#issue 800

[egophiliac]

looking at next month's schedule and between the end of 7-12 and the wishing lantern event it's like

February is officially RIDDLE MONTH, brace yourselves to be absolutely blasted into ashes everybody

[ghost-kings-court-jester]

Something I think people are sleeping on Hua Cheng and his shapeshifting. I’m re reading and it’s really clear to me that Hua Cheng (who yes has self esteem issues) also does his disguises for fun. Like one of the things we first hear about him in this:

“The name Hua Cheng was very obviously fake, and his appearance was most likely fake too. In the rumors, he was sometimes a twisted boy given to capricious mood changes, sometimes a gentle and mannered handsome young man, sometimes a gorgeous seductress with a venomous heart, anything goes!”

Then later he appears in one of these forms. Like if you read the scenes of Xie Lian checking his disguise he is both giggling and twirling his hair at how smart his Gege is and how good his disguise is. He enjoys looking like a young pretty boy master with boyish charm. He literally changes shape just to play with his clothes. He switches forms I think at least 10 times in the novels possibly more (I’m rereading so I can’t actually remember) but like he has fun with it.

Like yes he does have self esteem issues creating the disguises would definitely be a part of that, but far too often I’ve seen the idea floated around that that’s the only reason he changes forms. Or if he does change forms it’s for self consciousness and for strategic purposes and Xie Lian helps him get over that. Like it seems to me a lot of people think when Hualian get married he never wears one when he’s only around Xie Lian and I just don’t think that’s the case.

Like yeah he does mostly take his true form with Xie Lian but I think that’s mostly because they are getting to know each other and he’s probably tired of masks being between them.

Genuinely he never stops changing forms completely once the reveal of his true form has happened.

Even when he’s forced to be shaped like a child he chooses a full fancy baby outfit and styled hair. He plays with his outfits and hair styles frequently and you’re trying to tell me that man is going to live out most of his married life in just one body type. You think he’s going to completely ignore woman’s clothing because I don’t. A female form is mentioned and I know there’s no way he doesn’t have a thousand outfits for her as well.

And while yes I do love the gender fuckery of it for my own headcannons I can also see him putting on his disguises like drag or to put on a persona to act. I think he just likes playing around and switching shapes because like everything Hua Cheng does he doesn’t go in for half measures. He doesn’t seem like some effort into learning how to shapeshift so perfectly it confuses even XL just because he’s self conscious of his own looks. Like that doesn’t really fit his personality.

Basically what I’m trying to say is my guy is fashionista playing dress up with himself as his own Barbie doll. Let him have fun! Stop making him using his disguises as an obstacle he has to overcome. Not everything has to be that serious.

[goldfishinaplasticbag]

jax irl rambles of angel + angel scary hotline voice + probably rich + presumed older than dick = another bruce............

[bimboybrain]

Good bimbos gain weight

Good bimbos gain weight and get round jiggly thighs that master can grab

Good bimbos gain weight, they get soft and squishy so they can take more spanking

Good bimbos gain weight so their ass gets bigger

Good bimbos gain weight so their body is primed for use

Good bimbos gain weight so they look pretty

Good bimbos are fat 🌸

[waitineedaname]

MXTX protagonists ranked by how bad their mommy/daddy issues are

Luo Binghe: absolutely nuclear level of mommy/daddy issues. this is the consequence of giving your protagonist two deadbeat dads and two dead moms, and then letting him project all those issues onto his overly indulgent teacher

Wei Wuxian: he could've had perfectly normal orphan levels of parent trauma, but what's that?? IT'S THE JIANG PARENTS WITH A STEEL CHAIR!!! the combo of fear and respect he had for Yu Ziyuan is already bad enough, but then there's also the feeling of responsibility for the Jiang siblings that they put on him, which then leads to, you know, all the Yunmeng sibling problems

Lan Wangji: this dude is so haunted by his father potentially kidnapping his mother and then locking her up and putting himself in seclusion, and this significantly shapes his relationship with Wei Wuxian. plus he took his mother's death really, really badly :(

Shen Qingqiu: he like never mentions his parents?? which is weird, but at least he's not haunted by it. however, he gets the special privilege of being the person exacerbating someone else's mommy/daddy issues. he brought this on himself. he doesn't get to walk out of a confession involving a metaphor where he'd be pregnant with his partner and act like that's normal

Xie Lian: he definitely has trauma surrounding his parents for sure, but they don't seem to have manifested as specifically mommy/daddy issues? it's just, you know. normal grief. honestly, there's so much shit going on with his trauma and baggage that he can't be defined by this one thing

Hua Cheng: does not seem to care about his parents?? at all???? he's presumably an orphan and they're probably the origin of his self worth issues, but like. in the grand scheme of things, they do not seem to be that big of a concern for him. who needs mommy issues when you have devotion to dianxia i guess

[cryptocism]

Here’s my thing about the twist at the end of IWTV season 2 (spoilers obvi)

The magic system that IWTV has is for flavour. It’s spice, it’s zest, it’s a lil bit of seasoning that gives the storytelling a fun supernatural kick. 

We are not given exact metrics or data for how exactly the Vampire Powers function, just examples of some that can manifest (pyrokinesis/telekinesis/telepathy/flight/mind control/etc) and that Vampire Powers get stronger as they get older. eg. Armand can walk in the sun – but is he immune or just resistant? How old does a vampire have to be before they can take a midday stroll minus immolation? Is there a time limit? An intensity where they could still be injured? Does the effect lessen if they have some shade like an umbrella or a large hat–

IRRELEVANT!!! The Vampire Powers are for SPICE and these kinds of nerdy-ass questions about scope and scale in this magic system does nothing for the characters or the story. You do not need to know the exact range or power of Louis’ Fire Gift in order to cheer and clap when he burns down the theatre. Lestat’s Cloud Gift doesn’t need a follow-up explanation on how high/fast he can fly in order to be devastating when he uses it to do a domestic violence. This isn’t Fullmetal Alchemist, this isn’t Mistborn. This magic system is SPICE, and getting into specifics about the powers and how they work distracts from the wonderful twisty soap opera of the gay vampires doing war crimes to each other.

So my thing about the twist is not that Armand was willing to let Louis die, and it’s not the reveal that Lestat was actually the one who saved Louis.

My thing about the twist is that it relies on a magic system that wasn’t built to support that kind of major end-of-season plot point. And the consequences that the resulting ambiguity has on Claudia, the greatest tragic hero of all time.

So the Mind Gift. 

Armand has that shit on lock. He’s shown using it extremely competently even before the San Francisco memory-alteration reveal. He’s the only member of the coven who clocks Louis’ recognition at Lestat’s name, he notices the “presence” in Louis’ mind when Louis hallucinates Dreamstat, he knows when Louis is lying to him about Claudia’s involvement in Lestat’s murder, when he tells Louis and Claudia to close their minds before his conversation with Madeline he says “I’ll know it if you haven’t.”. He’s able to knock out the entire coven in one scene, although it’s unclear whether that’s the Mind Gift or a combination of telekinesis and the time stopping(?) thing. Plus of course mind-wiping memory-alteration courtesy of the San Francisco saw trap.

Armand is the oldest vampire in the show so far, we know vampires get more powerful with age, and his previously shown competency with the Mind Gift means that when he says he compelled an audience full of people into banishing Louis, it’s a believable addition to his powerset. 

And, consequently, when he says “it took all my strength” we can guess that he’s lying his ass off. Daniel points out Armand saved Louis and not Claudia because he was trying to reveal the reasoning that everybody except Louis already knows. To quote Assad Zaman: Armand doesn’t give a fuck about Claudia.

Lestat on the other hand.

His one and only use of the Mind Gift (besides the generalized telepathy all the vampires share) is when he mindfucks 30ish soldiers out of his townhouse in the 1900s. His ears bleed about it – and we can pretty confidently interpret orifice-bleeding as a kind of catch-all for mind-powers being difficult. And then we don’t mention it again for a season and a half because the magic system is for spice and Louis is more concerned with other shit.

Until Daniel brings it up in his Big Reveal, and this piece of evidence allows for the truth to come out and Armand to be exposed as an opportunistic liar. Scene is played out brilliantly, Louis puts a crater in his wall via his ex-husband, good stuff.

HOWEVER

This twist has the consequence of shifting the focus of the story. The central question has changed slightly. Instead of the reveal being who killed Claudia, the narrative focus is now on who saved Louis.

And despite my love of Daniel’s reveal scene, despite my love of the Louis/Lestat reunion scene, “who saved Louis” ends up a weaker thematic question.

Claudia is the whole fucking point. Claudia and the way her fathers failed her. Claudia and the tragedy of her narrative doom. Claudia and the ways she never escaped that child’s body in that burning house, no matter how much she tried.

My thing about the twist is that it takes our previous understandings of Armand and Lestat’s respective power and agency in that scene from this:

Armand: Could’ve Prevented It (Chose Not To) Lestat: Genuinely Could Not Have Prevented It

To this:

Armand: Could’ve Prevented It (Chose Not To) Lestat: Could’ve Prevented It (Chose Not To)

And then doesn’t interrogate or explain further. There is no one that says to Lestat, “You saved him, but why didn’t you save her?” 

And look I can understand I’m meant to extrapolate that Lestat used all his strength to save Louis and therefore didn’t have enough juice to do the same for Claudia (his ears bleed about it and everything)

But they sprinkled so much doubt on Armand’s “it took all my strength” excuse and then immediately showed Lestat as much more powerful with the Mind Gift than previously assumed, and so I’m left with too many unanswered questions.

This is where the narrative puts too much weight on a magic system that wasn’t built to support it. The audience is aware, vaguely, that the older a vampire is the more powerful they are, but we aren’t actually given tangible comparisons between Armand and Lestats respective abilities circa 1949. Lestat is shown or said to have all of Armand’s same abilities by this point, but besides Armand being older, he’s never shown outmatching Lestat in power, and so we never get a real sense of Lestat's limitations.

I should mention that, on its own, this wouldn’t be a flaw. Like I said the magic is here for spice and zest and we don’t need Armand and Lestat to have a wizard battle in order to understand that Armand is probably nebulously more powerful.

But when you hinge a plot point on Lestat’s magical abilities and their limits, I would like to know for certain whether Lestat genuinely couldn’t have prevented Claudia’s death or, like Armand, simply chose not to.

If it’s the latter, it counterintuitively makes Lestat a much less sympathetic character, when (as far as I can tell) the purpose of the twist is to make Lestat more of a heroic figure, since post-reveal there are no further interrogations of Lestat's choices.

And I’ve read wonderful meta on Lestat choosing to let Claudia die and then regretting it forever: if he loved her more she would’ve suffered less, if he loved her less she might not have suffered at all, etc.

But none of this is given any focus in the show because besides Lestat’s single heartbreaking line about Claudia looking to him in her last moments. There is no illumination on whether Lestat’s inaction was due to personal choice or lack of ability. There’s no solid evidence in the show to swing it one way or the other, the magic system is too soft to support a solid conclusion about it.

And. Claudia was sentenced before Louis. So even if Lestat only had the ability to save one of them, he still made the conscious choice to save his strength for Louis.

Which is also not necessarily a flaw. Lestat making the choice to save Louis over Claudia would be an extremely compelling road to go down. My issue is that the show has changed the central question from who killed Claudia to who saved Louis and is now pretending that that road doesn’t exist.

There is no indication that Louis feels any kind of way about Lestat ostensibly choosing him over their daughter. There’s no indication that Lestat had any hesitation about his choice, despite his sadness at her death. I can interpret Sam Reid’s acting choices in the final scene as Lestat not realizing how much Claudia meant to him until she looked at him “like a child looking to her father” but by then it was too late – but that would still be speculative.

Giving Lestat the agency to save Louis and Claudia during the trial both puts too much pressure on a magic system that can’t support it, and puts wind-drag on Louis and Lestats reunion: what should be the emotional climax of the show.

And look to be clear: show good. I’m obsessed with show. 

But the structural integrity of the final twist makes me feel like an OSHA inspector in an otherwise competently made building that doesn't have railings on the stairs.

They don't establish enough information wrt the magic system so that Lestat’s sudden ability and subsequent assumed limitations can reasonably track. They don't interrogate the consequences of giving Lestat the choice to save his daughter and then him proceeding to Not Do That.

I don’t think it’s out of character for Armand to choose his coven over Louis considering his habit of clinging to the familiar even if it sucks. I don’t think it’s out of character for Lestat to choose Louis over Claudia considering both Lestat and Louis’ habit of doing exactly that.

But you cannot ask the question “Who killed Claudia? (or, through inaction, allowed Claudia to die)” the entire season and then answer it with “Actually, Lestat saved Louis!”

It shifts the focus, it muddies the theme, it relies too heavily on a magic system that is supposed to be vibes-based and most importantly it treats Claudia like an afterthought when Claudia is literally the entire fucking point.

Claudia isn’t even the main character in her own story, the most tragic of tragic heroes, only someone’s first choice in the moments before her death, and neither she nor the woman she loves can do anything to change their endings. Louis and Lestat’s realization of all the ways they failed her is meant to be the emotional catharsis of the show, but it rings hollow, because the consequence of the final twist serves to render her narratively and metanarratively another round in Louis and Lestat’s stormy romance and un-asking its own central question.

[ladykyriaa]

Hua Cheng being entirely unfazed by Xie Lian's amnesia is probably the saddest but also in a way normal thing ngl. he's lived 800 years without him, and hey what's another year or two. Heck even if he never gets his memories back, at least Dianxia is with him and breathing and not stuck in a temple somehwere getting stabbed over 100 fucking times.

but if Xie Lian were to experience a Hua Cheng amnesia arc.

well.

my man will quite literally lose his mind.

[messianicfigure]

So Hoopla tells me I’m 50% of the way through oathbringer and also I know some spoilers (many spoilers) so aside from the best character in the entire series (Shallan) and the main character for this book (Dalinar), it is pretty fun for me that my two favorite characters so far are Moash and Elhokar. One is the moral North Star of this book so far (Moash) and the other is like a pitiful wet golden retriever who desperately wants to learn to roll over but is just flopping around on his back, which also makes me suspect of his actual desire to roll over because that isn’t a difficult thing to do (Elhokar). Incredible stuff. Very excited to see when I’m supposed to start hating Moash. Kinda doubting that will happen.

[dspd]

Me: I had horrible & unstable menstrual cycles since I started, even when I was doing multiple sports year round, and weighed 160. I've also had increasing chronic illness and pain for 10-15 years, that has decreased my movement.

Doctor: yeah but you're fat now so lose weight and your symptoms will go away.

Me: this is why I don't want to go to doctors.

[confines]

poe not as fun today, i miss metsayekimatini. i am considering going on hiatus and making her in the sims or another game so i can pose her and sketch her. i'm sick of combat, i'm sick of optimising gameplay, i just want to talk to my companions so i can think about what mets would think.

[blueskittlesart]

what drawing tablet do you use/recommend?

I've been a wacom girlie ever since i started drawing!! currently i use a cintiq 16 but up until 2021 i was using an intuos! i love my cintiq and would NEVER go back but if you're looking for a cheaper alternative and don't think you need a screen the intuos is a really good option, my first one lasted me almost 6 years and it's also really portable so i still use my old one sometimes if I have to work outside my studio! the reason i use specifically the cintiq is because i think it emulates drawing on paper the most out of all the screen tablets ive tested. I'm actually sort of a traditional art supremacist in that I want my digital experience to be as similar to my traditional one as possible, and the cintiq's screen and pen are the most similar to a traditional drawing experience imo.

[zestyzigzagoon]

Ao3 needs to give us little banners to drape over our fics like 'This author isn't dead! Just finishing a degree' or 'This writer has carpal tunnel and is out of office currently! Leave a message' or 'This fic is not on hiatus, the author is just busy moving', etc.

[bonecarversbestie]

What I don't understand is why Azriel would get his own book.

This was originally supposed to be a series about the Archerons, right? And sure, he's a fan favorite. But from a storytelling perspective, he's just another supporting character. He's important, but so is Mor. So is Amren. So is Tamlin. So is Helion. So is Eris. and I'd argue that ALL of those characters have more open plot points surrounding them and much more interesting stories to tell. So why Azriel? Or at least why ONLY Azriel?

(This is assuming that one of the remaining books is an Elain book and the other belongs to azriel)

If there are two books left, I'd rather have an Elain duology. Or another Nesta book (let's dump cassian and rule the dusk court with Eris and the Valkyries or smth). There are ways for Azriel's story to be explored plenty through either of those options. so like why is he getting his own book?

Is it literally bc the other two bat boys had books with their HEA, so he can't be left out? (lol i feel like we've been over this)

[feline-evil]

Dick or no dick confirmation Pickles was always going to be trans to me anyways; if he's swingin' somethin that's phallo babes, if he's not then his t-dick fat. What's not to get.

[aflawedfashion]

Jason Brown withdrawing from US nationals makes me sad, but he can't really afford not to do well at another competition. Because he doesn’t have quads, he pretty much has to skate perfectly to maintain such a high world standing, and his whole reputation is based on impeccable skating. It’s a lot to live up to, and the US federation will probably send him to worlds without going to nationals if he wants it (and I don't know if he does). He has come through at the end of the season before.

[dangerous-advantage]

(Image description below 'read more' line.)

[Image ID: A four-by-four alignment chart on a white background with text descriptions to the left and to the top of the squares.

The top left description reads, "seems like they'd be good at parenting." The top right description reads, "seems like they'd be bad at parenting."

Then, from the top down, to the left of the squares, the other set of descriptions reads: "excellent child rearing instincts," and "never trust them with a child in your life."

Each of the four squares contains an image of a different character. At the top left is an image of Lan Wangji of the Mo Dao Zu Shi donghua. He sits between the descriptors "seems like they'd be good at parenting," and "excellent child rearing instincts."

In the top right square sits an image of Wei Wuxian, also of the Mo Dao Zu Shi donghua. He sits between the junction of "seems like they'd be bad at parenting" and "excellent child rearing instincts."

In the bottom left square is an image of Xie Lian from the Tian Guan Ci Fu manhua. He occupies the square with the captions, "seems like they'd be good at parenting" and "never trust them with a child in your life."

Finally, in the bottom left square, sits an image of Hua Cheng from the Tian Guan Ci Fu manhua. He occupies the junction between "seems like they'd be bad at parenting" and "never trust them with a child in your life". /End ID]