#Do My Dissertation

[stargirl230]

state of you // 花城

qifrey cover redraw! because i realized what's better than drawing blorbo once is drawing blorbo four times

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)

[chapollynh]

I finished DS9 and here's my first offering to the fandom.

The show is just SO GOOD!! I wanna talk about it so bad, so I will spam the tags quite a bit... My bad. Also, the people who said Bashir would get better - you were right, he became a lot more fun! Plus he's got a teddy bear, that's peak character right there.

[egophiliac]

Since book 7 part 5 (the part where we meet Meleanor/Maleanor 👀) is coming to EN this month, i would love to see your take on lilia’s proposal to meleanor! i mean they were like little kids right? it couldn’t have been that serious…i think the only reason she even brought it up again is because she could tell lilia still genuinely loved her…(even if he didn’t realize it himself?) but, oh well! Let’s think about silly childhood shenanigans to numb the pain! ^_^ (orz)

oh shit?! get ready for a doozy guys, it's comiiiiiing ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

I chickened out of posting the whole thing (look, I get VERY carried away when it comes to these wacky kids and their Tragedy), but I do believe that it probably ended with Lilia getting embarrassed and just shoving the first thing he sees into his mouth to try and cover for it.

(we're just lucky it wasn't a frog this time)

[bluebells-and-dragonflies]

God, the intimacy of Astarion feeding from you.

Astarion drinking from your neck as he pulls your body closer to his in bed, his chest up against your back, his arms wrapped around your waist. It's a casual thing, now, his whispered can I? and your answering nod, as much a part of your bedtime routine as your bath or his curl care. You sigh as his fangs pierce your skin and his fingers flex against your stomach. His breath hitches when the taste of you hits his tongue, and that's familiar too, the physicality of it, the noises he makes low in his throat as he drinks, the way he grows warmer against you as your blood begins to flow through his veins. Nothing else makes you feel so heady, so intoxicated- so comforted.

Astarion drinking from your wrist when he’s starving for it and can’t wait to get you more comfortable. Pulling him into an alleyway one night on the way home from the Elfsong because you can see how badly he's craving in the way he can't keep his eyes off of the pulse point in your neck. He seizes your arm with both hands (can I? Yes-), bringing the soft skin on the inside of your wrist to his lips. He has just enough presence of mind to kiss the heel of your hand distractedly before he bites, fangs sliding through your skin and into the vein. The sound he makes can only be described as a growl, something feral and possessive (and you'll never tell him that it turns you on, since he would be insufferable about it- a promise to yourself that lasts exactly as long as the space between the moment and the next time you're tipsy and want him).

(NSFW Below!)

Astarion drinking from your inner thigh, one hand holding your leg steady and the other cupping your cunt. You groan, eyes shut in pleasure, as his thumb comes to rub your clit. The pain of the bite is barely pain this way- it collides with the pleasure in your belly and sends you almost out of your mind, overwhelmed with sensation and heat. He takes you all the way there, takes just enough from you to have you relaxed and pliant and soaring somewhere above your own body, plays you like an instrument with all the knowledge of you he's gathered over the months, the years. He knows when you're close, knows to crook his fingers inside you just so, knows the reaction he's going to get when he pulls away from your thigh for just a moment and looks up at you with dark eyes and tells you to come for him, he wants to see it, you fall apart so beautifully and it's all for him, isn't it, tell him how good he makes you feel and when you climax with his voice in your ear and the scent of blood on the air he has the audacity to laugh at how well he understands you, your body.

He's soft, after, softer than he'll ever be with anyone who isn't you. He licks you clean before he takes you to the bath, carrying you with the strength your lifeblood gives him. It's the least he can do for you, with everything you've given him: not just your body, but your trust, your closeness, and he will never stop being grateful.

[official-linguistics-post]

on reconstruction and historical linguistics

to follow up on today's reblog, i want to comment briefly on the apparent misapprehension that linguistic reconstruction is just guesswork with a fancy name, because that's not accurate!

reconstruction is based on specific, well-attested constraints of linguistic development. we know from centuries of investigation that languages tend to change in predictable ways. we also have a decent understanding of the complexities introduced by phenomena like language contact, which can result in borrowing on multiple structural levels. our methods are well established and borne out by evidence.

comparative reconstruction involves applying these known constraints ("rules") in reverse on a collected body of words in related descendant languages. when possible, we also incorporate historical written evidence, which often provides midpoint references for changes in progress. it is always recognized by historical linguists that reconstruction can be imperfect; we cannot know what information has been lost.

the results of reconstruction can be mixed, but i'll let campbell (2013:144) explain:

How Realistic are Reconstructed Proto-languages? The success of any given reconstruction depends on the material at hand to work with and the ability of the comparative linguist to figure out what happened in the history of the languages being compared. In cases where the daughter languages preserve clear evidence of what the parent language had, a reconstruction can be very successful, matching closely the actual spoken ancestral language from which the compared daughters descend. However, there are many cases in which all the daughters lose or merge formerly contrasting sounds or eliminate earlier alternations through analogy, or lose morphological categories due to changes of various sorts. We cannot recover things about the proto-language via the comparative method if the daughters simply do not preserve evidence of them. In cases where the evidence is severely limited or unclear, we often make mistakes. We make the best inferences we can based on the evidence available and on everything we know about the nature of human languages and linguistic change. We do the best we can with what we have to work with. Often the results are very good; sometimes they are less complete. In general, the longer in the past the proto-language split up, the more linguistic changes will have accumulated and the more difficult it becomes to reconstruct with full success. (emphasis mine)

or, to quote labov's (1982:20) pithier if less optimistic approach:

Historical linguistics may be characterized as the art of making the best use of bad data, in the sense that the fragments of the literary record that remain are the results of historical accidents beyond the control of the investigator.

in sum, historical linguists are very realistic about what we can achieve, but the confidence we do have is genuinely well earned, because linguistics is a scientific field and we treat our investigations with rigor.

---

Campbell, Lyle. 2013. Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Labov, William. 1982. "Building on Empirical Foundations." In Perspectives on Historical Linguistics. Winifred P. Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel, eds. Pp. 17-92. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

[cuubism]

i feel like dream in human aus is usually characterized as being more stoic and stern while hob is more easygoing, but i think it would be funny to have a university au where hob is the professor who's like "no work is deserving of 100%. find 27 more sources and do it again" while dream is just like "they put their dreams into it, hob 🥺 A+! A+! A+! A+!"

[croquettish]

Claustrophobia as a Metaphor for Hans' Feelings for Henry

All right. I'm ready to go full tinfoil hat here but I have a theory, y'all. And there is a lot of evidence to back it up even if you decide I'm off my rocker for most of it:

I think Hans' claustrophobia exists in parallel to his feelings and, more importantly, how Hans feels about his feelings for Henry.

We first get the hint that Hans is claustrophobic when he and Henry get tossed into the dungeon at Trosky:

This is immediately post-divorce era. The boys haven't quite yet made up and Hans has gotten his first taste of what life is like without Henry. He did not care for it, and that realization comes alongside an incredibly unexpected vulnerability that Hans is not used to and has not had to deal with before.

The threat of losing Henry before was of course something he could conceive of before, most recently following Henry's ~terrible fall, but that would have been losing him in the abstract. If he lost Henry because of their fight, that would be (at least in his eyes), 100% his fault, at least in part because-- as you'll recall-- Henry was ready to make up literally the next morning. Earlier, even, if you watch the way he tries to look at Hans while Hans is stubbornly staring away as if to keep from being persuaded by Henry's puppy dog eyes.

The divorce era presented a different sort of loss, namely losing Henry not because of God's will, but because of his own stubborn pride. He got Henry back after, but the risk was there and it's only after getting him back that the full weight of what he almost lost hits him. At the beginning, when he's still panicking in the cell, he's still in what he perceives to be the proverbial doghouse, and he promptly follows this up by eating crow and apologizing to Henry for being an asshole.

Panic abated.

Until Henry is taken away from him, of course, and the walls truly start closing in. I have to really commend the creative direction of this scene in particular because that zoom out + transition to a Dutch angle is so fucking haunting in this scene while we watch Hans clearly trying not to have a full breakdown. It really induces the feeling of claustrophobia even if a person doesn't suffer from it themselves.

Henry was taken away from him, and as far as he knows, he might never see him again. No wonder the walls start closing in on him.

After that, things return to normal. No bad claustrophobia concerns for some time, incidentally. Henry is there, and his feelings regarding Henry are completely logical and rational. What a good friend Henry is!

The next time we see Hans' claustrophobia flare up is after Nebakov is hit by the Finger of God/bombard. Hans is trapped under a beam and is (understandably) freaking the fuck out. We also know from his dialogue later on that this scene magnified his claustrophobia even more than it was before.

What's notable, however, is that Henry at this point is barely conscious and isn't responding to Hans. As far as he knows, Henry isn't alive. That bombard could have easily killed any/all of them and tbh it's kind of a miracle that it didn't. Never mind that after his brief foray into consciousness, Henry is promptly hit by a full-length ceiling beam and (presumably, logically) knocked the fuck out. Meanwhile Hans is being crushed by his own fear of his feelings.

We obviously don't know what happens between the time of the tower's destruction and the scene in the cart after, but we do know that Henry was woken up at dawn to the commotion and by the time they get done being tortured, it's very late at night. So presumably Henry was out cold for a while there. Not only are the walls closing in on Hans here, they're literally crushing him. The fear of losing Henry is more present than ever.

And to make matters worse, he has no idea when or even if he's ever going to see Henry again. Henry has no value as a hostage. He could easily be simply disposed of without a second thought.

Henry could die, and it would, in Hans' eyes, be all his fault. At this point his feelings on the matter are guilt and a tremendous amount of self-pity (as we later learn from Brabant). As if to coincide with Hans being confronted with his feelings regarding Henry and the loss of him at this point and time, he ends up stuck in his gilded cage at Maleshov.

Once again, the walls are closing in.

We learn about how he felt about this only later when we chat with him at the Devil's Den:

The big problem with the room, Hans explains, was simply that he couldn't leave.

If we bear in mind the claustrophobia : confrontation of feelings metaphor here, this makes sense. Henry could be dead. He could have been tortured. He could still be in captivity. Hell, depending on how you play Henry being tortured, he even tells the torturer to just go ahead and fucking kill him because he's not talking. Henry was ready to die.

Hans knows Henry. Extremely well. He knows that Henry has some truly insane principles that he will stick to no matter what. There's no doubt in my mind that Hans probably knows there is a good chance that Henry doesn't make it through this. And he's confronted with all of these feelings over an extended period of time where he gets to sit and spin.

In light of that, I think it's interesting that he calls it a hole, because I would never use a word like that to describe what is effectively a fancy hotel room. But figuratively speaking, of course it's a hole for him. He's despairing. He needs Henry in his life and there's nothing he can do to get to him or to save him. He can't leave.

And then, of course, Henry shows up after all. No wonder Hans looks so unbelievably elated to see him. Of course, this is when Henry brings up the secret passageway. Hans is told that he can leave this enclosed space for another, even tighter enclosed space!

Now, if you pick the correct dialogue option here and tell him that you'll make it through, together, Hans of course discloses that the shit about how it's not ~chivalrous was bullshit and that it's because he might endanger him:

He just spent the last x amount of time (depending on how long you had Henry dilly-dallying around Kuttenberg and its environs) trapped here and steeped in his feelings regarding Henry. The fear of losing him is at the top of this list. To Hans, going into that passageway could also make him lose Henry. And it would be his fault. Again.

There's also something to be said here about close quarters. If we're to return here to the metaphors, then those close quarters force Hans to confront his feelings for Henry. Henry even says it himself back when they're in the Trosky dungeon together:

From there, it's on to Raborsch. Which is where things get very interesting.

Hans is told that he's going to be getting married. Much like in the Trosky dungeon, we get that zoom (albeit in the other direction this time) and then his POV. The way time seems to slow, the wobble of the camera... being something of a panic attack haver myself, this is exactly what it feels like. It is honestly impressive how well they mimic the feeling of it. And the way it's executed almost makes it look as though the room is shrinking.

This is my own personal headcanon that will probably not be shared by most people, but I think this is the moment that Hans realizes that he's in love with Henry. It would make sense for him to feel faint and like the walls are closing in on him in that moment.

It's also the worst possible moment for him to realize.

And then he proceeds to try and shove those feelings aside and repress them as best as possible. Nevermind that yet again Henry isn't there to help support him.

There was a wonderful post going around the other day about why Hans' responses to the romantic dialogue options Henry chooses sound so platonic. Because... yeah. He's holding that shit in TIGHT. He is on LOCKDOWN.

And we see that reflected in where he chooses to place himself physically after that point!!!!

After the announcement, Godwin can find him outside on the balcony getting absolutely hammered and talking to Rabbi Jehuda.

Even at the Devil's Den, where he's objectively free, he feels... crowded. Like the walls are closing in on him:

No fucking wonder. If he just realized that he's in love with Henry, then at this point in the story he's still trying real hard to repress that shit. Hans is erecting these walls himself as if he's trying to choke these feelings out of him. It also makes sense why he's constantly going out to get away from this confrontation of feelings as much as possible, riding out whenever he can:

Even in the group meeting with the Devil's gang, he says this:

Now it's the whole tavern! Anywhere that has walls and a roof is choking the life out of him! And of course here Henry is suddenly fucking everywhere.

When talking to him about the rides he goes on in the surrounding areas, this line of inquiry leads him to ask if he's fucking poaching again, and Hans comes back by saying this:

Allow me to just say.

And I cannot stress this enough.

He did not need to tell Henry that.

Henry tells him as much, but it feels fairly obvious that this was said with intent. It's like he's trying to reinforce his own heterosexuality to both him and Henry.

I would also like to highlight here that to Hans, it's always outside that this heterosexuality occurs. Even at the baths those hookups are merely in tents. The girl from Bohunowitz he found in (or near) a hunter's camp in the forest.

So we see a pretty direct correlation here. The inside of pretty much any building (or passageway) that also contains Henry or the Absence of Henry (in the abstract) is profoundly unsafe. This is the space where feelings always seem to happen and where Realizations™️ occur.

So! The outside is safe! Nothing can get him there, not even his feelings for Henry!

It's interesting, then, that Hans decides to invite Henry into that very space not long after:

Even in the space Hans uses as an escape (including as an escape from Henry), he still wants Henry there. Much as I discussed in this post, Hans views hunting with Henry in this scene as an escape into the past. Pre-betrothal, pre-feelings. A simpler time and a return to normalcy.

Naturally, he has to counteract Henry's presence in the Comphet space by bringing up as much heterosexuality as possible:

He brings this up regardless of how you respond.

Depending on your dialogue choices, you then learn that the girl from Bohunowitz is named Karolina. (Tbh if I didn't know better, I'd assume she was fucking made up seeing as she shares a name with the same girl he was running after in The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon and there is no such girl to be found in Bohunowitz.)

Regardless of whether you chose to tease him or grumble about his womanizing, Henry makes it pretty clear that he doesn't want to hear about it. He says something similar as well earlier, when Hans says that the girl from Bohunowitz (who may or may not be made up) gave him a ~ride:

Hans quickly changes the subject, but Henry keeps them on topic and brings it up again, effectively asking him if these wenches are more important to him than he is:

(Tbh it's pretty fucking obvious from these interactions that Henry is already feeling quite a lot here and is looking for validation from Hans... which Hans then, perhaps unwittingly, provides. Maybe he just can't help himself. The truth slips through the cracks.)

Hans immediately reassures him, of course:

At which point it's Henry's turn to brush him off and put some distance between them again.

Distance which Hans immediately closes up again...

... only to freak out and instantly backpedal.

The assault on Maleshov really hammers this connection home, where even outside, he can't run from his fear.

In this case, because the Finger of God fires and hits the fortress walls.

Hans falls back and just... stares.

And just stays there for a while. For long enough, in fact, that Henry and Godwin have to come help him up.

Henry, in this instance, is both the problem and the solution: all Hans has to do is accept the fact that he's in love with him—with a little help from Henry.

And then we get to the Italian Job. Hooo boy.

It does not escape my attention that these two dialogue options come up in the same conversation, one of which of course leads to a romance choice:

Henry tries to insist on how much he enjoys Hans' company only for Hans to brush him off. Quite substantially. Like if I was Henry I'd be fucking gutted or at the very least baffled that my friend could be that obtuse when I'm over here dropping all these hints.

And then, of course, Hans promptly panics again when Henry brings up the underground passage and asks if he's joining him in going through it (almost as if those two bits of panic are related).

He even brings up societal judgment! But I think it's that last one that carries by far the most weight. He's still looking for any possible way out that he can find and asking for validation from Henry while he's doing it. Which is asking quite a lot of Henry imo.

Of course, then he suddenly doesn't have a choice anymore. Which is also where Hans actually comes to terms with his feelings. He has to go through the passageway. There's no choice. The walls are closing in and he has to accept it or he'll go insane if he keeps repressing any of this any longer. The narrative is practically telling him: you can't run from this anymore. His feelings for Henry are real and they're right in front of him and they're not this terrifying thing that he's been running from all this time.

Katherine tells Henry that Hans was trailing behind Godwin and her "like a dazed sheep" and that she hopes he didn't get lost.

The good news is that he didn't. Instead, quite the opposite happened: he finally found his way to accepting how he feels.

And when he does, he finds that he's no longer afraid of them. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, confronting his fears meant that they're not nearly as terrifying anymore.

Again, Henry asks if he's really all right, and Hans insists that he's never been better. No fucking wonder. This was a come-to-Jesus moment if ever I saw one.

And then he checks on Henry. All this time, he's been looking at his own fear, stuck in this, quite frankly, closet, and not thinking about how Henry has been feeling.

Even so, Henry is worried. At which point Hans gets to reassure him that, no, he's all right. In fact, the one holding him back and hurting him most in all of this has been none other than himself. If anything, Henry has been encouraging all this time. He does his job well. And that includes loving Hans.

Henry suggests that he overcame his fear, and Hans insists that no, that's not quite it.

Which makes sense. You don't just overcome your fears by facing them. Certainly not something like claustrophobia. It's also unlikely that an actual miracle occurred here. If you listen for his idle talk before or after this conversation, even Hans is absolutely baffled that he just... overcame his fear. Just like that.

To me, that suggests that this is about something else entirely, and not tight, enclosed spaces at all. He's always been afraid to face this part of himself.

In fact, if we recall what happened during their successful siege on Maleshov, Hans fell and couldn't recover without aid. Here, he fell and got himself up again because... it didn't kill him. It's okay to have—wait for it—fallen in love with Henry.

Is this a stretch? Maybe. But the fact that it happens twice makes me think that it was done with intent.

(If I wanted to bring in a real stretch here, I'd suggest that there's meaning behind the fact that Hans helps Henry up to his feet several times, first after his terrible fall at the beginning, while they're walking to Bozhena's, and again after he's on the floor getting kicked at the Semine wedding. If this was meant to be a hint as to where Henry realized that he was in love with Hans, having lost him first almost to death and then again to the divorce arc, it wouldn't surprise me tbh. He fell, and Hans was there to be his solution—the only difference is that Henry wouldn't have had a problem accepting it the way that Hans did. But, like I said, this one is a stretch.)

All of which brings us to the second confession.

Henry tried telling him this same exact thing before, after nearly losing him to the noose and their temporary split. Now he's saying this exact same thing again. Which feels... pointed and frankly intentional.

And this time, Hans responds in kind. He also cares about Henry. He's just really bad at showing it sometimes.

Because of course he's bad at it. He's spent the whole game thus far stuck in a closet of claustrophobia battling against his own internally homophobic demons.

But his success in a) escaping that closet and b) battling those demons brings us to the promised land.

Where they fuck in a (relatively, considering Hans' fear from before) small room and with Hans underneath Henry, the safest ceiling to come (down) on him of them all ♥

[fatehbaz]

weekly navel-gazing update: this week is most consequential event in long time. keyword search: "scared" "is it ok to be scared" "beaten and tortured by the ogre"

[boarloved-art]

old mdzs doodle dump featuring lan "both my parents are expert rule-breakers" sizhui vs wei "please dont make me be the stern parent" wuxian, and wangxian being....nauseating for everyone around them.

[scliffe]

Honestly when I say that I love romanticizing Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship to hell and back; I don’t necessarily mean that I think they should have a romantic relationship—something like [a pair of lovers destined to tragically love each other until death do them part]—it’s cute and sweet, but it doesn’t fully encapsulate what their relationship is like to me. While I appreciate their physical closeness, it’s of lesser importance to me whether they actually have a romantic relationship or sexual relations; what I desire is for Ciel and Sebastian to be part of each other forever—[beyond even death].

Their relationship cannot be fully conveyed through descriptions like romantic or platonic. They are bound together by something even more intimate than romance or sex—Ciel is promised to Sebastian with something indissoluble; beyond any romantic or sexual relationship, which can be broken, ended or divorced. The contract demands that Ciel will eventually grant Sebastian his soul to devour—thus becoming one existence together for eternity. Their oath to each other is not written in official papers; it’s engraved in their body and soul. It is irrevocable. Given the nature of their doomed end—where it is certain that only one of them will remain in the end—their covenant becomes such that there will be no escape for either of them. With the more time they spent together and the more memories they gently collected of the other party; they're both eroding and molding each other to fit the shape of each other's palms—leaving lasting, permanent damage on each other. Both of them will be changed—and have been changing—irreversibly since their very first meeting, to the point where their final parting will never be a true parting as they will leave their own selves within each other.

They must become more and more in tune as soulmates are with each other—until Ciel’s will becomes Sebastian’s will; until Sebastian’s hunger becomes Ciel’s hunger; and Sebastian’s hands wrapping around Ciel’s throat are also Ciel’s hands around Sebastian’s own throat—until they eventually become one.

[satoruxx]

who do you think would be more devoted, satoru, suguru or shoko?

oh em gee hi nonnie :333 it's been a milennia since i got a sashisu ask so i'm VERY sorry for the novel !!

well.... i think they all have their moments but most devoted would probably be suguru. AND I WILL EXPLAIN WHY !!!!

i just think suguru tends to be very selfish when it comes to love. not like.. in a bad way... but to him love means that he has already given himself to you completely. he expects it to be understood that his love runs so deep he physically cannot fathom letting you go. suguru has always been extremely loyal to what's his—whether that be his morals or his friends. i think he puts a lot of value into making connections. so for him, when it comes to love, i think he would be very steadfast in it—often finding it difficult to disentangle himself from those emotions. and i feel like that depth is what makes him the most likely to become obsessive over devotion. (like... cult leader suguru would become so fixated on the idea of devoting himself to you that it can start becoming almost parasitic) basically, suguru could absolutely devote himself completely to you, and in a normal relationship that translates into extreme and fierce loyalty. but any kind of toxic or twisted dynamic and that's turning obsessive and probably too emotionally dependent.

satoru is definitely devoted but in a very generous way. he can love you so deeply but be alright with letting you go. to him, that's the biggest act of love he can commit. he sees a lot of drawbacks in letting you be with him, so he would much rather devote himself from afar and let you live a life he probably cannot give you. in other words, his emotional investment in you may not always come across as fully attentive because his perception of dedication can be too focused on what he deems is best. satoru's devotion plays on a fine line between his loyalty to you and his loyalty to his own ideas. he has such a strong connection to his own ideals that once he perceives something, he will always do what he feels is best in that situation. the problem is that might not be the most pleasant thing for you—but if he thinks you're better off with someone else he will let you go. (see i don't think suguru would be able to do that. suguru will never be able to give you up.)

shoko's devotion is the most subtle, but i think it would be the most stable. it might take her a while to get to that stage (i don't think it's as easy for her to fall into obsession compared to the other two) but she will be dedicated to you. shoko may not be the most expressive, but she is the most emotionally grounded. she has always shown consistent loyalty to things she values, so i think her devotion to you would be dependable and pretty nurturing. i also think she has a very mature perspective on her relationship with you, and she'd be more concerned with creating and maintaining that bond. so basically... i think she'd be the most consistently devoted if that makes sense.

so yeah, suguru is the most intensely devoted, but his devotion is easy to become entangled with other emotions. satoru is devoted, but it's more external. he tends to do things for you that he feels is right. and shoko is the devoted in the most stable way.

[butchazepam]

updated radical feminist library

the radical feminist library, by aggrolesbo/ladielabrys, is great. but it has a lot of repeated and illegible files, and without the proper authors so it gets difficult to search for things. I cleaned it put and then added a lot more books recommended across the internet. Plus very good releases by suny press and routledge.

i separated the trans folder from the rest of the library so you can send it to people who would otherwise be turned off.

If you have any recommendations i would be glad to add it!

spread it far and wide please

[therepublicofletters]

For curiosity’s sake: If you’re a student/academic/scholar of any sort (amateur, professional, what have you), reblog with what you work on in the tags 🌿

[dirty-bosmer]

Got a marriage license and bought wedding rings. It's happenin

[thefirstknife]

I can’t help but feel like savathuns about to go down a familiar road as we did, but won’t get the same ending. Shes emotional, angry, had the sibling she had a chance to save ripped from her hands. She’s going to want revenge, and I think it might be the last thing she seeks.

she’s already made it clear she wants that, she’s already scheming again. But her brood is her own, cunning, wise, smart enough to know when to jump ship. Luzaku already dipped, she knew staying by sav’s side wasn’t worth it. And when the rest wise up? See their leader is sending them to die for some “revenge” for a dead family member they don’t know? Seeing her let her emotions take reign and send them into a battle they otherwise wouldn’t want? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a call for new leadership.

would she die from this? I doubt it. She no doubt has plans for betrayal, I wouldn’t put it past her. However, shed no doubly be left without an alley at her side. I think it’d be ironic, wouldn’t it? Savathun, the hive god who wanted to break away from the “game” as she called it, got what she wanted, to not be involved in the grand scheme of things. What did it cost her? Everything… the hive god who wanted to be just “left alone” gets exactly what she craves… not a single person at her side, and not a soul to care for her.

I personally don't think she wanted to save Oryx, especially not that version of him, which was pretty much set in his ways and not entirely true to the Oryx she knew. Especially after she tried to reason with him and offered him the Light and it angered him greatly. I think that really got to her and it was probably the most honest and real she ever was, but Oryx's rejection of it made her more jaded. It was a chance, but he refused it and it's not even the Oryx she knew: the Echo was just a twisted memory of him. But I think that what she's mostly angry with us about is that we destroyed a powerful artifact that she could've used for herself in whatever way she wanted to.

Savathun's feelings about her family are complicated and she definitely feels something for them, but it's always on some condition and the level of usefulness they have for her. Savathun loves her siblings and her family, but she loves herself the most. She did not care when we killed the actual Oryx, or any of his children, or any of her children, nor does she care about a daughter she left in a time loop to infinitely die over and over.

I also think that she will be left alone with nobody at her side and nobody to care for her. And I can't find it in me to feel sorry for her. She rejected every single option to be reached and to change and to do better. Her whole angry speech was entirely hollow to me. Her telling us that we crossed a line? Her calling us "the Traveler's pet"?

This is, btw, incredible for me narratively, Savathun is SUCH a good character, genuinely one of the best characters in the whole story. Her hypocrisy and manipulation and the ways she affected the universe are peak. But I think that at the end of the day, she can't keep getting away with it, so to speak. After all that in the finale, I am really hoping that one day she will be dealt with like everybody else who thrived on destruction, atrocities and suffering of others. Unless, of course, she decides she's had enough of that and finally embraces the second chance she got.

And all of this is what makes her probably the most compelling character in the whole franchise. I really do want to see unhinged Savathun from now on, and also how she'll deal with Xivu and how Xivu will deal with her.

[purrvaire]

black sails + tumblr text post I have on my phone (pt. 2/?)