Looks Like A Cinnamon Roll, Could Kill You:

it really is a wonderful story, isn't it?

the ending of the fifth volume has forever changed me. i’m a changed man.

The way everyone I know is so comfortable and content to use chatgpt to do everything for them is actually fucking crazy. What do you mean you are using chatgpt to vent. What do you mean you can’t produce art without using chatgpt because you have no ideas. What do you mean you can’t write a basic fucking essay without using chatgpt. What do you MEAN you can’t do RESEARCH without it?!?!?!?!??!?! IT CAN’T DO RESEARCH. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ARE YOU ALL LOSING YOUR DAMN MINDS. You can’t have a fucking coherent original thought?!?!?!?! You’re not capable of thinking for yourself??? Oh my fucking GOD yeah let’s just destroy the planet because we’re too incompetent to fucking use our brains

Every time I see mxtx fandom discourse about how villains and antagonists “had no choice” in doing evil and how we should feel sympathy for this cowardice because “it’s not like they (actual factual ruling class) had the real power to break the mold,” I think of:

Si Xiyan, imprisoned disgraced cultivator, being told that she can be accepted back as the most beloved disciple of one of the most powerful cultivation sects in the world if only she would kill her baby, and her choosing to ingest the poison on her own so that her child could be born safely at the cost of her life.

Gongyi Xiao going against his entire sect to rescue Shen Qingqiu from the Water Prison despite already having an increasingly tenuous relationship with the sect leader and his daughter.

Shen Qingqiu, certified scum villain, risking his life over and over again to do right by Luo Binghe even though he is certain that Luo Binghe will repay his kindness with death.

I think of:

Lan Wangji, a clan heir, fighting his own beloved family to protect one of the few people in the cultivation world willing to stand up for what’s right, and accepting being whipped for it.

Jiang Yanli, a clan heir’s widow, running onto a battlefield and giving her life for her little brother.

the Wen siblings, labor camp escapees and remnants of a reviled clan, sacrificing themselves so that their protector wouldn’t be killed for the crime of self-defense.

Mianmian, a servant only just elevated to becoming a disciple, publicly defecting from her sect in protest of them slandering a hero.

I think of:

Yin Yu, a banished god, choosing death over regaining his godhood by harming Quan Zizhen—the shidi he’s always been told to had “stolen his rightful status” in life.

the street performer, a poor man who could only make money performing humiliating entertainment for the well-off, choosing death over saving his own life by harming the man who for all intents and purposes stole his business.

Mu Qing, a staple god for about 800 years who had betrayed friendship for the approval of other gods, finally choosing to make an enemy out of the ruler of the heavens over betraying his former friend again, even if it meant that said former friend would never believe that he didn’t betray him again.

Of all of these characters, some of them were people of privilege, but many of them were the very bottom of their social hierarchies. Some are staring down the edge of the knife with their only hope of survival and living well being to make the immoral choice. Nevertheless, they chose to be moral people by putting themselves on the line rather than sacrificing others for personal gain, a choice that no antagonist—all of whom are people of power and means even if they didn't start out that way—makes in an mxtx novel. “But everyone would have hated them!” is not an excuse for participating in evil. “But they would have died otherwise!” is not an excuse for participating in evil. If other characters of less means could do it, if their peers could do it, then why didn’t your fav?

patpran x A History of My Brief Body (2020)

— a quote from Billy-Ray Belcourt's collection of personal essays.

[twt.]

Xiao Xingchen took the bowl with two hands. "Of course I want to live. If I may live on, then allow me to persist."

"Xiao Xingchen" saying this to Wei Wuxian is just. Gnawing my own arm off. I can't.

Like. Argh. Yeah, of course Xue Yang is a survivor. Feral street cat. Bobcat. Palas cat. He wants to live, he will live, and thrive, and every second of being alive is a middle finger to the former Chang clan leader and to everyone else who treated him like something they stepped in when he was just a kid who needed help.

But he's also saying this as Xiao Xingchen. As him, about him. As if saying this while pretending to be Xiao Xingchen will make it true for Xiao Xingchen.

He's as determined to raise Xiao Xingchen as he is to survive himself - and the howling, desperate Why of it all is killing him. Can't Xue Yang want to live enough for both of them? Why doesn't Xiao Xingchen want to live, like Xue Yang? Why doesn't Xiao Xingchen want to live like Xue Yang?

kim dokja and bihyungs dynamic before they get used to each other is so funny. me and the guy i keep trapped in my torture dungeon for entertainment (he keeps torturing himself and the others in new and creative ways i hadn't thought about before. hes actually kind of better at this than i am. im kinda scared)

At the end of my rope and it keeps getting longer like some sort of clown handkerchief bit?