#i mean it could be worse. as we know

[qinghe-s]

THIRTY DAYS OF HANGUANG-JUNE | 16/30 (last year’s post by @lanyuan)

[id: two gifs from episode thirteen of cql/ the untamed. the first shows the tulu xuanwu, under attack by wei wuxian and lan wangji. wei wuxian is wreathed in black smoke as he hangs from a sword he has pierced the xuanwu’s chin with. the tulu xuanwu’s mouth is open, tongue wagging, and it seems to be trying to focus its eyes on wei wuxian. lan wangji stands on its back, pulling a rope he has wrapped around its long throat. the second gif shows a closeup of lan wangji, rope wrapped around his fist. there’s a little bit of blood on his hand and his expression is tense with exertion, jaw visibly clenched. end id]

[arsenicflame]

since we all appear to be talking about izzy 'calling the police' on stede id like to offer my silly little two cents:

its not like the navy wasn't actively looking for him anyway??????

at most, izzys actions sped up badminton catching up with stede, but its made very clear that badminton wanted Stede dead well before this, and was willing to use whatever he could to find him- whos to say jackie wouldnt have cut a deal on her own? that any other pirate thats seen them being unsubtle in a port wouldn't take the opportunity to make a quick buck over a guy who is Nobody and holds no influence that could lead to any consequences for them?

in reality izzy is probably the only person who would receive negative repercussions to selling out stede, given his personal connection with ed- any other pirate would probably have gotten away unscathed, anonymous. they likely wouldnt have even been present like izzy was. izzy had personal stakes, anyone else would have taken the money and ran

the way i see it, with or without izzy the events of episode 10 probably would have happened in some degree, izzy just expedited the timeline

[maddy-ferguson]

#me

[quietwingsinthesky]

the last unicorn post from earlier has me thinking about the master. that yana is still in there, you know? is still someone he was, if even for a brief flash across the life of a time lord. there’s no way to unlive that life. there are ways to twist it later, sure, to make utopia into hell on earth. but the life was lived. in much the same way that the doctor can remember, can feel, the love he held onto as john smith even as that life is ripped out of his hands. the doctor choose denial and then grief and then to shutter it all away. and so john smith died, and so professor yana died, and the doctor and the master live on. the doctor has done this before, and he lives in orbit around humanity, trying to keep the best parts of them and hold them deep enough to take root (which he can pretend he gets to choose, as a time lord. as a human, it all floods in and can’t be dug back out.) but what about the master, right?

to borrow a turn of phrase: i think there are two time lords left in the universe, and they both learned how to regret.

[doomed-era]

ok so I found this after doing some research last night

URBOSA???

URBOSA GIRL THATS

(im aware that the yiga survive aoc just fyi)

[todayisafridaynight]

tbh if ryuji knew there were two (2) whole more dragons in this franchise i dont think he’d have ever died just from the sheer will of needing to kick the shit out of them too

[yuridovewing]

so am i the only canon-ivypool disliker that actually wants her to become leader

[soldier-poet-king]

I literally just do not understand how full grown ass adults go thru life like this. 0 self reflection. 0 concern about the impact of their behaviours on others. Continuing said behaviours even when they're pointed out as hurtful. Like????

[dykeyangel]

is no one gonna talk about how ed knows izzy by the smell of his rotting flesh

[inlovewithaspiderguy]

me creating problems out of nothing because I don’t know how to address the student with nb pins in my class

[stargazeraldroth]

I know I'm not the best when it comes to getting canon characterization right, but when I deviate from canon, I (usually) have a justified reason for doing so. Whether that be projection or differences for AU purposes, it's usually understandable.

And then there's the pain that comes from blatant mischaracterization that has nothing to do with an AU, and it's either because the person genuinely sees the character that way or does it for weird shipping purposes. Like, really weird shipping purposes. I'm talking "Character A is such a frail bottom UwU" and "Character B is such a strong top, protecting their precious partner". THAT kind of weird change for shipping. Especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ couples.

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

idk im glad they didn't give us any actual details about caleb and evelyn beyond belos's memories and like. fifty-sixth-hand information from masha's story so audience members not paying attention would at least know who they are.

whatever nitty gritty details the audience comes up with on their own for what happened to these two would be infinitely more satisfying to them than what the show would have been able to depict in a flashback. especially working within what's appropriate for children's television.

caleb the person isn't important to the story anymore. the MEMORY of caleb, which belos has never let himself get over in 400 years, is the important thing. and you don't need to know much about caleb for that to work. and while i loved the parallels between the wittebanes and hunter and luz, as well as the clawthornes being a descendent of evelyn, i'm glad they never confirmed it, and it remains situational irony purely for the audience.

hunter's only connection with caleb is his DNA, which also ties back to belos's feelings. him befriending luz is something they did of their own volition. it's not because hunter is fated to play out every beat of caleb's life by virtue of being his clone. similarly, while i love a good hunter clawthorne, dell taking hunter as an apprentice and eda showing care towards him in s2 are because eda is kind to children and hunter independently had passion for palisman carving. it's not because they found out they were related, because the whole show is about found family.

having flashbacks to the real caleb and evelyn wouldn't have contributed anything to the story aside from fanservice. what matters is how belos feels about them. belos's ego and the desperation to be acknowledged by his puritan community and God aside, the idea of caleb haunts his every action. not the actual ghost of caleb-i've already discussed here why the idea of caleb's ghost literally haunting belos would be a poor writing decision. belos knew the person his brother actually was, killed him, and imagined a perfect version of him that he chased after for the next 350 years.

the tragedy is that the perfect version of caleb is unattainable, and now belos can never get the real caleb back. he refuses to acknowledge that caleb may have been flawed before the influence of evelyn. to phillip, everything he thinks is wrong about caleb is because he was corrupted by the boiling isles, and that's part of the reason he starts on a quest to kill all the witches. it's also why he makes so many grimwalkers. he desperately misses that ideal version of caleb, so he makes copies of caleb and plays family with them.

and belos loathes the grimwalkers. he kills them because he hates the magic they were made with. because he hates being reminded of his brother and what happened to him. and of course, he hates the grimwalkers for not meeting his expectations of what his "ideal" caleb would have been like. it's a fluid expectation that belos, subconsciously or not, changes as he goes, all in order to take out his anger on innocent children. he seems to recognize his enjoyment of harming the grimwalkers, though it's unknown if he understands the reason-which is that the "perfect" caleb will never exist, and likely never did. phillip's brother is gone forever, and it's all his fault.

and idk maybe in the writers minds caleb was a perfect brother and baby phillip was just a possessive little shit. or maybe it's the opposite and caleb messed up a lot in communicating with phillip on his relationship with evelyn. maybe evelyn was a perfectly nice girl who was perfectly supportive of caleb and phillip's choices or maybe she hated phillip and the other humans and did convince caleb to leave it all behind. it's a fascinating piece of backstory and i love seeing fanworks that talk about it! but anything more about caleb and evelyn that the creators add in canon would give actual context to their situation that we don't need! their story has been over for 350 years and dont affect any of the other characters beyond how it affects phillip!

nothing more about these two can be said that will contribute more to belos's character that isn't already conveyed with the barebones material we got in the show. this story isn't about "forbidden love," this is about how phillip was confronted with the fact that his brother found happiness outside of him, and that someone he's been taught since childhood to hate may not be all bad. it's about how he plugged his fingers in his ears in response to this and went on a 350 year long killing spree to prove to himself that he can never be in the wrong.

basically, i wouldn't go so far as to call caleb and evelyn's backstory "purposefully unexplained," but i definitely think the story is a lot stronger as it is than it would be if they did explain it all. not every detail of a story needs to have a word of god answer as to how it all went down. sometimes adding in unnecessary detail for completionism's sake just distracts from the point you're actually trying to convey. while there are a lot of things that i wished the show could have explored in more detail had it not been shortened, caleb and evelyn's story is not one of them.

[boundinparchment]

.

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[yuridovewing]

As a fellow Dovewing lover, it's frustrating how the fandom watered her down into a whiny brat who never cared about Ivypool. I mean, seriously? Not only did Dovewing care about her sister (reacting in horror when Lionblaze, her own mentor and Jayfeather are willing to potentially sacrifice Ivypool's safety by employing her as her spy instead of trying to get her out of the Dark Forest's clutches, hiding a thorn in her nest to cover for her scarring from her training).

Heck, even the scene where she tries to feed Ivypool her catch during a hunting patrol was demonized because 'she was trying to make Ivypool break the code like SHE does, as if it doesn't matter' and because she got upset when Ivypool started arguing with her! But you guys said she didn't care, right? Plus, people act like being forced into a prophecy is something you should be grateful for, as if it didn't irreparably change her close relationship with her sister? As if Lionblaze and Jayfeather didn't still keep her out of the loop (and for all the fussing they made about keeping it a secret, Lionblaze confesses his power to Cinderheart and Jayfeather doesn't even care).

Meanwhile Nightheart is angry he isn't orange and hates his mom for being exiled and the whole world has to stop for him. 🤪 And Bramblestar is simply so tortured by having an evil father, the only choice is to train with him and his evil half-brother and hide this from his wife! (But remember, it's bad when that witch Squirrelflight hides the parentage of the three from him, even when Blackstar and Leopardstar were still around after being complicit in the torture and killing of halfclan cats.) Why are these male characters sympathized with, even when they actively harm people (Nightheart forcing himself into Sunbeam's life by lying to everyone about being her mate without even asking her if she would be fine with that beforehand), Bramblestar (we all know what he does), but when Dovewing or any other female character is upset, people freak out and call them whiny brats or abusive for (checks notes) asking her partner if he loves her anymore after they argued multiple times in a book. Really makes you think! (Sorry this is so long, you just have based opinions!)

dovewing being characterized as this flighty airheaded vain popular girl stereotype in fanon is like. one of those biggest "we didnt actually read the books" things in the fandom. like theres so much fanart where shes grinning and giggling over the prophecy and shes besties with the trio and shes got preferential treatment, and then in the actual books shes basically the autistic kid no one actually likes. people really, REALLY overexaggerate that one scene where she snaps at ivypaw and brags. (and i dont wanna shit on amvs but i am forever side eying how the animation community handled dove back in the day. more than one person animated her getting murdered. normal.)

i do think its gotten better recently at least. but wow does it feel like at least one person on the writing team has a bone to pick

(also awww thank you <3 no need to be sorry i love getting stuff in my inbox)

[asofterepilogue]

I think it's fine if people don't want to post about palestine on tumblr. it's not like that's the pinnacle of activism, and not posting on tunglr dot com doesn't equal not caring or never talking about it anywhere or not doing anything else.

but I do think it's interesting that so many of the people I've seen ignore the genocide in palestine on here were posting about ukraine not so long ago. clearly then they wanted to talk about war and politics on tumblr. which doesn't necessarily mean they don't care about palestine, of course. but it sure is interesting.