#i was rooting for him tbh

[irritable-bowel-showdown]

Sakaeguchi lost,,, can we get an f in the chat please,,, 😔 congrats to the Isaac fans tho

Sakaeguchi warriors, you fought long and hard for your boy and that’s what matters o7

It’s been an honor watching you do your thing, and I hope you’ll consider sticking around <3

[choccy-milky]

ty to @icedmatchawoatmilk13 for sending this to me! i may have gone a bit overboard but this was so much fun to fill out/think about BAHAHA💖 ill still never get over how perfect the song sarah smiles is for them...the lyrics AND the fact that its an alliteration...im gonna do an animatic about seb and clora to that song one day i swear 😩 ((blank template by oakwolves!))

[missm0rgue]

Underrated look

[saltpepperbeard]

Hugo’s still at it 😭😭🤡🤡💜💜

[toolaterer]

[adamnablelittledevil]

Not justifying Armand, but you don't get through that amount of physical, sexual, emotional abuse, brainwashing, isolation etc to the point of amnesia and dissociation since you're a human child until you're a centuries old vampire (and vampirism amplifies their traumas and emotions) without accidentally reprogramming your brain in a really messed-up way. Specially when you're stuck in a teenage brain forever. This is not someone that lived a safe and privileged life, not even a remotely decent one, and decided to be evil. In many ways Armand forgot or didn't even get to learn what is meant to be human and have a healthy lifestyle and relationships with people. Obviously, it would take him a long time to catch up with his humanity and even develop a sense of identity (one of his many issues too).

[stardust-falling]

Having more thoughts about Shen Jiu because of course I am.

I don’t think he has the capacity for empathy or genuine selflessness.

He spent the entirety of his formative years deep in survival mode, and because of that, he evaluates people solely based off of how they might threaten or ensure his safety and/or comfort. As far as individual people themselves with their own perspectives… honestly I don’t think he even thinks of that.

Maybe a controversial opinion, but I don’t think even YQY is exempt.

Shen Jiu doesn’t have a moral code. When every day is spent on surviving, a moral code is a luxury.

And really, he just never got out of that mode. See, the thing is, once you’ve had enough adverse experiences it only takes a little bit to trigger you back into that mindset. Shen Jiu was used to being scolded and then beaten or abused, so for him, even a simple chiding is a precursor to abuse— even if he DOES recognize that nothing more will happen, his body and mental patterns will still go into that preparation time.

So of course he never left survival mode, because even if nothing is actively happening, your mind will keep reinforcing those patterns.

For someone with a normal upbringing, as far as I can tell, empathy is something you learn and develop from those around you. Many seem to think it’s something innate and natural and if you don’t have it then there’s something wrong with you from birth. I think Shen Jiu falls into exactly this category of thought— and so he doesn’t even consider that he could try to learn and develop it as a skill he can perform, even if it doesn’t come naturally.

Of course, would he even try? He hasn’t been given any incentive. Any time he has tried to do something good, he ends up getting hurt (saving Yue Qi leading to being taken by QJL) or misinterpreted and admonished (the well ghost incident, keep in mind my earlier point about scoldings perpetuating the same patterns).

So he stays in that same vicious cycle, perpetually in survival mode and unable to escape, even in a relatively secure position (see: his paranoia).

Now, this is all relevant to the discussions of SJ’s feminism, misogyny, and/or lack thereof. I feel like a lot of discussions aren’t really getting the full picture.

SJ sees people, no matter who they are, as solely how they can affect him. Just because this isn’t exclusive to women, or because if comes from a reasonable place, does that really mean it doesn’t play into misogyny?

Let’s take another angle.

I think his abuse of LBH and other talented disciples also is rooted, deep down, in this same issue. He’s not just hurting LBH only to hurt him, his aim is specifically to stunt his cultivation. There’s jealousy at play there of course, but there’s a bit more layers to it too— SJ doesn’t think he’s capable of goodness. So reasonably, he’ll be a bad teacher. He already knows what happens when someone becomes more powerful than their oppressor. LBH may be a child now, but a part of SJ whether he acknowledges it or not sees him as a future threat that needs to be treated as such.

It’s rooted in fear— because everything is with SJ.

So does that mean it’s not actually abuse?

No. The behaviors he shows are still abusive, the reasoning just gives a lens for understanding.

Now, with his views on women— I mentioned in the tags of my original post that I don’t think he views women as people. This is based in that earlier idea of how he interprets others based off their risk and benefit to him. For women specifically, though, there’s another layer.

Shen Jiu grew up in a society where women are inherently lesser— and he grew up in an extreme version of this. He saw women being treated as property firsthand(both as slaves, as well as QJL’s views on his sister). Your worldview is shaped by the world that you view during those early years. Whether he agreed or not, SJ would still take on the patterns of his environment. This, though, is just the same as general societal misogyny and ingrained bias. I don’t think he’s any different than anyone else in this way.

But where SJ’s particular flavor comes in is that to him, women are a source of comfort. For various reasons— positive past experiences, less threatening (or at least don’t carry the dangers men do). He craves comfort— needs it really, because he doesn’t get it and his cortisol levels are always so high they’re poisoning his body. Women are the best source of that comfort for him.

It’s not that he likes them— at least, not any more than someone would like drinking water, or a coat in the winter. They’re fulfilling a survival need for him.

That is what the objectification is where SJ is concerned.

So… is it misogyny?

I’d say yes, in a way it still is. It’s not violent, and it doesn’t come from some inherent sense of “superiority as a man” but at the core of it all, he’s still not viewing women as people, and he has no interest in changing the status quo, because it benefits him to be able to go purchase comfort at a pleasure house, even if it’s not what people usually do there. The picture is bigger than just misogyny, but the traits taken as themselves are misogynistic nonetheless.

I could go into his specific relationships with women and how that informs his character, but this post is already long enough. We know that he mentally divides people by sex, and that distinction has a lot of weight in his judgment of them. Even if it comes from a place of trauma, even if it comes from a general worldview that applies to everyone, he still views women as a commodity— so on some level, and from an outside perspective, he is misogynistic.

In the end, though, it still all comes from him being stuck in survival mode. His lack of empathy, his viewing others as risks and benefits— these things themselves aren’t moral failings— it’s just a consequence of his environment. He’s a bad person because he won’t confront this, develop a moral code, and act on it, not because he doesn’t experience empathy.

But in his circumstance, there’s not really a chance for him to choose to be good. Because he’s still trying to survive, and goodness is a luxury he doesn’t realize he can afford now.

He’s scum, but pitiful, you know?

[ultimateanthropoll]

Honestly kind of poetic that I started this poll to include an iconic character from my childhood that no one outside latin America recognized and he ended up losing first round, but now eastern Europe is pulling through for an iconic character from their childhood no one outside eastern Europe recognizes.

[digitalxana]

dark link wip

[pathetic-gamer]

🎉 HAPPY BIRTHDAY FELIX 🎉

WOW HES A WHOLE 862 YEARS OLD

given that creative block has been eating me alive for like six months, I did not draw a new fresh birthday drawing, so here is a Felix Appreciation Post(tm) with old drawings including last year's b-day offering lol

[thepollyjustice]

If you get sick, who do you contact to take care of you? What is the usual procedure if you take care of yourself. Also take the day off at least.~ Guardian anon

"I mean... I usually take care of myself. Mr. Gavin used to insist on helping me and, weirdly, now Prosecutor Gavin has started to do the same thing."

(Heh.. Must be a family thing.)

[chatdae]

love how the older skaters in the senior division give Yurio encouragement and that each time it pisses Yurio off. JJ is intentionally condescending so that makes sense, but with Viktor and Yuuri they're not even being condescending. Yurio's just dialed in on being a hater... and i love that for him <3

[blasphemecel]

I cannot believe there's people that unironically want an Isagi hat trick on twitter 😭😭😭😭

[soup-or-who-lock]

My dream for season 3 of The Way Home is simply that Sam goes away forever (because he is boring to me and I am sick of him) and Del gets TWO horses instead of one

[funnyscienceman]

so far it feels like all of the praise, or at least hype, for arcane is about playing around with the facts of the champions and not the actual meaning to their stories

im pretty sure this applies to other champs too but like theone foremost in my mind rn is everything to do with Orianna. people are going like oh, viktor will make her a machine! or singed won't be able to bring her back. Orianna's just dead or asleep in stasis and this is not at all the clockwork girl who tried to befriend an amusement park automaton because she was so lonely

it feels like this with warwick, with viktor, jayce even ekko and kinda jinx — season 2 has been nothing but. playground toys. make-believe in the sandbox. action figures are being mashed together but nothing of what made these characters Themselves is actually. Here.

idk it's 2 in the morning. this endless stream of praise is just bewildering. how haven't anyone else's brains been turned to mush by the rapidfire bullshit going on in each episode? shit just happens and there's no emotional weight to any of it. there's no time. off to mark the next thing on the checklist

ugh

[heartvisor]