#mei got tagged

[wyvernity]

sss day my favorite national holiday WOOOOHHHH

bonus

[banmitbandit]

Pots 'N' Picks Week 2024: Day 5: Cuddling/Kiss

"Oh, Oskarr..!" Aringale sighed, cupping his large hand in both of hers, "I love you with all of my heart, but… You can't just turn your back on your clan and your family..! They're so important to you!" "Forget about my family and clan," Oskarr told her seriously, and tucked a lock of her blond hair behind her ear. Never before had the man looked at her like this, without reservation, without an ounce of hesitation. It was devotion, plain and simple, unguarded and honest. He'd never looked so happy. "If they cannot accept you, Arin, if they want us to be apart… Then they're no family of mine." (Finally, Chilchuck thinks, exasperated, It only took two hundred and seventy six pages.) "And your father?" She asked, nerves frayed. Instead of speaking, he leaned in to kiss her. Time slowed to a crawl, and enthusiastically, emboldened by her love's resolve, she returned it. One by one, all of her worries and doubts slipped away. She knew that whatever life would throw at them, Oskarr would be there with her. ("I don't think that half-foots have a very clear understanding of how clans work," Senshi hums, mildly amused, "Keep reading, will ye?")

You guys should go and read The Reluctant Romantic by my friend Attila ( @mirroredgiraffe ) if you haven't already. This isn't based on any particular scene from it, but the idea of Chilchuck being a fan of trashy romance novels about blond half-foots and their accidentally femme dwarf love interests is too funny for me to not indulge in.

[raddestrose]

I think it so would be funny if someone drew the tgcf characters as the different people in the Alexander and the horrible terrible no good very bad day movie poster

[imminent-danger-came]

So, this parallel, right.

That parallel and the 4x11 shadowpeach fight as a whole:

Macaque: "No that's YOU! You're the one always running off! Looking for more power, more sources of immortality—you're the one who wouldn't quit while were were ahead! Not the great sage, he's got to drag EVERYONE else into his mess!" Sun Wukong: "You're not in this mess, you're still free! Everything I did was for us!" Macaque: "You did it for yourself! You've become like this, obsessive demon! I told you going against the Jade Emperor was a bad idea, but no, Wukong doesn't listen to anyone! He just does whatever he wants! You put yourself here, not me."

(4x11 A Lifetime of Mistakes)

-

A large part of Wukong's motivation to keep getting more power was the freedom of it—the more power you have the easier it is to do whatever you want. It's easier to ignore everyone else and focus solely on yourself. It's also easier to ensure yourself and your loved one's are protected and have the ability to do what they want.

So, a punishment where the great Monkey King is imprisoned and trapped for hundreds of years? It's effective and tragic and fitting. Wukong wanted to have the freedom to protect the people he cared about, and in trying to reach for the power to do that, he completely had his freedom removed. He went from the mountain, to then the circlet, and then all of a sudden he had morals and was bound to those.

And then I think about his end of s3 choice to go face the Lady Bone Demon alone. Once again Wukong was trying to protect his loved ones (not to mention the whole reason he went after the Samadhi fire to begin with was to have the power, the freedom to stop LBD (which in itself is another case of SWK believing he needed to be stronger for such freedom)), but he also wanted to make sure MK and himself both had agency. He didn't want MK to have to fight LBD, and he didn't want LBD to end the world.

This is exactly the sentiment he tells Macaque in the 4x11 flashback:

Sun Wukong: "It's so we don't have to worry about anything or anyone ever again! Just living a lazy life, sitting in the sun, eatin' fruit, and doing whatever we want!"

But where does it all lead him?

To possession, imprisonment. Once again Wukong no longer had the freedom to do what he wanted (which is to protect the people he cares about). Once again in his attempts to help his loved one's, he only hurt them.

This can be applied to his relationship with Macaque, to MK in s2, hell, even Wukong trying to get the map in the first place left him powerless, which then led to him and the gang being imprisoned in 3x02. It's a familiar pattern, one we see with antagonist and protagonist alike.

MK in s2 trained to become more powerful, which in the end only strengthened LBD and forced him and his friends on the run. Mei in 3x12 protects MK by letting herself get captured and placed into LBD's crystal. Mei in 4x05 goes to protect MK, breaking her sword and leaving her vulnerable to being captured by Kui Mulang ("How am I supposed to protect everyone without my sword?"). DBK reached for more power and then became possessed by LBD, hurting his wife and son. Azure reached for the Jade Emperor's power and bound himself to that role, jeopardizing Peng and Yellowtusk in the process.

It's a cycle of reaching for power, endangering others, and then being imprisoned.

So anyways, here's why MK is going to lose control (his agency) next season and hurt his friends with his own- *get's shot*

[steamedlotusroot]

i love drawing her!!!!!!!

[ghostenluvs]

my brain literally jsut said 'spider queen poor unfortunate souls amv' with no prior context.

now i need to make conmtext to get this to happen.

gwt ready for a little mermaid au.

lore ramble in tags

[causenessus]

also if it wasn't obvious if I ever die my blog is going to mango anon btw

[autisticshizuo]

airports and duels

[butterrdream]

Based off:

Big Ol’ WIP I’ll probably never finish. I remember starting this when the redraw meme was a big thing and then just never finishing it lol

[snurtles-iteration-snlogsnentral]

the precise moment before the makeover montage

[raspbeare]

just finished re-reading little mushroom for the second time, and FINALLY after 3 reads i’m on tumblr looking for it

on a related note: seeing the array of new readers’ responses from “i’m finally going to read it! :D” “haha silly mushroom guy” to “what does it mean to be human.” “experienced the full spectrum of human emotion” is amazing and hilarious lmao! like yess the world building and cute little mushroom catches you, then BOOM. existentialism.

it’s so good.

[hauntedkeys]

I wrote a short fic about Jedidiah Wicker, but it feels too short to put up on ao3 so I'm sharing it here instead (writing under the cut)

Jedidiah’s gently holding a beetle. It’s smaller than most of the bugs he finds, but in his eyes it deserves the chance for a better life just as much as any beetle he finds scurrying through the room he shares with his brothers. Away from stinky loud teenage boys.

It doesn’t understand, however, that he’s trying to help it, and keeps trying to get through his fingers or crawl out of his cupped hands. He whispers little assurances to it, promising that he'll bring it to a better life, that if it stays inside, someone will crush it, but it doesn’t understand him. 

He releases it a few feet outside, and it disappears into the grass. It will never know that he saved it. It will always be scared of him. This makes him sad. He wishes that he could talk to bugs, so it could understand why he took it outside.

When he walks back inside, Joshua and Jocelyn are still sitting on the floor talking about whatever teenagers talk about, Joshua looks up at him.

“What were you doing out there, buddy?” He asks, trying to sound nice.

“I was bringing out a little bug I found in our room, so it could be free,” Jed explains.

Joshua makes a face that he can’t quite interpret, “It would have been easier just to kill it.”

“I know,” Jed responds plainly. He wants to tell him that that defeats the point, but Joshua doesn’t understand that even little bugs deserve a chance to have a better life. 

[sharknark]

[malikselfindulgence]

UHHHH [dropsthis and scurries away]

[imminent-danger-came]

I think people don't appreciate how much heavy lifting ROTSQ did for both DBK and Red Son's arcs

[hazeism]

Hi!! Since pocketwei just recommended a bunch of your fics, I just wanted to tell you that I think you're the gold standard of dofuwani and mishanks on AO3. Actual inspiration. I need to sit down and devote a day to commenting on your fics because I've read most of them and your writing lives in my head rent free.

AOADFDUKIDUFLJ ??!!!! HOW DO I EVEN RESPOND TO THIS AAAHHA. "the gold standard" aahhadufdgu what the hell, dudedfkdufj. Thank you thank you!!

^^ Live Haze Reaction

Please don't feel like you have to leave any comments or anything, it already means the world to me that you took the time to read my writing, and be so fair and generous with it, (eyes glazing over, maniacal air) bringing it to life inside of you by considering it and letting yourself think about it (normal again), aaaahhaa it makes me so sentimental. We are alive !!!!

That said, of course, I'd be happy to hear anything you want to share in the form of a comment (getting the emaail is like a syringe to the spine for me), but don't overthink it or feel pressured to comment on everything or share in utter Platonic eloquence, blah blah. Just whatever you feel like saying, long or short, critical or flattering, observational or analytical or reactive, or even just an emoticon, it's all good!

(I suppose, too, it doesn't really matter whether you'd like to share them with me in particular--sometimes it's nice to give fixed form to your thoughts, and know they're worth that effort, so there's your explicit permission to simply use my comment sections as a medium to prove you exist, haha.)

but um. tldr. thank you! one million kisses.