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listen-to-the-inner-walrus · 10 months

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can you explain why you dont believe the titanic switch conspiracy theory? didnt they find a propeller with "olympic" written on it amongst the wreckage?

i feel like the phrase "you just activated my trap card" applies here but i have also never watched yu-gi-oh so dont fully know the correct use of that. anyway whats the text limit on a tumblr post because i think i might hit it with this response.

before we begin (if you wanna join me on this fucking journey), ill just drop some useful sources on the topic:

olympic & titanic - an analysis of the robin gardiner conspiracy theory dissertation by mark chirnside in july 2006

titanic or olympic: which ship sank? by steve hall and bruce beveridge

olympic & titanic: the truth behind the conspiracy by steve hall and bruce beveridge

with that shipkeeping housekeeping out of the way, lets jump into it after the cut

so hands up, how many people knew that this theory originated in a book from 1995?

yeah, its a pretty modern theory considering titanic sank in 1912. the theory originated in the riddle of the titanic by robin gardiner and dan van der dat.

and the theory argues that the ships were switched and titanic (actually olympic) was deliberately sank as part of an insurance scam. now they didnt do this at all for shits and giggles. instead, the theory posits that the navy enquiry that followed the 1911 collision between hms hawke and olympic was biased which meant white star line couldnt recover the costs of repair from lloyds (the insurance company), and therefore, they wrote olmpic off as too damaged to be repaired, lied about the amount of damage, switched the ships and sank olympic disguised as titanic to recover some costs.

far-fetched? oh definitely and it gets worse, but ill leave that til later in this gargantuan response because its really fucking funny.

(seriously, i recommend you read til the end or just skip to the part where i start talking about the sinking itself because fam, gardiners theory gets wild )

according to van der dat, who is a dutch journalist and naval history writer with an incredibly dutch name, gardiner had wrote the manuscript after researching the titanic for however many years and sent it to his literary agent. this agent had previously worked with van der dat and so sent it to him to double-check the information by going back to the original sources. he then rewrote the book with line-by-line consultation with gardiner.

and would you like to hear a quote from van der dat regarding the theory? i think you would:

"the publishers were disillusioned when the theory did not stand up"

he also, in correspondence with titanic author and researcher paul lee, called it "bilge" which is a fun ship joke alongside calling the theory bullshit.

anyway, the publishers went ahead with the book anyway because fuck integrity, i guess... thats kinda harsh considering this first book (oh yeah, theres more) was praised for stellar research and for being balanced, and the final chapter of the book literally acknowledges that the wreck has titanics shipyard number (401) on it, hence disproving the theory.

in 1997, it was published in the us under the name the titanic conspiracy - cover-ups and mysteries of the worlds most famous sea disaster, and it sold like sliced bread in 1928 because 1997 was titanic fever, baby!

unsurprisingly, gardiner's following books (titanic: the ship that never sank? in 1998; the history of the white star line in 2001; the great titanic conspiracy in 2010) were a lot less well-received and were not co-authored by van der dat.

"but wait, kai!" you might shout if youre up to date with issues of the times from 1914, "what about raymond asquith's comments? he was junior counsel for the board of trade at the sinking inquiry!"

and i would say, what about it? the letter asquith wrote to the times was a sarcastic letter in response to a prior stance taken by the paper.

yes, he said "the architect, the owner, and the captain to repair their desperate fortunes by sinking the ship and sharing the insurance money" but said letter also included the phrase "manipulating dummy icebergs".

if were taking sarcastic or satirical responses outside of their original contexts as serious quotes, then i guess i need to cancel my dropout subscription since the company holds the opinion that oj simpson is innocent.

and while were here, that single deathbed confession from james fenton is not evidence of anything. his name is not on any crew lists or survivor lists, and not a single payment was ever claimed by a crewman called james fenton. he was not on board the titanic and his claims hold no weight.

now, my go-to explanation as to why i dont believe the switch theory is that their insurance scam would have lost them money and they would know that it would have lost them money.

see, it cost white star (which was a subsidiary of the international mercantile marine) £1.5million/$7.5million to build titanic and they insured it by lloyds (you can check their records on their website) for £1million/$5million.

you dont have to be good at maths to see a problem here.

they didnt just not insure the rest; it was self-insured by imm's insurance fund, but that still means theyd have lost £500,000/$2.5million on the sunken ship.

this whole insurance thing was established by uh the united states senate inquiry report:

"the vessel fully equipped, cost £1,500,000 sterling, or about $7,500,000. at the time of the accident the vessel carried insurance of £1,000,000 sterling or about $5,000,000, the remaining risk being carried by the company's insurance fund."

oh and the £1,000,009 insurance was announced in the daily mirror on 16th april 1912

and the insurance scam seemingly thought up by someones whose first and only introduction to maths was golf isnt the only way white star would have lost money on this.

after the sinking, olympic was temporarily pulled from service to increase safety measures like adding more lifeboats. obviously, a logical move made by a company with a brand new, safer ship on their hands who were desperate for any money they can make.

white star also halted construction of britannic, titanics other sister ship, in order to alter the design and make it safer. this costs quite a bit of money and is, again, an odd choice for a company apparently desperate for money.

and hey, question for you guys: if you were alive in 1913 and needed to cross the atlantic, would you

a) choose the near identical sister ship of that ship that sank last year and was the deadliest sinking of a ship at that time

b) choose any other option such as the lusitania or the mauretania or the ss france or the ss imperator

personally id take my chances with option a, idk about you

yeah so the point im making here is that the sinking of the titanic was what the kids say

a marketing disaster

it was the loss of the newest flagship on its maiden fucking voyage and it had been touted as "practically unsinkable". maybe just maybe people wouldnt feel that comfortable getting on a white star line ship after that.

i dont have any figures for you because reading through a detailed account of white stars history just is not on my to-do list, but that doesnt even matter. what matters is that its clearly a massive risk and who the fuck is taking that risk?

as titanic author, senan molony states:

"one doesnt need to compare designs and count portholes - a moments serious consideration of the reputational risk involved - individually and collectively - is all that is required to end any entertainment of the notion"

anyway, you guys wanna compare designs and count portholes? yeah? okay, here we go!

may i present a non-exhaustive list of differences between the ships:

olympics wheelhouse was curved; titanics was flat

titanic was 4 inches longer

the porthole arrangements on shelter deck c were different

on b deck, olympic had a 1st class promenade; titanic had 2 private verandahs and suites (put a pin in this by the way, it comes back in the best of ways)

titanic had additional cabins on promenade deck a

olympics promenade was open all the way along; on titanic, the forward half of the 1st class promenade on a-deck was enclosed with retractable glass screens

on titanic, the forward bridge wings aft docking bridge on the stern extended over the ships side by a couple of feet; this would not be true for olympic until the 1912/13 refit

the officers deck house was pushed out more on titanic

the iron gates of the elevators were different between the ships and this is evident in the wreck itself

their propellers had different pitches and hence not interchangeable (pitch is a theoretical concept which is like the distance a propeller would move if it turned once through something solid, yeah i dont know either)

the wireless cabin had an outside window on olympic, but not titanic

further, it was placed on the port side of the officers deck house on olympic but amidship on titanic

they had different air vent arrangements around the funnels

white star line cut the ships names into the shell-plating at the bow and stern, four feet high and a ½ inch deep

now, please, close your eyes, take a deep breath and consider how much money it would cost to switch just the list above. now compare all of that to the -£500,000/$2.5million youre losing in the insurance scam.

truly, a spend less on candles situation.

and while we're here, shall we quickly talk about how much hush money white star would be paying to silence everyone about this since its apparently an illegal insurance scam.

not to make another non-exhaustive list but heres just who i can think of that youd have to silence:

the 15,000 workers employed directly by the shipyard

the 20,000+ workers in support services or sub contractors

any permanent or casual staff at the belfast dock and harbour comission

all of the officers and crew who came directly from olympic onto titanic such as the captain or stewardess violet jessop (puppet history fans rise up) who interestingly remarked on how improved titanic was compared to olympic

any staff at white star, imm and harland & wolff (where she was built) who would be in the know such as designers

passengers who had previously sailed on olympic who then sailed on titanic

just like anyone in belfast who walked past while the ships were docked together

olympics wreckers: thomas wards & sons who kept huge loose-leaf ledgers for each ships. the one for olympic was 72 pages long and funnily enough olympics yard number and builders I'd frequently appear in it, as seen below

bob ballard who was the one who found titanic. hes known as a very honest man and didnt even claim salvage rights on titanic because he assumed everyone else would also recognise it was a gravesite. he also said "i think it is the titanic at the bottom of the ocean"

every other explorer or researcher like james fucking cameron or us navy consultant and titanic wreck explorer, parks stephenson

its been estimated likely over 60,000 people were involved in just the building of titanic. this was ⅕ of belfasts population and ⅓ of the working population. heres a photo of them leaving olympic at the end of the day

now maybe im just a fool, but that looks like a lot of people you need to silence, and unless white star were blackmailing them or idk fucking killing them i guess, thats a lot of hush money just in the photo above.

i mean, theres also the claim, from noted liar james fenton, that the surviving crew were forced to sign the official secrets act of 1911, but that act was about espionage that benefits the enemy military so im not sure how this is relevant to the switch, and also, again, the guy was never on the ship.

are you perhaps starting to get the picture as to why i dont believe the conspiracy theory because im still going.

okay so as established, if the ships were switched, there would have clearly been a lot of work that would need to be done to switch the ships.

and i only mentioned some of the structural differences, i didnt get into the aesthetic differences like the floor tiles and carpeting being different colours, or how the lounge furniture in each ship having the ship name on them.

mind you, this is what titanic looked like (in the foreground) when olympic was first docked next to her:

this was taken around october 11. olympic docked next to titanic on october 7th for repairs after that whole catastrophic collision.

now how much time do you think it was before olympic sailed away? mind you, titanic has already been launched at this point and just needs to be fitted-out, and that normally takes around 4 to 6 months?

oh, what was that? 44 days? why, kid, youre going somewhere. it was 44 days exactly!

now, i dont think i need to get into the fact that the dock only had 1 crane (which you needed to install and uninstall funnels and machinery) that physically couldnt reach olympic unless she was moved or how olympic was painted white for her launch and then painted black and that the white paint would get exposed in rough weather so the same would have to be applied to titanic so it would look convincingly like olympic.

i mean, you have that information now, but im hoping just by the words "44 days", you might get how off the wall insane it is to suggest white star was able to switch the ships so well no one noticed for decades in 44 fucking days.

"wait kai, youre forgetting that they were docked together again!" you shout, "after olympic threw a propeller, they were docked together from march 1st to march 7th 1912"

and i dont know dude, im pretty sure white star cant warp space time so i really dont know what eight extra days is gonna do.

i hate to strawman but man, the late robin gardiner would have won a gold medal in scarecrow hide and seek.

lets also take a quick detour into the idea that olympics repairs were so expensive.

without getting into gardiners claims about the damage because theres no evidence of it and as mark chirnside states "there are no credible sources indicating that the damage to olympic was worse than reported at the time - and indeed ample sworn expert testimony to the contrary", lets just quickly go over some financial stuff.

during the case, it was unofficially estimated that the damage didnt exceed $125,000. imm, by including lost passenger receipts, wanted to claim for as high as $750,000, but they lost that case.

during the year 1911, imms surplus profit was $822,062. so weve got:

750,000 > 822,062

now as we might remember from key stage 1 maths, the bigger number eats the smaller number, aka, their surplus profit covered the costs of repair.

aka, no ill-advised insurance scam needed.

"thousands of people in belfast would have seen the switch operation - and yet there is not one word in the papers of reporters or photographers rushing out to find out what was happening."

-dr paul lee

so this is the section where i ask how did no one fucking notice?

no one on titanic, who had previously sailed on olympic, ever said anything about the switch other than one guy who was literally not on the ship at any point.

no one who has ever explored the wreck or done research on it has definitively stated it was olympic. rather, they have definitively stated otherwise.

for example, what remains of the base on the wheelhouse shows it to be straight and not curved, and as you might remember: titanics wheelhouse was heterosexual straight and olympics was curved.

(id be impressed if you did remember)

also, as parks stephenson has stated:

"weve got actual high def images of this wreck. ive seen with my own eyes. weve identified the name titanic on the port bow"

its difficult to make out but its there; the name is on the fucking ship.

also, as you might remember, titanics b-deck was different to olympics. the 2 suites there were nicknamed the "millionaire suites" and jim cameron has used rovs to go inside of them.

funnily enough, robin gardiner has gone on the record saying that these suites didnt exist so make of that what you will.

and further, no one noticed anything about olympic even though she sailed for 24 more years. theres no written record of anything, theres nothing in the board of trade reports, theres no photographic proof and theres not even fucking hearsay.

she served as a damn troopship in ww1, youd figure someone would figure it out as all of her fittings were ripped out.

but no, theres nothing.

as i mentioned above, olympic was scrapped in 1935, but some of her fittings were auctioned off and still exist today. and these have the number 400 on them because that was her shipyard number. titanics was 401 and the wreck reflects this also:

the wooden parts are from olympic; the other has been salvaged from titanics wreck.

theres even the famous myth that olympic or olympus as one person told me is written on the propeller at the bottom of the ocean. its not, but you can see the number 401 written on it:

and while were disproving myths about the name olympic being on the titanic, the story about olympic being engraved on titanics lifeboats is also false:

theres no written testimony, no sketches and no photographs of this.

white star didnt engrave names onto lifeboats, the names were on metal plates that were screwed on

do you really think they did all of this work but just didnt fucking swap the lifeboats? if theyre this stupid, how did it take until 1995 for someone to figure it out?

we can also discuss the stupid olympic room thing while were here. see theres a maritime superstition that changing the name on a ship is bad luck and obviously, if youre swapping the ships, youre changing the names.

so to... get around this? cheat luck? outsmart superstition? i dont fucking know, to take a detour to avoid this, white star named a room "the olympic room."

i cannot find any evidence at all that this room ever existed. its not in the design plans or the blueprints, and no passenger or crew has ever said it existed, so im pretty sure the room just didnt exist.

and even if it did exist, titanic was in the olympic class of ships. thats what olympic, titanic and britannic were. its not weird to have an olympic room on an olympic class ship. i mean it is weird in this case since the room didnt exist, but you get my point.

and heres some quickfire myths and falsehoods

the myth about the 14 vs 16 bow portholes is also a false. yes, titanic had 14 portholes on launch but an extra 2 were added before her maiden voyage so yes, the ship photographed departing southampton with 16 bow portholes is the titanic, and do you really think it would take 83 years to figure this out if it was this easy?

similarly, titanic did have evenly spaced b-deck windows on launch, but then the extra verandahs and suites were added so the window configuration was altered, so that photograph is off the titanic.

the idea that titanic had a 2 degree list to port like the olympic before her is evidence of the switch theory is, to borrow a word from dan van der dat, bilge. plenty of ships at the time and now have minor lists. the one on titanic was only recorded by 2 passengers and we know that the list was related to coal consumption. it means nothing.

jp morgan (owner of imm) did not cancel last minute. as mark baber points out on encyclopedia titanica, it was announced in the new york times that hed be in venice on april 23. at that time, transatlantic voyages took at least 5 days so it would at least be a 10 day round trip and likely not give him time to get to venice for the opening of a store of whatever it was.

also, j bruce ismays wife and kids also didnt cancel last minute. theyd already decided to go on holiday to wales rather than sail on titanic.

addendum to that point: if ismay knew it was going to be sank deliberately and so warned his wife, why would he get on board himself? further, why would harland and wolff designer thomas andrews (who did not survive by the way) get on board?

and we're finally at my favourite part of this entire mess: the sinking itself.

see, a deliberate sinking doesnt really make sense for titanic because the conditions under which she sank has led to the descriptor "freak sinking."

these are: a new moon meaning less light, unusually calm ocean that disallowed lookouts to watch for foam as waves hit any icebergs, ice having drifted further south than normal for that time of year, and a sideways glancing blow that breached more watertight compartments than the ship could handle and stay afloat.

and idk dude, is there not an easier way? like maybe some light arson. just call it an accidental fire that got out of control and led to the ship being a write-off, this isnt difficult.

but you see gardiner has an answer to this, and i am laughing as im typing this, he claims that:

titanic didnt hit an iceberg, it hit an imm rescue ship.

thats right, this guy fully says titanic didnt hit an iceberg. apparently it hit another ship and NO ONE FUCKING NOTICED

i mean we have testimony from survivors but fuck them i guess.

he claims that as titanic was apparently a "steel double-hulled vessel" so an iceberg simply couldnt inflict so much damage.

yeah titanic wasnt double-hulled. she had a double bottom, but it was only after titanic that shipbuilders were like ah maybe full double hulls arent an unnecessary expense after all.

theres also the issue of uh no evidence of this rescue ship ever existing? at all? i dont know where it came from, i dont know where it went, and who fucking knows, maybe it was called the rms cotton eyed joe.

yeah so weve got a theory riddled with problems and im just gonna introduce some more problems with this theory as gardiner has also alleged that:

the original plan was to open the seacocks and slowly flood the ship, but this was interrupted by titanic hitting another ship

1) titanic didnt have seacocks? and 2) was the rest of it a coincidence then? i think its meant to be a coincidence.

i believe his theory is alleging that the crew on titanic would open the seacocks that didnt exist to flood the ship slowly, and that the imm rescue ship that also didnt exist was in the area in advance to help evacuate passengers, alongside other ships such as the ss californian.

this is that ship that was like 10 miles away or something and didnt respond to titanics distress signals. according to gardiner, they were expecting a rendezvous with titanic according to the "original plan", but never received it.

instead, they saw the rockets of the fabled imm rescue ship and helped them instead.

this is fucking stupid.

i cant be charitable here, its a fucking stupid theory. i mean, that imm ship did not exist, and also californian is a ridiculous choice for a rescue ship. her capacity was 47 passengers and 55 crew; there were more than 2200 people on board titanic.

to counteract this argument, gardiner alleges carpathia was also in on the scheme as a rescue ship. she, at least, had capacity for the passengers, but theres also several problems with this too.

for one, it was fucking 50 miles away and famously arrived several hours after the sinking even though the captain had her running at top speed to get there.

for two, carpathia was owned by cunard, white stars rival. was their rival line in on the insurance scam??? how much money did they have to pay cunard for this????? why? just why?

do you understand why i dont believe it? please tell me you understand. i need you to understand. i need you to tell me that you understand that the guy who created this conspiracy claimed titanic didnt hit an iceberg.

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freakscircus · 5 months

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being super into a really niche topic is weird sometimes... i'm writing the second chapter of my dissertation and looking at some old feminist magazines from the cuban national library and found a weird poem some women wrote for gerardo machado, the president of cuba who turned dictatorial in the late 1920s. its so odd because everyone hated him except for this one faction of feminists because he promised the vote, so they praised him constantly in the hopes that it would speed up the suffrage process. but finding this weird brownnosing poem to a dictator who is literally hiring forces to beat protesting women in the streets is absolutely bizarre..... i want to talk about it but nobody knows anything about cuban feminism so i guess i'll save my thoughts for the dissertation

#true 1930s pickme behavior

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philosophika · 6 months

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Nine People You Want To Get To Know Better

Hi everyone, I'm back from an unplanned semi-hiatus (turns out moving countries can really do a number on you) and am looking forward to interacting again. On that note, thank you very much to my new mutual, @lordfenric-writes for tagging me! If you don't already know Fenric (can I call you Fenric?), go check out their Content Links Post for access to their 2023 NaNoWriMo project and more! Soft tagging: @tate-lin @lucianinsanity @songsofsomnia @moonscribbler @words-after-midnight @blind-the-winds @sarah-sandwich @mydeadpony @inkovert @sender-paulson @athenswrites @wordsacrossemptypages, @winterandwords and anyone else who'd like to participate! If you want me to remove you from the tags, just send me a message and I'll get right on it <3

Current Book I'm Reading: OK, so the first thing you need to know about me is that I'm a fully institutionalized academic, and although I've (THANKFULLY) left that world behind, I. CAN'T FOR. THE. LIFE. OF. ME. stop reading like an academic. I haven't been able to read fiction in over a year. The only genre outside of non-fiction that I still seem to be able to connect with is horror. And not like ghosts in your attic horror. Obscure, weird-as-fuck horror. Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman & Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova horror (which are both excellent books, by the way). But that wasn't the question, was it? The question was: what am I reading now. Well, (oh god) I've been digging into The Last Man Takes LSD: Foucault and the End of Revolution by Mitchell Dean & Daniel Zamora, which sounds a whole lot more trippy than it actually is. Mainly, I'm interested because the authors point out that Foucault's late philosophy, his so-called 'ethical turn' towards an 'aesthetics of existence', was inspired by a trip he took to California (and the upper reaches of the universe). Since I wrote my MA dissertation on this exact topic (the ethical turn, not the LSD), I thought it might come in handy for future articles...

Last Song I Listened To: Bastille & Hans Zimmer's new cover of Bastille's Pompeii, Pompeii MMXXIII (recommended by a friend). Before that, I was listening to a 'British Folk/Weird Folk/Horror Folk' playlist on Spotify which was pretty interesting... Actually, it reminded me of being a child in the English countryside, stuffing my face with berries by the side of the road and then going to the new-age shop in the village to listen to whale-song CDs, touch magic gemstones, and smell incense sticks. Very hippie.

Currently Watching: The Servant on Apple TV (is the baby real or not!? It's driving me crazy); Foundation on Apple TV (and I swear it's not because Jared Harris is in it or Lee Pace wears chainmail crop-tops. I swear!); and... The News? Does the news count? I watch a lot of 'the news' now. Actually, I can't stop watching... It's been quite sad and terrible lately...

Current Fic I'm Reading: Sorry, I don't read fics! I know it's blasphemy. Believe me, no one is more disgusted with me than I am. But yeah, there you go... Never been my thing, really. Nothing against it.

Next On My Watch List: the upcoming Napoleon movie featuring Joaquin Phoenix; Killers of the Flower Moon; anything A23 produces anytime; Priscilla by Sofia Coppola (which is A23 also so, you know, naturally); and I'll probably re-watch The Green Knight for Christmas (it is a Christmas movie, after all).

Current Obsession: My WIP, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, which you can check out on my writeblr side-blog (@thesorcerersapprentice) has been my main obsession for the past -what?- four years? More or less? I really feel like until I've written this thing, gotten it out of me, I won't be able to write anything else. It just won't leave me alone. I can't think around it; I always end up coming back. It's a story I fundamentally, deep down in my bones, need to write. So it's my obsession: today, tomorrow, and always, right up until the day it's done.

#tag games #tagging games #open tag #Nine People You Want To Get To Know Better #writeblr community

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liskantope · 8 months

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Back in late 2020 I made a post which mentioned as a side comment the impression I get from a lot of the more aggressive SJ people that writing/saying a lot (e.g. writing long, nuanced, qualifying, and/or perhaps defensive-sounding responses) is seen as evidence in and of itself of being wrong in the argument, specifically the type of wrong that comes from a position of privilege (I thought a little later I wrote a short post focusing only on this, but I can't seem to find it now). The example in the above-linked post is in the strangely-proportioned screenshot, where someone who is being attacked for not bowing down to the Correct political opinions keeps responding with lengthy, articulate, nuanced comments (which include some acknowledgment of her own weaknesses) and is met only more vehement attacks declaring checkmate explicitly on the grounds that her comments are long. The end of the exchange happens when she leaves a comment raising her eyebrows at being attacked for long-windedness, and the entirety of the response is "...you and your privilege". It's a finale that's stuck with me.

I was reminded of this today when an unexpected spurt of activity showed up on my Tumblr: an activist with whom I got into a contentious exchange well over two years ago for some reason chose now to abruptly reblog a several of my lengthy responses with pithy remarks (okay, plus one which includes a link to her own independent blog post about it which I don't think I'd seen before), and a minor flurry of likes and replies followed. I don't care to reblog any of this now, or even link to it, because my getting into that debate is something I'm really not proud of: the topic is not a hill I want to die on, and I dislike my awkward defensiveness and repeated apologies and semi-retractions. If I'm going to spend time and energy arguing something really controversial, I would rather it be a discussion where I can be really incisive and not catch myself arguing carelessly and sloppily and feel the repeated need to step back and clutter everything with caveats and apologies. But, if you are curious, I was defending a YouTuber I respect from being cancelled for being Problematic, and this exchange happened in spring of 2021.

The one new bit of substantive information for me coming from today's activity is the link to a separate blog post written at the time, which further confirms that there's no point in me continuing to defend that YouTuber to this activist: apparently among the list of things that makes this YouTuber's case worse and confirms their guilt are (1) publishing an earlier video which made all of the exact right points but which (surprise, surprise) got noticed by more people than a written article by a lower-profile person from the Relevant Marginalized Group making essentially the same points, (2) acknowledging that the Relevant Social Justice Cause is a good one and including a link to a fundraiser, and (3) momentarily sighing with a slight look of exasperation when first bringing up the accusation of being Problematic in a video. (Sorry I'm continuing to be vague here.)

Continuing to argue with this activist would be a waste of time, since our rhetorical values and norms are clearly too far apart for us ever to reach each other. Looking at it makes me grateful to have found a part of Tumblr that does share my basic notions of how discussions should work.

But what strikes me most of all is how my lengthiness itself is somehow treated as evidence of my guilt or wrongness or privilege or something. One of my lengthy reblogs got met today with a single sentence mocking it as a "dissertation" and managing to weirdly characterize my thesis without explanation, while another later one got met with "Have you considered just.... never talking again? Because you are not good at it." Again, these little zingers were fired off probably within a few minutes earlier today, in response to things I wrote back in spring of 2021.

That's the exact same kind of back-of-the-hand dismissal that I mentioned above having witnessed done to someone else (with the "...you and your privilege" comment). It reads like "This person talks too much, that's how you know they're in the wrong, so no need to address any of their points, if I smack them with a one-sentence response saying 'Haha that just further confirms you're wrong!' then I win."

And it's like, usually I consider my ability at cognitive empathy to be quite good, but it's hard for me to figure out what the other party is actually thinking in a situation like this: I can sort of get my head around not respecting nuance in certain selective situations and thinking the ability to feel nuance is a sign of privilege or something, but I can't quite figure out how they justify these one-sentence blanket dismissals on the grounds that the other person's comments are too long without imagining that they must be aware on some level that they're just being domineering-in-an-internet-way and deliberately going for a cheap and empty slam-dunk. This isn't very charitable, but honestly I have a hard time understanding such people's motives any other way.

#vagueposting #discourse #social justice

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justabigassnerd · 1 month

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just rewatched Top Gun Maverick after months of not watching it and not only have I remembered how much I love it

I’m also getting to relive the joy I had getting to write my dissertation - which I know sounds really weird but I wrote about both Top Gun & Top Gun Maverick as part of my dissertation and it was so fun rewatching the movie with all the knowledge I used in my dissertation

I know dissertations aren’t for everyone and they’re a big chunk of work at uni but getting to write about Top Gun was genuinely a joy (I think I wrote at least 14 pages on it). and I’m proud of myself for not listening to my advisor suggesting against my topic choice as I still got myself a 2:1

anyway that’s my Top Gun ramble for today

#justabigassnerd #justabigassnerd rambles

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beardedblizzardstrawberry · 1 year

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Grief

Wanderer X Gn!Reader

‘The most painful feeling is when a loved one is buried six feet underground, no longer breathing the same air as you. An overwhelm feel of grief is all you’re ever left with now’

W.c:1k

Warning: Mentions of death. Not proofread.

Blizzard’s inconvenient note: This one’s a short one! I was sleep deprived so I don’t know what I wrote. One question for all. If you had the chance to grant a new name for the wanderer, what would you call him?

Death...

Why does such topic stabs your heart with a mallet?

Connected both of your palms, you silently pray underneath one of the many trees standing on the deserted island. Orange and red leaves snaps away from mothers’ branches. The wind taking them elsewhere as they follow.

The nameless Wanderer stands behind you with a blank look on his face. He wonders. How do you deal with it? Why doesn’t it anger you when life has taken what’s important to you? Don’t you want to just burn everything down to ashes? Call it a joke?

He finally snaps his thoughts when you gently call his name. The eyes you give him. You show a sense of warmth in them and he despises it. That look of those who used to be by his side. Nothing good ever comes from it. In the end, it’s all a waste. Why even bother?

“Right here is my brother. He was only six years old when he ultimately took his final breath. It’s only been a couple of years but it stays ingrained in my memory”, you said. You don’t tell much about your past to anyone. It’s simply the fact that you don’t trust anyone. The wanderer wasn’t an exception at first. When he opened up to you on the day the both of you were prepared to travel to Tatarasuna, you can’t help but feel a sense of guilt. You would’ve left him at Narukami Island but that goes against the promise you made to the Dendro Archon. Hence why you also decided to unravel your heart before him.

“We lost both our parents to an unidentified disease. I was young and helpless at the time. Almost all of our neighbours migrated, leaving a few to fend in this tarnished land. My brother and I were one of them”

He listens carefully to whatever you have to say. In the end, it helped him push the burden off his chest when he told you about his story here.

“When he lie lifeless on the floor of our home, I can’t describe the emotion I felt back then. I didn’t know whether its grief or...betrayal. I wanted to curse the world for it”

Tears brim your eyes as you speak without a care whether he chooses to hear you or not. It’s not the first time you’ve talked to yourself. Sniffles can be heard. He can only stand and watch you suffer from the memories you recall. He knows how you feel, deeply. In spite that, the two of you handled the grief differently whereas he became the destroyer of the world but you, you chose to be the peacemaker of this wretched world. That’s why you studied hard in Fontaine. To study about the life of human like machinery. Thinking that maybe you could bring your brother back. Thus,

It’s all just a fever dream...

Never meant for reality...

Until you met him.

The first time the both of you laid eyes, both of you knew you wanted nothing from each other. Let alone be near each other. You were brought by one of the sages to abruptly meet with the Dendro Archon. True to her name, she knows everything about you in and out. By scoring first in this years dissertation, you were chosen to study -take care- the former Balladeer, once known as Scaramouche.

The both of you had your petty fights. You’d admit. Mostly started because of him. However that was all in the past. The both of you learnt to set your differences aside and comply what is told.

You study and observe him for the God of Wisdom, while he gets the chance to wander again and hone his new heart. This time not impended by the higher ups belonging to the Tsarita.

You and the nameless wanderer explore far and wide. Immersing in the nature of what you call serene and tranquillity. Without even realising it, whenever he would cause a ruckus, whether It’d be fighting a mob or arguing humans, you start to concern about his well being. You were beginning to care for him...

But unlike your deceased brother, the wanderer is immortal. You wonder if he feels the same way for you. What will happen if you’re no longer in this world? Does your kindness and affection reach out to him? Your body has fallen too deep into the pits of your emotion. Perhaps you wanted to give him the love that you couldn’t provide for your little brother. You didn’t need the same thing happening to him.

The story sounds awfully similar to the boy he met centuries ago that he almost thought your brother to be that boy. But who knows, it could be his reincarnation dealing the same ending in sickness. He never displays it but he does have affection for you. Very close to how he felt for both the boy and Katsuragi. Possibly more unique. It’s just that he wishes to never return back to his vulnerable self. Never. Again.

He doesn’t want to go through a mental break down again...

when you’re gone too...

You turn around slowly after finishing your prayers. He sees your eyes has redden and puffed up from the silent whimpers. His throat tightens at the sight. You remind him of himself and he hates it so much. Why can he conjure an image of himself at your place? For many years, he tried to walk in life as lifeless as he was made out to be. But he feels like a tin soldier who puts their hand on the left side of the chest when they are overwhelmed.

You stroll to the Wanderer and took his hand in your grasp in which he intertwines his fingers with. The two of you continue your journey and face what awaits in the future. A howl of wind blows. Maple leaves dancing around mid air. He glances at you and his heart softens. He too wants to give you love. Something he wasn’t able to do because of the pain that derived from love. He wants to try again. After all, he’s basically a flipped leaf.

And when you’re no longer around, he won’t act the same as a result of his previous action. Instead, he’ll be like you. As kind as you. To love like you, just as much as you did for your little brother. He’ll just accept it. Death comes after life. That’s what mortality is all about.

Ultimately, he’ll wander again in the future. This time as a true lone wanderer without you by his side. Your mere existence becomes a recollection to him. All he can do is move forward in life while you’ll forever be remembered in his heart...

@Do not repost, plagiarise or submit this to other platforms without permission.

Like and Repost if you enjoy the post

#scaramouche x reader #scaramouche #genshin impact #genshin fanfic #genshin impact fatui #genshin x reader #wanderer genshin #wanderer x reader #genshin angst

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otrtbs · 1 day

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nat darling i must know whether or not you have ever been talking phd thesis length (im pretty sure i saw you saying something about doing a phd or maybe applying for one) and someone says damn 80000 words is so long and you are just like mhm sure this will be the longest thing ive ever written on the topic of art history. never written anything longer which discusses art and its value imagine if i wrote a book on it haha nope not me. (i was just talking about it with my friend who i forced to read ahb after it made me cry -hes not in the fandom but he loved it btw- and he asked me how you knew so much about art and i said i think she has a degree in art history and he pointed out that although obviously its a very very different type of writing, ahb is technically speaking the length of about 3 phds and this made us both laugh)

hahahaha this is so wild!!!!!

my masters dissertation was only 15,000 words which, when it's ACADEMIC it does feel like a huge undertaking

art heist baby was like a fever-dream fugue state that just poured out of me fr,,,, but ahb! being the length of three whole phd thesis papers is wild. i've never thought about it like this but omg

see what i can accomplish when i don't have to worry about grammar conventions or sounding academically valid??? 😌

#asks #art heist baby!

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power-chords · 6 months

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After the war, as a student first at Brooklyn College and then at Columbia, Hilberg was quickly drawn to the academic study of the fate he had escaped in Europe but that many of his relatives had not. "Briefly I weighed the possibility of writing a dissertation about an aspect of war crimes, and then I woke up," he explained in his autobiography. "It was the evidence that I wanted. My subject would be the destruction of the European Jews." He was soon spending long hours in a torpedo factory in Virginia that had been transformed into a repository for countless boxes of captured Nazi archives. Hilberg’s decision to study this material was not considered a professionally prudent one at the time, which may seem odd in the current era of Holocaust movies and proliferating Holocaust studies departments. But in the late 1940s and ’50s, the genocide of the Jews was a subject ignored in academic circles. History books of the era focused on the cult of Hitler and the Nazi terror but generally did not identify the slaughter of the Jews as a central part of the story of World War II. In the United States, the first college-level course dedicated to the subject of the Holocaust was taught in 1974–by Raul Hilberg. More than twenty years earlier, when Franz Neumann, Hilberg’s adviser at Columbia, learned of his dissertation topic, he quipped, "It’s your funeral."

Hilberg’s study opens with a bold statement: "Lest one be misled by the word ‘Jews’ in the title, let it be pointed out that this is not a book about the Jews. It is a book about the people who destroyed the Jews." Hilberg toiled for nearly a decade in the archives of the Nuremberg trials and other collections of recovered German documents. During his last lecture, which he delivered in Vermont just a few months before his death, he recalled the void that engulfed him at the outset of his research. "I was transported into a world for which I was totally unprepared," he explained in his dry, austere manner. "I would read a document, but I would not understand what it meant. The context had to be built record by record."

In Hilberg’s telling, the murder of the Jews was not a product simply of Hitler’s anti-Semitic rage (as Dawidowicz would later argue), nor was it preordained the moment the Nazi Party coalesced or even by the terror of Kristallnacht. "The destruction of the Jews was an administrative process, and the annihilation of Jewry required the implementation of systematic administrative measures in successive steps." Hilberg presented a staggering picture of the bureaucratic machinery of extermination, which developed slowly over time and inundated every sector of German society–not just the Einsatzgruppen and the SS but also the finance ministry, foreign office and railways; everyone knew what was happening, and everyone cooperated.

Hilberg defended his dissertation in 1955 and submitted it to prominent publishing houses. It was roundly rejected until 1961, when a young press in Chicago, Quadrangle Books, decided to publish the work, printing it in double columns on cheap paper. From there, the massive tome began quietly and slowly to win over admirers. In a glowing review in Commentary, the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper wrote that Hilberg’s book was "not yet another chronicle of horrors. It is a careful, analytic, three-dimensional study of a social and political experience unique in history: an experience which no one could believe possible till it happened and whose real significance still bewilders us." Michael Marrus, the foremost historiographer of the Holocaust, says that it is now generally agreed that before Hilberg "there was not a subject. No panoramic, European-wide sense of what had happened. That’s what Hilberg provided."

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jiejie-eonni-onee-sama · 1 year

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I am always safe with you...

For the amazing @simplybombshell and @onemoreparadise , inspired by their works (X) (X)

In Cambridge, Massachusetts lived the Thompson-Spencer family.

They were a family who lived quietly and happily, enjoying every moment together.

This home consisted of a male couple, Jonathan Spencer and his husband, Alistair Thompson, and their adopted son, Elliott.

Jonathan worked as a quantitative analyst in a high-technology company in Boston. Efficient and competent, he was considered one of the best people in the company.

Meanwhile, Alistair was an American studies teacher at Harvard University. Recognised for his broad general knowledge and his pedagogy, his students and colleagues appreciated him.

In addition to teaching, he has written articles in academic journals and participated in conferences.

As for Elliott, who was a thirteen years old boy, he studied at the Boston Latin Academy.

He was a sweet boy, dreamy and very bright.

All three shared a close bond and enjoyed their lives together.

But today, Elliott would have liked to be somewhere other than in front of his blank paper. He had only his English essay to do, but he was not inspired.

The boy was annoyed: he had to hand in this essay at the next English class, which was in five days.

The subject didn't seem complicated, though. It was entitled: Feeling Safe.

It was a short subject but not an easy one to tackle.

Elliott felt discouraged: this bloody exercise was wasting his time!

"Elliott! Let's eat!" called his father.

The young boy got up and went downstairs to join his parents.

He sat down at the table and began to eat as his father Alistair asked him:

"So, have you finished your lessons?"

"Almost: I've still got an English essay to do."

"An essay? And what is the subject?" asked Jonathan.

"Feeling safe."

The two men looked at each other, quite surprised.

"Now, that's an interesting topic. There's a lot to say about it. And have you made any progress on your essay?" inquired Jonathan.

"No, that's just it: I can't find the right words."

"Why didn't you come to us for help earlier? I could have given you a hand," replied Alistair.

"I know, but I know you, Dad: you would do my whole paper. And my teacher would suspect something..."

"Eli is right, Alistair: when a subject raises your interest, you cannot help disserting on it as you do with your teaching sessions at university!" chuckled Mr Spencer.

"What can I say? This is professional deformation." smirked his husband before turning to Elliott.

"To answer your question, Eli, let me give you some advice: ask yourself how you feel safe. What makes you believe that nothing can happen to you? Is there anything that comforts you when you feel low? Think about it, and you might find the answer!"

Elliott nodded, his neurons already starting to find ideas for his essay.

"I'll do that. Who knows: it will inspire me?"

"In the meantime, finish your plate: it'll get cold!"

The meal continued in good spirits, and then Elliott returned to his room and wrote down all the ideas that came to mind on paper.

Then, he went to sleep: he would work on this essay tomorrow!

⏰⏰⏰

The next day.

Like yesterday, Elliott sat in front of his desk, ready to write his essay. This time, the young boy knew what to write.

And as he began to write the first lines of his essay, the young boy felt the inspiration coming to him. The more he wrote, the better he felt about his work: he was sure to get a good grade.

When he finished his assignment, the teenager reread his work to ensure he wrote everything correctly and had not missed any spelling mistakes.

Satisfied, he carefully placed his paper in a plastic bag and put it in his bag before tackling his maths exercises.

The teenager looked forward to showing his work to his parents when he received the grade.

Meanwhile, Alistair and Jonathan were in the living room, working: the quantitative analyst wrote a report on his computer while the teacher corrected papers.

Jonathan looked up from his screen and asked his husband:

"Do you have a lot of work to do?"

The teacher sighed:

"Don't mention it! I've got fifty essays to correct on the Gothic novel in Britain and France in 19th century, and I can't see the end of it! I would finish correcting these by Friday, so I don't have to work at the weekend."

Alistair asked:

"What about you? Are you managing to write that report?"

"Yes, but it's a bit tedious. At least once I've done it, I'll be free for the weekend!"

He added with a smile:

"Which gives me an idea..."

"You and your creativity! What do you have planned?" chuckled Alistair.

"Nothing extravagant..."

Jonathan put his arm around his husband's shoulders.

"I was thinking, Friday night, we could order food and have a movie night. A little night with just the three of us. What do you think?"

"It sounds tempting, and it's been a while since we've done anything together," Alistair agreed, resting his head on his partner's shoulder.

The analyst added:

"Besides, it's been a long time since we didn't spend quality time with Elliott. I don't want our son to feel cast away !"

"Eli is a cunning boy: he knows we all have a lot of work. He will love your idea: I can feel it!"

Little did the two men know that Elliott had a surprise planned for Friday night. And he hoped they would like it.

⛅⛅⛅⛅⛅⛅

On Friday, late afternoon.

As he pushed open the door to his house, Elliott had a smile on his face: it was finally the weekend! But it wasn't just the prospect of rest that put the young boy in a good mood: so far, his surprise went just as he had planned.

His enthusiasm didn't escape his fathers.

"Hi, sweetie. How was your day?" asked Alistair.

"It was good, but I wanted to go home."

"Tell me about it!"

"And did you get any grades? Any homework?" requested Jonathan.

"Yes. Remember my Feeling Safe essay? I got the grade today!"

"Ah yes, that famous essay! Verdict?"

Elliott's smile widened.

"I got an A+."

"You did? Well done, my little writer!" the analyst smiled, kissing his son on the forehead.

"This is something to celebrate. What should we order for dinner? Italian or Indian? Unless you want Chinese food?" suggested the teacher.

"Pizza!" the teenager exclaimed, making his parents laugh.

"Go for the pizza !" smiled Alistair as he dialled the local pizzeria to order the menu.

Thirty minutes later, their order arrived, and the family prepared to eat their dinner when Elliott asked:

"Before we eat, do you want to read my essay ?"

"Well, why not? Let's see what you did !"

Elliott picked up his essay and handed it to his parents, who saw the A+ mark written in bright red.

They read the comment from the teacher:

Excellent work, with personal and moving elements. Keep up the good work!

"Well, well: being complimented by Mr Cooper is an achievement!" smirked Jonathan.

"I am the only student in my class to get an A+ on this homework!"

"That is a double achievement !" whistled Alistair.

The two men started to read the essay.

Feeling Safe by Elliott Spencer-Thompson.

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."

"How cute! He quotes an author, just like his dad !" joked Jonathan.

"Stop teasing me and continue to read !" replied Alistair with a smile.

"Your wish is my command, darling !" replied his husband as he pursued the reading.

In this quote, George Eliot expressed one of the main goals in men's life: feeling safe.

We feel safe when we come home, especially when our loved ones surround us.

This need for safety, whether physical or psychological, is a distant echo of the survival instinct of our prehistoric ancestors. You can't survive for long if you don't find people to count on.

We seek shelter from what might harm us since our first days.

Our innocence makes us believe that nothing can happen to us because we have not yet experienced the disillusionment and cruelty of the world.

I thought I would always be safe because my biological parents were there for me.

I didn't try to understand when my mother asked me to play a game: to close my eyes and count to thirty. My father promised me a surprise if I did it.

I obeyed, and I got my surprise: the surprise of not seeing my parents anymore.

From then on, all my certainties collapsed: not all adults protect you. Sometimes they abandon you.

It is a hard lesson to learn for a four-year-old boy.

It took me a long time to relearn how to feel that sensation of being loved.

Today I can say that I feel safe.

No doubt people will ask me: what does it mean to me to feel safe?

For me, feeling safe is many things at the same time.

I feel safe when my dad Jonathan said he loves me.

I feel safe because my dad Alistair watches over me when I am sick.

I feel safe because they take me in their arms when I'm upset or sad.

I feel safe because when I cried at night, remembering the awful day my biological parents left me alone in a crowd, they rushed to my side, promising to always be there for me.

I feel safe because they teach me so many things. It can go from the behaviour in society to my cultural knowledge.

I feel safe because they taught me to trust and tell them everything.

I feel safe because they helped to become a good man.

I don't forget I have friends I trust and love, but nothing is more important than my parents.

I know some people disapprove that two men could raise a child.

We might not share genes, but we share a love, respect and trust bond.

I don't want any other family than the two men who gave me their last names and added me to their lives.

That's why I am eager to come home after school because, every time I cross the threshold of my house, I immediately feel better.

And it started when I hear their voices saying "Welcome Home".

I hope when I become an adult, I will provide the family I will create the same feeling of safety and love my parents provided me.

To conclude, I would say that feeling safe is an incredible luck I am grateful to have, thanks to my parents. Because with them, I will always feel safe.

Elliott began worrying when he saw tears shining in his fathers' eyes.

"Are you okay?"

Jonathan hastened to answer, wiping his eyes:

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. It's a lot of emotions all at once!"

"How did you write all this?" asked Alistair.

The teenager shrugged, a little embarrassed.

"When I told you I was struggling with this essay, you suggested I ask myself what made me feel safe. I thought about it, and I knew the answer."

Elliott smiled shyly.

"I remembered the day when the social worker told me people wanted to adopt me. I was so scared! Then, I saw you, and something inside me told me I could go with you. I will always be grateful to give a new start!"

"Come here, you !" exclaimed Alistair, who hugged his son, joined by Jonathan.

The family of three enjoyed the hug before parting.

Alistair ran a hand through his son's hair.

"Your essay proved that we did our job as your parents. It is the least we can do for you."

"You changed our lives forever and in the best way. With you, we are a family," added Jonathan as he kissed his son.

"Something we waited for a long time," nodded the teacher as he wiped his tears.

Alistair glanced at the pizzas.

"Oh my! The pizza must be cold now!"

"Because you cried on it!" joked his husband.

"You cried too!"

Elliott laughed at his parents' banter.

It was these moments that makes him feel good, like sharing a relaxing evening with his two dads.

These moments make him feel safe and loved.

Thanks for reading the story !

I hope you enjoyed it!

Feel free to request !

Take care of you! 😘😊😊🥰

Tag: @marilynmonroefanfics

#crackship stories #gifts #lee pace #matt bomer #gabriel bateman #oc: alistair thompson #oc: jonathan spencer #oc: elliott spencer-thompson

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souryogurt64 · 1 year

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i'm kinda disappointed seeing Billie Joe posting Harry Potter shit especially after what britt has been posting... he has to know about the controversy with jk rowling, it's in a lot major media outlets

I completely agree with you. I personally feel that the entire Armstrong stratosphere is purposefully going in an alarming ideological direction because Billie's son got canceled.

This isn't an excuse, but it's clear Billie is very unwell mentally and is probably doubling down on a lot of "cancel culture" stuff to avoid facing who he raised.

Raising an entitled POS brat was something he was very anxious about to the point where he was publicly talking about it in numerous interviews and wrote a song about it. Judging from his behavior lately, it seems he's struggling with the fact that it happened.

The stuff with Britt is like. No it's not okay and it's fucking weird and she's crazy but Britt had/has cancer and is/was going through chemo. That's not an excuse to be a bigot and conspiracy theorist, but also I don't expect Mike Dirnt to divorce her over this under those circumstances because chemo seriously affects your brain and she is his wife and the mother of his children.

A bit off topic but

I almost put this in the SWMRS dissertation but didn’t because it was so niche and nebulous and conjecture, and also because talking about Harry Potter and especially Snape at all gets people so worked up, I felt like it would have just caused more drama than it was worth.

But one of my core memories of knowing the SWMRS ship was irrevocably doomed was Uncool Halloween 2018, which was Harry Potter themed and kind of on the cusp of when people were starting to understand JK Rowling’s deal.

There was drama over that ofc, but my one key memory was waiting to meet Max and Cole after the show and a small group of fansangrily confronted them about Billie/Adrienne and possibly Joey posting Snape/Lily “always” shit and having matching tattoos or something because it was “glorifying abusive relationships." Max and Cole were like backing away trying to de-escalate the situation without saying anything hard and fast.

I haven’t read Harry Potter since I was literally 12 so pardon me if I’m wrong but like I feel like this was just the epitome of the SWMRSosphere in that 1) Yes, the Snape and Lily stuff is incredibly weird and cringe as written by JK Rowling and it’s cringe and weird for Billie and Adrienne to care about that, but they do it because they’re dumb and Billie is a goth and Adie was a cheerleader and originally engaged to someone else, not because they have enough brain cells to know or care about this terminally online nerd issue

2) Snape and Lily were never dating??? And this is a completely fictional non-relationship between TEENAGERS that DID NOT even fully happen in the fiction??? And is purposefully portrayed as morally ambiguous and questionable in the text?? Which is a fucking kids book from the 90s?????

And everyone seemingly lost it online over fandom drama and latched on to it as a portrayal of real life actual abusive relationships to the point where it permeated real fucking life and was obscuring the real issue here which was the fact that SWMRS were saying they were so hip to social justice and trans issues when they clearly absolutely weren’t

It just epitomized teenagers falling into bizarre and vicious herd mentalities over fandom drama under the guise of fighting for very serious real-life issues, while completely ignoring and participating in actual real-life issues. If that makes sense lol

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janetbrown711 · 2 years

Text

First Bowl of Noodles

The story of how Mei and MK stumbled into Pigsy's Noodles and met Pigsy and Tang

**Several years pre-canon**

Ao3 Link

It was a regular rainy thursday afternoon for Pigsy, customers shifting in and out of the restaurant at a slower pace than usually, the soft pattering of rain outside, and Tang working on his dissertation, still hemming and hawing at whether or not he chose the right topic has he had been for just about forever now– and of course, he was also not paying for his food. Pigsy would’ve bothered him, but the restaurant was so quiet and peaceful he didn’t feel like disturbing it.

It was right then he jinxed it, as he heard the door burst open, followed by the sounds of sopping wet sneakers ducking under a booth and some whispers, leaving what he knew without looking was probably a massive trail of mud water and dirt without an apology.

Kids.

Just what he wanted right now.

Here we go…

Pigsy put the pot he was working on to a simmer before going to the booth and knocking on the table. “Can I help you two down there?” he huffed. Sheepishly, two maybe ten-year-olds, one boy and one girl, popped out on opposite sides of the booth– with the girl having a massive bruise on her cheek.

“Haha, sorry sir, can we have a menu?” The girl smiled brightly at him. Pigsy rolled his eyes and pointed to the rack of them against the wall. “Oh,” she laughed nervously and grabbed one, burying her face in it. Pigsy huffed and went back to the kitchen.

“They’re just kids Pigsy, let them be,” Tang gave Pigsy a look.

“Pay for your food and maybe I’ll listen to your advice,” Pigsy smirked, going back to working on a plate of biangbiang noodles.

“Do you think we lost em?” Pigsy could hear the boy attempt to whisper clear as day due to the sheer emptiness of the restaurant. He tried to ignore it, but he was always a bit of an eavesdropper.

“I dunno, I’d say so,” She said, her voice muffled from still hiding her face in the menu presumably.

‘Lost em’? The last thing Pigsy needed on this perfectly calm Thursday afternoon was a fight in his restaurant. He glanced at the door as he finished the biangbiang noodles, put it into a to-go container and bag and handed it to the last remaining paying customer.

“...sorry I kind of let you get punched in the face back there, Mei,” The boy picked at his menu anxiously, which made Pigsy furrow his brow.

“Psh, you know I can handle myself.” The girl, Mei, said, finally lifting her face from the menu. Pigsy busied himself by wiping down the counters in the kitchen.

“Well yeaaaahhhh, but still– sorry,” The boy apologized again.

“What, you want me to punch you in the face so we’re even?” Mei snorted.

Pigsy immediately set down his rag and went to the table.

“You know you have to come to the bar to order, right?” Pigsy asked the kids, causing them to jump in their seats.

“Yes sir, Mr..?” The boy had no idea where he was.

“Pigsy. Of ‘Pigsy’s Noodles.’ You know– the restaurant you’re in right now? THe very restaurant you dragged all of your muddy footprints into?” Pigsy tapped his foot. He could practically feel Tang’s ‘go easy on them’ eyes on his back but he didn’t care. He would not have any fights or tomfoolery in his family’s restaurant, no siree.

“Wow Pigsy’s Noodles?! My parents never let me come here,” Mei grinned, leaving Pigsy confused as to if he should be offended or not.

“Look kids– I don’t want any trouble, so either order food or get on your way, alright?” Pigsy rubbed his forehead before he pulled out a pen and pad from his apron.

“Right! W-well, I’ll get the– uhm.. the crab roe noodles,” Mei grinned at him as she put her menu back.

“This kid just ordered the most expensive noodles in the shop and she has no clue,” Pigsy shook his head.

“You sure? They aren’t cheap,” Pigsy wrote the order down anyway.

Mei nodded. “And MK will have—”

“I will have reganmian, please and thank you,” the boy, MK, grinned as big as the girl.

Well at least one of them seems to know prices.

“Alright, that’ll be ready soon enough– and if there’s any kind of mischief or antics you guys are out of here, understand? Also, I expect you two to also mop up those footprints– makes my business look bad,” Pigsy shot a look and the kids did a military salute.

“Yes sir, Mr. Pigsy,” They said in unison before laughing. Pigsy just rolled his eyes and went back to the kitchen.

Pigsy got to work straightaway, thinking that if the kids did have to bounce at least he could enjoy the crab roe noodles– he never let himself have it because of how much it cost him to even get the stuff.

Tang was still tap-tap-tapping away at his keyboard, and the rain quieted to a soft drizzle, leaving the only sounds once again to be the boiling of water and the kids talking.

“...How mad are your parents gonna be when you get home late?” Mei asked.

MK took a bit to respond. “I dunno– probably a lot.”

“Like– last time you snuck out bad or worse?”

“...I dunno. Maybe worse.”

“Oh… sorry…”

“It’s not your fault those guys are a bunch of bullies and decided to chase us through the city,” MK assured.

Ah, so that was their story.

Hmph.

“What kind of parent blames their kid for being bullied?” Tang whispered to himself while typing, meaning he was eavesdropping too.

Pigsy tried to focus on his cooking as some orders also rolled in from the online service.

“If it’s any help, my parents are gonna be mad at me too. Especially after the whole motorcycle stunt, haha.”

“That was pretty stupid of us, wasn’t it?” MK laughed. “Man, I can’t believe it didn’t explode after all the junk we did to it– and the look on your nanny’s face was hilarious.”

“Haha, yeah! Good times,” The ten-year-old girl smiled.

“I wish I could tap into my inner dragon though– it’d help a lot with the bullies instead of being all bark with very a reasonable bit but not enough bite. My dad unlocked his when he was seven, I’m practically a runt,” Mei gave a dramatic huff and rested her arms and head on the table with a slam that made the table shake and Pigsy cringe.

MK was quick to comfort though. “You’re not a runt Mei, you’re you– like that book I hate– Charlotte’s Web.”

“Wow, MK, you have such a way with words,” Mei laughed. MK laughed too, to Pigsy’s curiosity (that he was totally feeling on accident because he was just so focused on cooking you know).

Pigsy finished MK’s dish, and so kept it under low heat while he started to cook the crab for Mei’s noodles.

“Okay, okay, for real you don’t need an inner dragon right now, you’re totally cool as is,” MK was pretty sincere for a kid.

“Yeah, yeah, ya big sap,” Mei blew a raspberry, which was followed by the whacking of a menu, which was followed by the whacking of another menu and–

“I said no antics, you two,” Pigsy scolded from the kitchen.

The kids gave a simultaneous “Sorry!” before it turned into a giggling fit.

Oy, was this crab ready yet?

Nope, still needed ginger and sugar and wine.

Pigsy muttered to himself and added the spices.

“Woah– that’s a cool plaque. Hey Mister Pigsy! What’dya get this plaque for?!” The boy shouted so loud so suddenly Pigsy nearly cut his finger off.

“Kid– don’t distract the chef when he’s cooking, alright?” He gave the kid a look, causing him to shrink down.

“You talking about the big blue and gold one up top?” Tang gave Pigsy a quick look before swiveling his stool towards the kids.

“Yeah! Looks cool!” MK said, his spirits returning.

“I believe that was the ‘Best Non-Dragon Themed Restaurant’ about five years ago?” Tang tapped his chin.

“Oh please– it was the ‘Best Wontons 2008’ and you know that, Tang,” Pigsy rolled his eyes.

“Oh right. Best Non-Drago Themed Restaurant is the one over there,” Tang pointed at the one right beneath, which was black and green with a fairly impressive carving of a dragon on it– which, come to think of it, kind of defeats the purpose.

“Haha, cool!” Mei said. “How does a restaurant get so many plaques? There’s a billion of them!”

“You think this is cool, there’s even more in the basement. This restaurant has been in that old grump’s family for generations–”

“Tang, I really don’t need you to give the kid’s my entire life story, I can do that on my own time,” Pigsy said, turning the heat off the crab to make sure it didn’t burn.

“Is it true? That’s so cool–! Family history is so cool, I wish I had a cool family,” MK had a huge dopey grin on his face. Tang and Pigsy shared a look.

Pigsy added the crab to Mei’s noodles and hit the bell. “Alright, food’s up. That’s 120.38 yuan for the crab roe noodles, and 43.83 yuan for the reganmian.”

MK tensed at that, as Pigsy expected. He sighed as he tapped numbers into the machine, expecting Mei or him to admit they didn’t have money, but to his surprise, the girl walked up confidently with a little coin purse where she pulled out a–

Sweet mother of God– is that a Silk World Card????

“Kid, where the heck did you get this?!” Pigsy didn’t even know if his machine would take such a thing.

“It’s mine– see? It says ‘Mei Dragon’ right there,” Mei reached over the bar to point.

Mei… Dragon??? As in the descendant of the White Horse Dragon????

Holy fucking shit.

“R-right, um… this’ll just be a second,” Pigsy had no idea how she was being so casual about this– how she was a casual kid in general– No– not in general, she was a kid with a huge bruise on her face and mud all over her shoes from getting in a fight– how the hell was she the daughter of a billionaire???

Thankfully, his machine took the card and Mei took the noodles happily back to the table. When he looked back, Tang’s mouth was wide open.

“You mean you’re a descendant of Ao Lie???? The White Horse Dragon??? The one from The Journey to the West????” Tang was practically fanboying.

“Yep!” Mei said, getting a good whiff of the noodles, whereas MK was scarfing his down at lightning fast speeds.

“Jeez kid, it’s like you’ve never had a decent meal in your life,” Pigsy joked, kind of startled how a kid that small ate that fast.

MK wiped his face with his sleeve. “Lunch was meh and I skipped breakfast so– hungry I guess,” he laughed.

“You should see him when they have pop-tarts in the cafeteria. He can eat ten of them in like– five seconds,” Mei said it like it was a brag and not something incredibly disturbing.

“It’s true,” MK grinned, slurping a noodle through his teeth.

“Man, kids these days,” Pigsy shook his head and went back to work.

“You know, it was a billion years ago, but you were also a kid once too, Pigsy,” Tang teased him, typing away at his laptop again.

“Really?! Man, if you told me that old grump was always an old grump I’d believe you,” Mei said with her whole chest, to the point where Pigsy was only 80% sure she was joking.

“Oh no, I’m pretty sure he’s always been a grump,” Tang smirked at Pigsy, who almost gave him the finger, before remembering there were kids here.

“Imagine a frowny faced little piggy– in his big ole chef’s hat with a big frown saying ‘i better not hear another peep outta you guys!’” MK shook his fist dramatically.

Day one and these kids were already making fun of him.

And this was why he usually refused service to lone children.

Right then, a gust of cold air came through the door as the bell chimed for another customer, shutting up MK and Mei instantly as they buried their heads in the menus again.

“Can I help you..?” Pigsy raised an eyebrow at the kids, before realizing a possy of three stupid looking fourteen-year-olds were standing in the doorway, dripping rain and more mud water on his floors (and he had just mopped an hour ago).

“We’re looking for two brats who ran off in this direction, two fifth graders, one girl one boy– seen em?” The ‘leader’ said, sticking his hands in the pockets of his ‘oh-so-tough’ leather jacket.

“Jesus Christ– I do not want any fighting or antics or teenagers in my restaurant. Get out,” Pigsy ordered, briefly glancing at Tang and the kids–

Fuck.

The teens followed his gaze and strutted up to the table, the leader guy slamming his hands on the table.

“Hey there, Lizard Girl. Thought you got away?” He pulled down Mei’s menu.

“It’s Dragon Girl. And buzz off,” Mei glared at him.

“Yeah! Buzz off,” MK defended his friend.

“Yeah, yeah, you still owe me for what you did to Xiran’s face,” he snatched their menus away.

“Hey– no fighting! Especially ten-year-olds– Jeez, do you not have anyone your own size to pick on,” Pigsy angrily rolled up his sleeves and stepped out of the kitchen.

“It’s not my fault Xiran fell out of that tree– I was climbing very normally and she decided to leap and–”

“Blah blah blah– Do you ever shut up?!” The bully grabbed MK’s collar and Pigsy intervened, pulling the two apart.

“Out. Now.”

The kids laughed, though one was notably worried. Pigsy gave them a death glare, and the leader raised his hand in an arrogant behavior that made Pigsy’s eyes roll so hard it almost hurt.

“Alright, alright, we’re good kids, we know when we aren’t welcome. Let’s go, crew.”

Pigsy scoffed and watched them until they were almost completely out the door, heading back to the kitchen when he suddenly heard a very loud shatter sound and a scream from Mei, as well as the teens laughing and running out of the restaurant.

“MK!!! A-a-are you okay?!” Mei asked her friend who was–

Holy fuck those idiots threw a fucking plate at his head– oh my god–

“...Ow,” The kid was bleeding like crazy and was now holding his head.

“Holy fuck, kid–! Are you okay?! Tang, go get a towel– and call an ambulance maybe too,” Pigsy leapt to examine the damage done, while Tang quickly scurried to the supply closet.

“Why the fuck did they do that–??? Jeez– what is wrong with kids these days– that was a perfectly good plate– are you alright? What’s today’s date? Do you know your home address?” Pigsy started asking the kid questions for concussions. Tang quickly returned with a towel, and Pigsy put it against the gash in the kid’s head to help stop the bleeding.

“Fucked up her face– fell from tree– branch gave her big ol’ scar,” MK was very, very dizzy.

“Tang, you calling that ambulance?” Pigsy glanced at him, who snapped out of his fearful state to grab his phone and start dialing.

“MK– a-are you okay?” Mei was trembling, the poor kid.

“He’ll be fine, okay sweetie? Jesus– do you know those kids' names? You’ll need them to press charges, because holy fu– I– uhm…” Pigsy said– biting his tongue for swearing in front of kids.

What? Just because he didn’t like them in his restaurant didn’t mean he didn’t have manners.

Mei nodded her head, tears filling her eyes as she patted MK’s back, who gave a goofy smile in response.

Jesus Christ this kid was delirious…

Thankfully the ambulance was here before they knew it and well– everyone just kind of came along because– it made sense seeing as they were the only witnesses. Pigsy quickly locked up the place before they all hopped in. Sure he’d miss the dinner rush but this mattered to him… for some reason.

When they got to the hospital, MK was taken away for stitches and an x-ray, leaving Mei, Tang and Pigsy in the lobby.

It was awkward in the lobby, as none of the trio really knew what to say. Mei sat in between Pigsy and Tang, just looking at the ground with a bouncing leg and a fresh ice pack a nurse gave her for her bruise.

“I’m sorry for the broken plate, Mr. Pigsy,” Mei eventually broke the awkward silence.

“Don’t sweat it kid– I just hope your friend’s okay,” Pigsy brushed it off, which seemed to upset her somehow.

“But you said you didn’t want fighting and shenanigans and we stayed anyway and now there’s a lot of bl–bl—...” Mei shuddered at the memory.

“I know what I said, but it obviously ain’t your fault. I’d never get mad at the little guy,” Pigsy assured her, which brought a little smile to her face.

“Thanks, Mister,” Mei yawned.

“You know… those noodles were really good. I wish I gotta eat them all,” Mei sighed, her eyelids starting to get heavy.

“Yeah, well you’re welcome to visit anytime kiddo,” Pigsy said, and he was pretty sure he meant it. These kids were… cute? Funny? Pigsy didn’t know– but he did know he liked them– and it’s clear they needed someone who could keep an eye on them.

“Thanks, Mr. Pigsy,” She smiled up at him tiredly.

Pigsy smiled a little before he realized Tang was giving him a look. Pigsy flashed him the finger, which made Tang roll his eyes with a snort.

The chef was too busy being annoyed by Tang to notice Mei had curled up in the chair and began to sleep on his arm.

Oh my god– what am I supposed to do? Can I move? Is she really asleep? Is falling asleep? How long will I be like this? God– I bet Tang is taking pictures– I need to stretch my legs– what am I even doing here I don’t even know these kids– oh my god–

“Mr. Pigsy?” A nurse called from across the room, making Pigsy internally panic more until thankfully Mei sprung to life and ran to the nurse.

“Is MK okay? Is he dying? Dead? In a coma?” She asked as Pigsy got up with Tang.

“Your brother is doing quite alright,” The nurse laughed and patted her shoulder. Pigsy was only half surprised she didn’t correct her.

The nurse then turned to Tang and Pigsy. “There’s no fracture in the skull thankfully, but he has a minor concussion and it’s very likely he’ll have a scar across the forehead.”

“Ah that’s good,” Pigsy sighed a breath of relief.

“Mhm. He should be out in just a moment now– and I recommend going easy on the hugs for right now,” She said that last part to Mei who nodded very seriously.

Right then, the door swung open to reveal MK, who had giant bandages on his head. Mei almost immediately ignored the nurse’s advice and ran over to hug him– though she wisely contained her strength and gave a regular tension hug.

“Hi Mei,” MK hugged her back.

“Aww, you’re right Pigsy, these kids are cute,” Tang smiled and patted his shoulder.

“Excuse me, I never said that I–”

“I’m a mind reader Piggy, you know that,” He pinched his cheek too.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up,” The chef stifled a smile. “How’re you feeling kid?”

“Really, really sorry for messing up your restaurant, I-i promise I’ll make it up to you, sir,” MK begged for forgiveness by bowing.

“Jeez kid, it’s alright– it’s not your fault,” Pigsy pulled at the collar of his chef’s shirt. MK looked at the ground and kicked it.

“I’d still like to make it up,” he mumbled.

Pigsy sighed. “How’s about once a week you can stop by and, I dunno, mop the floors or something? How’s that sound?”

MK’s eyes instantly lit up. “That sounds amazing! Thanks mister.”

“Mister? Are you not Qi Xioatan’s fathers?” The nurse looked very confused.

“Ah– no, I’m just the owner of the restaurant where he was attacked,” Pigsy confessed, though he would’ve earlier if anyone had asked him.

“I see– Xioatan, do you know your parents’ number?” She asked MK.

“I uh… I do…” He glanced at Mei.

“I-i am his uncle though! So I can take him home,” Tang interrupted.

“Ah, wonderful! You’re all checked out, have a safe trip home,” the nurse smiled at MK.

“Thanks for all the help,” MK smiled and waved as the group started to head out.

They all walked in silence for a bit as they moved through the maze that was the hospital until they got to the city bus stop and sat on the bench to wait for it to take them back to Pigsy’s Noodles or whatever stop was closest to MK or Mei’s home.

They rode the bus in silence too, and it turned out the stop around the corner from Pigsy’s noodles was the closest one to MK’s home and so they all got off there.

“I um… thanks a lot, misters. I…” MK clearly didn’t know what to say, kicking at the rocks.

“He means to say we’re really really happy we ran into your restaurant out of all the others. You guys are cool– I think we found ourselves a hangout spot,” Mei grinned at her bestie, who laughed and grinned a little back.

“Like I said, you’re welcome whenever,” Pigsy assured with a crooked smile.

“Sap,” Tang whispered in his ear, and Pigsy quickly elbowed his side.

“You kids alright going home from here?” He asked. Mei and MK nodded.

“We know this city like the back of our hands, don’t we MK?” she said.

“Yeah! And I live like– two or three blocks down, so we’re good,” MK said.

“I dunno– it is pretty dark– how’s about I drive you? It’s not far I know, but it’d make me feel better to know you two don’t get kidnapped the moment you’re out of my– our sights,” Pigsy included Tang for some reason.

“You know what– how’s about I borrow your phone so I can call my parent’s car? I’m sure my parents would like that more than a stranger driving me, no offense Mr. Pigsy,” Mei said, fiddling with her jacket zipper.

“Oh of course– that makes a lot of sense,” Pigsy took his phone out and handed it to the girl, who walked a bit aways to make the call.

MK watched her as she left, his face falling to a one of contemplative sorrow.

“You okay kid?” Pigsy asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Y-yeah! I just– I dunno what to say to my parents,” MK shrugged off the hand, which only made Pigsy and Tang more worried.

“Are your parents… good to you?” Tang clearly didn’t know how to ask that kind of question.

“O-of course they are! They’re just– um– they– they don’t like fighting– yeah, they don’t like that and they’ll be upset to know I got in another fight,” MK clearly lied.

“Well… Pigsy’s Noodle’s doors are always open if you need it kiddo, alright?” The pig chef asked.

“Y-yeah! Thanks– thanks a lot– I… I promise I’ll help sweep and mop and do the dishes once a week�� how does Tuesday sound?” MK got excited again at the prospect of working, which was the last thing Pigsy expected.

“Sounds great, kid,” Pigsy gave him a thumbs up just as Mei came back.

“They’ll be here soon,” Mei told the group, who nodded in confirmation.

“Well, to repeat what I said earlier, Pigsy’s Noodles is open whenever, so feel free to stop by anytime, not just when you’re in a lot of danger,” He joked, which made the kids laugh.

“We promise it won’t be all the time,” MK said.

“Well– we promise it won’t be most– no um– we promise there will be some times we visit that we won’t be in danger,” Mei said, and Pigsy laughed despite not knowing if she was kidding or not.

“And hey– if any of you are into the stories and legend of Sun Wukong, I am a scholar so–”

“You know the stories of Sun Wukong?! I love the Monkey King!!!” MK’s eyes practically sparkled with delight.

“Not those legends– I thought this dissertation would be the end of me hearing about Monkey King,” Pigsy groaned.

“Oh please, I need to pass my knowledge down to the younger generations, Piggy, surely you know that,” Tang gave that same stupid smile he always did that made Pigsy want to punch him and kiss him at the same time.

“Yeah! Pass down that knowledge! Monkey King is the coolest– how can you not like him?!” MK seemed almost offended.

Pigsy snorted. “I just prefer stories of actual heroism– stories of good people doing good things and working hard with no powers.”

“Aw, but that’s lame!” MK booed.

“You know, maybe I will ban you two from Pigsy’s noodles after all–”

“NO!” The kids pleaded simultaneously.

“I’m joking, I’m joking– you kids are funny, you know that?” Pigsy laughed so hard he wiped a tear from his eye.

“Meanie,” Mei blew a raspberry before laughing with MK. Just then a long white limousine pulled up, the driver stepping out in a perfect suit with a jade dragon pin on the lapel.

“Mei. Xioatan.” He said, opening the doors for them.

“Thanks Mr. Zihan! And thank you again Mr. Pigsy and Mr. Tang– tonight sucked but was also fun! You two are weird!” Mei grinned as she took her seat.

“Yeah! You guys are weird, I like it,” MK agreed with her before stepping in. “I’ll see you tuesday!”

“See you Tuesday kid,” Pigsy waved as the driver closed the door and before the scholar or the chef knew it, the car was gone.

“Wow you are SUCH a softie– I mean– I already knew that, but I thought you were gonna hide it from them for a lot longer!” Tang immediately started making fun of him.

“You know, one of these days I’m actually going to stop making food for you without you paying and then you’ll regret all this teasing you do,” Pigsy huffed, reaching into his pockets for the keys to Pigsy’s Noodles.

“Ah, you and I both know that’ll never happen– you love me too much,” Tang grinned stupidly.

“Keep testing me and we’ll see,” Pigsy mocked the smile as the lock clicked and they went in.

The interior was somehow worse than they remembered, though there was a distinct smell of boiled over water, burnt noodles and other such vegetables.

He forgot to turn the stove off.

“Yeesh, that’s a mess– that’s great so I’m just gonna grab my laptop–” Tang squeezed in, but Pigsy grabbed his shirt sleeve.

“Nuh-uh. You want free food, you’re gonna clean too. I’ll deal with the kitchen, you deal with the sitting area,” Pigsy ordered, and Tang hung his head in defeat.

“I hate you,” Tang said, going to the supply closet.

“Aww, love you too Tang-y,” Pigsy smirked as he went to the kitchen and turned everything off and scraped the bad food in the trash.

“Do you think that kid– MK– is gonna fulfill his promise? He’s gotta be like– ten,” Tang asked when he returned with a mop.

Pigsy shrugged. “I dunno. He seemed genuine enough.”

“And you say you don’t want kids, tsk tsk tsk,” Tang teased him again, and Pigsy threw a sponge at him.

“I said not to test me, Tang,” He glared.

“But you make it so easy–”

Pigsy threw more sponges, but this time Tang ducked.

“Haha! Didn’t get me–”

Pigsy threw another one and it smacked him right in the face.

“Get to work, you freeloader,” the chef ordered.

“Yes sir, Mr. Pigsy,” Tang mocked him, actually starting to mop.

“Mr. Pigsy,” The chef scoffed to himself as he used his now only remaining sponge to clean pots and pans.

…It wasn’t that Tang was wrong– Pigsy wasn’t the biggest fan of children, but Mei and MK were… different? They were kinda cute, kinda funny, kinda concerning every time they talked about their own families– Pigsy liked them– sued him.

They clearly needed an adult figure they could turn to and–

God what was Pigsy saying? He wasn’t a father figure– he was hardly a “figure” to anyone ever.

But you know– if one of those kids needed him, he wouldn’t like– say no or anything. After all, that Mei girl is part of the Dragon Clan and that meant some serious good business– yeah, good business.

…okay, okay, he was kind of lying to himself– he liked Mei because she was a funny kid and so was MK and they were welcome any time because Pigsy was worried about them already and he only knew them for a couple of hours.

He hoped he wasn’t in over his head or anything– the way Mei talked made it seem like they were a danger magnet.

Kind of like his younger years almost…

Pigsy smiled to himself as he continued to rinse and scrub dishes clean.

It didn’t matter if he was in over his head, he liked those kids and would help them out anyway, and that was a Pigsy Guarantee.

#lmk freenoodles #lmk #lego monkie kid #pigsy #mk lego monkie kid #mei dragon #my fics #tang lmk #whoops ig i'm a dad now trope #tang x pigsy #i love tang and pigsy and mei and mk so much #pre-canon #i have no idea how hospital works especially in foreign countries #this is probably rushed af but tbh i do not care #<3333 #that's y'alls problem now #bone apple tea

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