#the best chances of getting canonized

[sinful-karateka]

Some random sketches I've amassed in my Procreate file for The Line of Best Fit series. I've drawn both of the boys' faces here and there for years, but for the last few months, I've actively tried to study each of their features to understand how to draw them better.

I'm really glad to be in the position I am right now where I'm capable of both telling the story and illustrating how I see them. For two years, the series continues to occupy mental and emotional space rent-free, and the more I think about the journey these characters will have to embark to get to The End — which is something I've established the moment I said fuck it, I'll write it — the harder the blow is on me (positively). But I love it. I love sharing my interpretation of Separation and Longing, of Reparation and Redemption. If it's my last work for the ship, and I find the courage to move on one day, at least this is proof that the story lives on.

I don't know where this post is headed to; maybe it's a solid thank you to everyone who's stuck around.

[whetstonefires]

I think a part of the reason I feel so connected to JGY and XY is that I, too, think everyone is lying about what a good person they are. Sure, there may be a few genuinely good people, but those are in the minority and never claim the title.

I don't know about never; some people are pretty straightforward.

And in some ways the whole point of the concept of 'a good person' is that the feeling of losing the right to consider yourself one can impose instinctive recoil from doing wrong, in situations where you don't have the leisure of working your way through an ethics diagram and choosing the logically moral path before reacting to a situation. It has practical utility.

But that system can backfire pretty horribly too, in a lot of ways. It can be hijacked by definitions of 'good' that actually make you recoil from ethical acts because they're deviant. It can lead to disappearing up your own ass lmao.

And definitely the threshold for 'talking about how you're a good person' enough that it makes you suspect as either a) a liar or b) someone who values that self-image over objective reality and other people's wellbeing is. Not very high.

Jin Guangyao, ironically, is one of those people who's so performatively A Good Person in his public life that in retrospect it looks like a red flag. Which knowing this about himself in an ongoing fashion ofc just reinforces his own cynicism about everyone else lmao.

Even Lan Xichen, who I think he may see as a genuinely good person, he also sees as an easy mark who will reliably choose what is comfortable over what is 'right,' if you just structure the scenario to make that an easy choice that's easy for him to justify.

Xue Yang's bitterness is in many ways more exciting than Jin Guangyao's because he has a way more unusual relationship to reality, but it does share a lot of notes.

The role of deception in his psychology fascinates me because as far as I can tell he's as instinctively straightforward a person as Lan Wangji, albeit along quite different lines involving a total lack of impulse control, but has adopted 'deceit' as a weapon against the wicked world in the same way he has adopted 'murder.'

But when he feels someone is not merely lying but papering over bad behavior with principles they are not living up to he is livid.

People claiming to be better than him because they're 'good' when 'good' is a construct of privilege, is the underlying idea he's not equipped to articulate. Except he takes that and applies it to 'hitting me to interrupt my random murder of some guy who happened to be within arm's reach when I wanted to hurt someone.'

Which isn't like philosophically perfect, but the underlying problem he's actually reacting to is that he understands the social contract as a lie that has never protected him but seeks to control him, while protecting rich men it has no power to control.

Which it is fair to be mad about, but then his feeling is that since that's the nature of the world and all people, he is entitled to amass for himself the power to inflict hurt without consequences as much as he possibly can, and to use it against the vulnerable for fun, and no one is entitled to interfere.

Which brings him to a place where he is violently angry at anyone talking about trying to treat other people well as a value, because either they're a hypocrite and a liar or they threaten his entire system of rationalization for why he can be The Worst and still In The Right.

'Everyone is equally bad, actually' is like, an understandable take for anyone who's had cause to become embittered. Everyone is free to make whatever philosophical peace they can with the world and by and large there's no ethical weight to any such opinion, in itself.

But it's an ideological crutch people tend to wind up leaning on very heavily when they can't or don't want to take responsibility for their own behavior.

Which is an approach that Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao, and Su She all share, and which not only is shitty of them, it...traps them in a wheel of doubling down on their own worst impulses because rather than going 'that was bad and I shouldn't do it again' they've repeatedly invested all this energy into making what they did actually the correct thing, according to their interpretation of the context. Which means they're more likely to do it again.

(I think this is how Jin Guangyao became a serial killer, for example. He followed a doing-a-murder-impulse and then internally doubled down on how he had nothing to be ashamed of, so he was more likely to do it again, every time.

Wei Wuxian's strain of self-righteousness about his revenge was less...thorough than Jin Guangyao's, because he had the benefit of going after people on the opposite side of a war from him while Meng Yao's first known murder plot was against a shitty boss. But it probably didn't help him not try to solve army-shaped problems with mass murder, even after that stopped being allowed.)

If any of them had just like, zero moral sensibilities they would have created very different problems, and very possibly fewer of them. It's making a central goal of your operations 'self-vindication in your own internal narrative, created retroactively via reframing' rather than 'figuring out what I think I should do and trying to do that' that traps them in the self-reinforcing murder pissbaby vortex.

So if you look at it one way, these three villains are themselves perfect examples of how pursuit of the 'feeling of being good' (or at least 'not the bad guy') can make you worse.

Notably Wei Wuxian was also extremely sensitive to hypocrisy in his youth; it was the only part of Madam Yu's behavior he was ever shown objecting to. But he's sufficiently mellow and cynical from regret and burnout by the 'present' timespan after his resurrection to just get disgusted and alienated about it, rather than outraged.

He wasn't even all that mad at Xue Yang, though honestly that may be partly because he stopped entirely characterizing him as a person at some point during their interaction. Like, there's no point being angry at someone whose moral sensibilities operate exclusively on the plane of 'is this unfair to me' for manipulating and destroying people who were good to him, and then getting obsessed with his own self-pity about it. This is not a person who understands how not to be, metaphorically speaking, a cannibal.

And Wei Wuxian did know better and still got roughly the same result, so what business does he have getting angry?

Anyway yeah those two villains are both delightfully relatable if you sit down and put their perspectives together; they are clearly operating with the same basic suite of human needs and emotions as everybody else, without that being in itself particularly exculpatory, which is honestly refreshing. They've just got the most fantastically toxic interpersonal habits that knowing them counts as some level of Suffering A Curse.

Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang do both stand as scathing rebukes of the society that created them. But within the narrative, wherein they're people, the fact is that each of them had agency and one of the things they chose to do with it was develop rationales for why they were the most special little guy and everything was someone else's fault.

And their moral nihilisms, while also grounded in serious trauma, ping me as emotional masturbation of this variety.

[kayvsworld]

tbh ur posts abt tony r giving me a new appreciation for the character i didn’t have before…….. like maybe ur converting me to mr stark standom………

!!!!!!! beautiful and wonderful to hear.....as someone who was recently converted to being a card carrying member of the bonky brigade.....take the second look it may surprise you...........

[tradingjack]

some fun with diablo

[unpersoniverse]

yeah, what he said 🙄🗣️

[wodniars-void]

The regular pat video is making me realize being a mobile games fan is an inherently different experience from being a main games fan

[cluescorner]

Long Post about Savage Opress because I am Normal

Savage Opress, you are everything.

You are at your strongest when you are fighting to protect the people you love. You had to participate in a battle royale and subjected yourself to a fate worse than death in order to protect your brother. You were forced to kill the brother you fought so hard to protect, your last words to him as he begged for his life were 'You make (me) weak'.

You are Frankenstein's monster, a kinslayer. You just have to live with that. Your mistress isn't giving you a choice in the matter.

You were placed under the control of a cruel master/mistress twice in the span of like a week. You were forced to betray your master and (under your mistress's orders) you killed two jedi, making you an enemy of the two most powerful entities in the galaxy. You made these enemies against your own will. You were lightning spammed and abused to the point that you were able to break free of your mistress's control.

You are then attacked by these two random jedi you have never met. They seem intent on bringing you in. They stand besides each other and fight to protect each other. You are reminded of how you did the same for your own brother. You killed that brother.

You run to the only home you've ever known, the same home that treated you as lesser-than and transformed you into what you are now. Your home is destroyed, all of your sisters are dead. You are upset by this. They were the cause of your suffering, but they were still kin.

You are told that you have a remaining brother, one who can make you strong enough to protect yourself. You decide to travel across the galaxy to find him. You killed your last brother, you will do anything for this one.

You seem to create trouble everywhere you are now. You are now incapable of solving problems without violence, so violence is what you become. You become hatred. You had love once, but everything that you loved is dead. Except for your remaining brother. You do whatever you must to find him.

You find your brother. Your brother is delirious and half-dead, but he is your brother and you found him. You can fix this. Your brother sees you too, or at least he sometimes does. You are a reflection of him, of what he was meant to be. You are strong and powerful. Your brother is not anymore, but he will be soon.

Your mother, the same woman who took you and warped you into a monster (that is what everybody calls you now), fixes your brother. Your brother grabs your face and twists it, painfully examining your every pore. You don't begrudge him this. You have done the same to it. Your face isn't yours, but it is the only face you have.

Your brother screams for vengeance against Kenobi, he must have revenge. You must stand by your brother, he is all that is left. You embark on a quest of vengeance against a man you only briefly met.

You become everything your brother needs you to be. You are his protector, his sword, his second-in-command. You have love again and you will do anything to keep it this time.

Your brother is a terrible person. Your brother will massacre a village for the sake of getting Kenobi's attention. Your living brother is nothing like the one you killed. You aren't sure this is a good thing.

Your brother lures Kenobi to the village and you both capture him. Your mistress shows up and immediately sets about belittling you. You are the monster she and your mother created. You are not her thrall anymore, you can fight her now. You do exactly that.

Your mistress and Kenobi retreat, your brother chooses to bide his time. You will wait with him.

Your brother and you infiltrate a ship, finding a fortune of credits. You are happy with this, you have never seen this much money in your life. Your brother's only fortune is the downfall of Kenobi.

Your brother calls you apprentice, decides that is what your relationship is now. You don't see the need for dominance, you are brothers after all. Your brother disagrees and you will subject yourself to this for your brother's sake. You are a reflection of him, of all his past flaws. You are devoted to those you love and able to feel things other than vindictive glee or hatred. Your brother is not anymore, he might never be again.

You think your brother is incapable of love. You love him all the same.

You and your brother next run into Kenobi with another Jedi Master. You do not know her name nor anything about her. You kill her, goring her with your (far larger than they should be) horns and running her through with your lightsaber. Your master is not forcing your hand this time, you can finally choose to make an enemy of the Jedi. You would have been their enemy either way, but the false choice is comforting regardless.

You and your brother corner Kenobi. You think for a moment that you have gotten the upper-hand, then Kenobi cuts your arm off. Your body leaks green magic. Your mother's magic still holds power over you even after everything. You wish it didn't.

Your brother shoves Kenobi away from you and decides to retreat. You aren't sure if this is a sign of affection towards you or if this is a strategic move. Your brother speaks as if it's the latter. You see no reason to believe otherwise.

You manage to escape, but are left adrift in space. You are freezing and slowly running out of oxygen. Your home was warm and full of breatheable air. You are alone with only a brother who calls you 'apprentice' for company. Your home was filled with brothers who called you by your name or by 'brother'. You are alive. Your home and brothers are dead.

You next wake up in an unfamiliar place. You smash all the equipment around you. You are now incapable of solving problems without violence, so violence is what you have become. Your brother informs you that his plans have changed, and now you two will be working with Deathwatch. You have no idea what Deathwatch is or who your brother just made a deal with. You will follow him regardless.

You stand up and hit your head on the lamp above you. You were supposed to be shorter than you are now. Your body is wrong. You look in the mirror and you are not yourself. Your body isn't yours, but it is the only body you have.

Your brother takes over Mandalore. You watch as your brother marches Kenobi into the throne room and prepares to execute the Duchess of this planet.

Kenobi offers sympathy. Kenobi recognizes that your brother never had a choice in joining the dark side. Kenobi had gone to your village and seen what it is like for the nightbrothers. Kenobi, despite everything, is trying to be kind.

You hear your story in Kenobi's words. You never had a choice in any of this. You never stood a chance. Your body isn't yours, your mind has been warped and twisted into serving the goals of another. You only wanted to protect your brother.

Your brother kills the love of Kenobi's life. Your brother has stripped himself and you of any possible chance to take the olive branch Kenobi was extending. You ask if you should kill Kenobi now. You know that stewing in grief and guilt can be a terrible fate. Your brother decides to keep him imprisoned. Your brother is counting on the Kenobi stewing in his grief and guilt. Your brother wants to drag out his suffering for as long as possible.

Your brother is in charge for less than a rotation. Your brother panics and bows before a withered old man, calling him 'master'. Your brother lies and fawns to his master. Your brother's master does not care.

You have never met this man before. You have no reason to fight him. Your brother is terrified of him. Your brother grovels before nobody, but he bows before this man. You don't have to do this.

Your brother needs you. You draw your weapon.

You manage to get a hit in on your brother's master. You are one of very few in the galaxy who can say that. You are at your strongest when you are fighting to protect the people you love.

You are stabbed in both your hearts. Your efforts to protect your brother, your pain and suffering, your love and affection, you, Savage Opress, you don't matter. You didn't know it, but you were fighting the most powerful being in the galaxy.

You never had a choice. You never stood a chance.

You die thinking you were unworthy of your brother. Your brother never said or did anything to make you think otherwise. You die calling yourself apprentice, that is the relationship your brother wanted. Your brother holds your hand as you die, it is trembling. You aren't sure if it is from grief or hatred. You decide it must be the latter. Your brother is only capable of hatred.

You knew your brother was incapable of love. You loved him all the same.

You don't know that you might have been the only thing your brother cared about besides his vengeance. You don't know that when you are unconcious he calls you by your name, he calls you brother. You don't know that he nearly killed the Death Watch soldiers, but stopped when they threatened you. You couldn't know. Your brother never told you.

You don't know that he uses his grief as fuel for his duel with Sidious. You don't know that he switches his ire away from Kenobi and decides that his former master is a more pressing target of his hatred You don't know that he spends the rest of his days trying to find a new apprentice to fill the hole you left and that it never works. You will never know. You are dead.

You died realizing you were nothing like your brother. You never were. Your body shrinks down, you finally look like yourself again. You can't be happy about this. You can't take relief in the fact that all the magic which ruined your life has been dispelled. You can't feel anything. You are dead.

You are right. You are nothing like Darth Maul. Your brother is motivated by hatred, you are motivated by love. Your brother will die having found peace, you died having found nothing but pain and grief and yet more pain.

You are my favorite magical girl and you have suffered so much more than Jesus.

[usercelestial]

being made fun of by a bvddie endgame truther for thinking that bucktommy could get back together is like being made fun of by a bigfoot believer for thinking ghosts are real

[tvckerwash]

the noncanon s9 trailer as a whole is very serious, but the idea that wash and maine would have gotten their asses beat by sim troopers on multiple occasions had the outposts not been first established until after the break in is unbelievably funny. these big bad freelancers are more interested in fucking around and goofing off during what is supposed to be a Very SeriousTM simulation exercise and it comes back to bite them so hard, and yall already know that the other freelancers would make sure they never lived it down.

[bonetrousledbones]

oh yknow what that reminds me, here's a fun fact for the people who have been following me since like 2018 and wanna feel old: i am now officially the same age as papyrus 🎉

[butterflieswhisper]

tori sitting on the stairs is so. the lighting in heartstopper is awesome big fan of the blue/orange. is tori also depressed in the show i still think it would be so fucking funny to offhandedly mention her school burning down

[jelly-of-many-ships]

CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT THE NEW SHERLOCK & CO EPISODE?

Like I know the Patreon people got ep 19 a while ago but I can’t afford it, so I listened to it last night and omg??? Victor Travis is Sherlock’s ‘friend’ from college who knows a lot about him, clearly cares/cared about him, hoped that Sherlock had mentioned him, Sherlock’s met his dad, AND HE’S GAY I’m so exited for the next episode and there’s so many ways their relationship could have gone like did they date? Did they secretly like each other? Were they just friends? Was victor into Sherlock? Did Sherlock reject him? COULD THIS LEAD TO JOHN FINDING OUT HE’S GAY? And canon Johnlock???

I’m probably reading too much into this but I will never be normal about any Sherlock adaption :}

[mostlikelytofangirl]

I like to hc WZL to be one of WRH's closest confidants, so I think it would also be funny if drunk WRH was flustering the shit out of MY and WZL is like "Sect leader. That's enough," and WRH, much like a cat is all like "No!! No!!!! Yao'er is too good not to praise!!!" And then goes to his knees. MY is wondering how he'll ever face WZL again and WRH is having the time of his life

Cue WRH, when he sobers up, going "Wtf did I do!?!!??!?!!?!?!?" and MY is short circuiting and all tingly while WZL tiredly explains what happened

Even funnier if WRH decides "Oh that's fine, actually, no big deal."

Hi! I happen to still be alive :D

And that's a very good thing bc I love the idea of WZL surprisingly being the closest person to WRH and therefor the only one absolutely NOT impressed by his antics lol.

The poor guy has Seen Some Shit after his years of loyal service, and now hardly anything can faze him. Like, "you're not going to believe what Sect Leader Wen did!!" He can. He totally can actually, and the day Sect Leader Wen has not been up to some tomfoolery would be the day WZL will actually be surprised :')

So yeah, I'm fully vibing with WZL being the designated sect leader-sitter (which is pretty much just a nice title bc gods know the day has yet to come when anyone can stop WRH from doing whatever he wants), acting as the ignored voice of reason, knowing fully well that in the end, he's just going to dead-pan a detailed explanation of how WRH didn't really listen to him, but what does he knows

And really, of all the embarrassing things WRH could have done, blowing his perfectly little aide in front of an audience is absolutely not one of those 😌. And WZL knew it too

[perenlop]

very very subject to change depending on if i can get pokego to work but here is what i'm thinking for my team....

[bumblingbabooshka]

Me reading fics where Tuvok encourages other peoples’ romantic pursuits:

[nandermoenthusiast]

oh my god i got so emotional SHUT UUUUUP