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"... You're what??"

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KPOP DEMON HUNTERS (2025) + TUMBLR REACTIONS

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This is beautifully written, but I dont know if I agree that it wasn't worth it (objectively) to save one innocent child. Of course the post's original thesis is that it was that saving one at the expense of many was emotionally right, but also, I dont think Wei Wuxian's choice to Wen Yuan and the rest of the Wen Remnants was intended to be a moral quandary for the readers of the story? It's certainly quite the trolley problem to only be able to save one person you know or many people you don't, but the situation that Wei Wuxian faced was less "you can only save one or the other" and more "the many will kill or enslave the one unless you kill the many," and i feel like this self defense aspect of the problem really shouldn't be overlooked.

The original posts says that "Thousands died in his quest to try and save innocent people from horrible fates," but those fates weren't just something uncontrollable or inevitable– that "horrible fate" was something that other humans were actively causing. And I think that the narrative intends for us to believe that it is better to save innocents by killing people who are harming them, rather than let innocents suffer because killing their oppressors would still mean killing people. Even if Wei Wuxian eventually failed to save them from a horrible death, I think we were unequivocally intended to believe that just the act of him trying to save people was worth it, and I don't think MXTX wrote the story in a way that was meant for us to wonder if what Wei Wuxian did was the right thing. Of course, doing the right thing didn't keep all the Wens and the conductors of the seige from dying, but I dont think the story suggested that it was Wei Wuxian's altruism that led to all this tragedy. Perhaps it was his hubris, the prejudice of the society, or even a series of unfortunate events that is to blame, but I think at the end of the day, we can all agree with the final sentiment of this post, which is that his kindness mattered. And honestly, I think the only place where my opinion differs from yours is in how obviously and undeniably the story meant to tell us that it mattered

The story of Wei Wuxian's first life is a tragedy and it's a tragedy born from kindness. Why? Because so many of the culminating factors that lead to tragedy in his life stem from his desperate attempt to be kind and his deep seated desire to help.

He loses his home and his family because he choses to save one person.

He loses his power, his sanity, and as far as he can tell, his only friend because he chose to save his brother

He loses his reputation, his siblings, and ultimately his life in order to save a three year old child

And in the end, what was it for? Did his kindness truly help? He fought tooth and nail against the cruelty of the world and all it won him was fear, hatred, and loss. Thousands died in his quest to try and save innocent people from horrific fates. Wei Wuxian ultimately brought tragedy everywhere he went in the guise of heroics. Can one really say it was worth it?

No

But even so that child was only three and by the gods he was innocent. The world may condemn him all they like for his wrongs. He will accept that responsibility gladly. But he can not and he will not be the one to condemn an innocent child.

To the world that kindness means nothing. Not when you see what it took to offer it.

To that one child, however? It means everything. A-Yuan does not remember fear. He does not remember hatred. He does not remember loss. Instead he remembers the steady warmth of kindness. In a world that remembers a monster who hurt, he remembers a man who helped.

In the grand scheme of things it's not worth it. It never will. One cannot stand up and say this one life is worth the cost.

But when you walk through a world built on a tragedy you caused and carrying the grief of your own failures, perhaps that one life is enough

Wei Wuxian may not have been able to save the world but he was able to save A-Yuan. After everything he can watch that now 16 year old child flourish and know that in the end, his kindness did matter.

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Titles

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Fully grown Qiong Ding Head Disciple Luo Binghe (from the timeline where Shen Jiu didn't attend those disciple selections + has a better overall set of relationships with the other peak lords) unearths some old documents that establish that in the past, actually, the Qiong Ding and Qing Jing peak lords would be expected to marry. Either legitimately or just ceremonially, as a sort of representation of commitment to the sect as a family above all other things.

The practice fell out of favor a few generations ago, but Luo Binghe is hellbent on getting it back into play. Not because he gives a shit about qijiu (he's on decently-good terms with YQY but SQQ still kind of wants to kick him off the top of the highest peak) but because if he can get the practice restored now, he's all set for eventually getting Qing Jing Peak's current head disciple, Shen Yuan, to marry him when the old generation ascends and finally hands over the sect.

He's playing the long game.

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May is ending soon so here's my mermay drawing for the year lol

Beta fish lqg and guppy sy (and vampire squid lbh for fun)

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My roommate has been trying to get me to watch Stranger Things for months now, and we just finished season one/just started season 2, but i was so distracted by the background of the Upside Down that I was actually distracted during the emotional climax of the finale.

Like we've seen that the Upside Down matches the original town to the extent that Steve's house has a pool that's also in the other world, and the Byer house is also there, so at what point do things get built in the main world and then appear over there? Joyce and Hopper walk through the town's main street and there are cars just hanging out on the road, but like who put them there? How long do you have to leave a car on the road before it shows up over there? Obviously cars on that street in the main world are always moving on and off this busy street, so what gives? Plus, I dont think we got a chance to see the Byers living room super clearly in the Upside Down, but how did Will figure out how to use the Christmas lights to talk to Joyce? It didnt look like the Christmas lights all over the house were replicated in the Upside Down, meaning that, chances are, the letters painted on the wall also weren't there, so how did he know what went letter went with what light? The rules of the world are not mathing.

Also, the whole Upside Down is dressed to look overgrown and dilapidated, but that implies that these structures have been here so long that ivy and grime have been able to grow on them, so when did that all become abandoned? And again, who built a car in the Upside Down and drove it into the middle of the street? Also also, how toxic is the air? Will was there for a week and is fine one year later, so it's not like it'll kill you immediately, but then how long can a regular person just hang out in this dimension?

I think my current prevailing theory is that this world is the result of like some kind of nuclear fallout, and all the people died suddenly or had to quickly abandon the structures there for whatever reason. That rather than it being a dark mirror of the main world, it's instead an alternate timeline that was somewhat recently devastated in a way that the main world was not. This could also explain why there are mutated creatures living in this dimension alongside obviously human inventions, and radiation might also explain what the scientists meant by "the air is toxic" but not something that will kill you the second you breath it in.

Speaking of the Demogorgon though, its plausibility as a monster makes me kind of angry. Like, it's attracted to even small amounts of blood that appear in the main world, so why weren't way more people attacked? You're telling me that no one in the town ever got cut at night for that whole week except for the main characters? No one was ever attacked in their homes because a kid scraped their knee, but Jonathan and Nancy cut their hands a little bit, and it comes running like clockwork?

Additionally, the Demogorgon's dimensionhopping abilities are weird on a storytelling level. It was introduced to the main world because Eleven opened up a portal, but also it appears to be able to traverse dimensions at will? I originally thought it was like "oh she weakened the veil between our world and the other one, so it's taking advantage of the temporary cracks to hunt" but like no, it can clearly burst through the barrier between worlds on its own and whenever it wants, so did it always do that to hunt? Has it been terrorizing other dimensions for a long time now? It certainly doesnt sound like it's been seen in Hawkins before the portal opened, so from a storytelling perspective, its kind of weird that there's a big permanent portal, a bunch of small temporary portals, and a monster who can jump through dimensions at will. It kind of makes it feel like the monster isn't super connected to the portal that was created because of Eleven, but it only started appearing after she opened the portal, and we dont really get a sense of those things being tied together by the end of season one. I will say, I kind of like the idea that the mysticism of the Upside Down is actually a totally separate thing from Eleven's powers? Originally I assumed that she got abilities from that dimension somehow, but it sounds like they human experiments were an unrelated atrocity, and the ability to open portals to other dimensions is not necessarily something that comes from those other places.

Now, I dont know anything about the series future, so hopefully these questions are answered in one of the many seasons going forward. It certainly feels like they at least knew they had a second season in them when they wrote the first one, so I'm really hoping this gets built up more clearly going forward. They clearly put a lot of work into the aesthetic of this alternate dimension, and I do think that a multidimensional monster is a cool horror concept, but my roommate put me onto this show because I really loved the speculative biology of Nope, and so far, this series lacks the sense of world building and creature building cohesion that I was really hoping for. My roommate said that I was on the right track with some questions (and less so with others), so hopefully things pay off as we go!

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"You who is reading this --"

Here is my entry for the orv fanart contest..! It was announced over on twitter so I can see that some people here are surprised such a contest existed,, I hope they host another one someday;;

I wanted to make an art piece that could be enjoyed by both early readers and readers who have finished the epilogue. Something that will make the reader happy just by looking at it. I hope singshong looks at all the entries and sees how much the readers love ORV

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My piece for the ORV fanart contest 😭😭😭

I'm so glad i finished in time I also never want ot draw trains ever again lmao

Now excuse me as I continue playing hundred line last defense academy.

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favorite thing ever is leaving this gif in Ao3 comment sections

because A: a shocking amount of people don't know abt the 'img src=' trick to add images into comment sections, and B: well over half of the authors seem to really enjoy the sentiment

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Hey hey, as a librarian, can I just say don’t pace yourself at the library. I get a lot of customers saying “oh I shouldn’t get too many books out at once” but like you should!!!! Max out your card, take everything we have on a subject you’re interested in, make a book fort in your home. We love that shit! It doesn’t matter if you read them or not; just take them for an adventure and bring them back whenever they’re due!

For public libraries, one of the ways we secure funding year to year is lending. Governments don’t want to fund more books if they’re not being used and the way we measure use is by issues. Regardless of whether you read it or not, whether you have it for a day or a month, if you issue it to your library card, we get the stats! It makes the library look good!

Help your local library; get books out even if you know you can’t read them all!

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This is extremely embarassing, but it just clicked for me that the Outer Gods of orv were originally supposed to be perceived as like. The Lovecraft style Cthulu type Gods. As in, before we know anything about them, the expectation is fully that they're unknowable cosmic mysteries with powers that we can't quantify from where we stand, and who exists kind of outside of the main characters' world. This was probably obvious to most people, especially since one of the most iconic contributions of the Outer Gods part of the story is that becoming an Outer God made Kim Dokja into a squid, and i feel blind for that ^_^;

I'm sure that whole thing wasn't meant to be read into super closely, but i feel like there's something there about reframing cosmic horrors as doomed and forgotten stories. Something about how discarded stories still linger and meld together to become something unrecognizable, but not worthless. There's a part of ORV where Kim Dokja listens to the stories of the little outer gods who Secretive Plotter rules over, and he explicitly says that they're meandering and not super interesting, but that doesn't necessarily mean that those stories aren't worth telling, they aren't just fit for consumption the way the Star Stream so badly wants them to be. Again, I think im pulling this out of my ass, but I like the thought that there's something there

Also, im just kind of generally intrigued by this little intersection of culture that the Outer Gods brings to my attention. Not only are Lovecraftian deities often associated with tentacles, but in Korea, calling someone a squid is metaphorical shorthand for calling people ugly (kind of like calling someone a pig or a toad is in english). I think this is a really funny thing to be playing on simultaneously? Because Kim Dokja is kind of a cosmic Omniscient entity, and you can call that Cthonian in a sense, but also, there's clearly the joke in there that Kim Dokja is considered to be "ugly" or at least unremarkable in terms of looks to most people, and is supposed to have the kind of face that would have normal non apocalypse era people calling him a "squid." I dont know, I think that the dichotomy of Kim Dokja = Squid being both a serious/deifying thing and also a silly/casual joke is really funny and representative of Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint as a novel

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SVSSS Bingyuan AU idea (if someone adopts this I will make art please please I wanna see this written out so bad and I do not have the time or spoons for it)

Shen Yuan is transmigrated into the body of an unnamed NPC in what he believes to be PIDW. The System wished him good luck and blipped out of existence almost immediately. Shen Yuan, of course, immediately wants to start preparing to go out and explore the world and maybe go see the protagonist from afar, only for the latter to appear about 4 minutes after Shen Yuan opened his eyes.

Without much rhyme or reason he is immediately swept off his feet by the (unfairly handsome and somewhat frazzled-looking) protagonist and deposited into a room deep within Luo Binghe’s palace without much fanfare with the promise that he will be back soon.

Shen Yuan, of course, is deeply confused. Why is he here, why did the protagonist abduct him, was he going to kill him (not that he should have any reason to, unless this body belonged to someone who wronged Luo Binghe in the past… but then why would be be brought to these lovely chambers?)?!

He starts investigating the room and finds a bestiary filled with the most interesting beasts he’d always wanted to know more of. The illustrations are beautiful, the bestiary lovingly crafted. Something about it niggles at Shen Yuan’s brain, but he can’t put his finger on it.

He’s interrupted by Luo Binghe showing up with a tray of absolutely delicious-smelling food… strangely, it’s all of Shen Yuan’s absolute favorite dishes (and everything he wasn’t familiar with on the tray ended up being a new favorite which… was that just a coincidence?) and he enjoys them immensely.

Luo Binghe watches Shen Yuan closely as he eats and smiles when he finishes. “I’m glad to see A-Yuan’s tastes haven’t changed.” he says, and Shen Yuan barely has time to wonder how Binghe knew his name before they’re interrupted and Binghe is called away by some “important business” (which, from the look on Binghe’s face, will not end well for whoever disturbed him).

Shen Yuan continues exploring the rooms and finds a nook with the exact type and amount of pillows he likes, with natural light coming in from a northern angle— his favorite light to read in. The room smells like jasmine and books— Shen Yuan’s favorite scent. It was like someone had taking every one of Shen Yuan’s preferences and put them into a room.

It wasn’t until he spotted the bestiary again that it clicks; it’s written in his own handwriting. Those drawings look like what his own art might look like if he got more practice.

How could he have written a bestiary he’d never seen before? How did Binghe already know him? What was going on?

So what’s going on is that for years now, Binghe kept encountering individuals that helped him unconditionally, assisting him in his darkest times and making his life more bearable. A fellow street kid after Binghe’s mother died who gave him scraps of food and shared blankets with him, a Shizun on Qing Jing that protected him and gave him a safe place to grow up, a demon in the Abyss that told him all the best places to rest and where to get food and water, a Huan Hua disciple that told him the best ways to gain a foothold within the sect, a demon that advised him in his efforts to take over the Demon Realm.

All of them died protecting him. Some of them made it a few months, others a few years. It wasn’t until meeting Shen Yuan in the Abyss that he realized he had the same quirks and traits as that odd little boy, A-Yuan, who had sheltered him on the streets, and his Shizun, Shen Qingqiu. How odd that his name should be a combination of the two who were dearest to him save his mother. How odd that he shared their interest in stories and shared a ranting style and doted on him and were weak to his tears and… Binghe had realized that it must be the same soul, coming back for him.

But Shen Yuan never remembered his previous lives or deaths. He always seemed excited to meet Binghe, but there was no familiarity in the recognition in his eyes.

And he just. Kept. Dying.

Binghe was on his 18th meeting with Shen Yuan; it had been so many times now that he knew exactly what to do and how to find him. He wasted no time in getting him somewhere safe (finding him that one time, an hour after his last death, only to watch him get killed almost immediately after their encounter had traumatized Binghe, so now he made sure to immediately use the soul-tracking amulet he had been using for the last 12 incarnations) and immediately went to cook his beloved dinner. He was working on a way to get his memories from his previous incarnations back, because… how else was he supposed to cope?

——

So. Do you think a new instance of Shen Yuan is plopped into the world every time one dies? Is it the same soul, given a quick reset and spit-spine and put into another body? Let’s discuss this idea please I am obsessed, it haunts me. Let’s brainstorm

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Another AU where Luo Binghe decides to go pure demon emperor route and not join Huan Hua, only instead of arranged marriage alliance decides gonna just go for bridenapping/marriage hunt route. (He knows how protective Cang Qiong are of his Shizun (as they should be he's a danger/wife plot magnet) and he knows Yue Qingyuan will probably try and out bureaucracy him so instead just gonna steal his Shizun.

Shen Qingqiu freaking out because Luo Binghe keeps showing up on Qing Jing trying to kidnap/kill him, luckily he keeps managing to avoid him...barely. Luo Binghe seemed distracted first time, and that gave him enough time to plan all his contingencies, he's planned to escape every time so far. He's just hoping he can keep this up until mushroom bodies are ready.

Luo Binghe is beyond smitten first time he was distracted because Qing Jing peak Widow Shizun and sword mound and after that his Shizun keeps outsmarting and avoiding him. Only he sees this as a marriage hunt! and his Shziun is participating he's making Luo Binghe prove himself! Binghe is so happy.

He knows Shizun knows all about demon customs so his Shizun knows what he's doing.

The rest of the sect are freaking out! His disciple was a demon who is now a demon lord and is clearly courting him! They know demon customs and they're sure Shen Qingqiu must know to but doesn't seem to realize he's being courted!! the sect are just trying to figure out WTF is happening!? and does Shen Qingqiu actually know what's happening!?

Mobei Jun is sulking cause he tried marriage hunt but Shang Qinghua isn't participating he just cowers and isn't letting Mobei Jun chase him while Lou Binghe is gloating about how his Shizun manged to evade him all last night.

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As AI art gets harder to clock, I feel like we are going to need to have a discussion about attribution and it's probably going to bum some people out.

Because the surest way to avoid platforming, reblogging, or encouraging AI art posting is to know where every image you share originated and that's 1) boring, tedious research and 2) extremely limiting in what you feel you can reblog. But if unattributed images never gets traction, people will start attributing their images.

I've been guilty of this in the past, but for a while now it's been my policy that if I can't verify the origin, I don't share the image. That goes for stuff like screen grabs of headlines too -- more than once I've avoided spreading misinformation by saving a post to research before I reblog, then seeing the post refuted before I've been able to verify it.

And I usually try to attribute photos I take -- case in point, the "woman with shrimp" post gets a lot of attention but not one comment about it being AI, despite it being pretty similar to something you'd get from an AI. That's because I clearly state it's in a museum and link to its catalogue page.

I'm not saying this to scold anyone -- I think yelling at the Internet to cite its sources is very much a losing game -- but because I don't see this discussed much. We're such fertile ground to be fooled by AI art because we've grown accustomed to not questioning the origins of any given image. And of course I also want to encourage both OPs to attribute their images and rebloggers to verify unattributed ones.

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Shenanigans ensue