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Entry tags:
this is what an existential crisis looks like [ota]
Who: Jackie Ma and you!
What: Jackie's adjusting to his new life. Afterlife? And rocketing around all five stages of grief in the process, in no discernible order.
Where: Around the Pole
When: A few days after the Memorial
Warnings/Notes: Reference to murder and torture in prompts A and B and potentially in threads; he throws up in prompt B
A. how do you figure out if you died?
The past few days have been a whirlwind for Jackie, and not in a good way. He's had it all explained to him - myths, magic, the Guardians, Kuk - but he hasn't processed it. He's just...numb. It doesn't make sense. He's dead. He knows that he's dead. He'd survived Tong's torture, but he'd felt himself die when...
...he doesn't want to think about that.
Hell wasn't supposed to be like this. Where were the goeng si? The Yaoguai? Where were those who came before him? Winston? Peggy?...God forbid, Wei?
Nothing. Jackie's alone here, and he's as alone as he's ever felt despite the other myths all around him and the elves and the yetis and everything else that doesn't make any goddamned sense. He's practically slinking around, obviously uncomfortable. He's never left Hong Kong before, and the culture shock from all of this, aside from the being-definitely-dead-and-not-where-he's-supposed-to-be is a lot for him to be dealing with. He'd never been a metaphysical sort. He hadn't had time. Day-to-day survival was key; thinking about anything as abstract as the afterlife hadn't exactly been among his top priorities.
Naturally, his anxiety is through the roof. You may catch him biting his nails or keeping his back to a wall so he can't be snuck up on. As squirrely as he seems right now, he really is gregarious. Maybe talking to someone will calm him down.
B. everyone is a fucking liar
You know what? Fuck it. Jackie's reached the "pretend everything's fine and cool" stage of an existential crisis and meltdown, so once he found out that he exists in a video game, he's absolutely stoked. He sits down in a beanbag chair with an Xbox controller, happy to show his 'canon' (whatever that means) to anyone who might want to see it.
"Look!" he says proudly when he sees the main character during the opening cutscene, pointing at him. "That's Wei! That's my dai lo!" Wei had been as good as a brother when they were kids, and he'd had Jackie's back since he'd returned, even as he rose through the ranks to Red Pole in the wake of Winston's demise. He'd even dug Jackie out of a wooden coffin as he slowly suffocated. (He just hadn't gotten Jackie out of...no, don't think about it.) So Jackie is thrilled to actually be the guy he'd looked up to all his life, running and jumping through the fish market before being busted by the cops.
And then he shows up, meeting with Wei in lockup, and wow, but it is weird to see himself from the outside. 'Ask anyone, Jackie Ma still looks good,' his past-self says on the screen, and Jackie nods as if to say 'that's right'. Not conceited, just convinced.
He sticks his tongue out at the screen childishly when the cutscene shifts to Wei handcuffed behind a flimsy table in an HKPD interrogation room. Fucking cops. Like they could ever break Wei!
'You must be a very dangerous man, Wei Shen,' says that old British cop fuck, and Jackie nods in agreement. Wei is dangerous.
'That is exactly what we want people to think.'
Huh?
'I trust my men weren't too rough on you, officer.'
...what?
'You might ask them the same question, sir. Those guys are out of shape.' Another cop uncuffs Wei on the screen, and Jackie feels like he's sitting outside of his own body. He's gone curiously quiet and still for someone who's usually so fidgety. 'It paid off, though. I made contact with Jackie Ma. I'm in.'
No. No! He refuses to believe it. This is a bad dream, Wei would never lie to his face like that, they're brothers, ride-or-die for each other, Jackie had literally staked his life on Wei being Sun On Yee through and through and because of that he'd had his fingers and nose and toes broken, blood all over his face, a machete stabbing right into his stomach and slicing--
'Good work. Use him to get close to Winston Chu. Do whatever it takes.'
Jackie stumbles to his feet, finds the nearest wastebasket, and vomits. The cutscene continues, the controller discarded, and he can't breathe, can't think. He can barely hear the evidence of Wei's betrayal. He doesn't want to.
He wishes he really was dead. At least if he was dead, he'd be spared the pain of the betrayal.
C. i regret so much but i'm working on myself
Jackie has now entered the extreme version of "pretend everything is fine and cool", the part where you cheerfully bury your emotions deep down and try not to think about them. Extremely sustainable, that. He's searching for distractions, and he finds himself staring out the window. He's seen snow in movies and pictures, but he's never actually experienced it. It doesn't snow in Hong Kong.
He zips up his hoodie, walks out the door of the workshop, and flomps face down in the snow. He rolls over quickly, his face red with cold, snowflakes settling on his eyelashes, and he laughs, the floodgates of his emotions finally breaking.
He's alive, in a manner of speaking. He's alive and he's in the snow and he can't be hurt again. He's free from the Sun On Yee forever, free from the cops, free from all of it.
(He's still not ready to tackle the issue of Wei. That's still locked down tight, because he's decided it's way better to be in deep denial about it.)
He's alive, and there's so much of the world to see.
What: Jackie's adjusting to his new life. Afterlife? And rocketing around all five stages of grief in the process, in no discernible order.
Where: Around the Pole
When: A few days after the Memorial
Warnings/Notes: Reference to murder and torture in prompts A and B and potentially in threads; he throws up in prompt B
A. how do you figure out if you died?
The past few days have been a whirlwind for Jackie, and not in a good way. He's had it all explained to him - myths, magic, the Guardians, Kuk - but he hasn't processed it. He's just...numb. It doesn't make sense. He's dead. He knows that he's dead. He'd survived Tong's torture, but he'd felt himself die when...
...he doesn't want to think about that.
Hell wasn't supposed to be like this. Where were the goeng si? The Yaoguai? Where were those who came before him? Winston? Peggy?...God forbid, Wei?
Nothing. Jackie's alone here, and he's as alone as he's ever felt despite the other myths all around him and the elves and the yetis and everything else that doesn't make any goddamned sense. He's practically slinking around, obviously uncomfortable. He's never left Hong Kong before, and the culture shock from all of this, aside from the being-definitely-dead-and-not-where-he's-supposed-to-be is a lot for him to be dealing with. He'd never been a metaphysical sort. He hadn't had time. Day-to-day survival was key; thinking about anything as abstract as the afterlife hadn't exactly been among his top priorities.
Naturally, his anxiety is through the roof. You may catch him biting his nails or keeping his back to a wall so he can't be snuck up on. As squirrely as he seems right now, he really is gregarious. Maybe talking to someone will calm him down.
B. everyone is a fucking liar
You know what? Fuck it. Jackie's reached the "pretend everything's fine and cool" stage of an existential crisis and meltdown, so once he found out that he exists in a video game, he's absolutely stoked. He sits down in a beanbag chair with an Xbox controller, happy to show his 'canon' (whatever that means) to anyone who might want to see it.
"Look!" he says proudly when he sees the main character during the opening cutscene, pointing at him. "That's Wei! That's my dai lo!" Wei had been as good as a brother when they were kids, and he'd had Jackie's back since he'd returned, even as he rose through the ranks to Red Pole in the wake of Winston's demise. He'd even dug Jackie out of a wooden coffin as he slowly suffocated. (He just hadn't gotten Jackie out of...no, don't think about it.) So Jackie is thrilled to actually be the guy he'd looked up to all his life, running and jumping through the fish market before being busted by the cops.
And then he shows up, meeting with Wei in lockup, and wow, but it is weird to see himself from the outside. 'Ask anyone, Jackie Ma still looks good,' his past-self says on the screen, and Jackie nods as if to say 'that's right'. Not conceited, just convinced.
He sticks his tongue out at the screen childishly when the cutscene shifts to Wei handcuffed behind a flimsy table in an HKPD interrogation room. Fucking cops. Like they could ever break Wei!
'You must be a very dangerous man, Wei Shen,' says that old British cop fuck, and Jackie nods in agreement. Wei is dangerous.
'That is exactly what we want people to think.'
Huh?
'I trust my men weren't too rough on you, officer.'
...what?
'You might ask them the same question, sir. Those guys are out of shape.' Another cop uncuffs Wei on the screen, and Jackie feels like he's sitting outside of his own body. He's gone curiously quiet and still for someone who's usually so fidgety. 'It paid off, though. I made contact with Jackie Ma. I'm in.'
No. No! He refuses to believe it. This is a bad dream, Wei would never lie to his face like that, they're brothers, ride-or-die for each other, Jackie had literally staked his life on Wei being Sun On Yee through and through and because of that he'd had his fingers and nose and toes broken, blood all over his face, a machete stabbing right into his stomach and slicing--
'Good work. Use him to get close to Winston Chu. Do whatever it takes.'
Jackie stumbles to his feet, finds the nearest wastebasket, and vomits. The cutscene continues, the controller discarded, and he can't breathe, can't think. He can barely hear the evidence of Wei's betrayal. He doesn't want to.
He wishes he really was dead. At least if he was dead, he'd be spared the pain of the betrayal.
C. i regret so much but i'm working on myself
Jackie has now entered the extreme version of "pretend everything is fine and cool", the part where you cheerfully bury your emotions deep down and try not to think about them. Extremely sustainable, that. He's searching for distractions, and he finds himself staring out the window. He's seen snow in movies and pictures, but he's never actually experienced it. It doesn't snow in Hong Kong.
He zips up his hoodie, walks out the door of the workshop, and flomps face down in the snow. He rolls over quickly, his face red with cold, snowflakes settling on his eyelashes, and he laughs, the floodgates of his emotions finally breaking.
He's alive, in a manner of speaking. He's alive and he's in the snow and he can't be hurt again. He's free from the Sun On Yee forever, free from the cops, free from all of it.
(He's still not ready to tackle the issue of Wei. That's still locked down tight, because he's decided it's way better to be in deep denial about it.)
He's alive, and there's so much of the world to see.