#put that man under a microscope

[deerspherestudios]

So… Mychael grows up? Like, was he a child, a teenager and then an adult?

I'm okay with answering this because I don't think it'll be mentioned in-game haha!

To answer simply, yeah he was a kid once. But he didn't start as a baby ::-)

#mushroom oasis vn #mychael ask #light spoilers #hes literally built different #put that man under a microscope #study him like a bug

[fincalinde]

I see you have done some really thoughtful metas. What're your thoughts on Nie Mingjue? IMO he's a lot more complicated than he's usually assumed to be...

One of my classic absurdly late ask responses! Glad you enjoy the meta.

I think NMJ occupies a fascinating place in the narrative, because his ultimate fate is inevitable despite the fact that he theoretically has more agency than most (all?) of the rest of the main cast.

For a start he becomes clan leader at a young age, and while that comes with its pressures it's undeniably an influential position. He's the leading general of the Sunshot Campaign. Then, after the Sunshot Campaign, the Nie and the Jin are by some margin the most powerful clans. So, in a political sense NMJ has immense power. In theory he has the ability to make far better choices. He could stop persecuting JGY, who literally has no choice but to follow his father's orders, and he could choose to focus his ire where it belongs: on JGS. And he could also choose to counter JGS in ways that don't push the jianghu back to the brink of another devastating war.

Except he can't make those choices. And I want to make a strong distinction here: he is not like other characters such as JGY or LXC or JC, whose choices are limited by their clear understanding of their own limitations and the political landscape (including but not limited to the fact that a post-Sunshot descent into war between the Nie and the Jin would be catastrophic). No. NMJ's choices are limited because by the end of the Sunshot Campaign his mental capacity is irreversibly compromised.

Not only is NMJ terminally ill, but we're given clear examples of contrast between NMJ early in Sunshot and NMJ late- and post-Sunshot. Pre-Sunshot NMJ understands the Wen have political and cultivation power that utterly outclasses him and his clan, so he stands by and tolerates their existence. He knows it would be suicide to go up against them, and it's only when the Wen cross a line and all the clans unite that he's able to actually do anything about the fact that WRH murdered his father.

Contrast that to NMJ by the end of Sunshot, so irrationally obsessed with JGY that he's willing to jeopardise the hard-won (and fragile) stability of the jianghu by trying to kill him. Reminder: when NMJ kicks JGY down the stairs, he starts to follow him down with the express intent of killing him. As in, he fully intends to murder the legitimate son of his main political rival and an immensely powerful clan leader on the steps of his own home. That is ludicrous. Pre-Sunshot NMJ wouldn't have done something like that for his own beloved father, let alone for a grudge.

All of NMJ's flaws are obvious from the earliest point of his timeline: he's proud, he's inflexible, he's righteous but he's hypocritical. But early on we see examples of NMJ bending a little, of recognising nuance and showing, in his own inelegant way, his compassionate side. By the end, that's gone. The fan-burning incident alone (the fantrum!) demonstrates it. That's the way he treats his beloved didi, never mind how he treats his san-di.

Of course the narrative claims JGY can always talk NMJ round, but it's simply not true. In the end, the only way JGY can preserve himself is by making NMJ a promise he can't keep (to deliver XY's head) in order to buy himself enough time for NMJ to die and no longer be an immediate mortal threat. If JGY had not accelerated NMJ's decline, NMJ would have killed him and plunged the jianghu into another needless conflict.

I've spilled ink on the staircase scene already so I'm holding back on digging into this in more detail, but the fact is any discussion of NMJ's downfall is inextricably tangled up with JGY. The focal point of NMJ's descent is his obsession with JGY in particular, and it's important to remember what's relevant is not so much what JGY has or hasn't done but how NMJ treats him.

I do think one of the best ways to put it in context is to compare the way NMJ reacts to WRH to the way he reacts to JGY. WRH literally kills NMJ's father but NMJ has a cool enough head to know he has to bide his time. JGY on the other hand absolutely does betray NMJ's trust, in a situation where, again, if he does as NMJ wants (turns himself in) he's going to end up dead. And from that moment on, NMJ has no intention of giving JGY the benefit of the doubt. Yes, after LXC intervenes (remember, JGY would be dead without that intervention!) NMJ backs off and ends up agreeing to the sworn brotherhood, but he enters into the brotherhood in entirely the wrong spirit, seeing it as a way to monitor and subjugate JGY, who is already answerable to his father over and above any obligations to an elder brother.

Would NMJ at fifteen years old have listened to LXC and JGY's explanations in Qishan or later on the stairs at Golden Carp Tower? Possibly. But we don't have any examples of a time when he truly listened to JGY, and he was always going to end up this way regardless, taken out by a qi deviation and turned into the stuff of nightmares. JGY accelerated an existing process to save his own skin, but he didn't invent it out of whole cloth. So the tragedy of NMJ is not what JGY did to him. It goes back further than that, to when his ancestors first started cultivating the resentful energy of beasts.

Even then, contrasting NMJ to another character is illuminating. The text tells us NHS is in a bind: if he cultivates with his sabre, he's dooming himself. But if he doesn't cultivate with his sabre, he's pissing off his ancestors. The instinct then is perhaps to think—poor NMJ! He's in the same bind!

But NMJ never has a moment's doubt about sabre cultivation. NMJ knows the price and he pays it without question. NMJ doesn't agonise about how to balance his duty to his clan and his ancestors against his desire to not go violently insane. He accepts it as a fact of life and never thinks to question it or push back against it. He marches down the path that extirpates all his good qualities and leads straight to his worst self, and never so much as glances around in the hope of sighting a different way.

Again we're getting to that tension I find most interesting about NMJ: agency rubbing shoulders with inevitability. NHS finds a way to lead his clan and Word of God become Xiandu without cultivating with his sabre. Does that mean NMJ is responsible for his choices and he can't be absolved of his actions by blaming his inheritance? I don't necessarily have an answer for that, but I hugely enjoy exploring the question.

#ask #eastofakkala #i have so many nmj thoughts you don't even know #put that man under a microscope #my heart's so hardened i cannot repent! #roquen meta

[theinfinitytomybeyond]

#all of us #literally me #put that man under a microscope #i wanna study #rick and morty #rick sanchez #rick and morty meme

[sadanduncertain]

If what we are reading on Astarion's grave is correct, and he was only 39 years old when he died, that adds an entire new level of tragedy to his character. Not only was he extremely young and emotionally immature by elven standards, but he had barely even lived before he died. It's no wonder that he doesn't remember anything about his past when we ask him about it — 39 years is a small drop of water in comparison to 200 years of abuse. There is simply nothing to remember.

#putting my literature degree to good use #i'm analysing this man like bacteria under a microscope #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #bg3 astarion #baldur's gate

[the-meme-monarch]

personally i’m a “ralsei is the red horn headband” fan but i gotta say him being one of asgore’s discarded bouquets is scratching at my brain right now

#the art gallery #deltarune #putting this dude under a microscope What Are You #the thing is i’m just not sure a living thing like a flower Can Be a darkner? like thus far they’ve been man-made things

[lu-is-not-ok]

This fucking guy.

Anyway have some of my incoherent ramblings about this man under the read more because I have a lot to say about him.

Alright, let me split this into three sections because otherwise this ramble will be even more of a mess than it already is.

I'm gonna discuss Yi Sang in the mirror, or Sang Yi, under a couple of different lights.

One, how he relates to the concept of being the opposite reflection to Yi Sang. Two, how he ties back to Yi Sang's wife from "The Wings". And three, some of my thoughts about how he might fit into the wider scope of the plot and world of Limbus Company.

Strap in lads.

Sang Yi as a "left-handed" reflection

Something that becomes increasingly clear as we're shown interactions between Yi Sang and Sang Yi, and what is directly spelled out by the latter at the end of Canto IV's dungeon, is that Sang Yi is effectively the antithesis of much that makes Yi Sang, well... Yi Sang.

Yi Sang, at the core of everything, is a very sentimental and kind man. He cares a lot about the people around him, even if he doesn't always show it outwardly, and struggles to move on from whatever losses he experiences. Though he may claim otherwise, he's also constantly thinking about everything he's going through, which is what eventually leads him to the Mirror as a form of escapism from his curel reality.

Sang Yi on the other hand... is none of that.

Most of the 'comforting' words or advice Sang Yi offers to Yi Sang can be boiled down to "Stop caring or thinking about every little thing.", a sentiment that's directly in opposition of who Yi Sang is as a person.

Sang Yi finds the idea of feeling joy or despair over the past pointless. He thinks Yi Sang shouldn't feel guilty about his technology being used to exploit others because he already knew what he was getting himself into. He doesn't understand why Yi Sang would have trouble moving on if he were to lose Sang Yi.

Whereas Yi Sang is caring and emotionally-driven, Sang Yi is... I don't want to say uncaring, since he does seem to care about Yi Sang to some degree, but at the very least he is rather distant and logically-driven.

I think the moment that exemplifies that the most is when Yi Sang tells him Gubo doesn't care about him beyond using him as an accessory to prop himself up in the limelight, to which Sang Yi responds that it doesn't matter, that Yi Sang should use this as an opportunity to be in that limelight as well.

And, actually, speaking about that. Sang Yi doesn't really seem to think things through nearly as much as Yi Sang does. Or, at the very least, he doesn't care to look deeper than the surface level.

Sang Yi sees Gubo's attempts at connecting with Yi Sang as genuinely caring about him, whereas Yi Sang is able to see through them and realize Gubo is being entirely selfish here. Sang Yi sees the new League of Nine as something worth joining, while Yi Sang notices that it is nothing but a mockery of the old League. When Sang Yi learns of the new League's plan to destroy mirror worlds, his only reaction is that of mild curiosity without even a sign of concern.

All that being said, the biggest example of this might just be the fact that Sang Yi did not even realize just how badly Yi Sang was feeling until Yi Sang straight up told him there was nothing left for him in this world outside of Sang Yi.

Though we can't know for sure what exactly Sang Yi was feeling at the time, as all that we know about him is colored by Yi Sang's own bias towards him, I think it's fair to say that was the moment where it finally hit Sang Yi just how badly he fucked up by keeping Yi Sang stuck there all to himself.

Which, now that I think about it, transitions nicely to the other angle I want to look at.

Sang Yi as Yeongsim / Yi Sang's wife

First of all, just to lay it out there in the open, as fucking hilarious out of context as it sounds to say Yi Sang was his own wife all along, it's... actually not all that far off.

Beyond the fact that the Mirror is directly named after his wife in "The Wings", there's some other obvious signs that point to it. If you were to take the letters Yi Sang was writing to Sang Yi out of context, you could absolutely mistake them for something one would write to a lover too far away to be easily reachable. Plus, the way Yi Sang's first reaction to seeing Sang Yi is to call him "beautiful" in his mind?

Yeah, there's something to that.

And, of course, there's something to be said about the similarities between Sang Yi's role in Yi Sang's life, and the role Yi Sang's wife played in "The Wings".

That being the way both of them end up isolating Yi Sang, how both of them actively withhold information from him, and how Yi Sang sees them as perfect and without a fault even as they're hurting him.

I don't feel like talking about "The Wings" in depth right now as it's almost 5 am and I want to actually finish writing this fucking post at some point, but if you want to know what I'm comparing Sang Yi to, it's a short read that's easy to find a free pdf online for.

The fact that Sang Yi was trying to keep Yi Sang inside is probably the most spelled out one out of everything I'm talking about in this post. Not only does Sang Yi directly tell Yi Sang to stay with him (mind you he doesn't even ask), but Ishmael, as an outside observer, notes how Sang Yi was trying to keep Yi Sang in the room by making him afraid of the outside.

Actually, looking at when he finally offers Yi Sang the choice to leave, it's in a... very interesting way, shall we say?

Not only does Sang Yi try to make the option of staying sound as appealing as possible by bringing up that Yi Sang will be able to continue doing what he loves (or at least what Sang Yi believes Yi Sang loves), like continue working on the Mirror and keep talking to him.

On the other hand, Sang Yi is reluctant to even bring up the option that Yi Sang can leave, and when Yi Sang shows interest (note that Yi Sang's immediate reaction isn't a "I don't want to leave", it's a "I don't think I can leave"), he continues to make the option sound as unappealing as possible, while still making it clear that it is possible.

How Yi Sang doesn't need to be able to fly to leave, but he will struggle endlessly if he does. How Yi Sang can eventually find somewhere to call his home, but he will have to walk until his feet hurt and will have to settle for wherever or whatever he ends up resting at.

I don't know about you, but that doesn't seem like the kind of encouragement or advice someone who had a person's best interest in mind would make.

Now, let's make some other facts clear while we're at it.

Sang Yi knew that Yi Sang had wings as well, after all, he calls that fact 'obvious' when he finally mentions it. However, he never directly told him he does, even as Yi Sang lamented to him about how (in his eyes) he himself had no wings. He only brings it up when Yi Sang is truly at his lowest.

Sang Yi knew what the effects of supplements Yi Sang was taking were, as he can tell exactly what will happen if Yi Sang stops taking them, or takes several at once. However, he never directly told him this until he gives Yi Sang a choice, even though he was clearly aware they were not beneficial.

Sang Yi knew that Yi Sang's room was always open, as he was confident that Yi Sang would be able to just leave on his own once the effects of the supplements cleared away. However, he never tells Yi Sang that, even when Yi Sang is making it clear he doesn't think he even can leave. It's actually one of the thing Yi Sang ends up finding out by himself.

Despite all of this... Yi Sang never stops to consider that Sang Yi might not have his best interests in mind. Sang Yi is his everything. He's perfect, flawless, the ideal self. He's the only thing Yi Sang has left.

Call me cynical, but it paints the ending of the Canto in a somewhat bittersweet light to me. After all, Sang Yi never has to apologize or even admit to anything, and Yi Sang still views him as positively as he always has.

I guess at the very least it's accurate to the book. After all, Yi Sang in "The Wings" ends up holding on to that perfect image of his wife to the very end.

Sang Yi as an entity

Okay I have no clever transition here like I did last time, but this is probably the thing about Sang Yi that's been bugging me the most.

Have you guys noticed just how much Sang Yi seems to know about Yi Sangs from different worlds? Those sweeping general statements about "All versions of Yi Sang" or "All Yi Sangs" that he makes with full confidence.

When Yi Sang assumes that Sang Yi can "be anywhere he wants" thanks to his wings, just how correct is he?

With the way Sang Yi talks about other Yi Sangs, it gives the impression that he's met a lot of them in the past. In fact, if that's true, it would recolor the meaning of Sang Yi's comment about his meeting with his particular Yi Sang "peculiar".

What's so peculiar about our Yi Sang specifically, if Sang Yi has met so many of them? Is it the method, the fact that it's through the mirror? Is it that Sang Yi finally found a Yi Sang that also had wings? Is it because our Yi Sang is the first one to contact him rather than the other way around?

And while we're on that topic, isn't the way Sang Yi talks about Yi Sangs kind of odd? It's always "All Yi Sangs" or "All versions of Yi Sang", as if he's not part of those Yi Sangs himself. It's like he's putting himself in the role of an outside observer, seperate from the concept of being a 'Yi Sang'.

Just what is Sang Yi, really? He implies he's the version of our Yi Sang that's inside the mirror, the one that "needs to be opposite, yet is quite alike" to the one outside, to explain why our Yi Sang would have wings if he saw them on Sang Yi, but like... He never directly says that's the case.

In fact, when Yi Sang asks Sang Yi about what the outside is like, Sang Yi weirdly dodges the question, saying it's all "the same tiring stuff". Another example of him withholding information aside, this all makes him seem rather fucking suspicious to me.

Just. What is he really?

God I hope we get to see him again, cause I really want to know what the fuck his actual deal is.

#limbus company #limbus company project moon #lcb spoilers #lcb canto iv #lcb season 2 #lcb analysis #sang yi #sang yi lcb #mirror yi sang #eye strain #my art #lu speaketh #i want to put this man in a petri dish and study him under a microscope

[avspol]

rohan kishibe + text posts

#bacterial cell of a man. need to put him under a microscope #jjba #rohan kishibe #diamond is unbreakable #jotahan #its there. a bit #diutext #izzy.txt

[galakianexplosion]

Another silly thing based on the web comic

I love them😭

Based on this in specific because its so funny and for what😭

#art #opm #opm webcomic #one punch man art #one punch man webcomic #opm art #flashy flash #opm genos #theyre both in my favorites list😭 {the other on there is Drive Knight but is hair is so hard to draw smh} #i will put them both under microscopes #i want to study their head soup #Anyways yeah more opm content yet again because why not :3

[emkini]

Things I spend a not negligible amount of time thinking about 

[ID: A greyscale mdzs comic strip consisting of 6 panels. The first panel shows a young Lan Wangji looking forlornly past the viewer, captioned “I want to take him back and hide him.” The second panel shows Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian staring unhappily off to the side, while the third panel is of lwj’s mother in the same position; her eyes hidden in shadow and a barred window behind her. In the next panel, wwx has turned to smile at lwj. The image of the barred window is shattered behind him. The fifth panel shows lwj looking mildly surprised and upset, while the fifth panel shows him looking off to the side in sad determination. This panel is captioned “...But he is not willing.”] 

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #wei wuixan #lan wangji #mdzs fanart #comic #em draws #me when that backstory snippet happened: UHM???? #decided to start experimenting with just putting my whole blog title as a signature #because it's probably more effective for social media than my normal signature #which I originally designed for acrylic paintings #anyway I want to study lan zhan under a microscope #like as someone who feels a lot of things and shows approximately 10% of them on my face #I feel u man #id under the cut

[chlorophyll-tints]

hate these freaks

#the way batgarou affects my psyche needs to be studied under a microscope #i need to put them in a little snow globe and shake it #one punch man #garou opm #metal bat opm #saitama opm #batarou #my doods

[subsequentibis]

something about how ocelot's gloves are a mask, part of how he hides who he is from the world, they're a shield he needs between him and everything else so he's not vulnerable, but also they are the blood on his hands, a visual representation of the violence and murder he's committed, a brightly colored frog's warning - i am poison. and how he is cloaking himself with his own actions. he plays the bad guy, the double-triple agent, he brainwashes himself, pretends to be controlled by the dead, scoffs at the idea of the supernatural, his dad is literally a ghost. anyway something about this makes me need to break things with a hammer and bite my own arm off.

#ignore me #metal gear #revolver ocelot #he's a fucked up little man and i need to put him under a microscope #i need to pin him to a corkboard like a butterfly #i need to bake him into a pie.

[kavehater]

I support girls but NAH THIS IS REACHING “if you look carefully LIKE REALLY CAREFULLY 🤓☝️”

#the same people who would shriek like the witch of the north melting her skin off if I tell you haikaveh / kavetham isn’t implied because #if you actually look into our culture they’re being normal and not everyone having rivalry and caring about each other means they’re 💅 #in fact Arabs are some of the worlds most hospitable people alhaitham letting kaveh live with him #is the most Arab thing I’ve ever seen #heck if kaveh was a stranger it wouldn’t be unusual for an Arab to let him in their house ☠️ #goddamn #“if you look in the internet you can see how they’re implied!🤓☝️” #maybe if you had any respect for my culture or any desire to be educated when I’m handing this to you for free you wouldn’t be your mistake #your mums greatest mistake 🤗🤗🤗* #dora daily #if only ppl dedicated this level of detail to actual culture compared to pulling out their microscope at level 100x magnification lens to #observe robins spots under her eyes the world would be a better place 🙀 #let me tell you btw this whole I hate you meh meh meh ( I’m so in love with you ) trope is the most whitest booktok millennial plant growing #basement dweller nonesense I have ever heard in my life don’t do that to my pookies ☹️ #( the pookies in fact were 11 and 9 years older than her respectively ) #guys my dad is the straightest man alive ( oh the trauma lowkey wish he wasn’t ) and he legit was putting his hand on his best friends lap #LMAOOO even I as a very logical person was like bro this is so zesty rn I am SO uncomfortable #anyways live laugh love boothill x Baizhu they’re the most canon things I’ve ever seen in my life #<- this is a joke btw it’s an ironic ship I saw on tiktok ☠️

[shutthehellurmouthbee]

I know the finale we focus a lot on Flint “waking up from a long nightmare” and readjusting to the daylight, but I think we forget about Silver’s.

From the beginning, Silver holds true to the belief that if he doesn’t care about or invest in the wellbeing of someone else, he can escape any situation unaffected. Unharmed. Silver, Mr. “She chose it. Guilt is natural. It also goes away, if you let it.”

This is a cold hearted way of thinking. It’s not hard to see he has a problem with commitment.

Additionally, Silver also says “I have an incredibly low tolerance for pain.” I think these too things go hand in hand. If I don’t care about someone, it won’t hurt as bad when they leave.

But then the most painful thing imaginable happens. He loses his leg. A reality he cannot escape from no matter how hard he tries. The loss of his leg acts as a wake up call to his feelings he’s repressed for so long. His lack of self worth, his hallow-ness, his guilt, his pain. It all becomes too much to bear.

I think the physical pain awakes his nerves to emotional pain. Now anything he feels, he feels too much. The fear of dying by Flint’s recklessness. The fear of the mess he’s gotten into. The fear of ending up like Randall. The longing to be known by someone. “Would I be enough for you?” The feelings of his partners. Feels the depths of Flint’s grief so intensely it almost drives him mad. Spirals once he’s lost Madi because it is the first time he’s felt loss in a long long time. Not only that but he finally feels the rage he initially had a hard time understanding about Flint and Thomas’ story. At the time he was too focused on Flint’s destructiveness as a stand-alone force. He did not comprehend it as grief and rage until he lost Madi.

Flint’s conversation with him sword-fighting in the finale basically adds up to “What are you running from?” Because he is hiding something from Flint. Hiding something from himself because it is too painful to bear. He does not form his identify in a coherent story like Flint does. He believes life to be a series of unending horrors with no purpose or underlying story.

Then Madi helps him resurface from the depths the pain has taken him to. As he finally begins to tolerate it in a healthy way, he finally warms up to the idea of creating a life for himself. A life with himself and Madi. But then he finally chooses, finally commits to something, and it ruins his life.

#putting this man under a microscope #black sails #john silver #rant post

[ironunderstands]

Spoilers for Penacony!

basically every time we talk to adventurine, he says this particular thing that doesn’t sit right with me, it’s something along the lines of; “I won’t betray my friends, but they should never try and take deals in which they benefit more than me, I will only honor our friendship if I am the one gaining something”. I hope I depicted this sentiment accurately, but it struck me as really, really weird. Not because of the line itself, but because of its delivery. Now I play on the EN dub, so I don’t know how the other versions sound, but something’s off about the way he tells this to the trailblazer. I can’t tell if it’s guilt, annoyance at a duty he has to perform, if he feels he should tell the trailblazer this, but is annoyed by it because it puts him at a disadvantage for something. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something is off, alongside the whole serial code on his neck thing; I feel like his personality is partly a persona, or at least a played up version of himself. For a gambler and merchant, he seemed shockingly unexcited to be doing his job, which would statisfy both of those

#adventurine #dr ratio #im not gonna lie their conversation was confusing as hell #Penacony #adventurine rubs me the wrong way but like in a good way? #Like something’s off but instead of being off put by it I’m intrigued #Gonna put this man under a microscope until I understand him #He’s either going to be way less confusing than Childe when he gets his backstory revealed #Or he’s gonna make figuring out Childe’s whole deal in the story look like Childe’s play (ahah)

[enlighten3d]

why is scar goodtimes so difficult to write as a character

like, sir. i do not understand how to write you. you are incomprehesible to my tiny bug brain.

#gtws #hermitblr #trafficblr #mcytblr #im bad at tags okay #but like #i have SEVERAL wip fics which hes either the pov character or is an Important character in #and #i STILL dont understand how to write him #this man is completely and utterly incomprehensible to me #i want to put him under a microscope and EXAMINE HIM PROPERLY #DISSECT HIM AND FIGURE OUT HOW HE WORKS #BUT NOT IN THE BLORBO WAY #IN THE **WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU** WAY #WHAT ARE YOU GOODTIMESWITHSCAR.

[yellowloid]

thinking about that "there's nowhere for me to hide" quote that's been going around and the fact that it's actually the opposite. i know he's mostly talking about writing and yes when it comes to am he's the one doing (most of) the lyrical work on records as opposed to tlsp where him and miles are 50-50 and they have a whole different creative process than he does with am. but when it comes to being on stage, performing with am is actually the time he hides most. perhaps exactly because he's up there alone as a frontman, hence the need to "protect" himself by putting on a persona, a mask that can be conveniently taken off once he's hopped off stage (a theme that has been widely explored in the last albums, but really it's been there his whole discography - including obviously tlsp with the bourne identity and also his solo work with songs such as hiding tonight). but when he's up there on stage with miles, and miles is "up there singing with [him]", he says it gives him somewhere to hide because that 50-50 ratio that comes with writing translates to their stage presence as well. however one could argue that it's that same equal ratio that makes it so that he doesn't, in fact, hide at all when it comes to tlsp performances, and especially eycte era ones. because the knowledge that not all attention is on him, but rather distributed equally on the both of them, added to the reassurance that having miles there gives him, results in what is maybe his most genuinely maskless behaviour, of which we've seen countless examples during the 2016 tour. and although one could also say that that one, too, could partly be a persona in and of itself, the point still stands - he might be hiding in different ways depending on whether he's up there as the am or tlsp frontman, but being two halves of a whole with miles certainly didn't give him more of a hiding place. on the contrary.

#thoughts that haunt me while i'm trying to take a Normal&Peaceful Shower TM #mind you this isn't even about milex i just find it very interesting how he talks about being able to hide when he's up there with miles > #> as opposed to am. because bruh. that is the furthest thing from hiding we've seen on tour in 2016 #those were some of the most genuine antics/shenanigans/smiles/behaviours he's ever shown in 20+ years of career #it was just a man being silly with his best friend. not a single thought behind those eyes. except maybe one-- [gunshots] #but yeah it was just real. and he's real eith am too it's just. in a different way #something was in the air in 2015/2016 that made him not worry about putting on a mask and we'll never know what it really was #and i think that's incredibly interesting #alex turner #arctic monkeys #tlsp #ramblings #btw while reading this you have to imagine me putting him under a microscope. to study him