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#though I think I still agree

impressions-of-downton · 1 year

Note

Hi! Have you seen the new movie yet?

Yes! —I just saw it yesterday!*

I thought it was fun —and while I would have liked there to be more of Thomas in it , I understand that it is a very large cast that they are working with, and I’m very glad Thomas got a happy ending.

* (as of May 25 2022 : apparently I answered this, but just never remembered to post it?? Anyway, sorry for the delay @silentgirlspeaksout )

#I miss Ellis!#i love him #but it really seems like Thomas got his dream job #valet (and more!) to a rich and famous gentleman #who likes him???#likes him enough to poach him from the crawleys????#this seems like almost everything that Thomas has ever wanted #I mean #I thought his scenes with Ellis were infinitely more romantic #but he and Guy do seem to genuinely like each other #I don’t know that they’re in love or anything (but I don’t know that they’re not!)#and it seems like they could live very happily together #I just wish there were more scenes with them!#<<tags are from 2022 also #though I think I still agree #haven’t see the movie since then though #so who knows

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seventh-fantasy · 6 months

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li xiangyi, yin, and femininity

we all know that li xiangyi is a character of fractured identities. and li lianhua is an unreliable narrator to his own story. these make him not the most straightforward character to study. but I've believed in treating li lianhua as a part of li xiangyi, rather than separates. and there must be a common thread that ties all of him together. thus, I offer what I have found to be the most useful lens to use to view him as a cohesive whole, regardless as li xiangyi, li lianhua, or any other identity he may reinvent into: his 阴 yin qualities. (yin of yinyang)

this framework suggested by the drama's text itself has helped clarify to me his strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and struggles. by identifying this constant, too, makes it so much easier talking about what has changed in him.

[to the, hopefully growing, boli lhl hivemind @markiafc @ananeiah]

there are some notes on the concept of yinyang and chinese conceptualisation of gender I have to preface with.

[disclaimer: of course, I'm not even trying to cover a tip of what experts have extensively studied and debated in a depth it deserves. all I'm doing is try to parse the broad, fundamental ideas that are needed to explain my blorbos through my own spotty brain filter. so there bound to be nuances I've overlooked or some degree of my own interpretation. pretentious but needs to be done.]

阴 yin and 阳 yang are concepts characterised by passiveness, darkness, gentleness, femininity etc, and proactivity, light, toughness, masculinity etc respectively. a very key and handy concept to have in mind is their relationship to each other - which I'll not attempt at explaining better than literal scholars have:

Yin and yang exist only in relation to one another internally as the way warmth-coldness only exist relative to one another. Furthermore, when using yin-yang as an organizational schema, achieving balancing harmony is always the goal, not domination nor subordination of one to the other. [x]

while yin and yang can be symbols of femininity and masculinity, it doesn't mean all female are yin and all male are yang. it's certainly not a strict 1-to-1 equation. the concept of gender in chinese context is more social than biological. this suggests room for fluidity, and shaping of identities, often through social rituals as one journeys through life. it also means that there can be femininity in the masculine, and vice versa - in fact, that's only healthy because you need a good balance of the two worlds. no one part is better than the other. if you think of the two components as relative to each other, they are always interacting and affecting each other, rather than being strict and inert binaries. simply put, it needs to be kept in mind that there are greater nuances in applying yin and yang to the definitions of gender, and to avoid at all cost a simplification of this framework into a binary.

sure, the show has implied that lxy's powers and energy are yin-coded. but femininity is only one of the multiple attributes of yin. so how are we extending lxy's yin to femininity specifically? it's in the text that substantiates and qualifies lxy as feminine. dead women being used as proxies to his character. being literally dressed as a woman in order to put himself into their shoes and feel what they've felt. adopting a name that happens to be very, very feminine - 莲花 lianhua (lit. lotus flower) (it must be caveated that chinese names are NOT gendered. but there are just some names that are more feminine than others.) him coming to lead a life revolving around traditionally feminine, domestic things as li lianhua. him having interactions with the women around him like he's in his own element - no pressure and tension at all, unlike with all the other men.

as such, I'm more willing to use yin and femininity interchangeably in discussing lxy (while it's not necessarily applicable to every point that will be mentioned albeit there being some degree of implied association). and it's for the sake of elucidating what I feel is an intention or very plausible reading of the canon text in parsing feminine experiences in lxy's character. and thus, his queerness.

one last note is that taoism is going be mentioned quite a bit as well because of how much it as a philosophy honours the yin quality. its key tenets include valuing passiveness and inaction as a form of action, and submitting to the nature of things. and we will see how those come up in lxy's life too. (though I'm not gonna attempt to deep dive into it here beyond broad strokes of it.)

a huge part of li xiangyi's yin actually manifests in him being a passive person. this applies not just to li lianhua, but also li xiangyi. I know. ok wait hear me out. the idea of yinyang is after all components that can change and are relational to each other: thus, there were points in li xiangyi's life when he was less passive than other points, but they ultimately don't match up to the degree of aggression displayed by other men around him. so relative to their display of proactivity and aggression, he can be considered as passive. the best example is that of shan gudao proposing to launch an offensive on jinyuan alliance, while lxy - as much as he was arrogant about it - was standing his ground on not taking action in favour of peace.

it has already showed up in his childhood as well. he wasn't a particularly competitive child: 从来都没有谁要和你争 nobody has ever thought of competing with you over anything, he told sgd as he recalled of their times growing up. it was in fact sgd who was desperate to control and override lxy's presence. baby lxy did not hesitate at all over giving up on winning in favour of protecting his only rare few close relationships left in the world (given how hard-earned relationships are when they're non-familial !!!!). as much as I resent the one-dimensional writing of sgd, he has served as a very strong marker to highlight on lxy's yin.

I've harped on it several times before but this is the time I finally get to explain it proper: my own theory is that li xiangyi became an unparalleled swordsmaster because of his yin/feminine quality, not in spite of it. an interesting point that had been out in the open unclaimed until it was brought up in our friend group is that, li xiangyi does not actually fit anybody's conventional image of a 武林盟主 wulin mengzhu (ie. ruler of wulin). it would most likely have been some burly, muscular, ultra-masculine dude. even if they don't look like the demonic monk, it should be someone more like di feisheng. but. it's li xiangyi, the boyish, delicate-looking kid, who came to the top. (no wonder people - mostly men - love or love to bully hate him like weak men hate powerful women??)

"why didn't they cast someone who looks more like a wulin mengzhu (read: traditionally manly)?" no, no that's precisely the point. nobody said wulin mengzhu have to look manly. and also who is to define the manliness required to be in a place of authority? (or in my other meta, we would ask, who is to define anybody gets to have the authority over anyone else at all?)

by taoist ideal, gentleness is the most refined form of strength. li xiangyi has been haunting and distracting me in my chinese calligraphy practices lately because I'm thinking about how this must be the closest to what it felt like lxy becoming the best swordsman in jianghu. (so pretentiously brainrotten of me, I know, BUT IT'S REAL and I'm suffering.) mastering a chinese art is essentially about mastering a delicate balance between force and gentleness; being able to draw force from softness 柔中带刚 and an ability to maintain this balance. a beginner will instinctively hold a brush for the first time with brute, unrefined force. some fairly reputable contemporary calligraphers, according to my teacher, can be seen as being either too soft or too forceful - but are still able to pass off as good enough. it's then, the master of masters who will have the sophistication of a firm yet flexible control of the brush with the appropriate use of gentleness/laxness that produces a harmony of strokes. this idea extends to any other sort of chinese craft or practice including traditional chinese medicine, and I believe, swordsmanship too. I'm taking a fucking leap of faith here to say this because I practise NO sort of (chinese) martial arts, I must caveat. (someone who does may want to say something...) but theoretically that should be how it works.

it is not for no rhyme or reason, or *handwaves* that lxy emerged to the top AND is almost undefeatable. among a competitive, forceful (ie. yang) wulin, li xiangyi stood out with a power and energy defined by yin (ie. gentleness and stability) that led him to create his signature 扬州慢 yangzhouman. it is characterised by 慢 slowness (my calligraphy teacher says to us all the time to take it slow), and also described by dfs as 中正绵长 - which I would best describe by painting a picture of a steady and stable stream. these precisely speak of the essence of a mastery of gentleness as strength to me.

conversely, dfs's way in mastering power is very largely premised on taking action because he literally had no other choice in the environment he grew up in. both of them develop in opposite ways. it was the case of gentleness for lxy clearly because he grew up in a safe, nurturing environment that had allowed him to be slow and steady at his own pace, drawing on his natural gifts.

now top of the wulin world at 17, li xiangyi founds sigu sect. li xiangyi, the boy before becoming menzhu and li xiangyi the leader of sigu sect are not the same.

how then did a (relatively) passive boy like lxy end up founding sigu sect. this lxy is the one who was fostered into competition - though not in an abusive, twisted way. in fact he was raised in a rather taoist way by his shifu: to be honest with yourself and respect your opponent. so he honoured whatever powers he had been bestowed with by nature. he gives into it. even so, at another level, I just have a sense that shifu and shiniang's competitive marital spat had an insidious effect on the boys...though the detrimental effect was more on sgd than lxy. baby lxy feels like a sweet-natured kid who was just in his own zone, you know - some (aka sgd) would say, too much of him even, to have not realised what was wrong at all with his shixiong for years.

that's not all of course. I've always gotten the vibes that his attitude behind forming sigu sect felt more like, this is what all the good men of jianghu do and I will have to do it now especially that I'm the best. it didn't feel particularly personal to me, but rather what would have been expected of him by the social climate of wulin jianghu (eg. lxy saying to 光耀师门 bring honour to his teacher). it's definitely not an expectation from his shifu, who explicitly told him that he was never expected to become a noble figure of any sort, but just to be alive and contented. as concluded by the man himself as li lianhua: "有些人入了江湖是为了立心，而有的人入江湖为的是立命。我却不知道自己真正想要的是什么。some people enter jianghu for the cultivation of the mind, others for a cultivation of a meaningful life. but I never knew what I truly wanted." he was ultimately, unwittingly a passive player in his own story of becoming the great sigu sect leader.

(at this point, as a side note, I do wonder if there were any other similar sects or alliances that function the same as sigu sect that came before it. because I'm damn well sure there must be something, as likely as there must have been generations of wulin legends who came before lxy. but of course, this is not what the story is concerned with at all and I'm ok with that.)

it's crucial to point out that, even despite this being the phase of his yang in the display of taking action and enacting firmness, lxy had still done sigu sect with the sole purpose and manner of upkeeping peace and order (in the way of the pro-universal love, anti-aggression mohist 侠 xia leader of the people). he's still very characterised by yin in my books, especially when vis-à-vis to sgd.

a li xiangyi full of himself and made himself too useful to the people was only bound for a great asteroidal fall, in the concept of 物极必反 - or in taoist lexicon 反者道之动 (ie. anything that has reached its limit will only start developing in the opposite direction). if you think you're above all, you can only go down.

this manifests during the next time he took action - and it was one so forceful that it overpowered even his opponent, dfs who ended up being the passive, receiving party in this case - was in initiating the battle at donghai 10 years ago... and gee oh boy. it didn't end well - for both of them, but even more so for lxy. (dfs was like 'tis but a scratch (shrugs)' as compared to him being ripped off his tendons by jiao liqiao like nezha did to the dragon prince. truth is he had to go into a 10-year healing retreat served by his entourage. :p) ok, I digress.

xiao zijin was quick to attribute sigu sect's fall to lxy's arrogance - in turn setting the stage for lxy's 10 years of self-hatred and the framing of lxy as a villain? irresponsible figure? by jianghu. (god forbid girls do anything! ok for legal reasons, this a joke.) lxy lost his mind in ways I believe he never had in his life there and then upon seeing his shixiong dead. so, you could say he led the jianghu world to ruins out of love (using this term loosely). but it feels inaccurate to say it's due to arrogance. he did not do that out of self-importance or ego, especially when the revenge for sgd was a collective decision made by sigu sect as we know from the flashback. so when llh pinned all fault on himself for being arrogant in the past, it is with caution to take his words because that's the unreliable narrator in him speaking.

anyway, it's precisely li xiangyi that is capable of bouncing back from such a fatal crisis, equipped with his yin and a mastery that gave him the power of flexibility.

it's extremely vital to re-establish that literally the only thing that was keeping li xiangyi alive, physically, as li lianhua is yangzhouman. (monk wuliao literally said that to lxy even though he did facilitate in saving him.) it's the yangzhouman that was drawn from lxy's mastery of yin. without yangzhouman, li xiangyi would not even have the chance to become li lianhua and undergo any needed process of transformation. without li xiangyi, there would have been no yangzhouman. no li xiangyi, no li lianhua, get it?

the point is not to deny the change li xiangyi wants to make and has made. but to acknowledge that change isn't about complete erasure and destruction. something from you survives. something in you had kept you alive to have you come so far, regardless of all the bad bits that you want to denounce of. you've always been worth it.

bringing back the thing about his new name: the distinction must be made that he did not pick it because it was feminine but it just so happened a feminine name had resonated with him. (read: he didn't necessarily identify as a woman but identified with femininity. at least within the parameters of canon text.)

he also made an interesting choice to retain his surname for someone who was desperate to sever ties from his past. hmm. or maybe he wasn't that desperate? when li lianhua says li xiangyi is dead, I believe it meant that li xiangyi the sigumen menzhu is dead rather than li xiangyi as an entirety. li lianhua is a returning to the path lxy could have gone if he did not establish sigu sect, the path that shifu wanted him to take. when he walked to the doors of sigu sect in the aftermath, nothing was actually stopping him from going back (people were still around and alive, instead of all dead people, you know)... except for himself. taking that action would have been too much for him. so he went with the flow of life giving him a chance at rebirth and walked away. there, inaction as a form of action.

zhan yunfei and qiao wanmian have said to li lianhua, oh that doesn't sound like li xiangyi at all. but has it been considered that, maybe it was sigu sect's lxy who wasn't the real lxy? sigu sect lxy was one big performance of the values of masculinity and heteronormativity that llh had came to an awareness of, and eventually struggle with again and resist against in the final year of his life. there had only been some glimpses of his true nature allowed (validated by fang duobing talking about lxy at his altar).

imho, most flashbacks of lxy during that period felt impersonal and more like a template of a hero expected to marry his girl at 18. going through all the motions and steps of a normative life even before he was old enough to grasp and explore his own identity and what it meant in the world. no wonder he denounced so much of what he had done as lxy including liking girls. walking away then also meant a walk away from those duties and expectations. li lianhua is li xiangyi liberated from masculine duties and heteronormative performance.

in doing that, he had the opportunity for the first time in his life to explore what he truly wanted, at least within the parameters of what he could afford to do at that point. he could go on to build a domestic, feminine life within the space of jianghu (as I've established here). it's a kind of feminine lifestyle that doesn't quite exist in mainstream society - being a woman there meant to stay put in a domestic space without much room to move socially. nor did it exist in wulin jianghu because even the women there like shi-guniang and jlq were expected to be masculine, aggressive, competitive. so building a mobile home in the space of jianghu is his way of defining the life he wants and can have. li lianhua is the extension of femininity in li xiangyi - and one that can be free.

it's also worth talking about in my opinion what is one of the most important and a favourite dihua moment: when dfs said to lxy that his greatest weakness was to like being a hero. and a swordsman should be without weaknesses. I'm forever wrapped up in how many layers this can be read in. was he mad at lxy for liking to be a hero or having weaknesses, or both? if the former, it was dfs criticising, based on lxy's public reputation, lxy's oversized illusions about being a hero - a figure of masculinity with an unrealistic sense to uphold noble goals eg. saving the world etc. that is actually perfectly logical coming from dfs, the straightforward, no-nonsense, morally neutral guy with no illusions about heroism (in this case, he feels more like a yin). but at the same time, we should understand that lxy's motivations behind the donghai battle are more personal than noble. if any, it was actually the opposite of noble - it was like he was acting out of the role of a caretaker of his family, and at a cost of the peace and order of jianghu he was set on guarding(!!) dfs also knew that lxy was there just for his shixiong. and so, dfs, who happens to be the epitome of yang, can be read as a symbol of masculinity disapproving of lxy for being sentimental and emotional; for having the "feminine" desires to simply want to defend his family (not saying those are exclusively feminine traits but they have been conventionally associated as feminine). I think both layers of reading are correct and should work together to contribute to the complexity of their characters. (we can see how it contributes to lxy and dfs being the perfect yinyang halves to each other, which I will come back to briefly touch on later.)

for 10 years he lived a life of seclusion and staying-in-his-own-lane a taoist would be proud of. he knew he was dying and has always been ok with dying, as he claimed. but did he want to die? to think of it, it was the opposite. because in those 10 years when he could have 100% just taken action to take his own life, he didn't. in fact, he lived on and took care of himself in the way shifu wanted him to. he had simply preferred letting nature run its course. if bicha didn't take him, he wasn't gonna do anything. but if he died one day very soon, he would be ok with it too. sure, he was maybe banking on a lead to sgd's whereabouts to appear during his last years alive but that clearly wasn't the only thing on his mind for NINE years because he didn't actively go out seeking for that either. this is basically him telling dfs that he would just lie in the sun and wait for the sweet release of death, if dfs were to force him to fight. not even the mortal threat from dfs was enough to move him into action of fighting back or killing himself.

time and again, lxy as llh was dragged into fdb's cases but not only that, he also maintained an impersonal distance with them. it's starkly different from the usual (wuxia) hero archetypes (for eg. fdb) who would be more impassioned and personally invested in the plight of the victims- or unlike most seemingly aloof protagonists who would somehow grow emotionally invested over time. one of the many things I love about llh is that he never tries a second time to persuade people out of their decisions he finds unwise (eg. him just wanting to move on in response to the girls in 女宅 insisting on staying behind with their slave master at first.) he will not interfere in other people's choices made in their own lives. it's not his business. he didn't even want to be there, to be honest.

however as the story progresses, more and more people - especially men, his past, and the leads to the truth came back to demand and taunt him into doing something. they vary from well-meaning people without any harm intended such as fdb intruding upon his private space completely uninvited and qwm wanting him back; to dfs merely seeking him as a mean to an end initially (eg. I only need him to live long enough to have one last fight); and finally, on the other end of the spectrum, outright aggressive and hostile people like sgd and xzj who wanted him to die. under all this pressure, he tried his best to deflect, but he does waver especially when it comes to matters concerning the people he cares about aka his obsession wish of 10 years of looking for sgd's remains that had lied low until fdb entered his life, and then later on taking revenge for his shifu.

looking for sgd became his final bid at taking action. he was operating on a slim chance of getting some emotional closure from finding out his shixiong is dead for real, yes. what a good plan. but objectively unnecessary. or surprise! uhhh...finding out his beloved shixiong is actually alive and would strangle him for one corn chip? AND OH NO IT GOT WORSE- uncovering a devastating truth about his shifu's death that he could have totally gone on with life fine without knowing if he had continued not caring.

but it is sometimes just impossible not to care - it is only human to care. and he is human, not an icon in the image of a hero. so he took a chance, once more, and it killed him in unprecedented ways. it's donghai all over again. things in life don't go as planned. you fuck around and it fucks you back. finding out the truth behind his shifu's death and his family background from the past did nothing for him as li lianhua living in the present.

it's no wonder that this lxy decisively relinquishes the desire to take action in the end. he goes back to letting nature run its course. and this time, stands firmly to it despite everyone begging him otherwise. wangchuan flower could only give him a recovery (or survival?) rate of 30%. there's a 70% chance of failure and even in the 30% he was not sure what he was to become. in comparison, dfs took a 10% chance game of survival in a heartbeat, and it pushed him to new heights. that's how they differ: he thrives by taking risks and action while lxy the other way round. so, something like that has happened before and he wants none of it again.

he leaves lotus tower, only taking his horse and a sack - relinquishing almost every other material belonging he had - and sets off on a journey. before xzj interrupted...where to was he going?? I wonder. we don't know for sure, I think? and are we allowed to know? that makes the scene he had with xzj an understated inflection point in the very last part of his journey. yes, he was already on his way to...maybe die? but not necessarily. you don't have to travel distances with your belongings for that, right? or speak to dfs personally about not wanting to fight? (borrowing one of @ananeiah's takes.) regardless, he was definitely leaving behind jianghu - not only wulin jianghu (he already did that 10 years ago), but also the jianghu space he had carved out in the last 10 years.

what sparked the decision to jump off the cliff in him was dfs's words from the night of their wedding 10th donghai anniversary: 横扫天下容易，断相夷太剑不易 conquering the world is easy, breaking xiangyi sword is not. in the original context, dfs was talking about defeating lxy being harder than conquering the world. but when it came to this scene, it was to lxy about forsaking the very last worldly possessions he had after already giving up on lotus tower and hulijing (including releasing his horse), especially his only connection left to swordsman lxy.

perhaps it had dawned on him that, wanting things at all was bad for him. in the last 10 years, he lived a life of seclusion, wanting very little. but he had still wanted things. there were still things he couldn't let go of that had led him to this state. despite having lived on an identity inspired by a buddhist teaching for 10 years, maybe it was only at this point that he was finally the closest to reaching an understanding of it. (I wish I was knowledgeable enough right now to dive into the possible buddhist reading here but alas. I'll leave it to our resident expert @markiafc)

it doesn't quite matter in the end where he was going after all. what mattered was that he literally went where the water took him and we're not supposed to know where it ends. I'm not seeing this in a bad and pessimistic way though. I think the relief in all this is that he had tried his best to within his abilities. also it's a form of enlightenment in relinquishing a desire, an obsession, a need to take any more action in order to live well. thus his ending felt to me relatively tender, empowering, and kind - albeit bittersweet and heartaching - than other possible kinds of ending, in a story where it was very possible for him to have died under the knives of his opponents or bicha at any moment, outside of his control.

if you've come so far in this post, congratulations! but also a reveal is that... you're not immune to the dihua propaganda threaded throughout this post. :P

as mentioned, other men like sgd and xzj in lxy's life were incredibly hostile to him. their yang nature overwhelmingly powers his yin. but dfs is different. dfs is the yang counterpart that fits perfectly to his yin.

dfs's yang is one that contains yin, that mirrors lxy's balance of yang in yin. it was suggested in text they are yinyang-coded meant to complement each other, given that whenever wangchuan flower's yin vs yang properties were discussed, the two men were always spoken about in the same breath. more importantly, as with the above few analyses of dfs's words playing a big role in shaping of lxy's choices with multiple meanings - as well as their day-to-day interactions - we can see that they constantly play off each other.

dfs's yang energy has been used to help lxy prolong his life (though not saving him entirely), while lxy has used his yin energy to save dfs and subsequently helped him attain his breakthrough. dfs has also helped lxy in his breakthrough of yin but not in the same way as dfs's cultivation of his combative powers, and rather, it's for lxy an understanding of his own path to take in life - a cultivation of the mind (both times 10 years before and after). given how significant dfs is in the shaping of lxy's realisation of the yin path - alike his shifu has, it's no wonder that they were the only two people lxy had imagined in his last sword dance of a farewell to jianghu.

with each of them coming together to form the perfect yin-yang model, they're a harmony of yin and yang representing the cosmos. what I also love is that they didn't start out as a perfect fit, but only towards the end of the story was the harmonisation completed, which makes sense for two components that are always in a flux influencing each other. the fact that they were number 1 and 2 of wulin, and being the only ones capable of understanding each other in a level nobody else could... it all reinforces the cosmic sense of their relationship. they're the halves to a whole, fitting in a specific way nobody else can.

(I mean. technically this is going into the space of extrapolation based on a tangential interpretation of canon text, so do take it with a pinch of salt. but of course this pinch of salt can do wonders for a shipper's feast... :P and this certainly could have been a meta of its own expanding on dfs's side of the analysis, but this is it for now in this context.)

to think of it, li xiangyi has actually died more than that one time that turned him into li lianhua. first was a death of him as a nanyin royalty - I resent having to bring up nanyin like it should hold any weight to the narrative as far as I'm concerned, but the point being that he had a completely different (familial-based) life before that still stands. then he had a rebirth as li xiangyi, disciple and swordsman to his shifu and shiniang, and later died again when li xiangyi the sigu sect leader took over. lxy the sigu sect leader died at sea in the battle 10 years ago and came back as li lianhua. (just like nezha, died after battling at east sea and rebirthed from the lotus) li lianhua then dies by the end of the drama.

there can be a myriad of interpretations as to what exactly happened to him, including the possibility that he's still alive. regardless, we can agree that li lianhua as an identity has ran its course, and he had to evolve again. but into what form?

in the line of thought of yin and femininity, and how his transformation has been in an increasing degree of presentation of femininity - even way back when I was watching the show, I had the idea of him living socially as a woman post-li lianhua. I don't know what he would be realistically doing or what could be practical for him in such an identity. but conceptually it was sensible and compelling to me before diving deeper into the details. (I have more elaboration to do on this that I won't be talking about here publicly but it is in the same strain of idea as this other comparative meta I wrote.)

I think the next possible identity lxy can assume - alive in the material realm or not - is one that will be beyond a material being. a nameless entity. once you've gone through the phases of life - from not knowing to knowing, and perfecting knowledge, then to the surpassing of knowledge - you surpass all worldly existence, and become one with the cosmos.

I end this off with an excerpt from Tao Te Ching's Chapter 41 (I'm not pretending to have read the whole book ok but I couldn't resist including this):

明道若昧，进道若退，夷道若纇 [...] 道隐无名 The bright path seems dim; Going forward seems like retreat; The easy way seems hard [...] The Tao is hidden and without name. (x)

the character translated into "easy" is the same 夷 yi of li xiangyi's name. somehow this seems to encapsulate the journey of his life: one that seems blessed and smooth-sailing but ending up to be rocky and turbulent. but at the end of the day, after all that he had been through, he will become hidden and without name.

#莲花楼 #mysterious lotus casebook #lhl #lhlmeta #my posts #a big win for the inaction fandom. lxy would have been patron saint #this inevitably turned into a 'lhl is a taoist and buddhist story if not a very chinese story' meta hbhjbjhbhjjb #the last thing i do before going to sleep is write this meta. the first thing i do after waking up is write this meta.#i feel so insane writing this. it kept growing like a monster. do you think this is a joke it's like my part-time job now #but it's one of the few times in my life i have confidence in my insanity. so.#crazier thing is. this meta is approaching 6k words yet i still think there must be things i haven't covered.#the last section is so nuts idk how i even wrote it guys i think i was possessed #it's also like the most pretentious way to put that he's dead in this world ok hjbjhbhjbhjbjbh #to be clear iirc the drama didn't say LXY'S POWER/ENERGY IS YIN in the same way it literally said dfs's energy is yang #but it's definitely implied by the explanation of the flower's healing properties for both of them. on top of yangzhouman #also fuck. another reason he didn't choose to save himself was so dfs could have the yang flower which he believed was what dfs wanted #thank u frens mark and ana for indulging my brain in the first time i brought the lxy as woman thing up. for it to have come this far #ofc disclaimer is that a lot of this is my own reading. it doesnt have to be agreed by everyone #i would be very happy though if any part of it resonated with anybody #also a good part of the analysis is based on my memory of the show. though i did revisit parts selectively to verify. sooooo. yeah.

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molinaskies · 2 months

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The thing that bugs me about the many conflicts of interest that happen between sonic and shadow is that no one in the fandom seems to consider that the fact sonic was wrong doesn't mean shadow was right

This is such a good point. Say it louder for the people in the back!

Sonic and Shadow fundamentally butt heads because of how they both view their responsibilities to protect the world.

The most pointed example of this for me is the inciting incident in Sonic Prime. I’ve already said a while back that I think Shadow is equally to blame for shattering the crystal because he was the one who prevented Sonic from doing what he had to do. I got some pushback saying that Sonic was the instigator of Shadow’s aggression, but I have a hard time believing that when Shadow literally greeted Sonic with a punch. Yes, Sonic still made a lot of mistakes that I acknowledged in my original post, but Shadow immediately set the tone for that encounter and it was NOT positive. My point in bringing this up again is to say that they both fucked up, but Shadow, the show itself, and much of the viewers blame exclusively Sonic because Shadow somehow stole the moral highground.

More nuanced, however, is the discussion around Sonic’s moral code as presented in the IDW comics (which are canon to the mainline series, btw, if anyone didn’t know. They are the same picture).

In issue 7, Sonic and Shadow argue over whether Eggman should live freely as Mr. Tinker. Shadow states that Eggman deserves to pay for all the pain he’s put Sonic through (among the other harm he’s caused). While Sonic agrees, he hinges on the fact that Eggman isn’t around anymore. Sonic doesn’t want to punish Mr. Tinker because he doesn’t want to be an arbiter of justice.

Yes, Sonic was “wrong,” but was Shadow really right in this case? Everyone in-universe gets upset with Sonic for not knowing something he reasonably had no way of knowing (literally who tf would have predicted Starline? lol) but what they’re really upset with is the fact that Sonic didn’t mitigate the risk.

I really feel like you can’t ascribe moral boundaries to these things. One isn’t good while the other is bad and vice versa. It’s all shades of gray.

#anything underlined is a link to another related post!#it’s like a reward #I’m sorry this took so long to come out it’s been sitting in my drafts for like half a year because I died #I don’t remember exactly why this came up in the moment #I think there was general discussion around how babied shadow is as a character #but I really don’t remember #overall I still agree with this take #though I will note that I have not seen season 3 of sonic prime so I’m missing a large chunk of context #sonic the hedgehog #sth #sonic #shadow the hedgheog #sonic prime #idw sonic #sonic idw #idw shadow #molina asks #molinaskies

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haaam-guuuurl · 4 months

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Okay, I just figured out why the ending of episode 2 bummed me out so much.

Seeing every character get home to bad news felt really demoralizing, in a way that was probably more than it deserved, because it is natural that stuff like high school couples breaking up, or wealth disparities and future questioning, or academic trouble, or parental or sibling absence, happens in adolescence, but I just realized that it felt like a gut punch because we didn't see any of it build up.

We have no idea what happened with Gorgug and Zelda, and since they were golden when we last saw them, it feels so weird for it to be implied that they break up. We've spent very little time at Aguefort, so Fig and Kristen's near expulsion is total news to us. We haven't accompanied Sklonda's career shift or even just that much of the Gukgak's home life, so we weren't expecting it to affect Riz's future like that. We didn't get to really see Aelwyn's life change post SY, so it was jarring to have her be gone already. Even Gilear and Hallariel, we've barely seen them actually be together, so for them to be engaged already felt very out of nowhere to me. I think if we'd gotten to see stuff progress to this point, it'd feel a lot more natural and not upsetting at all.

But then I realized, too, that this is exactly what the Bad Kids are feeling!! They're getting home after being gone all summer and realizing they've missed all this stuff, and it feels out of nowhere to them, too!! They're tired, surprised, and feeling like they're lacking key experiences, and now so are we! They made this in a way that it not only depicts typical high school experiences and opens up story opportunities for the new season, but it also puts the audience, emotionally, in the exact same place as the characters!

Brennan Lee Mulligan, you evil genius. I cannot wait for the rest of the season, I simply need to see how they get through this. My emotional well-being depends on it!!!

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fhjy #junior year #dropout #my posts #i still think introducing new npcs and getting rid of all of them in the same episodes is mean though #i've said it before and i'll say it again #watching this stuff as it comes out instead of binging is TORTURE #like really i am way too upset about zelda and gorgug breaking up #but i do think that if we'd gotten to actually see them grow apart or agree to break up or smt it'd be easier to accept #though i am still hoping to at least see aelwyn at some point this season 🤞🤞

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jahiera · 7 months

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speaking strictly from a plot & writing perspective here, not a commentary on characters or who or who is not my favorite blorbo (they all are). it's gale time and I wanted to get down everything I thought about this go around with his romance & the writing before it escapes me.

so I once again had a ton of fun of course, the game is still a blast, and several arcs were way more satisfying this time around simply because I ... did not skip the creche, unlike my very first run (I was an idiot) (I didnt think it would be that important) (it really really was). love it 10/10. I cannot WAIT to do my gith run & really focus in on that because the lore there is just, so cool, and that subplot was really rich & rewarding this time around since I had someone who was not orpheus become a mindflayer instead.

as for Gale, Thank Fuck I started before they bugged him up again too much. but let's deep dive into The Material.

shoutout to Tim first of all, he's a legend, dreamboat, superstar. there are so many lines delivered so effortlessly when they would sound ridiculous in anyone else's mouth. he gives gale so much soulful intensity and subtle, nuanced gravitas befitting someone like gale; with enough of Gale's own moments of silliness, cheekiness, wry wit & understated sarcasm, to outright flabbergasted at times, I was Giggling every conversation fr. I'm not usually prone to the "I LOVE YOU" Romances that come earlier rather than later, but ohhhhhhh tim gives each line with all the weight & agony that you can feel inside Gale when it comes (the looming death; not knowing what the end may bring; not wanting to leave any regrets behind) so like. MWAH to him. MWAH MWAH. all the kisses in the world.

okay mandatory compliments to the actor aside. I came out of the whole thing with breadth of new appreciation for Gale as a character in terms of the... concepts, threads, that make him up, and act 2 is where he REALLY shines overall.

I didn't necessarily come away from it with the same... weepy...... done-no-wrong? interpretation of Gale that I've seen floating about. he's lovely. he's intense. he's got soul-crushing devotion on his mind, no doubt. but for every fracture of tenderness, raw sincerity, & off the cuff soliloquy, he's got a lot of interesting flaws/characteristics I'd love to unpick with a fine-toothed comb on some replays or rewatches. Still trying to turn over in my brain exactly what that is, but it's there, and I love it. will say I'm really glad I played it mostly in a vacuum rather than getting too into others' thoughts on him, because What I Had Seen on the Webbed Site had near put me off entire (seeing someone say he's not prideful or pompous at all... when he self-describes as pompous?) -- maybe it's my tendency to focus in on what makes a character tick, when are they sharper, or harder, or meaner, and I enjoy watching that play out a lot, but? yeah. I didn't come away thinking him a super soft mushy mwahmwah -- ROMANTIC, yes, but overall as a character not nearly so lovesick and in desperate need of some protector. in fact when you tell him you don't want to be his crutch, he says as much too -- you've helped him, but you're not the sole focus of his person or the only thing keeping him alive.

there's enough of the humanity in his cheekier moments (stop licking the damn thing!!) and plenty of tear-jerking aside all of that. gale my canon-depressive-episode, mildly suicidal, chronic pained up, still-kind-of-full-of-yourself king. I adore you I love you I cradle you softly in my arms. he charmed me entire! I think that the themes hey were trying to tackle are really interesting and nuanced and I do have some thoughts on the success of the game in actually tackling those, what is there is really wonderful. some gorgeous writing in act 2, especially, and it was sold so well by the voice acting & sincerity in the writing I was just like. PERFECT. 10/10. NEED TO WRITE 98 FLUFF PIECES RN. which does not happen often, to me, as a person.

with. some exceptions, going back to critiquing act 3 as a whole.

act 1 & 2 are both strong, really nice. however this romance definitely needed at least one or two more scenes in act 2 to pad out the space between awkward flirting at the party to "I like it when you're sweaty and bloody-- sorry who said that" to "I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU." -- these scenes should've elaborated on Gale's personal feelings; of mystra, of what's been asked of him, of Tav. they should've set in threads of Gale's anger earlier, rather than the jarring shift from late act 2 "yeah I'll kill myself" to "actually... mystra fucking sucks! lol!" in act 3 at sorcerer sundries. yeah babygirl, mystra DOES fucking suck, wish I could've listened to you as you arrived to these conclusions rather than connecting empty character lines between act 2 and 3. and act 3 desperately needed more space to talk gale in or out of the crown. because by the time we get to the end, if he's really into the crown, he's into it beyond the focus of all else. but in the scenes where you talk him off that particular ledge, it doesn't even take very long to do so, and leaves kind of a weird... gap of intention.

I feel like they wrote themselves into a bit of a corner, honestly. because Gale's personal quest literally cannot be resolved until 5 minutes before the end, any climax wouldn't have much space afterward to pad the aftermath. so the solution to that would've been more character focus scenes, more flavor text depending on how you've influenced gale, something that actually makes the choices feel rewarding -- some hurdles to cross too, checks of some kind. but there really isn't any of that, and so the conflict is almost nonexistent. you squirt gale with a water bottle and he gives up the crown with no real additional dialogue. or you tell him "ma...maybe???" and he's suddenly a power obsessed little freak (complimentary) with no recourse, and in either case, we never got much dialogue to get some insight into his personal thoughts on it. this doesn't make Gale a bad character, but it does leave the narrative to be lacking in some regard.

like, for example. Astarion gets dialogue changes depending on the quest outside of character-specific moments (such as a spawn Astarion changing his dialogue after you help Aylin with Lorroakan), post-quest conversations, PRE-quest conversations with his siblings, moments where he reveals more of what he thinks (such as "You're... you. no one is like that.") etc., Gale gets None of that. the only other characters who really do are Lae'zel and Shadowheart; everyone else is either shafted or resolved in the last few minutes too. I came out of this most satisfied as a player overall with LAE'ZEL'S conclusion (also at the end of the game!!) because we had gotten a few more moments where her focus is obvious and her motivations are clear.

anyways, those are just general writing issues. Act 3 overall is the weakest, most agree, and that's still true here. Sadly it kind of takes some of Gale down with it in this case, because his personal quest is both so removed from the overall plot (despite him being a literal fixture as the only character who knows anything about the crown & was decreed by a literal god to take out the absolute).

however none of this is related to Gale as a guy. as a guy I'm Fucking Obsessed With Him. taking him with me everywhere was so rewarding especially in act 1 / 2. his commentary & insights, when they were there, ranged from funny as fuck to genuinely insightful & interesting for the overall plot. the ideas behind him, the glimpses we get of the life he led before, and the life he wants to lead after with Tav -- or what he alludes to wanting to lead with Tav, thinking that he'll still probably die at the end of this -- are lovely, interesting, TOUCHED MY SPIRIT. he's such a neat version of how to do a character that is as endearing as he can be foot-in-mouth, and as intelligent as he can be a little belligerent. I looooved every moment I could talk with him about magic in act 1, see his passions (beyond mystra), argue with him about how to do something (I'M the magical wonder here actually and I get to make the shadowlantern), all of that really MADE the romance for me in the lulls where his Silence or the gaps in his writing were more clear. 10/10 would kiss that fucking wizard again and cry a little bit thinking about exploding with him aboard a giant alien brain while one of those "ITS YOUUU I LIE WITH" songs plays in the bg

#tldr he's my special guy. some of the writing was disappointing as a pacing thing but he's MY SPECIAL GUY #I also cried a little bit as lae'zel got to take off on a red dragon with orpheus but that's secondary #also I said orpheus is hot & NO ONE agreed with me. fine. I'll carry this banner alone #men who are capable of executing a rebellion or instant apocalypse with their swaths of power. What.#who said that.#anyways. GALE MY DARLING. my belovedest. I want to write 1000 dialogue snippets in act 2 and 3 for you #and MAYBE I WILL. who knows.#still chewing on him and need to Ponder if I want to actually make any sort of character studies for him because. um.#some of you.. can be off the rails about this man. but I do think of him fondly and love what was there #he can be a bit of a bitch he can be the most wonderful man in the world he can hold your hand he can cast globe of invulnerability #he can also make the FUNNIEST fucking oneliners known to man. I crave him carnally & emotionally #I want to Add scenes to his romance. I wish act 3 was better. goddamn.#still one of my favorite games though. I am Back on the nautiloid as we speak. Durge and Minthara time #bg3 meta

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avirxy · 3 months

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Since Claire's the Trollhunter in First Frost how do her and Strickler's interactions go after she finds out he's a Changeling, or sorta Changeling, like does she go after him straight away or tell her friends? Because they almost never interacted in Trollhunters.

I’ve actually thought about this because I don’t think they ever really did interact at least not after he was outed as a changeling, even when she was possessed, which is so strange.

But she connects the pieces after the Grit Shaka incident and they get the Gumm Gumm totem off another one of the kids. Jim still has no idea, neither does Barbara.

Claire does confront him alone, a very Claire move, out of blue and Strickler isn’t surprised, he drops the ball that he knows she’s cursed, but he still isn’t aware she’s the Trollhunter which comes back to bite him exponentially not long after.

I’ve got most of it blocked out and man, they’re both really cunning, and natural thinkers, the dialogue gets so snippy. And here he knows exactly where to antagonize, her strained relationship with her mom, being cursed, her little brother in the darklands, she almost goes after him right then and there for that comment. But the interaction happens in a public place so she can’t exactly get away with beating her history teacher to a pulp without running the high risk of getting hauled to the station.

Claire does actually end up telling the other kids about Strickler after she confronts him, the only reason she didn’t immediately is because one, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure and two, Jim and Barbara.

The dinner goes down a lot differently afterwards, because Strickler assumes the Trollhunter is actually Jim still, he isn’t expecting to get sacked by 5’5 of fury from the basement nor Draal more so later.

#trollhunters #tales of arcadia #toa #first frost #asks #claire nuñez #walter strickler #Jim wasn’t playing about fighting Strickler during dinner but Claire’s just genuinely out to kill him #and that literally terrifies him which is so valid #I think even after he’s redeemed though Claire will still despise him for what he did to her brother #she only agrees to play nice because Jim and Barbara

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luvbug724 · 1 month

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obsessed w jeanee Actually. she drove hours in the middle of the night for him. she organised a heist for him. she blackmails a university for him. she was willing to break into the nest w brute force for him. she was willing to rob a hardware store to do it. she seriously contemplates climbing over barbed wire fences to get to him. she handles diversions and distractions with grace for him. she has the invasive curiosity to want to know all abt his little knick knacks. she resorts to violence when someone tries to stop her from getting to him. she prays for him. she talks to him softly when the only feeling in the room is rage. she pushes his hair out of his face. she checks his pulse obsessively. YEAH………… are we all seeing this rn

its so wonderful to me too because like this is RENEE. renee, who is a bad person trying very hard to be good. there was a post going around maybe a month ago how empathy for everyone circles back around into empathy for no one i can't remember any of the specifics but it rlly did something for how i see renee because shes a protector. its defensive. its safe. she knows the limits, she knows the point of no return because shes been to rock bottom and clawed her way up but she's willing to do whatever she needs to to get jean out of the nest.

there is a big difference between cradling allison when andrew hurts her vs actively threatening eau, going on the offense to make sure jean leaves safe with her. there's something insane to me abt how a few months of texting and calling jean could push her to that point, the point where she needed to be talked down off the ledge before the plan was more natalie than renee because this was something she absolutely could not fuck up. she knew that her efforts would be worthless if she didn't create a plan that couldn't backfire, because the punishment for jean trying to leave and failing (and i'm sure that message to renee would be used against him) or leaving and coming back would be 1000x worse than whatever they could do to him from a distance.

and then when she has him in his arms and she knows he's going to be safe, he'll be okay as long as she can get him to abby, she can let herself be kind again.

#IT DRIVES ME INSANE #like helloooooo??????#i genuinely am not sure if this makes sense or if its just wordvomit but DO YOU GET IT #it may not be love yet but it IS something worthwhile. you know #they havent even known each other for that long!!!!!!!!#i said a few tags back that renee's actions arent lesser if theyre based on romance and like i know its been maybe 2 hours since i said it #but i still agree!!!! renee i think doesnt get her due diligence for her motivations. in the pursuit of like the strong independent #woman archetype i think we've neglected the fact that you know. a woman can be motivated by romantic feelings and it doesn't make her any #less strong or liberated #having a connection with a person isn't a weakness #feminism is so nuanced! there is no one size fits all! restating this idea for the third time this post but there is no weakness in love #even though misogyny has made it so easy to get reactionary with it and claim that any show of strength isn't motivated by it at all!#do u catch my drift. i can say it a different way a fourth time if necessary i dont think i can verbalize my thoughts well #hm ok thoughts to chew on!#back to my shitty hockey novels while i wait for tsc to drop!#jeanee #asks

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msfcatlover · 4 months

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Y’know, in the town I grew up in there was like… a silent war over what we called the town. It had a few different nicknames (and, of course, a full name) and everyone chose one which sounded right to them and stuck to it. If two people who chose different sides ended up talking about it, they would passive aggressively use their own preferred nickname more & more pointedly as the conversation went on.

Anyway, DC’s version of this is Bludhaven. There are people who call it Blud (pronounced “blood,”) people who call it Blud (pronounced “blue’d”), people who call it BHC (like NYC), people who call it BC (“You can’t just take an initial from the middle of a word!”), people who call it Haven, and people who call it by its full name (with either of the previous 2 pronunciations.)

And if you question any of them, they’ll tell you theirs is the only right way to say it. Everyone else is wrong.

#Bludhaven #nightwing #dick grayson #richard grayson #Dc comics #batman #batfam #batfamily #dick grayson nightwing #nightwing dick grayson #my life #mine #dc headcanon #//#Nightwing mirrors whoever he’s talking to and /never/ says the name of the city first.#Dick Grayson switches it up regularly because he likes to be obnoxious but also knows how to make people like/agree with him.#He is usually just one step off from whoever he's talking to in order to cut the middle ground and leans into his Gotham accent #so they think he's new to the city and will decide he's just ignorant/needs it explained to him.#Dick's been living there over a decade and it's still very funny when someone starts gently telling him nobody /actually/ calls it that.#(Though I believe if left to his own devices then Dick would call it Haven.)

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qroier · 9 months

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I was rewatching the vod where bobby dies and I cannot stop thinking about the idea of roier trading his infinite lives for getting bobby back. Like just imagine the potential there, there’s already a bit of a thing with people treating roier almost like he’s an egg sometimes, imagine how much worse it would be if he actually did only have two lives just like an egg. Also in terms of guapoduo (which I have full faith would have still ended up happening, even with bobby alive), cellbit is already worried about his family and about what el quackity’s threat means for them, imagine how much more worried he’d be if THREE of his family members (richas roier and bobby) all had a limited number of lives

Like I’m imagining bad scolding roier at ninho for not typing in chat that he’s been revived by someone because of course their paranoid butts would have actually ended up making roier a room there too. There's just so many other moments that would be so changed, like foolish actually having to go revive roier when he threw himself off bobby’s tower in an attempt to summon osito bimbo if osito bimbo still refused to show up. Plus there’d be so much added weight every time roier offers to let someone kill him after his silly ways go a little too far

skldfjskldjf sorry I’m an angst lover at heart and I love the idea of a confrontation on the whole I’M NOT ACTUALLY AN EGG thing since we already got a teeny crumb when etoiles kept laughing at how unprepared roier seemed in the dungeon, and I also love the idea of how much more cellbit would lose it everytime he sees that roier has been downed in chat, especially every time it happens when roier’s with quackity

Also also outside of lore and story the fact that cc!ro would have had to play tryhard way more often if something like this actually happened would have made it very fun to see as a viewer

#qsmp #roier #au #again sorry the idea of roier actually getting pushed into having a room at ninho is the funniest thing in the world skdjflskjdf #no clue how this would have worked as an actual thing within the game because obviously even if he dies #there would have to still be some way for roier to continue streaming on the qsmp #would he have had to go full dnd and make a new character? or would it be a rubius bringing him back kind of thing idk #best case scenario though would have been that both he and bobby leave that dungeon with two lives #aghh i don't even want to think about jaiden's reaction she would absolutely agree to something like this too #spiderbit #guapoduo #speaking

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asitrita · 4 months

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Some people are all "Doflamingo is pure evil from the start", "he never cared for anyone", "he never really loved his brother, he was only using him, it's not like he cared for him nor anything like that".

Meanwhile, Doffy before and after killing his own brother:

The whorification is real with this one, just saying u.u

Not saying he was sane before, we know he very much wasn't, but judging by the change in his fashion sense, commiting fratricide against his last surviving family member really took its toll on him. He pretty much just went batshit crazy after that. Just look at him. Like, yes, his trausers were ridiculous since the begining, but he got much worst afterwards? XD Plus, he seems way more unhinged now than he did in his youth, he really lost it.

#one piece #donquixote doflamingo #one piece spoilers #still the best sociopathic overgrown pink chicken bird boy out there #just saying #i love him #by the way this post is just for fun #i don't think murdering his own borther really affected his fashion choices but it is a 'funny' coincidence #also yes i'm ignoring the weather difference lol #I do think his character is far deeper than just 'pure evil' though #I just can't belive what a grown up traumatized 8 years old says about his older brother who commited parricide in front of him #I do agree that right now doffy is indeed pure irredeemable evil and I hope he stays that way; it makes him even more of a tragic character #but I in no way believe he was 'born' evil #not in the slightest and at least not as far gone as he is now #but that's a different discussion i won't get into right now XD #also i don't know why i keep tagging spoilers when this is already well known but just in case

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