#sincerely stuff

[sincerelysys]

plural ask game!!

[questions from @plural-vrz, this is so cool!!]

✉️ - how many alters do u have? do u consider yourself to have a high headcount?

we currently have about 28 alters [including steves subsys and malicitors] and honestly i do consider it pretty high, even if ive heard of and know others that have more!!

📩 - do u have any subsystems? if so, how do they work?

yeah! we have steves [he named it the station sys], and im not entirely sure how it works but he says he manages it and runs it sorta like i do and how our partner sys does since were rlly the only example hes seen :]

📨 - are there any alter(s) who u would consider the “core”? if so, are they the host?

oh for sure!! that would def be me [remy] and yeah im the main host!!

💌 - do u have an innerworld? how complex is it?

yeah we do!! its not too complex, its kinda like the coraline other world for example!! like we have our big house, but anything past our fenced in yard is just blank!!

📧 - how does fronting work for your system? do u have a “front room”?

we consider fronting to be basically just in the fronting room, like if ur in there, then ur fronting!! and yeah that answers the other question!! ours looks like an old school nasa control room with couches and a door near the back wall opposite of the big ol screen!!

✉️ - how do u communicate with ur headmates?

if were alone we just talk out loud, but most of the time we use tupperbox in our shared discord server with our partner sys since trying to communicate in front or headspace is a lil difficult [everythings sorta fuzzy and trying to remember anything thats said is rlly hard]

📩 - do u use alter roles/labels? which ones do u use?

yeah!! we use tons but our main ones are [blank] holder, destressor, soother, caretaker, protector, punisher, and malicitor!!

📨 - who fronts the most? who fronts the least?

me and gunner front the most as were the host and cohost, and our frequent fronters are sabre, rosco, dally, steve, tex, tim, two, bodie, imani, patrick, paul, and harvey [currently] then leo and neil hardly ever front [leo because hes only positively triggered out by his source, which is our uncles cat, and neil because hes an internal archival fragment]

💌 - how often do ur hosts/fronting patterns change?

hosts are once in a blue moon and i dont entirely known what influences a change, and fronting patterns are just based on who wants to!!

📧 - how often do u switch?

im actually not sure!! im the default fronter so anyone else taking full control doesnt happen often without being planned

✉️ - do you co-front with other alters often? is co-fronting easy or difficult?

oh yeah im almost always cofronting with someone else!! since its so common i think its pretty easy!!

📩 - how long does it take for u to switch?

not long at all!! at most around a minute but usually just a few seconds!!

📨 - do ur alters have specific voice claims for what they sound like in headspace?

a few of us do like dally sounds like matt dillon and steve sounds like tom cruise, but other than that we all just go with the different pitches of the body!!

💌 - do u have any introjects? what are their sources?

unlike other hosts previous systems, we actually have more faitives/factives than fictives!! anyways their main sources consist of dallas winston, ponyboy curtis, steve randle, tex mccormick, tim shepard, and twobit mathews!! now theres lots of other partial sources for our faitives but im not abt to list all of those </3

📧 - do u have any hosts? co-hosts?

yup!! remy is our main host and gunner is our cohost!!

✉️ - if u have an innerworld, can u see into while you’re fronting?

we cant see into headspace while fronting, just the front room!!

📩 - do u use any origin/-genic terms? what are they?

yeah!! just traumagenic :]

📨 - do u have any npcs in your headspace?

nope!!

💌 - has ur system created any rules ur alters are expected to abide by?

there arent any real rules per say, just basic things like "respect each other" and whatnot, although if theres a time of front stuck and seal and we have to interact with the outside world a lot, whoevers fronting should let our safe people [people that know about our system] know in advance :]

[vivitalks]

watching fantasy high and one of the captions said [brian laughs] and i truly went who the fuck is brian. never use that name in front of me again. these lands know no brian. it's murph or mothin'.

[thebadphilosopher]

I would like to announce

That I got no writing done yesterday

BUT

I thought about writing.

*round of applause*

[basket-of-radiants]

A comic about Szeth and cooking. Or that's what it's going to about. Part 1/4.

(In case it wasn't clear, Nale is 100% just messing with him. Honestly they both kinda are.)

[ewwww-what]

They’re just on his mind, which could mean nothing

[heartinhyacinth]

Something that I’ve always loved about Hualian is that throughout the series, people had warned Xie Lian of Hua Cheng left and right, told him various horror stories, rumors of cruelty and malice, etc., and yet…Hua Cheng never once (as far as I can remember) tried to counter the accusations with words. He never defended himself or his actions to Xie Lian, never told him of the ways it was false or not as bad as it sounds.

At times, he even went as far as to do the opposite, one example being when Xie Lian said he’d heard rumors of eming (to which Hua Cheng responds, “like how it’s evil, forged from the blood of a living sacrifice?”); when Xie Lian brushed them off as only rumors that shouldn’t be taken at face value, Hua Cheng only smiled (in the donghua at least, we couldn’t see his reaction in the novel considering Xie Lian’s back was to him), and didn’t say anything else on the matter, not refuting or confirming whether it was true, nor proving the details that would surely paint him in a much better light than Xie Lian’s colleagues had.

He’s always let Xie Lian form his own opinions on things, and that includes himself.

Much like the novels themselves, Hua Cheng takes a very “show don’t tell” approach to things. He doesn’t need to tell Xie Lian he can trust him, that he’d never harm him, and that he has reasons for doing what he does. Xie Lian already knows this. He’s shown it to him in his actions. If he had to say the words for Xie Lian to believe him, he’d have seen it as a failure to live up to them. It’s very in character for him imo—he hates hypocrisy and hates when people say one thing and then do another. So it makes sense that he would simply sit back and trust that Xie Lian would see him for who he is.

It’s all very similar to the fact that they don’t say “I love you” throughout all eight books (which I absolutely adore and I’ll make a separate post on soon).

[coddda]

Everyone knows that Light and L matched each other's freak but I think their dynamic in the musical (the Japanese ver specifically) is underrated. Like it's not super different from canon but they just had this extra edge of Violence that we never quite saw from the more methodical and careful mindgames in canon death note and I think it's great. Like, yes, they did declare in canon that they will bring each other to justice, yes L says he wants to send Kira to his execution, but in the lyrics of the musical they both outright say multiple times that they just want to straight up Kill each other. It's direct the whole way through. There's more mutual contempt. This game is about nothing more than simply being the first one to Kill the Other (they actually use the word "殺し合い" (koroshiau) or "to kill each other" to describe their game (translated as "murderous ... game")).

(Sidenote but all those references about wanting to send each other to Hell?? Beautiful)

Yeah this is a battle of justice and ideals, yes that clash is a key part of their final confrontation at the end of the musical, but throughout their duets (or even songs like The Game Begins where they're singing by themselves) there's this near singleminded desire to just fucking End each other. It's fucking Raw and it's great.

Also THIS FUCKING SCENE?? THIS SCENE FROM SECRETS AND LIES. Iconic. Actually Insane. My jaw dropped. Light looks like a crazy bitch it's beautiful.

Um. Also. Obligatory Playing His Game (yknow the gay sex song) lines dump. It basically says everything I just said above in like 9 lines. You see what I mean right.

In canon they're playing a game of mental chess, trying to use everyone around them to finally catch the other as their end goal, but in the musical you really do feel like all they see is each other. They would probably beat each other to death with their fists if it came down to that. Idk they're just so excited and fired up about their little game in the musical and it's so unhinged and fun and special and I love it. It's like the writers for the musical decided to kick their murderous intent up a couple notches and the result is absolutely Beautiful.

I also think that the intensity of their rivalry in the beginning just makes the wind-down of The Way It Ends soo much better. It's such a good contrast to their previous duets where they try to sing over each other (Secrets and Lies & Stalemate) or with each other but basically at the top of their lungs (Playing His Game). It feels like there's both a quiet mutual understanding but also an underlying disappointment that the game is finally over. In canon, L's death Is instead the peak of their game, the moment he gets confirmation that Light is Kira is the exact same moment that he dies. In the jdrama it's almost sudden, how L dies, after the quiet moment has already passed. But in the musical L's death, ironically, Is the one quieter moment in their game. Their peak was the game itself. It was Secrets and Lies and Playing His Game. But the end of the game in the musical is not a victory, it's just (as L says) the end of everything they'd been wanting up until this point.

Uh. Fuck it. Clip from the Kenji Urai version because I just love his delivery here. His tone just goes so well with the silence and the sound of the clock ticking. You see what I mean right.

Their rivalry in the musical may have been more shortlived but like Damn they were really enjoying every second of it. They were truly insane about each other until the very end. (Like despite everything I just said about the ending it was still unhinged as fuck. Light Making L Shoot Him and then Making L Shoot Himself with L's Own Hand?? Holy shit man. What the fuck /pos)

Musical Light and L your game might've been shorter but you'll always be famous <33 Please never inflict what you had on anyone else ever please stay in hell forever thank you

[nuzipilled]

safe and sound

[million-with-a-b]

Space themed System ask game based on common fakeclaim "criteria" because these things are valid and cool actually

🛰-Do you have a large headcount?

👾-Do any alters in your system have typing quirks?

🚀-Does your system have any Non-human alters?

☄️-Is your system neurodivergent?

🔭-Does your system use neo Pronouns?

🌠-Do any of the alters in your system have dyed hair?

🌙-Are there any nonverbal alters in your system?

🪐-Does your system have Angry or "dangerous" persecutors?

💫-Do your littles use 'little-speech?'

🌌-Does your system have little to no amnesia between switches?

🌟-Does your system have fairly clear communication?

🌘-Do you have a large or complex headspace?

🛸-Do any alters in your system have exo-memories?

👽Does your system have any tics?

☀️-is your system bad at masking?

✨️-Do any alters in your system have an accent?

🌎-Do any alters in your system speak in a different language?

☁️-Does your system use things like pluralkit and simply plural?

⭐️-are you out about being a system?

This will probably flop but!!! I had fun making it<3

Endos and their supporters dni :')

[thebadphilosopher]

"I love writing" I whisper as I open Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, and YouTube.

[ananinidraws]

This is how Super Paper Mario went, right?

[psychopomp-namine]

the way everyone has a dislike in their profile that actually says something integral about their character. lu guang doesn't like plans getting messed up, cheng xiaoshi dislikes loneliness, xia fei with owing favors, vein with lying...

and then you have liu xiao, who dislikes... cilantro. and fish mint.

(shakes fist) (putting him in a glass jar and shaking vigorously) learn to be vulnerable!! tell me something about yourself!! I guess him liking movies lines up with the theater metaphors, and there's him liking chess, but that. doesn't count methinks

[thesiltverses]

HE'S BEEN BLONDE THIS ENTIRE FUCKING TIME???????????.

End spoilers:

It was actually really important to me that we get one minor piece of previously unmentioned description about Faulkner in that end scene, when Carpenter's tending to him so closely.

Because then it's like he's coming into closer focus, for her and for us; like she's getting to see him with fresh eyes.

But, you know, if it feels wrong or jarring or it conflicts with your idea of how he should look - canon isn't real, and the characters are in your hands. Definitely don't worry about it.

[abd-illustrates]

I might’ve spoiled the plot of Natlan | Genshin Impact THEORY

In which I read so much lore that I gained the power to see the future (maybe) This ended up being a real challenge to make - but it was also really fun! Please do lemme know what you reckon of these ideas, and whether y’all wanna see me pattern-recognition my way into several corkboards worth of theories about any other topics sometime down the line! (^^)/

(also: HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🥳🎉 Here's wishing y'all every good thing for 2024)

[acowardinmordor]

its a good thing Eddie died in the 80s before the world got good at making edibles that taste like candy. That boy has no air space between 'that was tasty' and 'have some more' Leave that guy near a container of gummies unattended, check an alert on your phone, and boom: that entire thing is empty and Eddie is oblivious that ate them at all. I need to see Steve whacking the package out of his hands to stop him before he can instinctively eat four of them. I need Steve to dispense them to his boyfriend one at a time and has to keep them in a hidden drawer, not because of addiction but because his wonderful beautiful idiot boyfriend is too adhd to be trusted around sugar-drugs.

Brought to you by my very adhd brain, and the very tasty gummy that I spat into my hand after realizing I'd literally just swallowed one.

[basket-of-radiants]

Why were you so disappointed by Rhythm of War?

This has been sitting in my askbox for years. I've taken several cracks at answering, only to get frustrated with the subject matter and burn myself out every time. I didn't like Rhythm of War. More than that, I didn't like it in a way that tainted my enjoyment of the entire series. And despite what it may seem, I don't actually enjoy discussing things which I don't like. I always want to talk from a place of good faith. Which is why now that my feelings towards the series are a little more positive, I think I can finally answer this.

I'm going to try to stay away from specific plotpoints and story beats for this post, because my goal isn't to nitpick (if for no other reason than it would take a week to write this post), I'm just looking to talk about my overall impressions. I think that might mean the only spoilers here will be structural? idk, if you haven't read Rhythm of War yourself then you should probably do that before looking for other people's opinions anyway. 

I liked Way of Kings when I first read it. I didn't love it at the time, but I liked it. Certainly enough to keep reading once I'd finished. One thing that made me a bit uncomfy, however, was the war against the Parshendi. They were this unknowable enemy which the book was not interested in knowing. An inhuman army. Their main purpose was to kill Kaladin's friends, or else be killed by Dalinar's armies. And yet the Parshendi, and the parshmen in the form of Shen, did show hints of personhood. And so it bothered me how Dalinar spoke so casually about how the Alethi had decimated their numbers, how the others used the war as a means to amass wealth and power. (It didn't bother me in a "this is a bad book" way but in a "these characters are bad people" way.)

One of my foibles as a reader is that when a book is very clearly treating one side of a conflict with more humanity, I tend to be a bit predisposed towards the other to account for that. And with the Alethi clearly being the invading party and superior military force, there was also some underdog favoritism. I didn't really like how the book treated the Parshendi. This is to say that going forward, the singers would be more important to me than any other through line.

So imagine my delight at reading Words of Radiance and meeting Eshonai, one of the Parshendi, who even gets her own point of view sections! They were no longer being treated as a faceless mass, we were getting to see things from their perspective as well. And it became plain to see the damage the Alethi had done to them. I couldn't really bring myself to root for Dalinar or really any of the humans against the listeners. I couldn't even bring myself to like most of these characters. I still enjoyed the book but once it became clear there wouldn't be a peaceful conclusion, let's just say that I wouldn't have wept for Dalinar and Adolin if Szeth had managed to off them. Like everyone in the book, I assumed that going forward all the parshmen would be turned into evil voidbringers in the everstorm and that the listeners were mostly dead. Except for Rlain, and Eshonai because I'd read or been told that book 4 would be Eshonai's book and thus had assumed she was fine. (Oathbringer spoilers, she was not fine.) So ultimately it was still a bit of a downer way to end the book. 

So imagine my delight at reading Oathbringer, where for the first time singers were being treated as people, full and real people, and where the human characters could no longer ignore or dismiss them. We met Khen and the others, common singers who were sympathetic and just wanted freedom from bondage. We see Venli grapple with the loss of her home. We see Leshwi and Moash connecting with and understanding one another. We learn of a history where singers were the original inhabitants of the planet. Parallel to this, Dalinar is having a truly excellent character arc about confronting one's past actions and acknowledging them to move forward and do better. I loved Oathbringer, for some years it was my favorite book, and I was excited as hell to see what came next. At the time, it seemed to me that there is a clear direction the story is going. Two books about needless war, and then a third where the main cast is forced to acknowledge the personhood of their enemies. This was so cool, all of my feelings from the previous installments were being validated, the characters were going to have to face what they've done in the past and outgrow their militaristic mindsets, I was so sure of that.

Imagine my disappointment when that does not even remotely resemble the direction the story went in Rhythm of War. RoW presented a clear, straightforward “us vs. them" narrative, where every character was totally fine with killing singers. Characters aligned with the singers were either flattened into wholly evil versions of themselves (Moash) or were expected to turn on their side in favor of the humans (Venli.) Because clearly there was no reason good people would be on the side that's all former slaves trying to stay free. Maybe there's some sort of accord or understanding between Navani and Raboniel that I might have found meaningful if the seeds of mutual understanding weren't already there in Oathbringer and then apparently ignored for a year by all the characters.

I have a lot of issues with how the listeners are handled in these books. (Here's some elaboration.) Following OB, I had thought that all my concerns were going to be addressed. Following RoW, I knew they never would be. 

Which is my main complaint, because that's the thread that matters most to me in this series.

I have a lot of other Things as well. Gonna just talk about a few big ones. 

One outsized source of disappointment that may seem a little petty, and which probably is, is that I felt mislead by the premise of the book. It had been announced that this book would center Venli and Eshonai, and I was unbelievably hyped for that. That did not really turn out to be the case. The purpose for their backstory chapters felt less about exploring them as people and contextualizing their arcs, and more about filling in gaps of world history. In the main plot, Venli was a POV character and she certainly played a role, but honestly not a very important one overall. To me she felt like a side character in her own book. I don't think it's controversial to say that the main character of RoW was Navani. A lot of people really like Navani and are happy about that. Unfortunately I'm not one of those people, and I found it all the more difficult to enjoy her when it felt like it was coming at the expense of some of my favorite characters. 

This particular gripe somewhat comes down to preference, obviously everyone prefers to read about characters they like more than those they don't, and it can go both ways. (For instance, on a craft/technical level RoW is probably the superior book to W&T, but I liked the latter a lot more because of my stupidly outsized attachment to Szeth and Nale.) But I do think there's something of a real criticism in how the book would rather focus on the feelings of a queen rather than those of a genocide survivor, and how the former's are given significantly more weight and import. It ties in with my main criticism, I think. 

And then there's how human/human racism had also been wholly cast aside as a plot point. Jasnah fixed slavery so that's resolved, and the only person who still cares about structural racism is the evil bad bad evil villain Moash/Vyre, who is now wholly irredeemable and who you're allowed to totally write off because he's sold his soul to Odium. I've already talked a lot about this. Other people have already talked about this, probably better than me. The writing was actually on the wall for me in OB, but again, RoW was when I fully accepted that this was never going to be addressed. 

There's something else that probably deserves its own discussion rather than being quickly tacked on at the end here, but here we are. This book changed how the series approaches war. 

In WoK, war was very clearly portrayed as a bad and inglorious thing. It was brutal, it was painful, those at the bottom died cruelly and unceremoniously and pointlessly while those at the top turned a profit. Every day was a new horror. The enemy were never evil, they were always just more people forced to go through the same thing. Through the next couple books, it felt to me that even if the characters had accepted war as necessary, there was still a tragedy to it. Conversely, in RoW (and W&T) war is basically a series of boss battles, in between which our protagonists can kill dozens of footsoldiers with barely a thought in the same way WoK had criticized.

Final note on all this, it sucks how we have no perspectives from the former-slaves-singers demographic. Those guys are really thrown under the bus, and seemingly get no self-determination now or ever. It was a glaring problem to me in RoW. Conscripted and enslaved humans and singers probably have just as much ground to form mutual understanding as a fused and a queen. (In fact they already had. In Oathbringer.)

In essence, RoW disappointed me because it left me with the distinct impression that none of the series's most important through lines (well, most important to me) were going to be resolved well. I liked W&T, but I haven't revised my opinion very much about the overall handling of these topics across the series. Maybe one of the reasons I was able to enjoy W&T so much more was because I no longer had such high expectations.