#bro you cannot have a pay-for clinic for desperate people

[dipstick-university]

@allthecanadianpolitics

[dangermousie]

CFC Chapter 54

“A crashing car?” Ahahahaha I see you, Meatbun. But it was indeed an utter pileup!

I know I commented on this passage in its various iterations eight billion times already but I still have more to say. And it’s that XQC taking so long to realize that even though HY is young, his emotions and feelings are as genuine and strong as those of anyone older is so realistic - people do tend to think that especially with regard to children - think of a reaction of an adult to a three year old crying over ice cream they dropped. It’s all amused even if not meanly so. Because to an adult with vastly more experience, this is not a big deal. But what that forgets is that whether it’s ridiculous to someone else or not, to the person at issue that is a real feeling, AND that of course a person can only feel through the lens of their experience - what else is there? Emotions aren’t any less valid because they are informed by lesser or different experience.

Honestly, to me so far this is one of the driving messages of the novel - everyone is in their own world of issues and pain and none of these characters can truly look through the lens of another person and it would be so much better if they did. To XQC, for so long, He Yu’s strong feelings (and we know so many of these feelings are awful - despair, and self-loathing, and loneliness) never quite felt real and therefore never quite felt fully valid. And by the time it wasn’t the case, it was too late.

But the same is true for He Yu - he is so concentrated on his own grievances and his own pain, he cannot perceive others’ different issues. In He Yu’s mind, he’s the winner and always champion of Misery Olympics and while he’s had a horrible time of it, that doesn’t mean other people didn’t either just in different ways. Whether because of his condition, his issues or just his age, HY is not empathetic in the least.

And think about it - XQC does not have a horrible illness. He does not have unfeeling parents. But he had to watch his beloved parents brutally murdered in front of his eyes at 13 (!!!!) and then had to raise a 5 year old by himself. Is it worse or better than HY’s trauma? That’s a matter of opinion but what there is no question about is that is a different type of trauma and a different type of scar. Or think about the patient in the asylum whose name I am too lazy to look up - her life is such a theater of horrors that to me, it makes the combined issues of HY and XQC seem small, though once again that’s subjective. Nobody wins when people start this sort of competition.

My heart breaks for XQC but also - I am sorry - if/when HY x XQC hook up again (how? I have no idea! But that is one of the joys of Meatbun - I both have no idea how/where it’s going and utterly trust her), please have He Yu read up and learn things because Good God. You should not be in major pain the morning after unless you are into pain and XQC clearly is not!

The other thing is the bit about XQC forcing himself to walk in his usual ramrod-straight manner is the moment I went utterly gone for him. I mean, I liked him and found him interesting before. But this is the thing that flipped that invisible switch for me and I went rabid and irrational and now I am Team XQC and I don’t care what he wants and does from now on, he should have it. It’s so small but so real. My mother and her mother were both big on straight posture. And one of the reasons they gave was when you walk with good posture - you look confident but also it makes you feel confident and stronger. And I’ve actually found it to be true - when you throw your shoulders back and straighten your neck and hold your head up, it does not just give others a signal, it gives a signal to your own brain. So to see XQC insist on doing it, despite being emotionally and physically shattered - because of his pride refusing to give up, because he’s so unbending, but also this being some sort of instinctive armor, just hits straight through the heart.

OK, I laughed at HY as a fucking machine. But also, this is another point in the whole “everyone has issues” narrative and HY’s life could be worse. HY, with all his other issues, can pay an insane amount, an amount that XQC could not pay in a million years, so easily. It’s not even a blip to him. Hell, the fact that he forgot to pay speaks to that - I can see forgetting to pay a friend a couple of bucks back right away because it’s not much money. HY forgets because it does not loom in his mind. And this rich lifestyle is instinctive, is ingrained in him. I think he’d find it hard to be poor.

THAT is what he’s thinking about? Priorities are...

The sole good thing that came out of this insanity is that XQC is getting in touch with his emotions, even if those emotions are (rightly) rage. He’s too closed off from them normally.

The fact that you slept with a man should be secondary to the fact that you drugged and raped him, but here we are...

To me, this sums up He Yu as a moral wasteland. To still, when sober and past his fit and not under influence of wine, to still feel excitement over his revenge and to somehow twist it that it’s XQC’s fault for being raped by He Yu is !!!!!!!!!

(I suppose if I were charitable, I’d assume that the disquiet is small stirrings of almost dead conscience and his “he deserved it” is an attempt to justify the unjustifiable to himself, but I honestly don’t want to think so because I am so angry at him. Not until I see some more evidence. I don’t feel like being indulgent with He Yu since he’s indulgent with himself enough for two.)

1. The fact that you can tell from the picture XQC got taken by a man (I am gonna defer to Meatbun’s expertise here) definitely points to the fact that the pictures are going to be used for something bad later - because if it’s just oh XQC had sex, so what, he’s single what’s the big deal. But like this it becomes a different matter. No idea if it will be used for HY or XQC or both, and by whom (money is on Duan and co, but after the way HY went off, I would never say HY himself won’t use it badly somehow) but knowing Meatbun, it will go for maximum damage.

2. Ruthless? Perhaps. Unfeeling? Hmmmm. I am not He Yu’s biggest fan atm but that’s a wonderfully misleading adjective here. He does still seem to be in shock. And fixating.

3. The whole “hahahaha XQC is a hypocrite when he was all ‘I am not interested in sex’“ is - I am not sure if HY is just short-circuiting (fine) or using a rapist justification/rolling in a sea of toxic toxicity (not fine) because I am sorry, that’s totally like “he/she had a reaction, can’t be rape” writ large. Yeah, sure he had a reaction - you poured drugs down his throat. That has nothing to do with his default preferences or his actual state. THE FUCK?!

Anyway, we end on the whole “u mad bro?” bit and you know what strikes me? HY was all “I am done, we are done, my revenge is complete I don’t care” but here he is, still desperately seeking and craving reaction and interaction from XQC.

I remain utterly puzzled as to how these two will ever be a couple except for a couple being defined as “two mutually homicidal people.” Leaving aside everything else, I am willing to accept HY is in the closet - clearly whatever his orientation is, it includes men. But I do not get that sense from XQC at all. When he’s not drugged, he’s barely interested in sex with anyone and I do not get the sense he’s in the closet either. Chances of anyone, let alone He Yu, who is both a man and someone who raped him to humiliate him, being able to entice him into sexual encounters voluntarily is about the chance of me going to visit Mars. Meatbun loves doing insane things so I can’t wait.

PS I know people use the term psychopath all the time casually but ummm, I think He Yu may actually be one? When he has his father (!!!) on speakerphone, calmly carrying a conversation with the man as he’s raping his father’s friend in the club as he talks (!!!!!) that is...in RL I’d be “team lock him up for life, there is something so basic broken in him that it can’t be fixed.” Like - the hell? The ability to put things on different shelves so much is not in the same country as sane (it makes me think of 2ha and TXJ banging CWN being the curtain while performing court business but TXJ was bona fide clinically insane and also this is worse because this is his actual freaking father omg.) Of course, only time will tell whether it’s evidence of him being irreparably incapable of normalcy in terms of living in the world/interacting with others or it was an extreme psychotic (in casual parlance not medical one) break because most people are capable of truly horrific stuff if certain levers are pushed and his default is saner. It’s the question, isn’t it? Whether He Yu’s factory default setting is the monster of the previous chapters or the kid who’d cut his wrists so as not to hurt others.

Anyway, this novel is a terrifying roller coaster ride and I love having strong emotions.

[juulies]

i’ve been fucking thinking non-stop abt the willex check please! au for like a week now (which is absolutely ridiculous considering i first read check please like last monday) so like, here’s some thinking i’ve done when i probably should’ve been doing homework or writing the three fics i have that are currently wip! what can u do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (also if you haven’t read check please! you can find it here! its super fun and cute and one of my fav things I've ever read)

Alex Joyner (yes I’m using the actors’ last names bc the jatp writers HATE me and won’t give me actual last names) as the no-nonsense, technophobic, highly-anxious captain of the Samwell Men’s Hockey team that broods bc his brain won’t let him do anything else but gets ridiculously emotional over drumming and hockey strategy 

William “Billie” Stewart as the frog recently recruited to SMH who got into hockey solely bc there’s aren’t cars on an ice rink like there are wherever he’s trying to rollerblade/skateboard. got into baking bc his friends in high school used to pay him to make edibles and it just blossomed from there, mostly into tray bakes over pies but he does just abt anything

Luke “Kush” Patterson as the absolutely ridiculous hype-man of the SMH who never properly wears clothes, majors in Gender Studies bc he drinks his respect women juice, and is addicted to kegsters bc it gives him the opportunity to loudly (and drunkenly) play his guitar/sing without anyone complaining abt the noise 

Reggie “Eggsy” Shada as one half of the best d-men pair in collegiate hockey history, who’s chosen biology major and determination to graduate with a 4.0 has turned him into a delicate coral reef in terms of academia but CANNOT leave out of his friends’ love lives/the hot goss. Convinced his room in the Haus is haunted and tries to make friends with the ghost(s)

Julie “Juice” Molina as SMH’s team manager who takes no one’s shit and can finagle her way through delicate negotiations like nobody’s business. Double major in art and vocal performance and can kick everyone and their mother’s ass at beer pong, designs the team’s gear and is addicted to coffee from Annie’s, see figure skating rumor below

Flynn “Flynnigan” Marie as designated ??? for SMH. Not quite a second team manager bc she doesn’t do much more than yell at the boys and post shit on their twitter, but she share’s Julie’s room and is constantly at Faber with the guys. Majoring in marketing and advertising, in charge of DJing all kegsters, there’s a rumor that goes around after she skates with the team one day that she and julie used to train with some intimidating Russian figure skating coach and were going to go to the olympics but flynn was banned for yelling at an official

Carlos “Moltzer” Molina as the other half of the best d-men pairing in collegiate hockey history, Julie’s twin brother though julie popped out right before midnight and Carlos came 10 minutes later so they technically have different birthdays, addicted to ghost-hunting shows and possibly is the one behind all of reggie’s ghost encounters, uses his height to his advantage and will eat anything and everything willie makes 

Nick is a lax bro 

Dirty candy is on the soccer team! 

Ok now that characters have been determined(ish) here’s some moments I desperately need (i’m using nicknames here just to get used to it) 

Billie shows up to his first visit to the Haus with half a brownie left from his most recent batch. Kush, being the asshole that he is, declares frog tax and steals the rest of the brownie as they all go inside. Once he realizes how good it is, he demands Billie make some immediately and so he does. Whenever Kush sees billie again, he demands more baked goods. It becomes pretty routine. 

Alex can’t talk to Billie bc he’s busy being broody and anxious over hockey and he thinks billie’s too damn cute for his own good and it’s throwing him off his game. however, once practices start and it becomes apparent that billie can’t handle being checked (got hit by a car skateboarding once and just, can’t do it) he—under the guise of “helping the team out”—starts giving him checking clinics in the mornings 

No one on the team really realizes how anxious Alex can get (besides kush and eggsy (then billie)) bc he’s really good at the captain/team member talks and helping people out. Bc of this, he gets the rep of being a hockey robot 

Billie sings kehlani and Rihanna in the shower rather than Beyonce and nicki. Alex is a closet Beyonce fan tho if you tell any of SMH he’ll kill u 

That moment when julie comes back from her semester abroad and kush just jumps on top of her (basically all shitty/lardo moments but with julie/kush) 

post graduation kiss, Alex is getting all anxious even tho he’s graduated and signed with the falconers and he really doesn’t have anything to be anxious over at the moment but he can’t stop thinking abt billie so he sprints to the Haus and finds billie laying on Alex’s stripped mattress listening to “honey” and just, kisses him. basically the same as the last comic from sophomore year 

Rip to jatp!alex’s parents but I can’t do bob and Alicia Zimmerman dirty so like, tho Alex is closeted to the hockey world his parents are the most supportive people on the planet. Need that moment after center ice when they come up to Alex and billie after the kiss and Alex is just like “i kissed billie and its on tv” and they’re just like *sweats anxiously* also Joyner parents fawning over billie!!! Being so excited that Alex and billie are dating!!!! 

Billie continues to have the weirdest fucking socks 

Bc Charlie Gillespie is the Worst, the ass cam is focused on kush’s ass over alex’s. I mean, have u guys seen 1.09??? 

Eggsy and moltzer doing all the “hockey shit” comics together 

Really I just need someone to draw the “FFFFFFUCK THE LAX TEAM” panel with Luke and Alex