#I agree with this take actually

[four-pointed-leaf]

happy pride month

[canisalbus]

I swapped them around in a silly doodle

.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Council of lovefools.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[imaginederror]

Sequel to Sunshade

[mossy-paws]

these fuckass robots that I hate /aff (Ultrakill x PHIGHTING!)

the girls are PHIGHTING! again

[ttomuras]

ochako, screaming crying throwing up over the loss of toga:

izuku: uraraka!!!!

izuochas:

(…yall call bkdks toxic but i have never experienced them treating izuochas like this over deku screaming katsuki’s name (which happened like 500 times already but wtv)? and this isn’t you being happy over your ship maybe having a cute scene or becoming canon. i doubt any of them even care about izuku or ochako (cuz ochako is literally??? having the wORST time rn why would izuku confess to her?? why would ochako confess to him??) like atp i have seen several izuocha shippers butt in and go “what are you saying?? nothing happened and it would be inappropriate to confess” (and this is not me just being a bkdk shipper and not wanting izuocha to be canon. if this was katsuki and deku instead i wouldn’t want a confession either.) and it isn’t even about that. this is just gross and homophobic honestly…(yes homophobic cuz the amount of comments that are about them being boys is telling and the lack of comments of lgbtq people saying the same thing is also telling (actually i have seen several people say “i also hate bkdk with a passion but this ain’t it guys”))

[tsukasalover]

it’s kinda stupid to call rui “sassy” or say he was acting “mean” for simply doing what any person would do realistically after tsukasa humiliated nene in the main story. i swear this fandom has gone over this a thousand times and yet for some reason it’s still so hard for people to accept that tsukasa was being a self centered asshole. that’s not even exaggerating anything that’s just the truth.

btw (if im wrong correct me) but rui has never gotten angry at someone unreasonably he’s actually quite mature and doesn’t just?? explode over things so i dont know why him refusing to work with tsukasa even after nene forgave him is seen as a “mean” thing… let’s not forget he still believed tsukasa hadnt changed at all and only wanted to be in shows for selfish purposes. it’s not bad to admit that tsukasa is egotistical and has acted much more mean in unacceptable ways than rui + has had to own up to this and work hard to grow as a person over time

[qiu-yan]

in order to say "wei wuxian is morally good," you must first define what it means to be morally good

though this is by no means exclusive to them, one logical fallacy i sometimes see wei wuxian stans make in their arguments is that they begin their analysis of wei wuxian as a character with the statement "wei wuxian is morally good."

so their argument becomes:

wei wuxian is morally good.

a morally good person would do XYZ.

therefore, wei wuxian would do XYZ.

alternatively, when they're objecting to someone else's argument about wei wuxian, their counterargument becomes:

this argument says that wei wuxian would do ABC.

a morally good person would not do ABC.

wei wuxian is morally good.

therefore, wei wuxian would not do ABC; the other person's argument is wrong.

while this is in fact a valid argument structure to use for other kinds of traits (ie. "brave," "doesn't think of the consequences," even something like "afraid of dogs"), this format of argument in fact cannot be used for a descriptor as vague as "morally good"--because, unlike the other traits, "morally good" is not precisely defined enough for the above argument structure to work.

"morally good" is not a character trait in the same way that "wants to defend the weak," "is angered by innocent people being harmed," and "does not fear consequences" are character traits, because what is considered "moral" can vary significantly from person to person. what a utilitarian considers to be moral, for example, diverges significantly from what a deontologist considers to be moral. if i were to say "wei wuxian is a morally good person," i have frankly said less about wei wuxian's personality and more about what i myself believe to be ethical.

thus, the reason why the above argument pretty much never works in the wild is that the depolyers in question rarely actually define what they mean by "morally good."

consider the case in which two different wei wuxian stans write on their blogs "wei wuxian is a good person." however, the first person follows a moral philosophy that centers courage in the face of certain failure, while the second person follows a moral philosophy that centers reason and pragmatism. thus, what the first person actually means to say is "wei wuxian is someone who courageously chooses the correct path even when he is doomed to fail," while what the second person actually means to say is "wei wuxian is a reasonable and pragmatic person." these are no longer the same statement.

or consider the case in which the first stan follows a moral philosophy that centers agent-neutral harm reduction, while the second stan follows a moral philosophy that centers agent-relative reciprocity. in this case, what the first person actually means to say is "wei wuxian is someone who helps others regardless of whether they've helped him before," while what the second person actually means to say is "wei wuxian is someone who always repays kindnesses done unto him." again, these are no longer the same statement.

in general, if one wishes to argue that "blorbo is morally good," one must first specify what exactly they mean by "morally good," because not everyone follows the same definition of "morally good." many blorbo stans, however, don't actually do this. instead, they write their arguments as if their own definition of morality is already universal law; a reader can thus only reverse-engineer what the op believes to be morally good from their post. and this leads to no shortage of disagreements: two different blorbo enjoyers might find themselves in an argument over what they believe to be their blorbo's characterization, when in reality they are actually disagreeing over what it means to be ethical at all.

on the topic of disagreement, another fact that must be acknowledged is that wei wuxian himself is also a character with his own specific thoughts and feelings. wei wuxian is not an abstract paragon of righteousness whose definition of morality just so happens to perfectly match the reader's definition of morality; wei wuxian is a specific fictional character with his own specific thoughts as to what is right and what is wrong. and every reader has to accept that what wei wuxian considers to be right can in fact be gleaned from the text--and that what wei wuxian considers to be right will not always match what the reader considers to be right. wei wuxian might, in fact, disagree with you.

thus, if you want to make any sort of statement regarding wei wuxian's moral character (whether that be "he is morally good" or "he is morally bad") you in fact have to consider not just one, but four different questions:

what do you consider to be morally good? what moral framework and/or school of moral philosophy do you use to determine what is ethical?

how well do wei wuxian's actions adhere to what you personally consider to be morally good?

what does wei wuxian consider to be morally good? what moral framework and/or school of moral philosophy does he use to determine what is ethical?

how well do wei wuxian's actions adhere to what he himself considers to be morally good?

all of these are different questions! they cannot be conflated with each other.

to write a good analysis, you must accept that [what you consider to be morally good] will not always match [what wei wuxian considers to be morally good]. when such disagreements arise, rather than distort wei wuxian's character to match what you personally believe to be morally good, perhaps consider just allowing wei wuxian to disagree with you instead. even if he's doing something you honestly can't defend, maybe wei wuxian is still striving to live as best he can according to his own ideals, and it just so happens that his ideals do not match your ideals. you really should not distort wei wuxian's motives or beliefs just to make him more palatable to you, simply because you have wedded yourself to the idea that "wei wuxian must be morally good by my own standards."

closing thoughts: this isn't really exclusive to wei wuxian stans. i've seen all sorts of character stans in all sorts of fandoms make this same logical fallacy. i certainly think that some of the jiang cheng analyses i see from fellow jiang cheng stans are born less from an objective analysis of his character and moreso from the op's desire for his actions to align with their moral compass. but, out of all the characters in MDZS, it seems like people commit this logical fallacy when discussing wei wuxian specifically far more often than they do with any other character, save perhaps lan wangji.

[floralcrematorium]

Happy Valentine's Day from The Women Of All Time

@femslashetalia

[hazel2468]

I keep seeing people bitching about "uwu when I say 'from the river to the sea' people say I'm calling for geeenocide! They say I'm antisemitic!" and like.

Maybe. instead of clinging to a phrase that a bunch of white leftists have co-opted because they think it sounds nice. And digging your little immature heels in. You should LISTEN when people tell you that yes. The phrase's FUCKING ORIGIN was a call for the eradication of Jews from the area known as Israel and Palestine. That NO, you cannot divorce it from those roots. YES, it IS still used to mean that TO THIS DAMN DAY.

And look. Maybe you DON'T think that Israelis should all be killed and/or exiled from Israel and Palestine. Maybe you DON'T think that the genocide of an entire people is the solution. Maybe you DON'T hate Jews and want all of us dead. And if that's the case? Great!

But how the FUCK are we supposed to tell the difference when you are using the EXACT same phrase as countless people who DO want those things. People who DO hate Jews, who ARE supportive of organizations that want to commit violence, people who SUPPORT what happened on October 7th?

When people tell you "hey, this phrase means something else, it has ALWAYS come from those roots, and using it is NOT OKAY because it is STILL used as a rallying cry for violence against Israelis and Jews worldwide", the way to react? Is NOT to fucking double down and use it.

Because that? DOES make you an antisemite. And if I see you using that phrase? Then I MUST assume that at best, you do not know what it means and have SOMEHOW avoided the countless Jews and non-Jews I have seen talking about it, or at WORST you actively hate me and want me and every single one of my people dead.

And frankly? You are not worth that risk to interact with.

Stop saying it. There are SO many ways to support Palestine, the Palestinian people, and their fight for rights, that do not involve spouting genocidal, antisemitic rhetoric. it is NOT HARD.

But apparently, some of y'all are insistent on being racist.

[redhotarsenic]

@nowfallc PICTURE!! FOR YOU!! PLEASE TAKE IT!! <3

[yashley]

Say something true!

[good-to-drive]

Honestly one of my favorite stupid reddit takes was that guy who said George should have been more grateful that he got to witness John and Paul's relationship up close for so many years. Girl he almost murdered them and so would I and so would you.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

hi! i saw on your shipping chart you had meenah and cronus as moirails and noted 'would have prevented all problems' and ive never really seen that take before. id love to hear your thoughts on that if you wanted to talk about them, your analysis in general is always amazing

Sure! I know this one's going to be controversial, but TBH I'm kind of fascinated by their dynamic. So please bear with me here and come into it with an open mind; I was also really surprised when I noticed what was going on.

Also, standard disclaimer that nobody has to agree with me or ship my ships, I literally don't care, HCs are valid, death of the author, etc. etc. This is just a canon discussion blog, and there's kind of a weird amount to read into in the canon between these two.

Okay, so, first of all, quick refresher on moirallegiance: it's not necessarily about being BFFs, it's very specifically about pacifying each other, keeping each other calm and stable, and preventing each other from causing harm to oneself or to others.

Ergo, the marker of moirallegiance rests not on "do these two get along as BFFs?" and instead on "do these two keep each other calm and/or mitigate each others' harm".

So with that out of the way, Cronus and Meenah. We know that Cronus has a redcrush on her, echoing Eridan's redcrush on Feferi, and that Meenah is not interested at all. Cronus shoots his shot with her, she's like ick, no & leaves, and that's that on that. Cronus then rounds on Mituna and says some unbelievably cruel and shitty stuff, but here's Point #1 - Meenah shows up again, and Cronus stops immediately, and then is noticeably calmer and friendlier to Mituna. Compare:

CRONUS: you are a brain damaged reject on a team full of rejects. a rejects reject. i vwould havwe culled you myself if that vword meant vwhat it should havwe on our planet.

-

CRONUS: vwell, this is clearly absurd, but nyeh, vwhat the heck. CRONUS: mituna, i just cant take it anymore. i think my ghost is going to kill itself. MITUNA: WH0W4H L375 FUCK!!!!! CRONUS: vwait... CRONUS: really? MITUNA: N0 0Y0 P135H3 0FF 1ND107 FUGG1NG G4R484G3  #FUCKY0UFUCKY0UFUCKY0UFUCKY0UFUCKY0U CRONUS: oh.

So at the very least, SOMETHING conciliatory seems to be happening here, whether that's pale or ashen. But I'm going with pale, because it continues.

Their second conversation together is really interesting - not only has Cronus stopped redflirting with her, but he no longer even seems interested. Compare this to the section with Mituna above:

CRONUS: oh sure. no grub sauce on your hands! MEENAH: wow you did it MEENAH: ampora you totally changed my mind about you lets start makin out immediately  #not CRONUS: just admit it. you havwe it vwithin you to be just as harsh to our behelmeted buddy as i am, if not more

Like, he doesn't even ACKNOWLEDGE the "let's make out #not". Not even in an indignant "see, you keep playing with my collapsing and expanding bladder based vwascular system" kind of way. Literally just breezes right by it, which says to me that he isn't even really that into her concupiscently.

But more interesting are the actual contents of the conversation. Cronus is the only person on the entire team who's able to make Meenah have misgivings about how awesome the Condy is.

MEENAH: man MEENAH: a girls gotta have fuel for her pimp ride know what im sayin MEENAH: like MEENAH: i probably took care of him good MEENAH: you know how it is someones gotta take care of the guy anyways MEENAH: and... yeah #38(

This is the first and only time that Meenah even acknowledges that the Condy - herself at her worst - is kind of shitty. This is the first and only time she's ever expressed any emotion for the Condy other than fangirlish admiration or rage against Caluborn for enslaving her. For whatever reason, she actually listens to Cronus when Cronus takes her to task, and he's actually able to make her genuinely reflect on her worst tendencies.

But maybe more damning is the fact that in their first real conversation together for nearly an eon, she almost fixes him:

MEENAH: i heard a rumor you think youre a human now MEENAH: that true CRONUS: its a privwate matter. i dont see vwhy i should havwe to talk about it vwith you, and open myself up to more of your judgmental scorn. MEENAH: sounds like another desperate cry for attention imo

[...]

CRONUS: to be honest, she might be right. sometimes i think i might only be saying im a human to get attention. maybe i should givwe it up.

Cronus's fundamental emotional problem is a sense of purposelesness and ennui. Born into a caste of high privilege, with his identity overshadowed by said position, he's been handed an unpleasant cocktail of entitlement, lack of true emotional support or connection, and lack of a real, authentic personal identity - especially because the thing he DID seem to derive a sense of identity and purpose from - his little Harry Potter wizard backstory - was driven out of him. In other words, he's kind of a shitty rich kid that doesn't really know who he is outside of that, and his humankin stuff is an attempt to fill the wizard hole without addressing his real underlying issues. It's a Bad Thing for him to be doing, and something he should drop in order to start addressing his genuine insecurities, feelings of emptiness, and lack of identity or purpose. In other words, it's harm he's performing on himself, and a single conversation with Meenah being enough to make him reconsider it? Hmmmmmm.

In fact, I'm not the only one picking up on the pale vibes. The specific way that Kankri interrupts the two reads as incredibly pick-me in pale:

KANKRI: Listen, I was d9ing y9u a fav9r. Y9u d9n't need t9 6e dating any9ne wh9 can't appreciate y9u f9r wh9 y9u really are, 9r m9re imp9rtantly, which fantasy versi9n 9f y9urself y9u m9st str9ngly identify with.

[...]

I just wanted y9u t9 kn9w that I'm here f9r y9u, and am prepared t9 lecture t9 y9u extensively, I mean, listen t9 y9u extensively, a69ut y9ur ultra-imp9rtant pr96lem.

"Don't take Meenah's advice about your problems! Take mine instead, I care about you sooo much more than she does!" lol. I have a whole essay on how Kankri and Cronus are actually super toxic for each other, in an interesting foil to Karkat and Eridan, which I'll link here in a bit (I'm on mobile RN and it's hard enough C/Ping my sources).

In any case, Kankri slides in at exactly the moment where Meenah's about to fix Cronus, and proceeds to make Cronus worse. The details are in the Cronus and Kankri essay, but TL;DR it's kind of implied that Kankri is the one who talked Cronus out of the wizard stuff in the first place, which pretty much disqualifies the two's relationship from pale, given how harmful that was. This whole thing is pretty reminiscent of Gamzee coming between Karkat and Eridan when Eridan is trying to comfort Karkat about Sollux dying, because it's implied Gamzee has a palecrush on the guy. That might be subjective, though.

What isn't subjective is the fact that Meenah unironically defends Cronus's wizard beliefs when Aranea starts shitting on them.

ARANEA: Whatever the case, it was pro8a8ly for the 8est, since pretty much everyone who had half a think pan thought [Cronus's wizard beliefs were] all a 8unch of ridiculous nonsense. MEENAH: serket why do you got to hate on other peoples religions MEENAH: dont you kno they just as much a load of crackpotty bunk as all your spiritual bullfuck ARANEA: 8ut I........ ARANEA: Yes, I guess I was out of line.

She doesn't do this for anybody else. Not long after, it turns out she's absolutely joking about defending Kurloz:

MEENAH: wow serket MEENAH: just wow so rude MEENAH: poor clown ARANEA: Don't give me that! I seem to remem8er you having more than a few unkind words for him 8ehind his 8ack. MEENAH: yeah im messin witchu he sux

And even proceeds to shit on HIS spiritual bullfuck:

MEENAH: )(ONK ARANEA: Honk honk! ::::) MEENAH: lol im glad we can both agree that clowny fuckin soda cult is the dumbest shit ever

So... weird, huh? Seems like she gives Cronus special treatment for some reason.

That's it for the diegetic stuff to go over, which, yes, means that there's a bit of non-diegetic stuff to discuss. It's not much, but here's Hussie's commentary from the Act 5 Act 2 book, on Mindfang's journal entries about Dualscar leading up to the 3x showdown (emphasis mine):

In the end, even though violets are the ruling class, she doesn't care much about them either. All she cares about is keeping her stranglehold on power with this complex, staggered, oppression-based sort of pyramid scheme. Note how it says the Condesce doesn't even know who Dualscar is. That's how insignificant he is, ultimately. Similarly, all Eridan was to Feferi after a while was a tiresome pest. The way that situation played out could also be seen as long-delayed karmic backlash for Dualscar's irrelevance to her, at least from a very Amporan point of view.

Now, while the specific context here is about how, from the point of view of a shitty entitled guy, Eridan killing Feferi is kind of a retribution for the Condy not giving a shit about Dualscar, all of Hussie's commentary is meant to be interrogated just as much as the base text, and it just makes me wonder. The dancestors very much treat their Alternian counterparts as alternate versions of themselves, consistent throughout their interactions, meaning we ought to consider Duascar and the Condesce to be versions of Cronus and Meenah.

If it is, in fact, the case that Cronus and Meenah would've made for excellent, harm-reducing moirails for each other, then murderstuck being a karmic backlash for their ultimate irrelevance to each other takes on a much greater implication - one that traces back to Cronus's classpect.

Bards start off massive karmic chain reactions, resulting in improbable victory or abject defeat, sometimes both; Hope is an aspect whose main application is making fake things real.

So I'm not saying that Cronus believing that an evil wizard attacked him when he was younger but was inadvertently sealed away and that Cronus was therefore karmically destined to defeat this wizard, but then having his beliefs shattered halfway through, led to him karmically contributing to the eventual creation of LE via his Hope abilities "inviting destruction" by making only the first half of his fake prophecy true, but - oh, no, wait, I am saying that. Man, that really sucks for everybody. If only Cronus had a friend who was, for whatever reason, willing to stick up for his dumbass wizard faith.

If only.

[wallbeatjournal]

Are true riverdale fans of the opinion it is a very good and nearly flawless show or does being a true riverdale fan mean being able to mock writing choices

it's long-running serial television plotted a season/half at a time so definitely not even "nearly" flawless.

BUT. i'm not doing combat with the writing team. i'm not actively reading against the text the way i have to in order to enjoy something like supernatural or the 90s robin comics or the fucking sopranos, which are patriarchal christiancore copworld rapeworld white supremacist horrorshows that hate their minority audiences, with like 2 good creatives involved and martyring themselves to fight the good fight on sparse rare installments if you try to approach them sincerely.

riverdale writing staff are like a favorite smart problematic tumblr mutual to me. I don't always like what's on their blog or who they're referencing. but we're in the same community and i'm interested and inspired and i trust their agenda overall, even when i see shit i wouldn't have fucking posted. but bc i'm not being condescended to or actively spited i'm not gonna condescend to or spite them, you know?

i expect rvd to age like twin peaks (another very uneven, highly referential serial juggling a couple of intensely cool metanarratives on top of its core story). and twin peaks fandom mocks twin peaks all the time. twin peaks includes some CLUNKY shit. it's kitsch. it's camp. it has a second season that is largely ASS. james is there. and on top of that it also includes some genuinely offputting-to-me stuff that just bothers me to sit through, even though i feel like i understand and respect what they're going for with it. i just don't want to watch someone sweep the fucking bar for minutes and minutes as entertainment. OK!!?

...so yeah. mock riverdale but in the right spirit. is that an answer? do i sound like i'm chugging the flavoraid koolaid fresh-aid? probably.

[little-mouse-adventures]

@orangerosebush's post here, with my comment and @fowlblue's tags today got me thinking.

Artemis Senior has been teaching his son matters of business from a young age. Not only was Artemis, at 11 years old, discussing stocks with his father, but Fowl Senior had been imparting his wisdom onto his son for years by that point, discussing the ever-increasing value of gold with him before tucking him into bed. Even outside of pure monetary value, Sr. had tried to go legitimate with his business dealings, leading Artemis to have a few legal ventures of his own.

We also see very early on in the books that Artemis has been regularly using Butler as a resource for his plots: bouncing ideas off him was apparently a fairly common tactic when he was scheming.

Both Artemis Senior and Butler are interested in (or at least, not opposed to) educating Artemis on the ways of their lifestyle(s). It would be Artemis Senior who would have taught his son the value of banks and safety deposit boxes and hidden safes but it was Butler who was actively working with Artemis to rob those safety deposit boxes.

In the same vein of breaking-and-entering, TLC also gives us the fun little moment where Butler hands Artemis his own lockpicks, to get into the workings of the bomb.

With one line we learn that Artemis knows how to pick locks, but does not have his own set of lockpicks. Butler, on the other hand, has both the tools and knowledge how to use them. Partnered with a brief mention in TTP of some the specific trades of those previously employed by Artemis Senior (including such things as crime lords, insider traders, and cat burglars), we can extrapolate that Artemis Senior would generally hire someone to pick a lock for him, rather than do so himself.

It's pretty logical to conclude then that Artemis learned big-picture management from his father, and day-to-day skillsets from his bodyguard.

Essentially, Artemis Senior taught Artemis how to run a criminal empire. Butler taught Artemis how to be a criminal.