Yi City Family Portrait
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xue yang looking at the candy and smiling as he died broke something deep within me i haven’t been right since
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clenches fist. i fucking love my friends so much
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i love nothing more than like 13/14yo xue yang getting brought into jinlintai for the sole purpose of recreating the yin tiger tally (with the added surprise of murderous tendencies) and like 19yo jgy just looking at this kid and going “yeah i’ll hang with him”
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Here's more of what's been happening on the ground. (Once again I'm not an expert in war).
Palestinian fighters are still waging war on the state of Israel
It is clear that Hamas and other groups have access to anti aircraft weaponry and long range missiles, partly from looting Israeli bases but partly from (and this is unconfirmed) from the Russia-Ukraine war. It's not unexpected for weapons to end up smuggled into other countries during a war.
On the other hand, Israel went from swearing it would invade Gaza on the ground to doing just about anything but that
It's understandable why Israel would hesitate even with its 300,000 strong army
IDF is made up of mostly conscripted soldiers who normally act as civilians once they've served their 2.5 year mandatory conscription. Not only that, IDF acts more like a police force than an army. Its soldiers simply don't have the training or mentality to fight militia groups in their home turf.
America itself doubts its capabilities no matter how it words it. This is a country that has yet to win against a guerilla army so it has experience when it comes to this
Edit:
Edit 2: above Hamas states the obvious
In my previous post I highlighted how disorganised the Israel military was in response to Operation Flood Al Aqsa.
This hasn't changed in the days. Israel is behaving more like a cornered animal lashing out than the so called 'strongest army in the Middle East.'
It has been dropping bombs on Syria, Lebanon and Egypt aimlessly, more out of anger than calculated strategy
Its efforts to pushing back against the Palestinian militia isn't going well either
in addition to naked, barbaric cruelty towards Gaza because it is not producing results elsewhere
The tweet below is important as Russia is an Israeli ally. The Israeli right wing has been very favourable towards Putin, even willing to disagree with the US and EU policies on Russia. However Israel repeatedly bombing Syria is quickly souring Russia on the country. While Putin doesn't want to go against Israel at this point, he has become increasingly critical of the country in the past couple of days.
Saudi went from making a half-hearted 'both sides need to stop statements to cutting ties with Israel (ties Israel and America have worked very hard to form) to outrightly condemning Israel's treatment of the people of Gaza.
Naturally, with all of this happening, Israel has responded, not with ceasing the bombardment of Gaza, but by killing and assaulting journalists covering the genocide.
so that it could committ war crimes without it being documented and seen by the world. War crimes such as announcing that they'd bomb a hospital in Gaza and giving doctors and nurses just hours to evacuate their patients.
This, btw, is part of the reason they cut electricity so that Palestinians can't post their own genocide on social media. Israel brutality is costing them allies but they have no intention of stopping.
Despite all of this, there has been a great deal of support for Palestinians globally
In short, this war is not going the way Israel thought it would. They didn't crush Hamas and the other Palestinian military groups immediately after the battle of Re'im. In fact, they're still struggling against those groups right now. They've been humiliated in front of the world after being revealed to be paper tigers and as such, they're going after Palestinian civilians in increasingly horrific ways.
The Palestinian resistance is still optimistic and they're still carrying out their plan. There's still hope for a future without apartheid.
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Thinking about the three characters we've met who had already found and claimed the Golden Bough before the Sinners, Kromer, Dongbaek and now Ahab it's very interesting to me that they all have in common being women leaders of groups where they are seen as messiahs of sorts, much like how Carmen herself who is the origin of The Light was the one who united the original LobCorp team and had such supernatural charisma that she could convince anyone she wanted to join her cause of "saving humanity".
Kromer is the most blantant and cartoonish example, she's worshipped as a messiah and goddess by her followers to the point they consider basking in her grace a priviledge to the point of genuine insanity beyond what any regular person could comprehend, pure religious fanatism for their savior they believe in who will bring them a "pure, untainted" world, so much that they have cast away their individuality in their adoration, inquisitors being indistinguishable from one another.
Ahab who is a more realistic example of this kind of person even if not as infallible as the seemingly perfect Carmen; she's strong, confident, passionate, revered as a hero and makes convincing cases for herself while having the unnatural ability to appeal to people's desires and cut through them, and in her case the way the Pequod Town have come to bend to her isn't unfounded given their situation. I think that's what makes her significantly scarier and more effective as a villain and character in general; she's not just a comically evil woman in a position of power, you can very easily see why some people would fall for her words and bend to her will. She is paradoxically both the savior of the Pequod and the one who doomed them to the hell inside The Pallid Whale, yet after being isolated from society for so long with no other choices or escape and having their sense of self degraded by the Pallidfication the Pequod crew only came to see the first part.
Dongbaek is an interesting case, unlike the two women described before who are undeniably villains and egomaniacal, she's portrayed as much more sympathetic and even an outright tragic figure, however at the same time unlike them we never directly see the relationship she has with her followers. They never talk about Dongbaek herself and not even mention her in any way, only the ideology she gave them: destroy the current order to create an ideal world free from the shackles of The Wings and technological advancement, and unlike the two before who are always aided by their lackeys, Dongbaek was always seen alone, less like a hero or a goddess but more like a ghost that haunted everyone, much like Carmen's role in LobCorp. This "ghost" motif is doubly emphasized by her sickly dying appearance and how she contantly dissapeared and appeared without a trace, never letting those around her forget about all they have lost or sacrificed trapped in her vendetta.
But ultimately Dongrang, herself and even Yi Sang come to admit her motives were just as self-centered and she was just as manipulative, yet rather from a place of hubris it came from a place of deep despair and yearning.
Like Kromer, the TLA believed she would make a better world, but like Ahab, she was ultimately someone taking advantage of people in despair and giving them false hopes, all while deluding herself further, and much like Carmen, she's associated with trees and vegetation, both expressing the wish to be like one and having a disdain for The Wings, though in Dongbaek's case, she only represents half of Carmen's wish; being the plant blooming across the land, while Yi Sang is the one who would reach the sky.
In the end, all three of these women were false saviors, much like how Carmen's idea of bringing salvation to humanity led to all of the suffering within Lobotomy Corporation, the unleashing of chaos upon The City even her own endless torture as The Well giving birth to Abnormalities...it makes me wonder if all of this was intentional, as a way to parallel Carmen herself. Yet all three of them appear to us clearly untrustworthy while Carmen does not.
Kromer, Dongbaek and Ahab are immediately stablished as dangerous presences; Ahab and Kromer being the sources of Ishmael and Sinclair's suffering and tormenters they have to overcome --the source of their nightmares, and Dongbaek is introduced stabbing Yi Sang and being called "dangerous" yet Carmen is introduced as her best self and all the best memories everyone has of her, it isn't until Ruina, away from Ayin's perspective that she's questioned, it makes me wonder if they will continue to bring these characters contrasting Carmen in further chapters.
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for xiao xingchen's birthday, i drew something from my fic universe, the threads that bind us! nothing makes him happier than spending time with his family! (in this fic, he, xue yang and a-qing are siblings 💖)
fic will be linked in replies :'p happy birthday to BEST BOY!!! and thanks to @mispronouncing-michaelangelo for gifting him a two headed cow plush!
[ID: two drawings depicting a small celebration, featuring a modern version of the yi city group. in the first, song lan, xue yang and a-qing are presenting a square plate of pancakes and a hot drink in a star mug to xiao xingchen, who is in bed off-screen. the stack of pancakes comes with a mini xiao xingchen figurine at the top, who is wearing a crown. song lan and a-qing are holding the plate, and xue yang is holding the mug. all three are smiling. in the second, xiao xingchen is joyfully receiving his breakfast in bed while cuddled up to a small two-headed cow plush. the other three are crowded around him; song lan has his arm around him on one side, a-qing is embracing him on the other, and xue yang is perched near the edge of the bed. xiao xingchen has a faint scar across his neck. the atmosphere is warm and happy, and there are streams of gold light giving the image some glow. /end ID]
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What to watch next?
kdrama edition
hey! just got done with a mainstream drama and looking for some drama with the same feels? got it!
comment the drama below if it’s not in this list
1. weightlifting fairy kim bok joo
lighthearted, funny, strong fl with simp male
watch next : strong woman do bong soon
where : bilibili.com
2. business proposal
office romance, strong second couple chemistry, savage fl and a bit airheaded ml
watch next : what’s wrong with secretary kim?, descendants of the sun, love to hate you (the misandry is a bit high for the first eps, bear with it if you can), romance is a bonus book, king the land
where : netflix, bilibili.com
3. vincenzo
ACTION!!! good looking men in suits, strong fl with senti dad arc, men with questionable morals
watch next : my name (contains triggering themes, watch at own discretion), the k2
where : netflix, bilibili
4. guardian : the lonely and great god
fantasy, meant-to-be pairings, AMAZING second lead romances
watch next : touch your heart (sort of like a grim reaper sunny au), the king - eternal monarch, tale of the nine tailed, doom at your service, my demon
where : netflix, bilibili
5. reply 1988
feel good, group of friends, slice of life, AMAZING platonic chemistry
watch next : hospital playlist
where : netflix, bilibili
6. true beauty
bromance, love triangle with happy ending
watch next : the heirs, boys over flowers (if you can handle lee min ho’s horrendous perm), f4 thailand (if youre interested in thai dramas)
where : netflix, bilibili
7. all of us are dead
zombie, romance, political/military questionable
watch next : happiness
8. crash course in romance
(requested by @starryalpacasstuff )
famous ml, headstrong and self reliant fl, both place value in their work and respect each other (at the end)
watch next : love to hate you, or if you want a mockumentary-style romance, lovestruck in the city is my go to!
9. bad and crazy
(requested by @hyeon-yi )
crackhead duo, bromance~, MENtal issues, crime crime, stabby stabby
watch next : the worst of evil, dp, the devil judge, beyond evil
10. hometown cha cha cha
feel good vibes, seaside town, sappy romance, CUTEST couple
watch next : welcome to samdalri
tell me other kdramas youve seen in the comments and ill add recommendations!
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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 36 part two
(Masterpost) (Pinboard) (whole thing on AO3)
Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!
Breakfast Al Fresco
After a nightmare about falling into the burial mounds, Wei Wuxian wakes up all misty.
I guess this is supposed to be sweat, but sweat is usually not distributed in a fine spray over the surface of a person’s face like this, at least not the kind that happens while you sleep. My fellow menopausal people can attest to this.
For the first and probably last time in their lives, Wei Wuxian is up for breakfast before Lan Wangji.
This means that we, not Lan Wangji, get to watch him eat.
What? I’m a simple woman with simple interests.
(more behind the cut!)
I Sit And Watch the Children Play
While he eats his breakfast, Wei Wuxian watches a group of kids playing “Sunshot Campaign,” complete with shooting toy arrows at a kite that represents the sun. A reference, presumably, to that kite that Wang Lingjiao used as an excuse to attack Lotus Pier.
Doing things I used to do
They think are new
Wei Wuxian smiles with genuine pleasure, watching these small fry play-acting the central trauma of his and his peers’ lives; only the mention of Jin Zixuan’s death brings his mood down.
He appears to carry his damage very lightly, but we know that this bright morning began with a nightmare. Perhaps every morning begins that way, but he is an expert at clearing his mind and embracing The “Now” of Wolf Thought the present moment.
Seeing kiddie Hanguang-Jun and Jiang Cheng cheers him right back up again. Kudos to whoever was in charge of casting kids in this show. I particularly love baby Nie Mingjue’s big boss energy.
BBNMJ: Don’t make me shank you
The kiddos do a good job of embodying the conflicts of the cultivation world, roleplaying a bunch of guys trying to be in charge while smack-talking the other guys who want to be in charge.
Wei Wuxian politely asks the kids where’s Yiling Laozu? which sets up a gag in which their...nanny? shows up and hollers at them and they call her Yiling Laozu and run away. It’s funny and it does illustrate Wei Wuxian’s ongoing bad reputation.
It misses an opportunity, though, to show us a cute baby Yiling Laozu like the one we see in the Donghua.
There’s Got To Be A Morning After
Lan Wangji finally emerges from the inn, and proceeds to have more facial expressions in 60 seconds than he usually has in an hour.
Wei Wuxian has a good time teasing him about his drunkenness, while managing not to actually tell him any of the things that happened, other than their discussion about rabbits.
Note that this conversation is even more entertaining if you mentally substitute the word “ass” for the word “rabbit.”
Trust Me
Wei Wuxian mercifully changes the subject, asking Lan Wangji if he recognized the Ghost-Masked guy’s sword style. Lan Wangji doesn’t remember anything from last night except the sword fight, which is very on brand for him. He loves: sword fighting, rules, and Wei Wuxian, not in that order.
Wei Wuxian, because he has a perception bonus of +10, noticed that the dude put a spell on his sword to disguise it, meaning that he and his sword must both be well-known cultivators. He also noticed that the dude knew Lan Clan sword moves. Wei Wuxian very gently asks if the guy is someone that Lan Wangji knows.
Lan Wangji thinks for a moment and says No. Wei Wuxian accepts his answer so readily that Lan Wangji is taken aback, and thinks that WWX doesn’t believe him.
He asks if Wei Wuxian trusts/believes/believes in him, using the same word,信, that we looked at in Episode 33, and that will come up again in a couple more places.
Wei Wuxian reassures him, although his reasoning--that Hanguang-Jun has never spoken a lie--is not 100% correct. Unless we think he really was night hunting in Yiling all those years ago.
At this point the Qiankun bag of Plot Convenience tells them to mosey along to scenic Yi City.
An Inauspicious Place
When they approach their destination, we get to see the more mellow side of their camaraderie; their interaction has a lot of the flavor of their first road trip together, but with more maturity and mutual respect. As in the old days, Wei Wuxian handles the social interactions, talking to a dude by the road to get directions, while Lan Wangji hangs back.
In discussing the name of the place, Lan Wangji listens with interest while Wei Wuxian explains the layered meaning of the name, and we’re reminded that Wei Wuxian was a formidable scholar before his life went to shit.
Wei Wuxian 2.0 has some catching up to do, both in cultivation and in reading, to be a match for his 30-something boyfriend once again, but his fundamentals are strong as hell.
When they reach the gate of the city they take a moment to share some unnecessary eye contact. They probably think they’re about to have a fun low-angst adventure.
They start walking through the almost-deserted town, which has random paper funeral swag rolling around. The whole town was apparently focused on funerals and making funerary offerings, which seems like an unreliable basis for an economy.
Everything is covered in a haze that makes things difficult for sword dudes and gifmakers. They’re led a little ways into town by a mysterious running person, who is A-Qing running at breakneck speed, presumably to hide from Xue Yang while she also tries to make contact with the newcomers.
A little more running, and Wei Wuxian find a whole crowd of juniors, including all of our favorites. Bright boy Sizhui immediately figures out that if “Mo Xuanyu” is here, Lan Wanji must be here too. Jingyi immediately fangirls about Hanguang-Jun, recognizing Bichen’s sword light through the haze.
Jin Ling has never had a cool teacher in his high school, so he doesn’t get what the fuss is about.
Wei Wuxian encourages the kids to dump a heap of exposition about why they are here. They are here because the plot wants them to be here.
Then they start squabbling, because they are a bunch of teenage boys, and Lan Wangji, who is not anywhere in sight, silences them with the Lan silencing spell. Despite the fact that they’re all lost in a fog in a strange, inauspicious place. Fuck safety, amirite?
Naturally the next thing that happens is a bunch of zombies come up behind Wei Wuxian and the kids try to warn him, but without speech they’re reduced to impassioned pointing. Don’t bother drawing your swords, you useless twits.
Wei Wuxian temporarily stops the zombies with a finger snap, but then they start up again. Lan Wangji shows up and guqins them into oblivion, accidentally poisoning a random selection of juniors in the process.
The adults figure out that there’s a Yin Tiger Seal in operation, but it’s not Wei Wuxian’s. Wei Wuxian takes this opportunity to brag about his superior corpses.
Lan Wangji: I know, dude; I distinctly recall one of those fuckers slicing my Wei-Ying-catching arm open
Then the ghost-mask dude shows up to fight, making the most of the low visibility and his uncanny ability to not actually be in the scene for most of the fighting.
Camera Operator: sword fighting while I hold this camera sure is difficult
Lan Wangji elegantly goes after Ghost Mask guy, heading over the rooftops to have a smoke a prolonged offscreen fight while Wei Wuxian handles things in town for the next...hour or two? However long it takes to make congee, anyway.
Wei Wuxian leads the kids to find a house with a functioning kitchen so he can cook up a remedy for the poisoning.
He tells the juniors that getting poisoned is good because it’s an experience they can talk about when they’re older. By that measure, Wei Wuxian has had the best life of anybody ever.
They find a creepy house with a creepy lady who has corpse lines on her neck, which is as good as things get here in Yi City, so Wei Wuxian talks his way in.
He’s very polite but he shows the juniors that he’s got the door blocked with his foot so that he can push his way in if necessary.
Sizhui lights a candle and all of the kids freak out when they see the full-size paper servants hanging from the rafters, even though paper servants would be a pretty normal thing to see in their lives, and they are all, like, professional ghost and monster hunters.
Wei Wuxian, looking fine as hell, steps into the creepy lady’s room to ask her permission to use her kitchen. He notices that she’s working in the dark and sees the lines on her neck, but he’s not prejudiced against corpses so he doesn’t comment. He uses his beautiful hands to thread her needle for her before going to cook fire congee for the juniors.
Soundtrack: As Tears Go By, by Marianne Faithfull or by The Rolling Stones, take your pick; There’s Got To Be a Morning After by that girl in The Poseidon Adventure.
Further Reading: The “Now” of Wolf Thought is a reference to Elfquest, which is an awesome comic book series that launched back when I was a teen. You can read all of them for free at Elfquest.com without registering or anything.
Bonus: Beautiful Hanguang-Jun
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A man who fatally shot four people and wounded a fifth on a marijuana farm in Oklahoma has been sentenced to life in prison.
Chen Wu, 47, pleaded guilty Friday to the November 2022 shooting as part of a deal. Prosecutors said they thought about seeking the death penalty in the case.
Wu stormed into the farm on Nov. 20, 2022, and demanded $300,000 within 30 minutes, according to investigators. He threatened to kill everyone on site if he didn’t get the money, police said.
A witness said Wu held the group hostage at gunpoint before eventually killing four people: Quirong Lin, Chen He Chun, Chen He Qiang and Fang Hui Lee. He also wounded a fifth person, Yi Fei Lin. Wu and all of the victims were Chinese citizens.
After the shooting, Wu fled to South Florida but authorities captured him there on Nov. 22. He was extradited back to Oklahoma and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of assault, all of which he eventually pleaded guilty to.
Wu was involved with the marijuana farm in Hennessy, Okla., about 50 miles north of Oklahoma City. At an extradition hearing, he said he feared returning to Oklahoma and claimed the others involved had ties to organized crime.
The farm had obtained a license to grow marijuana, but it was operating illegally, according to authorities. Medical marijuana is legal in the state, but recreational weed remains outlawed.
“This case should serve as a reminder of the dangers surrounding illegal marijuana activity in Oklahoma,” said Kingfisher County District Attorney Tommy Humphries.
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ive been trying to make sense of the first plotline in book 2, with the earth master sending up the distress signal from ghost city, because "hua cheng rushed home to confront the spy" doesn't make sense when he knew who he xuan was the whole time.
maybe it was obvious, but it's just occurred to me that this was probably supposed to be a trap for shi qingxuan, who presumably would have tried to sneak in either alone or with only qianqiu in order to rescue 'ming yi', and then presumably would have gotten captured. maybe they were expecting shi wudu to follow after so they could get him too.
but this is super interesting for a lot of reasons! first, it means hua cheng was going to be really involved in he xuan's revenge, not just an observer; he'd have gotten the initial heat for ming yi and shi qingxuan going missing at least, and maybe lang qianqiu and shi wudu too, and at that point he's basically calling a war down on his head, because unlike with the 33 officials he's not going through proper challenging ettiquette that prevents them from retaliating. sure, they were all in his territory first, but im not sure that would have mattered.
second, if that was the plan, hua cheng really royally fucked it up by being a total doormat for xie lian; even beyond giving him enough luck to find ming yi, i feel like he probably could have caught the whole group if he hadn't been having a crisis over wounding xie lian.
him leading xie lian to 'ming yi' maybe suggests that they called the whole plan a wash as soon as xie lian showed up (especially bc iirc shi qingxuan hadn't revealed himself at all, so they might have thought Xie Lian had fully replaced him).
but either way, im just imagining the moment where he xuan realized/was told that hua cheng's crush had showed up and that he was going to be a disaster gay the whole time instead of being helpful, and its making me laugh.
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So, Canto 5. Spoilers.
Peak fiction, utterly incredible. My following thoughts will be jumbled but forgive me.
I've sadly not finished the source material, so I won't analyze it from that POV, but just to discuss the continued building of the world of the City, the Great Lake is so well conceived as a setting. The individual Lakes and their Waves, and the Whales that cause them, the variable coordinates and U Corp's monopoly on written data of Laws. You could make a whole damn RPG on the back of this stuff alone, I know TTRPG heads are looking at this and coming up with some homebrews.
I wonder if the Lakes are actually the result of the Whales changing the waters around them? Ishmael theorizes that the Whales parasitize humans out of loneliness, to make others like them (which of course reflects on Ahab as a Whale) and I wonder if the waters of the lake are similarly changed to reflect the Whale? And then I think about how Ahab turned the inside of the Pallid Whale into Pequod Town gah the subtext.
I'm also thinking more about the Sinners as a found family. While they've gotten on well enough since Verg put his foot down it's becoming clearer as time goes on that real bonds are forming. Ishmael was certainly straining those bonds but its a testament to them that they grew stronger after she found peace. I was pleasantly surprised she and Outis found a dynamic as fellow seawomen leading to mutual respect, not to mention what's going on between Heath and Ish (I have never shipped anything harder in my life). And then there's the individual relationships to Dante. Dante and Ish have gotten over the hump, and while she says that if they ever go in the wrong direction "she'll drop a skiff and depart" I feel like Ish is invested in Dante as a friend and will be there for them no matter what, including steering them back on the right course.
We saw it in S.E.A., but it's dawning on me that we get to experience characters post arc and that there are consequences to that. It didn't feel that way as strongly with Canto 1 - 3 because Gregor and Rodya are thoroughly still cooking on their issues and Sinclair feels like he's started his arc to becoming more confident and capable (the part where he actually threatens that guy is just chef's kiss). But we saw a Yi Sang who's actively trying to preserve his new friend group and find the bright side of things. Now we'll have a collected Ishmael who can keep it together and is firmly on Dante's side, which will be amazing come the Heartbreaking if the Heathmael dream is real.
Rapid fire thoughts in no particular order:
Ahab VA is perfect casting, her character is phenomenal, and I can't wait to see how she'll do on Hermann's team. PM is carrying the torch of insane old ladies.
I'm increasingly certain that the plot of Limbus will be ultimately about the multiverse (IN A GOOD WAY) and the goals of the villains and other groups deals with mirror worlds in some way.
I'm thinking about the other 3 Calamities of the Lake, Whales that attack without rhyme or reason. I have to imagine them as other great beasts of literature, so one surely is the Crocodile from Peter Pan. Possibly another is the Dogfish from Pinocchio (adapted as Monstro in the Disney version). Then I don't know, the Giant Squid from 20'000 Leagues Under the Sea (or maybe the "Narwhal" itself)? There's many possibilities.
I enjoy the Middle as a faction, they fit in with the deeply absurdist nature of the City and feel distinct from the other Fingers we know about. Makes me wonder what the actual fuck the Pinky's deal is if they're the worst Finger (iirc).
Love the feeling of Faust and Verg as outsiders Red Fraud Alert there's no way it doesn't come to a head at some point where Vergilius and the group are fundamentally at odds but the group is strong enough that threats won't cut it.
Compass is fire. Love that we're seeing different fan remixes combining the vocal and instrumentals in interesting ways, though I worry for the official version. Fly, Broken Wings doesn't work as well when it just goes through the whole thing without repeating the Broken Wings part, I much prefer an edit that matches the in game version more. I hope Mili sees what people are doing and gives us the heartbeat.
Praying to god we get a Stubb or Pip Outis ID with Pequod Captain Ishmael, but that will likely be end of season. I predict Ish ID to be a powerful SP support ID and will likely be as meta as Nclair (which is cool but also kinda unfortunate narratively, there are some downsides to the Gacha format).
Sentences like "Ishmael totally tops Heathcliff, that guy would turn into a puppy dog at the slightest hint of affection" are insane things I believe wholeheartedly and I love every time a literature person stumbles upon it and has to wrestle with this surprisingly valid crackship not knowing its origin.
All for now but I'm sure I'll think of something else later, can't wait for the Christmas Event (which will likely drop after Christmas but c'est la vie).
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don’t mind me i’m just thinking abt how in yi city the lesson wei wuxian was teaching the juniors was to face their fears—and not let said fears impede them—and then in the second siege of the burial mounds, where it matters most, the juniors are not only the first ones rushing in alongside wangxian to fight the hordes of fierce corpses regardless of their fear, but are also working together as a cohesive group so that they can all survive instead of trying to fight this battle on their own
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WujiWatch: CQL Rewatch Episode 10
Two things stand out to me in this episode: the question of conflict between the sects, and the question of the pros and cons of being outside the system.
So, first, conflict between the sects. It’s interesting, for a long time I assumed that serious conflicts—like, deadly armed conflict—between the sects was rare. In fact, I assumed that the last sect war was the war against Xue Chonghai (which occurred “thousands of years ago” according to Nie Mingjue, “hundreds of years ago” according to Lan Yi, and “a hundred years ago” according to Lan Xichen—amazing), and that since that time, the cultivation world has basically been at peace. Cultivators’ martial training was for fighting yao, mo, guai, and gui, and also taking down individual baddie cultivators, not for making war against large, organized groups of other cultivators.
But then, in this episode, when Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan are asked to help our heroes with their quest, they refuse on the ground that they don’t get involved in inter-sect conflicts. Not “we don’t want to get involved with this inter-sect conflict,” but “as a practice, we do not get involved with inter-sect conflicts ever,” which sure seems to imply that there have been others, in their lifetimes. Like, for abstaining to be a practice, there needs to be something to abstain from, you know?
And as I’m pondering this, the camera cuts to the first shot of the Unclean Realm, and my question is very definitively answered for me—because nobody builds fucking twenty-foot high stone walls with ramparts and a fucking portcullis because they’re scared of individual demons or ghosts, or even scared of a small group of the cultivational equivalent of bandits. You only build a fortress if you’re scared of an army.
(When you start seeing the sets this way, you realize that Cloud Recesses (at the top of a mountain accessible only by one narrow staircase), Jinlintai (another stone fortress accessible only by a staircase), and Nightless City (ditto, at the top of a mountain) are also all built to withstand a siege. Only Lotus Pier, wide-open and unfortified, is vulnerable. Easy pickings.)
This is important because I’d previously been pretty judgy about Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan refusing to be involved in dealing with the Yin Iron – I’d thought, “Sure, you don’t want to get involved in petty squabbling—but this is a big deal! Wen Ruohan is kidnapping random cultivators and turning them into zombies! How can you say you’re devoting your life to justice and then sit this one out?” But their decision makes a lot more sense if the sects are frequently at war with one another – this would, at this point in the plot, just look like more of the same. And I, too, would find it exhausting constantly getting asked to pick a side in bullshit wars waged by people more interested in acquiring power than using it to protect the people who they’re supposed to be protecting.
Okay, second thing: the idea of rogue cultivators. One of the interesting things about the drama introducing Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan this early is that it sets up this theme of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji both yearning for that kind of free, roving life, and in fact, bonding over that shared longing. Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan sure make that life look very attractive. (Not just because they’re gorgeous, but that helps!) Prioritizing shared principles over bloodlines, going where the greatest need is, opting out of petty, grasping sect power struggles—it makes total sense that our heroes would go starry-eyed like they’re meeting celebrities; that Wei Wuxian would earnestly and awkwardly tell Xiao Xingchen that he and Lan Wangji have been trying to do the same thing with their Yin Iron quest; that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji gaze longingly after Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan’s departing forms and then share a wistful look with each other.
But the price of that life, as the drama shows—also using Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan—is how powerless it makes you. Xue Yang’s capture would not have been possible without sect cultivator Wei Wuxian tethering him to keep him from running away. More importantly, only sect cultivators have a prison in which they can keep Xue Yang – if the sect boys hadn’t come along, Xiao Xingchen would have had no choice to either kill Xue Yang immediately—something that characters in this show are shockingly (to this Western viewer) loathe to do—or let him go. Xiao Xingchen tells our heroes that they can call on him if they are in need… but when Lan Wangji, practical boy that he is, asks how they can get in touch with him, Xiao Xingchen’s answer is basically, “You can’t,” because he doesn’t have a home base. So it’s a pretty empty promise. The vast and manifest injustices that will soon unfold in this story—from the Wens’ massacre of several entire sects (the very crime for which Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan sought to bring Xue Yang to justice) to the post-Sunshot torture, imprisonment, and murder of the Wen Remnants—will do so without a peep from these two righteous cultivators. The sects have corruption, and war, and hypocrisy—but they also have infrastructure, resources, and networks.
Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan show what happens when someone makes a principled decision to opt out of those resources and networks.
Meng Yao is about to show what happens when someone has those things stripped from him, against his will.
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