thinking about how the Sumeru Archon Quest can be read as a metaphor for Alhaitham and Kaveh's relationship and their progression and going crazy

Alhaitham is present during the quest, whereas Kaveh is not, and this causes Alhaitham to question why Kaveh was not present in saving Sumeru. Relating this to their thesis, although it made many bounds for Sumeru’s understanding of ancient languages and architecture which held promise for betterment of the future, it was abandoned before completion due to their clashing of views and personal attacks of each other. Alhaitham repeatedly questioning why Kaveh was missing hints that Kaveh should have been a part of the Archon-saving plan, in that, Kaveh was missing from the betterment of Sumeru. Once again, an opportunity passed by for them uniting for a mutually agreed cause. This is due to the dissonance between them and their lack of successful communication.

In the Archon Quest, Alhaitham is present, ready for reconciliation, to work together, whereas Kaveh is missing, unaware of the chance of reconciliation. Kaveh believes that Alhaitham deliberately stirred trouble in Sumeru, rather than saving it, due to his flawed perception of Alhaitham – just as he believes that Alhaitham wants something in return for allowing Kaveh to live in his house, rather than it being an invitation for reconciliation, due to his flawed perception of Alhaitham.

This, in turn, creates a space in the narrative for the two to join together of their own accord, however, the two need to be in the same mindset for reconciliation. As established in Kaveh's Hangout and A Parade of Providence, this can be brought about by the mutual understanding that their clashes do not stem from overall differences in thinking, but their way of communication. Rather than their relationship being based on the opposition of their thinking, it should be based upon the potential that can be borne from identifying good in the balancing of viewpoints – which their thesis had achieved.

Their development as individuals ultimately lies within the other as they possess what the other lacks in order to fully complete their understanding of each other, and themselves. Alhaitham is the grounding for Kaveh’s ideals and the push for him to prioritise himself in his pursuit for happiness for “all” (as established within a parade of providence), whereas Kaveh is the breach in Alhaitham’s rationality and allows him to understand the sensibility of others around him, enabling Alhaitham to possess an enhanced version of his truth.

(Update: For more analyses like this, the essay this is taken from is now uploaded! It can be accessed here and here as as a pdf <3)

i do unironically think the best artists of our generation are posting to get 20 notes and 3 reblogs btw. that fanfic with like 45 kudos is some of the best stuff ever written. those OCs you carry around have some of the richest backstories and worldbuilding someone has ever seen. please do not think that reaching only a few people when you post means your art isn't worth celebrating.

not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

i didn't have "i'm broken" teenage asexual angst i had "i'm literally being the only reasonable one about this concept and the rest of you are behaving like fucking freaks" perception issues

local ladies man’s signature move totally useless against autistic monster enthusiast. more on Kabru’s fumble era at 6

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

are we still doing this because i have a late submission

Yes, Greece still exists, we didn't all die 2000 years ago. Yes, people speak Greek. You people are so fucking stupid for real. So many of you claim to love ancient shit but can't even acknowledge the actual living culture of the people whose mythology and classics you romanticize. You keep leaving annoying comments about how you just forget Greek people still exist, thinking you're being quirky because you love ancient stuff soooo much that you forgot about the people it came from. You think about it so little you don't even realize that an actual Greek person has to read this shit, making it clear how little you actually care about the culture beyond the romanticized (and westernized) mythology. Don't claim you love Greece, don't use our mythology anymore if you can't acknowledge that we're still around without making it about how little you think about us. It's mind boggling that you'd think a Greek person would read this and think you're anything but obnoxious. Explode.

can i say something. for years i thought the joke of the song short skirt/long jacket by cake was that he wanted a woman who was hung like a horse. like i thought when he says jacket it was a last-second fakeout because he very obviously meant to say cock. and the rest of the things in the song were just her personality and interests. which were secondary to her awesome penis

catalysts, protectors

to any americans who feel "paralyzed" and "dont know what to do" to help with gaza:

reading a fucking book. i beg of you.

in a time of knowledge suppression is it your duty to arm yourself with knowledge.

read about americas occupations in the middle east.

read about 9/11 from outside of america and see how they inflicted senseless harm and violence to countless amounts of people and have been suppressing your rights for the past 2 fucking decades.

read about any of the countless wars from the past 30 years. especially from a civilian's. and the victims and survivors' perspective. listen to the horror stories and do not plug your fucking ears as to what your country is doing.

and read about fucking gaza and palestine and keep up with what is happening no matter how "sad" or "uncountable" you might get.

dont look away from this.

you dont have the right to be comfortable during countless active genocides.

if you're knowledgeable, you're powerful, and our current state doesnt fucking want that.

you have the power to change things if you open your eyes and scream to the world.

wake the fuck up.

Edit: please check the reblogs there are readings and ways to help

Big Luffy finds a weird looking cat.

Still stuck on how Aziraphale ate that meat like he was starving. Like he’d been starved for millennia, and he hadn’t even known it, because he’d never once been fed. But we know they don’t have to eat (nor sleep, etc.), so what he’d been starved for is pleasure. Being present in his body, feeling the joys and longings it could feel. Understanding what taste buds were made for. He hadn’t known; he’d never learned to miss it.

Now imagine what a kiss has done to him.

for anyone too young to know this: watching The Truman Show is a vastly different experience now, compared to how it was before youtube and social media influencers became normal

before it was like, "what a horrifying thing to do to a human being! to take away their autonomy and privacy, all for the sake of profits! to create fake scenarios for them to react to, just to retain viewership! to ruin their happiness just so some corporate entity could harvest money from their very humanity! how could anyone do something so evil?"

and now it's like, "ah, yeah. this is still deeply fucked up, but it's pretty much what every influencer has been doing to their kids for a decade now. probably bad that we've normalized this experience"

had never heard of "mlp infection aus" until this month and ngl i still dont know what they are but. it made me want to draw some of them getting taken over by their cutie marks or something......