i don't do a lot of analysis for ls because I haven't been watching it live for veeery long and each ls season builds upon the events of the previous season (infact, looking at recent arcs it's lowkey ouroboros in here)
but regardless ! here's an attempt to map out ls pangis feelings when it comes to teaming / teammates
i) being incredibly loyal doesn't guarantee you a good team
when pangi comes back to his secret base in lss6 and sees that sb has packed up all his farms and left he's sad. i mean it makes sense, he hadn't seen sb in a while, they were both not very active so he fucks off to build a new secret base.
he jumps at the opportunity to join atlas not only because zam asked him to, but it had been way too long without a proper team. he's been farmed for hearts, peaceful for too long and has had his kindness taken advantage of. he's an extremely loyal pangolin so teaming up unthinkingly with zam to kill flame, despite the fact that flame hasn't ... really .... wronged him in anyway? we all know pangi. zam says jump and pangi says how high
i like to think it all comes to a head on lss6 finale, where the synergy he has with zam is so insane and something he hadn't felt in a long time. they work together and thwart minute n clown perfectly, zam protects pangis body as a ghost, they do this boss battle style fight where they keep returning to their opponents (with the help of spoke) and generally try their best to take out all the pots
and then something changes
there are a million and one reasons why zam would want to team with mapicc over pangi. but regardless of what those reasons are, i can't imagine what it feels like to do all the right things and still fall short of being a good teammate
i also imagine at this point, he doesn't really take personally what goes on between devotions anymore¹
ii) pangi has had really shit teammates
but who hasn't had bad teammates at this point like cmon
at the same time, for someone who's the equivalent of a loyal guard dog, you'd think ppl would jump at the opportunity to have someone who will Always Be At Your Side No Matter What but that's not the case
derapchu asks pangi to be his teammate for s7 and they got a fun thing going with team ragebait. but i think a lot about pangi saying he felt like he couldn't say no, because it was "too awkward in the moment"
awhile after, derapchu hears about this and says pangi should have just said no
i can't exactly remember pangis response but i DO remember three things:
- pangi begged to be derapchus teammate in s6 and derapchu (understandably) says no bc he's already with zam
- pangi hides the pink sheep that represents the truce between him and derapchu because he thought derapchu would kill it
- derapchu betrays pangis location to mapicc which gets him killed. Twice
pangi himself may not know why or how on earth he agreed to be teammates, they're not very .. drift compatible? but it's pretty easy: he says yes because he'd rather have someone to back him up in the bloodthirsty chaos that is the first week than a season long beef where derapchu finds excuses to farm him every chance he gets
multiple times pangi has entertained the thought of possibly betraying derapchu for bing and he doesn't, because it's not worth the enemy he'd be made out to be or the hearts he could potentially lose just for wanting a better teammate
i also think it's a general lack of self worth illustrated in my next point (harsh ik, whatever)
iii) pangi doesn't engage at all in pvp
pvp is NOT required to be in a team. but ☝️ I like to think that risking your hearts for and taking your teammates problems to be your own is what increases trust between teammates. it's the reason why derapchu gets so frustrated that pangi isn't more "aggressive"
and the last point feeds into this one, because it's not that pangi doesn't want to pvp, he holds his own really well in big fights!
but
- the main reason is, he wants everyone to feel safe in recordings (in his movie sets lol) and making enemies out of people leads to not so fun recordings
- if he has bad² teammates -> he won't engage in fights -> he won't engage in fights if he has no team with him
two things come to mind with this -
The first event for the end items, pangi goes in, team ON the server, but not WITH him, so no back up and he gains confidence knowing that steve duo + zam are willing to help him take fights
As opposed to when zam is openly challenging people for duels where he quickly skedaddles because he recognises duelling zam alone with only bing on the server and no one to back him up is basically asking to get farmed
his playing style is very risk averse. he's flighty at spawn and he doesn't even really care (beyond initial heated emotions) for pili killing him that one time (what's the point in getting worked up when you can craft up the hearts)
he's good at pvp but killing jepexx ONCE lead to constant fights with mapicc and derapchu betraying him, so he'd rather not have an incident like that happen again. In a fight, he's either escaping or taking the L
this isn't me saying "he doesn't have a good team bc he doesn't pvp" but rather a good team / teammate would understand why he doesn't engage in pvp and prepare for that in advance
iv) a lot of it boils down to fear
pangi's a loyal and extremely attentive teammate because he's scared if he does something slightly wrong he'll get hurt in ways he can't anticipate (and lives changed forever, etc etc)
pangi could get better teammates but he's also scared his former teammates would come after him endlessly and forever (i mean derapchu treats pangi like dust and they're currently teammates. imagine if they were allied. imagine if they were enemies)
pangi could join a better team but he's scared of potentially getting rejected or even worse, joining a team and not being drift compatible with ANYONE on that team
he's always around his movie sets and very reckless (GOSH) with his spawn as a result, so he's scared of getting farmed by some enemy he's made in a fight or someone looking to get back at his teammate through him
combine this with the fact that trust is generally hard to come by on ls and he's now stuck in this grey goopy area of simultaneously feeling so alone while in the midst of great (and funny) company
and there goes my analysis for pangis feelings surrounding teaming on ls !!!
1. zam and pangi had an in character / not in character conversation on ls on pangis alt in which zam says pangi always leaves her for lukey and pangi responds zam always leaves him for mapicc
2. bad here can mean anything from like inactivity to quick dropping to someone you just don't really vibe with. I personally don't really think inactivity makes a person a bad teammate, but that opinion can vary from lser to lser 😭
