#there's a lot to unpack but honestly

[vampeded]

alright a quick tl;dr until i (never) get my carrd set up:

basic etiquette, multi verse/ship friendly, 21+ age etc etc!

if you haven't seen trigun stampede or the 1998 show, don't worry!

i wanna throw vash everywhere, he's a soft bean & i love him.

vash isn't human, he's a "plant". basically an energy source/battery that's grown independence and a soul. he doesn't produce any "energy" though.

he has powers that he's yet to discover and unlock.

he's got an evil twin brother that's the reason for the bounty on his head.

he's over 150+ years old, with superhuman capabilities etc.

he's too nice for his own good. his moral code has almost gotten him killed.

thus he doesn't kill his opponents or anyone, which he suffers greatly from.

he's a very skilled marksman and fighter, but ironically he hates doing both.

if you have any questions, please just ask!

[wardensantoineandevka]

a thing about Nathaniel is that he has some of the same issues and problems as Sean, except Nathaniel successfully compartmentalized (a revolver locked tidily into a mahogany box) and is more controlled about his own descent. sharing in a different degree in it, but sharing in it nonetheless.

and there's many reasons why Nathaniel is coping significantly better—among the most important of which is he hasn't shot children, as far as we know—but I think, just as much as Sean is, Nathaniel is afraid of the person he can be. he hates himself, for many reasons going back to his childhood. I think he hates and is afraid of Lt. Trapp too, at least a little. he hides the revolver in that box and is hesitant to take it, and it is a dark place, and one he has to slowly get himself used to even thinking about over multiple days.

to use Beatrix's hole metaphor, Nathaniel has just as much a hole as Sean does. Nathaniel's may not be as deep and dark, and Nathaniel has managed to claw his way back up out of it, but it is there, and he is trying to climb a little ways down it on purpose without falling back to the bottom. and it's voluntary, and he has more control over it than Sean does in his rapidly deteriorating state, but there is always a risk against what it may to do Nathaniel to walk back into a place and state that has and can ruin and harm him as a person.

I think it's why Sean and Nathaniel seem to intuitively understand one another sometimes, when it comes to these things. even if they don't materially grasp their circumstances all the time. it's why their relationship is so easy and automatic. they have share this thing where they hate and are afraid of themselves, of that man who came back from the war.

unfortunately, that man of them both is useful for the task at hand.

[jingyi-ma-boi]

Yunmeng Twin Heroes' complicated dynamics

So, my tags in one of the last posts I reblogged got a little out of hand and were long enough to deserve their own post, cause, even if I was commenting on other people’s meta and headcannons I ended up 'writing' my own. If you click on the link, you'll see that @featherfur's post was all about the post-canon chengxian feels of seeing the changes in each other while not being able to directly participate in each other's lives. Go read that. It's a bit long, but it's worth it. The angst of seeing somebody you love(d) being so similar yet so different from what you remember, and thinking knowing that you do not get to be a part of their lives like you'd want to hits just right.

However, I don't think that level of 'deep yearning to be able to love each other like they once did' is everything there really is. To me, there’d be a point in post-canon where they do feel like that, but they would resent each other often and even feel something akin to hate as well whenever their feelings regarding everything that has happened in canon got too much to bear.

Now, you can go on reading what I think their emotional journey towards reconciliation would be like, or you can just skip to the end, where I’ve put a TLDR. You’ll get the general idea but if you want to dive into the complexity of their feelings, keep reading (please, I’d love for other people to read and discuss this with me, or give their thoughts at least T.T).

We all know how JC feels about everything WWX has done and how he blames him. For all that the fandom pegs him as someone who doesn’t know how to express his feelings other than through anger, he's actually pretty aware of them and lets himself experience them (although not in a healthy way, re: being angry most of the time). Meanwhile, WWX has always been incredibly detached from his emotions —that's why it takes him so long to realize he's been in love with LWJ since their teens— because 1) he's been raised to think that his value lies not on him as a person, but on him as a protector that has to right all his wrongs to everybody around him because of filial duty, life debts, and class differences; and 2) he doesn't think he deserves feeling them, as a result of that.

And although I'm all for the chengxian feels and the fluff of Yungmeng Jiang' bros reconciliation, (really, I love that trope) I don't see it happening organically.

Listen here, I'm talking from personal experience. You can feel enormous amounts of longing, missing the closeness you once had with someone who hurt you deeply, and resent that person at the same time. It seems obvious, but it’s the kind of obvious thing that needs to be reminded. In a situation like this, you can, and will, get bursts of anger at that person for everything they did and everything they didn't do. You hate yourself for missing them because you have all the right to be angry at them, and disapointed and sad, and you shouldn't be missing them nor contemplating the possibility of going back to how things were once. You can be glad to see that they are doing well in their new life and be jealous that it is not you who they're sharing all these new experiences with, while you're watching awkwardly from the sidelines, letting the guilt from the swarm of contradictory emotions eat at you, because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how you feel. What matters is the facts. What you did. What THEY DID.

I see JC going through a mix of less complicated emotions at first. After canon, where he scowls at WWX with anger at first, the underlying pain gains a new companion. A feeling of sadness that drives JC to avoid WWX in the same way that the latter’s pain and guilt drives him to avoid his shidi. WWX, on the other hand, would take the longest time to let himself feel more complex and contradictory emotions. He might even get stuck on that guilt and not let himself feel the anger, disappointment, and resentment towards JC that he has always buried deep inside if things at Cloud Recesses stay the same as ever and he and LWJ isolate themselves from everyone else while LXC withers away in his tormented seclusion.

(Here comes the important reminder that MDZS is full of parallelisms and as such, LWJ and LXC share the same complicated feelings that exist between the Yunmeng bros, even if the details of their relationships are different. I won't go further into the Twin Jades of Lan, cause they deserve their own post, but let it be known that their reconciliation is as unlikely as the Yunmeng Twin Heroes’. They’re totally related. Any advances in one of the pairs would positively reflect on the other and viceversa, that’s why it’s so difficult for them to avoid emotional stagnation.)

The key to WWX getting more in touch with his feelings would be in the changes brought forth by the juniors. LSZ and LJY would work through WWX's façade even better than LWJ does, cause WWX doesn't think them as biased. His two Lan ducklings would charge headlong into his emotional mess through gentle words (LZS) and earth-shattering remarks disguised as snark (LJY), and force help him through the mess of recognizing and sorting out those emotions.

Still, JC and WWX being aware of their feelings is not enough for them to solve things.

However, it might help them all to take a step forward and start acknowledging each other in a better manner. They’d go from having raw, more simple feelings preventing them to even wanting to hear each other’s name, to gradually being able to share the same space amicably. That doesn’t mean that looking at each other in the eyes or feeling each other’s gaze isn’t simply too much because it makes them spiral. This is the point where they’d yearn for this new, happier version of their brother, their emotions getting as complicated as I described at the beginning. But that's the most I can see them achieving on their own because they’re both so stubborn. They’re set in their own ways and it would take a huge external force for them to make the slightest changes (ie. golden-core transfer reveal and the little ducklings intervening to make WWX feel his feelings is what causes changes in their perspective).

Why do I feel like this? Am I allowed to feel this? How can I dare to want this when I can’t even forgive him? How could I ever forgive him? Would he ever forgive me? How is it possible that I still love him so much? Do I even deserve to have that with him after everything I did? And what about him? Am I ready to truly forgive him and trust him? Will I ever be? I can’t, I couldn’t even if I wanted to and it hurts SO MUCH! IT HURTS!

IT HURTS!ITHURTSITHURTSITHURTS IHATEHIMIHATEHIMIHATEHIM

WHYDIDHEDODTHAT!?!WHYDIDHEDOTHATTOME?! WHYDIDHENOTDOANYTHING?!

WHY DID HE LEAVE ME?!?!?

…

You see? After everything I’ve laid down, any of them could have this exact internal conflict anytime.

The thing is they are both more alike than they think. JL would see through their bullshit and be so frustrated with it all through the years. Already an adult and experienced sect leader, he’d understand but not completely, because he’d be the first to realize that nothing can compare to what they’ve gone through. And yet, he’d want them to talk and make up because he loves his maternal uncles so much. He won’t admit it to anyone, (LJY, LZS and OYZZ don’t need him to. it’s been years since WWX returned and JL’s already an open book to them), but he wants them to be happy around each other. To not feel so torn apart between them. He’d want an opportunity to have some semblance of the family that could’ve been and he will take any chance, as small as it might be, to achieve that.

Cue the junior-now-adult-quartet shenanigans. They’ve been seeing how every adult they love is miserable to some extent, and now that they’re adults too, they can and will do something about it. Cause hey, if they were able to bulldoze in and force WWX to actually feel his feelings, they can do this too! So now, their new goal is to get these two grown-ass adults to talk. Although technically, WWX is only a few years older, and a great deal more traumatized than them too. They’re aware of it. But they’d rather not think too much about it because they most definitely didn’t cry for hours on end after they got him to talk and started thinking about his life. And they most definitely didn’t attract attention when, weeks later, they finally grasped the scope of everything that their seniors had suffered when they had been even younger than they were at that moment.

LJY and OYZZ would be totally and completely over-invested in this. They’d scheme and help JL trace a plan for how and when to talk to each of them individually to subtly let them know how he felt. LSZ would use his power as heir and acting sect leader to stage the encounter among the three of them, securing LWJ’s reluctant approval after a great deal of convincing. And JL would trigger the conversation with a spontaneous outburst at his two uncles’ ridiculous yearning. They’d probably use a combination of WWX’s inventions and Lan techniques to lock them into a room, and force them to talk and have a truthful heart to heart, and they’d hope that after that, everything would be okay.

A LONG bout of silence later, they’d hear shouting and objects shattering and hitting the floor. They’d hear them fight, without sensing any spiritual or resentful energy of any kind, and LWJ would have to be stopped from dismantling the arrays and talismans in place just so he could go pounce on JC’s throat himself. The blows would soon be replaced with more silence, then soft murmurs. Sobbing. More yelling, and cracked voices. It’d be almost time for waking up the next morning when the arrays disappeared on their own. The doors opening to show the two brothers splayed on the floor next to each other, robes and hair disastrously askew. Holding their forearms over their eyes, barely covering the tear trails and reddened cheeks, their chests would be rising peacefully as they’d finally seem to sleep from exhaustion. LWJ’s eyes would get stuck on the way their fingertips touch ever so slightly. The ducklings don’t say a thing, but they’d totally stare too. JL would be the one to break the silence and tell everyone they should be going to sleep as well (and if LSZ and LJY see JL’s glassy eyes and a lone tear… no, they don’t).

Would that be it? Nope. Haven’t I said already it’s not easy? They’d have started talking and acknowledging that they both want the same thing, but it’s still not enough. They’d have to WORK for it. Hard. They would need to build a support system if they wanted to achieve the relationship they want to have. LWJ would have to start seeing JC as a person, and one that is able to give his Wei Ying the happiness he deserves, now that he’s at it. JC would have to start relying more on the other adults in his live. And it wouldn’t hurt WWX if he expanded his circle to include people other than his husband, his son, his son’s friends, and his undead cinnamon-roll of a friend.

In this way, they would be working on their respective issues to obtain each other’s forgiveness. They would face setbacks on more than one occasion, questioning whether it’s even worthwhile. This is the only way I see them regaining trust in each other.

The two of them mending their relationship without strong external factors would be OOC and unrealistic. It doesn’t matter if you’re going by MDZS or CQL canon. Although if we’re going by CQL canon, I don’t think they would ever go further than the ‘avoiding each other’ stage, and neither would any plot device help them do it. CQL WWX is very tame in the war-crime front and even though he’s just as ‘selflessly’ quick to put himself in harm’s way as in the novel, nobody can blame him for an attack that was clearly planned years before (most of the ‘facts’ stated on the novel turned out to be complete hearsay and/or senseless bullshit, this translates to CQL too even though if the censorship fucked a big part of this by drawing extreme caricatures of everyone). His misdeeds boil down to war crimes of varying moral weight, and not trusting people enough to include them in decisions they should’ve been included in, cause JZX and JYL’s deaths were caused by SMS.

And CQL JC is… not good. His decision to completely ignore the Wens even when he personally knew them and knew they had helped them repeatedly (first encounter in the Dafan Mountain and then, after the fall of Lotus Pier) meant he’s the only character to blatantly disregard a life debt, one he had to the Wen siblings. And on top of that, he still pulls the same shit that novel JC does after WWX returns, which makes him even worse.

Novel JC, on the other hand, took the right decision by not getting involved with the Wens. They were complete strangers, and he couldn’t risk the safety of the sect and the people of Yunmeng. He was powerless against the wishes and whims of the cultivational world cause that's how politics work. You’re forced to choose duty towards your people over your heart.

But let’s get back on track. I’ll make a full post on my view of JC as whole another time. The reason why it would be so complicated and they’d have to work so hard towards mending their relationship is that they would first have to realize that they cannot go back to how things were before. JC would need to recognize that WWX is not to blame for all his misfortunes and he’d have to apologize for all the fucked-up shit he does after WWX’s return. Psychologically torturing his 21-year-old brother with dogs while being a 34 year-old sect leader that has had 13 years to deal with his emotions was a dick-move of the highest category. And so it is the stunt he pulls right before the golden-core reveal at Lotus Pier. Yes, the golden-core transfer was sketchy but made complete sense. Yunmeng Jiang needed a leader and WWX was not fit for the role, not due to a lack of skills, but because it would’ve worked as badly as JGY given how the whole Jianghu cared only about birth status and nothing else.

This doesn’t mean that JC’s evil, WWX is the ultimate child-abuse victim, and that JC should never get close to WWX ever again (I’m looking at you, JC antis, though this whole post is also a call-out to JC apologists, cause he ain’t no innocent snowflake wronged by bad, evil /WWX/YLLZ). It simply means that JC has to claim responsibility. He also needs to see that just like WWX was abused, he and JYL were victims of the same abuse. They both need to come to terms with that fact and know that they had some sort of trauma-bond given that JC’s coping mechanism for enduring the abuse was reflecting that same abusive behavior on WWX. Yes, siblings who grow up abused often abuse each other as well, and/or end up enabling their abusers through a fawn response (this was JYL’s case).

TLDR; I love the idea of these two hot-heads making up and having strong feelings about each other. But the abuse they endured growing up, and the abyss it slowly carved up between them is something they both need to acknowledge and heal from before even considering the idea of mending their relationship. That, and the extend of the wounds they’ve inflicted on each other since WWX returned are things I don’t see them working on unless prompted by external forces. Their relationship is too complicated and nuanced for anything other than that being possible, which means that they wouldn't be able to forgive and trust each other unless some freaking major plot-event forced them to actually talk. That’s why I see their reconciliation as highly unlikely.

[torch-the-throne]

[pergaminaa]

Modern au

Dorian tries to convince Manon that reading is fun because there are so many different genres and storylines like there is something out there that she will fall in love with he is certain.

Manon is very skeptic and merely rolls her eyes at him when he makes that suggestion.

(Because she was raised on the concept that this is a frivolous activity, a total waste of time. She wasn’t allowed to have any interest outside of what her grandmother dictates, and if she tried something, her grandmother always found out and destroyed it. So in a way, adult Manon having an aversion to hobbies and interests is a trauma response. She is literally scared of getting caught doing something for fun and have it destroyed/taken from her, so she just doesn’t. The problem is, she isn’t fully aware of all of this, and honestly believes that she has no desire for hobbies and the like)

Dorian offered to read her one of the books he has. All she has to do is pick whatever book she feels like getting into and he will read it for her.

Fully intending on messing with him, Manon picked the thickest book she found on his bookshelf. Dorian being serious, set up a nightly schedule. He would read her a chapter per night, and see how she likes it.

Manon did not only fully get immersed in the story, but she fell in love how Dorian is just sitting there reading those lines out loud. His voice was soothing and drew her further into the story. (She’d argue it’s Dorian, not the book. But this is another argument because Dorian is all like ‘you like ME. What an honor, witchling’ so in a way both arguments are not in Manon’s favor lmao)

On days when she is alone and eager to continue the story, she’d pick up the book and attempt to read some pages. But she realizes that she enjoys it more when Dorian is reading it for her so she puts it back and wait for the evening to come.

[clotpolesonly]

Mister Impossible ch 19 // Greywaren ch 25

[chocochat]

i watched juno (2007) for the first time ever and i did indeed cry... A LOT

[ophernelia]

Lykaia’s getting so serious and I don’t like heavy storylines lol. It’s just this stretch though. It still is a slice of life series so we just gotta get through the rough patches. The wedding will be fun. The SK trip. All their antics in between. We’ll get a little reprieve soon.

[baconcolacan]

I actually do have an idea of how tomtord could work in canon divergence rather than the AUs I do, it’s just a lot of feelings and selfish bastardry, bastard-ness mostly from Tord, feelings and selfishness mostly from Tom

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Ppl who can't just enjoy an evil character, and think it's a moral failing if anyone else likes that character are exhausting, and I'm pretty sure slept through any lesson about literary understanding.

Yeah. I mean, it's fine not to enjoy evil characters, or any kind of character, for any reason! But... Yeah, while I don't love that trend of groups accusing each other of lacking media literacy because I feel like it often obscures the core disagreement and any difference of perspective people may bring to the table while both having genuinely interesting points to bring up, it does become pretty exhausting to be morally scrutinized about extremely tame opinions about extremely tame characters.

To me, liking Ganondorf is like... barely above liking Bowser in terms of moral despicability? Not to equate the two at all, as they are very different beasts, but we are talking about a videogame villain made to vaguely scare off children/give them a thrill about feeling like a hero. At the end of the day, this is the purpose Ganondorf serves in the story: being the fairytale evil king that you can defeat and still feel good about yourself (then Wind Waker arrived etc etc but even then, he served that purpose and extremely well even in Wind Waker).

But I don't want to underplay the weight of what I'm generally saying on this blog either and I don't want to hide behind "lol it's just a game for children" when it's an argument I hate to see deployed to undermine other people's feelings about the series. I do come at this character with loaded language and pretty heavy terms, and I'm not sure I would have gotten this kind of hostility if I had just twirled my hair like the rest of the (much more reasonable and less invested) internet, and kept some terms I have used (justifyingly so imho) out of my virtual mouth. It can provoke. It's meant to. I understand these feelings can take some strange shapes when they lash out undigested.

THAT BEING SAID.

Okay, sure. You want me to acknowledge the evil bad guy is evil? Okay! Let's do it, right now. Ganondorf commits atrocities. He does weirdly specific and horrible things to the gorons. He kills people and he kills half-gods. He is tyrannical. He is a conqueror and a warlord. He is a thief. He is self-obsessed and entitled. He beats up kids. He practices necromancy. He terrorizes his followers. He lies and manipulates. If you look closely he is even associated with, like.... the devil....? like maybe there's even "demon" somewhere in his title card?

Okay. Very bad. Evil. Horrible nasty man. Weird eyebrows. Arguably weird name. One star. Blocked and reported.

Okay.

...now what?

Like, what do we do from this point on? What did we learn? What did we ponder upon? What touched us, or moved us, or made us see the world in a slightly new light? Are we reassured? Do we sleep any easier at night?

I know it doesn't always have to be the point of art, to question everything constantly. You can go to art for reassurance and simplicity and easy, comforting thrills --and Zelda is great at doing this as a series, it's a huge part of why I love it. It feels safe, and that's such a nice thing to rely upon! And you can stop there!!! It's allowed!!!!!!

But if you go out of your way to shame people investing and questioning this piece of fiction they love in their own way because it threatens your moral safety and the simplicity of your relationship to that media (and/or the world at large)? That becomes a you problem my (gender neutral) guy, and by that I mean: you becoming a problem for others to deal with, regardless of Circumstances.

[realititrip]

a glitch in time changed my brain chemistry i will never be the same

[j-esbian]

(one of) the most frustrating parts about the portrayal of drow society is that it wants to create Reverse Sexism without uncoupling itself from some. pretty foundational patriarchal ideas. it ascribes to the (tired, essentialist) notion that men are inherently good at certain things, and women are inherently suited for different things

but rather than the basic subversion of “women are warriors and men are the homemakers” or even early feminist thought experiments like “traditionally ‘women’s priorities’ are given importance over ‘men’s’ (ie things are governed by council, importance is placed on childrearing, etc)”, menzoberranzan is “this society still holds to patriarchal values and women are not as good at these things which is why it’s demonstrably worse”.

the biggest tell is that they have to control the male population to maintain female dominance, the implication being that in a fair fight, men would easily overpower them. it assumes the misogynist ideas as fact that “women are inherently weaker” and also “women are duplicitous” so the drow fighting style is based on stealth and sabotage rather than “”honorable”” face- to-face combat (letting lie also the assumption that the only avenue for ambition is through military violence, and therefore still making it so that they are reliant on men, even as disposable shock troops, for their success).

the only things that keep women in charge are by stacking the numbers on a systematic level, and through sexual domination on the individual level (because clearly the only real power a woman can have over men is her sexuality).

it is a society where “men act like men” but women don’t act like women; it is evil because an act of god created an aberration against the “natural order” of things, and there is no one to tend the hearth (because if the women won’t do it, no one will)

[lesbiansanemi]

I’m so tired of ppl making art of trans characters and they literally just look 100% cis but with different genitals like how are we not grasping the problem here

[astralarias]

I hate how I can be told how much I’m loved and I DO believe it but then sometimes my brain tries to work twice as hard to convince me it isn’t true. I don’t wanna be constantly asking my friends for reassurance because that’s not fair for them and this is something I have to learn to deal with internally (because this is not an external problem, its a deep wound I have that makes me feel unlovable / unworthy) but I’m always having to go back and read messages where people say they love me to convince my brain I’m okay enough that I can USE the coping methods in the first place.

[hogletthe2nd]

Smile 2/Skye Riley fandom is compromised of like 5 people and honestly I don’t want it any bigger

[pokemonruby]

honestly, what surprised me more than the gay thing was the fact that after all these years, he finally acknowledged that my mother abused me behind his back. and regrets not intervening sooner.