tgcf book spoilers, but one mu qing and xie lian snippet that I think about a lot is this one, at the start of xie lian’s second banishment when he’s surprised to hear mu qing being described as generous and kind:
as opposed to this memory from before his first ascension when mu qing started giving out cherries to the kids in the city:
I think it just really goes to show 1) how deeply mq’s actions truly affected xl and what he thought of him, but also 2) just how different mq and xl are fundamentally in the way that they think and approach things.
I don’t have a lot of commentary on xl that hasn’t already been said, but bc we get the story from xl’s pov, we see a lot of mq’s actions being framed as selfish or suspicious (which is fair, bc again, we know how much his actions hurt xl), but we also see a lot of misconstrued kindness, like in book 8 where it’s revealed that he knocked out fx in order to save him. it’s also pretty obvious how much mq still cares abt xl, with how quickly he volunteers as fu yao and the lengths he goes to protect him when he deems hc a threat, so I also think it’s very likely that mq leaving the trio first was exactly what he said it was — that he thought becoming a junior official, ascending quickly, would be the best way to take care of not just his mother, but also xl, fx, the king and queen, and himself, and so in a way, him leaving was him acting on his kindness. but ofc it doesn’t work out, and he spends the next 800 years fighting w/ fx about it, defending himself, his decisions, and his kindness, and nitpicking the accuracies of his statues while he himself remains completely misunderstood by the two people he probably cares abt the most.
and idk, I guess I just think that’s probably a really lonely way to spend 800 years.
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Genuinely curious what logic people have to claim that what mclaren did to Daniel is worse than what has just happened to nyck. Let me lay these events out for you.
Daniel got a contract buyout, that couldn’t have happened unless he agreed to it. He got a say in his departure and a rumoured 18 million. He’d done two years in that car and all but one race was shockingly mediocre for a driver of his experience level. They signed oscar before the summer break, they could’ve replaced him mid season. They didn’t. Daniel got to announce his own departure, f1 made posts about it, people were sad and outraged to see him go. Mclaren waited weeks to announce Oscar as his replacement despite already signing him. Daniel got his time before he was replaced by a younger, more exciting talent who would cost far less and get potentially better results.
Let’s look at Nyck. He’s done a grand total of 11 races, 10 in the alphatauri that his teammate has only hauled into the points twice. We get no actual announcement that he is leaving, only one that he is replaced by a much older driver before even the summer break. No one acknowledges his departure, they’re too excited for daniel to come in. Reports say neither Nyck or his family knew of the announcement, he was totally blindsided. And I’m sorry to say this, but if Daniel was any other driver with his results from the past two years no team would take a second look at him.
I’m not here to tell you all to forget about daniel and mclaren and that it was all fine, it was handled poorly and they should have put an exit clause in the contract for that exact scenario. However, don’t claim red bull have treated nyck better. Red bull demoted drivers from the top team yes, they don’t usually drop alpha drivers mid season. They’ve screwed nyck over and no one will even give him the basic respect of a ‘nyck de vries to leave alpha tauri’ post.
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When it comes to OG!Cale ships I like both OG!AlCale and OG!ChoiHan but it really depends on the scenario
For example, I like OG!AlCale in both regression aus and TBoaH adjacent timeline things because I think a huge thing I like in their dynamic is how mysterious they both are to the other party. The fun of their dynamic is them discovering more about each other and the various miscommunications they have cause of their own personalities, and I think that works very well no matter the universe.
But with OG!ChoiCale, I feel like I can really only enjoy it in TBoaH adjacent things or if they both have the memories of the first life.
To me, a big thing about OG!ChoiCale is about the life they lived together, how they hated eachother, how they both didn’t know eachother for years, how they could have spent time together during the war due to unfortunate circumstances(there not being enough people left)
Like, I think OG!ChoiCale can be such a cool dynamic, such a sad, but comforting one at the same time. It’s a little bitter how the man you thought you would hate forever became a close companion, how he’s more similar to you than your younger self woild have ever thought, but do you really hate it?
Can you really hate having a person who understands you, when so many people have died? When so many are gone?
Something about the sadness of it all, how it was tragedy that brought them against each other at first, but now it brings them together. How they could only ever grow to understand eachother because of the pain they face, the pain that they shared. At some point, can you really hate him, even until the end? After all those years? After coming to understand him? No, you cannot.
Like, it adds in extra layers when they both care about each other at some point mid-way through the war, but they still can’t really talk to eachother properly. They care, but they frustrate one another, anger each other. Choi Han doing increasingly more risky and self sacrificial things because ‘I’m a hero’ ‘I have to do it.’ ‘It is justice to save people’, despite the fact that it’s at the expense of himself
And Cale’s frustration at Choi Han’s attitude. He can never wrap his head around the fact that Choi Han destroys himself for the sake of other people, and believes it’s heroic(He knows Choi Han doesnt, he know Choi Han hates it too, but he doesn’t know what else to say to himself other than the fact that ‘it’s for the greater good’, because he will go crazy if he doesn’t)
He’s mad, but there’s some twisted sense of understanding in there too. Cale understands, because he became trash for his family, he became trash to protect them, he had to do it.
But that’s only what he thought.
He was older now, he had lost them all, and he had seen how his trash act hadn’t done anything to protect them. It only distanced him from them, and now they were gone, and he could never see them again, he could never make amends.
Cale is mad at Choi Han for sacrificing himself because while Choi Han is hurting himself, the people who he loves, and the people who love him, watch him do it over and over again and he doesn’t listen to their worried cries.
He’s mad, but he understands. It was frustrating to be on the other side, watching someone destroy themselves for the sake of others when the people who cared about them wanted the exact opposite. The only difference between him and Choi Han was that Choi Han was never a good liar, he could never hide how much pain he went through.
In a way, Cale thought it was better that way.
At some point, there is love that is there. Love that follows them, and it’s so painful because they both know the tragedy edy to it that is how they are doomed, how they can never be happy in the first time line where they knew each other.
Because as Cale and Choi Han, they can’t be happy. Not when so much has been lost, not when the world is falling apart, they may love each other, but loving each other as they are means being in a world where everything else they love is gone.
It is a cruel kind of love.
Like let’s say they do pursue these feelings, even though knowing those two I don’t think they’d ever say anything in that scenario. If they did it would probably be Cale going like:
“Choi Han, do you love me?”
Choi Han doesn’t say anything, but his silence in place of adamant refusal is enough of an answer.
“Do you love me, Cale?”
Cale doesn’t say anything either, only smiling at Choi Han with his signature, cynical and bitter smile.
He didn’t deny it either.
It was a confirmation of feelings, but unlike the confessions from romance novels and stories, the main character and lead do not end up together and live happily ever after.
They stay together, but the world around them is not happy, not at all. They are together, but not as partners or as lovers, but two people who live in their suffering because all they can do is live.
I feel like anything they do together would always have an air of melancholy to it. Maybe they kiss, once, and no more, because there is no point in making it a regular thing. Not when everything in their world will end, even if they keep on fighting for it to not be that way.
They kiss, and it’s short, but in that short moment, the world is nothing but Cale and Choi Han.
Isn’t that selfish? If it’s like this, then they could ignore how everything has gone so badly. But that is exactly why they cannot be together, there is no ignoring the reality of their situation, no matter how sweet it would be to live in a false dream and never wake up.
I like my OG!ChoiCale a little doomed.
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So this is controversial: for the record, I’m anti outdoor cat. That’s a hill I will die on. And I know I will regret posting this, but. I stand by it.
And that’s where things get tricky: so J and I already have a 100% indoor cat. She’s older, persnickety, and extremely opinionated (read: a hater.) And our neighborhood is absolutely full of stray, abandoned, and feral cats of varying types. It’s bad. As a biologist at heart, I weep, for both the wildlife they affect and the cats themselves.
There is a stray who has found our yard this spring, borderline emaciated but otherwise seeming healthy, who has suddenly and inexplicably glued herself to my side (and legs). She is dismal at being a cat and clearly misses the indoor lap of luxury, so I’m left to assume she was dumped at a young age. Which is just cruel. So now I’m left to figure out how to take care of her, with the end goal that she be an indoor cat somewhere….
I do wonder if she can find it in her heart to latch onto another person. She loves laps, head butts, scritches and being held. She doesn’t like it when you try to leave and she is LOUD, so a bit much for my sensitive self. So I’m gonna do some problem solving because she doesn’t deserve the streets.
She is making it all but impossible to attend to my garden. And Zelda does NOT approve of the competition.
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