#that is of course if EVERYONE agrees

[sins-of-the-sea]

How do you plan to use your newest pet, Master? Certainly not wasted on a raid.

"Goodness, no. Most definitely not on a raid. At least... not a typical one. But she is a Hunter. And as the Beastly Harlot, she holds a lot of potential.

"She has offered me to seek out what I have lost... and I have lost many things. I could send her after my Eye, as there are no legends warning whoever is hiding the Keys of St. Emilio around the Beast. But at the same time...

"...I have many adversaries. Souls and others whom I have attempted but escaped my grasp. Gao Linyi. Kella ag Tamam. Annalise Dubois. Carmen the Sea Harlot. A certain Goddess. That smelly forest fae. At last, I have someone extraordinary beyond what I currently have.... whose plans are separate from any other thrall I have obtained, current and past.

"But when it gets personal? I have someone to send on my behalf. And I will take all the pleasure in watching the Beast rip them to shreds with her very fangs."

[ittybittyremy]

"While all this is happening, Orym has gone full shell shock mode. He's not talking anymore. He's going to go slump down onto a rock and is listening to all the debating at this point and he doesn't know what to do. He's been so sure for so long, and doesn't know what to do. Going in feels so wrong to him. But he hears the logic that it's only a matter of time before someone or something, a day from now, a year from now, six months from now. And just let's them figure it out, because he's took all his energy to make it to this point."

- Liam, C3E118

[lgbtlunaverse]

So I've said multipe times now (here and here) that thinking nmj is just so blinded by privilege he doesn't undertand that acting out of line gets people killed is, in my opinion, a misunderstanding of his character that ignores the part where he's, you know, actively dying the whole time and thinks that's a good thing. But that doesn't mean I don't think privilege plays no role at all in how he views the world.

Specifically, his view that death (at least premature or violent death) means something.

Death isn't always a tragedy to NMJ, but it is always meaningful. If you kill an evil dangerous person for your righteous cause, that death had meaning. There was evil in the world and now there is less of it. Similarly, if you die in the pursuit of your righteous cause, that death has meaning, because the sheer dedication you gave to it that you were willing to die for it will further that cause, and your bretheren will be invigorated by your sacrifice to fight even harder.

If a death isn't meaningful, that's an injustice and it is up to the living to give it meaning. That's what cuts so deep about his father's murder. There were no consequences, no changes, no meaning. Wen Ruohan was just going to get away with it! He fights and wins an entire war to make it mean something, to make it so that the unjust murder of Nie Mingjue's father is part of Wen Ruohan's downfall.

But this is a view he can only hold because he's the kind of person who's death will be meaningful. Most ordinary people's deaths are meaningless. Not ontologically, not inherently, but they are made meaningless because no one cares. For death to be meaningful you either have to be so powerful that anything you risk your life for will be impacted in some way. (Like, say, if you sacrifice a long life for immense martial power in a faustian bargain with a blade) Or if people with that kind of power care enough about you to do so for you. For most people, this isn't true. A starving street kid has no power to change the unfair world that put them there, even if they risk their life trying, and no one will do it for them once they die.

Nie Mingjue knows this in abstract, and of course rightfully believes it's wrong. But all that does is make it yet another righteous cause people should be willing to die for. Everyone's deaths should mean something, we'll make it so or die trying!

This is what the conflict between nieyao is about at its core. Because Jin Guangyao, fundamentally, cannot conceive of his own death as meaningful. Nie Mingjue grew up around powerful men who could change the world but refuse to do so because god forbid they risk a single hair on their perfect heads. Meng Yao, on the other hand, grew up in an environment where no one of importance would blink twice if you died. He was surrounded by meaningless death. Indeed his entire early life is defined by that lack of care.

Meng Shi dies and no one cares. Meng Yao gets thrown off a flight off stairs and no one cares. He has to be the one to do the caring, and once he's gone no one else will do it for him.

So he has to live.

Jin Guangyao eventually gets far enough that he actually does aquire the power to change some things... as long as he's alive. If he changes too much, holds on too tightly to his ideals, he'll die and it'll all be for nothing. He can't sacrifice himself for his goals because doing so would immediately render those goals unobtainable. No one will care about what he tried to do. He won't be a heroic sacrifice, he'll just be trash that finally cleaned itself up.

And well... Nie Mingjue dies, and someone makes it mean something. Makes it mean so much that the entire story of mdzs would not exist without it. Jin Guangyao dies and it doesn't mean anything. Most people are glad to be rid of him, and the few that are not don't do anything to change that.

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

Clarification: the point of MDZS isn't to distrust every rumour you hear. Some of the rumours in the prologue turn out to be right! The Jiang clan did take Wei Wuxian off the streets! Wei Wuxian did destroy (half of) the Yin Hufu before he died (and did ‘destroy the weapon’ in the sense it couldn’t be used anymore, because it required two halves to work)! He was one of the most promising cultivators and found success at a young age! He did die!

The point is thinking critically about the information you receive. Don't believe something because it suits what you want to think of someone, or because everyone else is agreeing with it. Believe it because there's strong evidence for it. Lan Wangji puts it best:

Lan WangJi slowly shook his head, “One should not comment without understanding the whole picture.” - Chapter 30, EXR translation

With Wei WuXian expanding on the reasoning (same chapter):

Just like you, I don’t understand the whole picture, so I’m not going to comment either. You’re right. Before knowing all of the turns and twists, causes and effects, nobody should presume anything about anything.

(And for context, this attitude is proven right! The conversation is about whether Xiao Xingchen performed lingchi on (severely tortured) Chang Ping, and there end up being so many unexpected twists and turns in his story that any judgement made without evidence would have been impossible to get right*. Wei Wuxian only makes his guess – that Xue Yang did it to take revenge for Xiao Xingchen, in his twisted way – after he has the relevant information of the Yi City quartet's story. And, seeing the nerves he hit, it seems to be correct.)

In fact, that's something we ourselves have to do throughout the course of the novel – weighing up what we know of Wei Wuxian's past deeds with what we see of his personality and actions in the present day. Those who still blindly trust the rumours up until the Second Siege are shown how unwise that is by being proven wrong... but that's not because having any opinion that happens to agree with a rumour, no matter the amount of evidence, is automatically wrong. As I mentioned, some of the rumours are correct! It's because how Wei Wuxian acted in the present day – ie the concrete evidence we have – didn't match up.

Blindly distrusting rumours is exactly the same as blindly trusting them.

---

*Without making a random, lucky guess. And since that would have no proof behind it, and a greater chance of being wrong... well, I think we can all afree that random unbased guesses aren't the way to solve mysteries.

[vaguely-concerned]

seeing people claim that lucanis is 'bad representation' is hilarious to me because in so many ways he's really the closest anything has ever gotten to capturing my own personal experience. sorry for being bad real life queer and mental health/neurodiversity representation folks 😔 I'll take time to reflect and do some work on myself and try to do better in the future

[royalich]

Emmrich and Rook confronting Hezenkoss

[s0fter-sin]

i’d love to know how much of early day's spn subtext was deliberate or just a happy accident bc the subplot of 1x08 bugs is sam and dean butting heads about how they were raised and sam hating it while dean tells him he should accept it as they protect a family; predominantly a father and son

the father and son argue bc the son is different and not who the father wants him to be while the son feels ignored and shunned (aka sam). sam spends the episode empathising with him and telling him he can look forward to going to college to get away from him just like he did while dean cuts in to say he should stick with his family

the entire episode, dean defends john and the way he raised them ("maybe he needed to raise his voice but sometimes you were out of line"), it even starts with him and sam arguing over their illegal ways of making money and how they were brought up in the life; dean adapting to and enjoying it and sam wanting to be honest and straight

they talk about sam being sure john is and always has been disappointed in him just for dean to say john used to go to stanford whenever he could to check on him and something about his expression is so bitter; like he knows john would never express that care for him

but at the climax when they're trying to get matt to convince his dad to leave, sam is the one telling him to tell the truth and make his dad listen whereas dean tells him to lie; implying he wouldn't trust his son enough to believe him

he outright scoffs at sam and asks him what he was thinking for trying to get matt to tell the truth

the entire episode, dean is advocating for the kid to work it out (almost to just take it) and stay with his family but when push comes to shove, he tells him to lie

sam who spent years resenting john and his family for how they were raised, fell back on "making him listen"; echoing all the arguments he had with john, trying to force him to understand who he is while john's too blinded by vengeance to even begin to try. the same way sam refuses to see how they were raised and why they were raised that way from john’s point of view, hinting at how similar people they are (which still isn’t an excuse but also not the point rn)

dean winchester, the king of repression and masking (and fawning), dean who at this point is still staunchly defending john, tells a shunned kid with a harsh father to pretend in order for his father to care enough to listen to him and believe him

dean knows reasoning won't work bc he's watched it happen over and over again with sam and john

even the way matt tries to say, “but he’s my… (father)” feels like he’s coming over to dean’s point of view; that matt as a son respects his father to enough to tell the truth and no matter how much they’ve fought, that should trump everything. but dean still insists he lies. and matt tells the truth. and his father doesn’t listen

there's no way they intentionally made dean subconsciously know that a man raising his son in a mimicry of how john raised them wouldn't respect or trust his son enough to believe him about something potentially life threatening after half a season of john ignoring them about something potentially life threatening

right?

[zetadraconis11]

HL Incorrect Quote #74

*in the Slytherin common room*

Sebastian: What are you doing?

Ominis: I like seeing things upside down. It gives me an entirely new perspective.

Sebastian: Really? Let me try.

*Sebastian sits upside down on the couch next to Ominis*

Sebastian:

Ominis:

Sebastian: Wait...

Ominis: *snickers and moves to sit right side up* I wondered how long it would take you.

[echthr0s]

I have a few things to say about Fallout (2024).

I know Caesar's Legion gets all the credit on the sickos (complimentary) side of fandom for having insanely homoerotic rituals but oh my god what's this, it's the Brotherhood of Steel with a steel fucking chair

Lucy MacLean has a face that's made for kissing women. why is she not kissing any women, what's going on

the ghoul lore is truly all over the goddamn place. like ok fine I don't hate it. but it's thin at best and if I think about it for longer than 3 seconds I am gonna poke holes in it whether I want to or not

brain on a fucking roomba

again, can we talk about Maximus and that whole "use my cock" business like please explain to me in detail what the actual factual fuck is going on in the BoS. I'm a visual learner btw

[jess-the-vampire]

Quick question one fan to another. Do you think Phillip knew he was related to Eda & Lilith? And would have knowing about his family made any difference or was he just too far gone?

genuinely? hard to tell

i mean dana claims "Some people do know"

and philip COULD of been one of them, and you could say that's a factor in why eda and lilith are targeted the way they were

but on another hand, you can also kinda sum that up as a result of remembering lilith from his past and therefore disliking her from that, and eda herself being the prime example of rebellion against his authority

there's nothing in the show that concretely proves he knew

especially since a lot of it relies on knowing about what happened with caleb and evelyn, which once again, is left with a lot of wiggle room

like we don't even know if philip actually knew evelyn's last name at all, or if he knew of her or about her long enough for that

when that stuff is all pretty vauge it's just yeahhhhh

if we are to assume Philip knew evelyn was pregnant he would have to be AWARE caleb has witch decedents probably, but he wasn't in power till 50 years ago, so i don't also see how he could keep an eye on caleb's entire family line either for 400 years

also also, maybe philip went after evelyn and said kid, maybe he just...gave up after caleb died and moved onto other things (It's still not even clear how evelyn got his door after all, if we are to assume it's evelyn's doing, because the door appears to be post caleb death)

(Look, i've been over this a few times, this timeline kinda doesn't really make sense, i'm kinda not convinced the crew planned out a proper timeline of events for the wittebanes because there are things that currently kinda don't make sense)

yeah idk, it's kinda left more up to your interpretation, like if you see belos as knowing nothing really proves you wrong

but yeah, nothing proves it right either, philip had plenty of other established reasons to single out lilith and eda outside of that concept.

i don't think it would of made any difference nonetheless, like maybe if philip saw his niece/nephew as more human then witch there could of been a dynamic of him thinking he could "Fix" them, but on another hand philip is shown to not trust anything and anyone who isn't a human like him.

The guy is very much been brainwashed by how he grew up to believe everything he doesn't understand is trying to manipulate him and hurt him, and i don't think any family he may have in the clawthornes would make him see witches differently

honestly i wouldn't be shocked if in his mind, evelyn and caleb having a kid to him is like a demon stealing someone he held dear to use for offspring because of how deluded he is about this stuff

granted, that also depends heavily on how you think philip assumes about the situation, him believing caleb was under a spell and him believing Caleb did everything of his own will have DRASTICLY different implications about why he did what he did.

so yeah, if you're to ask me this is all more of the same "This is kinda supported by canon but is also kinda not" stuff that is kinda all over the wittebane backstory in general

if we ever get that wittebane backstory, they have a lot of clear up here because there's a lot left to interpretation and it's kinda why people have very drastically different opinions on how aspects of this character were handled.

guy should of been destroyed at the end no matter what of course, but

people seeing him as a more tragic unredeemable villian doomed from the beginning due to growing up in extremism as a child and no guidance to pull him out of it so he just got worse and worse, and people who see him as just an asshole who never cared about his brother and was perfectly capable of getting out of his brainwashing is very much a result of leaving a lot of this stuff kinda up to interpretation

[bumpscosity]

Actually all gravity falls shipping wars back when the show was airing were hilarious. i once saw two ppl arguing abt wether pinecest or stancest was better like guys i think its better if we just throw both of you into the bottomless pit forever

[compressednerve]

@parasitefun 🦠 pointed out to me this watercolor notebook and said "this is for the people who really relate to HDB" so of course I made him buy it for me.

[snnumntik]

there is no game that makes me feel like I'm the only one who's right about it than elden ring

[queerslurheritageposts]

I come bearing links to funny faggot videos (you said you couldn’t find the series, but I have them here)

Baldur’s Gate 3

Animal Crossing (there’s two separate parts that’s why there’s two links)

Legend Of Zelda

Pokémon

these are all of the ones out now, but if any more come out, I’ll be sure to send them 🫡

not the bg3 one calling Wyll spineless 😭 he would be scared to say it tho he's too niceys

these are all very good thank you for sharing!

[queernarchy]

watching episode 3 season 4 of superman and lois feels like watching season 7 of game of thrones aka recognizing huge cracks in storytelling as the first harbinger of absolute doom for the show but that most people cannot see and are therefore still psyched about, leaving those who CAN see it cassandras as they try to explain a narrative decline that nobody believes

[mira-likes]

Rewatching s1, and in light of everything that comes later it’s incredible how for like 12 episodes Fan Xian is sincerely convinced that his romance is the most important thing that's going on with his life. And everything else is incidental