#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.

[bloominglegumes]

i love normal guys doomed by the narrative

[fandomislife03]

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

[gale-force-storm]

Thinking about the fact that, to pull Gale from the stone and get him in the game at all, you have to decide to try to touch an extremely dangerous looking swirling mass of unstable magic. Something that is, objectively, a terrible idea

Like, the options it gives you are to either touch the sigil or leave, and if you leave you just... don't get Gale in the party

You have to take the risk. You have to let your curiosity override your common sense. You have to look at this unstable, possibly dangerous malfunctioning magic sigil and go "...Ok, but what if I poke it?"

In short, to get Gale in your party, you have to do exactly what he would in that situation, and indulge in a moment of reckless curiosity. And I just think that's delightful

[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

[whetstonefires]

You know what I realize that people underestimate with Pride & Prejudice is the strategic importance of Jane.

Because like, I recently saw Charlotte and Elizabeth contrasted as the former being pragmatic and the latter holding out for a love match, because she's younger and prettier and thinks she can afford it, and that is very much not what's happening.

The Charlotte take is correct, but the Elizabeth is all wrong. Lizzie doesn't insist on a love match. That's serendipitous and rather unexpected. She wants, exactly as Mr. Bennet says, someone she can respect. Contempt won't do. Mr. Bennet puts it in weirdly sexist terms like he's trying to avoid acknowledging what he did to himself by marrying a self-absorbed idiot, but it's still true. That's what Elizabeth is shooting for: a marriage that won't make her unhappy.

She's grown up watching how miserable her parents make one another; she's not willing to sign up for a lifetime of being bitter and lonely in her own home.

I think she is very aware, in refusing Mr. Collins, that it's reasonably unlikely that anyone she actually respects is going to want her, with her few accomplishments and her lack of property. That she is turning down security and the chance keep the house she grew up in, and all she gets in return may be spinsterhood.

But, crucially, she has absolute faith in Jane.

The bit about teaching Jane's daughters to embroider badly? That's a joke, but it's also a serious potential life plan. Jane is the best creature in the world, and a beauty; there's no chance at all she won't get married to someone worthwhile.

(Bingley mucks this up by breaking Jane's heart, but her prospects remain reasonable if their mother would lay off!)

And if Elizabeth can't replicate that feat, then there's also no doubt in her mind that Jane will let her live in her house as a dependent as long as she likes, and never let it be made shameful or awful to be that impoverished spinster aunt. It will be okay never to be married at all, because she has her sister, whom she trusts absolutely to succeed and to protect her.

And if something eventually happens to Jane's family and they can't keep her anymore, she can throw herself upon the mercy of the Gardeners, who have money and like her very much, and are likewise good people. She has a support network--not a perfect or impregnable one, but it exists. It gives her realistic options.

Spinsterhood was a very dangerous choice; there are reasons you would go to considerable lengths not to risk it.

But Elizabeth has Jane, and her pride, and an understanding of what marrying someone who will make you miserable costs.

That's part of the thesis of the book, I would say! Recurring Austen thought. How important it is not to marry someone who will make you, specifically, unhappy.

She would rather be a dependent of people she likes and trusts than of someone she doesn't, even if the latter is formally considered more secure; she would rather live in a happy, reasonable household as an extra than be the mistress of her own home, but that home is full of Mr. Collins and her mother.

This is a calculation she's making consciously! She's not counting on a better marriage coming along. She just feels the most likely bad outcome from refusing Mr. Collins is still much better than the certain outcome of accepting him. Which is being stuck with Mr. Collins forever.

Elizabeth is also being pragmatic. Austen also endorses her choice, for the person she is and the concerns she has. She's just picking different trade-offs than Charlotte.

Elizabeth's flaw is not in her own priorities; she doesn't make a reckless choice and get lucky. But in being unable to accept that Charlotte's are different, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Charlotte.

Because realistically, when your marriage is your whole family and career forever, and you only get to pick the ones that offer themselves to you, when you are legally bound to the status of dependent, you're always going to be making some trade-offs.

😂 Even the unrealistically ideal dream scenario of wealthy handsome clever ethical Mr. Darcy still asks you to undergo personal growth, accommodate someone else's communication style, and eat a little crow.

[biceratops7]

Dang it guys

we only ever talked about HALF of why these scenes were a big deal, like I just realized this today and my heart is going insane.

It’s not just that Crowley’s pissed at Gabriel for treating who he thinks as Aziraphale this way, the last thing he says to the people about to kill him is a benign and peaceful wish to see them again.

And like- this is Crowley trying to replicate Aziraphale to a T. So he legitimately just sees him as this endless well of compassion, someone who is always warm and accepting. It’s not just their friendship throughout the years, he remembers Aziraphale’s kindness on the Eastern Gate. When the angel had absolutely no reason to trust this random demon who just slithered up next to him. Crowley knows that he’s loved. Maybe not like that quite yet (although he’d be very wrong), but he knows that around his friend he’s always welcome and safe.

And Aziraphale?

Well he just thinks Crowley’s the coolest fucker alive, like he is laying it in THICK and enjoying every second. Listen to that charisma, look at that smirk. These are traits that are typically only appreciated in the context of how good it makes Crowley at tempting, a job he hates. But Aziraphale doesn’t see someone manipulative or regard this persona as signs of his “demonic nature”, he just sees Crowley. Someone charming, fun loving, and cute.

This is when we get to know precisely why they love each other, what exactly they see in the other.

edit: this is now my most popular post, good work team, lol