#that seemed like a lot of work
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Please note. The orange one is not included because A. He isn’t a billionaire. And B. Calling him obnoxious is too kind for him.
#billionaire#rich people#Elon would just be insufferable#just the worst case of “needs to be the smartest kid in the room syndrome ever#I feel Zuckerberg has actually worked on himself a lot lately and he would be reasonably chill to hang out with#still evil#but he doesn’t come across as insecure alien anymore#bezos also seems like he’d actually be a cool guy to hang out with#again. still super evil#but I think I could survive a few hours stuck with him without bludgeoning myself to death
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dragon meat, you, and me
#marcille donato#falin touden#farcille#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#tw blood#tw body horror#tw gore#as a normal farcille fan this revival has been on my mind since i first read it and getting to watch it is like yippee!!#like messy revivals are everything - the consequences that will haunt u for the rest of the time they are alive#the initial hopeful moments where it all seemed well but quickly descend to That not being the case - losing not only the bit of evidence#evidence that your dream may work out but also someone you deeply care about in the process… marcille my Beloved#ofc wholly thruout the journey - at the forefront of it - getting falin back was the most crucial point but so wuickly :(( it was lost#on the other end its crazy to think about the compoments of falin now - human - dragon (dungeon) - marcille’s magic and desperation#the food the crew cooked (digested) - she is made of many parts!!#also i did not realize how medical it feels to draw smth like this. i dont usually explore the inner parts or use a lot of blood#in my work so rendering everything and looking up refs it felt quite magical (?)#ruporas art
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low lays the devil in me
*if you tag as ship it's an insta-block. not what this is. thanks
#lab creations#gravity falls#stanford pines#bill cipher#based on the nightmare by henry fuseli obviously#I finished this one a little while ago now and hesitated on posting it for reasons you can probably guesstimate#was having a lot of sleep problems at the time#the hand replacing the horse's head was inspired by dunmeshi though#hopefully I don't alienate anybody with this one but I like my more vulnerable work and hiding it forever seems like a waste
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#lmao#for anyone who's curious the process went:#send ask to aita official#blog blows up#someone realizes its a chexer fic#i follow them bc they seem cool#i join their rvb server#their encouragement pushes me to finish the Actual Fic i was working on#i expand the fic to be more of a whole au after it comes out much better than expected#the next fic in the au that i work on has to do with a character's brain injury#this leads me to do research into brain injuries#''......huh. this sounds. a lot like the neurological symptoms that my doctors have been saying is just part of my anxiety disorder''#think on that for a while#go to the ER for unrelated reasons#remember my theory#bring it up to the doctor#Doctor Immediate Concern#doctors orders a ct scan#''eeyup! that there's some atrophying and a chiari malformation! y'ever had a head injury''#(i had had several)#''well! shit! time to refer you to neurosurgery :) see if we cant do somethin about all that memory loss and severe pain and shit''#and now we are here#it also lead me to research osddid systems for the first fic#and now my therapist is having me tested for osdd because i did not know that those symptoms were not a thing everyone experiences#so like. thanks for helping me meet friends who could encourage me to engage with the things i like + learn more about myself#^ ^ <3#im actually not gonna say ''ok last update fr this time'' bc idfk maybe something WOULD be funny to post on here
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class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)
#dimension 20#fantasy high#fhfy#fhsy#fhjy#riz gukgak#gorgug thistlespring#kristen applebees#figueroth faeth#adaine abernant#fabian seacaster#my class swap stuff! oh yeah I think I got a tag for that I'll call that#fh class quangle#gna slowly go back and get that tag on relevant posts too. for organization's sake#even tho I didnt really intend this blog to be that kinda blog lmao. we were all just gonna be out here dealin with that at our own pace#anyways uh! they! u know all the lore for the designs already I put em in tags. but otherwise this also collects like the#color keys kind of for these. mostly the things that change between designs#doing this did make me realise half of these are a Lot more consistent in color keys than the other half lol#like kristen's palette stays pretty much the same. and fabian's. the hit's mostly in the construction#a lot of this is overall like an exercise in remembering what high schoolers would actually wear and how to work in Costume pieces#on this point at least I straight up have No relevant recollection lmao all the basic education establishments I went to have uniforms#and outside of school I was. well kind of a shorts and tee guy. so#on that topic I feel like fabian's is the furthest stretch lmao. like if a guy in high school wears the same bright yellow raincoat#to school every day that's like. people would Not like that guy. fabian really is saved by being cute and a rogue#he will still have stans when he's deep in his fishing arc in junior year he's the manic pixie dream bf#anyways uh. things to do! stuff to get done. sleep first tho. have a good night lads#I have not caught new nsbu yet! seems I mostly catch them like two to three days late nowadays.#so please uhh. don't reply on my posts with nsbu spoilers? we are all excited and having fun but that's rude#ok thank u. signing off for the day have a good night#!!
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Danny holds an Intervention for Brucie Wayne.
So! Danny is the head of R&D at WayneTech, and he often works closely with Bruce and Lucius when they want him to make "Proof of Concept" Gadgets and Vehicles. He doesn't question the absurdity of some of the stuff he builds, he was raised by Mad Scientists after all, all of it seems perfectly normal to him!
But he has noticed something concerning about his Boss.
He really needs to get his Partying in control. Every time he comes into work he has eyebags covered by makeup, some bruises from tripping while drunk, and he is always super cagey about what he did last night. Danny asked some of his coworkers about it, and they noticed it too.
They also bring up that he sometimes comes into work with a really foggy mind, which is probably the aftereffects of doing some kind of drugs at whatever party he was at the previous night.
Even his Hangovers seem really bad! Worse than usual, but he powers through them and keeps acting like his normal Himbo self! Danny realizes that Bruce needs to calm down. He has Kids to take care of, and Alfred needs less work on his plate
So he contacts a bunch if Bruce's Friends, his Family, and even a few coworkers who brought up their concerns to him, and he stages an Intervention.
...
Bruce didn't know what to expect when he walked into the conference room at Wayne Enterprises. He had been called in by Danny, his head of R&D, for a Meeting earlier that day, but Danny had failed to explain the purpose of the Meeting.
He had barely made it on time. He had spent the entire night chasing down Scarecrow, and a slip up had caused him to get hit by some Fear Toxin, which took forever to work its way out of his system. It didn't help that the Antidote gave him a splitting headache.
Bruce opened the door to the Conference Room, and was met with a mishmash of faces. Clark was sitting close to the head of the Table, with Lois at his right, and Diana to hers. In the crowed he could also see Dick and Steph holding in barely contained laughter, with Tim looking a little lost to the side. Damian looked as if he would rather be anywhere else, Duke was looking as list as Tim, and Cass was just smirking at him with a look of amusement.
He could also see the faces of various employees of Wayne Enterprises, among them being Lucius and Tam.
What was going on?
The door closed behind him, and he turned to see Danny standing behind him.
"Bruce, this is an Intervention."
#Dpxdc#Dp x dc#Dcxdp#Dc x dp#Danny Phantom#Dc#Dcu#Danny works at Wayne Enterprises#Danny is the Head of R&D at Wayne Enterprises#He makes a lot of the Gadgets that the Batfam use but doesn't realize it#To him it's nowhere near out of the ordinary#Danny thinks that Bruce is a Himbo because of the Brucie Persona#And he had concerns#Danny thinks Bruce is partying too hard because he keeps coming into work with eye bags#And he looks hungover sometimes (the fear toxin antidote)#And he seems foggy headed sometimes (he's coming down from a minor dose joker toxin)#And he had bruises sometimes (fighting bane)#And he always acts like he is pretending to be happy and cheerful (that's just him tho)#Danny sets up an intervention with all of his friends and family#The Kids see this as Hilarious#Clark Lois and Diana see this as an opportunity to get Bruce to listen to them about rest#And Bruce is just lost at the moment#Danny fully believes the Brucie Persona
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attack for @plaiesancier !
#my art#art fight#artfight#artfight 2024#furry#anthro#scalie#snake#illustration#xallith's characters are all so gorgeous but jean is a personal fav - sea snakes are super cool and she has a lot of their charm#had a LOT of fun with this one! lots of textures to work with and b/w contrast in the character so i thought a monochrome image would work#i.e my specialty. i think. though people seem to like my colour work nowadays too which is encouraging#once again - i looove art fight thank you art fight for my life. july would be just another month if you didn't exist#gonna try to pace myself more from this point so i don't completely burn out. i've got more free time this year though#so hopefully can do more than last year
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willow... rollerskating.... also rip the boys i guess
#tricking myself into liking art by drawing a lot of willows lately#its working. PARTLY!!!#the owl house#toh#willow park#hunter toh#gus porter#my art#fanart#thank you to dana for tweeting that willow mastered rollerskating on her first try in the human realm#it lives rent free in my head. i think of it a lot#emerald trio#no spoilers in this btw lol but that seems obvious
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sketches of the day (15 femskk)
#trying to get to. sketching more#should i finish this ???#i might but it seems like a lot of work smh#skk#bsd#bungou stray dogs fanart#bungou stray dogs#osamu dazai#chuuya nakahara#soukouku#bungo stray dogs#soukoku#kokoart
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So sure this is what bonten Ran does in their meetings
#he just finds the best way to make his work low effort while making it seem like he's paying attention and doing a lot#tokyo revengers#tokrev#tokyo rev#ran haitani#haitani ran#tokyo revengers spoilers
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older designs for my specialest guy
#you actually could pay me to watch boruto the payment is reviving any of madara-obito-itachi in a cheap fan service moment. itd work on me 👍#neji hyuga#hyuga neji#art#fanart#naruto#2024#i think konoha would love to project the will of fire shit onto neji after what he did. ya know. trying to give your life 'for the village'#in that way hed probs have a lot of respect from others but respect has never been enough when your life still isnt yours 😛#the pessimism would likely take a bit to return to him but it Would return hes just like. less interpersonally volatile#the realization you had two whole very public meltdowns and no one that matters cared will do that to you#anywayfor the happy ending one. i think while neji is always going to be a little bit bitchy hes bound to soften up a lot when he's not#under constant stress and has to micromanage his every thought#i like to think that if he were allowed to hed grow into a very outwardly warm person. sunflower :)#and my general opinions of neji and boruto are:#1. yes it is a blessing to not be made to be straight married#2. however consider: what if i wanted to see neji be a dad. i dont care for romantic njten but i do not hate it. it would be acceptable#when i think abt this guy in boruto hes chronically single but still.talking about what CANON could be. it would be acceptable#3. yes hiashi shouldve gotten his ass killed in the war but i would be lying if i said the awful family reunions#are not fun as a concept#are they fun on purpose? no#but the rule is: A situation can suck if it sucks on purpose#and 4. i know about the time travel episode i have mixed feelings on it.#anyway no hate if you like boruto i like being hyperbolic for fun but its just anime. the kids seem cute#but if any other hyuga-brained person ever wants to get unimaginably angry you should also watch the hiashi birthday episode of boruto#thats my special recommendation from me to you
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OCposting..... This is Coven :3 she's a witch who specializes in luck magic! I need to post her so I can yap about her more, she's rotating in my brain at top speed
(Also her bf belongs to @oodliedoodlies hiiii hiiiiiiii hi hi hi)
#rainyart#trolls#trolls oc#trolls band together#original character#character design#DreamWorks trolls#coven#not enough hours in the DAY to draw her bro#i also think shed be fun to write.... maybe ill write her backstory or some shenanigans she gets up to.... she has a lot of potions mishaps#body swap potion..... personality swap potion... love potion..... evil potion seems fun in theory but#idk how that would resolve and would probably lead to angst and drama in an UNfun way yknow#like how much damage she might cause.... and then shed probably be like im never touching magic again#not fun#idk! i need to ponder some more#coven save me. save me coven.#very few things getting me through the slog of classwork but shes def one of them okay#queueing this and running away back to my thesis work
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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.
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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.
#mdzs#wei wuxian#yanyan speaks#this analysis is also focused on wwx's first life bc wwx in his second life seems to give much fewer shits about moral causes tbh#second life for wei wuxian + all the good rewards at the end is basically a victory lap lol#anyways rip jiang cheng and jin guangyao for being pragmatists in a work that celebrates idealism#get dunked on ig#anyways wwx antis will read the above and go “well isn't this just a lot of words for 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' ”#and like. yeah. that's correct#but mxtx is placing the majority of the moral weight on those good intentions imo#to mxtx - it is better to have heroic intentions and fail epically than it is to have unheroic intentions and achieve decent results.
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Two former military elites taking merc jobs perform absolutely hellish battle tactics together.
#ffxiv#digital art#zenos yae galvus#estinien wyrmblood#adventurer zenos#I will always adore this duo conceptually#because like- socially theyre that aragorn-geralt brooding in a corner of a tavern meme#but in combat they are absolutely terrifying#the azure dragoon and the super soldier legatus are here to fuck up a poachers day#aka zenos is about to crossmap someone's airship cause he knows estinien cant make himself jump that far#why have him try to jump when he can just Olympic-level javelin toss this man#also guys#my dudes#all this time I've been working on adven!zenos being a tank#I... have realized I just write him like a warrior who isnt carrying a weapon- sturdy unkillableness and countering and all#I am only a little bit of a dumbass but orogeny just seems to live in my head rent free#it also gave me the terrifying concept of- after spending time with the scions and after the ultimatum-#of him trying to learn more about dynamis- and zenos being zenos starts learning eventually how to harness it#local calm apathetic man can berserk on command because he's a lot angrier/more expressive inwardly than most people expect#depending on how I look into it- it might be how he fuels most of his shinryu transformations but I'll have to work on it more#but ANYWAYS#I love the thought of these two hunting and working together#and estinien being tossed being turned into a tactic#especially with proper form#this is something ive wanted to draw for a very long time and im very happy I actually have the skill to do so now
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FARSCAPE | 1.06 Thank God It's Friday, Again.
#I love this exchange so much specifically because it tells us a lot about how the translator microbes work. I mean. I highly doubt that – at#least at this point – john has ever discussed woodies with Aeryn.#But I can quite easily imagine that he’s at one point looked at some alien thing shuddered and gone ‘ugh. Gives me the willies.’#And since aeryn’s translator microbes picked that up and returned it with woody we can kind of see how they work.#It’s taken willie – a colloquial term for penis – and substituted it with another colloquial term for penis – woody.#The problem is that these terms both have connotations that the microbes don’t pick up on#hence the incorrect substitution.#However they do seem to do okay with homophones#presumably based on context.#It’s like how back in like 2012 if you typed a word into google translate that didn’t translate well#it would give you it’s best guess#and then if you translated it back it would just have a completely different meaning. Essentially translator microbes work probably as well#farscape#aeryn sun#claudia black#syfysource#cinematv#filmtvcentral#chewieblog#smallscreensource#usercreate#userthing#farscapeedit#john crichton#ben browder#farscape gifs#my gifs#claudia black gifs#dailytvwomen#popcultureds
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the very well animated kiss from that scene™ because for some reason i didn't see a single gif version of it yet
#baldur's gate 3#baldur's gate iii#astarion#halsin#bg3edit#bg3#panel from hell#yeah yeah bear transformation and all of that but have you SEEN how well animated that kiss was ??#now is it going to be like this for all characters in the game#or since they knew they were going to show this scene did they touch up the animations just to fit it perfectly to astarion face model ?#because like#there's a LOT of face models available for your character in this game and races of different size#i just wonder if all will get an equal treatment in animations like these because it seems like a shit ton of additional work#in any case#this looks great
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