#the punishment certainly is

[eirianerisdar]

Here's why Daniel getting a three-place penalty for the next race is yet again evidence that the FIA need to review their regulations:

These are the regulations for overtaking under safety car:

The stewards were right in that Hulkenberg could pass both Lance and Daniel under safety car under Article 55.8 (h), because Lance had crashed into Daniel and they were both cars with obvious problems.

But, glaringly, there is nothing in the regs that state what happens if the car that was passed quickly gets back up to speed and tries to put themselves back into the correct order, which is what you usually do if you get out of order behind the safety car, whether because of pit exits or otherwise.

I'm not saying the stewards could have changed their verdict, but it's only on paper that Daniel had no leg to stand on, because logically, that was his spot and he was very quickly back on Hulk's tail after his wheels hit the ground again. Clearly this is yet another gap in the regs that should have been logically addressed because a situation like this would eventually come up.

It's a similar gap that "stopping on track during qualifying" needed clarification for, and last year, with the 20-place grid drop Carlos suffered for the drain cover that smashed through his car and necessitated changing its components.

Needless to say, a missed gap in the regs causing what would be a logical regaining of a spot to lead to a three-place grid penalty and 2 penatly points for a driver reflects rather more poorly on the FIA regs themselves than the driver who got punted then tried to put himself back where he should have been behind the safety car.

[ruporas]

on the run!! (ID in alt)

[k-wame]

JACOB ELORDI as bobby falls & ZACHARY QUINTO as jim goodwin He Went That Way (2023) dir. Jeffrey Darling

[proffbon]

Okay, why in the hell in both resolutions of the questlines related to the ASSASSINS GUILD you have an ASSASSIN CHARACTER being like "You know what, by right I should kill you for what you did but I have something better in mind - public humiliation!" as if it anywhere on the same level? 💀

[hiding-under-the-willow]

Anyways. Random Ghosts AU thought but. Bdubs, having been worshipped as a god in life. Probably thinking of himself as an aspect of the gods. Was uh. Probably expecting something different for his afterlife huh. Probably didn't feel very good to end up stuck as a ghost for like 12,000 years. Especially when so many of those were spent. Alone. Trapped on a relatively small parcel of land to spend your eternity on. Probably felt a bit like being abandoned by the god he dedication his life to huh

[ninamodaffari]

-

[spacexseven]

Hi still dying with uni (and a cold) but. wtf is fyodor's ability.

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I think ought to be more readily-available and encouraged is simply... taking parental classes. I wish it were more common for people to realize just how hard - and important - parenting is, and indeed, that we all could use help with taking care of young folk. It's really alarming that popular opinion is still that parental classes are only for the "fuck-up" parents, or the parents who utterly failed. It should be seen as a good thing to take parental classes - especially on your own volition. It should be seen as imperative for one to take them, it should be a free, accurate, and scheduled occurrence so that people of any background are able to attend.

[forgetful-river]

You're allowed to ascend but only if God wants you to, and God can be a bit of an authoritarian bastard

[fwoopersongs]

On 33 elders and the Lan's Discipline Whip

This tumblr post by @qiu-yan the other day on moral luck in MDZS came past my dash, and there was a mention of the thirty three elders in the Lan Clan who were injured by Lan Wangji - some of you may remember it better as the reason for his thirty three whip scars xD. And I remembered reading (mostly on twitter) people saying things like he got whipped 33 times 'for going against his sect elders', or that the elders deserved it for acting unjustly. Maybe this was a CQL thing??? But I wanted to share my understanding of the situation from reading the novel.

For the record, elders here aren't like ‘Elders’ in the sense of people in positions of power within a clan i.e. 长老 as you might see in sects from more conventional Xianxia novels. Instead, its noun for ‘older generation’ i.e. 前辈 within the clan. 

So, here's a translation of Lan Xichen’s recount to Wei Wuxian of how Lan Wangji came to bear scars of thirty three strokes of the Lan Discipline Whip from Chapter 99/100, Discipline Whip Scars aka Hensheng: To Hate Life 3.

On Versions I’m comparing between two versions of the novel where the first chapter title is: {1} 魏无羡死了，大快人心! (lit: Wei Wuxian is dead, gratifying news for everyone!) & {2} 重生 (lit: Alive Again). The version I’m translating is {1} from the website Zhenhun using footnotes to compare it against {2}. Line breaks and other cosmetic or grammatical changes are ignored. References to chapter numbers and such will be based on {2} since this is the version used on the MDZS fandom Wiki. All chapter titles also are referenced from the wiki.

Wei Wuxian repeated, "Discipline Whip scarring?!" 

He grasped at Lan Xichen again and said, "Clan Leader Lan, I truly have no idea. Please, tell me. How did he get those injuries? Does it have something to do with me?!?”

Embittered anger surfaced on Lan Xichen’s face, "If it doesn’t ‘have anything to do with you’, did he perhaps scar himself for no particular reason at all?” [1]

Zewu-jun had always been restrained and composed to the utmost, but this was a matter which had impacted Lan Wangji and thus uncharacteristically, his anger was roused. Yet after observing Wei Wuxian's expression carefully, this anger receded slightly and he asked tentatively, "You… you've had some memory loss?"

"My memories?" Wei Wuxian said. He immediately tried hard to see if there was anything he could not recall, and then replied, "I don't think there’s any period of time which I don’t remem — yes!"

There was indeed one period during which his memories were blurred and indistinct.

The bloodbath at Nightless City!

On that night many years ago, he had believed Wen Qing and Wen Ning gone, their bones ground to dust and scattered by their enemies. On top of that, seeing the Great Clans on their impassioned, self-righteous warpath and witnessing Jiang Yanli die before his eyes, he finally utterly lost control. Combining the two halves of the Yin Tiger Tally, he unleashed it, allowing it to kill indiscriminately. The dead under the Tally’s power killed others, who then became new fierce corpses, creating an endless supply of massacring puppets which turned the place into a blood-soaked hell.

After that, [2] although Wei Wuxian could just barely manage to stay on his feet, he distantly felt himself leave this slaughterhouse of a ruined city. There was a long period in which he was not fully aware of anything. When he finally came back to himself, he had already been sitting in a daze at the foot of Yiling’s Knoll of Unmarked Graves [3] for a long time.

Lan Xichen asked, "Do you remember now?"

Wei Wuxian murmured, "That period at Nightless City? I… I’d always thought that I had wandered back in a daze, but..."

Lan Xichen was so angry he could have laughed, "Young Master Wei, How many enemies were you up against that night? It was three thousand! No matter how much of an unparalleled talent of this age you may be - withdrawing entirely unharmed under those circumstances? How could that be possible?"

Wei Wuxian asked, "Lan Zhan... what did Lan Zhan do?"

"What did Wangji do. If you don’t remember it yourself, I fear he will never tell you of his own accord, and you certainly won’t be asking [4]. Fine. Let me tell you." Lan Xichen said.

"Young Master Wei, on that night after you took out the two halves of the Yin Tiger Tally, merged them into one, and slaughtered to your heart's content, you were at the end of your strength. Wangji, having been injured by you in your madness, was in about the same state. He was only able to get to his feet by leaning on Bichen. Even so, the moment he saw you stumbling away, he immediately followed.

"There weren't many people left conscious at the scene. I was barely able to move and could only watch as Wangji, with his Spiritual Energy clearly almost depleted, limped laboriously in your wake, then grabbed and pulled you onto Bichen. The both of you flew off on the sword together.

“I only regained my Spiritual Energy two shicheng* later and hurried back to the Lan Clan in Gusu seeking support. I was worried that if people from the other families caught up to the both of you first, Wangji would be perceived as your accomplice. The best outcome of this would leave him with a stain on his name for life and a damaged reputation, the worst scenario would be him being dispatched without a chance to defend himself. And so along with my shufu, I gathered thirty-three elders who had always praised and thought highly of Wangji. Together, we spent two days as the sword flies secretly [5] searching. That was how we found traces of your trail within the borders of Yiling. Wangji had hidden you in a cave. When we arrived, you were sitting on a stone within the cave, dazed, while Wangji held your hand, transferring Spiritual Energy to you and speaking softly [6].

“And the whole time, you were only repeating one word at him.

“‘Scram!’”

Wei Wuxian’s throat was dry, his eyes red. He was unable to say a word. 

Lan Xichen continued, "My shufu appeared suddenly before him, giving him a scolding and asking him for an explanation. He seemed to have expected us to find him, yet he said there was nothing to explain, that this was just how it was. Since childhood and even after growing up, he had never been defiant toward our shufu and me [7]. But for you, Wangji not only talked back to shufu, he even turned his sword on the cultivation practitioners of the same origin, the same bloodline of the Gusu Lan Clan as himself, severely injuring [8] the thirty-three elders we had requested help from...

Wei Wuxian buried his hands in his hair, saying, "I... I didn’t know... I really..."

Besides repeating that he really didn't know, there was nothing else was able to say. 

Lan Xichen tried holding back for a moment, but went on to add, "Thirty-three Discipline Whip scars! All the strokes within one session, one for each person. You ought to know how painful that is, how long it takes to recover from it! [9], [Note] After willfully sending you back to the Knoll, Wangji returned, despondent, to receive his punishment. How long he knelt before the Wall of Discipline! When I went to see him, I said ‘Young Master Wei has already made a grave mistake. Why would you compound it?’ But he replied that he wasn’t able to judge if what you did was right or wrong, and regardless of that, he was willing to bear all the consequences with you. [10] Those few years he was said to have spent ‘reflecting on his mistakes before the Wall’ were, at their core, because his motion was limited by his injuries. And even so, after learning of your death, he forced himself in this condition to get up because no matter what, he had to go to the Knoll and see for himself…” [11]

*One shicheng is approximately equal to two hours.

[1] This part in italics isn’t in {2}. [2] Added in {2}: But after going through all of these, Wei Wuxian’s body and spirit had been seriously damaged. [3] He was at the foot of a small hill near the Knoll in the revised version.  [4] This part in italics isn’t in {2}. [5] In {2} Lan Xicheng and his uncle explicitly requested the elders to keep this a secret.  [6] In {2} Lan Wangji was asking him something. [7] In {2}, Lan Xichen only specifies that Lan Wangji has never talked back to his uncle, leaving himself out of the sentence. [8] In {2} Lan Xichen says they were severely injured, nearly fatally. [9] There’s a break in {2} with Wei Wuxian’s inner thought of ‘This, he knew.’ Reason being what I have in [Note]. [10] This part in italics isn’t in {2}. [11] This part in italics isn’t in {2}.

[Note] Per Chapter 11, The Elegant Flirt 1: Wei Wuxian has never been beaten with the Discipline Whip before, but he has seen its mark on Jiang Cheng. They’d tried all sorts of ways to make the scarring go away, but it was in vain. All clans use it for disciplining members who had committed grave wrongdoing. Later in Chapter 59, Sandu: The Three Poisons 4, we learn that Jiang Cheng was hit with it by Wen Chao who got his hands on the Jiang Clan Discipline Whip.

// a thought //

We just learnt that Lan Wangji had been injured by a berserk Wei Wuxian himself, was struggling to stand and nearly out of Spiritual Energy. Then he had to control Bichen to fly them both to Yiling, and at least at the moment they were found, was attempting to heal Wei Wuxian with the Spiritual Energy transfer. From Lan Xichen’s account, it took Lan Xichen four hours to recover somewhat and regain enough Spiritual Energy to go home for help. So let’s say Lan Wangji did take some time off from minding the catatonic Wei Wuxian to replenish his Spiritual Energy, he’s still not fighting them at a hundred percent. His elders from Gusu Lan had not participated in the fighting at Nightless City (uninjured), but they’d all been on their swords for two days, searching for Lan Wangji. Probably still in a much better form than him though. How was he able to injure them ‘severely’? 

(I think there are two options. One, Lan Wangji is just that good of a fighter. Two, his elders were holding back.)

[atopvisenyashill]

my hot take of the day is that clearly the people who swallow the in universe targ & valyrian exceptionalism are being completely taken in by the exact system that george is trying to critique but also i think the people who over correct into this idea that not a single targaryen is worthy of like, our empathy or sorrow or are rightfully chafing against the structures put in place by valyrians, first men, and andals alike are also being incredibly 2d in their analysis. i feel like this happens most often when people try to make the case that andals are somehow oppressed in westerosi society on a cultural level simply bc valyrian supremacy trumps andal culture. i think this is incredibly silly to say or posit as the truth in universe because there is in fact some oppression of culture in westeros but it’s not the andals lol!!! it’s the first men, the dornish, the rhoynar/greenblood orphans, and the ironborn. there Is some level of,,,, idk bigotry/xenophobia towards valyrians but only valyrians who don’t worship the faith - people like larra rogare, who still follow valyrian gods, do face this bigotry because they’re Too Foreign, the same way someone like thoros, melisandre, taena, etc who are essosi but not from a still heavy valyrian-based society like volantis and lys, and that’s definitely important to the conversation, because it shows the Dominant Culture is in fact the Andal culture when it comes to westeros and that’s like,,, fine, and even more interesting to me to see how andals, who have been the dominant force on westeros for thousands of years, interact with valyrians, who clearly want to keep ideas of valyrian supremacy alive somehow and essentially try to get the other dominant force in westeros to buy in (which they do!). like, are these two at odds sometimes? yes! but i don’t think it’s correct to say that the andals face ~prejudice for being andals or followers of the faith either!

[fisheito]

me: idk i guess i'm not really into [specific kink] anyone: oh sorry then i won't show you t-- me: show it to me anyone: i thought you didn't like [specific kink] me: but how will i know if today is the day that changes? show it to me

[tehcherrya]

"They seem to have got a notion in their heads that you are... mad... or close on it."

I promise I didn't abandon you, Tumblr, I have just been busy since my semester started a week or so ago!

Anyway, I have been reading Crime & Punishment recently and have really enjoyed it thus far. If y'all didn't know this about me already, I am a big lit nerd with an even more active imagination for illustrations. I've also seen clips from the miniseries and I can't wait to watch that after I finish the book!

[alizardjae]

"Rafal didn't suffer consequences for his actions" he was in solitary for 1000 years? Like, the Winds came to main story Elyos right away and Nel was dead. He wasn't in confinement, but he presumably had to stay close to the Somniel or else carry Nel around with him to keep giving her energy to revive her. So that's basically 1000 years in solitary exile.

I mean, we can certainly debate how long that feels to a dragon, and whether that's enough of a consequence for killing a continent's worth of people (and with that, punitive justice vs restorative justice [not technically possible in this case though] vs prevention of further harm), but it's not like he wasn't punished at all.

That said, from the player perspective we don't get to see it happening, since we're over in the other dimension and Rafal doesn't talk much about it in any of his supports or other dialogue, so I can see how it would feel like he just said "sorry about killing everyone, are we good?"

[somegrumpynerd]

Started reading The Bad Wingmen by @topazshadowwolf and @paddie-ut and it utterly possessed me for a few days so I needed to draw some of my favourite bits

[allastoredeer]

You were wondering which circle Lucifer might live in, an if I had to guess, I'd say the sixth one. The one meant to punish heresy:

the belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine

An opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted

A fitting place to settle down for one so severely punished for thinking too far outside of the box.

That'd be fucking awesome and so so fitting.

I'm so curious about where Lucifer's house is. We don't see any indication of where he'd be living within Pentagram City, so if the 9 Circles are a thing, I 100% believe he lives in one of those. You're so big brained for putting him in the Heresy Circle, it's perfect for him.

(But I also love bullying Lucifer and I like the idea that he's cursed to be close to the Sinners at all times as punishment, that way he's constantly reminded of his hubris and mistakes, which is why he locks himself up in his work-room so much. He's as stuck with the Sinners as the Sinners are stuck in the Pride Ring, and he copes with that by never, ever going outside. That's the real reason he's so pale. Guy has a the Hell equivalent of Vitamin-D deficiency.