#the virtue of knowledge

[crappytain]

Cracks neck 360 degrees

Hgeh..naaledge…. I love learngin and words.. *corrupts*

[plushyparfait]

Sprinkle of autism (pre-corruption AU)

man their clothes are too much to draw….

[lockabyee]

My take on this NEERRRRDDDD

[allimili]

can you draw shadow milk showing support for y/n for exam days pls ☹️🤍 we just need some fluff fr

extra

[doghearted-canine]

THE HELLHOUND DELIVERS. . .

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤSHADOW MILK COOKIE THEMEPACK !!

day 4﹕make a gift for someone who inspires you lots / edit your favourite character with your friend's favourite character ㅤㅤㅤㅤꔫㅤ ༽ ㅤnf2uㅤㅤunlessㅤ@/silvergekoㅤ..ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤnotes !ㅤィㅤgift for my pawsome PARTNER!! ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤthe shadow milk ever!!! ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ tag : @lavendergalactic

[otaku553]

Need to write a 4000 word essay and take a neurobio final before I’m done with the term and both are due Thursday so we’re going back to the procrastination doodles again

[primspace]

Blueberry Ice Cream Cookie little doughie moments

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

Gandalf said ‘do not offer me that’, Galadriel said ‘I would be a queen, great and terrible,’ but Elrond said ‘get that the fuck away from me’ and this is nonsensical.

The other keepers of the elven rings were most challenged by the One, why not Elrond? Is his struggle merely hidden? Is it his Maia blood? Is it simply his mixed blood? Is that why Aragorn withstood, too?

Canonically the race of men are most easily corrupted, yet Elrond half-elven, who is almost 40% man, doesn’t notably bat an eyelash. Why?

[scarapanna]

Fun fact: This guy is THE og cuckoo-esque avian ever, started out the entire genre all by himself

Also he's as good of a mom as a cuckoo mom (pun intended), avoids paying child support since forever

Definetly owns a #1 dad cup somewhere

[talthetallest]

yeah dude why is he talking to his staff and that light???? someone get professor grandpa his meds!!!!!!

[crappytain]

Theres like a million different things i have to say about him and how i can relate to being a bigass nerd.. but i wont

[milkamel]

UGH. I can't. My heart can't take it. I love this little gremlin so much. Especially this sprite. Look at him sitting. He's so cute, so mischievous. He's scheming something. Always. So bug coded- (literally) And his cape looks like a tail it's adorable. Is this the Fount of Knowledge? Is this the fearsome beast? Too precious

Look at his hair- I just wanna scoop him up in my arms and pet him. He's so adorable oh my god. Unbelievable.

And this stare- it's so stupid but also makes you wonder what is he thinking about. He's so smart and sly it's scary you never know what he's planning. I wanna squish him and pepper him with kisses- or squash him like a bug he is

[dividedheartkeeper]

going very so much insane over the fact that the beasts, once called the Five VIRTUES. hmm. hmmmmmmmmmm

yeah no they aren't. "virtues" yeah that's going in the dumpster.

a theory: the beasts were given ABSTRACT CONCEPTS as their powers. abstract powers, likely disguised with "virtue" as a label.

there's so much i could/should say about this but lowkey...

if we define "virtue" as "having high moral standards" or "the quality of being morally good" there's some things we can see here

for example... knowledge, if we define it as "facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject" (taken from google definitions)

as you can see. having knowledge isn't explicitly defined as "being virtuous". however, apparently having knowledge is a FACTOR for being virtuous. or being morally good, in that sense.

because you can apply knowledge anywhere. both in good and bad ways. you can learn something "good" or "bad" it's how people act on that knowledge is whether it can be considered "virtuous". and even that's a morally grey ocean i'm not going to even dive into yet.

but as you can see with Shadow milk and Pure vanilla (and also their diverged forms) there's a HUGE difference.

Shadow milk uses deceit for his own selfish desires, and that being hurting others. and it's glaringly obvious he doesn't give two shits about anyone other than himself and those on his side.

the Sage, while seemingly different than shadow milk, leads others to the cruel truth (and he KNOWS it's cruel) but he could care less anyhow. he doesn't care because all he does care about is enlightenment. because what is there to fear when you know the real truth?

Pure vanilla uses truth for the good of others. he seeks the truth for this purpose. though, he knows how terrible it can be, shown with Recluse in canon. BUT, after both embracing truth and deceit when awakening, PV carefully treads the line of how to use his own knowledge to help others because he cares about them.

Diverged Recluse is similar in that vein but he's all for avoiding the cruel truth for the good of others. he doesn't want to see them get hurt. and while he embraces deceit, he leads others away from what will hurt them. Recluse uses his knowledge of the truth because, like PV, he cares about them.

if you notice, shadow milk/sage does not care about whether their actions are being "good". and, well. pure vanilla/recluse does. very much. tying it back to the definition of "virtue", you can say that pv/recluse is "virtuous". and smilk/sage is not.

the fount of knowledge is a bit of a grey, foggy area since we don't know much about him specifically, but going by the notion of he does what he's created to do, which is spread and teach knowledge to the cookies - he's most likely unaware of what the potential consequences of knowing can do. that potential being hurting others, though it mostly helps them. presumably, it's because he was never told this side of it so.

fount's just doing what he's been told to do, and not because it will help or hurt others necessarily. and if we try to apply the definition of "being virtuous" to him it gets confusing. there's not necessarily a motivator for him to care about others, especially since he's an omniscient-like Cookie and revered for his power. he's so distanced from his followers it's likely he doesn't care about them on the level like Pure vanilla does. not because he hates them (or does he?) it's just because there's no close connections forming.

which brings up some... interesting things.

like... at this point, can you even call knowledge itself a virtue?

because it's supposedly not. it's an abstract, subjective concept. anyone can take a concept and twist it into something good or bad. it's how people act on the knowledge is being "virtuous."

this can be applied to happiness, volition, change, and solidarity, (though solidarity's a bit of a vague one since silent salt's not released yet, and also it involves unity/agreement between people. but i guess that's another topic for another day)

i'm not going to go into depth with those since i'm tired but i'll probably expand on that later. but anyway.

the beasts were given abstract concepts, labeled falsely as "virtues" and were likely, only taught the neutral/good things about their "virtue". that's why when discovering the "bad" side they got corrupted, since they literally DID NOT KNOW that the side of their concept existed in the first place. because it was there, all along. they were given SUBJECTIVE powers, with the potential for being seen as "bad."

man the witches are really being the narrator from slay the princess rn, slapping labels on their creations without thinking WHAT THEY ACTUALLY ARE. can we put them in a mirror. and shatter them please /ref

i can be wrong about this though, after all! i definitely missed some details with this (and also it's my interpretation of smilk and pv, all of this anyhow)

also i'm just some deranged idiot rambling about this stupid ass theory when i should be sleeping, and i'm like. dead tired rn lmao (also first post on this blog... a ramble... yayyy...)

very curious what other people think of it all though!!! even this theory is subjective lol, i'm literally only (softly) yelling this out here to a void because talking directly to other people about my weird as hell philosophical ramblings frightens me haha... and i'm going to explode if i don't drag anyone into my eldritch horror reality with me somehow at some point, intentionally or unintentionally. welcome to my world!!! /silly

[trans-yllz]

lan wangji and jiang chengs combined approach to Whatever The Hell Is Going On With Wei Wuxian is so so bad for him in this arc. lan wangji, who is practical and righteous and principled to a fault, who sees the world in black and white, seeking to remind wei wuxian at every turn that he's doing something wrong, that resentment will harm him. he takes every opportunity he can to try and convince wei wuxian to return to standard cultivation, to criticize his methods. because he doesn't know how to say that he's worried and scared, that he wants to help, so he tries to spit information wei wuxian already knows at him to see if it sticks

and jiang cheng, who cares so much about his family but was never taught affection, who clings to the status quo because it keeps him safe, completely ignoring that anything is wrong in the same moment that he's constantly pestering wei wuxian for acting strangely. he brings up suibian casually as if he really thinks wei wuxian will use it, acts like everything is normal and then is surprised when it's not. because he doesn't know how to reach out, to be tender, all he knows how to do is try to force things back together and get angry when they break

and they both care so much about wei wuxian but they're so bad at expressing their worry and their fear and their love that they are Actively making his mental state worse

[cogcontrol]

yeah he'd bring her home to telepathically lobotomize her again. which he fuckin loves doing btw. if they published this movie as a comic book it would be a laughing stock

[arabdoll]

The weak project their incapacity as virtue, extolling characteristics such as humility and submission. While condemning qualities they cannot achieve - such as pride and self sufficiency.

Nietzsche