#GET FUCKED NH

[guqin-and-flute]

Something about the fact that these shots are all grouped together, one after another, visually giving them equal weight just gets me. The narrative knows what's going to happen between JGY and Huaisang at this point, knows how it's going to treat JGY at the end of everything. And it still takes time to show Meng Yao instinctively and immediately going in front of Huaisang and Huaisang instinctively and immediately hiding behind him. It takes the time--literally, showed it in the background and focused on it with the same general amount of time as the other shots--to show that this act of protection and trust are just as real and true as Jiang Cheng defending his sister, as Wen Qing defending her younger brother.

Like, I dunno! There are other Nie juniors there! They have swords and shit! Huaisang could have gone and hid behind the wall, but he hid behind Meng Yao! And Meng Yao could have moved back with Huaisang, but he steps directly in front of him!

There's a lot CQL did to JGY's character and narrative that I don't like and that flatten or just straight up erase his full complexity. But I really appreciate the lengths that it went to in Episode 4 to explicitly tell us that he does not hesitate to protect Huaisang, even though at this point he does not have a sword and definitely does not have anywhere near the same cultivation power (if any) as any of the rest of the people in the room.

Right now, after being publicly humiliated, unarmed and definitely outclassed, he is brave. Along with the rest of the characters, he's allowed to be uncomplicatedly young and loyal and just as innocent as any of the other students there.

[benevolenterrancy]

@hereticcryptid I appear to be slowly but surely developing an entire series about how Hensheng and Baxia apparently get fed up with their owners' inability to express their feelings and take matters into their own hands...

[thatswhatsushesaid]

[beaft]

as a late birthday gift to myself i have decided to sue the nhs

[poorlittleyaoyao]

I'm also sad right now because, unlike in the novel where everyone totally sucks, someone DOES speak directly to Qin Su in CQL's treasure room scene. When Wei Wuxian comes up to check on her and confirm that she's not under a spell, he whispers "Jin-furen?" to her in concern. She doesn't acknowledge him, which feels weird, right? Why wouldn't she latch onto a potential source of help, especially one whom she knows is now affiliated with the influential Hanguang-jun since she saw them together during the banquet earlier?

EXCEPT

One of CQL's changes is to make Qin Su the target of Mo Xuanyu's unwanted advances instead of Jin Guangyao. So Qin Su, already having an awful time due to the incest marriage revelations, is now (as far as she knows) being addressed by her harasser whom she now knows is also a half-brother. No wonder she's not engaging! It's ANOTHER INCEST SITUATION! And everyone else is just standing there, except for Su Minshan, who snidely remarks "So Mo-gongzi brought us into the chamber just to see Jin-furen!" which! underscores! her probable concerns!

And I'm sad about it because maybe, if the Suibian reveal had somehow happened SOONER--if Jin Guangyao had replaced the head with something that attacked Wei Wuxian when he pulled back the curtain, forcing him to grab Suibian in defense, maybe--and Qin Su knew Wei Wuxian for who he was, then things would have gone differently!

[jin-zixun]

i think it's actually very brave to fight for yourself when no one else will, to insist upon your own self worth, if only in your own actions and self-preservation, when everyone around considers you worthless or unworthy.

If no one else cares about you, you will care, if no one else loves you, you will try to show yourself love to the best of your ability, even if you don't know it, if no one else will protect you then you will fight for yourself. Keep yourself alive. No one else will and it's you're no less worthy than who you're being told to put yourself to the side for, to die for, to admit you are nothing for.

It's trauma, it's resilience, it's survival, it's fight, it's advocacy, it's perseverance, it's natural, it's difficult, and it's brave.

[alatariel-gildaen]

Just spoke to dad on the phone and he nearly gave me a heart attack

He told me he'd like me to not interrupt, because he'd come up with a full and comprehensive list of reasons to vote Tory at the election.

Silence came down the phone.

I started laughing and asked if that was it, and he said he'd asked me not to interrupt as he was nearly done.

More silence.

I mean, yeah, it is pretty damn comprehensive

[nartml]

Your misogyny is showing. Get your shit together

(First and last time I'll ever bother with such a rude ask, but I'll use this oh so sugary sweet statement to get some things out the way )

CW: Rant ahead, not Sakura or Hinata friendly, if you disagree and won't be nice about sharing your opinions fucking DNI, this isn't for you.

My misogyny 💀

Because I don't like Sakura and Hinata, I assume? Why is it always misogyny's fault with y'all?

Respectfully, I don't really care about Sakura and Hinata. I'm mostly indifferent to them, but they're fun to criticize, considering there's so many flaws to talk about.

Maybe I was harsh with my words when respectively bashing them, but what I said still objectively stands. Sometimes, not liking a female character has less to do with misogyny and more to do with the fact that they're really, really not that good.

But alas, I sincerely apologize for my just so disgustingly misogynistic words (in case you don't get it, I'm being 100% sarcastic)

In a bit less harsh, more analytical manner, allow me to rephrase:

Sakura is someone who doesn't fit in the Shinobi world. She's too delusional about her romantic fantasies regarding Sasuke to be able to properly advance in such a harsh environment. And Hinata, with or without her infatuation with Naruto, is an incapable kunoichi. She's far too timid and hesitant to be a warrior.

Now, those are not necessarily bad things. Not having what it takes to be a Shinobi can easily be considered positive; be it because you're a hopeless romantic and that hinders your ability to maximize your potential or because you just don't have the spine or endurance necessary to be a badass ninja. Those aren't reasons to violently hate on someone. Specifically about Sakura and Hinata, those aren't even the reasons why so many people dislike them.

Or at least I hope not. I'd understand the point of your ask better if I had said anything derogatory about their appearance, for example. Those types of haters are annoying, and I manage to turn into both Sakura and Hinata's biggest defenders the moment someone says shit that degrades Sakura for her chest or some other bs, and/or fetishizes Hinata in any way. Rest assured, I'm anything but misogynistic.

But oh shit, it's time we realized that Sakura's "feelings" for Sasuke were simply a shallow school girl crush. And that would've been okay, understandable, maybe even a little cute, if it weren't for the way she constantly pushed herself onto him, consistently referred to him as hers in her head, saw him as a trophy, a blank canvas to project her fantasies onto. She was disrespectful, and her confessions were sickening.

Because how dare you compare your loneliness to that of a genocide survivor? How could you make your supposed love's pain all about you? How could you be so ready to abandon your friends, family, life, and future just to follow him to someone who you know would cause him harm, when you so clearly don't even know or understand him? How could you try to minimize everything he went through, try to diminish all he's suffered in the name of "laughing and having fun like the good old times"? "What about me, Sasuke? I'll be in so much pain if you leave. Please, if there's even a small part of you that cares about me, stay". "I can't get close to you, I can't exchange blows with you, I can only whine and beg, it's pretty pathetic. There's nothing I can do for you".

These are all things she's said and/or done paraphrased. There's so much more I don't care to recall. And they're all very annoying.

Her sole motivation was Sasuke; he's the reason she talks about how she'll get stronger to catch up to him and Naruto, about how she wants to "save" him, or "protect" him, about how she wants to be able to "fight for herself next time".

But she never managed to really do any of it, because it was all so surface level. Her aspirations for life began and ended with Sasuke, a guy she ultimately doesn't know a single thing about. That's objectively pathetic.

I don't like her because of the way she treats Sasuke, because of the way she views him, because of the way she's so pretentious about her "undying love" for him.

I don't like anti-sasusakus who come at it from a "Sakura deserves better" perspective, because she got exactly what she asked for; now she even gets to parade around wearing that Uchiha crest like the trophy it is to her, while having done nothing to earn it!!!

But.

But.

Honestly? They're not exactly wrong. Maybe she doesn't deserve better. But her character would, at least if Kishimoto even wanted to write that story.

What do I mean by that? I mean that Sakura, as a main character, does not benefit from her feelings for Sasuke. It's not that Sasuke isn't good for her, it's that her "feelings" for him aren't.

I'll use Naruto as a comparison. His feelings for Sasuke [No, I don't care how you interpret their relationship. If you want, they can be platonic feelings or familial feelings (you'd be wrong but who am I to judge), or romantic feelings] actually serve as his basis for self improvement.

Usually, in media, love is something that drives characters to be better.

Naruto's love for Sasuke is his greatest strength.

Naruto kept getting stronger, with Sasuke as his motivator. Naruto kept trying to understand him, to see things from his perspective, never held any sort of idealistic "Sasuke would never do that" train of thought.

Naruto got to better understand the injustice of the system through Sasuke and his love for him. Naruto initially fought to bring him back to Konoha, not because he wanted to play house with him, or because he wanted Sasuke to cater to Konoha's every whim, but because in Naruto's mind, Konoha is home and it's safe, away from Orochimaru's dirty hands.

But then once he finally understood Sasuke better, once they fought and he carried Sasuke's burdensome hatred with him, he let him go. He let him travel, leave Konoha, without ever asking for him to stay, because he gets it (Unlike Sakura, who still didn't get it, and did the exact opposite)

In Sakura's case, however, her "feelings" for Sasuke hold her back. Though that's a bit of conundrum, seeing as any sort of achievements she's made are directly linked back to her crush. Like I said before, he's her motive. No, it's specifically the shallowness of her love, the half-heartedness in her convictions to improve that holds her back. Her "feelings" aren't as genuine as she –or any of you– likes to think they are, and that keeps her from growing, from seeing clearly (i.e: in the long run, they hold her back)

They're proof of her superficiality. She's too caught up in romanticizing the absolute shit out of Sasuke, too caught up in using him to live out her fairytale dreams, too caught up in asking others to bring him back to her, or whatever. She's too caught up in whether Sasuke looks at her or worries about her to fight properly. And I mean "fight" both literally and metaphorically here.

So yeah, her "feelings" for him aren't good for her. It would've been a much better character arc, in my opinion, something that could be actually empowering that would give her depth, if she had ended up with Lee instead.

Because Lee is the exact opposite of Sasuke, in the sense that he's ugly in Sakura's eyes (I'll state here that I don't think Lee is ugly, bushy brows and all, he's very pretty to me), and so to end up with him, well. That would require Sakura to see past physical appearance.

Sakura tends to be very judgemental of other people's looks, and the way she treats them is often correlated to how beautiful she finds them.

But falling for Lee would've been a great way for her to move past the cover and read the book. Something which could then translate to her being less insensitive and judgy from then on.

[Sakura fans love to point out that she might say rude stuff, but then she regrets it, so it's okay! To that I say, it hardly matters that you regret something you say and promise that you'll be better, if you're just going to repeat the process the next day]

That said, she didn't even have to end up with anyone. She could've remained single, after realizing how wrong she was about Sasuke. She could've stopped pining after him, and gotten herself a goal that is bigger than just ending up with him.

But that's not who she is. That's actually, an entirely different character. That's not how Kishimoto wrote her, and criticizing him because of that is stupid. He knew what and why he was doing it, and the narrative some of you adopt, the one that goes "no, I'm better than so-and-so, this character should've been that way instead", is exhausting.

Sakura fans never represent her how she canonically is. Truly, 100%, the way she's depicted in the show. They nitpick which parts of her they like, and ignore the rest. You guys love the version of her that isn't shallow, that understands Sasuke, that is assertive, that is 3-dimensional; a person whose hard work actually comes to mean something, who is much more genuine about her love for Sasuke, who is by all means an independent badass. The Sakura who is selfless and understanding and a go-getter badass. And that's okay, I guess. But at least admit it.

It's always an outsider commenting on how "she's better than Tsunade" because they saw her punch one time, or "her feelings for you have matured" (something cancelled out entirely by Sakura later). It's always "I've caught up to them" after something that amounts to nothing significant. We're told she's great. We've yet to see it for ourselves, outside of those five? Six maybe? Eight is my being generous. Truly iconic scenes that she has in the entirety of the manga.

I stand by my closing line on her post.

She's foolish, and too caught up in her own romantic, fantasy world to substantially thrive in a reality as cold-blooded as the one she was born in.

And that's all she'll ever be.

As for my girl Hinata. I absolutely stand by everything I said on that post. Not taking a single word back. Maybe Sakura has a few redeeming qualities; like I said, you could explore her character outside of her crush on Sasuke and make a true badass out of her. (While still acknowledging the fact that that's not who Kishimoto wrote her to be)

But Hinata? There's no character to explore. Period. She's nice. Sweet. Kind, maybe? Sweet. Did I mention nice? I should probably not forget to say that she's sweet. Let's not omit that she's privileged and doesn't care one bit that her family is a-okay with slavery!! OH, and she can cook well. She also has those big boobs. And all her symbolism with Naruto was ripped off sns, coincidentally.

She's very passively likable, and the definition of forgettable. Like it or not.

____________________________________________

As for me, I should make it clear here and now that I am no misogynist. I like to think of myself as a very passionate intersectional feminist, who gives credit where it's due.

These two ladies? They don't deserve the aforementioned credit.

Have a great day 💞

[mortiscausa]

realising i am probably not going to have a new comic for thought bubble this year. i really wanted to and i've been trying to work on one but i'm just. so exhausted and have too many things to do (and yet simultanously have achieved absolutely nothing this year???) and honestly i'm just so completely burnt out with everything that i don't think i could finish it even if my attention wasn't split fifty different ways

[curiouslyodd]

Today the UK Government started seizing refugees for their unfathomably cruel Rwanda deportation plan. People who fled to this country seeking safety will be suddenly crammed into detention centres and held for months, before being forced onto planes to an unfamiliar country where they will not be safe. An initiative that will cost the taxpayer £millions and will not achieve anything but making desperate people's lives even worse.

Today the UK Government announced further crackdowns on disability welfare, with planned removals of benefits for people with depression/anxiety in favour of 'therapy', and replacing cash benefits with 'vouchers'. Following months of increased media discreditation of disabilities and a culture that demonises people on benefits, plus government interest in legalising physician-assisted suicide, it's clear that this move is intended to push people into homelessness and suicide.

I hate it here. This country just seems to have an unerasable streak of vicious spite and disdain, and countless wealthy and well-connected monsters desparate to claw us back to the era of workhouses and debtors' prisons.

[sinni-ok-sessi]

the summer holidays draw to a close and once again I must ask myself whether I can face reintroducing Hell Wednesdays to my life

(hell wednesdays being the series of bad decisions that mean I work my 9-5 job, do an online chinese class 5-7, leave the house at 7 to get a train to my 8-10 dance class, get back from that at 11ish and then I guess just die? idk, somehow I kept this up for two terms last year, but I'm another year older and tireder and I just. don't really want to. except that I do very much want to take a chinese class again and I love dancing and don't want to quit it, and I unfortunately don't get a choice about the job thing, so here I am :/ I am very much in the market for recs for small-group language classes though (cannot deal with 1:1 tutoring for reasons of I am very shy))

[phoenixonwheels]

Me: (talking to a friend in the UK) “So… I hear NHS doctors with Long Covid are suing the NHS. Does that mean they’re actually masking in medical facilities over there?”

Friend: “I spent the entire weekend at the hospital because (relative) had a stroke and I saw exactly one doctor wearing a mask.”

Me: . . .

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

anyway. the uk sucks ass and living here sucks ass too! NHS is sooo amazing until its soooo not!

[bibleofficial]

i think it’s so funny that u can’t get an ambulance in the uk if u overdose they just tell u to try to make it to the hospital lol

[rachi-roo]

Hi fellas. Am not ded. The depression got me again. I just be staring at life like-

[mangoofthesea]

How many things do you think need to be set on fire to disrupt capitalism enough to create a livable society? Asking for a friend