#literally threw him down on the table like the worlds most violating ‘this one yours?’

[meraus]

“You fucked up” babes he’s literally on the ground not moving, the only thing fucked up is his spine

[julemmaes]

Cry

Lorcan Salvaterre and Elide Lochan modern au

A/N: Alrighty alrighty I’M SORRY. I’m not posting anything lately cause I’ve been busy (very fucking much) and I just want to let you all know that I’ll write every single day of MOF even when October is finished (even if that’s not the point of those challenged but still) 

I was on tiktok the other day and I saw this video of a couple in a long distance relationship where she surprised him and he CRIED. A LOT. It’s become one of my favourite things in the world to be honest. He really seemed exhausted coming in his room and he literally SNIFFED the air, cause he could SMELL her and I D I E D.

Anyway, this is basically the plot. Enjoy!

Word count: 1,948

Lorcan would rather shoot himself in the head than listen to Rowan talk about contemporary history for another hour.

He promised him that he would help him prepare one of the billions of exams he seemed to have every month because his girlfriend, Aelin, had abandoned him at the last minute, leaving him alone. Knowing the type, Lorcan would have bet the house that she had told him a lie not to have another long and boring talk about the Cold War.

As much as he loved his best friend, just the idea of what Rowan was studying made his eyelids close faster than any sleeping pill he had ever taken. And Lorcan had taken a lot of medication to help him sleep in his life.

Things had not gone very well lately. With Elide on the other side of the world and their schedules that fit perfectly so that they never got to see each other on skype, he hadn't seen his girlfriend for almost five days. Lorcan had never been an excessively soft guy, who felt the need to talk twenty-four hours a day just to tell others that his relationship was perfect, but the distance was playing tricks on him and the fact that he couldn't sleep well only added stress and nervousness.

There was also the small detail that his father - or rather, his sperm donor - had died a few weeks before and his mother, who had always been the only parental figure in his life, really wanted to give him the letter that the man had written to him only a few days before his death.

Lorcan had tried to read it, several times, even on a call with Elide, but every time he read the first lines, where the man expressed his sincerest apologies for never having been part of his life, attributing part of those faults to his mother too, he could never bring himself to finish it.

"...can you at least pretend to be listening?" Rowan asked exasperatedly, running his hand over his face.

Lorcan closed his eyes sighing, opening them a few moments later. Rowan was staring at him slightly pissed off. He could perfectly understand that talking to someone who didn't even seem to be in the same room as you could be irritating.

"Sorry Ro, I know I told you I'd stay until seven, but I can't do it." he got up, without looking Rowan in the face, but he saw him stiffening, "If I hear you say Gorbachev one more time, I might throw up."

"Are you okay?" he asked him in a lower tone of voice. Two girls sitting at the table next to them turned around, immediately bringing their attention back to their books when Lorcan gave them a hard look.

He tightened his jaw, putting his stuff in his backpack, "Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry about it."

"I wouldn't have started to worry if you'd just told me you were fine," Rowan pointed out, leaning against the table with his elbows and pushing towards him. Lorcan put on his jacket, puffing.

"Well, I'm actually fine," he said, finally looking him in the eye. He felt his breath hitch when he saw that Rowan seemed genuinely concerned about what was surely disturbing his friend and had to turn around so he wouldn't let him see how bad he really was.

"I know you don't do these..." he paused, frowning, "things. But if you need to talk to someone -"

Lorcan interrupted him by putting one hand forward, "Rowan, listen," he laughed dryly, "You're right, I don't do these things and you're starting to sound like Fenrys," his friend made a disgusted grimace, "Exactly, so cut the bullshit and don't ever try to be all mama hen on me again, okay?"

Rowan nodded bitterly, "It's just that Aelin told me that you and Elide," a hint of pain shot through his chest at the girl's name, "haven't talked for a few days and I just wanted to know if things were going well?" he asked hesitantly.

Lorcan pinched the bridge of his nose, "What exactly don't you understand about the sentence 'I'm fine'?"

"I'm just checking on a friend who won't stop bullshitting me," Rowan pointed out abruptly.

"I don't need you to check up on me."

Rowan's face softened so much that Lorcan knew that anything he would say in a few seconds would make him lose every ounce of patience.

"Is this about your father's letter?" he looked him in the face, reducing his lips to a thin line, then Lorcan turned around, without even saying goodbye, and walked out of the library.

It was not because of the letter.

It was the fact that his mother had felt the need to give it to him. It was the fact that the woman who knew him better than anyone else in the world, the woman who had seen him in the most vulnerable moments of his life and who had raised him alone, breaking her back day and night to make sure he had a future, had accepted the words written on that letter to be the truth.

Your mother prevented me from seeing you. Don't be angry at me, but at her. It wasn't me who decided to abandon you. Agnes told me that I could not see you until you were sixteen years old. It is not my fault that you did not have enough during your childhood.

A lot of bullshit if you asked Lorcan.

His father had left the second he found out that his mother had gotten pregnant and took every penny he could find in their house to buy another dose or bottle of alcohol.

Lorcan knew that his mother had read it because when she gave it to him, the envelope had been torn. And he knew that she hadn't done it with the intention of violating his privacy, but rather to protect him. He certainly wouldn't blame the mother if she still cared about her baby when it came to the man who got her pregnant and then ran away.

He did not realize that he had stopped in the middle of the university garden, his hands in his pockets and his gaze fixed on the ground until a drop hit his forehead. He looked up and the sky split in two.

All the students who were lying on the lawn stood up screaming, putting away their notes and books as quickly as possible. Some laughed as they ran for shelter from that sudden thunderstorm, but Lorcan resumed walking normally, reaching his dorm canopy in a few minutes.

Walking up the stairs as slowly as he had never done before, he found himself thinking about his mother yet again.

Perhaps he should have called her.

They had spent hours on the phone after she had given him the letter. Lorcan yelling at her because the man's words had certainly struck Agnes in the heart - so much so that she handed the letter to her son, without warning him that it was all crap - and she apologized to him for something she had thought right almost twenty years earlier.

Lorcan had reassured her that he had never missed a father figure. He had never had the need to go fishing with his "old man" or "play catch".

He ran his hand over his face for the millionth time, sighing and trying to keep his emotions at bay until he reached his room where he would decide what to do. Whether to take a sleeping pill and try to rest or go to the gym and punch something. Or someone, if he found one of the guys willing to get it.

He arrived in front of the door and saw that it was slightly open, the corridor light on. He swelled his chest holding his breath and praying to every god on the face of the earth that Connal or Vaughan were not home, he pushed the door, entering the small apartment.

He heard no noises of any kind and frowned. If one of his roommates had been in the house there would have been at least the sound of pots being thrown into the kitchen or the springs of their beds moving under the weight of both.

Relieved that he had not entered the house in one of their usual hot moments, he made to move and then sensed it.

He smelled the air, stopping in his footsteps.

Lemon and cinnamon.

He would have recognized that scent everywhere.

He turned around, closing the door and expecting to see her hidden back there.

When he couldn't find her, he sprang towards his room, opening that door and throwing his head back laughing when he saw Elide sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Don' t believe it." Lorcan whispered without looking at her.

He turned back into the living room, taking two steps towards the couch before turning around again and putting his hands in his hair.

Elide was smiling at him with her hands clutched between her legs. She got up, going towards him, slowly, "Believe it.”

"You're here," Lorcan told her, with a shocked expression on his face. He couldn't move, the emotion too great to be contained and in a second everything he had taken so long to shove down and not to process reappeared on the surface, hitting him with such force as to take his breath away. Elide smiled at him more widely with bright eyes and threw herself at him.

Lorcan wrapped her in his arms and held her so tightly that she laughed and then stuck his head in the space between her shoulder and neck and breathed deeply.

Without his consent, a sob slipped from his lips.

He felt Elide stiffen, "Lor..."

He knew that if he spoke, he would not be able to recognize his voice as broken it would be.

"You're crying." Elide tried to tear herself away to look him in the face, but Lorcan prevented her, holding her tighter and letting go of more sobs. He was leaning completely against her and when she moved again, to get the backpack off his shoulders, he let her do it, taking her back in his arms immediately afterwards.

One of her hands rubbed his back, "It's alright." she whispered to him, kissing his cheek. "Everything is all right."

"Why are you crying?" her voice was so small, so weak compared to what she normally had. He let go of a trembling breath, taking a step back, and rubbing the palms of his hands over his eyes to wipe away the tears.

Elide was holding her hands on his arms and stroking him to calm him down. He bent forward, extending one hand towards her neck and passed a thumb over her jaw. She half-closed her eyes, looking at his face. Lorcan looked back, with watery eyes.

He hugged her again with a surge, kissing her forehead and sighing with relief, "I missed you so fucking much."

Elide replied in a muffled voice, "So did I."

They lingered a few more minutes, Elide caressing every part of his body she could reach with her short arms, without worrying that he was completely soaked, and Lorcan relaxing under that familiar touch so strong that he could drive out every demon that had dug his way under his skin during those months without her. And even if things hadn't worked out just because Elide had come back for what would surely have been two days, at least he could talk to someone who knew would understand.

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@tottenhamboys20 @maastrash @ireallyshouldsleeprn 

[mcjour]

ok

set the scene: we were eating dinner

lol

she turns to me and asks me a question. it was something along the lines of like do you miss your dad or do you feel sad on fathers day or something.

which ughhhhhhhhh this is NOT dinnertime conversation. but i could tell where this was coming from. her dad passed away about 2 years ago. so fathers day is still kinda raw for her. 

and she said that. not in those words exactly. but she said she was in the area and she stopped at the cemetery so she was wondering. 

so i was a little annoyed but i went along with it. whatever. and told her the truth. that i really don’t think about him and i forget fathers day is even a thing. so not really. unless i like really sit down and think about it. and then it’s kinda sad yeah.

maybe i’m forgetting a transition or something but the next thing i remember is she’s like yeah, i remember when you were in high school. and you posted on social media about him taking you on a lake and feeling uncomfortable.

and boy was i seeing red!!!!! i was literally SHAKING that was how angry i was.

you see, i did not post that on social media. or i guess i did. i posted it on tumblr. which idk, yes, is a form of social media, but is a different, more anonymous form of social media. but i was using tumblr as my diary. (like i literally am right now lol). maybe that’s stupid, bla bla bla nothing’s really anonymous, putting stuff on internet forever. WHATEVER. 

i already got mad about this before when it first happened. when she first let slip that she read my tumblr. back when i was in high school. i literally ran away when that happened. so violated. i had no reason to think that someone in my house was opening up my tumblr account and scrolling around and reading through all my posts???? what the fuck??? 

Like I said, that was my diary. that was my rawest thoughts. she was so pissed at me back then, because i would write about her. uhhhhh what else would you write in a diary about????? i’m not broadcasting this to the world. i only had a small amount of active followers. not many from real life, maybe a handful. and most of them were friends anyway. so it’s not like i’m telling my cousins or the town or idk who the hell she thinks i was talking to. nobody. i was just talking to me. if literally one person wanted to read and “like” my post, good, i appreciate the validation. at least somebody was listening (uhhh .. i could say something here but i won’t). but like, i swear to god it was basically a private diary, for me.

and a journal/diary was so important for me back then. i was really truly fucked up and i needed to clear my mind. process on paper. and honestly her snooping really fucked me up. because what used to be my safe processing was now destroyed. deemed unsafe. my world was flipped upside down. my secrets, my vulnerable thoughts?

why didn’t i do it on paper? clearly bitch is a snoop! nothing was safe. yeah i could tear it up afterwards but i wouldn’t be surprise if she jigsaw puzzled it back together. also that defeats the purpose. i didn’t know it at the time, granted, but cptsd means my memory is utter shit. i appreciate reading through those old posts now because frankly i wouldn’t remember any of it otherwise. and tumblr vs microsoft word? again, someone could easily snoop through a word doc. and like i said, i really didn’t think anyone else would not only think to go onto tumblr, but then to have to figure out how to navigate to my blog, and then find my posts among like the stupid ass memes. like..????????? what

and actually now that i think about it, i wonder what other ways she snooped. like i stayed logged into facebook, did she read my facebook? when the hell did she even have the time for this anyway?

so anyway, i remember the post she was referring to. my dad moved to this house across the street from a lake. and he took me out on a boat. and it was just me and him. and i was kinda weirded out. i think i had just learned the dark history of my family or whatever LOL. so thinking about how he was actually a r*pist. so i think i was sitting in the boat being like oh great, like i’m literally in the middle of the lake with nowhere to run to, he could just r*pe me here and i couldn’t do anything about it.

ok. i know. that’s a big leap. but i was what, 17? and dealing with and processing a lot of shit. And like i said, i had just learned all this bad stuff about him. maybe it was the first time i had seen him since then? i don’t know

regardless... i wrote about it because duh processing. it was a very vulnerable raw thing like i said. it was such a stupid post. or maybe i think that now that i was “caught”

anyway..... i was mad. i still am mad. i was pissed when it happened and now i’m pissed knowing she read A LOT and pissed knowing that she has been holding onto all of those things that she read for all of those years. i mean, i guess i wouldn’t have expected her to magically forget but what the FUCK

and so yeah that was a traumatic experience in 2014 and here i am reliving it in 2021. like i said, literally shaking

i don’t know how i held it together but i did. i wanted to yell at her for violating my privacy (do you know she had the AUDACITY last time to say that i “left it up on the computer” BULL FUCKING SHIT. I mean i didn’t log out, that’s true. but i would NEVER be so careless as to leave tumblr open on the computer, least of all on a personal post like that!!). and thank god i didn’t say anything because i am sure she would have echoed the same thing about how i ~left it up~ or whatever BS. 

god i’m getting enraged typing this out

and a shame too, we were eating leftover chinese food, which is always good. i had already eyed the seconds i was planning to grab. but now i was nauseous and lost my appetite.

then she was going on about how he used to be a great dad when we were little and like yeah when i was little i would’ve agreed. we played barbies or whatever the fuck. but nowadays i know better. so i’m like um well even when he was a good dad he was a bad dad. and shes like what do you mean? and i told her the ~classic tale~ about how my dad tried to tell us about his sister and i was 3 or something so i asked a dumbass question and i remember hiding under the table from him and my brother has told me “oh yeah that’s when he threw me at the wall.” so like .... yeah... i told her that story

and then she has shocked pikachu face!!! wanted to slap that right off lol. because part of me thinks there is no way she didn’t know/ hadn’t heard that story. fuck off. but ok, maybe she genuinely hasn’t, give her the benefit of the doubt. well jeez what’s so shocking about it????? you knew he was abusive so?????? like why would it be surprising that that happened. oh yeah, it’s not.

anyway idk what i expected. i think she said like “oh wow i didn’t know that” or something. and then went on and talked about his sister, talked about his dad, how she got in a fight with him over a newspaper article????? whatever. ok. so this was never about me at all. you didn’t care to listen to what my answers were. you just wanted to talk about you and your dad and literally anything else.

so i get hit with the double whammy. the privacy violation flashback with one hand, the use as a therapist and exploit your trauma with the other

so yes, i was shaking. by the time i was going to clear my plate, i was near tears. thankfully was able to hold them in (but never let them out after.. oops). but by the time i got upstairs i really couldn’t breathe properly.

strangely but luckily, my cat was already on the bed waiting for me. i mean, she is on my bed all the time, it isn’t SUPER strange. but usually she goes straight under the bed and comes out from under eventually (*at this specific time of day LOL). god i love her and how she always knows what i need. so i was able to pet her and stuff.

um but yeah i’ve been in a slog since then. like couldn’t really sleep and all that. i just...ugh.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #129: Bid Tomorrow Goodbye!

November, 1974

KANG GROWS GIGANTIC! VISION SHOOTS HIS NIPPLE WITH HIS HERETOFORE UNKNOWN HAND ZAP POWERS WHILE IRON MAN VEERS AWAY IN DISGUST FROM KANG’S ARMPIT!

Or maybe its just symbolic.

So last time: Well Scarlet Witch beat Necrodamus and there was a lot of relationship drama but the relevant information is that a star appeared above Avengers Mansion and then Kang showed up, ready and raring to be the worst.

He is at least kind enough to do a title drop in his little introductory spiel.

Thor wastes no time and just starts attacking Kang although Kang just turns it around into self-gratification saying that until this time the Avengers have always refrained from attacking until he attacked first.

Hey, idiot. That’s because you tend to sneak attack them.

Anyway, this time Kang has the MACROBOTS at his disposal. The finest in 41st century science win buttons.

The Avengers, of course, assemble but soon discover that the Macrobots reflect force back at their attackers. Even the bullshit force of Vision doing his hand job dealie or Scarlet Witch sending a hex bolt to affect the brick work behind a Macrobot counts.

The Macrobots truly are the finest in ‘the villain needs an immediate win for the story to work so here’s some weirdly undefeatable thing he won’t just use all the time.’ And no sooner can you say ‘ineffectual heroes’ the heroes are all knocked unconscious.

For good measure, Kang even paralyzes Jarvis so he can’t come to the Avengers’ rescue.

And having beaten up the Avengers through the proxy of overpowered Macrobots, Kang feels sad that he has never met men as ruthless as himself who will provide him the savage struggle he craves.

So the only thing for it is to start World War III and then rule over the few who survive on the nuclear-scarred planet.

Also now that the Avengers are unconscious, Kang decides its a great moment to exposit about the dawn star of not Bethlehem. He had read about it in the few records that survive to his crapsack future empire and knew it was coming. He only didn’t know when.

Its the reason he’s always bumming around the 20th century, swearsies. And on a previous time he got his ass handed to him by the Avengers, he hid a temporal monitor to alert him if the dawn star showed up.

Because the Dawn Star signifies the completeness of the Celestial Madonna, whatever that means.

And the records say that her mate will be the most powerful man on Earth and she’ll give birth to a god baby.

And Kang is the exact amount of petty and insecure that he hears about a woman who has an important husband and immediately tries to insert himself into the narrative.

I have to say, he got over Ravonna fairly quickly. Or not. Time travel.

Here’s the problem. The star appeared about Avengers Mansion. That would normally be a good thing because the Avengers can’t bear to have more than one woman in their clubhouse at a time. Their hormones start to sync up and their menstruation attracts bears. Its just a hassle.

But this time, the Avengers have three women living in the mansion. So one of these three women have to be the Celestial Madonna but there’s no way to be sure which one.

Its equal odds that its any of the three. Scarlet Witch, Mantis, or the woman who is clearly far beyond menopause. Yup. Any one of these three women could be the Celestial Madonna that lays the golden baby.

If only there was a way to rule out any of them. Alas.

While Kang waits for the Celestial Madonna’s identity to be revealed, he’s just going to go conquer the planet. Its something to do to fill the time.

And he teleports the Avengers away. Well. Except for Swordsman.

Kang: “You, Swordsman? You are a weakling and a blunderer -- while my plans call for powerful male Avengers! Thus, I plan nothing for you but a scornful farewell!”

Dick move, Kang. The least you could do is to kidnap him to make him feel like he’s just as valid as everyone else.

And since spite is the purest motivator, Swordsman decides he’s going to show Kang what he can do.

Except he doesn’t know where to start. And there’s so much going on in his life right now he’s having trouble even concentrating.

Thankfully, Agatha Harkness appears as a giant angry face in the sky to drop some key plot details on Swordsman. Based on the hieroglyphics she can see from the tube she’s imprisoned in, she recognizes that the Avengers are being held in the pyramid of the Pharaoh Rama-Tut.

She also adds that hey no duh she’s not the Celestial Madonna because Agatha Harkness isn’t an idiot. “Yet my Wanda and your Mantis may suffer at this savage’s hands!”

‘I’ve known her for five minutes but I love her and she’s mine.’ Weirdly possessiveness aside, Agatha was always a better parent figure to Wanda than Magnto. Sometimes the blood of the magic teacher covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Because of all the platelets.

Swordsman hurriedly checks to see if Jarvis is alright before running to take a Quinjet to Egypt. All the while brooding on his relationship with Mantis. Guy has it bad.

Like ‘spends the entire flight to Egypt lost in his thoughts and doesn’t even notice the time going by’ bad.

And because he just flew into Egyptian airspace without so much as a ‘sup’ the Egyptian air force shows up and shoots him down.

Even the narration is getting on his case by this point, asking “Why is it, do you suppose, that some men are literally born to lose?”

After he crashes, Agatha contacts the Swordsman again but the message is cut off as she screams in pain. Kang noticed that the Swordsman crashed right outside the pyramid and he could never have found it without assistance.

And Agatha had been too serene since waking up. Therefore, pain laser.

But with that taken care of, Kang decides to exposit again. This time to the Avengers as they are being treated with a paralyray.

See, he was born in the 31st century but since it was a time of peace and progress, Kang got bored and stole a time machine that he decided to remodel into a sweet flying Sphinx.

He traveled to ancient Egypt and just mighty whitied all over them to become their pharaoh. Seriously: “I rebuilt the device in the form of a Sphinx -- and traveled to Ancient Egypt, where my inexplicable appearance stunned the natives into cowed submission, just as I planned.”

Kang is the worst.

After the Fantastic Four kicked his ass, he decided to return to his own time but because he was using a time machine that did not look like a Sphinx, it goofed up and deposited him into the 41st century instead.

A DARK AND GRITTY TIME where people are sci-fi barbarians, fighting for long-forgotten causes with weapons they no longer comprehend. And then Kang threw his imperialistic weight around until he was the boss.

But he got bored of that too so decided to pick fights with superheroes. And then they kicked his ass. Multiple times.

Mantis and Scarlet Witch challenge Kang, saying if he wants a fight they’ll kick his ass. He responds that once he figures out which one of them is the Celestial Madonna, the other two won’t survive long (MEANING HE STILL THINKS AGATHA HARKNESS IS A VIABLE CANDIDATE).

He also speculates that maybe a closer examination (don’t be skeevy, Kang) will provide a clue.

Meanwhile, the Swordsman. It turns out that breaking into pyramids is one of his many skills.

Yup. Back when he was bumming around taking on any job, he robbed a pyramid or two.

I love that what Swordsman brings to the table is not just great sword skills, a swashbuckling attitude, and enough insecurity to make Hawkeye jealous. He also has a bunch of less than legit skills. He’s like the team rogue. But not the team Rogue. Only bad Avengers rosters have one of her, unfortunately.

And then he runs into a goddamn vampire.

Like an honest to god vampire. Its revealed in a couple pages that the vampire is Amenhotep, who Kang forced to drink the nectar of the undead. Perhaps to guard the pyramid or more likely for shits and giggles.

And Swordsman is in such a fragile emotional state right now that he just snaps and goes ‘okay vampires so then I guess I’m Conan the barbarian’ and is the happiest he has been in days.

“Ha! Die, by Crom!” He stabs the vampire through the skull.

I like that Swordsman is apparently a fan of Robert E. Howard. I mean, I figure he’s a bit of a closet dork for stuff like that and Errol Flynn. His desire to be a swashbuckler must come from somewhere.

Unfortunately, big, red, demonic vampires are apparently not perturbed by swords through the brain. As another scarlet vampire once said, “Humans are the only ones who need simple chemical thought centers such as brains.”

So Amenhotep is still trying to get at Swordsman’s throast. Until a platoon of Egyptian soldiers busts in to arrest Swordsman. Remember. Violating air space?

And the vampire makes a snap decision between one man or a platoon and he has gone 5,000 years without eating. So he abandons Swordsman and attacks the platoon.

And as Swordsman tries to stand up in a daze, he falls through a secret passage. And then he sees a spooky sarcophagus and runs down a tunnel, by chance finding Kang’s control center. But behind him, unseen, the sarcophagus begins to open.

We’re mixing a whole lot of genres right now.

Kang watches Amenhotep killing the platoon before foolishly straying out into the sunlight and dying. He hadn’t been watching during Swordsman’s encounter with the vampire so he just assumes the Avenger is dead, the first victim of Firebrand the Vampire.

Anyway, he has work to do. The paralyrays have finally completed their work. Kang has the three captive male Avengers placed in his Macrobots, to power them up further. The exposure to parlyrays means that the Avengers will be helpless to try to escape. Even Iron Man who recently upgraded his armor to avoid this exact situation by making it partially mind controlled. Dang.

And with Kang’s three souped up Macrobots, nothing will be able to stop them from starting WORLD WAR III!

No, not the one with farting aliens. The one with a time traveling guy who wants to force a woman to marry him because half of a record says she’s destined to give birth to an awesome baby.

Within hours, Kang will have struck down the world’s greatest leaders and the resulting chaos will inflame the world. Both in temperaments and also literally as the world will catch on fire from all the nukes.

From his peeping perch, Swordsman scowls and decides to put one sword blast in the back of Kang’s head. To save the world. And because Kang is a dick.

But suddenly someone grabs Swordsman and pulls him away from his shot at Kang and yells that he must not destroy Kang!

A suddenly someone who introduces himself as... RAMA-TUT!?

But if Kang is Rama-Tut and he’s in the next room then who is flying the plane??

... Dammit, time travel!

Stay tuned! As another time traveler once said, “This is where it gets complicated.”

Next time the Celestial Madonna Saga continues in Giant-Size Avengers #2.

[bleedingcoffee42]

For the request of RoyAi and X-Files and I’ve been wanting to write the Arcadia “fake married in a weird suburban subdivision” episode for a while.  Also...not even close to 5 sentences...sorry. Also not a true AU as it’s an episode.  And...also Ed tries to ruin it so it’s kinda not anything right.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Quite the welcoming committee.” Roy said and looked over at Riza as they pulled into the drive of their new home.  He grinned, excitement just bubbling from every inch of him.  Finally.  A fun mission.  He had every reason to refer to her as his wife.  His love.  Riza.   He was beyond happy.

“Maybe you can tone down the excitement a little.”  She said.  “We're an old married couple.”

“Only ‘cause you got knocked up as a teenager.”  He said and she smacked him as he put the car in park and the moving truck pulled in beside them.   “What?  I'm not the one who agreed to let Ed come along.  You had to realize we would have to adjust our cover stories to accommodate him.”

She took a deep breath.  “Please, behave.  Please remember this is for a mission.”

“Slim chance of that.”  He said.   “Have you met your first born?”

Riza looked over as Ed jumped out of the moving van to greet the new neighbors.  “Yes, so get out there and play your part.”

“Yes, honey.”  Roy said and got out of the car with a smile on his face.  He was going to enjoy this mission to i’s fullest but then Ed saw a way to ruin his fun and join in.   Now he was fake married with a fake kid.  And that kid sucked.   So it was time to ruin his fun too.  He walked over and threw his arm around Ed and loudly said, “Hey son, already getting to know the neighbors huh?”

Ed shook off the hug and smirked.   “Well you and Mom were taking your time getting out of the car. Kind of rude, really.  These people brought apple pie!”

He would throw caution to the wind just to get some pie.   Roy held out his hand.  “Hey, nice to meet you. I'm Roy Hayate and this is my son, Ed and that’s my beautiful wife Riza.”

The welcoming committee all chirped hellos and greetings until one stepped forward.   “I'm Roger Trumbull, head of the neighborhood watch.  My wife Tracy..our daughter Kate...”

“Oh good, someone your own age Ed. Go play.”  Roy tried to shove him away but the stubborn kid just shoved back.  

“I'm fourteen, I don't play anymore.” Ed growled and the small party of people started to migrate to Hawkeye who was trying to carry her luggage into the house.  Luggage with a break down rifle and ammunition.  Never leave home, or move to a new one, without it.

“Except with yourself, ha.”  Roy tussled Ed’s hair and saw that look of challenge.   That look, followed by a sinister smirk that said 'game on'.   “Go help your Mom carry that suitcase.”

“So, what do you do for a living Roy?”   Roger asked.

“Nothing.   He's useless.”   Ed said.  “Mom makes all the money.”

“Doing what?”  Roger prodded.

Ed felt Roy's shove to try to get him to leave.  Nope.  “She specializes in flame retardant materials.”

“Fascinating.”  Roger said.

“She is.  Love of my life. “ Roy chuckled and put his hand on Ed's shoulder and squeezed hard enough to feel the kid cringe.  He just blew their cover story and thankfully he said it all loud enough for Riza to hear.  God Ed.  You little shit.  “Riza, works from home and I am lucky enough to work from home too.”

“You're probably wondering how this loser could be my Dad right?”  Ed interrupted.   “Me with blond hair, him with black hair.  Makes you wonder if there might be some Game of Thrones stuff going on with Uncle Jean over there.”

“Stop implying you're a bastard by anything but choice, Ed.”  Roy said. “Like I explained before, genetics are incredible.  The blond gene is recessive on my side and you lucked out and got your Mom's looks which will hopefully help compensate for your shitty attitude.  I wish you'd take an interest in science, it's all very simple really.  Just apply yourself, son.”

“Roy! Ed!”  Riza called from the house.  “Do some work!”

“Yes, you must be moved in by 7 pm.” Roger said.  “Per homeowners association rules.”

“Rules are meant to be broken.” Ed said and the neighbors all looked at him mortified.

“Not anymore, young man.”  Roy said and finally shoved Ed towards the moving truck. 

“We'll help you unpack!”  Roger said when he looked at his watch.  “Only an hour and a half before you have to be done!”

The neighbors rushed to the truck as if there would be a firing squad waiting if the moving truck remained in the driveway one minute too long.  Roy couldn't help but ask.  “Or what?”

There was nervous laughter and most of them pretended they didn't hear his question.  Ed scanned the cul-de-sac.  “Well, Dad, hope you don't mind if I check things out.”

“Just make sure you announce yourself when you get home, son.”  Roy said and smirked.  “Your Mom and I might want to do some celebrating.”

“Ew.”  Ed said and closed his eyes. “I should report you to the authorities for even talking about that in front of me.”

“Still time for you to get a ride back with Uncle Jean.  You could check out the military academy or boarding school. I told you I wasn't going to make you come.... “ Roy then let a smirk creep across his face. Threat or not, he would make this kid retreat  “Your Mom on the other hand...”

“EW!”  Ed screamed.  “Dinner better be on the table when I get home, Dad.  And it better not be burnt.”

Roy watched him run off, annoyed that he couldn't force him to leave with the rest of the team.  He watched the neighbors struggle to unpack the moving truck with muscles they didn't have and an air of panic about then that made him wonder what could possibly happen if this truck was still here past 7.  

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“I didn't actually think you could cook.”  Ed said as he shoved food into his mouth and savored every bite.  “This is good.  Really good.”

Riza was enjoying dinner as well but she could see Roy was just picking at it, his fantasy vacation had been ruined when Ed volunteered to come along.   It was about the mission, Ed would be great at surveillance as a unruly teenager and even Roy had to admit that.  However he really wanted to live the fake married trope' to the fullest and Ed got in the way of that.   “Did you discover anything?”

“Every house looks alike.  There is a curfew.  This place creeps me out.”

Roy picked at dinner.   “You missed the neighbors practically running to their homes at 7.”

“That fountain in the middle of the community reminds me of  the one in Liore.”  Ed said and thought about it.  “Like old world religion-y and pretentious, spilling over with false hopes and promises and lies.”

“Dear Diary...” Roy mumbled.  “I moved in with my new fake family today and I am appalled by the uniformity and hopelessness seeping from every fiber of suburban life.  I feel so repressed.  Like this place will suck away my individuality.   Nobody understands me...I'm so edgy...”

Riza sighed.  “Here we go.”

Ed sat up in his seat and prepared to do his Mustang impression.  He ran his hand through his hair and waved his arm wildly and snapped.  “Well Fullmetal, maybe if you weren't so short sighted you would see I was planning to use this mission as a way to win over the love of my life, because the only way she'd fall for me is if was literally the only man in a fifty mile radius who wasn't part of some weird suburban drug cartel cult in the hills.”

They glared at each other until Riza stood and took away their plates.

“Wait, I wasn't done.”  Ed said.

“You two better not ruin this mission.”  Riza growled.

“He already has.”  Roy grumbled. “Why couldn't we bring the dog?”

“No dogs allowed.”  Riza put the plates back down as Ed looked at her with the most pitiful eyes and she couldn't deny him his meal.

“See, they're evil.”  Roy said. “Who doesn't allow dogs?”

“I'll go out tonight and see what I can find out.” Ed promised.

“Like all night?”  Roy asked and felt a kick to his shin.  “What?  We're married!”

“Fake married.”  She said.  

“I want to find out what happens when we violate the no loud noises after 10 pm rule.”  Roy said and heard Ed gag a little.  

“I hope she shoots you for being so...gross.”  Ed said and stood up to get a second helping.  “Which is not a reflection of how I feel about your cooking because this is really good.”

“Thanks.”

“You're the best cook Dad.”  Ed said and laughed.   “Best keep your ass in the kitchen where it belongs.”

Roy gave Riza a glance and she seemed so soft and relaxed, despite this being a mission and having to be careful what they said around Ed, she seemed to be enjoying herself. He still wished they brought the dog instead of Ed, but maybe this wouldn't be a ruined mission after all.  

[englishchinesetranslations]

Xinjiang. Hong Kong. Democracy. Racism. How does an American-educated Chinese talk to her mainland Chinese friends about these subjects? Connie Mei Pickart tried, and found that her companions were far from brainwashed in their views.

The reality was more worrisome.

Illustration by Derek Zhang

Connie Mei Pickart Connie is a writer based in Shanghai. Her writings focus on Chinese culture and society.

I was the one who brought up Xinjiang.

In the middle of dinner, our conversations turned to international politics, and someone lamented that the world just couldn’t see how awesome China really was. I said if I had to pinpoint a single reason for China’s image problem, at least in the last few years, it had to be Xinjiang.

As soon as she heard the X word, Mingjun looked up, her face turning dark. “What do you know about Xinjiang?” she asked.

I was taken aback by her reaction. “So you know about Xinjiang? What do you know?”

“You go first. You’re the one who brought it up.”

Unsure where this was going, I gave a quick summary of what I knew. The concentration camps, the human rights violations, and of course the Western reactions.

Mingjun didn’t like what I said, especially the last part. “See, this is what we call 站着说话不腰疼 (zhànzhe shuōhuà bù yāoténg)!” She lifted her right index finger, pointing tentatively at me.

The phrase 站着说话不腰疼 literally means “stand straight and talk without hurting your waist.” It describes a person who talks the talk without experiencing the walk. In this case, my classmate Mingjun was accusing Western journalists of criticizing China’s Xinjiang policy without understanding the issue’s complexities. “Why don’t you give it a try? Do you have any better solutions?” Her pitch kept going higher as she hurled each rhetorical question.

As it turns out, Mingjun came from a military family — a fact I was unaware of. In the past few years, some of her family members had been dispatched to Xinjiang to help maintain the region’s security. “Many people had died,” she said, referring to the Han Chinese victims of the 2009 Urumqi riots as well as subsequent attacks in 2014. She said the police patrolled the streets 24/7, and anyone with a slightly higher nose than a typical Han Chinese would be stopped for inspection.

“Isn’t that targeting the entire ethnicity?” I retorted.

“Mei ban fa!” She exclaimed. There’s just no other way.

“But see, that’s exactly why the West has been critical,” I said. “They come from a human rights perspective, and these innocent people have been deprived of their basic human rights. They’re humans, too, you know.”

“Yes, they’re humans, but what about the bigger population beyond the region? What about people of the entire country? Who’s accounting for their security?” At this point, Mingjun had become very agitated. To ease the tension, others around the table started agreeing with whatever she said in order to calm her down.

“And Western media just don’t understand China. If they don’t have a better solution, they should just shut up!”

“It’s not their job to provide solutions,” I continued. “Their job is to point out malfeasance when they see any…And to be fair, they criticize their own government just as harsh. Look how they treat Donald Trump!”

“Well I don’t think they’re so bad to him,” Mingjun smiled dismissively while looking away. She didn’t seem so confident about this one.

One person responded immediately: “You Americans aren’t any better! How long has the world endured America’s hegemony?”

When I came back to China four years ago, I was excited to finally be home. Even though I had become a U.S. citizen, I had always felt like a foreigner in America. Upon returning to China, I relished the fact that I no longer stood out from the crowd. Everyone around had my skin color, they spoke my language — finally, I’m back in my own land with my own people, I thought. Wasn’t that so?

Not quite. It turned out that my new American passport, along with my new perspectives on China, would alienate me from my old friends. Jokingly, they called me a foreigner, and while they accepted me back into their circle, there were few things we shared in common. After all, I had spent my entire adult life (minus college) in a foreign country, where I went to grad school and joined the workforce, whereas my friends had been institutionalized in the Chinese system.

But at least there was WeChat. I was happy when one of my friends pulled me into this WeChat group where the most interesting classmates from my elite middle school shared juicy gossip about everything and everyone. Most of them lived in Beijing. All of them had established successful careers in various sectors. I was delighted to join them, and even though I lived in Shanghai, I thought this was a great way to reconnect with friends whom I cherished. And talking online via social media wouldn’t be so bad — it would act as a buffer to my inadequate knowledge about today’s China.

Topics of our chats varied, but politics was a favorite. My friends often talked in coded language about political leaders that completely threw me off. Over time, I learned a few things. 长者 (zhǎng zhě), or “the senior,” refers to former president Jiang Zemin. 今上 (jīn shàng), “the present emperor,” refers to current president Xi Jinping. When I got information-hungry and asked questions such as, “How is the relationship between the senior and the present emperor?” everyone gave me a face-palm and stopped talking. Other times, when my questions weren’t so sensitive, they would humor me by explaining the social context which I had missed from being abroad. The men especially enjoyed explaining things to me. Back in school I had been the academic overachiever and class monitor who always seemed to know better, and now the roles were reversed.

The first time they ganged up on me was over the issue of U.S. deployment of THAAD in South Korea. China reacted strongly, seeing it as a threat to its national security. To put pressure on South Korea, the Chinese government orchestrated a series of boycotts against Korean businesses in China, including retail giant Lotte. Some Lotte stores were reportedly ransacked by nationalistic Chinese citizens. In our WeChat group, I expressed frustration with this tactic, calling it 土豪外交 (tǔháo wàijiāo) — “new-money diplomacy.”

One person responded immediately. “You Americans aren’t any better!” he said. “How long has the world endured America’s hegemony?” My response to that was, just because America did similar things doesn’t make it right. Lots of countries have corrupt leaders. Just because countries A, B, and C all have them doesn’t make the problem go away. He saw my point.

The second person, whom I’ll call Tang, thought I was gulled by media reports. According to him, there really weren’t that many boycotts. To prove his point, he contacted a travel agent while we were talking, asking her if recent trips to Korea had been cancelled. She said no. “See? Rumors can be easily dismissed. It’s the media that hypes things up,” Tang said. He also thought the nationalistic behaviors were among the few and didn’t represent the majority.

I responded by saying that one travel agency could hardly represent the whole picture, and that many media reports were indeed based on facts. Whether the boycotts were overwhelming or not, I said, the behavior should still be called into question.

As for the level of nationalism, many others weighed in. Some believed it was overwhelming, an act of group instinct that is often evident among the Chinese. One person pointed out that under China’s current education and propaganda systems, nationalism was inevitable.

I agreed. This is a sure way to cultivate ignorant masses which the government then manipulates according to its agenda, I said. The only way out is through proper education, by encouraging critical thinking.

“Yes, critical thinking is indeed lacking in our country,” someone commented. From there on, the conversations switched to how to educate our children at home. Most of my friends in the WeChat group had started families, so the discussion on education was personal. Since I did not have children of my own, I quietly left the conversation. But I was happy that my friends were willing to hear me out.

About a month later, I was notified by WeChat administrators that I had violated regulations. I was blocked for three days. I was never told what my violation was, but the conversation about THAAD was the closest thing I could think of.

The American scholar James Carey proposed that communication is a construction of a symbolic reality, a ritual through which shared beliefs are maintained, strengthened, and transformed.

On August 4, 2018, during a soccer game between Shanghai Shenhua and Changchun Yatai in China’s top league, a fight broke out between two players. Demba Ba, a French-born Senegalese player who signed a lease with Shanghai Shenhua three years earlier, accused Zhāng Lì 张力, a Chinese player from the opposing team, of hurling racist insults at him. According to Ba, Zhang kept shouting “You black!” at him, which spurred his immediate reaction. The dispute was handed over to the Chinese Football Association, and Zhang was punished for “disturbing regular orders of the game.” No word of racism was mentioned in the verdict.

In our WeChat group, discussions broke out over the issue of racism. Tang led the discussion. He said the West had a history of racism against blacks, but the Chinese simply weren’t racist.

I gaped. Just six months earlier, an Africa skit during the Chinese New Year Gala on CCTV had featured blackface and equated Africans with monkeys. A few years back, a laundry detergent commercial had featured a black man who was fed the detergent and pushed into a washing machine by a Chinese woman. When he came out, he was a light-skinned Asian. I brought up these two examples to support my counterargument.

“Fine,” Tang replied with a face palm. “Maybe there are racist Chinese, but I’m not one of them.”

“The point is not to judge,” I continued, “but to reflect on our cultural psyche and see how we can do better.”

For a moment, no one said anything, and I dropped my phone to carry on with my life, leaving WeChat on mute. Then Tang came back. “Black soccer players have been paid very well in China. For many Chinese, we just find their looks interesting, that’s all…And maybe this had nothing to do with racism at all. Maybe it was a cover for a foul.”

During that disputed game, before Ba and Zhang went after each other, Ba was fighting for the ball with another Chinese player on the opposing team, and the latter fell to the ground after the two collided in the air. That was when Zhang came to his teammate’s defense, allegedly calling Ba “You black.” Tang was referring to the collision before the conflict broke out.

Several others agreed with Tang. “The blacks in the league have a history of doing that,” one person said. “They commit nasty fouls.”

When I read this part of the discussion the following morning, I felt sick to my stomach. I understood that our WeChat conversations were casual and not to be taken too seriously, but I also saw the danger of such casual talk about another race — stereotypes sustained and cultural superiority reaffirmed. So I decided to speak out once again. I gave historic reasons for why we should be more sensitive toward Africans. Of all people, I said, we Chinese should be more sympathetic and empathetic to people in Africa, as we were both victims of colonialism. Empathy requires us to not see a country and its people through a lens of power, but to put ourselves in their shoes and to try and understand their struggles. Knowing my audience, I also added a buffer at the beginning of my response to save my classmate’s face. I applauded Tang for his kindness — “I fully believe that you’re not racist under any circumstances,” I said, “for I know personally that you’re a kind-hearted person.” I made my point general, not targeting anyone in the conversation.

After a few hours, Tang responded. “Whether this whole thing has to do with racism is beyond us,” he said. “Let’s not talk about this anymore.” Immediately, three other guys — also the opinion leaders of the group — gave him their thumbs up.

For the next few days, people kept chatting in the group about various topics. I chimed in once but was ignored. Amidst their conversations, the word empathy was used several times, always sarcastically, as if they were subtly mocking the person who brought it up first.

We paused for a few seconds, both of us looking away, perhaps realizing the unbridgeable gap widening between us. Then we perked up at the same time, both realizing it was time for a change of topic.

After the racism discussion, my friends became less responsive to any of my comments in the WeChat group. There were many times when I basically spoke to myself — even casual remarks over non-sensitive topics would go unanswered. The only person who regularly responded to me was Zoe. A human resources manager, Zoe had been living and working in Hong Kong for many years. Her husband owned a business in Shanghai, so she traveled frequently with her son back to the mainland to see him. I found Zoe to be one of the easiest classmates to talk to since returning to China. Living in Hong Kong, she was exposed to Western media without internet censorship, and that seemed to be the grounds for our mutual understanding.

After the Hong Kong protests broke out in June, Zoe began feeding our WeChat group with updates. She was against the protests from the beginning. Everything she shared with us proved that the protesters were ignorant and destructive. Even just through WeChat, her anxiety was hard to miss.

Over the weeklong October holiday on the mainland, Zoe fled Hong Kong with her son. She spent the week in Shanghai with her husband, reveling in the peaceful and glamorous night scenes along the Bund. “Shanghai has developed so much in the last few years,” she lamented when we had breakfast together. “Life is so rich and convenient here. You have all kinds of entertainment for kids, and they’re all accessible. The Hong Kongers just don’t get it. They live in their own little bubble.”

By then the protests had been going on for four months, with tensions escalating between the young protesters and the Hong Kong government and police. While mainstream Western media had shown solidarity with what they considered the liberal fighters of Hong Kong, the Chinese media had built a different narrative. The protests were defined as a separatist movement. State media also pointed fingers at external forces, such as the United States, which allegedly were meddling in Hong Kong affairs. Meanwhile, commercial media joined in to solidify public opinion on the mainland. A number of in-depth analyses were widely circulated on social media, the gist of these being that a socioeconomic divide within Hong Kong society was the real culprit behind the public discontent. Real estate moguls like Li Ka-Shing (李嘉诚 Lǐ Jiāchéng) had driven up property prices for their own gain, leaving common citizens economically trapped. The mainland public appeared to have reached a consensus, that the Hong Kong protesters were ignorant and had wrong assessment of the situation: They think they are oppressed by an authoritarian government, but they are actually oppressed by the rich people amongst themselves.

Zoe agreed with this narrative. “The Hong Kongers just don’t see it. They love Li Ka-Shing over there!” In our WeChat group, Zoe sarcastically painted the protesters as ignorant youngsters who naively believed democracy could bring them bread and butter.

“But don’t you think they’re also fighting for their identity?” I asked, bringing up the sociocultural differences between Hong Kong and the mainland, the same differences that had drawn Zoe to Hong Kong in the first place. “See, I can understand the Hong Kongers,” I said. “They have been living in a different system. They’re different from the mainlanders. But all the changes from Beijing are stoking fears among them. When you have plainclothes police from the mainland arresting people from Hong Kong’s hotel, how would the general public feel?”

Zoe laughed. “What plainclothes police? I don’t know anything about it,” she shook her head dramatically. “I’m just an innocent citizen, haha.”

I was referring to the secret arrest of billionaire Xiào Jiànhuá 肖建华 by mainland agents from Hong Kong’s Four Seasons Hotel in 2017, which Zoe was clearly aware of. She jokingly appeared unaware, as if to steer clear of political trouble, a routine act we had grown accustomed to within the mainland. “But seriously,” she said, “those things have nothing to do with the general public. As long as you’re not in trouble with Beijing, why would you worry about mainland agents?”

In regards to the student activists, Zoe held a cynical view. She spoke of Joshua Wong, one of the protests leaders, with obvious contempt, remarking that he had been a “talented instigator of public emotions” since he was a child. She believed that only the high-profiled student leaders could gain something out of the protests, such as international sympathy and/or a political career. On Nathan Law, another student activist who had left Hong Kong to study at Yale, she said it was typical that leaders like him benefited personally at the expense of other protesters’ blood. “I go to Yale; you go to jail,” she sneered. “Humans are all the same. They’re after the same things.”

At this point, I began to feel the barricade between Zoe and myself. I had hoped for a balanced view on the Hong Kong issue, and I thought of all people Zoe would hold such views. On many accounts I agreed with her — we were both against violence by the protesters, for example. But her overall tone was dismissive, and her condemnation of the protests went beyond a resident’s anxiety. When I brought up the fact that many of the protests were indeed peaceful, she rolled her eyes. “Of course you can make them to be,” she said.

Zoe’s son enrolled at a public school in Hong Kong a year ago and was now in second grade. She was concerned about the messages he received at school. There were rallies in support of the protests initiated by both teachers and parents, and in such an environment, she worried her son might be singled out. At first, I thought she would worry about her son being influenced by his school environment, but apparently that was not an issue. “Whatever brainwashing he gets at school, I de-brainwash him at home. That’s just the way it is. A child’s mind has to be filled with something, and I make sure it’s filled with things that will help him survive in the future.” Over the 20-some years I had known Zoe, she had always been a realist, shrewd to discern what’s in her best interest, and it only makes sense that she’s passing on her realism to her son. She frequently brings her son on short trips to different parts of the mainland. “I want him to know China. After all, it’s China that’s going to feed us.”

We paused for a few seconds, both of us looking away, perhaps realizing the unbridgeable gap widening between us. Then we perked up at the same time, both realizing it was time for a change of topic.

“So I saw some of our classmates recently,” I said.

“Oh that’s right! Mingjun was there, right?” Zoe was aware of the dinner I had with Mingjun and company, whom she had also met up with on a recent trip. “What was the heated discussion about again?”

I had mentioned to Zoe about the tension over dinner. I recounted our discussion about Xinjiang.

“Mingjun is considered someone within the system, so you can’t blame her for taking the official stance on Xinjiang,” Zoe said. She was right. During our discussion, Mingjun had more than once claimed — proudly — that she was a child of the Party.

“Yes, I understand that,” I replied. “But what made me uncomfortable was her disregard for the Uyghur lives that were affected.”

“See, that’s the thing,” Zoe sipped her coffee while she continued. “What exactly is happening within those camps? Personally, if all they’re doing is just reeducation, I can accept that.”

Another pause. I decided not to ask the question on my mind. What I wanted to know was, if it happened to your family, would you still accept it? Zoe was herself a Muslim.

It was past noon when Zoe’s husband called. He was waiting for her to join him and his business friends at a hotpot restaurant nearby. As we walked out together, she lamented how much life had changed within three generations. “My grandparents had received honorary medals from the government,” she said. On the eve of the People’s Republic of China’s 70th anniversary this year, the Beijing government had awarded commemorative medals to people who had contributed to the founding of the country. Apparently Zoe’s grandparents were among the honorees. “And here I am living in capitalist Hong Kong!” she chuckled. “My grandma had a hard time when I first moved to Hong Kong. She said how dare you go on this deviant path of capitalism! But I’m still not that deviant compared to you. If I were you, she’d probably kill me!” She looked at me and laughed.

We reached the restaurant, where we hugged goodbye. “Be safe,” I said.

“I will.” She gave me a long hug, as she always did. Then she said: “I will be back soon, permanently.”

“What is democracy in the end? It’s the powerless and the dispossessed fantasizing power and money being shared with them. In a sense, it’s very much like Communism.”

My meeting with Zoe lingered on my mind for a long time. I thought about what she said, and I realized I had not been sensitive enough in my discussions with my classmates. The bottom line is, we stand at different vantage points when we view China. I approach it from a liberal and humanist perspective, while my classmates view China from inside the system, into which they have been integrated and are expected to conform. For me, it’s natural to draw the line between the country and the ruling Communist Party, rooting for the former and critical of the latter. But I cannot expect the same from my friends. The CCP is, after all, an organically integrated part of Chinese history and reality. Its path is intertwined with so many individual lives that to separate the Party from the country is to cut a piece out of a wood box. For people like Mingjun and Zoe, whose families are part of the establishment, how can anyone expect them to place liberal values above party loyalty?

If there’s one thing I’m certain about, it’s the fact that none of my friends, however nationalistic, blindly follow propaganda. They choose to conform on their own. For many, it’s about economic interests, the old unspoken pact between the government and civilians that “I’ll make you rich if you accept my authority.” The tradeoff is evident in Zoe’s attitude toward Hong Kong and the mainland. But underneath the tradeoff is a blend of pragmatism and cynicism. Last month, when Zoe once again updated our WeChat group on the latest in Hong Kong, one person said that Hong Kong was now causing “aesthetic fatigue.” Instead, “let’s talk about Double Eleven” — China’s Black Friday-like online shopping bonanza.

“Yes,” Tang agreed. “What is democracy in the end? It’s the powerless and the dispossessed fantasizing power and money being shared with them. In a sense, it’s very much like Communism.”

“Indeed,” another person said. “Democratic or socialist, each system has its own way of fooling people, but we’re past the point of believing in any of them. Don’t just draw the bread on paper. Give us real bread.”

Cynics abound in other countries too, and indeed some of America’s best cynics, who are highly critical of their own government, make liberals like me proud. But for whatever reason, cynicism doesn’t deter my friends from siding with the government. Per our Hong Kong discussions, many in our WeChat group questioned the validity of “One Country, Two Systems.” They said it should be abandoned sooner than later, and that Beijing should clean up Hong Kong with an iron fist. “Back then, we didn’t have a choice.” Tang said. “We had to kneel and lick the boots of the British. But things are different now. We’re much stronger.” It seems as if my friends, like many other Chinese citizens, have adopted the country’s newfound strength for their own, and siding with the government gives them a sense of belonging. As China’s social environment becomes increasingly stringent, nationalism seems the only currency to prove one’s devotion to the country.  Any criticism, either from within or beyond the borders, is deemed deviant or malicious.

On October 1, as China celebrated the 70th anniversary of the PRC, my WeChat moments were filled with patriotic sentiment. Many of my classmates posted pictures from the awe-inspiring military parade on Tiananmen Square. “The Republic has walked past 70 tremendous years, and we’ve come a long way. Proud of you, my dear motherland!” one person remarked. While the parade was being aired on state-owned television, our WeChat group was also filled with festive messages. Everyone weighed in on the spectacle: the uniforms, the weaponry, the female soldiers, President Xi’s speech his makeup…

Amid this chatter, one person in our group commented on a recent experience on Twitter. Despite the social media platform being blocked in China, she often climbs the great firewall with the help of a VPN. On Twitter, she said she had been fed outrageous messages by Chinese dissidents living overseas. On this special occasion, she said, they were ready to make trouble, their attacks on China fiercer than ever.

“Why is that?” Tang responded. “Why are these yellow-skinned, Chinese-speaking, highly educated people so bent on demonizing their home country?”

I observed their discussions from my phone, uncomfortable about joining in. I thought of the American scholar James Carey and his seminal theory on communication, which I had learned in grad school. Rather than viewing communication as a transmission of information, Carey proposed that it is a construction of a symbolic reality, a ritual through which shared beliefs are maintained, strengthened, and transformed.

This projection of community ideals and their embodiment in material form — dance, plays, architecture, news stories, strings of speech — creates an artificial though nonetheless real symbolic order that operates to provide not information but confirmation, not to alter attitudes or change minds but to represent an underlying order of things, not to perform functions but to manifest an ongoing and fragile social process.

I believe I was witnessing one of the largest rituals of the century, a manifestation of a country’s newfound strength and power. It is exactly through participation in such events, whether in the streets of Tiananmen or at home in front of a television, that Chinese citizens come to unite under the Party’s vision for the country. To share in its vision means to conform, to personify the country’s increasingly sharp edges, and to ostracize dissent.

But does it have to be this way? I keep asking myself these days. Is uniformity the best way to tap the potential of 1.4 billion people, or is it to cover up the dire problems that China must resolve in order to fulfill its ambitions? And are people really as unified as the Party claims?

Toward the end of my dinner with Mingjun and other friends, she suggested I download an app called Xuéxí Qiángguó 学习强国. Literally translated as “study to strengthen the country,” the platform is overseen by the government’s propaganda department, which produces instructional content for the general public and party members in particular. The app’s content ranges from CCP history to Xi Jinping’s most recent speech, from Chinese medicine to tourist attractions. “This way,” Mingjun told me, “you can familiarize yourself with China’s perspective and hopefully correct your Western bias.” As a party member, Mingjun was required to earn a certain amount of study points each month. She pulled out her phone and swiped through the app. She asked the person across the table — a fellow party member — how many points she had earned this month.

“I’ve earned more points than you!” Mingjun exclaimed.

Then she turned to the person sitting next to her. “But to be honest, everything is ‘Xi Jinping says.'” She lowered her voice, her hand hovering over her mouth. “I think it’s a bit excessive.”