swords-and-starlight

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The thing is that andrew killing tilda was the equivalent of a cat killing a mouse and dropping it at your feet, only the twins were raised as different creatures speaking different languages so instead of seeing it as the act of love and devotion it was aaron reacts with anger and disgust and fear and andrew reacts pretty much like a cat that has brought you a mouse and got kicked for his troubles aka cold resentment and faux indifference yk?

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Superman says fuck ICE. Be like Superman

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it’s the way that for the wen remnants, one of THE most joyful moments they share together, possibly since the sunshot campaign came to an end, was when wei wuxian was able to bring sentience back to wen ning’s fierce corpse. that this cultivation method that wei wuxian had created, unjustly and with prejudice painted as an unequivocally vile, horrible, exceptionally offensive and dangerous thing... ended up bringing these persecuted people so much joy. wen ning, killed too soon for the crime of bearing the wen name, was able to live again, at least in some capacity. this wasn’t about creating a weapon, or making the formidable ghost general—it was entirely about getting wen qing’s brother back, getting the wen remnant’s beloved member back and i do consider it one of the most moving parts of the books in general.

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it really tickles me that in true Groundbreaking Scientist fashion, wei wuxian’s inventions and discoveries, too, are found and spread far and wide after his death but when he was alive and kicking, his cultivation methods were deemed heretic and a surely dangerous deviation from the convention, his entire thought process dismissed from the get-go to even consider the by-products of his investigation and understanding of resentful energy.

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idk why alot of people underestimate the maturity and composure of wei wuxian’s character but to reduce his personality to his mo xuanyu lunatic persona is a total disservice to his character. i get that the first impression we have of him is a pretty memorable one and his behaviour IS volatile and quirky (completely on purpose) for the better part of the volume one but what baffles me is that we are clearly shown how his outward behaviour is in stark contrast to his internal monologue. his thoughts offset his actions and root them solidly in stone-cold logic.

from my perspective at least, wei wuxian’s reaction to discovering that he’s reincarnated is hilariously understated—it’s a grumbly “meh” and straight to business right after. he coolly assesses his surroundings, the marks on his arm and ways to get rid of them. THAT is wei wuxian’s true personality—the ability to obfuscate his intelligence and insight by acting unpredictably.

also people forget that time did not pass by normally for wei wuxian in those thirteen years that he was dead. after reincarnation, he was mentally still the age he died at—ik there is some debate here but none that has convinced me otherwise—only, he was rid of all the cumulative intense mental pressure and immediate guilt that he was harbouring in the past. the wei wuxian that is the mentor for the juniors, the voice of reason and the pool of trivia and knowledge that guides them calmly through the chaos is not a wisened and more experienced wei wuxian than how he was when he died. thirteen years for him passed in a limbo. as such, the maturity we clearly see from him after the timeskip is actually what he carried in the original timeline! his demeanour is just more... chill, because he is not fighting for his life and defending a group of innocent wens with every fibre of his being against the entire of horde of cultivators waiting for one misstep on his part to pounce and wipe him out.

the difference between past wei wuxian and future wei wuxian isn’t time-gained maturity but the loss of devastatingly heavy responsibilities and continuous emotional turmoil. their mindsets, moral code, logical reasoning are still largely the same.

yes, there are differences between the two versions of wei wuxian but i think they come majorly from how the stakes have changed for him. when wei wuxian is able to slow down and is allowed to have a support system, he can solve things without risking his emotions getting the better of him (which he is actually quite good at regulating) and is also able to look back and reflect on his past mistakes with an objective lens. that is why, when wei wuxian does muse about his “younger” self, it is not so much about him outgrowing his youth through passed time but through sheer richness of lived experience. his childhood had already forced him to mature before his time and it continued till the end of his first life—where the kind of stance he took ensured that he would have to keep up emotionally, physically and mentally with not just his peers but with the elders of the cultivation world.

that’s why, after reincarnation, we never feel like wei wuxian has to play catch up with his older peers—he had already attained the emotional maturity for it in his first life and if anyone was playing catch up, it was his peers.

knowing this, it does irk me when these aspects of him are buried under a portrayal of unrestrained chaos, constant gremlin-like energy, inconsideration and incompetence—wei wuxian is the antithesis of these values. he is joyous, playful, extroverted, sometimes loudmouthed but also deeply thoughtful, adaptive, resourceful, caring, kind and mature.

this brings me to my first point—

this aspect of wei wuxian is shown to us in the first few pages of mdzs: he doesn’t act like a lunatic because he’s an agent of indiscriminate chaos but because his logic dictates so, because he must play the part of mo xuanyu and exact revenge on his behalf. his actions always have a reason behind them—they are very rarely impulsive. it’s just more and more, i see people fall for the act and disregard wei wuxian’s layered (and frankly, far more interesting) personality in favour of replacing it with a surface-level veneer that outright betrays his original characterisation.

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joining the war on kids reading any book they want on the side of kids reading any book they want. simply you will be fine. it's even good to be confronted with things you don't understand and even find upsetting, uncomfortable and difficult. it's a surprise tool that will help you later.

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for those who saved their loves, and those who didn’t.

words by caitlyn siehl, ‘start here’

[images are two stylized paintings with similar compositions. the first is a portrait of wei wuxian as the yiling patriarch, backlit with an eerie red glow, one exhausted eye visible as he plays his ghost flute; in the shadows under him, wei wuxian and lan wangji sit together in an isolated patch of grass, leaning together affectionately. text overlaid reads, “when is a monster not a monster?

the second is a portrait of jin guangyao, his face featureless but for his manic, dimpled smile, backlit in an ominous dark gold; he is flexing his fingers and golden threads trail off them as would a puppeteer’s strings. in the shadows underneath him, lan xichen kneels in profile, entirely alone. text overlaid reads, “oh, when you love it.”]

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I plan on watching a movie at some point in the future

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It’s crazy how low self-worth fucks with peoples lives

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Kevin is the type of person that would not admit to Neil that he’s the best he’s ever had on the court and then when he changes team to never let anyone forget that he once had Neil Josten as a teammate and no one will ever reach that level of good

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gender essentialism is soooo funny bc it's like "this is what women are like" and you're like "I've met women and many of them, if not the majority, have not been like that" and it's like "well women SHOULD be like that" and you're like "why should women be like that" and its like "because that's what women are like"

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Ohhhhhhh god.

Does Andrew know??? Does Andrew even know how much they wanted him????

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“Ugh this prominent women in the Lesbian movement turned out to be a bisexual” “ugh this famous lesbian transitioned into a man” “ugh this queer romance writer turns out to be ace” “ugh this cis feminist author ended up being nonbinary” “ugh this writer on masculinity transitioned into a woman”

Oh no! We might have to recognize liberation as an interconnected intersectional struggle! Ahhh!!! >.<

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terfs would lose their minds if they were exposed to 2000s-2010s "a girl can do anything a boy can do, including beating them at sports" messaging like why are you all acting like nobody has ever said this and that it's radical to think that women aren't inherently worse at things. open your mind. read some feminist theory. touch some grass. the most basic banal middle-class white woman feminism of the 2010s looks fucking radical and visionary compared to the misogynistic victimization complex y'all are peddling

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i like the phrases "it's not for me," "it's not my thing," and "i'm not the target audience" because they're the most concise way to express "this thing that you enjoy has merits but idgaf about it" without being aggressive