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gadriezmannsgirl · 1 day ago

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While I was watching some couple trends/videos, the trend "She has Mom Hands" keep on pulling up so I thought about writing a little something based on that, hope you guys like it, let me know in the comments what you think!✨

Also, I'm extremely sick😭 but hey, I got the free time to write something!

Warnings: mentions of Latina!reader

Mom Hands

Pedri:

"Is the chicken done, amor?" You ask finishing cutting the avocado

"Yes, mamá dijo que lo cortará ella" (Mom said she'll chop it)

"Not happening, guapo" You inmediately said "This is something for me to show you and your family something about my country. I'll not have your mom, dad or brother to help me out with anything; I can do it"

"You don't have to do it"

"But I want to. Your mom wants to try something traditional from my country and I'll do it, gladly. She has already taught me so much about Las Islas Canarias, that I kinda feel bad because I don't do my country's dishes for you guys"

"They really don't care about it"

"But I do"

"But you shouldn't, hija" Rosy's voice came from behind the two of you "Let me help you"

"Rosy" You whine a little "I really want you guys to enjoy everything"

"I'll enjoy it a lot more if I can help you with a little something"

"Don't do anything and sit pretty, please?" You shyly ask

"Everything but that"

"Fine" You drag out the 'e' "Only with the chicken! But can you put it in the blender? And that's it" She smiled nodding

"I can do that" You smile softly going back to cutting some dressings for the filling when you feel a kiss on your neck and some arms wrap around your middle

"Mi chica terca" (My stubborn girl)

"Calla" (Shut up) You said smiling as he giggled

"Venga Pedri, deja a mi niña tranquila, que haga su trabajo. Esto se ve riquisimo y tengo mucha hambre" (C'mon Pedri, leave my little girl alone, let her do her job. This looks delicious and I'm very hungry)

"Vale, vale" Pedri nodded going to stand besides you "Want me to help you with something?"

"Can you flip the arepas, please?" He nods leaving you and Rosy in the counter while he stood in front of the stove

"They're stuck"

"¡Ay no! Try to peel them off without breaking them"

"Voy, hijo. Que las vas a dañar" (You'll break them)

A few seconds passed and the kitchen fell silent

"Did you do it, Rosy?"

"I'm trying, cariño. But they're stuck"

"No no, coño e' la madre. Voy" (No no, fuck. Coming) You quickly forgot about the filling and washed your hands going over to both González.

You see Rosy handing you the spatula but you don't mind it, with your hand you grab the beggining of an arepa and carefully lifted it off the pan, not caring how hot the pan was but making sure it didn't break. Once you finally lifted it, you flipped it over and did the same with the other four arepas.

"Esto está es listoo" (Done) You smile before going back to the filling

"Hey, I've never seen you do that, preciosa"

"Do what?"

"¿Como carajos has hecho eso?" (How the hell did you do that?)

"What?"

"Pues eso! You flipped an arepa over with your hand! The pan was so hot and you didn't even flinched!" You just looked at him not knowing what to say

"That's called Mom Hands, hijo" Rosy looked at you smiling "I've already told you this but you better not let this girl go. She's a keeper" She side hugs you, kissing your cheek as you blush

"I know she is" He whispers, giving you a kiss "That's why I'm never letting her go"

Gavi:

"Preciosa, the bread is done"

"Perfect! I already have everything cut, the sauce's are done as well. The only thing what's left are the sausages, are they done?" You asked your 10 months boyfriend, you see how he looks over the boiling pan

"I think so"

"Did you opened them in half so they can be cooked better?"

Pablo, falls silent and looks again to the pan "...No"

"Amor! Te pedí que lo hicieras desde el inicio!" (I asked you to do it from the beggining!)

"Perdona, que también me dijiste que hiciera el zumo de limón y se me olvidó lo de los chorizos" (Sorry, you also told me to make the lemon juice and I forgot about the chorizos)

"They still need to cook a little" You pull one out with a fork "I'll open them"

You pulled out the chorizos with the fork and once you let the water drain out of them, you grabbed them with your hand and put them on the chopping board at the same time you grabbed a knife and sliced them in half.

"Hey, hey, hey!"

"What, what, what?"

"It's hot! You're going burn yourself!"

"They're not hot"

"The sausages were in boiling water, of course they're hot and of course you'll get burned!"

"I'm ok, baby" You kiss his cheek as he watches you take out the boiling water and put another pan to fry the sausages "It's not a big deal, I've cooked for a while"

"I know you've and I've seen your mom and grandma do the same, I know this is how you cook but that doesn't mean I'll love watching you put your hand on top of boiling water or in hot oil"

"Eh, que conozco mis límites" (Hey, I know my limits) He laughs

"Don't do it again"

"I'll try not doing that again in front of you" You say leaning to kiss his lips "Do you think it's hot enough?" You ask pulling your hand on top of the pan

You laugh watching his eyes wide open in horror "Y/N, no! Dijiste que no lo harías!" (You said you wouldn't do it!)

Fermín:

"Fermín!" You called for your boyfriend, you waited a few seconds to see him pulling up to the kitchen "Where are the height sticks?"

"In the top left drawer, maybe?"

"Can you please hand me some? Está tortilla me está haciendo la vida imposible" (This tortilla it's making my life impossible) You said both hands occupied

"Why?"

"Es que esta parte de la tortilla se devuelve para este lado, con los palitos de altura se mantiene y como todavía les falta cocción, pues espero que se mantenga y no se rompa" (It is that this part of the tortilla is returned to this side, with the height sticks is maintained and as they still lack cooking, I hope it keeps and does not break.)

Fermín nods, giving you some, you were so into what you were doing that you didn't realized that you were touching the hot pan with your bare hands.

"Bebé, be careful"

"Huh?" You looked him to see a small frown on his gorgeous face

"You just flipped the tortilla with your hands and a few seconds ago you were touching the pan"

You look at your hands "Sisi, no te preocupes, mi vida. No sentí nada la verdad" (Yeah, yeah, don't worry, dear. I didn't feel anything if I'm honest)

"Ya, sé que puedes, que tienes manos de mamá resistentes a cosas de cocina y todo, pero ten cuidado; si?" (Yes, I know you can, that you have mom hands resistant to kitchen stuff and all that, but be careful, yeah?) I don't want you to hurt yourself." He Kissed your cheek lovingly

"I won't"

"Good, you need help?"

Ferran:

"¡Que me quemó, joder!" (That burns, fuck!)

"I told you to be careful, Ferran!"

"¿Cómo tú si puedes hacerlo como si nada? ¿Y yo que lo intento y soy cuidadoso, me quemo?" (How can you do it just like that? And me, who tries and is careful, burns myself?)

"¡Pues que lo he estado haciendo desde hace mucho!" (Well, I've been doing it for a long time!)

"¡Pero que tú colocas tu mano dentro del aceite caliente!" (But you put your hand in the hot oil!)

"Tampoco así, Ferran" (It's not like that either, Ferran)

"¡No te falta mucho para hacerlo!" (You're not far from doing it!)

"Fer" You sighed softly "Let me see"

"Ice will solve this, don't worry" He said letting you see his arm, it had a small red spot in it

"Yes, it will. I'm sorry, love"

"Don't worry, preciosa" He kissed your hair "Let's keep cooking, I won't stop until I have a taco made by myself in my hands"

"Don't get too excited, okay?" You pushed him out of the way with your hips, your hands working on the food "I don't want Pedri or your coach to get mad at me because you went to practice all burned"

"You need to teach me how to do that, nena. I want to try it" You smiled nodding

"Another time tho. Don't want to risk any other injury"

"Nah, if you want to worry, then worry about my starting with Flick, I can handle Pedri"

"My gosh" You murmur shaking your head "I love your guys friendship but sometimes I feel like I'm third wheeling with the two of you"

"Jealous much?"

"Of Pedri? Buah!" You shake your head "You love me and Pedri loves bald people" You stuck your tongue out jokingly before laughing at Ferran's face, he soon joins laughing with you

"Bueno, es la verdad" (Well, that's true)

°°° °°° °°° °°°

Taglist: @gaviymarcsbride @stuckinaf4nfiction @elijahslover @azzpenswrld @spidybaby-mainblog @cececarmona17

#gadriezmannsgirl writes!#fc barcelona #pedri #pablo gavi #pedri gonzalez #gavi #ferran torres #fermin lopez #pedri x reader #pablo gavi x reader #ferran torres x reader #fermin x reader #fermin lopez x reader #football players imagines #football fanfic #football players x reader

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deusvervewrites · 2 days ago

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I would say it is weird that people think Midoriya is childishly naive when his very first phrase of the story is "not all men are created equal", when the first chapter has Midoriya going about how he was deluding himself, when he talks again and again how lucky and blessed he is, but we have already concluded Horikoshi needs some sledgehammers.

But yeah, people seem to look down in a way at empathy, when having empathy despite everything Midoriya has gone through shows his strength. He could have easily just have given up, but that isn't who Midoriya is.

I've touched on it before, and others have gone into far more detail about it, both in other media and in general, but there's a deceptively cruel undercurrent throughout an alarmingly vast percentage of media. A single, insidious idea that has been reused and recycled and repeated.

THE VILLAIN MUST DIE

Think about that for a moment. Really, think about it. Why does the villain have to die? Think about all the works out there about the cycle of revenge. Think about all the works out there about how you should be kind to one another. Hell, just pick a Disney film. No matter how Heroic the hero. No matter how central mercy is to the theme. And yet.

THE VILLAIN MUST DIE

Sometimes they dress it up fancy. A Villain rejects the offered hand only to accidentally kill themselves, as in Tarzan or countless others. Or their own scheme ends up killing them without the Hero doing it. Sometimes it is the hero, by some accident.

And it makes sense, right? The villains do horrible, awful things, and many of them show no signs of remorse or even stopping. Taking them out is for the best, right?

THE VILLAIN MUST DIE

Why.

How can they not choke on the hypocrisy. How can they stand there and tell us that love and compassion and understanding will lead Darth Vader from the Dark Side but the Emperor needs a one-way trip down the reactor chute?

THE VILLAIN MUST DIE

It's much cleaner, as a narrative. When the noble hero slays the evil king, there's never any depiction of the inevitable succession crisis that would ensue. Imagine having to... reform? From the worst possible version of yourself, a character in blood stepped in so far that, should they wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er? Having to try and do better? Even if they could never atone? Even if it could never be made right? But yet. But yet. You still have to live and do better?

THE VILLAIN MUST DIE

Why?

I know. Help us all do I know that there are people out there that will not change. Are staunchly against changing. Would die before they ever had a second thought about their actions. But. But. They are still, first and foremost, people.

And yet.

THE VILLAIN MUST DIE

WHY?

This world has no end of fools who mistake weakness for strength and boast their foolishness from the rooftops. People who think that kindness is a weakness and compassion a curse.

I can't help but wonder what this world could be if we all held each other with a bit more empathy.

Since recorded history began, people have sold their hearts for power. This weakness should not be celebrated. Power means nothing.

Midoriya's empathy is his greatest strength. It's the thing that makes him a Hero.

And I'm glad that there's been a trend lately in Shonen Jump towards empathic protagonists. The Promised Neverland. Demon Slayer. Dr. Stone. My Hero Academia. All of these works can't help but wonder what this world could be.

How are we meant to make the world better if we can't imagine a better world? How are we meant to dedicate our lives, knowing that perhaps that kind world is far away from here, that we may have to miss it because it's far beyond our years, if we think it's impossible?

WHY DOES THE VILLAIN HAVE TO DIE?

WHY IS IT EASIER TO SEE THE ENEMY THAN A PERSON?

WHO ARE YOU LETTING CONVINCE YOU THAT DEATH CAN BE DESERVED?

People act this way about Midoriya because that's how we are trained to experience media. He is, by the nature of his kindness, a subversion of expectations. The idea of treating the enemy like a person, understanding why they act the way they do, why they want to hurt, that's... difficult. It can be hard to remember in the face of human cruelty and depravity. But you must. If you can't understand then you can't prevent it. Yes, there are people who must be stopped. Yes, characters in fiction reflect this fact.

Even so.

To say that the villain must die, that is a justification of violence that has been used by real humans to cause real harm.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

As I said above, media has shifted recently. It's small, and I doubt it will be mainstream anytime soon, but the shift is there. Not just in shonen, but other places as well.

"We have a saying, my people. Don’t kill if you can wound, don’t wound if you can subdue, don’t subdue if you can pacify, and don’t raise your hand at all until you’ve first extended it."

-Wonder Woman, Gail Simone

#asks #meta

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sad-wet-cat-hannibal · 10 hours ago

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(Essay incoming so I'm adding a read more)

I think you've said some good stuff here, and I too get annoyed or even angered by people using the term in a way that I interpret as flippant; but I'd like to add that as someone who frequently described distressing books and films as "traumatising", it turned out that that word was rather apt - because my intense response was caused by my trauma being triggered by those very same things, too often in ways that felt like reliving it.

Here's the kicker. I didn't know I *had* any trauma. All I knew was that engaging with these works made me feel distressed and disturbed as if I were personally traumatised by these things. Like they were real. Like they damaged me. Just from reading them or seeing them. They'd haunt me for weeks, sometimes months, sometimes years. Sometimes they gave me weird symptoms I couldn't explain. So, naturally, I was hyper-avoidant as fuck.

That intense sensitivity and hyper-avoidance, combined with my ignorance to the fact that my psyche was not experiencing these things from an untraumatised position, meant I thought that "intensely distressing/traumatising" was just the normal effect these things had - except lots of other people seemed oblivious, and even delighted in the exact same works. Sometimes none more so than the kind of motherfuckers who actually like traumatising people.

So I figured, as incomprehensible as it seemed, everyone else had to be either too numbed out/oblivious/naïve to realise how awful this shit was, or were actually big fans of bad things happening in real life.

Because if to me it felt too real, capable of destroying my peace of mind for weeks, then surely to some extent that must be the same for everyone else, right? (Obviously not, but I was younger and working with what limited knowledge I had.) From that logic it's really easy to buy into censorship, into propaganda that claims that the symptoms of a society with a dysfunctional approach to life are often born of the media that echoes them, rather than the other way round. It's real to you. It's your only explanation. (You don't want to feel like this. You don't want anyone to feel like this. It's inhumane.)

What I'm trying to say is that not everyone knows they're traumatised. I think as many as those who do, do not. Perhaps far more. And for those people, the only time they are able to touch on the truth of their half-veiled iceberg is when they tell you that The Bridge to Terabithia "traumatised" them.

(I know it "did" me.)

Telling them they're exaggerating, and misusing language that doesn't apply to them runs the very real risk of making it harder for them to treat their feelings with the consideration and weight they deserve, and enabling them to begin the process of unraveling their denial and tending their wounds. It runs the risk of reinforcing the (potentially forgotten or minimised) messaging they may have already received, during and after the trauma, that it doesn't matter. They're exaggerating. They're making things up. Other people have trauma, other people have it so much worse, other people suffer - but not you. Your account of your experience is unbelievable. Silly. You will not be seen or heard or understood, not by anyone else, and not by yourself...

Yet. Hopefully one day. But I think it often takes other people being willing to shine a light on the pain, and say, "Yeah, it's real. It's caused by things. You aren't alone and you aren't exaggerating."

I think the flippant watering down of the word is potentially very unhelpful too, but there's a section of society who want to push the narrative that the vast majority of people speaking seriously and from a place of relevant psycho-education about their trauma are just special snowflakes jumping on a trend. Maybe I shouldn't, but I feel wary of adding fuel to their fire by trying to gatekeep trauma. I don't know what the solution to these two conflicting uses of the word is, or if it's even possible to create a solution that doesn't simultaneously police the traumatised out of expressing their pain the only way they currently know how. Which would set back the whole thing of trying to help people... We get enough trauma olympics ingrained into everyone as it is.

Oh yeah!! Just remembered, Gabor Mate said in either his book from 2024 or an interview about it that he considers everyone to be traumatised, the question is simply one of degree (if I'm remembering correctly). So from that it may in fact be possible to argue that books and films can traumatise people, although perhaps not necessarily to the extent we might associate with PTSD or CPTSD.

I'm wondering if, as a society who cares about vulnerable people, we could stop saying "traumatize" when we truly mean "upset"?

I am sick of hearing sad books or movies "traumatize" their readers. I simply do not believe that happens. A traumatic experience might be adjacent to books (I have vivid memories of books I was reading around certain experiences and even how the contents of those books affected my processing of the experiences). But it's not caused by the book. And, y'know. The weather is Christofascist Censorship Attempts outside.

Meanwhile from the other side I continue to be surprised at just how badly people fail to understand trauma and traumatic experiences in general. Watering down the term isn't helping. Find other hyperbole to express that The Bridge to Terebithia gutted you, chewed on your heartstrings, and made you cry your first pair of contact lenses right out of your preteen eyes.

#Me saying things to myself over invisible pumpkin pie #I think I would genuinely have struggled even more to own that I was traumatised if I experienced this level of language policing #It's upsetting #Feel sick writing this yay for stress responses

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girldriveroscar · 2 days ago

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Lando definitely mentioned how funny it is that he’s now the mentor and Oscar got so hard he almost passed out

see this touches on such an underrated trope for me, which is accidental kink discovery. being put in a situation and realizing *oh fuck wait. waiiiiiiit.*

like vanilla normal-pilled "I have sex with my Girlfriend in Missionary and fall asleep at 10 pm" oscar getting inexplicably turned on by lando praising or coaching him. oscar will bench a pb and lando looks over from his stretching like Good Oscar! causing him to bail Immediately, plates CLATTERING while lando just teases him even further. and Oscar just attributes it time and time again to adrenaline and nerves, proximity to someone as skilled as lando. til he's winning his first race and nearly comes untouched bc lando leans in, all sweat and breath like you're learning so fast. and oscar is so sane and so normal and so fine, he's hard for 3 hours through the cool down the podium and debrief telling himself wow guess winning really gets me pumped.

on the flip side, external kink discovery is sooooo good too, as in someone else realizing what turns u on either w or wo you realizing. or getting caught despite how hard u try not to let it show how much sth affects you. (again so much untapped potential in this trope...pls rec me fics w this ill die)

lando watching this all go down, observing how so much Doesn't fluster Oscar but the things that do alllllllll follow a certain trend. wld eat up a fic w landoscar both being comfortable and Okay with their respective lives (Oscar w his gf and lando being single) yet having diabolical tension that they both Do Not make a move on bc they're too wrapped up in maintaining the status quo. refusing to address the elephant in the room because they know its a stupid idea. going to insane lengths of flirting bc actually hooking up would destroy the facades they're both holding onto. jerking off in earshot of my teammate isn't cheating i literally only moaned his name once. fic abt all of the sex they aren't having righttt rightttttt.

#got out of hand mb #landoscar #nonsense #asks

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ventismacchiato · 3 days ago

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i was thinking about swy and my brain just collapsed because it kept overflowing with headcanons. anyways heres the ones i compiled or at the very least remember

yn is the type of idol with those compilation videos like 'yn tripping over air for 5 minutes straight'

windblume and delusion has watched those compilation of videos that are like "*insert member* being wifey material" just to laugh maniacally at every moment so that person gets embarassed (like in a good way)

whenever its scaras birthday most of the others just gift him vapes (i lowkey forget what he was smoking so mb)

↑ adding on to that but i feel like yn would get them a different gift like earlier swy yn defo gives him the most useless gifts on planet earth (if they even decide to)

delusion fans still have this argument on whether childe is hot or ugly (its still ongoing just way less popular with scarayn being trending)

delusion and windblume hang out three times a week (or the maximum they can) every night and scara and yn are just sitting on the edge glaring at each other back in the earlier days of them being an idol

d&w (shortcut for delusion and windblume cause im NOT typing allot) have game nights. the games range from stardew valley to the most horrifying thing you can imagine

whenever yn is gifted a stuffed toy/plushie by a fan scara throws it out because hes paranoid (but tbh its actually really common when youre an idol) that theres a camera. counts for both earlier and later swy like i genuinely believe that he just does nice things most of the time behind their back

whenever you see a fischl stan theres an 85% cahnce they have said 'she was definitely a theatre kid' at least once in their lifetime

you know those videos where idols will wake up from their nap/sleep and everyones looking kind of messy and that one has perfect hair. thats lumine.

theres an ongoing joke that venti should be in jail for underage drinking just because hes considered short by windblume fans

omg i love ur headcanons!

i think scarayn wud have a stupid tradition (they’d never admit it) when they were rivals of getting each other stupid gifts and when they get tgt they still do it (scara wud spoil yn obviously but add a stupid gag gift)

the childe argument omg my poor baby HAHA i’d defend his ass that man is BEAUTIFUL

awe the hanging out 😢 i hc their dorms are near eachother so they see eo often, like lunch in between training and having meals tgt and scarayn wud just sit in their own corners and ignore eo

awe the plushie!! he wud so do that 😭 subtly looking out for yn cus he can’t hide he cares to some level

ok lemme add some of my own!

scara dropping the cap to a bottle of wine in a live and pretending he can’t find it so he has to drink the whole bottle and everyone tweeting about how bad his acting is. and then kazuha walks in and picks it up and scara swipes it out of his hands

when scara is knocked out and tired he doesn’t give a fuck who gets in bed with him. so maybe there’s a few videos of behind the scenes where aether or childe will just crawl into his bed and scara doesn’t say anything but he’ll shift over

i feel like since idols go live maybe they’d livestream themselves playing games with fans, like yk how taehyung played with fans and they all let him win and waited for him but then when nayeon played among us they killed her immediately (i think i’m rmbring this right) so whenever scara plays all his fans r letting him win and he eats them all up but then when childe plays they all kill him instantly

chiscara reacting to fanart:

scara: who is that, cus i know that ain’t me. why do you guys keep drawing me as the bottom? i would never let this ginger top me in a million years, have you seen him? he’s pathetic. god. if anything i’d be telling him what to do from the bottom—

childe: alright not too much on me 😓

did u guys see that clip of gummy (?) singing seven days a week as if she’s singing in a church choir 😭 i hc seven is scaras solo song so imagine he’s mcing a show and the debut idol who sang his song rlly badly in a cover comes up and he can’t help but call them out for it

based on that one keeho video i think if childe ran into fans he’d take photos with them but also ask them to take his insta pics for him 😭

i feel like childe wud love to troll paparazzi, aether wud wear long wings and walk around with child and ppl wud think he’s with some girl

#stuck with you — asks

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pleasantspark · 15 hours ago

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Hello, I am the one who started the Tumblr!HelluvaVerse Critical Self Aware Blog Trend, AMA!

As people wonder why I did them? Well you can shoot an ask and I'll answer for now this is what the Self Aware AU is like.

Everyone BUT Stolas is self aware of how stupid everything is, the reasoning for WHY Stolas is singled out is because why not? We're strictly ANTI-STOLAS here.

All blogs run by the same concept but the people behind the blogs have their own Headcanons and takes on the characters, the only things that remain are based on @mammoncriticizes, @seraphinacriticizes and @pentiouscriticizes sides.

Satan is the true ruler of Hell and has a DAUGHTER named Jezebel.

Infodumps and Loredumps made by all three of the mainblogs will be posted between asks, so it's a blink and you miss type deal.

Why did you make this?

I don't know, wanted to have fun with working together with the Critical Community, by taking inspo by the Instagram!HelluvaVerse but do it with Tumblr a united front that has similarities to most things.

I'd like to thank @moxxiecriticizes for being the first person to join then recruiting @0ctaviacr1tical as well. I was doing this for shits and giggles and it looks like we MIGHT actually pull this off.

I'd like to join where can we start?

Well, goodie! There's a way you can do it!

Just make an account and shoot me an ask! I usually respond to them as fast as I can!

Join the Self Aware AU Community Tumblr and shoot your shot there. (https://www.tumblr.com/join/pnuZQ40)

Or request a character in a google forum which had NOT yet been made.

Also, make sure your name has some variant of critical or criticizes in it! With the characters name and what they are in the bio so we can identify us!

What's the AU about?

Mammon, being the first to break free from this illusion began to realize that 2 + 2 does not indeed equal fish as he questioned around early season one, and realized he was forced to do things that he normally wouldn't do under any circumstances. With the help of online Hellblr he is able to contact people through OUR tumblr space somehow to connect with a wider audience through some means.

With that, there's been an influx of people joining the cause, and with every new critical blog popping up that means more and more characters are currently realizing just how fucked up their world truly is.

Status on Redesigns.

As we stand, we do accept redesigns as we would like to rebrand the characters and we're using this AU to reinvent the new storyline so if you end up drawing the posts we make then we accept it. Reblog it as well.

Blogs In Order of Creation

@mammoncriticizes @seraphinacriticizes @moxxiecriticizes @pentiouscriticizes @0ctaviacr1tical

@fizzcriticizes @bartendinggamblincat

REFER TO THE ABOVE IF YOU HAVE ONE ALREADY. It's recommended you make it a side blog, we might actually have people run the Seraphina and Pentious blogs if people wanna join.

#. 💞 ; txt #hazbin hotel critical #helluva boss critical #spindlehorse critical #anti stolas #anti spindlehorse #vivziepop critical #anti vivziepop

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winterbirb · 8 hours ago

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Oh come on. @weiszklee You don't get to get on a high horse about other people engaging with media if you read this post and came away thinking the only takeaway the previous people had was that "society is imperialistic." Or that noticing the status quo of imperialism is a "bludgeon" used to target specific things.

This is a conversation about general trends and what those trends say about society. The trend being focused on is related to the effects of IRL imperialism on European cuisine being completely, utterly neglected in the fantasy genre. You do not get to walk into somebody else's specific thesis statement and criticize them for not being broader. What is your problem?

And, just, come on. "Society is imperialistic" isn't the conclusion, it's the basic starting point. Why on earth are you acting like it's the conclusion anyone's coming to? Do you know how to read?

AND! To call discussions of imperialism a bludgeon, just what? The post is writing about real patterns that happen. Pointing out that something is part of a pattern is only a bludgeon to the willfully ignorant.

And yeah, some fantasy authors don't give a damn about how anything in their world works. Frankly, I don't consider them very good authors in general. Calling out how they fit into the cultural pattern of not understanding at all how European culture was changed by the age of imperialism is like calling out shit for stinking. It stinking isn't anything of note. It's shit. Ooooh, great argument, some people write shit.

Your analysis is not sophisticated or clever. It is myopic and incurious. If you're going to be a condescending douchebag, do everyone a favor and at least get some reading comprehension and contextualization first instead of assuming the people you're responding to are googoo gaga idiots whose entire analytical interest is contained entirely within a single post specifically created about a single subject.

Tldr the above ppl are just describing a thing that happens that reflects the real world. Why did you write all that.

👀

#additions #the real problem is that i know the vibe of this mentality and i have no idea how to get past such stubbornness that i dont even have words #to say again: IMPERIALISM EXISTING ISNT THE TAKEAWAY IT'S THE FUCKING BASIS #ps im an american and i know this without spontaneously combusting so being an american isnt an excuse :3c

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firstkanaphans · 1 day ago

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the engagement of EM series is really low, i thought that they were famous than FK so i’m not understanding why the numbers are so low…. what triggers me is that p’au is the director, i’m afraid CFC have the same treatment

So, I think there are some extenuating circumstances here. After the first episode of Ossan’s Love Thailand, a large portion of fans of the original decided to boycott the remake because the writers cut a single line they apparently felt was necessary to the plot. The line in question? “I know you love big tits, but how about a big dick instead?”

Full disclosure: I have not seen the original and cannot make comparisons either way, but I do feel that this was probably just a poor choice of series to adapt. The whole sexual harassment thing being played for laughs is a bit triggering for me personally and I feel like that might be putting some people off, which is unfortunate because the HengMo plot is great and this might be my favorite role of Earth’s ever. He really excels at comedy.

Regardless, to use the success of Ossan’s Love to make any preemptive judgments about Cat for Cash is ridiculous. Even if Ossan’s Love turns out to be a flop, P’Au is also responsible for My School President, which is probably the most popular GMMTV BL since 2gether. I think P’Au has simply been handicapped by being given the Japanese adaptations to direct. (I also think he’s being given them specifically because he is the newest director at GMMTV and no one else wants them.) Adaptions—especially cross-cultural ones—are hard and they are also frustrating for creators because it feels like you’re not getting to showcase your own work, but someone else’s.

We’re only three weeks into Ossan’s Love, though. Both viewship and trends should continue to increase the longer the show goes on. And it’s also relevant to note that Mix is actively liking posts every week telling people not to stress about trending and I think the fandom has taken that to heart and aren’t trying to artificially inflate their engagement numbers. After all, watching these shows is supposed to be fun. Not a full-time job.

#people get so weird (read: racist) about thai remakes of japanese shows #i truly think that’s the main problem here #asks

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mask131 · 1 day ago

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This is about Neil Gaiman's work - this is NOT about the rape accusations, but it is about the aftermath of them. I wanted to make a post for some times now about works you could read that were similar to Gaiman's works if you wanted to go see something akin to his fictional world without directly supporting him. Which would have been a VERY easy post since Gaiman kept listing everywhere the works that influenced directly or indirectly his own novels and creations. But I realized other people were already doing this, so I just thought "Heh, let's not bother with this".

And then I randomly stumbled upon this post which is trending on Tumblr. And this post got me a little mad. Because while I do agree that several of the facts in there should be more well-known and more talked about... I also think this post is quite unfair in its depiction of how Gaiman acted towards his inspirations.

People are currently screaming that Neil Gaiman plagiarized stuff by "taking huge inspiration from things and not crediting people". Except... he did credit people. It's just that his fans never bothered to go look for what inspired him. I was there back in the old days - so I saw exactly how it went. Don't start telling me Neil Gaiman purposefully stayed "silent" about the works that inspired him - I clearly saw how people were just apathetic. Myself when I compiled lists and made posts about all the works that preceeded Neil Gaiman or that he explained were his inspirations for things, people didn't bother and had no interest... but when I made a list of Gaiman's work suddenly everybody reblogged. Whether Gaiman plagiarized or not is not the thing I want to talk about today - but I want to HEAVILY criticize the way people are saying "Neil Gaiman never said he took X from X" when in fact, he did, and people were just too lazy to do their research. (Or, if you take the "Gaiman is a villain " angle, Gaiman counted on the fact people would not bother to read the original books and he won his bet!)

I am deeply sorry for this rant but it is a little trigger for me, since I have been studying and exploring the "chain" of inspirations and rewritings throughout literature and the fantasy genre (half for university work, half for personal hobby), and I have seen people literaly ignore all the bibliographies given to them under titles like "If you want to read more of the sort". [For example the original post talks about how Martin was very honest about how he took inspiration from Druon's book series. Fair. But nobody is talking about how he indeed kind of "plagiarized" Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. A lot of people don't know about this series, despite said series having literaly almost all of ASoIaF's supernatural - in fact, the reason Martin seems to be under-using his own supernatural creations, like the White Walkers, is precisely because they don't come from his mind and they are just a copy of Williams' Norns and he seems to not really know what to do with them. But that's a talk for another day.]

EDIT: I realized the post got very long, so all my personal objections and my argumentative points against the post I linked above will be under a cut. And if you want a conclusion to my long rant below the cut, it is this one: You can shit all you want about Gaiman, but at least get your facts right. It is not because someone turns out to be a bad person that you must feel the need to blast cultural misinformation. Heck, I will directly compare it to how the entire Internet wished and wanted Rowling to have "plagiarized" Gaiman's Books of Magic, because of their similarities, only for Gaiman himself to point out, no, it was not plagiarism, it was just a set of similarities and coincidences due to both works coming from a same British culture with a specific background in children literature and fantasy works. It just happened that people didn't know anything outside of Harry Potter and Gaiman's works and so assumed it was the only two pieces of a much vaster puzzle...

Yes, Neil Gaiman is very derivative. Yes he is very imitative. But he never hid it? He always said he was, he always pointed out the works that influenced him, he always listed the stuff that he based his own works upon - down to sometimes helping these works come out of obscurity when they were too forgotten (like the Lud-in-mist novel?). People are doing a "surprised Pikachu face" today but... he never hid his derivatiness. In fact it was a certain part of the "charm" people found in his work back in the days. He never hid anything, it's just that a lot of people didn't want to see it or didn't care about it...

Gaiman posted an entire page on his blog for American Gods (back in the early days of Internet, he had a blog to follow his writing process for American Gods, weeks after week, you can still find it somewhere) listing the three dozen of books that inspired him/that he took elements from/that he learned stuff from. People can accuse him of having plagiarized Zelazny's work in American Gods because of one scene - Wednesday having Shadow drive into the "Backstage", which is a rewrite of the "driving to Amber" scene from The Nine Princes of Amber. But the accusation of "plagiarism" becomes a bit muddled when you know that A) Gaiman has been screaming for years about how the main source of inspiration for American Gods were all of Zelazny's mythological works and B) He literaly dedicated American Gods to Zelazny, first page you open.

When does an homage becomes too much? When is plagiarism allowed? Is taking after public domain a bad thing? What are the moral consequences of your work overshadowing your source of inspiration? These are questions I am not wanting to answer today and this post isn't about them - plus things are even more complex when you remember Gaiman was one of the most fervent defensers and advocates of fanfiction, reacting positively to it and encouraging people to do it a lot ; as well as one of the main celebrities on Tumblr to warn people to NOT send him fanfics so that it wouldn't cause legal troubles of potential plagiarism.

Anyway, my actual angry rant is below.

I/ Tanith Lee and Sandman

The post that got me angry starts with Tanith Lee. I do agree that it is a shame Tanith Lee is not more talked about and didn't receive as much fame as she deserved. I do agree that Neil Gaiman's work was heavily inspired by Tanith Lee's writing. I do agree Gaiman's work overshadowed Lee's own (for a long time I didn't know she was the first one to do a vampiric Snow-White twist, before Gaiman's own). However I have to recuse the idea that Sandman is a rip-off of Tales from Flat-Earth.

It doesn't help that the person who made this original claim clearly doesn't know very much about either Lee's Flat-Earth or Gaiman's Sandman (with easy to debunk claims like how "Delusion" is one of Gaiman's Endless - no, the character does not exist). For example the poster rightfully compares how the top-dogs of the supernatural pantheon of Lee's Flat-Earth are the Masters of Night, Death and Delirium, wth the Master of Night's physical appearance echoing Dream of the Endless' appearance... However the comparison stops there, unlike what the poster tries to claim, because the Master of Night is a demon who rules over hatred, fear, curses and malevolence first and foremost - and is this world's equivalent of Satan/Iblis - and is not a personification of dreams, imaginations and sleep like Morpheus. Also, unlike what the OP claims, the Demon Princes are not like the Endless, "eternal entities beyond gods" - on the contrary, it is shown by book one the Demon Princes CAN be killed, and that there are gods who are a distinct species far above the Demons.

It is also incomplete to try to claim that having Dream and Death be siblings is a "proof" of Tanith Lee plagiarism... Because Gaiman is very explicit in his narrative of how Dream and Death are transpositions of the Thanatos & Hypnos/Thanatos & Morpheus twinship present in Greco-Roman mythology (Ovid's "Gates of Horn and Ivory" are literaly there in the first issues). Plus, since we do have the original manuscripts and the proposition draft Gaiman sent to DC (it is in the bonus of collected editions and in companion books), we know Gaiman originally had just three Endless in mind, Death, Dream (who was a reshape of DC's Sandman super-hero), and Destiny (who pre-existed in DC's universe), Delirium only coming far later.

That being said, I am feeling very sad for Tanith Lee through the testimony of her friend - how, again, she had trouble becoming a recognized author despite her work being very influential and frequently talked about for the fantasy genre (all the fantasy manuals and guides and encyclopedias of France list her among the authors to be read), and I do feel her distate for Neil Gaiman's work vampirizing hers is very justified. But to jump into saying Sandman is a copy-paste or a full on rip-off of Flat-Earth is unfair and very limiting. Flat-Earth was one of the inspirations of Sandman, but it doesn't own "everything" to it.

Plus, the OP also gets very angry at how Gaiman "never" talked about Tanith Lee and ... you know how I got to learn about Tanith Lee, and how I got encouraged to read her? Through Gaiman's Tumblr blog, where he regularly listed her as part of the authors that inspired him/the fantasy authors he enjoyed/the authors he encouraged others to read. I saw her appear like five different times on his Tumblr, and without him I probably wouldn't have started getting curous about her. So he did talk about her and he did present her as one of his inspirations and favorite authors... At least on Tumblr, and for several years.

II/ Coraline and Thief of Always

The comments mention Coraline and the Thief of Always as possibly being another "plagiarism" of Gaiman... I remember when Neil Gaiman was asked on his Tumblr about how similar Thief of Always and Coraline were, and he simply answered with the fact he and Barker had a similar thought process and came up with akin works though very different in the results.

You could say it is a form of copy or plagiarism (though Gaiman at least did an effort to make Coraline the almost opposite of Thief of Always in several ways). But I will have to point out that that Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker know each other, and that it has been reported, talked about and evoked a lot of times how they hanged in the same circles, with the same people, and exchanged thoughts, and talked about their mutual creations. We know Gaiman talked of the early Sandman issues when they were created with Alan Moore and Clive Barker, while Moore talked of his creation of From Hell. We also know that a part of the Sandman's universe was indirectly created by Barker - as Gaiman explained the idea for naming Desire's domain "The Threshold" came from a story Clive Barker had planned but never wrote, exploring the puns "threshold" could offer.

To my knowledge Clive Barker never claimed that Gaiman plagiarized him or stole from him with Coraline? But I might be wrong.

III/Other details

The comment about the "Lovecraft and Doyle" comparison is clearly taken out of context, because it was literaly about a story which WAS a literal Sherlock Holmes meets Cthulhu fanfiction, "A Study in Emerald". The commenter seems to think this comment applied to Gaiman's entire work? No it does not.

I don't know anything about the Lenny Henry situation, I will have to look for this.

#neil gaiman #tanith lee #clive barker #plagiarism #whole cans of worms are being opened everywhere #this is just the rant of the day #sandman #sandman comics #tales from flat-earth

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corporatecoinings · 2 days ago

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thank you for archivists and id translators for existing . theres a lot of labels and terms we wouldnt be able to see to this day if you didnt grab them before the account it was from deactivated and thats happened so many times. id translators help us out because translating images to text can be tiring for us, especially when a lot of us dont know how to describe things + we fumble with words, as well as the fact we never have the energy to translate anything .

we may pretty much be a coiner, but really, we kind of do it more for ourselves than anything. probably why we're so unpopular. most of us have our own gender hoards. dont have a name to a experience ??? time to coin a gender or a term ! we love coining stuff . niche stuff . stuff probably others can relate to . if you look close enough youll see trends and patterns with which of us coins what that what they think is most gender whenever they coin . fuck we worded that badly i think we also fall under the category of someone who goes and hoards terms too, we love scrolling xenogender and mogai and qai tags on here and just hunting for labels we like . its so fun

the mogai/liom/qai community is awesome

late 2020 us would of exploded upon learning about what we think of the mogai/liom/qai community today (we used to be anti-xenogender long ago once upon a time)

-blurry/unknown fronter

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rongzhi · 3 days ago

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(Apologies in advance for typos.)

^ My original tags on this, but actually, I wanted to expand on my views about this a little bit based on some other collected musings I had about the XHS move (which—now that the dust has settled a bit, is it still going on? I don't even know). I'll preface this by saying that my own XHS has been pretty much spared of the wave of American signups, since my feed is mostly art/tattoos and not so much lifestyle/vlogs.

Mainly, I wanted to dig into that feeling of being "over it", a sentiment I've seen circulated on Tumblr by other Chinese diaspora. I think it's a IYKYK situation in some ways but I wonder if non-Chinese diaspora are precisely aware of why there is a underlying sense of caution and this side-eyeing toward everything going on. (To an extent, I think non-Americans who have to deal with us Americans dominating internet spaces probably also have some insight into this.)

Essentially, after that initial cute "haha" feeling of seeing people jump into a new space and meeting all the new people, for me personally, just from having run this blog for 4 years now, I feel distinctly aware that things could go wrong.

Others have said it better, be it pointing out the infantilising or inherent sinophobia, but there is a slant to that attitude of jumping on a new app and discovering that Chinese people can be funny, that they can be kind, that they are sociable and, in basic terms, "just like you", that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Oh, you just realised that? People can argue that it was never possible to connect with Chinese netizens before all they want, but in fact, clearly, it was as easy as downloading an app that's free on U.S app stores. Next, you could say, well, there's cultural exchange happening now, which is better than nothing, so what are you so pissy about! I agree, I'm not saying it's a bad thing that some Americans are finally making some attempt to converse with someone outside of their Western, Anglo internet bubble (even if they did so as in the comfort of what is essentially another bubble, as part of a trend). Obviously there is a net good to a person joining XHS, and my wariness mostly comes down to this sense of "discovery" coming with a feeling that Chinese people are still getting lumped into a monolith. Maybe now the monolith is nice and friendly; now the monolith is cute and funny and helpful.

What happens if the Tiktokers realise that some Chinese people also are more socially conservative, or that there are societal issues that Chinese people still have to work through, which aren't ideal or progressive enough for the Enlightened Americans—then what? I've already seen the answer in smaller doses over the years, so I don't know about others, but this is something that I—maybe—hopefully just cynically—can't help but keep my ears tuned towards: the other shoe dropping. Again, for Chinese diaspora (and no doubt, diaspora of any culture in a similar situation), it's "if you know, you know"; we've seen the fickleness of attitudes. The xenophobia and sinophobia that run rampant in U.S society (and I'm sure other western countries, but I speak as a USian) is well known to us in a way that mainlanders often don't take heed toward. Even if there is a sinophobic backlash over anything that arises online, the brunt of it won't be felt by Chinese netizens but us Chinese diaspora who spend the most time in Anglo internet spaces. So, I'm a bit over it all. I've seen how interest in China can play out—for example, how learning Mandarin or being a fan of cdramas or hanfu hardly frees a person of their sinophobia or from regurgitating xenophobic talking points.

It's nice but naive to think that the majority of the tiktokers playing around on XHS right now, trading memes and basking in the numbers of Chinese social media, will truly self-interrogate all too deeply. If some of them seem to have only just realised that Chinese people are ~so nice~, how Other have they been seeing Chinese diaspora? Is that still the case? Will they necessarily make the same effort to know and listen to Chinese diaspora? (People in cfandom will know the answer).

Again, I think there's an overall positive to all this, especially in this ~political climate~ (altho I doubt the people who need positive interaction with Chinese people the most downloaded XHS lol). I guess I just wanted to add all this because because I feel like my first response was quite vague and on second thought, I figured I might as well try to unravel some of my thoughts and impart them to anyone who maybe had no idea there was this perspective to things. Call me jaded or no fun at parties all you like, but that's literally just how it is.

Lastly, I'll just say that from me scrolling douyin, I've also seen how people in China have reacted to the influx of Americans on XHS, so I can tell you a little bit of the other side. It also corresponds a little with what I'm trying (but maybe failing) to say about Chinese diaspora: the people who have been having as much/equal fun with the convergence of internet spaces have been mainlanders with no general dealings with Americans. In the past week, the bloggers I've seen who've been vocal/warning about Chinese people not bending over backwards to start speaking English all the time, or just following/kissing up to Americans because they're white*, have been Chinese netizens—mainly students—who live/study abroad.

* Yes, obviously there are non-White Americans, but white people are, as ever, uplifted the most by society on the basis of being white. We know this.

how do you feel about so many americans getting on 小红书?

#text #long post

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margridarnauds · 1 day ago

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Something I'm tossing around in my head re: Chat GPT and academia is that...in some ways, I think it's a symptom, rather than the root problem. Not just of the structural ways that mainstream pedagogy + the general structure of academia (particularly in the States) sets some students up to fail, but in the way that a lot of work, even at the graduate and above level, is in itself treated as a product to be cranked out in the least amount of time possible as opposed to a work of dedication and love that requires thought and care and intricate research.

You want to get an undergrad degree? Crank out ~2-3 essays a year. These can be varying degrees of research, because the point is you need to get them in NOW and you need to get them in QUICKLY and you can't take any more time to do them than necessary.

(And for students who are later along in their academic careers, writing 8-10 page papers is nothing, but to that undergrad who's stepped into class for the first time? It might be the most complicated thing they've written.)

You want a PhD? Crank out that dissertation, and don't you DARE take longer than you should. How can you do it? We don't know, our obligation to you is over at five years. Also, you have a semester to come up with a ~25 page prospectus that gives a detailed plan for your dissertation before you can even begin WRITING it, which you'll have to get approved by your committee, so good luck!

Also, don't forget, while you're doing that, you need to keep submitting articles for publication, which you will, of course, have to format individually according to the style guideline of the journal you're publishing to! Publish or perish, so keep your head above the tide or you'll end up drowning!

And, on top of that, expect to write ~ten page presentations for conferences! Don't worry, you don't need to cite your sources TOO rigorously for this one, but you are going to need to make sure you know what you're talking about, otherwise you might be humiliated in front of the scholars you want to impress! Write, write, write! Create that Powerpoint!

You want academic tenure? Crank out that monograph! And don't forget to do it sooner rather than later while ALSO publishing articles and coming up with teaching plans!

Also, don't forget, with everything that you write, that it should be on something popular! Something in keeping with the latest trends, so you can be on the cutting edge! Wanted to do something else? Why did you enter academia if you wanted to follow your own research ideas?

And the point isn't that I think that Chat GPT is GOOD or that it SHOULD be used to write an entire paper. Frankly, I dummied a dissertation outline on it (note: my uni account...which I still hate that they provided for us...doesn't use it to train data, meaning that the environmental impact is minimal) and it was bland as fuck, factually inaccurate, and dated. I DON'T use it because, beyond the morality or ethics of the situation (which I think are more complicated than a black and white "It's harmless" or "It is an actual technological death cult aiming for world domination"), on a purely pragmatic level, my field is TERRIBLE for it.

RATHER my point is that it's hard to take arguments about the sanctity of human creativity seriously SPECIFICALLY with regards to academia when it's an industry that has systematically pried human creativity out of itself and encouraged creating an unsustainably massive amount of work at once if you want to survive and even though I am going to do everything possible to make sure my students DON'T use it for their assignments as a primary tool...I can kind of get why they would be drawn to it beyond just "they're lazy."

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mistressoftherant-blog · 1 day ago

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Fandom Whataboutism

Well, it's been a fair bit since I've written a rant, but this one has been growing inside of me for a while, so I'm going to get this off my chest. To flag, this is an issue I've mainly been seeing on TikTok, but it is starting to creep into other fandom spaces, and I'm more comfortable posting on Tumblr, so here we go.

For anyone unfamiliar with how the term 'whataboutism' is currently being used on TikTok, it essentially boils down to people in comments bringing up random things in regard to someone making content to either discredit them or to make the original post about themselves (e.g. the infamous bean soup idea where someone has a recipe for bean soup and someone in the comments says that they don't like beans so how can they make it, or someone saying that they like dogs and immediately get hit with a 'so you hate cats?').

From what I've seen, the phrase has essentially expanded to encompass a growing behavioural trend where people seem to think that everything they see should be specifically catered to their personal taste and that, if it isn't, they need to speak up about it instead of using critical thinking or realising that they can move past content that doesn't apply to them.

And that is something that has also been rife in multiple fandom spaces that I've been in.

One general issue I have seen is people commenting on art/vids/fics and demanding that people recreate them with their fave character, or make something of their fave character/ship/fandom. This just seems rude to me. People are not obligated to create content for your favourite things. If they've created something, it is usually because they wanted to put their passion into it and share it with people who also like the same things as them. They don't owe you anything, so if their content isn't of your fave, it's best too move along as you will.likely be able to find similar content that's more to your preference elsewhere or, if you want to see your own fave reflected in it, maybe reach out and ask if you can do a version with credit to the original.

Now on to some specifics.

I'm going to use some examples here to illustrate my point, but I already know that some people may get heated if they see this post so, general disclaimer, I am not bashing anyone for having any of these characters/ships as their favourites.

I just want to highlight a certain type of behaviour, and these are some of the examples I have personally been seeing lately.

First is the TMNT fandom, which will surprise absolutely no one familiar with this account. I may be going over old ground here but, if you see content for a version of the TMNT you don't like, you don't have to engage! And swooping in with a comment about how much better your preferred version is is annoying. Why would you feel the need to say something snide about one version to big up your fave? Rise fans are especially notable for doing this, but they definitely aren't the only culprits.

Last Ronin fans are another large example of this. When someone is comparing the strengths of the turtles in a particular version, jumping in to say that Mikey is the strongest because he is the Last Ronin is irritating as all hell. Last Ronin is an entirely separate thing (and Mikey living longest is more due to luck/coincidence than him being so much better than his brothers anyway, but that's a rant for another day). And making these comments on a post about a specific turtle is a whole spit in the face. There was a cool edit of Donnie in 2012 in some of his angry moments, and so many comments were about how either Mikey or Leo were so much better than him when angry. To be blunt, if you do this, you're an asshole. There is no need to be so incessantly vocal about your personal fave on a post that is entirely unrelated to them, except to be self centred and you come across as an antagonising prick.

And then there is the Bat-fam fans who are notorious for using fanon to try and make everything about their faves. I saw a post the other day that was an animation of Dick Grayson interacting with the JL, particularly Wonder Woman that had in the description that it was about Dick Grayson. The way it was drawn and the behaviour of everyone in the vid clearly pointed to it being Dick. Yet there were a flood of Jason fans saying that it must be him because of how much he loved Wonder Woman, which is fanon? It got to the point where the poster had to update the description to say they supposed it could be Jason because his fans were being so aggressive.

Or the amount of people who try to say that the Teen Titans cartoon Robin or first season Young Justice Robin are Tim rather than Dick, despite ample evidence otherwise? And then they say that they are characterised more like Tim, as if the two don't share traits? As if Dick can't be angry, or snarky, or good with tech, so if he is, then it must be Tim instead? I've also seen people saying Teen Titans Robin is Damian, even though Damian wasn't even properly in the comics then? It doesn't hurt to do a little research, yet I've seen people try and blatantly argue against canon facts, or the words of the people creating the fan content, to try and make everything about their fave.

Last up is Shadow the Hedgehog. This bit will discuss the wider fandom, but will have some spoilers for the third movie, so please skip to the conclusion or turn back here if you don't want to risk spoilers.

It is not hard to see that Shadow is a popular character, and I can understand why he is. He's cool and he has an interesting back story and interesting powers. But some (key word, some, definitely not all) of his fans take it too far. I watched a great edit of Knuckles from the SCU and, when I opened the comment section, one of the first comments I saw was someone typing in all caps asking why no one was talking about Shadow dying. This was an edit entirely of Knuckles, yet someone was still screaming about Shadow, as if A). the majority of the fandom aren't constantly talking about him, B). Shadow wasn't completely irrelevant to this post and C). Shadow wasn't actually dead.

Likewise, there was an edit of SCU Tails, Sonic and Knuckles to Brother by Kodaline, and people in the comments were asking why Shadow wasn't included. As if Shadow hadn't been an antagonist to them for most of the film. As if Shadow had had a genuine conversation with any of them bar Sonic. Honestly, how did they think he was going to be included in a sweet montage around brotherhood when the only current clips of him are of him fighting/scaring/being a dick to them, with the Robotniks and/or Stone, and then one nice scene with Sonic and a fight montage before he sacrifices himself? He's not their brother. Frankly, I don't think it would make much sense for him to be adopted by the Wachowskis as he's always been his own separate thing, and is more likely to end up with Team Dark if they are introduced rather than having another bed crammed into the attic like he would be crammed into the Team Sonic dynamic.

Or whenever someone talks about how strong Knuckles is, and you get the 'erm actually' bros out in force to talk about how Shadow is the most powerful as he is the Ultimate Lifeform and yadda yadda yadda. And it's just, like, give it a rest already. I'm on a Knuckles post to talk about Knuckles. If you want to hype up Shadow, you genuinely have no shortage of spaces to do so.

There's also the whole matter of shipping. I feel I need to reiterate this, but I don't mind people shipping whatever they like. But I also would like to see that same courtesy extended to others.

For example, there was a post talking about canon Sonic love interests, and half the comments were saying 'what about Sonadow?' I was genuinely concerned that these people didn't understand what the term 'canon' means.

It's the same with any Sonknux or Knuxouge posts, there is always an influx of comments under them saying that they prefer Rouge or Sonic with Shadow. And I'm stuck thinking, that's great, but why don't you use some of that love you have for them to interact with posts about them, rather than engaging with content you don't like, which will inevitably end up with you seeing more of this and upset the people who do like it, especially the creator who worked hard to make something that you feel the need to shit on because it's not exactly to your tastes?

Another issue that I've seen, that isn't related to a specific fandom, is the rise of 'oh, that's just like my OC!' (And this is done with canon characters as well tbh). Although OCs aren't usually my cup of tea, I have enjoyed many stories that have OCs, and I am obviously happy for people creating content about their own characters outside of fandom spaces as well. And I have no issue with people saying that songs/memes/character dynamics etc remind them of their OC.

It is when people jump on a post of someone talking about their personal issues, or an issue that is harming people, to associate it with their OC, that it becomes insensitive. I saw a post the other day about a person who had been affected negatively by a very real issue, and one of the comments was about how this reminded someone of their OC because their OC had experienced trauma in their past. Like, do you not see how this maybe isn't the right place to bring up your fictional character?

I get that some people project their own trauma onto characters, but a post where someone is describing something that is still having a massive effect on their life because of how horrible it was for them to live through is a terrible place to bring up a character, and shows a disturbing lack of empathy or understanding of etiquette. If someone posts about something traumatic and your first thought is about a character if any kind, that's fine, but if you then hop into the comments to type about a character, you need to understand that this is how you sound: 'oh, your horrific experience and daily struggles remind me of a very not real person. Sucks to be you, but my character got awesome powers out of this situation, and the thing that scarred you physically/mentally makes for a great tragic bakstory for them. Doesn't my character sound cool guys? Let's speak more about my character and not the very real person whose story I am completely talking over in order to make everything about things I like to talk about.'

There is a time and a place to talk about your OCs, and when people are trying to educate on a topic or find a community of people who understand them, that is not your place to interject. If you are giving your character these issues in order to raise awareness/education, make a separate post.

There is definitely more I could say on this topic, both in general and in fandom terms, but this is already a pretty long post, so I am going to call it here for now.

Thanks to anyone who stuck around until the end!

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melliae · 1 day ago

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Hong Lu, An Analysis-Prediction

Before beginning, as always, I've to clarify something: I haven't read Dream of the Red Chamber. My best source of information are the thematic connections drawn in the Reddit sub of Limbus, and that only gives me a slight idea of what Project Moon may have in mind.

So, everything below here is complete and utter speculation based on my own knowledge and impressions about Hong Lu's character, Sins, EGOS, and Abnormalities. Beware, and feel free to comment your own opinions!

Now, let's go with the post!

What We Know

So, I think the best way to start this analysis is by recapitulating Hong Lu’s overall character so far. For that, we need to return to the first ever explanation of his personality: the “resume” given in the game page and during his presentation in Selva Oscura.

“As such, he has a certain admiration for a free life; but occasionally, he may make ignorant and unsavory questions in regards to the food cooked by a certain other Sinner or other aspects of the low-lives' lowly culture. [,,,] However, it is important to note that no sarcastic undertones are contained in his curiosity-driven inquiries, so it is ill-advised to let them get physical over it.”

As a general thing… It surprisingly holds up! Don’t misunderstand me, though. It isn’t that the description is perfect; it’s just not untrue. In fact, his first even line in the game, about Dante’s head being some sort of trend and not waiting for an answer, totally falls there. Similarly, there are several other moments showing Hong Lu’s innocence and naivety without any ulterior or hidden motive, from wondering if the casino workers of Canto II were trying to make the Peccatula their pets (likely because his grandmother collects weird animals) to unintentionally insulting Outis’ watch in Canto VI. I’d say the biggest proof of his lack of experience is the moment in Canto V where he adjusted the LCCB badge of a pirate that very obviously wasn’t a member of Limbus. Though all of his weirdness may derive from the fact that his elders—which are weird as hell—are his point of reference.

Now, since his most notable trait has been explained, we can move into the discrepancies of the description, and the biggest one is mentioned at the end: that under Hong Lu's comments there is no sarcasm—which is a complete lie! This man is a menace, and the Sinner’s experiences in District 20 during To Claim Their Bones and Canto VI shows it, from agreeing Caiman’s assessment of LCB to joining Nelly’s teasing, including his lines while helping Heathcliff with his appearance and clothes. But arguably, my favorite example of this is the horror story he told during Canto V that scared Sinclair and which he only finished when the latter ran away. Don't tell me Hong Lu was being innocently insensitive back there: Sinclair was visibly shitting bricks, and the pretty boy here is keen enough to masterfully play the most compassionate and kind member of the League of Nine.

“Brother Young-ji was a man of kindness. He was not one to rashly harbor spite or reproach for others. You resemble him in that sense.” - Yi Sang, Blossoming League of Nine Littérateurs, Canto IV.

Though I suppose the difference between them is that Hong Lu clearly has a more optimistic and fun-loving attitude. This is an obvious trait that he has had since his childhood, when he played with and complained about his “cheating” siblings, sneaked into the dining hall of his manor for snacks, and simply didn’t follow his family’s rules. But since we know his family is extremely strict (if not outright sadistic), this sanguine streak may have developed (or gotten worse) as some sort of defense mechanism, which is seen better with Wakashu Hong Lu and his “lack of manners.” In fact, all of his Identities show an unnatural or improper calmness about his situation, no matter how horrible it is.

Another thing to highlight is his inquisitive, curious, and surprisingly understanding nature. While most of the examples above, especially him playing Young-ji, are proof of that, as it plays very well with his sheltered life. But I want to point out the best and most recent example of Hong Lu’s surprising contemplativeness: Time Killing Time. In particular, the most important scene is near the end, when Rodya and Hong Lu discuss his motivation to pursue the Time Reaper:

“I... just wanted to understand. Because, to me, the world was full of things I couldn't understand. In truth, I still understand so little of it. Why do people hang on so desperately to something like time? Something so... ephemeral?” - Hong Lu, Chapter 15: The Final Problem.

It’s normal to assume Hong Lu’s words are solely referring to the miserable monetary system of T Corp., but I don't think that’s all. We know that Hong Lu and Xinchun are well acquainted with the “immortality of the mind” the elders of their family are obsessed with, and what is immortality but infinite time? Thus, what Hong Lu asked there was why people hang on to the erroneous belief that life should not move or change, remaining constant and hence perfect for the rest of eternity. Yet, that isn’t what life truly is, right? It’s not for nothing that Hong Lu’s introductory quote is that “life has its vicissitudes as jade has its flaws,” which conveys his philosophy of detachment perfectly.

“When you’re distraught, simply remember that life goes on even if what you’re doing now doesn’t work out. Then, you’ll be free of worries.” - LCB Hong Lu

However, while the idea of detaching oneself from the whole without renouncing loving it is respectable, the way in which Hong Lu lives it is far from perfect, because detachment is not about carefreely admitting you will just simply gather the remains of your sister in case she is mutilated or readily accepting a horrible death just because you don’t mind dying. Even he himself admits from time to time, as with his jealousy over Heathcliff’s propensity to “ignore what he doesn’t like” (Rooms Past the Door) or Rim’s capacity to fly freely. In fact, one may even say that he hasn’t become detached at all, because doing so implies the complete acceptance of the “jade’s” beauty and flaws; Hong Lu, however…

“A thousand hours… Will a thousand hours have passed in the blink of an eye? [...] Then... I like that. Rip my time away.” - Hong Lu, Chapter 14: The Clock Tower of Fear, TimeKilling Time.

He has become detached from life altogether, and how could he not with the disaster that his family is? That likely was his only way to survive in such an environment, and unlike the rest of the Jia, he doesn’t seem to have that lucky predisposition for resentment and hatred. Even when his siblings tried to kill him the first time, Hong Lu didn’t come to hate them; he fully understood them because that’s the kind of person he is, just like Young-ji. However, since he realized such a thing through his big heart, he’s now fully aware that he will ultimately and cruelly die by their hands thanks to his love. In such a case, what other option does he have beyond merely “dancing”? A joke here, a sarcastic comment there, and a final appreciation for everyone so nothing is taken seriously and causes dissatisfaction, no matter how dim his eye becomes.

So, as of the 5th Walpurgisnacht, Hong Lu’s character can be summarized as follows:

Has a friendly, compassionate, and understanding personality that clashes against the violent and strict nature of his family.

Became detached over his own life because he can’t bring himself to hate and hurt his family.

His carefree attitude and sheltered life lead him to not understand some of the social conventions of… anyone who still has some respect for their own life.

Has a certain sarcastic and teasing streak, likely originating from both his personality and ideology.

There’s 1 aspect remaining that I didn’t mention above because I think it’s better to analyze Hong Lu’s EGOs first, to see what else we can rescue before giving a sort of “conclusion.”

About EGOs

Before any of you ask, no, I will not analyze Land of Illusion here; it’s best reserved for the next section, about Hong Lu Base ID. Instead, the first EGO I’ll deal with is, fittingly, the first one he ever received: Roseate Desire.

Roseate Desire originates from Pink Shoes, an Abnormality that evidently is an Aberration of Lobotomy Corp.’s Red Shoes, with their shared meaning being that of a single-minded and very violent obsession that’s impossible to resist—one of the purest expressions of Lust. But while Red Shoes and its EGO are fundamentally egoistic, not wanting to share the glory and pleasure of their desire’s fulfillment, Pink Shoes and Roseate Desire are of a softer shade, spreading their overwhelming lust to as many people as possible. The difference becomes clearer when you compare Rodya’s and Ishmael’s respective obsessions: the longing to be special vs. the desire to kill the “source of all evil” in retribution for all she has done.

Applying the former logic to Hong Lu, we can conclude first that he has a desire as strong as Ishmael’s hatred for Ahab, which is quite unexpected for someone who has basically given up on life! Thankfully, the Sin resources his version of Roseate Desire costs tell us a couple of things about his “fixation”: 4 Lust and 2 Envy. The dominance of Lust is self-explanatory, so that leaves us with Envy, which I commented on in the previous section: jealousy over those who can ignore and escape their problems—those who are “free.” Yet, since Roseate Desire and Pink Shoes are characterized by a sort of collective hedonism, so is Hong Lu’s wish to escape his family. Surely such a thing will bring joy to his cut-throat siblings.

And speaking about escapism, Hong Lu’s next two EGOs are all about that, beginning with the one whose Abnormality I analyzed in one of my previous posts: Dimension Shredder.

While Wayward Passenger is an Abnormality that is clearly about the trauma inflicted by W Corp.’s method of operation, it has a secondary meaning that Project Moon uses for its EGO too: being trapped in a horrible duty, necessity, or “path” that makes the individual envious of the life and possibilities others hold. This is best seen with Outis’ Dimension Shredder due to the Envy affinity, though Hong Lu’s Pride version isn’t that far off thanks to the Sin costs: 3 Pride and 3 Gluttony. Basically, it means that Hong Lu is “lost” due to external necessity, by things he can’t control (i.e., his family), but instead of resenting it as any other person would do, he takes pride in that, in having to follow a “terrible path,” because that’s the type of person he knows he is—the kind and understanding one that sacrifices himself.

The second EGO about escapism originates from LobCorp and hence from an Abnormality I haven’t analyzed: Soda and Opened Can of WellCheers, respectively. The two come from a Korean urban legend about people being drugged through juice cans and sold to fishing boats as slaves. Needless to say, the parallels with Hong Lu’s Soda are more than obvious: an envy born from a necessity (Gluttony) that grimly (Gloom) pushed him into a role he doesn’t want. Alternatively, and considering the ending of the Abnormality’s story log in LC, it’s the fulfillment of a fantasy born of jealousy, sadness, and necessity, though that doesn’t explain the Envy affinity of the EGO. Either way, nobody can deny that Soda stands for Hong Lu’s “murdered” wish to flee his circumstances.

The next EGO luckily is from another Abnormality I analyzed some time ago: Ambling Pearl and Effervescent Corrosion. However, unlike Rodya, who keeps the Abnormality’s original meaning mostly intact (safekeeping the “pearl”/one’s meaning from the “filthy” outside), Hong Lu gives it a twist: it’s not about protecting his “life treasure,” but something else

“Faust: For instance, let’s say that Hong Lu held a belief he was certain would be an unchanging constant as he lived in the City. Or, it could be a hope for some other psychological sustainment that has supported his life. Hong Lu: …Hmm. Faust: If that support suddenly collapses in a massively shocking event that causes one to let their “ego” go, his mind would crumble, so to speak. Hong Lu: …Well, I could see that happening. [...] Hong Lu: Hm… I thought I knew, but I can’t seem to elaborate on it with words right now.” - Chapter 3: Hell’s Chicken, Hell’s Chicken.

Unlike Rodya’s desire to be special and her notorious inner conflict, which is reflected in how similar her Corrosion is to a broken Ambling Pearl, Hong Lu is much more secretive about his opinions, usually referring to his frivolous comments instead of using the great insight he has, according to Dante. Nonetheless, even if we don’t exactly know the “core belief” he holds close to his heart (though we should have a general idea at this point), we do know that his version of Effervescent Corrosion, beyond Gluttony or the desire to survive, requires Gloom. So whatever Hong Lu is hiding, it’s far from happy, as his Sin weaknesses further show after EGO usage: weak to Lust and Sloth, to love and inaction—to the idea of not protecting himself.

In a similar vein, Hong Lu’s next EGO is entirely about sadness, as it comes from Blubbering Toad, aka depression incarnated. However, Cavernous Wailing isn’t a Gloom EGO but a Sloth one, and whose Sin costs are Gloom, Sloth, and Pride. That’s to say, Hong Lu’s refusal to take action and the resulting self-pity (“A heart shaken by sorrow bursts… like this.”) are fed by his sadness, indolence, and distorted self-perception, an aggrandized mental image of himself as able to carry all his pain without problem.

“It goes like this. Any of our siblings who managed to survive on their own up to the age of thirteen in our household will probably be a-okay even if they were to be tossed out to the middle of the Outskirts! Hehe…” - Hong Lu, Chapter 20, Canto VII.

Finally, the last EGO is the newly added Lasso, which comes from Rose Hunter, and really, its Mirror Dungeon Encounter puts it the best: Rose Hunter is the one who makes sure all stories follow their natural course, their flow, and “he” is no exception; the Hunter is willing to get lost if that’s the story it must obey. Fittingly, Lasso represents the same idea of not resisting one’s “tale” or “myth,” going along with what’s written not out of indolence or apathy, but because it’s necessary, akin to the motif of the “fetters of fate,” for example. In that regard, their underlying archetype is the same as that of the Orphic Ananke, the deification of the necessity that created the universe, which can be best understood through the following aphorism: existence came to be because it exists. Or put it in a simpler manner: you must follow your nature because that’s who you are.

Hong Lu’s Lasso, in the same way as Faust’s, requires first and foremost Gluttony to work, for that’s the entire deal of the Abnormality. Then comes the Lust requirement, which implies this “work” is also done out of either love or a twisted desire, a mania for things to follow their assigned nature or role. The final Sin cost is the variable one, which for Hong Lu is Pride again, his aggrandized sense of self that drives him to fulfill his role without complaining, solely out of love and necessity.

So, with all the EGOs analyzed, we can rescue the following:

Hong Lu, more than anything, wishes to escape the situation he has been put in. He wants to be free behind all those frivolous and/or insensitive commentaries.

However, due to his upbringing, he “murdered” those wishes so to speak, and remains walking the path his family has put him by many reasons, chief among them his love for them and his distorted perception of his own self.

Thus, all that longing and yearning for freedom remains hidden, barely able to see the light of the day except in the rarest of occasions. That’s likely his “pearl,” the thing that he ultimately hides for his own survival.

About His Base ID and EGO

You know, I have always been curious about why people are so adamant about Hong Lu being depressed. No doubt he has depression at some level, but I don’t think it’s as severe as people normally think it is because his Base ID simply lacks any form of Gloom. This is in stark contrast to Sinners such as Yi Sang, Gregor, and especially Ishmael, since she has a Gloom Base EGO as well. But if such is the case, then what does Land of Illusion means, since it requires Gloom to be used?

However, I think it’s important to understand Hong Lu’s Sin spread first, his psychology in this particular possibility:

His third skill, that is, his most inward and deep trait, is Lust. This Sin placement is only shared with LCB Heathcliff, whose devotion to Catherine is quite literally a multiversal constant as per Canto VI; everything he does, he does it for Cathy. Thus, Hong Lu must have a similarly romantic or affectionate nature, and we know that he isn’t the type to stop “loving” due to the cruelty of a person; his reaction towards the attempt against his life says enough. He even tried to understand the Time Ripper at some level during TimeKilling Time.

His second skill is Sloth, an inaction that’s much shallower but no less decisive, so to speak. One can understand it as deriving from his much more encompassing Lust or Love, which is to say that Hong Lu refuses to take action or initiative in his life out of the love and understanding, in a similar manner to how LCB Faust lets her every move be commanded by the Gesellschaft thanks to her need for self-realization.

Finally, his third skill, his most outward and shallow trait, is Pride. This position is only shared with the Base IDs of Faust (again) and Sinclair, although the former is the easiest one to understand: Faust is somewhat haughty without a doubt, but not egocentric or self-absorbed by any metric; she’s just socially naive and with a great deal of knowledge that tends to ostracize her by her own volition. Pride is, after all, the de facto Sin of distorted self-perception, of thinking you are more capable than you really are.

Again, all of this tells us what we already know: the kindness of Hong Lu, his indolence born out of said kindness, and the weight he alone bears on his shoulders. We can’t even say that he has a low self-esteem unless we include in that definition a “imposing limits on who you are,” which, yes, sounds right, but it leans too much in the territory of semantics for my taste. Furthermore, Hong Lu’s strange relationship with Gloom and sadness can also be contrasted with the Sinners I mentioned before, those with Gloom and whose Cantos are available:

Yi Sang was the living stereotype of the depressed person: cold, distant, unfeeling, dead inside, etc. Whatever you name, Yi Sang likely had it.

Ishamel’s emptiness and self-destructivity were well-hidden until her Canto, during which all hell was let loose.

And Gregor is possibly one of the most realistic approaches of all, as we can see with the flashbacks of his past during Canto I. Even so, he… well, remains somewhat functional (and I’m really stretching the definition there xD)

And don’t get confused. In this case, Gloom isn’t equal to feeling sad or being traumatized by any means; every Sinner has their own share of problems, and not all have Gloom. Sinclair had his family and town massacred thanks to Kromer's obsession with him, for example, and while I don’t doubt he feels a deep sadness and regret about it, he doesn’t have Gloom in his Base ID. The same applies to Rodya, her low self-worth, and her guilt about the fate of her neighbors, lacking any sort of Gloom as well. The most extreme and recent case of this is boss Sancho, who doesn’t have any Gloom skill at all, despite her character and story being more than fitting.

Therefore, Gloom, in the straightest sense and avoiding exceptions or little quips, refers to a deep-seated hopelessness, a melancholy that devours all dreams and hopes, causing one to become completely lost in life. In such a case then, it’s not that Hong Lu isn’t sad or, damn, depressed, but that he knows how to manage such emotions so they don’t overwhelm him as they do with Gregor, Yi Sang, or Ishmael. The same likely happens with his wish to escape and his jealousy, for he seemingly knows that no life is truly a “flawless jade.”

“In a way, we’re all ‘deprived’... and that can change a lot of things. Maybe there are things that we can understand only when we’re left with nothing.” - Hong Lu, Chapter 1: Wuthering Heights, Canto VI.

This self-control naturally falls in line with his inclination for Pride and Lust, creating a sort of “transpersonal” point of view that allows him to curb his emotions in order to understand others. It’s quite Buddhist or Taoist, no? This kind of detachment over life I explained before, I mean. In a way, it strengthens the theory of Jia family elders treating Hong Lu as a golden child, and while he doesn’t seem to really like the idea, he resigned himself to it.

“I can't do much about what I was born with~ To them... I was a gem of a child.” - Hong Lu, Liu Association South Section 5 Uptie Story.

He renounced all the transient things in his life, all of his wishes and sadness, in order to carry out his family’s expectations: the preferred family head candidate. And what is another form to call transient things? Illusions.

Land of Illusion is the culmination of Hong Lu’s hidden sadness, his yearning to escape that will forever remain out of his reach—or at least he thinks so.

“With this there is often, to a smaller or greater extent, a savior complex, or a Messiah complex, with the secret thought that one day one will be able to save the world; the last word in philosophy, or religion, or politics, or art, or something else, will be found.” - Marie-Louise von Franz, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus.

Hong Lu doesn’t believe himself to be a savior, naturally. But I cannot deny that it would be very much in character for him to imagine or fantasize about a world where he doesn’t have to fulfill his family expectations, where they can all be happy. That would explain the Lust cost of Land of Illusions, as well as the weaknesses to Envy and Wrath, which are a stand-in for the rejection of his innermost wish.

But alas, at the end, life has its flaws, and there’s no way Hong Lu will raise a fist against his family. Even if his survival depends on it, Hong Lu won’t defend himself because that would mean choosing and thus losing, and there’s nothing more terrifying to the eternal child than losing things. Death is a much more merciful and tempting possibility than acting and suffering.

“The puer aeternus very often has this mature, detached attitude toward life, which is normal for old people but which he acquires prematurely—the idea that life is not everything, that the other side is valid too, that life is only part of the whole existence. [...] So before he has gone down to earth, he already has the offer of death.” - The Problem of the Puer Aeternus.

In this regard, it doesn’t matter much Dante’s rewind or the actual existence of an afterlife. It’s the idea of death as a solution for a hard life, instead of confronting the problem itself, of standing up and withstand the uncertainty and pain of life.

AAt the end of his Canto, Hong Lu will have to stand up for himself and to carry on the pain. That's how a "child" becomes an "adult," or better said, an actual family head.

Post-Commentary

... Yeah.

To be honest, I don't know where the inspiration behind came for this. It just fell on me one day, like Faust's theory. But where I'm confident in that one, I'm completely lost in this post, especially because while the conclusion seems right (standing up to the abuse and expectations coming from one's family), the reasoning is somewhat flimsy? I don't know. I have the feeling that I'm retreating Canto VII's (and even Canto III's) story and themes somehow, though the similarities may be the reason of why Xinchun was introduced, maybe. That would make Don's confusion funnier xD

The final mentions of the puer aeternus (similar to the Peter Pan syndrome, but not quite) are due to how Hong Lu's character screamed "puer" to me, surpassing every other one. The fact his summary highlighted that he is a "bachelor" brought to mind this little quote of Marie-Louise's books:

“The two typical disturbances of a man wh ohas an outstanding mother complex are, as Jung points out, homosexuality and Don Juanism.”

If a man gets around too frequently, he'll obviously not get married. If he's gay, then even less reason to do so or look at women. In this case, the idea is not about the actual sexual orientation of Hong Lu (or the accuracy of the book's assessment), and more about highlighting his refusal to commit.

Also, as a funny note, The Problem of the Puer Aeternus has a fragment that's really similar to, from what I've gathered, the warnings the monks gave to the Stone at the beginning. Since the book also deals with the case of Saint-Exupéry and The Little Prince, there may also be something interesting regarding Demian (Limbus', not Hesse's).

Anyway, and repeating myself, if you have any other opinion or thought you want to share, feel free to do so! Similarly, if you notice any orthographical or grammatical error, let me know. It's difficult to see them, even when using several online tools...

#limbus company #hong lu #canto 7 spoilers #canto vii spoilers #canto viii speculations #canto 8 speculations #limbus company theory

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