kuttithevangu:

YA novel in which a coven of teenage witches contact the spirit of a woman who was executed in Salem and she’s horrified to find herself talking to witches

grison-in-space:

genderkoolaid:

i feel like when we talk about autism as a disability a lot of it is about sensory stuff (valid) but recently ive been like. damn this really is a communication disorder. so much of the stress being autistic in society causes me is related to communication. its really insane how for years of my life i thought my autism didn’t really affect my social skills much. could not have been further from the truth i spend so much energy trying to make sense of how to engage with other people. and i think it’s good to put this in terms of disability and not just “my brain is different” because it’s not just that my brain is different! all brains are different! mine is different in a way where it makes things noticeably harder and more exhausting for me.

I see autistic people sometimes act like this is just a problem for us because we live in a neurotypical world, right? but my friends, my social circle is pretty much chock full of other neurodivergent people, and I am still constantly dealing with communication frustration. even with other autistic people. even with other autistic people I like.

my brain gets a little rigid sometimes, and sometimes that means I miss interpretations of sentences… and sometimes, the interpretation that I missed is the only interpretation to occur to the other person I’m trying to communicate with. Which is more common if you’re both autistic! Both of us are being reasonable, but… small miscommunications still happen. which is frustrating. you can learn to account for them, like triple-checking meanings when it’s important or talking about why interpretation problems happen, but it’s still a little layer of difficulty-grit that is always getting caught in my skin.

bluecygnets:

bluecygnets:

I saw some discussion recently about how people who think Lan Wangji is some sort of cold-hearted seme/gong who regrets treating his uke/shou, Wei Wuxian, terribly in the past and who should atone for this are wrong because Lan Wangji is supposed to be viewed as the shy maiden protecting her heart from the infamous playboy. I agree so much with this. What really happened was that Wei Wuxian, in the past, was a mischievous flirt who would frequently metaphorically pull at Lan Wangji’s pigtails to get his attention and would flirt with Lan Wangji then pull a punchline/prank with it. When Lan Wangji asks his intentions, he also says he’s just teasing. Here’s a compilation of some of these instances:

“Do not flirt with others when you have no deeper intent,” Lan Wangji stated. “You do as you please and throw their hearts into turmoil!”

“It’s not like you’re the one I’m flirting with,” Wei Wuxian said. “You’re the last person I’d expect to be thrown into turmoil. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Lan Wangji snapped.

“Unless, Lan Zhan…you like Mianmian!”

“The barbarian speaks of the eight paths,” Lan Wangji said coldly after a brief pause.

“Well, I’ll ramble on about nine, then,” Wei Wuxian quipped.

//

Lan Wangji raised the flower, his expression as chilly as his voice. “Was it you?”

Wei Wuxian denied it immediately. “Nope, not me.”

The two female cultivators next to him ratted him out with equal immediacy.

“Don’t believe him! It was him all right!”

“How can you guys wrong an innocent man like this?” Wei Wuxian despaired. “I’m mad now!”

The two female cultivators giggled and laughed and pulled their reins, trotting back to their own clan’s riding party. Lan Wangji lowered the hand holding the flower and shook his head.

//

He set the collection of flowers that he had been pelted with on the small table. “Your flowers.”

Wei Wuxian leaned over to the table. “You’re welcome. They’re your flowers, since I gave them to you.”

“Why?” Lan Wangji asked.

“Why not?” Wei Wuxian answered.

“Just wanted to see your reaction to this kind of thing.”

“Frivolous,” Lan Wangji said.

“You bet,” Wei Wuxian agreed. “That’s the only reason why I would’ve dragged you all the way up here… Oh, come on, man. Don’t leave. You’re already here, so why not have a cup or two before you go?”

“Alcohol is prohibited.”

In the present, as Wei Wuxian comes to realize his own feelings, he becomes so scared of losing Lan Wangji that he panics and blurts out denial of anything romantic between them, thinking it’s what would solve the predicaments they found themselves in:

Wei Wuxian looked as though he was forcibly holding something back. “Jiang Wanyin, you… Apologize right now.”

“Apologize? Why should I? For stumbling on your rendezvous?” Jiang Cheng sneered with biting sarcasm.

“Hanguang-jun and I are just friends,” Wei Wuxian fumed. “What kind of relationship do you think we have?! I’m warning you—you better apologize right now! Don’t make me kick your ass!”

Lan Wangji’s expression froze at this.

//

“Um… Lan Zhan, we both probably had too much to drink tonight. Sorry about that, eh.”
Lan Wangji said nothing.
Wei Wuxian continued while he slipped on one boot. “But you don’t need to feel too embarrassed; it’s, uh, normal for men to do stuff like this once in a while. Don’t…take it to heart.”
Lan Wangji quietly looked at him. “Normal?”
His voice sounded extremely calm. Wei Wuxian did not dare to answer.
“Do not take it to heart?” Lan Wangji echoed again.

It’s these mixed signals combined with Lan Wangji’s already naturally shy and reserved personality that makes him hesitant to confess his feelings and cross the distance between them. And what I love so much is that once given confirmation of Lan Wangji’s feelings for him, Wei Wuxian immediately understood this and knew what he needed to tell Lan Wangji:

Wei Wuxian really wanted to go back in time to those very moments and kill his past selves. It was precisely because he hadn’t known that he had dared to act that way!

He was suddenly seized with terror. If Lan Wangji hadn’t known that he essentially remembered nothing of the days after the Nightless City Massacre…if Lan Wangji thought he’d always known about his feelings…then what the hell had he been doing to him since his return?!

Wei Wuxian’s initial, exaggerated buffoonery had been intended to repulse Lan Wangji and goad him into throwing him out of the Cloud Recesses as soon as possible. They would then go their separate ways, never to meet again. It was impossible that Lan Wangji hadn’t seen through him and known his intentions. Even then, he had still…stubbornly kept Wei Wuxian by his side and protected him. He hadn’t given Jiang Cheng a chance to draw near or make things difficult for Wei Wuxian. He had answered Wei Wuxian’s every question, heeded his every whim; ridiculously indulgent, absurdly tolerant. Not to mention that, even in the face of Wei Wuxian’s multitude of tricks, the awful teasing and flirting, he had still managed to maintain decorum without ever overstepping boundaries.

When he suddenly shoved Wei Wuxian away at the inn earlier that night, could it have been because…because he thought it was just another of Wei Wuxian’s wanton whims?

[…]

Wei Wuxian pressed three fingers together in a solemn vow. He pointed to the heavens, then to the earth, then to his heart. “I also want to sleep with you every day. I swear this isn’t a whim—I’m not messing with you, like I have in the past, and I’m also definitely not saying this because I feel like I owe you something. No more of that nonsense. I just really like you so much that I want to sleep with you. I don’t want anyone else but you. It has to be you. You can do anything you want to me, have your way with me however you see fit—I’ll like it, no matter what. As long as you’re willing to be with me—”

Lan Wangji’s disposition is somewhat similar to Jiang Yanli. Despite Jin Zixuan’s rejections, she continued to love him and care for him in secret, preparing extra soup for him during the war without ever saying it was her doing. Funnily, Jin Zixuan’s embarrassing public confession is similar to Wei Wuxian’s own very public and ill-timed (but also very timely) confession.

There is also the sentiment that Wei Wuxian didn’t let Lan Wangji help him because Lan Wangji approached him too callously which seems to contribute to the idea that Lan Wangji was a mean seme. But again, no matter how Lan Wangji delivered it, ultimately, Wei Wuxian didn’t want Lan Wangji’s help as he thinks he can handle it all himself, which he reiterates in different ways throughout the multiple conversations they have on this same topic. (Part of Wei Wuxian kinda regrets not listening to Lan Wangji in his second life, but it’s not something he lingers on because he knows there’s no use dwelling on the past.) Lan Wangji did not fail Wei Wuxian. It is not his fault Wei Wuxian didn’t want to be saved.

If Lan Wangji had been mean to Wei Wuxian, Wei Wuxian, too, had been mean to Lan Wangji and, most times, Lan Wangji did it in response to Wei Wuxian’s mean words or actions. They both were young and immature, had their pride and had traumas and issues to deal with. I think people forget that Lan Wangji was also young and dealing with growing pains and when the war came, he was also dealing with all sorts of trauma and grief and responsibilities. On top of that, later on, he was watching the person he loves self-destructing before his very eyes. If Wei Wuxian gets a pass for his demeanor and his actions because he was traumatized, I don’t see why the same can’t be extended to Lan Wangji.

Yes, Lan Wangji is different in the present but so is Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji was ready to fearlessly hand his heart to Wei Wuxian for him to do as he pleases but Wei Wuxian was also finally ready to receive that heart, treat it with care, and give his heart in return.

Even then, Lan Wangji still has the pure heart of a young maiden. He still gets jealous, still quietly cares for Wei Wuxian, still gets emotional. All while wrecking Wei Wuxian ‘everyday’ and getting into all sorts of harmless mischief with him.

To end, here’s an excerpt from an interview with MXTX (translated by NanaReads27):

reblogging this with @ca-the-nerd’s tags because it’s all so Correct and "what if the jade beauty folded the blackened mc over the table” has completely altered my brain chemistry

fluentisonus:

it feels so evil that you can’t still access your university online library after you graduate *remembers my principles* it feels so evil that everyone can’t access to that stuff all the time

classicdavinci:

‘The Tempest’. Michele Tedesco. 1888.

illuminatedferret:

The way Hua Cheng says “it’s not your fault” and “you, not the state of you” and “there’s no banquet that doesn’t come to an end” and that all of these Xie Lian said first. It truly showcases just how highly Hua Cheng thinks of Xie Lian, that so often he decides the best way to support Xie Lian is by repeating Xie Lian’s own words back to him, like he can’t think of anything better or more fitting in these moments. And every time he does it he’s saying, “I listen when you talk, I hear what you say, and I think you’re right” to a man who has been ignored and maligned and alone for almost all his life. It’s one of the sweetest possible things Hua Cheng could do.

utopians:

utopians:

the avatar movies are crazy bc “what if colonizers literally inhabited and puppeteered the bodies of indigenous peoples in order to exploit their homeland” sounds like the premise of some sort of anticolonial horror film, like specifically the kind of thing that would be commenting on self-indigenization among white settlers, but because it’s James Cameron his whole takeaway from that premise is “it would be preddy cool”

actually sorry. the takeaway is also “the white settler possessing an indigenous body would actually be extremely good, perhaps even The Best, at being indigenous, and he would become their Leader”

sandushengshou:

— José Saramago, Cain

radish-appreciation:

So obviously I spend a lot of time thinking about lan wangji hearing wangxian and knowing that wei wuxian is back.

BUT! imagine how he must have felt when jiang cheng hit wei wuxian with zidian. imagine! you’ve spent 13 years mourning the love of your life. raising his son as your own. scars on your chest and back that will forever remind you of what you’ve lost. and then he comes back. it’s an unfamiliar body but you know that it’s him. you can keep him safe this time.

and then his asshole brother who you HATE hits your love with the exorcism whip and for a second, you think you’ve lost him again. your second chance, vanished as soon as you found it.

and then he’s fine! your lost love is still there, being his annoying self, flirting with you. probably just to piss his brother off but he says you’re his type. this all happens within like five minutes. emotional rollercoaster of all time.