Was watching Solo Leveling and was inspired with an SV AU plot bunny, where Shen Yuan transmigrates into one of the big bosses Luo Binghe encounters in the Abyss.
So like he's this humanoid armored warrior guy (weirdly snatched waist and cool features for an animated suit of armor etc etc), and he spawns in this abandoned ruin/castle where, if he follows the script, he's bound to just wait around this empty throne with a whole bunch of other haunted armors and cloaks and shit until Luo Binghe shows up to rip them apart with his bare hands and claim the power upgrade under the throne. Including metaphorically poignant scene of Binghe "resting" on the throne all blood soaked and so forth, Shen Yuan's wrecked body slumped artfully nearby.
Obviously, this is not ideal. Shen Yuan doesn't particularly want to be peeled like a tin can. But good news, the whole reason that the system has stuck him here is because it ran some numbers, and it turns out that as he currently is, Binghe has like a zero percent chance of actually surviving to reach Xin Mo. Logistical errors with making Airplane's slapdash world-building actually work have run cropped up, and they're so severe that unless he has someone helping him, odds are like 98% that Binghe's gonna die before he ever reaches the sword.
So Shen Yuan's role has been tweaked somewhat, and instead of just being a throwaway boss, he's got to help Luo Binghe unlock the new Heavenly Demon "summoning" ability and also become the like, primary target-slash-commander for the subsequent summoned minions. If he does it right, he will survive the encounter with Luo Binghe -- technically, the armor he's animating will still get ripped to shreds, but, when Luo Binghe uses his powers to experiment and re-summons him, Shen Yuan will come back. And the difference between animating a lifeless suit of armor and animating a badly dented suit of armor is... pretty negligible. There might also be a skeleton or mummy inside the suit of armor, but Shen Yuan's been too squeamish to take off his helmet and check.
Anyway, Luo Binghe arrives, the fight meets the system's requirements, and Shen Yuan gets rebooted into what is essentially Luo Binghe's first ever magically summoned minion. Like an edgy pokemon spliced with Wen Ning from MDZS. With this respawn he gains in-depth access to all of the system's menus and files on Luo Binghe and his stats and abilities, as well as the potential to command other minions that Binghe creates as long as A) Binghe promotes him to commander, B) he doesn't use them against Binghe himself, and C) those minions are a weaker level than Shen Yuan.
Shen Yuan figures that at some point, Binghe will inevitably create a stronger commander, as that's how these things tend to go, but as he's not sure what would happen to him in that case, he plans to postpone it for as long as possible by making himself as useful as he can. Only, Luo Binghe is now firmly in his era of experiencing deep suspicion towards everyone and everything, so he doesn't promote Shen Yuan right away. This leaves Shen Yuan with only partial access to his abilities, and Binghe himself struggling to master his new abilities and also command his new minions, whenever he summons them, himself. A division of his attention that frequently causes a lot of his fights to go south, and Shen Yuan is wincing as Binghe keeps suffering very violent injuries and barely pulling out by the skin of his teeth, trapped by the fact that his actions are severely limited unless Binghe explicitly orders him to do something.
Much as Shen Yuan would love to try and persuade Luo Binghe that the only thing he'd do with more autonomy would be to use it to get them both out of the Abyss faster, he can't talk. So it's a very frustrating situation for a while. He thinks he could probably write something, like there's no paper and ink but he could perhaps claw a passable symbol onto a nearby wall or something, but everything he wants to convey seems to complicated for that style of communication anyway. So he's stuck.
At least until Binghe finally gets into a fight that nearly kills him -- one of those encounters that the system had very grim projections about -- and Shen Yuan bends the rules on his constrained conduct to swoop in and rescue Binghe just in the nick of time. Despite this being necessary to prevent Binghe's death, the system blares at him for violating his story-based limitations, and Shen Yuan endures a "punishment protocol" which almost annihilates him, until Meng Mo interferes to keep his spirit from dissipating at the last minute (Meng Mo has figured out that he has his own consciousness, thinks he's like the ghost of some ancient demon warrior or other, and is aware that they're probably toast without his continued assistance).
Luo Binghe is then able to re-summon/respawn a form for him, and Shen Yuan wipes the metaphorical sweat off of his brow and decides to repress that whole incident as much as possible going forward.
Except, afterwards, he gets several updates from the system. Binghe promoted him! And Shen Yuan finds that he can fight under his own autonomy now, no longer as tightly restricted as before. Luo Binghe also begins summoning him a lot more, and keeping him around for longer. He starts talking to Shen Yuan as well, even though the conversation is distinctly one-sided. It's still a hell of a slog through the Abyss, but it's a major improvement on before. Shen Yuan tentatively takes it that he's earned a bit of trust, and vows not to violate it.
Battles begin to go much more smoothly with Shen Yuan commanding Luo Binghe's minions, freeing Binghe up to fight, and also less conspicuously managing and tweaking things in Binghe's favor via the system's windows. He can earn points to spend to help Binghe or himself unlock new abilities, upgrade the other summoned creatures, even buy small quests for Binghe and himself to go on in order to locate special items as rewards. One of the most expensive features SY is able to purchase is a map, which he can then use to begin directing Luo Binghe towards Xin Mo. The first time Binghe asks if he has any thoughts on where they should go next, Shen Yuan only has to point his sword determinedly in the right direction. After that, Binghe checks in with him pretty regularly, though even Binghe himself seems a bit bemused and wonders at times where Shen Yuan is really leading him.
Eventually they actually do reach Xin Mo, surviving the trials along the way, and Luo Binghe uses it to open a portal to the demon realms. The sword does horrific things to Binghe's status windows according to the system, however, and even the subsequent hookups Binghe has with some random demon ladies they happen upon afterwards (stupid stallion novel logic) doesn't do as much to mitigate the effects as Shen Yuan expected. He's especially concerned with the way the sword is eating at the "sanity" and "wisdom" points. He spends a lot to bulk those stats up to try and compensate.
Thankfully, though, Luo Binghe doesn't use Xin Mo as much as he seemed to in PIDW. Instead he tends to keep the sword sheathed unless they're facing down a truly intimidating foe, instead relying more on his summoning ability and Shen Yuan to clear out annoying opponents (and small armies). Shen Yuan even ends up being the one to duel Mobei Jun, while Luo Binghe just sort of stands back and wordlessly makes a point about how he's so strong, he doesn't even need to dirty his hands. Shen Yuan thinks Binghe is definitely making the right choice, although he misses the chance to watch him fight sometimes. He also wonders if Binghe might be waiting to see if Shen Yuan will falter in his loyalty, because damn if he doesn't watch all of Shen Yuan's fights really closely.
Once they've beaten Mobei Jun, though, they finally gain steady access to a home base and things like stationary supplies. So the next time Luo Binghe asks Shen Yuan a rhetorical question, Shen Yuan swipes a brush and paper off of the desk of that weaselly traitor Shang Qinghua and writes a response.
The Princess Bride is such a funny book to read after ONLY seeing the movie. Like Goldman made up a fake author from a fake country and proceeded to write the book as an abridged version of what the fake author wrote... and then he proceeds to add in notes to the "abridged version" mentioning all the boring world building stuff he skipped because it was boring.
Like shout out to William Goldman, man really did make an entire book that is just "the cool scenes you thought of in your head" and then made up a fake author to abridge so he doesn't have to connect them.
I used to work at a used bookstore, and had a group of three teenage boys come in wanting the "Unabridged Version" of Princess Bride.
They would not believe that it was a narrative device and the unabridged version didn't exist. Said no author would credit someone else for their own writing, that was ridiculous, and was there a guy who knew about fantasy they could talk to?
I grabbed a coworker and left him to deal with it. Heard him explaining the concept of a pen name as I walked away.
Although one of the big things of the "Unabridged Princess Bride" is that Goldman-as-character has declared that it's actually...super boring [if you aren't a tumblr user fascinated by political satire].
In Goldman's "footnotes," he describes how his father used to read The Princess Bride aloud to him; thus the book became Goldman's favorite without him ever actually reading the text. As a father, Goldman looked forward to sharing the story with his own son, going to great lengths to locate a copy for his son's birthday, only to be crushed when his son stops reading after the first chapter. When Goldman revisits the book himself, he discovers that what he believed was a straightforward adventure novel was in fact a bitter satire of politics in Morgenstern's native Florin, and that his father had been skipping all the political commentary and leaving in only "the good parts." This moves Goldman to abridge the book to a version resembling the one his father had read to him, while adding notes to summarize material he had "removed." Morgenstern and the "original version" are fictitious and used as a literary device to comment on the nature of adaptation and to draw a contrast between the love and adventure of the main story and the mundane aspects of everyday life.[5] The nations of Guilder and Florin are likewise pure fiction.[5] Each section or chapter takes place in a certain setting or place. It's an episodic structure with each "episode" taking place in a specific part of the Kingdom of Florin (the Cliffs of Insanity, the Fire Swamp or the Forest of Thieves). [6]
Also, this is too funny to leave out:
In the novel's commentary, Goldman writes that he added nothing to the "original" Morgenstern text. He did write one original scene, a loving reunion between Buttercup and Westley, but, he said, his publisher objected to this addition.[13] He invites any reader who wants to read the "Reunion Scene" to write to the publisher (formerly Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; now Random House) and request a copy. Many readers wrote in to the publisher and did receive a letter, but instead of an extra scene, the letter detailed the (obviously fictitious) legal problems that Goldman and his publishers encountered with the Morgenstern estate and its lawyer, Kermit Shog. This letter was revised and updated periodically; the 1987 revision mentioned the movie, while the 25th Anniversary Edition published the letter with an addendum about Kermit's lawyer granddaughter Carly. The 30th Anniversary Edition has a footnote that the three pages of the reunion scene were now available online.[14] However, the website itself contained nothing but the text of the original three letters. This website has since been taken down and superseded by the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt product page for the book, which provides the 2003 version of the Reunion Scene letter as a digital download.[15]
@acavatica #‘it’s better on the isms because it doesn’t discuss them’ might be the whole thing here#‘it doesn’t make me uncomfortable’ isn’t necessarily better than ‘dated thing had an awkward discussion but they tried’
Yes, yes, YES! Starting a new post, because this sums up so many of my frustrations with fan crit. Like, Animorphs clumsily attempts to tackle AIDS and slavery reparations and environmentalism and disability justice, and sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't. But at least it tries. AniTV strips all of that out in favor of a far blander "yeerks bad, humans good, we ignore race here" story.
There's this fallacy, where it's easier to criticize a failed attempt than it is a total lack of trying. In the Heights (2021) got smacked up, down, and sideways by critics and fans for its failure to include more dark-skinned characters; meanwhile A Quiet Place II (2021), Venom II (2021), Free Guy (2021), and Black Widow (2021) get no such critiques because they each include Exactly One Black Actor. Scholomance gets review-bombed for "fake" "forced" "diversity" (X) for featuring kids from all over the world, while Mortal Instruments gets a total lack of criticism for its cast having Exactly One Asian Guy (who is half-white).
I vividly recall a media professor ca. 2013 mansplaining to me that, actually, Orange is the New Black is sexist because it shows male characters having power over female ones, and there's no onscreen sex between the Black lesbians. Somehow he didn't feel the need to say this about Breaking Bad, Supernatural, Peaky Blinders, or any other series that went entire YEARS without passing the Bechdel test. No wonder TV shows have again embraced colorblind racism.
It's like when a series tries to tackle the big issues, there's enough there there for critics to get their teeth into; better to blandly replicate the status quo. And studios notice: Better to avoid all controversy by having the Animorphs inhabit a world where no one ever notices Jake and Cassie being an interracial couple, where Marco lives in a McMansion and Tobias's home life is never mentioned at all, where the closest we ever get to discussion of gender is Marco saying Rachel "throws like a girl" only to get belted with a baseball. That way no one can ever find enough examples of sexism to edit into a clever 60-second video montage of "12 most sexist moments of AniTV you've definitely forgotten!"
After years of meaning to read it but never seeming to have the time, I finally started reading "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. I've been told by countless people that this book is the ultimate handbook on how to talk to and deal with people.
I'm not far in, but so far it's been pretty interesting and insightful. This book is almost 100 years old but so far everything I've read seems to still hold up today.
I've had a few people message me asking about more resources on how to improve their social skills. There's always r/etiquette (I don't even have a reddit but I find myself lurking) but, if you're looking to read something to help brush up on your social skills, I can so far recommend "How To Wind Friends and Influence People"
Although, take my recommendation with a grain of salt because I haven't finished it yet. But I tried looking up if there was any criticism for it and had a hard time finding any. It is slightly more focused on social skills for a business setting, but honestly those skills can transfer to just about any social setting. (such as presenting your views and opinions to people in a way that doesn't make people feel attacked, and generally making people feel comfortable and at ease around you)
If there was one book I would suggest to everyone on here, Twitter (or X or whatever) and everywhere else on the internet where people lash out at strangers for no reason, it would be this book.
Because one concept it keeps returning to is that people do not like people who lash out at them, people who criticize them, people who scold them. People also do not listen to people who lash out at them, criticize them, and scold them. If you want people to like you, and people to actually listen to you, you should start by not doing that.
@2ndgengeek thank you, gonna go ahead and add this to my to-read list :) also as an FYI for any of my followers looking for more sources on manners / etiquette / social skills
It's been ages since I read it and it is older, but What Does Everybody Else Know That I Don't? by Michele Novotni is specifically aimed at people with ADHD. Some of it is hella basic, but in all honesty it's shit I didn't know until I was an adult.
When I was 8 or 9, I came home from school in tears because I was getting picked on. Dad, being the absolute madman that he is, took me to the library and checked out How to Win Friends and Influence People. (I was a precocious reader.) Was it a weird parenting choice? Yes. Was it helpful? Also yes.
I also recommend books by Miss Manners, because Judith Martin is a delight.
You said something in “Smith” which I hope I grasped, and there was a feeling almost of recognition. An odd feeling of grief overcame me when I read it. I cannot explain my feelings any clearer. It was like hearing a piece of music from way back, except that it was nearer poetry by Graves’ definition. Thank you very much for writing it.
Terry Pratchett, in a letter to J. R. R. Tolkien, 22 November 1967
Thank you very much for your letter. The first one that I have received with regard to Smith of Wootton Major. You evidently feel about the story very much as I do myself. I can hardly say more.
J. R. R. Tolkien, in reply to Pratchett’s letter, 24 November 1967
And he did in fact say on at least one occasion that it was this that pushed him to always engage with his own fans in the same kind and conscientious manner.
Hi Balls, I was reading your essay post and I am interested by how you’re making fun of the AI generated story winning the literary prize and calling it nonsensical and pointing out meaningless sentences. I remember a few months ago you were calling some fans “losers” for making callout posts and blocklist for AI fic writers discovered on ao3? Is this a contradiction of your own opinion or did your stance change and you now agree that AI users should be named and shamed?
tldr: you are literally making my point for me.
I genuinely don't know how to say this without sounding patronising but, respectfully, the ‘explanation’ for why I hold both opinions at once—ie that the only thing more ridicuous than a clearly AI generated story winning the fucking Commonwealth Short Story Prize of all things is people’s reactions to the scandal, and that “fans” witchunting and harassing fellow fans over perceived AI usage on Ao3 need to get a fucking grip and sit on the naughty step for a while—can be easily sussed out if you spent some time thinking about it instead of trying to catch people out or whatever the fuck this is.
when it comes to, idk man, an AI generated Stucky coffee shop AU being posted on Ao3, there is no ‘injustice’ happening, no matter how emotively you frame it. because there are no stakes whatsoever: respectfully, please understand that the judging panel of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, ie one of the world’s most famous awards for short fiction that has launched the literary careers of multiple authors across the world, and the editorial board of Granta, one of the most prestigious Anglophone literary magazines, are not logging on to Ao3 and typing in Jungkook/Jimin Omegaverse Spitroasting (include tag: Breeding Kink) in search of the next Salman Rushdie (and I am saying this as someone who wrote queer theory piss fic).
the Commonwealth Prize case is not interesting to me because AI bad and human writing good. the interesting aspect is what the judges' failure to notice this story tells us about how writing gets evaluated by the institutions that hold power over which stories are told, and how. the harm is not "an AI wrote this” lmao it is "an institution responsible for certifying literary value demonstrated that its evaluation criteria for a specific writing tradition are so underspecified that they can be satisfied by outright pattern-matching." and this is actually exactly the point i am making about why it’s so fucking irritating to see losers (a term i stand by) publicising lists of fanfics and authors they have decided are ai generated.
anyway. being published on Ao3 is not exactly a marker of quality. anyone can publish on Ao3. i could photocopy a picture of my asshole, superimpose Fëanor’s face on it, claim it’s a representation of him in the Eternal Darkness, and then post it on Ao3 tomorrow. if the argument is that AI writing is ‘low quality slop that doesn’t belong in the archive’, then does that mean everything on Ao3 that is humanly written a ‘high quality’ literary masterpiece? does it mean that only works fitting a certain criteria, such as *checks notes* only three emdashes a page, ‘deserves’ to be published on Ao3?
with all due respect, no. just because someone wrote something does not mean the thing is (again I am speaking in terms of literary ‘quality’ as judged by competitions and tradpub etc rather than whether or not it appeals to people) worthy of commendation. also don’t even try with the ‘but the environmental/social impact of AI means people i decide have used AI MUST be harassed on tumblr’. are you weighing the moral positionality of every author you kudos? what if your all time favourite porno was written by someone who owns a real fur coat? what scale of morality are you using here, and why is the moral worth of another human being contingent upon what you think counts as AI or not AI?
anyway. when you post a fic on Ao3, you are participating in a community, not nominating your fic for the Booker Prize. and this is why fanfic is so diverse and fun and varied in style and form and all that. because most things appeal to someone or the other out there, even if your fic is just a description of Aragorn unbuckling his belt when someone asks him to choose between washing his hair or shitting in his hands and clapping. the whole point of it is that it is fun and not ruled by literary prize criteria. hence, even if someone did write an AI generated fic and posted it on Ao3, they are not exactly seeking a prestigious certification of literary capability and neither is Ao3 or its reader offering that. there is no institution here claiming authority to certify quality, no structural gatekeeping function, no literary tradition being characterised as imitable machinery by the people in power. Ao3 is an archive site. it operates outside literary legitimation because it does not claim to legitimise anything.
which leads to my next point:
bro why do you CARE 😭
like if I came across that shitting in his hands and clapping fic, I would just say ‘ew’ and scroll. If I came across a story I suspect to be AI generated, I would do the same thing. I have done this on countless occasions. I would not come onto another website and talk about how Author X should be beaten with hammers for her poop fic. or make a canva graphic of Author Y’s mdash usage? why would I do that when I could just use the time to find a fic I enjoy and read that instead?
if, like i said above, writing a fic and posting it is not a declaration of literary prowess or assumed quality and is simply the act of engaging with a community, then AI generated fics are, as much as you hate to see it that way, doing the same thing. the ‘writers’ are engaging with the community with their AI fic. and sure, this way of engagement may be dishonest and what not, but clearly some people enjoy them and have made them popular or whatever, in which case that is a back and forth engagement. is the argument here that a couple of these fics have gotten a lot of comments or whatever? are we pretending that kudos and comments are now the measure of a fic’s quality, instead of reflecting whatever the primary audience in that fandom prefers to read?
there is no prize denoting literary worth that is handed out by kudos or comments or being posted on Ao3, this is just someone reading something and going yeah, I like this. are you going to go hound everyone who commented ‘great fic’ on every single fic where Naruto “gets pegged—not with a plug but a finger—a quiet, thrumming evocation of the Sexy Jutsu on the tapestry of his pubes, floating on the grammar of his balls”??? this is a person in a community saying I enjoyed this; the lit prize is an institution exercising cultural authority in a way that dictates, to paraphrase Roy, which stories are told, by whom, and how. Ao3 is not doing that. Ao3 is doing the opposite of that. Ao3 says “the person into Aragorn shitting into his hands and clapping” can post whatever they want.
and like. again. what are you getting out of this? what is the end goal? to harass some twelve year old for writing and posting OCfic using ChatGPT? this shit is always framed through the lens of pedagogical care and “accountability” but what it actually is is just a pure flame war lol. what is the educational value of slagging off someone to the entire internet over a zero stakes situation with no payoff? what does such an action garner you aside from the chance to chest-thump about your own virtue?
and most importantly, what if you’re wrong?
and this is the point of all points lol, the one that overshadows all the others i’ve made so far: the fact that what I am saying in my commonwealth prize writeup isn’t a contradiction of me thinking people should not be conducting public witch hunts over fanfic, it actually proves the point i am making! because if these people, who are in terms of writing qualifications and academic background, ostensibly at the topmost layer of the literary world, who have read much much more in their fields than you or I, have, for free, offered us a box of popcorn and an enjoyable demonstration of a reading practice lazy enough to award a prestigious prize to an AI generated story, then what makes YOU so confident that your decision and subsequent public witchhunt is justified, that your eye for ‘real’ literature and hallmarks of LLM generated writing, aside from really puerile shit like ‘goody proctor used an emdash’, is somehow better, is somehow good enough to harass people over?
idk man. in my book, a bunch of knowitall chucklefucks harassing people in their own community based entirely on vibes and a sprinkle of ship wars (yeah you mfs think you’re slick don’t you 😭😭😭), leads to a far more toxic community than a handful of young or inexperienced writers using LLMs and what not.
what you are doing is encouraging a paranoid reading practice in your own community, the community you partake in for fun! and like… man this is the thing that actually gets me, the thing that ties all of this together so bleakly: the paranoid reading practice this attitude is spreading in fan communities, the gleefulness of the witch-hunt, the "I have identified the tells" confidence… this is, structurally speaking, the same operation as what the prize judges used, just pointed in the opposite direction.
the judges had a model of what Caribbean literary fiction is supposed to look like and matched the text against it without actually reading it closely or engaging with it. AI-vigilantes on Ao3 have a model of what AI writing is supposed to look like and they're matching texts against that without actually reading them either. both of you are reading for the shape of a thing rather than the thing itself. both of you are outsourcing any actual encounter with the text to a paranoid checklist. and both your guns, subsequently, will misfire with potentially horrible consequences.
and I think the reason I find it worth saying all of this in one breath, the Commonwealth Prize, the judges, Granta uploading the story to some AI to ask about its AIness, the reactionary discourse, and yes, the AO3 witch hunts too, is that ALL of these are varying results of the same root problem, which is that we have collectively gotten very bad at tolerating the uncertainty and discomfort that actual literary engagement requires.
actual reading requires you to accept not-knowing, to at least attempt to stay in the room with a story that isn't immediately yielding to what you are demanding from it instead of deciding that something you do not understand on first skim does not deserve categorisation as ‘real’, requires you to ask "is this doing something I can't yet follow" before you ask "is this doing nothing???”.
it’s an uncomfortable place to be and I understand why people reach for the checklist instead, whether the checklist is emdash counting or "this sounds like the thing I know” or “people from X ship always use AI”. but the cost of the checklist, the cost of this paranoid, mechanical, securitised and surveilled reading practice, is that you stop encountering writing on its own terms entirely. and at that point you're not reading, are you? you're just confirming what you already thought, and some poor writer somewhere, who might have made every decision in every sentence and could account for all of it, is getting caught in the net of your refusal to engage with uncertainty.
it all is just so fucking tragic man. like the intellectual honesty of going "I didn't understand this and I wonder why that is" seems to have been replaced by the comfortable "I didn't understand this and therefore it is bad/fake/not worth my time.” and what do you lose here? what is actively being destroyed? the possibility of a real, genuine encounter, the moment of encounter that reading fundamentally is, the experience of a text doing something to you that you weren't expecting it to do, that you didn't have a framework for and had to build one as you read. that experience requires vulnerability and an admission that your existing framework might be insufficient or at the very least not throwing your toys out of the pram the minute you find in a piece of writing something you consider morally wrong.
and yeah maybe you’re right lol. maybe i should be naming and shaming. so here you go: fuck a fanwriting culture that has entirely given up on the idea that reading is something a person can be wrong about in ways that should provoke curiosity, even if the result of that curiosity is just ‘tbh yeah this is bad writing’. but alas, apparently we have decided that it's more important to be confident about what you're reading than to actually read it and find out.
anyway these are my thoughts, and iirc @allthingswhumpyandangsty had some excellent thoughts on the matter too but i am too sleepie to find linkie.
I think this was the very good post by allthingswhumpyandangsty re why all of us should be minding our own damn business over our suspicions re whether or not a fic is AI written.
some hyper famous artists like Van Gogh transcend overratedness and become underrated because they're so normalized. Like I'll look at a van Gogh and I'm like wait this really is amazing you guys don't get it
Please feel free to share the petty reasons you think wangji would not like jgy because they sound hilarious
a) Lan Wangji is The Baby. Brother is paying Quite A Lot Of Attention to someone who is 1) not him 2) suspiciously younger-brother shaped 3) oh it's not like that well still
b) Jin Guangyao's whole thing is being polite and ingratiating in a way that most people find very pleasant but I think Wangji Would Not. do not try to make me like you. i already don't. you're just doing this to suck up to xichen.
c) he is not only a Jin (sus) he actively strove to become a Jin. he could have not had everyone know he was Jin Guangshan's son, and not had to spend time being with and showing respect for Jin Guangshan, but he did it, on purpose. filial piety is one thing but At What Cost.
d) learning lots of different techniques when you could just obsessively perfect and memorize one technique? i mean..... sure......... if that's what works for you.............
e) stop making small gestures for my comfort when i'm forced to exist in a social space in your presence i do not like you
I'd also like to point out in The Great Beta Resurgence of 2026 that the writing software Ellipsus has a collaboration feature including comments and drafts. If you were using Google Docs for it, try that software out--it's not only no AI, but it's anti AI, very aggressively, and still in active development
Folks can find Ellipsus on their website at ellipsus.com or here on tumblr @ellipsus-writes
I haven't tried it myself because I just write directly into AO3 (I know. I'm an eldritch horror, but it's just how I roll) but I've only heard good things!
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