#if no one is joining me in being absolutely mental about these trauma kittens

[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.

[tumblunni]

Not really a huge development, but a random thought about the undeveloped wild dragon mom rpg idea thing!

I had a cute concept for an ally dragon and/or love interest? I dunno, I haven’t decided yet how rare the dragon species is gonna be. Like, if there’s gonna be multiple potential eligable batchelor draigs then that could be cute. it could be kinda nostalgic like in the oldest harvest moon games where there was barely much dialogue and it was just like Here A Gift Of A Cheese. Win over your potential mates wiv one (1) interestingly shaped rock and some groovy dragon danceys! Tho I feel like if this other character was instead gonna be the ONLY other dragon npc, then it’d be a total waste to just use that plot thread on the same old ‘literally no chemistry except we need to repopulate the species’ thing that’s been done a bazillion times. mebbe jus b friendz!

Anyway, the idea was that this dragon (preemptively named Roger) would be more based on that extra tiny caterpillar with the brown fluffy catflike face. Lil kitten churro! Lil fluffle mc hug! This would be a valuable pedigree breed from a human perspective. So we have a group of human poachers as a very rare enemy around the jungle, and you’d be able to meet like The One Good Human who keeps this lil dragon pal as his secret pet while all his commanding officers are trying to skin them for their valuable scales. Roger would basically be like a pampered dog, and it’d be a super surreal experience from the perspective of the wolf in this scenario. Why are you sitting on that human’s lap?? What’s that jingle bell around your neck?? WHAT EXACTLY IS A ‘ROGER’??? I’m thinking Roger isn’t 100% oblivious about wild life tho, since after all he’s just being kept at some guy’s wilderness habitat, and he was ‘rescued’ from the wild in the first place. Tho its been so long that he’s lost a lot of his survival skills, and he’s absolutely terrified of returning to the forest. I suppose that’s natural when he was the only one that survived the poachers attacking his nest. Even if he had to survive by becoming a coward and living in servitude to one of the same poachers :( So his sidequest would be a lot of you both learning about each other’s different way of life, and trying to figure out if this human named ‘Owner’ is really the one human who isn’t as evil as sin itself. And Roger has a lot of tales to tell about the mythical ‘Apartment’ land, somewhere across the ocean, where you can sleep in a warm indoors forever and try amazing foods that come out of steel cans! He’s kinda a bit like a cult member sometimes... And.. like.. he’s not even really domesticated or anything, he’s literally like if you stuck a collar on a wolf. One that’s been mentally broken might be able to be obedient to some degree, but they’re still a wild animal that’s potentially dangerous and living in this environment is potentially dangerous to them too. Not to mention he’s probably always almost blowing his human friend’s cover cos he doesn’t know how to stay quiet. “Uhh.. yeah boss... someone ate all the paperwork... it was me. I was sleepwalking.” *muffled yelps of something moderately dragon sized hiding inside a duffel bag* Possibly a sidequest or two could be you sorta helping this human figure out how to take care of Roger properly? like, the human camp doesn’t have any meat rations so he’s completely malnourished. Or he accidentally eats something that’s poisonous to dragons. Or he gets a claw caught in the fence and everyone’s panicking trying to get him out before the seargeant sees him, and then roger is like ‘THIS IS AN OMEN! This is what i get for trying to follow you back to that scary forest! I BELONG IN THE DUFFEL BAGGGGG’

So there’d probably be a choice in the end of whether you wanna prematurely end your story here and let yourself be tamed by this human too, or if you manage to convince Roger to leave. And either way could go good or bad, if you try and force Roger out of his safe home against his will then he’s not gonna magically realise you were ‘right’ as soon as he gets in the wild, he’s just gonna be depressed as fuck and never trust you again. It’s more about making him realise that he’s being delusional about the housepet life being 100% safe, and about it really being what he wants. And hell, you could even help him work through his past traumas while coming to the opposite realization about yourself, and deciding that living with humans is actually where you’re meant to be. Orrrrr you could decide to go with Roger before actually talking out all these issues, and you could end up being dragged into this paranoid worship of humans and never feel safe again for a single day of your life even as you tell yourself its the safest place on earth. ‘They won’t kill me cos I’m useful, I have to stay cute forever’ is a pretty messed up way to live your life! Oh, or you could just get a version where you chose to dislike all the stuff about being a pet, yet went along with it anyway cos Roger Wuv, which ends in the absolute opposite of all cheesy romance endings because seriously yo don’t give up your entire life for your man!

And then like The True Route would have Roger’s human owner finishing up his redemption route, basically. He’s been doubting his boss’s orders and he hid Roger as his pet to protect him, but he hasn’t been brave enough to actually try and stand up and stop all of this. Him and Roger are very well matched in fear! So ultimately if you do everything right he’ll be inspired by your beautiful tale of small animal romance to go forth and protect you, even at the cost of his own life! The ending would play out the same as if you get Roger to leave him, but instead the human seemingly abandons him and vanishes overnight. After a few weeks of sorrow, he actually comes back... along with a giant fleet of more human soldiers! Aaaa, is it an invasion?! but for some reason these humans fight off the bad humans and take them to ‘arrest’ for ‘illegal smuggling of dragons’ and you don’t understand any of these words but OK something is happening I guess!! And it’s all yay, but then Roger’s human has to leave again, this time for a much longer time. he went back home and told the authorities about the smuggling operation, but that meant confessing that he was part of it too. So he’s got a long sentence to carry out... And then depending on whether you sided with the pro-wild or pro-tame philosophy, your lil family’s fate is different. The good guy humans might just set you free into the wild again and promise to protect your forest from this ever happening again. (Tho you get a weird tag on your back foot and some vaccinations for rabies.) Or, if Roger never managed to adjust back into the wild, then the human scientists conclude that you’ll never survive on your own now, and the humans need to take responsibility for what they’ve done. So you don’t get to stay with that one particular human, but you get rehomed to a wildlife sanctuary and get even more snuggles from even more nice people. ^_^ And then it could be kinda bittersweet cos dragons live very long. From your perspective you thankfully didn’t have to wait too much until you could see your first human friend again, but you barely even recognise him cos 20 years in prison does a lot to a person. Oh, and in the version where you stay in the forest, he’d actually join with the wildlife conservationists after he finishes his sentence, so he’s finally able to see you every day! 20 long years and seeing his lil pet Roger again was his only reason to live. And now he can meet your whole big ol cuddly dragon family!