#asked from above

[songofclarity]

Hi! Hope you're having a good day! It's been a long time and sure MDZS hype has declined generally but I just wanted to let you know that I still love Ruojue. I love my GOAT AlphaXAlpha ship! If you ever release more content I'll be over the moon to read them.

Right, I'm off to read your Heliocentric masterpiece again 🥰

Sometimes I feel like I lurk on my own blog because it has been a long time and hello!! It's funny to think about but I'm the same: ruojue is still the ship I ship. No other ship has competed with my desire to write for it even after all this time and there are still so many stories left unexplored! A Major Problem(TM) in my personal life has finally been resolved so maybe there will be more content when the dust settles!

Oh my though, I need to get back to Heliocentric so I can slap a fancy Completed on that bad boy. (The guilt of having left you hanging with that dramatic moment is real lmao.) What I had personally dubbed 'part 1' is all posted and I'm embarrassed to admit how often I keep thinking about part 2, but at least I definitely know how the story goes and where to pick up from...

Calling it a masterpiece is so nice though, you're so nice, Anon, thank you! May there be more ruojue in the world for us in 2024!

[edgarbright]

*barges in* IRENE YOU CAN’T JUST SAY THAT IN THE TAGS AND NOT SHARE WITH THE CLASS HELP???????

AHAHAHAHAHA my apologies to Madi and the rest of the class! I'll work on it right away!!!

Your post was so good though that the class was perfectly well fed though ❤️

[zytes]

this manatee looks like it’s in a skyrim loading screen

[3twindragons]

[cubbihue]

Hey uh. Am I misinterpreting something or have you been implying that the entire changeling situation sucks for more reasons than “bad things happen if the changeling gets caught”. Like am I misinterpreting something or are you saying it’s directly terrible, at least the process, for the godkid???

Fifth Consequence of becoming a Fairy: Alterations of the Soul.

The child's body undergoes Physical Changes to become a fairy, but they also undergo a metaphysical change as well. The soul must be adjusted, shaped, broken and remade. These changes allows the child to accept magic into their body, and handle any disruptions in time or perception.

Their soul is transformed into their proper Fairy's Crown, and the child would have officially become a True Pixie! Yippiiiie!!

Thankfully, this part of the process is painless! Or, well, more like Timmy fell unconscious during it. Though Timmy says he sometimes feels strange moments of loss. Like an essential part of himself has been ripped away from where it should be.

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

[fascinationstreetmp3]

I have what you're looking for. High quality. Befitting a man of my tastes. I have a room over on Divisadero, not too far a walk.

[lgbtlunaverse]

So I've said multipe times now (here and here) that thinking nmj is just so blinded by privilege he doesn't undertand that acting out of line gets people killed is, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of his character that ignores the part where he's, you know, actively dying the whole time and thinks that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean I don't think privilege plays no role at all in how he views the world.

Specifically, his view that death (at least premature or violent death) means something.

Death isn't always a tragedy to NMJ, but it is always meaningful. If you kill an evil dangerous person for your righteous cause, that death had meaning. There was evil in the world and now there is less of it. Similarly, if you die in the pursuit of your righteous cause, that death has meaning, because the sheer dedication you gave to it that you were willing to die for it will further that cause, and your bretheren will be invigorated by your sacrifice to fight even harder.

If a death isn't meaningful, that's an injustice and it is up to the living to give it meaning. That's what cuts so deep about his father's murder. There were no consequences, no changes, no meaning. Wen Ruohan was just going to get away with it! He fights and wins an entire war to make it mean something, to make it so that the unjust murder of Nie Mingjue's father is part of Wen Ruohan's downfall.

But this is a view he can only hold because he's the kind of person who's death will be meaningful. Most ordinary people's deaths are meaningless. Not ontologically, not inherently, but they are made meaningless because no one cares. For death to be meaningful you either have to be so powerful that anything you risk your life for will be impacted in some way. (Like, say, if you sacrifice a long life for immense martial power in a faustian bargain with a blade) Or if people with that kind of power care enough about you to do so for you. For most people, this isn't true. A starving street kid has no power to change the unfair world that put them there, even if they risk their life trying, and no one will do it for them once they die.

Nie Mingjue knows this in abstract, and of course rightfully believes it's wrong. But all that does is make it yet another righteous cause people should be willing to die for. Everyone's deaths should mean something, we'll make it so or die trying!

This is what the conflict between nieyao is about at its core. Because Jin Guangyao, fundamentally, cannot conceive of his own death as meaningful. Nie Mingjue grew up around powerful men who could change the world but refuse to do so because god forbid they risk a single hair on their perfect heads. Meng Yao, on the other hand, grew up in an environment where no one of importance would blink twice if you died. He was surrounded by meaningless death. Indeed his entire early life is defined by that lack of care.

Meng Shi dies and no one cares. Meng Yao gets thrown off a flight off stairs and no one cares. He has to be the one to do the caring, and once he's gone no one else will do it for him.

So he has to live.

Jin Guangyao eventually gets far enough that he actually does aquire the power to change some things... as long as he's alive. If he changes too much, holds on too tightly to his ideals, he'll die and it'll all be for nothing. He can't sacrifice himself for his goals because doing so would immediately render those goals unobtainable. No one will care about what he tried to do. He won't be a heroic sacrifice, he'll just be trash that finally cleaned itself up.

And well... Nie Mingjue dies, and someone makes it mean something. Makes it mean so much that the entire story of mdzs would not exist without it. Jin Guangyao dies and it doesn't mean anything. Most people are glad to be rid of him, and the few that are not don't do anything to change that.

[lazycranberrydoodles]

i think the barbie movie would have a profound psychological impact on hua cheng

prev comic / next comic / follow for still more hualian barbie movie content because i am not done

bonus angsty version 🎉 i hate love expressions just a couple tiny lines on the mouth and eyebrows and it goes from silly to sad

:(

[confessedlyfannish]

DP x DC Prompt

Batman grunts a greeting at the boy Selena has introduced as "Danny" as if it's totally normal for a kid to be hanging out on a rooftop with her, kicking his legs out above the edge as if he's not 20 stories up.

Selena shares an equally amused glance with Danny that has Batman scowling harder than his usual as the boy gets up, stretching out from his hunch to reveal a 6 foot 2 build not unlike Jason's.

"Wow, spot on," Danny whistles, grinning at Selena. "I owe you a twenty."

"Darling," Selena purrs, hand finding purchase on his upper bicep. "I never exaggerate."

"Looks like Catwoman's got a new scratching post, B," Nightwing cackles in his comm, which is probably why Batman finds himself gritting out a--

"Little young for you, isn't he?"

The kid--in a hoodie and jeans, seriously, where did Selena find this guy--stares at him incredulously before his mouth stretches into an uncomfortably wide grin, revealing fairly sharp canines. He strides forward.

"What can I say, Mr. The Batman," he says, placing a hand on the man's shoulder. He must be around the same age as Dick. "I've got a thing for powerful women in black."

"See you for dinner tomorrow Lena," he says, hand lifted in farewell as he heads for the edge. He pushes himself over the wall with one hand, dropping over.

Batman clocks Selena's lack of alarm and doesn't flinch. Thirteen seconds later, there's no resounding thud when Danny's body would've met the pavement and she's still smirking at him.

"No metas in Gotham," he growls.

Selena throws her head back and laughs. "If I see any, I'll be sure to call. Now," she kisses his cheek, "I better go. I've got a date tomorrow."

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

OP: Check out. The fully-sexual charged cinematic movement design.

Cnetizens: How did the director come up with the idea to have him kneel on a playing card, adding so much aesthetic energy, is that some kind of genius?

[temeyes]

that’s it. i am sending a 7.4kg yellowfin tuna directly to captain john price of the 141.

he's gonna mount it on his wall,,,,,

[songofclarity]

Why doesn’t canon give us anything about NMJ and NHS’s mothers?

Simplified answer is that the mothers are at least irrelevant or at worst work against the story as its told.

Nie Mingjue's father dies, thus Nie Mingjue, not one of his father's wives, becomes the head of house. Nie Huaisang and the rest of the clan becomes his responsibility and we see how Nie Mingjue takes that responsibility very, very seriously. So seriously that we don't see or hear about him getting council from anyone at home. He leads and does it all on his own. There's no Madam Yu type mother chastising him or a Madam Lan type mother teasing him or a Madam Jin type mother coddling him. He doesn't even get a Lan Qiren type uncle looking after him or a Qishan Wen Uncle Four who he sees day by day or even a martial brother like Wei Wuxian is to Jiang Cheng.

Because there is a matter that, for the story to work, Nie Mingjue needs to be isolated or at least set apart from his clan. The only voices of "reason" have to come from Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao because their reasons are built on sand. Any sane person, especially any sane Nie clansmen, having heard the same story Nie Mingjue told Lan Xichen about what he'd seen Meng Yao do, would at least rightfully say What The Fuck, That's Fucked Up.

Although the fact that Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang are introduced as half brothers without any clarification on what's going on with their mothers or, more so, what's going on in their family tree outside of Nie Huaisang complaining about how large the Nie clan is is also pretty telling in its own right. The Nie clan is big and it's hard to remember who is who and how they are all related so Nie Huaisang just calls everyone Auntie and Uncle. Which is... kind of what we see with the Qishan Wen Remnants? There is Granny Wen and Uncle Four and their distant cousin Wen Yuan, but we aren't actually told how these people are properly related. Granny Wen might be Wen Yuan's grandmother but not Wen Qing and Wen Ning's, or vice versa. We don't know if Wen Yuan's dad is Wen Ruohan or Wen Xu or Wen Chao or another relation entirely. We don't know if Uncle Four is an actual uncle or just Some Guy. But it doesn't matter. We know they're family and they're supporting and taking care of each other.

Canon telling us anything about the Nie mothers might actually be worse than useless because 1. if they're dead then they're dead and it doesn't tell us anything more about the Nie brothers that we didn't know already or 2. some people might judge the mothers for not being more present and active with the Nie brothers if they were alive.

Considering MDZS loves to kill off mothers and make orphans, however, I think we all kind of know what happened to them... No need for MXTX to kill off two more mothers off page lol

[edgarbright]

omg hiii your rb on my caleb post had me weak LMAO! what you said is something someone actually told me in the lnds discord server too so i’m just kinda like 👁️👁️🤳

LOL as a Caleb wanter, laughter is all I have as a defense vs the abyss 😂 Where are our crumbs, Papergames!!

I read it on the discord sever and I've also seen some people reference it on twitter, so while we shouldn't spread leaks... such rumors are keeping me on life support in these trying times 🙏

[group-dynamic]

Very Minor Spoiler for Episode 7 (S2) of Rings of Power

Thinking casually about Galadriel's declaration earlier this season that caring for that which is most fragile and most dear is the duty entrusted to all elves and how Celebrimbor's gentle care in noticing and greeting that little mouse is what allowed him to see past Sauron's deception. :)

[erinwantstowrite]

Hi I know you mentioned you being aroace just a couple days ago and I was wondering if maybe you could explain more in depth about how you found out your sexuality and what not? If it’s not too personal…

I’ve always sorta struggled since I haven’t had any crushes as a kid except for maybe one and that’s just cause ppl kept asking me who mine was… so I don’t even think it was a legit crush?? So not only do I not know who (looks,gender, that sorta thing) I would like … am I ever gonna like someone to even find that out???

I know you said Superman on the new trailer was hot ahaha so do you still experience that sort of physical attraction? I’ve been told when people question which gender they like, to pick which one looks more attractive to them but I’ve never really experienced that sort of physical attraction so I can’t tell that way either…

I think any thought of a crush forming was more towards their personality as well. Looks I guess are more of a second thought I think..? Even then I can’t tell if this is “you’re such an awesome person I wanna be besties with you” really strong feeling or an actual “I wanna date this person” feeling.

The only person I’ve gotten really close to discerning it as officially crush was someone from work who was older by a good amount… which can be/is pretty weird.. Lots of people my age are just a little too crazy for me.. I guess??? Idk and even now I can’t tell if that was just “glad to have someone as a friend sorta thing. I’m really sorry if this is too personal and u don’t have to respond to the ask directly either I was just hoping on maybe some advice for some clarity if possible… as I get older and realize I’ve never dated/had that sorta infatuation it feels so excluding at times.

Also I am hoping for a feast AND desert with this “‘soon’ but still haven’t posted it two days later” chapter plz and thank you

I hope this made sense and wasn’t too invasive!! :(

when i was younger, i was reading about this kind of thing online and i didn't find anyone like me. i think it's about time that i come full circle and make my own post. i've got like half of my frontal lobe developed and i've been figuring out a lot of things about myself these past couple of years, and there might be someone out there who needs to hear this (´-`ʃ♡ƪ) so if anyone is interested, below the cut is a very long talk about how i figured some stuff out

when it came to my sexuality, i only started considering it when i was in middle school, going into high school. (which would be when i was 12-13). that's when a lot of my friends started having crushes on our classmates and i realized they were being serious when they said they had crushes on people. they had figured out their identities as being a lesbian or bisexual, and they had relationships. (or as close as you can get to that in middle school).

i started to panic and think that i was lagging behind. and i really started to repress my feelings about dating people and romance and what that would entail. i found out through the internet about being pansexual. at the time i thought "oh, they have the same attraction for everyone!" and i slapped it on myself because i thought it would fix everything. i even came out to my parents as pansexual and for a while i left it at that.

i had an idea of romance. i shipped characters in media and i knew that my parents really loved each other. there were a lot of examples for love in my life that weren't the best, but having two parents that actually did care about each other made me want that for myself in the future...

but that's in the future. i personally didn't think about it much because we were still kids. for a while i didn't think anyone else was being serious, that they were just trying it out quicker than i was ready for. it was a strange feeling. i guess i still believed we were playing make believe, or copying what we saw on TV or with our parents. often when my friends asked me who i had a crush on and i felt pressured, i would pick someone that i thought i wouldn't mind dating if i had to. someone would be "interested" in me and i would say "okay" because i felt like that was part of this game we all seemed to be playing. i've had a few "boyfriends" over the years that got people off my back when i had them. in elementary school it was this boy that didn't pick on me, another boy that was my parents' friend's kid. in middle school i had an online boyfriend and a couple of "crushes" on friends of friends, someone just a little far out of my circle that didn't shake anything up. my friends would help me get together with a person and they'd seem so excited for me, so i just went along with it.

then it hit me that they weren't doing it just to do it, or playing pretend. they actually felt something when they were interacting with their crushes. i started to reread books and rewatch media and really grasp what they were saying. the feeling of having butterflies inside them when they talked to each other, blushing when something was said? i thought that was about a general anxiety people get when talking to other people. but there was always something more to it that i just... didn't get. no matter how hard i tried, i didn't understand what that something was.

then started coming the pressure to do the same, to fit in. that's why i accepted a label of pansexual. it was "strange" but at least it didn't feel "broken." i could deal with people telling me that i was wrong for liking more than just boys. but to say that there was no one on the table gave me an anxiety i'd never felt before. like i would be letting down my family, that the entire course of my life would shift. i wouldn't walk down the aisle because there would be no wedding. my parents wouldn't have grandkids. my friends would go on to have lives completely separate from mine, we'd have nothing in common anymore. so i stuffed it all down and made myself believe that this wasn't who i was.

it really mixed me up because i did have a couple of "crushes" that felt real. there were a few girls i was friends with, there were boys in my classes (usually class clowns...) that i'd get excited to see every day. when i thought about dating them, it felt nice. any other time when i thought about dating someone, i'd get this awful feeling in my gut that i later realized was dread. i was fully convinced it was different from all the other times. that "different" that i didn't understand before.

it was different! but not for the reason i thought it was. those people made me laugh, they listened and remembered things about me (that i didn't get much of during that time of my life), and most of all: they didn't like me back.

there were literally no expectations in their eyes for things to go away from friendship. and i think that's what made me like them, but not as a crush. it was relief. there was always an expectation for other people (specifically boys) that if we were friends, things would stray from friendship at some point. not with these people. that relief, combined with all the other good feelings they gave me (class clowns...) made it so much easier to fall into a friendship that i didn't have with other people. and i was in denial for so long that i thought of those friendships as crushes because they were different from other friendships.

there were a couple of times that i got close to having to face my sexuality and it felt like a gut punch. there were a couple of people i was friends with (that i didn't have crushes on) that i had previously thought "if i had to pick someone" about. but when they actually told me their feelings, i would run away. in one case, i literally ran away. i changed my entire routine so that i wouldn't have to face them. and i'm a creature of habit, so of course i took that step back and asked myself why i was having such a strong reaction. my friends didn't understand why i was so panicked about these confessions. especially because before, i "liked" people and had no problem with it.

part of my feelings were that no one would actually like me (which only furthered me not wanting/not considering romance). some of the confessions that i got were fake/pranks, and it would really mess with my head. i wasn't skinny, i knew i was strange and awkward, and i could be very brash and stubborn. i had a weird sense of humor and i missed social ques. i got a lot of "you should be a lawyer" and complaints of being bossy when i was growing up and i always knew they really meant "you're a bitch." i wouldn't understand why i felt so othered from my peers like that until i learned i was possibly autistic, and i only found that out a couple years ago. combined with being plus sized and not conventionally attractive, i didn't get much breathing room. if i wasn't perfectly calm all the time, if i didn't force myself to be overly nice to people, and if i wasn't funny, i'd get told i was "draining" to be around.

i did a lot to try and fit in. i kept my hair long because people would compliment it, i tried to wear skirts instead of pants/shorts, i'd wear comfy clothes and the like so i didn't look like i was trying too hard. a lot of my personality was forced and i was the one who was being drained instead. i ended up having to get a radar for when people were just messing with me. and so when a real confession happened, there was a combination of anxiety about if they were faking or not, doubt that they could actually like me, and then a deep rooted fear about if they were being serious.

instead of the relief i should have felt when i learned it was a real confession, i still felt scared. it would be the same anxiety as if someone asked me to get on the world's tallest roller coaster in the world and i had just seen a chunk of the roller coaster fall in front of me.

that part made it even harder to come to grips with my sexuality. i thought if i gave up on being a hopeless romantic, i'd be giving in to all the times someone told me "I just don't see you dating anyone." being unlovable was a death sentence in my eyes. and it didn't help that i've lived in the south all my life. i was already strange and going to hell for a multitude of things. turning around and telling them that i was going against every expectation set of me to get married and have kids by 24????

(i should clarify that my parents had never been the ones to put this in my mind. when i came out as pansexual, they had only been confused about what the hell that was. the rest of their reaction was "i mean... we could already sort of tell." and while my parents had hopes for my future, i knew deep down that while they'd be a little sad not to have those expected memories with me, they wouldn't turn me away. and they would very likely be happy to create a whole different set of memories with me.)

i have my current friends to thank for me coming to terms with who i am. by the time i was in college i had started to question everything. my middle school friend group had been majority queer but we had gone to different schools or just faded apart. in high school, a majority of my time was spent in band. and while i was one of those people who had friends in a variety of friend groups, the closest friends i had were the people in my section that i sat next to every day. and in the present time, only a couple of them remained straight churchgoers. even though they've changed now just like i have, during high school i was a different story.

going to college opened me up to a far different experience. by this point i'd shifted from pansexual to bisexual. my college experience wasn't... ideal. or really healthy in any aspect. but meeting these people did dislodge the mindset i'd had for most of my life. and my current friends have changed my life. the fear that i had about being aromantic has now become the relief i needed my entire life. it doesn't feel broken, or wrong, or strange. sometimes i do feel sad about it, or question if this is really the case. maybe one day i'll meet someone who shows me that "different" feeling i'd been waiting to understand. but i grew past the societal expectation of needing a partner to be fulfilled in life and i'm so much happier.

life doesn't need to be about that partner. i have many, many friends and family to grow old with. i have a godchild!! one day i'll have my own house to celebrate holidays and achievements at, to host my friends and family. i'll have pets that i love and i'll have my own career, and i'll be happy because i never needed to fit expectations to be happy.

when it comes to anything sexual, it's sort of the same feeling as when i had "crushes" on people in real life. though also different? i don't look at real people and feel an attraction beyond knowing that they are attractive, objectively. i can feel attraction sometimes in a physical sense, but i have no interest in having anything personal happening between us. a fictional character has no interest in me, and so it feels safe to think that they're hot and to express it. like sure, yeah, i have a crush on them! i get giggly when Captain Smoker from One Piece shows up on the screen, and the new Superman makes me think "oh! okay!" but if they were real and in front of me? i'd probably... lose that attraction, like it was never there.

here's the kicker, though, and might sound weird at first: you don't have to put a label on yourself

yeah, i do consider myself aroace. but the world is ever changing and so is the human experience. it helps to have a basis, to understand your feelings and work through them. it's nice to be like "there is a name for this" and to find a community through that. i'm not saying there's anything wrong about figuring out your identity and saying "I'm this, this, and this!" nothing at all wrong with that. but we're all figuring ourselves out, all the time. it doesn't end when you put the label on. you have the entire rest of your life to continue learning things about yourself and the world around you. i wish i'd known in middle school that i didn't have to rush it, that i have every opportunity to take it one phase at a time. a human life seems fleeting, especially when you're looking back on your past and feeling like the time flew by. but that's just our perception of it as we look back.

what i mean to say it that it's okay to backtrack. it's okay to change your mind. it's okay to not put a label on it. it's okay to put a label on it. it's okay not to tell anyone, if you don't want to. it's okay to say "i'll figure it out." and it's okay if you don't. it's okay if you sit up in bed one day when you're 60 years old and go "that's what it is." as long as you live your life listening to yourself and not trying to meet an expectation you think you have to, then you're doing it right.

and it's okay if you lived your life like i did, and you didn't do any of that. being a human is messy and that's part of life. you're not gonna get it right the first time- but even then, sometimes you will! there's a nuance and a spectrum to everything you experience. take pride in who you are even if you don't have a clue yet. be kind to yourself. you're gonna be okay.

[wistfulwatcher]

emily prentiss + leaving and coming back for her family