#phd in yapology

[montanamp3]

in the spirit of the genre i'd like to hijack the current asian country music train to talk about one of my favourite historical guys shoji tabuchi: fiddler hall of famer! king of kitsch americana slay!! one of the Most Guys Ever in country music!!!!!

[OKAY this spiralled into a Whole Thing so im putting it under the cut to save your dashes. be warned this is long]

quick backstory: shoji tabuchi was born in osaka, japan. he was classically trained on the violin but discovered country through roy acuff and joined a fairly popular japanese band called the bluegrass ramblers. in 1967 he moved to america with (he claimed later) his guitar and five hundred dollars and played in a couple of bands around california and texas. in the 80s, he got a contract in branson missouri, met his wife there, and they started a show called (very creatively) the shoji tabuchi show.

this is where it gets fun, because the shoji tabuchi show is. okay. it's like if you concentrated the distilled essence of 1990s RAGHHH AMERICA HELL YEAH-style patriotism into a three hour-long extravaganza with backup dancers! fog machines! ten thousand glitter suits! SHOJI spelled out all caps with lasers! a glow in the dark space violin from NASA! like it's TACKY! it's CHEESY! it's CAMP! it's genuinely hilarious!

anyway, when people talk about tabuchi they like to say that he was the "american dream" like he had a family, he owned a whole incredible theatre with (no joke) the gaudiest bathrooms in america, he played two shows a day until he died, he performed to the pm of japan… like he was GETTING THAT BREAD!! the city of branson even gave him a public holiday!

and to be clear. i love tabuchi, i think he was a great entertainer and a great performer, and i don't begrudge him any of his success. but there are better fiddlers out there, better performers, better singers. as a guy on reddit put it in 2013 put it, you kind of have to recognise that at least some part of his success is enabled by "Asian Can Into Country Music???" syndrome. and he has kind of acknowledged this himself-- he used to sell himself as the "japanese cowboy" before he started his show, and he once told a magazine "say person A and person B play [the fiddle] just as good. who stands out, me or him?" which is. #girlboss? maybe? one of his more defining traits throughout his career was his fairly pronounced japanese accent which made it difficult for him to gain footing in the music industry at first but became iconic . some people have said that he didn't actually have that strong of an accent and he was playing it up for the Bit-- a hypothesis that is (somewhat) supported by his album named (i kid you not) ROVE RETTERS.

so how much of the shoji tabuchi show was the Bit and how much of it was genuine? and if it is a bit, who's in on it? who's being made fun of- tabuchi? japan? the audience? america? i have to admit i'm pretty biased here because the essential Incongruence of being an asian-can-into-country-music person IS funny! rawhide kobayashi and all that! and i understand why he might have leant into it and played it up to survive/get famous/get that bread. i never knew tabuchi, so i can't say that like it's fact, but wouldn't that be the most american thing of all?

[lavalamps-and-ladydoors]

[apheliia]

"write a 2 page paper" ok so talk. a lot. that is what you're telling me to do rn.

[arom-antix]

feel free to publish this...wish I was braver but *shrugs* first lemme give you n everyone else brave enough to not hide under anon (like me, lmao) ur flowers for speaking up b/c this drama feels like a long time coming 

one of the weirdest parts of Samurai's deal is how she acts against her own interests. at the end of the day, ur main goal is to get ppl to read this 300K fic that youve spent years on, right? 

which, fair. no issue with that

heres what I do have an issue with, Samurai: you acting like no one in the fandom respects ur writing talent when ur stats tell a different story. (notice i said respects ur writing talent. not respects ur social media presence...more on that later)

anyway, Samurai: be so fucking forreal right now

calling urself "an underdog"?! (if anybody doesnt know what im talking about, @arom-antix screenshotted a post from Samurai's social media where she says she doesnt wanna do fandom events b/c she would just get ignored) 

do you really have the right to call urself an underdog when you have 600+ kudos n 1000+ comments on ur fanfic??? I have friends in newer n bigger fandoms who are multichap fic writers who would commit murder for those numbers. n let me add that their fics have been complete for a minute. unlike Samurai's fic which she completed *checks notes* this past fucking weekend 

the funny part is its giving Katsuki Yuuri thinking hes lower than dirt even when hes made it to the gpf/is japans best figure skater. that screenshot you included where she's like "my stats are nothing to be proud of..."

like ???? 

does she not realize how fucking insulting that is to allllll the fic writers who have nowhere near the numbers she does? im not a writer but if i was n saw that itd make me feel like shit. like a minami kenjirou 'you dont have a dark past' kind of thing lmao. n to that point, its like you said earlier. its fine to have anxiety n to not be perfect in dealing with it. but when you dont sort that shit out with a therapist n instead make ur insecurity an entire fandoms problem over n over again is it really that big a fucking puzzle why ur losing readers? or why nobody wants to reblog ur shit?  

if shes really that clueless n cant see how ppl might be turned off by her personality (the reverse from before: im not saying shit about her actual writing here which i think is pretty decent) it makes me wonder, like...

why did her beta reader never sit her down? why didn't her friend @cecebeanie ever tell her "stop being a dick on social media ur ruining everything ur working so hard for?" or, maybe they did n she told them to fuck off because she seems to think she knows everything. 

ok, imma stop there before i really go off lmao. thank you again for being a go-between for ppl too scared to chime in by name. appreciate youuuuuu <3

Thank you very much for this ask. Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with not feeling comfortable with publically including yourself in Internet scuffles by name. I'm glad to be the middle man so people like you get to have an anonymous platform to speak through.

And yeah, a bunch of what you've said is exactly what my point was with pointing out Samurai's simultaneous lament of her "bad" stats and dismissal of any explanation of why their stats might look like that. Also, let me reiterate: There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling insecure or demotivated by something that someone else might find incredibly motivating. We're all different and have different PoVs. However, there's a difference between feeling insecure and dealing with it privately and feeling insecure and then making that everyone else's problem by vagueposting and getting upset with the people supporting you for not being enough. I'm not saying you can't post whatever you want on your socials but if you do you also have to accept that people might find that off-putting. That's just how it is. Especially if those posts imply, whether on purpose or not, that any support you might still have doesn't count because it's not what you were hoping for.

And there's a good point in this ask that I want to highlight: The implication in a lot of Samurai's posts that they're not respected leaves a sour taste in the mouths of those who read those posts. Contrary to what Samurai's way of posting would have you believe, they have plenty of readers who very much do respect their writing. And if you respect someone and then that someone repeatedly publically laments how no one respects them, you're going to feel disrespected and ignored, the exact things Samurai is so upset about being (see links at the bottom of this post to find the full discussions of Samurai's online attitude). It's quite ironic, if I'm honest. It's basically a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you constantly insist that no one cares about you, eventually you'll convince the people who do care about you that maybe they shouldn't because you only bring negative attitudes and no one wants that.

And so, you're now in exactly the situation you feared so much specifically because you couldn't let yourself or the people around you exist without that frustration of yours being at the forefront of every conversation. Trust me, I'm heavily medicated for anxiety, I know how easy it is to fall into a cycle of only thinking about your fears. But if you want to escape them, you either have to contront them head on or learn to live in spite of them. If you only ever focus on how much they're dominating your life, they'll just consume you and ruin you.

I know I've been pretty harsh in my posts about this situation but if you're reading this, Samurai, know that I don't want you to suffer. I don't want you to leave the Internet or stop doing the things you love. I know you love writing, I can tell it's a big passion of yours and I know you love YOI. I encourage you to keep engaging with your passions and finding joy in whatever you love. However, you also need to let others do the same. Even if their "non-academic" posts lessen your enjoyment of what the ideal fandom experience would be, too bad. You don't get to decide how others engage with fandom. The only thing you get to decide is how you engage. If other people's posts annoy you, you're not required to look at them. Of course it sucks if there are very few people and posts you enjoy when you'd rather have a litany of stuff to engage with but that's just how being on the Internet is. You don't get to control these things. Be the change you want to see in the world but don't look down at others for not sharing those same goals of change. You do you, they'll do them.

Just because you prefer your way of doing fandom doesn't make it better than anyone else's and either you recognise that and get over yourself or people won't want to interact with you. End of. That's just how it is. People don't like interacting with people who make them feel lesser and the way you're interacting with the fandom at the moment is very much making people feel like that. I know, I know, you don't intend for that to be the takeaway, but it is. That's how you come across. And if you don't know how to not come across that way, you're allowed to ask.

I know you have friends such as Cecebeanie who you can talk to about this. I know you probably don't want to talk to me but if it comes down to it, I don't hate you and would love to help you if you'd let me. Again, I would not be shocked if you don't want anything to do with me ever again. I am kinda repeatedly coming after you. I wouldn't want to talk to me even if I agreed with the criticism. But if it ever becomes relevant, I do not hate you and while I have my hang-ups about you, I don't need to be BFFs with someone just to talk to them. You're not an idiot. You're not stupid. I know you're not. But you're behaving really immaturely and irresponsibly, both generally and towards individuals. That does not make you a lost cause.

While I don't have high hopes that you'll actually take any of my criticism to heart, if you decide to give a redemption a try, I'd gladly help if you'd let me. I don't want to crucify you. I just want you to do better for the sake of everyone, including yourself.

That became longer than intended. Anyway, thanks again for the ask, anon. For anyone else who has something they want to say, my ask box is always open, regardless of whether you agree with me or not. I don't cherrypick who gets to voice their opinion in a public debate. I'll be answering every ask regardless. And choosing to be anonymous, regardless of what stance you take, is also nothing to be ashamed of. I totally get it if you want to voice an opinion or comment on this situation but don't want to be publically tied to it. That's totally fine. It is kind of a lot. Especially considering how many have mentioned being afraid of retaliation from Samurai, I don't mind being the middle man at all. Ask away with whatever you want to add to this discussion.

Thank you for the ask, anon.

Links to the two main threads this discussion is running through: Thread one Thread two

[express-archives]

utc is ambrose & artemis' backstory... in an infodump format! this post is written as if i was speaking to another person, and that's because i was when i wrote this HAHAH this was all copied and pasted from a dm with a friend of mine, but i felt compelled to share it here too because... oc lore!!

so. ambrose and artemis. teehee

both of them started off as normal, short-lived humans. the planet they lived on, which was nameless at the time they were born on it (though it was later fondly named 'arcadia'), was rather archaic in its technolgy, completely uncontacted by the IPC or other interstellar organizations, and terribly riddled with war and death. it had been this way since before they were born, and presumably, would be that way for long after they died… of course, it didn't end that way. long before their births, phantylia stumbled across the planet by chance and decided to sew chaos and destruction there; she has been known to enjoy watching humans destroy themselves senselessly, and what kind of lord ravager would she be if she passed up such a delightful opportunity? this chaos and war went on for years, utterly obliterating the planet's resources and slowly but surely making its inevitable death draw nearer and nearer. ambrose and artemis were born a few hundred years into the mess that phantylia created.

ambrose grew up to be a gentle and kind healer, a farmer, and—occasionally—a battle strategist. though harming people was not in their nature, they had no choice if they wanted to protect their people and their family. they also frequently took care of children, since many did not have parents to raise them. artemis grew up to be a powerful and respected soldier, though she would often come home injured and ambrose would tenderly treat her wounds and remind her to be more careful. it became like a little routine for them. neither of their parents remained in the picture (except for ambrose's sickly mother), having long since been killed in the crossfire. they really only had each other to rely on, so they grew quite close over the years.

naturally, being so close, artemis noticed when her elder cousin grew a little more withdrawn in their preteen years. she noticed when they spent more time researching old, historic books. she noticed how odd it was for them.

somewhere along the line, ambrose discovered legends telling stories of (some of) the aeons. ambrose was not the religious type, but watching their people kill one another was destroying them on the inside and this was all they could try to do to stop it. from the ages of 12-ish to 23-ish, ambrose dutifully prayed. they weren't really sure who or what they were directing it towards; really, they were just throwing their thoughts out into the universe in the hopes that something might hear them.

the first time yaoshi's gaze ever shifted in their direction was when they were 19. ambrose recognized that something had seen them, if the overwhelming sense of dread and unease was not enough to indicate it, though they were not certain who or what. but they could do nothing about it except grit their teeth and keep on, regardless of how unsettling it was to be noticed by something no doubt far greater than them.

they did tell artemis about this. how could they not? she was virtually their best friend. artemis had known about ambrose's prayers ever since they started, but she truly did not believe ambrose's experience, though it was more of a knee-jerk reaction than anything.

anyways, the feeling of being seen never quite went away for the next 4 years, and ambrose eventually got very used to it, to the point where if they were not being gazed upon, it was uncomfortable.

the night of their 23rd birthday, yaoshi made themselves properly known to ambrose for the first time via a dream after having carefully observed them for the past four years (though, to an aeon, four years would pass in the blink of an eye, so it seemed like barely any time at all to yaoshi, i would imagine). an old snippet i wrote about that encounter:

They wanted to say something, they really did, but the words only stuck to the sides of their dry throat. Anything they tried to say only got caught and ultimately could not escape. Whatever stood before them was undeniably something far greater than they would ever be. For something so intimidating… their hands were gentle, gingerly stroking whatever skin was exposed in what seemed to be an attempt to get Ambrose to relax. "Be not afraid, little one. I will not bring you any harm," they murmured kindly, lips brushing against one corner of Ambrose's mouth. When had the deity gotten so close? Gods, they couldn't breathe. "You desire to save your home, yes?" "I—" they choked, "Yes, I do, I…" The god's lips pulled into a smile, eyes so soft with pity and sympathy that the mortal couldn't help but wonder what degree of eldritch deity they had managed to get the attention of. Only something so impossibly nonmortal and unearthly would gaze at them like that. A benignant kiss was placed at the corner of Ambrose's lips. "With such a fragile body, helpless to the cruelty of war and violence, you will never manage it." "I know." "I will lend you the strength you need. I will free you from the constraints of mortality, if you will only allow me to do so." "Please," they whispered tearfully, suddenly feeling very pitiable and fragile under their gaze, "I can't… I can't live like this anymore." The god's smile only seemed to widen ever so slightly. Ambrose had difficulty reading their expression; they could not tell what the deity was thinking. Then, a searing pain shot up their leg, and they sucked in a sharp breath. Ambrose was awake in an instant, hand clamped over their mouth to muffle the shriek that threatened to breach their throat so as to not disturb the other members of their household. Their freehand frantically reached down to their leg, and there— There was a swelling welt on their calf, feverish and sore to the touch. A hushed sob reverberated in their chest. It was almost akin to the sting of a scorpion.

following this encounter, ambrose's body rapidly changed to accomodate immortality, and it was with this aeon-given ability that they were able to put an end to the slaughter of their world. stepping onto the barren land, flowers would bloom in their wake, and the world began to heal, thriving on the abundance's power channeled through ambrose like some kind of prophetic vessel. arcadia, as ambrose named their homeworld, has something like the xianzhou alliance's ambrosial arbor, from which others of their home could attain immortality. some did; others did not. artemis did, for one, making her an abomination of abundance.

artemis was very on edge for a long time, and it never quite went away. there was always something nagging at the back of her mind that this just… wasn't quite right. though, she WAS grateful that the war had been ended.

a few hundred years passed without incident, and the world was thriving better than ever. ambrose disappears one day (not without a word, however; they had spoken to artemis about this and ultimately left to explore the vastness of the universe with yaoshi as their guide, until they could "walk on their own" so to speak. until they could navigate on their own and handle themselves. essentially yaoshi was like "haha. this pathetic little human child is mine now ♡")

people do eventually start "dying" to mara, but the reactions from the people were mostly very mild.

there was never any public outcry or widespread concern. but artemis was EXTREMELY unsettled by this. she had long since ceased crying—it did no good for her, a valued soldier on the front lines, to cry—but she did when the people she loved began to die, and she couldn't help but feel the sting of betrayal. did ambrose know about this? furthermore, did yaoshi know about this and just… not tell anyone?

breaking down in such a manner triggered her mara, and though she did not die, she had her first encounter with an aeon.

it was lan. drawn in by how thoroughly similar she was to ambrose (who had an unfortunate first encounter with lan at one point and earned a very nasty scar from the aeon, barely having escaped with their immortal life), the hunt initially intended to shoot her down and move on. but i think lan formed a weird connection with artemis that day—it's known that the abundance destroyed their homeworld, so i think perhaps they may have been human before ascending. something something ummm brief flickers of humanity in what once was human, but has since been mutilated by eldritch power. yeah. anyways. that was the day that artemis became a pathstrider of the hunt. and later, she became an emanator of the hunt, though her access to the path is quite restricted… perhaps lan does not fully trust artemis. who knows? it's impossible to tell what such a powerful deity is thinking at any given moment.

it was following ambrose's encounter with lan that yaoshi granted them full emanatorship, though they had been an emanator before then, simply less powerful. by that point, i like to think that yaoshi had grown quite attached to the little one they picked up, and the simple truth is that the hunt is relentless and yaoshi might not be able to save ambrose's life in time… so what better way to solve that problem than to give them the power to protect themselves (more or less HAHAH)? 🤭🫶

as emanators, they are quite different people.

artemis sees herself as an individual who lan has shared their power with. ambrose sees themselves as but an extension of yaoshi, a vessel through which their will is exercised.

[lovefingers]

i finally reached the climax of my story 120k+ words later 🙂‍↔️

[strider-rambles]

I don't know if it's out of line to be in your inbox but I see you around tumblr pretty often and I'm bro strider myself so i figured I'd say good on you for posting your shit in a reasonably articulated way. You're one of the least obnoxious strider kids in the tags. Not saying this just cause you don't hate your bro I'm a little more couth than that i mean in a literal sense you format alright.

if i had anyone in specific i wanted to shut out from this blog id have something in my intro which i don't, (except for stridercesters, but that's a general group) so for everyone out there that aren't them y'all are gucci

ok tangent over time to get to the meat

i try and air on the side of coherence a lot of the time both to maintain my self respect and kind of like. add something that's like. actually valuable to the space other than word vomit and like. whining or wtv. generally i also don't really interact with other daves due 2 the fact that a grand majority of the time we just don't see eye to eye on things, especially regarding our identities as striders, our relationships to other individuals, and just vibes, too. so although i can't personally verify your statement regarding the not being annoying thing, i guess i agree

but thanks (?)

+ before i yap your motherfuckin ear off mike tyson style imma cut to the shit and tell you that if you wanna have a like. full ass conversation sometime i'd be down, i guess.

[storytellerdannie]

Actually I thought about it some more and the “little roombas on the floor of our life” metaphor is extra cute when you consider PhD in Yapology Daniel James Howell only creates his most devastating prose analogies when he’s yapping about something he cares deeply about and that’s us, the little roombas 🥹

[poetsinnyc]

I JUST REALIZED I NEVER DID AN INTRO

here it is (overdue ngl)

CAMERON HATERS DNI

Name: Rey Gender: Female 🐸 MBTI: ENTP-A Sexuality: ✨a bi queen ✨ (just like dalton) Relationship status: married to Five Hargreeves/bi-myself Nationality: Malaysian Languages: English, but I can string together enough Spanish, Malay and Chinese to make a few coherent sentences Fandoms: Dead Poets Society, Over the Garden Wall, Brooklyn 99, The Umbrella Academy, Percy Jackson, Rick and Morty, a bunch of Webtoons, Bo Burnham (if he counts), Star Wars, Beetlejuice, Suits (off the top of my head but will likely be editing this) Music: I'll always be a die hard Beatles and Fujii Kaze fan, but I find myself branching out more into TV Girl, Her's, Jomm, Wallows, Kyuuwaii, Jazz Emu, Keshi and Kenshi Yonezu (though I'm sure there will be more to come) Hobbies: I love reading, socialising, listening to music, writing poetry Also debate (very obsessed) and model united nations (VETO) I love to run and dance and sing when i have time even though I don't practice my ballet nearly as much as my teacher would like me to I also like researching random things and I LOVE discussing politics, philosophy, entomology, astronomy, quantum physics and economics (though there are gaps in my knowledge that I am eager to fill) I also like watching movies and interpreting the crap out of stuff (it's too many hobbies but ITS MY BLOG MY RULES MUAHAHHAA) So I'm currently in my final year of highschool and at my fucking limit 🎀 Trying to get through life after losing sm people that I'm not sure whether I'm the same anymore Extremely stressed but hey! I persist!

lastly; please please please text me I know I've put this on my blog before but I really love talking to people (PhD in yapology and certified yapper) so literally hit me up I will get back to you in 1-3 business days Carpe Diem !!

[struck-by-the-rain]

procrastinating from packing, lore yapping under the cut. this is wayyy more than I need to say for this post but I wanted 2 get it out thereeeee. this probs deserves another maintag bullet point post or maybe even I should just write this whole thing as a proper thingy iskkk

soooooo I'm thinking if I don't wanna make joe 55 at the time of the Lore (TM) happening there could be like, an alternate ver to what I'd thought of, an au of an au if u will.

so spoilers ig if I end up ever writing the lil fic that I probably won't get round to writing, but basically joe n sk start off hanging out (and eventually dating...) behind seniors back, and I've always imagined joe being like late 20s/early 30s at this point?? I think this causes joe to start falling behind in his training. eventually senior learns about their relationship somehow, he's obviously not happy that joe is distracted from his training (by a soccer player no less!). i think joe reacts by pushing sk away, like he doesn't want sk to take any blame for it or whatever, thinks that sk deserves to be w/ someone he doesn't need to sneak around for, and idk,,, joe probs still hangs on to wanting to make his father proud and stuff. so they break things off.

this all happens in the og lore I have for them in my head. buuuut I looove a sappy ending, and in the og ver after a while or smth 6switcher (sk's bestie) convinces him to go back to earth and talk to him (6switcher both cares about their bestie and is also fed up of them failing to move on from this breakup). aaaaand success, joe ends up getting out of the basement n living w sk on his planet :)

but I guess 55 y/o joe could come in as like, an au where they don't end up meeting again and it's just like, Canon Game Joe. he still lives in the basement, and I guess tying into the actual games themselves w the songs being about heartbreak or whatever it fits. like idkkk I'm sorry it's hot and my brain is cooked, this probs isn't as sad as I made it out to be but it's just like,,, I imagined him to be incredibly lonely in the first place before meeting sk, and in this ver he just,,,, continues to be lonely. idk :(

i should be packing instead of thinking about this but maybeeee I do wanna accept 55 y/o karate joe (from the french megamix translation) into my belief system,,,, I said I think at the start of my brainrot that I wanted to hc him as younger than that (idk what age exactly) but hmmmm idk. its funny. and doesn't really affect anything that goes on in my lil storyline. I also hate coming across like I'm woobifying characters and maybe aging him down falls into that territory. only problem I have w it is it makes senior fucking immortal or something (like seriously he'd be like???? 80????? and still that good at karate). but idk. I'll think about ittt....

[montanamp3]

each thing beloved: the citations

since i can't use the notes on etb due to [SPOILERS] i thought it would be fun to add my notes here as a separate post! i have lots and lots to yap about for this fic because i love research and i love singlit and i love being annoying so strap in

direct references

the lmm epigraph is from the genius annotations for hurricane. i also quoted this npr interview from 2020

baby you can drive my car is from claire tham's (EXTREMELY FIRE) 1990 short story collection fascist rock

reid tang's we are slowly dismantling merit bureaucracies is from the singaporean section of divining dante, a collection of poetry from around the world released for the 700th anniversary of dante's death. another really fun poem from divining dante that i ended up not including was dante digestif singapura by joshua ip

(an: reid tang worked with hahnji jang on a play??? apparently??? let's all hold space for this fact for a moment)

also featured: city hall by yvonne koh in qlrs, kampong bahru 1975 by wong may in poetry.sg

vibe-related references

virginia's character is inspired by lots of female asian-american writers from the late 70s/early 80s like marilyn chin and maxine hong kingston. but as is probably evident the historical inspiration for her was largely wong may!!

for people who may not be familiar - wong may is a singapore-raised writer who moved to the us for her mfa at the university of iowa in 1966. while in the us, she published her experimental poetry collection a bad girl's book of animals, which wasn't available in singapore until very very recently and was in fact actually called obscure by the straits times once lol. she published a few more books (which of now are still unavailable in singapore) and then disappeared to ireland

i think one of the biggest references for this fic was the essay looking for wong may by jennifer chang and (somewhat, my memory of it is Not Great) tse hao guang's introduction to the epigram press reprinting of a bad girl's book of animals which was imo suspiciously passive-aggressive towards ms chang

this is mostly in the sense of ms wong's preoccupation with exile and homelessness ever since being forced to give up her singaporean citizenship + ms chang's view that she's a part of asian american history compared with mr tse's view that She Never Said She Was What Are You Talking About + her whole Famously Offline Impenetrable Art Hermit vibe that comes through from both mr tse and ms changs writing about her. all of these people are still alive so i really really hope they never google their names

(an: i actually started writing this for the tse hao guang publishing grant before it got about 4k words over the given limit lol. i think that might have been for the best)

huxley secondary school is from secondary the musical! in this fic i think of it as being one of those older neighbourhood schools that used to be the kind that people with caldecott money would plausibly send their kids to in the 1970s but as more schools have popped up it's slowly lost its prestige (basically read: cj/nj, sorry njcers). this probably is not very accurate to secondary the musical where i think it has the vibes of a new but relatively unfancy neighbourhood school

the plot structure of this is pretty obviously inspired by i saw the tv glow (2024) see: bleachers scene, apologies, the colour pink, conformity to the system portrayed as a slow death, obsession and reflection of the self in a piece of media etc etc. as has been pointed out by smarter people than me this fic is about immigration in the subjunctive but it's About immigration in the same way that i saw the tv glow is About burying yourself alive to escape a suburbia nightmare dimension created by a guy shaped like a moon. which i legally cannot expand upon please draw your own conclusions

what i can say though is that unlike isttvg the metaphor is complicated by the fact that sg is not in fact a fake suburbia nightmare dimension but a real country lived in by real people which is capable of change and progress. i know i'm probably beating you guys over the head with The Point here but i don't think di is concerned with emigration from singapore so much as she is concerned with emigration from her body and whether it's possible to do so while retaining her singaporeanness. by which i mean in 2020 the online pink dot event included a suggestion to put a pink light in your house. by which i mean that the ghost story comp is because yes both of these stories are looking at immigration from opposite sides of the event but also maybe they are looking at something else from opposite sides of the decision.

but mostly it was basically just me watching ghost story and going This Would Eat If It Was Singaporean

i don't know if it ended up eating

maybe it just nibbled

with thanks to

(also. did you know that the singer who covered anthems for a seventeen year old girl in the isttvg soundtrack is singaporean?? the more you know!!)

A: for betaing, situationship advice and help with the narratively satisfying truck

M and E: for being fellow Havers of Complicated Emotions About Ghosts And Also Gender And Also I Saw The TV Glow

that one pillar in lecture theatre 24: for letting me write this while i should be listening to class

[puckspoetry]

PhD in yapology

[pootimedes]

you sure do yap alot, I like that

i have 2 phds in yapology

[taintedlxve]

@voidofsins replied to your post “Don't mind me I'm just yappin”:

Nah sis, yap to your heart's content. I do the same, and it's important to yarn out your ideas so you got it somewhere.

​Me :handshake: Kaali

PhD Masters in Yapology

[dice-of-rolling]

The more time I spend not working at Trader Joe’s the more I realize not everyone has a degree in yapology. I unfortunately have a PHD.

[shitpost-it-tristan]

Way too proud of myself, I came up with "I studied yapology and earned a PHD in rambling" and it only took 15 minutes