#synapticconstruction

[crystallizedkingdoms]

HI SIE 🐕🐕🐕🐾🐾🐾 Can you indulge a sheltie in your thoughts with Roralex :3 I’ve been thinking about ur fics with them during Finals and I like how you pick them apart in your writing. I also want to give you the floor to yap abt them 🥸 (<- noisy)

hi im so sorry im answering this a billion years late ive been so so busy with everything. but its amazing how did you knowwwww Ive been recently re-reading my roralex fics and have been sorta brainrotting about them. Especially chimerical that one is easily my favourite of all my yiikfics.

I absolutely adore writing and thinking about roralex in a very special way that I haven’t quite reached with their other respective popular ships (that I also really love! alchael x michrory 4eva) for a variety of reasons. The veryyyy thin line of weak friendship/genuine dislike that they teeter with each other that never fully dives into pure hatred nor placid respect is one that I find really grounding in terms of toxicity, and its in That space of realism that I feel really encapsulates early-game YIIK. Alex doesn’t think of Rory as his friend despite Rory (as were shown at least) bending over backwards to please Alex, but he *can* think of him as a potential Lover, enough to kiss him at a bad moment. Rory considers Alex a friend no matter what. Someway, somehow, Rory dies and Alex both assumes and rejects responsibility of it, imagining he can save Rory through his twisted versions of comfort you can give him. What are they? We don’t really know.

And that’s the space I love to play around with! Casual cruelties and desperate pleas for attention from the both of them. The idea that, if friendship can’t hold them together (or at least Alex thinks so), then perhaps a romantic relationship would, stirs at me So Hard. It’s a haphazard fix that ends up hurting more in the end, but it’s better than death and it’s better than being ignored.

Even in I.V, which admittedly changed the shipping dynamics of YIIK the game and in the fandom A Lot, it’s still really fascinating. How in I.V they’re juxtaposed with the Brother dichotomy, but there’s nothing actually new between them as characters. They are forever distant, completely ideologically opposed in Nameless Segments. Brothers only in name, and definitely not family. Their stories expanded around them, but not between them. A dedicated hater could totally take that as roralex slander but personally I really love the persistent wedge between them. It personally just serves to further highlight the weird relationship that we actually see them having and interacting with each other within, and thus more space for me to play with my Toxic Touys.

and. and uhhhhh

I LIKE WHEN THEYRE WEIRD AND HORNY ABOUT IT!!!!!! Sex is such a big thing for them with me. 1) Because of how attraction is kind of a huge deal for both of their characters (more directly Alex but Rory obviously being queer is part of it) but also 2) it just tends to work well with the emotionally constipated way I write them.

I so badly wish I could write more porn of them and one day I will. But with the few roralex fics I’ve written I just love the idea of Alex and Rory engaging with sex in their own unhealthy ways. Namely Alex struggling with coming to terms with his bisexuality and/or transsexuality and taking his issues out on Rory, who is more openly queer (whether he wants to be or not) who will just accept it because that’s the attitude towards he’s grown up around. Idk I wish I had something smarter to say but these are literally just some of my favourite writing tropes in the world so of course I shove it onto them they’re awesome.

Anyways more roralex sex and shipping in general forever PUHLEASEEEEE thank you so much for sending this ask fox sorry again for taking so long. literally made my day writing this I need to write roralex again so BADLYYYYY

[chaifootsteps]

I ended up coming across your blog awhile back when I saw it frequently recommended for Vivz critiques and leaks. I’m surprised by how engaged you are with others on the subject, especially with the frequent questions you get.

Though I wonder and out of curiosity how did you come across Vivziepop? What compelled you to be as engaged when discussing her current former self?

Apologies if they aren’t good questions per say but I appreciate the work you’ve done and hope things are currently better on your end. (Scary with the current “allegations” they’re throwing your way)

Nah, they're great questions! I enjoy revisiting this story.

I discovered Hazbin in the summer of 2020. COVID lockdown was in full swing, I was suffering some incredibly triggering fandom stuff, and my grandma had just died. Then Addict dropped and it was like a lifeline had been thrown out. I imprinted on Angel hard and fast. For a while, I breathed Helluva/Hazbin, thought Vivzie was brilliant to write the Hazbin pilot and the Instagrams...of course, she didn't write either, not the parts I loved.

The pilot cast being dropped, and the realization that Vivzie was lying about it being a union thing out of her control, was my first hint that something was...off. I didn't know what at the time, but the way she handwaved them off, the coldness of it after gushing that she owed everything to them, and that they were like family to her, marked the first crack in the rose colored glasses.

Then Erin Frost spoke out, then Ken. Once you realize how much of a shitty person Viv is, how many hurt people and outright lies her success is built on, you can never really unsee it. I started talking about it casually on my blog, edging deeper down the rabbit hole, and then suddenly I was talking to all these people who used to know Viv, learning just how much went on behind the scenes, and then suddenly people were showing me things...

I don't quite know how it happened, but it's not about being a salty jealous hater, or even my grief Hazbin. It's about good people trying to get their stories out, to make the truth known, and saying to them, "What do you need me to do?"

[crystallizedkingdoms]

Haiiii passes by your inbox again but I remembered awhile back you were watching sitcoms with your gf :] (I perked up hearing about the michael schur shows ,. 🫶). Out of curiosity do you have any personal live action shows that immerse you ? (IDK HOW TO WORD IT WAHHHH I’m curious about taste 🐾)

HIII YES we’re very much still on a sitcom roll!! We’re about to start season 7 of Brooklyn 99 so no new debriefs in a bit but we’ll be finishing up soon and seeing where we go next (I think we talked about Community?)

ANYWAY. all these sitcoms I’ve been watching with my gf are basically my only interactions with live action shows At All. I’m very much not a tv show person which is why she’s dragged me into watching all these sitcoms at all. I’m very uncultured in this department. but out of all the ones I’ve watched so far… really the most immersive to me would be North of North, since it’s such a specific life experience that I’ve grown up with that I’ve never seen on TV at all. So naturally I am quite biased to it (also it’s funny as fuck.) I have an ask in my inbox I’ve been putting off on writing out of laziness that goes more into detail abt it tho so I wont dawdle here.

But I’d also say that the early seasons of The Office were really immersive. I can see why it’s such a beloved classic that even if I wanted to try and go against the grain I don’t think I could. The characters all feel so genuinely real to me precisely because most of them are assholes but they don’t quite all characterize themselves as *The* Dysfunctional Asshole Cast like, say, CXGF or even Parks & Rec. they just feel like people who really live in their own head and think what they’re doing is good or funny or righteous and everyone else is doing it wrong in a very very mundane setting with such low stakes and by god is that very real and engaging. I get a similar vibe from Superstore (perhaps I am just biased to low scale personal retail drama…)

not that characters being intentionally characterized Dysfunctional Assholes is wrong or not funny, they fit in their own shows, it’s just a very specific brand of humour these sitcoms have and after having watched so many back to back I can almost kind of feel the underlying archetype mould they created all these characters for, trying to appeal to the millennial brand of cynicism. which I Like. but still. Anyway those are my thoughts tell me if I didn’t answer your question correctly I’m happy to ramble my ass off some more

[crystallizedkingdoms]

Haiii sie & johann *passes by* thank you very much for your kind words (I think in general besides art, your comments are a joy ^_^) OUT of curiosity what’s your writing process like when it comes to Yiik (How you deconstruct these guys in your work is something I definitely envy HA,..)

HAIII FOX :3 nice to see you <3 i will gladly tell you all about it i have been Dying to talk abt how i write yiik bc honestly, my fics for this game have been among my favourite to write! i might even have to put this under a read more lol

SO okay heres the thing. it helps to separate the story of YIIK into layers of reality. my personal layers (because god knows other people interprets it differently): there is Alex’s Reality (the story of YIIK taken completely as factual, delusions and lies and all. the year is 1999), and there’s the Outsider’s Reality (strip away all of Alex’s delusions and try to find what really happened. Michael being years older than Alex and moving away is here. the year is 2016). theres also the 4th wall which is self-explanatory.

so with these layers, there is no really hard line between any of them, including the 4th wall. it’s damn near impossible to ever truly tell how much of the characters we know is part of which reality, especially the Outsider’s Reality. we’ll likely never know Vella’s true name, how Rory actually interacted with Alex, what Michael really thought of Alex. the game of YIIK itself is riddled with allusions to other media that can only be pieced together understood by us the players, and never the characters themselves.

but here’s the thing: it doesn’t really matter. When i write fics and deconstruct their character, i either pick one layer of reality to strongly settle in (december came too fast is settled in Alex’s Reality while the thing about explorers is: is settled in Outsider’s Reality) or i heavily oscillate and obscure the two, similar to how YIIK the game itself mixes both (both my Michael fics deal heavily in that territory).

When you’ve got that fundamental setting built, that’s how you can strongly probe how the characters react to each other and what theyre feeling inside. for example, Alex in his Reality is everything he wants and fears to be, and by god he acts like that. He’s snarky and self-centred, but he also has the mask of a Hero and a video game world that he can hide behind, so there’s a sense of untouchability to him. No matter what, he knows he’s going to be okay, if miserable.

But when i take him out of that reality and into the Outsider’s Reality, where he’s just a helpless kid with a broken family and broken friends, he can’t be the same. Unlike in his Reality where he can try to ignore and bend things out of existence, in Outsider he can’t. hes forced to confront his feelings for Michael and forced to confront his hatred for his sister (obligate nestling soroicide). It traps him. and trapped characters are the easiest to dissect.

Trapping the characters in YIIK is easily the best way to dissect them for me, because what is the game if not a trap? It’s Alex’s trap for everyone around him, including himself. So i explore that trap in a million different ways. Alex trapped in his reality. Rory trapped in grief for his sister, or trapped in a relationship with Alex. Claudio trapped in the chase for his brother, Claudia trapped in the expectation of mourning. All the different ways they react when they are trapped/free play off each other really well.

Anyways, the last and most personal point to me is the 4th wall, and specifically the use of allusions. YIIK is so open and proud about the fact it takes from different media to add and enhance the story, and while I’ve always let my other interests play a part in my fics (song lyrics as titles my beloved), YIIK’s openness to using other stories as blocks for the characters lets me do that with a billion times more confidence than any other fandom. if Alex can be Don Quixote, then he can be Marvin/Christopher Columbus from In Trousers, he can be a cuckoo bird. Rory and Vella can be Orpheus and Eurydice. Michael can be all the dogs in every poem, and he can be the New World.

tangential to the above i also just get really fucking loose and silly with it. Rory drowned his sister in a water well (which is physically impossible) because he believes it, so it is true now. Michael has a leash on his neck because that is what he’s feeling. Rory hooks up with the personification of Death as an allegory for his suicide because isn’t that weird and fucked up? (haven’t posted that one yet but its coming)

ACTUAL LAST POINT I PROMISE: it also really really helps to first understand the character at face value before deconstructing them. that sounds obvious as fuck but Trust Me it’s harder to really study who the character we see first is before we make any assumptions on what the hell is going on inside of them. Studying their speech/reactions/physical body language is something that really helps, and I’ve been procrastinating working on a guide for it.

anyway uhhh sorry for the essay. thank you for the question and if you wanna know anything specific/talk more abt it just shoot me another ask or a dm ^_^

[crystallizedkingdoms]

O CARA MIA, ADDIO … so many early memories of this song.. my brother frequently played it during his runs during his replays when growing up. aaaaaa how wonderful ;_; !! This hunt was fun !!

THERE YOU GO you got it!! ive also got fond memories of that track :] thank you for participating in my little hunt <3