#and everything for vindication

[ophiia]

Truly wanna know what the authors of some of those huge billford fics are doing. Like the ones written in 2016. Personally you'd have to institutionalize me.

[florbexter]

Dunk Natachai - Fast Love MV | FadelStyle Scenes

[a2zillustration]

We lived.

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[calamitydaze]

me watching the entire internet realize what i figured out 14 months ago

[i-dare-say]

You know what I love about Binghe's character? His role in the story and the way it changes our perception of him through the narrative.

We first meet him as this poor boy and we, just like Shen Qingqiu, get swept by the image of the white lotus. He's a teenager, and we're told that at this age he didn't have any of the darkness that would reign over his life after the Abyss. We're only shown an obedient and sweet Luo Binghe. He is the "young and innocent protagonist".

But we know about his future. Shen Qingqiu tells us so many times that the Abyss will corrupt him irreversebly, that he will come back and take his revenge on the scum villain. The problem is that we see the story through Shen Qingqiu's point of view, he is our protagonist, making Binghe our villain. So we read about the disciple days with the constant thought that this boy will one day become the antagonist.

And see, there's a slight difference between villain and antagonist. A villain is perceived as someone with bad intentions, while an antagonist is just someone who opposes the protagonist.

When Luo Binghe comes back from the Abyss, he is both villain and antagonist. He goes against Shen Qingqiu (antagonist), and the story tells us he wants to kill him like the original PIDW (villain).

Then it's revealed that it may not be exactly like that. First, we're shown that Binghe has romantic feelings for Shen Qingqiu (which, yeah, it's obvious to everyone but him, but still), giving Binghe a new possible role in the story: love interest. This immediately reduces the perceived danger of his actions. It brings him closer, it makes him a safer character.

Yes, there are stories with villainous love interests that do horrible shit, but we're dealing with the most common way narratives treat this type of character: generally, the love interest is good. And so, the moment this role is put upon Luo Binghe by the narrative itself, it also influences the reader.

But Shen Qingqiu, and consequently we, don't lower our guard. Despite being the love interest now, we also know that Luo Binghe has conspired to take down his master and organized the sower plague. He's attacked Huan Hua Palace, killed Gongyi Xiao and many others, putting the blame on Shen Qingqiu. By the end of book 2 he's villain, antagonist and love interest.

But it all gets proven wrong. That almost everything that happened to Shen Qingqiu was not because of Luo Binghe. We discover that there are other villains in the shadows.

The sower plague and the the attack at Huan Hua Palace was caused by Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang. Qiu Haitang's involvement and Shen Qingqiu's imprisonment was one of the Old Palace Master's schemes. All of this destroys Binghe's role as villain and antagonist.

This is the moment Shen Qingqiu decides to trust Binghe, pushing the reader to do the same. Because he's just "love interest" now and by the standard conventions, he's good. We trust him to be. Shen Qingqiu himself starts to project onto him that same image of white lotus. Since our image of Luo Binghe was so bad previously, this makes it jump way higher. It lulls us into this much better perception of his character.

The Old Palace Master was a villain and he died, as villains are often destined to. The only obstacle remains Tianlang-Jun, who doesn't harm Shen Qingqiu because of Zhuzhi-Lang's wishes (not an antagonist), but also wants to merge the realms (villain).

So our protagonist and love interest move toward the action, the big battle against the final boss. The villains get defeated easily and after the truth of what happened to Su Xiyan, Tianlang-Jun gives up his plan. His role as villain ends there. But the story has more antagonists to reveal.

Luo Binghe has never stopped being one. The narrative only hid his real motivations and let him cover himself with the role of love interest. And at this moment, he drops the mask and lets all of his feelings out, everything he didn't tell Shen Qingqiu nor the readers. He becomes the final antagonist, the one we've had since the very beginning.

The thing that saves him is his status as love interest, because no, he's not the only one to blame for what is happening. There's Xin Mo, who has fed on his insecurities and negative feelings, and Shen Qingqiu himself. He is the one who has constantly pushed Binghe to the side, believing himself to do the right thing, first by giving Binghe his death and then by trying to keep him "protected" from his father.

In the end, Luo Binghe wasn't a villain. Shen Qingqiu was, and he dies. But since he's not a real villain, he's allowed to come back.

When everything is over, their story comes to an end. The narrative itself leaves them free, to be whoever they want to be.

[kainebell]

Immortal Desires: Paths Not Taken is just the writers saying “oh you hate the love triangle? you want to lock in to an LI early on? ok well if you did that, you wouldn’t have the power of polyamory to save Crimson Beech” and I think that’s beautiful

[browless-donnie]

I’m so happy these past few years have made me proud to be a sonic fan again

[tropiyas]

i'm out of town from these guys for 3 more weeks. do you understand how good this feels

[communist-ojou-sama]

I wonder if anyone has ever made a post to the tune of "If you think sexuality is decided entirely and solely by who you fuck, and people fuck other people all the time entirely on the basis of looks without checking their government ID, then what is the inherent Thing inside of a 'woman' that straight men, for example, are all attracted to? If you can't answer this with something other than genitals your conceptualization of sexual identity is inherently bioessentialist and also there IS no other possible answer" :^)

[jackwhiteprophetic]

What if S8 opens with Fire Marshall Bobby, and everyone keeps being like "pleassse don't sue us this time" and teasing Buck about it

[blue-likethebird]

It’s objectively funny how Disney and filoni have been shoving Ahsoka into every Star Wars project like a square peg through a round hole for years, and now that she has her own show few if any people care about what she’s doing bc we’re all too busy gushing about Sabine/Kanan parallels and a recording of Ezra. Literally every time news has come out about the Ahsoka show starring Ahsoka she barely breaks the top ten while rebels trends for hours. It heals a hole in my bitter little heart

[huesofvioletandpurple]

I can't believe I was right about why David confessed to killing Arei

[uukipi]

no new art just posting my propaganda of the week

i think everyone in the acotar series should fight over lucien bc hes so cool hot sexy cute and deserves all the love in the world and ik everone wants him!!!!!! *mwuah* <- das him getting a big fat wet kiss!!!!!!!!

[shalpilot]

temporary buddies

[swordsandstitches]

LOVINGG the way they did the Porter reveal!! So cool!!!!

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

i think the other thing that makes this ep not quite "work" is it isn't... i don't know, it must be aware of this, but it feels like it isn't aware of The Metaphor the alien plot is doing / saying about our main characters, and it doesn't take a second to truly show that to them. It is showing the chuldur stealing people's identities and doing some good ol' ~disaster tourism~, it tells us what they are doing is wrong, we're expected to be shocked and appalled by what they've done to ruby. but then there's not really a beat about how the doctor and co do the same thing every day (going to other times and taking the piss out of other ppl's histories / lives, then going off). and in the end even the contemporary human ruby "befriends" turns out to be a chuldur as well. so there's not a single regular human character developed in this.

then there's the whole proposal scene where the doctor and rogue "act" as well during that whole thing, which don't get me wrong was fun as hell, was a thrill to see them play w/ their prejudices, and as I said in my post the dialogue was very meaty for their particular characters.... but on the area of *theme* for this *episode*.... they're just doing the same thing as the chuldur. it feels like no one cares about all the people that are being murdered around them (nor the writers, who don't develop them), just their own fun.

and like the thing with doctor who episodes is, it's not enough to have a high body count, for it to be shocking.... you have to actually give those characters you kill a bit of depth/humanity/relatability, for the death to actually mean anything. ex: in end of the world, bc they show us the blue plumber and rose connecting for 1 little scene, we do actually care about her being murdered by the mini-war of the worlds robots, and care about what cassandra is doing. like the episode says "isn't the chuldur horrific? they are taking actual human beings as set dressing for their fun / entertainment!!" but then... the writing does the same thing by not giving death any kind of gravity / weight.

basically it feels like this B plot of the aliens wasn't properly aligned with the A plot of the rogue and doctor romancing. it works on its own (mostly, tho I still feel there's an element of depth missing in rogue)... but not with all the other aspects. which sucks bc the episode had all the ingredients to truly Bring It Home.