#WHAT IF HE HAD NO OTHER CHOICE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

puppetmaster13u · 5 months

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Prompt 89

The young justice team is in a bit of a pickle. It had been a usual mission, Klarion causing mischief again, before someone had mentioned the date.

The literal chaos lord had shrieked, stopping his attack, and asked for clarification. Maybe that wasn’t a good idea because one moment they were in Happy Harbour, and the next they’re somewhere else with green everywhere and floating islands.

And Klarion doesn’t explain- not that they were expecting him to- and just bolts into a… wow that is a very big and scary looking castle. Keep? Honestly it’s if someone combined a gothic citadel with a clocktower of some sort.

Not important, because they had chased after Klarion who uh… Oh no, that is a Very big entity, that is two Very Big entities that could crush them in their fingers. And they are now stuck in this place seeing as the portal closed behind them.

Honestly Klarion is happy he made it home before curfew! Even if he had to bring his sort-of-friends with him to make it in time. It’s not his fault, he’s not used to having a guardian, nevermind two! Not to mention siblings, which he’s now the oldest of too, so he has to be a positive influence. Like teaching them how to properly do chaos without destroying a world.

Oh, but this is perfect anyway, one of his dads has been wanting to talk to the speedsters anyway, and his other dad is still under house arrest for the whole, trying to take over the living realm thing. But that’s not important, he has little siblings to introduce!

#dcxdp #dpxdc #dark ages #prompts #klarion the witch boy #young justice #Accidental Sleepover Au #Klarion is just a lil guys- just a lil baby chaos ancient #Pariah is on thin ice with CW & had a choice of either attempt at world domination & getting put back in the box #or work on his previously failing relationship & help him take care of these baby ancients/halfas he found #Look he was stuck in that sarcophagus *so long* and he has an eternity how hard can parenting be #The older a ghost the larger they are #Klarion & Fenton siblings are human-sized #but their ghost-parents are Definitely Not when they aren't pretending to be human-ish #They have the space to sprawl out in their Haunt and they're going to use it!#Poor young justice has no clue what's going on #CW ain't letting them leave because eventually the other speedsters will arrive to get their baby speedster back #And he has Words for them #Klarion: Look at my maybe-friends :D They're good at fighting!#Klarion: I don't like their parents tho- they hang out with yellow-helmet-@!&#Danny w/ his 3 friends who all just finished finals & are tired: Omg did u bring friends over for a double sleepover :O #Danny: That's such a fun idea we can spar and make smores and- aw why are they hiding :/

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vorakh · 4 months

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by the way i never posted my skyrim character tova (: she loves to steal things (:

#i think the idea was to build her as a stealth wizard but i didn’t made it far in game and all wizards kicked my ass anyway #i played a couple of quests with faendal before we reached the place after riverwood #he didn’t appreciate tova’s genuine and pure love for thievery and tomb-robbery #what a hater #i wanted to play as a redguard but dude from work said nord was a better choice for a beginner so i built my nord to look like the original #redguard I had in mind #the other doodles are messy #my doodles #skyrim #tova

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general-cyno · 5 months

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sometimes I see manga panels or anime screenshots of luffy and zoro being silly and I'm hit with the reminder that zoro not only believes his dream/ambitions mean nothing without luffy but that he's said this out loud. to an enemy, no less, as he chose to exchange his life for luffy's. that luffy himself would lose his absolute shit if something bad ever happened to zoro and the reason why luffy tends to worry less about and rely more on him is bc he knows how strong zoro is, can and will be and the lengths he'd go to protect others, especially the people he cares about, since this part of zoro's character is exactly what ultimately convinced luffy to recruit him in the first place. that even though zoro's the one with the grand gestures it likely means so much to luffy, who experienced tragedy early on and is afraid of losing those he loves to the point he vowed to become strong just to avoid so, the fact that zoro's such a steady presence and force beside him - one he can count on to keep everyone, and luffy too, safe. insane levels of devotion and trust going on between two dudes who shower once a week.

#zolu #tp #came back from a beach trip even more insane abt these two cheers #luffy's I need you and zoro's vow in opla are so perfect bc they straight up slap your face with how much #these two need and /want/ to stay with each other. literally together til fucking death #imagine what that's like for someone like luffy who's had ppl he loves leave him even if not by choice #bc external forces make them mostly #prying zoro away from luffy would take extreme circumstances like sabaody or luffy somehow deeply disappointing him #the latter of which luffy's proved he wouldn't do and the former is the reason why zoro bowed to his sworn rival #for the chance to become stronge enough to surpass even him. bc if zoro's stronger - the strongest - sabaody won't happen again #at least not if he can help it

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biennatodd · 4 months

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i cant stop thinking about what if pregnancy was really hard for YZY.

what if her labor was so difficult that her doctors encouraged her to not even try again (the impossible be damned) despite having a daughter for a firstborn.

what if she pushed (and JFM was amenable, as he often was then) for her daughter to be made heir, only for JYL to struggle with foundation building so much that they worried she'd never reach core formation.

unsuitable.

it goes from improbable to nigh impossible for yanli to be sect leader.

so YZY decides to try again, its been years since the first time. surely she's recovered more than enough. if she can not make her body do even this then. then.

she will do this.

imagine her suffering another dangerous child birth, only to have another daughter.

and never once does her love for her children waver but she could cry, honestly cry because why could nothing ever be easy for her.

and then she has a thought.

it would be so easy. she could force the midwives to take an oath of secrecy. she would have to be more hands on in the raising of her child than most others in her position, but it wouldn't hurt to be seen as doting...

no one would ever know.

That year, the jianghu celebrated the birth of Jiang Fengmian's son and heir, Jiang Cheng.

#mdzs #yu ziyuan #jiang family #i was just thinking what if YZY's insistence JFM recognize JC as son and heir was caused by something.. else #what if YZY (and jc by proxy) had a secret #and yes that secret is #trans jiang cheng #its a bit different bc jc would not have any choice re: gender presentation or identity but i feel like that provides good character drama #jiang cheng in for the shock of his life when he finally learns other boys are built different

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haunted-xander · 7 months

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You ever think about how Ryne probably got a more honest yet closed-off Thancred while Minfilia got a more disingenuine yet open Thancred?

Like, the Thancred Minfilia knew and grew up with was the one we saw in arr, the flirty, teasing and sassy but friendly man who was clearly not very honest seeing as no one- not even Minfilia- noticed how worn out he was from his constant work. Even just by hw he's noticably more prickly and. not quite rude but. more outwardly cynical? He's always been kinda cynical, but in arr his teasing and banter hides it well, which never disappears but is more. natural? genuine? now. Krile directly points out that he's much more brusque than she expected of him based on how Minfilia described him.

And sure, you could attribute that behaviour to his grief and stress (which is certainly a part of it) but considering he acts much the same in ew, when he's finally moved on and come to terms with everything (and is also post-shb character development), I think it's safe to say that this is the most honest we've seen Thancred be.

But this is all Ryne has known him to be. She's never seen Thancred be flirtatious or as social and friendly as he is in arr, she's only seen him be brusque and cynical but still teasing and kind. But he's also far more closed off from her (and others) bc of That Whole Deal going on. Urianger has told her more about Thancred's true feelings than Thancred himself has. and even that's not a lot, for Urianger is not only not a mind reader and doesn't know everything that goes on on Thancred's head, but also is reluctant to share more than is necessary since it's not his place to divulge these things (and also he himself is not free from the folly of emotional self-isolation).

With Minfilia though, he's open enough that she's never doubted that he cared for and loved her even when he couldn't spend much time with her, and she felt comfortable enough to admonish him when he did his usual self-destructive behaviour (you know, becoming an alchoholic at 17 and All That Entails)

Just. food for thought

#theres a lot of these parallels between ryne & minfilia in regards to their relationship with thancred #like. the way things are so similar yet so *different* from each other #same same but opposite ya know #like how thancred blames himself for warburtons death and by extention minfilia being orphaned even tho it was in no way his fault #vs how he knowingly took ryne away from ran'jit bc he knew that whatever other life shed live would be better than what she had #when minfilia first experienced the echo thancred knew wat it was but didnt tell her (for circle of knowing related reasons)#whereas he told ryne everything he could in regards to her powers and circumstances #he gifted minfilia her dagger for self-defense but never taught her how to fight #but ryne was not only gifted daggers by him but also taught how to properly fight and fend for herself with them #and he trusted minfilia in the main care of f'lhaminn while he took a more secondary support role #but he assigned himself the primary caretaker for ryne while the others (read: urianger) became secondary ones #(granted due to rynes situation he kinda had no other choice at the time)#(but im sure he wouldve taken the same role even if he could theoretically have safely handed her over to someone else)#also just to be clear thancred IS genuinely social and friendly even hw & up #just not as extroverted #he spends a lot of time either by himself or with fellow scions/other close companions #rather than with whatever lady hes trynna impress next #anyway. yet another day of being Completelt Normal about this complicated family situation #thancred waters #ryne waters #minfilia warde #final fantasy #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #ffxiv #xander rambles #xander being insane about ryne

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lurkingvoid · 1 month

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Cuteguy gun but it's just one of the guns Grian picked up during Tokyo Soul that he blinged out one night.

#He blinged it out when getting high with Taurtis #They had super glue and sparkles #what other choice did they have?#tokyo soul #yhs grian #hermitcraft #grian #cute guy

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lucy-moderatz · 1 month

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#tv: miss fisher's murder mysteries #mfmmedit #miss fisher's murder mysteries #phryne x jack #i've been reading the veronica speedwell series and thinking a lot about this scene #of having to balance being your own person #and understanding how you and your actions effect others #and how it may not be fair to expect them to just go along with what you want at the expense of their feelings #jack had ever right to want to put distance between himself and phyrne #as much as it may hurt and as rejected as she ends up feeling #he did the right thing for himself #and she needed to know that her choices effect more than just her #things i made

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ageofzero · 3 months

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Yuna is the antagonist of a potential Final Fantasy X-3, thank you for coming to my TED Talk

edit: okay I'll put it under a read more since it'll be a long post (but not as long as my entire conversation was), but what's promised is due.

Now that I have to make the post for real I had to do some wiki reading on what the actual Things going on in the novella were, and… well, a lot of my theorycrafting was based on incomplete and kinda inaccurate information. BUT I can’t read Japanese, the book was never released here, and I am going to go with rule of cool for a little bit of this even as I keep the stuff that sounds kinda dumb on the surface. I’ll be the first to say that Tidus exploding from a bomb he thinks is a blitzball is dumb (true), and Chuami thinking she’s Auron’s daughter is a dumb plot beat (petty), but I’m weaving this bridge and I’m not going to rewrite those. I am going to change some contexts and make them exist in a narrative that I hope is compelling. That’s my disclaimer, now I’m gonna get into it.

SO.

The scenario from the novella and audio drama is thus: Tidus died again in an accident, and Yuna brings him back. But he’s not back in the same way that the Fayth gave this dream a real living body at the end of X-2. The official term for it is “beckoned”, but I probably won’t use that to describe him based on my previous understanding. No matter if he’s beckoned or not, or whatever terminology you want to use, the thing is that Yuna summoned him back. She’s holding him to life, and he can never know. It’s been a year since the moment Tidus died, and Yuna has seemingly regressed into patterns that put her into what was once Yevon’s circle. Tidus is looking injured/weakened (“Chuami: It wasn’t just [Tidus’s] words that felt hollow. When I shook his hand, his grip felt weak and lifeless... I think he’s injured. Or maybe he’s sick or something.”), and people are looking to Yuna for help or information regarding the strange not-quite Unsent (the beckoned) that are appearing in places in Spira. Help she is not capable of giving. Wakka and Lulu are protecting her as she prays in Besaid Temple. The world is seemingly acting out, with a second shoopuf appearing in the Moonflow and its energies overflowing and drawing more illusions into reality. (“Yuna: The Moonflow energy is responding to the will of the living. It’s as if… we’re in the Farplane.”) And it’s more vivid than what the Farplane is capable of, even breaking the rules of “beckoning”. This is something new, something worse. Something worse enough to bring back Sin (which I thought was just me extrapolating a potential, but they actually mention it in the audio drama that it happens). Yuna promises the people that she will defeat Sin, but Wakka tries to keep her from being made to promise such a thing at first, which is an interesting choice (“Wakka: Yuna, let’s go back to Besaid. They’ll push this all on you… Sin is for summoners, in their minds.”).

Where does the world go in this present circumstances? Why IS Yuna seemingly content to do what chafed her in the Eternal Calm short movie and stay praying in Besaid and helping the elders who are lost now that Yevon as they knew it is in shambles? Why are Lulu and Wakka enabling and protecting her in that? Why is Tidus looking injured and weak and why is Yuna keeping him at arm’s length? Why does she tell him that she’s fallen in love with someone else?

I know the typical story beat interpretation is “Yuna told him that and pushed him away so he wouldn’t be in danger for what she needs to do, bc defeating Sin caused his death last time”. But hear me out. Yuna knows Tidus isn’t alive. She knows that revealing that information to him will cause him to disappear again. She’s actively summoning him back to life and he has no idea (but he must suspect something is wrong, even before Yuna formally pulls away from him, he’s weakening and he probably doesn’t feel right in his own skin). I posit that her maintaining Tidus’s life is what she’s really doing praying in the Besaid Temple. She doesn’t want to get involved with the Moonflow situation, the shoopuf or the overflowing energy of the Moonflow itself. She doesn’t even really act when seeing all the ghosts in the crowd, and actively stops Kurgum from acting (plausible deniability: she and everyone else decide that sending them in that moment would be the wrong call and riots would break out, but that density of ghosts means that’s a significant amount of pyreflies that could become fiends at any moment).

I posit that Yuna’s powers are working, that people close to her think her powers aren’t working (Lulu and Wakka), and she’s hiding it from everyone else. That her powers aren’t working because she’s currently using them to maintain Tidus’s existence. And this maintaining is breaking the Farplane in half, because she’s powerful but has no idea what she’s doing. (Why would she really know what she’s doing or the consequences? Who has any information of what she’s doing and what will happen if she does it?) I posit that Yuna’s love for Tidus is so strong that it corrupts her sense of right and wrong. X-2 is Yuna largely going on a personal quest, and incidentally helping people but separating herself from the title of High Summoner and doing something she wants to do. Rikku encourages her to do something for herself for a change right before she agrees and runs off to become a sphere hunter. She still saves the world, this time from an ancient danger Old Yevon buried and an Unsent is threatening to use (for love, notably), but she did it in the course of looking for Tidus. Who the Fayth return to life, who she hugs and is so so relieved to have in her arms again.

She’s not going to let him go, she couldn’t let him die again so much that she called him back to life.

(side note: I never truly knew how this happened so I had to consult the wiki page on the novella, and I suspect what original information I was working with was misrepresented and misinterpreted. I openly admit that the wiki page doesn’t really help me fully understand what happened, aside from explaining how Tidus ended up in proximity to a bomb. My understanding from someone’s explanation was that an Unsent summoner on the island Yuna and Tidus got washed up on after a storm told her she could call back the dead if she wanted, as a summoner. They’re all made of pyreflies, Aeons and Fiends and People and Unsent alike, and summoners are in the business of manipulating pyreflies. Either calling them from the Fayth to form an Aeon, or Sending them to the Farplane so they do not become Fiends. A summoner with enough power could summon someone back from the dead, could they not? And this Unsent summoner knew how it worked, and told Yuna how to do it. But I don’t know how real that scene could be, or how accurate it is to what’s written in the book. It’s my rule of cool moment, though, and I worked with that as my understanding when I made this theory. We have to make our peace with that, if you’ll allow me this extrapolation of Spira’s rules and a summoner’s powers.)

(The meme is Tidus kicking a blitzball and it turned out it was a bomb and his head gets blown off, but wiki says they ended up on a vision of a Besaid from 1000 years ago, and the bomb was something neither Tidus or Yuna had seen before and to them it looked like a blitzball. So, Tidus approached what he thought was a blitzball, wondering who’s ball it was, and it exploded as he reached it. I still think that’s really dumb but I’m not editing it out bc Tidus’s death creates very interesting consequences.)

So, if Yuna is summoning Tidus back to life, and she desperately doesn’t want him to find this out so she avoids him and pushes him away through any means necessary, but he’s still weakening and fading enough to be noticeable by people… perhaps also himself… Yuna returning to Yevon in some capacity could just as likely be her looking for a means to keep feeding power to this summoning she’s doing so she doesn’t lose him. And what kind of consequences does it have to do this? He’s being summoned, but he’s not actually an Aeon. He’s not an Unsent, he’s not just being beckoned. He wasn’t even real, he was a dream in a summon held together by the raw power of Yu Yevon turning into Sin. The Moonflow overflowing and seeing a long-dead shoopuf is the least of the consequences. The Farplane is delicate, it requires careful maintenance, and here Yuna is shoving her foot in the door and holding it open for a solid year! And no one knows she’s doing this! Spira’s past is full of history, some of that long-buried secrets that no one was supposed to find again. Sin wasn’t supposed to be able to come back, but the ghosts aren’t staying ghosts anymore (“Lulu: I mean Sin came back, right? What’s to stop anything else from coming back?”).

Even people who only know her by reputation seem to think she’s acting strangely (“Kurgum: I thought Lady Yuna was… a righteous person.”), because something is wrong and no one can put their finger on what. Who would have the pieces to put any of this together, and who would even suspect Yuna in the first place? She’s actively not getting involved in politics, she’s locked herself in Besaid, she seems reluctant to answer someone she worked with and should be amicable with now (Baralai).

I think the story should follow down this path, I think it should find Yuna at the end of it, once savior and now destroyer. She’s willing to let the world rip apart in order to keep Tidus, and I think that’s a compelling premise for X-3. The past surging forward like ghosts, vengeful and lost and wanted and terrifying. Who sides with Yuna (Wakka, Lulu) and covers up the problem? Who bands together to face down the High Summoner (Tidus, Rikku)? Who doesn’t know where to place their allegiance, or who changes sides when they realize the extent of what Yuna’s hiding? What does she do when she’s faced with her friends, and the person she loves so much, telling her to stop?

There’s a line in Eternal Calm where Yaibal (named in X-2 but not in the movie itself), after asking about whether or not she’d be joining one of the factions, if she’d be making a faction of her own. And I think in this potential X-3, she’s making her own faction through the actions of becoming antagonist. She’s made Wakka cover for her, she acts in a way that make Lulu and Wakka both protect her regardless of whether or not they know what she’s doing. I think it would be so fascinating to make this a conscious decision on her part. Things have broken so utterly, and she’s desperate to hold them together, and becomes the antagonist in the process.

Squeenix would never do it, they’d never be so bold as to make Yuna the antagonist and follow through on this trajectory of her lying to people to hide that she’s the one breaking the world in half (up to returning the ghost of Sin itself to terrorize Spira). Sin isn’t the final boss in this one, it’d have to be Yuna, we have to stop her and fix what went wrong. It’s not ever gonna happen, but I still think Yuna should be the antagonist of X-3.

#Final Fantasy X #Final Fantasy X-2 #Final Fantasy X-3 #FFX #FF10 #meta #theorycrafting #personal #Let me weave you a really compelling bridge out of the malarky I know of post X-2 content #I promise you that Yuna is the antagonist in this scenario and Squeenix are cowards who’d never do it #Tega writes #it's under the read more #I did not go whole hog into the entire plotting out I did I've just introduced the premise #I had a deep conversation with my RBB writer involving my interpretations #He introduced other ideas that were rad #I don't have an exit strategy though #as in I have no idea how the game would resolve in this projected scenario #or how I would WANT it to resolve #I came up with a ''good'' ending that's tailor made to feel bad about your choices lmao #but that's not what I think the true ending would be #anyway none of that is specifically about how Yuna should be the antagonist #it's more like the delicious possibilities while the plot leads you to that conclusion #there was a lot and I already wrote nearly 2k words just to explain this much #I have to sort out the rest still it's stream of consciousness discord messages

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fuckingguide · 2 years

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They ain’t even looking at you, baby, they looking at me | Guillermo de la Cruz + Looking At Me by Sabrina Carpenter

#what we do in the shadows #wwdits #guillermo de la cruz #wwdits spoilers #the return of my fancam-style guillermo vids!!#i've been meaning to make one for a while but i was going to wait until the end of the season #and then that night market fight scene happened and it couldn't wait any longer #i am over the moon about the fact that thanks to s4 i can now afford to be selective about what shots to use in this kind of edit #when it was just the first three seasons there were barely enough shots. i pretty much had to use all of them to make a video #but now... now the world is my oyster #song choice in this video is dedicated to the fact that whenever anything happens in this show involving other characters #i barely notice bc i'm always looking at guillermo instead. especially in fight scenes #sorry to the others i guess but like. as if it's my fault he gets hotter every episode #oh and of course as always the 'ah ah ah' from 3x10 has to stay #i don't care how much i have to lower the volume of the song so it's audible i'm not removing it #anyway i hope you enjoy this return to my roots!! it's been over half a year since i made an edit like this i forgot how fun it is!!#edits.mp4 #video.mp4

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uselessnbee · 5 months

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what i wish people would also explore more when it comes to Percy is the other side of his feelings about his mom about family and his childhood but this fandom is too afraid to paint Sally even in the slightest bad light (even if it's not bad just acknowledging her flaws because she's a human being and not perfect) that no one will touch on that subject. like yes Sally is the best mom but she also isn't and that's the thing! She isn't perfect! but she tried her best but her best still got Percy hurt and it isn't her fault at all but that's the tragedy of it. i want Percy's feelings about this explored. how he grew up with a loving mom but an abusive step father. how his step father would humiliate him and call him stupid but then his mom soothed him and told him he's not the things Gabe calls him. how Gabe would hurt him and Sally would be there to make him happy and loved but at the same time she stayed with him. i want Percy's feelings explored about how he knows his mother loves him but her absence still hurt him. she would work so much to have money to raise him she did that for him but at the same time it meant Percy was left alone or with Gabe. Sally gave up so much for him, she sent him away to protect him but at the same time he was sent away from his mom. she's the only parent he has because his father is absent and Gabe is not actually a parental figure at all but she's also often absent in his life too and that must have left him with such mixed feelings because it's not all black and white! Sally's love protected him but also hurt him. Percy loves his mom so so so much but there's also this deep-seated bitterness and hurt and anger he never let himself feel and then the guilt for having those feelings because his mom loves him he knows that and she gave up so much for him and she married a monster that abused her to protect him, he knows that but it doesn't make it hurt any less. the mess his emotions are because he knows his mom suffered for him and did it from her love for him but he still desperately wishes she never married that monster that he wouldn't have to have the childhood he had with him that he wouldn't have to live with the trauma he was left with. this all is exactly what makes their relationship so fascinating and also heartbreaking.

or the idea of Percy having weird mixed feelings after Estelle is born because that's his little sister and he loves her with his whole heart and would do anything for her and wants only the best for her but there's also this little jealous monster deep down that wonders why she gets to have a loving mom and a loving dad and a happy normal life but he never got that. why does she deserve it but not him? why couldn't he have that too? doesn't he deserve that too? he was just a child too so why why why??? and then the guilt of feeling that way too it makes me want to scream. emotions are fucking messy and they can be really ugly and they can make you hate yourself and there's no way Percy's feelings aren't a mess when it comes to this and i want to see it explored so badly!

and with Sally too! her feelings about Percy because she did so much and tried her best but sometimes unfortunately your best isn't good enough and it still got her beloved son hurt and she hates it and feels so guilty but she just has to live with that but she can't help to wish it was different. that their lives would be different. better. normal. she can't help but to wish she didn't have to do the things she's done, didn't have to suffer so much just to protect her child. can't help to wish she didn't have to worry so much, didn't have to be so scared about Percy, didn't have to be terrified that one day he won't come back home to her, that she won't be able to hold her son anymore because he will be gone, she just wishes he didn't have to suffer so much, she just wishes and wishes and wishes

and i just wish people weren't so afraid to explore this because it's so heartwrenching and yes if you want something do it yourself but unfortunately i cannot write nor am i able to handle this topic in a way it deserves so i am left only with rambling about it on here thank you

#i am not trying to victim blame or anything i love Sally and she did her best and didn't deserve any of the crap life gave her #but there's just something so tragic about the fact that she married a vile man and suffered abuse to protect her son #just for her decision to hurt him anyways just in a different way but the only other option would probably be Percy ending up dead #so she can't really truly regret it but she just wishes those weren't their only options #that she didn't have to do this just so that her child could stay alive #thinking about it makes me go feral #they had no choice but to suffer there was no way for their lives to be without this much hurt and trauma and it's terrible #and they didn't deserve it but there was so much love too #but the horrible thing is that that love just wasn't enough to save them from all that pain and i need to be sedated bye #percy jackson #sally jackson #pjo #hoo #percy and sally #percy jackon and the olympians #whatever you do don't think about a six years old lonely Percy sitting in a corner waiting for his mom to come back home from work #and he knows she loves him but he misses her so much when she spends so much time in work and that hurts #don't think about a ten years old Percy being sent away to a boarding school and he knows his mom loves him #but what if she's sending him away because he's just too much? or not enough? and what if she doesn't want him anymore?#and he knows that's not true but what if?#i'm thinking it #okay i think that's enough

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winepresswrath · 6 months

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hi! i always love your MDZS/CQL takes; can i ask what are the questions you think CQL is asking, as compared to MDZS?

I haven't actually revisited either canon in ages, which is making me nervous. what questions the novel is interested in can be pretty contentious all on its own! @mikkeneko has an excellent answer in the notes here which I reccomend to everyone. My own thoughts are honestly pretty scattered- I keep on deleting things and going hm, that's not quite right.

So, for the obvious-to-me example, people reasonably zero in on the creation of innocent doctors/radish farmers who Wen Ruohan is holding hostage. In CQL it's easy to infer that Wen Qing and Wen Ning are maybe the only cultivators and almost certainly the only combatants among the Wen remnants, and their status is much more ambiguous in the novel, which I personally think is asking, essentially, "and so what? were they wrong to run, when they had a chance? Do they deserve what Jin Guangshan will do to them if they go back? Aren't they just people, actually?" Whereas the question that CQL is asking is more to the effect of "What does Wen Qing owe these people, when she is their only defence? What is she entitled to do to save them, at other people's expense? If she fucks up that moral calculus, what then? Does it matter if she's personally fond of some of the outsiders who are going to get hurt? If one of them saved her brother? Later, this question will flip to what Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, and the parallel to Jiang Cheng's situation in particular is, I think, genuinely pretty fun. You're giving up the Wen as soldiers who've laid down their arms in exchange for Wen Qing also grappling with leadership and the question of how many horrors she can stand to look the other way on to protect her own people. one reason I keep deleting so much is that a lot cql's changes were motivated at least in part by censorship, which I think we mostly share a general and justified distaste for! but I also think that within the bounds of that censorship the creative team put a lot of work into actually doing something interesting with those changes. Or, for another example- nieyao! There's a much greater emphasis on the nmj-jgy relationship, it's unambiguously very close and they are clearly extremely important to one another, and I think that's because the cql team has a lot to say about love, trust, power, and the ways those things interact, and that reflects back on all of the other relationships in play, including Wangxian. Almost every time, when CQL chooses change a relationship they make the characters in question closer- that's true for Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji, for Wen Qing and the Yunmeng contingent, for Zixuan and Mianmian, and Huaisang and Meng Yao. It's even true for Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, who have a close and trusting relationship in first life! CQL puts a much greater emphasis on "all right, so you care, what next?" How do you choose someone and then choose to be good to them? What if there's a massive power disparity between you? What if you seriously disagree about your priorities and morals? How do you trust someone who's betrayed you? When is it a stupid choice to trust at all? How do you have faith that you know someone well enough for that trust to be meaningful?

for legal reasons i would like to specify that it's not that mdzs isn't interested in these problems. i do remember wangxian's literal trust fall. cql is asking these questions all the time about everyone. also for legal purposes i'm not suggesting that cql lwj and jc love each other. but! they establish a three month wartime partnership looking for wwx and then jc immediately drops him on wwx's say-so despite apparently having a positive enough opinion of him to tell wwx he thinks they should make up twice. lan wangji will later tell wwx he thinks he should loop jc in on the second flautist! these are people trying to navigate some kind of relationship/shared interest/community, as opposed to a hateful void. cql wants to say hey, how do you go about this? while I'm here and rambling cql also puts a lot of emphasis on wwx's connection to yunmeng and changes things up so instead of feeling alienated right before he leaves our last glimpse of him there is happily picking lotuses and playing with a kid! in both stories the narrative is asking who do you protect? who do you leave behind? can you ever get it back? but the angles are very different.

#why are there so many people who simultaneously argue that cql dumbs down mdzs and also that mdzs is the slow reveal of how wwx is a #perfect angel who has never done anything wrong in his life #being let down by everyone around him #surely you have to pick an option #but lan wangji and wei wuxian being close friends in the first life really does change everything #i have seen people (reasonably) be annoyed with this as an adaptation choice #but! i like this change a lot and i think they do interesting things with it #There's still a lot of emphasis on what makes them so particularly perfect for each other but imo moving Lan Wangji into the category of #people wwx loved in the first life #shifts the focus from #when will they get together #to #What it would take and what would they have to do for these people to have to do to have a successful partnership?#If loving someone is the first step what comes next? Who do I want to be to the people around me?#i love the focus on wwx's trust issues as trust issues! problems that he's had with lwj specifically before!#and the solution isn't just oh well lwj is perfectly trustworthy #though that's obviously part of it #wwx has to like. decide for himself to do some things differently this time around in order to reap the rewards of being really in it with #someone. and lwj does too! it's a journey they're on together #i have simply rambled in all directions i'm sorry anon

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