#i wish to not be perceived at all

[alsklingwille]

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[daily-sifloop]

Day 44: Little Goody Two Shoes (game by AstralShift) AU

Spoilers for Ending No. 1 - Moira under cut

[vforvielka]

claudia, resplendent

[emahriel]

as my good friend and i like to remind each other:

don't yuck people's yum. if you do so, at least keep it in the dms. no point in making people feel absolutely miserable for liking a certain thing, for having an oc you don't like - whatever it is. people constantly hating just for the sake of hating truly sour the fandom experience on social medias. there's a problem if the only way you feel better is by making others feel like crap.

and you, who shares the things you love online, who creates original characters and talks about their ships - know that you will never be able to please everyone and that's okay. don't let it stop you from sharing what you love, if it brings you happiness then keep doing it. you don't owe anyone anything, if what you like somehow upsets people, they can very easily just block you and move on. it's really that simple!

[pierrotgnome]

hi :o)

[bittersweetresilience]

so do you think he succeeded?

[khattikeri]

maybe a controversial opinion but while i really love jiang cheng as a character he is deeply self-centered as a person. and seeing people fight tooth and nail claiming he isn't, or is just misunderstood, or that he has genuine valid reasons to be selfish when plenty of other characters make the difficult choice to forego status and opportunities for what they believe is genuinely right to do (read: wei wuxian, wen ning, wen qing, lan wangji, jiang yanli, mianmian, etc.)

it's just odd to me. especially if they're talking about the novels.

mxtx didn't give jiang cheng the name "sandu shengshou" as a quirky coincidence. there's a REASON she named him & his sword after the 3 poisons of Buddhism (specifically ignorance, greed, and hatred). it's crucial to the story that jiang cheng is NOT selfless and that wei wuxian IS.

it's important to accept that wei wuxian is, by their society's standards, not morally gray; he represents several Buddhist ideals in direct contrast of jiang cheng and multiple people attest to wei wuxian's strong moral character, which is a lot of why jiang cheng even feels bitter about him to begin with.

it's crucial, because by the end of the novel jiang cheng realizes the extent of this and begins to let go!

the twin prides thing wasn't jiang cheng wanting them to 100% mirror the twin jades. he does care about wei wuxian, but he wanted wei wuxian to stay his right hand man, in part the way wei changze was for jiang fengmian.

and if there's one thing you can notice about wei changze in the novels, it's that literally nobody talks about him. he is only ever mentioned when his cool mysterious mountain sect wife cangse-sanren is mentioned, or (even more rarely) when they discuss him as a servant to jiang fengmian. regardless of jiang fengmian's own feelings, wei changze was considered lesser to him and didn't seem to outdo him, since nobody's out there years later still waxing poetry about wei changze's skills.

it may not be the only thing jiang cheng wants out of a twin pride dynamic, but it is a big part of it. regardless of his parents' intentions in taking wei wuxian in and treating him certain ways, this twin pride right-hand man thing is what jiang cheng has felt owed since childhood. he gave up his dogs for wei wuxian, people gossip about his sect heir position with wei wuxian there... jiang cheng wants the reciprocation of what he views as personal sacrifices.

he is ignorant to the depth of what wei wuxian must've suffered for over 6 years as a malnourished orphan child on the streets. he hates how wei wuxian's intelligence, witty charm, and cultivation abilities are naturally stronger than his own. he does care about wei wuxian a lot and want them to be together as sort of-brothers, sort of-friends, sort of-young master and sect servant...

...but if it's between that unclear (yet still caring) relationship and being able to save himself just a little bit more, jiang cheng nearly always manages to clam up in the face of danger and choose the latter, which ultimately benefits himself most. maybe it's a stretch to call that sort of thing greed, but it certainly isn't selfless.

there are of course plenty of justifications for this. it's his duty as sect heir. his home and sect was severely damaged by the wen attack and subsequent war; he had to protect himself, etc.

but doesn't that prove the point?

wei wuxian may be charming, but in terms of pure social standing, he is lower and far more susceptible to being punished or placed in harm's way by people who have more power and money. to protect wei wuxian, yunmeng jiang's long-term head disciple and semi-family member, even in the face of backlash and public scrutiny would've been the selfless thing to do. this is what wei wuxian does for the wen remnants in the burial mounds.

jiang cheng does not choose this. it's not even an unreasonable choice for him to make! nobody else in the great clans is doing such a thing, stepping out of line to take on a burden that could weaken them in the long-run. wei wuxian himself doesn't hate jiang cheng for it; he lets go of these things and focuses on what good he can do in the present.

jiang cheng thinks further into the future - what would happen to him if he continued vouching for wei wuxian and taking his side? what about jiang cheng's face, his sect's face? would wei wuxian even care to reciprocate somehow? everyone expects him to cut off wei wuxian for being dangerous, for threatening his position, for...

do you see what i mean? to call jiang cheng selfless for falling in line with exactly what people expected him to do after the war is not only wrong, it's foolish.

"but they faked their falling-out!" okay. why fake it to begin with, except to protect jiang cheng and the jiang sect's own face? is that selfless? who does it ultimately serve to protect? wei wuxian canonically internalizes the idea that he stains all that he touches, including lan wangji, and agrees to the fake fight because he doesn't want to cause the jiang sect harm. regardless, it eventually slides into a true falling-out, and in the end jiang cheng is more or less unscathed reputation-wise while wei wuxian falls.

that isn't selfless. it's many things! it's respecting his clan and his ancestors, it's making a good plan for the future of his sect and cultivation... but it isn't a truly selfless in the interest of what's right rather than in the interest of duty and what's good for him and his family lineage.

that brings me to my next point: even though wei wuxian hid the truth of the golden core transfer, jiang cheng spent nearly 20 years believing that the golden core "renewal" he was given was a birthright gift of wei wuxian's from baoshan-sanren, an immortal sect teacher of wei wuxian's mother's and a martial elder to wei wuxian.

of course we all know that's a big fat lie, but jiang cheng believed that wei wuxian gave up a critical emergency use gift to him for decades! he was lied to, yes, but jiang cheng immediately agreed without even needing to be convinced. the light in his dead eyes came back with hope the moment wei wuxian even said baoshan-sanren's name. he accepted wei wuxian's offer to give that up to him and take it via identity theft without missing a beat.

with how mysterious and revered baoshan-sanren is, that's obviously not a light sacrifice to just give up to anyone, no matter how close they might be to you. pretending to be wei wuxian to take the gift could even be considered dangerous. what if she found out and got offended? could wei wuxian be hurt by that?

jiang cheng doesn't even hesitate. wei wuxian is the one who mentions that if jiang cheng doesn't pretend to be him, the immortal master could get angry and they'd both be goners. and funnily enough, the day they do go to "the mountain", jiang cheng is the one worried and suspiciously wondering if wei wuxian was lying to him or had misremembered.

of course they've both been traumatized like hell prior to this point. but still: it speaks to how broken he was at the moment as well as to his character overall.

i digress: jiang cheng "gets his golden core back" via what he believed was a gift that should've been wei wuxian's to use in serious emergencies. rather than use it for himself, wei wuxian risked his own safety and gave it to jiang cheng... and jiang cheng still ends up embittered and angry, believing that wei wuxian is arrogant and selfish.

if he truly views them as 100% brothers and equals with no caveats, why would he think that way? it's not like he needs to grovel before wei wuxian for doing that, or to reciprocate... but this is what i mean when i say jiang cheng feels he is owed things by wei wuxian. wei wuxian's actions hold a very different weight in jiang cheng's mind, and jiang cheng himself doesn't ever act the same way, except once.

is it wrong for him to feel like he is owed something? it depends. many asian cultures, including my own, feel that a person owes their family in ways that may not make sense to westerners. for example, it's considered normal for a child to owe their parents for giving birth to them, or to other caretakers for feeding, clothing, sheltering, educating them, etc.

however, something like verbally saying "thank you" or "i'm sorry" to family is considered crazy- why would you owe that? you're supposed to inconvenience your family; saying thank you or sorry is the sort of thing you say to a stranger or acquaintance. i get half-seriously lectured by my elders on this a lot even now, even though they know such phrases are just considered good manners in the US.

this muddies up the idea of wei wuxian being jiang cheng's family vs his family's charge or servant even more. jiang cheng wants wei wuxian to be close... but ultimately doesn't really choose to use what power he DOES have to protect wei wuxian. he considers himself still owed something that in his mind wei wuxian flagrantly never repays.

this isn't even getting into how despite spending a majority of his time with the yiling patriarch he never once noticed that wei wuxian stopped using any spiritual power-based cultivation. even lan wangji, who met them far more rarely, realized that something was wrong and that wei wuxian had taken some sort of spiritual damage, hence the "come with me to gusu".

of course manpain is fun and i'm not immune to the juicy idea of them reconciling and talking things out... but jiang cheng is deeply mired in his own desire to be "above" wei wuxian in multiple ways, and doesn't realize the extent of wei wuxian's actions, the intentions behind them, and the consequences wei wuxian knowingly faced for them.

to not recognize this about jiang cheng, especially in the novels, is really revisionist if you ask me. i reiterate that i really do like him a lot. he's flawed, angry, traumatized and has poor coping mechanisms, an overall fascinating character... but he is not selfless nor ideal, and i seriously draw the line at people saying he is.

wen ning shoves this all into his face at lotus pier to disastrous results. it is the reason why jiang cheng's a total mess at guanyin temple, and the reason jiang cheng ultimately doesn't tell wei wuxian about the fact that he ran towards the wens on purpose.

for that one last act of his to have really been selfless, he needs to not seek anything in return. he did it purely because it was right to do to protect someone else. if that means wei wuxian never finds out about it, so be it.

that moment that ended up causing jiang cheng irreversible harm is not a debt that wei wuxian owes him. it hurts, but no matter how bitter it is, that realization is so important to him changing in the future.

[scentofpines]

have you ever considered...that identifying out of woman/girlhood because you don't relate to the societal implications, expectations, etc... contributes to making womanhood (feel) even more restrictive? maybe you feel better when thinking of yourself as anything but a girl/woman because you do not feel like a woman (what does that even mean?) but in my opinion you just added another brick into the prisonwall that is gender.

[tmmyhug]

the problem with social media fics is that they are spectacular when done right. the problem with social media fics is that most of them are bad

[somnimagus]

Ohh if MoM would let me this is still The Ideal Team I would assemble based on who's the funniest to watch run

[the-yearning-astronaut]

I wish I could be agender the way Murderbot is agender. Right down to the lack of biological sexual characteristics. So agender that the term agender comes with too much associated gender to accurately apply. You know what I mean?

[coffentyme]

If I can go from heavily religious long haired conservatively dressed mormon looking girl to hot blue collar grungy sweaty faggot, you can too!

[nonranghaes]

heads up: parental abuse mentioned vaguely. hurt/comfort ahead.

vernon knows what it means when you text this late asking to come over.

despite the insistence that you could move in with him until you got on your feet, you never really took it. he always said that he's your boyfriend and your best friend: this was part of the deal. caring for each other. if it were him, you'd open your door immediately and let him stay as long as he needed to get things sorted out. even after dating for a year, you don't take him up on the offer. instead, he just gets the occasional text asking if it's okay that you come over. that you need to get out. he always says yes, even if that means ditching his friends to go back to his apartment (something he never tells you: he doesn't want you to feel guilty when your safety always comes first). instead, he busies himself with doing things a boyfriend should. he gets the hoodie the two of you share (bought big enough for both of you to wear it comfortably) out of his closet, and sprays his cologne onto it. he gets the plush bear you bought him (one of a set: his was green, while yours was blue) out, too--he needed to shower tonight, and the bear was almost as good a cuddler as he was.

and he brings himself to wait by the front door. you already know the code to the apartment. he texts seungkwan that you're spending the night, and seungkwan asks if he needs to bring anything--dinner or otherwise--to cheer you up. it makes him thankful his roommate understands. truly, sometimes vernon thinks seungkwan loves you almost as much as he does.

the door chimes when you open it, and he can see the fact your cheeks are wet from the moment he sees you. wordlessly, he opens his arms to you, and you don't rush into them. you close the door, you slip out of your shoes and set them aside, and then you step up. you meet his gaze for a moment, and then you sink into him, arms wrapping around him tight.

"why is it always my fault?" you sigh out. it's not the first time vernon's heard that. the next thing you say is another repeat of something you've said too many times before, "i just wish i could be enough for her."

he holds you tight. "it's not your fault," he says. he'll always say it, as many times as you need it. "she's the one who's never happy. you didn't do anything, baby." (he hopes the term of endearment helps.)

"i just... i told her i'd go back and get whatever she wanted, and then she got all pissed off and snappy and said she'd do it herself." you bury your face into his neck. "i just said i was tired... i didn't mean i wouldn't go, i just--"

hot tears hit his neck, and he just holds you tighter. "hey, hey--you didn't do anything. how much have you done today?"

you start listing them off. the meals you've cooked, the chores you've done, the places you've gone...

"anyone would be tired at this point," he tells you. he draws back from you, taking your hands in his as he takes a few steps back, "c'mon. let's go cuddle, baby."

fuck the shower. he'll take one in the morning. you need him more now, and he's happy to be there for you to fall asleep on halfway through a movie on his laptop. whatever it takes to remind you you're loved, he'll do. that's what a boyfriend does, he thinks. and then he scratches that out:

that's what someone who cares does, regardless of title.

[zhucharik]

imagine growing up in the order of st dumas and as a kid youre told that if you dont brush your teeth azrael is going to kill you and then azrael in question is some geeky loser

[fivewholeminutes]

A Series of Small Offerings

PART ONE -6- Jericho

My hands are not worthy

HELLO TO MY FAVOURITESTEST LINE FROM THAT SONG EVER

Not pictured: me singing this line over and over again while filling the bg and jumper with markers

(Am I cheating and using markers now? I sure am, I've had enough of pencils on this paper.)

Notable mention: the thick golden and black markers I've used in these last two pieces are ~grave inscription fixing markers~ bc I'm this edgy (kidding, they're just really good markers).

Notable mention 2: for someone who loves drawing eyes and absolutely hates drawing hands the hand-eye ratio so far is 7-0 (6-0 if we're not counting the skeleton hand and the eyes here that are closed). I have left my comfort zone and never looked back (and for that, THANK YOU AGAIN, LEVYNN!!!)

[mustard-minneola]

assuming that soda goes flat after over three hundred years i like to think that hes never had fresh soda and is baffled by every aspect of it because hes so used to it being devoid of everything that made it soda in the first place