#extra thoughts huh...

[re-knights]

"that's probably no big deal for you" like yeah. idk. im dead on the floor. subaru u probably have no idea how much u mean to reinhart, huh? seeing them this episode is nice cuz they're both troubled with the whole "leave it to me!" ordeal so even if reinhart would be better off fighting by himself i think having subaru with him is probably good for him

also while we're talking about these two... "i have just been blessed" "with what, a child?" is such a funny line

oh but it only got gayer when reinhart said he would be subaru's blade. like wow okay. so subaru's having 2 men fight for him like that, with julius in season 2 basically being the sword as well lol

julius is pretty as always, do i need to say anything?

emilia's speech here was kinda incredible too. i feel like her personality rlly changed and it's been nothing but incredible cuz it's made me srsly like her as a character. also as a regulus kisser i loved seeing him angry it was hilarious

honestly it definitely felt important to her as a character but standing up to a guy who could one shot u is crazy work

anyway this is the last episode of this half and it makes me rlly sad we can't get to february already but wtv. ugh. time to rewatch everything all over again /j

[mxtxfanatic]

What I find so interesting about Jin Guangyao's explanation about why he finally decided to kill Jin Guangshan is that even though he's lying in his retelling to get the others to lower their guard, the original convo and the impression it left on him gives us such interesting insight into the Meng mother-son duo. This is what he says in Guanyin Temple:

“Why was a sect leader who spent money like water unwilling to do the smallest favor and buy my mother’s freedom? Simple—it was too much trouble. My mother waited for so many years, weaving together so many difficult circumstances when she talked to me, imagining for his sake so many hardships. And the real reason was only a single word: trouble. “This is what he said, ‘It’s especially women who’ve read some books who think they’re a level higher than other women. They’re the most troublesome, with so many demands and unrealistic thoughts. If I bought her freedom and took her back to Lanling, who knows how much fuss she’d make. It was best that I let her stay where she was just like that. With her conditions, she’d probably be popular for a few more years. She wouldn’t have to worry about her spendings for the rest of her life.’ “‘Son? Oh, forget it.’” Jin GuangYao’s memory was extraordinary. With such a word-by-word repetition, one could even imagine that drunk expression of Jin GuangShan’s when he said these words, “Brother, look, these three words are all that I’m worth to my father, ‘Oh, forget it.’ Hahahaha...”

—Chapt. 106: Hatred, exr

This is the actual scene and context of what Jin Guangyao is repeating:

Jin GuangYao had long since gotten used to this. He knew when he should appear and when he should not. He gestured towards Xue Yang and stopped in his tracks. Xue Yang clicked his tongue, his expression quite impatient. Just as he was about to go downstairs and wait, he suddenly heard Jin GuangShan’s gruff voice, “Women—shouldn’t it be enough as long as they water their flowers, powder their faces, and make themselves look as pretty as possible? Calligraphy? What a disappointment.” Those women all wanted to please Jin GuangShan originally. With these words, a flash of awkwardness passed over the pavilion. Jin GuangYao’s figure froze somewhat as well. Soon, someone giggled, “But I heard that back then in Yunmeng, there was a talented woman who charmed the entire world with her poems and songs—zither, chess, calligraphy, as well as painting!” It was clear Jin GuangShan was dead drunk. The wine could even be heard from his stammering voice. He mumbled, “That’s——not how things work. Now I’ve realized. Women shouldn’t play with those useless things. Women who’ve read some books always think they’re a level higher than the other women. They’re the most troublesome, with so many demands and unrealistic fancies.” ... Up on the pavilion, the women agreed with laughter. As though he remembered something from the past, he murmured to himself, “If I bought her freedom and took her back to Lanling, who knows how much fuss she would’ve made. If she stayed where she was, she might be popular for a few more years and she wouldn’t have to worry about her spendings for the rest of her life. Out of everything, just why did she have to bear a son, a son of a prostitute? What could she have hoped to...” A woman asked, “Sect Leader Jin, who are you talking about? What son?” Jin GuangShan’s voice drifted, “Son? Oh, forget it.”

—Chapt. 118: Villainous Friends Extra, exr

Jin Guangyao's scheming seems to be a trait learned from his mother. We've already seen and heard from multiple different characters by this point that Meng Shi bore a son in hopes that it would get her bought out of her brothel contract, but she did more than that. She learned the arts and education. She cultivated herself into appearing like any young woman from a noble family, even though she was a prostitute. The purpose of this crafted image was to attract the attention of a nobleman who would fall for her charms and hopefully free her from the brothel. The final part of that plan was to bear a rich man a son as, like one patron said, leaving a son to be raised in a brothel was both cruel to the son and embarrassing to the nobleman. And she wasn't aiming just to have her contract bought out, but to be bought out and her status elevated to that of a nobleman's wife, a plan that left her peers bitter. Unfortunately for Meng Shi, she picked the one lecher with a face thick enough to do exactly what the other patrons wouldn't. She bore a son, and Jin Guangshan disappeared like smoke. On top of that, her having a son decreased her popularity amongst other patrons. All of that hard work ruined in one fell swoop.

Jin Guangyao takes his mother's scheming and intensifies it. Instead of picking and sticking to one persona, he shapeshifts into soft, gentle, learned, efficient, helpless... whatever he needs to be in front of those he wants to curry favor with. However, he is also able and willing to do what his mother (willing or not) couldn't have: when those above him disrespect his station, he kills them. He forges a friendship with Lan Xichen by helping him escape the QishanWen and revealing curated moments of vulnerability with the other man to feign intimacy. He shows his efficiency and dedication to quality work to Nie Mingjue while subtly manipulating the man into attacking his enemies for him. He reveals his bloodthirstiness and petty, vindictive nature to Wen Ruohan, which earns him a spot as the clan leader's right hand man. And all the while, he is silently killing those who remind him of his low reputation, quelling dissent about his rise to power. But just like his mother, there's one target he cannot catch: his shameless father.

I won't make the argument that Meng Shi was wrong for attempting to use a child to manipulate her way into a marriage. The woman was enslaved to a brothel; there were no good means of escape in that system that didn't rely on manipulating some of the most immoral men in society. However, her lack of consideration (or possibly prioritization, since we do not get her actual thoughts) on how her actions would affect the child she schemed to have did backfire on her son. Meng Shi wanted her son to be what she thought his father would want: the powerful cultivating son of a cultivation clan leader. Jin Guangyao carries this same wish with him, that he be seen as his father's son. Instead, Jin Guangyao would be forever known not by who his father was but who his mother was: a prostitute.

What ultimately gets Jin Guangyao to commit to his father's death is not that Jin Guangshan disrespected his mother, but that he finally heard from the man's own mouth that everything he had been taught by his mother was a lie. It's not that he just hadn't found the correct persona that would make his father acknowledge him. It's that he would never be able to shapeshift his way into his father's acknowledgements. It's that no matter how many images he cultivated with how many different people, no matter how many people he killed in front of his father's face or behind his back, he would never be Jin Guangyao, proud son of the Jin Clan. Even to his own father, he could only be "the son of a prostitute" too uppity to realize that she'd never be a nobleman's wife and her son would never be a cultivator's heir. And that's why his father's death isn't the only product of overhearing this convo: Jin Guangyao's first order of business is actually to raze his mother's brothel to the ground along with all its patrons and prostitutes, already planning for the establishment of a Guanyin Temple with his mother's face in its place:

Jin GuangYao, “No, thanks. Save your energy, Young Master Xue. Will you be free the next few days?” Xue Yang, “Won’t I have to do it no matter what?” Jin GuangYao, “Go to Yunmeng for me and tidy up a place for me. Make it clean.”

If he were to be forever damned as his mother's son no matter how much he changed, then let her change for once. Let him be not the son of a prostitute but of a goddess, instead.

[coern-art-very-cool-and-nice]

the boy in the spotlight versus the girl in the mirror

edit: made a part 2

unshaded version

[chanelle-lize]

I used to have a really hard time bringing up the fact that I graduated from high school a year late without feeling the need to explain why and insisting that it wasn't my fault while simultaneously kicking myself for how much I sounded like I was just making excuses for something I should take responsibility for.

Then I watched Dimension 20's "The Seven" and suddenly I could simply say that I was a super senior.

The first time I heard the phrase "super senior" was in reference to Antiope Jones, a Black girl who had been held back a year after getting kidnapped and imprisoned by members of a fundamentalist cult, and like, girl, same.

So, since then, instead of anxiously spinning out any time I tried to tell a personal high school anecdote, I could just say I was a super senior, and then my brain would auto complete that statement with "like Antiope Jones" and I'd feel good about myself because Antiope Jones Is That Bitch.

That's what the problem had been the whole time. I wasn't worried about how other people would perceive me; I had been struggling with how I perceived myself.

Thanks, Aabria.

[hanayotta]

both fang duobing and di feisheng looked ready to start bawling in that stupid beach scene. and i was right there with them

[gomzdrawfr]

Sorry this is prob weird but I’m imagining Raven and Ghost working at amusement parks (they look like they don’t belong there)

Raven is the kind that counts down and then pulls the lever at the count of 2, smirking under her hat

Ghost is the same, but he finishes counting and then lets the suspense build in uncomfortable silence, cuz he wanna see the faces of the people wondering if there's a malfunction, and then only Ghost pulls the lever

[j-esbian]

maybe the real voltron was the friends we made along the way

[niftukkun]

started up rescue team blue and got assigned pikachu (again) (still havent finished explorers of sky lmao) (not even my favorite pokemon but its extremely funny that ive essentially been diagnosed protagonist by pmd twice over now)

[thegreatyin]

lark has officially embarked on the world's most dramatic shopping list!

we're,,,,, probably gonna be here for awhile.

[hurglewurm]

thinking about how. MORE than one old white woman presiding over me during my master's program in some capacity,,, has gently (unprompted) insinuated to me that accommodations are available, academic or otherwise

like i've had classmates undergo the same meetings, the same presentations for the same prof, etc and they do Not get the same gentle "oh you poor little thing. is this so hard for you? do you need help?"

and it's like. on one hand cool, thanks, glad that's available. i am, however, legit fine and chilling and doing better than ever in a classroom environment because i Stopped Masking in my mid-twenties and i sit cross-legged and play with my spiky ball sometimes and i'm vibing

glad accommodations exist. none of them would do anything helpful for me specifically. but if me being visible is what it takes for you to ? ? feel like you're Helping students who need/use accommodations ? to assuage your Guilt idk lol ? then ok white woman i will continue to exist within eyesight

(wish you'd respect the accommodations of students who actually require them, instead of giving platitudes to me who is i guess more Visibly 'other' to you)

[wackywatchdotcom]

something thats always confused me is why people assumed early on that pomni 'saw something' while she was out in the void... like i dont see it in discussion anymore but that idea always confused me, cus i thought it was very blatantly a 'pomni is not processing what is happening because theres a lot going on and she was already struggling immensely and kinda freaking out before being full on launched into an area that has nothing but distant light and squares and nothing else and you are moving but youre not' thing

[faaun]

i should have never dated an iranian person like i told myself i would never do it bc it would be too much intensity all in one place and i was RIGHT now that i've experienced it (smn who can engage in poetry in a similar way, talk in the same language, making all the cultural stuff gay and hot, etc) i feel like without those aspects things will just be missing Something like from now on . idk . let's drink black tea w saffron and then make out . i've never celebrated the solar new year or leapt over a fire the wednesday before or read romantic hafez poetry w someone who loves me romantically and now i crave it . so much

[microwavetoaster-selfships]

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid I definitely didn't edit and cut this comp up myself I definitely didn't add the stupid ass music myself stupid stupid stupid I definitely found this online and just took it from there dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb I want to banish him to sitting in a corner permenatly he doesn't. Shouldn't. Get. Take him OUT of the driver seat of my brain he doesn't need to be there he d9esnt get a say in this take away his seat at the table gone removed out of this he doesn't get rent free, in fact he has to pay the most massive fee conceivable and I know that if I said this out loud I'd probably sound exasperated and a little breathless and fumble my words and groan and sigh and huff and make incoherent things to where I almost sounded upset but really with each muttering and long sigh there'd be a hint of .nof. of ....mfif8fifuidis soossssssssom.ssson.mthibg. something.mor.e.more. something more. Than that. The way someone sighs when walking past the bakery section of the grocery store and trying to pretend and act like they don't want it. They sigh and mutter that they don't need it but you can hear it and see it in their expression. Alas. This is over TEXT. And clearly I. Have been nothing but oh so the upmost convincing in my endeavors that. Scrolls back up. Scrolls back down quickly. Blankley stares at my keyboard. I want to slam a plank of wood sideways horizontal-motion across the back of his head.

[existentialcrisistime]

I forget how much work can be a welcome form of anaesthesia this time of year - like, no I don't want to buy presents or go to the post office or ruminate on my own difficult thoughts about the season. I just want to drink energy drink and deadlift heavy delivery boxes and charm the pants off customers thank you

[kingsmoot]

i'm a little flabbergasted by this idt the 8ft tall pyramid head knight needs runes to protect him in battle i think maybe being built like a rhinoceros is gonna do a lot of that work for him

ETA: POST CANCELED I CAN'T READ

[crinj-central]

I'm not exaggerating when I tell yall that today I kept yelling WHERE IS MY WIFE‼️ WHERE IS MY WIFE‼️‼️ in the dealers halls today whenever my friends "complained" about not being able to find their waifu merch ajdjdkkdlx