#and none of the batshit

[ruler-of-the-would-be]

Look, as much as I love Casey Jr., he's not Casey Jones. He's just not feral enough. He's fun and he's Jr. Cassandra, on the other hand, unhinged

[its-not-a-pen]

1460th day as the prime minister of han and you are the enemy general at my mercy. since your absolute loser of a liege lord is MIA you agree to work for me until he returns and in exchange i agree not to raze your city to the ground and put every rebel to the sword. i hope this magnanimous gesture will convince you of my good intentions. 

1461st day as the prime minister of han in order to knock you down a few pegs i try to sabotage your integrity by making you share a room with your loser liege lord's two wives but you just stand outside the door all night with a candle and aren't tempted at all. (i am honestly baffled, as far as i'm concerned other people's wives are utterly irresistible.)

1462nd day as the prime minister of han, my advisor tells me it's easier to catch flies with honey so i begin plying you gifts and pretty serving girls but you keep sending them to your loser liege lord's wives. instead of passing the evening with me engaged in gentlemanly conversation, you spend long hours drying their tears and reassuring them their loser husband is safe. i can't say i'm not annoyed by the snub but your filial piety is commendable

1463rd day as the prime minister of han and even with my considerable intellect, i cannot understand why a man of your skills would chose to serve such an unworthy master. that sanctimonious sandal-weaver has lost nearly every battle he's fought (most of them against me), yet heroes still flock to his cause and peasants aid him at every turn. how does he inspire such loyalty?

1464th day as the prime minister of han, i definitely will not be throwing you an extravagant banquet every day because that's just desperate! i'm only throwing them every fifth day and small ones every third day. do you not like the silk-and-gold robes i've been sending you? you can speak plainly, general, i wont be offended. do they not fit? i must see for myself, please disrobe--

1465th day as the prime minister of han and you finally join me for a drink. i've forgotten how nice this is, in between fighting bandits, quashing rebellions and running 1/3 of a country i've not had much time to myself. the wine loosens your tongue and you talk about brotherhood, sacrifise and sacred oaths in a peach garden, things i've heard about but never seen, like the qilin and other such fantastical beasts but you're so sincere i can't even bring myself to scoff at you. i've lived my entire life looking over my shoulder; better to betray than be betrayed, that's my motto. i've never known anything else.

1466th day as the prime minister of han and i give you a silk bag to protect your long, handsome beard after you made an offhand comment about the whiskers getting brittle in winter. the emperor himself remarked upon it and even though you were humble and self-effacing as always, i preened. it pleases me that you look so well under my patronage, yet your eyes are so troubled. i must not be doing enough, time to consult my advisor again...

1467th day as the prime minister of han i noticed your green battle-coat was threadbare so I fashioned a replacement made of the rarest brocade but you only ever wear it under the old coat loser liege lord gave you because having a piece of him around eases your heart. i don't even have a clever quip for that. although in hindsight i should have expected this turn of events given your utter indifference to that loser's wives and my pretty serving girls. 

1468th day as the prime minister of han, i give you the fastest horse in the world and to my surprise you're elated, bowing and thanking me profusely. then you go and ruin the moment by telling me how grateful you are because it means you will be able to travel quickly to your loser liege lord when you discover his location and now i wish i'd turned that damn beast into glue. this is the first time i've ever seen you smile.

1469th day as the prime minister of han, a verse came to me during our walk through the woods; "the magpie flies south and circles the tree three times. where shall he rest?" i want you to stay. i want you to be mine. lead my armies and help me bring order to the realm, i'll raise you monuments and immortalise your name. alas, the bitter irony is not lost on me, i want you for your loyalty but your loyalty is the reason you cannot stay. if you could have been persuaded i would have lost my respect for you.

1470th day as the prime minister of han and news arrives that your loser liege lord is alive. my advisor tells me that you won't leave until you've repaid my kindness. i guess i better keep you away from the action and hope the next few months are boring and uneventful. in the meantime why don't you try on this new robe! no, i don't mind you undressing here--

1471th day as the prime minister of han and my city is under attack. you single-handedly break the siege and bring me the enemy leader's head. hospitality repaid, you ride off without a backwards glance and i watched the horizon long after you have disappeared.

4391th day as the prime minister of han. I trust you've been well, general, since we last met. I often dreamed that you would return to me, we'd sit under the trees and drink a toast for old times sake. As far as reunions go, the middle of an ambush is not very auspicious. Our roles are reversed, I am the bleeding hart and you are the faithful hound. by rights you should have delivered me straight to your master but instead you let me limp away. why did you do it my beautiful, foolish, loyal general? you know i will only cause you grief. this war will not end as long as i draw breath. this country cannot have three kingdoms any more than a single mountain can have three tigers. 

-epilogue-

last year as the king of wei and i trust you've been well, general, since we last met...

notes under the cut:

It's a truth universally acknowledged that any funny joke on tumblr.com will be run into the ground.

this is a spoof of the 2nd Century Warlord by @romanceyourdemons

1/ Events are based on the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, supplemented by historical events.

2/ In 196 AD, Warlord Cao Cao moves the capital of China to his territory of Xu City with the Emperor as his puppet. His offical title is the General-in-Chief (大將軍) although I've gone with the more recognisable "Prime Minister". In 200 AD, Cao Cao captured General Guan Yu, who was serving under Liu Bei.

3/Book!Cao Cao is portrayed as a villain and his name is literally synonymous with the devil in Chinese culture. IRL Cao Cao was considered to be a wise and capable ruler. I've decided to bridge the gap a little.

4/ Cao Cao (and sons) were very influential poets, the line "the magpie flies south" is a passage from the Unnamed Magpie Poem, after consolidating power, Cao Cao encourages all the best and brightest in his kingdom to flock to his court.

5/ "I dreamt of you, general" monologue taken verbatim from the 2010 tv show. People in the han dynasty were battling demons and that demon is bisexuality.

6/ Book!Cao Cao does not actually think Liu Bei is a loser, he considers him to be "one of the only two heroes in the world". but my god, you can pry that alliteration out of my cold, dead hands.

[thesherrinfordfacility]

I mean Neil said once that the sequel involved Jesus arriving in America on a plane with secret service agents, and the S2 opening sequence shows a plane, so I'm... fairly confident that he's an adult? Jesus died when he was like 33 right

afternoon anon!!!✨ see i recall this (ask on neil's page?) and remember the response but cannot for the life of me find it anywhere (and im pretty good at Finding Stuff), do you - or anyone else reading for that matter - have a link to this? just so i can save it for future reference.

now, i hope you don't mind if i do this, but i would like to use this opportunity to parse out a more coherent rationale on the second coming, if that's okay? yeah? cool.

(previous incarnation of this theory).

thing is that the premise of the baby swap in s1 is based on the omen, right? takes at least a huge chunk of inspiration from that as the origin of how the antichrist came into the story. but it goes wrong, obviously, and there's a third baby thrown in the mix. makes a cursory wave to the omen, but isn't a carbon copy of it.

now i can't help but feel that narratively it would make sense to bookend this and have the second coming be a bit bollocksed up too. seems to be a theme in GO. and actually, when i thought about it (with extreme bias, granted, because im chomping at the bit on this theory), the second coming was potentially already fucked up anyway.

now, disclaimer time -

i completely get that people will look to the bible in reference to parsing out the second coming (or indeed any other theory). obviously i do too, for references to certain verses etc. in order to draw the relevant parallels. but there are multiple instances in GO where it is based on the bible or other texts, but doesn't follow it exactly; how GO portrayed the book of job, for example. it takes these texts, and distorts or reimagines them slightly or completely.

the way i see it, we are reading/watching GO as if this is in fact the true telling of those texts, as if (and not trying to be diminutive here) the bible is an inaccurate telling of GO, not the other way around - because, of course, we're seeing GO from the angel and demon that were 'actually there', so to speak.

im not saying that this - or any - of my theories are indisputably correct, far from it. but to me, with the information i have from the narrative as first source, and then looking at the referenced texts that inspired it, what i come up with, and write, is what makes sense to me. and it might make sense because it would be poetically apt, is in-keeping with how i interpret the characters, and/or is just plain funny or ironic (GO is after all, a comedy).

so whilst i fully anticipate people to duly correct me on how it all goes down in the bible (as they should, i love being educated!!!), please know that im not trying to deliberately misinterpret anything, but more trying to think outside the box, from the viewpoint of the GO story itself, and what direction would make the most sense in which it will reimagine these texts.

- exit disclaimer.

anyway! theory time!

so we have the imagery from the s2 sequence of the "thy kingdom come" plane, and this is obviously a reference to the resurrection as you've said, anon: that jesus arrives by plane. i truly love this imagery because if we take matthew 24:36 (KJV): "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.", the concept that in the great plan the date and time might finally be revealed in the form of a flight number, airport, and ETA is frankly hilarious to me. furthermore, "cometh with clouds" (revelation, 1:7 KJV) being reimagined as a literal plane landing again sets up the comedic backdrop so well.

now wherever the plane lands, whether from the US or to the US (again, don't have the original neil answer to refer to, but going based on your ask, anon, it's the latter), it regardless involves americans. this is where i feel it would be a perfect narrative symmetry opportunity to refer back to s1/the book, and reintroduce the dowlings.

and you might be wondering, "well no because GO set up the dowlings to be involved only insomuch that they were meant to be custodians of the antichrist - why would they also be involved in the second coming?" well, i wondered this too. the only conclusion i can come to, frankly, is GO!god having a very warped, twisted and ineffable sense of humour. they saw what satan had planned for the dowlings in inadvertently raising the antichrist, possibly did a bit of shifting around in the mystical threads, and decided that actually - just to throw in the wildcard of chaos - they should instead be the bearers of the second coming. this degree of mind-boggling ineffability, to me, would be comedically on-brand.

regardless; whilst just a theory, the whole thing makes sense to me - that in any case, the dowlings are going to make a reappearance. and with them, or on his own (if we follow the biblical telling that jesus was resurrected as he was from the crucifixion, at age 33yo, and therefore would suggest a timeskip from s2, but this isn't necessarily guaranteed - ie: might not be how GO chooses to portray it!), comes warlock. now we know that warlock was meant to be the antichrist, before crowley and the nuns managed to bugger it all up.

but heaven wouldn't necessarily know that its the dowlings arriving, right? presumably they'd just all gather on the tarmac awaiting the arrival, and lmao SIKE, it's bloody warlock. heaven hasn't met warlock, and therefore still think he's in fact jesus resurrected... but aziraphale has met him. he helped bloody raise him. and he knows now that he is essentially a normal kid/adult (albeit a very stuck-up one) and definitely not the second coming.

well then, if jesus was meant to be on that plane, according to the great plan, a plane being used by the dowlings... then why isn't it warlock? well, because the dowlings' actual baby isn't warlock. lets go back to the baby swap in the book/s1:

*apols, editing to correct this somewhat because it isn't quite right and lateral thinking is not my strong suit*

ANTICHRIST was meant to go to: the DOWLINGS. instead, went to: the YOUNGS. this is Adam.

YOUNG BABY was meant to go to: stay with the YOUNGS, but got mixed up. instead, went to: the DOWLINGS. this is Warlock.

DOWLING BABY was meant to go to: adoption/something nefarious instead, and indeed did. this is... Greasy Johnson.

and i love this for all sorts of reasons. now im lifting this next bit, essentially, from another ask of mine, but to keep things all in one place:

"greasy is posed as the antithesis of adam/antichrist, has a gang surrounding him that you could infer are loyal disciples, and is a mirror to adam in that adam on the whole seems to be a well-adjusted and morally-upstanding young boy.

i further think the fact that adam is the antichrist put against greasy being the second coming is a well positioned reflection on the nature vs nurture argument. ultimately adam grew up in a largely loving and supportive environment, and as the literal son of satan, you'd expect his nature, the circumstances of his birth, to rule out every other influence.

ultimately it does for a short time, but adams narrative iirc is that it is reflective of his desire to save the world... he wanted to get rid of things that were Wrong, and naively (he is still an 11-year old boy after all) thought that destroying the world and restarting it would do just that. his friends however reinforce in him that destruction and reparation are not the same thing, and so his upbringing, the nurture, wins.

greasy? we don't know a lot about him, only that he is a bully and represents the opposite of adam and the them... [and there exists] the whole [sic] analogy that greasy and the johnsonites vs adam and the them are meant to represent the hell vs heaven war..."

and then we have this small, relatively innocuous detail from the book:

as i said, possibly something of nothing. but the deliberate wording of 'breeding the fish', which is left out of s1, is - i like to think - a bit of a clue.

and before anyone comes for me on this, i am aware that this is based practically on fuck all of jack shit; im painfully aware of that. im aware that it deliberately misinterprets certain passages (not going to do the soapbox speech again, promise), but i just like to have fun. i honestly do not care if this is wrong; whatever happens in s3 should and will be better than anything i can come up with. yes, it's fun to get a prediction or speculation correct, of course it is, but it's not the endgame here. i get that others will have conflicting schools of thought, see things differently, or just plain think it's crap - that's okay! but, if that's the case, just move on from this post with a shake of your head. im not here to do anything other than have a good time, lads (gn)✨💓

edit 21/08: additional reading because now i feel vindicated: here from amuseoffyre, and my tags on this post too.

[brittlebutch]

finding a character that grates against your nerves and eventually thinking, well, that's not fair, you haven't done anything; why do i dislike you? and then you dwell on this for a while and discover 'oh! you are like me when i was younger' and decide well, i'll simply learn how to love the both of you. power in this.

[shit-people-probably-didnt-say]

Im starting to believe people who think Wylan is babied by fans dont realise we are being ironic ?

He is baby in a he will definitely blow you up/push you into a canal way. He is baby in a he is wild enough to let his father torture him out of spite way.

Not aw sweet baby cant protect himself way

[kataraavatara]

So I'm watching this recap series on acotr and I have to ask wtf happened to tamlin after the first book

he pulls a complete personality 180 because of his trauma and becomes a controlling & abusive partner so Feyre can leave him and get with Rhysand and give sjm a reason to think she’s making some sort of deep commentary on abusive relationships and feminism. which she is not.

[puffinparty]

+

[jianghushenanigans]

Whumptober Day 19: “I’m not as stupid as you think I am.”

Jingyu is quiet. He’s been quiet ever since the news came back about Chiyan army’s betrayal and subsequent slaughter at the hands of Xie Yu. Since the death of his uncle and cousin and aunt.

Meng Zhi is normally the type of man who likes to lighten the mood, but there’s nothing he can say now that will make this better. They both know that Lin Xie was innocent. They both know there’s nothing that can be done about it.

They’re in a-Yu’s office, where they always meet. Meng Zhi is well-used to leaping over the walls of the Eastern Palace without getting caught. In better times, they would be sat drinking tea together, or perhaps they would already have moved next door. Today, though, they’re simply standing, holding each other close, shaken by loss.

If Meng Zhi had stayed with the Chiyan Army for any longer than he had, he would be dead.

“They’re going to implicate me in this.” A-Yu says, half muffled by Meng Zhi’s shoulder.

Meng Zhi tenses up, a thousand horrors flying in front of his eyes. “A-Yu! No. I won’t let them, I’ll –”

“Zhi’er. Da-ge.” A-Yu pulls back, looking Meng Zhi straight in the eye. “You have to promise me that you won’t… that you won’t let my father think that you are somehow involved. That you won’t let him know that you’ve ever spoken to me.”

Meng Zhi stares at his lover’s fervent expression. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand how a-Yu can ask him to do this. “You want me to just pretend that I don’t know you, that I think you’re guilty?”

“Yes!” A-Yu’s hands tighten on his shoulders, almost painfully. “Yes, Zhi’er. Just leave it. It’ll be alright in the end, we just can’t afford to upset him.”

Meng Zhi doesn’t get angry easily. He certainly doesn't get angry at a-Yu, his a-Yu. But now… It’ll be alright? How can it be alright? “I’m not as stupid as you think I am, a-Yu. I’m not going to hear you say everything will be alright and just believe it.”

“Zhi’er, of course it will be fine, my father –”

“Your father just had his oldest friend killed! Your father is a paranoid –”

“The Emperor.” A-Yu’s voice is cold, blank. Regal. Meng Zhi knows this tone. He doesn’t know it turned towards him.

Meng Zhi’s heart stutters. “Jingyu –”

“My royal father is the Emperor, General Meng. Or did you forget?”

“A-Yu, I said the wrong thing, please –”

“I think it would be best if you leave.” A-Yu is looking steadily over Meng Zhi’s shoulder, refusing to meet his eyes. “Perhaps you should stay away from the palace for the next few days.”

Meng Zhi doesn't want to leave. But he knows a dismissal when he hears one. “Your Highness.” He sweeps into a bow, and he doesn’t let himself look back.

He never sees Xiao Jingyu again.

Crossposted here on ao3

[ankhisms]

community theater will have the most insane complicated web of drama and lies on the scale of some soap opera game of thrones shit but then i only ever hear about it in the most vague out of context whisperings backstage which only lead to confuse me more but in the end it always traces back to one thing. beef between uni theater students

[yourcisness]

I can understand and forgive many things, but I'll never forgive those around me who support the war. If you think that people being jailed and tortured for demanding peace is a good thing you have some key components missing from your brain. If you support this shit when p*tin himself admits he's a terrorist you're just fundamentally broken. Not even in a "haha you have brainworms" way like there's something really scary going on in that skull. A hole somewhere idk

[michibliss]

so a friend of mine has never read homestuck, meanwhile me and @kodacola used to be terezi and dave coffeeshop!stuck au roleplayers (respectively)

we are currently in a discord vc explaining the story to them as best as we can

[dracolizardlars]

My experience of watching Our Flag Means Death season 2 is literally exactly "man I fucking love this stupid show. I can't wait to never engage with any part of the fandom ever again"

[keter-class-anomaly]

The plushie counsel will decide your fate

(All the finished plushies I’ve made myself :] )

(So far)

[erisolkat]

theyre making an acotar tv show??

[bambiraptorx]

My finals are over I am finally free!!! (not really I have a summer class ugh)

I'm hoping to get the next chapter of Minor Interference up in the next week or so, but given that the end of my semester is shaping up to be quite busy, that's going to stay a rough estimate. In the meanwhile, feel free to suggest cursed and horrible rules for monopoly that I could use in the upcoming chapter.

[collegeoflore]

filing these under “lines that make xarrai feel extremely normal” as well.