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khattikeri · 1 month

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maybe a controversial opinion but while i really love jiang cheng as a character he is deeply self-centered as a person. and seeing people fight tooth and nail claiming he isn't, or is just misunderstood, or that he has genuine valid reasons to be selfish when plenty of other characters make the difficult choice to forego status and opportunities for what they believe is genuinely right to do (read: wei wuxian, wen ning, wen qing, lan wangji, jiang yanli, mianmian, etc.)

it's just odd to me. especially if they're talking about the novels.

mxtx didn't give jiang cheng the name "sandu shengshou" as a quirky coincidence. there's a REASON she named him & his sword after the 3 poisons of Buddhism (specifically ignorance, greed, and hatred). it's crucial to the story that jiang cheng is NOT selfless and that wei wuxian IS.

it's important to accept that wei wuxian is, by their society's standards, not morally gray; he represents several Buddhist ideals in direct contrast of jiang cheng and multiple people attest to wei wuxian's strong moral character, which is a lot of why jiang cheng even feels bitter about him to begin with.

it's crucial, because by the end of the novel jiang cheng realizes the extent of this and begins to let go!

the twin prides thing wasn't jiang cheng wanting them to 100% mirror the twin jades. he does care about wei wuxian, but he wanted wei wuxian to stay his right hand man, in part the way wei changze was for jiang fengmian.

and if there's one thing you can notice about wei changze in the novels, it's that literally nobody talks about him. he is only ever mentioned when his cool mysterious mountain sect wife cangse-sanren is mentioned, or (even more rarely) when they discuss him as a servant to jiang fengmian. regardless of jiang fengmian's own feelings, wei changze was considered lesser to him and didn't seem to outdo him, since nobody's out there years later still waxing poetry about wei changze's skills.

it may not be the only thing jiang cheng wants out of a twin pride dynamic, but it is a big part of it. regardless of his parents' intentions in taking wei wuxian in and treating him certain ways, this twin pride right-hand man thing is what jiang cheng has felt owed since childhood. he gave up his dogs for wei wuxian, people gossip about his sect heir position with wei wuxian there... jiang cheng wants the reciprocation of what he views as personal sacrifices.

he is ignorant to the depth of what wei wuxian must've suffered for over 6 years as a malnourished orphan child on the streets. he hates how wei wuxian's intelligence, witty charm, and cultivation abilities are naturally stronger than his own. he does care about wei wuxian a lot and want them to be together as sort of-brothers, sort of-friends, sort of-young master and sect servant...

...but if it's between that unclear (yet still caring) relationship and being able to save himself just a little bit more, jiang cheng nearly always manages to clam up in the face of danger and choose the latter, which ultimately benefits himself most. maybe it's a stretch to call that sort of thing greed, but it certainly isn't selfless.

there are of course plenty of justifications for this. it's his duty as sect heir. his home and sect was severely damaged by the wen attack and subsequent war; he had to protect himself, etc.

but doesn't that prove the point?

wei wuxian may be charming, but in terms of pure social standing, he is lower and far more susceptible to being punished or placed in harm's way by people who have more power and money. to protect wei wuxian, yunmeng jiang's long-term head disciple and semi-family member, even in the face of backlash and public scrutiny would've been the selfless thing to do. this is what wei wuxian does for the wen remnants in the burial mounds.

jiang cheng does not choose this. it's not even an unreasonable choice for him to make! nobody else in the great clans is doing such a thing, stepping out of line to take on a burden that could weaken them in the long-run. wei wuxian himself doesn't hate jiang cheng for it; he lets go of these things and focuses on what good he can do in the present.

jiang cheng thinks further into the future - what would happen to him if he continued vouching for wei wuxian and taking his side? what about jiang cheng's face, his sect's face? would wei wuxian even care to reciprocate somehow? everyone expects him to cut off wei wuxian for being dangerous, for threatening his position, for...

do you see what i mean? to call jiang cheng selfless for falling in line with exactly what people expected him to do after the war is not only wrong, it's foolish.

"but they faked their falling-out!" okay. why fake it to begin with, except to protect jiang cheng and the jiang sect's own face? is that selfless? who does it ultimately serve to protect? wei wuxian canonically internalizes the idea that he stains all that he touches, including lan wangji, and agrees to the fake fight because he doesn't want to cause the jiang sect harm. regardless, it eventually slides into a true falling-out, and in the end jiang cheng is more or less unscathed reputation-wise while wei wuxian falls.

that isn't selfless. it's many things! it's respecting his clan and his ancestors, it's making a good plan for the future of his sect and cultivation... but it isn't a truly selfless in the interest of what's right rather than in the interest of duty and what's good for him and his family lineage.

that brings me to my next point: even though wei wuxian hid the truth of the golden core transfer, jiang cheng spent nearly 20 years believing that the golden core "renewal" he was given was a birthright gift of wei wuxian's from baoshan-sanren, an immortal sect teacher of wei wuxian's mother's and a martial elder to wei wuxian.

of course we all know that's a big fat lie, but jiang cheng believed that wei wuxian gave up a critical emergency use gift to him for decades! he was lied to, yes, but jiang cheng immediately agreed without even needing to be convinced. the light in his dead eyes came back with hope the moment wei wuxian even said baoshan-sanren's name. he accepted wei wuxian's offer to give that up to him and take it via identity theft without missing a beat.

with how mysterious and revered baoshan-sanren is, that's obviously not a light sacrifice to just give up to anyone, no matter how close they might be to you. pretending to be wei wuxian to take the gift could even be considered dangerous. what if she found out and got offended? could wei wuxian be hurt by that?

jiang cheng doesn't even hesitate. wei wuxian is the one who mentions that if jiang cheng doesn't pretend to be him, the immortal master could get angry and they'd both be goners. and funnily enough, the day they do go to "the mountain", jiang cheng is the one worried and suspiciously wondering if wei wuxian was lying to him or had misremembered.

of course they've both been traumatized like hell prior to this point. but still: it speaks to how broken he was at the moment as well as to his character overall.

i digress: jiang cheng "gets his golden core back" via what he believed was a gift that should've been wei wuxian's to use in serious emergencies. rather than use it for himself, wei wuxian risked his own safety and gave it to jiang cheng... and jiang cheng still ends up embittered and angry, believing that wei wuxian is arrogant and selfish.

if he truly views them as 100% brothers and equals with no caveats, why would he think that way? it's not like he needs to grovel before wei wuxian for doing that, or to reciprocate... but this is what i mean when i say jiang cheng feels he is owed things by wei wuxian. wei wuxian's actions hold a very different weight in jiang cheng's mind, and jiang cheng himself doesn't ever act the same way, except once.

is it wrong for him to feel like he is owed something? it depends. many asian cultures, including my own, feel that a person owes their family in ways that may not make sense to westerners. for example, it's considered normal for a child to owe their parents for giving birth to them, or to other caretakers for feeding, clothing, sheltering, educating them, etc.

however, something like verbally saying "thank you" or "i'm sorry" to family is considered crazy- why would you owe that? you're supposed to inconvenience your family; saying thank you or sorry is the sort of thing you say to a stranger or acquaintance. i get half-seriously lectured by my elders on this a lot even now, even though they know such phrases are just considered good manners in the US.

this muddies up the idea of wei wuxian being jiang cheng's family vs his family's charge or servant even more. jiang cheng wants wei wuxian to be close... but ultimately doesn't really choose to use what power he DOES have to protect wei wuxian. he considers himself still owed something that in his mind wei wuxian flagrantly never repays.

this isn't even getting into how despite spending a majority of his time with the yiling patriarch he never once noticed that wei wuxian stopped using any spiritual power-based cultivation. even lan wangji, who met them far more rarely, realized that something was wrong and that wei wuxian had taken some sort of spiritual damage, hence the "come with me to gusu".

of course manpain is fun and i'm not immune to the juicy idea of them reconciling and talking things out... but jiang cheng is deeply mired in his own desire to be "above" wei wuxian in multiple ways, and doesn't realize the extent of wei wuxian's actions, the intentions behind them, and the consequences wei wuxian knowingly faced for them.

to not recognize this about jiang cheng, especially in the novels, is really revisionist if you ask me. i reiterate that i really do like him a lot. he's flawed, angry, traumatized and has poor coping mechanisms, an overall fascinating character... but he is not selfless nor ideal, and i seriously draw the line at people saying he is.

wen ning shoves this all into his face at lotus pier to disastrous results. it is the reason why jiang cheng's a total mess at guanyin temple, and the reason jiang cheng ultimately doesn't tell wei wuxian about the fact that he ran towards the wens on purpose.

for that one last act of his to have really been selfless, he needs to not seek anything in return. he did it purely because it was right to do to protect someone else. if that means wei wuxian never finds out about it, so be it.

that moment that ended up causing jiang cheng irreversible harm is not a debt that wei wuxian owes him. it hurts, but no matter how bitter it is, that realization is so important to him changing in the future.

#keri chats #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #jiang cheng #long post #this is NOT anti/crit for him btw i like him a lot i just feel like nobody interprets him the way i perceive him #which even then my interpretation is p nebulous... worth saying i also heavily disagree w ppl who think of him as an evil shithead #he's upper class & steeped in jianghu politics/self preservation. flawed as hell human being but they're all war criminals lbr it's #Magical Genocide and War Crimes: The Novel #anyway this post is messy as fuck but if u read all of it: thank u. if u agree with me: ilu. i wish more ppl understood revenge ethics #as they stand in asian cultures and history vs in western (almost always culturally christian) cultures #it's unclear how far in the future the extras are but at one pt he's ''the same as ever'' which at best indicates slow emotional growth #and like. ykw? i don't think he'll be repressed bitter angry thinking abt his losses n pain forever. i think he can grow i believe in him #i have so many thoughts on this i could've made this post go on forever augh

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lunanoc · 7 months

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first tentative meta post about wu xie my beloved, more specifically about his characterization in his less than stellar moments, sparked by a discussion with @thelaithlyworm about whether or not the lost tomb 2.5 is in character for wu xie according to the books. i figured i'd take the rest of my thoughts to a separate post since our exchange was clogging up poor OP’s replies, and because i feel like a difference in opinion like this is worth being made public if only so people can get both sides of a rare discussion about the books and reach their own conclusions, so for those who are interested here’s a link to the original post where this discussion takes place in the replies if you'd like the full context. sorry in advance for how long this will likely be, and i hope there's no problem with me directly tackling some of the arguments that were made in favor of lost tomb 2.5 being an accurate adaptation of book wu xie's characterization, which is a take i strongly disagree with

i think much of the problem in the discussion simply lies in the fact that we seem to have fundamentally different interpretations of wu xie’s character in the books, because as i see it, none of the insistences that were quoted prove that wu xie has ever acted the way he does in 2.5 in the books—if anything, they disprove it. the quote from ch. 92 of sand sea that was brought up goes as follows:

this is where i believe the problem of different interpretations is at play, and to be fair some of it is ambiguous so there is some leeway, but i read this recollection very differently from how @thelaithlyworm seems to. as i see it, wu xie is recalling a time where pangzi, understandably concerned about his friend because he sees the toll the sha hai plan is taking on wu xie, and the lengths he’s having to go to in order to set it in motion, tells him it’s not too late to stop and turn back. to which wu xie replies that even if he had decided to stop and live his life blissfully unaware of the extent of the wangs' reach and their machinations, things would have caught up to him eventually given they’d infiltrated the jiumen to the extent they had.

“and at that time you’ll have already left me one by one, leaving me to foolishly face those fists” is the most ambiguous as to what exactly it's referring to, but i personally see it as referencing either the fact wu xie and his friends would have by then eventually drifted apart or they'd have stopped giving him their support should he have decided to ignore the truth and sit around doing nothing, or more sinisterly, would have potentially all been replaced by then if there hadn't been a plan in motion. it's likely a little bit of both. to which pangzi replies that he’s right, conceding and agreeing that wu xie never truly had a choice about his involvement to begin with, which is more or less the entire point of sand sea and the wider narrative of the main story.

no part of this conversation is reminiscent of the open conflict between them in 2.5 in that neither of them here are angry, and neither of them are even aggressive or antagonistic towards each other or in general. this is quite a calm if resigned conversation wu xie is recalling that also fits the overall cynical tone of the chapter itself, and wu xie’s certainly not acting out and pushing his friends away in a bid to deal with everything himself. if anything the entire point of sand sea is to show that despite each character acting independently, the sha hai plan only succeeded because they worked together and not alone, and that wu xie needed his support system to create an invisible yet tangilble network that could take down the wangs. so no part of this particular passage reads as though pangzi is saying he ever considered bailing on wu xie because of his behavior, and even if that were the case, it would still be referring to a hypothetical situation and not their current one.

wang meng's behavior in ten years later is also not the greatest example to use as an argument to prove 2.5 wu xie’s characterization is present in the books, mostly because it's actually wang meng himself who's more so the one acting like that than wu xie himself. wang meng, in his concern for wu xie, tries to guilt trip him into letting go of his obsession with xiaoge, and he is the one who instigates a conflict with wu xie that culminates in him staging xiaoge's "death" as a last ditch effort once spewing bottled up vitriol at wu xie and threatening to take over wushanju don't work.

it's however misguided at best given that not only did all of wu xie's close friends who participated in the sha hai plan agree to do so willingly (i’m of course not talking about li cu and co among others who very much did not consent) and so accusing wu xie of having coerced them takes away from their own agency, but the sha hai plan was a necessity beyond freeing xiaoge, which is something wang meng fails to understand. wang meng makes the mistake many people in the fandom do of pinning wu xie’s determination to see that plan through solely on his desire to free xiaoge, and of course that’s an important part of it, but the narrative makes a point of building up over the course of the main books and tibetan sea flower that wu xie’s entire family was at stake as well, and had been for several generations, so on a personal level it went beyond xiaoge alone. but again, whatever truth there is to wang meng’s words (which is an interesting but entirely different topic) still doesn’t make it true that wu xie was either actively petty or vitriolic towards his friends as a way to vent his own frustrations.

several moments in which wu xie objectively does terrible things or acts horribly were listed as a way of justifying that his behavior in 2.5 is in character and in line with how he acts in the books. and of course these moments do happen, and it's very true in sand sea especially that wu xie does terrible things (it's part of what makes him such an interesting character). but again, this argument feels somewhat in bad faith in that it conflates all negative behavior and traits together regardless of what specific shape those negative behaviors take in order to justify that his portrayal in 2.5 is faithful to the books simply because he displays negative behavior in that adaptation, completely disregarding that his less than stellar actions and emotions aren't expressed in the same ways in the books and in 2.5. my dislike of wu xie in 2.5 doesn't stem from him doing unlikeable things, otherwise i wouldn't like wu xie as a character in general. wu xie absolutely does do a lot of terrible things in sand sea especially, but the inherent problem with 2.5 is that none of the things he does or the way he acts in the books ever lines up with the specific way he acts in 2.5.

in the books, even before sand sea, yes wu xie is manipulative (re: threatening bodily harm to himself to force wu erbai into sharing information with him), yes he cut up bodies and sent them to li cu among other extremely morally questionable things, yes he kidnapped li cu and made him go through literal hell, and likely did much the same to other people before him (hence the seventeen scars on his arm). he has and continues to have even in recent book canon re: yucun biji the ability and will to inflict permanent psychic damage on people he deems to be deserving of it or a threat. he’s by no means perfect or even overly kind, and if someone were to say that a number of the earlier drama adaptations especially soften his character and make him much more wide-eyed and innocent than he actually is in the books, i would absolutely agree with them. i would also agree if someone said that gap in characterization is why some people don’t like him much in the sand sea drama. but the fact is for all the negative traits and behavior he displays at varying points in the books, none of them are ever expressed in the very specific way they are in 2.5.

@thelaithlyworm rightfully mentions wu xie's ptsd as justification for much of his more "toxic" reactions to things, and his ptsd is incredibly important in understanding how wu xie works as a character and what his experiences have forged him into, to the point it's a topic that deserves its own in-depth post. but saying we have different definitions of what ptsd is is both accurate to the complex nature of ptsd, and a bit disingenious because of the complex nature of ptsd, because the emotional dysregulation and impaired decision-making it entails won’t necessarily manifest in the same ways in different people.

in 2.5 wu xie, ptsd manifests in the form of vitriol and anger he directs at pretty much everyone in his immediate vicinity, more especially pangzi, because it has no other outlet in that situation than outwards. and i’m not saying ptsd expressing itself like that never happens, because it very much does. what i'm saying is that book wu xie's ptsd, while very real, doesn't manifest in the way it does in 2.5 wu xie.

in book wu xie, ptsd manifests in much more internalized ways, and so he’s far more prone to directing the anger and pent-up emotions inwards through self-harm, both mental and physical (i.e. the scars on his arm, his persistent self-hatred, etc.), and the emotional dysregulation very often comes not in the form of chaotically expressed emotions, but rather abnormal lack of them, as arguably wu xie's bad coping mechanism is emotional dissociation, and when the emotions are truly too strong to be distanced from, they come out in the form of panic attacks he often doesn’t recognize as such (i.e. when he finds xiaoge and believes he’s dead in book 8, or when he has flashbacks on their way to motuo in yucun traveling notes) or of general breakdowns (i.e. wu xie stays numb once xiaoge disappears behind the gate up until he starts crying in the street once he returns to hangzhou).

it’s incredibly rare that wu xie’s trauma directs itself outwards towards his loved ones, and while he might do so in his head quite frequently (which we the readers see since most of the books are from wu xie's point of view), it's rare he actually externalizes it, and since his comments can only lead to conflict if they're extrernalized, there's rarely ever genuine conflict between him and his friends. one of the only times it happens with pangzi specifically is in tibetan sea flower were he makes an honestly cruel dig at pangzi about yuncai because pangzi’s withheld information about xiaoge from him:

but even this scene, which is the closest to anything that's portrayed in 2.5 between them, plays out differently, not only because wu xie knows very well he’s going too far, his mention of yuncai isn't solely an outlet for his anger. he’s very consciously trying to bait pangzi into telling him what he knows, and so aims at where he knows will hurt most. it's targeted and mean because it's meant to be, but it's also not a gratuitious outlet either unlike his comments are more often than not in 2.5. it's manipulation, and he's certainly not trying to push pangzi away, nor is it driving a wedge between them despite how uncalled for his comment it. and more importantly, pangzi once again proves himself to be the most emotionally stable of the iron triangle by not stooping to that level or making light of the conversation. he knows perfectly well what wu xie is doing, so any conflict is diffused before it can even take root, and stays an isolated incident, whereas in 2.5, conflict is an underlying theme.

ironically there are more examples of this type directed at xiaoge, but even those don't showcase the same blind anger or gratuitous meanness that 2.5 wu xie consistently displays, and it's that specifically that's out of character. while wu xie vents his frustrations at xiaoge in book 4 over being kept in the dark, he's more serious about it than angry, and very quickly realizes his foot-in-mouth comment and backtracks accordingly:

he's at his most openly angry with xiaoge at the end of book 8 when xiaoge leaves them all in banai, and even goes as far as trying to have xiaoge detained by qiu dekao in a last ditch effort to force him to stay (which in itself is the real manifestation of him not being able to control his emotions correctly and reason going out the window where xiaoge is concerned, and it only ever really happens in relation to xiaoge, but that's also a topic for another post):

but again, while he's visibly angry and upset, and is looking for support from others around him to validate his upset at xiaoge leaving, he never actually spews any vitriol at xiaoge himself despite his anger being obvious, never actually calls him names outside of his own head despite the rare quality of his anger, never tries to instigate conflict for the sake of venting his overflowing emotions, nor does he ultimately stop xiaoge from leaving. even later as he follows xiaoge up changbai mountain, his desperation eventually turns into resignation and acceptance, not venting.

this post is way too long, but my entire point here as it has been from the start of this discussion is that while wu xie in the books does get angry, he does have ptsd, it does manifest in the ugliest ways and he's certainly not an angel, his anger in general never veers into extended open conflict or gratuitous vitriol thrown at his loved ones as a misguided form of venting his own emotions like it does throughout the vast majority of lost tomb 2.5, just like a number of the conflicts he gets into with other characters stem from out of character reactions from those characters to begin with (i.e. xiao hua absolutely losing it over wu xie hiding wu sanxing's betrayal of xie lianhuan in 2.5 vs. this information being very casually received in book 7). and that's where my point of contention with that adaptation lies.

i feel as though this is a case of agreeing to disagree as far as interpretation of wu xie's character goes, and that's absolutely fine, but in the same way that it's alright to dislike things simply because, it's equally as alright to like things for the same reasons. it's fine to like lost tomb 2.5, and my opinion of it is purely my own, but liking it doesn't necessarily have to be rooted in whether it's adapting the books correctly, even if it can be.

my dislike of 2.5 stems from how i consider it to be out of character by comparison to the books, and my entire point here has been to explain that different interpretations of any particular source material can exist, and therefore yes, it's entirely possible to view 2.5 wu xie as out of character, just as it's entirely possible to dislike that adaptation for the same reason. and i'm far from the only person to have this interpretation. so no, my dislike of 2.5 doesn't come from not liking it when wu xie’s doing unlikeable things, or else i wouldn't like wu xie as a character, nor is it because i don’t understand what ptsd is given the particular ways in which it can manifest from one specific person to another

#i just have strong opinions about this sorry if it's coming off strong #and i'm perfectly willing to debate with quotes etc #but lbr there's a reason lost tomb 2.5 is more or less unanimously the most disliked adaptation across the board #both in the western fandom and chinese fandom #though tbf the chinese fandom doesn't tend to like the dramas all that much in general #which is valid sometimes tbh given some of the takes i've seen about dmbj as a whole from people who refuse to touch the books but well #still #first wu xie meta #exciting #dmbj #dmbj meta #wu xie #dmbj novels #lost tomb 2.5

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allgremlinart · 5 months

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#God I hope they stick to their guns and create an even weirder genre for the (hypothetical) next series... ...

#like I get why some people didnt like tlok. its because they went into it expecting cartoon #wuxia (like atla) and got. weird cartoon wuxia comic book diesel punk. some people just dont like #that western comics vibe !! which I get but. god. hashtag keep avatar weird ... . who's with me.. .#like its 100% the Watanabe influence too.... I think people who DONT like that WOULD love the Kyoshi novels tho

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niightfiend · 1 year

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Some Higurashi sketches 🌟✨

#been playing the visual novel #it’s literally so good sobs #personal #drawing #art #sketch #doodle #Higurashi no naku koro ni #Higurashi #Rena ryuugu #Rena ryugu #keiichi maebara #mion sonozaki #god although I really don’t like the newest manga arc #I wanna do a fix it fic about them being older. but at the same time I wanna do a western version of Higurashi too #I know it would change a lot but I’m interested in an AU like that #also life is Strange AU bc of course but who said that

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wonder-worker · 2 months

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people really do not know what they're talking about when it comes to Elizabeth Woodville's social status, huh?

#yes Elizabeth was without a doubt considered too low-born to be queen #no she was not a commoner and nobody actually called her that during her life (so I'm not sure why people are claiming that they did?)#Elizabeth's social status was not a problem in itself; it was a problem in the context of queenship and marrying into royalty #Context is important in this and for literally everything else when it comes to analyzing history. Any discussion is worthless without it.#obviously pop culture-esque articles claiming that she was 'a commoner who captured the king's heart' are wrong; she wasn't #But emphasizing that ACTUALLY she was part of the gentry with a well-born mother and just leaving it at that as some sort of “GOTCHA!”#is equally if not more irresponsible and entirely irrelevant to discussions of the actual time period we're studying.#Elizabeth *was* considered unworthy and unacceptable as queen precisely because of her lower social status #her father and brother had literally been derided as social-climbers by Salisbury Warwick and Edward himself just a few years earlier #the Woodvilles' marriage prospects clearly reflected their status (and 'place') in society: EW herself had first married a knight and all #siblings married within the gentry to people of a similar status. compare that to the prestigious marriages arranged after EW became queen #Elizabeth having a lower social status was not 'created' by propaganda against her; it fueled and shaped propaganda against her #that's a huge huge difference; it's irresponsible and silly to conflate the two as I've seen a recent tumblr post cavalierly do #like I said she was considered too low-born to be queen long before any of the propaganda Warwick Clarence or Richard put out against her #and the fact that Elizabeth was targeted on the basis of her social status was in itself novel and unprecedented #no queen before her was ever targeted in such a manner; Clearly Elizabeth was considered notably 'different' in that regard #(and was quite literally framed as the enemy and destroyer of 'the old royal blood of this realm' and all its actual 'inheritors' like..)#ngl this sort of discussion always leaves a bad taste in my mouth #because it's not like England and France (et all) are at war or consider each other mortal enemies in the 21st century #both are in fact western european imperialistic nations who've been nothing but a blight to the rest of the world including my own country #yet academic historians clearly have no problem contextualizing the xenophobia that medieval foreign queens faced as products of their time #and sympathizing with them accordingly (Eleanor of Provence; Joan of Navarre; Margaret of Anjou; etc)(at least by their own historians)#Nor were foreign queens the “worst” targets of xenophobia: that was their attendants or in times of war commoners or soldiers #who actually had to bear the brunt of English aggression #queens were ultimately protected and guaranteed at least a veneer of dignity and respect because of their royal status #yet once again historians and people have no problem contextualizing and understanding their difficulties regardless of all this #so what is the problem with contextualizing the classism *Elizabeth* faced and understanding *her* difficulties?#why is the prejudice against her constantly diminished & downplayed? (Ive never even seen any historian directly refer to it as 'classism')#after all it was *Elizabeth* who was more vulnerable than any queen before her due to her lack of powerful foreign or national support #and Elizabeth who faced a form of propaganda distinctly unprecedented for queens. it SHOULD be emphasized more.

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microwaving-tesilid-argente · 1 month

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eyes snap open. genderbend hestio/ephael lesbians. ephael flops herself on hestio all the time and gives her kisses all over just to annoy her.

#hesphael #s class heroine somehow manages to make the men very not fruity imo so like. i dont think they would do anything that can be construed as #not masculine #which means that if i want to see ephael annoy hestio in this specific way i got to genderbend them. so genderbend them it is #but also i want to see them do other cute things like give each other nicknames and gossip even more about others #and plot to kill everyone who dares to touch tesilina #anyway if anyone has suggestions for renames for hestio and ephael and their nicknames... please drop them 😔#tesilid is teslilina bc the novel alr gave us that. might need to check the spelling tho.#shes nicknamed tes bc her name is too long #which means hestio is stuck as hestio bc hes sounds too similar #i feel like hestio is gender neutral enough but ephael is like. definitely masculine. so im stuck lol #irinbi please share your secrets how do you come up with such perfect names #they dont show up on google at all even if you search only the first names #and yet they clearly have some kind of western influence. dont know enough to say what kind but its there #anyway ephael keeps loudly dropping hints that she likes hestio and hestio keeps thinking its banter #tesilina stands over there watching her two friends be idiots

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neroraven · 2 years

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just finished Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#god he's such a MALE writer #can't believe people actually like this book #like I enjoyed some sideplots and characters but the overall thesis of the novel is just...#fyodor be like #dimitri is a hedonist like his father and a piece of shit but the poor babyboy gets sent to jail when innocent boo hoo #ivan is an atheist and a western influence of liberalism so fvck him he's the murderer and the devil actually #and ofc alyosha the orthodox christian who is THE MOST PASSIVE CHARACTER WHO DOESN'T KNOW SHIT AND DOESN'T DO SHIT IS THE BEST BOY EVER #it's almost like a celebration of nativity and ignorance and a condemnation of knowledge #god #fvck this book #and I can't even start to talk about the way he write women #he really was like all the women are insufferable femme fatals and all the mothers are dead and also women have to cure men of their demons #at least we can read it as a perfect portrait of the horrendous world men create #suffer under its rules and terrors #and then cry about their suffering whose sole authors are men themselves #the only character who interested me was ivan but fyodor thinks of him as the devil of the novel so there is that #and i suffer #brothers karamazov #fyodor dostoyevsky #m

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cruelsister-moved2 · 11 months

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I feel like almost every book I read lately no matter how long it is I end up completely losing steam for the last 15% or so, almost universally especially with newer books I really feel like it's the obsession with completeness like. so many books could be instantly improved by removing the last 10% to leave things more open and let the reader fill things in for themselves and finish your story on an emotionally high note rather than giving me like 40 pages of a completely different genre bc now this high fantasy collapses into a cutesy little slice of life thing while u tie up every possible loose end

#it's also the classic pitfall of. if u like ur characters too much #ur like. yay I finished the Stuff that has to happen now I can spend the last 3 chapters just playing with them like dolls #I get it but that is for you to upload as a fanfiction or something. let western authors do extras like in cnovels LOL #actually feel like the cnovels ive read had way better endings for this exact reason ive cracked it omg #ALSO actually the thing w newer novels is several of them seemed to just kind of press pause on the plot at tbis point #she who became the sun had like i guess loads of stuff still happening at the end #but there was this super weird fall in pacing that was just them hanging out and fistinf and nothing happening #and then it's like oh yeah. plot again #like fist her in ur war tent before u have to go out n fight in the morning that would be better why can't we integrate..

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wickedhawtwexler · 2 years

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i joined writer twitter in an attempt to make some writer friends and learn about the publishing world and y'all it is LITERALLY worse than 2012 tumblr out there. every day i see the WORST takes of my entire life

#someone said ''it's obvious when a writer doesn't read''#and APPARENTLY it is unforgivably ableist to expect people to write books to also read them!!!#like how do you expect to be able to write a form of media you do not consume!!!!!#like i am a proud owner of a broken ass brain i get that it's hard to read consistently but you still have to read SOMETIMES #if you want to write books that are decent!!! i don't think that's ableist i think that's just how writing works!!!#and then someone else was talking about finding comps (similar already published books) & was admittedly a lil snarky about it #but apparently this is every single ism in the entire world!!!#like i think there ARE books out there that don't have obvious comps! the publishing world is very westernized & straight & abled etc.!#but most of the ppl yelling about this are literally writing fairytale retellings Except Now It's Two Princes™!!!#like sweetie please go to your local barnes and noble you will find a hundred books you can use as comps i promise #and then there's a bunch of ppl just straight up ignoring the fact that comps are not supposed to be 100% like ur novel!!!#like. you can compare one element! oh both mcs are bisexual women with adhd! both books have themes of grief!#and now everyone has decided that comps are bad and we shouldn't use them and implying we should makes you Bad #i think comps can be useful. i think 90% of ppl who think their books have no comps have just not looked #ughhHHH it's so annoying but i do get some good writing tips on here #m.txt

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natandacat · 2 years

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When and how did Tolkien become this super woke anti capitalist anti racist icon? Anyhow it's time to stop.

#this is insane it used to be only the vaguely to explicitly white supremacist academic gatekeepers who Defended his Legacy #but now its more and more minority fans who I guess are fighting back against that by saying NO ACTUALLY tolkien was WOKE #he.. wasnt? he was complex sure and had some good ideals #but also eeeeeeesh he was a pied noir he was a rich english man he was an intense catholic he had Some Ideas on western civilization #im def not the most literate on his life but even just looking at the text????#lotr has a LOT of extremely criticizable material #the whole dwarf thing... like ok he was anti nazi it doesnt mean he didnt have antisemitic ideas and concepts!!!#half of europe was anti nazi AND violently antisemitic. if you know an ounce of history you realize that this famous letter means fuck all #except that. there are reasons why that nazi publisher was so interested in his novels lol and like. oopsie. but still true!

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fingertipsmp3 · 2 years

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Writing a genre I have literally never written before and have barely even read is probably not the best idea, but I’m going to do it apparently

#it’s a western. specifically i have got a gay cowboy who’s in love with a werewolf and i think there’s also going to be at least one vampire #picking off the townspeople one by one #i’m thinking of setting this in california during the gold rush so to be honest the townspeople in question are probably mostly going to be #random opportunistic men #see it’s not like i have NO knowledge of westerns as a genre. i’ve read shane and i also saw the movie. i’ve seen my darling clementine #i’ve seen and read brokeback mountain. i’ve read 2 cormac mccarthy novels. i’ve read jack london as well #i did actually take a class on literature of the frontier during undergrad but honestly most of the novels were so bad i didn’t finish them #the ones listed above are simply the ones i finished #i did also read the cowboy bible but that one was so bad i sincerely hope i don’t accidentally base anything off it #so uhh. yeah. that’s where we’re at #i nearly forgot that i also read the first dark tower book but honestly i didn’t like it at all so i erased it from my brain #i mean maybe it’s a good thing that i don’t know much about the genre going in. maybe that will allow for originality #or maybe (probably; definitely) this’ll just turn into a big mess #half-urban (or rural?) fantasy; half some random depressed bisexual’s idea of what a western might be #based on about three movies; five books and a misplaced desire to put michael in a cowboy hat and boots #(i’ve gotta put michael in a cowboy hat and boots. for science)#personal

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gingerswagfreckles · 8 months

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I think people need to understand that when someone says the situation in Israel/Palestine is complicated they are not necessarily saying that the discussion of who the oppressor vs oppressed is complicated. The Israeli government has been oppressing the Palestinians for a very long time, that is clear, and it is not complicated to understand that at least since the 80s they have had dramatically more financial and military power to keep control of the territory in the way they like.

However, it is reductive and dismissive to insist that there is no complexity in the potential ways to move forward to bring peace to the region. Despite what people on tumblr.edu like to believe, "Israel should never have been created" is not a practical solution to an incredibly heated geopolitical situation in the present day. Israel was created and it does exist. 10 million people live there. 74% of the population is native born and the country has existed for 75 years. Hand waving these fact away with the opinion that "they should move back to where they came from" may make you feel good about being a Radical Leftist, but it does not give anyone a road map for how exactly millions of people without dual citizenship are supposed to just up and evaporate. Nor does it acknowledge the reality that 21% of Israelis are Arabs, the very people you are claiming to want to give the land back to.

Insisting that there's nothing complicated about expecting an entire country's population to willingly dissappear with no consequences is not a productive way to think about this conflict. It ignores the many massive superpowers that have an interest in proping up different states in the region, the power dynamics involved in any land back movements, and the inevitably negative consequences of totally dissolving an established state without a plan. It is also completely and almost comically unrealistic, so much so that it makes it hard to believe that anyone who's opinion starts and ends with this idea really gives a shit about anyone who lives in the area as much as they care about their online leftist clout.

There's nothing complicated in understanding that the Israeli government is and has been maintaining an oppressive apartheid state for decades. It is, however, very complicated to come up with a realistic way to resolve some of the most intricately entangled land disputes on the planet without plunging the region into total chaos. Not everyone has to be deeply educated on every geopolitical situation, but it is very hard to take people seriously when they know nothing about the politics or history of a region and yet insist that there is nothing complicated about it at all.

There's a lot of people on this website who are getting dangerously smug about their own ignorance, and are starting to go down Qanon type anti-intellectual paths in the name of being sufficiently radical. Not knowing the details of a very convoluted land dispute isn't something to brag about online as you call for intentionally reductive solutions. You can support the Palestinian cause and be aware of the oppression they have faced while also holding off on calling people trying to do real analysis and de-escalation work bootlickers. We need to get control of the urge to fit every global issue into a simplistic YA novel narrative structure that appeals to Western revolutionary fantasies.

#gingerswagfreckles #israel #palestine #israel palestine conflict #i/p #i/p conflict

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