#and the selfishness of sacrifice

[respectthepetty]

The entire episode was about growing up, and San Pang started it by stating that not only had Yuan grown up, but that Qian had also.

He pointed out how Qian is taking care of himself in small ways like cutting up the fruit, which ironically only Yuan gets to enjoy.

Then when Yuan tries to speak to Qian, Qian gets upset that Yuan knocks instead of just coming in and states that Lili and Yuan are grown now, so they can do whatever. But Qian is upset about it.

Xiong reminds Qian that Lili and San Pang are adults and implies Qian is the one being childish about this by hiding out in the office and giving Lili and San Pang the silent treatment.

Even though Lili is upset, Yuan reminds her that this is Qian's norm. Qian will pick silence and avoidance rather than crying or screaming.

Which is why Yuan is leaving space for Qian to directly state what he needs.

Yuan waited until Qian told him he could come home before he came home

Yuan left Qian's room and closed the door instead of staying with him

Yuan waited for Qian to say something when Qian woke up before he revealed he was awake as well

Yuan gave everyone else a drink first (because Qian never asked for one)

Yuan knocked on Qian's door and waited to be told he could enter

Yuan didn't ask Qian to go out even though it was his idea and he told Lili to do it, but he waited until Qian texted him to ask

Yuan said they could cancel the fishing trip and made Qian state that he still wanted to go

Yuan didn't put on Qian's seat belt, then asked Qian if he wanted him to do something

Yuan has only passively mentioned the confession, but he waited until Qian directly brought it up on the fishing trip to address the lingering question - do you want me too?

For the entire episode, we kept hearing about "growing up" and being a "grown up." San Pang confirmed that Qian has grown. Qian, just like Yuan's cactus that he took care of, might still be prickly, but he has grown significantly over the course of the series.

Qian sent Yuan away through San Pang. He never spoke to Yuan about it directly. Then, he kept Yuan away by never speaking to him.

Qian's norm is to shut down, which is why he was a great enforcer for the mafia. He disconnects and goes into survival mode, but now he is no longer just surviving. He is taking care of himself. He is stating what he wants and what he doesn't want. And it's soooo tiny that it seems unremarkable, but for a guy who never asks for anything for himself, it's huge!

Qian doesn't have a selfish bone in his body. He has done everything for his family, even sending Yuan away. He was a victim of abuse. He has boundaries, but he also doesn't believe he has a right to ask of anything beyond a good family. Everyone being healthy is a blessing in itself, so what else could he ask for?

Yuan can come back home, but Qian can't ask for Yuan to come back to him. That's selfish. Lili asked for family time, and this is Yuan's only available time, so Qian can't cancel. That would be selfish. He can't ask his brother or sister with bright futures to stay with him. That would be selfish. He can't ask to be loved when his own parents couldn't do that. That would be selfish.

Yet Yuan is going to show Qian it's okay to selfish.

And make him ask for what he wants.

[pencap]

the coward's way out

if the fates conspire that only one of us may live, then lover, it must be you.

i will save you the grand speeches about how you are good and deserving. you are. you are. you are, but in the end, that is not the reason why.

the world may call me brave or strong or selfless but lover, you know the truth don't you?

in the end, i am only more afraid of facing a world without you than i am of facing death of facing anything.

in the end, i am only too weak to be the one left behind to pick up the pieces of a broken life a broken promise a broken heart and keep on bleeding when the blood in your heart is already dry.

i'm sorry. i'm sorry. but will you let me be selfish one last time?

can i ask you to live for me? to face what i feared most so that i might find peace in my eternal sleep with a smile upon my face?

if it is cruel of me to ask, then i beg you to forgive me. or curse my name and hate me if you must, only live.

only live, my lover so that my life and my death and all that came in between may mean something. may mean everything.

[thevalleyisjolly]

I think part of the reason why Ten and Donna's relationship is so compelling to me is that they share the same main character flaw. In RTD's memoir, he described how he created each of the main companions with a central character flaw. Rose was selfish, Martha was selfless to the point of self-denial, and Donna was self-absorbed. And while all of those flaws were mirrored in Ten in different ways, I think Ten's central flaw was, like Donna, being incredibly self-absorbed.

While I don't dispute that Ten could be arrogant and vain, I think the degree to which he was those things sometimes get exaggerated. Every Doctor has had instances where they behaved arrogantly, as if they were the ultimate authority in the room and were owed everyone's attention and even unquestioned obedience. Many Doctors have preened over their looks or boasted about their intelligence and their achievements, whether as a strategic move or (more often) just because they felt like reminding everyone they were the smartest person around. Arrogance and vanity are recurring character traits across many of the Doctor's regenerations, and while Ten has displayed them more loudly and infamously than other Doctors, I think the unique flaw that better defines this regeneration's character was his propensity for getting completely caught up in himself.

Consistently throughout this regeneration, he ignored or just failed to recognize other people's needs because he was so preoccupied with his own issues. Infamously with Martha, but also with most of his companions past and present at some point (Sarah Jane, Mickey, Jack, Donna) and certainly with countless ordinary people that got caught up in the danger around him. The thing that makes this self-absorption rather than callousness or deliberate cruelty is that it wasn't because he considered them unimportant. Ten frequently affirmed how important every life was and how valuable the most ordinary life was, and he really believed it. But as much as he believed it, he constantly struggled with the practice, with prioritizing ordinary people when he himself was embroiled in turmoil (whether active danger or his own personal issues). He believed fundamentally that each life had value and importance; he just saw whatever he was going through or doing at the moment as having even more value and more importance.

Ten didn't lack compassion for others. Indeed, he felt very strongly for people who were in distress and regularly put himself at risk to try and help them. But he often struggled to look beyond himself - his own concerns and demons and ego and fears. If someone's needs or feelings align with his own or seem to be relevant to the issue at hand? Good! He'll try to help if he can. But if someone's needs clash with his own, or their opinions challenge his own view, or their feelings push uncomfortably against his own emotional state? All of a sudden, he's very busy, he becomes rude and dismissive, he clams down, he acts ignorant, and if all else fails, he runs away.

The Chamelon arch storyline in "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" is incredibly fascinating because John Smith embodied the Doctor's self-absorption on a much more recognizable, human scale. He was happy to be benevolent and kind when people acted within the sphere of what he knew. As a teacher, he recognized when a brilliant student was downplaying his intelligence to avoid attention from school bullies, and he tried to encourage Timothy within the bounds of what a teacher could do. But when people started disrupting his own little world of happiness -particularly Martha or his students interrupting romantic moments with Joan- then he became curt and dismissive and even more obstinate about his preferred way of things. All things that the Doctor also does, but which we notice less because he's usually the perspective we're rooting for to solve everything and save the day so is it really a big deal if he's rude towards another character? And then there's the original act of self-interest that Joan calls the Doctor out on at the end - he brought death and destruction to this village that he chose on a whim, without thinking of anyone else, all because he personally didn't want to confront the Family even though he was capable of stopping them.

All this to say that this flaw is part of what makes his relationship with Donna so compelling to watch. You have these two fundamentally self-absorbed characters on a journey together and they inspire each other to start doing better than they were before. They're growing together in the same direction with each other and because of each other. Donna, seeing the whole wide universe with all the good and the bad of it, realizing not only how small her worldview has been until now but then reaching out to make connections with people she wouldn't have given the time of day to before. The Doctor, absorbed with all his own burdens and traumas and memories and promises, being furiously and desperately shouted at by his best friend to do something. Save someone. It doesn't matter how small the act or how insignificant they are in the greater scheme of things. Never mind the greater scheme. Never mind us, never mind you. Just look at the person suffering in front of you now and help them.

[tofixtheshadows]

Constantly rotating Falin Touden in my head as one of the best examples of "haunting the narrative" I've ever seen. Schrödinger's maiden. Schrödinger's chimera. She's the saintly little sister they have to save and the savage dragon they have to slay and the girl they love that they have to eat.

They literally fridged her and defrosted her.

[shannonsketches]

[petoskeystones]

john shaw torrington + the hanged man

[prophecy, sacrifice, selfishness, the crowd, leaving things still]

[my-pjo-stuff]

Percy would sacrifice the world to save those he loves, Luke would sacrifice those he loves to save the world.

And Luke is the one in the right.

[tinytrainworld]

what no i’m fine. i’m just thinking about how harrowhark chose to lobotomize herself and remove all memories of gideon to preserve gideon’s soul, and how ianthe chose to kill naberius and consume his soul instead of corona’s soul. and i’m just thinking about how both harrow and ianthe did this - refused to consume gideon's and naberius' souls- out of a twisted love they held for their cavaliers. because harrow wanted to retain any chance she had of bringing gideon back, and because ianthe wanted her sister to live. and i’m thinking about how neither gideon nor corona saw this as love but instead as rejection (gideon saying “i gave you my whole self and you didn’t even want it,” corona saying “she could have taken me”) and anyway it’s just fucked up but i’m fine

[nobodysdaydreams]

Being in the wolf359 fandom is interesting, because I’ll see posts that are like “you better not use AI in your writing!” and my initial reaction is “but I love writing about Hera! 🥺” and then I remember that’s not what they’re talking about (to be clear: I am against that AI).

[fanfic-lover-girl]

What Aang stans and Zuko/Zutara antis have in common

They forget season 3 of ATLA exists.

[yellowocaballero]

So fucking glad to see someone talk about SSS Class revival hunter 😭 I lived it so much and I feel like no one ever mentions it against more popular titles like ORV or even The Lout of the counts family, so I'm so glad to come here and see your amazing takes :>

Thank you for the ask which lets me talk about SSSCRH (the version I read was titled 'Suicide Hunter', which tbh I like more - no beating around the bush).

It's hard to draw an accurate comparison since I'm going off just the webtoon for SSSCRH, while I'm going off both the webtoon and the webnovel for ORV. And I love ORV, ORV is my media blorbo right now, it hydraulic presses my brain, I am writing ORV fanfic - it's, like, funner to enjoy. But SSSRH is just better. In the vast majority of ways it is is better. It's better than the holy trinity by a wide margin. TW talk of suicide obviously.

I can't believe I'm saying this but you need a basic understanding of Buddhism in order to understand SSSCRH. It's not about Gongja's suicides - he doesn't suicide from depression or lack of self-esteem. SSSCRH is about suffering in the Buddhist sense - dukkha. I don't want to make this an essay, so I might reblog this with more information, but extremely shortly:

The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism is the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. You've heard that Buddhists say 'life is suffering'. To put it one way that doesn't require defining a lot of words: the cause of suffering is experiencing the world as we percieve it instead of how it truly is. Suffering isn't just being miserable and in pain, and life isn't suffering because life sucks and global warming exists and people voted for Trump. Life is suffering because we can experience beautiful and joyful moments in this world, but we do not exist in the moment of that happiness or place our ego/'self' between us and that happiness. Living in that moment, accepting the moment as it is unconditionally, is freedom from suffering. The Buddha tries to free people from suffering through teaching Buddhism.

"What does this have to do with the webnovel and manwha about a guy murdering himself thousands of times" it has everything to do with it. Because SSSCRH is about suffering, and it is about using suffering as a tool in order to experience a world unfiltered by ego and break down the artificial boundaries between human beings. Suffering in SSSCRH is not a bad thing. Gongja has the unique capability to (reincarnate.) experience a person's suffering in unity with them, which dissolves the delusion of separation between people and puts us in touch with the reality of oneness.

The Murim arc was fucking insane because Gongja pulls a Big Bodhisattva Move and walks through the suffering of the world in order to achieve full understanding of the human experience. He takes all of the suffering of the world into himself and is liberated. You can tell it's Buddhist because death was not presented as a bad thing - death was an aspect of a happy ending for the Heavenly Demon lady, because she was finishing her life according to her own joy, and because her teachings were passed on she did not truly die.

But the purpose of embracing suffering is to discover the ability to fully embrace life, and that's where Heavenly Demon's teachings were incomplete - as the ghost dude said, Gongja hasn't even experienced his own full life and the infinite capability for his own happiness. You can only feel the depths of sadness when you've felt the depths of happiness. Sadness deserves its place in the world and it can strengthen you, but so does happiness.

Gongja is attention-seeking, envious, and unbelievably petty. When he drills down into his own desires and why he wants the things he wants, you see that he has a very strong sense of justice and right and wrong - he realizes he doesn't want to be famous, he wants to be acknowledged, but on an even deeper level he is desperate for love and to be loved. Everything he does is to experience love, and as such he learns to love others. His love for the Flamey Asshole was purely parasocial and ego-filled, with no concern for who he was as a human. Throughout the manwha, he grows to care for people as they truly are and pierce through any delusions or misleading outward appearances. He has released all attachment to life and death, and as such does not fear death, and as such has taken a step on the road towards becoming a Boddhisatva who frees others from the cycle of samsara, and as a result has learned sick sword techniques and is sooo good at beating people up.

I think the only other thing I want to mention here because otherwise this is an essay: in almost every time loop/regression story, only the final regression matters. In stories with dungeon monsters and NPCs, only the humans matter. The regressor exists in a space where there are no consequences for their actions, so they act terribly and do whatever because none of it matters. In Groundhog Day Bill Murray acts like an asshole because he can. That's not the case here. Everything Gongja does matters. The NPCs are fake, but Gongja never treats them as anything less than real people who deserve life. Once he understands a person's life he never treats them as unimportant. No loop is thrown away and no person or life is disregarded. His choices matter, the way he treats others matters, and Gongja never treats anybody as if they don't matter except for himself.

That was not short. There is a lot more. The female characters are so good and so rich. From a craft perspective it is excellently paced and has a wonderful sense of set-up/payoff and balances tone and maintains a lot of momentum, which is really hard in a time loop story. You have to do a few very specific things to write OP characters well and SSSCRH does it very well. There's more to say from a craft perspective and it's hard to judge accurately from a webtoon but it's good. I was so strangely struck the entire time about how sincere and genuine it was, how it said what it said with no trace of irony of confusion, and I think that's what stuck with me the most.

TL;DR: SSS Class Revival Hunter is good for a lot of very normal reasons, such as excellent pacing and set-up/pay off and characters, but it's also so sincerely and genuinely Buddhist that it blew my tits clean off.

[redladydeath]

imo, i prefer the idea that vox went through some pretty intense moral decay during his time in hell. he was never a good or upstanding guy, but he was a very normal man when he first arrived, who, over the decades, has become more and more callous and desensitized.

[gavinreach]

The way I’m seeing actual extremely online gays froth at the mouth because Agatha died and claiming it’s bury your gays and how it’s homophobic…

sometimes I think people don’t understand how stories work because of course she was gonna die. Sometimes gays die!

[grayintogreen]

Genuinely the thing that annoys me about BH AS A GROUP (I love them all as individuals taken out of context) is that of the three parties we’ve seen they are the LEAST concerned with other people besides their own.

Vox Machina are always going out of their way to help people in crisis. The Mighty Nein are more selfish and somehow even MORE insanely devoted to each other but they still usually pause and think about other people.

And maybe it’s because BH’s story didn’t involve all that many “town saving” adventures to give them that kind of “doing good feels good” dopamine in their low level days before they were thrown into “you have to save the world and barely any of you have any reason to care about other people” and that makes sense, but it makes their decisions and decision paralysis all the more frustrating because none of them- NOT ONE- is thinking beyond well what does this option mean for ME, instead of “well what does this option mean for the average Exandrian citizen.”

And part of me hopes that having the Nein around, who are very self-interested and recovering broken people who had no reason to care for others, but do believe in doing good and minimizing damage and acting quickly when their rash decisions have consequences will be a boon to them. Like, don’t get me wrong. I’m very excited for the silliness, but I’m praying for some perspective from people who have been the people the Hells are.

[picklesinabottle]

I think I would blame odysseus less if his reasoning was more "you are the ones who killed the cow when I specifically told you not to" or even "you all literally stabbed me" but it's just. Not that. And I don't think it's supposed to be? Like sure, they could be considered factors in his decision but when it comes down to it, it's really all about penelope

[pocketgalaxies]

"i've already said. i'm prepared to do whatever is necessary."

"i don't accept it, laudna, not from you."