#meta and things

[memorydragon]

Yup, still on my gay coproganda bs.

One of the more interesting things about Jiang Ting's character is how much he doesn't actually want to be a character. His defense mechanism is to turn the question around. We first see this when Yan Xie confronts him the first time about being 'Captain Jiang'. He asks Jiang Ting what he has to say about all of the things he'd uncovered about Jiang Ting's past, and Jiang Ting's response is "What do you want 'Captain Jiang' to say? Tell me and I'll say it."

And he does this so often. He could lie, he could tell a half-truth, instead he asks what the other person wants to hear. What they want him to be.

And guess what? I'm totally normal about that. XD

The earliest memory we have of him is as a child, cleaning his father's body and being grateful that he wasn't beaten today. He's too young to understand that his father overdosed (we get no information about his mother) and is already dead. He's too young to realize that the majority of the people in his small village are either addicts or dealers, that it's a miracle he was born without HIV. When he's sent to the orphanage, he's isolated and bullied, internalized that he's unclean and unlovable when he looks in the mirror. When Yan Xie gets angry at the corruption in the orphanage Bu Wei grew up in, he just replies that 'It's like that, in places like these.'

When Ma Xiang confronts him, asking him who he is really. Is he the mole that got Yan Xie shot and nearly killed, lying on an operating room table while they waited for news? Jiang Ting says it himself, he's the most suspicious out of all of them, because even swept under the rug, the rest of the division Knows something is off about their 'Consultant Lu'. Jiang Ting doesn't define himself. He says "I'm who your Yan-ge thinks I am."

Yan Xie listens to the half-truths he's spun about himself after he dragged Jiang Ting out of the river, and Jiang Ting tells him: The safest thing for you is to hand me over to the police. I can't make myself believe you, because I have nothing now. I can't respond to this feeling, because I don't want to lie to you. Whether you hand me in or not is up to you.

He even does this to Wen Shao, when his loyality is probed. "What do you want me to say?" Except Wen Shao thinks he understands Jiang Ting the best, that only Jiang Ting understands him. Jiang Ting tells the truth then, that the one who understood his reasons wasn't him. Yan Xie was the one who correctly guessed the motives.

Because Jiang Ting has never been wanted as himself. He was the child of drug addicts, tossed into a orphanage where the corruption was rampant and money went into the adult's hands more often than not. When he finally found a friend, someone who liked him and didn't chase him away, his first thought is of saving his friend. Wen Shao has money and a family who loves him, so it's okay if he dies as long as Wen Shao lives. When his friend betrays him, saves himself first, Jiang Ting is happy.

Except his first friend, the person who says now everything I have is yours and you will be my only brother, the one person who likes someone like Jiang Ting, is the son of a drug lord. He forces the kidnappers who hurt them to take heroin, then turns to Jiang Ting and asks if he's happy now.

The child who watched his father overdose and has finally learned to understand what drugs are, is forced to watch more people die the same way by the one person who was supposed to love him.

He's happy. He's very happy. (The lie is so weak - he's ten years old and he's never had to hide himself like this before, despite everything. He's only just realizing that his first lie was already made, because he can't be loyal to Wen Shao, not like this. But he lies, because what else can he do? )

Wu Tun adopted him to keep his son, Wen Shao, in check. He's a pawn, put into a good school and groomed to be a policeman with padded pockets who will let the drug cartel off. He hates - hates - that he has no choice in this, he just has to become the pawn Wu Tun wants.

Wen Shao returns and he's brought new, even worse drugs with him. He wants his Red Queen on his side, gives Jiang Ting an apartment to rest in, to take care of things that would be 'inconvienent' otherwise, and Jiang Ting hates and hates even more.

So he plans to kill the King of Spades, then take out the Ace of Clubs. It can't erase what he is, but maybe he can move forward. All the over time, the stress, the loneliness will be worth it. (I'm so very very Normal about how he can't just agree to hanging out with his coworkers, how he over thinks and decides half way to take the agreement back and say 'let's talk about it tomorrow'. Because he wants to go, for the first time in his life he wants to do something as simple as going out with coworkers - possibly friends.)

Except he's been sold out. His plan falls through. His team dies and he'll never be able to talk about it tomorrow, and when he runs into the fire, all that's left for him is three years of being comatose and the King of Spades going free.

When he meets Yan Xie, he hides. He wants to be what Yan Xie wants him to be, but he can't. He's still tied as the Queen of Hearts, haunted by the sins he's committed and the people who died. He comments that Yan Xie is blind falling for someone like him, calling him beautiful all the time. That this crush that he'd never allowed himself to pursue has come back into his life and wants to be picked by him.

The Red Queen's heart that was so full of hate now has something else. But even if Yan Xie was blind now, would he still love Jiang Ting when he saw the truth?

He hides and he hides and lies, and when the cards are drawn, he finally tells the truth, finds something to define himself by. "I love you, Yan Xie."

Yan Xie's faith in him is already broken. It has to be broken further. The best lie is the one that is the truth that no one believes.

[gossippool]

*steeples hands under my chin like i'm sherlock* so you see,

[saints-who-never-existed]

“In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy—as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh—as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege—as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover—as long as he is riddled with bullets. 

Violence makes the homo-eroticism of many “male” genres invisible; it is a structural mechanism of plausible deniability.”

–Tarantino’s Incarnational Theology: Reservoir Dogs, Crucifixions, and Spectacular Violence. Kent L. Brintnall.

[willgrahamscock]

crowley must have known that aziraphale was also in love with him, he tidied the bookshop, he was planning on taking him to the Ritz after his confession, he had their song queued in the car these are not acts of someone who wasn't sure what the outcome will be.

which makes it so much more painful that he still confessed his love for aziraphale with tears in his eyes and on the verge of a full blown panic attack, he left saying "don't bother" but he still waited by his car til the elevator doors closed. all because

[raynewolferune]

DC x DP Prompt: Bruce is bad at emoting but at least ghosts are empathic (too bad bat kids are not)

Was reading Twincognito on AO3 when I stumbled across this gem again:

~

" “Danny, Tim. I was just…checking in. Is everything alright?” Curse his inability to make meaningful conversation when it wasn’t a life or death situation.

They glanced at each other and shrugged.

Then Danny hauled himself out of the bed and walked over to Bruce.

Bruce tried not to let too much excitement show on his face. "

~

Now I really want to read a story where Bruce adopts Danny post Meta trafficking and is being his usual emotionally constipated self. His kids keep getting mad at him because he's treating their new meta brother who was trafficked poorly (generally being stilted in conversation with him, walking away hurriedly mid-conversation, avoiding Danny when he's feeling really awkward, etc). They think Bruce is discriminating against Danny for being a civilian, meta, dealer's pick, but really it's just Bruce being horribly socially awkward. Danny knows this because of ghost empathy and find the whole thing hilarious. The whole thing comes to a head with the Bat Kids staging an intervention in the Bat Cave.

[azulhood]

DPxDC crossover but, instead of Danny being his ghostly-horror self, the justice league believe that he's just some guy.

Danny: *glowing eyes, sharp teeth, aura of eldritch being*

Villain: You're seeing this right?

Justice league: *turns around to find all the ghostly stuff gone* oh that's Danny *waves* hi Danny!

Villain: ...are you being serious right now?

It's not even that he's doing it on purpose, it's just anytime he does ghost things none of the heros are looking, and when they do have him in their sights he's just a normal person.

It probably wouldn't work for batman and his thousand cameras, but let's just say that it never got his attention cause no one in the league thought to mention it and the one time he did check it was just regular dude hours.

To the Justice league Danny is the humanist human to ever human.

Which is why they are so confused as to why this small branch of the government (mad scientist parents optional) is so sure he isn't.

[essayofthoughts]

Genuinely, I think one of the most fun and crunchy things about any character is

How far they will go for things they want

What they will do to get things they want

Things they won't do, no matter how much they want what they'd get in exchange

Because these things tell you some very important things about the character, namely their limits, their price, and their absolute No's. (And it lets you create some really REALLY crunchy conflict)

[bloominglegumes]

i love normal guys doomed by the narrative

[onlysomewhatsane]

Ok ok ok SO!

I think everyone has realized that Leola was autistic. It was heavily implied both through the flashback images and Aaravos' narration-

She lined up her toys, flapped her hands (it was also shown in the trial scene), seemed to be sensitive towards loud sounds (like the other startouch elves when they talked), and walked on her tiptoes. All of those are classic signs of autism.

But there's one thing I haven't seen anyone else bring up, and that's that her giving her human friends magic and breaking the "cosmic order" or whatever could also be because of her neurotype!

Autistic people tend to have very strict senses of morality and fairness, and will disregard rules if they don't fit their idea of right or wrong. Personal example here, I used to constantly do things I was told not to because I thought the rules in question were bogus.

It's not hard to guess that Leola would find the rules about humans not having magic to be unfair- after all, her and all the other elves, and even the animals around them are full of it! So in the mind of an autistic child, this would be incredibly unfair. And she had the power to "fix" the situation! So why wouldn't she?

Why wouldn't she try to help her friends? Because it would break the cosmic order? That's vague as hell and she was a KID!

And the startouch elves atomized her, for breaking a rule she probably only half understood and thought was stupid. Because she was autistic.

Had this thought and wanted to share, makes the whole thing even more tragic.

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[youryurigoddess]

Aziraphale is a keeper of the divine order who instinctively creates clutter and turmoil. Crowley is an agent of chaos who stress cleans like an addict. These two ineffable idiots really are perfect for each other.

[memorydragon]

If you're thinking Mem, you haven't spoken this much in years! What's wrong with you!?

Po Yun and Tun Hai are what's wrong with me. And if no one else is going to be shouting to the void about it, I will do it myself. (You should be glad that the majority of Huai Shang's novels are a flat out hard no for me, otherwise you'd probably never hear the end of it)

Misconceptions get a bad rep in plot, largely due to people hating on when misconceptions are done poorly. This happens quite a lot, because the misconceptions draw on for too long and honestly, just talk to each other. Swallowing the Seas starts with misconceptions, but honestly, I thought it was done really well.

For starters, the misconceptions start from things that are in character. Wu Yu has been in the South City Sub-bureau for two months prior to the start of the start of the action. During that time, he worked the bare minimum, made no real contributions, and was there because one of the higher ups said he's on the team.

Bu Chonghua, one of the youngest Captains in Criminal Investigation sees this guy who got in through the back door and immediately hates him. Bu Chonghua may have come from an illustrious background, but he also worked really fucking hard to get where he is. He worked that hard because he watched as his parents were murdered in front of him when he was nine years old, and he's been told he had to live to get revenge and take down the drug lord who ordered the hit. He sees the murder victims who come across his desk as people who are still waiting for justice, just like he is, and he'll be damned if they don't get it, no matter what the personal cost to himself.

So when this guy is put on his team without warning, and he's told to play nice with the new guy because the top brass want him there, Bu Chonghua is ready to pick every single fight until Wu Yu finally gives up and leaves. He has no time for someone who just wants a paycheck from the government. The only ones who can keep someone from murdering a second or third victim is them, and Wu Yu isn't cutting it.

What he doesn't know is that Wu Yu is essentially in Witness Protection, because the higher ups thought it was a brilliant idea not to tell anyone. Wu Yu faked his results in therapy because he assumed it was something he needed a good grade in (Listen, I'm really fucked up over the fact that Wu Yu had never heard of the term ptsd until Bu Chonghua explains it and brutally shuts down any talk of someone with ptsd being weak or crazy. They never thought to explain it to him. As someone who has watched the government do fuck all for someone in my family, even knowing it wasn't all their fault, it hits hard). That he spent twelve years undercover, ten of which were when he was abandoned by everyone his superiors, while he was on the front lines and still doing the one person who mattered to him's his damned job, infiltrating drug rings, finally getting to the top. That when he was finally pulled out, the one person who knew what he'd done and held his future in his hands jumped to his death before giving Wu Yu the credit.

When Bu Chonghua realizes Wu Yu is inexplicably in intense physical pain, he spends half the day trying to force Wu Yu to admit it, then drags him to the hospital and pays the bill and starts to notice that Wu Yu is constantly on guard of something, even if he doesn't know what. He observes more, stops picking fights and takes a knife that should have gone through Wu Yu's head with his shoulder. He resents that Wu Yu sees him as the same sort of person who would sacrifice their agent to make the arrest, but he resents that Wu Yu is apparently so disgusted with him that he won't eat anything Bu Chonghua has touched, but he's backed off and will bide his time to prove it. He's no longer picking fights, instead looking out for Wu Yu, telling him not to fight the victim's family in front of cameras and hiding the knife with Wu Yu's finger prints (no, really, is it Coproganda when oh my fucking god, if this weren't fiction there are So Many Things Wrong with this. I mean obviously it's coproganda because this is considered helping the protag, but hi, I did not need more reasons to be terrified of the police here) because he's going to prove it.

Wu Yu just wants enough money to retire from the world and never interact with anyone again. He has not integrated in the society that never wanted him, though he knows how to keep his head down and pretend because he's been undercover for so long, what's a few more years? He enters illegal boxing rings to get more money, fights absolutely brutally to win, because he's still on the front lines even when he's supposed to be 'safe' and 'home'. He's never had 'home' so he doesn't recognize it. He recognizes drugs, because he's been a dealer since he was child. He hates drugs because he has no other way to survive. He hates cops, because he's been on the other side for too long and knows how terrible they are.

So when he sees Bu Chonghua, an elite who has enough money to do whatever he wants, who went to good schools and never had to worry about anything, Wu Yu hates him. He sees the arrogance and pride that comes from someone who has never wanted for anything, has never had to struggle for anything. He knows how hollow words like 'justice' and 'honor' are and sees Bu Chonghua as everything he's ever wanted but could never have.

What he doesn't know is that Bu Chonghua is the child he risked his life to save when he was trying to illegally cross the border, the child that he gave up his chance at a new life for, because he over heard how the drug dealers were taking a detour to torture and kill a couple of cops to find out the identity of the undercover agent who hurt their boss. That even though he ran as fast as he could to warn them, all he managed to do was drag the child into the closet and restrain him as his parents are shot in front of him, let the nine year old bite his palm hard enough to draw blood to keep him from crying out. That Bu Chonghua is the child he dragged out of the house the drug dealers set on fire and ran with desperately until the kid couldn't run anymore. How he was only a year or two older than the kid who just wanted to go back and be with his parents, but he tells him that he has to live to get revenge. And as he leaves his blood on the boy's cheek before he hides the kid and bolts off to lead the drug dealers away, never to be part of that life again. He doesn't know how that small moment will do what the man who didn't jump off the roof could not.

He doesn't know how Bu Chonghua will literally walk through fire and water to get to him, because he's been chasing after Wu Yu for twenty years, and no matter how dangerous it is, he'll come to find him. That Bu Chonghua refuses to accept this fate, and will tell the officer that the person dying in the fire is under his command, and he willingly chooses die as well, because that's called Devotion. (If you're asking, Mem, are you okay? No, I'm fucking no where near okay, that's called devotion and I'm a perfectly acceptable level of unhinged about that, thank you very much)

But he sees Bu Chonghua taking the knife for him, and he reconsiders. He can barely understand why Bu Chonghua is being so gentle with him when he's dry heaving because there's nothing left in his stomach because he can't handle even the smallest taste of meat and he's thrown up on his Captain's shirt, but Bu Chonghua just tells him the story of his dumbass cousin (Yan Xie, why are you like that. -_-;;) and makes him laugh instead of yelling. And it's hard to get over his natural prejudices, but he marks Bu Chonghua as a 'safe' person. Is this what 'home' is?

Then Wu Yu sees Bu Chonghua as someone who is perfect and shouldn't be dragged down. Then Bu Chonghua dirties his own hands which are already unclean, because he's been following after Wu Yu for so long without even realizing it so that the most perfect person to him will stop putting him on a pedestal.

The misunderstandings and misconceptions build and fall like sandcastles in the waves, standing strong because they were shaped by who they both are, but crumbling once they finally see the other person.

And if you're waiting for me to be less unhinged about this gay coproganda, you've still got a while to wait, sorry not sorry.

[gossippool]

rewatching deadpool & wolverine again for fanfic characterisation purposes (part 2) and can we talk about this scene where logan says "you don't want this"

all the other wolverines wade visited had no qualms with attacking him (even little miss cavillrine!) the moment he stepped foot into their space. THIS logan ☝🏼 was suffering not only from whiskey dick of the claws but also whiskey dick of the violence

this logan is the only one that hesitated using his claws on wade, or didn't at least respond with aggressiveness (by his standards). we talk a lot about how his blow up at wade in the honda odyssey is really just him projecting, but so is this. when he tells wade "you don't want this", it's him who doesn't want it—he doesn't want to fight anymore, doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore. look at the expression on his face when he says it. he's so fucking tired of it all

[my-castles-crumbling]

Guys PLEAAAASSSSEEEEEEEE stop using AI for fanart. I know so many amazing people who literally spend HOURS creating art. HOURS. And they do it for free, or for very little. To use AI for fanart so incredibly insulting to them.

Want art? Find something that's created and boost their work by reblogging!

Better yet, commission an artist! So many of these people are using commissions to pay for rent, or other bills, or fucking top surgery. Don't take that from them.

Stop using fucking AI.

[willgrahamscock]

Oh, god. I understand now. This look Aziraphale has right after Crowley kissed him. I didn't understand why he'd look disgusted when we as the audience know that their feelings are mutual, and as Neil hinted, they both wanted to confess in this episode, but the Metatron changed that. "Do it again."

Richard Siken//Good Omens

[nenoname]

It's still interesting that TBoB called more attention to Stan's control over his mindscape (And if you go with the interpretation that the lost pages are partial truths that are heavily influenced by Bill, then he's the one insisting that only someone with training should be able to have that much control over the mind.)

Meanwhile we have a memory!Stan. Someone who apparently knows too much and is rather aware for being a simple memory.

From the Wheel of Shame, we know Bill was able dig up all kinds of dirt on Stan but... that wasn't why he was there in the first place, was it?

Bill couldn't find the code immediately despite a memory of Stan opening the safe being a few hours old at most and decided to have Mabel try find it for him (The original concept of the ep had it far more hidden but this was likely cut because of time constraints)

Ford did experiments on Stan's mind which likely meant using Project Mentem and actually looking around his mindscape, and his only reaction was to comment on his jokes-- despite what little we the audience know being enough to render us sobbing wrecks

(yes I refuse to shut up about this part cos the book's intro is extremely underrated)

Stan was able to replace his memories of Ford with the swingset instead and managed to hide Ford in his Bar Mitzvah memory. And that's not even mentioning the lack of visible Portal and Stan o' War which noticeably show up in Ford's dreamscape (the broken swingset manifesting anyway pains me tho)

He subconsciously has misdirects for his secrets that are both silly and manages to disturb everyone too

And while Bill-as-Soos being bored by the vending machine memory is a joke that's basically the crew's way of going "hey remember the thing way back in the first ep that's going to show up in the next one?" and in-universe appears to be Stan slipping up, it's interesting that they had Stan input the wrong code when it's consistent literally every other time its inputted (especially when it shows up correctly in the very next episode)

It's even possible that the safe code that Bill found could have been a misdirect too but we'll never know since the safe got blown open by dynamite.

Stan was able to buy time by making his mind blank despite being genuinely terrified when Bill enters his mind (to the point that he breaks character and uses his own voice to yell), and could conjure up his living room (in colour opposed to his mind's regular greyscale) to make sure Bill didn't have enough room to flee, slamming the door in his face before the effects of the memory gun kicked in.

(EDIT: Random door analysis here)

And maybe the twins eventually told him that Bill had already been inside his mind after their W3 reunion, but all we know was that his conscious self was left in the dark for ages and wasn't really aware of Bill until Weirdmageddon.

TBoB showing McGucket's dreamscape also brings up the idea of the effects of the memory gun manifesting differently to each person. To Stan's mindscape, the memory wipe manifests as blue flames which immediately brings to mind Bill's powers but it's a far lighter shade (maybe to more closely match the memory gun and its eventual fade to white?)

The end of TBoB and the website poem also firmly reminds us about Stan's connection to fire but there's also the question if Stan himself is actually aware of it...