#anyone who reads this? anyone at all? i love you. yes. you personally

[pickinglilahs]

Okay, let's unpack this response here

TL;DR: 'weak and surface' level is exactly how I would describe prevs "obliteration". I'm not convinced THEY read the books. Or maybe they're just another TERF, considering that's how it reads. I completely disagree with Harry naming his kid after Snape. The ONLY explanation I can think for it is that JKR has no idea what love is (which is also cannon, as far as I'm concerned)

First: idk what book this person read, but Snape's obsession with Lily was creepy to the extreme. That their friendship started by him all but stalking her and Petunia should have been red flag #1. I mean, sure, he was a traumatized kid without friends, but that doesn't absolve him of his continued obsession. He literally stood outside the Gryffindor common room, refusing to leave, until she came out to talk.

And yeah, he did switch sides out of guilt. But he canonically didn't give a damn about Harry. If he was actually trying to protect the kid, he would have done more than bully and abuse (occlumency lessons anyone?) the kid. Teaching at Hogwarts was never about redemption. It was about staying out of Azkaban. (And Dumbledore's manipulation, but he's a whole 'nother can of worms)

Second: the books actually say that Snape was 'up to his nose in the dark arts'. He was an active participant. He didn't just 'hang out' with to-be-DE, he WAS one. He joined up of his own free will. He became Voldemort's RIGHT HAND. He didn't regret calling someone a mudbl***. He regretted that it was Lily.

And Snape CANONICALLY attacked the marauders just as much as they went after him. Just because they went after him first in that ONE memory, doesn't mean he didn't instigate too.

And let's talk about the werewolf incident for a minute because i am sick and tired of Snape Apologists using this as an excuse. That was NOT planned. That was a lapse of judgement on Sirius' part alone (yeah, fucked to hell and he is fully responsible for that). At the same time though, NO ONE MADE HIM GO. Snape was given a vague instruction and he was so focused on 'getting back' at the marauders that he put HIMSELF in danger. That is just as much on him as it is on Sirius.

Then the sexual assault? This is another common thing I see and it took me forever to figure out what it was even referring to. The pantsing? You cannot tell me he was the only one that happened to. If the levitating spell was really as popular as it's stated, this incident wasn't special. I'm willing to bet Snape did it to others too.

Third: Lupin not taking the wolfsbane. Yes, serious lapse in judgement. He also just saw Peter and Sirius on the map. The argument of it being criminal and a ticking time bomb is honestly werewolf prejudice and exactly why Remus has such a hard time finding a job in the first place. Way to go. You've discovered discrimination.

Fourth: Get McGonagall's name out of your fucking mouth. She is CANONICALLY shown NOT showing prejudice and treating EVERYONE by the same standards. And, did you forget that 'Moody' here was actually a death eater in disguise? No duh he's using cruel and unusual punishments??? Full of abusive teachers my ass.

Fifth: What do you mean the kids weren't scared for life? I do believe those CHILDREN will carry that trauma with them for the rest of their lives. Saying that it didn't break them is cruel and completely dismisses the VERY REAL pain and suffering that they went through. They are real heroes because they OVERCAME their trials. Not all of us out here in the real world are so lucky.

Lastly: yes, comparing CHILDREN who DID see the error of their ways to an ADULT who had to be CONNED into doing the right thing is laughable.

And saying Regulus accomplished nothing? Disgraceful. Of course it took a catalyst for him to change his ways thats how redemption arcs work.

If you made it this far, I hope you have a good day. Believe whatever you want, obvy I'm not going to change anyone's opinion. You can't MAKE a person understand. Still, it's nice to rant and remind myself how nice it is that I live in my own little corner of the fandom where I don't have to see this bullshit on my dash

okay, hold my drink *hands u cursed ancient goblet full of mead* i gotta talk my shit for a second.

ive been seeing a lot of severus snape love recently. and this is fine, obviously, y'all can love whomever you want. but. i need to rant or i will explode. if we're talking about canon. severus snape spends his adult years, seven books of it in fact, abusing children. and his excuse for this is the girl he loved (tho not enough not to join a group actively trying to exterminate her) fell for the hot jock instead of him (a tragedy indeed, i weep 4 him, i really do). and also she died, which, admittedly is very sad.

it is simply crazy 2 me 2 look at that and think *romance* or *genuine care and affection*. LIKE. fo real. snape calls her a slur in public, apologizes in private, hangs out with dudes who commit hate crimes against her friends (CANONICALLY, she says "you've been hanging out with that douchebag Mulciber, how could you do that after what he did to Mary???" this is not a direct quote but like, it's close enough). lame. loser behaviour.

"Oh but what about regulus" i can hear you say "he loves James potter but snape doesn't love lily???" well. idk. maybe. bit different tho, innit? due to james not being the demographic regulus is attacking (which doesn't make regulus a better person but does make the dynamic between him and james different). ALSO. Regulus chooses to turn against voldemort without hope for anything in return. snape doesn't seem to give a shit about voldemort, he's just sad he's not gonna get to bang lily evans. he switches sides for that reason alone. also doesn't care about what happens to her husband or her son which like. considering lily would be pretty fucking destroyed if they died. once again points to my whole, he doesn't really give a shit about her, theory. lame. loser. behaviour.

also. im sorry. I"M SORRY. but what snape does to neville? to hermione? to harry? gross. a grown ass man out here telling an eleven year old neville he's worthless or hermione she's ugly and annoying. or spilling harry's potion and refusing to grade him for it???????????????

reg and draco are children when we see them at peak suckage and therefore they feel like they can be redeemed much more compellingly (CAN be, not SHOULD be, not HAVE to be, just narratively i think they are easier to turn into interesting, sympathetic characters). but snape? snape grows up into a garbage adult. like he doesn't get better. and again, the only real excuse we're given is his obsession with lily. not very demure. not very cutesy.

ALSO. yall remember that time he got a destitute, struggling Remus Lupin fired from the best job he ever had just because he felt like it? remember that time snape weaponized Remus's lycanthropy and people's prejudice against him just cause. like. literally just cause??? his ego was bruised after the shrieking shack incident so he was like "get wrecked Lupin I'm going to tell everyone your secret so you will be forced back out onto the streets" DO YALL REMEMBER THAT BITCH ASS MOVE????????? THAT HE DID AS A FULL ADULT.

IN CONCLUSION, this is silly and, of course, like i said at the start, everyone can have their own thoughts and feelings about characters, but i simply needed to interject here on behalf of snape haters everywhere because i feel like so much of snape's shitty behaviour as an adult during a time when he was really under no duress and was very safe and cozy, is ignored. and my hater heart just cannot let that stand.

[pparacxosm]

okay so.

hi lol

the rumours are true, they didn’t want me to return to tumblr but God did. did you guys think i was dead, be honest. how did you think it happened? tiger mauling? did you think i, like, rose to the occasion with the tiger? like did i put up a fight, in your mind? let me know i’m serious

anyway yes. hey all.

happy holidays, happy early new year, and happy belated *checks notes* CEO assassination?

i guess you’re wondering where i’ve been (hadestown reference for all who have the ears to listen; who’s heard the west end recording btw? good right??) and, too, why i left.

concisely, things were a little tough. things are still a little tough. but so persists the body, whether fond thereof or not ! and anyway if i was successful and well adjusted then i wouldn’t be able to write fanfics centred around pathetically hapless young adult main characters so really you guys are very supportive of my potential gap year next year, right? you are, aren’t you? please tell my mom.

i’ve been up to some stuff. i flunked my first year. i ghosted my therapist (shoutout georgia, that was my bad). i proceeded to be admitted into outpatient treatment. trigger warning? you can fill in the blanks. i watched west side story with my little brother on four separate occasions, not kidding. i held space for the lyrics of defying gravity. i missed you all. lots and lots. please don’t think i didn’t.

i’m still not totally well, but i’m alive and i’m happy to be back and do y’all still give a fuck about challengers?? be fr.

because i do !

in fact i have something for you, if you want it. the haters want to say i’m not an art girl sooooo bad. you will be dealt with.

but BEFORE any of that !! i want to know what i’ve missed. please tell me !!! is everyone still here?? did anyone have a baby? did you name it challengers ??

seriously do tell

i am accepting any and all news and, most importantly, any and all recs !!

any writing posted in the last 2 months that moved you, that flayed your heart, that made you shut your phone off at the dinner table, puhleaseee let me know

and that includes your own stuff !! save your shame for the vicar !!! i want all the self-promo, i will take it as a personal offence if no one recommends something of their own to me !!!!

i’ll post the thing i’m working on either tomorrow or sunday (holy day, which is actually pretty topical, you’ll see), but in the meantime i just wanna spend some time reading and interacting with some good shit so nothing is off limits !!

also once again i missed you.

really i did.

and i really really appreciate anyone missing me back

i love you guys, and i love tashi duncan, and i love mike faist. (but if i speak on the josh o’connor developments.. yeah let’s keep it cordial.)

[liketolaugh-writes]

I'm confused about how you read that entire exchange and apparently did not absorb it but I think you maybe need to watch Danny Phantom again.

Yes. I am aware of all of those mentalities. I am aware that a large portion of the DPxDC fandom wants Danny to expect Superman to be Kon's parent (because apparently parenthood is something that can be forced on you and God forbid you feel violated.) I am aware of where Danny gets the grudges that people invent for him (a character that does not hold grudges against anyone except Vlad.) I am aware that there are multiple Flashes and that Danny is equally happy to insult all of them (because talking back to authority is a thing that Danny does. Ever. In his canon.) And I am well aware of how much of the DPxDC fandom likes to portray the Justice League as a bunch of idiots, which... is also not consistent with any of their canons and just, again, comes down to the chip-in-the-shoulder a lot of people seem to carry for heroes these days.

None of that is what I'm addressing. Fandom is built on headcanons and expanded universe, and it's great to build those things! It's great for them to build extra backstory to meld the two universes together, to fill out Danny's kind of flimsy canon, to have Danny already have opinions based on that backstory. You can write all these things if you want. I understand that people enjoy them, and DPxDC has a particularly mutated fanon that people have built over years now. People love these stories!

The part that I am illustrating is that the manner in which it's usually carried out is extremely unlike Danny. See above (far above) characterization notes. But especially, doubly so, for a Danny that grew up knowing and loving the Justice League for most of his childhood, before he had any reason to resent them.

Quite frankly, out of anyone, I would expect Danny - who routinely fights for a town that hated him for half the cartoon, and rescues people that have been cruel to him personally - to understand how terribly difficult it is to be a hero at all. To understand that they work hard to save people every day, that the Flashes time-traveled under great duress and out of pure desperation (as Danny usually does), and to understand that anyone who works around the clock to rescue people is, fundamentally, a good person even when they make mistakes or act out in anger. Repeatedly - with Valerie, with Dora, with Ghost Writer and Dash and Amorpho - Danny is shown to have an intense sense of empathy that lets him forgive people who have acted against him and are not sorry about it.

(And, personally, I think that Danny, having been cloned, would understand how violated Superman felt even if he doesn't agree with how he responded - but that's speculation, I suppose.)

And finally, while I understand the motives writers have for this portrayal (see, again, above notes about fandoms with sweet protagonists that take a lot of shit) the problem is that this vengeful behavior people want him to have is extremely out of character for a boy who:

Apologizes to Dash for something Dash doesn't even know he did (overshadowing him to stick his head in a trash can)

Goes to intentionally let his dad capture him because his dad was having a really bad day

Is the first to suggest a truce the moment he thinks an antagonistic character might be open to it (true of Valerie, Dash, all of his rogues, and occasionally even Vlad)

Once genuinely thought Jazz was beating him up out of anger and responded by apologizing and trying to convince her to calm down

Pretty much only ever just wants people to get along?

I also don't know why you assumed I was basing my entire opinion off drabbles and dialogue snippets, because... no? The stimulus for this entire post was in fact a fic of nearly 10k, which I stopped reading because I was so mortified that Danny kept insulting people that were actively helping him and being considerate and understanding? I don't even read drabbles outside of Tumblr. I prefer longfics, always, and I assure you that I still see all of this pretty regularly. I don't think I've once seen someone imply that Danny holding a grudge is unusual for him.

Why is Danny everyone’s mouthpiece for their random grudges against various superheroes? Why is it SO COMMON for Danny to show up and immediately start chewing people out?

Like. Danny? Mr. ‘My Parents Shoot At Me But It’s Fine’? Mr. ‘Dates The One Ghost Hunter At His School’? Danny ‘Dash Can Shove Me Around I Guess’ Fenton? Holds a bunch of grudges against popular superheroes and tries to punch them at the first available opportunity??

I know it’s become a pretty popular characterization in fandom for Danny to be pretty testy/spiteful, I just don’t really get it

[hermanoga]

It's Kinda Nice to Help People Find Their Precious Thing : The timeless journey of love, regret, trust, death and hope through Shiguang's life in Link Click Yingdu Episode 1

part -1

It's a very personal rambling actually, not a very critically sound one, if you still wanna read, just letting you know, you are not alone, I went through a lifetime of emotions while watching this.

What’s wrong with the timeline? : Before discussing this, I want to talk about Lu Guang’s age. I have this formula,

Lg’s age : X + 3n, X= his original age, n= the number of times he has dived back in the past to reach the situation of our timeline where Cheng Xiaoshi survived season 1 and made it to the end of the season 2. I am presuming that ‘n times Cheng Xiaoshi dies’ stopped in our timeline, so let us denote our timeline as ‘n*’, which has successfully changed Cheng Xiaoshi’s fate. (For people thinking, where did I get that ‘3’ in my formula, the episode of the lost child in season 1 says that the kidnapping of that little boy happened three years ago, when Shiguang were supposed to be in Yingdu. Basically Shiguang first met and went to Yingdu in 2018.)

The first four minutes of the episode 1 (Successfully made me cry like a wounded hyena left in the middle of a cold desert): What timeline is it? It is one of those timelines of ‘n’ where Cheng Xiaoshi died. Cheng Xiaoshi dies in every nth timeline, except n*. The first time he dies, let us call that timeline ‘n0’. And the first four minutes, let’s suppose it is nEp-1. Is n0 = nEp-1? If yes, then why Vein is punishing Lu Guang for changing the past? It implies that Lu Guang attempted (and succeeded kind of? since he is accused of changing the past) to change the past before? Why would he? For what reason? I have an answer to this convoluted question – Vein is punishing a past Lu Guang (‘innocent’ Lu Guang who didn’t dive and do shit) for the deeds a future Lu Guang committed. Eh? Every theory I suggest contradict with the thing I say next.

Still what I feel is that the narrator Lu Guang who gives the ‘butterfly effect’ speech is not the one who dives in the given visual. The hesitation in the visual suggests that Lu Guang is diving for the first time. I don’t have galaxy brains to understand the timeline theory anyways. And it is probably too early to start guessing.

Basketball symbolism: Life, death, trust, partnership.

I think now we all understand that the basketball motif really stands for a deeper philosophy of life and companionship. And Haoling actually puts that theme in big fat words in case someone missed, “It is so precious to have a trustworthy partner in life”. It is not about basketball. The exposition of first 1 minute 25 seconds deals with it.

1:26 – I howled. That’s not the point. The point is that Vein is actually interested in shooting Lu Guang, he wants his life, not Cheng Xiaoshi’s, he just physically defeats him. (My poor kitty, what the fuck did you do to deserve this, if my theory is right then…). Cheng Xiaoshi fucking dives to take the bullet.

Now, um. Why am I re-watching this? Cheng Xiaoshi dies and transfers his diving power to Lu Guang, the basketball symbolism recurs. Qiao Ling is dead and captain Xiao is dead too. Good. Cheng Xiaoshi says sorry for some reason and asks Lu Guang to save ‘them’, it’s his death wish. So, I am presuming that Lu Guang started diving because it was Cheng Xiaoshi’s last wish to Lu Guang (I need ibuprofen). From my perspective, Lu Guang when he dives, he is not sure what he is able to achieve. He probably goes back to the past just to relive those moments, those three years again. If everything goes well (LMAO my audacity) and Cheng Xiaoshi survives in this Yingdu arc, I am presuming that is our story then will be directly continuing in the two seasons.

Now let us heal a bit. First of all, congratulations to all, Lu Guang is gay. I don’t care what anyone opines, he is gay. He is the owner of that freaking Shakespearean sonnet book and he is the literal tsundere, come on, guys, it should be canon now.

Lu Guang holds his hand as if trying to say, “Please, don’t go”.

You are in acute denial if you say the visuals are not romantic. The white butterfly sits on the basketball he is holding.

That visual is so pretty! The butterflies remind me of tgcf ngl.

Bro, what kind of house does he live in. He is damn rich.

Cheng Xiaoshi : Partner, lets play basketball together again tomorrow. And the content smile Cheng Xiaoshi gives.

Still, somehow, The Eye is the most moving piece of animation I have ever seen, it feels like life with all heartaches and smiles present. I will carry this song with me till the end of time.

Oh, also. How are Vein fans doing? Just checking :D

This song is causing me physical angst.

I wish I can cosplay in my uni’s anime club’s event one day.

Okay so, a friend of mine pointed out that Lu Guang cosplayed as the hero of that RanXi chronicles when there was an attempt to dress Xiaoshi as the heroine. Ok.

Lu Guang checking that damn watch once in a while breaks my heart.

Parallel narrative, foil characters again – metanarrative, two-folded narrative embedded within the narrative (that girl’s story about perseverance, hope, regret, passion, taking the damn risk and further hope, story of RanXi chronicles and Lu Guang explicitly saying how he relates to the story of RanXi’s heroine)

Now I am saying again, I am Sapphic and Qiao Ling, that is Sapphic behaviour, my love, me and my Sapphic friends approve. “That girl is so lovely” the way she says it. AND YES QUEEN! Link Click never forgets to address social issues. Btw, I personally related to that girl when she was rebuked vehemently for voicing her career choice. My acceptance of what I really wanted to do in my life and pursuing it changed the trajectory of my life too. Life is not a flower path but “there are no regrets in dedicating your life to something you care about” – again it echoes the central theme of link click.

Also, (with a shiver) I am realising how the interpretation of the first and second season is rapidly changing (and I like it).

Cheng Xiaoshi, are you jealous?

The chibi shifts are so cute!

Lu Guang has this deep sense of lack of agency, understandable because it arises from the agony of the death of a loved one and this depressive existentialist mood makes him conform to the ‘power’, even though he can be rebellious but that threshold is only initiated with Cheng Xiaoshi’s active intervention.

Again saying, idk what kind of concept of queerness people (most of them who are not queer at all, how do they know what queerness is? How are you dictating?) have, but your friend’s image reflecting in your eyes when he brings a moral and ideological change to your mind and shatters your conformity, that surely is. This continuously happens in season 1 and 2, but we don’t get to know, you know why? Lu Guang’s pov was silenced deliberately. Without him soliloquizing, it’s impossible to know what his real emotional undercurrent is. The way Haoling crafted Lu Guang as a complex and delicate character, man. Man, I would die for him.

Btw, I too agree that putting a hand over his mouth is the second best option to silence him.

Ik it's bittersweet, but princess Guang-guang, don't run away from your fated prince! ( HOW THE FUCK AM I CRYING AGAIN)

this roughly wraps up to 34:30. I can't do more pain today, maybe tomorrow.

[lostintransist]

You’re writing is amazing you’re amazing and just all the love my goodness I can’t get enough 💕

Oh my goodness! Thank you! I know sometimes (I feel at least about myself) that it reads as just a casual thanks! as if you were passing on the street but I need you to know that this is like caught me in the side of the neck with feels and I will gush about you to my spouse and my soul mate (I am supremely lucky they aren't the same person).

Now I don't know if you are a fan of König (or reading Chiseled Heart) but this has been rattling around my brain like those cans people use to tie to the bumpers of cars for people who got married so I want to share becase we are a long way from it showing up in the fic.

*I like to give people words when they stop by. I treat it the same way sevice people come to my house to fix things. "You want a snack? I got snacks."

I've only had one guy take a snack.

I keep offering.

König freezes, hand on the doorknob, as your voice drifts in from the porch’s open window.

“König? I really like him.”

Your words are full of soft meaning that slaps at him; beating against his skin like the hands of the children who would laugh and pinch him. Even when he was small he had been too big.

“What about him though?” It’s your friend, Tori, “We haven’t seen his face and yes he is built but he doesn’t say much.”

“He seems to treat you well. I guess what we are saying is that we are concerned. He is nothing like your usual type and I want to be sure this isn’t a rebound.” That is Amara, Tori’s girlfriend.

His hand is starting to cramp around the round knob. He relaxes his hold; nothing in life was built with him in mind. König knows he should move, leave, make his presence known, something. The deepest parts of him, those bits hidden that would flourish if only a spare drop of love could find its way down, made him stay silent and still. No one else had been in the house when he came in to use the restroom. The openness of the floorplan would alert him to anyone entering the front door. And so, he stayed.

An annoyed huff leaves your mouth as you must shift in your chair, cloth shifting against wood. He can imagine you, arms folded tight as you force your shoulders down.

“He is kind, and not only to me. Mara, I have seen him pay for a stranger’s tank of gas when we stopped once. I hopped out to use the bathroom. There was a line so I happened to glance outside and see him getting hugged by a sobbing man with his hand still pressing something to the machine. The two receipts for gas confirmed what happened. He buys gift cards every time he goes to the grocery store and often turns around and hands them to moms in line behind him.”

You take a deep, shuddering breath before continuing.

“My usual type is pretty. But pretty men only bring pain. König isn’t pretty.”

König had been stabbed several times, your words punched him with the same force. He shifted his weight to move away, deepest soul shriveling further at the imaginings of your harsh words.

“Have you ever had someone become beautiful before your eyes?”

Your friends must nod or respond in some way he can’t see because you go on.

“He is striking. König’s face is my favorite thing to look at because every time I look he has become more beautiful to me. There is a scar here,” you must be pointing somewhere on your face. Lord knows how many scars he has mapping the landscape of his. It is one of the reasons that he wears a mask even now. “That whites out when he smiles big.”

Something unfurls in his chest, a desert plant tasting rain.

Tori again, “But this isn’t a rebound?”

“I don’t see how it can be? He doesn’t know I like him this much. Honestly, I would be happy being his friend. If he got a girlfriend I would sob myself to sleep for a few weeks as I make friends with her,” you sniff and clear your throat.

“Ah, hun,” Amara croons at you, “You’ve got it bad for him.”

The watery laugh you let out trails König as he slips away to the front door and away from the private conversation.

“God, I’ve got it so bad for him.” The tears in your voice water his broken parts.

Divider

[crimsondoesstuff]

OKAY SO HEAR ME OUT

HEAR ME OUT, CHAT.

Crossover idea between Mouthwashing and Five Nights at Freddy’s where the FNAF characters take over the places of the preexisting crew. The events go down the same, with some small changes in the scenes and dialogue to fit with the different character’s personalities and shit.

Not convinced? WELL I MADE ART TOO (this was the big project I mentioned in my last post)

BEHOLD! The crew of the Ursine!

I put a lot of love and thought into every little bit of this crossover. Things like the symbolism seen in the original game are referenced (the flowers symbolism, the board game, the attraction to cartoon animals /j), but there are also all new kinds of symbolism I threw in to really bring it all together. I’ll let you figure that out on your own, if you really want to.

(If you want a hint, the directions the characters are looking aren’t just stylistic.)

If you really wanna read more about my idea, I’ll be including more below the line. I just had to pitch this somewhere, I spent a week drawing this and I’ve already written parts of this that I could possibly post here or on AO3. Who knows.

HENRY EMILY, CAPTAIN.

Takes the place of Grant Curly.

The similarities between Jimmy and Curly / Henry and William’s dynamics was one of the main reasons I even got this idea in the first place. Specifically, listening to the song Brutus was when I really started to see the song as both Jimmy and William, and the rest devolved from there. I’ll go into more detail about that in William’s section.

Henry’s kindness, compassion, and dedication to his craft makes him the perfect candidate for captain of the Ursine. Problem is, he never knows when to stop. He’ll work himself until he passes out, only to wake up at his station and go right back to work. He’s on top of all of his responsibilities as captain, but with all the work on his plate, he doesn’t have as much time to handle the personal issues that seem to be arising among the crew.

Henry isn’t completely sure how he got to the level he’s at now, in all honesty. He was once a simple engineer on an older ship called the Tulpar, before being transferred and promoted to Second in Command. Fazbear Express said something about how he’s “good for morale” and “gets things done”, but they didn’t really account for Henry’s introverted personality. He’d rather hide out in the cockpit handling the controls, but that puts him back into a workaholic cycle that Charlie is working to break him out of. He’s lucky he has a daughter like her, and he’ll never stop saying it to anyone who will listen.

After the crash, Henry’s completely incapacitated. Not much else to say. He can do nothing but tremble and cry in pain, trying and trying to form coherent words and sentences, but it isn’t clear enough to the people around him. He feels more alone there on that medical bed than he has in his entire life. And he can do nothing but watch as everything falls apart.

WILLIAM AFTON, SECOND IN COMMAND.

Takes the place of Jimmy Zare.

Like I said before, I got really inspired to make this crossover by the song Brutus, but that was specifically the connection between Jimmy and William. I knew when I started making the ideas for this that the borderline obsession William has with Henry was a perfect fit here. Just utterly disgusting. I hate him. He should die.

William doesn’t have time to put up any sort of front like we see in the books. He has work to do on the ship, and he plans on getting it done as soon as possible with the highest efficiency possible. He wants to look good. He doesn’t care if he looks like an asshole while doing it. After all, he sees the rest of the crew as more of a burden on him than anything, obstacles dragging him back from reaching his full potential. From climbing to the top of his ladder. And yes, that includes his own children. He sees their presence on board the Ursine as a distraction.

Just like it’s suggested in the game, William and Henry were friends before the events of the story. Childhood friends who relied on each other through thick and thin. They both went into engineering, and William followed in Henry’s footsteps. But he was eager to get ahead, to pave the footsteps his old friend would walk in instead. It didn’t help that Henry always seemed better than him. Henry didn’t even want to become a captain, but there they were, running a god damn ship. William hated it. Hated them. It was so annoying how perfect he was all the damn time.

He doesn’t really care what happened to Henry in the crash. He didn’t make them run into the cockpit as the ship ran straight into an asteroid. That was their own stupid decision, and he had to clean up after their mess. Now that he was captain, just like he wanted, he planned on doing things right. Keeping the crew together. Despite the utterly hopeless situation at hand. It doesn’t help that emotions were never his strong suit.

CHARLOTTE “CHARLIE” EMILY, MEDICAL OFFICER.

Takes the place of Anya Musume.

I don’t know if I want to keep the more serious parts of the character’s story, but I think it’s too important to the plot as a whole to remove it. As someone who’s gone through a similar situation, it was a hard decision to make, but I have to respect the importance of a character’s trauma that makes them who they are.

Like Anya in the game, Charlie did make it to medical school, but never completed it. Her poor mental state combined with the overwhelming workload and the sheer number of years she’d have to be focused on nothing but schooling was too much, and she wasn’t getting the help she needed to keep up. So instead, she dropped out and sent an application to Fazbear Express where her father worked, getting accepted as a field nurse in training. Eventually, she was promoted to medical officer, but without a degree in nursing she was prevented from becoming chief.

Most of the shit she has to do on the Ursine is just scraped knees and the occasional dislocation, all of which she can handle with ease. She’s very confident in her work, and when she first started working on her father’s ship, she wasn’t afraid to show it. But something changed. Slowly, her demeanor shifted, and she lost that lively confidence that made her her. Nobody knew for sure what happened. At least, not at first.

After the crash, Charlie was absolutely distraught. She can barely look at her father when he’s in so much pain, and her job as a nurse is compromised by the rule of not treating family members. Since they have no other nurse or doctor on board, she’s left with the responsibility, but it’s debilitating. She often has panic attacks and break downs in the back corner of the medbay, hiding behind her desk where Henry and the other crew couldn’t see her.

MICHAEL “MIKE” AFTON, ENGINEER.

Takes the place of Swansea Hotard.

When I was deciding who to put in the other character’s places, I instantly thought of Michael and David (the crying child) and the tough love Swansea gives Daisuke in the game. I wanted to take that and make it so Michael is especially cruel to David to try and get the kid to quit. He doesn’t want David to work at this dead end job, stuck the rest of his life in this monotonous lifestyle with little to no time at home on Earth.

Mike is an incredibly hard worker, but he isn’t really sure why. He doesn’t like his job. He never wanted to be a mechanical engineer, and he never wanted to work for Fazbear Express. But when times got especially rough, his father showed up out of nowhere like some kind of stupid white knight and offered to teach Michael everything he knows. With William’s experience, Michael easily got a job with the company afterwards. But he feels indebted to his father for it, which- in the Afton household- is never a good feeling.

After the crash, Henry- who often acted as a sort of father figure for the younger members of the crew- was down for the count, and people were more afraid than ever. Nobody wanted to go to William, so they came to Michael, who tries his best to offer comfort (despite not being very good at it). This is especially true for Charlie, as she relies on him and goes to him to cry, since her father is in no state to worry about her as well as himself. Mike can’t help but feel overwhelmed by the sense of obligation put on his shoulders, but nonetheless, he keeps his head high and stands tall as an anchor for the group. Completely unwavering and stoic. Despite the pain he’s feeling as well.

Tensions between Michael and William are constantly high, and the two definitely don’t get along, just like Jimmy and Swansea in the game. And I can clearly imagine the pure hatred and rage in Michael’s eyes as he screams William’s name and chases him down with the axe. If I were to make this into a fanfic, I’d beat around the bush for most of the story, avoiding Michael calling William “dad” or ��father”, at least until the part with Swansea’s/Michael’s monologue. Where he’d end it with the simple line, “Fuck you, dad.”

DAVID AFTON, INTERN ENGINEER.

Takes the place of Daisuke Juarez.

Funny enough, despite sharing the same role in the story- the new kid on the block, the intern who’s still getting his ropes- Daisuke and David couldn’t be any more different. David’s weaker, more timid, usually letting others speak for him and scrambling to hide when feeling in danger in any way. And we all know how Daisuke is. A free spirit with a gentle heart and a smile that can light up a room. Despite their apparent differences though, their stories end the same.

Unlike Daisuke, David’s mother didn’t believe he was a slacker. She thought he was too timid. She thought it would do him good if he put himself out there and got himself a job outside his comfort zone. She actually didn’t want him to get a job anywhere near his father (the two are divorced, and things didn’t end on good terms), but William practically stepped in and insisted that David work under his guidance at Fazbear Express. Ironically enough, William didn’t end up even being the person to train David, it was Michael instead.

After the crash, David didn’t know what to do. He wanted things to go back to normal, but he could barely keep himself from crying every time he passed by the infirmary and heard the captain’s cries of pain. He grows more clingy to Michael and his father as time passes on, rations grow slimmer, and painkillers run low. He’s scared, and he wants to keep the rest of the crew safe like his dad and his brother, but he feels too weak and pathetic to contribute anything.

Of course, David gets stronger throughout the story, and begins to believe in himself more thanks to Mike’s tough love teaching style. But it all leads to him getting manipulated into pushing his limits and going in over his head. We all know what happens in the vents.

FREDDY THE TEDDY, FAZBEAR EXPRESS’ MASCOT.

Takes the place of Polle the Pony.

You’d think there wasn’t much to the silly little mascot of the multibillion dollar industry behind the Ursine and its crew, but little Freddy the Teddy is a reminder of everything the crew stands for. Hard work, dedication, passion for the craft. Every poster around the Ursine reminds the crew that they are only a cog in the machine. And no matter what they do, they can’t escape unless Fazbear Express lets them go.

Luckily for them, Fazbear Express indeed let them go. Let everyone go. Just like that, everyone didn’t have a job. After their last shipment was over, that was it. Donezo. I sure hope that doesn’t cause any tension on board!

I’ll finish this off with a doodle I made to celebrate Henry’s birthday!! At least, my headcanon

I thought it was especially fitting, considering the impact of the captain’s birthday party on the crew. (More specifically the events that transpired and the news that was dumped on the crew with little to no warning. Imagine!!)

Thanks for reading this long ass post, I hope you all have a very happy holidays, merry whatever and all that

[stardial]

good morning everyoneeee

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This wine tastes like pigs blood!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[muckyschmuck]

ultimately!

[theredpharaoah]

Reading comprehension is at an all time low. You way too in your feelings over my lil Merthur post. Fanfiction wasn’t part of my argument brain trust. I brought that up in regards to her finding out about Merthur from TikTok. I never said anything about fanfiction providing evidence for this ship in the show. No one knows their character better than the actors and they interpreted their characters as being attracted to one another. The writers also interpreted it that way. Where was I nasty to Gwen? I’ve never had a problem with Gwen. I’m a fem black individual myself - I loved Gwen. I wanted them to do more with her and they did not. I literally stated that just as Merthur is the dominant ship in the fandom, Morgwen is right there next to it.

Ok, let’s talk about Gwen and Arthur’s marriage….it ain’t shit to say cuz it gave nothing. It was boring, stale, and Arthur never seemed to care for her as much as he did Merlin. And I never said Gwen and Arthur’s relationship was fake. The OP said that BOTH Merlin and Arthur liked Gwen. Which is why I specifically said that Gwen and Merlin’s little bit of attraction in season 1 gave “girl falls in love with gay boy because she thinks he’s sweet and charming”.

Pump the brakes. Who the fuck is going ”uwu”? I am not one of these lil smol bean bitches you used to dealing with on this app. We could meet up in real life and see what you really about, trust. You have a difference in opinion and that’s fine, but you ain’t have to come up in here being disrespectful. Furthermore, I didn’t diminish, replace, insult or ignore Gwen. But if I wanted to do that, I damn sure would do that and ain’t shit you could or would do about it. Know that.

Now on to the next one:

Nobody ever said or thought “Arthur was just using Gwen for her womb”. Please keep your assumptions and bullshit to the people you know and not me. I never said the authors didn’t write that they were in love. They TOLD us that on multiple occasions. But when it comes to writing it’s better to show and not tell. If you have to do the latter then usually there’s something wrong with the writing. The subtext(because yes, that does exist. Shocking I know.) reads Merthur. And that makes sense since that was what the writers intended. There’s some shit on one of the Blue rays where a writer literally says it’s a love story between two men. It’s as platonic as Xena and Gabrielle. I said Gwen doesn’t have chemistry with anyone and I was mostly talking about Merlin and Arthur. But no I don’t think she had much chemistry with anyone because I don’t think her character was ever developed all that greatly to begin with. She’s a side character. This whole conversation is hilarious because you two are both working off of these crazy ass assumptions. The main one seems to be that I’m some white person when I’m not only black and fem, but an anthropologist and philosopher who primarily studies race/gender and spirituality religion - specifically in relation to black peoples mostly. My entire life revolves around me being black and fem. So go on ahead and miss me with all this “all the white boy characters are just so lovable” shit, cuz that was never in my thought process. Again, never stated that the Merthur subtext was diminishing anything. I simply stated that it was clear that Merthur was the ship of the show. And again, the writer and I believe Katie said on the season 5 tape that the show was a love story between Merlin and Arthur. I never lied about the canon material. I stated how I saw Merlin and Gwen’s relationship in season one. You are attributing a bunch of shit to a short and quick post that was never even stated. Again, where is it even implied I said omegaverse fanfiction was canon? I specifically brought that up in relation to her saying she learned about Merthur from TikTok. It was the usual “Yall wasn’t there in the trenches with us” type of statement. Both you sorry ass hoes need to learn how to read. Maybe print out the post next time and annotate it or something. Idk. Yall are referring to a bunch of shit that was never said by me. Both of you are working entirely off of assumptions about me that are not at all true. The first fool said some “uwu ships wars are dumb” shit and you over here talking about white boys and “we gays”. Keep it cute cuz I’m definitely the bitch to make it ugly. I am NOT one of them smol bean bitches. Metaphorically speaking; the only trigger warning you gon get from me is the sound of the bullet firing.

You started with a good premise but now I think you’re actually insane. Merlin and Arthur had tension from day one. I was a child and I knew they were gay for one another. Gwen didn’t have chemistry with anyone - least of all Merlin. Merlin wasn’t interested in Gwen at all. Season 1 read as when the girl falls for the gay boy cuz he’s so nice and sweet. The actors shipped Merthur. The writers shipped Merthur and they wanted the fandom to ship Merthur. The only reason they probably didn’t explicitly put it in the show was because of the time we were in. The writers and fandom have always been gay af. Because right next to Merthur is Morgwen and after that, Gwen/Lancelot. This is not at all an example of what you’re talking about. Also, TikTok? Did you just start watching the show? Watch it again please. And then watch it another time. Like we were reading/writing Merthur fanfic in 2008. I was on mf livejournal reading A/B/O dynamics Merthur fanfics. Hello??!!! Like maybe it’s because I’ve been in this fandom for over a decade - Merthur was my first fandom - but I’m literally so affronted and flabbergasted. How do you even-

[starscreamingg]

Detroit Become Human and why does this game decide that the problem in society is individual people treating androids poorly because those androids are choking them out of the workforce and NOT the corporations and governments who deliberately designed the androids to do this

[puppyeared]

Ouhhhh friendship I love friendship……..

[luvbug724]

36 days.

i think we as a fandom don't talk about dan and renee enough aftg hitlist anon. i understand that renison and mattdan (?) prevail but we need to look at the sheer potential in that one short story about dan's recruitment alone. the sports rivalry turned hatred. dan only getting recruited because wymack came to watch renee. the strip club. having to unite in the face of misogynists. do you see the vision. do u see the vision aftg hitlist anon.

[kukuandkookie]

Sorry I know you worked hard on this analysis and yes it’s a very lovely and moving read and as others have said, it’s really strong and I can feel the passion—

But also…

BERYL AND SAPPHIRE MENTION??? 🥺🤧🥹

As much as I love Link Click, Beryl and Sapphire will truly always have a special space in my heart.

Especially since Link Click already has a huge fandom internationally too, but Beryl and Sapphire is more underrated globally and I tend to gravitate to loving underrated things even more loudly. But also for Link Click, it’s an objectively really strong donghua almost anyone would recommend to anyone else in a near heartbeat, while for Beryl and Sapphire, maybe it’s more flawed objectively in animation etc, but subjectively I always want to recommend it.

Anyway sorry for the Beryl and Sapphire freak out ahaha. I was just reading this and got hit in the face with them and ahhh I love them (they are actually very Shiguang energy in some arcs if people are into that!). 🥺

Also to touch briefly on why the nature of Shiguang’s relationship may be up to interpretation, I think of it as there being three layers to Chinese media in terms of queerness, mostly because censorship in China is a spectrum so it causes some discrepancies:

1) Uncensored (as much as they can be), explicit, canon BL: usually found in novels and audio dramas and manhua—examples include most popular danmei like Mo Dao Zu Shi or Erha

2) Censored but still intended to be BL and is thus canon through queer-coding (could be in the background or in the foreground): most often seen in donghua and cdramas (which unfortunately gets many BL cdramas labelled “bromance” even though they’re trying to go against censors as best as they can)—examples include the Mo Dao Zu Shi donghua adaptation or Wang Qi and Cui Bei in the background of Dalisi Rizhi or The Spirealm, a cdrama adaptation of danmei novel Kaleidoscope of Death

3) Homoerotic media that isn’t technically intended to be BL because we can’t assume the creative crews’ intentions but can be interpreted as such due to what can also be seen as queer-coding but is also still vague (not queer-baiting, because Chinese creators can’t even afford to queer-bait): most often seen in donghua and cdramas; these are what often get called “sworn brothers” in Chinese fandom, referencing a real historical tradition that’s similar to becoming “blood brothers,” and would be actually fair to call a bromance (personally, I like to call it “BL if you squint”)—for example, Link Click or the cdrama adaptation of Hikaru no Go

Censorship is horrible, but in the way humans adapt, it’s caused a unique situation for Chinese media where besides BL stories evolving to focus on genre and plot beyond just romance, relationships can be very very flexible. It’s really interesting to see, and it does make for lots of analysis potential! I think the recent cdrama The Way Home is a great example of this, as it obviously got past censors by being a story about brotherhood and family, yet everyone who watches it has raised an eyebrow at the potential gayness of it all.

That being said, sorry for derailing SLFNSKSH. I love media analyses but I don’t have anything more worthwhile than the insight you’ve already provided to share about Shiguang.

I do have some ideas about queer-coding in Chinese media in general and why real life bodies can’t portray it as much as animated or non-bodies (via audio dramas) can, which is the subject of an academic thing I’ve been trying to work on, but that’s no longer about Shiguang and Link Click itself. 😅

But it’s truly such an interesting thing to talk about it from so many possible angles!

Vortex We Took Every Breath to Follow : Shiguang and Their Companionship Through Life and Beyond

@justfrolikin I hope this will be a suitable reply to the question you asked; what I think about the nature of the bond Shiguang share.

First, a few words from me :

Even though I love engaging in fandom spaces and enjoy ship fanarts, fanfictions etc, till today my heart truly belongs to a very few ships. Shiguang is one of them. As long as one is not blinded by homophobic delusions, I enjoy discussing any kind of interpretation of my OTPs, be it 'Platonic', just friends™, romantic or whatever. But I have a fixed category (which very ironically is not quite fixed if you read the whole discussion) that fulfills my idea of true love.

for me, Love is a dialogic discourse with your existential other.

The terms I used are very loaded terms; 'dialogue' and 'other' come from the Bakhtinian philosophy of ethics, 'discourse' is a Foucauldian term and existentialism has a long postmodern and post-structuralist philosophical tradition. The reason I LOVE Link Click is because of their postmodern lens and the narratives of the characters, not only the protagonists fundamentally question what is the real purpose of life? Why do human bondings matter? The answers reside in the simplest vignette of everyday life. Grief, trauma, hope, memory, reconciliation, remembrance, love, family - these are the central themes of Link Click. Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi's separate existence and their interpersonal dialogue thematically and structurally complements the main ethos of Link Click.

When asked about the nature of Shiguang relationship Director Li Haoling answered : 是生死之交咯! (Shì shēngsǐ zhī jiāo gē! - It's a life and death relationship!)

source :

Fate, mortality, death, remembrance are the building blocks of their relationship as we perceive it.

Now let me talk about something. When I first watched Link Click on September 17th, 2024, the first Intertexual connection I drew was with another text called Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Funnily enough, early in this year I wrote a crossover Hamlet adaptation (and won the second prize in a competition hehe) interweaving a few elements from Godot. Time loop, fragmentation of time and space, panopticon with no exit - all these elements featured in that. I recommend Waiting for Godot to you all, you'll understand why it resonates so much with Link Click.

Now,

Lu Guang is a person who is shown to be a character who has some mysterious powers to manipulate time and space. Even from the very beginning, he has this dominant (and sometimes seemingly monologic that feels problematic to new viewers) voice with which he guides Cheng Xiaoshi through the dives. He is apparently headstrong and has acquired all kinds of praises ™ like hypocrite, selfish (lol) and what not. Again quoting Li Haoling "Lu Guang is a complex and delicate character." But after the release of 'The Eye' and 'The Lull', I think we are pretty sure that Lu Guang has been trapped in a rewind, like a Sisyphus figure. A friend of mine told me the other day, "Superficially, Lu Guang is presented as an archetypal strategist, the one who guides, the one who keeps things in control, but in reality, he has no agency whatsoever." Lu Guang lacks the fundamental agency in life (we all do but we have to accept it one day or other) and that mortifying realisation comes to him with the death of Cheng Xiaoshi. What is unacceptable to him is the most obvious outcome of a mortal life : death. Lu Guang's tragic flaw stems from this unacceptability of Cheng Xiaoshi's death and him attempting to manipulate time, very Sisyphus of him. Till now, we are yet to see Lu Guang's character traits without any reference to Cheng Xiaoshi but this does not reduce his character depth. His denial is actually very delicious ( I almost wrote a paper on this, taking the popular sci-fi trope of time travel as an allegorical and symbolic means of resistance and subversion but anyway, it's not relevant here)

Lu Guang's character makes me fall in love with the song Flash by Gorilla Attack. It is from Lu Guang's character, no one can convince me otherwise.

Just a loop A bored 'n loop Should I do this now 'til the end? Into the story As just an extra You are the reason I live But you don't remember me? Oh, can I be with you?

And

The only thing that I got, just like a little lamp I gotta go in one-way smoke Resist the lifeless scenario Become the person The person I wished for that day The room like a coffin, too bright A groove that I lost faraway Blanket, I need a blanket Not a synthetic one Notice the regret engraved so hard

And the line that keeps coming back as a haunting refrain :

Flash me, flash me Gotta get the power to rewrite I just wanna deny, I just wanna rewrite, yeah

Every time I listen to this song, these lines send a chill down my spine. But Lu Guang's obsession with 'rewrite' echoes with what my professor said to be Hamlet's constant meta-theatrical discomfort with the script, role, play he has been provided with. He does not comply with the playwright's words. Apart from time and death, I think Lu Guang's most wretched enemy is Li Haoling himself. That's why he constantly wants to 'rewrite', but all he has got till now is 'rewind'. Now whether his 'urge to rewrite' will turn into a successful 'write back' is the central play of the plot we are looking up to. What is my personal opinion on the ending?

The ending which is so dryly plausible in our real world is Lu Guang accepting his defeat and carries within him the remembrance of Cheng Xiaoshi.

But my question is, my brother in Buddhism Li Haoling, why the fuck would I watch your Link Click to know that death is the node that can't be changed? Is it not the given fact? It's a cultural text, however modern or postmodern a text might be, it ultimately uses the plot to defamiliarise and convey well known concepts and emotions with a critical engagement. A plot is just a vehicle, a crucial one, to help us have a greater and more nuanced vision of life. Due to non-linear narrative and active subversion of chronotope, complex plot will have plot twists and cliffhangers BUT it still has to perform a crucial, non negotiable role - the arc. If the beginning point and the ending point have the same temperaments, what kind of significance will it even achieve?

If Lu Guang can't write back at the end of Link Click, the structure of the plot will be like this :

1. Exposition, rising action : Cheng Xiaoshi died at the very beginning, Lu Guang is fucked.

2. Climactic stage : shit and shit and complex quantum physics, hallelujah hot villains, 'I am a great writer I can kill any character TeeeHeeeeHeeee', backstories, parallel narratives, foil characters have no relevance and rendered completely meaningless,

3. Falling action and resolution : Cheng Xiaoshi is still dead to the very ending, Lu Guang is still fucked.

No catharsis, not a milimeter of displacement from the beginning point.

What is the fucking point?! From the perspective of a writer and a critical reader, I can say it will be a sheer waste of money, time and potential. I would rather watch... whatever.

The friend I mentioned before told me, " You know why Emma or Chen Bin die? They had to die. Emma had a loving family, she got the job she wanted, she had her hardships but she didn't begin with tragedy. And when tragedy came, she was so not ready to negotiate the problem and considered self-annihilation as her first choice. She actively erased the possibility of dialogue with herself. If Emma were an orphan, struggling with unemployment and other hardships from the very beginning, I don't think Emma would die that easily. Emma was denied the conflict of life which very ironically tests human agency itself."

And for Chen Bin...during my first watch, the moment I saw him my instincts told me he was going to die. He had a loving wife, a daughter, he loved her, she accepted the proposal and they married soon. Conflict where? To bring his story to a full circle, he had to die.

I can say every parallel story in Link Click can be judged from this lens. People who had a point of conflict (the noodle lesbians, the couple who lost their child, Xu Shanshan, that old man) engaged in dialogue with themselves, others and social forces ultimately got a happy ending. Even in the earthquake episode, it's a story of reconciliation with the past, the man got his mother's photos and it's plausible and satisfying (and bittersweet resolution). He got his (absent) father back.

Another thing, we as a fandom have a collective amnesia about....*drumrolls* Cheng Xiaoshi's character! Congratulations! The man, the freaking protagonist just dies at the beginning, accepts his death, and remains dead. Doomed yaoi allegations are just nonsense. Link Click is doomed if Shiguang doesn't get a happy ending. Link Click is NOT a dramatic monologue told from Lu Guang's perspective, engaging with his perpetual trance of melancholy and him holding onto Cheng Xiaoshi's memento mori.

If Lu Guang is attempting to write back to Li Haoling and the doomed yaoi allegations, Cheng is attempting to write back to Lu Guang himself, not in confirming his own death, but saving Lu Guang from the loop of eternity and by being together. Cheng Xiaoshi is always seen to be guided by Lu Guang, he has to witness repercussions of his actions. Even with all this knowledge I will say, Cheng Xiaoshi has way more agency than Lu Guang has. During my first watch, I could feel Lu Guang has this barrier of guilt and unsettled emotions wrapped around him which denies Cheng Xiaoshi access into the deepest core of his subjectivity. Even though he achingly wishes to be together with Cheng Xiaoshi, the burden of his past actions and PTSD holds him back from being together with him, as if his existence is antithetical to Cheng Xiaoshi's existence. Cheng Xiaoshi is that glitch in the matrix that messes up Lu Guang's plans of withdrawing himself from Cheng Xiaoshi. Cheng Xiaoshi should not listen to everything Lu Guang orders. In season 1, he mostly conforms to Lu Guang's ideals, but in season 2, when Lu Guang was hospitalised, Cheng Xiaoshi became more active and you could tell a layer of barrier melted away. He was less of a stone statue, showed more emotions (the S2ep1 lmao when he said "would you prefer if I die?" abhimaan we call it), then the unique high five that feels like Lu Guang accepting Cheng Xiaoshi's proposal or something :

(LMAO ignore my comments, but what I said is true)

My point is, Cheng Xiaoshi is Lu Guang's existential other and vice versa. They cannot live without each other. They cannot exist without each other. If one dies, the other will die and I want them living happily ever after in heaven. Cause 'Break' clearly depicts them as soulmates. I personally take Break as the ultimate canonical ending

Do you see? each of them has one wing missing, meaning that it's their cumulative effort that will make them fly successfully. FYI, there is another Haoling directed, Haoliners Animation League animated canonical queer donghua called 'Beryl and Sapphire'. A separate episode, episode 13 just explores this 'one wing soulmate trope'.

Now take them as friends, platonic friends with no erotic feelings, pure familial feelings or whatever, they are like Yin and Yang, like Shiv and Shakti, and Yin changes to Yang and Yang changes to Yin actively as they interact. You will have a hard time pointing out who is who. I have watched TGCF and Beryl and Sapphire and a tiny bit of Spiritpact - all three directed by Li Haoling and I am well aware of his narrative strategy to represent soulmates and Link Click seems to be the one of the greatest (and my favourite) product of that genius mind.

I began with team Lu Guang cause he is a scorpio, I understand him, his birthday almost coincides with mine, we share some identical issues. But the fandom's often yeeting Cheng Xiaoshi out of the narrative phenomenon brought back my due attention to him. Is Cheng Xiaoshi so willing to be doomed? Does he not yearn to be with Lu Guang? Let me whisper to your ear...he yearns for him too.

so he

does understand that the person who dies...dies, death affects them the least who dies, it's the people, the family and loved ones who actually suffer. This man will leave his Lu Guang on his own volition? eh.

Also I wanna talk about Link Click's strategy of deliberate misdirection. The first and second seasons are so deliberately crafted (manipulation of narrative you can say) to actively erase Lu Guang's subjectivity and nuance. We are just denied access his perspective. He is mysterious but not that aligns itself with a viewer's emotions. In fact, during my recent re-watch, I felt "wtf Lu Guang, why are you interacting with Cheng Xiaoshi like a straight dudebro?" He is a menace, the kind I usually don't like. But there also seemed to be a critical undercurrent which I couldn't really grasp, but it was surely there. It was adding up to my increasing discomfort and made me question - "was it just my wishful projection? they do not share that bond at all." I was so pissed at that thought that I almost decided I am not gonna abandon Link Click. BUT BRO, BRO

'The Eye' and 'Lull' just blew my mind. I was not that affected by Cheng Xiaoshi's corpse advertisement agenda (that corpse is drawing people's attention who is suddenly aware of Yingdu release, great tactic, Haoling) what pleasantly brought me out of despair is Lu Guang's love for Cheng Xiaoshi was acknowledged in these songs. You will read between the lines on your own in season 1 and season 2 if you have that critical method to engage with a cultural text, but the silencing narrative was also very prominent. I very much felt that the Shiguang story is actually the central action, and not the creative sci-fi archtexual exercise of genres, which again, is just the vehicle. But The Eye and Lull focus upon them, them and them. Their emotions are acknowledged, they are no longer behind the veils of symbolism, parallel narratives, intense defamiliarisation; their emotional dialogue now not only demands a voice of their own but also has the potential to reclaim the central part of the stage as they struggle and negotiate power and agency. And I am here for it.

@guangshi-091305 I present to you my rubbish.

[natjennie]

oooooohohh a background episode about aunt lydia!!!!!!!!!!

[crossbackpoke-check]

18 + swaymark!!

oooo thank you!!

#18 - pleaser, wallows + swaymark

okay i know they are canonically obsessed with each other but. the song is in some ways about feeling like you’re failing in your relationship and being not quite as obsessed with them as they maybe are with you, and in this video of them talking about being a tandem, there is the slightest pause before swayman answers “do you miss him?” that makes me want to probe a wound. we’re not talking irl reasons of how that’s an absurd question (how do you miss him. you’re coworkers you’re seeing each other all the time) we’re talking that maybe this whole goalies-in-love thing got blown out of proportion and now swayman’s having to buy into the bit too hard. linus loves it & everyone’s asking about their bromance & how they love each other so much and the thing is—linus is safe. he’s got a wife and plausible deniability and jeremy? jeremy is gay. sure, he can crack jokes and people-please but the more people ask the more they're going to find out until maybe they find out something jeremy doesn't want them to know. and the longer this goes on, the more jeremy has to sit at linus' dinner table with linus and his beautiful wife and pretend like he isn't a little bit in love with him. and you know what? the longer it goes on and linus doesn't dial it down jeremy does stop being in love with him, because it just feels cruel, until he finally is done enough that he stops biting his tongue and ruins the moment.