#we think before we act
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NEW YORK — Colinford Mattis’ trajectory from a working-class upbringing in East New York to the Ivy League and corporate law abruptly ended at about 1 a.m. May 30, 2020, when a Molotov cocktail ignited the center console of an empty police car during a Black Lives Matter protest.
On Thursday afternoon, Judge Brian Cogan of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn sentenced Mattis, one of two young lawyers who burned the vehicle during the protests days after the murder of George Floyd, to 12 months and a day in prison and a year of post-release supervision.
Mattis, 35, has lost his law license, having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson and having acknowledged he had broken the law he had sworn to uphold. Now he may lose much more: the guardianship and planned adoption of three foster children. The oldest is 14.
On Thursday evening, the Brooklyn courtroom was crowded with Mattis’ friends and family.
“I’m deeply sorry and embarrassed about the things I did and said in May 2020,” Mattis told the judge. He said he recently reread his text messages from that day. “I am more than horrified at the words I used,” he said.
“I am sorry that I hurt my three children that my mother had entrusted to me,” he added.
The judge told Mattis that the country needed attorneys to bolster faith in the rule of law and to reassure Americans that the legal system would hold Floyd’s killers to account. He told Mattis that his hard work had changed his station in life.
“You’re not one of the oppressed,” Cogan said. “You’re one of the privileged.”
Spectators in the gallery gasped at the judge’s words. “To make that comment, you’re not seeing the same things that I’m seeing,” said Taaj Reeves, a friend of Mattis’, after the hearing.
In November, the judge had sentenced Urooj Rahman, Mattis’ friend and a fellow lawyer, to 15 months in prison and two years of supervised release for the same crime. She was the primary caretaker of her aging mother. Cogan called the sentence one of the most difficult he ever had to impose. After a lifetime of hard work and conscientiousness, he said, Rahman’s conduct was a violent aberration.
“You are a remarkable person who did a terrible thing on one night,” the judge told her.
Cogan said Thursday that Mattis got a lighter punishment because he had not been the main instigator of the attack.
The sentences close a case that stunned the city, devastated two families and exposed deep fissures between the police and the community. They reflect a long negotiation with the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, which at first sought steep charges and had pushed to deny bail to Rahman and Mattis, both first-time offenders.
Rahman and Mattis had been high achievers, children of immigrant families who were raised in New York. Rahman pursued public interest law, co-authoring a paper on police reform in 2014 and working at Bronx Legal Services. Mattis followed a more lucrative corporate path. But he was already teetering in his career and personal life when the protests occurred.
The events that led to their downfall began in an unsettled spring.
Mattis had been furloughed in March from his job as an associate at the law firm Pryor Cashman, and the pandemic had cut him off from outside support as he took care of the children, his lawyer wrote.
Then, on May 25, video of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died in Minneapolis after his neck was pinned to the ground by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, ignited protests. There were demonstrations in at least 140 cities across the United States.
In New York, peaceful protests turned into confrontations with police. Throughout the weekend, demonstrators clashed with officers in Union Square in Manhattan and outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, resulting in injuries and hundreds of arrests.
On May 29, according to court documents, Mattis had been drinking throughout the day as he exchanged despairing messages over the murder of Floyd with friends, including Rahman, who were mobilizing to join a protest. That evening, Rahman, who was 31 at the time, met Mattis after he made stops to buy supplies, including gasoline, and joined a swell of protesters in Brooklyn.
Shortly after midnight, with Mattis at the wheel, according to court filings, they drove in a tan minivan to a police precinct in Clinton Hill. After trying to persuade a bystander to throw a bottle that she was holding, Rahman got out of the van herself, walked toward an empty police patrol car that had already been damaged by protesters and threw the Molotov cocktail through its broken window before fleeing.
She and Mattis were arrested shortly afterward and held in jail for several days before they were released to home confinement.
It was a politically fraught moment after New York police officers had arrested hundreds of people during the protests, many on charges of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and unlawful assembly. District attorneys said they would not prosecute many of the nonviolent cases.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors, then part of the Trump Justice Department, appealed twice to keep them behind bars, saying that the two lawyers had tried to incite others to similar attacks. But more than 50 former federal prosecutors signed a public letter urging the appeals court to reject the U.S. attorney’s office’s argument for detention, saying it contradicted settled bail law.
In June 2020, a grand jury returned an indictment against Mattis and Rahman that included seven counts, including arson, use of explosives and civil disorder.
In November 2021, after President Joe Biden had taken office and new leadership had taken over in the Department of Justice, Rahman and Mattis each pleaded guilty to one count of possessing and making an incendiary device. Last June, those charges were dismissed as part of a deal with prosecutors, and both pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit arson.
At Rahman’s sentencing, she faced up to five years under federal guidelines, and the government had asked for 18 months to two years. Her lawyer, Peter Baldwin, asked the court to impose only supervised release, saying his client had experienced “a dangerous and reprehensible lapse of judgment.”
“Urooj’s emotions — her anger, her despair, her rage — got the better of her,” he told the judge. Since the incident, Rahman had been in therapy and Alcoholics Anonymous, Baldwin said.
Rahman was born in Pakistan and grew up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; she graduated from Fordham Law School and had always been drawn to public interest work, a commitment for which Cogan praised her.
When she addressed the court, Rahman cried as she spoke about her mother’s grief. “I don’t think there are enough words to express my sorrow and regret,” she told the court. “My sole intention was to lend my voice to other New Yorkers in the pursuit of justice. I completely lost my way in the emotions of the night.”
She is to report to federal prison in Connecticut on Tuesday.
Mattis has already spent nearly a month in jail, has taken a leadership role in his Alcoholics Anonymous chapter and is at no risk of reoffending, his lawyers said in the memorandum to the judge.
Sabrina Shroff, his defense attorney, told Cogan in a presentencing letter how Mattis, the son of immigrants from Jamaica and St. Vincent, grew up in a chaotic home. Although early on he struggled academically, he went on to graduate from boarding school, then attended Princeton University and New York University’s law school.
When he was in his second year of law school, his father, Kingcolinford Mattis, was stabbed to death during a robbery in St. Vincent. His son used alcohol to dull his pain, Shroff wrote.
After law school, when he took a job at a law firm in 2016, he was often late or absent, court documents said. His yearslong dependency on alcohol worsened. He was asked to leave the firm just as his mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and he became her primary caregiver until her death in 2019, even as he worked at another firm.
After she died, Mattis took over her role as the foster parent for the three children he is now in the process of trying to adopt. He is also the primary caretaker for his 15-year-old nephew.
Shortly after the pandemic hit in March 2020 and Mattis was furloughed, his drinking increased, according to court filings.
On May 29, 2020, hours before he joined the protests, Mattis watched the video of Floyd’s murder for the first time and began to cry.
Within hours, court records said, Mattis was driving the minivan quickly away from the burning police sedan with open bottles of Bud Light, a funnel, a half-full red gas can and rolls of toilet paper.
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Have you seen my little lad?
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#jin zixun#Everytime I have to write his name I feel like I'm running outside in a blood rain trying not to get wet. Misspelling it feels so inevitabl#But so far so good! He doesn't have too many more appearances before he gets Cheesed.#Dear god I love it when characters go on the war path for someone they care about.#And I love it even more when you have an ambiguity between personal debt and genuine act of selflessness.#WWX saving WN is purposefully messy! Like a lot of our real life reasons for how we act - there isn't a clear single cause or answer.#Sometimes we forget that we are a collection of experiences and learnt reactions.#Sometimes we forget that what we see on the surface is not the point to address. Everyone is more complex than we think. Even yourself.#And yet...it always comes back to love doesn't it? Attachment styles and self-esteem and bonds and relationships to others.#Everything comes back to love and our perceptions of it.#WWX is on a self-destructive war path and he will absorb as much damage as he can for those he feels obligated and attached to.#Does it make him feel needed? Does it give him purpose? Does it ease anxieties of the past? I do not think there is an answer.
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I started drawing this next day after I finished Act 6
13 or so days and it's finished!
Main things are traditional and Loop's body was edited digitally after
Unedited it looks like this
I've been torn on how to do Loop's body for the entirety of lining, also
A bit sad the main lines are visible only as a wip, most of this thing is literally just a ton of sharp lines
I think it's also my first day of drawing, Loop is just a sketch here (feat. my leg)
I even finished the beans before it so they were a moral support, because if you let me things like this take a year
#fanart#my art#isat#isat fanart#in stars and time#isat loop#loop#traditional art#artists on tumblr#Phew#So anyway this was my way of figuring out my thoughts after finishing the game#I didn't even actually finish it with credits playing at that moment#This type of art is my therapy#And in a way literally how my personality works from big figures to small details of thinking about anything#It's really calming!#I won't tag paper figures but they're here#Like special guests#In any case the funniest thing was showing this to my English teacher and she was like 'wow this looks stressed' or something#Like she immediately looked at the lines and after I showed her my old Flowey drawing like this she was like#'oh it makes sense! This one looks calm but this one is clearly you not feeling good'#Because I was kinda#Like sitting there in the semi-park and feeling sick since morning before I started drawing this and slowly I got better#I already talked about this on my first 'big' isat thing - I needed to think a bit#And not think at the same time just literally letting myself sort stuff out#Like. I fell asleep at 6 am that day and woke up at 10 4 hours of sleep after playing full Act 5 and two hats stuff IS STRESSFUL#SUPER STRESSFUL! Like I felt like I was playing for 4 hours while sleeping#Anyway by the time I finished it aka today I'm feeling way better and I'm literally talking a walk right now#Touching grass as we speak#Anyway phew!#Now to that animatic that's plaguing my mind to draw it nowww
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so on the subject of the "Crowley is secretly Revaan/Laverne/Levin/please Twst give us his name" theory, I think my feelings are best summed up as "I don't really buy it, but it's funny". like, in all seriousness, I'm not opposed to it; I have enjoyed the writing in Twst so far and I'm willing to trust that whatever happens will, you know, make sense and not be terrible. but I'm just not really convinced by the current evidence! maybe that'll change once we learn more, we'll see!
with that said, may I propose a few alternate theories about the possible Crowley/Revaan connection:
#art#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland spoilers#twisted wonderland episode 7 spoilers#twisted wonderland book 7 spoilers#on this installment of things nobody asked but i'm going to talk about anyway#disclaimer that this is mostly a joke please don't get mad at me#(legit no shade to anyone) (speculation is one of the fun things about an ongoing fandom and you never know what'll turn out to be true!)#more seriously i do think there may be some connection that just isn't clear yet#but the more little breadcrumbs we get about what revaan was like the more i think crowley just doesn't act like him#i adore crowley don't get me wrong#(yes he's a dipshit. this is a feature not a bug.)#but like.#not to harp on the scene about lilia's nrc invitation (i am absolutely going to harp on it)#i do not believe that crowley would go through the trash to fish out the pieces and put them back together and save them#just because it was lilia's. just because lilia might want it again someday.#crowley can ✨yasashii✨ all he wants but we know what he's like#and i REALLY do not believe that lilia wouldn't recognize him. i didn't believe it before and i extra don't believe it now.#then again i do tend to be incredibly off about speculation so! who knows! i will trust the writing for now!#i do 100% believe that meleanor would fall in love with the world's biggest dumbass and then double down super hard. that part tracks.#that said i have decided that ambrose being revaan is actually the funnier option just because it would make crowley SO mad#it wouldn't make sense for him to be mad about it and that would just make him madder
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the piece i made for the @stillalivezine back in 2021
#portal#portal 2#still alive zine#art#illustration#artists on tumblr#portal fanart#valve#more art from my Hyper Clean Style era#highlight reel#i never hear about zines until they're over but i dont have the energy to illustrate anymore anyway :(#i wanted to represent the three acts of the game. old overgrown aperture on the two tiles. old aperture thru the blue portal. wheatley labs#thru the background of the orange portal. and a little bit of the ending with the way she's leaving wheatley labs and entering The Wheat#hi snake if u see this i still think its funny we were in a zine together before we were deltarune mutuals
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"Fernando" S1E4 - Fernando Alonso & Carlos Sainz Sr.
#im sorry i also thought i qas done gifing this season#but then i was rewatching it today and remembered this scene existed#ive talked abt this before but ahhhh theyre very cute to me#like how theyre both older drivers but act very young with each other and tease each other#but in this ep especially nando is so so so cheeky with him#but the mood lighting and the camera angles my god#its filmed like a gay romance drama i swear#'do you think two old racing drivers can fall in love? 🥺'#fernando alonso#carlos sainz sr#what's their ship name??#carnando#??? is that it???#f1#formula 1#fernando(show)#we do a little bit of f1#fernando s1e4
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That moment in The Usual Suspects when they are talking to the victim's wife and Sam's being all empathetic and Dean says something stupid and Sam looks at him annoyed and there's this blink and you miss it flicker back to forehead crinkle empathy as he glances back at the wife and then back to Dean and he's annoyed again. Top 5 witnessing Sam masking and unmasking moment. To ME.
#sam winchester#i love the whole scene cause it's a really good example of how Sam we know is very empathetic#but he's also very adept at performing empathy when needed#and immediately speaks to me as someone who as part of masking has learnt to perform empathy in a way recognisable to NT#and then has gotten even better at it cause its a useful ability for his 'job'#anyways it's a really great little acting moment from Jared cause its literally like a fraction of a second#someone gif this for me please i need to keep thinking about it#spn#s2#so get this#alsooo would just like to note earlier in the episode Sam sniffs his coffee before drinking it :')
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Weird thing that bothered me about Rebirth and I want to hear other people's thoughts.
Um... Why did they gentrify Gongaga? I can't be the only one who feels cheated by the chummy suburban development vibe in Rebirth.
OG Gongaga is an isolated village deep in a jungle. It's possible to completely miss the first chance to visit, because it's practically unheard of. All the young folks fled to the big city. A reactor blew up and killed most of the inhabitants, leaving the town in a state of decay. The houses are falling apart, the people are desperate, it's derelict and miserable.
An understated theme in the OG is how life is difficult without modern technology. Avalanche sets out to destroy these reactors without considering the consequences for their own futures, thinking "well it won't be easy but i'm sure it'll be fine." Gongaga is the story's way of showing you just how fine everything is going to be— despite being in a lush rainforest, long since violently cut off from Shinra's influence, these people still suffer immensely.
I wanted to see it in hd so bad honestly. The splintered rotting wood, the furskin rugs, the dirty brick walls. The unspoken yet unignorable trauma. The mournful purple twilight that quietly hangs over the whole village. I wanted to see the survivors' spiteful determination to make things work without mako.
Instead we got a squeaky clean Crisis Core rendition of Gongaga, with its down-to-earth upbeat stardew valley soundtrack and generic hard workin' country folk. The houses are like... twice the size i expected them to be. Neat and tidy, no holes in the roofs, no dishevelled interiors. No sign of struggle. Everybody is content at worst.
The reactor may as well have never exploded. Nobody talks about it. We hear some bullshit about Shinra trying to "make amends" or compensate people for the damages, and that's about it. Apparently everybody's just fine with this, because all of the original version's resentment and grief is gone.
Don't even get me started on the barker stationed at the town entrance. "Come experience nature's bounty!" Man... why are we treating it like a goddamn hippy tourist attraction. OG Gongaga would have had someone knock this kid's teeth out.
Idk I'm just sad. The melancholy is what made Gongaga so memorable despite its bump-in-the-road identity. I wish we could have gotten that instead of one big callback to CC.
#like. it's nice that we get to see cissnei#but... sigh.#listen i've said it before and i'll say it again: i am not an og purist#but the more i think about it the more i'm inclined to just... act like crisis core doesn't exist#and don't get me wrong. i love crisis core. this game is iconic it's hilarious it's heartbreaking#crisis core wanted to reinterpret stuff from the original and i respect that!!#but crisis core is also horribly tone deaf while trying to be dead serious. that's half the reason it's funny as shit.#why should we trust cc to set the standard for any reoccuring place or event throughout the entire compilation?#to put it bluntly: i do think cc's interpretation sucks in a lot of places and we have GOT to start retconning shit lmao#slightly related hot take: i think genesis and angeal are fantastic characters trapped inside of a game that couldn't do them justice.#anyway. gongaga deserved better rant over#ffvii#ffvii rebirth
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taash said "they were doing it" and people ran with the interpretation of an npc that doesn't know solas or the history of the elvhenan even when bellara interjected and said, no, that's not right. that's not how it was for the elvhenan. they formed bonds before they had physical bodies. and people ran to doompost or create weird anti-solavellan shit even though mythal & solas refer to each other as old friends and when she releases him there is no tenderness or love in it. it is the act of unchaining a dog from his post, the stepping down of a general. but to each their own ig.
#let the record show i think love was there. do I personally perceive it as romantic / sexual? no.#mythal's perception of love & care is warped in and of itself#i think they loved each other. but she loved what she could take from him and what he could give in terms of service#not because she was romantically into him#also i wish we knew more about her & elgar'nan. her regret prison form says she holds no love for him anymore#and it makes me wonder when that love soured. was it when she was blighted? before that? was that love also born of duty and companionship?#this is the last post i'm gonna make ab this i think#bc i believe people are too caught up in the modern western ideas of love as thing we give solely to our romantic partners#and we literally have a character go ”our perception is warped bc of the age we live in” and some of you are still being purposefully obtuse#and i think trick saying it's up to interpretation is basically admitting EA had them dumb down the game anyway#if everything ab the rise and fall of the evanuris in game#was condensed to five 2min cutscenes it says enough that whatever the writers wanted#was swiftly cut down by corporate dept. basically saying it's in the fans' court now#also bc it's an easy cop out around new players & non solasmancers who are indifferent ab him / dislike him#as a way to appeal thru a more sympathetic lense of look!! he loved and was led astray#not to mention the clear justinia / leliana parallels#and leliana gets angry if you imply she was romantically involved / in love w justinia#and the romance descr when you remake your inq saying the dread wolf could not predict what it would mean to fall IN LOVE#implying he had never fallen in love before or at the very least experienced a romantic love#also him saying drinking from the well would make you a slave and he gets really upset#yet ive seen takes of ”hes doing this for her cus he dgaf ab lavellan” ?? he got mythal killed when he told her ab the blight#whatever feelings of admiration he had for her have rotted. he is literally burdened by his mistakes and his choice in joining her#i feel like if i were a spirit bound and twisted into a weapon i would need my creator to tell me i am Free. i would need that closure#like when cole says its not abuse to bind him if he asks and solas said thats not always true???#if you perceive her interaction w him in vg third act as#anything more than the way justinia released leliana in inq then im sorry maybe youre just obtuse#solavellan#mythal#dragon age meta
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A central element of the myth of [Eleanor of Aquitaine] is that of her exceptionalism. Historians and Eleanor biographers have tended to take literally Richard of Devizes’s conventional panegyric of her as ‘an incomparable woman’ [and] a woman out of her time. […] Amazement at Eleanor’s power and independence is born from a presentism that assumes generally that the Middle Ages were a backward age, and specifically that medieval women were all downtrodden and marginalized. Eleanor’s career can, from such a perspective, only be explained by assuming that she was an exception who rose by sheer force of personality above the restrictions placed upon twelfth-century women.
-Michael R. Evans, Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine
"...The idea of Eleanor’s exceptionalism rests on an assumption that women of her age were powerless. On the contrary, in Western Europe before the twelfth century there were ‘no really effective barriers to the capacity of women to exercise power; they appear as military leaders, judges, castellans, controllers of property’. […] In an important article published in 1992, Jane Martindale sought to locate Eleanor in context, stripping away much of the conjecture that had grown up around her, and returning to primary sources, including her charters. Martindale also demonstrated how Eleanor was not out of the ordinary for a twelfth-century queen either in the extent of her power or in the criticisms levelled against her.
If we look at Eleanor’s predecessors as Anglo-Norman queens of England, we find many examples of women wielding political power. Matilda of Flanders (wife of William the Conqueror) acted as regent in Normandy during his frequent absences in England following the Conquest, and [the first wife of Henry I, Matilda of Scotland, played some role in governing England during her husband's absences], while during the civil war of Stephen’s reign Matilda of Boulogne led the fight for a time on behalf of her royal husband, who had been captured by the forces of the empress. And if we wish to seek a rebel woman, we need look no further than Juliana, illegitimate daughter of Henry I, who attempted to assassinate him with a crossbow, or Adèle of Champagne, the third wife of Louis VII, who ‘[a]t the moment when Henry II held Eleanor of Aquitaine in jail for her revolt … led a revolt with her brothers against her son, Philip II'.
Eleanor is, therefore, less the exception than the rule – albeit an extreme example of that rule. This can be illustrated by comparing her with a twelfth century woman who has attracted less literary and historical attention. Adela of Blois died in 1137, the year of Eleanor’s marriage to Louis VII. […] The chronicle and charter evidence reveals Adela to have ‘legitimately exercised the powers of comital lordship’ in the domains of Blois-Champagne, both in consort with her husband and alone during his absence on crusade and after his death. […] There was, however, nothing atypical about the nature of Adela’s power. In the words of her biographer Kimberley LoPrete, ‘while the extent of Adela’s powers and the political impact of her actions were exceptional for a woman of her day (and indeed for most men), the sources of her powers and the activities she engaged in were not fundamentally different from those of other women of lordly rank’. These words could equally apply to Eleanor; the extent of her power, as heiress to the richest lordship in France, wife of two kings and mother of two or three more, was remarkable, but the nature of her power was not exceptional. Other noble or royal women governed, arranged marriages and alliances, and were patrons of the church. Eleanor represents one end of a continuum, not an isolated outlier."
#It had to be said!#eleanor of aquitaine#historicwomendaily#angevins#my post#12th century#gender tag#adela of blois#I think Eleanor's prominent role as dowager queen during her sons' reigns may have contributed to her image of exceptionalism#Especially since she ended up overshadowing both her sons' wives (Berengaria of Navarre and Isabella of Angouleme)#But once again if we examine Eleanor in the context of her predecessors and contemporaries there was nothing exceptional about her role#Anglo-Saxon consorts before the Norman Conquest (Eadgifu; Aelfthryth; Emma of Normandy) were very prominent during their sons' reigns#Post-Norman queens were initially never kings' mothers because of the circumstances (Matilda of Flanders; Edith-Matilda; and#Matilda of Boulogne all predeceased their husbands; Adeliza of Louvain never had any royal children)#But Eleanor's mother-in-law Empress Matilda was very powerful and acted as regent of Normandy during Henry I's reign#Which was a particularly important precedent because Matilda's son - like Eleanor's sons after him - was an *adult* when he became King.#and in France Louis VII's mother Adelaide of Maurienne was certainly very powerful and prominent during Eleanor's own queenship#Eleanor's daughter Joan's mother-in-law Margaret of Navarre had also been a very powerful regent of Sicily#(etc etc)#So yeah - in itself I don't think Eleanor's central role during her own sons' reigns is particularly surprising or 'exceptional'#Its impact may have been but her role in itself was more or less the norm
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TWD: The Ones Who Live - Finale Opening Scene + Blurred/Faraway
Requested by Anonymous
#the walking dead#the ones who live#twdedit#towledit#tvedit#dailyflicks#dailytwd#michonne grimes#rick grimes#richonnegifs#tvarchive#richonne#otpsource#romancegifs#request#denim rose graphics#i hope you enjoy anon!#I think I created 5 different PSDs trying to get rid of the muted green color wash lol#i always really liked the way they shot this scene#you can tell they went back to the cabin and packed EVERYTHING#they took the black label and the two glasses 😂#there is an open pack of chicken flavor sauce on the table (yes i read the writing lolol before cropping and shrinking)#also i never realized on first watch that was little rj's ax laying beside them and carl's photo#also the drawing mapping out the direction to Jadis's room#just little tidbits to remind us of their journey here#but also everything abt this scene is about UNITY UNITY UNITY#from their actual act of union to the ax being rj's aka the physical embodiment of their union to carl's photo aka who brought them togethe#to their signature weapons laying side by side; to the shot of him sliding the wedding ring on her finger#there was no reason for the ring to be off her finger except to have Rick slide it back in place and reemphasize they are one again#a visual representation of what Michonne declares later in the ep: ‘we are back’
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I would also like the mdzs fandom to stop inventing turmoil between Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli just because Jiang Fengmian had a strained relationship with Jiang Cheng. There’s nothing to say that the father-daughter duo had issues, that Jiang Fengmian was neglectful (to either of them, tbh), or that he was indifferent to his daughter's presence. You feeling like Jiang Yanli is disappeared into the background of her family life because she, like her father, doesn't have a lot of scenes is not supported by the canon. While we don’t get a lot of interactions between them (because there is literally no plot or conflict to highlight), what we do get is Jiang Fengmian sticking up for his daughter and terminating a marriage contract that his abusive wife set up, something even Jin Guangshan was afraid to do:
[Jiang Fengmian] told Jin Guangshan, “The engagement was originally made at the insistence of Ah-Li’s mother. I never agreed with it. Given what happened today, it seems both sides aren’t very fond of each other, so it’s best not to force the issue.��� Startled, Jin Guangshan hesitated a bit. Regardless of the situation, ending an engagement with a member of another Great Clan was never a good thing. “What do children understand? Let them fight. Fengmian-xiong, we need not take notice.” “Jin-xiong, though we can help them arrange a marriage, we can’t live the marriage for them. In the end, they are the ones who will spend their lives together.” This marriage business wasn’t Jin Guangshan’s idea in the first place either. From the perspective of consolidating power through a marriage alliance, the Yunmeng Jiang Clan would not be his first choice, nor was it the best choice. The engagement had happened only because he was perpetually afraid of opposing his wife. But in any case, since the Jiang Clan had brought it up of their own accord, and Jin Clan was on the male side of the arrangement and thus had fewer things to be concerned about, it was not necessary to remain entangled. Besides, he knew Jin Zixuan wasn’t happy with having Jiang Yanli as his fiancée. After giving it serious consideration, Jin Guangshan found his backbone and he agreed.
—Chapt. 18: Elegance VIII, fanyiyi
We get him hand-making kites with her to decorate for Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and the rest of the disciples to play with:
Back when Wei Wuxian lived at Lotus Pier, he had played the kite shooting game with the disciples of the Jiang Clan and had placed first many times. ... Jiang Fengmian had constructed the frame himself and Jiang Yanli had drawn the design. Thus, whenever Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng had taken their kites out to compete, they had felt a kind of pride.
—Chapt. 32: Morning Dew V, fanyiyi
We get them having family dinners often enough that Wei Wuxian seems worried that he would miss one right before the Wen show up to Lotus Pier:
Wei WuXian asked, “Uncle Jiang went out so early in the morning —why hasn’t he come back yet? Would he make it in time for dinner?”
—Chapt. 57: Poisons, exr
We get him having no qualms with Jiang Yanli's hobbies such as cooking, even seems eager to partake in her creations—if we assume he hasn't before:
With a smile, Jiang YanLi wiped Wei WuXian’s mouth and chin, and walked happily out with the bowl in her hands. Jiang FengMian sat down where she had been sitting. Glancing at the porcelain jar, he seemed as if he wanted to taste it as well, but the bowl had already been taken away by Jiang YanLi.
—Chapt. 56: Poisons, exr
The reason why Jiang Cheng thinks his father hates him is because he takes any whiff of disapproval from his father to mean hatred, a trait he picked up from and that is nourished by his mother's own insistence that Jiang Fengmian "must" hate her son for being like her:
The founder of the YunmengJiang Sect, Jiang Chi, was born a rogue cultivator. The ways of the sect were honest and unrestrained. Madam Yu’s manners were the exact opposite. And, both Jiang Cheng’s looks and personality took after his mother. He hadn’t ever been to Jiang FengMian’s liking. Since birth, he taught him in many ways, yet he still couldn’t change, which was why Jiang FengMian had always seemed as though he didn’t favor him too much.
—Chapt. 56: Poisons, exr
The founding father of the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng, Jiang Chi, came from a knight-errant background. The family was exuberant, honest, magnanimous, and carefree in its ways —all of which were in complete opposition to Madam Yu’s spirit. Jiang Cheng took after his mother in looks and personality, which had never been to Jiang Fengmian’s liking. He had tried to educate Jiang Cheng in a myriad of ways, but it had all been for naught. This was why it always appeared as though he didn’t favor his son.
—Volume 3, Chapt. 12: Sandu: The Three Poisons, 7seas
Notice how it doesn't say that Jiang Cheng, himself, was never to Jiang Fengmian's liking, but that Madam Yu and her personality type that Jiang Cheng inherited was never to his liking, and it only "seemed/appeared" that Jiang Fengmian did not favor his son because he spent a lot of time trying to correct Jiang Cheng's bad habits, something Jiang Cheng resented. Notice how it also does not say that Jiang Fengmian avoided or ignored his son. In fact, we are told that he tried different ways to teach Jiang Cheng, a futile action we see him still committed to even up to the fall of Lotus Pier. Jiang Fengmian never gave up on his son. Jiang Cheng gave up on himself as Jiang Fengmian's son. None of that has to do with how the Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli interacted in life nor how Jiang Yanli felt about her parents in death, still visiting their tablets regularly to clean and talk to them:
Jiang YanLi was kneeling in the ancestral hall. She cleaned her parents’ memorial tablets as she whispered. Wei WuXian poked his head inside, “Shijie? Talking to Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu again?”
—Chapt. 71: Departure, exr
To say that Jiang Fengmian is a terrible father simply because Jiang Cheng is more comfortable believing his mother’s lies than understanding that unconditional love does not mean unconditional tolerance for poor behavior does Jiang Fengmian’s character a disservice. To say that Jiang Fengmian is a terrible father to Jiang Yanli based on Madam Yu and Jiang Cheng’s own fantasies of victimhood is just an extra unnecessary lie to give credence to an idea that the story proves untrue. At worst, Jiang Fengmian was a man reserved in physical displays of affection that could have stood to hug his son more if that was what Jiang Cheng truly wanted. But if we are being truthful, Jiang Fengmian's just a regular fucking guy juggling raising kids and leading a clan with deterring his abusive wife from turning his home into a battlefield any time she deigns to show her face. Whatever issue you think Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng should have with their upbringing, the locus of the problem is named Yu Ziyuan, not Jiang Fengmian.
#mdzs#human metas mxtx#i do think it’s fucked that he didn’t have last words to relay to his daughter before his death#but she wasn’t there i guess#but everything else? jfm isn’t affectionate? jfm doesn’t spend time with his kids?#a man's love language is acts of service and suddenly we accusing him of neglect? why do y’all like lying so much?#to even say that because jfm spent time *teaching his heir* to be a proper leader meant he disapproved of him as his son#is like saying your teacher must hate you because they're spending extra time teaching you in a lesson you are *failing*#jc learned nothing about the jiang legacy from jfm and was proud of that#jfm obviously loved his son according to the text but if he didn't? look at who jc grows up to be and tell me if he would be wrong#jiang cheng#canon jiang cheng
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Assisting Acquaintance Acquired.
[First] Prev <–-> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wen ning#wei wuxian#Ignore how Wen Ning's hair looks here because I messed it up. Let's pretend he just sported a different hair style for a brief moment.#I am not exactly great at consistency but I am trying very hard to work on that (immediately messes up again).#Absolutely *love* how Wen Ning clearly remembers and admires WWX...who does *not* recognize him.#This is the best day for Wen Ning and it means *nothing* to WWX. A painful one-sided crush made worse.#It is bittersweet to realize that we care about someone more than they care about us. Sometime we pour love into a relationship-#-with someone who just can't reciprocate. It isn't always a conscious things either. Some people just aren't aware we care.#And painfully - so painfully - You can't make them aware. No act of kindness or gift or self sacrifice will make someone care about you.#You can martyr yourself for someone and they will continue on unchanged.#I think a lot about the parallels between WN and LWJ. Not foils - just reflections. A theme repeated.#People who give so much of themselves to someone who doesn't have the capacity to give any part of themself away.#I will die on the hill of 'Wen Ning would be the love triangle romance if that trope wasn't being avoided'.#And to be honest - thank the stars above that is the case. I do not know any good love triangles in media.#We are skipping some of the sad Jiang Cheng content because I really want to finish season 2 before May.#Sorry JC emo moment lovers...I'll deliver another time.
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A dream and a nightmare
@blackkatdraws's silly!
i just want him to be happy bro
by himself not only with black, honestly i like their relationship but most of the time (i think early in their relationship) he always comes out injured or dead and the fact that he doesnt even care about his own safety most of the time just to (me thinks) make black happy makes me so sad/pos
i like the fact that they are being more cute now but im not sure how much that its going to last
#I made this on ibispaint btw!#the second stanley aint Stanley#its the player#its like a before and after in a story?#at least at some point in this one Stanley got to be happy and chill a little#tsp#the stanley parable#:3#tsp stanley#tsp fanart#stanley parable#tspud#tsp blank scripts au#blank scripts au#edit: NOT SAYING THAT IT ISNT NORMAL THAT HE IS HAPPY IN A STORY#HE DEFINITELLY CAN BE#im just assuming since i really cant remember at the moment if he was ever happy on a drawing without black#unless the ones that include black are also the stories the players are going toplay#wait-#hold on#WAIT#IT MIGHT BE#I THINK IT WAS IN AN ANIMATION??? WHERE STANLEY WASNT TALKING AND BLACK WAS LIKE: “why aint you saying anything?”#It MIGHT be black acting#depends in which part of the timeline of blank scripts we are in#Also im not sure which parts of Stan's life are up for the public to play and which parts arent#but considering black can see us (to some extent) its not really private#so that brings the question if black if being genuine or not#ok im just rambling now#think im merging my own narry a lil too much into this
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Lahabrea possessed Thancred before this questline even started which means these are back to back Laha interactions. Here is how he greets the WoL in the Waking Sands immediately after his Disney villain introduction.
Meanwhile in Minfilia's solar:
presumably he took a brief break from running Alphinaud's errands to go dramatically laugh at the WoL
#enjoying all this with Pandaemonium context#there is a lot to unpack here#OK LETS GO PANEL 1#based on the follow up he's really just testing out the person who killed ifrit - not too different from elidibus' test later.#he comes across as goofy but i gotta ask if he taunted panda critters the same way before experiments#moreever hydaelyn is busy going “Eeeeeevvvilllll!!!” in your ear while laha chatters#I assumed this was direct line to the WoL consciousness the first time#but based on 5.2 she might just be bullhorning to anyone with ancient powers which means lahabrea is listening to her shout “eeeevviilllll”#hilarious I hope that is what was happening#PANEL 2#not shown is laha opening with “oh hi <player name>”#like he sounds more like panda laha here than almost anywhere else nearly#in which of these two panels is he acting more I ask???#I'm thinking its an even split per emet-selchs reckoning of his lost personality#if he could hold out as long as he does hanging out there in the Waking Sands hall then#it becomes very easy to see emet-selch felt like he was getting enough sanity out of him at the time. hes surprisingly functional#in spite of that intro#PANEL 3#we were SO ROBBED to miss alphinaud investigating ascians with lahabrea. so robbed#alphinaud is still unsocialized at this point so extra annoying to laha for sure#thinking about how lahabrea acted around themis in the far past fills in a few blanks. can draw a couple of parallels perhaps#rotating that thought#ffxiv#ffxiv spoilers#Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn#lahabrea#alphinaud#minfilia#ffxivedit#gamingedit
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We lived.
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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]
[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]
#FELT THAT GOOD GOOD VINDICATION HOARDING SCROLLS THE ENTIRE TIME FOR ONE (1) TO FINALLY COME IN HANDY HAHAHAHAHAHFHGD#This fight was absolutely bananas - I was so close to restarting it when everything looked bleak but I didn't and I'm so glad#because it made for a very dramatic story lol#Rambling incoming:#I split the party really bad bc I wasn't super clear on the AOE lightning attack so when the second one rolled around Gale was the only-#-one able to take cover in the building...but I don't think it even worked??#Lae'zel was down long before then but Wyll and Croissant were in death saves#Used all of Gale's movement AND misty step to get to Croissant but he still couldn't get close enough & had to throw a potion#I think I used a potion of speed then so Croissant could cast globe of invuln right away#(and it took 10min of looking through my inventory to even see I had something to do bc otherwise we would've died right there don't @ me)#But then we were STILL too far away from Ansur for 60' spells so I had to keep running them out of the globe - using a spell - and then-#-mISTY STEPPING BACK INTO IT BC WE DIDN'T HAVE ENOUGH MOVEMENT SPEED#it was rough but we made it#bg3#baldur's gate 3#bg3 spoilers#act III spoilers#ansur quest#croissant adventures#tav#ansur#gale#gale dekarios#breadweave#gale x tav#YEAH WE'RE PUTTING IT IN THAT TAG#comics
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