#clearsightedness

[iqmatrix]

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[renshengs]

fang duobing is about BREAKING CYCLES he's about REJECTING BIRTHRIGHT he's about NEW GENERATIONS. he's spring. grows and grows, young and green and tender. he's both the subversion of the young wuxia hero and the purest version of it. clearheaded and kindhearted and generous with his love. so smart it's delightful, so smart it hurts like a heartache. he makes a point to tell it like it is. he's more thoughtful than anyone gives him credit for. he admires but doesn't worship his heroes, never builds pedestals to lift them upon. he won't fall to the insidious schemes of the jianghu as easily as those of the past. his idealism is passionate but full of the kind of clearsightedness that will carry him farther and better than all of the people who came before him. god. god! fang duobing!

[alltheselights]

I agree with you on everything and I love your clearsightedness, except one thing. I think youre right that LTHQ/Sony don't want Larries around as unconditional fans because we support Louis too hard, so we have to be taught in regular bursts not to trust him and hate him instead. I think HSHQ/Sony do want Larries around because we also support Harry hard and we're very handy to defend his queerness when he's playing all sides against the middle and getting shit for supposed queerbaiting from normals and other fanbases. We're gonna to be super useful for getting SM hype when MP drops and defending H from claims he shouldn't have taken the role because hes not gay. But Louis, they do need Louis to keep Larry going just enough (he is kind of necessary for that) and lets be real, make Harry's image more approachable and relatable for us, but they dont want him to come anywhere near reaching his potential as an artist as we've seen proved conclusively by now. This is just more of the same old bullshit they always pull to drag him back down and damage him again because the tour went far too well. Its the same shit. The same people. The same tactics. Damaging syndicated articles, and fandom sabotage 'from his own mouth' except it's always a version of Louis that doesnt exist when you actually see or hear him. It's about us , about Larries, and how easily we can be made to turn on him but only if we never turn on Harry. I really think thats what its all about now.

I actually do think you have a point here, so I’ll add this to what I said - maybe HSHQ do want Larries around, but they want us fully in the background while they continue to cater to his solo fanbase and especially to the locals, who they want listening to his music, buying his album, and attending his concerts. Hardcore fans are important, but those locals are the reason his streaming and overall sales numbers are so high and it’s hard to sustain that interest.

You know, I’ve noticed more and more lately how this side of the fandom's view of Harry strays further and further from the general public view every single day. For example, I constantly see people talking about how het Harries and locals only like “sexy” Harry and how they must HATE the rest of Harry’s stage behavior and clothing. In reality, people have known how Harry acts and dresses for a long time and it adds to their attraction to him. I don’t get how people haven’t picked up on this considering Harry has become MORE popular with the general public and expanded his mostly female fanbase since Vogue. I try to avoid Harry and Louis content on TikTok, but often when it pops up, I find people talking about how Harry was “written by a woman” because he’s masculine while still being in touch with his feminine side and he’s sexy without being threatening. These aspects of Harry’s image that many Larries claim het Harries or the general public hate are actually a huge part of peoples’ perfect boyfriend fantasy of him, and both Harry and HSHQ know that.

It’s just extremely frustrating to watch people come up with excuses and alternative meanings to very clear, unsubtle lyrics (e.g. I bring the pop to the cinema, if you’re getting yourself wet for me, choke her with a sea view), make excuses for certain types of behavior or ignore it entirely (so much of Harry’s stunt content never even makes it to Tumblr, I’ve noticed, while all of Louis’ does), or blame everyone around Harry and then turn around and spew vitriol toward Louis immediately when something happens. Especially considering what the consequences of all of this stuff are for Harry (his career is on the rise) and what the consequences are for Louis (nothing has improved for him in terms of promo or public image even after his sold out world tour).

It’s just hard to watch how Louis gets punished by his fans when he gets nothing out of this shit. This quote you said toward the end: “It’s about us, about Larries, and how easily we can be made to turn on him but only if we never turn on Harry.” You’re right. And it’s horrible.

[llycaons]

ep21 (p2): a lot of pensive staring in this one

this was a strange scene, and one that still baffles me. many questions:

why do we need to see the wen prisoners this early? we see wq later on her own, and it makes more sense for her to wander for a while alone than get captured and then escape leaving her granny behind. we see the wen prisoners later too, their harassment and their murders and their imprisonment.

what is wwx DOING? the smoke seems to flare up when he's angry about something then he plays and causes an avalanche. we've already seen that his music can do damage! and we see and hear him say later that his powers are connected to his emotional state

next question is whether his cultivation is connected to the yin iron, which is turns out it can be, but this scene has nothing to do with the yin iron either so ??????

it's very odd and if I was a novel reader I'd definitely be annoyed. one of the weaker choices from the drama

also wen qing in full makeup with one smear of dirt artfully applied to her forehead. okay!

and then he's SO DRAMATIC coming in lmao the wind coming in at his back everyone covering his eyes, and he's all cryptic despite lxc's best efforts to figure out what the fuck he's talking about

he says this but he still closes his eyes to inconvenient political situations if questioning them would cause any disruption in his sect or the system. his defense of jgy is out of compassion for a man discriminated against, but it's also out of a personal affection for him. and lxc is uncomfortable with injustuce, but he's an able politician and he doesn't have the intensity of lwj towards his principles, nor wwx's comittment or clearsightedness

oh boy, this scene. is there a more loaded silence in this entire show?

lwj lies so fucking much as a teenager it's hilarious how he got his reputation

jc lmao

this is a weird thing to say. first of all, it's hurtful when wwx clearly cared about lwj a lot, and second of all does he really think lwj was so determined to find wwx just out of wartime camaraderie? it's easy to assume lwj disliked wwx in CR, but surely three months of frantic searching and the threat of torture led jc to realize that maybe lwj cares about wwx on a personal level

...god, maybe not. jc and lwj were really never going to connect, huh. jc takes him at face value and lwj extends no compassion towards him in return

coming from YOU?!

this scene made me laugh. jc like 'get rid of your naughty toys!' and wwx like 'suuuure, yeah I'll DEFINITELY do that'

their dynamic here is pretty fun ngl

ah! the depression setting back in. his eyes look so empty...some of it misery over the general situation, losing lwj etc. but also. the trauma

oh I love this scene. the restraint behind not knocking. ah! my heart is a-flutter

walking away in the middle of a conversation bc he's mad ♥♥♥♥♥ truly he and wwx were made for each other they love leaving situations

I love this expression of his. truly does look on the verge of tears and MAD about it. a really important thing about lwj as a character is that he is so so seething with emotional at any given moment and he can't verbalize it so he expresses it physically. or artistically.

here, he's attacking wwx as all his pent-up anger and frustration and hurt erupt and it's a language that wwx knows how to speak too and responds to. I don't know how they would have started talking again if it wasn't through this fight. going up to him and saying 'hey can we talk?' would only have resulted in more deflection, lies, and manipulation. but they're honest when they fight like this

and this shot. whew

personal highlights:

jyl was incredible in this episode! I know most ppl's favorite scene for her is dressing down jzx, but I like to appreciate her more everyday acts of love and guidance as well

wwx referring to himself as 'no longer a child' fucking ruined me

lxc explaining the fact that nuance exists in a really kind and nonjudgemental way

that tense meeting of the two sets of brothers

jc and wwx conversation where jc expresses concern like a normal person and then does an epic eye roll

lwj and wwx both lying point blank to their families

lwj being SO reserved at the door makes me feel like a victorian maiden

the abrupt attack was really fun too. FIGHT!!!

[firstofficerrose]

So Agnes did go home, and she's going to move into Magrat's old cottage, and learn from Granny Weatherwax. Beautiful.

I especially liked the bit with the marshmallows at the end. I just have strong feelings about marshmallows in stories, they're a really potent symbol. Someday I'll figure out how to write down the way I feel about it. That was lovely.

I really loved Maskerade. This one appeals strongly to the part of me who is still the theater kid hoping for a big role in the next production. I loved the acknowledgement of the magic and lies inherent in theater, and I loved the juxtaposition of Granny's clearsightedness against it.

There was so much going on here, and I feel like this one was really thematically rich, much moreso than Interesting Times. I do love the Witches Novels! They have a few running themes that I've been enjoying seeing developed over time. The way that appearances lie, a very strong sense of Right and Wrong, and what's been called militant decency. I don't know which is the next of the Witches Novels, but I'm looking forward to it.

Other thoughts: I'm not at all sure that it will happen, but I'd very much like Agnes to meet Tiffany at some point. I haven't gotten to the Tiffany Aching books yet, but I read two of them years ago, and I love Tiffany dearly. And I'd like to see what happens when the witch of the chalk, with First Sight and Second Thoughts and an iron frying pan encounters a witch of Lancre who could have been the greatest operatic star the Disc has ever seen. I would love to see that.

I really like Agnes. She's grown a lot since the first time we met her a few books ago, and I think she's going to be an excellent Witch of Lancre. I'm looking forward to her meeting Magrat, I think that'll be interesting when it happens. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her in the future.

And as for what that future holds, it looks like it's Feet of Clay. I've heard many good things about this one, and I've been looking forward to it for a while. See y'all there!

[feministdragon]

Continuing the summary of chapter two of The Dawn of Everything, “Wicked Liberty—The indigenous critique and the myth of progress”. 

>>p45-48

In political terms the French and the indigenous Americans were arguing, not about equality, but about freedom. The only time the concept of equality comes up in the 71 volumes of the Jesuit books about their travels in North America is in a story about alcoholic beverages.  ‘From the beginning of the world to the coming of the French, the Savages have never know what it was so solemnly to forbid anything to their people, under any penalty, however slight.  They are free people, each of whom considers himself of as much consequence as the others; and they submit to their chiefs only in so far as it pleases them.”

Here equality is a direct extension of freedom, and has almost nothing in common with the more familiar (Eurasian) idea of ‘equality before the law’, which is ultimately, ‘equality before the sovereign’.   Americans were free to obey or disobey orders as they saw fit.  And so, if you couldn’t force people, then social coherence had to be created, through reasoned debate, persuasive arguments and the establishment of a social consensus. 

The Enlightenment is considered the height of development of Reason, or open and rational debate.  The Jesuits, the bookish nerds of Christianity, had learned Native American languages in order to persuade them of the superiority of the Christian faith.  But they regularly found themselves startled and impressed by the quality of the counterarguments they had to deal with. The Jesuits attributed this to the fact that so much public communication happened within the communities of the Americans. “The councils, held almost every day in the Villages, on almost all matters, improve their capacity for talking.” “[I have not before experienced such a] clearsightedness in public affairs, a more discreet management of things.”  “They show more intelligence in their business, speeches, courtesies, intercourse, tricks and subtleties, than do the shrewdest citizens and merchants in France.”

The Jesuits recognised an intrinsic relationship between refusal of arbitrary power, open and inclusive political debate and a taste for reasoned argument. 

However persuasive speech doesn’t necessarily have to depend on reason.  It could also depend on appeals to sentiment, whipping up passion, poetic metaphors, appealing to myth, use of irony, humor insult, or prophesy.  All this depends on the rhetorical tradition of the culture to which you belong.  In the case of the Iriquoian speakers like the Wendat or the Haudenosaunee to the south, they prioritised reasoned, and found it a kind of entertainment in its own right.    And this had major historical repercussions for Europe, because it was exactly this form of debate—rational, sceptical, empirical, conversational in tone—that became important in the European Enlightenment. And like the Jesuits, Enlightenment thinkers and democratic revolutionaries saw it as intrinsically connected with the rejection of arbitrary authority, especially religious authority.

Summary of this book's ideas so far: In the mid 17th century, European thinkers started playing with an idea of an original egalitarian State of Nature, a default state shared by societies they saw as lacking government, writing, religion, or private property. These European thinkers had just started using terms like ‘equality’ and ‘inequality’.  At around the same time, information started reaching them about the inhabitants of Northeast Woodlands societies in N. America, what are now Nova Scotia and Quebec, about how they conducted their lives, and a dialogue began.

At first neither side talked about ‘equality’.  Instead their concerns were about liberty and mutual aid, or what now might be termed freedom and communism—meaning communal ownership, particularly of productive resources.  Many North American societies could be considered somewhat communitarian.  Women owned and worked the fields individually, but they stored and disposed of the products collectively.  Men owned their own tools and weapons individually, but they typically shared out the game and spoils. 

However, another way to define communism—not as a property regime, but in its original sense—is ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.”  A baseline communism occurs in all societies, it's kind of what makes something a society instead of a collection of individuals.  There’s a feeling that if another person’s needs are great enough, for instance if they are drowning, and the cost of meeting them is modest enough, for instance throwing them a rope, then of course any decent person would comply.   You might even help your bitterest enemy in this way.  The question is just how far this baseline communism, or basic help, should be extended.  In North American societies in the 17th century, it would have been inconceivable to refuse a request for food.   For 17th century Frenchmen in North America, their baseline communism did not extend to food or shelter, something which scandalized Americans.   

But just as here there were two very different conceptions of equality, here there were also two very concepts of individualism.  Europeans were always squabbling for advantage, like a pack of dogs always looking for the opportunity to rise in the ranks.   Northeast Woodlands societies guaranteed one another the means to an autonomous life. Everything operated to ensure that no one’s will was subjugated to anyone else’s.  Their communism existed not in opposition to but in support of individual freedom.  

It was as Europeans began to consider what it would mean to translate American ideals of individual liberty in to their own societies that the term ‘equality’ began to gain ground. 

[mysticalfaeryreadings]

Card Of The Day Ancestor of Knowing “I am the Ancestor of Knowing. I am the embodiment of all knowledge, and will show you the way toward a proper understanding of everything around you. You may think that you know a person ora situation, without having a true appreciation of their character or significance. My clear vision offers you an illuminating perspective in all directions. | enable you to see past surface features, penetrating beneath them to arrive at a truer wisdom." THE ANCESTOR OF KNOWING Long associated with far-sighted wisdom, the owl makes a perfect representation of “knowing’a concept far more profound than mere knowledge. Knowing takes us to a deeper inner sanctum where we can not only perceive but also appreciate the true nature of what we are feeling of experiencing at any given time. The Ancestor of Knowing is a key figure who directs us on our quest for knowledge his guidance takes us to a level of perception that transcends the shallow and the superficial, helping us to access the archetypal truths of existence. #theshamansoracle #ancestorofknowing #clearsightedness #warriorinsight #loveandlight #spiritual #divination #reading #free #oraclecards #oracle #dailyoracle #cardoftheday #oraclecommunity #oraclereader #oraclereadersofinstagram #oraclereading #tarot #dailytarot #tarotcards #tarotcommunity #tarotreadersofinstagram #tarotreading #mysticalfaeryreadings #mysticalfaery https://www.instagram.com/p/CJd2r2UnYjM/?igshid=4lcfybokit0g

[yfere]

so... the blumendrei

every once in a while I wonder, and I don’t have a pretty way of saying this, but back when caleb was going ham on the fairy tale sublimation of his trauma and insisting that he lost the ability to love, and astrid lost the ability to see clearly, and eodwulf lost the ability to think for himself.....

it’s funny, because we at least know that inability to love business is absolute horseshit. like, caleb’s defining character trait is that he gets very attached to things and people, really quickly....even when he tries his best not to! his heart got sucker-punched with nott, he keeps his childhood cat around in the form of a familiar, his whole thing is wanting to do right by his parents and country somehow, after everything. after mere weeks with the m9 who were *not* exactly the nicest of people, he risks life and limb and throws a hissy fit when nott points out that his whole “this is a calculated decision, I’m just using you all lol” excuse doesn’t exactly....make sense. and he’s immediately obsessing over a project to protect all of these people forever, a spell that started with the dome and ended with the mansion. not to mention--transmogrification, illusions for the group in the dome, for yasha and jester and the rest.... and so on. half of his spells are love notes, yall. the caleb is filled with love--always has been, always will be.

and that just makes me wonder, y’know? if astrid was defined before by clearsightedness and insight, or eodwulf by independence of thought, are they really that changed, did they really lose those things? I kind of doubt it, to be honest. I mean, eodwulf went ahead and found himself some religion that he refers to as an authority and guide during the dinner when he actually never does so toward trent.... and he immediately says, out loud, where trent’s owl can certainly hear that he “likes” caduceus clay, who mere minutes ago raked trent ikithon over the coals. meanwhile astrid’s playing her own long game, looking past trent and towards the assembly, and who knows what she wants to do there. 

what I’m saying is, I doubt they’re all that different from how they’ve always been, despite everything. I doubt that despite their suffering that their strengths have been taken away from them. I don’t think they’ve been consumed, any more than caleb’s love could be consumed by the villain they ran into. I’d consider rewriting that fairy tale, caleb.

[girl4pay]

This might be a big question but what would be the ideal way for the raven king to have ended in ur opinion. Bc it doesn’t make sense as is and thematically falls apart I feel but I can never quite figure out what the actually most narratively satisfying thing would be

lets get married. okay keeping in mind i haven't read the series in full in a couple years my core issues with trk are: i think gwenllian was criminally misused, i think adding in laumonier and blue's dad made very little sense and i think doing the gansey noah and cabeswater deaths back to back the way they were was a terrible way to handle a climax. you don't need blue's dad and you don't need laumonier. too many random new parents and men who are absolutely vestigal. gwenllian should be blue's mentor, you focus the piper plotline completely on a professional antagonism between her and henry's mom who can act as the antithesis to piper's greed and recklessness. the grey man is the reader's familiar link between Crime and Magic here, so you can still have him face the challenge of his old life threatening his new life by having to forge an alliance with seondeok to take down a shared threat. 

gwenllian as blue's mentor would come with a similar but almost opposite effect to persephone's mentorship on adam: blue isn't getting stranger, she's getting angrier. this witch who knows what she is keeps getting mayo in her hair and her teachers don't understand her and her family is being evasive and the boy she loves is going to die. also a demon is clouding her perspective, but she doesn't really know that yet. more adam and blue scheming to keep gansey alive. more research and bugging relatives and desperately looking into rituals while it becomes clearer to the reader that adam is losing his agency and blue is losing her clearsightedness. gansey's panic attacks begin to attune themselves to the moments where noah is not himself as well. his chest hurts, he can't breathe - it feels like something is sucking away at his heart. at the same time adam is still trying to help ronan with waking up the dreams, and blue is getting closer to gansey and henry, trying to imagine a future that feels like her own when she has the weights of her confused identity and her fate hanging around her neck. 

i would have ronan and gansey's relationship blow up here: between the hospital and aurora's death, maybe after his birthday party, ronan finds out - probably through declan, to add insult to injury and even more fucked up brother resentment - that gansey is trying to buy him a diploma. actually definitely just after the night of truth bullshit for prime outrageousness lmao. it goes nuclear. blue is, catastrophically to gansey, on ronan's side. adam is, infuriatingly to everyone, judgmentally neutral. things progress as they were except instead of henry getting kidnapped we get a very reluctant henry passing a message to tgm - things have progressed past the point that is acceptable with piper, and his mother wants to meet. also the visit with gansey's family is tense - they love her and henry, and they just can't understand what's gotten into gansey, who's distracted and snappy, and when helen confronts him, he blows up at her, saying a lot more about his worry for ronan and his fear about what will happen to him than was revealed in the initial fight. they're siblings, their relationship can handle it, but there's still an overarching sense that she doesn't really understand, because gansey is still holding his real fear of dying close to his chest. 

cut to auroras death and the grey man having to leave maura with this tragedy to join seondeok - a king, joining a king, doing what needs doing, instead of just a continued trope about being made for violence or whatever that was. there scene with ronan at the bmw goes more or less the same. gansey goes off on his own because he feels isolated and like the burden of fixing all this lies on his shoulders, gwenllians weird witch pep talk goes to blue instead. here is where you would insert cool fun shit about what being a mirror actually means! all of them reunite as in canon, ronan and gansey reconcile after ronan is like you dumb motherfucker i need you here you're my brother and gansey says some self sacrificing shit and blue and adam make it clear without Making It Clear they are going to stand by him, because they still don't know he knows he's going to die. 

here is where we reach the core difficulty: i think the death kiss is incredibly stupid and i don't know how i would write around it. i know how i would finish trk from here, but the kiss curse would not show up at all. i like the kiss curse as a concept but it just doesn't make any sense in the narrative of agency trc constructs and i think it limit's blue's storyline. so without considering the kiss curse: as the demon hijacks adam and tries to use blue as an amplifier to spread to other ley lines, everyone realizes the stakes. everything cabeswater has touched, everything the ley line has touched is at risk, and the ley lines are ALL CONNECTED. blue and adam have been skirting around the realization that the demon and cabeswater are like mirrors the whole book. you can't have one without the other. there is no corruption without something to corrupt. the way cabeswater focuses the ley line for ronan is how the demon has been getting power too, but it's a self contained loop, consumption instead of guidance. kill cabeswater, kill the demon. gansey asks it, realizing in a way they others don’t seem to that he and cabeswater are linked, and the others act. there's a little giving tree moment between ronan and cabeswater, which will surely not contribute to any farreaching survivors guilt that might show up in a sequel series. here is where blue being a mirror comes into play. when neeve was trying to see farther than she could, she used a mirror and it sent her there. the demon is trying to consume beyond it's bounds. a mirror sends it inwards. here blue sees the moment of violence that birthed the demon, and she's terrified and it's tragic. it's a very bildungsroman moment of grief and terror of what will come after for everyone. death of the child birth of the man etc. noah, perpetual child, gets laid to rest with cabeswater, but without cabeswater the ley line floods. here is where gansey dies: without noah fighting his hardest to keep him going, because noah loved him, because cabeswater needed him, his heart simply stops. here is where blue kisses him, because it doesn't matter any more, because he dies even though she didn't, because she's seeing without the demon clouding her for the first time in what feels like the longest time and all she can see is grief. shit gets magically weird with adam and ronan too, and it's henry who grounds them all, who is used to enforcing practicality on the unknown to keep himself safe. with his help the three of them dream something to save gansey. ta da! 

i feel like this would also feed much better into the theme of the dreamer trilogy of like opening ley lines etc bcus trk completely glosses over what happens to the ley line without cabeswater there, and adds to it making sense that ronan thinks opening the ley lines is a good idea - he saved gansey with it! what more could he do! whereas adam felt overwhelmed and out of control and spends the next year trying to construct and repair his own real life conduits and safeguards on the ley line as ronan builds lindenmere. what are your thoughts did i miss anything that you were like absolutely not hate that need it to be gone

[baltears]

im williamposting again so feel free to ignore me but im just thinking about the fact that juliet was literally um. abusive. like i feel like the writers couldn't totally decide whether they wanted her impression of william to be tragic cassandra-style clearsightedness or the drunken rambling of a person with very serious emotional issues, like i think the intent was for it to at least partly be the former but believably look more like the latter but the thing is she literally says things that aren't even true or sound obviously abusive (like calling him a "virus" and claiming he doesn't love their daughter to her face). Both william and juliet (and later emily) behave like she's just stating the truth about who he is but she's saying it in the harshest most biased sounding way possible that would not be a fair depiction of literally anyone. and lest we forget none of the darkness she supposedly noticed was ever directed at her or at emily because william was actively trying very hard while outside the park to be supportive and kind and take care of his family so she's literally just reacting to a perceived personality flaw instead of any concrete action he actually took and would be able to correct. idk it just seems like abuser shit!

[unhedonia]

“Creator of values, man is the delirious creature par excellence, victim of the belief that something exists, whereas he need merely hold his breath: everything stops; suspend his emotions: nothing stirs; suppress his whims: the world turns to ashes. Reality is a creation of our excesses, of our disproportions and derangements. Rein in your palpitations and the course of events slows down; without our ardors, space is ice. Time itself passes only because our desires beget that decorative universe which a jot of lucidity would lay bare. One touch of clearsightedness reduces us to our primal state: nakedness; a suspicion of irony strips us of that trumpery hope which lets us dupe ourselves and devise illusion: every contrary path leads outside of life. Ennui is merely the beginning of such an itinerary ... It makes us find time long, too long - unsuited to show us an end. Detached from every object, having nothing external to assimilate, we destroy ourselves in slow motion, since the future has stopped offering us a raison d'être.”

“Nothing can change our life but the gradual insinuation within us of the forces which annihilate it. No new principle comes to it from the surprises of our growth nor from the efflorescence of our gifts; they are merely natural to it. And nothing natural can make us anything but ourselves. Everything which prefigures death adds a quality of novelty to life, modifies and amplifies it. Health preserves life as such, in a sterile identity; while disease is an activity, the most intense a man can indulge in, a frenetic and ... stationary movement, the richest expenditure of energy without gesture, the hostile and impassioned expectation of an irreparable lightning bolt.”

Emil Cioran, A Short History of Decay

[thegildedcentury]

The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding.  On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point.  But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill.  The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clearsightedness.

Albert Camus, The Plague

[laufire]

clarke/octavia

It’s an interesting dynamic I’m able to appreciate more in retrospect once my favourite member was safe. Kind of similar to how I look now at Caroline-Elena, I guess.

Clarke’s inability and floppiness in all her attempts to get rid of Octavia is hilarious and incredibly enjoyable to watch, especially knowing Octavia’s safe now lmao. And Octavia’s skepticism and clearsightedness towards Clarke is one of the things I’ll always love about her.

I wouldn’t have liked it if the show had decided to take them in a romantic direction because I would’ve been too paranoid about it dooming Octavia somehow (even if it probably wouldn’t have, seeing how things developed in the end she had always more protection than Clarke in the narrative).

OTOH, it would’ve been a far more interesting romantic development that anything they ever decided to do with Clarke lol. Good on Octavia for avoiding that, though.

Send me a ship and I’ll give you my (brutally) honest opinion on it

[thekidyouforgot]

The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clearsightedness.

Albert Camus, The Plague

[captorations]

hyperempathy + clearsightedness really is a nasty fucking combination

[carol-cigarettes-furcoats]

I'm rereading the book, and I was wondering your thoughts on the scene where Therese is flying the kite with Richard, do you think there's any particular significance of her getting so upset about him cutting it?

Therese does view the world aroundher in aesthetic terms. Her ability to see the correlation between concreteobjects and particular moods and meanings sometimes gives Therese an unusualclearsightedness - as when she is horrified at Richard’s cutting a kite stringand letting the kite escape, correctly interpreting this moment as the symboliccorrelative of his characteristic carelessness. x