I've been taking readings with the limited equipment I've been able to secure. Some riveting data accumulating. Hypotheses taking shape. My struggle with this is that the way this place works makes any hypothesis immediately come back to alter and contaminate the data.
Anyway, I've been working to capture, isolate and amplify certain frequencies from the background radiation ambient noise, so... let's see what happens.
I was caught in a loop. The deeper into the dark depths I got, peeling off the layers of the Dark Place, like the ocean zones, from twilight to midnight, to abyssal to the deepest trenches, the closer I felt to going mad.
This voice, the narration... It keeps going forever. This leads me to believe it's what's holding this place together, it's making it real. Is this the voice of the dreamer?
What's strange is that it sounds a bit like my voice.
Arranged marriage zhuiling AU where instead of being arranged to marry each other, Jiang Cheng keeps trying to set Jin Ling up with random girls from other clans after Jin Ling mentions he’s interested in marrying ‘someone’ because he doesn’t know Jin Ling meant Lan Sizhui, so Jin Ling keeps doing the most ridiculously annoying and unappealing things to scare off every girl who comes to Koi Tower and Jiang Cheng is ripping his hair out because you little brat, you said you wanted to get married???
Eventually, both of them are so exhausted from the miscommunication that Jiang Cheng investigates and finally finds out what’s wrong, then tells Jin Ling he has one more potential spouse for him to meet. Jin Ling is a pouting lackluster mess over it until his entire world stops when the doors to Koi Tower open and Lan Sizhui walks through.
and, also, WHYYY do I think he's the type that whines . theres a prema video where they're trying to guess the circuit blindfolded and when they ask paul to confess to kimi that hes been cheating he starts to literally WHINEEEEEEEEE those 30s lives in my mind rent free and im not kidding
!!!!!! im HOLLERING!!!!!!!!!!!! that's one of my fave vids ever omg and paul freaking whining is like music to my ears istg. it's so on point for him too.... i wrote a little about that in the paul nsfw alphabet that i never finished 🫠🫠 but yeah like we've been through, i think he has a slightly submissive streak and he enjoys being teased. and to hear those sweet sounds as rewards when you tease him, or kiss him with a bit of force, or roll your hips on his.... 😶
The show expresses El's and Will's main arc and desires through their art in s4.
On the one hand, we have Will, who creates a painting for Mike that portrays them and the party together again, as their dnd characters. Of course, it displays Will's desire of belonging again in that friend group, of having what was taken away from him last summer. But, after all, the main focus of the painting is Mike. Because 1, the painting is for Mike after all, and 2, Will himself is telling where his priorities are, by painting a heart on top of him. Mike's the heart, his heart.
On the other hand, with her art (the figures she makes), El portrays Hopper and his cabin, the first place she actually considered a home. This creation is, in a way, for Hopper. Since she obviously can't give it to him directly, it's a tribute to his sacrifice, therefore, it's made for him. That's where her priorities lie: family.
Will's arc, his biggest hopes and desires, are primarily about love, just how he expresses in his art. El's arc, her biggest hopes and desires, are primarily about family, just how she expresses in her art.
So, narratively, who would make more sense to end up in a relationship? The one whose focus is love and belonging (being who he loves one of the reasons he feels as if he doesn't belong) or the one whose focus is family and finding herself?