#hopefully this sounds coherent lmao

[starrynet]

in my own “who’s berube’s favorite child?” leafs player hierarchy, I think mitch would be like the eldest daughter trusted with any task that requires responsibility. meanwhile kniesy’s the carefree baby of the family who berube would let get away with murder

[leninisms]

question how did you start getting into marxism leninism/ political theory in general and why did you gravitate towards that ideology over anither

also answering: howd you start doing political organization and how is it?????

hiiii<3 i love these questions<3 this is going to be long and might read like a memoir because i’m incapable of brevity, but hopefully it’s coherent<3

how’d you start doing political organizing?:

i’ve been reading (political) philosophy for years at this point. i have OCD and one of the primary ways it manifests for me is as an obsession with Being The Most Good I Can Be. i turned to ethics and moral philosophy when i was maybe 13 or 14, and ended up falling in love with every branch of philosophy.

long story short: i am a revolutionary because i want to be and do good, but i want to be and do good because i am a revolutionary.

i joined my college’s socialist student union during my first year and i loved being around other marxists, but it felt like i had just joined a book club. there wasn’t any political action being taken. we’d just meet up and discuss politics and theory. these things are of course important, but they don’t accomplish much of anything if not paired with actual organizing.

when the school year ended and i decided to take some time off, i decided to get more involved in politics. i started looking into all the leftist organizations that were active in my area and reading their programs. most organizations are active on some kind of social media (i used instagram to find them), and generally once you find one local group it’s very easy to find most of the others because they follow each other or collaborate on posts, even when they hate each other.

if you find an org you like, but they don’t have a branch/chapter/network near you, i recommend reaching out to them to see if you can schedule a call with one of their members. i know this is something PSL does and i think it’s very worthwhile for people looking into political organizing. if a call seems scary, look into upcoming events and try to attend a few if you haven’t been already. this can really help you get a feel for how different organizations operate, as well as allowing you to meet members and ask questions.

this is super important: if you join an organization, and then realize you hate it, you can just leave. more importantly, try to identify the things you hated or were uncomfortable with, so that when you join a new organization, you know what to avoid! even more importantly, don’t just swear off organizing forever after one try. most of my comrades were in at least one other org (if not more) before they found our party.

and how is it?:

nothing has helped my mental and physical health the way organizing has. not to be tragic and tortured on tumblr dot com but i genuinely felt so lost and depressed and miserable for so, so long. but i started organizing and suddenly i felt alive and human and like i had a reason to get up in the morning.

my involvement in organizing has helped me improve my social and communication skills. it’s helped me learn and grow in my politics, but also just as a person. i’m happier, i have more energy, i’m more confident and comfortable with myself, i’ve made new friends, and it’s even helped with my OCD. i was detained by the police at a local university’s encampment and when i told my psychiatrist, she told me she was proud of me lmao

this all sounds very dramatic but you can ask anyone who knows me and they’d agree with everything i just said. there was a version of myself that existed before i got involved in organizing, and there is the version of me that exists now.

marxism-leninism?

i am a marxist-leninist for truly so, so many reasons.

anti-imperialism is the most fundamental aspect of my politics, and i could talk about it forever but i’m trying to control myself. u.s. imperialism is responsible for so much horror and bloodshed and suffering around the world, and it must be dismantled. i believe i have a responsibility, as someone living in the imperial core, to oppose u.s. imperialism wherever it exists. that means organizing in support of palestine, sudan, congo, korea, venezuela, cuba, haiti, and every other nation and population that has been and/or is currently being exploited and abused by the violence of the united states.

from mao’s “u.s. imperialism is a paper tiger” :

before this next point, obligatory “this is not criticism of any specific org/party, it is just my experience and opinion” disclaimer.

democratic centralism was something that was very important to me when i was looking for a party to join. i really just felt very opposed to joining any org that struggled with factionalism. for some people this doesn’t matter or seem like a big deal, but it’s always felt important to me that i should be able to travel to any city in the u.s. and be able to organize within the same party.

there are branches of organizations that cannot work with branches in cities 30 miles away from them because they are so fundamentally different. i was able to organize with comrades in a city more than 400 miles away from my branch with no problem.

political education is also very essential to me. i chose to join a political party that emphasized political education, not just for public-facing events, but internally. i wanted to be in an organization where i’m constantly learning. there are so, so many issues and conflicts around the world, and though it’s impossible to know every detail of every struggle, i believe it’s important to have at least a basic understanding of major conflicts, and to stay as up-to-date as possible with global politics.

there are so many wonderful elements of marxism-leninism, so i’m just going to link a couple of resources for anyone interested in learning more:

if leninism is brand new to you, then i highly recommend this 3-part educational series about lenin. this is also available as a podcast on spotify and apple if you prefer.

the state and revolution, v.i. lenin

imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism, v.i. lenin

i hope this answered your questions:) everyone, please feel free to ask me anything about organizing! i love talking about it obviously and will never be annoyed <3

[rockwgooglyeyes]

. . i know i may not sound very coherent when i say prepose this silly idea to you but . . madoka . . magica . . au . ? for alnst ocs . ? ?

specifically the witch part . . ill be putting out a official question for this on the s39 account but . . may i ask what you would think of the possible designs of the witches for some of the ocs ? your free to pick whichever you’d like by the way !

i have been brainstorming a bit . . but i only have smol thoughts myself . like sai and or himei both maybe having orchestra halls similar to sayaka’s as their labyrinths to represent khoi and tallis, or maybe azure’s being pretty empty other then an endless sky of stars . . or maybe they’d even be combined type witches like walpurgisnacht made from the pairings instead ?

sorry that this is pretty unorganized and a bit random : ( but i hope that your monday is hopefully going well and it continues that way, if not getting better ! love you rock : > ( sai & khoi : @bittersweet-adagio / himei & tallis : @lookatmysillies / azure : @azureitri )

Good afternoon, Apri! I love you, too <3 My monday is going alright, I hope yours has been good or at least, relatively inoffensive heh

Considering that, to my knowledge, a witch is created when a magical girl gives into despair, the witch forms for each of the ocs would have to be representative of each character's breaking point.

With that in mind, I think orchestra halls is really fitting for Himei, because of Tallis' musical skills and specialization in the harp, which is pretty much just a classical instrument that is played in orchestral or performance settings (unless it's a celtic harp but that's different lmao). For Sai, I feel as though it might be a little more complicated than that? I feel like it could be an orchestra hall again but specifically at night, with ghosts haunting the halls, or maybe a hedge maze at night where there is classical music playing and the faint sound of laughter but the farther in you go, the darker it gets and the hedges are stained with blood?

I think the empty world filled with only stars would work better for Tov (@ivanttakethis), actually! Similar to that scene in Howl's Moving Castle (the movie) where they're surrounded by the dancing star figures and it makes Howl's wizard form flare up? I'm thinking something like that, where the stars circle ominously and there's either singing or laughter or both, and the stars are all representative of the people she loves. The ground of the world would be visible below, too, to further disorient the people inside.

For Azure, perhaps some kind of world where there's not any real distinction between the sea and the sky, like they can't be told apart from each other, and the surface that people can walk on is a cloudy/white cap substance? A world barren of land, something commonly associated with life, leaving any inhabitants to be consumed by the churning sea and the endless sky.

Maybe a place filled with plants and animals in cages, squawking and whining and crying, for Solei (@solei-eclipse)? Because of Ouro's practice of growing plants and keeping animals, something with both would probably be pretty fitting for Solei, who grew up surrounded by those things and then, against their will, was turned into another creature to be caged. Perhaps animals in the cages even wear the faces of their friends, screaming out in agony for Solei to save them, even as Solei can only see them as prey.

Those are the main ideas I have right now, I hope they make sense? To be perfectly honest with you, I've read some of the Madoka Magica manga but . . . I haven't finished it. I just know the lore via osmosis heh so I'm really sorry if I got anything wrong <3 love you Apri thank you so much for trusting me with your idea!! I think it's super fitting

(makes me think about an ALNST canon madoka magica AU with Sua as Madoka, Mizi as Homura, Hyuna or Luka as Mami, Ivan as Kyoko and Sayaka as Till . . .) (anyways hope you have a good day!!)

[sunnychuuya]

Time for my now nightly sally face vomit the one thing I dislike about this game so far is its lack of a save button

GUYS WHAT THE FLIP THIS IS SO FSR BACK ITS JUST AFTER I GOT THE CROWBAR WHAT

TIME TO SPEEDRUNNN

-6 minutes 34.94 seconds to get back to chapter five okay time to look up a tutorial..

-what the fuck. It was t h a t e a s y?? IT CAN BE COMPLETED IN LESS THAN 15 SECONDS?! IM ENDING IT ALL WTH

-didn't mention this before but I love the detail of the gear boy screen being scratched

-this is definitely foreshadowing

Hey guys look how much more coherent I am when I have the light off and am not on a fucking terrifying part

-well thats..creepy.

-WHY DOES THE DUDE IN CHAPTWR 7 MOCW SO SPEEDY I CANT XONTROL HIM

-Holt ahit the whole screen going black scared me so bad

-OB THATS A CORPSW

TGATS A FUCKING CORPSE

THAT IS A DEAD MAN

OH LORD

-WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID HE PEEL OPEN LIKE A BANANA THIS RED EYED DEMON EBETTER GET THE FUCK AWAY BEGONE HOE

-yea guys maybe yall should fucking move cuz that shit is terrifying leave before you all fucking die

-NOOO

LaRYS CRHING

BABY NOOOOO

-Ok I mean like it does sound like bullshit so u can't rlly blame him for not believing sal..

-fuck wait if the tree house has proof what traumatizing shit happens there later why can't a tree house ever just be silly

-the apartments were abandoned huh..

-why am I playing as m a n

Agreed

I mean I don't rlly know what sal did except kill someone but all the fanarts I see of him post killing someone say "I had no choice" in the background and he doesn't seem like the dude to just go and murder someone

Maybe I just rlly like sal lmao

-LARRY FUCKING DIED?!

GUYS WHAT

I SAID HE WAS THE ONE FUCKING CHARCAYER WHO COUDLTNEE DIE

NO

NO

WHAT

WHY

WHY

THIS IS CRUEL

FUCK THIS GAME

No

DELETING RN

WHAT THE FYCK

-Why did Enon just die wth

-seeing a ghost take the form of Larry made me scream like not even joking I'm bawling my eyes out whay the fuck

-wait pookies this hopefully is not true and I don't see any reason in why it would be true of it is true I'm gonna find the nearest cliff but like sal murders someone and laryr is dead ...

....

No right that's not right it can't be they're bestie bros

Also it wouldn't make sense cuz Larry's tryna help sal

BUT HOW THE FUCK DID HE DIE THEN? one of my friends is being sus about it

-

I know I haven't met Travis but I've developed an attachment to him bc of the fan content I've seen

-WHY DID ENON FUCKING DIE

Thats low-key sus

Thats really sus actuslly

Right as Enon is like finding out about smth he dies

Hmmm

-"white room eht ni em dnif. Ouy dlot I tahw tegrof t'nod" thanks I understand that

OHCEAIT ITS BACKWARDS

Dont forget what I told you. Find me in the white room.

HUH ??

GUYS am I forgetting smth or is this sposed to be mysterious

Omori ass shit

-oh it's the ghosty thing

-am I stupid I csnt even kinds decipher what should be in the blanks half the time

Bad example. But sad!

Okay but run only has three letters what

OH IS IT AN ! ?

Yes I'm smart

OH FUCK

that scared me so fucking bad my vision low-key blacked out for a second I'm in the dark again lmao

-SAL NO?? FUCKING GET A LAWYER DIPSHIT??

-sal I love you but for the love of God (okay thst might not be a great thing to say from the foreshadowing we've been getting lol) fucking at least try to win the case

-WHAT NO FUCKING DEFENS UR SELF DONT JUST SAY "I wouldn't be surprised" UGH

-oh someone told me j would be scared of bologna bc of this game

-"ugh" dude pls

Yoo I'm finally gonna get rhe lore..

Im scared!

-Mr dood El is so real

-SHUT UP THIS IS SO COOL AND CREATIVD

-THIS GAME IS AMAZING!!

-"Hello are you okay" *demonic garbling* fucking mood

-"now please leave us alone your head will frighten the children" LMAOKK

-okay so the truth stuff is sus obviously

-y aren't circle heads normal :(

-"Hello are yiu the great beast" "well, fuck you too friend." Teehee

-ik this is prolly gonna be some like deep foreshadowing but it's just this is so cool and funny?

-on the side of the fortune teller it looks like it says gae instead of green

-WHY WAS THAT PART UNIRONICALLY SO GOOD

-makes me kinda scared for late game tho!

-math class sleep >> all other sleep

LETS FUCKING GO GUYS LETS FUCKING GO ITS TRVAIS YES STUPID UGLY BOY IVE BEEN WAITING

-"nobody likes a cliche bully traaavis" SAL ILY SM

-"yk if you took that stick out of ur ass you may actually enjoy yourself for once." DAMNNNN

-travis you hoe 😔

Bro ik this is like sposed to be serious but why was the panel kf travis punching sal so fucking funny to me

-but like sal ik you don't know but maybe don't talk about travis dad

-ASH DONT KUST FUCKING TAKE OFF THE PROSTETHIC IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING HALLWAY WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ??

Like j appreciate u trying to help but not the best move-

-larry.. how good.. to see you.. alive.. *sobbing*

-ash the ghosts are fucjing real stfu

-yea sal his dad is shit but like it doesn't rlly excuse it all idk

-mk yup there's smth up with the bologna

I hate that word it's not even close to how it's pronounced

-wtf is the hot dog incident???

Made with dog??

-"You're lucky it's bologna day" that is such a fucking sentence 💀

-"i don't know if this town has room for another conspiracy theory" there's prolly gonna be like 17 more this game

-I got a paperclip! And then I look at it and it says "I can use this paper clip to get into my friends lockers" lmal

-WHAT THE FUCK NO SAL UR SO WEONG PHYSICS IS THE WORSE?! ITS THE ONLT SCIENCE CLASS IVE EVER TAKEN THAT I DISLIKED

-oh yea how old r they rn r they still freshman ? Assuming so

-sal is so short god

-this is completely unrelated to sallt face but chat my leg is bleeding and it reallt burns uhh ow

It might be bc there's alcohol marjer in it but that's from a day ago so idk

-THWRWS CANONICAL GAY

OMFG

LETS GO

i mean ik sla is canonically bi but when there's a gay relationship in canon it's so happy okay

wait through the past two years

What is their age in ep 3

Like someone pls answer this

-wait

Im trying to figure it out

They said if they killed Travis they'd have to deal with him for two years

Indicating two years of hs left

Okay

Ig thar makes sense

Im a liar I don't understand

-i wish u could runnnnnnn ahhhhhh

-"you butt nozzle" wtf does this mean

-actusllt maybe I shouldn't say I wish u could run bc the thing that happened earlier.. haha..

-yall that's sus why r there so many missing posters

-where am I sposed to be going ahh

-the textbook in Larry's locker is labeled "generic textbook" lmao

-mmm that's sus home made by a teacher.. nah..

-?? Travis is gone

-THE NOTE?? OKAY I HEARS TRAVIS HAD LEFT A NOTE IN THE BATHROOM BUT LIKE I DIDNT KNK THE CONTENTS

OwwWW

THAT HURTS MY HEART :<

-BE GAY MY SILLY BOY KILL UR DAD !!

-bruh gods whole thing is loving everyone stop being homophobuc

-"yk we aren't all actually gay, right? I mean besides forTodd. Todd is super gay." Good for Todd

-okay I have to go through all the dialog options

-"says the boy who hides behind a mask! Get lost, you mutant!" OUCHIE :<

-can I murder kenneth.. he shot sal and his mom.. and is la shitty dad to travis.. :/

..!

-HE SAID SORRGY

-empty envelope..

Could

The note be from there

Hemmmmmmmmmmmm

-HES TEYING TO BE NICER WTH

-WAIT FUCK

THAT MEANS I DONT GET TO EXPERIENCE SOME OF THE DIOLAOGUES

FUCKING SHIT BALLS

-MRS PACKERTON LIVES IN THE APARTMENTS

WE KNOW WHO LVIES IN MOST IF NOR ALL OF THEM

EXCEPT FOR 201

QHICH HAS HAD SUSPICIOUS NOISES SINCE EPISODE ONE

SUSSSS

-i hate puzzles how am I sposed to know what the lock is

-NEVERMIND GOT IT IN LESS THAN 2 MINUTES IM FUCKING GOD

-sally has mental I'll

-me when uiuruy.rhoheitnruy.a,drwitoflsuynbusmo

-okay guys wrf was that cuz they're acting like it's a reoccurring thing

-ik is not that but dehydration rlly is a bitch

-im so on edge like it went into the bathroom and we saw gizmo qnd it had a record scratch sound and I jumped

-wow our dad actually says he'll do smrh with us soon.. shocker 😐

-oh ow that's sad but sals dad u bitch u fuckin got rid of photos of sals mom??? I like get ur also affected but be a better dad jeez

-welcom to windom guys

-time to try to geuss the password

-I DID IT IM FUCKINT AMAZING

GUYS WHY DID IT BREK

HES GONNA KILL ME SHIT

-y r there empty letters randomly appearing eith my name that's sus!!

-Robert slays

-yo we can enter 403 now shouldn't they have fixed the doorframe by now tho lmao

-whyis she talking out her neck god I'm gonna vomit the sound effects are Not Neesxcaru

-I feel like that red eyed demon ain't really gone.

-it's 1:06 am have mercy on my orbs pls

-these letters r confusing

-samn what r Todd's parents on 💀

-did sal jusr say "good lord" beuh

-im scared.

-theres a lock on the freezer fuck fuck fuck

-okay. Ifs creepy, but at least it'd just a goat head. Could be worse. Could be human

Waych me end up regretting these words..

-she has a weird obsession with pi huh

-greem stuff in the tub

-whay am I sposed to do while waiting 4 Larry

-GUYS IM NOT GONNA FUCKING BE STUCK AGAIN

IVE SEARCHED THE WHOLE PLACE WITJ THE GEAR BOY SND CLICKED ON EVERY INTERACTIVE THING

RAGHHN

I feel like there's a possibility the thing we found in her desk could be used to open the door but it'd not letting me

-clock puzzle..

-I did it

WHAT THE FUCK

-GUYS WHAT THE HELL

-yall I just killed a dude don't feel great about that haha...

-FYCK SHES BACK FUCKR FUSJDK

-"if we don't make it out alive.. I.. I love you dude"

-THE THE THE THE WAY THE WAY THE WAY ME WHEN THE WAY SAL IS HOLDING HIS PIGTALS

-it's just ash fuckign great what the hell

-"damn." Valid reaction ngl like what r u sposed to say to thar

-OH MY DUCKING GOD ARE THE MISSING POSTETS PEOPLE SHES MADE INTO BOLGIANEN

ANITHER FUCKIJG LOCK IN NOTNINCTHE MENTAL STATE FOR THIS RN

-this isn't very girlypop core

-ngl just googled the lock combo bc I'm uncomfy rn and don't feel like puzzles

-OH THATS A SHIT TON OF HUMAN CORPSES

WHY

Why

WAS THIS NECCASARU

-YEA LARRY I DONT BLAME YOU FOR THROWING UP I AM REALLT NEAR THERE MYSELF AND IM JUST SEEING IT THROUGH A SCREEN

-GUYS FUCKIJG MOVE OUT OF THESE APARTMENTS

-SAL IM FINE IF YOU STOP TELLING IT THERE OKAY OKAY CAN WE FUCKING NOT

DOES THIS MEAN LIKE EVERYONE AT THEIR SCHOOL EXCEPT I think her name was Megan IS A FUCKING CANNIBAL

IM SCARED GUYS

WHY IS TODD IN THE HOSPITAL

I MEAN IG AT LEAST HES ALIVE ??

-please don't go down the trash chute.

-welp she's dead okay Larry let's go!

Please.

-SAL FUCKING DONT ILL

FUCK NO

-IDK IFNIM SPOSED TO BE EABLE TO DECIPHER THESE MESAGES

-ripped carpet

-DONT FUCKING GO IN THERE

-wtf

-WHAT THE HELLLL

WHAT THE GENUINE FUCK DOODLES

-"whelp this looks bad" I love Larry

OH MY GOD TODD IM AN ARCHITECHTURE NERD TOO BUT PLEASE THSTS NOT IMPORTANT RN

-SHUT UP THIS IS DROM THE GEAR BOY GAME WITH WITH THE DEVOTEURDS OF GOD SHIT RAGHH

-THW RED EYED DEMON ISNT DEAD OKAY

-"it's a good thing thr cult isn't around anymore.. the demon too" YA JUST FUCKIN JINXED IT THEYRE GONNA KILL YA SAL

-qere gonna die were gonna die were all gonna die oh god oh fuck

-DONT SPLIT UP ARE YOU DUMB?!

-why do these things always happen to me?" Idk why I thought if schooby doo

-IM LARRGY OMG

Wait he doesn't die here does he.

-great gonna be here for 7 hours

-no im not looking up a tutorial Ur looking up a tutorial

-

Me when

I made itty

Qalk around in circles and you'll figure it out cool

-YOO IM SAL AHAIN

ANOTHET FCCKING PUZZLE KYS

-yipee I have to have a tutorial for sal too. End me.

-gwuss who's bleeding again! Different spot this time closer to my ankle

-following a tutorial

-does exactly what it says

-doesn't work

-runs around in rage and despair

-it fucking worked

Making a second part to this cuz my phones trying to die ill rb when thr other is finish

@mypinterestgotbannedsoimherenow

[fakeosirian]

"house of anubis has bad writing"

so i have a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to critical discussions about tv, and i'm going to use house of anubis as a vehicle through which to talk about it since i think it's a very good case study of this particular problem.

it's pretty simple: "x has bad writing"

saying something has "good writing" in passing is fine -- not every conversation needs MLA citations -- but for the sake of this post not being a million words long to account for every nuance possible, let's discount those situations and suppose that this is in the context of an extended critical discussion about something, and specifically calling out the "writing" as the culprit.

the funny thing about "writing" is a lot of the time, that...isn't what's being identified in a statement like this. this is where i'm going to start talking about house of anubis so i can give you an actual example

house of anubis has what i would call strong writing for most of its run, with a few notable exceptions (that i'd like to note are localized, specific problems!). when i say this, i'm thinking about specific parameters: the coherency and structure of the story, the pacing, the tone, the consistency and fidelity of the characterization, the quality of the dialogue (doing everything possible to only consider the words themselves, not the performances from the actors), and bells and whistles/creative choices that elevate it past functional narrative and into a piece of art. that is writing.

things that aren't writing that have a huge impact on how the writing/story is digested and are heavily influential creative choices in their own right BUT are literally just. not writing. that get commonly conflated with writing: ACTOR PERFORMANCES (i would write this one 100 times if it made a difference), shot composition, editing (both cut-to-cut and structural editing), and in some cases production design (so sets/props/costumes).

house of anubis is a great case study for this because oftentimes (especially in this VERY cynical phase of pop culture we're in) people conflate things that are earnest, low budget, or camp (especially when talking about elements in the "not writing" category) with "badness" when, while you don't have to like it, if you changed the lens through which you observed them, "bad" would be...not apt as a description. that being said, house of anubis isn't a great case study just because it's camp, but because, as the strongest example here, sometimes the performances are just Not Good. i will not name names (especially since everyone has their moments/odd line reads AND you can see clear improvement over time). but hopefully you know what i mean. it CAN affect your opinion of the story as a whole in a way that like...okay if you were watching season one for the first time as an adult, i wouldn't blame you for being turned off by the pilot, or hell, even a solid 80% of the entire first season.

i've attempted hoa watches with rl friends 3 times now, very recently finished s1 with someone actually, and noticed that more often than not, it was the acting (either because it's a very characteristic/camp/borderline theatrical style that takes getting used to or because it's...roughest at the beginning) that was turning them off. sometimes that was highlighting existing writing issues, but especially during arcs like the play/patricia's kidnapping that are structurally sound, perceived "cheesiness" in the acting would leach into the perception of the writing. we actually skipped the first 5 episodes entirely to try and mitigate the parts that are a bit hard to sit through without prior investment (i showed them the recap portion of the video essay i'm working on instead because they'd seen the pilot before and quote "could not handle that again" LMAO) but i noticed something interesting: while it took them a while to come around to fully enjoying the show, there was a period before that where i could tell that something shifted -- they were invested in the story, but they were still reacting like we were watching a neil breen movie. once the acting picked up, "oh this is garbage" (affectionate) turned to "wait a minute this is good."

that is the difference between bad writing and bad [something else].

this is a post about how house of anubis has good writing more than anything, but i do have to talk about the actual bad writing to make this point. early s1 has a particular type of writing flaw that's both INCREDIBLY interesting to break down, requires good writing ability to make in the first place, and unfortunately, is a KILLER for interest in a show like house of anubis, especially when it's taken out of its original context of being released every couple weeks in runs of 4 days of a new episode each night (which side note: COOLEST release schedule i've ever seen a show do. BRING THIS BACK) and binged instead.

quick interjection because i realized that how i define the plots in this show is not at all universal and i haven't talked about it before/released that damn video yet so you won't know what i'm talking about: until episode 9, season 1 has TWO A plots -- whatever nina/fabian/amber are doing (A1), and whatever patricia's doing (A2). at episode 9, they converge, so it's a more conventional singular A plot, but the reason i insist on it being 2 A plots before that instead of the show having an A/B/C/D plot and then A/B/C is a) for clarity's sake since the other plots don't change at all so why shift their categorization b) calling patricia's plot the D plot so you don't have to do that would imply it's the least important when it's easily the MOST important (it gets all the coolest reveals let's be real) + the C plot usually changes every episode/couple of episodes so putting a long-running plot after what is usually just a runner in the hierarchy makes things needlessly complicated c) they DIRECTLY converge in a way that's well telegraphed from the start. you KNOW whatever nina's doing is related to what patricia's doing from the pilot, and that's good.

so let's be real here: the A1 plot kinda sucks. not because the content itself is bad on its face -- that part of the writing is fine -- but because the individual scenes and what information they drip-feed the audience are poorly paced. the most egregious scene is the one in episode 5(!!!! FIVE) where fabian finally notices the eye of horus in the stair railing (by getting his shoelace caught on the doorknob somehow -- don't get me started), shows nina, and they come to the EARTH-SHATTERING realization that robert frobisher-smythe was really interested in egypt! 💀 it's not so much about them...coming to an obvious conclusion...even if that was what caused my ??? kneejerk reaction, but more that we spent an entire scene on this information (that even to a kid wouldnt bear stating), and it's not the first (nor the last) time that something like this happens in the A1 plot. meanwhile, in the A2 plot, patricia is learning something LEGITIMATELY earth-shattering once or twice a scene, and with multiple scenes in an episode for her, it's difficult for the A1 plot to keep up in terms of intrigue/information weight. the audience can tell that nina's the main character and that whatever she's doing is the "main point," but it gets increasingly difficult to make that case when patricia is getting gangstalked while they're visiting sarah over and over without learning anything new.

the real rub here isn't even in the comparison itself but in the fact that they're still, ultimately, both the A plot, and the characters in each need to get to specific places in the information they have/things they've experienced before their plots can converge properly at victor kidnapping rufus. when you compare them, there's a discrepancy pretty quick: patricia has way more things she has to piece together than sibuna do. thus, the sibuna plotline is artificially sandbagged with repetitive scenes, reveals that don't deserve the fanfare they get relative to the actual content of the reveal, and contrivances (see: fabian shoelace doorknob scenario) so it won't outpace things going on in patricia's plot and undermine the reveals there. when you add in how the B/C plots tie in and have impacts on the A plots or vice versa, it makes sense that something would end up being sacrificed in the pacing department. it seems kinda nuts that it'd be A1, but at a certain point of fiddling with events/moving stuff around, i can see why it had to be A1 that got this treatment.

i'll add that while it was airing, i didn't mind that and even liked how things felt ""sort of normal"/not that supernatural relative to where it was going to end up for a WHILE so when, say, the elixir is introduced and alfie gets trapped in the cellar and they REALLY start using their effects budget, it feels like a considerable shift in the setting. a mystery story that lets you get used to some sense of normal first before yanking the rug out from under you is the best kind, but striking a balance between "something weird is going on here that needs my urgent attention" and "but it's still not THAT weird" so the reveal is both shocking but entirely appropriate and satisfying is VERY difficult. (it's also a move that improves the rewatch at the expense of the initial watch, which i can't help but have a soft spot for as a certified Pretentious Bitch.) that's what i mean by it being a problem that comes from a good writer -- they're trying something! it might not be working perfectly but they're trying and to me, that's far more interesting than technically "clean" but very unambitious writing! but i digress lol

something neat that scene i ragged on early does do is the presentation of the information, though, and it makes me trust this was a particularly thorny structural issue and not amateurish writing. it seems to us that the takeaway is that they need to look into egyptian mythological sources for further information, and that the rollers likely belonged to the frobisher-smythe family. what ends up actually being relevant, though, is a) the naming of the eye of horus for the scene later where rufus asks patricia to look for them (specifically the locket, as we find out later, but he doesn't give that away, same as the scene not giving away why it used the eye of horus in the railing to clarify ^ the above dubiously useful information) and b) the subversion of the audience's attention. i'm not sure if this was intentional, but there's something magical about the way it primes the audience to be dismissive of nina and fabian's discoveries and investigative ability early on. for one, it makes the scenes where nina makes fun of amber for investigating every nook and cranny extra ironic in a way that i love (yes! giving your prototypical blank slate audience insert main character hints of a personality that ends up commenting on the nature of blank slate characters/how their behavior would actually come off if they were real people later down the line!), it makes the audience more likely to get invested in making connections/speculation independent of the characters solving the mystery (audience engagement is critical in a good mystery!), and by hiding the "most important information" in plain sight, it reinforces the illusion that this is a living, breathing world where everything is interconnected in unexpected ways. sure, it's cheesy and may feel cheap, but through that, it hits something real.

to sum up, i can see why if you're just turning this show on expecting a straightforward supernatural teen drama you wouldn't see this stuff first (especially since that genre is predominately cynical in tone right now and house of anubis is reminiscient at first blush of the type of show that a lot of other shows in the genre are...making up a guy like and parodying (badly)) and feel inclined to call it bad, especially without watching season 2. if you're someone new to the show, hi! i hope i haven't scared you off! if you don't mind spoilers, i did a writeup about a scene in late s2 that's an example of both good acting and EXCELLENT writing, both in dialogue but most importantly on a structural level. while it is a standout phenomenal scene, it's only that good because of the writing around it supporting that level of subtext in the first place, and the bones of that are present even in early s1.

i'm holding myself back from writing about cynical vs. earnest media because that's better saved for another post (specifically the fabled s3 writeup i will do someday i promise), but i cannot overstate how much of an impact that has on this, too. to state that conclusion as concisely as my verbose ass can manage: you need both cynical and earnest media in your media diet, elsewise your taste and critical skills will just Be Bad. too much cynical media, in particular, can trend towards a lack of appreciation for the earnest media it needs as reference material to respond to, and at that point, you're just adulating hatred ("intelligence") over loving, y'know, love. earnest media can suck, but at the very least, it's less insufferable to argue with.

(also, sidebar that's been said a million times, but these are TEENAGERS!! so many teenagers on tv are written like adults who make bad decisions, but there's an inherent corniness to being a teen that IS sorta "cringe," and you can't take that out without ruining the experience. i'm a super risk-averse person, but i'd be willing to bet a considerable amount of money that if you wrote up some early-ish s1 dialogue in script format (incl. action lines, etc.) of a scene with all kids and compared that to a scene of just adults, so stripping out the performances/keeping those from interfering in your interpretation, the dialogue that comes off "cringe" would read like perfectly fine, age appropriate language/cadence. i HEAVILY respect a show that doesn't pretty that up, even at the risk of coming off "amateurish.")

in conclusion, i asked my friend when their opinion of the show shifted from essentially "well i'm having fun watching it with you at least" to "ok wait a minute this is actually good," and they said the last four episodes of s1. while i'd place the "officially Good" marker for myself somewhere around episode 9, maybe a little later, i can see exactly why it'd be far later (and at that point specifically) for someone else, particularly someone that hasn't taken...extensive notes on every single moment of s1 and poured over them like it was my job for a solid couple years.

episode 23 and onward has: jerome and alfie getting more complex material to work with AND get to play off one another (and thus two of the show's best actors get to show us that), the rube-goldberg-machineification of the plotlines is setting in (the scene where mick and mara are playfighting while doing the dishes (as a result of their relationship turmoil up to this point??) and spill water on victor right when jerome chases alfie into the kitchen with the drawings of the ankh pieces?!?!?!??!?! LIKE!!! YOU CAN'T CALL THAT BAD WRITING...); reveals are paying off; stakes are high without spiraling out of control; actors in general are refining what elements of their characters work the best/need highlighting; beyond that the characters have weathered enough conflicts that their choices are cropping up to be consistent and solid characterization with a direction; it's clear that this is a campy endeavor with writing chops to back up the cheese.

the way that manifested in my friend's reaction was "wow, that was a good scene." "wait, that was acted really well. everyone did a good job there." "oh my god, they're not. theyre not doing this. oh my god, they are."

that is the essence of house of anubis, i think. it's not for everyone, but "bad writing?" a bit unfair, if you ask me.

[quodekash]

OKAY it's now the morning so it's time for me to share all of my thoughts from this episode. prepare yourselves, its gonna be a lot. also a lot of it isnt gonna be very coherent. you have been warned.

tinn calling gun 'darling' over the phone 🥺

photjanee why must you be heteronormative and assume tinn likes a girl

istg pat calling yo 'bro' was the funniest thing ever (maybe i was just tired lmao)

look at this style gay man. this icon. this king. i love him with all my soul.

this man's face is one of the most precious things on this planet

i thought we were ten minutes in and already getting a soundwin moment, but then sound freaking rejected win's offered seat and sits at the front???

poor win is so confused

why was tiw getting in the bus van thing with the pool toy still around his waist

sir what are you doing

WE FINALLY GOT THE FREAKING BEACH SCENES OMG

THEY ALL LOOK SO HAPPY IN THAT GROUP PHOTO (por can you send me that group photo pls?)

YEAAAAAHHH WE FINALLY GOT THE TIWPOR PHOTO TAKING. AND ALONG WITH THAT WE GOT THEY SMILING AND LAUGHING TOGETHER, AND TIW TAKING A PHOTO OF POR WHILE HE POSED AND LOOKED CUTE AND THIS IS NOT STRAIGHT BEHAVIOUR

i deeply appreciate the tiwpor crumbs

i do not, however, appreciate being catfished bY A CUTE SOUNDWIN BEACH MOMENT

yay for cute tinngun beach scene tho

even if it is ruined multiple times by people

THE OISHII ICE TEA IS HERE, YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

ITS TIME FOR A CUTE GAY MOMENT

(i cant explain how much i want this ice tea)

(i love ice tea)

why is tinn making out with the ice tea

and then gun made out with the ice tea so that they indirectly kissed and this is not at all what i was expecting from this product placement but honestly i love it

naturally yak had to destroy everyone's hope and happiness and freedom

he is, however, deeply iconic.

tinn: how did my honeymoon turn into a music practice camp? tiw: my situation is worse tiw:

tiw, i love you, but that's not worse.

TIW CHOKING ON HIS DRINK WHEN YAK ASKED THEM IF THEYRE CRUSHING ON HIS JUNIORS AND HE IS IN FACT SECRETLY DATING ONE OF THEM (well, hopefully. maybe. if hes not yet then he will be eventually. he has to be. i need canonical tiwpor in my life)

i understand the cover dancing. but why must you make music kids run and do squats and stuff. music kids dont want to exercise. leave the music kids alone. (i feel personally attacked from this. most of my friends are music kids. i dont want to be hanging out with them and relaxing on the beach and then suddenly forced to *terrified shudder* exercise)

yak telling por and pat and win and yo that theyre lacking something. idk about the others, but i know what win's lacking

he's lacking a boyfriend

i have the not-yet-disproven understanding that por has a magical gift in the art of somehow-becoming-gayer-every-single-time-he-comes-on-screen (ill make this its own individual post one day with evidence and stuff)

TIWPOR CRUMBS WHILE TIW IS TEACHING THEM TO DANCE

SOUND-TINN RIVALRY CRUMBS, YES, THEY BETTER FLIPPING EXPLAIN IT SOON. THEY DONT IN THIS EPISODE. BUT IF THEY DONT EXPLAIN IT BEFORE THE END OF THE SHOW IM GONNA PUNCH SOMEONE

"Dont you want to try a love song?" "Oh, please. A love song?" "i'm just saying. if youre not into it, thats okay." "its not that im not into it. but im more afraid our members wont be into it. look at them. none of them is romantic. none, none at all" "But there are many types of love. let's say puppy love or sweet love, im not into them either. i prefer the tough kind of love *he's smiling and thinking fondly now*" "right. i like that too. in the beginning, we just didnt stop fighting. in the end, i blushed for him without knowing it."

SOUND MAKES A FACE OF REALISATION

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

"Gun." GUN IS CONFUSED. HE LOOKS OVER. HE READS SOUND'S EXPRESSION. "hey!" "you just said… don't tell me…" "wait, no-"

"DID YOU KNOW I LIKE WIN?"

HE ADMITTED IT. HE SAID IT OUT LOUD. AND TO GUN OF ALL PEOPLE. GUN NOW KNOWS. HE KNOWS ABOUT SOUNDWIN.

"HUHH????? YOU LIKE WIN???" "keep it down! people can hear" "you like win?" "i do." "ah! youve been avoiding him lately because of this?" "…yes. when im close to him, i just dont know how to act. when im near him, i feel so freaking awkward." sound, babes, its okay. you're allowed to have feelings

"should i just tell him honestly?" UMM??? YES????? ABSOLUTELY YOU SHOULD, YES PLEASE

gun why are you changing the subject. sound is asking for advice. dont just leave.

TINN ALSO KNOWS NOW

i love the way they were hiding behind a rock and spying on sound omg

side note: tinngun's height difference may kill me one day

sound and gun are sitting on the side watching the dance that the others practiced, and sound cant stop looking up at win he's so whipped i love him

"something im really into?" *proceeds to stare directly at win for a number of seconds*

THOU POOR LITTLE PINING GAY OH HOW I PITY THEE AND WISH TO GIVETH THEE A BIG OL' HUG

3/4 THROUGH THE EPISODE, YK WHAT THAT MEANS? THE SOUNDWIN PART

WIN IS APPROACHING SOUND WHILE SOUND IS WRITING

I REPEAT, WIN IS APPROACHING SOUND WHILE HE'S WRITING, WE GOT A COTE RED, CODE RED EVERYONE

win is asking whats up with sound recently

sound is aggressively avoiding eye contact

"im on mars looking back at earth and can still see you're mad. what are you mad at me about?" sounds thoughts: for being so bloODY HOT WHY MUST YOU BE LIKE THIS

"i said nothing. you should go now. im continuing to write the song" SOUND BBY DONT PUSH HIM AWAY HES ALSO IN LOVE I JUST DONT THINK HES REALISED IT YET

WIN STOLE THE SONG BOOK THING, I REPEAT, WIN STOLE THE SONG BOOK THING

SOUND IS VERY TENTATIVE AND KINDA SCARED

"you said you would write a song about chasing a dream. why did it turn into a sweet love song?" "well- im- exploring different types." suuuuuuuurrreeee. nice cover up story there, sound. subtle. he'll never figure it out.

"...do you feel anything after reading that??" POOR BBY IS DESPERATE HE NEEDS A HUG (i volunteer as tribute to give sound a hug)

win looks down at it. reads it again. looks back up at sound.

"i do"

WE'RE GOING FERAL AT THIS POINT

THEYRE SMILING AT EACH OTHER

WE'RE TEARING OUT HOUSES TO SHREDS

BUT THEN--

"i feel like this doesnt suit you at all"

WIN.

HE WAS TALKING ABOUT FEELINGS.

LIKE THAT FLUTTERY THING YOU GET IN YOUR CHEST EVERY TIME YOU SEE HIM?

YOU KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT WIN

I KNOW YOU'VE FELT IT

"it gives me goosebumps" WIN THIS IS SO VAGUE, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?? DO YOU MEAN GOOSEBUMPS WITH A NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE CONNOTATION?? IM NEURODIVERGENT AND SLEEP DEPRIVED I NEED TONE INDICATORS

"give it back. a dumba** like you will never understand" :[[[[

"what a waste of time" excuse me sir. the last time you said that you kissed him. now you're walking away.

(thats probably a thing i can analyse at some point. sound and his usage of 'what a waste of time' and an insight into his thoughts and his character. ill do that at some point)

FREAKING GO AFTER HIM, WIN. BLOODY EXPLAIN YOURSELF

sound is now sitting on the beach. he is sad. that makes us sad.

look at this sad boi, he nEEDS A FREAKING HUG

tinngun are approaching him to provide words of comfort

"i saw everything. its okay. if i were you, id be ticked off too. dam it. you wrote a song for him, and he badmouthed you back." and sound has this tiny sad smile on his face "actually, i wasnt that surprised. even if i told him directly, he wouldve turned me down anyway. you saw it. we're too different." HES TRYING NOT TO CRY DANG IT "it's good we ended it this way" SOUND- PLS- STOP- NO- WIN DIDNT KNOW WHAT YOU WERE SAYING, HE DIDNT REJECT YOU, HE LOVES YOU

"you can put your mind at ease now. no one is breaking the club rule." tinn is literally standing like three metres behind them. sound trusted gun enough to tell him that he likes win. i swear, if gun doesnt tell sound about tinn RIGHT NOW (or at least soon) IM GONNA TELEPORT INTO THE UNIVERSE AND SMACK HIM

"im sorry. im the first to break the club rule." YES. GOOD GOOD GOOD

"what??" "actually, im seeing tinn" G O O D. YOU SAID IT. WELL DONE.

sound is like rly confused and he looked behind at tinn and tinn kinda shrugged and nodded and sound says "how's that possible? when??" "my couple is no different than yours. tinn and i have nothing in common." YES YES YES YES BRING HIS HOPE BACK PLS TY GUN "but our dissimilarities got us to this point. just because you and win are so different, doesnt mean you two cant be together" YESSSSSSSSSS comforting hand on shoulder "trust me"

AND SOUND IS LOOKING AT THE SAND AND I THINK HES TRYING NOT TO SMILE BUT ALSO TRYING NOT TO CRY AT THE SAME TIME, HE NEEDS A HUG, ITS OKAY TO CRY, DONT WORRY SOUND

okie now hes smiling and nodding yayyyyyyyyyyyy

(btw im getting all this from constant commentary i messaged to my friend (who hasnt seen the show but basically has through my bad explanations and screenshots and screen recordings) and i started watching the episode as soon as it was out, and at this point through the episode id been watching for an hour and a half. i have too many thoughts and comments grbhbrhbrhb)

"i changed my mind. i will finish this song." YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

excuse me gun??

im sorry, i love you, but that position is TAKEN

by TIW

he smelt it before either of them even KNEW

gun can be, like. the guy that hoists the mainsail or something

this next scene killed me

win knows sound's favourite bread

win's apology is to give bread

that's so in character for reasons i cant explain

and he bought the gay-moment water

and win unscrews the lid and it's mirroring that scene from last time and my HEART

GRABBING HIS HAND AND THE DRINK AND STEPPING CLOSER?????

WHAT IS THIS

THIS IS SOME WEIRD FLIRTING

SOUND DRINKING WATER WHILE MAINTAINING EYE CONTACT

SOUND WHY DID YOU STEP EVEN CLOSER

WHAT ARE YOU DOING

E Y E T O L I P F L I C K E R

GUYS JUST KISS PLS

TINN IS ASKING IF HE CAN KISS GUN

I REPEAT

TINN IS ASKING GUN IF HE CAN KISS HIM

WE GOT A CODE BLUE, CODE BLUE

and gun didnt let him, but thankfully tinn is a walking green flag and isnt getting mad or forcing himself upon gun. i love these two so much.

Gim. please. rest. you dont need to work every hour of every day. you're over-exerting yourself

OMG TINN'S MUM AND GUN'S MUM SCENE?? YES PLEASE, SIGN ME UP. THEYRE BOTH QUEENS

many more of gim's little accidental clues and photjanee's gonna figure out who it is that tinn likes

gotta love that perfectly-timed phone call tho, dam

HOW IS POR STYLISH EVEN WHEN DOING WEIRD EXERCISES

HOW DOES HE DO IT???

also LOOK AT THE GENDER ON THIS MAN

I WANT IT

pat's shirt is the mood of the week

they all look so Normal™️

and then there's freaking por with his freaking rich-kid-twink-ness i love him

OHHHH THE DANCING PERFORMANCE IS WHERE THIS CLIP IS FROM (the one of pat doing the worm. i kept vaguely wondering what it was from. and now i know)

I CANT EVEN RN-- THIS IS SO FUNNY

IM LITERALLY CRYING FROM LAUGHTER

look at this little happy proud gay man

i know i probably shouldnt call him little cos he's 20cm (nearly 8 inches) taller than me, but idc, that's not the point

look at this little happy proud gay man

i know i probably shouldnt call him little cos he's 20cm (nearly 8 inches) taller than me, but idc, that's not the point

theyre gonna do so goooooood

also satang is probably grateful to the ends of the earth that he didnt have to do this dance lmao

omg he managed to un-twink for 0.5 seconds

my gender is win's poofy sleeves

also if you're familair with @ashedddaisy's red-yellow soundwin theory, win is wearing orange here. orange is literally the middle of red and yellow. he's getting there.

DON'T WORRY, TIW, THEY DID IN FACT SLAY IT (boys)

HE'S SO PROUD

IT'S SO FUNNY TO ME

the first to approach him was por. i repeat, tiwpor crumb alert, we got a code violet, code violet

AND NOW FOR THE MOMENT WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR

SOUND PERFORMING HIS SONG. BY HIMSELF. ON STAGE. IN FRONT OF A LIVE AUDIENCE. AND THAT AUDIENCE HAPPENS TO CONTAIN WIN.

I PROMISE, I WILL CRY (again)

"im not much of a talked, so im using this song to represent my feelings for someone" you know, im surprised yak didn't pick up on that. youd think he'd like, try and stop that, cos that's a love-related distraction

AHA I KNEW IT

I FREAKING KNEW IT

I CALLED IT I CALLED IT I CALLED IT

THE FREAKING TRACK THAT KEEPS PLAYING BEHIND SOUNDWIN SCENES

IT'S FREAKING EVERYWHERE

IT'S THERE WHEN THEY BADMINTON

IT'S THERE WHEN THEY "KISS"

IT'S THERE WHEN WIN PUTS THE HELMET ON

IT'S THERE WHEN SOUND IS THINKING ABOUT 'what im really into'

IT'S THERE WHEN SOUND WALKS AWAY AFTER SAYING 'what a waste of time'

IT'S THERE WHEN SOUND DRINKS THE WATER

AND NOW SOUND PRESSES PLAY ON THE MUSIC

AND IT'S THAT FREAKING TRACK

AND I KNEW IT

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

i cant even describe my thoughts on the song

i made an earlier prediction that this would kill me

i was right. i might currently be dead. the song killed me.

SOUND WALKING ALONE AFTER THE SHOW THING AND WIN CALLING HIS NAME, PREPARE YOURSELVES FRIENDS

"why do i feel like you just yelled at me through that song" BECAUSE HE DID

"how do you know i wrote it for you?" "it's so obvious. i can see that from mars" MY FREAKING HEART-

"why did you ask then?" "seriously, since when?" "remember when we practiced badminton together?" and win has this tiny smile and sound has this tiny relaxed smile and theyre actually killing me

YOU'RE KIDDING

THERES AN ENTIRE SCENE AFTER THE BADMINTON AND WE'RE ONLY GETTING IT NOW AND WE WERE NEVER TOLD???

YOU'RE. FREAKING. KIDDING.

THIS SCENE IS THE DEATH OF ME

also the track is behind the umbrella scene too

THEYRE LITERALLY BOYFRIENDS

THEYRE DOING IT ON PURPOSE

THEY W A N T US TO GO INTO CARDIAC ARREST

i refuse to believe that win doesnt actually like sound yet

he just hasnt identified/confronted the feelings yet

and sound's reaction was the saddest thing ever, like i could smell the tears he was holding back when he said 'then we stay as friends'

BUT THEN WIN FREAKING SAYS "for something i dont know, im willing to try"

and if you're thinking 'WHAT DOES THAT MEAN????' then you would be correct

"c a n y o u c o a c h m e" i am dead

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

GUYS YOU'RE LITERALLY TWO CENTIMETRES FROM KISSING

AND THEN THE SCENE FREAKING ENDS

I HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER WEEK???

I CANT BE PATIENT

PATIENCE IS NOT IN MY BLOOD

AAAAAAAAAA

also side note: win is now wearing a yellow shirt under a yellowish-orange jacket thing. back to the red-yellow soundwin theory, he has feelings for sound, he's got the yellow shirt. and on the outside, he's still kind of hiding it, still trying to figure it out. the jacket is almost like it's been stained more and more yellow over time, and win wants sound to turn it pure yellow, he just cant figure out how to get there, which is why hes asking sound to coach him. over time, he'll wear colours that get closer and closer to sound's shade of yellow, to show him finally realising his feelings more and more. :]

"no pressure or anything, but our club's future is in your hands" jeez yak, that's a little intense dont you reckon???

omg gemini finally gets to do music-related things

i can see him jumping for joy in his mind

he gets to sing and play guitar

OMG WE GOT TWO NEW SONGS TODAY

probably cos last week we didnt get any songs

but WOW

"wow. did you write that?" "no. you wrote it. you wrote it in here *tinn points to his own heart* i just sang it out loud." WHEN I SAY THAT THESE TWO ARE LIFE GOALS, I FREAKING MEAN IT

and now tinngun are kissing with a notebook between them

WHY do they have to ALWAYS get SO FREAKING CLOSE and then DONT??????

theyre really cute tho so i cant rly get mad

OH MY GOSH FREAKING HOT WAVE IS NEXT WEEK???????

THE FINAL FREAKING COMPETITION IS N E X T W E E K

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FUNCTION FOR SEVEN DAYS WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE IN MY BRAIN

ALSO NEXT EP WE'RE GONNA GET SOME SOLID CONTENT OF SOUND ATTEMPTING TO FLIRT AND WIN FALLING FOR HIM SO YAY

it's not quite what i was hoping for, but they're definitely aiming towards getting soundwin together, so its okay, theyll get there eventually

final thought/conclusion: this is my new favourite episode cos its like 50% soundwin

[ac-liveblogs]

I accidentally deleted the more coherent ask so this is me trying to frantically remember what it said adjhgsj sorry in advance, I'm going to be unbearable abt Dan Feng for a bit <3

Dan Feng sounds like a hilarious clusterfuck. Dan Heng being screwed over by his actions being a purely backstory event kind of sucks, honestly.

It'd also have the nice bonus of introducing the hcq and why exactly you should care about them much more naturally, bc honestly if well executed their story could have made me cry lol I'm an easy crier. the way they did it just doesn't hit as hard as it should.

But Yes!! Dan Feng was SUCH a molotov cocktail of a person, it really is amazing. Identity issues electric bugaloo (with bonus body dysphoria and hallucinations!) + powers that make him dissociate the f out + trying desperately to ground himself by thinking abt his friends + the fact that in all his appearances he's ALWAYS with this permafrozen resting bitch expression. So when I read DH•IL's dreams of what Dan Feng was like as a person I immediately went "oh god the resting bitch face is a lie he's a fucking MESS" which was fun lmao. Sir that's not a dignified high elder that's millennia of trauma stuffed in knee-high boots and cool gloves

ALL THAT and it's mind-boggling that they just. poke it vaguely with a stick on-screen when there's all that cool stuff in the promos and stories?? "In different people's minds Dan Feng may have been an avatar of Long the dragon, a hero, or an immense evil, but never a person with feelings and emotions." that's great buddy how about you now SAY IT ON SCREEN. It even ties into his character story abt DF struggling to feel emotions through the dragon god mindset! It'd have been so easy!! ughh. I know this is a genshin staple, but belobog was rlly good at bringing up everyone's backstory in the quests so I thought hsr would be different :( here's hoping for penacony

Tbh XL's greatest sin is, imo, always focusing on the exact wrong thing. The High Cloud Quintet isn't explained until way after the fact, we learn what Dan Feng did too late and why that mattered too late… BLADE… etc. etc. We did get a lot of focus on the Hunt vs the Abundance, but I kinda wish Dan Feng's sin had been tied into that more solidly than it was

I've been thinking a lot abt how I'd do it, bc I'd also want to do the DF vs DH fight ichor of two dragons style, but trying to put it in Dan Heng realising that the narrative abt DF that he was taught is a lie at the same time he's trying to establish himself as his own person could muddy it up a bit... but it Would have to be at the story's climax...hmmmm. How would you do it?

According to the judges DF craved the power of abundance but I have a hard time believing them when they fed so much bullshit to poor Dan Heng like

Dan Heng: I was initially kept in the Shackling Prison after reincarnating, and received a thorough education on that person's life and crimes. According to the judges, Dan Feng craved the power of abundance and created abominations, therefore as his reincarnation, I had to bear his punishment. As for what kind of person he really was... to be honest with you, I can't be certain either.

According to Vidyadhara custom and the agreement made with Caelorum Venti Dan Heng was SUPPOSED to leave Dan Feng's sin behind w his reincarnation, so excuse me if I give a side-eye to the rest of what they say lmfao. So much hope for more luofu so we can go and punch the dragon-elf elders instead..

I had SO much fun in the Arlan-Asta quest, Herta being the annoying boss caught me completely by surprise even though it rlly shouldn't have jshgdjs

*squints* it's a stupid hour and I just came from a writing binge and 24 hours w no sleep so hopefully this is coherent lol, I probably got some of the lore wrong. Your long asks are always so nice and clear how do you do it?

Haha np, I delete responses to asks and whole entire posts by accident all the time…. (clicky back button on the side of my mouse my beloathed)

It'd also have the nice bonus of introducing the hcq and why exactly you should care about them much more naturally, bc honestly if well executed their story could have made me cry lol I'm an easy crier. the way they did it just doesn't hit as hard as it should.

I think what gets me is, like. It would've been easy enough to do it? It's beyond me why Blade never just… attacked Dan Heng prior to their team-up. It would've been a good way to establish his beef with DH AND, if Kafka's present, that she a) has hypnotism powers and b) uses them to control Blade outside of … that one scene where he just quietly sits in a room and Kafka promises she's doing something interesting. Also like. The effects mara can have on someone outside of Blade and Jingliu promising they're definitely affected and having ~scary eyes in their Ults.

And obviously, I get that whatever Luocha was doing was a set-up for later, but having Jingliu show up just to go to prison… that's four separate factions each with one of the HCQ and most of them with different goals. You'd THINK that would be A Thing? A big dramatic showdown? The four can meet up again afterwards to get drinks because despite everything they're still friends?

Genshin has poisoned me against reading character bios if I can help it (just look how annoyed I got after reading DH and Blade's!) so I hadn't read DH:IL's until just now, but… you're so right lmao??? How come the most I ever learnt about Dan Feng was from Jingliu's melancholic loredump? The elder ghosts bitch about him, sure, but?? On-screen drama?? That one trailer?? Did HYV think that supplemental material was enough to avoid writing the hard part???

(Unironically I think that's it. The Herta Space Station and Belobog were VERY simple. Stuff like Blade and DH are much harder to get right so, characteristic of HYV's writing over in Genshin, they've avoided it as much as possible by relegating it to trailer animations, bios and Jingliu's lore dump.)

I've been thinking a lot abt how I'd do it, bc I'd also want to do the DF vs DH fight ichor of two dragons style, but trying to put it in Dan Heng realising that the narrative abt DF that he was taught is a lie at the same time he's trying to establish himself as his own person could muddy it up a bit… but it Would have to be at the story's climax…hmmmm. How would you do it?

Complicated question. Running on the assumption that we are returning to the Luofu, or at least will be dealing with Luofu-based characters again at a later point in the story, you probably don't WANT to have wrapped up too much of Dan Heng's potential growth by the third world, right?

So if anything, I'd want him to be more unsure of himself prior to canon so that you can get more development (and types of interactions with others he used to know) out of him during the actual game. Assuming that you will return to the Luofu later, or at least run into most of those characters again (based on the alliance with XL and Trailblazer not having The Hunt yet), I'd probably base it like this:

1) Pre-canon: Dan Heng genuinely isn't sure who he is or how to feel about what he knows of his past. He's pretty sure he's meant to be his own person, but he was never treated that way, lived his life on the Luofu in Dan Feng's shadow and, most damningly, has flashes of Dan Feng's memories every now and then but has no context for what they mean. Also Blade seems pretty sure. And as you say - the High Elders still holding him responsible for Dan Feng's actions, alleged or otherwise, may have caused some damage. He's only one of the Nameless to get away from Blade/his past, basically.

2) First visit to Luofu: Dan Heng learns exactly who Dan Feng was, what he did/why and meets the High Cloud Quintet. You should be able to use Blade and Jing Yuan at the very least to get some Identity Drama and add more stakes to figuring out DF's deal outside of Dan Heng's own feelings. Doesn't necessarily come to a conclusion but is more informed. Meet Bailu etc.

3) Second visit to Luofu: Ichor of the Two Dragons goes here as the climax of some plot where Dan Heng definitively rejects Dan Feng and affirms his own identity. Spending time on the Express helped him figure out who he was/what he wanted and such. Dan Heng cleans up what he can and moves on from the Luofu. He stays on the Express because he loves the crew/for his own reasons, not just to run from his past, something like that.

I think you could pace out other characters' development connected to DH along these stages as well - particularly Blade and Bailu. The result of 3) should be Blade absolutely losing it once he realises Dan Feng really is dead (and whatever that might mean for him which then leads into Dan Heng having to resolve THAT situation in a Dan Heng-way (not necessarily on the Luofu, but around or afterwards), as well as wrapping up Bailu's storyline (which hopefully involves punching some elderly dragon-elves).

It'd also be fun to have a window of time to squeeze a little tension out of March 7th and Dan Heng - because, like, as far as March who wants to know who she was is concerned, a whole world that knows all about Dan Feng AND a bunch of DF's old friends and acquaintances being able to fill in the blanks… that's the dream for her, right? Meanwhile for Dan Heng this is all one big turbo nightmare and he'd be much happier with a clean break and no need to ever come back. Maybe there's some jealousy on both sides there. Trailblazer awkward go-between.

I had SO much fun in the Arlan-Asta quest, Herta being the annoying boss caught me completely by surprise even though it rlly shouldn't have jshgdjs

RIGHT??? For some reason I thought Arlan was having trouble saying no to PEPPY (dog too cute, can't refuse giving peppy too many treats) but then. Herta. OBVIOUSLY

squints it's a stupid hour and I just came from a writing binge and 24 hours w no sleep so hopefully this is coherent lol, I probably got some of the lore wrong. Your long asks are always so nice and clear how do you do it?

Hopefully you got some sleep!!! And uh. I don't know. I naturally ramble a lot and have to trim myself down. My response to how I'd handle DH up there is my third draft and the original was several much longer paragraphs. I'm trying to work on readability… I still need to get better at it, but glad it's helping!(?)

[optiwashere]

lmao fine I'll ask for another: «Please Don't Save Me»?

Perfect. You managed to pick the Modern/Band AU once more lmao.

That's the title for Chapter nospoilers of the AU! I write linearly and like to separate fanfic chapters out to multiple documents for easier posting. I don't do that for original work, it's a fanfic-only habit.

Anywho, here's a sneak peek.

No context given other than this is a modern AU that focuses on Shadowheart and a modern version of my OC (because I am who I am) as Shadowheart's band has to stay in the OC's city for longer than expected.

Hopefully I'll have a big enough lead to start posting this for real next week (???)

---

Ash didn’t have to ask about Shar. She already knew the answer to that without even bothering.

The cars on the streets outside resumed their bleating honks, the sounds filtering in through the windows. The noise surprised Ash, pulling her from thoughts of a darkened stage and violent, unintelligible metal music. A light rain picked up and pattered the glass reflecting Ash and Shadowheart back whenever Ash glanced over, pale ghosts of themselves in the diner booth seats.

Meager little reflections. Unimportant. Unable to say everything.

Turning back to Shadowheart, Ash waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, Ash spoke up. “So, can you sing?”

“Yeah.”

“Mind showing me?”

“Yes.”

Ash chuckled. “Fair enough.”

Their meal continued in silence, plucking open the sad excuse for distance that they were both cultivating. A greasy burger took Ash’s mind from it all for a little while, and limp, shitty fries with no salt were the perfect follow-up to keep her mind clear of all but the light slap of rain on glass and the buzzing lights overhead.

She told herself that despite catching herself staring at Shadowheart multiple times.

That distance shrunk again.

Ash waited again for Shadowheart to say something. When she didn’t, this time Ash kept her mouth shut. Perhaps this is what she’d prefer after talking so much?

“Tell me something about yourself. Not about music, or mechanic stuff.” Shadowheart chewed on an overcooked bit of fat and gristle before spitting it out onto her plate. “You know about my religion. Sorta. Now you tell me something. Only fair.”

“Only fair? All right. Um.” Ash thought for a moment. “I’m a lapsed Catholic.”

“See, that’s not fair. We can’t do religion-for-religion here,” Shadowheart grumbled. She chugged a mouthful of soda from her glass. “No. None of that. Tell me something else. Go on.”

Sighing, Ash fumbled for anything. “I like dogs.”

“Wow! I feel like I’ve known you for thirty years now,” Shadowheart joked, sarcasm bleeding from her words, “but no. That’s not good enough. Come on, Ash. You gotta have something.”

“I smoke a pack a day. I’m down from two,” Ash admitted. It was the next thing to come to mind.

“See? That’s something.” Then Shadowheart’s eyes lit up. “Do you have smokes on you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I’ve been dying for one since we got in Rivington.” Shadowheart shuffled out of her seat and gestured for the door. “C’mon. Please. You said smoke and it’s all hitting me at once.”

Following her outside, Ash guided them to a bus stop with an awning to sit under.

“Why not your truck?” asked Shadowheart.

“Eh, if I don’t smoke in there then it’s harder for me to constantly puff up, y’know?”

“Makes sense.”

Pushing a cigarette out of the pack with her thumb, Ash held the crumpled green-and-white plastic package close to Shadowheart’s face. She could’ve just handed it over, but her head was spinning being this close to Shadowheart. Sitting on a shitty little bench under a shitty little awning on a shitty little street outside of a shitty little chain restaurant was getting to her, and with all of that she struggled to do anything coherently.

Shadowheart glanced at her and quirked a brow at her. Leaning forward without breaking eye contact, she grabbed the cigarette with her mouth and pulled it free, flipping it around in her fingers and popping the filtered end between her lips. She waited expectantly, eyes closed, and jutted her face forward.

Ash flicked open the lighter she’d held in her other hand and lit Shadowheart’s cigarette. The first puffs of smoke were heaven in the dark light of the City’s rainy street.

[grubliinu]

Hello, apologies if this is interrupting your day but i absolutely in love with your writing which is very immersive! I want to write like you. Do you have any recommendations for sources and tips of writing for beginners? Also thank you so much for all the fics. Love them <3

Aaaa oh my gosh this comment just made my day, thank you so much I'm really flattered you think so highly of my writing skills! Sorry it took me a while to reply, I have been busy and wanted to take my time writing a reply. Hopefully, you'll find this useful!

I can't think of any specific sources I have used but my tumblr should have some stuff if you search the ''writing'', writing stuff'' and writing reference'' tags (I think those are the ones I use but man, I really should organize them better lmao) But here are also some other tips I use frequently while writing that I can think from the top of my head:

1) Make a separate document to ''doodle'' on This is a big one for me. I'm not quite sure what kind of writer you are (are you the type to meticulously plan everything before you start writing, or do you go with the flow?) so I don't know how useful this is for you, but I am strictly the former. When I start planning a fic, I make two files – the actual fic, and a separate document that is basically a sketchbook but for writing. There, I write down everything, from ideas to random bits of dialogue that I thought sounded cool and could be used in the future.

Another thing this doodle document is super useful for is creating summaries. Since I write a lot of angst, I often have to write scenes that deal with the character's emotions and inner thoughts. While I like writing that type of stuff, I often struggle to articulate my thoughts and interpretation into something coherent that I can put into words and I have discovered that simply writing a short breakdown essay of every aspect I want to explore in that particular scene. For example, in chapter 4 of Lungs Full of Roses, when Childe destroys the hilichurl camp, in that scene, I wanted to establish how he views his relationship with the tsaritsa and family, as well as reveal how he really feels about Zhongli, so I wrote separate sections for Tsaritsa, Childe's family, and Zhongli, and how Childe feels about them using very simple terms.

I also tend to never erase anything from those documents so that I can revisit an idea in the future. Instead, I just make the font smaller for those parts!

2) Balance between purple prose and ''pragmatic'' (idk what to call it really) This is especially related to your question since this is something that is constantly on my mind as I write – I love using a poetic style of writing full of words that I think sound pretty. However, I personally can't read writing that only consist of that type of purple prose, so I often have to resist the temptation to add more poetic flair to the more mundane parts. But honestly, sometimes you just gotta focus on making the plot move from point A to point B and that's okay! Every sentence doesn't have to be a work of art – in fact, I personally think (or hope in the case of my own writing) that saving the poetics for the more emotional scenes makes them hit even deeper.

3) Use gestures to convey emotions This is like an actual tip from writers but it's also something I try to be aware of when I write. Instead of using something like 'he felt angry', try something like 'he clenched his fist' etc. to convey the anger. The Internet is full of lists of body language and gestures that are created for writers and I recommend checking those out! You can also use metaphors to convey emotions – using the example above, you could write something like ''anger surged through him like a wave''. I like to mix gestures and metaphors.

You can also use the structure of the sentence to convey emotion. For example, if the character is angry, use short sentences. If they're panicking, convey that panic by using a longer sentence that just kinda spirals into panic. (I don't know how to explain so here's an example from Lungs Full of Roses where Childe is both angry and panicking lmao)

[Childe breathed in. Out. He felt trapped, like a giant beast in a small cage, and Archons how he hated it. Hated how his skin crawled with the need for action, hated how his instincts were screaming at him about nonexistent eyes watching his every movement even though he knew that he was alone. A part of him, the part that had been forged by the suffocating mists of the Abyss, itched to destroy his room, no, actually the room wasn't enough – destroy the hotel, the city, the whole goddamn region that prided itself on the fictitious freedom and cloying wine until nothing but ashes remained.] 

As you might have noticed, I wrote ''he felt trapped'' – which is what I just said to avoid. However, I remember thinking that the scene needed something short and simple and I figured that this was the way to go – which goes to show that the rules of writing aren't set in stone and you can absolutely break them if you want (imo the only rule I think everyone should follow is to USE PARAGRAPHS if you write fics, it is really hard to read fics that don't use them)

Annnd that's about what I can currently think of, hopefully, there was something that you find useful! My writing style is something that has been developing for over ten years so it is hard for me to like actually explain it so I'm really sorry this is so disjointed. Again, thank you so much for your kind words, I'm so glad that you sent me this message anon!

[miniscrew-anon]

okay!!! i was thinking!!! and i have An Idea!!! it might be vomited into the inbox tomorrow. but in the meantime here are Fourshadow headcanons :D

-four is aroace but it took him ages to figure it out because he never really cared. he eventually sat down and researched it and figured it out.

-shadow is still uncertain. he doesn't really experience any attraction, but he still likes sex and romancey things so he's maybe on the aro-romance positive ace-sex positive side (but he's not going to research that- four will find it out and he'll be like 'alr cool sounds accurate' and move on with his day)

-they'd known each other for like a year or so when they started dating BUT FIRST they were literally friends with benefits (except like. that whole drabble.) because shadow was Horny (tm) and four was like 'ig i like him??? maybe???? whatever' and that lasted for like 5 or 6 months until they said they were dating

-but four realized he didn't really have romantic feelings for shadow and felt really bad for like a while

-and then shadow realized something was wrong and asked and then four was like 'i think we should break up i don't actually love you'

-and then shadow was like 'wait but??? idc??? we can stay friends but this is working' (because it was working fine (and also shadow wasn't sure if he felt romantic feelings but still liked what they had going on hence the possible aro-romance positive so he just didn't say anything because he liked what they had and felt like it was fine))

-and so they took off the Dating label and just continued doing the exact same thing

-so if you were to be technical about it they are in a Queer Platonic Relationship but neither of them know the term (yet...four will eventually look it up but it won't change anything for them) so they just say partners :D

wow that got long. hopefully i will be able to write more this summer because i passed all of my exams after a stressful semester but thank hylia. i will have more time to write! (maybe i'll make an ao3...that would be wild can you imagine) hopefully this was coherent if there isn't another drabble in your inbox in like 2 days call me out and i'll write it

-secret third thing

GOD YES PLEASE I LOVE WHEN PEOPLE SHARE THEIR HEADCANONS WITH ME

All the sexuality stuff for them I big agree - Four is pretty solid in his aroace-ness but Shadow likes to avoid labels. He enjoys being a big ol’ mystery in every way he can and just hovers around the grey-romantic area. He does like sex and he’ll go seek it out but he doesn’t bother with dating because he doesn’t find the concept appealing. Someone you have to text frequently and who you have to periodically see at arraigned times for dates? Nah, he prefers a very flexible relationship that lets him slink in and out of someone’s life at his own leisure. Maybe disappear for a month at a time. Then crawl in through their bedroom window and steal their bed for four days. He’s very much like the feral alley cat you feed but can’t take home with you because he’ll scratch and claw.

And I love your thoughts on their relationship! It’s funny but I always pictured Four and Shadows relationship working almost backwards to yours lmao. From friends to completely unspoken QPP to QPP with benefits

They meet young and go through Some Shit. And by the time they get through it they end up kind of attached to each other despite their differences. So they stick together during a very turbulent time in their lives when they’re drifting along trying to keep their heads above water. During this time nothing is certain and so their bond gets even stronger because it becomes the one thing they can both kind of count on even if everything else is burning to the ground around them.

Finally they get their shit together (kind of) and at that point they’re literally inseparable. Except when they want to be separated. Then it’s a whole lot of ew get away from me you’re so annoying go die in a ditch (affectionate) lmao. But they end up in it for the long game. And yeah they might go off and experiment with others (Four with dating, Shadow with sex) but nothing ever really comes of it. They figure out what they like and that’s kind of that.

The QPP is never brought up. They just find their way into it. Like everything between them, it goes completely unsaid but clearly understood. They have never said it aloud but they very much understand that they are eachothers person.

(Then one day Four gets curious enough to take up Shadow on one of his billion joking pick up lines. And Shadow is like “wait really? You sure?”

And Four is like “I can change my mind if you want” and Shadow immediately takes off his clothes like “no takebacks let’s do it”

And now they’ll sleep together whenever Four feels like indulging Shadow. And if he isn’t into it at the moment Shadow can go off and find someone else if he wants. Four’s not possessive)

Anyway that’s how I’ve always seen it. I do love the way they literally never speak to each other and kind of just read each others minds so I wanted to build that into their relationship. I imagine one day they’ll need to talk it out but both of them are comfortable with what they have now so as per usual they will refuse to talk aloud about anything serious lmao

But I do love your headcanons too. I do love the one about Four feeling bad about not being “in love” with Shadow meanwhile Shadow can give less of a shit about what label they’re using. It’s very much a Them thing to do ❤️

ALSO WOOHOO CONGRATS ON PASSING! The end of semesters were so dang stressful I could not be paid to go back to that. Don’t stress about send me anything - go take a nap instead omg you deserve it lol. (Although I do eagerly await anything you happen to drop by into my box. It’s always the highlight of my day 😆)

[edit-corner]

orchid, ivy, aloe vera

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

That's a REALLY tough one for me.... For a lot of songs i tend to skip to the parts i like so i dont feel like i wasted time lmao T_T but a song i literally cant skip is Tell Me by Wonder Girls!! Its soooo good the MOMENT i heard it i knew i would love it forever (honorary mention to Russian Roulette by Red Velvet and New Jeans by NewJeans!!)

ivy ⇢ what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

I've noticed when im really happy my voice goes a bit higher lmao 😭 i also wave my arms around, though i do that a lot anyway. whenever im annoyed or upset i start to talk in shorter sentences, and just look mad. this gets worse if im hungry because i get in SUCH a bad mood (smth i share with my dad lol) we both act like COMPLETELY different people afterwards like we're joking and laughing. and for tired i start mixing up my sentences A LOT and barely sound coherent

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

i really want to see my friend's reaction to the gift im making for them!! hopefully it gets done by christmas.....

ask game!!

[leftneb]

appearantly I had enough thoughts on this that I filled the 30 tag limit with yapping so here is a (hopefully) coherent essay slash ramble session

All this talk about the way Oscar handles PR made me think about the typical ASD/generally ND experience of people misinterpreting you as a person immensely because of you reactions, or lack-of them. And not to ND truth Oscar (or Lando for that matter) because that is NOT my place but I think it's been said by many ND people (myself included) that they relate to Oscar - and specifically the way he does PR, for example:

acting on a script✅️

providing reactions to the outside even when he normally wouldn't because he knows it's expected of him ✅️ (jet incident)

The way I read it is that he's just the type of person to show a lot less than what's going on below the surface, which unfortunately a lot of people read to be a lack of care or thought. And logically I understand how that happens (what people don't see don't know etc.) but being misinterpreted because of that sucks big time.

Oscar has said before (in what I suspect is the same interview you referenced about him moving to the UK) that he has a tendency to overthink, and at least to my ears the whole "extreme emotions are like negative emotions" sounds a whole lot like "I get overwhelmed by my own brain sometimes" (which might be just me projecting but that's basically this entire essay so fuck it we ball.)

I honestly am so glad that, despite his rocky start, Oscar has become one of the most widely beloved drivers on the grid, both driver ability and personality wise. A lot which is IMO also thanks to Lando's PR handholding and general openness to Oscar as a person. And obviously because of the people in the paddock also welcoming him.

the rest of this is like, less related to the main point I wanted to explore and more a general Landoscar overview so under a cut it goes

I think a lot of people gravitate towards Landoscar because of just how much more, like, comfortable it is compared to ex: Lando's other bromances.

I think that that is in a huge part due to Oscar just being Like That. I highly doubt he could do fake PR (like. properly) even if he wanted to. And Lando just accepting that and clearly being (more than!) comfortable with it, as well as appreciating what Oscar DOES give in terms of affection instead of looking for specific signs and getting upset when he doesn't find them (which again speaks to Lando's emotional intelligence btw. Along with how he's so naturally able to adapt to his teammates' energy) is so so sweet and important.

To people who are looking for that sort of relationship, whether it be romantic or not, that amount of natural, unforced chemistry is MASSIVELY comforting to see. I think that appeals to a large part ND or generally introverted/shy/underappreciated people who need to be accepted in order to really develop as people (much to the pattern of Carlos taking Lando under his wing actually.)

And the way Landoscar “do PR” (if you can even call it that lmao) is so so obviously not faked. Again this has been said about 10 million times but they don't do any of that loud over-the-top semi-engineered chemistry you'd see elsewhere, and it makes all their interactions all the more compelling.

I always say that you can put two drivers in a Situation but you can never engineer them having chemistry, but with some teammate relationships it's definitely not 100% natural. EXCEPT for landoscar (obv they do still act different on camera but I think that might actually be to the detriment of their natural dynamic). Like you CANNOT fake the Guess the Lyric video or “osc” or the countless instances of their brains syncing up or just laughing together for no reason other than to laugh together. (In fact when you try to engineer it it fails. It Only happens naturally, which is far more insane.)

And that makes their whole dynamic so much more compelling to me on an emotional level, because all of the things that matter are just real. They couldn't force them to be like that even if they tried. It's just the way they are together, and it's so obviously and unashamedly fond.

I've not been paying attention to F1 for long enough to say something definitive on how their relationship developed over time, but I think even just the way they're handling the whole papaya rules situation is pretty telling. They're so unbearably fond of each other they couldn't (and wouldn't be willing) to fake a rivalry for the sake of a narrative. (Which once again makes me think back to Lando's whole "we're rivals pretending to be besties" comment and just how fucking funny it is because of how obviously untrue it is.)

hiii inch!

as the resident landoscar scholar/essayist in the community, i'm curious about your take on their debriefs! ps. i love them both equally so i'm not trying to favor one over the other, just genuinely curious about your thoughts on it :)

it definitely could just be them having different styles of communicating and/or explaining things but i've noticed that whenever lando wins, he always shares his gratitude/appreciation for the team and oscar (even when oscar didn't directly 'help' him) and oscar will give lando credit for winning but then just talk about how bad he did in the race

yet whenever oscar wins, not only does lando hype him up, but he doesn't talk about himself in the debrief & oscar (at least not to my knowledge) has yet to thank/acknowledge lando for contributing to his win (& strangely enough has always thanked sponsors instead??)

so yeah, i hope this isn't too ramble-y & i hope you have a great day! <33

your timing is insane anon bc while scholar and essayist are wayyyy too nice ways to describe me being overly consumed w a hyperfixation, I was actually noticing things similar to your ask in comments sections and had written something that I wasn't sure about posting ! but I think it's worth it simply bc there is such a huge misfire with interpreting Oscar going on - totally not saying you are, anon and you were very clear in what you've said and I rly appreciate you wanting to know my take <3

- first thing to dispel is “Lando thanked Oscar for his first win/for helping make his first win happen” - he didn't! he thanked him for showing what the car was capable of with overtakes. I know I know! reality isn’t as bromancey but the sweetness of it was Lando giving Oscar’s drive a little shout out, but it was not him thanking Oscar for helping with his win. that's why they all chuckled when he stated the reason. and the sweetness remains <3<3 gotta clear that up bc there is no lingering double standard going on there. it’s the same as Oscar praising Lando’s drives. (also, apropos of this ask and ppl seeing Oscar as deficient - contrast that with how Oscar did very deliberately thank Lando for welcoming him to the team!)

- the other thing to dispel is the recency bias of thinking Lando praises and mentions Oscar this much on a regular basis/Oscar doesn’t mention Lando at all (anon, I know you’re not saying that btw). now! reality is that Lando's POV =/= his stans' POV. so from his perspective, as of recently he feels a need to assert himself to the media as a team player and to acknowledge Oscar more and make it known that he acknowledges Oscar helping him in similar ways. I’m not even going to dip a little toe into the reasons why, all that matters is that this is what Lando sees as something he needs to do and say right now especially. plenty of team orders instances and races have gone by where Lando doesn’t mention or acknowledge Oscar or Oscar’s help and plenty of times where Oscar has been the one to bring up and praise Lando where Lando hasn’t etc etc.

to the point where !! last season we had people concerned that Oscar was so Lando-centric and mentioned him so much and was such a great team player with team orders and being happy and supportive for Lando’s successes even when his own race was misery or the result was gutting or he just lost out on a podium - but that Lando wasn’t bringing Oscar up at all or acknowledging Oscar’s races. the turntables etc! literally had the flip situation! (even extending to this season in Melbourne where Lando got so wrapped up in his Quadrant filming and podium he kind of forgot it was Oscar’s literal hometown race salfsafjlah in the post race press conf a journalist brought it up and he was like ‘oh’ - like, Oscar was not upset about that he just wanted a podium!)

and guess what - in both cases it was never a problem for either Lando or Oscar!

seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how much what teammates like Lando and Oscar say to the media and fans is for the media and fans and NOT how they actually communicate to each other as people. Charles and Carlos openly admit they’ll bite chunks out of each other at times in media but then they see each other in person, immediately hug and are totally fine. PR is PR. it’s either not reality or at best it’s a publicly-framed version of it. which leads to…

- Lando and Oscar don’t do the PR or the bromance thing. instead they giggle and side-eye their way through having to do scripted stuff and media interviews, and thankfully their occasional shared-brain thing and contrasting personalities are fun enough for most fans to enjoy. and literally the fact that they beam into each other’s faces Like That and it’s incredibly endearing. which is exactly how they handle these post race videos - trust me, they are not sitting there in media talking the same way they do in their little closed off world of just their drivers rooms and no one else. or even when cameras are off and they’re just around the team or other drivers. equally, they aren’t viewing how they talk about each other to media and fans as relevant. it’s solely how they talk to each other.

- Oscar is an acts of service guy; Lando is a words of affirmation guy. as Lando fandom has so much discussion around mental health*, it is very worth reminding that mental health inclusivity means learning the different ways that different personalities express affection and friendship! there is not just one way! clearly, Lando is very happy with having a teammate who may not talk much but his fondness of Lando makes up multiple compilation videos and posts about being absolutely whipped when it comes to … almost anything Lando wants or prefers (“nope, I’m gonna keep you happy”). and paying such close attention to Lando talking that he helps fill in the blanks when Lando’s brain struggles in public. and watching closely when Lando looked like he might trip over his own race suit. 

- it’s worth mentioning here that Oscar inspires genuine affection in people who gain absolutely nothing from openly liking him. he maintains friendships from his early karting days, still has a group chat from the boys in his boarding house at school, and has been with Lily for 4 or 5 years now - but all of those people either have private social media or have remained so thoroughly normal that they’re undetectable. Tom Stallard, his race engineer, and Andrea Stella have taken to Oscar like a nephew/son despite Oscar not being a demonstratively emotional person (and how for himself he views extreme emotions on par with negative emotions which is innnnteresting!). bear in mind that Andrea and Tom remain very fond of Carlos and count him as a friend still, so their judgment is very much to be trusted <3 if you look up Oscar’s mum Nicole’s episode on The Red Flags Pod she confirms that he’s truly Just Like That and his family adore him. there’s also this tiny but very telling moment of Oscar sending a journalist gifts for their new baby and the fact that The Fast and the Curious Pod (wholesome nerds HQ) view Oscar as their child. and that Abbi Pulling thinks he’s “too nice to be a racing driver”. it’s healthy to learn how to receive love and affection from people based on how they are naturally and comfortably rather than expecting them to behave in ways that are more socially the norm/seen as "acceptable"! 

*and side note it’s extremely gross and anti-mental health the way certain F1 fans have genuinely decided to interpret Oscar’s personality type as evil or cold or unfeeling. that is so profoundly backward and bigoted boomery thinking. yes it’s fine to joke a bit that Oscar’s a baby-face killer or robotic IF you make it clear it’s not true. but when I get sent links to adult women on tiktok claiming that Oscar’s mother and sister are part of some grand PR scheme orchestrated by McLaren to manipulate and maximize Oscar’s image then we’ve officially left the whole ‘I support mental health’ thing and entered ‘I persecute and suspect people who don’t fit a socially acceptable norm’. because of all the drivers who quite literally do orchestrate and manipulate PR for growing their careers or their impact (which is fine btw!!) sorry, Nicole’s sporadic social media presence is not remotely skillful PR and Oscar’s little sister is a college girl using tiktok to talk about her own interests. and if Oscar was trying to PR his way into whatever gain people imagine an introvert who dislikes being on camera could possibly gain then he’s doing an abominable job! his sponsors are still the ones he’s had since before F1 (including his dad’s company), his social media is as standard and bland with highly irregular sprinklings of personality, and he isn’t branching out into anything outside his racing career. like, sorry to destroy anyone’s insane projections of some grand plan onto a guy who truly is just happy to have his job and hang out with his friends and his girlfriend lasfgljsagfjlagfslagfsaj

so anyway, when Lando and McLaren team and staff members love on Oscar, it’s because it’s real and they clearly feel reciprocation from Oscar despite it not being traditionally emotional or verbal. plenty of teams and teammates can be neutral to fully disinterested in a driver and it's fine for it to be like that. if nobody actually liked Oscar or found him cold or unfeeling, they would make little to no effort to seem like they love him or like him. F1 isn't team sports, the whole public face of it aspect just doesn't exist outside of backmarker teams who need social media engagement to keep sponsors happy.

- Oscar is famously Not ! a public speaking/on camera/PR/media person and you can see in their early 2023 stuff how much Lando helps him (this video esp is painfully cute bc Lando encourages and praises him and Oscar’s so pleased he does a song and dance). ask any longtime Oscar fan and they’ll tell you he’s leaned on the energy of extroverts and PR skilled people his whole racing career. and no, he really does not try to be a meme that's just what happens to awkward introverted ppl who have to be on camera a lot ;__;

- Lando used to be just as uncomfortable as Oscar with this stuff! and he’s said many times he has learned and adapted to be better at public speaking and media work, just as Oscar is learning! Carlos basically socialized and raised Lando from shy, twitchy mumbly little introvert to the person he became around 2021/2022. and we all observed how Lando basically copied Carlos and Daniel’s sense of humor to develop the bromance content we all know and love. and he does the same with Max F on streams as well. I wish I could find it but he said in one of the early winter break 2023 streams how he ‘usually lets other people do most of the talking and he interjects occasionally’.

-re the “thanking the sponsors” thing: to help Oscar get by on camera, especially with spontaneous speaking, Oscar uses little ‘scripts’ he’s worked out and approved of ahead of time so that he doesn’t have to deal with the white noise that hits him when having to speak spontaneously (the famous little ahhhh’s and uhhhhm’s and long delays he has before answering). which is why things like thanking the sponsors has been in rotation lately since it’s something Andrea said (remember him being teased for saying 'we're in Austria' x 50? and repeating the bit about his wisdom teeth? and the refrain of ‘my girlfriend says…’) because he’s just trying to get out something he knows is acceptable and palatable. compare the stiffness of his post race videos with when he’s one on one with an interviewer (the Laura Winter one is great) or filming non-scripted stuff w Lando and you can see the difference between him feeling under pressure vs how he expresses himself when he’s relaxed. 

- it’s genuinely weird and adorable how Oscar doesn’t use gushy language or do PDA with Lily or Lando, but in exactly the same way with both he loves bringing up their little quirks or what they disagree with him about or things they like that he doesn’t etc ??? idk if they’re secretly very similar or what but for some reason Oscar shows his affection for them only occasionally in plain terms, but mostly by bringing them up seemingly for no reason and in extremely mundane ways ?? idk it’s just a very very cute observation I wanted to point out and he doesn’t do that with any other people aslfgsljagfafgl

so yes, those are the Things To Know about Oscar and his relationship with other people and with Lando to explain why he isn’t like Lando, Carlos, or Daniel. and that whether or not Lando or Oscar bring each other up or acknowledge each other in media duties is not something to get stuck on because that’s not something they personally pay attention to in their relationship. we got used to a specific almost identical type of teammate relationship with Lando’s previous two - and even other teammates who are less close all follow a similar pattern of humor and media friendly behavior. but Oscar is weird, Lando is weird and just adapts better, and they’re both very weird together. they can mindread when not under pressure and they obsess over details about each other’s food and choices etc and go off on bizarre tangents about naps and music and they don’t like posting content about their downtime together/purely social hanging out. oh and they openly complain that they want to spend more non-racing time together as if they couldn’t just… do it more ?? yea they’re just like that.

somehow I have more to say but it’s mostly observations so under a cut it goes (but the stuff above is basically the main points I wanted to make!)

a lot of misconceptions have happened both because Lando's grown and changed so much since the start of 2023 and because Oscar's real personality is so slow to be revealed... and tbh it's def yet to be understood fully by a lot of people…

Lando very openly kicked against the idea of being the older/more experienced big brother role widely expected of him when Oscar was announced for Mclaren (to this day he jokingly but semi seriously says he envies Oscar’s “youth”). Lando had spent the previous four years as little brother and gotten very comfortable in that role. around Austin 2023, he realized Oscar was happy to look after himself and didn't need serious help with anything except media/PR/public speaking. this is where Lando found his big brother role and ran with it happily. it’s where the Finish the Lyrics video happened and we saw a major shift in the landoscar dynamic.

take Lando’s initial insecurity trying to figure out the dynamic with a quiet, low energy rookie and contrast that with how someone five years behind in experience to their teammate is NOT as secure of his position** and has much more to prove. yes Oscar has a contract but he knows better than anyone !! that those are not set in stone or immutable. he frequently has said - and his mom has said - Lando's place in F1 is already established as a front-runner. therefore Oscar's job is to push himself and prove himself to that level.

all of which is why you can’t look at Lando and Oscar in media - or even on track - and mistake their closeness in age for being able to judge them similarly. 

**the refrain of 'why can't he be a support driver until Lando gets a WDC' is easy to answer: for one thing absolutely NO driver wants that and for another, he very understandably does not assume he has the space or stability to just not try his hardest unless specifically asked by the team. 

without opening a can of worms on my personal opinions, I’ve consulted my family/friends of family who have been F1 obsessed since I was born - and the reality of guys who are seen or who actually are ‘support driver’ (not rly an official term but we all know what it is) is NOT the same as a number 2 driver, and neither of those are even options for Oscar. 

a number 2 is a driver seen as having become relatively disposable compared to the number 1 and who just wants to keep a seat in F1 despite the insult. they will at least tacitly accept that their role is to follow team orders and suck it up while number 1 chases the glory (whether that’s points or podiums). a number 2 has a limited life span either because his skill drops off and he becomes a liability or because he can’t stand it after a while.

a support driver is someone who either brings money/sponsorships/a unique regional fanbase and can occasionally or at least theoretically compete with their teammate. and who for whatever reason is judged as the guy who has to suck it up when the other guy has a better shot at the glory. but if the other guy falls behind or suffers a DNF, the support driver is automatically the number one. and if the support driver has a shitty season or the gap in ability widens between him and his teammate, he retains his seat anyway because of the money/sponsorships/unique regional fanbase he brings. so basically, he’s pretty damn safe.

Oscar does not bring money, sponsorships or a unique regional fanbase. Australia doesn’t need convincing to be invested in F1, Oscar’s sponsorships are peanuts compared to what sponsor-grabber Zak Brown already has and Oscar’s funding ran out before F1 and his career only continued because of Mark Webber taking an interest in him (for more on that, see K’s excellent primer - you can scroll down to the screencap of a sheet with a lot of numbers on it for that particular part). and despite insane conspiracy theories about him, Oscar’s PR and image not only don’t have anywhere near the numbers of many other drivers, he also had to recover from the immensely bad PR following Alpinegate. he had most fans of McLaren, Alpine, Danny Ric and Lando (as the prospective teammate) all hating his guts before he’d even stepped into his first papaya race suit. all he’s had getting him past all of that was his promise from F2 and F3 and then his improvement as a driver.

so that’s being support driver out of the question.

and also referencing Mark Webber, without leaning too cornily into the obvious like… no, Oscar’s not going to be the one F1 driver to be okay with the idea of being a number 2. his own mother said how he viewed potentially having Lando as a teammate as advantageous for a rookie because he wouldn’t be expected to match up immediately. the flipside of that is what he’s had to achieve and become immediately after his rookie year in order to be seen as around Lando’s level. his job is to prove to McLaren and to his race team that he's going to try and bring them the best result on every outing. if mathematically that means team orders in favor of Lando then fine, which he's more than proven he'll do. but without said orders, Oscar's job remains to try and get at the very front - just like it is Lando's. there isn't an option or a reason for Oscar to just... intentionally fail or ease off that responsibility (again, unless ordered to).

so that's a no go for being a number 2 driver.

and some more about Oscar and mental health for those who think it only applies to drivers who talk about it frequently: Oscar has talked about how, when his dad came with him to the UK, initially Oscar felt he had "too much time to think". and about his difficulties in moving all alone to boarding school (“sacrificing” being with his family) on the other side of the world at fourteen. I cannot for the life of me find the post again but he even hired a sports psychologist to help him. he’s always been called mature and competent for his age and he and Lily seemed to just go right into domestic almost-married codependency after about two years together. there’s a whole school of thought about children who leave home early and parentification and boarding school syndrome etc but that’s getting way too speculative for even me to go into. but basically, Oscar leapt into a lot of unknowns without a lot of the usual safety nets drivers have/have had. he's had to be self-reliant in a way that's not common among the extreme privilege of the average F1 driver and for those who have it similar to him, they have a similar outlook and approach***. so to mistake his confidence and determination for cockiness or coldness is as wildly off as people misinterpreting Lando’s genuine honesty for him being a cocky asshole. overall, Oscar’s self-assurance and maturity are why he’s continued and succeeded in such a volatile sport and pipedream career because compared to a lot of other drivers on the grid, he has not had a smooth or assured journey.

***obv in reality, apart from Ocon and Hamilton, we're always talking about very relative disadvantages. but Oscar is absolutely in the class of drivers who have to live far away from a family support system and who financially were not guaranteed career progression.

by contrast, Lando was a totally unique phenom and had big, welcoming hands grab him as a teenager and bring him into the McLaren and F1 fold. pundits and cameras and fans all saw him bringing drinks to Alonso and toddling around being helpful in the garage before his time with the team had even come. by the time he drove his first F1 race he was already everyone's beloved baby and Carlos basically got a crash course in parenting as he took full responsibility for socializing Lando and even having to cope with his teenage mood swings. Lando also had a comparatively gentle learning curve by dint of being so immensely talented and exceeding expectation for his age - but also always having older, more experienced teammates as his nearest competition. I will say he made sure to state he didn't want people to give him bias simply because his teammates had such an advantage of experience - and that he personally judged himself equally against them (to his detriment of confidence sometimes!). but it's only logical that people would factor in the age gaps anyway. by the time he'd entered his third year in F1 he was firmly established, had one of the largest fanbases and McLaren couldn't have made it clearer how badly they wanted to keep him from the clutches of other teams.

again - very much NOT saying that Lando doesn't feel the need or pressure to keep proving himself because he absolutely does, but it's still a VERY unique and unusual first few years in F1 !! 

Oscar had a very different experience of not knowing if he could progress after winning F2, having to hang around in reserve and then show up at McLaren without much fanfare (except the unanimous walls of hate from Danny Ric fans, Alpine fans and McLaren fans) and work from the backmarkers up with the team to prove himself - all while those months before the upgrades were spent with fans united in wanting him to fail and celebrating his difficulties.

so yea, all even more worth bearing in mind when it comes to how Lando takes the approach of speaking about Oscar and the team from a proprietary sense of pride - versus Oscar still focusing on his own races because it’s normal for young drivers early in their careers to be more focused on proving themselves and asserting themselves in order to become established in the way Lando is now. they seem so similar in so many ways but when it comes to their positions in the team and in the sport, it’s well worth remembering that big gap exists and why it makes them different sometimes - but that crucially, they end those post race videos united either in misery or in happiness and pride <3

I AM SO SORRY TO EVERYONE WHO READ THIS FAR GOD I WON’T SHUT UPPPP

[astral-catastrophe]

okay, did a google search and its not giving me the answer (because the question i asked is oddly specific)

but is it normal to have near constant background noise in your head? like many thoughts at once or music or just noise in general? is that an adhd thing or am i just weird?

because ive tried to explain it to people several times, and its why i function better with earbuds (because music can drown out the background thoughts!)

and yeah idk anymore. google’s just giving me stuff about tinnitus, and i know for a fact thats not what im experiencing

[delicrieux]

☆ﾐ 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚊𝚢 "𝚘𝚑"

PART 8: CAT BOYS 

... it’s late into the night and y/n is streaming with one of her new friends, sykkuno. running on caffeine and redbull is apparently not enough because she falls asleep on his shoulder 45 minutes into their cyberpunk gameplay. at that exact moment, twitter goes up in flames.

─── corpse husband x reader, sykkuno x reader (because i was threatened by thirsty anons) ─── soc. media + written fiction!  ─── word count: 1.8k author’s note: here it is...what yall been asking for. literally had to add a new part for this but i loved this idea sm i couldnt just nOT NOT do it. i tried writing this with the same energy as the smau lmao so expect chaos as always. hope you enjoy it and as always lmk what u think! hopefully yall wont go too feral, but tbh thats prolly too much to ask for xx EDIT: srr for the fucky format tumbler dot com is being lame 

ultimate masterlist.  ҉  myso masterlist   ҉   previous.   ҉   next.

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Such a back and forth continues for the better part of the day as you get ready. Corpse only whines a bit when you forget to text him back - you are packing, and your prestigious cat ears you bought from Amazon for 10$ deserve exquisite care - which only fuels your seemingly bottomless hunger for mischief, leading to you sneakily ignoring him more. When your phone lights up with a message, you giggle, giddy with excitement. Your laughter only gets louder and more erratic, to the point where Rae had busted down your door and threw her Hello Kitty plush at you - one you’d gotten her, mind you! - and told you to just “Shut the fuck up!”

Ungrateful. You know not everyone can appreciate your sense of humor, or stand your hyena like cackle, but that was uncalled for and you told her as much. Noting the mess your room is in (more than usual, that’s for certain), she leans onto the door frame, crossing her arms over her chest, pretty brown eyes twinkling curiously, “Where you off to?”

“So I had this idea-” You start, but are promptly shut down with a raise of her palm.

“Already know it’s a bad one.”

Insulted, and hurt, you clutch your heart. As if she had not mocked you enough today, “Rae...The hell, that’s so mean...” You mutter, face scrunching into a soft frown, “I only wanted to tell you what me and Syk thought of.”

“Oh?” Intrigued, she raises a brow, “Continue.”

“Gee, thanks for letting me this time.” You mumble, rolling your eyes, “So. We thought we’d stream together. The catch? In the same room! We’ll be playing Cyberpunk. Gotta cash in while the hype is still up.” You add, making her snort, “And, ya know, the whole cat boy business...We’ll be wearing matching cat ears. Admit it, I’m a genius.”

She’s quiet for a moment, mulling over your words; you can practically see the gears in her head turning. She glances around the room, then briefly at you, strangely apprehensive. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

Well, that is definitely not what you expected her to say. You figured it’d be more along the lines of you’d be one ugly cat. “Huh?” Is all you manage to stutter, “What do you mean?”

She gives you a look, one all people give when something is so plainly obvious, “Y/n. You do know the stans will go wild, right? And you do remember our conversation involving Corp-”

“Nope!” You exclaim cheerily with a bright smile to match. You don’t want to think about that. The relationship between you and Corpse is strictly platonic, and besides, seeing Twitter loosing their shit is always funny, and you never miss an opportunity to mess with your fans. Sykkuno is also a good friend, albeit a new one. This supposed flirting from Corpse’s end Rae deduced was nothing more than her projecting her feelings onto the situation. She always liked shoujo anime and was probably thinking one was happening right in front of her. Not a chance. Corpse was just being a friendly crackhead. Your energies mesh beautifully.

Like, beautifully in a strictly friend way. Absolutely nothing more than that.

She gives up, naturally, arguing with a wall would be more productive than arguing with you. You’re such a (Zodiac sign).

“Well,” She mumbles, ticking her head to the side, leaning off of the door frame and turning to leave, “Don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

Your grin melts as soon as she leaves. Glancing at your bag, you shove your last necessities in with newfound hesitance. 

Nothing bad will happen, right?

...Right?

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It is well past the generally set “appropriate” time to hang out, but since quarantine, what is appropriate anymore anyway? You’ve never been in Sykkuno’s apartment, but now that you’re here it’s...strangely him. Every corner seems tailored to his specific requirements. It’s cozy, and pleasantly warm - it’s a bit chilly in LA, as surprising as that is.

He’s even shyer than you remember him being. And a whole lot more awkward, but in an endearing way, a way that makes you want to laugh and try to reassure him that it’s just you and he has nothing to worry about. While you hung out only once, the history you share is rich and tender. From him following you on Twitter and subsequently prematurely ending your stream, to kidnapping a stray cat affectionately named Juan. His long lost brother, Juan (no the Second, just Juan), lives in your Minecraft server. 

His stream room is sadly bare. There’s an appalling lack of merch or fairy lights. Not even led-lights. It’s a good thing you brought your own. As you try to decided which color would be best - his signature lime green, reminiscent of his adorable Among Us astronaut, or, perhaps, mischievous violet? - he boots the game and tweets out a quick “streaming with y/n in ten mins! come one come all!” 

“You should probably tell your fans, too.” He mumbles, looking somewhere above your shoulder. You settle with cherry blossom pink. Glancing at him, you shrug.

“Ah, do it for me, please?”

“Oh!” He hiccups, “Uhm, I wouldn’t want to pry and I don’t know your password and-”

“It doesn’t have a password.” You had removed it, knowing something like this would happen. Bless your foresight, you did not want him to know it was demonspiitinmymouth. Before he could protest further, you rush to the nearest mirror to put on your cat ears and make sure they aren’t crooked. You look absolutely adorable. The cat boys in your dms will go feral. Hell, you might just go feral looking at yourself! Sykkuno is not ready. No one is. This will be a stream to remember.

When you return (with flourish of course), he’s anxiously fidgeting by his computer, his own little cat ears, one’s he wore for the Halloween stream, peaking out from his silky brown hair. You have to suppress a squeal. When he catches you gaze he gives the kindest, sweetest little smile.

“They, uh--” He points at you, then decides it’s rude to point, bringing his hand back to his lap, then clutching his mouse, lastly releasing a sound stuck between a chuckle and a wheeze, “suit you, uhm, a lot!” He finishes with a resolute nod, quickly spinning in his chair and away from you.

This is the reaction you desired. All is going according to plan. Is this what God feels like? If not, then you pity her. She’s missing out.

Taking a seat next to him - he had been gracious enough to haul you a spare chair from the kitchen - you draw closer, and he, instinctively, shrinks away with another nervous chuckle. 

“You have, uhm... I-I didn’t look!” He quickly chimes. You raise a brow, “Uhm, unopened messages? From Corpse? He texted you when I was tweeting! I didn’t mean to look, I’m sorry-”

Instantly, you recall the famous vine with the scandalous “daddy chill” line, though refrain from saying it aloud. You love havoc, but you’re not evil (Rae would ardently disagree with you, though). Instead, you just shrug, “’S fine, don’t worry. I’ll text him back later. Let’s start?”

He nods, but doesn’t look at you. Granted, you don’t think he glanced at you even once since you returned, “...Okay. Ready?”

“Ready!”

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You’re much too immersed into the game and Sykkuno’s twitch chat to even check what’s happening on Twitter, but your estimated guess is that everyone’s going crazy. The stream chat is unruly as well, but missing the signature Twitter spark. Most of the chaos is bravely lead by your fans. Sykkuno’s, much like the man himself, are too nice to scream so unabashedly.

Perhaps you excitement had been a bit too taxing, perhaps drinking 5 coffees and 2 energy drinks today and not enough water are to blame for the sudden drowsiness you’re feeling, but you can’t focus on the swimming chat or the abundance of cut-scenes at the starting point of the game. You steadily draw nearer and he, more composed in front of his audience, doesn’t react. About ten more minutes of hoovering by his shoulder and muttering soft commentary, and you feel yourself slipping.

The last coherent thought you have is a few choice words directed at caffeine itself for having the opposite effect of you at the worst time possible.

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You float in oblivion for perhaps ten minutes at best. Once you awake with a startle, you shower Sykkuno in shy apologies and he quickly reassures you that it’s fine and that he didn’t mind at all!

“Though,” He adds after a thoughtful pause, “not sure if it was very, uh, comfortable?”

His stream chat spams uwu and variations of similar kind. The stream continues for a few more hours before the both of you wish everyone a good night. 

While you planned on wreaking absolute havoc, this sudden falling asleep was unexpected. You pondered the consequences of such an innocent, unplanned act whilst ubering home, fearing to check your phone which by now was blowing up with not only Twitter notifications but also Rae’s angry messages that vaguely read “what the fuck y/n”. Within the past two hours she had left 57 messages on all platforms collectively, including 7 calls. 

Corpse’s last text was over three hours ago.

Now that’s strange. Worry festers quickly. Briefly glancing at your surroundings - the pretty glimmer of passing street lights, neon signs, familiar buildings - you decide that it’s time to check what kind of nuclear explosion you’ve caused.

Your heart drops to the bottom of your stomach as you scroll past the hundreds of tweets and mentions. Scan through Rae’s messages. 

You had failed to prepare ahead. Every explosion of such kind is followed by nuclear winter. And Corpse’s lack of messages feels especially cold.

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Not you smiling like a fucking idiot reading his last message! You shrink into the backseat, afraid the driver will accidentally look into the rear-view mirror and see you a bit too happy before asking questions. Good news? Yeah, but it’s not like it’s his any beeswax! In the words of Rihanna, just shut up and drive. 

This argument had not yet happened, but you’re preparing, just in case. 

As you think up of potential scenarios, your eyes drill into Corpse’s goodnight text. You’ve looked at it enough. Time to turn the phone screen off. Leave the app, at the very least. When the screen dims you instantly press on it to wake it up. This is embarrassing. Maybe the deadly amount of caffeine really did mess you up, big time. Your heart races in your chest, painfully almost. You feel a bit sick. Worst of all, you can’t stop smiling.

A notification from Rae makes you snap out of it. Ah, one more demon to deal with. 

However, before you talk to her, you really need to tell Twitter that you’re not with Sykkuno. And apologize to Sykkuno as well. 

At least Corpse doesn’t hate you.

Fucking hell, just exit the chat you idiot!

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

tags (in italics is those i couldn’t tag! make sure all’s ok w your settings!) : @littlebabysandboxburritos - @fairywriter-oracle - @tsukishimawh0re - @ofstarsanddreams - @bbecc-a - @annshit - @leahh19 - @letsloveimagines - @bellomi-clarke - @wineandionysus - @guiltydols - @onephootinfrontoftheother - @liamakorn - @thirstyfangirl - @lilysdaydreams - @pan-ini - @mxqicshxp - @tanchosanke - @yoshinorecommends - @flightsandfantasy - @liljennyx3 - @slashersdream - @unknown-and-invisible - @sinister-sleep - @fivedicksinatrenchcoat - @mercury–moon - @peterparkerspjsuit - @unstableye - @simonsbluee - @shinyshimaagain - @ppopty - @siriuslystupid - @crapimahuman - @ofthedewthesunlight - @mythicalamphitrite - @artsyally - @corpsesimpp - @corpsewhitetee - @corpse-husbandsimp - @hyp-oh-critical - @roses-and-grasses - @rhyrhy462 - @sparklylandflaplawyer - @charbkgo - @airwaveee - @creativedogs - @kaitlyn2907 - @loxbbg - @afuckingunicornn - @fleurmoon - @yeolliedokai - @truly-dionysus - @multi-fandom-central707

more tags are in the comments bcs tumblr only allows me to tag 50 people max 💙

[rayssyscourse]

this was a very fascinating read, it's cool to hear from you guys on this!! here's our take (traumagenic sys of 6 more or less)

1. Does your experience of plurality feel inherently disordered to you?

so, this is complicated because of our current medical recognition status. our doctors acknowledge that we are plural, have dissociation issues both related and unrelated to our plurality, and are traumagenic. on the surface this would make it seem like we're disordered, but we actually aren't considered disordered medically. several years ago, when we were going through a traumatic period and our dissociation and plurality was causing us intense distress, I believe we would have qualified as disordered. but now that we're not in that period anymore, we don't qualify for a diagnosis of a disorder, nor do I really feel like we are disordered. I think our system existing as it is feels inherently disordered, because at times it has caused a lot of confusion and cognitive dissonance. but right now, as we've been doing better, and not only does it feel like we're not inherently disordered, but I feel like being plural is helping us more than harming us. so I guess the answer is yes and no--i think our system is inherently disordered, but that doesn't mean that that's true all or even most of the time. hopefully that makes sense lol

2. How do you think about personhood and identity?

This is another complicated one, lol. I think we're somewhere in between being totally separate people and being parts of the same person. I think that in terms of functionality, any of us could exist as a singlet and be fine. but I think something would be lost if that were the case. the best way I can think of to explain this is with a writing metaphor. most of the time when I'm working on a book or a worldbuilding project, I outline each section/chapter, and I write them out of order. so I'll work on a couple scenes from chapter 12, then write the ending to chapter 3, then skip over to starting chapter 26 or something. it sounds overly complicated but that's just how my brain makes sense of it, lol. once I finish each chapter, I know exactly where they go in the timeline and how they need to build up and connect, what needs to be a reoccurring theme and when, etc. when I'm finished, each chapter is it's own coherent text, and you could read it with no context and it would make sense. but it only really fully fits in when it's within the context of every other chapter. you could read chapter 12 and be able to summarize it just fine, but if you hadn't read chapter 3, you would miss the underlying theme or the context or the lore that makes it make full sense. you could read chapter 12 and it would be fine, it's not like it would be utterly incomprehensible, but it would gain much more meaning and layers when put within the context of the rest of the book. each headmate can function just fine on their own, they won't like collapse and be incapable of functioning, but we work better when existing in the context of each other. it's like everyone else just adds the extra dimension to us that make us feel fully... whole? there? I hope this isn't too confusing lmao.

aaaaanyways, these are some very good questions, so thanks for posting them!!! always good to learn more about people I interact with on here, and hearing from other people w different experiences helps me humanize everyone and empathize more with other people in this weird little corner of the internet we exist in, lol :)

From @rayssyscourse (this post), two questions for general conversation: 1- Does your experience of plurality feel inherently disordered to you or not, independent of whether or not you have a CDD? 2- How do you think about personhood and identity, collectively and individually? (our answers under the cut)

Plurality and Disorderedness: We actually sort of have two different answers to this! The distinction between the two of us (e.g. me/L vs S), to us, doesn't feel inherently disordered at all. Sure, it's complicated, and there are aspects of the situation we'd change if we could (it would really be nice if S could have his own body back, for example), but the mere fact of us-being-two-of-us, of having two senses of self in one head instead of just one, feels no more or less disordered than being a singlet. It doesn't feel like the only reason we're separate is lingering trauma/emotional baggage pushing us apart, and there's no sense of wrongness in the feeling of each other being different--we're just different, and that's actually really neat in a lot of ways. However, for S's median facet subsystem thing, the answer is a little different. (Trying to paraphrase his emotions/wording for it secondhand here) To some extent, some of the ways in which his facets can get pushed apart/lose "collective cohesion" does feel inherently disordered to him. It's less that "having facets" feels inherently disordered, exactly, and more that the degree of estrangement and conflict between his facets (which fluctuates!) feels directly related to his mental health at the time, and whatever issues he's wrestling with. Being able to go in and single out and work with a facet that's having a hard time feels like a useful processing strategy, but needing to do it a lot, or having a facet get stuck 'out in the cold for too long' feels bad, and reflective of something Wrong. Personhood and Identity: Again, two different answers for our two different 'versions' of plurality! S and I feel like two different, closely connected people. Either of us could be a singlet alone, without the other--and in fact I was a singlet for a long time, at least as far as we know--although we do like each other a lot (<3) and like being able to be a team together. Calling either of us just "a part of the other" feels reductive and even a little demeaning--not to mention just...incorrect, at the base of it? One of the metaphors we like to use is "it's not that he has half the box of crayons and I have the other half; we each get to use the whole box of crayons, we just draw different things with them". With S's median facets, though, he/(they) very persistently and vehemently feel like they're all...part of the same overarching identity? They're all him even when they disagree or have differences (there's a line from a song he likes that he often points to for it: "We are the warriors who learned to love the pain/We come from different places but have the same name"), there's a core, unifying sense of self they all share even when their 'cohesion' gets disrupted by something difficult to process that he can't quite seamlessly internally reconcile. We have some internal nicknames for some facets/'themes' that show up a lot (because the number and nature of his facets isn't static, too), and internal headspace appearances can vary, but they don't have different names because, in his words, "I'm still me, there's just....sometimes a lot of me, who don't all agree".

(Several of our friends have joked that we're the actual IRL version of the system joke "I don't have DID, but my headmate does!", and honestly that's not a bad way to describe it X'D)

[pumpkinpaix]

hello there, hope you're having a nice day <3

so i've been reading a lot of fics lately, uk for sanity's sake, and i've noticed that in most of them, lwj doesn't use contractions (eg., says do not instead of don't)?? and i think he doesn't in the novel either but i don't remember lol so i can't be sure but anyway that made me curious - does chinese have contractions as well? does he not use it bc it's informal?

hello there! I’m doing all right, i started to answer this ask while waiting for a jingyeast loaf to come out of the oven 😊 many thanks to @bookofstars for helping me look over/edit/correct this post!! :D

anyways! the answer to your questions are complicated (of course it is when is anything simple with me), so let’s see if I can break it down--you’re asking a) whether chinese has contractions, b) if it does, how does they change the tone of the sentence--is it similar to english or no?, and c) how does this all end up with lan wangji pretty much never using contractions in english fic/translation?

I’m gonna start by talking about how formality is (generally) expressed in each language, and hopefully, by the end of this post, all the questions will have been answered in one way or another. so: chinese and english express variations in formality/register differently, oftentimes in ways that run contrary to one another. I am, as always, neither a linguist nor an expert in chinese and english uhhh sociological grammar? for lack of a better word. I’m speaking from my own experience and knowledge :D

so with a character like lan wangji, it makes perfect sense in english to write his dialogue without contractions, as contractions are considered informal or colloquial. I don’t know if this has changed in recent years, but I was always taught in school to never use contractions in my academic papers.

However! not using contractions necessarily extends the length of the sentence: “do not” takes longer to say than “don’t”, “cannot” is longer than “can’t” etc. in english, formality is often correlated with sentence length: the longest way you can say something ends up sounding the most formal. for a very simplified example, take this progression from least formal to absurdly formal:

whatcha doin’?

what’re you doing?

what are you doing? [standard colloquial]

may I ask what you are doing?

might I inquire as to what you are doing?

excuse me, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

pardon my intrusion, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

please pardon my intrusion, but might inquire as to the nature of your current actions?

this is obviously a somewhat overwrought example, but you get the point. oftentimes, the longer, more complex, more indirect sentence constructions indicate a greater formality, often because there is a simultaneous decreasing of certainty. downplaying the speaker’s certainty can show deference (or weakness) in english, while certainty tends to show authority/confidence (or aggression/rudeness).

different words also carry different implications of formality—in the example, I switched “excuse me” to “pardon me” during one of the step ups. pardon (to me at least) feels like a more formal word than “excuse”. Similarly, “inquire” is more formal than “ask” etc. I suspect that at least some of what makes one word seem more formal than one of its synonyms has to do with etymology. many of english’s most formal/academic words come from latin (which also tends to have longer words generally!), while our personal/colloquial words tend to have germanic origins (inquire [latin] vs ask [germanic]).

you’ll also notice that changing a more direct sentence structure (“may I ask what”) to a more indirect one (“might I inquire as to”) also jumps a register. a lot of english is like this — you can complicate simple direct sentences by switching the way you use the verbs/how many auxiliaries you use etc.

THE POINT IS: with regards to english, more formal sentence structures are often (not always) longer and more indirect than informal ones. this leads us to a problem with a character like lan wangji.

lan wangji is canonically very taciturn. if he can express his meaning in two words rather than three, then he will. and chinese allows for this—in extreme ways. if you haven’t already read @hunxi-guilai’s post on linguistic register (in CQL only, but it’s applicable across the board), I would start there because haha! I certainly do Not have a degree in Classical Chinese lit and she does a great job. :D

you can see from the examples that hunxi chose that often, longer sentences tend to be more informal in chinese (not always, which I’ll circle back to at the end lol). Colloquial chinese makes use of helping particles to indicate tone and meaning, as is shown in wei wuxian’s dialogue. and, as hunxi explained, those particles are largely absent from lan wangji’s speech pattern. chinese isn’t built of “words” in the way English is—each character is less a word and more a morpheme—and the language allows for a lot of information to be encoded in one character. a single character can often stand for a phrase within a sentence without sacrificing either meaning or formality. lan wangji makes ample use of this in order to express himself in the fewest syllables possible.

so this obviously leads to an incongruity when trying to translate his dialogue or capture his voice in English: shorter sentences are usually more direct by nature, and directness/certainty is often construed as rudeness -- but it might seem strange to see lan wangji’s dialogue full of longer sentences while the narration explicitly says that he uses very short sentences. so what happens is that many english fic writers extrapolated this into creating an english speech pattern for lan wangji that reads oddly. they’ll have lan wangji speak in grammatically incoherent fragments that distill his intended thought because they’re trying to recreate his succinctness. unfortunately, English doesn’t have as much freedom as Chinese does in this way, and it results in lan wangji sounding as if he has some kind of linguistic impediment and/or as if he’s being unspeakably rude in certain situations. In reality, lan wangji’s speech is perfectly polite for a young member of the gentry (though he’s still terribly rude in other ways lol). he speaks in full, and honestly, quite eloquent sentences.

hunxi’s post already has a lot of examples, but I figure I’ll do one as well focused on the specifics of this post.

I’m going to use this exchange from chapter 63 between the twin jades because I think it’s a pretty simple way to illustrate what I’m talking about:

蓝曦臣道：“你亲眼所见？”

蓝忘机道：“他亲眼所见。”

蓝曦臣道：“你相信他？”

蓝忘机道：“信。”

[...] 蓝曦臣道：“那么金光瑶呢？”

蓝忘机道：“不可信。”

my translation:

Lan Xichen said, “You saw it with your own eyes?”

Lan Wangji said, “He saw it with his own eyes.”

Lan Xichen said, “You believe him?”

Lan Wangji said, “I believe him.”

[...] Lan Xichen said, “Then what about Jin Guangyao?”

Lan Wangji said, “He cannot be believed.”

you can see how much longer the (pretty literal) english translations are! every single line of dialogue is expanded because things that can be omitted in chinese cannot be omitted in english without losing grammatical coherency. i‘ll break a few of them down:

Lan Xichen’s first line:

你 (you) 亲眼 (with one’s own eyes) 所 (literary auxiliary) 见 (met/saw)？

idk but i love this line a lot lmao. it just has such an elegant feel to me, probably because I am an uncultured rube. anyways, you see here that he expressed his full thought in five characters.

if I were to rewrite this sentence into something much less formal/much more modern, I might have it become something like this:

你是自己看见的吗？

你 (you) 是 (to be) 自己 (oneself) 看见 (see) 的 (auxiliary) 吗 (interrogative particle)？

i suspect that this construction might even be somewhat childish? I’ve replaced every single formal part of the sentence with a more colloquial one. instead of 亲眼 i’ve used 自己, instead of 所见 i’ve used 看见的 and then also added an interrogative particle at the end for good measure (吗). To translate this, I would probably go with “Did you see it yourself?”

contained in this is also an example of how one character can represent a whole concept that can also be represented with two characters: 见 vs 看见. in this example, both mean “to see”. we’ll see it again in the next example as well:

in response to lan xichen’s, “you believe him?” --> 你 (you) 相信 (believe) 他 (him)? lan wangji answers with, “信” (believe).

chinese does not do yes or no questions in the same way that english does. there is no catch-all for yes or no, though there are general affirmative (是／有) and negative (不／没) characters. there are other affirmative/negative characters, but these are the ones that I believe are the most common and also the ones that you may see in response to yes or no questions on their own. (don’t quote me on that lol)

regardless, the way you respond to a yes or no question is often by repeating the verb phrase either in affirmative or negative. so here, when lan xichen asks if lan wangji believes wei wuxian, lan wangji responds “believe”. once again, you can see that one character can stand in for a concept that may also be expressed in two characters: 信 takes the place of 相信. lan wangji could have responded with “相信” just as well, but, true to his character, he didn’t because he didn’t need to. this is still a complete sentence. lan wangji has discarded the subject (I), the object (him), and also half the verb (相), and lost no meaning whatsoever. you can’t do this in english!

and onto the last exchange:

lan xichen: 那么 (then) 金光瑶 (jin guangyao) 呢 (what about)？

lan wangji: 不可 (cannot) 信 (believe)

you can actually see the contrast between the two brothers’ speech patterns even in this. lan xichen’s question is not quite as pared down as it could be. if it were wangji’s line instead, I would expect it to read simply “金光瑶呢？” which would just be “what about jin guangyao?” 那么 isn’t necessary to convey the core thought -- it’s just as how “then what about” is different than “what about”, but “then” is not necessary to the central question. if we wanted to keep the “then” aspect, you could still cut out 么 and it would be the same meaning as well.

a FINAL example of how something can be cut down just because I think examples are helpful:

“I don’t know” is usually given as 我不知道. (this is what nie huaisang says lol) It contains subject (我) and full verb (知道). you can pare this straight down to just 不知 and it would mean the same thing in the correct context. i think most of the characters do this at least once? it sounds more literary -- i don’t know that i would ever use it in everyday speech, but the fact remains that it’s a possibility. both could be translated as “I do not know” and it would be accurate.

ANYWAYS, getting all the way back to one of your original questions: does chinese have contractions? and the answer is like... kind of...?? but not really. there’s certainly slang/dialect variants that can be used in ways that are reminiscent of english contractions. the example I’m thinking of is the character 啥 (sha2) which can be used as slang in place of 什么 (shen2 me). (which means “what”)

so for a standard sentence of, 你在做什么? (what are you doing), you could shorten down to just 做啥? and the second construction is less formal than the first, but they mean the same thing.

other slang i can think of off the top of my head: 干嘛 (gan4 ma2) is also informal slang for “what are you doing”. and i think this is a regional thing, but you can also use 搞 (gao3) and 整 (zheng3) to mean “do” as well.

so in the same way that you can replace 什么 with 啥, you can replace 做 as well to get constructions like 搞啥 (gao3 sha2) and 整啥 (zheng3 sha2).

these are all different ways to say “what are you doing” lmao, and in this case, shorter is not, in fact, more formal.

woo! we made it to the end! I hope it was informative and helpful to you anon. :D

this is where I would normally throw my ko-fi, but instead, I’m actually going to link you to this fundraising post for an old fandom friend of mine. her house burned down mid-september and they could still use help if anyone can spare it! if this post would have moved you to buy me a ko-fi, please send that money to her family instead. :) rbs are also appreciated on the post itself. (* ´▽` *)

anyways, here’s the loaf jingyeast made :3 it was very tasty.