the-bookwyrm

[the-bookwyrm]

I wanted to pay a little tribute to one of my favorite video games of all time :')

You can also grab a PDF of this on my itch.io for just $1!

#horizon #horizon fanart #fanart #this is so good!!!! #hzd

[the-bookwyrm]

A post-apocalyptic tribe that rediscovered pizza and gave it a badass name can't be all bad.

#oh NICE #hfw #horizon

[the-bookwyrm]

NOPE (Jordan Peele) / Blind Spot (Teju Cole)

#nope #I FUCKING LOVE THIS MOVIE!!

[the-bookwyrm]

speaking of, non sequitur is peak episode that only makes sense if it’s gay. harry’s like aur naur i’m trapped in an alternate timeline where i’m back on earth (the only place i’ve wanted to be for over a year) i think instead of enjoying my life here with my cushy job and beautiful fiancée i’m going to go find my boybestfriend and get him to help me get back to the timeline where we’re trapped together on a falling apart starship in the middle of nowhere. lol. meanwhile tom’s like this guy just bent me over a pool table i am ready to die for him

#CACKLES #st #st meta #meta #voy

[the-bookwyrm]

The more despair I endure in life, the more I love Frodo. I'm just. I'm so glad that Tolkien wrote him like that. He was a hero and it broke him. He was given too much to carry. The circumstances were dire, everyone was doing the best they could, and Frodo tried so hard, for such a good cause, and he...broke. And the narrative has pity for him, the characters show him kindness. Even after victory, his hurts did not heal, and it isn't considered his fault. He must go to the undying lands, to seek out peace there. In universe, he is forgiven for being human - don't be pedantic - and his great torment is recognized. He fell. He could not have done it alone. He is still a hero.

And, I think that's important.

#YES GOOD EXCELLENT #lotr #lotr meta #meta

[the-bookwyrm]

shouldve trotted this out this morning but i spent all dang day flyin to texas. now that i am settled i am here to let you know barnes & noble is having a sale on preorders that includes BURY YOUR GAYS so great time to order if you have not already

#BOOKS #dr chuck tingle #bury your gays

[the-bookwyrm]

Had to illustrate what I envision literally every time I see this text post

#CACKLES #PERFECT #gf #gf fanart #fanart

[the-bookwyrm]

thought about the Katara v Pakku fight too hard and made myself cry

#SO! FUCKING! GOOD!! #atla #atla meta #meta

[the-bookwyrm]

I hope everyone is aware Dev Patel has a movie in theaters right now where he guts a bunch of Hindutva fascists with an army of hijra to a heavy metal soundtrack about killing rapists ok good thanks

#i just saw it and it is EXCELLENT #WHAT a great movie!! #monkey man

[the-bookwyrm]

Easy focaccia bread

Follow for recipes

Is this how you roll?

#food #recipes

[the-bookwyrm]

Long post ahead. My full thoughts on the fallout series. TW for references to Sexual Assault, racism, antisemitism. It's not particularly in depth here- but I do reference specific acts of violence done in the show.

I've had people insinuate I'm only mad because I'm a New Vegas fan, because I think they retconned the lore. I'm not upset at the fallout show for its dubious lore additions and reworks. I think they're quite bad in places, but they're by far the least of the show's problems.

This isn't a case of a New Vegas fan mad they messed with my game in a way I didn't like.

Please refer to literally any of my posts pointing out the racism and antisemitism in the show. They brand a black man in episode 1. They named the enclave scientist after a real life holocaust survivor and then spent most of the show lobbing around his decapitated head like a volleyball.

But I'd like to consider other elements of the show. View it as a whole.

Consider the inherent misogyny of having a female main character whose entire character arc is just her getting abused for 8 episodes. How the trajectory of her character revolves around not giving up on the humanity of the man who waterboarded her and sold her to organ harvesters. A female main character who is raped in the first episode and watches her entire community get brutalized and who comes out of it completely unphased- still as plucky as ever- just worried about her dad.

Consider the horror of having a black woman be the one to drop the bombs. Consider the horror of her leading a council of elites who have infiltrated and taken over the US government. Consider the ways this group is presented and shown, the ways every fault of the US government in the series is offloaded onto a shadowy group of elites.

Consider how the capitalist critique of the show only goes so far as saying there's a secret organization of bad people who must be purged. The antisemitism and conspiratorial nonsense inherent to that premise.

Consider the rampant classism with the show's depiction of Wastelanders as either animalistic monsters or too stupid to live.

Consider the ways the show punishes nearly every act of kindness- the ways the world rewards might-makes-right authoritarians.

Consider the way the NCR collapsed offscreen because a disgruntled husband was mad his wife left him, and how after it collapsed the army immediately became raiders and the survivors became blood drinking cultists. Don't give me "it's just shady sands that collapsed" because the NCR was a developed nation. If one of their cities blew up, they would send aid. They would assist.

Consider the way the show constantly uses sex crimes as comedy and horror- the incest jokes and the "chicken fucker" bit, and the Vault 4 monster impregnation and the main character's rape in the first episode.

Consider the ableism of the treatment of ghouls, how every ghoul is now a ticking time bomb, how Lucy helps free a small dementia-riddled old ghoul woman from a medical torture facility and then is immediately punished with the woman trying to inexplicably murder her. Thaddeus openly talks about ghoul exterminationism and it's never a joke or a bit- he just says it and nobody reacts or says anything.

Consider the way the Vault 33 town councillors use real world progressive talking points about restorative justice and prison abolition and multiculturalism- meanwhile Norm advocates for the death penalty and a closed society. How Norm is shown as good and righteous and the vault dwellers range from deluded to damningly stupid- how the mere concept of restorative justice is made a farce because the NCR raiders are screaming about eating organs and murdering people 24/7.

Consider the way they removed the Boneyard, and the Followers of the Apocalypse by extension. In New Vegas we heard about the Followers operating a university in LA. It's gone now. Not destroyed by bombs- but written out of existence because the Boneyard never existed, and Shady Sands is in its place. Consider what that says about this world- that the group most dedicated to peace and rebuilding has been surgically excised from the narrative- destroyed more wholly than even the NCR- written out of existence entirely.

This is the single most reactionary fallout story that has been produced. By a fucking country mile.

Whatever lore critiques there are should be secondary. The storytelling is reactionary in ways I straight up have not seen from other Bethesda entries in the series. It is cruel to a fault, and depicts a world that is incapable of healing or growing- where the best you can do is hold onto that small spark of goodness while every bit of the society around you tries to murder it out of you. This isn't a story about rebuilding, or about postwar politics, or about society- it's about dueling warlords and might makes right attitudes and grimdark views of the nature of humanity. It's fallout in aesthetics alone- and it's perhaps the most hateful thing I've seen come out of this series outside of the actual neonazis in the fanbase.

Whatever hope there is in Moldaver's final moments looking out over the glittering ruins of LA is undercut by the knowledge of what came before. What was destroyed. And it's undercut by the Brotherhood's totalitarian control. It's not hopeful, it's the bare minimum of survival. It's all the progress of the postwar world, 200 years of humanity and history, reduced to just barely getting the lights back on.

In the intro to fallout 1, "War Never Changes" is used as thematic glue. It ties together two concepts- past wars- and present capitalism and militarism.

Ron Perlman describes the Roman Empire, the Spanish conquests of the Americas, and the Nazi regime- and then he says "war never changes" and uses it to connect those past atrocities to the modern world of the setting- to the war that ended everything. The phrase existed to link the resource wars and their ensuing fallout to all the crimes of empire prior. War never changes wasn't a hard and fast rule of human nature- it was a specific condemnation of America.

Lonesome Road even ends with the phrase refuted. War Never Changes. But men do, through the roads they walk. There is hope. That's what this series has always been about. The Master died at the end of fallout 1 and said "leave while you still have hope."

In this show, the black woman Vault Tec exec who ends the world says the phrase. It's stripped of all meaning. Just a generic throwback because it's a famous phrase in the series' history. It's not a condemnation of America, it's a celebratory thing. Vault Tec toasting to the end of the world.

What a thing to see this series become. What a thing to see celebrated.

#holy shit #wow thats even worse than i expected it to be my god #fo #fotv #racism #antisemitism

[the-bookwyrm]

Silent Strike 🍃

#god this art is so cool #and pretty!! #hzd #horizon #horizon fanart #fanart

[the-bookwyrm]

#food #recipes #ooooh this looks good

[the-bookwyrm]

an ice cold beer topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. lying on top of the ice cream foam is a salted peanut. this is the angel. around him are sprinkles (his tears). this is "the angel's lament", my new cocktail

#CACKLES #misc #food #?

[the-bookwyrm]

#food #recipes

[the-bookwyrm]

#oooooh #food #recipes

[the-bookwyrm]

Food Earrings // Crafted by Levi

#so cute!! #jewelry