joking aside, I love this site. I have learned so much from this site. I have received so much love and support from this site, and I hope to be here for years to come (especially now that we accidentally won Least Worst Social Media Platform, despite our very best efforts)
that being said, taking a break was really helpful for me mentally. it made me realize how much pressure I was putting on myself to keep people entertained so they would like me. I'm talking like, 'rereading & editing a single dumb shitpost a dozen times a day' levels of overthinking.
So yeah: I love it here, I plan to keep making people (and myself) laugh, but going forward I'm going to be putting less pressure on myself to be as entertaining/active as i used to aim for. Less "I choked on my gogurt" levels of humor, more "sensible chuckle." (sometimes I may even indulge in a joke that purposefully fails to resonate with the audience! it will be quite a mischievous little treat for me 🤭.)
anyways please be patient if my posts lack a certain pizzazz going forward. the pizzazz is out of stock. no there is none in the back room. the pizzazz is on back order ok. no I'm not paying for expedited shipping. our supplier is experiencing a shortage. pizzazz is a controlled substance, do you have no understanding of the paperwork involved? piss off with your piddling pizzazz
TLDR if you think my posts were mediocre before just u wait sweetheart you ain't seen nothing yet. (they are going to get worse. what I'm saying is they are going to get even more underwhelming. i feel good about this.)
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"Does Shen Qiao even like Yan Wushi?"
I feel like it may be relatively easy for people to pick out "what does Yan Wushi like about Shen Qiao / what does YWS get out of yanshen." but I think a criticism/line of thought I see around is people struggling with "well what does Shen Qiao get out of all of this?" and like, "does SQ even like YWS, what with how YWS annoys him and gets him angry all the time."
But I think that actually is the crux of their relationship, lol. Because if you think about it, to everyone else, Shen Qiao is this lofty ideal, this untouchable immortal/仙, maybe even this obstacle or goal to conquer or shoot down.
Who else treats him casually and teases him and pokes at him to get emotional reactions out of him because they like that about him?
If he wants to seek people who treat him with respect and reverence, he just has to step out into the city square - hell, he just has to travel out and random people he meets are likely to treat him with that sort of dazzled awe or reverence too (we literally see this happen several times in the course of the novel).
So yeah, I think joking not joking, YWS makes him angry and feel Emotions and he likes that, YWS is enrichment for him, YWS pushes his buttons and his boundaries but reframing that it's pushing him out of his comfort zone and like hardening him off to the elements and realities of the world like a gardener with plants out of the greenhouse. But also, YWS treats him like a person, like a man, and not like Shen-daozun, Shen-daozhang, Shen-zhangjiao. To Yan Wushi, Shen Qiao is Shen Qiao. (and he loves to tease the shit out of him hehe ( ̄▽ ̄) )
CONVERSELY! This also gives Shen Qiao a space to *be* Shen Qiao. With Yan Wushi, he does not have to be Shen-daozun, Shen-daozhang, Shen-zhangjiao. He does not have to always be magnanimous and generous and a bastion of righteousness. These are in his nature, yet, but it's not ALL of his nature - he is, after all, still a man, a human, with human emotions -- including the full breadth of human emotions. Yes Yan Wushi annoys him and he shows it, but it's specifically BECAUSE of that that they are closer than him and anyone else in the world. He can "be himself" around Yan Wushi, he can get worked up and be petty and be snippy, and it's fine and won't cause catastrophes or undesired splashdown sociopolitical effects.
But also, he (lets himself?) get worked up by Yan Wushi - they HAVE that level of intimate understanding with each other where they can be like this and not have feelings hurt in any irreparable way. This isn't something that SQ does (lets himself do?) with just anyone, which we see throughout the novel reflected in his internal narration and comportment. So really, the fact that he DOES get annoyed with YWS shows that they are on a different, more "real" level with each other than SQ is with anyone else.
And like, they didn't get there in a day, sure, but imo we definitely see through the novel how they get there, so imo, the yanshen relationship is incredibly justified.
(I also say this bc I think literally every "I've connected the two dots" moments I've had in my reread, I would metaphorically flip the page only to be met with that connection I'd made spelled out on the page by MXS lmao. Like... yeah okay MXS *shakes your hand* you know your stuff. oh and also because I do think there may be some level of skepticism about yanshen esp from SQ's side floating around lol, but like... MXS did the legwork! yes chapter 45 happened, yes YWS never "apologizes" with words, but that doesn't mean that they don't share a deep mutual understanding of themselves and each other by the end, nor that they haven't moved past the events of literally 83 chapters ago, 96 if you count the extras -- a whole literal two-thirds of the novel ago. Like, I know we piss on the poor here and many educational systems around the world are in shambles these days, but work on developing reading comprehension skills, pls :') )
(lmao rip this post got long AGAIN. well, hopefully at least some people are reading all of this lol.)
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sometimes that's just the way that it goes
or, joel smallishbeans joins the tokyo lift (an mcyt blaseball au fic)
the thing about joel is- well, there's a lot of things about joel, but the most relevant thing, is that he never really got in to blaseball.
he'd gone to few of grian and jimmy's games in college, been brought to an equal number of pearl's minor league games, and mostly paid attention in conversation about it after his entire friend group became obsessed with the splort seemingly overnight.
but then he'd moved out to tokyo after college, where the blaseball scene had yet to expand to a proper minor league; let alone a major league. he got a non-splorts related job. he had non-splorts related hobbies. and he was suddenly in a timezone 17 hours ahead from all his friends who cared about these things.
so maybe he managed to forget basically all the knowledge he had about the game. sue him.
by the time the ILB expanded to tokyo with the lift, joel was certainly more knowledgeable on the splort than he'd ever been. he had basically the entire league's schedule in his calendar at all times, he voted in the elections, he kept a close eye on weather forecasts across the globe. a small side effect of most of your friends playing a splort that started killing people 10 years ago.
but here's the thing- despite joel's expansive knowledge of what's happening the ILB on any given day, despite his stockpile of votes, despite his constant presence as someone's plus one at any given ILB event or party-
despite all of that...
joel doesn't really know how to play.
which is a problem, when, on a whim that he now knows was definitely some divine intervention at play, he decides to actually go to one of his friend's games on a day they happen to be playing in tokyo. and it becomes more of a problem when an umpire goes rogue, and in the blink of an eye, joel finds himself vaulting a railing and picking up a bat that, until two minutes ago, belonged to a toyko lift player.
and now belongs to a new tokyo lift player.
him.
shit.
and that is how joel finds himself here, on a stool in stress and false's bathroom, staring at his actively-being-dyed hair in the mirror and considering.
he didn't know stress and false very well before joining the lift. he'd met them, of course, at the aforementioned parties and events he'd been brought to, but they weren't close by any means. but seeing as they were the only members of his new team he'd been properly introduced to prior to becoming their coworker, he found himself following them around like a lost puppy from day one. they seemed mostly endeared by this, so far, which joel was taking as an embarrassing but necessary fact of his new career.
the "sitting in their bathroom getting his hair dyed" part of his current situation had come about a few days prior, when the wild card teams were announced and the lift had officially made their first ever post season. joel's remark that they should do something for the occasion had spiraled into stress lending him her bathroom and hair dye to dye the streak in his hair pink in celebration.
by the time they actually got around to it, the lift had been knocked out of the post season by the wild wings in a two game sweep, but joel hadn't backed out, so here they were.
stress was mixing the pink dye while joel got the green bleached out of his hair, humming along to a song joel wasn't really listening to. the bathroom isn't large enough to fit false as well, with joel on a stool, so she's hovering outside doing... something. joel's kinda lost track of her exact movements due to his aforementioned considering.
joel hasn't actually played a lot with the lift, yet. he'd joined the team in the last 20 days or so of the season, so they've gotten a good 20 games worth of a look at his... let's say, skill, and they've all presumably figured out that he's not very good. no one's said anything, but that doesn't mean they haven't been thinking it. but it's also possible they haven't been thinking it, and if joel brings it up right now, then they'll all realize that he's terrible. but also, joel knows he needs to fix this problem, because he's seen what happens to bad players.
so he's sucking it up.
"stress, can i admit something to you?" joel says, as confident and nonchalant as he can manage. it's not very nonchalant.
"hm?" stress says, looking up from where she's fidgeting about. "sure, i don't see why not."
joel takes a deep breath before he continues. "now, i don't know if any of you have noticed this yet, but... i don't really know how to play blaseball."
this is when false chooses to poke her head in from whatever she'd been doing to comment. "sorry, repeat yourself?"
"well, despite the fact that all of my friends have played this game for years, i haven't been paying much attention to how it actually works. so i don't think i actually know how to play, which wasn't a problem for me until about three weeks ago. and now it's a very big problem."
"oh," false says, looking him up and down. joel tries not to feel scrutinized. "i wouldn't have guessed that from your stats, but yeah, in hindsight, that makes sense."
"you looked at my stats?" joel sputters.
"yeah is that not-" false looks at stress, desperation clear on her face. "do people not usually do that?"
"i mean, i don't, but i don't know what all you other geezers are up to."
joel has yet to move on from the stats thing. "i haven't even looked at my stats. what- are they good? actually, no i don't want to know. or, if they're bad, i don't want to know. if they're good you can tell me."
false laughs. "you're fine, overall. not a good pitcher, but that's not your problem. everything else is pretty average, but your batting is your best stat, and it's pretty up there. not really indicative of someone who doesn't know how to play."
"oh!" joel thinks about this. he doesn't think he's been a particularly special batter thus far, but he's not objecting to whoever's quantifying his skill saying he's good. not at all. "ok, well, i kinda know how to play. i think. i know enough that i've been able to be passable, but i want to be good next season."
"are you asking us to coach you?" stress says as she starts the tap to wash the bleach out of joel's hair.
"uh, if you want to, yeah. you're both good, i think."
false, who is now leaning in the doorway instead of poking her head in, laughs again. "yeah, i'd say we're alright." from her tone, joel suspects they're actually very good, and he once again has no idea what he's talking about.
"but we'd love to!" stress says, lightly pushing joel to put his head into the sink. her next words are slightly drowned out by the running water. "obviously the lift practice in the off season already, but we could spend a bit of time doing one on one stuff with you. show you the ropes, you know?"
joel, still in the sink, answers with a thumbs up. as he sits back up and takes the towel stress offers him, he sees false leave the doorway and go back to whatever she was doing, decision seemingly reached.
joel dries off his hair and stress moves in with the pink dye and a dye brush, humming along to another song he doesn't know. he definitely doesn't need her help dying his hair- he's been doing it on his own for years now. but she'd offered the dye she already had so he didn't have to buy a new color, and apparently that offer came along with her doing most of the work as well.
and for once in his life, joel is going to take the help without a fuss.
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