minniegraced

[minniegraced]

a (hopefully) comprehensive catalogue of balth's whiteboard throughout lolilo

along with my guesses as to the artist/author

episode 5: popcorn

starting off strong with something i can't read. we get the best shot of it after peter sits down on the couch at the end to read, and the camera gets adjusted up and over slightly

"___ A DESK" and then maybe someone has signed their name below it? would love some help with this one. is this balthazar actually using his own whiteboard (something which will become increasingly rare) to leave notes for himself? unclear

more under the cut!

episode 9: vacuuming

you can see this while ben vacuums. a bit fuzzy but looks like a little moon and stars doodle. i feel like any one of the flatmates could've drawn this. balth is staying up late tossing and turning according to the lyrics of running mad, ben is up late editing, peter is up late partying, and freddie could potentially be up studying as well. who knows

episode 13: town

this combined with the next one is interesting. now i have no idea what's going on here, i'll admit. i can't even decide if it's words or drawings. i think it maybe says "___ is a cool ___" ??? my best guess is that it's something drunkenly written by one of the flatmates after getting home, because you don't get a peek at it until after they get back. could have been ben...or maybe it was peter......put a pin in that

episode 14: rules

this one is the reason i did this to begin with. i was going back through lolilo to figure out in which episode this appears on balth's whiteboard, and i discovered that the whiteboard gets a ton of use by the flatmates!

"tell your boyfriend if he says he's got beef / that I'm a vegetarian and i ain't fucking scared of him" from don't trust me by 3oh!3. this is interesting to me for two reasons: 1) rules happens the morning after town, so in between balthazar and peter yelling at each other and the flat gathering to decide on the rules, someone has erased what was there last night and written something new and 2) considering the context around the prior night's fight, in which the owner of the whiteboard was involved, isn't this a bizarre thing to write? it's kind of uncomfortably on the nose lol

so here's my best guess, based on what little information there is to go off of and total conjecture: balthazar erased the drunken message from last night because he's already uncomfortable about last night and trying to act like it never happened and maybe even because it was left there by peter, and ben wrote the song lyrics because he's trying to joke around and lighten the mood, and at this point he's operating from a "sunshine is the best disinfectant" standpoint when it comes to uncomfortable stuff. I DON'T KNOW

i'll add the disclaimer that obviously none of the whiteboard stuff is necessarily commenting on or indicative of anything and could very well be something that was thrown up there randomly by cast or crew throughout the filming of lolilo and just so happened to appear in a shot. but it's fun to speculate

episode 15: flat

HOWSIT. seen right before ben enters balth's room to give a tour and introduce paige to the viewers. i feel like either ben wrote this, because he makes a point to call it out before entering, or balthazar wrote this to get rid of the song lyrics lmao

episode 20: hummus

i ❤️ hummus

definitely a ben one imo. seen in the wrap-up shot as balth finishes his last hummus meal

episode 25: fffriends

just a lil guy! probably supposed to be balthazar? the hair? this can be seen throughout the entire vlog. purely headcanon but i like to think freddie drew this. she's potentially kinda artsy, she has all those cute prints on the walls of her bedroom. ben could have drawn it too, i guess, but i feel like his general vibe does not, uh. telegraph artistic prowess, we'll say. when it comes to drawing, anyway. but maybe that's rude of me to assume!

extra episode: fellowship

can be seen at various points, but is most clear during this shot as ben lists out the rules to true american. maybe freddie drew this, maybe ben, but i feel like it has to be someone who ships pedrazar because, out of all the symbols you could choose from lotr, this is arwen's evenstar necklace that she gifts to aragorn. and remember, peter = arwen and balth = aragorn per the headbands >:)

episode 34: lines

a nice little treble clef. visible over balthazar and peter's shoulders as they sit at the table. could've been anyone's drawing really, although maybe balth is most likely because it's a tricky symbol if you're not super familiar with it. probably not ben i'd wager, given that in balthazar's interview he says "g plus" when he means g sharp

episode 51: initiated

a big gap in whiteboard art, because chicken and stay need to happen. you get a few shots of the whiteboard in between 34 and 51, but it's always blank. unfortunately, in this shot, i once again cannot decipher it. please someone help me. does it say "'ello 'ello 'ello" maybe?? i don't know. spotted over peter and freddie's shoulders while peter writes his sonnet with john's help. almost certainly written by ben, who at this point is giving his best performance of "everything's fine and i'm not wracked by guilt every second of every day" and almost certainly not written by balthazar, who is spending most of his time in the tent or at least away from his flatmates

episode 54: classified information

can be seen when the friend group gathers to tell balthazar about the rules hiatus. a lightbulb, i think. is it meant to symbolize someone having an "aha" moment..?..but who? or perhaps it represents the light in the darkness that the rules hiatus is supposed to bring? i'm way too deep in this lol i need someone to pull me out and smack me around

episode 56: balthday

unsurprisingly, the whiteboard reads "happy birthday balth" or "balthy" and there have been so many characters at the flat during the days leading up to this party that the possibilities as to the artist are endless. maybe rosa, who has strong opinions about decor? or bea, who's always had a bit of artistic flair to her video editing style?

probably visible in several shots, but i grabbed it from when ben is razzing rosa

episode 79: feathers

another big jump. balth's whiteboard is visible but blank while he's not living at the flat. but now that he's back it's got this stylized little heart, which kind of looks like it could be made up of two bass clefs facing each other? that could be a reach though. either way, my personal belief is that this is peter's artistic debut upon the whiteboard. or balth could've thrown it up there too, but i think we can all agree it definitely wasn't ben, who's having a real tough time at the start of this video

anyway that's it! lmk if i missed any and please feel free to dan brown these whiteboards with me

[minniegraced]

recently read ‘eight days of luke’ for the first time and was so surprised and delighted by how queer it reads.

the slow and sensible change between astrid and david, and how her story parallels his. the care with which he describes luke’s appearance. and then the care with which both he and luke look out for each other.

the way dwj so artfully entwines the mundane with her magic. also really enjoyed working out the mystery/what mythology she was drawing from as it went along.

[minniegraced]

tangents and toothbrushes:

-and here’s where the amount of instruments balth has brought to the bath has already started to become ludicrous

-no star wars because copyright, but they could do an entire video based on a game from new girl while quoting lord of the rings the whole time? ok

-i’ve not read love’s labour’s lost, is there a sword fight in it?

-ben’s master plan to get pedrazar together, february 2015:

ask balth to film something in the bath

attack him with toothbrushes and loofahs until peter is lured in

????

ok they’re dating now

[minniegraced]

nmtd meme: six quotes [4/6]

“Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought of as the only criminal when all of humankind has sinned against me?” - Mary Shelley.

[minniegraced]

“initiated” is such a funny video for a lot of reasons. peter pausing to think about “brother from another mother.” john’s amused and pointed greeting to the camera as almost a 5th flatmate of sorts. also john saying the rules aren’t the kinds of rules he would break, sweet boy. freddie giggling and then quickly pulling herself together at the beginning of the initiation ceremony. the ceremony itself. who put “it fucken wimdy” in the official captions, you fucking nerd? peter and john joking around in sibling shorthand. “also there’s a curfew and you’ll be filmed 24/7” / “oh, okay.” peter and freddie being non-combative buds on camera, never thought we’d see the day. “i’m not your brain-slave.” what i wouldn’t give to see freddie’s spatula versus ben’s tree branch.

[minniegraced]

the way i am convinced bonnie (freddie kingston) could play any role julia louis-dreyfus has

[minniegraced]

balthazar, peter, and the terrible horrible no good very bad year (except the times when it wasn’t so bad at all)

[minniegraced]

ON the subject of undernegotiated kink in fanfiction. i think we should talk more about how the concept of "not talking about it" is just as much wish fulfillment for some people as "in-depth, therapy-speak conversations where everyone is clear and understood" is for others

like yes, in reality the antidote to shame is open honest conversation with someone who will validate your feelings and wants blah blah blah but SOMETIMES what i want out of my fanfic is characters being understood without having to expose themselves in that way. SOMETIMES it's fun to not dismantle the shame and repression all the way and to instead treat that understanding-despite-not-being-clear as the fantasy

[minniegraced]

[minniegraced]

Back in 2013, I posted a Welcome to Night Vale fic and someone commented, “I’m autistic and I see myself a lot in the way you write Carlos. Did you intend for him to autistic?”

And I was like “I’m flattered you think so! No, he’s not intended to be autistic, but I’m glad you can see yourself in him.”

Now twelve years later I spent some time this evening trying to track down that comment to give a very belated clarification. Whoever you were stranger, hey. I only said no because I based Carlos heavily on me, and since I wasn’t autistic, Carlos wouldn’t be either. Well. I’ve learned some stuff in the intervening decade that strongly support your literary analysis.

[minniegraced]

Cast members are missing and it’s up to the rest of us to find them…

[minniegraced]

That’s a wrap on today’s filming!

[minniegraced]

END OF DAY SHOTS!! 

(from yesterday and today)

Muchos love, The Candle Wasters

[minniegraced]

would anyone understand if I said Rostam Batmanglij is like if Balthazar Jones from Nothing Much to Do/Lovely Little Losers was real and a Persian-American instead of a white New Zealander and that this realization made me want to create a satire fic of people in the Vampire Weekend Sphere of Influence Circa 2015 going through the entire Lovely Little Losers plot (four roommates decide to have a no relationships rule, some friends show up, hilarity ensues). Drawings to come

[minniegraced]

when it’s not been that hot of a january actually :(((

[minniegraced]

For being the guy who scheduled that email i was really surprised to see it in my inbox

[minniegraced]

bitches be like "god he's so hot" and he looks like this