#i haven’t watched all of season 5 yet give me a day

[moonstruckme]

rooomate james. 😭😭 literally obsessed w himm!!

Me too I love him (and you!) sm <3

part 1 │ part 2 │ part 3 │ part 4 │part 5 │ part 6 │ part 7 │ part 8 │ part 9 │ part 10 │ part 11 │ part 12 │ part 13

roommate!James x shy!reader ♡ 808 words

You don’t recognize James’ car until he shouts at you. 

“Hey!” 

You give a little jump, turning midair to find James smiling out the rolled-down window. 

“Want a lift?” 

“God, you scared me!” You backtrack and open the passenger door. The seat looks to have been tidied in a hurry, receipts and takeaway containers tossed into the backseat. “How’d you even know I’d need a ride?” 

James refrains from responding to give you an expectant look. You roll your eyes and buckle your seatbelt. Satisfied, he puts the car in reverse, setting his hand on your seat to look behind him as he backs out of the parking spot. 

“You weren’t home when I got there,” he says, “and then I remembered on Sundays you usually get off at eleven, so here I am. Is Art not with you?” 

“No, he wasn’t working tonight.” 

James doesn’t seem too disappointed by this. He pulls onto the street. You watch him, looking almost unconsciously for signs of wear and tear. 

Now that rugby season is in full swing, he’s gone not just during the day for training but sometimes overnight for away games. You’ve been alone in your apartment for the whole weekend while he played in London and then Bristol. It was weird. You think you’ve accidentally grown used to having James around. You don’t fancy yourself a very tactile person, and the urge to hug him isn’t terribly strong, but it’s there. 

“How was work?” he asks you. 

“It was fine. How were your matches?” 

“They were fine,” he imitates you, grinning. “No, it’s like I said. Winning the second one’s always better than winning the first and losing the second. It’s nice to end on a good note.”

He’d texted continual updates while he was gone. You sat on your couch, pretending to yourself or perhaps to some invisible, judgemental observer that you were watching TV when really you were entirely focused on James’ texts. You imagined him sitting in his hotel room doing the same, or maybe in a pub with his teammates, smiling at his phone each time you responded. 

Your imagination has become terribly overindulgent lately. 

“Honestly, I was pretty disappointed you weren’t home when I got there,” James says, a familiar teasing lilt to his voice. “I was hoping to come in and catch you wearing one of my jumpers and staring tearily at a framed photo of me.” 

You roll your eyes, but your face burns. You did use his shampoo, once. In your defense, you’d run out of yours, but you thought that it wouldn’t be so bad to smell like him, nice and fresh and comforting. It had foamed more than you expected. It did smell really nice, but it made your hair feel dry (boy shampoo always does that, you’ve no idea how James’ curls seem to thrive under such poor treatment) and you felt silly about it for days, lovesick in the most derogatory sense. 

Didn’t stop you from sniffing your hair occasionally, though. 

“You weren’t gone to war,” you reply. “And where would I get a framed photo of you?” 

James looks affronted. “I assumed you already had one. How did you get through the weekend without even a photo? You brave, brave girl.” 

“I actually threw a rager,” you deadpan. “Rented out your room to six people traveling through with the carnival and let them invite over all their friends. Did loads of hard drugs.” 

“Well, we all have different ways of coping.” He reaches over to squeeze your shoulder consolingly. You pretend goosebumps don’t skitter all the way down your arm from the brief touch. “And what a marvelous job you’ve done covering up your escapades!” He exclaims as you pull up in front of the apartment. “I haven’t come across the cocaine dust on our bathroom counter yet, so you must have really done a thorough cleanup.” 

“Keep looking, it’s around there somewhere.” 

James laughs. You’re slower getting out of the car than he is, and by the time you emerge he’s in front of you, pulling you into a hug. You think your bones liquefy. He’s warm and strong and he smells like his shampoo, both arms squishing you heartily before he lets go with a little laugh. 

“Sorry,” he says, bringing his hands to your upper arms, “I didn’t even ask. I just missed you, you know?” James has this look on his face, smile brilliant and eyes wide open. So saccharine sweet you almost can’t look at him. “Guess I got used to having you around.” 

You do your best to smile back. “Yeah, me too.” 

He squeezes your arms before turning to go inside. “You smell like Italian food, too. I don’t suppose you’ve cooked anything recently that’s still in the fridge? I’m beginning to think about second dinner.” 

[startrekprodigyfan]

Okay, this is going out to the die-hard old-school Trekkies. And I’m going to be including spoilers because at this point if you haven’t been watching Prodigy yet, this is the only other way I know how to convince you to start! And even seeing spoilers won’t give you any context to the how or why they’re there, so that should hopefully give you incentive to watch the show!

For starters, what is Prodigy? Star Trek Prodigy is a 3D animated Nickelodeon show meant to introduce kids to the world of Star Trek. But don’t let the “kids show” title fool you, this is a show for ALL ages and even the most die-hard Trekkie will find something about it to enjoy.

The story centers around a group of alien kids who have been imprisoned on a mining asteroid as they stumble upon an abandoned Federation Starship and use it to escape with the hopes of one day joining Starfleet.

Are you happy that Star Trek is back but haven’t been excited or jazzed much about some of the recent shows? Then please watch Star Trek Prodigy! Here’s a visual list of things to expect to appease your continuity and cannon loving hearts:

1) The Enterprise D bridge on the holodeck, alongside Uhura, Odo, Doctor Crusher, Scotty, and Spock (using original legacy voice clips for many of the characters too)

2) The original Enterprise (non-Strange New Worlds) bridge!

3) An explanation for what happened to the original Galileo shuttle craft from the TOS series.

4) Both the original Vice Admiral Janeway and the new Hologram Janeway.

5) Wesley Crusher!

6) The Voyager-A!

7) Chakotay and the Holographic Doctor!

8) Original TNG (pre-First Contact) style Borg!

9) Legacy side characters returning such as The Outrageous Okona, voiced by the original actor Bill Campbell!

Currently the show is on Netflix. There are two seasons, 20 episodes each season that run around 24-30 mins long each for a grand total of a whopping 40 episodes! And there’s hopes that if Netflix thinks the show is worthy a 3rd season could be ordered. But only if you watch it now and get those ratings and viewership numbers up!

Please! Prodigy needs the help! Paramount+ canceled the show and yanked it from streaming before season 2 could even air (it had already been completed too)! Through a grass-roots campaign fans were able to get Netflix to pick it up and release the second season! Without Netflix this show would’ve just disappeared!

So please… if you love old school Trek and just want to exist in this world, you’re going to love Prodigy! And trust me, even those spoilers I showcased don’t even begin to scratch the surface of what this show has to offer!

[mrscolinbridgerton96]

“The freakin’ London premiere- we all know that that was not supposed to happen; that was not okay.. and he still did it.”

I’m sorry, but what is this “bad behavior” that she’s alluding to? What exactly did Luke do that could’ve offended her and other people so much? Someone please enlighten me. I really want to know how Luke showcased “bad behavior” at the London premiere. I’m genuinely curious.. because, I personally haven’t seen anything- and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’ll say that.

~

This TikTok is 3 and a half minutes long. If you want to watch the video, go right ahead! But for those who don’t want to watch the full thing, I’m gonna give you my thoughts on just a few of the things she said in her video.

She talked about how Luke should post something on social media to show more appreciation to the fans. In multiple interviews throughout the press tour for season 3, Luke has talked about how he appreciates every ounce of support and love that has come from the fans and how he can’t wait for everyone to see Colin and Penelope finally get together. But apparently… to some (unfortunately), that’s not enough. Just because he hasn’t posted about how grateful he is for the fans, that doesn’t mean that he’s not grateful. To insinuate that he’s “inconsiderate” because he doesn’t post on social media is diabolical to me; it is not only unfair but it’s unacceptable. At the end of the day, Luke doesn’t owe us a damn thing.

The second thing I want to share my opinion on very much relates to the first thing. This girl talked about how he should post something for Nicola and publicly show his appreciation for all the times she stood up for him. To the people who have said this (and trust me, this girl is not the only one who thinks this) and believe that he’s ungrateful for her defending him.. let me ask you ask you something: did it ever cross your mind that he showed his appreciation for all the times she expressed her (platonic) love and respect for him privately? I’m sure they talk and text each other a lot. There are other ways to show someone appreciation- and it’s (to me) even more meaningful when it’s not on social media. Just because he doesn’t post about on social media.. it does NOT mean that he is unappreciative. Nicola has defended him publicly because she’s a good person and knows that he’s a good person too. There’s a reason that Luke’s cast mates (most of them he’s known for 5 years) only have good things to say about him. Yet, there are “fans” who want devote so much time and energy to talk shit about someone they don’t even know.

Lastly, and this is something I’ve addressed a few times before. She asked, and I quote, “What is the bullying that according to some of you he’s experiencing? Where is the bullying?” The way I see it; in my opinion, by asking that.. she has made it abundantly clear that she has NOT been paying attention.

I shared these screenshots back in July- they have since been removed from Twitter (I’m not calling it ‘X’ because it sounds like the name of a p*rn site). If any of this doesn’t count as bullying, then what the Hell is it? They weren’t complimenting him to lift his spirits up. He even said in an interview that he was verbally harassed for TWO YEARS because of Colin’s “I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington” comment at the end of season 2 (even though Colin is a fictional character and Luke is nothing like his character)- last time I checked… THAT’S bullying.

~

She says that she’s “holding him accountable” when he hasn’t done anything wrong. Has Luke said or done something that TRULY IS problematic? If he has, I would gladly hold him accountable for it. However, I haven’t seen him do or say anything that is so awful that he has to be held accountable for it.

She also talked about how A would post something when Nicola posts something- she posts something; same with when the official Bridgerton account posts something and she would overshadow Luke. You can point all of that nonsense out all you want, but Luke has NO CONTROL over what she posts her posts on her own social media account and when she decides to posts it!! Regardless of how you feel about their age gap, she’s an adult who makes her own choices. She old enough to know to know right from wrong- just like the “fans” who have been harassing him for months.

One more thing, today.. she posted a TikTok about how Luke liked Nicola’s recent post and she was all giggly and excited.. with that being said, my mind is telling me one thing- that she is one of those people who only like Luke when he interacts with her on social media and/or is actually with her (whether it’s casual or in interviews). Now, I could be wrong; this is strictly my opinion- an observation, if we’re getting technical.

Overall thoughts: I know that Luke’s not a perfect human being and I never said that he was- no person living on this planet is perfect.. and I would 1000% hold him accountable if he did or said something that actually WAS problematic. But, from what I’ve seen.. he hasn’t done anything to deserve all of the negativity he’s been getting.

Now, if you’ll excuse me.. I’m gonna go take something for my migraine.

[wannaeatramyeon]

Gun Park x Reader: this is our place (we make the rules)

Chapter 6 - Probably should read ch1 first

Gun has a new neighbour. Index: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Epilogue

Gun likes spicy food, as long as the heat isn’t overpowering.

Also hates cilantro. Detests it, loathes it. Which he told you to your face after you forgot about his first note and he handed the container back, food untouched.

Enjoys in particular any stews you prepare. Also thinks your tteokbokki is just right after adjusting the garlic.

All, apart from the cilantro incident, you have learnt from the tone of his little notes. 

If notes could even have a tone.

.

.

Gun is not surprised you read his messages.

He is, however, surprised that you take his comments on board. He knows what he is good at and is under no illusion that he has a perfect palate. Far from it.

Nevertheless, you adjust dishes to his taste until most of the meals and food there is little he can feedback.

This gesture he finds oddly touching.

.

.

He greets you with less reluctance. Exchanges more words.

When the doorbell chimes unexpectedly, Gun no longer fumes at having his time interrupted.

In his doorway, you with your container in hand, you both linger a little longer.

.

.

In the convenience store at the top of your street, while you’re on a snack run one night, you bump into your neighbour.

Gun cuts an imposing figure, tall and polished, in a tailored coat and with impeccable hair as he inspects the drinks in the fridge. He gives you a glance as you slink up next to him and point out a can.

“That one has just come out. It’s pretty good.”

“Hmm.” He’s not sure about it but grabs it anyway on your recommendation.

“Have a nice night, Gun!” you give him a wave, taking your bag of treats.

“You too.” 

And he’s surprised to find he actually means it.

.

.

You, a slave to your cravings, bump into him a few more times.

Sometimes just purchasing his cigarettes. Most of the time considering what to buy.

"I like this one," you tell him.

"This is my favourite."

"I never buy this one, I always finish the whole bag."

Gun takes your recommendation each time.

He is never disappointed.

.

.

Today you and Gun walk side by side and approach the building together.

You recognised him when you were both a street away and shouted his name; Gun stopping then patiently waiting for you.

Falling into step together, anecdotes from your day spills out. A way to decompress and vent before you settle in for the night. Gun half-listens, giving brief nods now and then when you pause for a beat too long or a little hum of agreement as you look for a reaction.

“I was thinking fried chicken tonight?” you shake your grocery bag at him as you unlock your front door.

“Fried chicken?” Gun mirrors your action in front of his own.

“Yeah. For us.” You give him a frown as if he’s being purposefully obtuse. “Give me an hour or two!” you call out, leaving Gun standing there alone.

Us? Gun has never had an ‘us’. Not in this sense.

“This one,” you nod at the plate in your left hand, “is just dry herb seasoning. You know, the one I mixed with the rice the other week that you liked. And this,” nodding at your right, “is spicy garlic.” 

You pause, squinting at him, “Before you say anything, it’s balanced. I tasted it so it’s how you should like it.”

Gun takes the plates without a word as you wipe your hands on your apron.

“I haven’t had any yet, I wanted to give it to you fresh,” You brush your fringe back, happy to get out the kitchen, and tuck your hair behind your ears, “ My containers would make it soggy-”

Gun watches your hand movement but some errant strands still hang loose around your face. He wants to correct it for you.

“Fried chicken is best with beer,” he comments, silencing his buzzing brain and brushing aside that thought, “We can share.”

There’s no meaning to this, Gun thinks to himself as you scamper home to grab your own portion before joining him.

It’s just two neighbours sharing chicken and beer. Something that normal people do, sharing a meal.

But when has Gun even cared about being normal.

.

.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Gun places the plates on the table and notices you hovering and hunched in a corner.

“Can I have this?” In your outstretched hands, gripped with gentle fingers is the dying plant, the joke of a gift from Goo.

“Go ahead.”

“I can nurse it back to health and return it!”

“I don’t care. You can let it die.”

“Gun!”

.

.

As he watches you eat that evening with poor etiquette and shocking table manners, now and then giving affectionate glances to the plant by your side; laughing loudly and matching him drink for drink- 

Gun is more curious about you than ever. He finds you captivating.

.

.

“It’s an impressive feat how you manage to make so much noise,” comes Gun’s drawl.

He watches you move what must be a very heavy package with the worst form he has ever seen. Lifting with your back, spine curved, staggering a few paces forward until you stop, take a break, then repeat it all over again.

You’re cluttering up the shared communal hallway, and frankly spoiling his peaceful afternoon with all your banging out here.

The walls are supposed to be soundproof. But even the meticulous engineers of Gangnam’s most expensive apartment block didn’t account for a menace such as you.  

“Furniture arrived,” wiping the sheen from your brow and catching your breath. “Flatpack… courier only delivered to here.”

“It’s been months.”

“I would have done it sooner if I haven’t been busy cooking and feeding someone,” you snap. Then completely changing tact, face saccharine and sweet, batting your eyelashes, “Please help?”

This absolutely does not work on Gun.

He helps you anyway.

Well. 

That extends to moving your boxes into the spot you desire, lifting them as if they weighed nothing and then laying them down wherever your finger points to.

He does very little else to help, instead watching you struggle with the instructions, his toolbox sat next to you, and choosing to survey your home.

It’s surprisingly empty. 

Not in the way that his own is purposefully that way. More like someone not yet making a space their own, not really sure if they’re here to stay.

The only cluttered area is the kitchen. Well-used with utensils and spices and ingredients arranged for function rather than style. Where you prepare your meals for him.

Something catches Gun’s attention and he moves closer.

The plant. 

Not in the best sunspot, but instead somewhere a little more shaded.

Already livelier. A little less droopy. 

His fingers run along a long thin leaf.

No longer frail and fragile. He can feel the strength returning.

“Gun junior is getting better!”

Human Gun turns and catches your bright grin. Not smug, just genuinely happy with your green thumb.

He gets the strange urge to tuck your hair behind your ears again.

[spiralling-spires]

Guys something happened and im back on my she ra nonsense. Help all my recent tabs are tma fanfic i need to go deep in my bookmarks to pull out the she ra stuff and follow a ton of she ra posters bc its been like two years since i was substantially aware of she ra BUT THE HYPERFIX IS COMING BACK I CAN FEEL IT AAAAGH

Its 12:44 am and i’m going to write all my thoughts and theories and you are going to enjoy them

1. Beast island is actually sentient and the reason it makes that signal is because it’s achingly lonely and doesn’t want its new friends (anyone who comes to the island) to leave. Little does it know it’s forcing its depression upon everyone that visits

2. Etheria and Eternia are actually twin planets, the First Ones are humans, and Eternia is far-future Earth (idk, Earth got a neighbour and then we colonized it? Sure sounds like humans to me). This explains why the First Ones’ language is made up of English phonemes and includes English words, and why Adora looks human.

3. Horde Prime used to be an Eternian, a very long time ago. His current form is the result of hundreds of years of incredibly vain genetic engineering and experimenting. He still isn’t fully pleased with his appearance and tweaks his clones every generation in an attempt to find “purity”.

4. Hordak’s “defect” is a result of this tweaking. Imagine inbreeding, except it’s one guy who keeps turning random genes on and off and switching out base pairs to see if it’ll make him prettier. Turns out there were some nasty genetic surprises in Hordak’s version of the code. As with any other clone that had such genetic conditions, Prime tossed him out in the next major fleet movement without running any analyses first. Running an analysis would force him to confront the fact that he (gasp) made an error!

5. The “general” thing wasn’t actually complete bs. Prime threatening to take Catra’s body as his own, was. See, Prime really wants to be this one perfect thing. Why would he waste time being a cat when he could be perfect? He has a special line of “generals” whose sole purpose is to house his mind. They have two additional eyes, the ability to grow those weird chin/cheek spikes, and the capacity to be much taller (all hidden unless he gives them specific hormones in preparation for inhabiting them). All this to say: Hordak might just wake up with four eyes open one day and promptly freak himself (and everyone else) out.

6. Entrapta has been in the center of a lot of explosions (esepcially when she was a teenager and hadn’t figured out the right balance of “pursue knowledge” to “lab safety” yet) and has replaced a startling amount of her body with prosthetics covered in a synthetic skin.

7. Hordak’s body wasn’t repaired by Prime in season 5. Prime just injected him with a bunch of painkillers (not enough to not be in pain, but enough to function) and covered up the arm holes. About an hour after the finale, the painkillers wear off and Hordak all but collapses. Having a chronic muscle/joint condition + being electrocuted + being possessed hurts. Man, he really went through it, didn’t he?

8. Based on Wrong Hordak, it’s going to be… really hard for the clones to get used to being outside of the hivemind. They will form cults. They will make new pieces of technology that will mimic the hivemind. They’ll scrounge for the chips and try to implant them in each other. They will find and beg (or threaten) Entrapta and Hordak to put back the hivemind. Hopefully people will have enough compassion for them to help them get used to being individuals.

9. All Eternians have the capacity to activate the Sword of Protection and become She-Ra (or gender-correlated equivalent). Horde Prime is, initially, Eternian, based on the other headcanons here, so he hypothetically could. Any clone could. Hordak could.

Wow! I forgot about some of these headcanons! This was pretty neat. Hope you guys like em too. Also I haven’t watched canon in like a year so there might be some inaccuracies, but at some point I figured that holding onto the thoughts until I rewatched canon just wasn’t worth it. And lo and behold now you can see all my random thoughts too!

[rorylovesf1]

🏎️💨 THE FORMULA 1 TAG GAME! 🏎️💨

1) Who or what got you into f1 ?

funnily enough, at the beginning i was almost completely against giving f1 a try bc all of my friends were obsessed so i jokingly wanted to take a stand haha. anyways, one day my friend made up this extremely funny, over the top story about lando and i was like okay i gotta know more. long story short, i am now a huge fan.

ps: despite their attempts i am also a huge max fan (they hate him)

2) Who was the very first driver you supported? Do you support them now? Have your opinions on them differed or stayed the same since then?

lando was my man for so long. like i really did love him and still do but eventually max became my number 1 and lando dropped to number 2. then just recently, charles overtook lando in my personal ranking as well. although lando has dropped in my rankings, all of my opinions on him are the same, i still love him and can’t wait to witness his first win !!

3) Who’s your current favorite f1 driver?

who else but THE max verstappen? i respect and love that man with my whole heart. he really is in his era of dominance and i am so glad i became a fan early enough to witness it.

4) Is there a driver pairing or pairings that you support? What made you attracted to that pairing in the first place?

i love lestappen because as a duo they are just so fascinating, from knowing and hating each other in karting to respecting and valuing the other in formula 1.

i also am partial to carlando because the friendship that carlos and lando have truly seems to be something special. it’s quite cute.

5) Do your parents, siblings or relatives have a favorite team and/or favorite driver(s)?

so i’ve been working on making my entire family a fan of f1. my dad has always loved lewis, my mom likes charles and my siblings like lando. they don’t really support any team yet.

6) Do you have any favorite races? Are there any that stand out to you the most?

since i only began watching this season, i haven’t watched as many races as i would like but i’m hoping to go back and do a deep dive of past seasons. from this season, i really liked silverstone (my first race), monza (i watched with my friend and i loved the battles) and las vegas (charles’ overtake!!)

7) Do you have a favorite circuit? Can be from the past or from the current calendar.

i really like monza, silverstone and austria.

8) Have you ever been to an f1 race in real life? Feel free to tell us your experience going to one if you like.

not yet but i hope i will sometime in the future !!

9) Have you ever met an f1 driver in real life?

nope but that wld be fun.

10) Do you have a favorite f1 car? If so, what is it?

umm probably the rb19 because the amount max was able to achieve with it is otherworldly. the engineers and rbr team really did an absolutely excellent job with it.

11) Do you have a favorite one win wonder?

esteban ocon. i really love him, he’s such a cutie.

12) Do you have any favorite quotes from the f1 world? this can be either inspirational or hilarious.

“It’s all too much for little Lando Norris” has a special place in my heart. it’s hilarious.

thank you @supercollide for the tag <3 this was super fun and feel free to tag me in whatever u want :)

@ anyone reading this, give it a go !! i’d love to learn more abt everyone :)

[astrodances]

Hello sorry to bother you with this all of sudden ,and this might be coming out of nowhere, but I m trying to get more people into this show with great potential. Have you heard of or watched moon girl and devil dinosaur? Season 2 comes out February 2. 

The main character i love she gives me autistic vibes I’m autistic. The show has interesting characters, action ,great music, and animation ,good themes and representation, Anime references, it even has an eyecatch season 2 is going to be more story driven if you find that interesting. 

It be good if you watch the first 2 season 2 episode when they air so the ratings will be higher. 

I think Disney might be trying to sabotage the show with dropping 14 episodes on Disney + on February 3. They did similar with season 1 and the ratings where low ,please watch season 2 episodes when they air on. But more importantly also watch it on Disney + on feb 3 and when they air it on YouTube. Unfortunately they are dropping 14 episodes on Disney + so watch them all in one day but also when they air the first time.

I’m not just saying only cable just also. I’m saying please support this show. Despite that it still won 5 Emmys. Also if it’s no trouble could if it alright with you spread the word about this show to others you know like either online or irl. Time is limited!

Hey, thanks for the ask! I haven’t watched this show yet, but I am curious about it. I’ll check it out!

[morphofan]

Hyper-Fixation and The Bad Batch

Or, "WTF Is Going On With Morph, Lately?"

Me and The Bad Batch

SO, I first started watching The Bad Batch during the hiatus between S1 and S2. I was big into Boba Fett (thanks to The Mandalorian) and so I found The Bad Batch because Boba was mentioned in one episode. But I didn’t sit down to watch it until my friend, Cyn, told me I HAD to watch it.

So I watched the whole first season, and then had to go back and watch The Bad Batch arc in Season 7 of The Clone Wars. I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for Season 2. I was writing again, inspired again, hyper-fixated.

My sweet cat, my baby, Thomas, died at age 5 in November of 2022. It emotionally destroyed me.

Then my desktop computer had a total hard drive failure. Up until then, I was backing stuff up in a separate folder on my computer, which did f*ckall because the entire hard drive went bad. This was before I learned about backing stuff up on a cloud or OneDrive or whatever.

I lost all my fics, including a half-dozen Bad Batch fics in various states of completion. It was some of the best work I’ve ever written, and it was gone. Poof.

So, there was that sense of lost, and I almost left the fandom from sheer depression. I tried to rewrite the fics, but it wasn’t going to work because I knew I could never replicate what I had written.

Then came “Plan 99.”

I didn’t eat for a week. Not a bite, not a calorie. For seven days. I dropped 16 pounds. At the time of this writing, it’s been nearly 10 months since the finale of S2. The Bad Batch has occupied my mind this entire time. I couldn’t tell you what I did over the last ten months, because it was all just a long blur. I neglected my family, my duties, all the things that a grown ass woman is supposed to focus on.

I still tried to contribute to the fandom, with “Travels With Tech,” fic and video edits, but most of it has been more or less ignored.

A week or so ago, the friend that originally told me about TBB died, very suddenly, of a heart attack at age 45, leaving three kids.

We still haven’t been publicly shown the S3 Bad Batch teaser that was revealed at Star Wars Celebration back in May 2023. There’s been no word of a release date, aside from 2024. It feels now like the creators are mocking us by dropping little comments on TwiX about S3, but not actually giving us anything.

And I’ve realized now, that I’ve built up S3 in my head so much, and imagined so many scenarios I want to see, that I am destined to be disappointed when it does finally air. No matter how amazing S3 is, it cannot live up to the standards I’ve assigned it in my mind.

I did the same thing with S3 of The Mandalorian. I kept thinking, if I could just hold on until S3 of Mando, everything would be good again. But when it came, I was disappointed. And I know the same thing is going to happen with The Bad Batch.

Hyper-fixations always follow the same pattern. I get obsessed with something, and then, quite suddenly, it passes over and I become ambivalent to it. It’s happened with every fandom I’ve been with. Something that, for a time, I thought I could not live without becomes ho-hum. I don’t ever want it to happen, but it always does.

And now I have the guilt of wasting the last two years of my life on yet another hyper-fixation, only to lose interest in it just as suddenly as it started.

S3 of TBB is NOT going to make everything right again. It might provide some happiness for a few months, but then it will end and that will be it.

So anyway… sorry.

END

[petri808]

Nalu Yakuza Au *cover art by @jmoart214 💜

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |

*Special holiday chapter*

“Uwah!” 

Lucy’s excited giggle pierced the cold night air as she held out her hands to catch the snow falling around her. It’s not very often that Tokyo receives snow, maybe a couple times in a season and rarely enough to blanket the ground. On the sidewalk around her, other tokyoites scurry past uninterested in a young girl’s childish antics for it is two days before Christmas Eve and there are errands to run. She grinned at Natsu before looking towards the sky and closing her eyes for a moment while the cold little drops of snow flurries touched her skin. He merely chuckled as a warm smile graced his lips. It never failed to amaze Natsu each time the woman did something to make him fall in love all over again. But here she was, her face bathed in the artificial glow of store signs looking like an ethereal angel. 

This was their first winter after graduating from high school when nothing was yet set in stone and the rest of their lives laid before them. Once Natsu turned 20, he already knew that his father wanted him to succeed as the Oyabun, but he wasn’t ready to be a boss of their yakuza group just yet. He’s still young! And as he watched his girlfriend catching snowflakes, it only steeled his desire to focus on love not business… especially because Lucy is opposed to him becoming the boss. He held back a sigh and put on a smile as she grabbed his hand again to continue walking down the avenue. 

“Did you order the meal from KFC?” Lucy queried.

“Of course,” Natsu lifted their conjoined hands, kissing the back of her knuckles. “I even ordered your favorite cake from the patisserie.” 

“Mmm,” she bounced up placing a quick peck on his cheek. “You take such good care of me,” she cooed and snuggled to his side.

‘I’d kill for you,’ Natsu mumbled in his head. “I wanna give you everything kitten. I’ll always protect and take care of you.”

He knew that she knew exactly what those words meant… and it only added to her opposition. It wasn’t that Lucy was against him being the boss, what she’s really annoyed with is the whole boys club aspect of the yakuza. Natsu didn’t blame her for feeling the way she did, hell one of the things that attracted him was her strength. People often assumed Lucy was just another pretty girl who traded on her looks and lacked in intelligence, but they’re dead wrong. Picture it. The woman who was just minutes ago childly catching snowflakes was always in the top 10 percent of exams and was accepted into Tokyo University, one of the toughest universities to get into for business. Beautiful, brilliant, and feisty. He loved her so much… It’s because of that love that he didn’t want her joining the yakuza. 

Time to change the subject.

“Hey, I was thinking we should go to an onsen after visiting the shrine for New Year’s.” Natsu suggested. “We haven’t visited one in a while.”

“That would be nice, a trip before I start college.”

Natsu kissed her temple. “I’ll book a room with a private onsen.” 

The couple spent a sweet and savory Christmas Eve together at Natsu’s apartment, cuddling under the covers for most of the evening. He lived in a one-bedroom flat on the 26th floor of a high-rise apartment building where the nighttime views of Tokyo were beautiful. Outside the picture window, snow flurries fell and swirled through the air, catching on the light coming from the apartment before disappearing into the darkness. A few scattered buildings around the city were lit up for the holiday season making them stand out in the skyline. These really were the best times, when they could forget the world and all the responsibilities of life that lay beyond the front the door. Here in their own little heaven, where they made the rules, it was always sad to leave it. 

The next morning, Lucy went home with plans to hang out with her best friend Levy because Natsu had to deal with some end of year matters for the organization. No matter, it’s just five days until they’ll leave for their trip. He really hated being apart from her for more than a couple days, but he knew he better get used to it. Once Lucy started school, there will be times she needed to focus on projects and exams that may keep them apart for weeks at a time. He too may have problems that pop up that he needed to deal with. As the current first lieutenant it’s his responsibility to take care of matters before they escalated and required the boss to get involved. 

Finally, the 30th arrived. Natsu picked Lucy up from her apartment and they headed out in his car to an onsen located in the Saitama region. It’s about an hour’s drive, but the route is scenic once they leave Tokyo with forested land flanking many sections of the highway. During the autumn, the colors… all the reds, yellow, and orange leaves are pleasing to the eye, now those trees lay barren, and the pines are blanketed with piles of snow. Mountains of white wintergreens gleaming in the mid-afternoon sunlight.         

The ryokan Natsu chose was a mid-sized inn tucked away from the nearby city. Its design featured traditional Japanese style accommodations from tatami floors to pillowy futon mattresses, complimentary yukata robes, and in-room dining services. There are sliding shoji doors that led to a private deck and covered onsen bath that’s open to the outside. It’s a perfect hotel if you’re looking for a cozy, intimate getaway, and that’s exactly what Natsu wanted to spoil his girlfriend with before school stress began. Let Lucy start off the new year relaxed and sated. 

“Of course, I’m being clingy,” Natsu teased as they walked towards the guest room after check in. “It’s been a week.” He wrapped his arms around Lucy’s waist making it difficult for her to walk, but as much as she grumbled through gritted smiles, he won’t let go. The poor attendant carrying their luggage must’ve been so uncomfortable. 

The moment the door closed behind them… “Okay! Okay!” Lucy shrieked and clawed at the arms cinched around her waist. “So embarrassing!”

“Oww! Oww!” Natsu laughed as he finally let go. “Sorry kitten, I’ll leave the affection for behind the scenes.” Lucy rolled her eyes though there’s no malice in her expression, so Natsu still considered it his win. He kissed her cheek. “I’m just happy.” He kissed her cheek again. “Can you blame me?”

Lucy’s cheeks flushed. “No…” 

Yup, definitely his win.

The couple changed into the more comfortable yukata robes and hapi coats before venturing outside. For the three hours before the dinner service would be served, they spent it walking around the hotels zengarden and tea house. It’s a beautifully maintained garden replete with a koi pond that had a wooden bridge that crossed it, several intersecting pathways to follow, benches along the way to rest, and a couple of gazebo structures to enjoy the tranquility of nature. There’s a very light snow fall during the walk, but without much of a breeze the chill factor is tolerable. Natsu couldn’t remember the last time he’s been in a garden like this one. It might have been during a school trip. Had he held hands with Lucy then like he’s doing now? Possibly. Oh well, now there’s this memory to add to the collection.

Because the hotel is smaller it doesn’t have a sit-down restaurant, so meals are delivered to the rooms by request. Guests were also allowed to order specialty menus at the time of reservation, which is the route Natsu chose. He knew Lucy’s favorite dishes and made sure they were included. For dinner he’d chosen a mix of options. A chirashi bowl of sushi rice covered in a variety of fish, scallop, shrimp, and eel sliced thin in sashimi style. Braised pork belly coated with a sticky teriyaki sauce. Red miso soup with wakame seaweed, tofu, and scallion. Shrimp and vegetable tempura, and lastly for dessert, strawberry mochi ice cream drizzled with sugar glaze and kinako powder. The resident sake master included a top line junmai daiginjo sake to go with the meal. Everything was delicious. 

Now that their bellies are full and the sake has mellowed them, it was the best time to relax away the rest of the evening. They took turns taking a quick bath before slipping into the onsen. Natsu went in first. 

“Finally,” he teased from the steaming waters. “I was starting to worry you fell asleep in the bathroom.”

Lucy kneeled next to the edge with the towel wrapped around her body and her hair tied up in a loose bun. “I have a surprise to show you first.”

“Oh?” Natsu shifted his body to rest his elbows on the edge.

She turned around, still on her knees, then let the towel drop down to her waist to reveal her back. “I got it on the 26th so it’s still healing.” Lucy twisted her neck so she could see him. “What do you think?” Then before he started to respond, she let go of the towel and joined him in the water. 

Natsu prompted Lucy to sit with her back to him so he could look at it closer. “It’s a beautiful tattoo, fits you perfectly.” He ran his fingers over the soft, fluid line work that graced her upper back. Top to bottom it covered half of her back, perfectly centered over her spine with the wingspan stretching over her shoulder blades. He couldn’t quite place the style, a touch of whimsy, fantasy, maybe even tribal and the design was part butterfly, fairy, and angelic in its beauty. “Very delicate, perfect for a woman, but why wings?”

Lucy turned back to him. “Because you often call me kitten or angel, so when Levy and I visited the tattoo shop and I saw this design I decided to go with it.” She caressed his cheek and placed a pressured lingering kiss on his lips. “Now I’m forever your angel.”

Natsu pulled her onto his lap so she’s straddling his legs, wrapping his arms around her waist with hands draping over her lower curves. The steaming waters chased away the winter chill, while Lucy’s lithe body is framed by the lightly falling snow behind her and the overhead light created a haloed glow around her blonde hair. Just, breathtaking… and it’s all his. He grinned and returned the kiss in kind letting his forehead rest against hers, “Damn right your mine, and I’ll never let you go.” 

Snap Snap Snap “Boss? Oi Natsu, why the hell are you staring at the kids?”

“Kids?” Natsu’s eyes blinked and slowly readjusted from daydreaming. That’s right, the restaurant they ate dinner at was across from a park decorated with lights for the holiday season. He was waiting outside while Gray settled the bill when he noticed a young woman bathed in lights looking at the sky while two children, presumably hers, were laughing a few feet away as they made snow angels in the snow. Did he just flash back to a decade-old memory? The second he realized where he was, he turned around to address Gray. “I um, was just remembering how we used to make snow angels too as kids. Remember, Gray?”

Gray’s brow raised in suspicion, “not really, but whatever. I paid so let’s go.”

“Right…” Natsu glanced back to the park one last time before falling in step with his lieutenant. He’d almost forgotten that memory, but how could he. “My angel,” he muttered under his breath and gained another weird look from Gray. 

With the shinnenkai end of year celebration party coming up in a couple more weeks, Natsu had been too busy preparing to notice all the Christmas seasonal decorations around the city. Though a western thing, it was becoming more and more accepted as a secular holiday, especially in the bigger cities. But that wasn’t the issue of the moment. He really loved it when Lucy got that tattoo because he thought that it meant she’d accepted a future with him— Oh, how wrong he’d been because that was the year they broke up and ten years later he still wasn’t exactly sure why.  

“You go on in Gray, I’ll be in shortly.” They’d arrived back at the office building, but Natsu wasn’t ready to go in just yet. 

Natsu pulled the collar of his coat tighter to his neck to brace against a small gust of chilly wind. Lately his and Lucy’s current relationship as rivals was starting to wear on him mentally and it was getting harder and harder to control his emotions surrounding her. Guess ten years of pining really will drive a person insane. He closed his eyes and tilted his head to the sky to allow the little white flurries to chill his skin. Somehow, some way he’ll win his angel back and finally fulfill the wish he’d made at the shrine all those years ago. ‘I said it didn’t I Luce,’ he smiled to himself. ‘I’ll never let you go…’

[paxesoterica]

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury reminded me that I actually do enjoy watching anime, and since I have a bit of a backlog of ones I’ve either watched a few episodes or haven’t started at all, I was inspired by this post to make a scorecard of anime that I intend to watch over the course of this year.

My self-imposed rules are I will not start any other anime before I have finished these 16 (with the exception of Witch from Mercury, see below), I will be watching them with Japanese voice acting and subs, and that, gvien my experience with watching Witch from Mercury on a weekly basis, I won’t try to binge and instead watch an episode or two each day, since that will fit better into how busy life can get, and also give me more time to really think about what I just watched before moving on.

The shows above are listed in chronological order of release (1979-2023), but not the order I’ll necessarily watch them in (I like having the freedom to pick and choose), with additional notes below:

1.) Mobile Suit Gundam (1979; dir. Yoshiyuki Tomino): A more experienced Gundam fan who is also fond of Revolutionary Girl Utena recommended this and War in the Pocket (see below) if I was curious about other Gundam shows. Since I’ve been meaning to watch some older anime for awhile anyway, this seemed like a good series to start with, especially with its historical importance to the medium. I have previewed the first episode and I think it holds up well so far. I will only be watching the 43 episodes of the original anime at this time, so not the movie compilations or the sequel series like Zeta or ZZ (yet).

2.) Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989; dir. Fumihiko Takayama): I mentioned that I would permit myself freedom to choose the watch order, but since War in the Pocket is a side-story set around the same period as Mobile Suit Gundam, I feel it would be better to watch the former after the latter, so that I’ll have a better understanding of the setting.

3.) Goldfish Warning! (1991; dir. Junichi Sato): Goldfish Warning! has an interesting history, in that it’s something of a predecessor to Sailor Moon: the latter would reprise the former’s timeslot, much of its staff (including the director and his assistants, among which was a young Kunihiko Ikuhara), and a similar style of slapstick comdey. As a bonus, I’m 99% certain that one of the leads, Chitose Fujinomiya, would serve as inspiration for the Revolutionary Girl Utena character, Nanami Kiryuu. I will be watching both the 45 episode anime series and its accompanying film.

4.) Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995; dir. Hideaki Anno): The thing that piqued my interest in this show was a short review that I read years ago (don’t remember when or where), and that may have been translated from Japanese iirc. The review talked about how gender roles in Eva were inverted compared to mecha shows that came before it, such as how Shinji acted more like stereotypical female characters from such shows, while Asuka acted like what you’d expect from stereotypical male characters. I don’t know how true that observation is, but it stuck with me, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for that. I will be watching the original 26 episodes as well as the End of Evangelion film. I’m debating if I also want to include the Rebuild of Evangelion films, but I’m currently leaning towards watching those sometime later.

5.) FLCL (2000; dir. Kazuya Tsurumaki): I watched the first four episodes at a con, but never finished, so I’ll be doing a rewatch from the first episode. I’ll be watching the original OVA series, but leave the sequel seasons for another time.

*6.) Princess Tutu (2002; dir. Junichi Sato & Shogo Koumoto): I needed to watch this anime after watching an amv of it titled Dance of Death (it’s got spoilers, including for what I’m assuming are the last episodes, but if you don’t mind that or have already seen it, I highly recommend giving it a gander). I watched ‘til around episode 16~ until real life interrupted, so I’m starting over and watching it from the beginning. This is the first of the three shows I’m currently watching, and up next is Ep. 02.

7.) Michiko & Hatchin (2008; dir. Sayo Yamamoto): Multiple reviewers I trust said it was good, the setting and premise sound pretty different from anime norms, and I’m intrigued by the bit of trivia that apparently the director made it explicitly for office ladies to enjoy after coming home from their shift.

8.) Star Driver (2010; dir. Takuya Igarashi): Pretty sure I learned about Star Driver from this chart tracing the work of some of the members of Be-Papas (not *everything* anime-related comes back to Revolutionary Girl Utena, but a lot of it does, yeah  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). I’ll be watching the series, but I’m not sure about the movie since apparently it’s a compilation film, so I’ll have to think about it.

9..) Penguindrum (2011; dir. Kunihiko Ikuhara & Shouko Nakamura): I’ve heard mixed opinions on this one, but it’s an Ikuhara-directed anime so I want to watch regardless, and form my own opinions about it. I’ll watch the 24 episodes, but I’m not sure about the Re:cycle films that came out recently.

10.) Mob Psycho 100 (2016; dir. Yuzuru Tachikawa, Takahiro Hasui): Someone made a vhs recording of the show’s first OP that ran on loop, and that was apparently enough to lodge itself in my brain. I watched the first season and a couple episodes of the second, until real life interrupted, so I’ll start fresh and watch all three seasons, plus the two OVAs that were apparently made.

11.) Sarazanmai (2019; dir. Nobuyuki Takeuchi & Kunihiko Ikuhara): Another Ikuhara-directed anime. I was halfway through before real life interruptions, but watching 11 episodes should be relatively easy.

12.) Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (2020; dir. Mitsue Yamazaki): In retrospect, I slept on this show, as I hadn’t realized it was another comedy by the director of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, not to mention that the premise is a nice subversion of a classic fantasy trope.

13.) Shadows House (2021; dir. Kazuki Ouhashi): I dug the gothic fantasy vibe I got from the review I read. I will be watching both seasons.

*14.) Bocchi the Rock! (2022; dir. Keiichirou Saitou): Repeatedly saw the protagonist compared to Suletta Mercury due to social anxiety, and am staying for the show’s willingness to experiment with animation. This is the second of the three shows I’m currently watching, and up next is Ep. 05.

*15.) Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (2022; dir. Hiroshi Kobayashi & Ryou Andou): The whole reason I started watching this show was this post. And now I have brainrot am perfectly normal about this show. Starting with Ep. 02, I watched this show every Sunday it was out, and intend to resume doing so in April. It is possible that I might not be able to finish this show in 2023, since previous Gundam shows have run about ~50-ish episodes, and this show’s predecessor, Iron-Blooded Orphans, was initially slated to run only 25 episodes, only to reveal that the show length had been doubled in what would have been the last episode. So, I’ll finish Witch from Mercury in either 2023 or 2024.

*16.) The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady (2023; dir. Shingo Tamaki): Another lead compared to Suletta, this time due to rescuing a bride from her jerk fiance and being really gay. This is the third of the three shows I’m currently watching, and up next is Ep. 04.

[ingravinoveritas]

The fact Michael put hands on David in the office writing scene and proceeded to say he would have 'torn David to shreds in seconds' whilst in feral Sheen mode *yer, I dont think anyone thought of them fighting when he said that*. I mean I know most of staged is scripted/directed by Simon but oh man, my brain stopped working for a bit. Also the Damsel in the tower (David forever the pretty princess) and the big spoon dialogue made me laugh so much.

Hello, Anons! Thank you for writing in to share your favorite bits of Staged with me. I’ve had a few other Anons write in to share their opinion of the show overall, but I wanted to group these together since they’re referencing specific moments in the episodes.

Anon #1: I caught that moment in episode 4, too. Here’s the visual, for those who haven’t seen it yet:

What was so interesting to me is that there were two specific instances in this season where Michael and David very deliberately enter into each other’s physical spaces/touch each other, seemingly without prompting. This was one, and then the scene where David touches Michael’s arm that Anon #3 mentioned is the other:

We could sit here all day and discuss what was scripted vs. what wasn’t, and whether Simon wrote these little moments of contact into the script, but my immediate gut feeling is that he didn’t. It’s one thing to write the words on the page, but Michael and David are the ones who bring those words to life and imbue the situations in the show with their own chemistry and connection. And it seems to be their natural instinct to be in each other’s space and to touch.

I think we sometimes forget how important touch is to human beings. It can be a way of grounding someone, of saying, “It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here for you” when a person is having a crisis or a difficult time in general. Depriving someone of touch who needs it can also be tremendously harmful, mentally and emotionally, so I found it very lovely to see Michael and David giving that to each other so freely. (We got a hint of that from the hug at the NTAs last year, but this seemed to be even greater confirmation.)

I also thought it was very interesting that, of everyone in the third season, Michael had the most on screen physical contact with David, and the married vibes between them were played up so strongly. David seemed to be physical in equal measure with Georgia and Michael, but for Michael, those intimate touches only came from David. And the “old married couple” line completely fits with Georgia repeatedly calling Michael David’s “other wife” in real life.

...Which leads me to the moment you mentioned, Anon #2. I was entirely entertained by this scene at the beginning of episode 5, with Michael and David eviscerating each other’s careers, albeit quite playfully. It actually reminded me of a very similar scene in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where Matt Damon and Ben Affleck do the same thing, re: each other’s careers. (If you haven’t seen it, you can watch that scene here starting at the 2:00 mark.)

The difference is that with Matt and Ben, it noticeably has the feeling of two best friends taking the piss out of each other, but with Michael and David, it very much comes across as that “old married couple” vibe instead. It’s playful teasing underpinned with so much love and affection and something...more than what we see with Ben and Matt, especially with how Michael laughs. Difficult to say whether it was improvised,  but I absolutely believe Michael’s laugh and David being pleased at making Michael laugh were both genuine. 

So many choices were made in this season (the “damsel in the tower” line gets me too, because I swear that is right out of an MS/DT fanfic I once read). The “big spoon” question nearly knocked me out of my seat, too, particularly because a) They answered it; and b) The response wasn’t something like, “Oh, I’d have to ask Georgia about that” but rather Michael and David answering without hesitation, thereby heavily implying that they have, in fact, spooned with each other. Amazing.

I appreciate you all sharing your favorite moments with me, and getting to talk about them definitely made me smile. (Also, Anon #3, if you need a link to watch Staged season 3, please DM me and I can help you out there.) Thanks for writing in! x

[zrtranscripts]

Season 10, Mission 5: Go West

A clone and a super soldier walk into a bar...

~

ERNIE VAN ARK: Well, Ranger Five, that should be it, on the horizon. The base holding your namesake, Runner Five. A top secret Valmont facility in the Spanish desert. An entire prison dedicated to a single high-priority captive. That’s what it said in the intelligence we stole from Casablanca, but all I see is an Old West town. A single strip of wooden buildings. A saloon, a sheriff’s office. No signs of life.

I don’t know much about the American West, Five. They only had so many history texts on Red Scorpion Base. Sam once said they used to make cowboy movies in the Spanish desert. There must be old sets in this area. Sam knew a lot about movies. I hoped... one day I might get to watch some with him.

[Ranger Five’s implants whir]

Weeks of searching, Ranger. Weeks since we escaped Red Scorpion. All those Valmont decoys. The fake prison in Gibraltar. The false Fives in Tangier. This can’t be another dead end, it can’t be! What would the old me say, I wonder? Something megalomaniacal, I expect. I hear him sometimes in the night, Five, scolding foolish little Ernie for letting Valmont get ahead.

Valmont’s weakness is his flair for drama. That’s what the old Van Ark would say. His tendency for fancy. Just because he built a prison doesn’t mean it looks like one! See? Most of these buildings are wooden backdrops, but not the saloon. Its windows are all barred and sealed. Hiding a prison in plain sight surrounded by tumbleweed, that’s the sort of thing Brent Valmont would do!

You’d better get your implants ready for a fight. Runner Five’s imprisoned on that film set, I’d bet on it. It’s getting dark. We can use those wooden carts to cover our approach. Watch out for guards. There’s a hero waiting on our rescue. Run!

~

ERNIE VAN ARK: Here we are, Ranger Five. The saloon. It’s even got swinging doors. Sam’d love this, wouldn’t he? We’d best be careful. We don’t know what we’ll find inside, although... it’s strange we haven’t encountered a single guard yet.

[footsteps on creaking wood, piano plays]

I don’t understand. This place is deserted, but it’s certainly not a real saloon. Look at that thick metal door behind the self-playing piano. And the bar’s a computer terminal in disguise. [sighs] Hold on, I’ll hack the door. [computer zaps] Inside, Five. Quick!

[door opens, devices whir and hiss, chemicals bubble]

So much for the Old West. This is a laboratory! Centrifuges, robot arms, dissection tables, all fully automated. There! A cell door, in the corner. That must be where Runner Five is kept. Can you wrench it open? [implants whir, metal creaks, monitor beeps] A padded cell. One poor soul strapped to a gurney... Don’t worry, Runner Five, we’re here to - ! Oh. That’s... Not Runner Five.

PETER LYNN: Time for another robot checkup, eh, Brent? Got to top me up? Oh God! Oh, that’s Van Ark himself! That’s all I... [laughs] That’s all I need.

ERNIE VAN ARK: Peter Lynn! He’s unconscious. So many tubes connected to him. The immortal! He’s the priority prisoner, not Runner Five! [discordant piano chord, alarm blares] Damn! Can you carry Peter, Five? [implants whir] Please try not to hurt him when you unhook the tubes. There’s a back exit past the fume cupboards. Must lead up into the hills. We’ve got to get him out of here. Come on, Five!

~

[alarms blare in the distance]

ERNIE VAN ARK: Alright, Five. We’re out of the immediate danger zone. These hills and gullies will give us cover, but security can’t be far away. There must be guards somewhere. We need to keep moving. How’s our patient faring? Can you hear me, Peter?

PETER LYNNE: [gasps] Cold... So cold. Oh... no, no, no! Take me back!

[cloth rustles, metal clanks]

ERNIE VAN ARK: Don’t struggle, Peter, you’ll hurt yourself. Here, take my coat. [rocks clatter, zombies growl] What was that? A hand reaching out of the ground right where my foot was a moment ago. Zombies! Another one. Careful, Five. That one almost got your leg. We need to get Peter out of here before they surface fully. Quickly, run!

[footsteps in gravel]

PETER LYNN: What’s going on? Van... Van Ark? No, you can’t have me.

ERNIE VAN ARK: Keep a good hold on him, Five.

PETER LYNN: Get your metal monstrosity off me. I can’t be here! Jenny needs me.

[cloth rustles, metal clanks]

ERNIE VAN ARK: You won’t be doing anything for anyone if those zombies get you. Now, where have they gone? [rocks clatter, zombies growl] Up ahead, Five, clawing their way out of the ground. They must have burrowed under us. No time to evade them, Ranger. We’ll have to take them out. Put Peter down and fire.

[implants whir, zombies splatter]

Thank you, Five. These must be a variant of our Tunisian zombies. [footsteps] Oh no, Peter’s running away! I didn’t think he was well enough. He’s in no state to fend for himself out here. We need to get after him. Come on, Five!

~

ERNIE VAN ARK: Another Old West film set, and nothing but scrubby desert all around. Peter must be hiding in there. Keep your sensors hot, Five. [devices whir] There, slumped against that stagecoach. The adrenaline must have worn off finally. Peter, please do listen to me. We’re here to rescue you. Well... maybe that wasn’t the initial intention, but it’s certainly what we intend to do now. You have to stop running away! Let Ranger Five help you.

PETER LYNNE: [laughs] Your oversize Roomba can just keep its distance! I have had enough robotic hands inserting things in me for a lifetime! There are only so many curative substances one man can take, even me!

ERNIE VAN ARK: Curative substances?

PETER LYNNE: Which one was your favorite, Ernie? The one that blistered every inch of skin on my body? Or what about the projectile vomiting? Or – or that one where all my blood vessels ruptured at once, leaving me clinically dead for a week?

ERNIE VAN ARK: Peter, these experiments, these horrible experiments, they weren’t mine! I-I know what my other self did to you. Janine told me. I think it was the thing she was angriest about. But I’m not with Valmont. I was his prisoner, too! He destroyed the only homes I’ve ever known. Red Scorpion Base, my friends from Abel. He even killed Guillemette. And she was... kind to me, in her way. I saw him bragging about it in a Ranger’s files.

PETER LYNNE: I... don’t know what your game is. Maybe you are telling the truth, [laughs] I can’t tell! I think I lost touch with reality several experiments ago. You need to stop your walking Tonka truck stomping around like that. If you are who you say you are, I would get going while I still can.

ERNIE VAN ARK: Not without you.

PETER LYNNE: I have to say, [laughs] I’m surprised this latest batch is so mild. Uh, you know, I’ve had worse comedowns in abandoned warehouses in Manchester. Credit where it’s due, though, it certainly is... moreish.

ERNIE VAN ARK: Moreish? Has Valmont been injecting you with opiates? To make you dependent, I suppose.

PETER LYNNE: You know, a normal person’s first thought would have been to numb the pain.

ERNIE VAN ARK: Oh. Yes, I suppose it would.

PETER LYNNE: It doesn’t. Just FYI. Numb the pain, I mean. Oh, and as-as for the dependency, bit redundant if you ask me. Not like I have much choice but to stay here. [rock rumbles and clatters] Oh, [laughs] there’s my ride now.

ERNIE VAN ARK: Burrowing zombies, more this time! We need to move before the whole street gives way! [ground collapses] Peter, Ranger? Is everyone alright?

PETER LYNNE: Oh, yep, never better!

ERNIE VAN ARK: Fascinating! We’ve fallen into some kind of underground tunnel system.

[zombies growl]

PETER LYNNE: And we’re not the only ones.

ERNIE VAN ARK: There’s zombies breaking through the walls. I thought they had human hands, but they’re actually more like huge blunt claws.

PETER LYNN: This is no time to admire monster design, Van Ark. Listen, I don’t much care if you live, but assuming you do, I suggest you follow me. I’ve been here before... and I know a way out, but we need to go now.

ERNIE VAN ARK: You heard him, Five. Run!

~

PETER LYNNE: Looks like we’ve lost them for now.

ERNIE VAN ARK: A chamber in the tunnels filled with Old West memorabilia. A sheriff’s hat, a gun holster, a giant cow’s skull. Wait. Not all of these are animal bones. That’s a human tibia with some flesh still hanging off it. It looks like it’s been... gnawed! Peter, what is this place?

PETER LYNNE: Ah, it’s just a cavern.

ERNIE VAN ARK: A cavern with claw marks on the walls that are a perfect match for those mole-like zombies and pits in the ground filled with more half-eaten corpses. I think that one’s moving! This isn’t a cavern, it’s a larder!

PETER LYNNE: I suppose you could call it that.

ERNIE VAN ARK: You brought us here deliberately! You wanted to be caught!

PETER LYNNE: Well, what was I supposed to do, trust you? Ernie Van Ark, action hero? Oh, forgive me if I don’t buy that from the man who ended the world!

ERNIE VAN ARK: And you allied with him from what I’ve heard! Why am I irredeemable, but not you?

PETER LYNNE: I don’t know! Uh, maybe both of us are, uh... But I can’t leave. The way out’s over there. I’m going this way, into the belly of the beast. Follow me or don’t follow me. I don’t care.

~

ERNIE VAN ARK: There he is, Ranger. Just standing in the center of a huge chamber surrounded by decaying, half-eaten corpses. He looks utterly without hope. Peter, please -

[intercom squeals]

BRENT VALMONT: Petey, Petey, Petey. If you’re hearing this, it means you’ve tried to escape again.

ERNIE VAN ARK: Oh no.

PETER LYNNE: Don’t worry, it’s a recording. I don’t even rate live surveillance, apparently.

BRENT VALMONT: You remember the rules of La Prisión de la DeLuca, don’t you? You stay put and let me try out my samples on you and I don’t cut off Janine’s fingers one by one and make you listen to her screams. Got it? Good! Now you enjoy the zombies hospitality and I’ll have someone out to pick you up ASAP. ASAPish, anyway. Only fair to let my undead security team have a nibble after the trouble you’ve given them. Oh, and uh, don’t try this again! Third strike, and Janine really will be out. Ta-ra.

PETER LYNNE: Oh, I escaped once before, but the zombies caught me. They’ve got a slow-acting strain of the virus, so they don’t need to feed as ravenously as your normal zom. They just bury you in a pit and pull bits off whenever they fancy a snack. It was... Days before the extraction team arrived.

ERNIE VAN ARK: So Valmont says he has Janine, and you just... believe him?

PETER LYNNE: [laughs] What choice do I have? If there’s any chance I can keep her safe -

ERNIE VAN ARK: No.

PETER LYNNE: What do you mean, no?

ERNIE VAN ARK: I won’t allow it. We came here to rescue a friend and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We can find Janine together. Runner Five, too.

PETER LYNNE: And if I don’t want to come, you’ll just kidnap me again, I presume.

ERNIE VAN ARK: No. If you stay, we stay, too.

PETER LYNNE: Oh great, very productive. We can all enjoy Brent’s lovely acid trips together!

ERNIE VAN ARK: Yes, except he won’t need you then, will he, if he has me? I can be his scientist and lab rat rolled into one. What do you think happens to you then? To Janine?

PETER LYNNE: You... [laughs] you wouldn’t.

ERNIE VAN ARK: Don’t presume to know what I would or wouldn’t do, Peter Lynne! You refuse to believe I’m on your side, so do you really want to risk Valmont getting his hands on me again? [zombies growl, rock clatters] Hundreds of burrowing zombies bursting out of every square foot of wall and ceiling. Decision time, Peter. Them or me.

PETER LYNNE: Alright, fine! That tunnel to the left, that’s the route Valmont’s men took the last time they hauled me out of here. It’s a safe passage to the surface. Follow me. Go, go!

~

[footsteps]

PETER LYNNE: [gasps] The surface. We’ve made it.

ERNIE VAN ARK: Keep running. These zombies tunnel at incredible speed. We’re not out of the woods yet. [zombie growls, rock clatters] To your left, Five! Claws bursting out of the ground.

PETER LYNNE: Up ahead, a whole line of them like an undead barbed wire fence!

ERNIE VAN ARK: We’ll have to jump them, then head for the river beyond. Ready, Ranger? 1, 2, 3, jump! [implants whir, footsteps, water flows] We’re over the river. Keep going!

PETER LYNNE: Wait! [laughs] Wait! [laughs] They’ve stopped following us.

ERNIE VAN ARK: The river must act as a natural boundary to their territory.

PETER LYNNE: Oh God... Oh God, what was I thinking? I can’t go on the lam with Van Ark! Janine...

ERNIE VAN ARK: Peter, you being locked up in that lab helps no one but Valmont. What do you think he’ll do to Janine once you’ve outlived your purpose, hmm?

PETER LYNNE: But when he finds out I’ve escaped -

ERNIE VAN ARK: Who’s going to tell him, the zombies? That message was prerecorded. He doesn’t know you’ve escaped yet. And he doesn’t expect you to actually try, not with Janine at stake. He won’t know you’re not in the zombies’ larder until he can get a recovery team out here. That will be two weeks at the earliest based on the map I’ve constructed of Valmont’s facilities. Find her before then, and Janine’s safe.

PETER LYNNE: All right... Say I trust you on that. What’s next? Do you even have a plan?

ERNIE VAN ARK: That recording, do you remember hearing anything in the background?

PETER LYNNE: I don’t know. Bird calls, maybe?

ERNIE VAN ARK: Several different species, if I’m not much mistaken. And more than that. There were waves, too, crashing against rock.

PETER LYNNE: So we’re looking for a seaside location that’s... popular with birdwatchers, or-or used to be?

ERNIE VAN ARK: There’s only one Valmont facility that matches those criteria. I’ve got the map here. Look, this island.

PETER LYNNE: Tabarca. That’s... really close. All right. Okay. I don’t know what Valmont’s drugs have done to me, or... how I’ll cope without them. But I can last until we get to Janine. I can free Jenny. And then nothing else matters.

~

[lovestuckyhatemarvel]

Okay so, here we are with season 4 episode 1 of Stranger Things. But before I get into the episode, I need to explain something: I’ve never actually watched this season before. I have, however, watched Steddie compilations on YouTube. Regardless, I’m labeling this as a ‘rewatch’ because it’ll keep the series consistent. And parts of it technically are a rewatch. Anyway, these are also going to be way longer than usual because a lot more is just Brand New™️ to me. Although some I haven’t seen but do know because of fanfiction.

1.) I literally can’t remember what made the Texas shooting something that would be necessary to be mentioned at the beginning when America has shootings all the time.

Edit: I have been reminded of the actual case it’s referencing. But I think Texas shooting is going to become less and less of an obvious connection as time goes on, especially for people who aren’t in America. I am in America, and there’s just…too many shootings to keep track of, tbh.

2.) I don’t know why I’m watching this recap. I literally watched season 3 last week or whatever but they really cut out the Russian interrogation/secret base locating stuff entirely from their recap.

3.) season 4 really starts out by being like, “Remember Brenner? Remember that douchebag? Well, guess what. He’s actually super boring in everyday life.”

4.) 010 come on down to get your psychic powers tested and your ability to interpret Brenner’s bad drawings tested. Oh nvm at least now they’re trying to locate people only to witness both Six and Dr. Ellis’ death.

5.) Wait why did Brenner survive this? How did Brenner survive this? Ten is dead. Also, since when does Brenner care about the kids? It’s not like he’s treated them well.

6.) El looking really crazy covered in blood and basically hyperventilating.

7.) El’s got her own room. Also, we’ve gone 185 days since season 3 and now El is painting little figures. And is giving a recap via letter. Joyce is a telemarketer, Will is gay pining, Jonathan has a broken car and is a stoner. Argyle has a pizza van and takes them to school. The bullies in school are cliches.

8.) Nancy drives Mike to school and Karen Wheeler looks great. Also they want Mike home by 9 pm because of his 6:30 flight.

9.) Suzie is editing a D- to an A for Dustin.

10.) I love this conversation about crushes between Robin and Steve. Boobies. Although I don’t like Robin’s hair as much this season.

11.) Max rides the bus and missed a Thursday meeting so needs to go after lunch.

12.) oh there’s Chrissy. And here’s the marching band with Robin playing the TRUMPET. Looks like Vickie’s a clarinet player. Jason and Lucas on the basketball team while Dustin and Mike argue about girlfriends in the crowd.

13.) I know it’s way too early since Jason hasn’t done anything yet, but I already hate him. He just has a punchable face. “Think about all these dead people DID THEY DIE FOR US TO LOSE AT BASKETBALL?” I would have keyed his car in high school. Like oh my god.

14.) Mike and Dustin are nerds and freaks and proud of it. To be fair, Lucas always has been cooler than them. But also Lucas should have gone to Eddie himself.

15.) PACKAGE. FROM. RUSSIA. Man, do not ever send anything delicate to Joyce, she fucking demolishes packages. Oh, that’s an ugly doll. I’ve read about the doll but didn’t know it was that ugly.

16.) El/Jane has to go after a blonde girl talking about Helen Keller for her presentation about Hopper? That’s rough, buddy. Angela is a bitch and I hate her Ariana Grande looking ass. Will is trying and I love that him and El are siblings but yeah, no, that presentation went badly.

17.) Max is doing her loner thing but does get to see Chrissy being upset in the hall as she heads away from the counselor.

18.) C in English and C- in Spanish. It’s not normal for Max but babe, C’s get degrees. You’ll be okay. Max’s mom is drinking, working two jobs, and stepdad is gone. Max is still my favorite even if she is a liar. Lucas’ advice about finding something she cares about is technically good but poor wording and timing. Max isn’t really open for help.

19.) Stranger Things really loves shots of people in bathrooms holding the sides of the sink. Also we get to hear Chrissy vomiting.

20.) Chrissy’s hallucinating. She has issues with her mom being awful about her weight and honestly, mood.

21.) Oh hi, Eddie. You’re a goofy guy. And now Eddie walks across the table. Also honestly, so far the bullying in Hawkins is like, minimal. All that happened in that scene is Eddie got called a freak. Dustin and Mike do try to get the game postponed. I still think Lucas should have asked. Eddie’s got to pass Mrs. O’Donnell’s class and that’s it to pass the class. Eddie really does yank both those dweebs out of their seats with barely any effort.

22.) Murray has karate from 1-3 on Fridays? Good for him. Oh and the doll from Russia has nipples. Teeny tiny nipples. And now needs to be smashed.

23.) Everyone thinks it’s weird that Nancy and Jonathan aren’t spending spring break together. I still think Nancy’s a comphet case. I love that Mike asks Nancy and Dustin asks Steve. Max is sarcastic to Dustin’s request which is very funny. Literally everyone shoots them down. Dustin comes up with an idea nad sprints off faster than I knew was possible.

24.) Oh it’s the picnic table behind the school scene. And we hear and see a clock chiming as she waits for Eddie. I’ve never actually seen the build up to the meeting with Eddie. Did not know the clock breaks and spills spiders.

25.) Eddie is tempted to leave ‘cause Chrissy is acting crazy. Eddie is very dramatic and they were in a talent show together. Eddie used to have buzzed hair and now plays at the Hideout on Tuesdays. I would have loved for Chrissy to live and for these two to be another Steve and Robin. Chrissy asks for something stronger.

26.) El failed a math test, I think? And if that’s the test she failed, it’s extra sad because that’s what she called herself good at in the opening letter. And then Angela tripped her? And her stupid friends stomp on her project. I wanna kick Angela’s ass. El forgets that she doesn’t have powers and it’s so embarrassing. El doesn’t snitch but a teacher takes Angela away anyway.

27.) Will feels so bad and is trying so hard to help.

28.) I feel like it wouldn’t require a paint can from a tree to break a porcelain doll. Oh, Murray thinks it might have an explosive. AND IT’S FILLED WITH A NOTE SAYING HOP IS ALIVE AND IT’S WRITTEN IN CUT OUT LETTERS LIKE IT’S FROM A SERIAL KILLER. WHY DID THEY DO THAT??? LMAO

29.) And now it’s the championship. I feel like fanfics stretch episode 1 into like, 3 chapters. Steve came with his date to see Lucas. And here’s Tammy Thompson. And she’s…bad. this bad performance is worth it for Steve’s sassy expressions.

30.) Oh, hey Erica Sinclair. LMAO WAIT, IS SHE WEARING AN AMERICAN FLAG? GOD, YOU DWEEB. I will say that the rest of hellfire that just kind of chortles in response to everything is so far just background noise that I do not care about. I do love that Erica is way better at insults than Eddie and he kind of adores her.

31.) I still hate Jason.

32.) Technically if we’re going with the lore of we thought Vecna was killed by Kas then technically El/Jane is this show’s Kas.

33.) Okay going back and forth is too hard when they’re going back this fast between basketball and Hellfire so I’ll just summarize at the end. Lucas going in and the gameplay mirror each other very obviously. It’s an old trope but a good one. Eddie’s unhinged.

34.) “There is no shame in running. Don’t be heroes.”

35.) Dustin misses and so does Jason. But Lucas and Erica both win. This slow mo is kind of excessive. Eddie’s fucking thrilled that Erica did a critical success. Although did they actually need a natural 20 to win? That doesn’t really make sense if the guy only has 15 HP left. Presumably they haven’t been critting to attack this fucking thing this entire session. So really it’s a matter of going above his AC. And technically you don’t need a nat 20 to do that, especially if you have enough bonuses. Although they are playing a different version of D&D than I’ve ever played so maybe I’m taking out of my ass.

36.) Aw, Max listened to the game’s result on the radio. I thought she went. Her mom is passed out on the couch. Max takes food to a dog. Eddie lives like, directly across from her. For some reason, from fanfics, I thought they were like, directly next to each other. Still, Max saw Chrissy go into his trailer.

37.) Wayne works nights. Eddie does not know where his ketamine is. Should keep track of that. That is a very cool guitar he has though. Chrissy’s hallucinations are very bad now and she’s no longer responsive. And now the lights are flickering. Vecna’s ugly as hell. There are so many spiders in this vision. Eddie really is trying to wake her up but I’m not sure how he thought I DON’T LIKE THIS, CHRISSY, WAKE UP would help.

38.) did not know we see Vecna in episode 1. “It’s time for your suffering to end.” Don’t be weird, dude. And now Chrissy is floating. Her death is like, both weirdly graphic and also sanitized. Like it looks cartoonish. I didn’t realize how cartoonish it looks. Bones don’t break through the skin. There’s barely any blood. Her skin moves like putty.

[heymeowmao]

2023.05.01 - https://weibo.com/l/wblive/p/show/1022:2321324896663167697065

Happy May 1st!

LYN: Hallo everybody, good evening. I am Modern Brothers Liu Yuning. Welcome!  LYN: Happy May 1st, International Worker’s Day.

C: Have you eaten yet? LYN: I haven’t. I’m not going to- we want to... be tough. If I don’t eat tonight I’ll be thinner tomorrow.

C: Are you going to a meeting? (bc of his look today) LYN: No, who’s going to hold a meeting on May 1st?? It’s vacation. Everyone’s out traveling, nice and happy. No meetings.

C: I knew you would stream today! LYN: How did you know? I didn’t even know, but you did? If you’re going to be like that then I’m going to leave. I just don’t like being seen through. I don’t want people to know what I’m thinking. I’m going to leave, then. Give you an unexpected surprise. Alright? Bye, everyone. Good night. C: You always stream for us on a holiday. LYN: No, I don’t~ That isn’t my intention. It just happened that we wrapped up earlier today so I came to stream. There’s no unspoken rule that I come to stream on holidays. We always meet, so there’s no need to meet especially on holidays. It’s not likely.

C: Gege, I’m playing with my friends outside. LYN: You play, then. Have fun. Since today is 5/1 and I know a lot of you are out having fun. I just want to remind you to be careful and obey traffic laws. Hold your bad tempers at bay. We want to be presentable.

C: How long with you stream for? LYN: Just a while and then I’ll log off. I can’t be here all the time, to give you the false impression that I don’t have work to do. How old am I, to be streaming day-in and day-out? We wrapped up work early today, so I wanted to come and chat.

C: Da-ge, where’s your hair? LYN: I shaved it bald. You may not know, but my internet handle is “Shaolin Shi (Four(?))”. I shaved my head bald and I’m wearing a wig. // This is a new wig, it’s not my real hair. I told you before, when I get off from work my hair is all flat. You saw it last time, didn’t you? C: What if I don’t believe you? // What if I want you to take it off to prove it? LYN: Believe it if you want to! Do you think you’re very important? I don’t care.

C: I’m watching your stream from the beach! LYN: Oh, my goodness. The vibes that must be giving. Wonderful. Thank you. LYN: Also, I grew up in Dandong, which is a popular tourist destination. Whenever it’s around holiday break season there are so many people in the city. I got used to it. That’s why normally around this time I don’t go traveling. One of the reasons is that there are just too many people. People, everywhere. Even if you go say, hiking. I remember once I tried going on 5/1 up to Fenghuangshan (Phoenix Mountain). There were so many people on the mountain it felt like standing in line instead of hiking. It didn’t feel very novel, so I usually try to go wen no one else wants to. These past five years I haven’t been able to travel anywhere, though. It’s fine; it doesn’t matter. Anyway, I hope that when YOU go out to play that you have a fun time. C: Then you don’t have a day off today? LYN: If you know me you would know... I don’t really have an impression of a “day off”. I don’t much care for all the holiday breaks, because from the moment I graduated from school I entered straight into society. I started out in the service industry, as a cook. I was a cook for a while, then served as a waiter. When you’re in the customer service business there isn’t really a concept of “holiday break”. Think about it- you’re traveling and you go into a restaurant to eat. I’d be the one serving you. I didn’t have breaks. I never have. Even when I was a sales clerk in a clothing boutique. These “holidays” actually gave us much more business. C: Did you get holiday pay? LYN: I’ve grown to this age and have never even THOUGHT of getting holiday pay. Not only are you not paid extra on holidays, if you ask for a day off they’re going to dock you. This is why I don’t have much feeling towards holidays, so I don’t think of wanting to going anywhere. I’ve been like this from the start. (First, because his family didn’t have the means and later because he was working.) Now I expect it even less.

C: Ning-ge, it’s my birthday. LYN: Your birthday is today, May 1st? What a coincidence. Then, you can imagine that today’s stream is especially for those celebrating their birthday tonight. :) The meaning is suddenly different, isn’t it? This stream is for everyone who is celebrating their birthday today. I’m giving it to you- it’s your birthday gift. LYN: Now, I will sing “Thirty Year Old Woman” for you. ~ She’s a thirty year old... never-been married woman~

C: Ning-ge if you go on variety shows you can travel every day. LYN: Friends, you might not have ever filmed for a variety show before, though I know that there might be some artists lurking in my stream. There’s definitely lurking artists or celebrities in here. I’m talking to YOU! I’m sure there are artists in here, but most of you probably have never filmed for a variety show before. You might think we go to some destination and play. Let me tell you- it’s exhausting. It’s not how you think it is. One episode of a variety show, when aired, is about 1.5 hours. But in reality we start recording at 9 or 10 in the morning and record until 9 or 10 at night. There are usually no breaks in the middle. Maybe you can run to the restroom at some point. But the cameras are pretty much rolling the whole time. LYN: So honestly sometimes doing a variety show is even more exhausting than drama filming. With variety shows you have to be alert at all times, since you have to have something to show for yourself, right? You have to contribute something to the game, but you can’t be too serious or else the netizens are going to say you’to too competitive. If you’re not serious enough, though, they’re going to say you were skimming by. That’s why while shooting a variety show you have to maintain that you have an alert brain and clear intellect. You can maintain your intellect for five or six hours but after 12+ hours you’re going to start to get hazy.  LYN: You have to be sure that what’s coming out of your mouth is filtered. Otherwise once the show broadcasts, you’re going to may easily be cancelled. Do you understand? So, going on a variety show really is a tiring experience. Artists don’t have it easy, either. LYN: Sometimes after I shoot a variety show I get back to the hotel and I feel numb. It’s like my soul’s been sucked out of me.  LYN: You had said that going to shoot a variety show is equal to going on a trip- honestly, it’s not. It’s tiring work and at some point you’re not in the mood to play around. If you really end up on some travel variety show then to you the trip becomes work. You won’t find it as interesting as you thought it would be. So.. I don’t think you need to rely on a variety show in order to go travel. It’s not worth it. Your main focus should be to go there to work. 

C: What’s wrong with Daimi’s tummy? LYN: Nothing’s wrong with it, she’s just fat. She eats too much, is all. 

C: Come to Zibo to eat bbq. LYN: I’ve heard that Zibo bbq has been getting popular lately and it’s really good. I don’t have the time to go try it, though. Also, Dandong’s bbq is pretty famous itself. In the crew we often marinate meat to grill. My marinated meat is really tasty. If I get the chance I’ll share the recipe with you. I’ll teach you how to marinate beef. I’l shoot a video and share it to weibo for you. You can marinate your own and grill it at home.  C: I want the meat you marinated yourself. LYN: Why are you such a busybody?? I said I would share the way I marinate meat with you and you shoot back with, “I want to eat the one you made.” ??? What are you pretending to be so weak and fake for?? Are you an actor? If your mom buys 2kg of oranges home and give you two of them and tells you to peel and eat them, are you going to tell her, “No. I only want to eat the ones LYN peeled for me himself.” Your mom would slap you silly. Are you acting over there? Oh my goodness... LYN: Friends, just because of this one person, I won’t share my secret recipe with you anymore! Why do you want to eat the one I marinated myself? Do my fingers have a special taste to them? Or are my nails a “medicine” and you want to eat them? [t/n: ??? ew.] It’s not worth it. Why do you need ME to- /sigh/ I can’t with this.

--

C: As long as you don’t open your mouth... LYN: I know what you’re trying to say. As long as I don’t open my mouth, I look pretty decent. But as soon as I open my mouth my whole image collapses. That must be what they mean. When I don’t speak or am quiet, or if you mute me I look decent. But as soon as I open my mouth that image collapses. LYN: /sigh/ You must not know me very well. You probably haven’t seen me act, have you? But that’s right, it’s not like I’ve been on very many. You probably don’t have a strong impression of me speaking Standard Mandarin so listening to me right now... gives off the impression that I’m crazy.  LYN: ~ Honestly, I can speak Standard Mandarin. And my voice.. can also change. I welcome all my friends to my stream. Today is May 1st. Thank you for accompanying me. This May 1st stream is dedicated especially to those of you who are celebrating a birthday today. You can think of this stream as my birthday gift to you. ~ LYN: ~ I want to recommend to you a new song of mine that been released. It’s called 云字诀 (Yun Zi Jue); the theme song of the drama The Ingenious One (Yun Xiang Zhuan/YXZ). The ending theme song. It’s May 1st and the drama has started airing. If you have the time, you can go to iQIYI and watch YXZ. ~ LYN: I’ll kill you with perfection!

C: Lao-da, don’t “pinch” (the tone). LYN: I didn’t “pinch” it. This is my normal tone. >.>

C: I was planning to watch tonight at 8p, but you started streaming. LYN: Don’t say such nonsense. What are you doing. There’s nothing to prove here. I told you to go watch YXZ, and you come back with “If you hadn’t streamed I would be watching it. But you’re streaming so I’m not.” Don’t- don’t throw me under the bus! Who am I?? You go watch yours, I’m not important. I’m definitely not as exciting. Go watch, it’s 8p. Don’t watch me. I only sang the OST. How peculiar.

LYN: I discovered another peculiar thing recently. Well, maybe not recently. From about a year ago I started noticing peculiar topic. I don’t know if you’ve seen it? “Hey.. these past couple of years why has it been the same people singing all the OSTs? If it’s not LYN, it’s MBY or ZS or ZBC. Why is it always them? We’re tired of hearing them already!” This topic came out of nowhere. And then! When a drama DOESN’T use these people they will say, “This company didn’t spend any money. Their production isn’t good enough- they didn’t find any of those people who sing OSTs. Their project is lacking.” What is it that you WANT??? Are you trying to drag us down so that you can bring your own singer up? It’s not necessary! As long as they are skilled enough they will eventually come up on their own. We’ll continue to do our own thing. C: Ge, of course you understand. LYN: I’m already a thousand year old fox, what old news are you trying to show me? (He’s been through the ups and downs of this industry already and has seen it all.)

--

C: It’s my first time catching the splendor of the live stream. LYN: It’s not that amazing. You can’t use “splendor” to describe my stream. I think that’s thinking too highly of me. I’m just a market. I only provide the goods and people can come and go and listen as they please. It’s just that basic.

C: 座无虚席 (It’s a full house. lit. “a banquet with no empty seats”) LYN: Are you describing my stream as such? Well, my stream never had seats (lit. “a place to sit”) to begin with. Where you’re sitting depends on where your body is and your own family means. If you have a nice house then you’re sitting on a 30K sofa. If you don’t have such a nice house then you might be sitting on a stool. But you’re still watching and wherever you happen to be sitting is the front row. It’s all front row seats- VIPs. LYN: There was a friend earlier who said they were watching from the beach, wasn’t there? That’s also very easy and comfortable. A lot of people like to watch my stream in their car. They’ll connect their phone to the car’s audio system and leave my stream playing with the car doors closed. It sort of feels like a movie theater. That’s quite a nice way to experience it. C: I’m sitting on the table.  LYN: Get down! It’s impolite to sit on the table, get down from there. Some friends- C: I’m watching from a tunnel. LYN: That’s not necessary! Do you think watching in a tunnel will make the echo greater? it’s not worth it. Get out of there, the wind is too strong. It’s dangerous. Here, how about I create the feel of a tunnel for you? /adds echo/ Get out of there. Don’t watch from the tunnels. I can imitate the tunnels for you. Come out from there. That’s why, friends- C: I’m watching while laying down. LYN: That’s fine. You can watch however you want and wherever you want. You are the VIP. You’re front-row. It’s okay. C: I’m introverted. I need to watch in the sewers. LYN: You’re watching from the sewers?? ... Then, be careful down there. If you took the manhole cover off and you went down without closing it behind you it can be dangerous. First, because someone might step on your head. Someone can fall from above and step on you. That’s quite dangerous. Secondly, if you went down and DID close it behind you but then a car parks on top of it, you’re also in a little danger. Have you not watched Crazy Stone? You go down into the sewers to watch my stream and close the lid behind you. A truck parks on top. They finish off-loading their product and ends up parked there for a week. That’s dangerous, so please don’t go into the sewers to watch. C: Ge, I’m watching from Mount Taishan. LYN: It’s already past 7p, start your way down the mountain. It gets dangerous when it’s dark. Make your way down, quickly. Stop watching. If you’re making your way down the mountain, watch your step. Don’t look at your phone. If you do, you’ll be rolling down the mountain. Turn off your phone, watch the trail. C: I’m watching in my Maserati. LYN: Showing off your wealth??! C: I’m in a Ferrari. LYN: Good for you, for having money. How wealthy~ LYN: Alright, let’s skip this topic now. 

C: I’m watching from in front of your hotel. LYN: Are you trying to ambush me? It’s rare for you to get a holiday break so why don’t you spend it shopping/wandering around? Stop squatting in front of my hotel entrance.

C: I’m watching from my 100+ sq meters bed. LYN: Your bed is 100+ sq meters? .... ??? .... My house is in 80 sq meters, and your BED is 100? Are you living in a dorm where the beds are all lined up against each other? The kind that can hold 200 people at once? Amazing. LYN: After you wake up from your 100+ sq meter bed, are there 18 helpers who bring you tea and pour you water, too? They tell you, “Young Master, it’s time to wake up.”  So you stand up in the middle of the bed, and drive your Ferrari to the bed’s edge. (?) At this time, your personal butler tells you, “Your father has a 20B business proposal he would like you to accompany him to.” You smirk and show your 18-pack abs to your butler and tell him, that no- you have to work out today. You make your way to the gym. You realize that in the gym, there’s a pretty and refined looking girl already on the treadmill, exercising herself. At this time, you walk over, point a finger in her face and tell her, “Get out.” She replies, “Don’t think you’re all that just because you have money!” The moment she turned her head- you are addicted. It’s the first time in your life anyone has ever yelled at you in this way. Nobody has ever dared to contradict you. This is the first girl who has ever made you feel this way. You feel like your heart has beat 18 times. You call over your butler and you tell him, “I want all of that girl’s information in three minutes.” The girl says, “You’re crazy!” and leaves the gym. You want to chase after her, but you also don’t want to make yourself look so self-deprecating. You return to your room where the nanny who’s looked after you for 20+ years comes to check on you. She tells the butler, “I haven’t seen the Young Master smile like this in years.” C: Are you going to continue? LYN: There’s no need.... LYN: At this moment, three minutes later, your butler returns. He tells you the girl is some company’s artist- just a small actor. You use your family wealth to buy out her company. You want to be her boss. The girl is not impressed by your money, and wants to terminate her contract. But you have already had your legal team put conditions into place, where if she wants to terminate her contract, then she has to pay you back 400B. You take 500B and invest in a drama with her as the lead to butter her up. She is determined not to accept; she just wants to escape from you.  C: 400B? LYN: That’s right! As a dominating CEO, you should have that sort of wealth. You’re going to use 400B to invest in a movie and find LYN to play your male lead, and the girl as the female lead. The important part is to have LYN also sing an OST. You take a bunch of money, throw it at LYN’s face and tell him- “Name a price. I’ll pay no matter what it is.” LYN: What you didn’t expect is for LYN to take the money and throw it back into your face and say, “You must be crazy. You think you’re all that just because you have money??” You’re stunned, and think to yourself, “This guy is so unique.” You want to be friends with him for life, because it’s the first time anyone has ever thrown money back into your face before. You turn to your butler and say, “I want all of this guy’s information in three minutes.” XD LYN: Alright. Change the topic. C: Is this allowable? LYN: What’s wrong with it? Can “brotherhood” not be filmed anymore? C: What happens next? LYN: Please watch the next stream to find out. C: You would have forgotten by the next stream. LYN: I won’t. C: Ning-ge, the two of us are brothers. Let’s film this together. LYN: /laughs/

--

C: Ning-ge are you at home? LYN: Erm... don’t pretend to care about me when it’s clear that you don’t. If you really followed me then you would know exactly where I am right now. But I’ll tell you- I’m not at home. I’m in Xiangshan right now. We’re filming- this is a hotel, not my home. No way is my house as luxurious as this.

C: Ning-ge, do you have a lifetime pass to play at Disney for free? LYN: Based on what? Why should I have that right?? I don’t have such benefits. If I need to buy tickets I should still buy tickets. Also- I’m not the type of person to take advantage of others. If they want to give me tickets to come play at their park, I tell them no and that I want to buy the tickets myself. I have to buy them myself. It’s not as if I am lacking the money, so why should I take advantage? Honestly. LYN: Last time I did a stream around Hengdian, right? I bought my own entrance tickets to all the attractions. But, I do have an actor’s pass and I would have been able to enter all the same with that. Still, I bought tickets like normal. I don’t particularly like taking advantage- if I need to pay, I should.

C: Ning-ge, turn off the background blur. LYN: It’s not on, this camera is just like this. It has a focus so everything else is blurred. Let me show you what it looks like if I really turned on the background blur. It looks like this. Do you see it? Even blurrier. Let me turn it off- there, it’s a bit clearer now.

C: You’re trending- #LYNHas18-PackAbs LYN: Did that Young Master from earlier buy this topic for me? He took 400B to come mess me up?  LYN: Am I really trending, though?! I’m the type of person who doesn’t like to think about the optimistic outcomes. I don’t like when you tell me nice things, because I’m afraid I’ll be disappointed (when I find out it’s not true). That’s why no matter what I do, I don’t let myself have very high expectations. They’re still pretty high, though. Someone told me I was trending but if I pick up my phone and see that I’m not? I’ll eat my phone. I’ll eat this iPhone 14 Pro. Don’t trick me. I have a sense of awareness. LYN: Don’t trick me. If you really have nothing to do (活, huo2) you can chew on a lighter (火, huo3). This joke... if you don’t have "huo” (活, work, huo2), you can chew on a lighter to make “huo” (火, fire, huo3). I don’t really WANT you to chew on a lighter, it’s just an online expression. Don’t take that seriously and think, “Ning-ge wants me to chew on a lighter, so I’ll go do that.” Please, no. Calm down. C: What joke is this? LYN: People online say, “If you have no talent then go chew on a lighter.” You know, sometimes people are like that ~“Friends, come take a look, I’ll show you a talent!”~ and they take a bunch of lighters and just- bite them open. it looks terrifying! But that’s what they say online... It’s just an expression, and I don’t advise anyone to actually do it. It’s dangerous.

C: Daimi moved! Daimi moved! LYN: She’s only asleep, not anything else. Isn’t it normal for her to move, friends? Fam? Bros? C: Does she always sleep this much? LYN: What is the life of a little dog other than sleeping and eating? She doesn’t really have any dreams to pursue... It’s fine, isn’t it? As long as can happily live out her life.  C: I want to be LYN’s dog in my next life. LYN: It’s not worthwhile. I might not even be a human, in MY next life. you don’t need to plan for your next life, just live well in this one. We can have a happy life together and that’s good enough. There’s no need to think about the next life.

-- 云字诀 (Yun Zi Jue), The Ingenious One (Yun Xiang Zhuan/YXZ) OST

LYN: The room’s too dry. I feel like my nostrils are so dry... I’ll drink some water.

C: /asking about TXJ/ LYN: TXJ? I know it passed the censors, but I really don’t know exactly when it will air. Probably not very soon, though. Passing the censors is one thing, when it will air is something else entirely. It’s not that it can air just because it passed. There’s still blocking to do. Another thing is... I haven’t sung the OST yet. Voice acting is done. It’s possible that they won’t use me for the OST, though. That’s also possible.  C: I really want to watch your drama(s). LYN: Soon enough. It’ll air this year for sure. Nothing to do but wait, and hope that you can see it faster.

C: ZY is almost done right? LYN: There are several days left. Not more than 20 days left before it wraps. 

C: Is 春花厌 (Kill me Love Me) real? LYN: /no comment/ LYN: That... what should I say...? You all keep asking... /thinking/ I.. I’m not going. It’s a great project and the script is good. But I’m not going. I’ll keep working hard. C: Is it so difficult to answer? LYN: No, because the project is really great and if I tell you I’m not going to be in it... It’s difficult in that if I say I rejected it, you’ll think it’s because it’s not a good project. But that’s not the case. It really is very good. I just don’t know how I should have phrased it. I am close with the producers and they really respect me. We have a good relationship. It’s just a hard thing to say. The fact of the matter is that I’m just not going to be in it. LYN: There are always projects that you’ll miss, or projects that come to look for you at the same time. The internet will always spread rumors, that this person will be in this project and that person will be in a different project, but you don’t hear an official response either way. I think this non-response is the correct way to respond. Because it’s just hard to say for sure. For this project the reason why I’m able to say I am not participating is because the producers are good people. But if there are baseless rumors, then I’ll come to refute them directly. If my studio or I didn’t receive any correspondence on a particular project that I am rumored to be in, I will come to tell you directly. It depends on the timing.

--

LYN: I was scrolling through a video platform one day and saw something really funny. I was thinking I would save the video and then play it during my stream so we can watch it together. Someone took my scenes from dramas I’ve acted in and cut things I’ve said during my streams into the clips instead of the original dialogue. For example, they take what I’m saying right now, and they put it over a drama clip. But it didn’t look out of place at all! I saw it and laughed so hard I almost pulled a muscle. I was thinking I should have saved it so we can watch it together- it was quite amusing.  C: Bai Choufei? LYN: No, it was a Hao Du one! It was- Leyan asked me if Wei Shuyu had been captured and I replied, “What’s it to you??” I laughed so hard I almost died. C: I want to see it. LYN: Let me see if I can find it. Hold on. Let me play a song (while you wait). // It has a really high view rate! It was so funny... Ah, yes. It’s called “Rebellious Hao Du.” Let me see if I can download it. I don’t think I can. - video time! - (no audio that the viewers can hear, but ning-ge is amused) LYN: Oh, there’s no audio? /sigh/ Why didn’t you say so sooner?? /continues nagging/  LYN: How about now? Is there audio? Is there? Still no?? // ??? What does this mean?? - /troubleshooting/ C: Take your earphone out. LYN: It has nothing to do with my earphones! You think this is like on your phone? No that has nothing to do with the audio input... // How about this- does this one have sound? /plays a different clip/. This one does. LYN: What’s happening?? Let me adjust the settings. // How about now... still, no. I don’t know what’s wrong. It used to be able to play but I don’t know why it’s not working today. // Let me try again. /sound!/ It should be working now! Right? I don’t even need to ask. It’s working right? See, I’m a genius. I can do anything. LYN: Okay, let’s go. -- “Rebellious Hao Du” videos (aka if Hao Du spoke with Dongbei dialect XD)  LYN: I really want to thank the person who put these clips together. I spent the other night laughing so hard I almost couldn’t take it anymore. 

LYN: I like playing differently than other people, so I was also thinking of finding videos of people’s commentary on me, and we can watch together how they complain about me. Let’s watch what they have to say. But I was watching a video and as if targeting  me wasn’t enough, they tagged a bunch of other artists in the video too. Since they mention the other artists, now it’s not convenient for me to play the video, since I don’t want to drag them down with me. I’m looking for a thrill myself, not looking to provoke others. It would be a show, for sure. LYN: It counts as being an anti but there’s a sliver of truth in what they say, after all. They were talking about my upbringing and stuff like that- which, is true. I just take it as entertainment. I want to know, other than that, what else they have to say about me. It could be a project. Later I’ll see if I can make it happen.  C: They’re doing it for clout. LYN: What sort of influence do I have, that they can piggyback off of?? What do I do, that makes me so popular? Them and me, we’re basically in the same industry. I’m here streaming, and that makes me a blogger, doesn’t it? It’s just that I do everything- blogger, singer, actor. I sing OSTs and hold concerts. I have a bit of a bigger repertoire, is all. But from certain aspects we’re the same.  C: As long as you’re paid, you’ll accept any job. LYN: What the heck are you saying?? I’m not like that! There’s no way I can be. Ever since I debuted up until now, I have not once accepted a single business proposal. Those give the most money, but I haven’t accepted any. For example a business opening, or a some brand event- I’ve never gone to any of those, and they pay A LOT. So what do you mean “as long as you’re paid, you’ll accept any job”?? LYN: I’m sure not many singers can say they’ve done the same. But, this is what I /want/ to do. This is how I’m unique. Even if I’m starving and can’t afford to feed myself, I wouldn’t take such a job.

C: Ning-ge, I have a question. Why is it that when you sing, you don’t sing a full version? LYN: I don’t need to sing the whole song. It’s not like I’m holding a concert here. If you want to hear a full version, you can listen to the recorded track. I sing here just to interact with you all. It’s just a small corner. Look at those variety shows- other than music variety- usually when artists sing on a variety show, they don’t sing the full song either. Our stream also goes the variety-show route, not the musical-variety show route.This is more of a slice-of-life stream. I don’t need to sing the full song. When I hold my concert I’ll definitely sing it all for you. In my stream all I need to do is hum along and sing a few lines, for the effect. 

C: I want to hear a false tone, Lao-da. LYN: I don’t know- are you crazy?? I saw you spamming, and I don’t know what’s there to hear?? I’m speaking in a false tone right now! Huh? I’m using a false tone now. Does it sound nice? Do you like it? [t/n: Mickey Mouse...]  LYN: This is a false tone, how is it? C: Is it Minnie Mouse? LYN: “You’ve reached the third floor.” “You’ve reached the fifth floor. Your room is to your right.” // If you go to the Disney resort, isn’t the voice in the elevator like this? C: It’s exactly the same... LYN: If you don’t believe me you can go look it up! The voice in the elevator at the Disney resort. Then you’ll know how similar it really is.  C: Sounds like a monkey. LYN: This is Minnie Mouse’s voice. C: I’ve never been. LYN: When you get the chance you should go experience it. Take a stroll around and check it out.

C: Now I can listen to your stream and sleep. LYN: You’re sleeping at 8:30p? Are you getting up in the morning to exercise? Or is it because you’re on break, so you’re getting up early to go hiking tomorrow? Collect some dew? Alright. Go to sleep.

C: I haven’t lived there before. LYN: The Disney Resort, honestly, is a little expensive. Normally- like the last time I went, it was for an event. I went to Disney to sing, right? So they arranged a free accommodation for me... so I was able to... give it a try. 

C: Talk about your new variety show. LYN: I haven’t been on any, so what’s there to talk about? Usually, if I were currently shooting a drama or a variety show, I would come back to tell you fun things that happened to me during the course of recording. But I haven’t been on any varieties yet and I’m still currently shooting the drama. If I had anything to share, I would share about the drama. 

--

C: Have you determined your next drama? LYN: Nope. I already said earlier, right? It’s not like the world owes me. There’s no way work can come to me, one after another. I don’t have the right. I haven’t determined my next move. LYN: I was THINKING I would... take on a variety show. To rest a bit and work on my songs. That’s what I was thinking but if there’s a project that I like too much then I might still accept it. I’ll skip the variety and take the drama instead.  LYN: The other thing is, when I’m acting- I don’t really have a lot of experience. I have a few scripts but haven’t had a chance to look through them yet. I wanted to take a look at them when my mind is more quiet. For the ones that are in a rush for decisions, I’ve skimmed through them and have turned down the ones where the timing or something else doesn’t work out. There’s still a group I haven’t looked at yet, so I haven’t decided my next drama. Let’s not rush it. If it comes down to it I can rest for a while and do two variety shows.

C: Are you considering modern dramas? LYN: Of course. I intended on accepting a modern drama. They take a lot shorter to film- around 100 days. Also I’ve six dramas waiting to air and five of them are guzhuang. I was wondering if I should switch it up- do a modern drama before coming back to a guzhuang drama. But if there’s a guzhuang drama that I really like, I will still choose it. That’s just what I was thinking... so of course I will consider modern dramas. C: What about suspense-dramas? LYN: Of course. I myself really enjoy suspense-dramas. If any really great script comes for me, I can definitely consider it.  LYN: With acting.. there are still circles. If you keep shooting guzhuang dramas and people keep seeing you in them, they tend to keep you in mind for guzhuang dramas. If you always shoot modern dramas, you’ll get to know a different set of producers and start moving in that direction. It’s not set. But right now I haven’t really done any modern dramas- other than the one with Tao-jie. Modern-day scripts really haven’t come in for me as much as guzhuang drama scripts have.  LYN: Another thing is- my dramas haven’t even aired yet! You might get the feeling that I’ve been shooting dramas for a long time. From debut until now, it’s almost been five years- I’ve been shooting dramas for three and a half years, maybe four. In this time, including ZY, that’s 10 dramas. Can you imagine? I’ve already filmed 10 dramas. I was just running through it the other day and was amazed it added up to 10- supporting and main roles included. Not counting cameos. I’ve filmed 10 dramas, but only four of them have aired and I’m a supporting role in all of them. If I want people to take an interest in me and use me for their projects, it needs time. After three to five dramas, people only start getting to know that you are acting, and the suitable roles will come in. Not because I’m amazing- only that I am suitable for the role. - /runs through his whole drama repertoire again./ -> RXSN (HBY) > ZJBJ (UN) > CGX (TLB) > SYXSSYX (Heroes)

LYN: The standards people nowadays have though.... as long as the drama doesn’t explode in popularity it’s considered a flop. If they haven’t seen it, it means the drama is a flop. Another thing is that maybe the drama, in a certain period of time, is the highest ranking drama- But no, in the viewers eyes it’s a flop. Because they don’t think the drama is as good as... Empresses in the Palace (2011). They don’t think it has the reputation that Nirvana in Fire does. It’s just a flop- there’s nothing you can do because that’s a subjective criteria. Honestly, a lot of dramas do really well for themselves. Otherwise why would we keep making them?

LYN: Not many of my dramas have aired, but when they do I think they’ll just be average. I’m just a rookie actor, after all. I’m happy enough to be able to act at all. That’s already a gift from god. If it turns out to be a role people like, then I should light an incense to thank all the viewers. I’m just a singer- no- just a cook. A cook that was able to make his way around until he could be an actor and a singer. It’s a life I never could have imagined for myself. I’m extremely happy to even be able to act. If it’s a role that people like, on top of that? I’m over the moon.

--

LYN: I don’t think I saw properly, but I might have seen someone just say, “Then it’s time to make dinner, hometown friend.” You’re from my hometown? And you want me to go back to cook... how about not? Honestly, I admit that I didn’t have much of a talent for cooking. I think the best I can do for myself- the highest level I can reach is as the head cook in a ramen shop. If you want me to rise ranks in the chef ladder I don’t think I can get very far.  C: Then, do you have talent as a singer or actor? LYN: Of course not. I have even less talent there. I don’t have talent- I rely on my hard work. Not that I’m trying to boast about how hard I work! I just want to say that I don’t have much talent. People tend to ask me if I had a knack for singing and I want to say that no, I don’t. My talent is “liking to sing”. I was able to get to where I am today not because I have talent in music itself but because I like to sing. I really like it, so much so that no one can stop me. Acting, too. I like it but I don’t have talent in it. It’s just a passion. LYN: I watch people acting every day and then I find a secret corner to practice in. I just like it. Sometimes I wonder if I have a mental problem. I’ll be in a corner /acting out a scene by himself/ and someone sees me- I look at them, then pretend nothing happened. Sometimes you’ll see leaks of me on set and I have an “abnormal” expression, to which you say, “Ning-ge’s immersed in the role. He hasn’t walked out of the scene yet.” I’m not actually that serious, I’m just thinking about how I should execute the scene. Or I’ve just seen someone else act something and I want to remember it so I’m processing it through my brain, trying to get the feel for it. I’m not yet to the point where I can get so immersed in the scene that I can’t walk out of the role.

LYN: I’ll tell you something I’m not afraid of being shamed for. With every drama and every actor I work with I always think that there is something I can learn from. I have room for growth. Every director, drama, and fellow actor I have worked with/on- will give me reason to grow. This isn’t a shameful thing. The first time I shot Heroes- it was the first scene on the first day of filming. The director was Li Muge; we weren’t close then, it was our first time working together. If I remember correctly, the first scene we did was when Hua-popo took in Xiaoshi and I, into her house.  LYN: Is it lagging? // It was just for a second, it’s alright. It’s a problem with the computer and the connection. It’s okay. It passes in a second. LYN: That was my first scene, and even then I didn’t quite know how to act. I told you before- once you enter into a drama crew and start filming, there’s no way you are in character starting from your first scene. You haven’t been able to build rapport with your fellow actors yet. Even with dancing- there’s still rehearsals and practices, right? On the first day of filming everyone is a stranger and you don’t know the director’s style or the acting style of your fellow actors. On the first day of filming I was a little dazed. LYN: We had a scene that night, it was coming from the small yard of the place Xiaoshi and I were living in. It was the day Fuzi had been killed by Guan Qi, and we had attended his departing ceremony. We left the house and SMZ and I were outside and we exchanged a few words. That was my first time shooting- the first day on set. So I acted, and I was serious about it. I’m a fairly stupid person, so I did some homework beforehand. I had gone over it with my acting coach, about how the scene should play out. SMZ and I did the scene. When you first enter the crew, you’re going in to get used to the working environment, too. After that scene the director said, “Let’s go again.” I didn’t know any better, so I just acted it out again. After that, the director said again, “Okay. That’s good. Let’s do it again.” I did it again. We shot that opening scene three times. After that third time the director told me, “You... did those three takes the same way each time.” I said, “?? Yes, I did. Because you didn’t say the first take was no good. You didn’t tell me that’s not what you wanted...” “I thought my profile wasn’t handsome enough so you wanted to adjust the lighting and find the proper angle, to make me look more handsome. That’s what I thought.” Or “Was the lighting bad just now, and you were looking to get a better shot so you wanted me to act it out three times. It turns out that’s not what you intended...” LYN: I wasn’t familiar with him at that time. Every director has their own style. At the start we didn’t have any chemistry. But he was the first director to point out my problem. From that moment on- It was a lesson to me. That was my first time filming and it was a blow. My first scene and he gave me such a blow- it was a blow to ME- because I- - /stops mid-sentence because the stream lagged and he’s waiting for it to catch up/ LYN: It wasn’t exactly embarrassing. When we’re working on business or doing something for work, this is a normal occurrence. But for me, that was a blow because suddenly I felt all this pressure. From then on I would require myself to think of at least two ways that I can play out a scene. If one way doesn’t work out I’ll change it up for you. I’m not trying to praise myself- I’m just saying that that drama made me practice and have the ability to give something different. If one way doesn’t work, I’ll change. If that change doesn’t work, I’ll change it up again. LYN: Director Muge knows how to pick actors. He himself is a performer; he understands acting. When he gets to the set he always says to me, “Ning, come here. How do you plan on acting out this scene?” I’ll tell him, “Director, I thought about this scene for a long time. For this scene I’ll start off sitting here and calmly say my lines. After that, at this part, I’ll pour myself a cup of liquor. After I down it, it’ll go to my head. I’ll start following the feeling and speak until I don’t have breath. At the end of the line, I’ll pour myself another cup and catch my breath. Later, I can use a drunken tone and then eventually, it will reach a climax where I can give it everything I’ve got. After I give it my all, I’ll pause, let the flow return to normal pace, and end with a smirk. Director, what do you think? That’s how I was thinking of acting it. Is it okay?” The Director says, “Okay. Act it out just how you told me. Then, give me something different.” /sigh/ /hiss/ I’ve already wracked my brains for that set-up alone, you know? I’ve even lied on my bed and thought for a whole hour about when I should stand and when I should sit, when I should push it, and how to close out the scene. I thought about it for an hour. Then the director says, “Okay. You do it just how you told me, and then- give me something different.” Saying and acting it out is two different things. I was just telling him what I was THINKING of doing, but if you really wanted me to act it out as I said that’s a different story. Not only do I have to act it all out the first time, I have to also think of ANOTHER way??? How do I do that?? LYN: But sometimes after I shot the first take the director thought it was passable and didn’t make me do another. I tell myself that I must have given him a little surprise. Or perhaps he had a sliver of satisfaction, so he let me pass. But from then on, my communication with the director went like this- before we start shooting the scene we’ll do a walk-through and the Director says, “Ning, come here. Tell me how you plan to act out this scene. What have you got?” and I tell him, “I don’t have a plan. Director- I haven’t thought about this scene. Why don’t you tell me how you want it? Give me advice. Surely you know better than I do. How many years have I been and actor and how many years have you been a director? You surely know better. Give me a good direction. Director, it all depends on you now.” The Director says, “Okay. Do this, this, this, that. etc. What do you think?” to which I reply, “Okay. No problem.” Then- “Director. Based on what you’ve told me, I have a new idea. What do you think about this-” I won’t tell him what I think first. I want to know what HE wants. If he gives one way and I give my own thoughts after, then we have two ways the scene could go, right? LYN: A drama crew is like a mini-society. If you want to survive then you have to think for yourself. That drama gave me a lot of training on cognition and how to develop my own thoughts. Every day in the Heroes crew was like taking a test. My mind was spinning. It was tiring but really helped me to develop. After that drama I clearly felt like a different person coming out of it.  XD

-- break #1 (upstairs neighbors are fighting)

LYN: I’m back. C: The connection isn’t good. LYN: Yeah, it’s a hotel and not very stable at this time. Also, everyone’s using it so it’s normal that there might be some lag. // The upstairs neighbors aren’t fighting, they’re watching YXZ. It aired today- May 1st. I thought they were fighting.  - /calls Daimi back to the sofa/ C: I thought you were on the top floor? LYN: What do you care?? I changed my room.

C: Ning-ge, when will you act in a xianxia drama? LYN: Hey, now that you mention it... I used to have a fear of xianxia dramas. I told you this in my last stream, too. I am someone with a strong sense of logic. It might take me some time to digest the worldview of a xianxia drama. Not to say that I don’t watch or that I don’t understand xianxia dramas.  LYN: I enjoy playing Chinese Paladin; I’m a gamer at heart. I’ve been playing since CP3, and now I think it’s on CP7? I’ve played every installment, so I am amenable to the xianxia genre. But if you want me to act in one, and say those lines... I think... the thing about lines is that I have to believe what I’m saying. I’d need some time to get used to it. But I sang the OST for CYJM/TtEotM, so I watched a bit. After watching, I suddenly thought I might consider acting in a xianxia. I was moved by it. I used to be afraid of them, but after watching the drama I thought it’s something I want to try. LYN: I think the special effects are really cool. You can just be standing there and all this magic happens around you. - /adds his own sound effects/ LYN: I think it’s cool. I can give it a try.

C: You have to have a strong sense of belief. LYN: I think it’s alright. It’s not much different than acting normally. It’s the same, really. Let’s think about “normal” guzhuang dramas, like wuxias. When you are acting as a dead person, are you really experiencing death? No- it’s all in your imagination. You have to imagine what it would be like if you were dead. You have to believe that you are dying in order to properly act the right condition. It’s the same. Just like how in a lot of xianxia dramas you’ll be consumed by demon energy- /acts it out/ “Quickly, kill me! While I can still control it. Trust me. You have to kill me!” Things like that- you’re acting it out yourself. That’s having a sense of belief all the same. It’s like how in wuxia dramas and you’ve been poisoned, and need to act out being on the verge of immediate death. /acts/ “This baozi.. is poisoned!” /dead/ It’s all acting. It’s all the same. LYN: The only difference that I can think of is that many of the scenes of a xianxia drama are shot in front of a green-screen. Actually, normal guzhuang dramas do use it a lot as well. It’s not like we don’t use it at all. Wuxia dramas aren’t all real-terrain. We record in a green/blue-screen tent, too. It’s all the same. I think the “sense of belief” is similar. Of course, I’ve never done a xianxia drama, so I could be wrong. But I get the chance I do want to try experiencing it, and I can share how I feel about it with you.

C: /trying to tell him to watch what he says/ LYN: I really don’t think you need to try to teach me how to be a person and how to speak. You really don’t need to teach me. I know you mean well; you’re afraid that I say something wrong and am cursed by the masses again. I know, I understand, and I am aware. But this is a stream, and this is my style. If I didn’t say anything and I just sat here smiling/laughing then this stream would be meaningless. Alright? Just keep me company, that's all you need to do.

C: When are you going to do a Republican detective drama? LYN: I wasn’t thinking of... I’m good with anything. I’m not looking to so any genre in particular, mainly if the script is good enough, anything is fine. One thing is the script, another is who the director is, and who the production crew is- those are all very important. The actors, as well. It requires some comprehensive considerations. It’s not as if I can just accept ANY drama of a particular genre that comes my way. I’d exhaust myself. LYN: There are always going to be things that come your way that are unreliable or that you don’t like. Sometimes when you read through a script it doesn’t coincide with your principles, whatever they may be. I believe that the script is extremely important. Unbelievably important. People like to comment on an actor’s performance, but the script is really the foundation if you’re looking to build a tall building. If the script isn’t good enough then anything you try to build on top of it is unlikely to work out. 

LYN: With some stories when you reach a certain point in the scene where everything is working out and no words are needed, the actors shouldn’t say anything. But it’s written in the script that you have a line of dialogue. So as an actor, do you say the line or not? When you encounter a Director who is clear-headed, that’s okay. Of course, all of the directors I’ve met are all very clear-headed. This is what I’ve heard from fellow actors, at least. If you meet a Director who doesn’t know what they want... how are you supposed to act? They tell you to stick to the script and even though you know the script doesn’t make sense, you still have to follow it. What can you do? That’s why... choosing a script is the most important part. C: The actors can’t change it? LYN: Of course, they can but only to a certain extent. Actors can only- Oh no, I’m getting too deep. It just- It depends on each director and crew. It’s a difference in personality. Some dramas won’t let you change a single thing about the script. Not even one word. Some directors are very strict about it. For example, if the line goes, “Have you eaten yet?” (你吃饭了么?), but you say (你吃饭了吗?) It’s no good. Retake. There are directors like that.  C: Can you change lines in ZY? LYN: ZY... our director is very prolific thinker and the actors I’ve been working with are all very mature. For some scenes we’ll get together for rehearsal and we’ll try to make it fun. For example we’ll get through what we need to say for the script and then try to think of ways we can add onto it.  Something funny or something that’s out of character- we have the creative liberty to do that. It’s different with each drama you enter- the actors are different and the director is different. 

C: Ning-ge, why don’t you do a horror movie? LYN: People have been telling me to do that since very early on. I guess I must look like a ghost. /sigh/ I won’t. Because I’ll be scared, myself. Also, have there been any horror movies lately? No.

C: Are you considering comedies? LYN: Comedies... of course. They’re the most difficult, though. I heard the director say something the other day that I thought was very reasonable. He said “The most expensive actors in this world are comedians.” I thought about it.. and I think it’s reasonable. They’re hard to come across.  LYN: I didn’t say that- the director did. If you want to fight me on that, then I won’t fight you. These actors are hard to come across. It’s not something you can accomplish just by having a handsome face. That’s something entirely different. C: Ning-ge, you have a talent for comedy, so why don’t you try it? LYN: That’s not true. You might think I’m very funny but it’s just surface level. You might think that some of the topics I choose to talk about in my stream are interesting/amusing and it’s enough for a variety. But if I wanted to be in a comedy than it’s far from enough. On a variety show you can continue a joke or make a quip but acting is totally different. Forget about acting- even if you’re just standing there and giving a small talk it’s a difficult thing. It’s not so easy. Really- for every industry, every profession needs to be looked upon with respect. That’s important.

C: Ning-ge, act as a villain. I’m begging you. LYN: A villain. I can do that. I also like- rather, enjoy - acting as a villain because I think you can bring more into it. There’s more of an acting range; you can play with it more. I like and can accept villain roles. C: Don’t act as a villain. I’m begging you. LYN: Look at that, these two are about to fight. One side wants me to act as a villain and the other doesn’t. /sigh/ It’s fine either way, because I don’t have the right to choose. It’s others who need to choose me. I accept whatever comes. I don’t have a lot of choices. LYN: But when I acted as the villain BCF I was cursed by a lot of people. After I acted as BCF, I saw a lot of comments that were saying they wished LYN went out and got struck to death by a car. They’re so cruel. They watched the drama and became agitated, You can tell just my looking at the comments. It’s not worthwhile, alright?

C: It’s because you acted too well. LYN: Don’t try to sweeten me up. When you go out- and I said this before, too- don’t go around praising me acting skills. What young actor would dare to praise their own performance? You wouldn’t find one. Of course, I am not very young anymore. But don’t praise my acting skills. I don’t have any. It’s my honor if you are able to like the role I’ve played in a drama.  C: Then I won’t praise your acting, I’ll praise your visuals. LYN: /laugh/ Do you WANT me to die??? Are you trying to mess with me? LYN: I can only say that my fans have confidence. They have said that I’m handsome- that’s okay. But they’ve never GONE OUT and said it. My fans have never gone out to opening praise my acting or my visuals. They keep it to themselves and that’s okay, but they’ve never gone out and openly praised me. Also, I’m my own boss so I can make my own decisions on how I decide to promote. I am very clear that I have never gone around promoting my appearance before, have I? Even with my streams I always go the self-deprecating route and call myself ugly. We’ve never gone out to push my visuals onto people, right? I think that’s just fine. I have confidence in myself and I know that my fans have confidence in me. It’s enough to have this tacit understanding among ourselves. If you think I’m handsome, just say that in your own house. Please don’t go outside and feel the need to share with people. “LYN is so handsome!” It’s not necessary.  LYN: I also advise fans of other people not to going around praising someone else’s looks, either. There’s nothing to say, right? [t/n: just stating the obvious, if someone is handsome. people have eyes, right? but also beauty is in the eye of the beholder.]

LYN: But then I got to thinking... what artist out there DOESN’T have some unflattering pictures of them, right? What artist in this industry has never had a bad shot of them? I was thinking about this, so I went online to look it up. I searched for four hours and have yet to find an answer.  C: You sure have a lot of time. // You even looked it up online. xswl. LYN: You really believed I did? XSWL. [t/n: xswl = 笑死我了 = I’m laughing to death.] LYN: The “four hours” I mentioned was a topic that took my brain four seconds to make up. Your perception of time and mine are different. C: You could have used those four hours to stream. LYN: “Four hours” was my brain taking four seconds to think about the answer to the question “What artist doesn’t have unflattering pictures?” . . . . Who dares to say that they don’t? I can find a bunch for you immediately. What’s unfair about it. I might have a but more than most people, is all. My pictures don’t even make a splash, they make an explosion. Other people might pop- like a piece popped corn- just a small ripple. My pictures make an explosion- like using a popcorn machine to fry crayfish. They’ll explode all over the walls. Nothing but ashes and dust left.  LYN: No matter what drama or variety show I end up on... I am never going to match up in terms of visuals. I admit it and I’ll own it. Please do not go around praising my visuals. If you like how I look then you can entertain yourselves with it. We don’t need to get more people’s recognition. Fish find fish. Shrimp find shrimp. A tortoise is likely to see eye to eye with a mung bean. We count as having seen eye to eye. There’s nothing else you can say. (Unlike popular opinion) You think I’m handsome. That’s okay. I thank you for that.  LYN: These past couple of days I keep seeing pictures of what I looked like five years ago. Every time I come across a video of myself from 4-5 years ago, I am thankful to my fans. When I see one of those videos I say, in my heart, “Thank you to my friends. Thank you to my fans. Thank you to my family.” 4-5 years ago I was just a... just a baozi. I had swollen eyes and when I smiled it was like a mantou exploded. I was a male artist with a belly. Looking back on it now my hairstyle and my clothes... seemed to be lacking. Whenever I see old videos I always think to myself, “Why didn’t I think I was ugly back then??” Why didn’t I ever consider losing some weight or something? I was just satisfied as I was. What was I thinking? I know that you think I have developed quickly, but I think I was too slow. I should have started considering being more self-conscious the first year I debuted. I should have tried to make an effort to improve my appearance more. Maybe my development would have been even smoother than it has been. I’m very thankful to the fans who have stayed with me from then until now.

C: I like how you were before debut better. LYN: You can like it however much you want but I’m not going back. The old street in Dandong is still there. If you want to go there to play, you can go by yourself. I’m not going back. I can’t change my life just because you liked me better that way. You like what you like. It has nothing to do with me. 

LYN: I didn’t consider myself handsome back then, but I also really didn’t put as much effort into my appearance as I probably should have. I just thought, if I were going on a show, that I would do what I needed- apply some makeup, do my hair, choose an outfit. Other than that I didn’t have any standards for how I thought I should look. I didn’t think it was something I should pay much attention to, because I was just a singer. If you’re not on stage then most of the times you’re in the background. Unlike an actor, who is constantly in front of the camera. Singers aren’t the same- we might only show our faces occasionally but otherwise we’re all just sitting around at home. 

C: But back then you were really close with your fans. LYN: Am I not close to you now? If I’m not then why would I be sitting here? What am I doing, why am I streaming? Ever since I’ve debuted I believed in this one thing: You may not know where you’re going but you have to remember where you came from. Sitting here streaming, having the mindset I do, posting to weibo and the group chat- these are all things I can never forget.  LYN: But if you mean the method by which I communicated with you, it’s not suitable anymore. (Streaming on the street in Dandong, having his fans crowded around him.) It’s not the same circumstance anymore. It’s not as if I can just chat with you while I am on the drama set, now. I can’t stop to chat if I see you. I came here to work. LYN: The “close” I’m talking about is the familial “close”. Why are you like this. Just like how a child is close to their mother or father. Not the “kiss” type of “qin (亲)”. This is why we can’t communicate. The “close” I was talking about was in reference to RELATIVES. “This kid is close to his mother.” not “This kid went to kiss his mother.” You people, really...

--

C: Lao-da, I just got here. Are you wearing a wig? LYN: You just got here. And? Who are you trying to announce that to?? Don’t assume you are very important. LYN: It is a wig, yes. :) LYN: You just came in and you have the guts to announce it? It’s like greeting your teacher when you’re tardy. Tardy is tardy. And you’re going to call yourself out for it?

C: The lyrics are gone again. LYN: You’re so interested in learning?? You came to learn English? (bc the current song is Charlie Puth’s Loser)

C: Why were you wearing this same shirt in the last stream? LYN: I can’t afford any more. Are you satisfied with that answer? It’s because I can’t afford to buy any more. I can’t survive. LYN: I’m in Xiangshan, how many clothes did you expect me to bring??? I wasn’t planning on bringing multiple sets to stream for. I was just thinking I would bring something I could be comfortable in. I’m not at home. If I were, I’d have clothes to change into. Why would I bring a bunch of clothes out with me? It’s not like I’m a model or anything.

C: Is your leg okay now? LYN: It’s pretty much okay now. I don’t feel anything from it most of the time. It still hurts when I run, though, so I haven’t been doing much of that. I don’t run. In terms of normal walking, it doesn’t affect me at all. Please be reassured. 

--

C: Ning-ge, I’ve applied to be in the fan group so many times already but I’ve never been admitted.  LYN: First of all, if you want to be admitted to my fan (chat) group you have to be subscribed to my weibo. If you haven’t done so yet, then please do. The second thing is... not everyone who applies is admitted. Mostly it’s fans of me, only. For example if you like three people at one time, then it’s not really appropriate. Of course I welcome you to be my fan, but it’s just not appropriate to be added to my fan group... because in there we share a lot of secrets. If you’re in three fan groups at the same time our moderator is going to have a hard time. C: Liking three people at the same time? LYN: Honestly that’s very normal, isn’t it? It’s just like that hardcore fan earlier, who said “I watched TtEotM and think LYX’s so handsome.” We all know he’s handsome. Now that they’ve watched the drama they can’t be considered my one and only fan anymore. There’s an 80% chance they’re already a fan of LYX now. They’re double-booked, now. It’s normal. There’s nothing you can do about it. LYN: Many of my current fans used to be fans of someone else. Times are changing, is all. For a lot of you here, can you say I was the first idol you ever started chasing? No, right? It’s normal. People come and go, I know. But I still can’t accept (when my fans leave me). 

C: I watched TtEotM and started liking LYN. LYN: But I’m not an actor in it??? Did you see a toad in there? You saw a toad, thought it looked like me, and therefore started liking me? If you have that ability, I guess it’s okay, too. // I wasn’t in it... Oh! You mean the opening theme? Don’t you all have VIP access? You can skip the opening, can’t you? All you hear is /sings the last words/ “Episode 1″ . /sings the last words/ “Episode 2”. You only hear the last two words.   C: I don’t skip it. LYN: .... C: After you skip there’s only one word. LYN: Right! I said it, didn’t I? What, you started liking me after hearing a single word? With most people it’s “love at first sight” but with you it’s “love at first word”??  LYN: There was a person who said they don’t skip the intro, but didn’t someone earlier say they started liking me after listening to the opening theme... This is a paradox. If they don’t like me, why WOULD they listen to the opening? Why don’t you just like me directly? There’s no need to say you like me just because you listened to the opening. You can skip the middle part (listening to the song) and like me from the start. When I’m explaining things like this, are you able to keep up? [t/n: like this: (Viewer > Listens to the Opening > Likes LYN) vs (Viewer > Likes LYN)] C: Maybe this friend doesn’t have VIP membership. LYN: ... !! /thinks it over/ When you put it that way, it’s reasonable. Someone said they didn’t skip the intro and I was wondering, if you were all VIP members, how could you not? But then someone pointed out that this person might not be a VIP member, and that makes a lot of sense. But the thing is, friends, do you have a finger? You must, right? There’s another way, which is called the progress bar, and you can put your finger on the screen and gently move it, right? [t/n: if you have a touchscreen...] You can PRETEND that you’re a VIP. Do you think that’s a possibility? LYN: The benefit of a VIP membership is that you don’t have to take the extra effort it takes to move your finger. It automatically skips the intro for you. But if you’re not a VIP then you can manually skip it. In either case, you can still skip it. It’s not that just because you’re not a VIP member you have to watch the intro with your eyes wide open. If you close your eyes the video pauses, and when you open them it plays again? It’s not that the video only plays when your eyes are open...  C: I’m mesmerized by the singing, I become unable to skip. LYN: You know what? There are some friends in here who really know how to say sweet words. I’m half-worried that you’re actually scammers. You speak TOO well and it makes me feel so nice. Really. You’re all here to fool me. 

C: Can I watch the drama if I’m not a VIP member? LYN: Why are you asking me? Do I look like the platform’s customer service agent? Go try it yourself! Why are you asking me?? Just go on Tencent and Youku and take a look. What are you going, treating me as customer service... Shall I introduce you to the terms and conditions when purchasing a VIP membership? What your benefits are and how many times you can make a comment?  C: Ning-ge, I’m waiting for your dramas to air before I purchase a membership. LYN: That’s okay. That’s your freedom. You don’t even have to purchase one when it DOES air. But please try. Support the drama a little. 

C: Ning-ge is starting to sass us. The right feeling is coming back. LYN: I don’t think so? I talk back at you every time. But maybe I’m a little more relaxed today than usual. It is a holiday, after all.

--

C: When will TXJ air? LYN: I don’t know. I saw some article the other day, I don’t remember which one, but it said that ALZ would air on 5/14. C: For real? LYN: Probably... I don’t know. But after I saw that article I almost started to believe it, myself. C: Didn’t you say it was going to air soon? LYN: I am also a viewer, okay? Even though I work in this industry, I still don’t know anything. I don’t know when dramas will air or what’s going on with them. I really don’t know. Even if I DID, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I can’t become a gossip blog. LYN: I’m GUESSING- just by my calculations- I get the feeling it CAN air in May. After TtEotM, it can probably air. That’s just a possibility. I swear I am not privy to any insider information. I’m just a viewer, making my own calculations. What follows after CYJM (TtEotM) is either going to be HX (Back from the Brink) or ALZ. I might have this little bit of prior information only because I’ve already recorded the OST for both. When I sing the OST for things, about three days before the drama airs they’ll let me know about it. For example, if I am in a drama they’ll say, “Xiao Ning. Our drama will be airing on MM/DD. You’ve sung the OST for us, right? So would you mind posting about it on weibo?” They’ll tell me these things beforehand. I sang the OST for YXZ and they told me beforehand that it would air on 5/1. It’s like that. So... LYN: If I’m remembering correctly, I did sing one for HX. /laughs at himself for possibly misremembering/ Well, there are only so many dramas in this industry. If I get the opportunity to, I just sing. 

LYN: People always ask me what my M-I-T-L (MBTI) is. I really don’t know. Is that the personality thing? I don’t know if that’s how you say it- I didn’t quite catch it when it scrolled by. I treated it as a game and tried finding out once. I forgot what my result was. Even if I remembered, it’s not like I would tell you. Don’t ask. LYN: MB- what is that? MBTI- Or something? MBIT? Whatever. I know it was pretty popular for a while, and everyone was testing for it. I tried it twice and the results were different each time. I’m not sure if it’s reliable. You can test for fun, but you can’t base the decisions you make for your future on this. Your fate is yours to decide. You’re a rebellious young person. You don’t believe in ghosts and gods, and don’t trust humans.  LYN: These things you can do for fun, but you can’t use it to determine your decisions. There’s absolutely no need. You can take a look, but think of it as entertainment. If you’re willing to believe in it, then you can.

C: Ge, control your accent. LYN: Do I speak with an accent? No, right? Am I not speaking Standard Mandarin? What I’m speaking right now- isn’t it Standard? It’s very typical isn’t it? You’ve heard me speak like this when I’m shooting my dramas, too? /starts reciting some of his drama lines/ Do I have an accent? I don’t right? It’s very well pronounced Standard dialect. C: If you really act with the dialect the director would go nuts. LYN: ? No. For the character setting in itself, I’m a person from the North. I’m set in the North and Qiao family is set in the South. I’m in the North, so I’m a Northerner. More of the sturdy, tall, manly type. I’m a Northerner in the drama, so is it a problem that I have a Northern accent? No. It follows, right? If I were shooting a xianxia and I had an accent, then you can pick one me. This is just a normal guzhuang story. What, is there some rule that states that fictional people in a fictional time aren’t allowed to have an accent? Says who?? C: Then it’d be too difficult to communicate with the FL wouldn’t it? LYN: No? It’s not like she’s speaking Shanghainese... We’re just speaking Mandarin that’s not exactly Standard. 

C: Are you going to be on Mao-Xue-Woof soon? LYN: I don’t know. We’ll have to see when the drama wraps first. If it ends and I have some time I’ll go to play. I’m close with the two of them (MBY & LXQ) anyway. I was telling SZE, when filming wraps, I suggested we go together. She might not have the time so we can’t go together, though. If she can’t go I’ll just go by myself.  C: Ning-ge, is it for free? LYN: Is what free? To what are you referring to? Do you mean to ask if I would appear on their show at no cost to them? It’s not free. If they don’t let me I’ll bribe Xueqin- I’ll buy her some nice meals- and she can let me appear on the show through a back door. It’s not free. There’s no such thing as a free meal in this world. I’ll buy her two roasted ducks for lunch and ask her if she’ll let me be on her show. 

C: I’m going to make a wish- a wish that Ning-ge can be in a xianxia drama. LYN: You don’t need to use your wish on me. Save it for yourself. It’s not worthwhile. Treat yourself better. That’s the more important thing. 

C: I’ve heard too much of the bgm. I’m "sick” of it. LYN: Oh my!? I’ll change it. Let’s switch to something quieter.  - /plays Detective Conan - Ran’s theme music/ LYN: This. This is very quiet, no? // We’ll just use it as background music. Let’s chat. C: Play the main theme. LYN: Do I have a main theme? Based on age... it would probably be 讲真的, right? But if I have any of my own.. I don’t think so. Even though I know that there are songs that people like very much. But the song that really started getting me known was 讲真的. It let my name be known and got many people to know of me. I don’t have any of my own songs that can serve as a main theme. They’re all just alright. They’re considered representative works, but the song that got me known is a more unique category. It’s what the song brought to me, that let me make a change. 

--

LYN: Friends, I’ve been learning a rap recently. Well, not “learning” exactly. When I stream, a lot of you ask me to sing rap so I was thinking I would learn one that was suitable for me. I heard this one and thought it was quite nice.  -- 成仙 (Become Immortal) - 王朝1982 LYN: What do you think? Why are you typing question marks??? In your minds is this not considered rap anymore? Oh my gosh~! C: Don’t (sing). It’s too noisy. - /continues playing the song/ LYN: This doesn’t count? Then why don’t you tell me what type of rap is ideal, for you? I’ll go learn. This, to me, is already very hard. C: Wang Sulong. LYN: WSL... I CAN sing but the problem is there are no backing tracks online.  LYN: /sigh/ Alright, then. I learned for nothing. I won’t sing. It’s off-putting. Fine. I won’t sing. I spent 4 hours to learn a song and I was preparing to show it off to you today. Here you are telling me, “What is this?” and “Wow, it’s too noisy.” Now I’m not in the mood anymore. I won’t try.

C: Try something different. LYN: Um... I do know another! LYN: Does this count? If this doesn’t count, it’s another song I learned for nothing. -- 范进中举 (Fan Jing Zhong Ju) - 卦者灵风 (Gua Zhe Ling Feng) LYN: Does it count? // Alright, alright. You don’t need to try to comfort me. That’s another four hours gone to waste. These two songs have wasted... 8 hours of my life. They’re (the songs) not useful. I guess I am not suited to rapping.

LYN: Let’s do this one. I’ve heard it a lot recently. -- 别叫我达芬奇 (Don’t Call Me Da Vinci) - Xiao Gui LYN: Oh, not this version though. The one I heard the other day was a rock version. If there’s no track for it then we’ll forget about it. // It was this one. -- Don’t Call Me Da Vinci (punk ver) LYN: Oh well.

C: You don’t have to force yourself to rap. LYN: No, I keep looking for a song to sing because there’s something I haven’t gotten to show you yet. It cost me 20RMB and I wanted to find a song so I could show it off. But now it seems like I can’t find the right opportunity. I don’t want my money to go to waste. I was planning on showing you a prop. But with these two songs you’re telling me you’ve never heard of it (1) and you don’t like it (2), so we’ll just forget it. I was looking for something different that is still suitable for showing it off.  LYN: I don’t know any recent songs, because I haven’t been learning them. I have nothing to show. C: You don’t need to show it off if it was just 20rmb... LYN: I don’t want to feel like I wasted my money by not showing it off! // Hrm... there’s really nothing that works. It has to match with the style of this thing! Is there any electronic music, like EDM? I guess I have to search for DZW-laoshi.  C: How about you just go with the first song you were trying? LYN: Nope. You didn’t like it so I won’t sing it. Now I’m looking for something electronic. Let me see if there’s anything that’s suitable... -- 阳光彩虹小白马 (Sunshine, Rainbow, White Pony)

C: Twenty minutes have passed and you still haven’t started. LYN: Once I start streaming it’s going to be for at least a few hours; how else do you expect me to pass the time? // At least my stream is free!  LYN: I didn’t prepare well enough today. Sorry, friends. It’s a little rough-going today. Alright. Let me just sing one at random, but if doesn’t quite match the look I’m going for we’ll try something different. What should I sing, though?? ... If it doesn’t match then I feel like that’s also a waste. How about this. It should be fine. -- Faded - Alan Walker

LYN: What do you think friends, was it worth 20RMB? Just tell me if it was worth it. LYN: Everybody! When I say, “One, two, three, four!” I want you to get hyped with me, ok?! LYN: Everybody are you ready? If you’re ready, say it with me now! One, two, three, go! LYN: Welcome to my party. Thank you. LYN: Disregarding everything else, wasn’t this 20RMB worth it? If I didn’t show this off today I would have felt like I spent this money for nothing. 

C: The lighting is a little lacking. LYN: It’s good enough. C: Does it hurt your nose? LYN: It does. Just the slightest. A tiny bit.  LYN: Are the lights too bright? Did you really think this was a dive bar? C: Can you see? LYN: Barely. I can barely see you typing. It’s just a bunch of little white dots floating by. I can see, more or less. It’s not important.

C: Ning-ge, that looks like a headband. LYN: .... I can’t talk about fashion with you. When I first started the stream someone said that I was wearing a bathrobe. I really can’t discuss fashion with some of you. You just don’t get it. /sigh/ This is a Chinese-style article- can’t you see these sleeves? It’s a long robe. And you’re calling it a bathrobe??

LYN: Alright. It’s about time. I’m going to stop streaming now, friends. I still have a bunch of scenes to go over tomorrow. I thank you all for coming and keeping me company. If you still haven’t subscribed to my weibo, please do so. I am Modern Brothers Liu Yuning. If you have time you can come to watch me stream. LYN: I’ve been streaming for a long while now. Let me check for how long...  Three hours. That’s enough. In any case, I needed to show off this 20RMB before I signed-off. I needed to show it, otherwise this money would have felt wasted. I needed to show you. Whether or not I’ll use it again is a question for another time. Most of the time I use something once and I can’t find it the next time.... so I needed to show you this as soon as possible. To give you a... futuristic vibe. How do you say “未来” in English? Future. LYN: I hope you had a relaxing, happy, and wonderful night. It was great to have you and I hope you had fun. Let’s meet again in the next stream. Goodnight, everyone! LYN: Daimi! Daimi, get up and greet everyone. It’s time to get off work! Bye bye.

[alexglitches]

Hello sorry to bother you with this all of sudden ,and this might be coming out of nowhere, and I’m not trying to force you or be pushy  I’m just trying to get more people into this show with great potential. You can ignore this if you want. If your not interested it’s fine but Have you heard of or watched moon girl and devil dinosaur? Season 2 premier happened

The main character I love she gives me autistic vibes I’m autistic. The show has interesting characters, action ,great music, and animation ,good themes and representation, Anime references, plenty of Sailor Moon references too it even has an eyecatch season 2 is going to be more story driven if you find that interesting. It also shares the same animation studio as rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

It be good if you also watch the season 2 episodes when they air so the ratings will be higher. 

I think Disney might be trying to sabotage the show with them dropping 14 episodes on Disney +  Feb 3 which has passed.and it’s only half of season 2. We have a week or two to binge it.They did similar with season 1 and the ratings where low ,please watch season 2 episodes when they air on. But more importantly also watch it on Disney + in feb and when they air it on YouTube. Unfortunately they dropped 14 episodes on Disney + so watch them all in a day if you can but also when they air the first time if you have cable.

I’m not just saying only cable just also. I’m saying please support this show. Despite that it still won 5 Emmys. Also if it’s no trouble could if it alright with you spread the word about this show to others you know like either online or irl. Time is limited!

I’ve seen things around for it, but I haven’t watched it myself yet, I’ve been wanting to for a while, it looks so fun!!!

I’ll definitely watch it when I get the chance to, which (by how things are going for me) might be today :DDD

[forthisone]

Thoughts after finishing Season 5 of The Handmaid’s Tale last night.

This show hits different now I am a mother. Especially Episode 7, oof.

So these are fresh thoughts after watching the season over a couple of weeks. I haven’t really digested the season yet, haven’t read any commentary etc.

Firstly, I found this season so much easier to watch and less gratuitous, thank you S5 gods for that. Obviously there’s still so much trauma and pain going on but thank you for not subjecting me to multiple torture and rape scenes this season.

Serena

I didn’t hate the Serena stuff. I think probably because I’m fresh out of pregnancy/childbirth… still breastfeeding, etc. They showed how June as a mum (showing concern for Noah’s welfare) trumped the June that hates Serena to death and I liked that. Mothers are powerful. I also appreciated Serena with The Wheelers having a firsthand taste of a slight glimmer of what June had experienced with the Waterfords (obviously not as bad but the panic and fear and anger was there). I’m glad it seems to have finally humbled her and made her realise how fucked up it all was. Like we all thought she got there in 2.13 when she let Nichole go but now she FINALLY IS THERE. As a new mum, I have enjoyed Serena’s arc this season. I can’t think of anything worse than someone keeping me separate from my one month old telling me that they are letting them cry it out all day and night.

Idk I think I just forgot it was Serena honestly and enjoyed the portrayal of a new mum fighting for her baby.

Nick

Oooookay. Lots to unpack.

So when I saw the Rose reveal in episode 1 I was kind of relieved because it seemed like they were kind of friends and maybe Nick wasn’t as trapped as he felt with Eden. Which I think was true. But I would have been a lot more interested to understand their relationship a bit better. I have a lot of question marks still, ten episodes and they barely explored it. That line one of the Wives gives about something genetic inherited with the baby? That was weird. Is that alluding to the future? Or was that just a Wife being a dick, unsure.

Also, the Nick I know and love would never have wished for June to take up Lawrence’s offer of New Bethlehem. The scene in 5.09 was just weird for me. It was like the dodgy uncle of the magic we got in 4.09. Was it the same location too? Maybe?

Still waiting for the scene of Nick having a good cry and I feel they missed a trick with the hospital room scene. We are never going to get it, are we?

Basically my favourite Nick scene of the whole season was Tuello on the bridge with Nick

where he asked about running away with her (ps. I feel like they keep nodding to this “running away together” line and I am here for it, please God let this be a nod to the future? When Nick said “I’m nothing.” And Tuello replies “Not to her.” … god damn if that didn’t tap into my feels from the scene that made this ship an OTP for me. The hospital corridor kids scene in 2.07 where June says “What about you?” and Nick kisses her because just once he feels like somebody to someone.

Also how beautiful was it that he just wanted to see her and kiss her head at the hospital and then essentially that’s all he needs to sign his life away.

I don’t understand why Nick punched Lawrence really (I mean, I understand, but I feel like out of everything, he would have had time after seeing June to regain his composure and put the mask back up). But I can only hope it was in Nick’s plan. Maybe he wants to get transferred somewhere else? Closer to Hannah so he can pass Tuello info? He knows Lawrence owes him a pardon?

Then again I feel like maybe he just finally lost his shit which is understandable. I just didn’t expect it to happen that way. My man is smarter than punching a Commander in front of a room of other Commanders. He knows how to get revenge more subtly. No? Maybe not when it comes to June.

I loved that June thought about Nick before they left the train. Telling Tuello to let him know she and Nichole are safe.

Update: after sleeping on it and speaking to a couple of others, I’ve realised he’s just absolutely done and he doesn’t care about the mask slipping anymore. I don’t think it was impulsive per se as it took a long drive to get to Lawrence’s.

I am interested for where this will take Nick next season but I sincerely sincerrreeely hope he and Janine break out of Eye HQ and start fucking shit up.

Luke and Luke/June

I mean. I’m a Nick fan so. You know. I struggled with the Luke/June stuff this season. It felt a bit like a reversal of where we had got to with Season 4. I’m kind of over the love triangle to be honest but I get that Luke is in her life. He’s not going to disappear. She will always love him. I just felt confused as to where June’s head is at, whereas I didn’t by the end of Season 4. It feels like wasted time.

The scene in 5.9 where he grabbed her to stop her meltdown and she’s like “Please let me go.” I think was telling.

When Luke said in episode 6 “I wish I could have been the guy to come and get you out” HI NICK BLAINE. Oh how I wished he would have showed up and got them out.

I guess Luke kind of did do that in the finale. He got them out. Yeah I’m not the biggest Luke hater, I just see him as sort of Your Average Joe but not right for June anymore. Obviously. But he stepped up a bit in 5.10. At least he saved her from being killed.

Moira

Samira Wiley has been criminally under used this season, that is all. I feel like the writers forgot that Moira was a) a Jezebel and b) also killed a Commander to escape Gilead… so why is she having so much trouble relating to June?

Hannah

I wish they’d got Hannah out and Season 6 could be more about the healing and the aftermath. For all the characters really. I felt June’s pain at taking any opportunity to be near her daughter. I’d be tempted by New Bethlehem too, as mad as that sounds to me. I get it. That whole concept was weird though. And I fear it will reappear in Season 6 and I don’t want it.

Those are main thoughts now. 11pm and I’ve just finished the season.

It felt good to binge a season again, I haven’t done that since Season Two. I think watching the season in one go is better than enduring crumbs slowly week by week.

I’m wondering now if Season 6 can possibly do all I want it too but I’ll gather my wishes for the final season in another post.

What is Nick’s end of the bargain for Tuello letting him see June in hospital? Obviously inside knowledge but how will he get that knowledge now he has exposed himself in Gilead?