#posts that have changed the world.

[sovietunion]

[butchlifeguard]

we need to destroy the idea that girls should wear makeup. normalize bare faces on prom queens and flower girls and cheerleaders. no products at all instead of '7 product simple makeup routine.' no more 10 step skincare and regular facials and dermablading and gua sha just to be comfortable with yr natural face. i want to see eye bags on the funny librarian and acne on the swim coach and wrinkles on all our adult role models. i want to see a 16 year old girl that has never tried putting on eyeshadow. i want to see a 7 year old girl who doesn't have to go out and buy powder for her dance recital. i want to see trans women and girls everywhere to never have to wear makeup, regardless of how well they 'pass.' no more 'contouring to look masc' either. a post-beauty industry world is possible

reblogs are on but if you bring up the stage makeup point that i have addressed three times yr blocked on sight ☹️

[casscainmainly]

Jason and Cass' opposing views on murder is so interesting. Their conflict is not purely moralistic - that is to say, it's not purely that Jason thinks murder is okay, and Cass doesn't. It's their identities, their original and most fundamental worldview. Jason is a murder victim and Cass is a murderer. Yes, Jason kills people as Red Hood, and yes, Cass dies multiple times, but this never truly erases how they see themselves. Jason will always have been murdered, and Cass will always be a murderer. They are unable to fully extricate themselves from those roles, and thus will never approach life or death the same way.

[juniemunie]

[Abandoned by the Lightners, his heart became cracked with hatred.]

Hitting a lil' too close to home?

[sunderwight]

Liushen AU where SY transmigrates into SJ's older brother, and subsequently nopes them right out of the slavery backstory by using his general knowledge of the story and actually being an adult in a kid's body to just leave (basically) with SJ and YQ.

SY carts them both up to Cang Qiong for the next sect trials. It's actually not all that hard, the trickiest part is getting enough to eat and finding safe places to sleep between leaving the slavers and taking the trials (SY manages just barely, with considerable help from his new little brothers.) Nobody bothers to go after them because it's before Qiu Jianluo and this style of human traffickers mostly operate by virtue of their merchandise having nowhere else to go. Chasing down runaways is an expense not worth indulging, given that most of them either come straight back or die of exposure.

Anyway, they take the trials, and as expected YQY gets chosen to become a personal disciple for the sect leader, and SJ gets chosen by the Qing Jing Peak Lord, but also as (kind of) expected (by SY alone) nobody wants SY. He's older the Yue Qi, so too old, and unlike YQ and SJ his cultivation potential isn't striking enough to make any exceptions for him.

SY, however, can't leave it at that. He's spent more than five minutes with the street kid codependency gang, so he's gotten attached to both of them. And he knows what will happen if they're left to their own devices and The Plot proceeds accordingly. (Also, they keep threatening to not stay at the sect if SY doesn't stay too, for some reason.) So with a heavy heart and internal candle lit for himself, SY heads to Bai Zhan Peak. Which is the only peak that accepts disciples by way of them turning up and refusing to leave.

SY's not much of a fighter. He actually really hates the atmosphere on BZP, he's not bad at physical cultivation (his health's pretty good in this life, ironic considering how much worse his situation was) but the random ambushes and survival-of-the-fittest stuff is just not his brand. But that's okay, because it turns out that BZP actually DESPERATELY needs disciples on the actual peak who are interested in things other than fighting and cultivating their own strength. Stuff like, filling out requisition requests for An Ding every time things break, apologizing to An Ding every time things break again, organizing schedules, browbeating senior disciples into actually teaching, educating disciples on virtually any artistic or social skill, hosting lectures on how to beat vicious beasts without just overpowering them, and etc.

Okay so some of this stuff isn't and has never actually been on Bai Zhan's curriculum but Shen Yuan is going to make this place tolerable. And stop these children from needlessly getting acid burns or lyme disease or scurvy or whatever. He keeps internally chewing out Airplane for designing a sect system that means there are a lot of largely unsupervised 12-year-olds running around the wilderness on a mountain picking fights all the time. (When he actually meets Shang Qinghua and figures him out he switches to doing it in person, of course, in twice-monthly bitching sessions that look a lot like budding friendship.)

Of course one of the worst offenders is the Liu kid, who SY would suspect was actually raised by wolves if he didn't know for a fact that Liu Qingge has a younger sister, and also the kinds of nice clothing and letters from home that strongly imply not only does he have a family, but that the family is pretty well-off. Liu Qingge is at first deeply offended by SY being a BZP disciple. He rarely fights anyone, and uses tricks and evasion tactics whenever a fight can't be avoided. And he does other annoying stuff, like pestering him about meals and baths and lecturing him on identifying dangerous plants and the early signs of qi deviation. This is not what their peak is about! He should get with the program already! Just fight stuff until you're too tired to keep fighting stuff!

Also SY's younger brother, SJ, is pure evil (at least according to baby Liu Qingge) even though his other younger brother (?) is cool and nice.

Anyway, Liu Qingge stops complaining about SY after their first mission together, where Liu Qingge doesn't lose a fight but does get into a kind of pyrrhic victory situation where he's really badly hurt, and it's SY who helps him win (correctly identifying the monster and then pointing out its weakness) and takes care of him afterwards and gets him safely back to Cang Qiong. SY expresses surprise at LQG actually being polite to him, and LQG realizes that he's been a colossal ass if people think he wouldn't be grateful to someone who saved his life, so the usual Liushen dynamic proceeds from there. Liu Qingge starts bringing SY fans he leaves behind and hunts down animals that are supposed to be useful for bolstering weak cultivation, SY invites LQG to tea and keeps the critters as pets, etc etc.

SY doesn't get the Head Disciple position, because that's only acquired via beating the current peak lord in combat and lol no. Also he's not interested in stealing it from Liu Qingge, to whom it rightfully belongs (in his mind). But that's fine, because Liu Qingge takes the position when the next generation ascends and then he lets SY exclusively handle all the peak duties SY actually likes (mainly teaching). It's perfect -- Liu Qingge gets to focus on his War God antics and occasional administration/meetings without having to deal with students his has no patience for, but the disciples of BZP don't get neglected because SY is actually teaching and organizing classes and student care. BZP hasn't enjoyed a golden age like this since it was founded!

Things are pretty good overall, but Shen Yuan knows that it's only a matter of time before The Plot shows up, and so he can't rest completely easily.

Meanwhile, the will-they-or-won't-they bets on Liushen have been going strong for a while now. The thing is, most of their martial siblings are convinced that these two are already "together", and just being circumspect about it. Those who know SY well (like SJ, YQY, and SQH) know better but think that SY's romantic obtuseness is to blame, whereas those who know LQG well (LMY, WQW, and MQF) are pretty sure that it's actually LQG's obtuseness that's the problem. Of course it's actually both of them, so efforts to "fix" matters by getting through one of their thick skulls inevitably run afoul of the other's.

An additional complication is of course: SJ doesn't like LQG (mutual), and now that he's the leader of his own peak, he wants to poach SY to come and live there. Not only so he can have one of the 2 people he trusts actually close at hand, but also because SJ also hates actually teaching the atrocious little brats on his peak, and would like to have SY come and do it for him. YQY is still a total pushover for him too, and is also now the sect leader, so YQY agrees that SY can change peaks if SY and LQG both agree to it.

Liu Qingge, of course, is a no, but he's a variable "no". He's not going to hold Shen Yuan against his will or anything.

As for Shen Yuan, it's... complicated. He doesn't really like BZP, but it's gotten a lot better than it was at the start. These days he's actually pretty proud of his accomplishments, and it's more comfortable, but it's still a rough and rowdy place with fewer creature comforts, libraries, or other appealing points than QJP. Also, if he goes to Qing Jing to teach, he can personally ensure that SJ doesn't go around persecuting any of his students!

But... SJ never lived with the Qiu family in this AU, and even though SY's not totally clear on what the PIDW backstory for SJ was, he knows he's a better guy now than the scum villain in the book was. He has a reputation for making cutting remarks, not for being an abusive snake or a lecher. SY's honestly less worried about him doing anything bad at all, and there are other people on QJP who can teach. It might even be good for SJ to promote more people to fill out a social circle he can rely on! That guy needs more friends, seriously.

And QJP really doesn't need more layabout literary intellectual types who get into pointless arguments, which is all SY would be if he went there. Just yet another nerdy scholar for the rich kids with middling cultivation that the peak favors to ignore. At least on BZP he's filling a gap.

SY is clearly torn, and the fact that SY's considering it has LQG upset, and LQG doesn't handle being upset very well, so of course they have an argument about it. SY storms off to cool his head and LQG is like, this is it, he's gone to Qing Jing Peak, I've drive him off by being too aggressive and he's probably remembering all those times I told him he didn't belong here and oh no what have I done maybe if I build him a heated bath and get him books he will come back???

Turns out that SY just went to An Ding to vent at SQH while SQH was like "I think you would have fewer problems if you and Liu Qingge just got married and my disciples could call you Shigu to your face instead of behind your back" and SY threw melon seeds at him and sulked on his fainting couch (which is always cold for some reason...)

Thus begins the Liushen Divorce Arc where SY tries to be anywhere but BZP or QJP, Liu Qingge tries to figure out what thing he can punch to fix this not-punchable problem, SJ is like "I don't see what the big deal is they should break up Liu Qingge is awful and I want my brother to teach my classes for me" like the spoiled youngest sibling he's finally allowed to be, YQY is trying to moderate this Hades vs Demeter situation and is all "well maybe SY could spend half the year on QJP and half on BZP?", and Liu Mingyan is going "I know my brother if this doesn't work out he is going to die single and pining like an idiot" and so keeps conscripting other disciples to y'know, lock SY and LQG into storage closets together (ineffective: LQG can punch through walls) or at least get them in the same room (underestimating SY's willingness to yeet himself out of windows to avoid awkward social interactions.)

By the time Luo Binghe joins the sect (as a Qiong Ding disciple), the drama is in full swing and is the main topic of gossip across most of the peaks.

[wicked-gator]

shaking my cage bars over this

[no-brain-just-akutagawa]

a new unexpected member of the Aya protection squad

[ID: An edited Arlo meme. Instead of Rosa there's a smiling Fedya and instead of Arlo there's a screaming Aya. The text reads: "I've only had Aya for a sec and a half but if anything happened to her I would kill everyone in this world and then myself". End ID]

[shorthaltsjester]

the mighty nein - critical role

this is a place where i don't feel alone. this is a place where i feel at home.

[sysig]

How far did you get? (Patreon)

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

But not green.

You know the song Mr. Jones? Yeah.

[itsdefinitely]

thinks about watcher world so hard

[brother-emperors]

DO NOT BE AFRAID

this is combining Ovid's Heroides and the Excidium Troie because I can't stop thinking of Hermes telling him not to be afraid. what the fuck!! Ares is wearing the crown that Paris gave him.

I have. thoughts. about Paris. he's almost got this Troilos parallel in my mind, that the event that defines him in detail exists in a lost narrative that we don't have (the Cypria), but everyone else knew. the event that defines Troilos is his death (murdered, butchered by Achilles, the violence of which haunts everything after. Achilles, child killer, you can't escape that!), and the event that defines Paris is the Judgement. what's a lost text but a kind of grave!!

idk I don't think that Paris before the Judgement would recognize himself after bc when you become god touched, it rearranges your guts. you become transformed in the worst way possible! how could you recognize yourself! but I also think that all the Parises after the Judgement would recognize each other because that event is so locked into the trauma of war and the scar it leaves on the land, it's like a scar on the narrative too. it exists like this forever, over and over again, so you exist like that forever too. Troy collects grief and despairs.

Troy as trauma: Reflections on intergenerational transmission and the locus of trauma, Andromache Karanika

and Paris is like. a miserable little god/corpse-puppet or something, like a match for the gods to throw onto gasoline.

The Excidium Troie + Ovid's Heroides:

Excidium Troie, trans. Muhammad Syarif Fadhlurrahman

Ovid, Heroides 16 (trans. Harold Isbell)

a collection of things regarding Paris that made me go 😬 but under a cut bc this is getting. very long.

The Divine Twins in Early Greek Poetry, Corolla Torontonensis

Iliad 24 and the Judgement of Paris, C.J. Mackie

Elegy and Epic and the Recognition of Paris: Ovid "Heroides" 16, Elizabeth Forbis Mazurek

Ennian Influence in "Heroides" 16 and 17, Howard Jacobson

Paris/Alexandros in the "Iliad", I. J. F. de Jong

[anemonet]

pro tip: you can always put the bugs in little outfits :thumbsup:

[nopefer-art-tu]

Home is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there

I come home, she lifted up her wings. I guess that this must be the place

I can't tell one from another—Did I find you, or you find me?

There was a time before we were born

If someone asks, this where I'll be

Where I'll be

[ropes3amthoughts]

I know people are just joking when they say stuff like “Mithrun is an old grandpa he doesn’t know he can’t say those words anymore he doesn’t know they don’t have any book tokens anymore” because of these extras below:

and whatever but like it honestly drives me kind of crazy. Like can we look at this for a second.

He was the lord of the dungeon for five years. Then he was being rehabilitated for TWENTY YEARS. That’s not super long for elves, that’s like four years for us, but that’s still a long time. And then he was the captain for another fourteen years, but he didn’t have any desire other than getting revenge on the demon.

Mithrun hasn’t really been properly socialized for a total of FORTY YEARS, which is like eight years for elves. He was totally shut off from the world, then he was rehabilitated, and then he was with the Canaries on a onetrack mindset to go after the demon. Mithrun was doing bad, he was recovering, and then he was better enough to be the captain of the Canaries again, but he was still not “better.” In all that time, the world didn’t wait for him when he was at his low point. It didn’t wait for him when he was spending all that time recovering. And by the time it’s near the end of the story where these comics take place he’s just been so far detached from the world. Like he’s most likely never tried to go buy a book token after becoming a dungeon lord. He’s most likely never talked to people and learned the new slang of the time, he’s never been caught up which words are good versus outdated. Mithrun is technically better enough to be captain, he’s better enough to have reintegrated into society, but he’s not quite adjusted yet. He’s been out for so many years suffering under the hands of the demon and scraping his way through recovery and trying to work to get to the demon that by the time he’s stopped and done stuff like gift exchanges or whatever many aspects of the world are vastly different from what he remembers. I think that’s a lot like a lot of people in real life too who have similar experiences. People in mental health centers or hospitals who spends even just months recovering can miss out on so much.

Does this make any sense? It’s kind of late so I don’t really know what I’m saying and I’m probably repeating myself but like Mithrun was at a low point and then he was recovering for so long!!!! And then when he’s reintegrated back into the world it’s changed without him!!!! He’s not some racist old man!!! The world just kept on turning when he was struggling and how is he even supposed to deal with that? Like he doesn’t have much desire but everybody is so upset with him for not knowing things like outdated terms or using cash because he didn’t know there were no more book tokens and he just can’t have known that because he literally wasn’t in a state to keep up with all of the stuff like that and now everything is different and maybe he doesn’t care because he has no desire to but like aghhhhhhhhhhhh sob sob sniffle oughhhhh 😭😭😭😭 Mithrun 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 imagine I’m shaking him back and forth that’s how I feel right now oughhhhh

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I don't care who wins the shipping semi-finals, they are both my little investigative darlings.