#you wouldnt be impressed

[bearpillowmonster]

Imagine voice acting an animated character and you wait years to see yourself in full form and then they show you The Little Mermaid 2023

[screechingfromthevoid]

I think the same reason I love Dorym is why I love Loquatious and Laerryn. One, the devotion of it all. But secondly, and more importantly, "But there's one story of a fairy who stumbled into this world and fell in love"

Because Dorian is an air genasi prince who left home to find something real. His home floats on wind and he's never wanted for a thing. And he came down from his clouds only to find himself stumbling, tumbling, into love with just a man.

There is something so earnest about a man who is considered magical and wondrous in a world that already has magic, falling in love with someone who just is.

It's a thought that scratches the back of my mind a lot. It goes hand in hand with Liam saying "he has no idea if Dorian returns his feelings". Because from Orym's point of view why would Dorian have feelings for him? Dorian. The beautiful blue prince who is extremely talented in both music and magic. Dorian is everything Orym admires in other people. Everything he doesn't see in himself.

But Dorian does have feelings for Orym. Because Orym is everything he's not. He's firm and reliable. He knows who he is and is unapologetic about it. Orym was the only one in the (original) Crown Keepers that wasn't tempted by the spider queen. Because he was too principled. He was too good. Dorian's alignment changed. Dorian felt himself getting worse. Yet Orym stayed steadfast. In the face of everything he did not change.

Their pursuits were the same. They wanted to protect their friends. At any cost. But Orym somehow stayed unchanged. He always knew the right way of doing things.

So the handsome prince fell in love with a guard and planned to stay with him until he no longer wanted the company.

I literally said to a friend "I know he leaves. But he is so devoted to Orym I don't know how they're going to get him to."

And it was the one thing neither could argue against. Family. Orym knew about family. He knew about duty.

But even a continent away Dorian couldn't stop thinking about Orym. His little tactician before he was the savior blade. Even when his world came crashing down, Orym called and he went.

Idk. I think there's something beautiful in the way that Dorian loves Orym. I think it is very reminiscent of the fey who stumbled into this world and fell in love. I think it will be a love that will always be with them. That they will have to recover from. A love they might have to mourn before they ever have it.

Even if they never... If there is no love confession, if they have to mourn the loss of the people they thought they were, if there's no way for them to be together; Dorian will always love Orym. In the same way Orym loves Will. First love often lingers.

[zxal]

"What if baldr was one of the thirteen" sketch dump because this post has not left my mind for even a moment

[dvasva]

Tbh? I think the radiant emperor duology deserves more critique than it gets in its tag, so after stewing it over for a couple weeks and also discussing it with my friend, I have decided to do it myself.

So. Spoilers for She Who Became the Sun and He Who Drowned The World ahead.

First off, so nobody accuses me of hating the series, I liked the series. I'd say I'd give the first book a 4.5/5, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I like both books. I truthfully skipped the fisting scene, it triggered some dysphoria that I wasn't comfortable with personally but I don't have problem with it existing in the book, it's good where it is, no changes.

No, my critiques come mostly from the second book, hwdts. Which sucks because I absolutely loved Baoxiang in it, it's a well known fact that my ideal type is pretty, really mean, characters. ('What about Madam Zhang?!!!???!? Shes mean and pretty!!' I hear you ask. Give it a second cause i will get to my beloved madam zhang) So, my critiques are mostly organized as 'The first part I didn't like in Hwdtw that signals the thing that became my biggest issue, the bits in the middle that i did like along with the bits that I felt didn't really work well, and Act 3 which is where my issues really were exacerbated.'

By the end of book one, I had a general annoyance but acceptance that Ma Xiuying was a bit of a weak character, and not weak as in 'dang shes a woman and cant fight' or any other sexist way you may interpret that, but weak as in structurally, she didn't really have as much depth as other characters. I thought she didn't have as much time put into her character as others. And yeah you could have a million character analysis essays over Ma and her place in the story and etc, but for me, her setup for the next book as potentially having conflict with Zhu or her own morals was the most interesting part of Ma. In general I think a lot of people tend to overlook this flaw partly because Ma is a cis lesbian character and the main 'love interest' in a book that is usually marketed to people as sapphic, which yeah there is certainly a sapphic relationship in the book but I think saying it's a major part of the book is really giving the relationship a load bearing wall ot isn't strong enough to carry. The Radiant Emperor Duology is not a romance, first and foremost. To describe it as a wlw romance is gonna leave people who read ot specifically for that reason kinda dissappointed by the end of book 2.

My big critiques didn't start until book two, and a particular scene, though. Ma, at the start of book two, was generally filling the niche of 'nagging wife' to zhu, which yknow, is a fine place to start from. I was a little disappointed there was no further discussion of Ma's disapproval of the morality of Zhu's actions, and in fact the dead child was pretty much entirely forgotten by Ma in favor of being Zhu's wife. Which, yknow, sure.

The Scene I had issue with happened (Spoilers once again) after Zhu finally captures Ouyang and imprisons him at her base of operations. Ma, dressed in her empressly regalia enters his room with the intention of being the bigger person. She walks in, looks at the stripped down and humiliated general who killed her father and famously is also really a women hater, and tells him she forgives him for killing her father. And then she gets upset and cries when the prideful general who hates women gives her a dressing down and taunts her and is like 'I'm glad I killed your father'? She nearly cries because Ouyang was mean to her (notably only cause he was mean to her and didn't gracefully accept her forgiveness, not because he killed ehr father) and runs off to Zhu. And Zhu responds with 'Wow, he's just a weirdo, everyone likes you and everyone in existance immediately knows you're a good person and you change people.' Which, my friend suggested before she finished the book, was a case of Zhu placating Ma and dismissing her feelings which would be an interesting dynamic.

Really my hangups with this scene come from multiple parts.

1. Ma' few character traits including being observant and reading people really well (a thing she's praised for in book 1) and having good social intuition are completely thrown out by her thinking being alone with ouyang and forgiving him would be a good idea and then her being shocked and upset when he spat on her forgiveness. And

2. Zhu's response is never once treated by the text as her dismissing Ma and placating her, and Zhu's statement despite never being shown to be true before and that moment being the first time it's ever mentioned, ends up becoming Chekov's moral purity by the end of the book, where the plot hinges on Ma being able to magically heal a damaged character's mind enough for Zhu to win in the end. Which I will get back to. There's a lot of other stuff happening between here and the end.

So, before I get back to Ma and her role in the story, I'll address some other bits from after this scene. Both problems and things I enjoyed generally.

Madam Zhang and her parallels to Baoxiang and her being the absolute queen of dissociating really was interesting (before act 3). She was a very compelling character who I completely understood and felt positively about. She had a way more interesting relationship with gender imo than Ma did, especially in book 2. I didn't really like that she was overwhelmingly shown having sexual villence done to her, that felt weirdly like a punishment. But, I did like her a whole bunch, and I liked the look we got into her head. She was probably my second, maybe third, favorite character in the whole book until Act 3.

I really, really liked Ouyangs dynamic and relationship with Zhu. The weird sexual tension between them, their weird kinda nonsexual but also kinda very sexual S&M relationship. It was somehow the most sensual, sexual part of a book that featured Madam Zhang having sex with multiple people, and Zhu going down on Ma, and a lot of other mentions of sex or scenes involving sex. Tbh I feel like, in a way, Ma was left to the sidelines for most of the book because Ouyang became the primary 'love' interest for a hot second there and the only reason Ma could get her spot back was Ouyang and Zbu's separation. Also, from what I've seen when people talk about this book, they always kinda try to express Zhu and Ouyang's dynamic as very nonsexual and nonromantic, as platonic mostly. And there is no inherent superiority of romantic over platonic, but I think to insist that it is only platonic, and not a strange swirl of romantic, platonic, sexual, frustration and relief, and a swirl of familiarity and vulnerability all wrapped into one, is doing the dynamic a bit of a disservice. And ther is, imo, very clearly a subtle hint of romantic intent and interest on Ouyang's part before he realizes Zhu has a body he hates.

Which is also another point I didn't like. Ouyang and Zhu's relationship end felt off. The entire bit with the pirates felt off, but especially how Ouyang found out about Zbu's body, and how Zhu reacted. I think Ouyang finding out second hand, from a combination of being suspicious and from Jiang saying it, was a poor way for that to be revealed. I think there was a better way for that to happen that woyld have felt more like a betrayl to zhu than this did. The fact that Zhu and Ouyang were so in tune and could see each other perfectly, but this one thing was a blind spot for both of them because of how unaffected by gender Zhu was compared to how overaffected by gender Ouyang was is a really interesting thing to explore, an interesting disconnect between two character's whose entire basis for their relationship is 'like recognizes like'. I think Zhu seeing it as a betrayl would have been more impactful if she had presented this informatuon to Ouyang herself and been rejected than how it went down. And, I think her not realizing Ouyang would be disgusted that he felt connected and felt a sameness to someone with a body he found grotesque and that he feared would have been more interesting for zhu, who views herself outside of womanhood and didnt really think that other people would not see her outside of womanhood, if she was the one who told ouyang herself.

Also, less importantly, think going into Ouyangs annoyance that zhu kept moving his target further away was a good move but it wasn't expanded on as much for my taste. I also really liked it when (spoiler) Xu Da dies, and that entire part despite some minir bits, was extremely good in that Zhu finally has tasted loss. She had, up until that point, been riding a wave of positivity, she was the underdog who won over and over again despite all the odds and despite her own reckless choices. So I did appreciate that everything went wrong for her at least once. that would have been, imo if other things were changed, a good place to end a book two in a three book series. Which will make sense as to why I mention it im a bit.

I also didn't like how Ma was nonexistant unless the plot was like 'ok we need to remind people that Ma exists.'

And there's of course other stuff but those are the main points of acts 1 and 2 that i wasn't fond of or that i liked.

Act 3 is a wholely different behemoth which can be encapsulated with 'I wish it was longer but also different' (courtesy of the convo my friend and I had).

My friend and I both agreed that we liked this kind of courtly drama game it was playing. My friend doesn't tend to like the structure or writing style of a lot of the chinese wuxia, danmei, or courtly drama translated books i read, so it was nice to know that the genre content isn't the issue for her there.

The biggest problems I had with the ending though was 1. I think Baoxiang and Ma had an interesting dynamic despite it being really rushed and how distasteful I found the entire concept of Ma being such a good wholesome goody good good person that she could change Baoxiang, quiet his demons and fix him in some way. That was annoying in an otherwise interesting dynamic. And 2. I think Madam Zhang's character traits and cleverness and all that were wiped away to make her inexplicably jealous of Ma in a way that I don't think fit her character and just served to fit a trope of jealous empress who hates the favored concubine.

So, here's my major proposed changes.

1. Ma gets sent to Khanbaliq extremely early on. Like, act one maybe after ouyang is captured early. This serves three purposes. A. Ma has something to do and is more present in the story. this could be a good xhance to let her actually feel frustrated or upset at Zhu in some tangible way that needs to be resolved or talked thru eventually. B. she gets more time to build a relationship with Baoxiang, whose entire defeat hinges on him having a strong connection with her. and C. Her absence in the other parts of the book feel less like she's being ignored or forgotten. It makes Zhu's lack of haste more than just a way to annoy Ouyang, and turns it into an interesting moral choice. Should she rush to Khanbaliq to save Ma or trust that Ma will be ok in favor of gaining power? Her lack of haste means Ouyang leaves, depressed, and she loses Xu Da, all while she doesn't even have the assurance that Ma is ok, she is truly at her lowest point with nobody with her. If Ma is in Khanbaliq and that's explored, then Zhu and Ouyang can also explore their dynamic without Ma feeling a bit like she is battling for Zhu's attention.

2. Madam Zhang is suspicious of Ma, or feels actually tangibly threatened by Ma. In act 3, Madam Zhang's anger towards Ma feels really out of place. She got exactly what she wants, she is empress, her emperor isn't interested in removing her from her position and her position isn't threatened by anyone. Baoxiang won't get rid of her, he won't demote her, he has shown zero sign of ever even considering it. So, why is Madam Zhang jealous of Ma? Imo, especially since she very clearly has dissociated into oblivion and has no love or affection for anyone anymore, and no real desire or motivation to secure her position further aside from maybe producing an heir to make sure shes taken care of after Baoxiang dies, there's no reason for her to be inextricably jealous of Ma. It kinda just erases all of Madam Zhang's political savvy and cunning into jealous, petty woman, and that sucks. If she was suspicious of Ma's intention, or Baoxiang genuinely expressed spmething that actively threatened her position, her hatred of Ma would make sense, but instead she hates Ma cause Ma is ugly and spends every night with Baoxiang. She hated rice buckets concubine cause that concubine used a lot of funds and competition genuinely made her position less stable. She needs better motivation for hating Ma.

3. As I mentioned earlier, Zhu needs to be the one to tell Ouyang that she does not have a dick. That's just all around better, it feels more like a betrayl to bare your secrets and be rejected, etc etc.

4. The duology should have been a trilogy, with book 3 starting when Zhu is at her lowest, ouyang is dead, ma is in khanbaliq, Xu Da is dead, a new guy is the emperor. This is where a book three should have started. in a series that has so many important characters, i feel like it needs more space. she's in a 10 gallon tank when really she needs a 30 gallon tank. Lots of it, especially towards the end of book 2, felt rushed and the extra book will absolutely push that back a bit and make it less rushed.

Anyways that's my critique of The Radiant emperor duology. Once Again, I liked the series, its one of my favorites i've read all year. I don't dislike it, and having a critique or opinion about something doesnt mean I didn't like the book or understand the book (because obviously if i understood it i would understand why its flawless). I liked it, there are things I wish were different, that's it.

[skitskatdacat63]

Fernando S1E5 - “Mission Accomplished”

[puppyeared]

Atla live action 😐

[dukeofthomas]

I will forever maintain that Jason would've been fine and Not a vigilante without Bruce making him Robin

[good-beanswrites]

And all of trial two has been added to Lights, Camera, Sing Your Sins!!! I hope you enjoy the Deep Cover addition 🐺

Kotoko’s face was somewhere between disgust and disappointment as she watched the prisoners put on the worst performance she’d ever seen. 

Fuuta writhed around on the ground, making clawing motions at himself and the floor. He was nudged away by Yuno, who was making odd growling sounds from her hunched over position.

“I think it’s a bit more like,” Kazui clutched at his chest, “like, aaaargh!”

“No, no, you’re doing it all wrong!” Mikoto moved beside him and tried his hand at the scene. 

Wanting to be included, Mahiru let out a long howl. Haruka and Muu joined in.

Just because Kotoko had never seen a classic werewolf movie didn’t mean she needed a demonstration, but the others hadn’t really given her a choice. It was necessary preparation, they said. Jackalope had made the mistake of leaving them alone before her filming was set to start, and they jumped at the opportunity immediately.

Kotoko crossed her arms. “Isn’t this all a bit…cheesy?” 

Mikoto looked up from where he’d bent himself into an awkward shape. “Cheesy? This is a horror movie staple!”

“Exactly.” She let her gaze drift away from meeting any eyes. “This isn’t meant to be like the movies. This is… this is real.”

While others continued their cries of transformational agony, Mahiru made her way over. 

“I understand.”

Kotoko had to hold back a scoff. She was probably the last person here who understood. Mahiru didn’t have a mean bone in her body – there was no way knew what it meant to feel a monster’s worth of violence and anger bubbling up inside of her. She could never know the pain of filming alongside that wonderful young girl, haunted by the fact that she’d cower away if she ever knew the truth. In fact, all of her fellow prisoners would cower away if they knew the violence that had simmered within her all her life. 

“It’s fine, Mahiru. I just think everyone should stop fooling around.”

But she would not be deterred. Over her shoulder, Fuuta was encouraging Amane to let out the loudest growl she could. Mahiru was unfazed as held Kotoko’s gaze. “I mean it. I’ve been there. Sometimes, there’s parts of ourselves that get out of control. Things that we see in the movies, and it’s alright there… but in real life…” her smile weakened. “In real life, those parts of us really hurt people. I’m here to tell you you’re not a monster for those things.”

Kotoko gaped at her. If Jackalope wanted a shot of her shocked, he should have kept the cameras rolling. 

Before she could muster up any reply, Mahiru grabbed her hand and dragged her forward.

“Now come on, let’s see your cheesiest werewolf acting! Awooooooo!”

[vaugarde]

it also really puts into perspective like... how a galar anime really could have been a natural follow up to alola if they let it be. i still think it was better to retire ash as a character and have jn be a finale series where ash becomes a world champion at the end, but i always had the coinciding thought that a series where ash just went back to a normal gym challenge again would have felt underwhelming and strange. but the way zactoshi handles it feels so natural that it's got me going..... hey yeah, it could've worked out fine, what gives?

[tangledinink]

Once upon a time i worked a job that involved me traveling a lot. Every Monday i'd fly to some other state, and the company would put me up in a hotel and i'd get a company card with a per diem for food, and then on Friday they'd fly me back home. And we got, like, $100 a day for food. Which is crazy, and I would never hit that quota, so by the time I had been doing this for a few months I just had, like, hella cash to burn.

And it was so much fun. Because at some point I just realized that I was fully empowered to give, like... crazy good tips. Any time I ate or ordered anywhere I'd tip at least 100%. It was especially fun when I ate out, like at some of the restaurants in the hotels and stuff, 'cause I'd be this little early-twenty-something dining by myself, doodling in my iPad while I ate, and then at the end of the meal I could just drop a $150 tip and skip off and it felt so fucking good. 'Cause what did I care! It's not my money! It's corporate money, baby. Why not give it to other people???

Anyway, the point is that I miss being able to do that so fucking much.

[aria0fgold]

I saw a black blob moving very slowly at the corner of my eye so I was like: "??? What is that?" I glanced at it and the first thing that my head processed was "Oh a kitten" and then a split second after that thought my brain finally activated and went: "Wait a sec-- the gate is closed--" So I finally properly processed what it actually was and it was a rat... orz... Immediately chased it away and MAN do these guys fit in such tight spaces.

[lanshappycorner]

why are you speaking in dolphins?? was there some sort of code that was released in the mashle fandom?? was i a bit too busy these past few days??

AJDAKD I guess I will be the first to inform u then anon....yes there is 💔

To be specific, it's actually standard in asian fandom circles (even outside of mashle) to refer to characters in emojis! There's a lot of reasons for this, but generally it 1) saves time typing the character/ship name 2) prevents random posts you make from ending up in people's searches and 3) it's just easier to use when describing dynamics and stuff

Some examples would be that the dolphins (lol) represent Finn

🐬=Finn, 🍥=Carpaccio, 🍄=Mash, ☔️=Rayne, 🎈=Max, ⏳️=Orter, 🕶=Wirth, 🪐=Lance, 💥=Dot, 🍋=Lemon, ✝️=Renatus.....so on and so forth

There is no one specific list I can give you but it's kind of like an unspoken thing and people generally know what emojis represent who like you could probably make some educated guesses😭, although sometimes it may depend (EX. I've seen ppl use 🪆 or 🐻 for Abel)

[soulmatesyuumori]

It always makes me laugh when people write Albert as slutty and he tries to seduce Mycroft but he’s thrown out Mycroft’s office at least the first two times before successing. That image is so funny LOL

[redhotarsenic]

god it's like i'm living a constant nightmare. i don't do this shit for my health. this stupid bullshit got so far that my friend is suffering both emotionally and through his income and none of these people are comprehending how massively serious this is.

[purplepixel]

Ok to answer @psychologicalwarclaire

[imflyingfish]

Fish you are so good at building to me your the Bdubs of people I know

Pheo ;w; ty