?

I feel that to thoroughly answer this question is to elaborate the difference between "mechanical materialism", as described by Mao on On Contradiction, as compared to proper Marxist historical materialism.

When we're approaching and attempting to understand the way a society functions in the real world instead of theorizing about their function in the abstract, we must remember that they always labor under an enormous weight of percieved tradition, which will exert constant influence on the way that societies are run regardless of the cold, calculated interest of the ruling class.

Instead of a teleological, overdetermined theory of society as being meticulously shaped at every level by the calculating will of the capitalist class, we must understand capitalist society (and indeed every society) as engaging in a kind of darwinian evolution where it and each of its underlying instutitions are subject to a number of evolutionary pressures based on which material conditions are at play over time. As such, deeply-entrenched societal ideas, handed down from a revered past (such as ideas about the place of women and their sexuality in society, which has its own role in other parts of capitalist society) will not simply disappear overnight the moment it becomes convenient for capital; instead we will see what we have already seen; a very gradual process of increasing permissiveness around drugs and sex work, and with it a heightening of contradictions in reaction to them from conservative sectors of society. Both the loosening and the reaction are core parts of capitalist class society

[baphometsss]

Solas repeatedly explains that things are not so black and white and the fandom's response to the nature of his relationships with Mythal and Felassan etc are weirdly reminiscent of what he finds frustrating about modern Thedas.

He explains repeatedly that the distinction between spirit and demon is not that black and white, that there's always an element of choice involved. Likewise, he cannot be so easily defined as wisdom or pride. He is a mix of both and will lean into one or the other depending on how he is perceived. Over and over again he tries to make people see that it's our expectations that create the dynamics of our relationships and therefore how we perceive others. If we respect others in the way they would like to be respected, you can come closer to an authentic and equal partnership.

Likewise, he says that he is not defined by his body, a point Trick said came from their own thoughts around their gender and figuring out that they were nonbinary. Solas chose a male body, seemingly because he had to choose one, not necessarily because he felt like a man. In fact he repeatedly explains that he sees himself as a spirit i.e. genderless

The romance or friendship with the Inquisitor is special because it is the first time that he's branching out of his comfort zone of bonding like a spirit bonds (reflecting) and trying to bond like a person does instead (meeting them on their level, sharing his heart with them and being vulnerable). This is why one of my favourite lines from him is 'You are unique. In all Thedas I never expected to find someone who could draw my attention from the Fade. You have become important to me.' This is the first time he has fallen in love, the first time he has actually relished being a person and not a spirit, because he's able to be with Lavellan this way. He can't fall in love as a spirit as spirits don't bond that way, as is repeatedly stated throughout his story. I personally think the relationships he forged before Inquisition were all done using the attachment style of spirits, which is apparently quite abstract, and not as a man, which is more understandable to mortals and us, the player.

What's especially pertinent about this is that says this line right before he's about to abandon his plan to tear down the Veil by telling the Inquisitor the truth, a plan that symbolises his attachment to his spirit-self and the world he inadvertently destroyed. Once he does that, there's no coming back; likewise, once you take a body, you cannot go back. When you fall in love in a way that makes all the parts of you line up perfectly for the first time, you can't go back.

What is so beautiful to me about Solas's love story with Lavellan is that we witness Solas in a chrysalis state between spirithood and personhood, past and present (and future), on the precipice of metamorphosis. At the very moment he's about to take that final leap like The Fool his romance card is based on, he backs out, because of guilt, trauma, grief, duty and the rest.

Even with a befriended Inquisitor, he bonds with them on their level. He doesn't try to elevate them to his level; he comes to theirs. He is the opposite of Pride in their friendship, which is why he respects them. They allow him to be himself.

It's because of this change in nature that I think Solas and Lavellan's love story is so compelling--Solas's world quite literally changes when he falls in love, as he states multiple times, in various ways. I mean, look at the way he needs time to think about a potential relationship with Lavellan. He probably knows that it's a bad idea, but at this point he has no idea how much of a bad idea it is with respect to his plans because he has no idea that it will make him want to give it up. If he had, he never would've entertained the idea of a relationship. His romance card in Veilguard explains that he didn't know what it would mean to fall in love, because he's never actually been in love. He has loved countless friends and companions, like Mythal and Felassan, but he has not fallen for someone like he falls for a romanced Lavellan; Lavellan, who is deified like he was deified, who sees him for who he is (as much as they can) and doesn't shun him or punish him for not doing as he was told like a good lapdog.

Once again there's more of the irony that pervades Solas's story at every turn. It's in falling for a mortal that Solas becomes a more complete person, more of the man he says he is and not the god others have revered him as. That is the deepest change of all and the one that reflects his earlier statements on the delineation between spirit and demon not being so black and white, and involving a level of choice. Solas chooses to be more of a man in a similar way to how Cole chooses to become more human. He knows deep down that he's already in too deep to stop, and this is why, despite knowing he has a job to do and a duty to fulfil, he leaves clues for the Inquisition to follow him. Because he's already gone too far, and now he can't go back, and deep down he wants to be stopped, like Varric said. Solas, as a former spirit, doesn't simply feel love, he embodies it, and so he is helpless to that emotion. Of course he left clues.

Because that is what falling in love meant for Solas. It meant going into that chrysalis state and emerging as a totally new being with an experience that is quite far removed from his spirit self and all the limitations that come with that. Mythal and Felassan etc predate this experience, they're intrinsically tied to his nature as a spirit and then as a manifested spirit. While he loved them, that love was tangled up with a simpler nature, and the love he shares with Lavellan is coming from a totally new place. For that reason, the two can't really be compared.

[monstersinthecosmos]

Since you don't see Marius and Armand as having a lot to gain from a relationship with each other in the current era, I'm curious as to how you headcannon them with Daniel? And what do you think the best possible version of their relationship could be in the future for all three of them in their respective groups?

Dasdg I want to like, clarify that, I THINK NOT HAVING A LOT TO GAIN is not exactly what I mean. I know I’ve said things along those lines but fandom softened me a little bit. I think what I mean more is like, the thing they have to gain is the investment of time, and I wonder if this is something that will take years/decades/centuries to build and heal. The thing they have to gain is the baby steps, the clearing of the path!, so that they can get somewhere again!

I think the relationship is something like this:

The strange thing too is that like, we’re now getting like, seven years off of canon !! SO WHEN WE SAY CURRENT ERA PART OF ME THINKS “WHEN THE BOOK ENDS” but then I’m also wondering, how much do they get done in 7 years. This is interesting to think about. Because me thinking that they’re not in a great place by the end of canon doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t get there eventually! I wonder what those dingdongs are doing out there in the ether!  

I really think Daniel could be very useful for this, as well! Like as a mediator! NOT JUST AS A PERSON BETWEEN THEM WHO KNOWS THINGS ABOUT EACH THAT THEY MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT EACH OTHER, BUT AS A MORE MODERN MAN WHO MIGHT HAVE A BETTER GRASP ON PSYCHOLOGY.

So like the short answer your question is that I think he’s maybe their marriage counselor LOL. He’s someone who can read people very well and spent a lot of time with Armand, even before the barrier was an issue, so I think he can read Armand very well even without it! And he can mimd gift with Marius to understand the subtext when Marius is being cagey about his true feelings, or when he’s speaking abrasively/condescendingly as a defense mechanism!

Since you’re asking about headcanons I’m gonna be indulgent here and talk strictly headcanons and how I personally imagine it so don’t take anything else I’m about to say as canon in anyway way, since we literally get ZERO information about the 3 of them together in the books—

I wonder like in what ways does Daniel being between them resembles a child and their parents, maybe even more accurately a child of divorced parents. And the family structure is abstract here obviously, but so is the polycule structure and the way it’s complicated by the Mind Gift barrier and how it puts Marius and Daniel at an advantage when it comes to communication. It kinda leaves Armand out in the cold to never be understood lol but Marius can be so contradictory sometimes that I wonder if it does them good for Daniel to able to translate when it’s needed.

AND LIKE THEIR RELATIONSHIPS TO EACH OTHER ARE SO DEEP ??? As much as Daniel might help as a balm between the two of them, I think he and Marius can also ground the three of them in a nice way. NOT SURE HOW ELSE TO INTRODUCE THIS OTHER VISUAL AID SO HERE -

I have some headcanons about Daniel’s backstory and what his home life was like and so that kinda plays into headcanons about the current day, too. Like, I pictured him having unhappily married parents who were too squeamish for a divorce, partly because I’m projecting LMAO and partly because divorce was a little less common then. There WERE divorces, even Anne Rice’s parents were divorced!, but I wonder about what it does to you, when your parents stay together “for the kids” and wind up making it worse. (I say I wonder, but, I know very well how it feels lol.)

Like how much does Daniel as the mediator come out of a need to break a family cycle?

I think it’s a trap people fall into when we try to break cycles, or try not to be like our parents; sometimes you think you’re safe because you changed your situation drastically and yet we still always wind up confronted by things we need to unlearn. So Daniel might think he’s left the realm of the family cycle by removing himself completely from humanity, except now he’s in the center of this very fraught chasm and has to rely on his human experience again.

Daniel is such a very blank slate in canon that it’s so hard to know, like even after he’s better again we don’t see him interact with Armand, so honestly like it can be whatever you want it to be, but I like the idea of him being a mediator.

I think he has seen the best and worst of them both, and I think he can see the way they miscommunicate. Even with the barrier with Armand I just think like, he’s Armand’s ONLY fledgling like they know each other SO well. I think Daniel can just read him anyway, in a way that Marius can’t, because Marius knew Armand when he was so young and naïve and Marius was so stressed.

And even though Daniel is WAY younger than both of them, all three of them have been through some very life changing experiences since the 1980s when Daniel was turned! Like Marius needing to re-evaluate his entire life & purpose & identity without TWMBK to take care of, and Armand having such a massive religious relapse that he attempted suicide, and Daniel’s psychological overwhelmed and subsequent recovery! 

In some ways, all three of them are new people who are in the process of building their new lives and understand their new identities, so in a way it’s sort of a blank slate that they can work from. 

So the question, what does it look like ?

I’m not really sure!

I think there’s the sort of like vaguely polyamorous nature of VC vampires along with their patience for eternity — for example, the relationship we see between Lestat - Louis - Armand is that Louis is able to come and go from Trinity Gate as needed. We know that Daniel went back to New York with Armand in PLROA, but there no indiction that he’ll never come back to Marius again, or if it’s just a visit, or what it was. Like perhaps Daniel will also get in the habit of coming and going from Trinity Gate as needed, we can’t know. 

LIKE THANKS ANNE FOR FUCKING FORGETTING DANIEL EXISTED DURING BCTU LMAOOO cause like, does he comes to Marius’s side when Marius is in criss? Apparently not LMAO. Did he stay home in NY to babysit Benji & Sybelle while ARMAND came Marius’s side? Gosh idk man. 

I like that canon tells us that the vampires are sort of relaxed and secure in their relationships when it comes to stuff like this (it’s something I REALLY deeply fucking hate about the show sorry lol) so I think I kinda enjoy thinking that there’s a version where they can come and go and be there for each other without being codependent. I like to think that Marius & Daniel have a home in France for when they needed space away from Court, and we know that Marius has a lair in Trinity Gate. 

At the end of BCtu Armand is like freshly traumatized and probably need some comfort, and Marius wants to go talk to him, and I think that’s a great sign that they’re ready to start talking to each other again. It might take years or decades or centuries for them to get somewhere healthy because they have a LOT to talk about, but I like the idea that they can have an open line of communication! And I like that maybe Daniel can be there to mediate! And they don’t have to a always be around each other all the time, but don’t get jealous when the other two are spending time together, and maybe sometimes they hang out and hunt together or go catch a show or go to Carnival or go fuck off into the mountains to stargaze, who knows what all they get into! 

But I like thinking that when canon ends they’re in a place where they can start working towards that!!!!!

[kokitschi]

have you ever known someone that you didn't particularly like, but something in you tells you that maybe, if things had gone way differently, you could've been really good friends? and you don't really enjoy their company and you don't really make any effort to get to know them. because you don't particularly care for them. you aren't in the same circles and you don't seem to have any of the same interests. but sometimes there's a teeny tiny moment, a glimpse into another universe, where you really think it could've worked out? it could just be a smile or your eyes catching each other, or hearing them talk. you notice a small detail that intrigues you. but you don't really know what to say to them, how to start a conversation that won't immediately devolve into awkward silence. so you don't. it's not really a big deal. but sometimes you still find yourself remembering them, or rather, the idea of them and you wonder.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Imagine you're Mr. Wu and your weird gay daughter runs away in tears after destroying some unespecified object while yelling about you ruining her life. Because you told her you'd be moving to another state. This is the last time you see your daughter in half a year, and when she comes back, she comes back... wrong. She's wearing a light leather armor, a fur-lined cape, and a green flower crown. She has two long scars, one alongside her spine and the other along her chest, the tissue around them covered in burn scars. Doctors say she shouldn't have survived. Doctors say she didn't. Yet she's right here, in front of you, hospital gown clinging to her small, fragile, trembling frame. She fidgets with her hands. Getting her to stay still has always been difficult, but now it seems impossible. She won't let go of her phone. She's always texting her two friends. When you take it away, she gets anxious. You always knew those damn phones cause kids to act weird, but your kid having a panic attack seems too extreme, even for her. Then again, she's always been odd. Nowadays, she wakes up crying and screaming almost every night, and you realize she's been stealing her phone from your bedside drawer every night to text her friends, returning it before you wake up. You catch her once and decide to give her that damn phone back. It's the only thing that calms her down, as if she were a baby with a pacifier. She spends her last weeks in LA clinging to her friends, having sleepovers and playing her weird board games with them. Everytime they drop her back at her house, there's an excessive amount of hugs and tears. But the moments when they call her, or when she leaves to meet with them, or when they show up at their door to pick her up... those are the only moments in which you see her happy. One of her friends, the rude and disobedient one, came back with a big scar on her face. She's been acting a lot nicer, though. The other one too. She acts a great deal more adult now. You doesn't know what happened or where your daughter went. She won't tell you. But you can tell this friendship is the only thing keeping her afloat right now. Maybe you know, deep down, that no one else would understand.

And then you decide to move anyway because fuck her amirite

[wackywatchdotcom]

glad that the ragatha post seems to be resonating w ppl :)

[knittedslug]

‘cant seperate the art from the artist’ but not in the form of cancel culture. no no, give me that in the form of an artist who believes she has truly become her art. An artist who can no longer seperate herself from the pieces she creates and no longer believes she has any worth outside of her art. does she only exist to create? was she only born to give birth to things greater than her? she believes her only purpose is to make. she can no longer separate herself from her art. she believes that she is her art on every level except physical. give me the gruesome horror of her eventually turning herself into an artwork. she is one of her creations and she believes that is her final form.

[softness-and-shattering]

.

[nonsensechemicals]

crying whenever i talk about Cookie9 because all my friends have these interesting and unique theories on them while i take everything too literally and they all just stare at me like “dude… uuugh we r TIRED” <-they dont actually say this they are very kind to me but i can Feel It

[puppppppppy]

i feel shy talking here when i dont have anything worth sharing but i cant help feeling like ive said things in the tags that could be brought up in court

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!

[saintcolumbiformes]

logarithms are an affront to God

[alevolpe]

your hc on the tiaras being the eyes of serenity makes me wonder if you have any hc about the planetary symbols on the foreheads aside from it being the natural state

Mmh, let’s see. Not particularly I guess, if anything I think I’d take away stuff from canon.

Like in canon is implied that the symbol appears when a senshi “needs help” or “is willing to help”, I don’t have that, cause that would imply the symbols inherently being tied to the team rather than to the individual, or it could mean that the senshis are inherently born to be tied in a connection where they would need this type of almost instinctual communication engrained into their being in the first place.

The ladder isn’t an inherently bad idea and I think you could go very interesting places with it, but I just haven’t gotten that far.

That really cuts to the question of: what is a senshi? Why do they exit and what is their purpose? And I know we have an answer in canon, but I don’t particularly love it, so I’m reworking the whole structure from the ground up.

In the general sense though, the symbols just stand as a way of identifying if one is a senshi or not. A weird analogy I have for it is like the red markings on a black widow, tho in the senshis’ case it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a threat and the symbols is a warning. The symbol just is, as far as we know, and it’s prob not as easy to understand as the red markings on a spider.

[maliro-t]

as a bona fide vaxleth lover i am more confused than ever about how they are portrayed on the animated series i'm not gonna lie 😭

[bigskydreaming]

Me venturing briefly into 911 fics after Buck came out as bi: I am BEGGING people to stop basing their entire view of two men having later-in-life gay or bi awakenings on that one fucking reddit post about the guy thinking he's homophobic after his roommate came out.

[starphobe]

fh fandom back to wishing death on a fictional teenager for being mentally ill and not learning how to cope with that in a healthy way. what else is new