#i have a LOT of thoughts about this ep

[theshslpumpkinghost]

so uh i was watching the mastermind music video because GOD that was a helluva episode yes i made a pun who’s gonna stop me

and uh

i think the timestamp thingy got messed up because-

i laughed so fucking hard at this idk why

[stuffands-stuff]

if the voice in my head that i hate/love/cant live without told me to not enter a building with an ominous shadow i would simply not enter the damn building, rip to Arthur Lester but i am different

[actuallyjustabiscuit]

OK OK OK SO

The second I saw this scene I instantly remembered this moment from episode 1

Back then I thought the brightening of the lights was meant to make the moment more intense and to emphasize how scary Kaufmo looks. He even looks like he was trying to overcome his madness for a sec.

But, no!

It’s his reaction to the lights. The hallway was too bright for him!

I bet Caine is fully aware of this fact with the abstracted humans, and that’s why he keeps them all in the cellar where it’s dark.

When Kaufmo was loose in the Tent, he just attacked anything in his path, his many eyes darting all over the place. Contrast this with (who I’m assuming is) Queenie in the soft darkness of Kinger’s pillow fort, all of her eyes trained on him and much more focused.

The Circus is overstimulation for the abstracted. That’s what makes them so aggressive.

[quicksilversnails]

Took some notes from the Wild Life retrospective episode of the Imp & Skizz podcast featuring Grian because I thought the behind the scenes info was really interesting!

(3:15) The wild cards were all kept totally secret from the players (apart from Grian), with the exception of the superpowers and finale (as they required the players to set keybinds)

(3:45) The players were given files containing the required mods each week, which were named things like "creeper rain" to throw them off

(4:12) Wild cards were a combination of data packs and mods

(4:38) Grian told them not to read the folder name to avoid spoilers (which is kind of impossible), so everyone fully believed there would be creeper rain lol. Grian was saying it in jest but everyone took it seriously and were apologetic about having seen it, to which Grian told them not to worry

(6:58) Grian originally contacted a data pack dev called Brace for help with programming the wild cards. Some, like the shrinking/growing could be achieved with minecraft attributes, but the snails were too janky and unusable. Grian still liked the idea though, so he reached out to mod developers Henkelmax and Breadloaf, who designed the pathfinding/behaviour from scratch

(8:49) They had a debugging mode used to test the pathfinding of the snails, shown in the podcast and in Grian's credits

(10:09) Grian wants most of the credit to go to the development team and artists, as he was mostly in charge of ideas & organization!

(10:39) Grian's only regret with the snails was that they were too fast in session 3, leading to unexpectedly many deaths. They were apparently not so difficult to get away from during testing, but perhaps the testers were more used to them than the players were

(11:44) Grian: "We did develop to the lowest common denominator" ie. prioritizing how players would struggle over how worrying about if players would do too well

(12:56) Oli's voice for the snails was iconic. It cost Impulse a life because he intentionally stayed closer to it to hear the voice lol

(13:42) Danny was in charge of the snail models and animations

(14:11) During testing, the snails just sounded like Oli, which made it feel weird. They pitched up his voice so that it'd be less immediately recognizable

(15:18) The snails' jumping attack was meant to be clearly telegraphed: they would stop, wiggle, make a "ooeee" sound before jumping. Many players had their friendly creatures volume turned very low/off (as cows and other mobs are loud), which made this attack much less obvious for them

(16:57) The growing/shrinking had the least testing done for it, as it was the simplest conceptually and to program. This meant that the falling off of blocks due to the shrinking hitboxes wasn't anticipated

(17:55) Before the 1st session, Grian told them that he didn't think anyone would die to the wild card. Pearl's death made Grian pretty nervous, as he didn't want everyone dying too early in the season

(19:29) 6 lives were given, knowing that many of the death to the wild cards were unexpected/unfair. The intent was for ~3 lives to be allocated for wild cards, and ~3 for PvP.

(21:13) The developers were all fans of the Life Series!

(22:43) The shrinking/growing was intentionally pretty simple to ease players/viewers into the concept and build up toward more dramatic wild cards like the snails

(25:38) In the hunger episode, Grian didn't know which foods would be good

(25:58) Grian thinks that "it's unfair that Grian already knows everything" is valid criticism, but that it's important for him to be involved with the ideas. Having someone else do that is like having someone else record his videos: Life Series is his brainchild

(26:35) Well before the season began, while they were still developing the concept, Grian asked the other players for wild card ideas that would meet a few criteria. All of them ended up being unused for one reason or another. Impulse thinks his ideas were very "inside the box" because he was viewing things through what was possible in vanilla Minecraft. His idea was to have a scavenger hunt where the players would search to find a relic. The first person to find it would get a buff. Skizz's idea was for every player to turn into a random passive mob for every given interval of time. They would have to find every other player of the same mob type as them or else the whole group loses a life.

(29:44) The food qualities were weighted by the rarity of the item, so very common blocks like dirt and cobblestone would never give anything good. The other items were randomly selected

(30:23) Regular blocks/items cannot be made edible normally, so they had to circumvent that and custom code a fix for items not stacking correctly

(32:41) While a lot of players do want to win, the main priority is creating entertainment, which prioritizes playing recklessly

(33:20) The food wild card wasn't included in the finale because it would've felt like "too much". There was a higher risk of technical issues since it changed the data values of items, and Grian didn't want someone's last death to be because they ate their sword. In his mind, it was a good and fun wild card, but didn't need to be repeated in the finale. Impulse points out that they all would have collected more rare items by that point, removing the incentive to search for blocks to eat

(33:46) The wild cards in the finale were nerfed from their original sessions. The shrinking/growing had a smaller height range, the snails moved slower, etc.

(36:21) The personalized snail skins were a late addition by Danny, who made 18 skins very quickly

(36:49) Grian did not anticipate the snails becoming as popular with fans as they were. After the session released, they had the idea to release the snail merchandise, which directly funded the rest of the season

(39:20) Grian spent what "felt like every day" testing with the developers. They'd record the sessions on Tuesdays, meet up with the dev team, talk about what need to be done, testing, bugs, etc, edit and upload on Saturday, and would get a few days grace before starting again

(40:01) After the snail session, Grian was worried that the season would be very short due to all the deaths. They were considering toning down the later wild cards but ultimately didn't change them too much

(40:36) The time wild card was carefully balanced. If it had gone even a little faster, many players likely would have died because they wouldn't have time to react to threats like baby zombies or creepers.

(40:57) While sessions normally run for a variable amount of time, session 4 was hardcoded at 2 hours. Grian ended the session ~10 minutes early, just after they hit max speed, because he felt like things were getting dicey

(42:46) When the wild card first activates, it looks a lot like the server had frozen or crashed. Grian told the players before the session started that it would look like the game was broken, but that it isn't broken. Skizz tabbed out anyway and missed the beginning 😔

(43:30) Having the rain start just as the wild card began was a good visual indicator of time slowing down. This was a suggestion from the dev team (probably Brace)

(44:41) Impulse and Grian "cheesed" the end of the session by going branch mining. Grian wanted players to take advantage of the wild cards (eg. mining quickly, helping to kill someone), and not have them just be an annoyance.

(45:30) Keeping the client and server-side time stay in sync was challenging. The sky's motion was changed to be smoother on client-side. The players were also not as fast as the server (around 2x faster), the server was going faster than that, and the time of day was even faster

(46:56) The sounds were pitched up/down based on the speed to add to the effect

(27:46) In testing, if the players were made 7x faster, it would be basically unplayable, which was why it was capped at 2x speed. This made mobs very dangerous, as they were now faster than players and could catch up to you and kill you easily

(49:01) On several occasions, they had to extend the fuse duration of creepers to make them more fair. In the time session, their speed was only increased by ~10%

(49:39) Usually, Grian was the one to test the wild cards and notice when things like creeper speed would be an issue, since he was the one with experience making videos

(50:50) A challenge with balancing wild cards is accounting for the playstyles of so many players: reckless players like Scar and Skizz, "kind and gentle" players like Bigb who would stay off to the sides, and "the sweat squad" (Scott, Impulse) who play very cautiously

(52:48) Trivia Bot was the only wild card that was not planned in advance. Grian was struggling to come up with a wild card for that episode, and wanted to have a wild card available that could give people lives in case many people died to early wild cards without it feeling cheap.

(53:33) Trivia seemed a little boring on its face, so presentation was essential

(54:34) This one made Grian the most stressed due to all the moving parts involved in making it (coding and pathfinding mostly by Henkelmax, visuals by Hoffen, audio/music, questions)

(55:08) Trivia Bot's design was based on Grumbot and Mettaton from Undertale. Hoffen drew concept art shown in the video

(58:32) They show Trivia Bot's custom animation for becoming a snail and it's really cool

(59:12) The music was the most stressful part of the project. Grian spent 2-3 days looking through Epidemic Sounds for a Trivia Bot theme song and couldn't find anything good. He commissioned Zera @hopepetal for a theme song, which is played in the podcast. However, Grian realized he needed a full audio package, so he commissioned Oli late in development, who created the final soundtrack and many audio variations

(1:01:38) Grian wants to send appreciation for everyone who worked on the project, even if their work ultimately went unused

(1:02:58) Skizz was happy to give back however he could by staying on standby in the final episode as a zombie, as the players were able to "reap all the benefits" of the hard work of the development team

(1:05:21) Grian didn't know any of the trivia questions beforehand, which were done by fans of the series. The goal was for ~50% of the questions to be answered correctly, which was approximately met

(1:07:11) Players couldn't get questions about themselves because it would be too easy. This would encourage players to leave their bot, allowing other players to mess with them

(1:07:57) Grian felt a little left out from the discovery element of the wild cards, and decided to mess with Scar by hiding his bot. He wasn't expecting Scar to die from it, and could tell that he was genuinely a little upset by it. Grian felt bad about it, which led to a genuine in-game alliance between them

(1:12:32) Grian was very close to letting Trivia Bot give lives as rewards, but decided it would feel too cheap

(1:14:38) Mob swap was slightly toned down, with more camels and sniffers spawning

(1:15:07) Evokers didn't drop totems anymore. Instead, there was a minuscule chance a warden or wither would spawn, which would drop a totem if killed. Grian was a little disappointed that the warden got cheesed in the end

(1:17:45) Having the mobs start passive and turn hostile was mostly for the presentation, building anticipation, and so players could predict where mobs would spawn and react accordingly, making things feel less unfair

(1:20:32) There was no superpower made for Skizz (or Mumbo presumably)

(1:20:38) The superpowers were another late addition. There was a large design doc where Grian created all the powers, which were handed over to Henkelmax and completed over 4 days

(1:21:42) Grian avoided superpowers involving strength, that could cause someone to die easily. Most of the powers were social or movement-based, which couldn't be used for offence as easily

(1:22:25) Some powers were randomly assigned, others weren't. Impulse's was random. Cleo's, Bigb's, Lizzie's, Grian's were assigned.

(1:24:25) Grian gave himself the mimic because it could easily backfire (like in Grian's fall damage death), and because it would've been confusing for a player who wasn't aware of the other powers. They likely would've spent the episode just figuring out how everything worked and not actually using the power to its best ability

Lots of discussion about the superpowers and how they interacted in the episode itself, go watch if you're interested :)

(1:33:38) Talk on how the series "standard" rules evolved since 3rd Life. There was no keep inventory, and no restrictions on enchanting levels or potions, which created slow or unbalanced fights

(1:36:23) 3rd Life was designed to be an experimental series, which made Grian eager to improve it. For example, some people just weren't dying in 3L, leading to the boogeyman in LL, and so on

(1:37:17) The goal with the seasons isn't to one-up the previous one, but to create a different experience every time, which keeps things engaging for the creators

(1:38:31) At the end of each session, Grian would ask the group if they had fun and how they felt about the wild cards. According the Skizz, the answer was "a resounding yes"

(1:39:08) Grian had moments throughout the season where he personally felt like things didn't go well for him, and was anxious for the rest of the group's episodes. Things worked out while editing the raw footage, though. His issues were never with the wild cards themselves, but his own actions (traps not working, spending too long branch mining), but would always find funny moments in his footage

(1:43:41) Everyone in the Life Series cast genuinely likes and genuinely respects everybody else in the group. This allows them to make the show and get mad at each other, because they know it's all just in-character

(1:44:50) It'd be hard to top Wild Life in spectacle, and Grian doesn't want to start an arms race with himself. The next season could potentially be closer to 3rd Life, but Grian's not sure yet. For Grian, Wild Life was the most enjoyable

(1:45:20) Grian: "As long as people keep enjoying [the Life Series] then I'd love to keep doing it"

(1:49:35) With the finale, Grian knew how the wild cards played out the previous sessions and was able to adjust them

(1:49:56) Grian's goal was to create safe chaos where everyone knew what was happening and wouldn't die to them, which didn't go entirely to plan. The snails were 60% of their original speed and people still died

(1:51:03) Grian made a precise timeline of when each wild card would start/stop, it wasn't randomized.

(1:54:16) All the superpowers were randomized, with Bdubs' power being removed from circulation because it didn't have much use in a finale setting

(1:56:10) It was important for Grian that in the final moments, the wild cards were removed, so there were no interruptions. The timing worked out well because there were a few people left and it ended within ~10 minutes (this implies that the change wasn't based on # of players alive, as people had speculated based on Gem's death)

(1:58:48) The players all randomly switched to zombie skins throughout the session to mess with people on NameMC. Well-played :)

[critter-wizard]

ep 43 had me tearing up in a fucking shopping centre ‼️‼️

b+w alt version that I truly couldn't decide if I liked it more . Also I included a lot of thoughts in the tags but they're somewhat incoherent<3

[skitskatdacat63]

okay.

[madkiska]

watching the entirety of jrwi: riptide again. here's some important things from the first few episodes that I feel we forgot (<110 mentions too though)

Jay

Had night terrors similar to those of Kubakinta's curse in episode 5, and they eventually start returning even after Loffinlot's curse is lifted ○ All of them were about her family and/or the navy ○ I simply think people leave her out of the nightmare stuff and she deserves it. Hurt her more, please (he said, lovingly)

was actually very upset at having to use her medal to get a Loffinlot rebellion to shut up ○ This could be because she didn't want them to guess she was a spy, but I choose to believe it's because she felt guilty

"If you're gonna be sailing with someone, you should have a good relationship with them. [nervous chuckle]." She says, while asking him for information about the Black Rose Pirates (ep. 10)

Said "thank god they didn't find me" after a nightmare about the navy attacking. Even when she was supposedly a spy, who one day would have to return to the navy ○ Very unclear if she was scared of her dad, or if it's because she was a secret spy so the navy would've just killed her

Rewatching, she was suspiciously into the plundering and gold and stuff. Like that was real sus. It doesn't fit her current character much

The only one among them who's gambled before

Chip

The entire thing literally starts off with Bizly holding a lit match

Called Gillion "Gill" and Jay "Sureshot" from an early stage

Was SO much more of a bastard. Lied to Gill constantly, didn't care about anything but the money, etc.

Had aggressive hand tremors alongside Jay's night terrors ○ Gill cures it with lay on hands

When he gets drunk married, they talk extensively about how he'd be released when he's dead. Welp.

They did actually break up and it was fine and they were still friends. They parted on good terms

Is really fucking good at chess ○ Beat Earl twice and Jay once. Jay had a point of exhaustion after a nightmare but Earl had no excuse ○ Lost to Gillion though, but only cause of prophetic screwup ○ This kid is smarter than he lets on, y'all

Was the first one to have a backstory dump while Jay is asking him about the Black Rose Pirates, yet still we know jack shit about his life before them other than "orphan"

Gill

Charlie has referred to Gillion with 'they' many times. I can pull receipts.

When describing Gill, Charlie said: "He's more.. elven, if you had to make a comparison. 'Cause I don't wanna be a fish guy". Oh, honey.

Smote a bald person by using his hair as a whip (ep. 4)

Was given anxiety and self-doubt alongside jay's night terrors and chip's tremors ○ "What do you want?" "I want the feeling of satisfaction I've been chasing my whole life." ○ This was episode FIVE.

First mention of the prophecy and how Gillion wasn't their ideal student is ep. 7, after he divine smites + prophetic screwups and deals like 60 damage to some beetles ○ Chip spends the next 30 seconds in gay awe

He refers to the crescent moon Niklaus tattoo as "my zodiac" (probably a bit) ○ It's not a lil basic white girl moon this thing is the entire size of his forearm

Gill had never heard about the Black Sea - it's unclear if the Undersea just don't know, or if that's just how sheltered he was (ep. 10)

Biz: "What would Gillion do. If he just had no goal - was just sitting there." "Gillion always has a goal." "Would his goal ever be to just.. Sit there?" "Absolutely not." ○ Later, Chip expresses that he doesn't know what Gillion likes. What he would want out of winning a bet. Gillion doesn't have an answer

Other

Apple, in a couple of early battles, acted like Gill's familiar (see: ep. 7)

They also pecked at his Niklaus tramp stamp and looked all confused at the idea of eating seeds

The specific crescent of the moon in the Niklaus tattoo is known as a symbol of "corruption" (ep. 9) and its antonym is the sun, for "life", similar to the yin and yang ○ Interesting to consider after what the tree said in 110 <_<

Pretzel has a masters degree in couple's therapy (ep. 10)

The Albatross/Millennium Chipper was described as the colour of rosewood or mahogany

Captain Lizzie's first introduction was a wanted poster, and Chip wanted to turn her in for the prize, then decided to try learn from her instead

Chip/Bizly called Old Man Earl "Erol" for a loooong time ○ Maybe it's an accent thing but I have an uncle called Erol and so this stands out to me

[ohmytiredheart]

Honestly I feel for Sam but serves him right.

Even if we ignore the potential intermingling of the web or any other other spooky strings that are likely being pulled, there's a lot to unpack here.

I wouldn't say Sam "deserved" it, but Alice tried warning him for months. This is what he gets for sticking his nose in places it didn't belong.

Did I say the same thing about Jon in TMA? Yes and no. Obviously there isn't a story without someone doing something dumb, but I think Jon's situation and Sam's situation are a little different. Jon was an idiot, yes, but he (and everyone else around him) were forced to go in completely blind. He had no idea what he was doing and didn't have any warnings or help at all except from his creepy boss with ulterior motives.

Sam also went in blind, but he was warned several times by several people including the eldritch computer to stop and turn around. He could have avoided this if he just returned Alice's calls or looked at her messages.

But nooooo he had to poke around with his little crushy crush and get himself thrown into a portal to what we can only assume is the TMA universe. Serves him right.

[sherrymagic]

Last time, the Heaven decided your fate. That's why you're facing all of this again. But today, you can choose it yourself. If you want to torture yourself and remain in this loop, just return to the body. But if you want to get out of this cycle, you can walk out that door.

Poom Phuripan as JOE in Episode 11 MY STAND-IN (2024)

[sea-buns]

wow... what a season. it feels weird to say that this little 6-episode side quest, in all of the 19 seasons of d20, is one of my favorites they've ever done but it just is. it had all the stakes and humor and drama that you could possibly want, all balanced with an incredible cast of players. the table chemistry was excellent, the characters were so perfectly themselves, the TROPES were OFF THE CHARTS!

i can't quite remember the last time i finished something and ached so sharply for there to be more. i just know I'm gonna be thinking about this one for a long time

[silvermeww]

okay, when was someone going to tell me that

oh, idk, steven started at 19, burgh has a younger sister, clay actually isn't born american, skyla's whole fam thing and ELESA IS 15???? (even younger than skyla like wtf???)

(also the 'alder' at the bottom is supposed to be drayden lol)

and that's not all

say hello to:

viola being 18??? 'black whirlwind' korrina, RAMOS MEETING AZ'S FLOETTE AS A KID, genderfluid and apparently also age-fluid olympia, CLEMONT?? AND HIS WHOLE THING DOWN TO BEING 12 OF ALL AGES???

(you know what, marlon being 30 definitely makes sense with the hippie vibes)

wikstrom SAYING that he only wears that suit in pokemon battles but i've never seen his casual wear, malva being pr for flare lol, drasna selling dragon merch + great family lore if you want to know, siebold having to third-wheel lysandre and sycamore while eating (move aside malva, you're not the only elite 4 dealing with this) and 20?? YEARS OLD?? DIANTHA????????????

(way too many men in kalos are getting ladies, c'mon)

ethan being into history is such a neat detail hmmm, idk much of the frontier brains ngl, and we've finally got the region for looker and it's... hoenn??? you know what, makes sense with his chaotic vibes so i'll take it (throws away unova taped to a rock behind my back). also he's abolsutely cheating we all see that he's just relying on knowing us as protags, should've known smh

(um i think someone said that 'caitlin' should've been anabel but idk)

oh and the last one is charon, if we care about how much of a loser he really is. forget about birch and the poochyena, this guy is the lowest heh. imagine being charon (please don't).

(when the protags of johto are the same age as clemont lol) (yeah i know there are years between those events just let me have this)

and last but not least:

aaron 🤝 valerie: wanting to be pokemon (and ig gotta toss in shauntal with the ao3 writer gift heh, don't know if they would commission her or stay away), bertha's description???? i love flint just saying, cynthia 👀👀 is absolutely doing something illegal 👀👀, roark is WHAT??? (child labour laws in sinnoh must be lax ngl), maylene as well???? fantina watching scary movies is something i'll have to incorporate into my worldview and bryon?? are you okay??

so yeah. credit goes to @/KuroBlitz96 on the twitter/x for having this up, i'm just here to project sheer surprise at this massive dump of ages... my thoughts on pokemon have completely turned on its head once more lol (this is fine)

[twitterdotcom]

Im sorry but the writers did not show Ed cleaning things up after he shot Izzy as a parallel when he started cleaning up after Stede left him so people could still say that he was healing and actually fine in s1ep10

[certifiedlesbianvampire]

╔═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╗

"How do I put this? Seeing you guys together brings back memories." ... "I also trained with another guy to become honki people."

╚═*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*.·:·.✧ ✦ ✧.·:·.*═╝

the backstory for senya and ichiya this episode was revealed... and it's every bit as gay as you can imagine.

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

ok ok its my fault for being on reddit but r/houseofthedragon rn full of people arguing that demon and his 99% neck lizard have a stronger bond than aegon and sunfyre and it's so fucking frustrating that its entirely condolt's fucking fault that this is even a fucking argument because he thinks the greatest bond between a dragon and his rider to ever go that fucking hard in this universe is pRopaganda and gives dae mon and car ax es more screentime. i'm just so fucking done man. never showed us sunfyre TRULY until it was time for demon jr the anime edgelord to attack him and aegon, never get the fact that sunfyre is literally on aegon's arms, never got the coronation flying, DIDN'T GET ANYTHING UNTIL IT WAS TIME TO FUCK HIM UP FOR THE PLOT.

i wish this mf would get fucking fired before he has a chance to touch these two anymore because I don't think i can handle how he will underplay and butcher the fact that this dragon literally fought tooth and claw with a broken wing to find his way back to his rider.

[astarlightmonbebe]

it's easy to read the situation between li tongguang, ruyi, and yuanzhou as a love triangle on a superficial level, but looking even one step further, it's clear that there's no triangle about it. li tongguang is obsessed with ren xin; ning yuanzhou is devoted to ren ruyi. ltg's obsession is fervent and all consuming, but it's not devotion. like ruyi herself notes, his feelings to her are on the basis of her as a mother figure in his life, as a replacement for what he never received from his mother. is there an element of romantic/sexual love/desire to it? maybe. more likely he's deluded himself into thinking that, because the truth is, it's doubtful that ltg even understands what love is (platonic, filial, familial, romantic, all of the above, etc), because he has no basis for understanding. ruyi's teachings and actions towards him are the closest thing he has to hold up as an example. what he wants is ren xin, is a replica of the master he had. he doesn't want ruyi, because he doesn't actually care about ruyi. therefore, he doesn't care if she's sad, angry, mad; he just can't bear her 'abandoning' him. we saw this way back when she first meet and left him, both at thirteen and seventeen. although he distrusts her first, she saves his life and cares for him in the way no one else has, hence her first being raised on a platform in his mind. when she leaves for good, ending their master-disciple relationship/training, even though it's for official business and she's not abandoning him, in his mind that's exactly what it is. so now that she's in his life again, he won't let her leave again. he was powerless before, a child with no proper name, but now he's a recognized member of the imperial family, a man who can meet her as 'equals' (even when that's far from the truth). as a child, he could only cling to her legs and beg her, but now he has the power to keep her by his side. it's telling that when he finally gets confirmation of her identity, it's not ning yuanzhou he seeks to harm (even though he detests him and their relationship), but yang ying. yang ying is ruyi's new disciple, and as ltg doesn't know she's a woman, he only sees her as his direct replacement.

ning yuanzhou, on the other hand, is devoted to ruyi. he wants to build a new life and future with her, instead of slotting her into a spot in the life he already has. he's someone who accompanies her on walks and makes her midnight snacks, who holds her when she needs to be held and lets her go when she needs to do things on her own. when she speaks her mind, he listens, even when it makes him discontent/it's not what he wanted/wants to hear. he sees her unabashedly as his equal, and though he acknowledges her skills and abilities, or points out her naivety, he never does it to belittle her; to him, she is his peer, deserving of the highest honor and respect. he trusts her to have his back, and she has come to trust him to have her. he did what she might have thought no man would ever do: he proved himself reliable, so she came to rely on him. yuanzhou gives her freedom and autonomy as both ren ruyi and ren xin. of course they run into problems, but they both learn and grow from them, as individuals and as a couple. yuanzhou's belief in her is unwavering, but adaptable, whereas ltg's is unwavering, but frozen in time, disallowing for any new information to be presented. yuanzhou works with ruyi to accept the changes thrown her way; he seeks the core behind her actions in order to better understand her. li tongguang cannot accept the changes in ruyi's character, because they run contrary to the master he has on a pedestal in his mind.

what li tongguang wants is to return to the past, but yuanzhou offers ruyi the promise of a future, even one that might never come to fruition. there's no triangle about it.

[thatlittledandere]

A lot of it really is telling vs showing on Io's part huh. It feels like he somewhat makes fun of Ryuu every time they speak but at the same time he looks at Ryuu like he hung the stars and is always looking out for him whenever anything happens. Like the "I'm gonna become Hugh Hefner" bit; Io goes "yeah I don't think so" out loud but as this is happening he's watching over Ryuu so concerned.

Christ. All those looks are all the confession we need