#who are outliers adn should not be counted in the “how much time it takes to draw” average calculation

[mossbear-minese]

I really need to draw more so I internalize that art actually does take time to accomplish

Every time I sit down with the intention of doing art there's a little uninformed creature (me) demanding that the art is accomplished Immediately and if it's not Done Now it's not worth it

Whoopsies

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Daily fish fact #6 444 205

Fish!

The fish like to have a little drink :) Sadly as they drink the water around them they also drink their own pee, and that is the curse that they will have to live with for the rest of their life

#fish #fishfact #fish facts #fishblr #biology #zoology

( 2 notes )

🪼 clovergonads follow

Tasseled wobbegong women >>>>>>>>>>>

🐸 i-eat-skin follow

bitch those are goosefish

( 27,196 notes )

🐚 seashell-on-the-seashore follow

Say what you want about fishblr updates, but I think this format for reblubs is a wonderful improvement over the previous one. One of the only times staff did good.

🐚 seashell-on-the-seashore

@featherstar53 If reblub chains got too long, new reblubs would start appearing as darker and darker until you couldnt see the text anymore. It mimicked how light disappears as you go deeper in the ocean but the sunken code this webbedsite runs on never set a cap for how dark it gets, so eventually you would have to copy ad paste the text on the reblubs onto somewhere to read them.

🐍 swamplamprey follow

It sounds fake but it's true! You can still find some older fishblr post screenshots with this effect:

This even went for full abyssal mode users! In their case, the text would slowly turn from white to dark blue, effectively making it impossible to read against the black background.

🦞 fastest-claw-in-the-west follow

I think it would be super funny if they brought this back but for individual posts. Like the reblubs stay the same colour but the posts themselves get gradually and gradually darker until you can't see them anymore lol. It would be disastrous but also funny and it might finally stop some of you frys from being so addicted to this webbedsite

#im all for a bit of chaos lol #treasure trove: talking tag

( 730 notes )

🌿 invertlike-behaviour follow

Okay for the record. My eyes are Red because I'm a COMMON ROACH! RUTILUS RUTILUS! It's not because I smoke seaweed!

🌿 invertlike-behaviour

Okay Yes I smoke seaweed all day. But the specific reason my eyes are red is Not That

( 104 notes )

🦈 spiritually-placoderm follow

🫧 surgeonsturgeon follow

OP you forgot brackish water and the option for inhabiting both

🦈 spiritually-placoderm

Shut your inferior ass mouth up

🫧 surgeonsturgeon

#(i couldnt find the actual gif i wanted to use but this weird tiger shark will have to do) #(not sure why his fins look like that)

( 1,020 notes )

☀️ slenderfish follow

"ocean sunfish have over 40 parasite species" factoid actualy just statistical error. average ocean sunfish is infected with only one or two parasites. Parasites Georg, the mola who suffers from every ailment known to fish and has over 1 000 000 000 parasite species infesting his flesh and organs, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

( 193,239 notes)

🪷 trout-about-you follow

Selfieeeee :3 (ignore the two sea lampreys attached to my flesh)

🪲 toebiter follow

how did you take the picture you aren't holding your phone

🪷 trout-about-you

The sea lamprey on the left took it for me

( 58 notes )

🔲 salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated

FISH USED TO MIGRATE THOUSANDS OF MILES TO BREED. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!!!!

IN MY DAY PUSSFISH LIKE THIS WOULD GET EATEN ALIVE BY REAL RIVER MONSTERS FOR BREAKFAST.

🐟 darting-action follow

these are Siamese fighting fish bruh.... They don't have migration as part of their life cycle lmao

🔲 salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated

OF COURSE THE YOUTH CAN'T PUNCTUATE THEIR SENTENCES PROPERLY. I SHOULDN'T EXPECT SO MUCH FROM THE SOFT FRY THEY ARE. ALWAYS GETTING RILED UP!

🔲 skip-hopper-deactivated

Ignore this guy, @darting-action. He's well known for saying offensive nonsense like this, I think he's bait and trying to get someone to bite.

🔲 salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated

YOU MUST BE ONE OF THOSE INBRED DOMESTIC SCUM OR HATCHED YESTERDAY SINCE YOU ENTIRELY LACK THICK SCALES. I SPEAK THE TRUTH AND ONLY THE TRUTH. IF YOU GET TRIGGERED THEN THAT'S NATURAL SELECTION, SON. YOU SHOULD FIGHT ME IN REAL LIFE.

🔲 walrus-tits-in-my-mouth-deactivated

You really dont know a thing about natural selection, do you? Bettas have flashy fins because they have to seem threatening to possible competitors. They don't migrate so they aren't built for that. They're built for living in ponds and marshes, low oxygen environments, and by cod, they are built for fighting territorial battles! You shouldn't underestimate a fish literally called fighting fish. They're very tough and hardy fish and can even send larger fish fleeing!

🔲 salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated

SIAMESE FLAILING PUSSFISH HAVE LADY FINS BECAUSE THEY'RE WEAK AND SOFT AND HAD HUMANS DECIDE WHO THEY BREED WITH FOR THEM. THEIR QUOTE UNQUOTE "FIGHTING PROWESS" SURE DIDN'T SAVE THEM FROM BEING PRISSY LITTLE PRINCESS FISHIES FOR LITTLE KIDS DID IT? THE INDUBIDABLE FACT IS THAT THEY'RE MUSKIE FOOD.

🔲 iknowthecrabbypattysecretformula-deactivated

Wait a minute... I recongize that picture on the right! That's from @betta-than-this 's OnlyFins! How did you get that picutre hmmm? Salmonidae? How on Ocean did you gain access huh?

🐠 betta-than-this follow

"Indubidable" is a pretty specific word to use. This you @salmonidae-supremacy-deactivated?

🔲 iknowthecrabbypattysecretformula-deactivated

LMAOOOOOO GOTTEMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

🔲 aquarium-life-deactivated

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

🐟 darting-action

woag i never saw this entire chain before until it hit me on my dashboard. Why does this have so many notes

Thanks fishblr user walrus tits in my mouth for biology info i didn't know

🫖 burgle-the-turts follow

Woah woah woah we're just gonna ignore this guy using p*ssfish as an insult!!???? THE CATFISH SLUR????????? No one is going to bring this up!!!!!???????

🔲 tilapia11128-deactivated

does anyone in this thread smoke seaweed

🌊 herringageposts follow

date of origin: 28th of august, 2017

( 392,229 notes )

🟧 sponsored

Suffering all alone, handsome?

No need to anymore.

👄 pollywannacracker follow

Reblub with your favorite snack in the tags! I’ll go first: coral polyps! :}

🚬 shark-noir follow

@ninjalantern-999

#as for me #my fave is definitely my lower set of teeth when they shed #crumchy :D

( 295 notes )

🩸 must-lunge follow

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA STUPID HUMAN DROPPED ITS ELECTRONIC CAMERA IN THE LAKE!!!!!!!! NEVER GETTING THAT BACK BUB!!!!!! I'M TELLING ALL MY ISOPOD AND MUSSEL FRIENDS AND THEY'RE GONNA LIVE INSIDE IT!!!!!

🧑 official-human-posts follow

ofishal human post

#ofishal human post #this post contains humans

( 891 notes )

🦦 hellofromtheotterslide follow

Wait, how come this site is called fishblr and not something like oceanblr or aquablr? Wouldn't that be more inclusive?

👑 goldielocks follow

I believe the name "fishblr" pays homage to the meaning of the word where just about everything in the water was considered a fish. It's why we have words like "shellfish", "whalefish", "jellyfish", "starfish".

Personally aquablr would work really well, too. There's a sizeable amphibious userbase on here.

🦐 worldwideshrimp follow

You forgot whale shark! Those arent fish either but are called fish

👑 goldielocks

....Whale sharks are fish. They are sharks. It's in the name.

🦎 eye-of-newt follow

But I thought it was a whale named after sharks? WHALE shark! Why else would they put whale up first?

👑 goldielocks

A whale named after a shark would be called a shark whale. You can take one look at a whale shark and see that, with its gills and fish tail, it is a shark.

⚪️ number1-seacucumber-ass-enjoyer-77 follow

Wait, then what about baby whales? Are those whales named after babies?

👑 goldielocks

If you're talking about the actual whale babies, then yeah. If you mean the mormyrids, small aquatic animals that can sense electricity, then no, those are fish. Sometimes names are inaccurate to what the animal really is.

🌌 themanta1234 follow

If you think about it, fishblr is also inclusive to aquatic tetrapods since they are lobe-fins, and therefore fish :D It's a term that can include everyone on here, the perfect catchall!

🦑 abyssal-gigantism follow

Ewwww fuck that definition. If mammals hear about them being fish on some sort of """"technicality"""" then this webbedsite is gonna get flooded with those self-important idiots! "OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOOOOO LoOk At MeEeEeEeEEE i'M a MaMmAL!!11!!! I TAKE CARE of mah BAAABIEEEES!1111 I'm SUCH a good MAMAAA!!! All those OTHER STUPID HEARTLESS ANIMALS could NEVER do as I DO!!! I LOVE sweating into my BAABIEEEES' MOUTH1!1!1!111!!! I'm FLUFFY and AWSUM and ERRYBODDY LUUUVSSSSS MEE!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!! You should all LUV me TOO!!!!"

Is THAT how you want every fishblr post to look!!!!??????

🦛 drippohippo follow

😨

🪄 magicmanatee45 follow

DD:

🎼 humpbacked-musician-offishal follow

:'''((((

🐋 blainvilles-bitch follow

🕶️ egg-laying-mammal-of-action follow

:///////////

🐢 greenXD follow

i think jellyfish shouldn't be classified as fish because they're clearly living spaghetti

🌜 foolish-idol follow

Great fucking post everyone. Hit the air bubblers

( 60,376 notes )

🟩 ultrahyva-heihoi follow

Guys what the fuck kind of sponsors does fishblr have I just saw an ad for having parasites housed in me who are they advertising to 😭💀💀

#i swear the quality of this site keeps going down and down #if you see ads for parasites then report the shit out of em #fuck em my friend got early onset cataracts due to parasites

( 4 notes )

��� doweopenandcloseourmouthtoday follow

Yes! :) :O :) :O :) :O :) :O

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Alright while we're on the topic. A huge pet peeve of mine is when Ed's arc in s2 is described as a "redemption arc" because I think that MASSIVELY misses the point.

Ed did not need a redemption arc. That implies that he'd need to learn that his behavior was wrong. The huge misread in this take is that Ed is perfectly aware how shitty his behavior is, and that's the point. Ed knows that his actions during the kraken spiral are wrong, and he's doing them explicitly as a form of self-harm because he believes he's only capable of that kind of behavior; that there is something fundamentally broken in him that means this kind of behavior is innate to him and defines him.

Also - it's such a cruel take, I think. Ed isn't a badly-behaving child who needs to learn he's been bad. He was a deeply traumatized man in the middle of an intense suicidal ideation spiral that culminated in a suicide attempt that Ed has framed as needing to be put down, like the wild dog Izzy says he is. I'm not saying that this is an excuse; the crew are justified in being fucking pissed with Ed, but you just can't judge it in the same way as if he'd been acting like that for fun. OFMD dares to offer up the apparently scorching hot take that people who hurt others during an active suicide attempt still deserve compassion, healing, and community.

There's a reason why the crew forgive Ed so quickly. There's a reason that the Kraken crew, who are not blind, watched Ed sail the ship directly into a storm minutes after they can probably only assume, having only heard the noises, that he's shot Izzy, and they're still debating if he's getting better unti the mutiny. There's a reason Jim takes so fucking long to do anything, even with Ed stalling and stalling. There's a reason why we're shown the crew's guilt - they're right to be angry with Ed, of course, but Ed is also someone who they care about who was hurting so, so badly, and they weren't able to get through to him and help him. It's complicated and nuanced and there's a reason that Jim gives Ed a hard time to his face during his YouTuber apology but then is immediately saying afterwards they're fine and they thought his apology was pretty good.

Within the context of OFMD, up until the mutiny, Ed's behavior is "a bit much." Archie's there specifically to show us that, and of course Ed never lays a hand on any crew member (Izzy, who admitted on his deathbed that he's been emotionally abusing Ed knowingly for years, is an outlier adn should not be counted). And the crew all know that Ed's just...not like that normally. Throughout s1, Ed's shown to be supportive, easy and genuine with praise, genuinely caring about the crew's safety...the crew never even mention mutiny until Ed forces their hand because they know what he's like when he's okay, and they know he's not okay.

Ed didn't need redemption. He needed support to heal and to get to see himself for who he is outside of the caricature he felt forced into.

[billysjoel]

hey!! would you mind doing a tutorial on how you blend your gifs? they're so perfect! if not, then that's fine but thanks anyway :)

hi there! first of all, thank you for the kind words, i appreciate it so much! and i'm always more than happy to make tutorials! below the cut i'll do my best to explain my process when it comes to creating blended gifs like these:

original gifset

original gifset

original gifset

original gifset

disclaimer that i in no way consider myself an expert when it comes to blending. i actually struggle with it quite a bit sometimes and there are tons of gifmakers far more talented than myself. here's a link to all the blending tutorials i've come across for my other blog @gifmakerresource just in case!

when it comes to blending two or more scenes/shots together, i cannot overstate how important the scenes you choose are. i'll go more in depth on this in a moment, but there have been so many times when i'm making gifs like the ones above where i spend ages testing out different scenes together to see if they'll actually work and give me the desired effect.

so, what should you be looking for when selecting your scenes? in my opinion, what's most important (and can therefore cause you the most trouble) is lighting and contrast. dark on dark is what blends best. now, you can obviously tweak these things using adjustment layers, but i think it's best to set yourself up for success right from the very start.

if we look at my first and last examples above the cut (luke in hill house and pruitt in midnight mass), these are the two that show this the best. the scene of adult luke is high in contrast to begin with; we've got areas of bright highlights and dark shadows and the latter are the areas where the blending shows through the most clearly. luke's hair and shirt are darker as is young luke's shirt and hat. the same can be seen in the midnight mass example. both scenes are on the darker side to begin with, but the shot of pruitt praying is silhouetted and makes for very stark contrast, allowing the shot of the angel's blood to be seen most easily in the darkest parts.

now, a lot of this does and can come down to trial and error and i want to make a point of saying that before i get into the actual process. there have been numerous times when i'm working on gifs like these where i have to try out multiple different shots and scenes until i find something that works. sometimes, i just save what i've done so far as a psd and go work on something else for a while, and then i can come back and look at everything with fresh eyes at a later time -- never underestimate the power of doing this, btw. some of my most popular and most favorite sets have happened as a direct result of taking a break!

now it's finally time for what you came here for! how do you do this? i'll walk you through this step by step and for now, i'm just going to be walking through 2 gifs blended into one. i've done 3 and even 4 blended into one, but they are outliers adn should not be counted. blenders georg, who created photoshop and blends over 10,000 gifs a day -- [gunshots]

step 1: make your base gifs. i'm assuming basic gifmaking knowledge, but if you need some help there, here's a tag on my resource blog with all beginner gifmaking tutorials (and i'm willing to make one of my own, personal process if anyone shows interest).

i'm mostly talking converting them to timeline and into a smart object. each person's process varies a little, but i personally use an action i made that converts from frames to timeline and applies the sharpening settings i use all in one. it's entirely up to you if you want to color your gifs before or after you have them on one canvas. in this case, i colored mine after, so this is what i have right now. two separate sharpened but un-colored gifs.

as an added note, when i'm blending gifs, i almost always keep them at their original dimensions until i bring them to the new canvas. i find it easier to position them where i want them and then crop to my desired dimensions. that way i don't have to worry that i accidentally cut something off. but for the purposes of this tutorial, i'm using my psd from this gif, which has been cropped to 540px x 500px.

step 2: bring both gifs onto a new canvas. as i just stated, the dimensions of this particular gif are 540px x 500px. if you're unfamiliar with tumblr's dimensions, i whipped this up. what matters is the width, whereas the height can be whatever you want. i saw something recently (though i can't find it now, of course) that said the middle gif in the row of 3 was no longer 178px and is now also 177px, but take that with a grain of salt! the gutters (the automatic spaces between gifs that tumblr puts in) are 4px.

so, since this is a single gif in a row, the width must be 540. bear in mind that the larger your dimensions, the larger the gif file will be and tumblr's upload limit is 10mb per gif. with blended gifs typically being on the larger end, i try to keep mine somewhere between 35-50 frames. this particular one is 35, which along with 40 frames is what i most commonly use.

create a new canvas with your desired dimensions and either copy your gifs to it or drag them onto it. you should have something like this now:

for now, ignore the other layers. as i said, using my psd of the completed gif.

step 3: add a black fill layer. this step is personal preference and therefore completely optional, but when blending, i always add an all black layer at the very bottom of all my layers. i find it helps when using layer masks (more on that soon) to make the blends appear more seamless. play around and see if you like it or not!

to create this layer, i use the keyboard shortcut (i'm on pc) ctrl+shift+N and then press G to call up the paint fill tool. once you have the color selected, just click anywhere on the canvas and it fills it. then drag this layer to the very bottom, beneath all other layers.

alternatively, you can go to layer -> new fill layer -> solid color -> choose your color but i heart keyboard shortcuts.

step 4: set the blending mode of each gif layer to SCREEN. right now, we can only see the layer that's on top. when you switch the blending modes from normal to screen, the blending begins! this is also where you can move your gifs around until you find the best placement for each one.

brb, crying about baby luke for the 800th time.

step 5: color! if i haven't already colored my gifs, i would likely do it now. that way, when i go to apply the layer masks, i'll know i'm working with a mostly-finished product coloring-wise. this is what i have now:

you can see just how important the contrast of lights and darks becomes. look at the difference between how visible the right side of young luke's face/hat is before coloring compared to after. when we lighten the highlights and darken the shadows, the blending becomes much more apparent.

step 6: layer masks! before i even tell you how to use them, we need to know how to apply them. you'll do this a layer/gif at a time. with one gif selected, press this button:

and you'll now have this:

that selected white box is our layer mask. now do the same to the other gif layer. you should see this:

now that we've applied our layer masks, what are they for and how do we utilize them? layer masks allow you to, at their most basic, adjust specific parts of a single layer without permanently deleting them. the beauty of layer masks is that you can get rid of a certain area on a gif and if you realize later you want to bring some of it back, you can! all by using the colors black and white and, in this case, a soft round brush.

the most important part of working with layer masks is that you make sure the mask itself is what's selected. in the last image, the layer masks are NOT selected. in the one before, the layer mask IS selected. you can always tell because of the little borders around the corners of the mask. if you find something isn't working quite right, chances are that's your issue (speaking from personal experience).

as i said, we're only working with black and white here. using your brush tool (press B on your keyboard), select a soft, round brush. i personally set the hardness to 0 for the most gentle fade possible. i don't want hard edges in my blends. the size of the brush depends on how large of an area you're working with. sometimes i'll go all the way up to 150px+ and other times, i'll be well below 50px. the smaller the better for more detailed work. black (#000000) erases and white (#ffffff) brings your image back.

for a visual example, with a black brush, i'm going to mask an area of adult luke:

pretty obvious, right? because both layers are set to screen, masking an area of adult luke's gif reveals young luke's gif. because that area of the gif is no longer blending with anything, we see it purely with its coloring. now i'm going to take a smaller brush and switch the color to white (to do this quickly, pressing X on your keyboard will switch between the two colors [foreground and background] on your color picker).

you can see the lines/cuts where i ran the brush through the mask and it brought back the parts of adult luke we'd erased. if we did this same thing on young luke's gif, black would erase young luke and reveal adult luke and white would bring back young luke. i know this might sound a little confusing, and even though i knew a fair bit about layer masks before i started giffing again last year, there was still a learning curve for me.

now that we have our layer masks, we need to identify which parts of which gif we want to mask/erase. for this one in particular, i didn't like that adult luke's ear was smack dab in the middle of young luke's face. to remedy this, i selected the layer mask on adult luke's layer and, using a fairly sizeable black brush, i colored over young luke's face and up into the top-right corner. i wanted to see more of his hat and because that area was so light, i covered that whole part. this is what my gif and layer mask looked like after:

the black on the little layer mask corresponds to where i colored on the gif. now that corner only shows young luke's gif and his face is much clearer without an ear in the middle of it.

step 7: that's it! maybe.

in theory, this could be a completed gif. from here on out, nothing changes as far as blending or layer masks. you could save and export this and upload it and be done. but in this case, i just didn't like the coloring. because mike flanagan wants to see me suffer, his shit is almost impossible to color and i just didn't like the difference in coloring between present day adult luke and 90s young luke. this is also part of a larger gifset with a color scheme.

regardless of that though, i have to confess that i do this almost every. single. time. i make gifs like these. i slap a big fat gradient map on those puppies and somehow they look 10x better to me. i scrolled back through a shit load of my gifs and i only found 2 examples of blended gifs that weren't under a gradient map. oops. maybe this is the easy way out or maybe i just love colors, but idk i think it helps them look more cohesive! if you're interested, read on. if not, that's pretty much it!

if you still have questions or encounter any problems after following this tutorial, PLEASE let me know! i'm more than happy to clarify things or help out if i can! otherwise, check out some of the other blending tutorials i linked at the beginning! if you'd like me to make tutorials for anything else, feel free to send an ask, anon or not! i'm quite literally always happy to help as i don't believe in gatekeeping resources or knowledge!

step 8: i ended up applying two gradient maps on this gif. it's important that these go on top of all your other layers (namely, the gif layers). if you're unfamiliar, you click this to apply a gradient map:

then you'll see this:

photoshop automatically applies a gradient map using your current foreground and background colors. to edit the colors, click on the map itself (my arrow). unless you're going for an inverted x-ray sort of look, your darker color needs to be on the left and the lighter one needs to be on the right. click on the bottom color points to change their colors:

normally, the right one will be all the way to the end, but moving it in will let more white show through and brighten the image, which i wanted in this case.

my second gradient is the green one, which looks like this and goes from #211f20 to #88a188.

i encourage you to play around with gradient maps. as you adjust the colors, you'll see the changes live as long as you pull the window to the side a little bit. i think they're super fun and can completely change the vibe and aesthetic of a gifset.

from here, i added my typography (lyrics, naturally) and then exported and saved the gif! and here we have this gif that literally made me cry while i made it because HE WAS SUCH A BABY

again, i hope this helps and if you have any further or other questions, don't hesitate to ask!

[thegoldenavenger]

About... 7k of reverse tropes "nursing home" au inspired by the bingliu server as always. Minor warnings for themes of mortality, elder abuse, controlling behavior, cults (???), and uh less than canon typical violence. Mostly it's funny I hope. Not betad and an outline fic.

LBH volunteers at the nursing home in homage to his adoptive mother who was a nurse there. He's seen as a sweet boy, dedicated and hard working. He is 100% the "statistic that caregivers exert undue influence unto their charge in order to be included as a beneficiary in their will is an error. Luo Binghe who gets included in over three digits of wills and inheritance clauses is an outlier adn should not have been counted."

Mostly bc the folks he volunteers for genuinely like him, but also bc after his mom died, only being in some random grandmother's will helped him survive and start going to college so now he games the system by being sweet and maybe a little manipulative.

Shen Qingqiu is an older gentleman who has been in and out of hospitals and is now recovering in the assisted living center (or something idk). Shen Qingqiu is rich and aloof looking, can be extremely acerbic so a lot of the nurses avoid him when they can. His family, if he has any, do not visit.

Luo Binghe has time and holes in his schedule so he starts feeling out how receptive sqq is. His other target is the old palace master, who is also very rich and old, but less acerbic. Lbh has already started on OPM and he's very friendly but he also has like a billion grandkids who lbh low key has to compete with. OPM seems to favor lbh anyway, but lbh doesn't see any harm in befriending someone a little lonelier just in case.

LQG only meets sqq by mistake. Maybe he's looking for somewhere to house one of his relatives, or maybe he's tagging along to visit a friend's relative. Maybe he has to do volunteer hours for a course he's taking. Whatever it is, he and sqq come into contact. Sqq finds out lqg is [doing something badly that sqq has experience in. Like, idk getting a relatively low grade in literature] sqq immediately picks on this bc he is a terrible gremlin who likes being mean. Lqg, not really beholden to etiquette or respect for old people, fires back.

They get in a very, retroactively, embarrassing verbal spar. Sqq is very haughty and clever, teases out what parts lqg is struggling most with, gives backhanded advice, and mostly enjoys winding lqg up.

Lqg, for his part, is never really challenged in this specific way ever. A) He respects the older people actually in his life bc they deserve it (hmm do they haha) so he just like. Nods when they scold him. B) He usually excels at what he does so he doesn't get chastised often. C) when he doesn't excel he's eager for pointers which are given to him bc he is a martial prodigy everyone wants to nurture except for D) when he's underperforming in the soft arts. He isn't stupid, but no one expects him to be good at poetry or reading, so when he struggles with dyslexia or too literal thinking no one really bothers to help him. So this is like amazing for him.

LBH walks in on the tail-end of the fight, is APALLED, and physically escorts lqg off the premises. Literally picks him up and yeets him out the door. (It's a double KO for lqg who wanders off dazedly) LBH has been trying to get sqq to open up for like weeks now, and he didn't know sqq cared so much for that particular topic, which LBH knows a lot about. So LBH tries to engage with sqq that way. Sqq is perhaps a little more receptive but still taciturn and kind of mean about it.

LBH's endless well of patience finally runs dry, he calls sqq a mean old man, and sqq finally laughs at him. Lbh storms off, upset he got upset and ruined his image and chances of getting into sqq's inheritance probably. The staff and other residents are furious at sqq bc NOONE has ever made lbh upset before, how dare he singe their precious cinnamon roll of a white lotus binghe.

Turns out, the meaner lbh gets, the more crotchety old sqq actaully likes him.  He sees right through lbh's sheep act, is pretty wary that lbh is cozy-ing up to him bc he's about to die and his money and estate might as well go somewhere, and also hates that lbh just lies down and lets anyone walk all over him to seem mild and tender. He's a human person, not a chicken nugget, sqq thinks he should grow a spine and take what he wants and also stop hanging out with literal Cult Leader OPM.

Lqg mulls over sqq's advice, such as it is, applies it, and does a little better then expected. Everyone is shocked and congratulates him (as if the miniscule amount he's improved deserves that) and then tells him to relax and not over exert himself in areas he's not suited towards / doesn't need in life. He is increasingly upset with the people he has around him and goes back to the assisted living center, figures out that they really dont let just anyone walk in and starts a commotion at the front desk.

He can't even say he's there to visit sqq bc he doesn't know his name and saying he wants to visit "the shameless, underhanded, mean old man in green" was probably not the best way to get a visitor's badge...

Lbh is helping sqq take a walk around the center for exercise, sqq bitching the whole time, so they come across lqg making a fuss. Lbh squares up to Remove The Problem, but sqq elbows him out of the way and power walks over to lqg like he wasn't just complaining of a bum hip three seconds ago. He stops half way and switches smoothly into Refined Older Gentleman Strolling mode, with his hands primly behind his back.

LBH is so mad, and also curious so he just watches.

When LQG finally clocks that sqq is approaching he points a very rude finger at him and says "that guy! I'm visiting him!" To the receptionist.

Everyone shuts up, even sqq pauses. He wanted to get in a fight again (lbh has loosened up a tad and will verbally spar with him but he doesn't lose his temper and the sparring is more complicated and maybe a bit more bitter than the uncomplicated win sqq is assured he'd get over lqg) (yes. This man is mad he can't bully lbh more effectively, he's an awful dude ajakskdkdldl) but he wasn't expecting lqg to come back for him. He thought lqg might be here for whatever reason he was here last time.

The receptionist glances at sqq, like... "him? Really?" And sqq sniffs and imperiously waves his hand. "It took you long enough" he says "hurry up and check him in" he orders the receptionist who thinks very hard about calling security before deciding sqq deserves whatever mess he's getting into and hands lqg a visitor badge.

Lbh awkwardly follows them, unwilling to leave them alone when he JUST got sqq to regularly (yell) talk to him. For some reason, sqq's verbal acidity and berating is... well, lbh likes it more than OPM's friendly smiles and incessant little gifts. Like hell he's gonna let some random guy piggy back off his hard work.

Lqg doesn't waste time. He slams his [idk. Test. Essay? Reading report????] Down in front if sqq and crosses his arms.

Sqq stares at it and then at lqg. Lbh sneaks a glance too and makes a face. Sqq says "It was clear at first glance that you were an idiot but I did not know it ran this deep." He reluctantly picks up the paper and flips through, with a face like he's watching a train wreck.

Lqg growls, tense. He hasn't sat down and his hands are white knuckled against the table between them. He leans over sqq almost threatengly, steely gaze watching sqq's every minute change. "Is it hopeless, then?" 

Sqq's expression twitches as he keeps going through, line by line. He recognizes a lot of the mistakes LQG has made, diagnosis him with dyslexia almost immediately, frowns bc he can see the underlying structure lqg is going for but can't execute.

Lbh comes around sqq's side and reads over his shoulder. He's sure sqq is going to throw the papers back in lqg's face, which will serve him right. The paper header catches his attention. Maybe it's the teacher's name, or even lqg's name that he recognizes, but he puts two and two together, realizes lqg would be a Very Beneficial Friend to make, and decides when SQQ throws him out lbh will pick up the pieces. LQG is sure to have richer more influential friends that lbh can use... this will be perfect. He can't stay loitering around this place forever, at some point he has to grow up and be successful and honor his mother's efforts to raise him up...

"It's terrible." Sqq finally says, his voice heavy.

Lqg, who has been told to give up trying by everyone around him and has stubbornly insisted on trying to push through, actually slumps down in his seat. If this random old man thinks it's not worth it, if even he, who doesn't know lqg at all, thinks he's too stupid to improve, maybe he really should stop trying.

LBH cannot help his smug smile. Trust in sqq to tear down anyone's walls, now lbh can just follow after lqg, discarded papers in hand, and offer to go over them with him. It's bad but not hopeless, and anyways, lbh is a great ghostwriter. Lqg looks like a dumb athlete, so even if lbh can't improve his brain he can still improve his grades—

"Whoever tutors you needs to be fired," sqq interrupts lbh's fantasy, and takes a red pen out of his pocket. (He carries it around to correct typos in the books people leave lying around. He also writes scathing reviews on newspapers, magazines, charts that nurses accidentally leave unattended. He's a terror. It is policy to confiscated pens from him.) He starts marking the paper up, saturating it in red.

He actually pinches lqg's ear to pull him closer, pointing at a section to ask for clarification. Lqg halting gives it, sqq expands on it, lqg looks confused and extremely out of his depth.

"Make yourself useful and get my notebook!" Sqq orders lbh, waving his hand in lbh's face.

Lbh grimaces but runs to sqq's bedroom and gets the notebook (he hasn't completely fallen out of his white lotus persona just yet). When he hands it to sqq, sqq pulls lqg in for the Lecture of All Time. Lqg goes from looking wary and confused to determined, all furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips.

Lbh stands around and then wanders off to make snacks, determined to insert himself into this (he wants to be useful so badly! He wants someone to expend that much effort on him!! Isn't sqq supposed to be mean? And yeah, he's yelling at lqg and hitting him with his pen or his notebook to make sure he's paying attention, but sqq is supposed to be making him cry! Not helping him!!!) when he comes back he sets a plate of light finger foods down by sqq's elbow.

Sqq's hand automatically reaches for one and eats it. He pauses his whole lecture to chew. Lbh is unaccountably nervous for sqq's reaction. Sqq's reaction is rather a non reaction. He doesn't comment on lbh's food. But he eats more of it when he continues lecturing lqg and when lqg fails to come up with an answer he points his pen at lbh instead.

Lbh immediately replies, answering perfectly (of course) and sqq nods decisively, awarding him a point. Lbh grins, and lqg hisses "show off" decidedly not under his breath. Lbh responds in kind and the two start in on each other, lqg itching to do something he's confident in and lbh riding high on the one (two!! In sqq's book not taking the moment to spit vitriol is practically praise!) Bit of affirmation sqq had bestowed

Sqq gets tired of them yammering and kicks them both out, telling lqg to stop by again if he's up for getting his brain wrung out like sponge.

Lbh has never been kicked out before so he doesn't really know what to do and ends up wandering after lqg. So what, his plan to comfort lqg kind of... never got off the water, and also the guy keeps shooting wary glances at him, lbh will just annoy him into letting him around lqg's friends and connections. Also, seeing lqg riled up is really making lbh's chest glow. There's no reason to split ways now.

Lqg finds suggestions written in bold all throughout his papers. "Request materials reprinted / displayed in different font" "get a line reader" one note is just a web address. His watch buzzes, and it's time to go to the gym.

Lbh is STILL following him, so lqg tells him to buzz off. Lbh, who isn't blind and can see the gym bag lqg is holding says he is also going to the gym. Lqg points out lbh's lack of gym bag and gym clothes. Lbh says it's lqg's fault for getting him kicked out of his volunteer job early.

Lgq maybe feels a little bad about that so he lets lbh tag along after him. He has to make a stop at his apartment instead of going straight to the gym like he wanted to, in order to throw some spare clothes at lbh, and then they both go to the gym where lqg gets to vent [gestures to all of it]. He's actually feeling pretty damn good! He's got things kind of worked out! Sqq is mean, but he's forcing things into lqg's head that no one has bothered to do before. Lqg isn't like... going to pursue the arts or anything, his family has his future lined up for him already and he isn't particularly interested in the arts. It's just that he wants to prove, if only to himself, that he isn't Just a dumb strong guy.

Meanwhile, lbh's jaw is on the ground. How high can lqg kick? How flexible is he????? How much can he dead lift????????? That's more than lbh weighs!

Lbh is strong but not especially trained. So like, yeah he can throw lqg over his shoulder when the guy is distracted but he's suddenly hyper aware that he might not be able to if lqg was actually fighting him.

He asks for a spar and he learns Very Quickly that, yes, that was indeed an exception... lbh holds his own surprisingly well for someone who isn't trained, lqg is very reluctantly impressed. Lbh ends up flat on his back gripping a Sports Drink(tm) for dear life reconsidering all his plans

So this is how it goes: lqg visits sqq three times a week for the most violent cram school imaginable. Lbh volunteers daily still, spends less time with OPM and more time nagging sqq and following after lqg's gym visits. Sqq is surprisingly content beating knowledge into such a meat head kid, and smug that lbh is dropping more and more of his goody two-shoe act in favor of getting into fights with lqg and debates with sqq.

Lbh enjoys figuring out what snack foods both sqq and lqg will eat; They are both surprisingly picky over food. Sqq likes things that are clean, light, delicate. Lqg eats things that are protein heavy,  clean, and healthy. It's more of a challenge than lbh thought it would be, and a little frustrating when he finds something that one of them likes but the other won't eat.

(Lbh spends an inordinate amount of time on some tanghulu and tea cakes to go along with a high quality tea... sqq practically inhales his portion, praising lbh's tea with more genuine words than he usually does. Lqg makes a face and tells lbh he doesn't eat that much sugar, but they look very nice. The face he makes is sort of resigned)

Lqg keeps improving in his classes. Enough so that one classmates (Mu Qingfang) asks him if he wants to go on a field research trip with him. It's mostly a camping trip, Mqf would deal with all the fiddly bits, but it seems like something lqg would like, mqf says offhandedly.

Lqg mulls it over, brings it up to sqq and lbh the next time he sees them. Sqq is interested in mqf's topic of research and sort of encourages him to go just so sqq can also get in on it. (Lbh watches like 80 year old sqq try and teach lqg how to use the video call function on lqg's drastically unsexy phone)

Lqg goes on the trip.

Sqq and lbh both adjust fairly badly to not seeing lqg like they're used to.  Sqq is surprisingly lonely and takes it out lbh.  Lbh relishes sqq interacting with him more but misses lqg anyways. Without lqg's tutoring lbh goes back to his regular volunteering routine, which means he's back to spoon-feeding OPM

Opm has Not been Happy about lbh spending less time with him. Opm is like, a literal Cult Leader and has been trying to snare lbh for himself this whole time. At first, sqq's abrasiveness seemed perfect, like he'd drive lbh deeper into opm's clutches, but somehow that did not work out. With the addition of lqg helping bridge that gap, lbh seems to be getting further away

Opm pulls some strings, has his dear grand daughter (LPM) start flirting with lbh, and GYX try and take up sqq's time. He also makes a few calls bc he recognizes lqg's family name at least.

It all comes to a head very suddenly.

LQG's family find out he's spending a lot of time is SQQ's care, ducking out on his other responsibilities (he has just rescheduled his time... lqg would never disrespect his family by ditching his other classes and what have yous, but it's all the same to them) that he went on mqf's  camping trip without consulting them, potentially putting himself at risk for injury or sickness or whatever. They're pissed.

Lqg tries arguing that he's literally just getting tutored for his grades and he should be supported for that. He's trying to balance his mind and body, and they should respect that. Instead he gets told that he's undermining their plans for him, being disobedient and willful when he should be grateful he has the chance and privilege to be training for his martial dreams (blah blah blah)

He's thoroughly dressed down and forbidden from visiting the home

Lqg gets increasingly angry and has no idea why he's being punished, because he hasn't dropped any skill he has, and is only trying to improve himself. Honestly, it's starting to feel more and more like committing to the nebulous martial arts / professional athlete career his family is grooming him for is increasingly like stepping into a gilded cage. He enjoys honing his body and competing and it is absolutely killing him that he's getting so torn up about it now.

Literally his only respite is hiding in his baby sister's room and reading stories to her. She loves when he reads to her and she thinks her brother is the smartest person in the whole world.

Unfortunately for sqq and lbh, lqg seems like he drops off the face of the planet. He just stops making video calls with sqq (phone is confiscated) he doesn't show up to his next scheduled cram session (grounded) he just disappears. Sqq idly thinks that he broke him and ran him off.

Lbh is a little suspicious. The man he spars with wouldn't run from anything! He'd definitely tell them to their face when he was done. Probably. Unless lbh scared him off some how? Maybe lqg got tired of lbh stalking him (dropping in on him at the gym, figuring out where his classes were so he can stop by and walk to the assisted living place together, etc) all the time? Maybe... lqg found out lbh was trying to use him to social climb? (Lbh mostly stopped planning to do that the moment lqg laid him flat at the gym but!!! Maybe lqg picked up on something anyway)

Meanwhile, lbh keeps having to fend off LPM, sqq is getting a little annoyed with GYX, and lqg is not sure how he's grounded when he is a whole ass adult... sure he doesn't actually have a job bc he has literally never needed one in his life, but he shouldn't Have to sit quietly and listen to a lecture that boils down to "You're whole life is planned out for you, don't even worry your pretty little head about it."

The OPM is getting anxious bc even without lqg, sqq and lbh seem to be commiserating together. He's in the middle of another Grande Plan to separate the two when they get in a shouting match in the middle of the rec room.  It blew up so quickly no one really got an earful except gyx who was nearby and respectful declines to share, but LBH storms out determined and angry.

OPM is very pleased bc surely that young man will be running to opm now, for comfort and guidance! And opm can guide him straight into his cult's clutches!

Lbh does Not run into OPM's open arms.

He cools off and the next day is back to following behind sqq like a lamb, reflexively making enough finger sandwiches for three and then making sad eyes until sqq eats one more. So OPM plays his cards.

A dapper young man in a suit and a young woman dressed just as nicely show up one day and just, check sqq out of the home.

LBH shows up as the young man is pressing sqq into a wheel chair to cart him off. The woman is holding sqq's coat and is smiling at him, obviously happy to see sqq. Sqq is very Not Happy.

He keeps trying to get out of the chair, keeps telling them to go away and leave him alone, etc etc.

Lbh interrupts them inserting himself in between them and sqq in the chair, creating space. He demands to know who they are and what they're doing, but approaches it cautiously and from the angle that he is oh so concerned with sqq. 

They introduce themselves and Qiu Haitang and Qiu Jianluo (obviously ahsjdk) who are sqq's only living relatives and they've been looking for their grand uncle for months now after he disappeared from his estate. They are oh so glad he's been well taken care of but it's time for him to come home and have the best care money can buy!

Sqq shakes his fist and accuses them of just wanting his inheritance. QHT is offended by the idea, obviously just misses sqq and worried about him, but lbh sees QJL's calculating gaze before qjl waves off sqq's accusation and says sqq must be going stir crazy cooped up in this little home

Lbh can't really do anything to stop sqq from leaving, but he gives his business card to qjl and has to just stand there and watch sqq get dragged away.

OPM edges up to lbh like "look! I am old and in need of attention!" And lbh reluctantly and kind of mechanically goes through his volunteer checklist now that sqq is gone.  Opm takes his chances and tries edging closer to lbh, taking advantage of his obvious poor state.

Meanwhile lqg is starting to chafe under his new restrictions.  He usually likes his routine but it turns out not having any choices really saps the enjoyment out of everything. He takes to bothering his little sister more and more often, growing much closer to her as he isolates himself from the rest of his family. He is just so tired of everyone telling him how great at this one thing in his life he is. Like there's no other choices for him.

It's not like he wants to abandon the life plan his family has laid out for him; he doesn't want to be a scholar, or a scientist, or a poet. He just doesn't like the one dimension everyone has cast on him. He is so, so close to believing he's only good for the one thing and nothing else matters and he really doesn't want to fall into that mindset.

He misses how hard sqq pushed him, and how teasing lbh is. They're both good for him, he thinks. He's known no one else like them in his entire life. Elders are meant to be respected and listened to, and peers, if he had any, were for him to defeat.. he was never encouraged to talk back or think quickly enough to parry one of sqq's spearing little snipes, and has never been allowed to take pride in something as simple as a clever turn of phrase. And no one can keep up with him, so having LBH repeatedly dog his footsteps, improving leaps and bounds just to match him is exhilarating and he misses it.

He thinks about skipping out on leg day to make a visit.

OPM is definitely taking advantage of lbh's sudden unstable headspace. Unfortunately for lbh, he never really processed the grief of his mother passing. He kind of has been low key retraumatising himself by getting old people to love him enough to include him in their wills and then Die on him, but it's totally fine because he has SUCH a tight hold on his emotions that these deaths don't really affect him. Really! There's nothing triggering about being repeatedly left behind. :)

And now he's formed genuine bonds with lqg and sqq against all expectations and they've both left him! And he can't do anything about sqq bc sqq isn't his family or legally bound to him in anyway that he could stake a claim against blood ties, even if he suspects qjl at least of ill intent. And lqg just abandoned both lbh and sqq, so. So.

Opm kind of takes the opportunity to feed into these paranoias and pent up emotions, definitely trying to get lbh to associate opm with some kind of stability. Lbh even goes with opm on a home visit to [Huan Hua Palace analogue] where he's very briefly tempted to join an actual Cult so his problems go away

Luckily someone says something—maybe omp says something a little too reveling, or lpm let's something go that she's not supposed to, or gyx (who genuinely grew to like sqq for some inexplicable reason) gives lbh a stealth hint—and lbh realises that maybe he can't do anything about sqq (yet) but he can definitely track down and wring answers from lqg.

Lbh runs to the gym lqg frequents. Lqg is not there, so lbh tracks him down. (Boy has Stalker in his blood unfortunately)

He finally runs into lqg at a different fancy training gym lbh has to sneak inside of.  He confronts lqg, who seems surprised but not upset to see him. Mostly confused bc lbh is so upset. (His family didn't know? About lbh? So he's not grounded from lbh or even sqq specifically, just the assisted living place.)

Lbh comes off hot, demanding a lot of answers from lqg, who honestly tries to give them, but lbh really isn't in a great headspace and lqg isn't either so it turns into a graceless fight pretty quickly. Lbh is not dressed for a spar, but they tumble across the mats anyways. Lqg doesn't hold back and neither does lbh, who has been learning startlingly fast from lqg so they both end up in terrible condition.

Lqg is finding it kind of cathartic, bc lbh isn't caring about pulling punches or making sure lqg is in top form, and he sure as hell isnt above baiting him with words either.

Lbh is just finding it very nice to actually let lose and not act like a starry eyed little lamb to keep everyone on his good side. Obviously, lqg doesn't like him as much as he thought or he wouldn't have left so it's fine to let everything go

They kind of beat each other into the ground and they're both lying down staring at the ceiling, catching their breath, when lqg finally manages to explain his phone got confiscated and he hasn't been allowed to visit and he bombed that test he was supposed to take, but he did grab a copy of mqf's essay for sqq

And then lbh just bursts into tears

Lqg is frozen, completely unsure of what he said that caused that reaction.

Haltingly, lbh explains that after lqg stopped showing up, sqq's grand niece and nephew took him away probably to get their grubby little hands on his estate or whatever (as if they even care about his extensive historical scroll collections!) and that he's pretty sure he's halfway to joining a Cult even and everything sucks now!!!

Lqg sits up and like. Pats. Awkwardly at lbh's shoulder.

Apparently, since lbh visited Huan Hua Palace he recognized some faces that have been low key following him around and bumping into him all coincidental like. Like. The cult-recrution is very serious and lbh is kind of just realizing it now and freaking out more.

Lqg grabs a first aid kit, tenderly helps clean lbh up, drags him to a store to buy some decent clothes that aren't covered in sweat and blood, and then beings him home.

Can't let him go back to an apartment that's being stalked probably.

He introduces lbh to his family as a novice with potential, and lbh's manners are impeccable so they take a liking to him pretty quickly, even if they are a bit stoic about it. Lqg makes up some acceptable excuse to have lbh have dinner and stay over so they can talk more seriously about everything going on. (Lbh noticed that lqg's dinner is different than the rest of the family's)

Liu mingyan is also there, and adorable, and she likes lbh because he makes her brother frown less.

Anyways, lqg leads lbh to a guest room and then sneaks in from like a side window idk, and starts dissecting lbh's rambling again, this time with focus. He comes to the conclusion that there's two major problems here. One, opm's weird obsession with lbh and that Cult. Lbh can just stop volunteering at the center, but since people already know where he lives and have been low key stalking him that is not the only step they'd have to take.

Second, sqq's nefarious relatives trying to take advantage of him probably. They'd have to ascertain that they really are taking advantage and it's not just sqq protesting too much.

Out of the two, lqg decides the whole. Cult thing. Is more important right now. Sqq's relatives probably aren't planning on, like. Killing him early.

(He spares a moment to lament how weird his life has gotten)

Anyways defeating opm just amounts to getting evidence of tax fraud from the cult, which lqg recruits his acquaintance from school for (that's sqh. Sqh is having his own whole side adventure involving mbj, lgj, madam meiyin, wqw dealing with inheritance rights and accounting. He is not having fun.) which at least results in mbj princess carrying sqh away from lqg and lbh when sqh throws them all the paperwork for proof of money mishandling.

Opm goes to jail, the Cult is dismantled, lbh and lqg aren't even involved so risk of retaliation is very low.

During this lbh gets to come to terms a little more with his unresolved grief and the mortality of those he loves. He has several conversations with lqg about it, in oblique and acute ways. Lqg is straightforward, and hasn't encountered death as much as lbh, so his opinion is mostly that things happen when they happen. You can't avoid it, you just have to avoid having regrets. Which in turn makes him seriously reconsider just going along with his family's plans for him.  Yeah he was fine with it, but he'd been incredibly lonely and unfulfilled. He thought all he needed was improving himself, but with how close he is now with lbh, he realises  that he was seriously close to never having a friend other than his little sister.

He decides to take his own advice and not let others dictate his life.

This causes a fight with his family, of course, a huge blow out. Lqg insists that he's capable of doing the things he wants to do and handle his own schedule. His family cuts him off as like, a lesson in self sufficiency. If he doesn't appreciate them and their guidance then he can go it alone. They obviously think he'll come crawling back when he realises he has to work or something.

He can't afford his apartment (his family owns it but they tell him to fork up rent or figure it out)

Lbh graciously offers his apartment.

There's a mini arc where lqg adjusts to peasanthood. Lbh helps him get a job, lqg struggles to balance that AND training AND school, but he's always been a hard worker so he figures it out. Lbh insists on doing all the cooking when lqg reveals he knows how to make like three meals, and they don't even taste good. (They're calorie efficient and high protein)

Lbh goes back to volunteering bc that's... kind of a huge chunk of his time. It's his hobby. But he spends a lot more time with lqg which helps him regulate his emotions and stuff surrounding. You know. Dying.

Anyways, it's thanks to this that they get a lead on sqq! An older gentleman tries checking in at the visitor center and lbh would ignore him but he overhears sqq's name and comes wandering over.

"I just wanted to visit shen qingqiu. If possible."

"Oh, he's been checked out by his family for a few weeks now."

The man turns away, dejected, and lbh pounces on him, offering to escort him out of the building. Lbh asks him how the man knows sqq, why he wanted to visit, etc etc.

The man's name is Yue qingyuan. He was a childhood friend of sqq's. They were separated and he's been trying to get back in contact. He doesn't want any regrets. Lbh has a very nice and long conversation with the man, and they exchange numbers.

Lbh is excited to tell lqg the news and they both end up calling yqy to set up a coffee date later on.

They tell yqy about the qius and he corroborates their ill feelings and that sqq was never really close with the qiu branch of the family. Yqy knows where sqq's estate is and the qiu's family home, so he and lqg and lbh decide to make a visit.

Sqq, predictably, is pissed at yqy. (Do we get sqq and yqy's backstory here? No. Sqq herds yqq to a private room to yell and cry at him. That's for them. Idk if it's very obvious but sqq here is a mix of shen yuan and shen jiu so hes terrible but like in different ways)

Lqg and lbh awkwardly kind of stand around while that reunion is happening when they over hear qjl's conversation over phone with someone. They decide, you know, fuck it, might as well eaves drop. QJL definitely says something super suspicious and incriminating.

They go back to interrupt sqq and yqy when it becomes clear qjl is headed in sqq's direction. They give sqq the heads up, sqq admonishes them both but is CLEARLY touched  that they both were concerned about him and came after him. 

Qjl's plan is to get sqq ruled unfit and appoint qjl or qht as the trustee or whatever which means the qius will basically have all the access to sqq's money and estate before he even dies.

Sqq tries to outmaneuver him by preemptively disowning the qius from his heritance, but things do get tied up legally speaking. QJL and QHT say that sqq is unfit and old and obviously being taken advantage of by one of his caregivers from when he was recovering from a hospital visit. (They still have lbh's card and try to slander him Liberally)

Lbh does have to face and acknowledge his manipulative ways, at least in private to lqg and sqq and yqy. Sqq laughs, saying he KNEW lbh wasn't the sheep he pretended to be. That's fine, sqq likes wolves better anyways.

Lqg, after all their conversations about lbh coming to terms with his grief and trauma kind of assumes it's a little more nuanced than trying to just dig gold out of old people. Like, it was more of a coping mechanism where lbh was receiving tangible rewards for being in someone's life, assuring that even if he kept being left behind he was being rewarded as well?

Yqy decides that at the very least lbh cares genuinely for sqq so the rest doesn't matter, but his track record is maybe not the best to be involved with advocating for sqq Not Being manipulated and also probably shouldn't be in the lime light anyhow as he might get in trouble if any of his uh inheritances are questioned

Lqg on the other hand, is like. Best boy. Tutored by sqq, obviously hanging a genuine mentor/student relationship that can be backed with his grades improving (if sqq can still tutor someone he probably still mentally competant) with a wealthy family of his own, there's very little reason for anyone to suspect lqg of manipulating anyone in any capacity. (Him being cut off isn't like, a formal thing at all. And it's doubtful his family would make a fuss about it if it would harm their reputation as well, but it never comes up)

So LQG goes head to head with QJL about sqq's capacity for self governance. qjl is charming and clever, but lqg is earnest and captivating. Lqg definitely puts to use some of the rhetoric sqq tried beating into his head and is fairly pleased when he comes off as articulate and well spoken instead of awkward.

lqg and lbh eventually convince qht that qjl is not seeing sqq's best interests and she takes their side and qjl's quest to get his hands on sqq's money is squashed.

Sqq decides he wants to travel, hires lbh as an attendant, mostly so he has someone else to yell at besides yqy who insists on following sqq around like a duckling. Sqq hates ducklings more than lambs.  (The trip is for yqy to make various contact with his connections and businesses now that he's found sqq.)

It's lqg's family that begs lqg to stop being so self sufficient and independent. They say they'll give him a bigger allowance, a bigger apartment. He can have cheat days for his diet as long as it's within certain limits! Lmy misses him!

Lqg figures he's made his point and sort of goes back to the family. He still keeps living in lbh's apartment bc someone needs to feed lbh's stupid birds and pay the rent and what not, but he mostly eases back into his previous routine.

Lbh and sqq give him shit about it, like he's backsliding, but what is he supposed to do? There's only so much time he can spend listening to sqq lecture with the time difference, and with lbh gone there's not really anything to do but train like normal.

It's only when lmy comes crying to him bc she's feeling so pressured that lqg realises that probably things aren't ever going to change. His family won't stop pressuring him or trying to control his life and it won't stop with him. He doesn't want lmy to grow up feeling like she can only be good at what their family wants from her.

So he tells his family in no uncertain terms that he is going on a vacation. And he's taking lmy. When he comes back, he won't stand for them pigeon holing mingyan like they did him, and if they want him to keep being such a successful Liu child, and not disown them all outright, then they better get comfortable with lmy chosing her own path.

He ends up calling yqy, who arranges for lqg and lmy to join them in a layover surprising lbh and sqq.

(Sqh and mbj are babysitting lbh's birds and apartment)

Lmy delights sqq, who starts early in teaching her the joys of literature and teasing her big brother.

Lbh is also ecstatic, he really missed lqg. Lqg explains to them the ultimatum he gave regarding lmy, and lbh is displeased lqg is basically bargaining his own future for lmy's.  Lqg shrugs it off, he does enjoy his projected career and he's good at it. It's really enough for him if he family stops meddling in the rest of his life. He's pleased to choose who and what he gets to spend his free time on, and it's doubly worth it if that means lmy gets to be who she wants to be right out of the gate.

Lbh reluctantly agrees with him.

Anyways, they spend like two months traveling around having a great time on sqq and yqy's dime.

Yqy introduces lqg and lbh to a BUNCH of acquaintances, a large amount of which are established coaches and martial artists who take a liking to lqg and lbh.

Sqq spends so much time writing, probably memoirs or something.

Lmy is adorable and starts her own journals AND insists lqg start teach her some moves.

Lbh picks up so many recipes. Since lqg is on vacation that means lbh gets to feed him whatever he wants!!! It turns out, lqg just hasn't tried a lot of things and actually enjoys most of lbh makes. (Lbh is going to riot if lqg goes back on a diet.)

They make a cute family.

So, sqq is free, lbh is a little more grown, and lqg isn't just putting one foot in front of the other any more.

There's still some conflict in their lives... lqg's family is hard to work with but he sticks to his guns. It's a little embarrassing when lmy decides she wants to follow in lqg's footsteps and he wants to give her the freedom to do that but also wouldn't she rather do literally anything else. (She would. She would also like to write). Lbh gets very over protective of sqq and yqy bc they are getting older and more delicate, which ruffles sqq's feathers so much he threatens to write lbh out of the will!

Lbh is like "I'm in the will?"

And sqq is like, "don't be stupid, I paid you on our vacation as a caregiver, that disqualifies you from being a beneficiary."

Lqg is in sqq's will. Sqq figures lbh will marry him anyways at some point (lbh is a hopeless romantic) so it's basically the same thing.

(Yqy did NOT know sqq didn't put lbh in his will. He put lqg in his too! So he wouldn't feel left out!!! And he wouldnt feel pressured to rely on his family forever! Now he's got to get it rewritten for binghe!!!! )

I'm not going to write about sqq and yqy dying I'll cry. So it ends there. Happily.

[ramseynatural]

“average person in a morgue is weird about dead bodies" factoid actualy (sic) just statistical error. average mortuary worker is completely normal. Spiders Liz, who lives in cave & dissects over 10,000 aliens in her head each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted��

(Kind of cont. from the comic in this post)

"No, really, I would." She steps toward him, her expression as plain as the matter-of-fact-ness of her tone, betrayed only by the gleam of curiosity behind her mismatched eyes.

"You are fascinating," another step, this time one he matches, moving away as she creeps toward him and squinting slightly in confusion. *The existence of an ancient alien species visually indistinguishable from a human would be enough, with everything is does for convergent evolution, but a binary vascular system on top of that?"

Her serious mask splits open in a smile as she huffs in fascinated disbelief. Another step from both of them.

He's running out of space.

"And your brains! I mean- the amount of synapses that have to be packed in there, the whole structure would have to be wildly more efficient to sustain itself for any amount of time much less the hundreds of years you live — time sense as a concept alone..." He'd hit the wall somewhere around 'structure' and she hadn't stopped, eyes bouncing around the room with her gestures as she spoke but fixing back on his face as her rambling trails off.

He'd doubted her before. He knew the kind of humans the Doctor picked up, and one might attempt outlandishness, violence, but they wouldn't last if they meant it. Now, he can feel the point of a scalpel in her gaze, and kicks himself for missing it before he'd gotten himself pinned under it.

She stops with scarcely inches between them, staring up into his face, their breaths mingling together, her voice lowered to account for the proximity.

"God," she breathes, "I wonder how deep I could cut before you started to regenerate."

He lets the silence hang between them for a moment, steadfastly ignoring the pounding in his head, unwilling to lash out and give her another thing to lean into and provoke him with. He can't remember the last time anyone spoke to him like this - is sure he'd've killed them if they had. Instead he raises an eyebrow, pulling on the best of his politician smarm.

"Are you done yet?"

"No, as a matter of fact, l'm not." She refuses to take the hint, leaning closer, eyes darting back and forth over his face. "You're facing the light, why are your pupils so wide?"

Her head cocks to the side and she frowns, lines forming between her eyebrows. "Are you.....?" Her eyes flick down.

He realizes what she's noticed a split second after she does, but they're so close she barely has to move to spread her palm shamelessly over the front of his scavenged sweatpants, too thin and soft to hide his reaction. He jerks, screwing up his face at the pressure, unable to stop the buzzing mix of arousal, embarrassment, and rage at both from coloring his cheeks. The microscope she has him under vanishes for a moment as she breaks out in giggles, forehead thumping against his chest as her shoulders shake.

"Ooh," laughter still in her voice, the curious knife's-edge gleam in her eyes now tinted both with amusement and what looked uncomfortably like sadism, "Forget regeneration," she presses her chest onto his, pinning him to the wall, mismatched heartbeats mingling “I wonder how deep I could go before you stopped enjoying it?”

[cookie-nom-nom]

I speculate that class is quite a contribution to this on a practical level. Children are a massive resource investment (which pay themselves to the next generation blah blah but you still need the resources now to get that far!). So people like Cordelia and Miles have plenty of money to invest in many kids what with all their shiny educations and what not, and notably have servants which can help spread out the work. I suspect the real world general transition from large to small families was switching from r to k selection strategies, putting a lot more resources into a few kids instead of having enough that some survived. But for the Vorkosigans, resources (money) or physical reproductive health/ability doesn’t pose a primary cap on brood size. They are limited mostly by the number of children they want, but others have to also think about how far their paychecks stretch. If there IS a general cultural trend in Barrayar valuing many children, lower classes are still contending with general economic or ‘having only two hands’ restraints.

Forgive me the details escape me, but I don’t think the people in the mountain districts have access to uterine replicators. So on the other extreme there’s probably the familiar economic barrier to technology that leads to the longer term cost of raising a lot of kids (well the non muttie ones…). Perhaps the number of children per family has a bit of a U curve on the economic axis? Depending on how large the Barrayaran middle class is (and class mobility too) this could over all still result in a general trend of fewer kids per family compared to the time of isolation, just with different trends in different classes.

Also I can quite reasonably imagine some Musk esque high class Vor nut jobs who elect to have as many children as possible to avoid the tragedy of the Vor Replacement Theory…

Alternatively to all that: “Average Barrayaran has six children per family” factoid actualy just statistical error. Average Barrayaran has 3-4 according to Alexa-Santi-author. Vorkosigan Georgs (not to be confused with Gregor), who live in a Vorkosigan Surleau and has six babies per family, are an outlier adn should not have been counted.

Outside the Watsonian speculation, I think it’s an escapist fantasy biased by when it’s made, about having as many kids as you want and no more OR less. VK saga tends to emphasize the ‘or less’ portion. And particularly with current politics in certain areas attacking the right to have ‘no more’ children than desired, or 21 century biases like crowding or a large population, I definitely understand why it doesn’t hit the same. Reproductive rights have taken some hits.

But at least for me, as another Texan, I know my family is going to have less kids than I want because of money, and American healthcare, and Republicans chokehold on reproductive rights and the support, resources, education, gun laws, everything involved in raising a human being. A uterine replicated could solve about two of those, and being Vor (or equivalent social economic class thereof) could take out a swath of the remaining problems. I think class plays a decent chunk in how the Vorkosigans are planning their families but distinctly in terms of an absent limiting factor, much in the same way the uterine replicator escapes the worries of many reproductive health problems. And with reproductive and economic fears looming large, the fantasy part of an escapist fantasy is glaringly obvious, to the degree the more utopic wish fulfillment elements are felt to be unrealistic.

Then again I am biased because it’s an escapist fantasy that does gel with me.

I think my biggest struggle with the Vorkosigan Saga is that... everyone wants kids. And like, I know that's part of the point. That given the chance to have children without the physical burden of literally bearing a child and all the risks involved, that people would have more children.

I had to turn Cordelia's decision in Gentlemen Jole & The Red Queen over and over. I just. I live in Texas.

[genderqueeradrien]

remember that time i got an anon like "u cant be a leftist if u watch ranboo bc hes part of the 1% and he makes 2500 dollars an hour" and i was like. Well thats not true but also i wonder how much he makes outside of charity streams. and it turns out 2500/hour is actually statistical error, charity streams are outliers adn should not have been counted. But then a bunch of people were like "damn i cant believe boobers cant take a joke 😒" bc they for some reason thought i was mad at like. people who were joking. Yeah what the fuck was that about

[coquelicoq]

more jokes in the xing tian meng minions group chat

(previously)

okay it goes without saying that the xtm henchmen have their own group chat where they can peddle in memes and inside jokes without upper management’s knowledge. so far, most of these characters are unnamed and have very few lines (if any), which leaves us lots of room to make up their personalities out of whole cloth. if you ask me, they’re a bunch of goofy gays and bis who hate drug trafficking and express their love through good-natured ribbing and homoeroticism, and here’s a sampling of what i think they would talk about:

whenever someone’s having a bad day and needs to be reminded that whatever way they have of practicing self-care is valid and probably way less weird than it could be: some people??? stalk gang leaders??? to cope???

every time shaofei appears on the property, the first person to spot him sends out a “here come dat boi” alert. phones ping all around the house, followed by shouts of “O SHIT WADDUP!!” shaofei doesn’t have the context for this (the context is that he’s a frog), but he’s grown accustomed to it and even finds himself missing it on those occasions when he manages to enter the house without anyone noticing

one guy photoshopped a cowboy hat onto shaofei’s head and captioned it “wot in criminal investigation” and now whenever shaofei is on the premises in an official capacity (rather than to visit his bf), someone will text out “yeehaw” to warn everybody to be on their best behavior

because shaofei gets hurt frequently but seems to be invincible to even severe harm, the gang likes to be very hyperbolic about his minor injuries. any time he gets so much as a paper cut, someone will come through with: “average person shot or stabbed 3 times per year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person is shot or stabbed 0 times per year. Shaofei Georg, who has hots for gang leader & is shot or stabbed over 10,000 times each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted (followed by something like “oh great what’d he do this time” “got a splinter in his finger. boss tweezed it and then spent 10 minutes kissing his hand” “sounds unsanitary. somebody call dr. jiang” etc. etc.)

the gang members feel deep affection for shaofei because he clearly makes boss very happy. they love to tease him, but no one is allowed to take it too far. one time someone in the chat said something about shaofei having big ears, and within seconds another guy wrote back “how dare you. he ears JUST THE RIGHT SIZE for he gotdamn face”

(they do talk about things other than shaofei but that’s for another day)

xing tian meme 8/?

[vaguely-concerned]

empire of ivory here we go!

previous temeraire let’s read here

- um excuuuuse me I have waited two books for us to come back home to britain to see everyone again and now everything is awful and shitty and scary and my fave is leaving and nothing’s how it should be??? no??? this is unfair??????

- tharkay NO please don’t go everything provably goes to hell whenever you leave D:D:D:

(to be fair to him I guess it’s understandable to want some time alone to process the absolute outrageous bullshit he just pulled for a guy he’s known for like four months)

he used his page time well tho; instantly convincing roland of his worth and making her laugh... giving laurence his cup of tea b/c he looked like he needed it more... telling laurence that he’s leaving because he promised to do that much at least... truly the best boy, off to fetch more dragons apparently because it wasn’t quite crazy enough the first time

- god I love jane roland, I’m so glad my two faves got along instantly, between them they could... maybe protect laurence from himself? at least a little??? I can but dream

- I think this is the most emotionally invested I’ve been in a piece of media since that time I spent a few months completely incoherent over uncharted, and naughty dog very kindly held my heart in their hands and chose to be gentle with it in the end but I am not so sure that is how it’s going to be for this series and I am Not Prepared for the suffering

- I love whenever laurence thinks uncomfortably about one of the various and sundry atrocities committed by the government he’s still pledged all his loyalty to. yes william maybe the british empire... is in fact not good and has enough blood on their hands to dye the ocean red. I can’t wait until he connects the dots here (and presumably has a pretty intense crisis if faith about it because it seems like one of the loadbearing structures of his character... actually no wait I’m not ready to see this D:D:D:)

- the little details like the fact that he just calls bb!roland ‘emily’ and harcourt becomes ‘catherine’ so easily in his narration now are so so sweet  

- lord allendale is one of those dudes who have good politics but is a shitheel to his family and I want to smack him

laurence being the mortified poster boy of this party, though? priceless, imagine coming up with a protagonist this effortlessly involuntarily hilarious, it’s the mark of true genius

- I don’t usually quibble over things like this, but I think the edit for this fourth book specifically is a bit lacking? I’ve come across a lot of mistakes even my dumb ass can pick up on already, and I’m only a hundred pages or so in

- caught between crying and cackling at this part b/c like laurence I’m  d e v a s t a t e d  at the thought of temeraire getting sick but also temeraire is just like cheerfully getting laid the whole time

also how did none of the aviators think to give laurence The Talk about giving his dragon The Talk, you all know what he’s like

- oh thank god

- I have spent half of today crying about dragons coughing, how are you this fine evening good reader

- btw this series fills a hole in my soul left by jkr giving me all those tantalizing hints of different types of dragons in ‘fantastic beasts’ and never following up on it

- tharkay may not be here but laurence just mentioned him like once in his narration so let’s take the excuse to reminisce about the good old days (when tharkay was here)... remember that time when the one of his own jokes he laughed openly at was about lawyers and laurence frankly should have responded better b/c it was kind of funny and sadly temeraire doesn’t have the worldly experience to know it yet.... aaah precious, he truly is a sardonic blessing to my heart and deserves the world

okay back to our regularly scheduled content   

- riley why u gotta b such a bitch about this

(I love how laurence is constantly doubting himself over this tho, as if he’s done something wrong in this situation... like honey baby if there’s one thing worth breaking a friendship over it’s probably them being cool with slavery lol. it shows how much laurence has grown, considering that this disagreement has always existed between them but he used to be willing to just overlook it... I’m so proud of you laurence)

also lol @ berkely coming in to tell them everyone can hear them, I have a desperately soft spot for him and maximus. just the image of both of them turning to him ‘united in appalled indignation’ like ‘excuse you???’ and him giving exactly zero fucks... *chef kiss emoji*

- most important information revealed in this book: a) dragons are not widely considered to have committed original sin, thank you reverend erasmus and b) laurence has taken time out of his day at some point to worry about it b/c he’s a dork

(this is the sort of world building I am hopelessly weak to lol)

- gong su tricking temeraire into eating in the most melodramatic way possible... god bless you chef

- fkjhsadkjfhsdkjalhfaskjldhf laurence judging chenery for what he’s wearing while going out into the jungle in full uniform hat included himself... I caaaaan’t

- demane has only appeared on three pages so far but if anything happens to him I’ll kill everyone in this book and then myself

- ‘average dragon speaks one million languages’ factoid actualy statistical error. Temeraire Linguist Georg, who wants a pavilion thank you very much & learns over 10,000 languages each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted <3<3<3

(I love that temeraire is like... a nerd dragon with a hopelessly jock captain)

- laurence effortlessly rating the relative hotness of the other male aviators to try to suss out who harcourt has slept with fjsaldfhsdkljafh do you ever hear yourself think william

like this is the thing about him it’s so easy to headcanon him as bi b/c he can be so mindbogglingly oblivious it’s entirely possible he literally wouldn’t even have noticed until someone smacked him over the head with it

- see I’m very happy they found the cure but I don’t fucking trust it b/c the pattern of these books tends to be to give you one moment of ‘oh phew everything is going to be okay’ about 2/3 into the story and THEN everything goes to hell and fifty pages later laurence is dissociating and napoleon has conquered prussia 

- THERE WE GO RIGHT ON SCHEDULE

temeraire is never going to let laurence go anywhere without him again and rightly so

- hasn’t mrs erasmus been through enough. can’t she just be allowed to chill 

- this is really cool world building but I’m too stressed out to appreciate it

really enjoy the description of architecture tho this sounds so awesome

- sfahdfklsahdfksjda laurence making sure his clothes are as washed and presentable as possible... I can’t with you you beautiful idiot

- TEMERAIRE OH MY GOD IS HE HERE IS LAURENCE HALLUCINATING PLS SAY HE’S ACTUALLY HERE

- ...well I mean if anyone has a freudian excuse for being kind of dickish I guess it would be these guys? it’s actually pretty chill of them to only flog one of them (laurence, because he just can’t play it any way but stupid lawful good at every turn) and not just killing them all I guess, they kept them fed and stuff

- oh thank god

- temeraire you are the most darling dragon boy and I love you

I was really really worried for a moment there that the reference to the Colosseum was a not-so-subtle hint they would have to gladiator fight to the death but thankfully they were basically just calling in a parliament

- DID THIS MOTHERFUCKER JUST STAB A CHILD IN THE STOMACH?? I HOPE HE ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE DICK AND DIES pls say demane is going to be okay

- aw okay finally something good for mrs erasmus I will take it

- laurence you useless fool of a narrator is demane okay?? 

- god roland is just so cool naomi novik really gave us a jovial butch silver fox aviator lady huh... she did that for us and I for one am full of gratitude

- oh thank GOD (hm I sense a running theme here lol) the kid is going to be okay I can breathe again

- iskierka the pirate captain + temeraire’s reaction... perfect

- ;____________; I would lay down my life for temeraire and also that’s a gutpunch of a moodswing... the perfect hilarity of ‘that is an ugly hill’ immediately followed by That... jesus

- awww every time volly shows up again is a joy (temrer!!!)

- laurence... laurence you need to stop asking people to marry you because you never actually really fucking mean it!!!!! have you learned nothing about yourself since book 1, trust your goddamn instincts for once in your life you and roland have been doing perfectly okay thus far as like... affectionate fuckbuddies right? 

(her reaction was priceless tho god bless)

- aaaah there we go the british government is looking more like itself... welcome to the world of realpolitik laurence I’m really sorry :(

- “It is only dragons, you know” JANE ROLAND WTF DID YOU JUST SAY

- “This government is not of my party; my king is ill and mad; but still I am his subject. You have sworn no oath, but I have.” He paused. “I have given my word.”

:) this is... fine

(like. I know this is necessary character growth and he’s basically been a waste of a good man in service to a government like this the whole time and the writing’s been on the wall since book 1 but I don’t want this to be happening to hiiiiim)

- tfw... ur dragon boi is so good... that being anything less than good for him in turn is unthinkable...................... b o i

- ...jane doesn’t really know him very well if she didn’t see this coming from a mile off tho does she

I mean I guess she has other stuff to think about but this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone

- remember when he thought the entire corps was weird and now he’s finally at home there... and has to leave it behind :):):) super extra fine is what this is

- yeah okay laurence definitely has a crush on ol’ bonaparte noting that down lol he’s all but blushing after that kiss on the cheek 

also... if you just overlook the dictator thing for a moment is napoleon wrong about what he’s saying tho. (no and not even laurence is prepared to say so he’s just going to go back there and get murdered anyway b/c idk lawful good is dumb as fuck sometimes I guess)

It’s really cool how the author shows that napoleon has a better handle on laurence’s psychology after barely meeting him than a lot of people he’s known for years now, though, really adds to his menace and appeal as a character

- wow uh that’s one way to end a book... it’s actually tipped over from tragedy into a strange sort of hilarity for me now: he literally got sued out of his life’s earnings for being a decent human being, committed treason for the same reason and is about to be hanged for thinking genocide might have been a step too far -- in the span of thirty pages. I believe ‘that escalated quickly’ is not too much of an exaggeration here

- SIPHO IS GONNA WRITE BOOKS ONE DAY YOU GUYS!!!! I PROUDLY WELCOME OUR SECOND NERD TO THE CREW

 - I think this one might be my least favorite so far? not that I disliked it, it’s just the one that’s hit the worst by the fact that there’s not always that much time spent with the cultures central to the book; tswana seems really interesting but because of the way the plot played out and our limited perspective though laurence it just didn’t work for me? the cool shit comes in sipho’s book at the end, like how thoroughly they kicked the europeans out of the coast of africa, which is very cathartic (I will say that most of the second book being set on the ship and then only a sliver of it is actually in china annoyed me too haha) 

I have the distinct feeling this book is setting up for some Misery and breaking of the pattern a bit in the next one though, which will be interesting! ONWARDS TO MORE PAIN AND LAURENCE IS ALREADY PASSIVELY SUICIDAL FROM THE OUTSET SO LIKE... I’M SURE THIS WILL BE REAL FUN :)

maybe my boy will be back tho? silver linings silver linings clinging to some silver linings

[ninjathrowingstork]

Thank you so much, @grantairezee for "Church of Jetpack", but yeah Din was taken in by a cult. The Death Watch "are outliers adn should not be counted", so they say. Up until now, Mandalorians could take their helmets off, and even wear normal clothes if they didn't want as much attention, or were doing other work. There was no distinction between the kids they found and adopted and ones born Mando'ade, so there's no tradition of "foundlings" so please stop calling every adopted kid one because Mandos make no difference between their own blood and those who were born outside the culture.

The Death Watch were extremists who wanted a return to even older warlike ways, which from what I understand included training their recruits in isolation to be entirely loyal to them, and enforcing secrecy and anonymity. The helmet thing isn't normal, and the whole "weapons are a part of my religion" only makes sense in regards to how their god, Kad Ha'rangir, is a destroyer god of noble combat that forces growth and change, fighting the god of sloth Arasuum. From what I understand of their traditional faith, and what we've seen of the covert, they either never heard the story or have forgotten about it since they're stuck in a pattern of survival and stagnation.

Din's on a quest to affirm his Mandalorian identity to himself, and I think a part of that will be discovering how much he's been mislead about his people's true culture and beliefs, and that it never was about hiding yourself away all the time

-Mandalorians in live-action: *Can't remove their helmets.*

-Mandalorians in The Clone Wars/Rebels:

[elizabethrobertajones]

Honestly I'd rather have Sam, Dean and Cas have a conflict than being what they are now :( It's nice but it feel more like lipservice cause they arent adapting their format around them being team, it's just makes me angrier when Cas gets excluced now, when Sam and Dean contact others to work with instead of Cas, when they working on what Cas is WITHOUT HIM (Kelly). Giving them some issue would explain the sporadic seperations but still a shared emotional B plot with future resolutioon

I’m sorry it’s making you angry :( I can’t exactly say I’m super optimistic that 12x17 is going to do very well with this because it’s Buckleming and they’re becoming brilliant at writing episodes Cas should be in but isn’t, and not mentioning him - the only saving grace is he’s spared from being involved in some of their episodes, and contributing to the bad decisions :P After 10x21 and him fading out into the void to make way for bad decisions, and 11x09 where he was off idk getting his car tuned up or something after reclaiming it from Metatron, it’s always nice for him to have low culpability for their plot twists…

Which makes it really hard for me to judge all this fairly because all these Dagon and Kelly sightings are happening in Buckleming episodes, and they’re the ones who are full steam ahead on the Lucifer’s baby thing while the other writers are giving it a wide berth, but it also unfortunately seems like the sort of plot Cas would be attached to with his lingering Lucifer guilt, the angel connection, etc etc and they always need a reason to punt him into the void for MotW episodes… Just now we’re getting 2 in a row Buckleming episodes where after they connected Cas to this arc, they’re not using him for it… Normally I’d have some positivity about the writers doing this that or the other, but this whole subplot is happening in like, an alternate dimension, and I’m starting to feel like rescuing Cas from it is a secret side agenda from the other writers :P 

What DOES feel positive to me is that the episodes Cas is in HAVE been really good to him, especially the 12x10/12x12 stuff where they were absolutely all working with Cas and he was a part of the team, and everything was happening exactly as it was supposed to. To me this feels so much more like what Dabb era is supposed to be, and all the promises that seemed to be made and things we were hoping as far back as the middle of season 11 when it started to seem like Dabb of all people was about to take the Iron Throne… In all the OTHER episodes the season has absolutely delivered on everything I wanted and thought would happen, to the point where I’ve been kind of just sitting here stewing peacefully in season 12 like I’m in a hot bath, without a great deal of an agenda or much to say about it because I’m so content to just see what happens and enjoying the character development and so on.

I mean, ignoring Buckleming, and the Kelly stuff, we have had a whole arc about Cas’s belonging and where he calls home, and Cas finally being firmly embedded in the family, and then, with some random background reason for it to happen, Cas now going to meet the angels and have some sort of reckoning with his old family. Whatever nephilim stuff is powering it, the real importance of all that is going to be whatever Cas and Joshua say to each other about Cas’s belonging in Heaven and how THEY see him, with the nephilim just as a reason for Cas to be there, and some random external thing to motivate their actions and choices. In the overall examination of Cas’s arc when it’s all said and done, I think this will be the lasting impression. 

And I’m really genuinely happy for that, and enjoying where they’re taking Cas with all this because it all feels like finally paying off stuff that was set up in season EIGHT or season NINE. That’s, like 2 seasons of Cas’s arc just being teased and teased and drawn out before we get back to actual work on it, and from 11x23 onwards Cas has been making genuine progress forwards in pretty much every episode he’s in (12x02 and 12x08 notwithstanding because Buckleming where it was more like they were pushing the food around on their plate with Cas) on his personal arc.

I don’t know, I’ve not found any of the reasons Cas hasn’t been in an episode actually to be unbelievable except for 12x13, obviously, where he SHOULD have been there because it was his thing at this point in the story. But 12x15 at least has him covered now that as long as the heaven drama pays off when we catch up with Cas again; these absences are explained by him being on his personal quest to find belonging and in this case, work out where the hell he stands with Heaven after finally managing to confess how much he loves the Winchesters and considers them family, and having that reciprocated. 

The stuff at the start of the season made sense that if they were going to keep Lucifer alive, Cas WOULD have a stake in finding him, and in that case working with Crowley was used to, as you said, put some tension between him and Dean to create something interesting in the way they WEREN’T together, and the unity at the start of the season was challenged. Then that was all resolved and Cas spent a while hanging at the Bunker and quickly moving through a lot of personal stuff; if he wasn’t in 12x11 it was because Sam and Dean went to deal with a seemingly small matter, and then Dean didn’t want to worry him when it all got too real. Then 12x12 was incredible, and 12x13 breaks the streak, sends Cas out into the cold and there’s nothing to work with in 12x14 and he’s not meant to be in that one, and 12x15 manages to salvage him back onto his arc. 12x16 once again he’s absent but kind of watching over things (in 11x12 he was also sneakily present in details like grumpy cat and without a Gas n Sip, other sun imagery, and Dean was kind of mocked by the set people for not noticing Casifer yet, which I thought was great :P) and while I don’t like no one mentioned him in 12x16, I do think there’s pleeenty of room to headcanon that Dean went and prayed to him when he stepped outside, since once again Cas is out of reach, and he always seems to be now when we have Claire stuff, like, she comes up as a reminder of that >.> kinda sucks, but ALSO kinda points out the massive hole here made by Cas missing. Which is then a story element, since I don’t think they DID forget him, just wrote him as not in the episode, in the empty spaces. 

This is all just really weird having basically rogue writers on the staff who are somehow writing a completely different story, charging recklessly ahead with it, and their own subplots, and somehow being on a completely different level to all the rest of the writing staff. I still think Perez intentionally wrote circles around them with the 12x12/12x13/12x15 Lucifer stuff; that the pay off only worked so well because there was a godawfully obvious amount of lousy exposition and surface level Crowley characterisation crammed in between the reveal. It’s like a magic trick and I don’t reference the Prestige lightly but he literally used them to do the middle part of the magic trick, where the magician’s assistant walks around and around the curtain distracting the audience, while he’s waiting on the other side for the big reveal - the pay off only works with the frivolous bit in the middle because if you went from 12x12 to 12x15 there wouldn’t be enough tension that Crowley was being a colossal idiot, and revealing that Crowley has been ten steps ahead, and the Buckleming part was just part of the trick, that it actually is the prestige :P 

This is kind of off-topic to Cas by now, but, I guess, I’m waiting to see what other rabbits they can pull out of a hat to work around the bizarre plot Buckleming have introduced, and I feel like the *rest* of the writing team are genuinely the best set of writers the show’s ever had in terms of solidly written stuff, when you average it out between them (and ignore the spiders georg of rapey badly paced episodes writers - in other seasons I sometimes feel like you’re hanging on for the spiders georg who writes, like, 6x20, and is an outlier adn should not have been counted for overall season enjoyment because wow 1 episode can make or break a season, she says scowling at 10x21 again)… 

Anyway, so nothing else about what’s going on with Cas being left out of episodes has actually bothered me, and I actually like where he’s going so MUCH better than other seasons, like season 10 when he drifted sadly around in the background for most of the time, and when Crowley rightfully mocks him for doing so, Cas’s only retort is, well, so are you (in that 10x14 deleted scene, which if you ignore the Cas/Dean/Crowley love triangle stuff, is an absolutely depressing portrayal of Cas and Crowley’s role in the season :P)… 

This time Cas might not be around but he’s had a really good arc and I feel like everything makes sense, except for the fact Buckleming introduced this plot, attached Cas to it, and for 2 episodes haven’t utilised him in it after all, leaving him trailing after it to pick of clues of what he missed 2 episodes later or whatever. Basically as long as I separate what *everyone else* is doing with Cas from what Buckleming are doing I have genuinely got no complaints with what’s up with Cas. And in a way everything Buckleming do that annoys me, from bad pacing to rapey scenes and killing off faves pointlessly and insensitively, to leaving Cas out, all gets scrunched up and dropped in the recycle bin together in my head, so as an individual complaint about the season, I don’t actually mind in a weird way, where I’m now trying to be as zen as possible about having these rampaging writers in the middle of what’s otherwise the most fascinating attempt to fix something that was almost indescribably knotted up and broken that I’ve ever seen :P 12x15 gave me the confidence that perhaps on top of dealing with everything else historical, maybe the rest of the writing will ALSO manage to deal with Buckleming as they introduce new nonsense into the season? 

I mean, this is just how I’m dealing with it, but I hope my perspective helps. I’m very tired and don’t really have the energy to stress and wank about the show in a big way aside from acknowledging what bothers me. So here’s my peace with it >.> 

[howtomusicmajor]

Battling Insecurity

The biggest demon of most musicians is a feeling of insecurity. It’s the creeping (or blatant) suspicion that you are literally the worst musician in the world — or at least nowhere near as good as you “should” be. It can also manifest as the idea that you’re going to: get laughed at by your peers, be a complete failure at everything you ever attempt, be revealed as a fraud, find out everyone is just humoring you, find out that your doubters were right, end up completely destitute and have to live in a cave, or possibly just spontaneously die the next time you have to perform. It turns out that all of these worries are 99.999% of the time completely baseless. No, you are not that 0.001 percent case where these thoughts are accurate. Bassoonist Georg, who has never actually touched a bassoon and likes living in caves, is an outlier adn should not have been counted. The thing is that everyone feels like this, at least sometimes. I myself have, at the time of writing, complained at two different people a total of four times in the past week that I am going to end up living in a cave in the North Woods because no one will ever want to pay me for anything because I Suck. This is objectively not true. (You bought this book after all.) It may be a cliche, but there is a lot of truth to the thought that we are our own worst critics. There is no one else out there who knows your musical intent. If your trill doesn’t sound the way it did in your head, you are the only person who knows. Everyone else will think approximately this: “Hey, that was a trill. Cool.” If they’re especially persnickety, they might add “That was a little (better/worse) than when (you/someone else) sang a similar trill.” I don’t think there is a person out there who specifically goes to listen to a performance and thinks “This is awful and this performer is awful,” because most people are very nice. You are the only person there who thinks that you suck. There are ways to battle insecurity, of course. Every performer develops a set of techniques to reaffirm their own self-worth, to calm themselves down, and essentially talk themselves down from the tree their anxiety has them hiding up. However, trial and error can take a long time, and you are going to need your self-esteem shored up a lot in the next year. With that in mind, here are suggestions from performers in college and beyond for how to manage insecurity. Focus on things you’ve improved in the past year. When you start to worry about how obviously you’re no good and no one will ever want to listen to you etc. etc. etc., take a deep breath, then list three things you’ve improved in your playing in the past year. You have definitely improved at LEAST three, if not eight or nine aspects of your playing. Be as broad or as specific as you wish. This is about you acknowledging that you have grown and gotten better, so you choose the things on which to focus. Listen to old recordings of yourself. If you absolutely CANNOT think of a SINGLE THING you’ve improved on in the past year (really? Not even your ability to play a single piece?), then go and listen to recordings of yourself from years ago. Find something you performed in when you were a freshman in high school (or, if you’re a freshman, see if you can find stuff from elementary school!). Go and listen to it, as critically as you can. It will probably make you cringe. That’s a good thing. Know why? It’s because it shows you how much you’ve grown since then. If you fast-forward ten years from now, as long as you have kept playing, I can guarantee that future-you will listen to recordings of current-you with that same kinda cringey feeling. Because, in ten years, you will have improved so much that your current playing will be unrecognizable. And you will be proud. Remember that the goal is improvement, not perfection. Music is not a race. Music is not a competition. Music is an art for self-fulfillment and self-expression. Perfection is impossible. Being “the best” is also impossible - there are seven billion people on Earth (and six in space (I checked!)). There’s always going to be someone out there who has practiced a little longer, or harder, or started earlier, or whose fingers are just a little closer to the perfect shape for your instrument. Your goal, then, should be to improve your own self - no comparisons to others, nothing like that. Remember everyone comes from a different background. That person who sits to you in your ensemble, the one you’re envious of? You can’t know everything about their life. Maybe their parents started them on their instrument at age three. Maybe they haven’t gone out on the weekend in a year and a half because they practice then, or because they work to make up for not working during their practice time during the week. They could have a buttload of debt because of outside lessons. There’s no way to know what advantages or tradeoffs they’ve had to get where they are. Once you’re at a certain point in life, there’s no way to add something to your life without sacrificing something else that you also like. If someone else practices X amount hours more a week then you do, then they spend X amount less doing something valuable to you - work, sleep, other homework, socializing, recharging, etc. They may simply have different priorities than you, and that’s okay. Shut down the voice that compares people. Comparing yourself to someone else does nothing for you. Really. Unless you’re actively studying someone’s technique for educational purposes, comparing yourself to that 5th year senior, or that incredible freshman, does nothing for you. When you notice yourself doing the comparison thing, just shut it off. Practice rebuffing that voice. “Sarah plays really well, yes. When I’ve played as long as she as, I’ll be better than I am now, too!” Or! “That freshman plays really well - I’m glad they had the opportunities they did.” If all else fails, just look at these other people as motivation. Aspire to be as good as them, and use that to fuel your own practice. Just don’t let it spiral into beating yourself up. You’re worth more than that. Directors have a vision. If you don’t match that vision, it’s not a personal failing.This is specifically in regards to auditions or chair seatings. Every musician has a different style and different technical abilities, and that’s okay. Sometimes your skill in a certain area may be amazing, but your tone just doesn’t match the rest of an ensemble. Or your sight-reading is great, but the director prefers someone else’s musical interpretation. That’s okay. There are ensembles where sight-reading is super important, and where your tone matches perfectly. You just have to find them, and you will eventually. Make sure to take care of yourself. You can’t practice as efficiently if you’re sick. You can’t improve as much when you’re always exhausted. Trust me - due to an immune system that works about as well as a mall cop, I’ve spent on average eight weeks a school year feeling absolutely gross. I had to take an incomplete with my private teacher the first semester of my senior year of college, because I was so ill I could barely phonate (mono is a big ball of suck). I’ve been better overall, however, since I started scheduling my sleep and food and socialization times. My calendar has nine hours of sleep scheduled in every night, I have phone calls and coffee dates with my best friends penciled in every week, and food is as regular as clockwork. Why? Because it prevents that nauseous, exhausted feeling of sleepwalking through a ten hour day. Hard days still happen, of course. However, I don’t spend nearly as much time cajoling myself to just keep putting one foot in front of the other anymore. Instead, I’m awake, engaged, and able to complain about things other than how tired I am. Progress! Read up on Impostor Syndrome. Impostor Syndrome is when your brain’s resident jerkwad is constantly suggesting everyone you know is about to find out you’re a fraud. Who cares about any auditions you’ve successfully done. Who cares how good a grade you got last week. The jerkwad yells that you’re faking everything you’ve ever done, and people are going to figure that out, and then you’re going to end up living under a bridge and charging people tolls to cross it, and then they’ll figure out you aren’t even really a troll, and then you’re going to have join me in the cave in the North Woods and eat beetles and moss. That jerkwad is a liar. Even I haven’t ended up in the North Woods yet, and I’m pretty sure I should list “Can BS Real Well” on my resume under Skills. You are a real musician - after all, you play music! That’s it. That’s all that’s required to call yourself a musician. I promise.