#anyways is it obvious the bards are hitting me with the brainrot bat

[lanternlightss]

thinking about how nameless bard mostly frowns in the boy and the whirlwind cutscene. thinking about how most arts and scenes of venti depict him with a smile. thinking about venti looking in glass windows or the reflection in ponds and lakes, poking at his smile with both index fingers. thinking about venti staring at his own happiness and feeling a sense of wrong about it—this is his friend’s face, yes, but not how his friend smiled. this is wholly venti’s; something he has practiced for years, centuries, to be as perfectly human as possible.

(thinking about how if you break down enough walls, if you get him to laugh just enough, if you squint a little—his smile then would look exactly like his friend’s had. a wide, crooked, lovely thing.)