#Influence Incident

[randomness-is-my-order]

it is actually so difficult to insult a guy like wei wuxian because even below-the-belt insults make nary a dent on him. people can call him names, disparage him, ruin his reputation, but his self-image is NOT affected by it. he knows himself and his values. there is a way to get a rise out of him but that usually involves insulting the people he cares deeply about (jiang yanli, lan wangji for example) instead of himself (which is not about having a low self-esteem but having his own boundaries and principles, mind you), but try to spew out hate and he will laugh directly in your face before moving on. someone might be like, “oh, you’re fengmian’s bastard child—” and wei wuxian will just go, “aHhahhahHAHA, nice one. have a good day!” or someone might say, “you’re a filthy, no-good demonic cultivator,” and he’ll just go, “now, filthy is a stretch. i take great pride in my personal hygiene!” come at him with your wittiest or your most ruthless insult and he will summarily dismantle it before disregarding your opinion entirely. which i think is just another piece of wei wuxian’s mindset that actually allowed him to stand before the cultivation mob and make a stance—he’s always been one to think for himself and not let others and their words colour his perception of wrong and right, possible and impossible, good and evil, especially when it came to him and his actions. to hell with their narrow-minded judgements, wei wuxian knew where he stood and why he stood there.

[indexvirus]

So, what do we think about this?

It's actually strange how, the more I read into SotE, the more I feel Miquella is not intentionally evil.

It's ironic. Before the DLC, my headcanon pretty much was him having Griffith-esque themes, wanting to make his own Falconia.

And now when the DLC has come out with all it implies, I feel I'm wrong. I feel increasingly there is a "tragic misunderstanding of one's own self and limits" leading to "end justifies the means" to "road to hell is paved with good intentions" here.

SotE doesn't undo Miquella's kindness.

He very much is still the character who grew frustrated with the uselessness of the Golden Order when it offered no deliverance for his suffering sister (Radagon's Ring of Light),

who fed his own blood to a sapling in hopes it would grow into a new Erdtree and provide a haven for the outcast (Haligtree Knight Armour, Old Albus Dialogue, Royal Knight Helm),

who developed unalloyed gold to ward off effects of outer gods such as the frenzied flame (Unalloyed Gold Needle, Note: Miquella's Needle),

and who wished to free Godwyn of his suffering (Golden Epitaph).

Miquella observes, learns and improves upon. What did he learn to make the decisions he did? To take the same path his mother took, inspired by the suffering inflicted on those dear to them, believing firmly the sacrifices would "fix the world".

Both made a promise/vow/prayer we never hear fully (Final Cutscene, Golden Braid).

The suffering of the Tarnished, of Godfrey, of the Misbegotten and the Omen for peace and order. The suffering of the Haligtree, of Malenia, of Radahn and Mohg, for equality and compassion.

Marika separated Radagon from herself, but love was what broke her, so Miquella separated St. Trina from himself and divested himself of his love.

But unlike Marika, who realized the mistakes she'd made and chose to defy the Greater Will, and Radagon who stayed delusionally loyal, it was Miquella who was delusional, and St. Trina who realized what a terrible mistake was in the making and what terrible mistakes had already been made...

St. Trina is Miquella. This is him asking "Make me stop, don't let me become a god, you must kill me, grant me forgiveness". At some point he realized what he'd done and only death would grant him forgiveness for it...

For what kind of a god would he become when he'd abandoned all he'd promised to save.

[may-darling]

Putting a bit in the terrible influence tour where Dan pretends to hit Phil with a chair was so brave of them. It is honestly a miracle Phil did not end up with a concussion at some point because he accidentally stumbled into the chair instead away from it.

[starsandwriting]

Also, LOVE Episode 8 for bringing back one of my favorite Lonely Statement Things: the "It was a crowd with no people in it." trope. There's bodies and faces and voices but no people. You are surrounded and still so terrifyingly alone

[mantictiger]

I'm fascinated by Gwendolyn Bouchard for a multitude of reasons (love me a girlfailure) but what I'm the most curious about is why she's so hellbent on having Lena's position at the OIAR. It's been established that the Bouchards are a very well-off family (I can't remember if thats tmagp-specific lore or if that was mentioned in tma as well) so it's not like Gwen needs the job, especially a job that doesn't seem very glamorous. She seems incredibly dedicated to it though (her being so insistent with specific filing of cases in episode 1 I believe? is what piqued my interest) and is so insistent on climbing a corporate ladder that only seems to lead to Lena's position for no real reason. I get the OIAR is a part of the UK government and that could look good if she's trying to get higher-up positions, but the OIAR is certainly far from a respected or well-known organization (as far as I am aware) so I'm not really sure what her goal is here, and I really hope we find out

[soupmanspeaks]

something something glammike thing where annoying ghost hunters come to the pizzaplex and ask questions about william and the MCI and the hauntings and some influencers rent the place from time to time for that sweet sweet fazclout and this really peeves glamfreddy because Michael knows firsthand that this isn't something you really want to poke about (maybe for the fun of it, and CC's personal suggestion, Glamfreddy makes a snide comment about biting the ghost hunters lol)(they probably know what it means lmao)

[storgicdealer]

given my theory of rocketcorp being responsible for providing technology, virtual reality experience to the outernet (more about it in my previous ramble post) and ruling over it in general. . .

i thought about the possibility of rocketcorp being responsible for the gold incident

[free-luigi-mangione]

They're trying to, successful ? Not so much. Partially because public is harder on women having sex than men but also because everyone and their mother have been wanting to have sex with Luigi since day 1. Half the people are asking who cares if it's consensual between two adults ( if the tapes even exist, whose existence seems unlikely) the other half are asking for links. Lmao it's more irritating than anything.

They're trying to run a 2000s smear but it won't work in present day.

the funniest thing about this is that Luigi was very openly against pornography, dude would be losing his shit at people asking for links xD

also who cares amirite if two adults are consensually having sex and filming it that's their issue why tf does anybody else care it's not them that's involved so why're they bothered

and anyways the media trial that led to whatever happened about Amanda is already happening with Luigi since day one, the media has painted him as guilty from the starting, his presumption of innocence is basically invalid atp what with the documentaries and the authorities deliberately trying to make the public angry at him this is just their latest trick to actually make the old people mad at him because once again young people don't care but because of various reasons only old people get to be on the jury so it kinda really matters

[lunarharp]

just random silly stuff today . . qifrey being cool

[zdechlyryba]

an edek themed collage 🪲

[cator99]

I always get detained at da border because PROFUNC never ended but basically I'm like if a targeted individual didn't even care

[fideidefenswhore]

My critique of WH is also not that the narrator seems to have such a biased, strange inner moral code/ sense of justice, that really would only make sense to him, that really only reflects his own emotional truth (I think many people have that); it’s that everyone around him reflects this in a way that feels … unrealistic.

[franeridan]

reading volume 105 and I had forgotten we actually got mihawk's bounty and on page acknowledgement that he's a better swordsman than shanks??? they have half a billion difference in bounty mihawk's is still over half a billion above luffy's this is absolutely fantastic to me for many many reasons but especially because by god zoro seriously fought him ten volumes in. he really tried to fight someone with three times king's bounty with only one named sword and three weeks of experience as a pirate. he actually left his village at age sixteen specifically looking for him and went up to him at age nineteen convinced he was gonna win. and he had the guts to complain about mihawk using the butter knife to fight him too how is he alive he's so lucky mihawk felt like adopting that day

[aechlys]

It's just occurred to me that the backlash against gackt has *actually* managed to do him some good- the stupid gym bro takes have decreased significantly and his tone has evened out a lot. Tbh I hope it haunts him for a good while and that it also bleeds into his personal life and grounds him the fuck there too.

[silverspadesss]

idk if any of my d20 followers also watch arcane but deli and colin are becoming sooooo jayce and viktor coded

[mabelsguidetolife]

me: the other night i was reading that some people think the last of the ‘atlanteans’ or ‘lemurians’ sought refuge and live under mount shasta; isn’t that wild????

my mom: oh, yeah, [our family friend] used to believe that before he was medicated…… he and his wife and kids lived in a van at the base there and one night he insisted there was an alien attack on their vehicle