#blackwaves

— @blackwaves

SO THEEEERE'S THIS SENIOR CITIZEN! crowd has found me

@blackwaves

ask game

I should've seen this coming ^^ but wow a whole bunch of grapes... okay let's go through all of them! 🍇

presenting, my li tianchen propaganda:

1. off the top of your head: notes for characterization? what are the most essential traits of this character to you (personality traits, important connections/dynamics, voice)?

oldest sibling duties

guard dog coded. his natural state is to be a protector. in the absence of someone to protect (liu lan and li tianxi), he puts that energy into liu xiao (by process of elimination)

isolated; doesn't really have many interpersonal connections

"out of sight, out of mind" (hence why he leaves the phone behind in S2)

needs to feel in control of his life because it sucks so much, but doesn't actually have to be in control. thinks he wants to be the knight but actually thrives being the sword (so long as the wielder is someone he trusts) (<- NOT qian jin) (this is because being a sword allows him to not be responsible for his actions, which is something he doesn't really like to confront. he doesn't like thinking that he had a hand in why his life is hell right now)

a character who keeps digging one huge hole he can't climb out of. especially by the end of S2, he's sunk cost fallacy: the character

surprisingly impressionable (see: liu xiao, cheng xiaoshi) (not counting qian jin because li tianchen didn't really fully trust him and he was kinda dependent on him and he was ready to betray him anytime). he doesn't trust easily, but when he does, he emulates the person's values (liu xiao) or has high expectations of the other person (most apparent with cheng xiaoshi in S2) (of course that establishment of trust wasn't really equal or fair, but yeah. details)

pretty sharp and calculating! these character traits are usually given to other characters, but most of the actually antagonist planning in S2 was done by li tianchen (stealing liu min's phone, kidnapping cheng xiaoshi from the police station, the hostage exchange, etc)

"do I have other choices?"

(open to interpretation) has gender thoughts but doesn't think about it

2. adjacently—do you think fandom does the above traits justice? why or why not?

I don't think fandom remembers or talks about li tianchen much these days to begin with 😔

additional answers under the cut because this is... getting long. I am SO sorry.

@blackwaves

Hi!!

What I'd say is that s1 is pretty rough (the humour is what I struggle with specifically). It starts to pick up near the end of s1 (specifically Cola's episode and the "bonus" episodes that get tagged to the end of s1) and by mid s2 settles into itself. The main issue is that you can't just skip the rough parts of s1 because, for better or for worse, it's about establishing the island citizens so that you care about them (and their impact on Seven) when the island comes under threat later on.

That said, the episode lengths are really short, so if you can make it through s1 then it's not too much of a time investment to continue. If you get through s2 and it's still not got you though, then yeah, I don't think it will. Also, I just remembered you made it through To Be Hero (sans the X), so you've definitely got the tolerance for season 1 🏃‍♀️

I will admit that even though the comedy is the main driver early on (and tbf, later on too, though thankfully the *style* of comedy changes), the character stuff is where I feel like the show shines. Seven's amnesia and the way you're given peeks at his past self vs now are so fascinating. And the way other people view his current self vs his past self, essentially treating them as different people. And I appreciate the way it gets the audience in on this, so you (general) like amnesiac Seven, but can Seven really survive as that version of himself? (I have many more thoughts on this but they're all spoilery. Let's just say I'm also a fan of Mob Pyscho 100 and leave it at that)

I do also really like Thirteen. She's not the main character but she has a really solid subplot. Seven and Thirteen are fail4fail

lemme just. drop an amv. Has spoilers for s4 but eh if you're mixed on whether to give the show another shot, then I may as well:

@blackwaves

ask me about my wips

hi kavi :) of course you can ask <3

so chase you to the end of the world is my “lu guang actually dies from the stab wound and cheng xiaoshi goes back in time” fic. i’ve sorta stalled out on it cuz idk exactly what direction i want to go with it and it might go on the back burner until season 3 comes out but we’ll see. anyways a snippet:

The deviations begin less than 48 hours after Lu Guang begins the dive. At precisely 12:09, Cheng Xiaoshi drags him in for a commemorative selfie—and Lu Guang knows it’s coming, but he stiffens at the touch anyways.

Cheng Xiaoshi’s arm around his neck, his laugh in his ear, so warm and vibrant and alive—

Single File:

Houses of Heaven

“Black Waves”

felte

Former Vaniish mastermind Keven Tecon is back with a new project, Houses of Heaven and armed with their first single “Black Waves.”

The Bay Area based group (rounded out by Adam Beck and Nick Ott) bring some nervous kraut-indebted psych and match it blow by blow with moody post-punk. “Black Waves” is never at a standstill, getting by on endlessly rolling percussion, a pocket or airy synths, and ghostly vocals. This is goth for the jittery set, pure & simple.

Houses of Heaven are onto something here and you can now consider my appetite as firmly wet...... 

haha idk if it'll make it in time for the event, but I have a short fic about them that I wanted to write for a while based on this post (not set in canon timeline)

something something about them being accomplices to their loved ones (shao yuanyuan, li tianchen) in varying degrees of willingness. at the end of the day, they (wang qing, li tianxi) mourn the loss of a home to go back to, even if that home wasn't always kind to them (assuming wang qing considers bahati as a kind of home for herself). wang qing has more narrative agency and seems (?) to have more freedom within shao yuanyuan's plan than li tianxi had with li tianchen's, which makes it interesting to draw comparisons between them. I feel like it's easier to explain through fic than through an ask lol, or maybe I just haven't explored the idea fully yet myself. but I imagine the questions li tianxi might ask are things wang qing have also interrogated within herself

in general, I also just think it'd be interesting to put the "people readers" in a room. it's the same reason I think liu xiao & wang qing would be interesting (heart reader & body language reader) (li tianxi in this case is, I guess, a memory reader). any combination of the three, really. liu xiao & li tianxi, wang qing & li tianxi, liu xiao & wang qing. my personal headcanon is that this type of ability affords the user incredible insight on people, but just because they can read people doesn't mean other people can read them. which can be emotionally isolating. liu xiao has his liu xiao-isms, li tianxi has trouble with communication, and I imagine wang qing's profession as a therapist means she puts a certain amount of distance between herself and the client