goldenlemonblossom

[goldenlemonblossom]

trying to get the next chapter out but exams are eating my head up can we get an f in the chat

[goldenlemonblossom]

here’s hoping i get this right

[goldenlemonblossom]

the best part about wei wuxian's resurrection scene is that it happens when the audience doesn't know anything about him yet, so when he goes "i'm going to act like a deranged homosexual lunatic so no one recognizes me" you're like yeah sure that could be a feasible disguise until the flashback happens and you realize it's a terrible idea, because wei wuxian acts like a deranged homosexual lunatic all the time

[goldenlemonblossom]

Made some notes for how I draw SQQ and LBH.

[goldenlemonblossom]

TGCF and Burnout

Probably someone has said this before, perhaps more eloquently than me, but after finishing Tian Guan Ci Fu (or Heaven Official's Blessing in English), I feel floored by its powerful allegory about activist burnout.

I have been told that it is popular to depict Wei Wuxian from Mo Dao Zu Shi as an activist/antifa type in modern AU fic, but Xie Lian strikes me as much more of an activist in our modern understanding than Wei Wuxian. I think that Wei Wuxian saved the Wen remnants out of a sense of personal debt and obligation to Wen Ning and Wen Qing, not because he holds a universal moral principle about protecting people who have been displaced by war. But Xie Lian does hold that strong moral principle about helping refugees. He is that bright-eyed young person who joins the Peace Corps.

White No-Face used to be that person, too. But he gave himself away and gave himself away and used himself up trying to live out those principles until it drained him dry and destroyed him. After that, he was utterly embittered and abandoned all of his principles. What do we call that, when it happens to activists in the modern day? It's burnout. White No-Face is the avatar of the worst type of burnout, the type that hollows you out until you hate everything you used to work for.

Everything White No-Face does and says to Xie Lian is the voice of burnout. You have no control over the world around you, he says. You can't save anybody. And even if you could, the people you wanted to help aren't even worth helping. Just give up the struggle and tell yourself that it was never worth your time in the first place.

For a while, it works. Xie Lian almost gives in. After all, he went through every terrible ordeal White No-Face went through. He did everything he could to save people, sacrificed everything, and where did it get him? He almost gives in, and what pulls him back from the edge isn't a grand gesture of defiance or a shining example of heroism.

It's simple acts of community and human decency. Someone gives him a hat to keep off the rain. Someone pulls him up out of a hole in the ground.

In my experience as an activist, this rings so incredibly true. What keeps me coming back to my activism, even when it's difficult, isn't some grand measure of success, or a headline in a newspaper. It's the person who brought me water during an outdoor summer die-in. It's the musician who volunteered at the last minute to play at a vigil for a lost comrade. This is what motivates you to keep doing the work.

[goldenlemonblossom]

Hua Cheng: on ghosts and love

(Warning: a lot of spoilers of Heaven Official's Blessing ahead)

There's a common, ongoing theme going on when it comes to ghosts: they turn into ghosts because, when they die, a very strong, intense feeling is still present. This feeling is what prevents them from resting in peace, it's so strong that it anchors them to Earth and they cannot leave until it's processed.

In Heaven Official's Blessing, for high-ranking ghosts at least (those are the ones I'm gonna be referring to), it is implied that this feeling is a very negative one, caused mostly by an external agent, but still mainly related to self-conception and one's own internal reaction and suffering to this fact. It also comes most of the times with a very tragic background. So mix it all together and there you have your supreme/savage ghost!

Some examples in context:

-Xuan Ji: ends her own life after she's rejected and not taken care of by Pei Ming. Jealousy. Resentment. *confetti* savage ghost

-He Xuan: life of pure misery thanks to Shi Wudu and the Reverend of Empty Words. Probably has felt every negative feeling that could ever be felt. *confetti and Mount Tonglu* supreme ghost

-White-Clothed Calamity: and this concerns both Jun Wu and Xie Lian, because Jun Wu was indeed Bai Wuxiang after all the things he went through, but our sweet boi, who almost turned into him, hosted feelings that could rival Jun Wu's in agony and desperation (I'm not gonna get into too much depth because it makes me very sad, but you get it, confetti and calamity slash almost calamity)

AND THEN there comes Hua Cheng who, yes, has a very tragic backstory filled with hatred, resentment, abandonment and so. And yes, the feeling that turns him into a stronger ghost is a very negative, painful one (watching how Xie Lian is stabbed hundreds of times and not being able to help him), but, at the same time, it's radically different from those of his fellow ghosts.

While the other ghosts feel aggrieved due to how someone's or their own's actions impacted themselves (Pei Ming's actions on Xuan Ji, she's resentful towards him, Ban Yue's own actions on herself, she feels guilty and a failure, Yongan people and Bai Wuxiang's actions on Xie Lian, he wants revenge, wants them to pay), Hua Cheng's suffering and him turning into a high-ranking ghost comes from someone else's actions on Xie Lian (to be precise, a string of a lot of different actions, finally peaking with the stabbing, which was indeed a crucial point for both of them in very different ways).

Although it makes me very sad as well, the difference is clear and it's nothing but the final stroke to the build-up between Xie Lian and Hua Cheng that we have witnessed. From “If you don’t know how to live anymore, then live for me. (...) If you don’t know the meaning to your life, then make me that meaning, and use me as the reason to live" to "I will never forget you" when they were alive, to not wanting to disappear when he's nothing but a small tiny flame because he wanted to protect Xie Lian and that final "I am forever your most devoted believer." Hua Cheng turning into a ghost comes out of pure love for Xie Lian.

The things he does, the years in Mount Tonglu, the centuries he's spent becoming more and more powerful, are, in his own words, because of his beloved. "My beloved is a brave, noble and gracious special someone. He's saved my life; I've looked up to him ever since I was young. But I wanted to catch up to him more, and become an even stronger person for him." EVEN THOUGH "he might not remember me." So, unlike the other ghosts, the strongest, most intense feeling that anchors Hua Cheng to Earth is nothing but pure, undying love (which is why he could ascend)

Thanks for coming to my ted talk I have more where this one came from

[goldenlemonblossom]

(insp.)

[goldenlemonblossom]

I love Chinese bl novels because the main character will always be like, “I’m a straight male who has never had a single homosexual thought ever”

And then like not even five months later they’ll be giving out a blowjob “purely for science” like that’s a completely normal and heterosexual thing to do.

Like, I’m currently reading a transmigration novel where the mc is like, “I’m so straight,” but then his first solution to a problem that he’s having where someone is spying on him to ruin his reputation is to have a phone call in front on the spy about having an affair, go out and buy sexy lingerie, invite his “husband” to a night in a hotel, and then wait for the chaos.

My brother in Christ, what part of you felt like that was the heterosexual thing to do??

[goldenlemonblossom]

testing testing hana dul set