#road paving

[mayapapaya33]

Ow ow ow. I just saw the parallels between Zerxus and Cassida both wanting to save a God. Zerxus wanted to save Asmodeus, both spiritually, by redeeming him, and physically, right at the beginning of Calamity, he wanted to save him from The Dawnfather, the "pitiless face of the sun." Cassida wanted to save the prime deities, all of them, but specifically The Everlight. Possibly both spiritually, by supporting the Everlight with worship, the Everlight, who's worshippers were slaughtered by Asmodeus, and physically, by ending the war with the Betrayers.

Zerxus and Cassida both doomed themselves and their cities (with help from their friends/coworkers!) because they wanted to save the gods. They committed incredible acts of hubris and incredible acts of love. And to have it be those two gods specifically! Oh No. I'll definitely probably speak more about this in depth another time, I just needed to get this out. Ouch.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"WILL ENGAGE A PAVING EXPERT," Kingston Daily Standard. March 18, 1913. Page 2. --- Board of Works Will Get Advice. --- In View of Exceptional Work in Connection With Rails This Step Will be Taken. --- The City Council at its regular meeting last night decided to engage the services of an expert engineer, to prepare the plans and give expert advice in regard to the paving of King and Princess streets. In view of the fact that the department of the City Engineer is so limited, and that there are very few men in Canada who are expert in the matter of paving in connection with street railway tracks, it was considered adviseable by the Board of Works to secure an acknowledged expert on this subject before the Council took any definite step in the matter.

This matter was brought to the attention of the members of Council in a report which was made by the Board of Works subsequent to the re- gular report, and which was not in printed form. This was a matter of comment by Mayor Rigney, who pointed out that the procedure was any- thing like businesslike. He intimated that the Board had since Thursday last to prepare its report and that there was no excuse for it bringing the matter to the attention of Council in this form. He stated that it was not fair to Council to expect the members to grasp the meaning of a report from the reading of the secretary. He advised the chairman to obey the rules of Council in this regard.

Ald. Fair explained that the matter had been brought up at a meeting subsequent to the regular meeting and that there had been no time to embody it in the regular report. In reply to questions he stated that it was estimated that the cost of such expert advice as was required. would be in the neighborhood of $200 and expenses, the expenses not to exceed about $65. The chairman pointed out that the Board had. thought this action advisable in view of the unusual expenditure and in consideration of the fact that the engineering staff was very limited.

This clause was passed without further discussion.

The City Council also adopted the recommendation of the Board of Works in regard to the paving program for the year. The following streets are to be paved with a permanent pavement on a concrete base Johnson street from Ontario to Wellington street; King street from Clarence to William street; and Wellington street, from Clarence to William street.

The Council last year passed on the laying of an asphaltic macadam roadway on Wellington street to the Park and this will be proceeded with this year in conjunction with the continuation of the work on Barrie street, from Union street to Princess street.

[lazycranberrydoodles]

getting back into the untamed and i had a thought. / follow for more yllz babygirlism

[happyheidi]

to everyone who feels underrepresented, misrepresented or unrepresented; everyone who can’t express themselves, their gender and/or sexuality in a manner that feels comfortable to them; to everyone who experiences dysphoria, who is misgendered and deadnamed every day; to everyone who’s closeted because they’re not ready or they don’t feel safe; to everyone who’s flag isn’t on this post: I see you. You are loved!

𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙮𝙤𝙪 !!

Happy Pride! 🌈

flag collage source

[bakedbakermom]

[qiu-yan]

wei wuxian vs. pragmatism: what MDZS intends to say about righteousness

copy/pasting most of my rather bitchy reply into its own individual post because i think it deserves to stand on its own.

so i think we can all agree that MXTX intends for us to read MDZS and conclude that wei wuxian is ultimately a deeply heroic and righteous person. whether you as the reader agree with this assessment of wei wuxian's moral character is another question entirely, but at the very least it is fairly obvious to all of us that MXTX intends for us to read him as a good person.

so why does MXTX call wei wuxian a good person? what aspects of his character and which of his choices make him a good person? what moral framework and what definition of morality does MXTX employ in order to call wei wuxian a good person?

i posit that MXTX argues that wei wuxian is heroic precisely because he is not pragmatic - because he adheres to his moral ideals despite the consequences, and because he did not make moral sacrifices at critical junctures of his life. the first half of this post will argue that wei wuxian is not pragmatic. the second half of this post will argue that this is exactly why wei wuxian is heroic, and that the moral framework employed by MXTX is deeply idealistic instead.

so let's begin.

let's start by establishing two things.

first: what MXTX argues about morality through the narrative of MDZS and the reader's own beliefs about morality are two different things. me saying "MDZS argues that xyz is righteousness" and me saying "i think xyz is righteousness" are two different statements. the following analysis is concerned not with what i myself consider to be righteous, but rather what MXTX argues through MDZS is righteous.

second: wei wuxian is not pragmatic.

what does it mean to be pragmatic? unless we are speaking about the school of philosophy specifically (which i am not here), being pragmatic means being grounded in reality and focused on practical outcomes. it means being result-oriented and considering the consequences of your actions before you act; it means acting only after you have considered the potential consequences of all possible courses of action and have then decided which outcomes are acceptable. being pragmatic also means recognizing when achieving everything you want is impossible. and, in such situations, being pragmatic thus entails compromising to achieve a desired outcome, even if that means you don’t get everything they want. to put it in edgier terms, being pragmatic means being able to make moral sacrifices.

an idealistic person attempts the impossible. a pragmatic person recognizes when something truly is impossible.

wei wuxian is not pragmatic.

first, wei wuxian is not someone who carefully considers the consequences of his actions before he acts. in fact, he displays a startling lack of consideration for consequences. it repeatedly falls upon other characters to either try (and fail) to hold him back.

when wei wuxian punched jin zixuan for insulting first jiang yanli and then jiang cheng, did he consider that jiang fengmian and jin guangshan might then dissolve the betrothal, and that jiang yanli might have wanted to make a decision regarding that on her own? no. he just punched jin zixuan because he was mad that jin zixuan had insulted two people he loved.

when wen chao threatened mianmian, and lan wangji and jin zixuan stood up for mianmian, and then wei wuxian stood up for them by holding wen chao hostage in turn - did he consider that there might be consequences for humiliating and threatening the life of the son of a warmongering great sect leader who has already proven capable of attacking other sects? no. did he stop and think "alright, wen ruohan has already attacked the cloud recesses, which proves that he's willing to wage war against the other sects. threatening the son of a sect leader is an easy way to earn any sect leader's ire, and since i'm the first disciple of the jiang sect, this puts not just me but the entire jiang sect on wen ruohan's shitlist"? no. it would be one thing if wei wuxian weighed this possibility and then decided that rescuing an innocent girl and the people who defended her was more important was worth the risk - that would show that he considered the consequences and then made his choice. but the thought simply never entered his mind. he acted simply because he wanted to save mianmian, jin zixuan, and lan wangji from the wens; he did not think beyond that.

when wei wuxian busted the wen remnants out of the qiongqi pass labor camp, did he have a clear plan as to how he was going to weather the political fallout? did he have a plan more detailed than "live quietly in the burial mounds until everyone forgets about us"? no. when jiang cheng challenged him as to how he was going to survive the situation, he did not in fact offer anything more concrete than "we'll just wait for everyone else to forget about us." he blustered about being a once-in-a-generation genius who could accomplish the impossible, but he provided no actual plan as to how he was going to do it. this leads me to conclude that wei wuxian did not in fact have a long-term plan for handling the consequences when he went ham at the qiongqi pass camp - that, instead of weighing the consequences and then making his decision, he instead decided immediately that this was something he had to do, consequences be damned.

and then - on top of this - all of his following actions then point in the exact opposite direction of his stated plan of waiting for everyone to forget about them. because instead of doing anything to fade into the background, everything wei wuxian did instead just convinced the jianghu he was an intolerable threat.

and this was not a sustainable strategy.

one thing i really appreciate about MXTX is that she does not make the rest of the jianghu into one-dimensional villainous morons. it's quite easy for lazy writers who want a persecution plotline to have the rest of the story's society magically start hating on the protagonist for no good reason, to make every background character in the story's world a three-braincell moron. but MXTX is not that author. it speaks to MXTX's skill as an author that, from the perspective of the rest of the jianghu, fearing wei wuxian as a mortal threat was an entirely reasonable conclusion for them to come to.

first, the gentry's most recent direct interaction with wei wuxian during this time period is him threatening to kill all of them. when jin zixun doesn't give him the information he wants, wei wuxian straight up says: "if i want to kill everyone here, who can stop me? who dares stop me?" this is a threat! and - surprise - threatening to kill people naturally makes people think that you want to kill them! 

next, wei wuxian refined wen ning's dead body into the first sentient fierce corpse in history, and also the strongest fierce corpse in living memory - and then took wen ning with him on night-hunts. that's where the reputation of "the yiling patriarch and his ghost general" comes from. this very naturally made the rest of society fear him even more, because now the guy who has just recently threatened to kill you has demonstrated even more of the power to easily do so! the unparalleled power to do so, which no one else possesses and it would be very hard for anyone else to counter! add in the fact that wei wuxian's activities were also attracting prospective disciples - people gathering outside the burial mounds because they wanted to learn demonic cultivation - and naturally the public is even more frightened, because now it looks like the guy who threatened to kill all of you is also gathering the political force to do so!

the public is incorrect about wei wuxian's intentions, of course. but what does wei wuxian do to correct these misconceptions? to rehabilitate his public image, because now his public image has the life of not just himself but also all the wen remnants under his protection riding on it? to prove to the public that he isn't an active threat to their lives - that he does not seek to murder them all in their beds - that it is safe for them to allow him to live, and that they can in fact survive if they don't kill him?

nothing.

it would be one thing if the story mentioned how wei wuxian tried to correct the malicious rumors about himself and failed. but that is not what happened. what happened is that wei wuxian sat on his corpse mountain and let everyone else say what they wanted to say. and when he left his corpse mountain, it was to bring his one-of-a-kind unparalleled sentient fierce corpse with him on night-hunts, which of course just fanned the flames of the rumors instead. he doesn't even tell the prospective pupils camped on his front door to fuck off - he just sneaks in through the back door.

this is not pragmatic behavior. though you can argue that wei wuxian's strategy here was to become so powerful and so scary that no one would dare try to fight him, anyone with a brain can tell you that this is not a sustainable solution in the long-term. first, if you want to use threats to keep someone from attacking you, you also need to promise stability - you need to give people the reassurance that if they don't start shit with you, then you'll leave them alone too. if you drive the "threat" factor too high, as wei wuxian did, you instead end up convincing people that if they do nothing you'll kill them anyways - that they have no choice but to kill you if they want to survive.

second, if you want to use threats to keep someone from attacking you, you also need to prepare for the inevitability that, if someone does end up getting hurt, everyone will blame you first and no one will want to hear your side of the story. after all, if someone gets hurt, then the first suspect everyone looks towards will be the guy who's been consistently saying "i'm strong enough to hurt you! i'm strong enough to hurt you! don't start shit with me because i'm strong enough to end you!" for the past few months. this is basic common sense. and yes, the society of MDZS is unfair - wei wuxian deserved a proper trial and investigation after the death of jin zixuan. but the fact that society is unfair is something a pragmatic person would have recognized and planned for.

wei wuxian did not recognize and plan for this reality. even after he accidentally kills jin zixuan, wei wuxian still insists that if only the jianghu investigates jin zixun's hundred holes curse, they'll see that wei wuxian didn't cast the hundred holes curse, they'll see that there was more scheming going on, etc etc. wen qing has to directly spell out for him that, at this point, society no longer cares about the truth of the matter. it seems that wei wuxian was actually oddly idealistic about the true nature of his society all the way until the very end.

all of this leads me to conclude that, when wei wuxian busted the wen remnants out of the qiongqi pass labor camp, he did so without considering the consequences of his actions. he assumed that he could improvise and weasel his way out of this situation, as he's always done in the past with his typical genius - only this time, he was wrong.

wei wuxian acts without considering the consequences of his actions. he does not make a decision only after carefully deliberating over all of the potential outcomes - not at all. instead, he acts in the moment - not out of any rational consideration of potential outcomes, but rather because it is simply something he must do. this by definition makes him a deeply unpragmatic person.

to put it into more familiar terms, for wei wuxian, the righteousness of an action comes not from its consequences, but are rather inherent to the action itself. even if he were doomed to fail, he could not give up on the wen remnants.

second, at critical junctures, wei wuxian is unable to make moral sacrifices. to be pragmatic is to know when you have to sacrifice: to know when, in order to achieve the most inalienable of your goals, you have to give up on some of your other goals. this is something wei wuxian is consistently unable to do.

of course, when it comes to his own wellbeing, wei wuxian is all too willing to sacrifice. he'll carve out any number of his internal organs to save those he loves. but this honestly speaks less to wei wuxian's moral framework and more to his lack of self-worth from a troubled upbringing.

because, when it comes to any moral cause, wei wuxian is entirely unable to sacrifice anything, even if being unable to sacrifice entails more negative consequences. wei wuxian could not sacrifice mianmian, jin zixuan, and lan wangji to wen chao and his goons, so he took action and took wen chao hostage himself. to sit back and do nothing as wen chao threatened the lives of those three was simply unthinkable for him - even if it meant taking a course of action that put yunmeng jiang in danger.

wei wuxian's relationship with jiang cheng deteriorated because jiang cheng did not know about the golden core transfer: because jiang cheng did not know that wei wuxian could no longer cultivate, from jiang cheng's point of view, it looked like wei wuxian was just refusing to help out and fulfill his promises for kicks. wei wuxian could have made things a lot easier for himself and also any wen remnants he chose to rescue had he simply told jiang cheng the truth - but he knew that finding out the truth of the golden core transfer would make jiang cheng miserable, and [jiang cheng's happiness] was not something he was willing to sacrifice.

wei wuxian's single most prominent moral decision is his refusal to allow the wen remnants to be sacrificed. anyone with a shred of political sense had to know that rescuing the wen remnants and then protecting them would be near impossible - that it entails making an enemy of the jin, and due to the jins' power, the entire jianghu. wei wuxian himself knew this; he is no moron. wei wuxian also had no long-term plan, no allies, and significantly less power than the rest of the world believed. yet, despite this all, he acted anyways, because he could not let the wen remnants be sacrificed.

the wen remnants wei wuxian rescued from the qiongqi pass labor camp included both regular civilians and cultivators. perhaps wei wuxian could have negotiated a proper release for the non-cultivating civilians, such as granny wen and a-yuan, had he chosen to give up on the cultivators. but - the question of whether this would have worked or not aside - this was not a sacrifice wei wuxian would be willing to make.

nor could wei wuxian sacrifice the safety of yunmeng jiang. i am firmly of the belief that, had yunmeng jiang formally stood by wei wuxian's side after wei wuxian attacked the jin-run labor camp, lanling jin would have eventually declared war on yunmeng jiang, and yunmeng jiang's would inevitably be destroyed. both wei wuxian and jiang cheng understood this as well - which is why wei wuxian told jiang cheng to let him go.

(you can argue - successfully - that wei wuxian did in fact sacrifice [his obligations to yunmeng jiang and his promise to jiang cheng] by leaving yunmeng jiang to protect the wen remnants. this is true. but i think that - from wei wuxian's point of view - this was not much of a sacrifice, because due to wei wuxian lacking a golden core, he already viewed himself as mostly useless to yunmeng jiang. so him leaving - in his view - is not really that much of a loss for yunmeng jiang.)

wei wuxian promised wen qing that he would return wen ning's consciousness to his corpse. when wei wuxian made this promise, he had no idea if he could actually pull it off or not. but then he did - and, in the process, created the most dangerous weapon the jianghu had seen in living memory. wen ning specifically, or moreso wei wuxian's inability to control him, leads to so much of wei wuxian's eventual downfall: wei wuxian loses control of wen ning and accidentally kills jin zixuan; when wen ning goes to turn himself in at jinlintai, he ends up going berserk again and killing another 10-20 jin and lan cultivators, which leads to the nightless city pledge conference. frankly, wei wuxian could have avoided a lot of trouble - or at the very least, a lot of the public's fear - had he not raised wen ning from the dead. it's not like he'd be completely defenseless without wen ning, either. but wei wuxian promised wen qing he would resurrect wen ning - and he could not sacrifice his promise to wen qing because of what wen qing had already done for him.

a pragmatic person is able to make sacrifices, including moral ones. at the very least, a pragmatic person recognizes when sacrifice is inevitable, when all paths lead to something being lost. a pragmatic person, put in the trolley problem, would recognize that there were only two options and that both options involve sacrifice: either he must kill one person, or he must allow five people to die. there is no path forwards in which all six people live.

wei wuxian is unable to make moral sacrifices. he clings on to all of these moral causes, all of these promises and obligations, and it is precisely because he attempts to hold onto all of them that he ends up losing everything. to reuse the previous example, wei wuxian in the trolley problem tried to save all six people because he could not accept any of the sacrifices made inevitable by the trolley problem.

to put this all together - wei wuxian is not a pragmatic person. he makes decisions with his gut, not his head - he does not consider the consequences of his actions before he acts. nor is wei wuxian able to make sacrifices - even necessary ones in order to avoid greater tragedies.

but. none of this means that wei wuxian is not a deeply heroic person. rather, to do what you believe to be righteous and attempt to live up to your ideals despite the consequences is exactly what MXTX lauds as moral. and to be unable to make a moral sacrifice when everyone else in your society easily does so is in fact deeply heroic.

it is precisely because wei wuxian is not pragmatic that MXTX declares him a hero.

some people, including myself, favor a moral framework that centers pragmatism and reason as virtues. to us, the ideal moral character is someone who makes decisions based on reason and not emotion, who considers the potential consequences of every course of action before making a decision, and who then, based on these inferred future consequences, uses reason to deduce which of all of the possible outcomes is the most preferable.

but this does not in fact describe wei wuxian, nor is this how wei wuxian views ethics. and to be honest, i don't think this is how MXTX views ethics either.

in all three of her stories, MXTX repeatedly comes down harder on the characters who make pragmatic decisions, the characters who are willing to sacrifice. in fact, killing sunshot soldiers while acting as wen ruohan's spy, and then killing nie mingjue's men in order to ensure a chance at killing wen ruohan and saving nie mingjue, was the pragmatic thing for meng yao to do, because that was the least bloody path forwards towards a sunshot victory over qishan wen. in fact, cutting ties with wei wuxian after he attacked the jin-run qiongqi pass labor camp was the pragmatic thing for jiang cheng to do, because it was the only path forward that did not put yunmeng jiang, his first and foremost responsibility, in the line of fire. and yet (though the situation is less clear with jin guangyao), MDZS as a narrative criticizes both jin guangyao and jiang cheng for these decisions - because, to MDZS, righteousness does not lie in pragmatism.

(this is a statement i personally disagree with. but we are here to discuss what MDZS wants to say about pragmatism and righteousness, not what i want to say about pragmatism and righteousness.)

by contrast, the one single act for which deeply controversial jiang cheng is ultimately lauded for in the narrative is also his single least pragmatic, most emotional act. the one single act of jiang cheng's that MDZS does not criticize is when, after the fall of lotus pier, jiang cheng ran out from his hiding spot to distract the wen soldiers from seeing wei wuxian. from a filial, duty-based point of view, this was a deeply stupid and unpragmatic course of action: jiang cheng's first and foremost duty, as the sole surviving jiang and new sect leader jiang, was to survive, rebuild his sect, and avenge his parents. from a consequentialist point of view, this impulsive choice is also what led to the domino-fall of tragedy that followed, since jiang cheng then got captured and had his golden core melted, which then led to everything else. yet this stupid, unpragmatic, and impulsive decision is ultimately the one act MDZS considers to be jiang cheng's single most heroic.

the key as to what MDZS considers to be heroic, what it considers to be righteous, lies in the jiang family motto: 明知不可而为之, attempt the impossible. this line, taken from the analects of confucius, can be considered to be a deeply deontological ideal. i find this twitter thread (warning to my followers: does kind of dunk on JC) to be rather helpful in elucidating this line's meaning. 

to attempt the impossible, to try what shouldn't be tried. "ask yourself not whether you can do it, but whether you should...consider not the result but rather the journey - have a clear conscience regardless of outcome." in other words, what matters is less whether you succeeded or failed, or what sort of outcome your actions brought about - what matters is that you tried. what matters is that, in the face of overwhelming odds, you tried to do what you think is right. and even if you end up failing - even if everyone you sought to protect ended up dying - the fact that you tried still has moral weight.

this is why it was righteous of wei wuxian to save the wen remnants - even though the ultimate consequences of that decision were overall negative, even though everyone wei wuxian tried to protect died. in fact, if wei wuxian had died immediately - if he had been shot down by jin archers at the qiongqi pass labor camp the moment he came within their range - if he had died before any wen in the labor camp realized someone wanted to save him - he would still be a righteous person. because, for MDZS, what makes an action righteous is not its consequences. for MDZS, what makes a person righteous is not what impact their actions have on the world, but rather that they have the sort of moral character that leads them to never give up on their ideals.

wei wuxian does not consider the consequences of his actions before he acts. or, should i say - wei wuxian makes decisions despite their consequences, because despite the consequences there are simply some moral causes he simply cannot give up on. wei wuxian did not save the wen remnants because it was pragmatic to do so. it was in fact deeply unpragmatic to do so. no - wei wuxian saved the wen remnants without a concrete long-term plan, without having thought through anything beforehand, with the knowledge of how weak he was in reality - because he could not give up on the wen remnants, consequences be damned.

to have some moral causes you simply cannot give up on, no matter the consequences - to MXTX, is deeply heroic. in this sense, MXTX's moral philosophy is not pragmatic at all, because to be pragmatic is to be concerned with practical consequences. instead, both wei wuxian and MXTX herself are deeply idealistic, because what matters to them are ideals and principles that extend beyond consequence.

as the linked twitter thread notes, this is why MXTX waits until the very end of the book to reveal that wen yuan, now lan sizhui, lived. this is why wangxian only meet mianmian and her family at the end of the book. this is why all of the cumulative positive impacts of wei wuxian's resurrection -  jin ling forgiving wei wuxian, jin guangyao, and wen ning, for one - are kept to the end of the story: because MDZS needs to move away from the consequentialist argument. MDZS needs to establish that wei wuxian's righteousness is separate from the impact of his actions: that wei wuxian isn't righteous merely because his actions had a positive impact for which others can thank him, but rather because the actions he undertook were inherently righteous on their own. that even if none of these positive impacts existed - if wen yuan had also died, if mianmian hadn't made it - then wei wuxian's choices would still be moral.

this is also why MDZS ultimately comes down harder on characters like jiang cheng and jin guangyao, even though a more results-oriented moral framework would instead laud such characters. both jiang cheng and jin guangyao are deeply pragmatic characters: they put concrete results before abstract moral ideals, and they're willing to compromise on their ideals in order to achieve better results. i am a JC stan and a jiggy apologist because of these exact traits. but MDZS is a narrative that criticizes such pragmatism and instead holds up wei wuxian's idealism as a moral ideal - so, in order to advance its themes, the MDZS narrative ends up criticizing both jiang cheng and jin guangyao.

ultimately, this idealism - this criticism of pragmatism - lies at the heart of MDZS's themes. wei wuxian's righteousness is directly connected to the fact that he is not pragmatic. the fact that wei wuxian makes moral decisions despite the consequences, and that he is unable to sacrifice any moral cause - is all part of what makes him at once deeply unpragmatic and deeply heroic.

---

you see, the funny thing here is that i personally disagree with this theme. as i've said before, i'm a utilitarian. to me, the morality of an action does in fact arise from its consequences; to me, someone who compromises on their ideals to achieve better results is preferable to someone who adheres to all of their ideals and then loses everything. the character i consider to have had the greatest positive impact on this story's world is jin guangyao. the character i consider to have most dutifully fulfilled his obligations is jiang cheng.

therefore, i disagree with basically everything i wrote up there about "trying": i think that if you try to do the right thing, fail epically, and in the process of your failure get a bunch of other people killed as well, the fact that you failed this badly does in fact matter quite a bit. the bulk of my more haterish posts are born from this fundamental disagreement with what MDZS posits is righteousness.

however. as a reader i must recognize that [what i consider to be moral] and [what the author of this story considers to be moral] are two different things. my own moral philosophy may be heavily results-oriented, but MXTX's is much less so. therefore, regardless of what i think of wei wuxian, i conclude that MXTX ultimately intends for us to read wei wuxian as a heroic figure for the exact reasons i gave above - and that fact must then inform every analysis of MDZS i write.

[ghostinthetumbchine]

One of the chief reasons i find mairon/sauron so deeply fascinating is that he is one of the few characters where the author explicitly says that something that was a positive and admirable trait was the chief reason for both his initial fall into the darkness and his relapse.

His positive traits in collision with the deeply flawed world led to this. He was too perfect for an imperfect world, at the start, and so he broke to fit it.

And didn't even notice.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[OLD ART ALERT] A COLLECTION OF SCENES FROM THE GILLIONS CATSCRATCH ARC THAT BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY. i love fishy chips especially when its just gillion being delirious and violent and hostile

[lenateliier]

They don't yet know the Horrors™ that await them...

[shadowfromthestarlight]

Gonna say something kinda harsh but I think it needs to be said.

Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, and especially moderates and normies who are thinking of voting Republican in this election, need to stop worrying so much about offending their friends and family and being seen as "not nice," extreme, bigoted, or what-have-you. And need to stop backing down when people who should know better, and probably do know better, accuse them of ridiculous things like being racist.

If someone who's known you for decades can't see that you're not a xenophobe for wanting to make sure that terrorists and gang members don't get into the country, maybe, just maybe, that's on them. If they can't see that you're not a homophobe who wants to set society back 70 years because you don't want children reading graphic books about sex and receiving dangerous drugs and surgeries, that's on them. If they can't see that you're not a racist just for not supporting the racial minority candidate, that's on them. And if they pick a fight with you about it, they should be the one to apologize, not you.

Normies are also too afraid to speak up when they feel like they're not thoroughly educated on a topic, but you know what? Who cares? If someone believes actual nonsense like that Republican governors want to ban the word "gay" and that Trump wants to institute a nationwide abortion ban that will kill women, they're bloody ignorant themselves and you have every right to shut their bullshit down.

We say we could literally lose this election because of white suburban women who just want to be perceived as good people, and it's no joke.

[violent138]

Kind of bummed out that The Batman's successors will likely focus more on "grounded" villains instead of the likes of Pamela Isley, Basil Karlo, Waylon Jones, or Victor Fries (or if they are present, they'll likely have some kind of symbolic association to their powers rather than outright), just because in my opinion, the first movie would have established in the background if sentient plant powers or any kind of abilities were even in the realm of possibility for Gotham.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"THE PAVING OF PRINCESS STREET," Kingston Daily Standard. November 1, 1912. Page 2. --- Two Civic Committees Held Conference. ---- Offer of Street Railway Co. Discussed Engineer Asked For Report -By-law Necessary. ----- The Board of Works, at the regular meeting yesterday afternoon, conferred with the deputation from the Utilities Committee in regard to the proposal of the Street Railway Company offering to give $7,000 towards the paving of Princess street. The matter was left in the hands of the city engineer to secure as much data as possible respecting prices, etc., and report back to the committee. The consensus of opinion was that the city should take advantage of the offer of the street railway now, and it is altogether likely that steps will be taken this year with a view of commencing paving nest year on the line of the street railway from the Grand Trunk station to the corner of Division and Princess streets.

The Utilities' Committee were asked to confer with the board in regard to the provision which was contained in the offer of the company, that it would give the amount provided the city would give the company power at the present rate at the expiration of the present agreement. This the deputation, which waited on the board, could not promise until it had gone into the matter thoroughly. Ald. Rigney asked that his committee be supplied with all the data on hand. There were a number of questions that would have to be compared before the Utilities Committee could make any recommendation.

Ald. Elliott, chairman of the board, stated that according to his estimate the city would be put to an additional expense of $18,000 in paving Princess street on account of the street railway. The company paid towards this practical by for the city presenting the company with a new line. BY-LAW MUST BE SUBMITTED City Solicitor McIntyre pointed out that the proposition was in the nature of presenting the company with a bonus of $11,000 and would have to go to the people for ratification.

Ald. Ross stated that the Railway Company was being placed in an unfair light. According to the old agreement between the city and the company, the city agreed that if at any time Princess street were paved, the municipality would take up and lay down the tracks of the company, placing them in the same position on the paved streets an they were originally. He stated that the company, if it saw it, could stand pat, and the city would be compelled by reason of the preservation of the road to lay the standard rails and make the other alterations in which would be necessary to the tracks. He felt that the city should take advantage of the present offer of the company, even if the present council had to pay for agreement. This the deputation, the mistake of the former body in granting the cost of manufacture.

FOR BETTER SERVICE Ald. Rigney suggested that the city go to the company asking the return for concessions on her part a better service. As far as his committee was concerned he stated that be could not say offhand whether or not it would be willing to commit the city to a renewal of the present agreement with the company. Ald. Litton asked if the additional expense would be charged by the ratepayers on the streets. The solicitor stated that this expense would be charged to local improvement and that the property owners on the paved streets would jointly pay their share. The city would compelled to raise two separate debentures, one for the paving and one for the cost of the work on the street railway.

On motion of Ald. Harty, engineer was instructed to prepare estimates of the cost of the whole work and submit them at the next meeting.

STEPHEN STREET SEWER. The work of constructing a sewer on Stephen street to drain the houses which are being built by the Kingston Realities will be commenced immediately by the city engineer. Mr. Geo. Smythe and Ryan were present at the meeting and stated that the company a prepared to go on with the work taking the contract from the city for $1,980. The engineer figured out that the incidental work would raise the cost to the city of $244.18. He figured that he could now do the work himself for $2,390. He was instructed to go ahead with the work.

The petition of the Grand Trunk for permission to erect a weigh scales on Place D'Armes street, was left to the engineer and chairman.

The committee decided to move the fountain at Clarence and Brock streets to a point forty feet past east of Clarence street, as the result of a petition from Mr. N. E. O'Connor, asking that it be removed from the front of his property.

The petition of B. W. Roberson and others, for crossings on Earl street, was left in the hands of the engineer for action.

[tomatolandsca]

Ok listen I am going to talk about Sky for a second. I will be honest that I didn't pay too much attention to her in season one, unfortunately she just seemed like another victim of colateral damaged in a very sad story, but I am amazed at the role she plays in this season. At the beginning I was unsure if the apparition we see was still Sky or something that the Hexcore was producing, specially because we knew so little of her during the first season. But to me it's clear that it is still her in some way and I love how she haunts Viktor in a not tradicional sense. She does not seem vengeful, but at the same time SHE is the one pushing Viktor to be better, the Hexcore gave him the habilities, but it is her voice that tells him to help the people, and she is the one that warns that even his powers have limits, to remember his own mortality.

I think that's beautiful because in some way, Viktor is still failing Sky, he is still not listening to her. He pushes his powers too far, he strives for evolution. Sky seems to understand that failure and limits are part of life, she tries to show him but he once again does not see.

Viktor will forever be haunted by Sky, and forever be deaf to her advice.

[reddy-bear]

Idk how people can even remotely sit here and act like Caitlyn's actions are justifiable or explained away simply with grief. The show spends so long reminding you that Caitlyn is a product of privilege. That privilege has convinced her that her pain is somehow unique and takes precedent (How many mothers die in Zaun every day? How many as a direct result from colleagues in her chosen occupation?).

In order to put your own pain over others you have to see them as fundamentally lesser than you. Which Caitlyn constantly does as she refers to them as animals and says things like "I thought you weren't like them!", and "It's her blood in your veins" all things directly laying out that Caitlyn sees the people of the undercity as lowly creatures that have something fundamentally wrong with them.

Grief explains her desire to stop Jinx. Discrimination explains her desire to use collective punishment and the disregard of innocents as collateral damage.

[theflyinghydreigon]

I see so many people saying not to blame people who voted third party — saying be angry at the Trump supporters. I am upset at the amount of people who voted for Trump.

But how can I not be mad at people abstaining or voting third party, not just people who voted for Trump? In Michigan and Wisconsin the margins were close enough that (according to the current data on USA Today’s live count) if less people voted 3rd party they would’ve gone to Harris. I did the math with the available data. This is subject to change as not all votes are counted (98-99% are in the states I’m mentioning I believe)

Pennsylvania’s was also extremely close. Genuinely if you live in Pennsylvania and abstained from voting or voted third party that may have cost that state. It’s not quite as close as the other two mentioned, but it’s CLOSE

That’s 44 electoral votes. If I am doing my math correctly (and I may not be), that is 270. That means that if everyone in the electoral college voted within party lines she would’ve won. Even if my math isn’t correct: if only one of those states had been hers or it doesn’t add up to 270 that would’ve been less electors to try and get to vote across party lines for her win.

I’m upset the election was so close, that so many people voted for Trump. It shouldn’t be so close. It’s despicable. Of course I blame those people. BUT IT COULD’VE BEEN DIFFERENT EVEN IF THE SAME AMOUNT OF PEOPLE VOTED FOR TRUMP

I genuinely loathe you. Perhaps almost as much as I loathe Trump supporters. Maybe the same amount.

[catherine-sketches]

If they had just showed Viktor’s cult without his work on Vander it would make so easy to dismiss his work as just “Midsommar: now with personality reworks, crazy magic and good intentions paving our way to hexhell”

But his work with Vander/Warwick showed us what were those good intentions and even good results to the whole thing. It showed us how, exactly, the glorious evolution could win and why it has such appeal to others and why Viktor will not give it up so easily when he comes back

It showed us how easy it would be to join this because the intentions and their herald are clearly good

Wouldn’t you like to live in this state of mind? No worries, no fighting, no suffering? You live in the undercity your whole life with a razor in your hand, blood in your knuckles, not enough food to eat, no air to breathe and no water to drink that doesn’t have 100 new types of chemicals in it

Aren’t you tired?

Join the community, everyone is welcome

You just have to give away all your negative emotions at the door and become one with the rest of us hivemind style no biggy