#the order of virtue

[philosophybits]

The fruits of trees and vines have their patterns and principles. Human relationships, too, difficult as they are, have their relative order and precedence. The sage, encountering them, does not go against them; passing beyond, he does not cling to them. To respond to them in a spirit of harmony — this is virtue; to respond to them in a spirit of fellowship — this is the Way.

Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, Watson tr. (Ch 22)

[poorlittleyaoyao]

Taking screencaps of the Unexpected Meng Yao Mention was going to take too long, so here's the scene in full! It encapsulates several changes that the drama makes to the chronology and the character dynamics! NMJ is the active force behind his and MY's separation in CQL; rather than MY incapacitating NMJ and fleeing to escape punishment for the captain's murder, NMJ straight-up exiles him with no trickery from MY involved whatsoever. While NMJ is upset about this, it was his choice/moral obligation, so he doesn't appear to bear MY any ill will over it.

Given that lack of ill will, it makes sense for him to inquire how MY is getting on with the Jin clan even at this juncture... EXCEPT! Except. He didn't send MY to the Jin with a nice recommendation letter here. He fired him and sent him packing with an actively bleeding stab wound! Drama NMJ really thought--or really told himself--that not only would an injured MY make it to Lanling in the first place, but that the man who personally kicked him down the stairs for existing would hire him even after he was banished from another sect. He really wants him to be alive and thriving!

JZX's bewildered reaction to his questions drives home just how ridiculous that prospect is, and you can see NMJ go through it. No, his father was never going to accept him; even his awkward half-brother who doesn't even know him can tell you that. Yeah, stab wounds kill people, like JC pointed out on the day of the exile! Drama NMJ is confronting the fact that MY might in fact be dead, and this hurts him.

Once JZX exits, the scene cuts to JC sadly holding Suibian as he and JYL cry about missing WWX. That transition seems deliberate!

And then the scene after that opens with WLJ, frightened of the WWX in her nightmares, overhearing WC complain:

Don't worry, da-ge, he's fine. :)

[strawberrylind]

i hate this fucking family

[ffc1cb]

i’ve always found it peculiar how during meeting the chargers cutscene the game just assumes your character automatically understands what krem is talking about when he mentions binding (though, granted, it’s all very unsubtle). like, this is a roleplaying game. what if i want to play a character who just doesn’t get it

[spock-adoodledoo]

i think one of the things i'll always appreciate abt maomao is that even though she's the protag, it's not really that the world revolves around her or that things always happen to her, it's more that she gets involved in things (usually at the request of other ppl but whatever) that usually don't affect her immediately. idk but it's nice that she's kind of our dispassionate window into palace life instead of the person everything happens to

[virtchandmoir]

tessavirtue17: A few moments in time 💫

[lin-lll]

Sooooo yes, I really like to make them wearing random stuff

[peridots-pixiwolf]

Sibling asked me to fill a page with ultk characters three days ago and I think I had. A very normal amount of fun doing that.

aka "just for the record—I LOVE SWORDSMACHINE!!" *crowd cheering*

[blackknight-100]

So, sometime back I made this post about Fathers and Sons in Hindu Mythology, and @chahaa-piun-ja mentioned this:

I'll admit I forgot about Dhritarashtra, which speaks a lot about his paternal nature honestly, but when I was about to reblog and mention him, I realised he deserved a different post all to himself.

So... Dhritarashtra is blind. And by popular consensus this is a metaphor for his moral blindness and his blind support of his antagonist sons which... yeah. There's a lot to say about this representation of blind people but then again, this is a text from a time when disrobing a woman was theoretically lawful so. We'll ignore that bit for now.

That being said, I did subscribe to this idea myself, and it seems pretty straightforward overall: a father loving his son to the point of ruin, until I dug in a little deeper. And it seems to me overall that he isn't just blindly granting his sons' wishes out of love, he, like every other adult male in the Kuru court, is complicit in it.

From his backstory we know that he has been denied the throne because he was blind. Which today we would call ableism, but it was clearly as allowed in those times as it is now (looking at you, people who put ridiculous physical requirements to discount disabled applicants), so Pandu becomes the king. His feelings on this matter vary from neutral, unmentioned, resignation, frustration, jealousy, fury to outright hatred, again depending on which version you are reading and the point of view. All of this is valid by the way. If your family effectively decides to cheat you out of a throne and give it to your younger brother, who is also physically indisposed, just more agreeably so, in a society dominated by progentiure, you'd have every right to be furious.

So, when Pandu is compelled to go to the forest, either because of his impotence, or the curse, this feels like justice served. If I were Dhritarashtra I'd be happy too - look, you cast me away, and now you need me again. And Dhritarashtra becomes king. Whether he wanted it or not, whether he was jealous or not, he reclaims his birthright, and his brother isn't even dead or anything. I suppose he would have more qualms about the throne if Pandu were dead. Reasonably speaking, he has every cause to be happy.

And then Pandu tries to sleep with an unwilling Madri. And Pandu dies. And his sons come to Dhritarashtra's court. And the elders want Yudhisthira to be King.

Do you see where I'm going with this? This is Dhritarashtra's childhood/adolescent nightmare come again, and this time with his sons. He has a hundred of them. The fate of a son who is not King is erasure. History forgets them, people no longer remember them. Yes everyone knows the other Pandava brothers now, but they are outliers. They are heroes. They are demigods. And they are only 5 in number. No one will remember the 95 other Kauravas. No one remembers all the names of Krishna's sons, and they too were demigods, albeit unconventional ones, Hell, I don't! And I'm sure most people don't either.

Then, like a manna from heaven, Shakuni falls into his lap. Shakuni is his brother-in-law. Shakuni loves Gandhari and will always want the best for her sons. Shakuni is also really, really clever. And Shakuni, for whatever reason, hates the Pandavas.

Now, I know there are many popular versions where Shakuni is doing this to take vengeance on the Kuru clan, and yes it was dumb of Dhritarashtra to hand over his son's care to him in this case, but Dhritarashtra is overall driven by emotion and a desperate desire to be innocent. He just... gives away 3 boons to Draupadi because her condition makes him feel guilty and afraid (as it should, but this is not what you would typically expect from a man who blindly caters to his sons). When he realizes that doom has come for his children, he has a whole breakdown where he gaslights himself into thinking that he isn't responsible for the situation at all. Dhritarashtra is not even particularly immoral overall: he doesn't want to harm his brother's kids, he loved Pandu, and by extension he loves Pandu's children. But they have to be removed for his sons to get their due. He circumvents this by applying agents - Shakuni, Karna, his own sons.

Duryodhana loves him for it - he has no qualms exerting his power over his father. Except he does this with the belief that his father would never let him walk off to his ruin, which is why he is big mad™️ whenever Dhritarashtra costs him something. And Dhritarashtra basically costs him everything - by giving the Pandavas sanctuary, by letting them get equal education, by partitioning the kingdom, and especially by freeing them. When Draupadi wins over the Pandava brothers, that is when Duryodhana's belief really snaps, and he starts seeing his father as a lenient and foolish king. And the next time, he makes decisions himself and enforces it before his father can get a word in edgewise.

So yes, overall, Dhritarashtra is not a blind, dumb and ignorant spectator, or a helpless father bound by love. He's an indecisive coward, plain and simple, and he actively gives leeway for Duryodhana and co. to do what they do, and then hinders them because he cannot pick a lane. This is a sharp contrast to someone like, say, Kunti, who effectively enforces her will on her sons more than once, and orchestrates her sons' ruin more directly. Like sure, I get where Dhritarashtra is coming from. I'd be just as unhappy as he was if I were ever in his position. And it isn't that Duryodhana doesn't have a claim on the throne. It's just that Dhritarashtra is a passive parent who kind of tried to do good by his sons by keeping his own hands clean, and dirtied theirs in the process. And you know what? I'd rather take Kunti's ferocious authoritarianism over this.

[ultimateinferno]

A bit ago, I had a conversation with someone about the nature of morality and redemption. They were a self described stalker and abuser and it was apparent they felt deeply guilty about what they've done, but rather than doing anything to improve on the behavior that caused all that, they instead resigned themselves to misery; convincing themselves that they couldn't come back and that the only way for the people they hurt to recover is to be the subject of schadenfreude.

I tried to dissuade them from that line of thinking, pointing out that by tying their misery to their victims' happiness—no matter where they may be—is just another way for them to exert ownership over them and strip them of their own agency and achievements. In a sense, it makes their victims' pain all about them. "You aren't the reason you're happy. It's all because of me."

I've always been a vocal critic of "irredeemability" as a concept, but talking to this person who was so incapable of accepting even the thought of improving themselves almost gave me a new sense of hatred for it. The way people talk about justice, redemption, and atonement is just so infuriating. I genuinely believe that there is literally no crime you can't come back from and perpetuating the rhetoric that there is helps no one. It may do nothing for those who don't regret their actions, but it does far too much for those who do. If the prospect that there is literally zero transgressions you can't absolve yourself of gives even a single person the hope and determination to become better, then it is worth far more than satisfaction of seeing bad things happen to legions of "bad people."

I have many little pithy remarks and tenets regarding a fair system of justice, but one that has recently jumped out at me is as follows:

"Vengeance" is like the "Rightful King." Cathartic and satisfying to witness within media, but it can not under any circumstances be emulated or depended upon as a society. Maybe you will get lucky once or twice, and it'll pan out in the short term, but the scale of reality will result in far and away more harm than good.

[itspileofgoodthings]

you know what I’ve realized lately? that’s really helped? the axiom: it just doesn’t really make that much of a difference. Or at least it doesn’t when you’re talking about good things and not, like, doing good vs. doing evil. Big choices, little choices, decisions, decisions —it’s not just that they don’t matter in the grand scheme of things—because they do! —but just. It won’t make that big of a difference. Life will continue to be wonderful AND difficult, fascinating AND hopelessly mundane, full of roses AND thorns and all the other cliches whether you walk down one road or another. And you’ll get used to the joys and sick of the sorrows whatever they are, and you’ll be ungrateful and bored and dissatisfied in some measure some of the time and you’ll have to work on all the things you have to work on anyways and just. Yeah! It doesn’t make that big of a difference! Even the biggest things!

[pinkslenderman]

the virtues and vices... <33 silly guys. love them :3 giving them little forehead kisses

You're....too kind, how sweet of you, thank you dear.

The affection is....strange. But thank you, it is appreciated; if confusing.

That's a surprise, but a welcome one, thank you. Would you like one as well dear? Platonically, of course.

*Petunia and Carnation would not accept, nor let you anywhere near them to.*

[ceylonolivetree]

When Celene said, "I like to feel his eyes on me when I look away" in Before Sunrise, I think of Tessa looking at Scott and Scott looking at Tessa.

I can't even imagine what it feels like to look at that person whom you bared your soul for 22 years; that person who knows a whole different part of you which nobody else would, that little girl/boy you once knew, that platonic soul mate, married and spending a whole different life from you.

Maybe it feels wonderful and maybe it's a little sad too because all those moments are now stories. They would never get to experience what they had for 22 years ever again. It's like losing a little part in you and leaving it with each other.

Even though it's a little sad, that's the beauty of it. If they ever fall in love and get married, they wouldn't be able to get nostalgic like the way they do now. And they'll never be able to tell their children and more importantly tell themselves that, they experienced the most beautiful platonic love story on ice.

What they had was indeed a love story. A love story not many people get to experience in a lifetime.

[coquelicoq]

one important thing about work emails is that whoever you send them to can forward them to anyone else, or reply to you and copy other people. so if you're going to talk about a third party in your email, only say things you would be okay with the third party reading. because people can and will just suddenly CC brand new people on a long email chain, who will then be able to backread anything you've ever said in any of your previous responses that you were sending to only one person. word to the wise.

[fipindustries]

quick reblog and put in the tags the members of the straw hat crew that you think actually had sex. bonus points if you give your reasoning

[naivety]

kamalaheads love to say it's "mostly virtue-signaling white people" who don't want to vote for harris due to the two party backed genocide happening in gaza and then proceed to equate doing so with not giving a shit about "queer people, Jewish people, women, the elderly, people of color, the disabled, and any other group all across the country and the planet who aren't straight white (male) Christians" while conveniently ignoring the people not included in their proposed "mostly" who happen to be incredibly prominent palestinians on this website that thousands of people followed to learn more about palestine in the first place who have been campaigning to help actual gazans survive on a daily basis for more than a year now, and the second they're like hm not super excited about promoting the party that actively sent bombs to help kill 40,000+ people, i won't do that actually, americans who are more scared of trump than their democratic president sponsored bombs because they know it won't be their houses they're dropped on have the fucking gall to reduce it to oh so you don't care about disabled americans? so you want queer americans to have no rights? well well well!!!!! i will call out all the white american voters who happen to agree with you while conveniently never meaningfully engaging with you, an actual palestinian, about this wider topic on how even the "lesser of two evils" version of american democracy affects other countries across the globe against their will in escalated ways that now and actually often include literal genocide that the average american voter won't lift a finger about as soon as election season is over, nor care to challenge the cultural and societal icebergs including so-called "american democracy" that belie this normalized trend the second it inconveniences their version of a better life as an american 👍