#also unfortunately I DO talk with that many punctuation marks audible in my voice

[lemeute]

13, jiang cheng, wen zhuliu, wen ning

sfkdjlfj I wrote up this answer last night and then tumblr ate it unfortunately BUT uh here we go the second time: have as your wedding planner, have as your parole officer, have as the Fake Date you bring to a family event

isaac apaladinagain is on parole!

the necessary choice here is that Wen Ning is my parole officer. I feel bad for putting him in this scenario, because ACAB, but also I am n o t dealing with either of these other two in that setting. jesus christ. also, Wen Ning is much more of a sneaky badass than he’s usually given credit for, so maybe it could work out?? I could very carefully connect him to people who could support him in quitting the police department (prisons department?? I’m not sure if parole officers are always in corrections specifically), and he could very carefully not report people’s parole violations etc. god. this sounds so stressful and way too connected to things I think about in my real life. (I have a call in two hours with my public defender bc I’m still going to zoom court from an arrest at an action back in June, and I have lots of support from lots of people about it but damn it really makes you think about what that process is like for people who go through it without a community offering information, resources, connections, and all kinds of other help) anyway U H Wen Ning is my parole officer also abolish prisons send tweet

isaac apaladinagain is getting married!

ok. moving on. pretty sure Jiang Cheng would thrive as a wedding planner and also rock at it and I love that for him, but I deeply wouldn’t want him as my wedding planner, y’know??? like. he is too highkey and also too high-budget. my approach to event decoration is very “how can we create a tasteful aesthetic from these repurposed sheets and jars, some branches I just found being pruned off bushes at the park, and 3 carefully selected items from dollar tree” and I like it that way!! it’s a fun challenge for the brain; it’s an adventure! and I am pretty sure it is the kind of adventure that would stress Jiang Cheng the fuck out, thereby stressing me out.

so I’m bringing Wen Zhuliu with me on this adventure instead. I think his shrug emoji energy will be perfect, actually. also he is very employer-loyal, even in the face of The Worst Boss (I can only imagine being Wen Chao’s direct report for about 5 seconds before I start curling in on myself in horror), so tbh I can easily imagine that if presented with someone who is like. reasonable. considerate. etc., he would be ready to murder someone on their behalf by the time it was their wedding day.

also also, the possibility of scenarios like this is just too good to pass up:

me [dropping my denim jacket covered in activist patches on a chair]: hi ahhh I’m so sorry I’m late, I wasn’t planning to marshall this rally but I got there and they were short on hands

wen zhuliu [who is dressed in black cultivator robes]: it is not a problem. in addition to our planned agenda, I have brought some sample invitations.

me: oh!!! that’s so nice of you! honestly though I was thinking I would just print them at the library and back them on some maps from this outdated atlas I have if that’s okay with you?? you already put this work in, sorry, I just would rather DIY this part!!!

wen zhuliu: [blinks, shrugs, crosses “invitations” off his list, picks up fabric swatches instead]

me: okay uh wait sorry this is off-topic but. have you ever taken a de-escalation training or a police liaison training or something. I know you’re my wedding planner and I probably shouldn’t try to recruit my wedding planner to roles at actions it’s just uh. you seem like you would be so fucking good at it, like, rockstar good, and all our current good police liaisons are so burned out on it--

isaac apaladinagain needs a fake date for a family event!

this means that my fake date is..... Jiang Cheng! which is going to go wrong in every way; neither of us is the other’s type and both of us are too ace to really sell it based on pure physical attraction

fortunately my immediate family would help me keep up the ruse once they figured it out, assuming the stakes were important enough. unfortunately they would never let me live it down and would still be asking me ten years later what they should get him for Christmas.