Someone Please Tell Me How This Scene Was Not Meant To Be What It Looks Like.

Happy birthday Wei Wuxian!

I'm so happy to share my first playlist about this amazing character!

Timestamps are on the way

My translation of Chapter 1 of Mo Dao Zu Shi's Japanese manga, which released yesterday (the 17th of August 2024)

Also loaded to the internet archive as a pdf (pretty big file size though)

You can support the official Japanese release and buy the Japanese manga at cmoa.jp

it's pretty inexpensive, only around $2 per chapter!

Chapter - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

Mangadex link

Pre-sfx version is still available at the archive.org website

Edit: I originally wasn't going to make any further edits but felt bad that someone could come across my initial rough translation and miss some details or nuance because of it. Made some changes, a changelog detailing everything and why is here. (I think) this is the final version

My first fic in the Agatha All Along fandom💜💚

A self-destructive Sculptor!Rio smut depressing AU inspired by crying after sex by Xana

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63173374

We, that have made of subtext our belief🔝😍

Lately I found myself thinking about James/Miranda relationship as a reversed version of Orpheus and Eurydice’s story, especially towards the end of it. Not because these two stories match well (they do not) but just because I like making this kind of classical comparisons and I'm stuck from a bit on the fact that, right before her death, for the first time Miranda was the one to refuse the progress to look back at the past. 

After the loss of Thomas, James let himself slip into a darkness comparable to the underworld, a darkness which so often threatened to swallow him whole. He walked on a thin line between a reign of death and an island of life, and if that darkness was that reign, Miranda was his island. 

During their whole journey of processing their grief and climbing their way back to a life that could be called such, she was the one always trying to drag him towards the light. To her, the life that might have been waiting for them in the future was that light, while the past was the darkness, and not because she deemed it forgettable or unimportant, quite the contrary indeed, but because while she knew how to keep and remember the beauty of that past and the light of it, along with the sorrow, she knew perfectly well how different it was for James. How he could remember the beauty of it, of course, but also knew how to put it aside in favor of the rage and the guilt, his gaze clouded by the pain and the unacceptable shame. 

She said it herself: she didn't want to forget that past, not the bright side of it and neither the inescapable sadness of it, its tragedy being the spring of that very beauty, the ruins existing only because there was something precious to be ruined in the first place; and at the same time, what could the dark of it matter, the injustice, the grudge, when it condemned the both of them to never be able to see the light again? 

First time I heard their discussion in ep.VII after knowing the whole story, I wondered how could she ask something like that of him, to forget and pass over what they had done to him just to gain a liveable life, but recently I've actually been wondering : how could she not?

I'm not taking any side in this, as I recognize Miranda's thoughts to be the most reasonable ones as they often are but at the same time I can't say I wouldn't act as stubbornly and desperately as James did in that situation, they're just really different ways to conceive one’s own existence, influenced by their own problems and conditions and mind. All I'm saying is that Miranda was able to see the light even if just from a distance, she was able to hope that one day they would have been able to truly see it. James was never. 

He just lied to himself about the possibility of it. He had plans and tactics and strategies, but for how I see it, those were all desperate attempts to convince himself of the contrary. He couldn't, maybe because of his personality, maybe because he knew that his situation wasn't one that could ever allow him to found real light in that world, maybe just because he loved her less than how much he had loved Thomas, less than how much she loved him, but whichever was the reason, he couldn't afford to see the light after that abyss, and I think Miranda was the first to know that. The one who knew him like no other, the one who loved him like no other. She knew that without help he would have never really been able to reach the end of that dark state of being. And she tried. She tried to help him in so many ways, because she loved him, she really did, and because she had the damn right to claim at least a decent life for herself. 

And here we come to the end, to Charles town.

Charles town could have been her success. Charles town was James’ surrender. For the first time she glimpsed one real chance of having him back, she saw in him the real intention to leave all of that darkness behind, to follow her, not leaving the past behind, never, but learning to move forward, finally allowing her a chance for a new life together. 

He was actually ready to accept even that miserable condition Peter Ashe imposed on him in order to get rid of the darkness, to climb to the light -as short lived as that might have been, at this point- to give Miranda a better alternative than the ones he had been able to grant her up until that moment (as I think his whole Charles town plan was led by the purpose of doing something to save her): as useless as we all know that would have been, accepting that bargain has probably been the most selfless thing James has ever done, even if he did it also for himself in a tired, desperate and contorted way. 

But Charles town wasn't only this to Miranda. 

Charles town was the discovery of the betrayal, because I believe she understood it all the moment she first saw that clock, I'm sure of it. Charles town was her umptheen attempt and her umptheen sacrifice. 

I think that must have been to her a similar quest to the Maria Aleyne's one: respecting James by telling him the truth, something he deserves to know, even knowing how he will react to it, knowing how impossible it would become for him, then, to go on with his plan, granting him a one way ticket to that darkness, or keeping him in the dark, bearing alone the weight of that knowledge, accepting to live with the helplessness to remedy that fatal injustice, only in the hope to finally make him reach that light?  

Would Orpheus reveal Eurydike a truth which risked pushing her back into the underworld just because it might be right for her to know it?

Still, things had been different, more desperate, back to the Maria Aleyne. Now the chance to succeed was real. 

And at first she made that difficult choice, which was selfish in a way, but definitely selfless in another, all at the same time.

And she did it because she loved him. 

She loved him so much that when she glimpsed, in that light, the prospect of losing him, she had to recognize that that light was -as James would have put it in the future- only their light, the light of a world the two of them couldn’t be part of anymore. 

She loved him so much that she had to look back. To the past, to him, because her James was still behind her, still in the dark, the only place where he was allowed to stay, and only that version of him was the one she truly loved. She loved the real James, with all his broken parts, not the one that could be seen under the lights of their lies. 

So she couldn't help giving up that false light, because she had wished for tranquility, a normal life -as probably anyone in her conditions would have done- but she was not disposed to give up the man she loved in order to gain that, as she hadn't been in the past, when the prospect of the future had been only dark and still she had not deserted the ones she loved. 

And when she turned back, this time trying to shield him from that light, the darkness at the pit ended up swallowing them both. 

Miranda died, and James was dragged back full force and imprisoned into the worst version of himself, the ruthless, autodestructive one. 

There are two versions of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and I think that the two of them taken together perfectly represent James’ reaction to her death and its circumstances.

In Virgilius’ one, Eurydice slightly resents Orpheus for his action, for his “folly” -as it is called- and (if we may call it that) for his selfish gesture of looking back, that she paid with her second chance to be alive. 

After Miranda's death, James dreams of her reminding him how he had resented her “because they were so close” and of course since that's a dream is what he knew he had felt. But that was…collateral to the condition he had been left stuck in. That was the childish resentment of having explicitly denied something he knew deep down he couldn't have. 

In Ovidius’ one instead Eurydice doesn't blame him because she can't resent being loved, and I think this is what James really felt. After all, looking straight at the truth of the situation and looking back at their shared history, I think there were no ways for him to actually, rationally resent her. (And in fact in his last dream about her she uses a past tense, “you resented me”, hinting that was something he had felt only in the moments when he was at his worst as when, always in the dream, he heard her apology).

Moreover, I think he perfectly understood the meaning of those last moments of hers, how important it was to her to make her voice be heard in that moment. In fact, despite the clear and growing doubt and rage (and worry) on his face while Peter and Miranda spoke, he didn't say a word, he let her speak, despite knowing the risks  and I think this is amazing and just proves how beautiful and respectful their relationship was, and that there were no way he could actually deem her responsible of their failure in that mission (doomed to failure since the beginning ‘cause of the truth).

What hurts even more about her death is the fact that it looks like they got closer to each other once again during that trip, as they hadn't probably been in years, and then…everything got lost forever.

These are so beautiful! Also all the other ones, but these last five are my favourite!

I'm the kind of person who looks for tarots about any fandom she steps into, so thank you so much for this gift!

And like...one of the problems with thematic tarots is that so often their creators choose aesthetic over meaning, which is not my favourite interpretation of it. Instead you united both aesthetic and meaning (and I love the meaning) and...wow!

Thank you for sharing!

(The world🥺🥺🥺)

Black Sails tarot part 5 (1, 2, 3, 4)

the star, moon, and sun as max, anne, and jack came to me in a holy vision and i'm still so pleased that i found images of them all sitting and oriented the same way. trio of all time

and that's it! i only did the major arcana bcs any more would've killed me lol. i think i finished the final versions in november, so it's been almost a full year and, despite the flaws i still see, i still really love this project!

This is great! 😍

Love her so much🖤

i really love to make collages with aesthetics for characters uu

marie-joseph sanson, «innocent : rouge.»

[translation] MXTX Interview - TGCF questions

this is rlly for everyone to love hc more TT // split by general/book1, book 3 spoilers, and book 5 spoilers via headings (though all are minor spoilers imo, except for the one in bk 5?)

there’s another question that pertains to TGCF’s comments, which I found interesting but have left out for now because it’s very very long. it’s half translated, so maybe i’ll finish it later

CW: domestic violence, Q.21 suicidal thoughts

the mdzs parts were prev translated here by @bigbadredpanda

original interview here

reposts and translations OK, but pls give credit!! twt @/uooongs, tumblr @uoongs, ig @/duoj1ao

GENERAL / BOOK 1 REFERENCES

Q14. TGCF characters’ heights?

Xie Lian 178cm (but can perfectly seem like 180), Hua Chen 190 (first appearance as a cute fresh youth was 185cm), Jun Wu 191, Feng Xin 188, Mu Qing 188, Mo Shui 189, Shi Wudu 187, Shi Qinxuan 186 (woman form 176), Pei Ming 188, Ling Wen 180, Quan Yizhen 184 (but has a very tall presence), Yin Yu 186 (but miraculously no matter how tall he is it’s hard to notice this person).

PS: Yu Shi [rain master?]’s cow is 150 without standing up

Q17. What was XL doing after his second time getting banished to the human realm? What was HC doing? Why couldn’t he find XL? HC previously swore to not let XL know he’s protecting him, so why did he decide to meet XL again after 800 years?

XL tried doing other jobs, but all didn’t go too well, and would bring sadness/strife to others, so could only collect trash by himself.

HC was looking for him while also working on his skills + earning money, expanding his power, and worked hard to become the strongest dude!

Really, it was because XL’s luck was so terrible and stuck to him so closely that he couldn’t meet HC. Actually, many times they almost saw each other, like in Banyue, and also when XL was Fangxin head priest, but both times they just missed each other. Finally XL ascended by himself and CEO Hua couldn’t contain himself and rushed over.

Continua a leggere

Black Sails + things and places that feel like characters 

This should be paired with the look the two of them share after her rescue in ep.XXXVIII.

How beautifully their relationship developed!

She absolutely can eat him alive, but after her Don Quixote quote I guess he would have been honored if she had. At least someone definitely worthy of his respect would have been the end of him lol

Anyway, what a team! I can see them on thrones ruling Nassau alongside Eleonor. If only...😢

This little moment when she sets foot on the ship for the very first time lives in my head rent free because the confidence in her eyes is incredible and he looks like he knows she can eat him alive if she wants to.