#(this is the short version)

[end-otw-racism]

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[melodramamatic]

This started as a multiple rambling drafts exploring my likes and dislikes about MDZS/Untamed characters as they are most often characterized in fandom, and I think I cracked the code here. I like the grumpy responsible ones and pretty much nobody else. In this essay, I will explain why. (For clarity, the vast majority of what I'm discussing here relates to how the characters are portrayed in the fandom. There's a lot of context and complexity and variation in canon that I really don't want to try and get into. I'll stick to the tip of the iceberg thanks.)

My favorite tired grumpy ones: Jiang Cheng, Lan Qiren, Nie Mingjue; you could get a coffee with any of them, bitch about work, and they'd get it. They have responsibilities they didn't ask for, but do their absolute best anyway. Because its not just them who goes down if they don't. They are tired, but they can't stop, they have people depending on them. They aren't nice about it, they don't have time for nice, nice doesn't run your sect. They don't like the petty politics and socializing involved with being in charge, they don't seem to like the power or the perks. They consistently give up or don't get things that would make them happy, because they're more committed to their responsibilities. (I could maybe add Wen Qing to this list, but she's more complicated given her complicity in Bad Things - while her family was being threatened, to be fair - and the fact that we see very little of what she wants as an individual. Though it's implied she would have married JC if he could have protected more than just her, but the Jiang weren't strong enough for that and both of them knew it. See later rant about the treatment of women in canon.)

Jiang Yanli and Lan Xichen are supposed to be the nice, likeable ones and I don't think I could handle more than small talk with them. They spend too much time keeping the peace and wanting everyone to get along and trying to pacify everyone as if that's the same as getting people to cooperate with each other. (Wen Ning could maybe be thrown in here, but it's implied the dude was bottling it up so intensely it was literally the reason Wei Wuxian was able to turn him into the most powerful (and conscious) resentful-energy zombie. Full Respect.) I don't like fighting either, but I'm allowed to not like things. I am allowed to have any opinion I want so long as I'm not hurting anyone else with it (I hate that I have to specify here, the difference between having an opinion and being a prejudiced asshole. You know the difference, and I know you know the difference. If someone is claiming homophobia, transphobia, racisim, etc is 'having a different opinion' they're in denial about being a dick and trying to hide it behind polite language). Which means I don't have to get along with every person I meet. It's easier to try and get along with the people I deal with regularly, that's just being professional, but I'm not turning step-ford smiler. I refuse. I can work with someone I personally disagree with and dislike, but anyone who tries to make me like them or spend time with them recreationally is being controlling. Also, I don't remember Jiang Yanli expressing goals or opinions that didn't relate to her being a sister or future-wife, and that's definitely a failure of the narrative and it's tendency to not really value women except in relation to the men around them.

(I get it, none of the women are the main characters and everything mostly revolves around the POV of the main characters. But. If they're there at all, they're there for the benefit of one of the men in the room. Even Mianmian is there to prove Jin Zixuan is not as much of an asshole as he comes off as, because she's willing to spend time with him and we see her later show she wouldn't put up with the rest of the Jin. Wen Qing is there to prove some of the Wen aren't bad and to be guilted by a charismatic young genius into performing experimental surgery to 'fix' his nonconsenting, traumatized, unconscious foster brother. My opinions on that surgery are only partially relevant to this conversation, but I will happily scream about that later.)

Feel free to yell at me for the next bit, but remember everyone can have any opinion they like. Disagreeing makes more interesting conversation than agreeing on everything.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wanji drive me up the wall. I could not deal with them as a couple or as individuals. Neither of them are bad people and I want to say that now, on the record, before I make very general statements about them to avoid being here all night nitpicking. So. On the record. I like the narrative of the villainized man who did what he had to, finally getting his happily ever after with someone who never stopped believing in him, and that belief fully paying off with a reveal of the actual villain. That said, onto why I don't vibe with them.

As a couple, it's like the rest of the world doesn't matter so long as they're happy with each other. Life doesn't work that way. We live in communities, and we have responsibilities to those communities, even if those responsibilities are as simple as putting the cart back at the grocery store. (I am 110% judging you if you don't. Just walk it back to the cart return, and don't be an asshole.) But once these two get together, it's like everyone else can fuck off. It's fine to be a happy couple. It's great. But if someone you claim as family has just had something traumatic happen to them, you should check on them. Not just on your partner, for whom the experience was arguably less traumatic. (Not trying to measure trauma here, but Lan Wanji and Wei Wuxian were not emotionally invested in Jin Guangyao as a person and his entire betrayal reveal wasn't going to be nearly as upsetting for them as it was to his nephew, the person he co-parented said nephew with, and the person arguably responsible for supporting him through his rise to power.) Also, it isn't healthy to have your only close personal relationship be your partner. Friends are good and important. Canon and immediate post canon has them isolated for plot reasons, and then in a honeymoon phase, but I see them as having an uphill battle for any sort of social ties. The Juniors don't count. Cross-generational friendships are great, but the context of this (and I'm missing a lot of the historical/cultural stuff) puts Wei Wuxian and Lan Wanji as too much above them in a social hierarchy to be proper equals. Even if Wei Wuxian tends to disregard social norms, the Juniors are expected to defer to and honor him as their elder and as someone who can teach them.

As an individual, Wei Wuxian is inconsiderate and self-absorbed. To me, as a modern western audience member missing a fuck ton of the historical context and linguistic subtext of the story, he still comes off as someone who casually disregards rules, boundaries, and other people's opinions, and gets away with it all the time. If someone I wasn't very close friends with was that touchy-feely with me without permission, I would avoid them like the plague, and that's in a modern American context. He's got MCU Tony Stark characterization problems. He's a charismatic genius with wealth(y connections) who continually gets away with behavior other people wouldn't even consider (except for Madame Yu, who gives him his Complicated Childhood badge) and creates horrifying weapons of warfare that everyone wants on their side until they want him dead because he won't do what they want. Also he's a poor little meow meow who sacrifices himself for people and is misunderstood by the public.

He gets treated like he never had any agency, and none of it was his fault or choice, which would remove the significance of his sacrifices and all the genius work he put in to create the most terrifying and cultural-taboo-breaking method of fighting anyone ever used. I know I didn't get the cultural taboo of using the dead to fight at first, but I've seen explanations that compared it to the horror of finding out a modern person was mutilating babies. We're talking beyond the horror of cannibalism, which is understandable in a survival situation. This is a guy who was pushed to the edge and chose to do awful things instead of die. Understandable, but horrifying. The rest of the cultivation community had good reasons to be afraid of him after the fact, especially since he was rather publicly downward spiraling with PTSD and alcoholism.

But I could tolerate all that, if he ever once made progress toward considering how he affects anyone except Lan Wanji. Yeah, he and the Wen Remnants die very horribly and unjustifiably because of outside manipulation. But Wei Wuxian gets to swan off into the sunset with his man, an anonymous face, and a restored reputation. He tells Jiang Cheng, who just found out Wei Wuxian orchestrated an extremely violating nonconsensual surgery that affects him more than physically and spiritually and had his co-parent nearly murder his nephew, that it's all water under the bridge and they should start over. Jin Ling just lived through finding out one of his uncles was a murderous powerhungry villain responsible for the death of his parents, murdered his baby cousin (the man's own son!!) as an toddler, and nearly slit his throat like ten minutes ago. Lan Xichen (his lover's brother!) just found out his closest confidant killed his other closest confidant/childhood friend and was a murderous powerhungry villain, and that said murdered confidant's helpless baby brother had actually turned himself into a master manipulator for revenge, and was manipulated into killing said confidant/murderous powerhungry villian. Doesn't even seem to check on Wen Ning, the poor guy who's been used a puppet on both sides and just had his zombified corpse mutilated protecting Wei Wuxian's interests. But no, total focus on his happily ever after with his husband.

Onto Lan Wanji, he's a petty asshole and I could almost respect him for it, if he wasn't also completely incapable of communicating and a hypocrite. If the man had just had an actual conversation with his crush, or even expressed concern for Wei Wuxian in words, the whole downward spiral after the war culminating in a faked defection from Yunmeng and the Wen Remnants situation would have gone very differently. (I know you need conflict for a story, but I hate when the conflict is miscommunication based. Any story that could be completely derailed by two people having a five minute conversation that could have easily happened in canon makes me want to scream.) This man also spends years projecting his anger at himself for not sticking up for Wei Wuxian onto Jiang Cheng (who had a lot of intense political reasons that he couldn't do more), without a hint that he has the self-awareness to recognize why. He also spends years believing all the worst rumors about Jiang Cheng and Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian's relationship despite his whole thing being he loves Wei Wuxian and knows in his heart the man was never as terrible as he was portrayed. Is there not a hint of irony here?? How much faith and value he places on a person directly correlates to his personal relationship with them. And the narrative puts this man in charge of the cultivation community at the end??? As if he's not going to immediately show favoritism to anyone who hasn't been hostile to Wei Wuxian and be intensely petty to everyone he doesn't personally like?

He hides behind being an upstanding person as if he's entirely altruistic. His whole 'being where the chaos is' rep is because he's spent the timeskip trying to atone for not saving Wei Wuxian and desperately hoping to find Wei Wuxian. (As if Jiang Cheng hunting demonic cultivators wasn't the same thing with opposite PR.) He'll follow the Lan rules and enforce them for everyone but Wei Wuxian. As someone who has to work to understand social situations, the Lan rules provide a nice structure when you're with the Lan. A 'when in Rome' with an actual list. That said, their insistence that stripping away any passion, individuality, or general enjoyment from life will bring some sort of moral superiority is incredibly conceited. Especially when they basically admit its only enforceable in Gusu, unless you piss off one of the powerful Lan. Also guaranteed to create a culture where people learn to hide anything not the norm and/or experience internalized guilt for not conforming. What are they, catholic?

I can appreciate Lan Wanji's internal struggle to actually go after what he loves, especially in that social context. But he seems to have decided he's the only one wise enough to understand when the rules should and should not be followed. He still judges everyone (not named Wei Ying) for not living up to his standards without seeming to realize those standards are fundementally impossible (for everyone not name Wei Ying, who can be forgiven all things). He puts Wei Wuxian on a sort of impossible pedestal that does not bode well for a relationship with an actual person, instead of the idea of that person.

Anyway, the fanfic in this fandom that I like, either doesn't involve this couple more than superficially, or has them working and overcoming these issues and rebuilding relationships with other characters.

I'm so tired.

[weewoobrainrot]

lil hangster au i thought of: they meet in an airport after jake runs into bradley or the other way around and later find out their sitting next to each other on the plane, which leads to them exchanging numbers and falling deeply in love :')

[anarchomikeism]

I want to keep this short because I despise longpoasts.

Someone in my life challenged me on the NYP screenshot I posted the other day about the church and bodies in Canada. It was a simple misunderstanding of my intent, but I'm gonna talk about it anyway.

She asked me if I had actually read the article. I told her I didn't have to read it because I've been in enough fights in my lifetime to know when someone is picking a fight for the sake of a thrill. And that's what actually interests me about this story- the crusaders. I have no interest in debating whether or not this shit happened, or at what scale. Especially when I consider the fact that shit exactly like this is happening right now as I tap this out. In fact, a lot of people who are angry about Canada voted to support mass murder abroad. And it's funny, I don't see anyone burning down embassies the way they burnt down churches. Why is that?

We all know why. Because the mob doesn't move a muscle without a narrative. Opinions haven't been issued. Instructions haven't been received. Pre-packaged social acceptance hasn't been provided. How else would they generate happy brain drugs? They're paid exclusively in feelings.

As for genocide, mass murder, and mass rape? It's been happening on every habitable stretch of land on the globe for the past 40 centuries. The only reason anyone believes the Western World is a special case is because they haven't read enough about the past, and they don't pay enough attention to the present.

IYKYK

[m00nchildwrites]

Ok but, I could literally write a full on essay on why everything bad that happened after Rin died was her fault. Like her choosing to kill herself via Kakashi's arm, literally ruined so many people's lives and got so many killed.

If she had just used her own kunai or her medical jutsu to kill herself, Obito would not have popped out of the trees seeing his friend's arm through the love of his life. That is what broke Obito mentally. Not her death. The image of Kakashi's arm, chidori blazing, through her chest. He had no context. Just that image. And it literally snapped his sanity and led him back to that cave with Madara that he been planning on leaving and never going back to. He was planning on going home.

Would he have been mad at Kakashi for her dying? Possibly. Would Kakashi have been mad at himself still? Highly likely. But, Obito seeing Rin kill herself would raised more questions. He would've wanted to know why she did it. He would've helped Kakashi kill those remaining ninja and then tried to get answers.

Instead because of the traumatic image he saw because of Rin's selfish and twisted choice, Obito mentally snapped and fleed back to Madara, who then told him his crazy ass plan. Even if Obito had ran back to Madara after seeing Rin kill herself, if he was mad enough then to abandon Kakashi there on the field vulnerable like that, then he would not have fallen for the whole "the world is cruel so we must kill it to save it and deathbdoesnt matter cause we will create a fake world thats better" line that Madara gave him when he returned. Because Obito wouldn't have a reason to. Rin would be dead, but he would still have Kakashi. Kakashi who also just lost a teammate. Who also just saw her kill herself.

So even if, Obito did run back to Madara's cave afterwards, he would have left to return home shortly after realizing he still had Kakashi and Minato, his team. Then Madara's crusty ass would've died in that cave and that would've been it.

No Nine Tail attack. No Minato and Kushina dying. So very, very likely no Uchiha Massacre (honestly, fuck Hiruzen Sarutobi). No Akatsuki bent on destruction. No Orochimaru allowed to conduct experiments.

Like... literally everything that happened afterwards would've shifted all because Obito would not have gone insane over seeing Kakashi's arm through her chest.

Rin is the damn villan. Her selfish and twisted choice to traumatize her friend and supposedly love of her life by making him kill her caused it all. You cannot convince me otherwise.

[shopwitchvamp]

“Omg, I love these! They go up to size 6X AND they have pockets?! Wow!! But do you have anything longer?”

Sure do, no problem!!

“YES these are great!!! But what about.. longer?”

I gotcha!! Comin’ right up!

“Perfect! But I have just one more question… what if I’m feeling spicy? How about skirts that are even shorter than the first ones?!” Oh, you’re in luck! We’ve got minis now.

*wild cheering* /scene

🖤witchvamp.com🖤

[swamp-chicken]

mountain man etho confirmed

[petricorah]

which zuko hairstyle is your fave? [id in alt]

[cadaverkeys]

please please please talk about christian art history and the meanings behind how halos are depicted

[DISCLAIMER: I was raised Roman Catholic and I studied Religious Philosophy/Italian Renaissance Art- I am not associated with the Catholic church currently but I have interest towards keeping information accurate and effective in this field.]

[ministarfruit]

day 10: love is devotion ♡

(femslashfeb prompt list)

[my-names-angel-but-im-not-one]

MC meets their male version!

#1

Something happened with one of the doors in Barbatos's room and. M!MC (male MC) ended up walking in this devildom where's our F!MC/GN!MC is.

Story list

Lucifer: .......so you're saying he basically travelled universe accidentally, because of your mistake.

Barbatos: it wasn't my mistake, the other Barbatos made the mistake

Lucifer: and now you want me to keep him here, with our mc?? Did Diavolo even approved it!?!

Barbatos: he was the one who suggested it, yes.

Lucifer: ...ugh *facepalms*

MC: *looking at M!MC with squinting eyes*

M!MC: *doing the same*

M!MC: ........ask away..

Mc: how big is that peni-

M!MC: that's the first thing you ask? ......Not surprised.

M!MC: I'll tell you , if you tell me your bra siz-

MC: Deal.

M!MC: Deal.

Barbatos:

Lucifer:

Barbatos: .... I'll see if I can fix it up till tomorrow.

Lucifer: please.

[A/N]: this is gonna be a series ......maybe :p

Common tag that used: MMC x MC (use this tag to find more)

Also I'm close to hitting 1k!! Thank you all!! Muwah :3

[fudgecake-charlie]

In no way canon to secret life whatsoever, i just wanted to draw a background in aggie and felt self indulgent

cropped ver:

[meringuejellyfish]

is herobrine behavior/lore not common knowledge anymore .... has the world really forgotten about the 2x2 tunnels .. trees with their leaves all gone ... the sand pyramids in the ocean ... the herobrine shrine that would apparently summon him ... the lost to time brocraft hoax livestream that further popularized herobrine as a concept (of which herobrine was just a painting from a texture pack, later removed to which the streamer would continue to act freaked out until the end) .. the original forum post from sometime in august 2010 that detailed encounters with a pseudo-player in the distance on a singleplayer world which included this screenshot

does anyone even care at all. about a herobrine so small

[ruporas]

i’ll find you again in every universe. let us be a little more honest, let us have a little more time.

[floralring]

the meaning of growing up