#like the ppl who disagree w him?

[snekdood]

why do ppl call shark3ozero a debate bro when like. I hardly ever see him actually debate anyone..? usually he’s just talking about current events?? is talking to vaush like twice really enough for ppls black and white thinking to be triggered about ppl????

[khattikeri]

maybe a controversial opinion but while i really love jiang cheng as a character he is deeply self-centered as a person. and seeing people fight tooth and nail claiming he isn't, or is just misunderstood, or that he has genuine valid reasons to be selfish when plenty of other characters make the difficult choice to forego status and opportunities for what they believe is genuinely right to do (read: wei wuxian, wen ning, wen qing, lan wangji, jiang yanli, mianmian, etc.)

it's just odd to me. especially if they're talking about the novels.

mxtx didn't give jiang cheng the name "sandu shengshou" as a quirky coincidence. there's a REASON she named him & his sword after the 3 poisons of Buddhism (specifically ignorance, greed, and hatred). it's crucial to the story that jiang cheng is NOT selfless and that wei wuxian IS.

it's important to accept that wei wuxian is, by their society's standards, not morally gray; he represents several Buddhist ideals in direct contrast of jiang cheng and multiple people attest to wei wuxian's strong moral character, which is a lot of why jiang cheng even feels bitter about him to begin with.

it's crucial, because by the end of the novel jiang cheng realizes the extent of this and begins to let go!

the twin prides thing wasn't jiang cheng wanting them to 100% mirror the twin jades. he does care about wei wuxian, but he wanted wei wuxian to stay his right hand man, in part the way wei changze was for jiang fengmian.

and if there's one thing you can notice about wei changze in the novels, it's that literally nobody talks about him. he is only ever mentioned when his cool mysterious mountain sect wife cangse-sanren is mentioned, or (even more rarely) when they discuss him as a servant to jiang fengmian. regardless of jiang fengmian's own feelings, wei changze was considered lesser to him and didn't seem to outdo him, since nobody's out there years later still waxing poetry about wei changze's skills.

it may not be the only thing jiang cheng wants out of a twin pride dynamic, but it is a big part of it. regardless of his parents' intentions in taking wei wuxian in and treating him certain ways, this twin pride right-hand man thing is what jiang cheng has felt owed since childhood. he gave up his dogs for wei wuxian, people gossip about his sect heir position with wei wuxian there... jiang cheng wants the reciprocation of what he views as personal sacrifices.

he is ignorant to the depth of what wei wuxian must've suffered for over 6 years as a malnourished orphan child on the streets. he hates how wei wuxian's intelligence, witty charm, and cultivation abilities are naturally stronger than his own. he does care about wei wuxian a lot and want them to be together as sort of-brothers, sort of-friends, sort of-young master and sect servant...

...but if it's between that unclear (yet still caring) relationship and being able to save himself just a little bit more, jiang cheng nearly always manages to clam up in the face of danger and choose the latter, which ultimately benefits himself most. maybe it's a stretch to call that sort of thing greed, but it certainly isn't selfless.

there are of course plenty of justifications for this. it's his duty as sect heir. his home and sect was severely damaged by the wen attack and subsequent war; he had to protect himself, etc.

but doesn't that prove the point?

wei wuxian may be charming, but in terms of pure social standing, he is lower and far more susceptible to being punished or placed in harm's way by people who have more power and money. to protect wei wuxian, yunmeng jiang's long-term head disciple and semi-family member, even in the face of backlash and public scrutiny would've been the selfless thing to do. this is what wei wuxian does for the wen remnants in the burial mounds.

jiang cheng does not choose this. it's not even an unreasonable choice for him to make! nobody else in the great clans is doing such a thing, stepping out of line to take on a burden that could weaken them in the long-run. wei wuxian himself doesn't hate jiang cheng for it; he lets go of these things and focuses on what good he can do in the present.

jiang cheng thinks further into the future - what would happen to him if he continued vouching for wei wuxian and taking his side? what about jiang cheng's face, his sect's face? would wei wuxian even care to reciprocate somehow? everyone expects him to cut off wei wuxian for being dangerous, for threatening his position, for...

do you see what i mean? to call jiang cheng selfless for falling in line with exactly what people expected him to do after the war is not only wrong, it's foolish.

"but they faked their falling-out!" okay. why fake it to begin with, except to protect jiang cheng and the jiang sect's own face? is that selfless? who does it ultimately serve to protect? wei wuxian canonically internalizes the idea that he stains all that he touches, including lan wangji, and agrees to the fake fight because he doesn't want to cause the jiang sect harm. regardless, it eventually slides into a true falling-out, and in the end jiang cheng is more or less unscathed reputation-wise while wei wuxian falls.

that isn't selfless. it's many things! it's respecting his clan and his ancestors, it's making a good plan for the future of his sect and cultivation... but it isn't a truly selfless in the interest of what's right rather than in the interest of duty and what's good for him and his family lineage.

that brings me to my next point: even though wei wuxian hid the truth of the golden core transfer, jiang cheng spent nearly 20 years believing that the golden core "renewal" he was given was a birthright gift of wei wuxian's from baoshan-sanren, an immortal sect teacher of wei wuxian's mother's and a martial elder to wei wuxian.

of course we all know that's a big fat lie, but jiang cheng believed that wei wuxian gave up a critical emergency use gift to him for decades! he was lied to, yes, but jiang cheng immediately agreed without even needing to be convinced. the light in his dead eyes came back with hope the moment wei wuxian even said baoshan-sanren's name. he accepted wei wuxian's offer to give that up to him and take it via identity theft without missing a beat.

with how mysterious and revered baoshan-sanren is, that's obviously not a light sacrifice to just give up to anyone, no matter how close they might be to you. pretending to be wei wuxian to take the gift could even be considered dangerous. what if she found out and got offended? could wei wuxian be hurt by that?

jiang cheng doesn't even hesitate. wei wuxian is the one who mentions that if jiang cheng doesn't pretend to be him, the immortal master could get angry and they'd both be goners. and funnily enough, the day they do go to "the mountain", jiang cheng is the one worried and suspiciously wondering if wei wuxian was lying to him or had misremembered.

of course they've both been traumatized like hell prior to this point. but still: it speaks to how broken he was at the moment as well as to his character overall.

i digress: jiang cheng "gets his golden core back" via what he believed was a gift that should've been wei wuxian's to use in serious emergencies. rather than use it for himself, wei wuxian risked his own safety and gave it to jiang cheng... and jiang cheng still ends up embittered and angry, believing that wei wuxian is arrogant and selfish.

if he truly views them as 100% brothers and equals with no caveats, why would he think that way? it's not like he needs to grovel before wei wuxian for doing that, or to reciprocate... but this is what i mean when i say jiang cheng feels he is owed things by wei wuxian. wei wuxian's actions hold a very different weight in jiang cheng's mind, and jiang cheng himself doesn't ever act the same way, except once.

is it wrong for him to feel like he is owed something? it depends. many asian cultures, including my own, feel that a person owes their family in ways that may not make sense to westerners. for example, it's considered normal for a child to owe their parents for giving birth to them, or to other caretakers for feeding, clothing, sheltering, educating them, etc.

however, something like verbally saying "thank you" or "i'm sorry" to family is considered crazy- why would you owe that? you're supposed to inconvenience your family; saying thank you or sorry is the sort of thing you say to a stranger or acquaintance. i get half-seriously lectured by my elders on this a lot even now, even though they know such phrases are just considered good manners in the US.

this muddies up the idea of wei wuxian being jiang cheng's family vs his family's charge or servant even more. jiang cheng wants wei wuxian to be close... but ultimately doesn't really choose to use what power he DOES have to protect wei wuxian. he considers himself still owed something that in his mind wei wuxian flagrantly never repays.

this isn't even getting into how despite spending a majority of his time with the yiling patriarch he never once noticed that wei wuxian stopped using any spiritual power-based cultivation. even lan wangji, who met them far more rarely, realized that something was wrong and that wei wuxian had taken some sort of spiritual damage, hence the "come with me to gusu".

of course manpain is fun and i'm not immune to the juicy idea of them reconciling and talking things out... but jiang cheng is deeply mired in his own desire to be "above" wei wuxian in multiple ways, and doesn't realize the extent of wei wuxian's actions, the intentions behind them, and the consequences wei wuxian knowingly faced for them.

to not recognize this about jiang cheng, especially in the novels, is really revisionist if you ask me. i reiterate that i really do like him a lot. he's flawed, angry, traumatized and has poor coping mechanisms, an overall fascinating character... but he is not selfless nor ideal, and i seriously draw the line at people saying he is.

wen ning shoves this all into his face at lotus pier to disastrous results. it is the reason why jiang cheng's a total mess at guanyin temple, and the reason jiang cheng ultimately doesn't tell wei wuxian about the fact that he ran towards the wens on purpose.

for that one last act of his to have really been selfless, he needs to not seek anything in return. he did it purely because it was right to do to protect someone else. if that means wei wuxian never finds out about it, so be it.

that moment that ended up causing jiang cheng irreversible harm is not a debt that wei wuxian owes him. it hurts, but no matter how bitter it is, that realization is so important to him changing in the future.

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

[3416]

are people genuinely upset over kampf being benched. like seriously.

[sh5]

I’ve been trying not to cry pretty much all day. a girl stopped me when I was walking and asked if I was crying, if I was okay. and I played it off but I was like. GOD. but it’s like. whatever. I had a good day in hot prof class at least

[geothefafa]

Whats hole cola bud?

Somewhere in Mount Shasta, Somewhere in a hole; I found my Hole Cola, And it was cold.

Somewhere in the mountains, Down by the lake; I drank some Hole Cola, The cans surely stank.

N' somewhere in the valley, Somewhere on a hill; I shared my Hole Cola, We all had our fill!

But somewhere in the Discord, Somewhere in voice chat; I spoke of Hole Cola, My friends, they all spat:

"You can't drink Hole Cola! The fuck's wrong with you!" Bad news 'bout the cola... Naught left but a few.

'Cus somewhere in Mount Shasta, Somewhere out there cold; Summ'n buried Hole Cola, And they all got . old.

[roscoehamiltons]

the way i went into the Lewis tag only to see someone defending Fernando’s comments about being victimized bc he’s Spanish and asking “why do LH fans make everything about race?” 🙄 gee i wonder why

[time-is-restored]

i have literally nowhere else to put this i apologise for the spam. the absolute best thing to come out of s3 trent is without a doubt the fucking earnestness... like in s1-2 he always came across as a very self-assured kind of guy, who knew how he came off (ie: intimidating) and enjoyed it. but seeing that paired with him being silly + completely relaxing in certain company??? pulling ridiculous faces at vodka + scrunching up his nose when he smiles @ colin + making the most ABSURD 'i really wanna say something right now but i feel like im interrupting' noises ive ever heard in my fucking LIFE??? its like. he is cool as shit and he is self assured AND he can make dumb fucking sherlock holmes jokes and dance ridiculously. its like!!!! he's lame but he's also not bc he's exactly as confident in being lame as he is being cool. do u see the vision. he has killed the part of him that cringes!!!! its just.. that unshakeable self confidence that u see in his fucking swaggers into frame includes all of himself + his different moods and eccentricities and that's just so based to me idk. unironically live ur best life wear the loudest combination of prints and patterns and primary colours uve ever seen in ur life while espousing the virtues of extended museum hours!!! contain multitudes! get silly with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[vampyrluver]

I love my brothers so much i want to protect them all wasaaa

[pepprs]

mission failed we’ll get em next time 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[trans-xianxian]

🔥🔥🔥 (unpopular wangxian opinion maybe?)

this is kind of an unpopular wangxian opinion combined with an unpopular yunmeng bros opinion but it is my firmly held belief that lan wangji and wei wuxian cannot have a healthy relationship, and jiang cheng and wei wuxian cannot truly reconcile, if wei wuxian does not take jiang chengs side sometimes. I've talked about wei wuxian Rage and wei wuxian Hurt before and I truly believe that wei wuxian both deserves to be angry with jiang cheng, and that it would be Healthy for him to let himself feel any kind of negative emotion towards somebody he loves on his own behalf and not just in defense of somebody else, instead of just shoving it all down

but wei wuxian also needs to be on jiang chengs side sometimes and wei wuxian and lan wangji Need to work on their differences regarding jiang cheng. I very much believe that wei wuxian and lan wangji would disagree on things in general, a healthy and productive relationship of any kind has disagreement - they are separate people, and it would be weird if they agreed on everything or Tried to agree on everything, and, in my opinion, we know that they don't agree on jiang cheng

wei wuxian is sympathetic to lan wangji's frustrations, and probably shares some of them (as I said earlier: wei wuxian Anger wei wuxian Rage), and lan wangji is respectful of wei wuxians remaining love for jiang cheng, but for things not to fester and become ugly there has to be more than a surface level acknowledgement of this, and like I said earlier, for reconciliation to at all be interesting or valuable to me, wei wuxian Has to take jiang chengs side over lan wangji's at least sometimes, and more than that jiang cheng and lan wangji need to know and be comfortable with the fact that wei wuxian agreeing with one of them over the other does not mean he is irrevocably Choosing one of them over the other

I don't think that lan wangji and jiang cheng have to like each other, in fact I am confident that they likely never will, but I Do think that they have to be able to get along, for the sake of both of their relationships with wei wuxian and wei wuxian himself, who does not deserve a second life where he is once again forced to choose what is most important to him and never be able to look back. wei wuxian should be able to love many people and be loved by many people and not be made to feel like he is committing an act of betrayal by making a choice. ultimately I think that it will be far easier for lan wangji to understand this than it will for jiang cheng

[derangedthots]

harry reposting that fanart of jace and daemon's little faceoff moment from ep 10, oh the timing is divine fr🤭 fueling my "that's his father even if they disagree a lot" agenda😌

[menalez]

Why do they read rapist and immediately think ‘this will hurt lgbt people’

on one end i can agree that the state cannot be trusted to treat such a precedent like "allow human experimentations on a certain group of people" well and honestly and transparently. and that creating such a precedent will ultimately result in minority groups being disproportionately impacted bc there is already a bias in who gets incarcerated and punished. on another end, rapists are notoriously hardly ever prosecuted so like while its a nice idea in theory to have them suffer for putting others thru often lifelong suffering, theres a good chance actual rapists still wont face consequences bc they already overwhelmingly barely even see a day in jail. and then lastly its true that sometimes homophobes will use language like "groomers" and "predators" to refer to innocent things like idk giving children basic sex ed and that sex ed including conversation about sexual orientation & safe sex in same sex relationships (bc shocker, ppl of diff sexual orientations will exist whether kids know the terms for it or not & safe sex is important for the well-being of ppl of all sexualities not just OSA people). so i kinda get their arguments ngl, i think the justice system and the prison industrial complex would have to change significantly before we can even entertain an idea as potentially dangerous as "we should allow human experimentation on this group of incarcerated peoples"

[skrunksthatwunk]

playing dmc1 with my earbuds in (but on low volume bc they're being weird) while my roommate and her shitty bf argue. i feel like i'm recreating the very specific experience of some child of divorce out there

[hoshiyoshis]

ive never hated a doctor quicker than i have now.

[rynfloros]

can we talk bout how the internet likely reacted to the nublar six surviving? like imagine the amount of songs that mentioned or were made about them/one of them, the bullying, the stalking, the stan accounts and privacy invasion about their lives and pasts. or just how people irl reacted. i feel like they were praised at school (a lot of ppl write them being builled which i disagree w completely. who tf would bully someone who fought dinosaurs n SURVIVED bro) but kenji definitely was tho. ppl probably hated his ass bec of his dad's actions and was the world's chew toy for half a year. maybe even ben, since he'll have a hard time interacting w ppl properly n others would think he's weird. but i can also see people or classmates fearing him, so it would mostly be shit talking