“oh I’m 100% human” says the Batkid who’s been inoculated against 76 different kinds of Scarecrow’s fear toxin, has built up immunity to almost anything Poison Ivy has created, routinely goes diving into the Gotham harbor on patrol, has been blessed/cursed by a variety of deities (depending on the kid), frequently picks up random/temporary powers from various missions, and operates at beyond peak human capabilities in combat, athleticism, and intelligence.
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Now that the post is over 10k and my notes are straight-up unusable...
One thing I wish I'd spelled out more explicitly in the original post because I see this point getting lost on a lot of rebloggers who don't understand why the healthcare thing was such a big deal is like
The subtext I thought would be understood bc I lived back then but apparently has been lost today is that making sure queer employees and their partners had healthcare in the early 90s meant Disney was paying for a lot of AIDS treatment.
This is one reason fundie Christians were so upset and queer employees were so grateful. It's one reason why it was such a controversial decision. It was a major talking point amongst my family, who believed back then that AIDS was a punishment from God.
(Some still do, I think. We don't talk.)
I keep seeing people saying that Disney only chose that option "because of their bottom line" and it's like??? Were you listening??? Disney has been paying for that decision for literally decades, but they've stood by it.
Like... the 90s weren't like now! It wasn't profitable to cater to the queer population of the country back then. They weren't raking in money with this.
It's in no way a perfect company but I fully believe in criticizing people for the specific things they do wrong and praising them for the specific things they do right. Disney has fucked copyright, monopoly, and labor laws and I'm not about to defend that. But they are well known in FL for being friendly to both queer people and disabled people, and that is unambiguously a good thing.
(Like side note, I could talk about Disney and accessibility for days. I have traveled extensively while disabled and no one does it like Disney.)
I've had people reblogging the post like "I straight-up don't believe Disney is an industry leader in equal protections for queer employees" and it's like ??? do you think I just pulled this out of my ass? If you want more information, go look it up! You'll see that this is well-established history. It's not my fault y'all don't read! :|
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Hey so not to be dramatic but has anyone else come back to this site and rediscovered the joys the internet has? Like, I've been active recently but today because of the reddit protests, I couldn't do my mindless scrolling there. Because of that, today I've been really digging in here and there's so much??? stuff??? and it's all beautiful and funny!
Anything I've seen before feels nostalgic instead of bots reposting for internet points, and whenever I finish the stuff on my dash I just find a new blog and suddenly I'm in a whole new world! I've had this blog since August of 2014, and over those 9 years I've forgotten that the internet can be good!
So thank you all for keeping the old internet alive and well in places like this hellsite, and here's to watching it lap other social media platforms by doing absolutely nothing
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Hua Cheng's Very Different Loves
There is often a fundamental misunderstanding of Hua Cheng's love for Xie Lian. The biggest of them was Mu Qing and Feng Xin's assumption at seeing the Cave of Ten Thousand Gods.
They see Hua Cheng as obsessive, dangerous. And given the history with Bai Wuxian, yeah, not entirely in the wrong for that assumption.
It's hard to understand that Hua Cheng is one who has truly separated his devotion from his romantic love for Xie Lian. Because devotion/worship of a god and love of a person are different.
At least until now, the devout and obsessive level of worship that Hua Cheng exhibits is the first type. The type of a religious devotee. And that cave, that's what we see. Hua Cheng did not make the sculptures and the paintings for Xie Lian exactly, he didn't do it with a plan to bring Xie Lian there and ask for praise, he did it because Xie Lian was his totem, the very thing that could center him even at times of extreme suffering to pull through. Religious love is not something that expects reciprocation, it's not something that requires anything of the subject of worship except their existence. And the Hua Cheng of the past 800 years poured his obsessive love into this type of love, the love that he does not have any expectations for.
We know that Hua Cheng also felt the other type of love. His sexual awakening was downright traumatic. Seriously, imagine being fourteen, and having to defend your beloved god from sex demons who are forcing you to realize that your devotion to your god has an edge of desire, all while said god is stabbing himself to keep from acting on the extreme discomfort of sexual urges forced on him by those same damn sex demons. No wonder Hua Cheng is so absolutely freaked out and a little disgusted about harboring that type of love for Xie Lian.
When Hua Cheng finally finds Xie Lian again after 800 years, I fundamentally believe that Hua Cheng would have been content with an existence of watching over and protecting his god from the sidelines. His devotion mattering more than that sliver of self-loathing desire that would never be erased.
The story we got to read though, the one that makes TGCF so special is the way that the other love grows between Xie Lian and Hua Cheng. They enjoy each other's company, enjoy teasing and talking, enjoy the little touches that they share. When Hua Cheng talks about his beloved, he speaks of his romantic love and winning over that person. He speaks of it shyly, because he knows it is something that has to be shared and has to grow naturally. It's what makes their love story so very human, because Hua Cheng treated his religious love and his desirous love as completely separate from each other. And the best part? Xie Lian knows this, understands this, has no doubt about this.
It means that the scene in the cave, where both Feng Xin and Mu Qing mistook Hua Cheng's obsessive devotion for obsessive desire, Xie Lian recognizes correctly.
And Xie Lian reciprocates those romantic feelings.
I like to picture those days that Xie Lian wakes up and finds the other side of his bed empty, then wanders to the Thousand Lights Temple to see Hua Cheng there changing the single white flower in his god's hands, then bowing his head and saying a prayer. Xie Lian rolls his eyes, because well, he's right there, but it's Hua Cheng's ritual, and whether they are husbands, whether they had rough and enjoyable sex the night before, Hua Cheng won't slack on his religious love just because he gets to share romantic love with his husband and god.
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