#The Vice of Kings

[themetalhiro]

I always have a load of fun with rare pair commissions! Here’s some recent ones. Thank you guys as always 🫶

( 1-3: N/A 4: @fallensnowfan 5: @boneparrot )

[msclaritea]

That Tony Curtis movie was supposed to be comedy, a gag. So, it was just more propoganda from Germany, this entire time to accept elite men's kinks. Noted.

[viceandmature]

Vice and Mature DLC teaser in King of Fighters XV (x)

Bonus reaction:

[tampire]

Crowley and Aziraphale and Vice and Mature returns one more time in Good Omens Season 3 and King of Fighters XV

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 249

Danny tilts his head. The masked figure across the roof tilts their head back, a gold similar to Tucker’s eyes shimmering, though he knew it wasn’t him. He lets out a curious chirp, inaudible to the living, and the masked figure stills, as silent as a corpse for several moments before letting out two clicks. 

A greeting in turn. 

Danny smiles, letting green bleed into his eyes and scurrying over with a croon from his core. I’m here, I’m here, their own core clatters like metal against bone as his responds with the drone of a blackhole. I see you, I see you. I’m HereHereHere. 

Yet another twitters in turn, clicking echoing across the city from shadow to shadow until it’s as though the city itself has a heartbeat. Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. I’m here, I’m here, not alone, I’m Here. 

[deadbaguette]

I’m feeling devious, you’re looking glamorous🍇🍷✨

[mikonez]

they're like the average bickering married couple in a friend group

[space-dragon14]

After seeing the running scene in Godzilla X Kong I just had to bring em back 'Make sure to look cool when running away from explosions'

[qiu-yan]

MDZS and asshole victims: thoughts on the second siege of the burial mounds scene

this post is not about morality judgments. this post is about reader sympathies only.

one rather clever rhetorical trick MDZS employs is putting all the more background "surviving victims of wei wuxian's actions" into one big angry mob at the second siege of the burial mounds, instead of letting them crop up anywhere else in the story. it's easy for a first-time reader to write off the guy who lost a leg at nightless city, or the guy whose parents died at nightless city, because both of those guys are being dicks. they're part of an angry mob baying for wei wuxian's blood--unfairly baying for wei wuxian's blood, because this time he didn't even do the thing they're saying he did. by putting these two victims into a mob of not just fellow victims but also unaffected individuals (ie. sect leader yao, who just showed up for kicks), the story can effectively equate these victims' grievances (ie. "you killed my parents") with unreasonable mob rule--even if these two things might not actually be equivalent.

the effect of this rhetorical trick, then, is that the reader can at once perceive the themes about mob mentality MXTX wishes to convey, and also effectively write off the victims' complaints. "yes, i did that to you, but i literally died already, what more do you want me to do? shall i walk on my knees repenting?" becomes easier for the reader to accept. and more importantly--wei wuxian's likability as a moral and just protagonist is not impacted.

ngl tho. it would be a bit more difficult for the reader to write off these victims' complaints if, instead of meeting said victims in an angry mob, the reader instead met these victims almost anywhere else. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you killed my parents" at the second siege of the burial mounds, we instead met him getting smashed at the local bar and crying about how his parents are dead. imagine if, instead of meeting mr. "you chopped off my leg" as a member of an angry mob, we instead met him begging for alms on the side of the road because his disability rendered him unable to work in a wuxia-esque setting. or imagine--if either of these background characters, overcome with survivor's guilt and trauma from nightless city, hung himself in his bedroom, and the next day his body was discovered by his 15-year-old daughter.

all of these scenarios are entirely plausible. you could easily include any of them into the story without changing the main plot at all. but suddenly shit just got a lot more depressing.

however, no such scene would ever be included in MDZS. the reason is that, as a work of fiction, MDZS's single most ardent goal is for us the readers to conclude not just that "we like wei wuxian as a character," but also that "wei wuxian is ultimately a morally righteous person." when the narrative focus shifts onto the people who were actually helped by wei wuxian's actions (mianmian and her family, lan sizhui, the few months of dignity the wen remnants were afforded) this becomes much easier for us to conclude; wei wuxian does indeed look like a hero. but the more narrative focus is given to the negative impacts of wei wuxian's actions--the more the "victims of wei wuxian" (whether actual victims or not) are given a face, instead of abstracted away by broad summaries--the more the reader might side-eye wei wuxian instead. every new victim given a name, given narrative attention that isn't just focused on making them look like an asshole, arouses the reader's sympathies in the opposite direction--and thus increases the risk that the reader might ultimately disagree with the novel's conclusion of "wei wuxian is a righteous person."

tbh, this does not seem like a risk MXTX particularly wants to take. instead, she's mastered the art of writing Asshole Victims.

which is an entirely valid writing decision, because imo basically every work of genre fiction out there does this to some extent.

[psykoshipht]

october is over which means more kof archive posts. putting my favorite one in one whole post

[smirkingcat]

Mature & Vice

[ministarfruit]

local alley cat gets beaten up (colourised)

[msclaritea]

Steven Shaviro, the professor from Wayne State University who recently advocated the death of political opponents on the Right is a Marxist. They are not Democrats nor Democratic. They are Burn It All Down types, Occultic. This is probably why the news media isn't going big with it. He's another fraud just trying to pour gasoline on an already blazing fire.

[viceandmature]

3 words to describe Mature and Vice

[tampire]

"We will meet again in the next full moon's night."

Happy Vicegiving from my Vice from King of Fighters cosplay that I wore a while ago at Anime North.

P.S. Fuck Thanksgiving!

[rennebright]

072924 by rororo [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.