#bc i know our childhood damaged something in her and if she stayed any longer it wouldn't be good for her

[anjasitdown]

Moving out from home would've been easy if I didn't have younger siblings to leave behind.

[vegalocity]

So bc everyone's really enjoying that Protag Swap AU with Red Son I've been thinking about it myself quite a bit and so now here i am

Here's a scene from The Beach Car

--

The cat's pod was... minimally challenging to fix. no more complex than his Inferno truck. He knew there was a heavy enough chance that the cat was lying about having connections to the conductor, but if her only payment was fixing up her travel pod for her and a lightning protection charm, then it was worth taking the chance. (Though she had tried to have him sell OneOne to her, it seemed like legitimate magic was far more interesting for her. And it made sense to have a lightning charm, who knew when her pod would malfunction again and electrocute her)

“Tomcat, tell me something-” The cat poked her head into his line of sight and Red Son raised a brow.

“Don't call me that.”

“Why did your parents choose such a... literal... name for you?” The Cat continued as though he hadn't spoken. “out of all the names in the world, why did they look upon their child and say 'ah yes, 'Red Son' will be perfect for our red haired son? Why not something less descriptive? Isn't it also a naming custom to affiliate your child with what you hope of them? Though I admit I wouldn't know.” The cat primly began to groom herself. “Never had any kittens of my own.”

“None of your business.”

“Red Son!” OneOne chimed in rolling up to his work area “How tall are you?”

“172 centimeters, why-”

“What is your hair? Is it fire? Is it hair?” “Is it a reflection of your inner turmoil bubbling to the surface?”

He felt his hair spark to life at the surprisingly pointed commentary. “That's none of your-!”

“Why DID your parents name you after your hair color?” OneOne interrupted again.

“Ugh! Why does that matter?”

“The orb is rather talkative Tomcat, you sure you don't want me to take him off your hands for you?”

“OneOne isn't for sale fleabag.” The cat gasped in mock affront.

“how rude! I was only trying to take such an irritating thing off your hands!” She was enjoying this. He could see the amused glint in her eye as her tail swished back and forth.

A wire darted across his hand and with a prick of pain he was now bleeding. Red Son let out a shout of frustration and rolled out from beneath the pod. He had some small bandages he could use to patch up his hand but he was flustered and it was making his hands shake.

“Fine. You both want a story so bad?”

“Frankly I could care less, Tomcat.”

“Story!” OneOne scurried up and made themself at home in Red Son's lap.

“Well it's not much of one-...” then again father did love to tell it when he was young, every year on his birthday, the exact time right down to the minute. And whenever allies would come over and make some idle comment about his strength, his father would launch into the story with the premise of 'My son has been a fighter from the moment he was born'

He wondered if father would tell it any differently now that Red Son was a disappointment.

“Technically they named me Red Boy, I changed it to Red Son myself when I became of age and thus was no longer a boy. But as my father tells the story, I came out... Early. Very early.”

His hands had stopped shaking, so he began to apply the bandages to the sluggishly bleeding wound. “Back then a premature birth was gravely dangerous for mother, but a death sentence for me. Healers had long since known there was no point in working in favor of the child if it wouldn't last a week let alone the customary month, So they prioritized mother's life instead. Which s it turned out, didn't matter because I was born anyway. And I didn't die. When I'd first come out my hair was black like mothers, though I didn't have much of it. I was alive, but I wouldn't stir. I wouldn't open my eyes or cry or een give the smallest twitch on my own. The healers informed my parents I wouldn't live to see the sun rise.

“Father couldn't stand the idea of any offspring of his perishing without a fight, so he ordered the servants to make the fire in the room burn as hot as they could possibly get it, as he thought I would fight harder if my surroundings better resembled the womb I left too soon. But I don't think he truly believed I would survive, he just wanted me to last longer than the healers predicted. It was a somber affair, So I've been told, the two of them waiting for the end. Mother recovering from her injuries in a sweltering room and my life slowly fading, father the only one in the room whole and hale enough to be acutely aware of the fact that one or both of us would perish."

“Oh my!” “Did you die?”

“No OneOne, I didn't die.”

“Sure enough the sun rose, and I was still breathing. Mother was resting still, and Father was feeling restless. He felt as though he had to stay awake to ensure that should I slip away I would do so with one or both of them there to send me off. And in a state of restlessness took to tending the fire himself.

“At the time even when he was shrunk to the smallest size he was comfortable with I was still small enough to fit in a single hand. Or so he told me.

“So he had me in one hand and tended to the fire with the other. Then the wood gave an unexpected crack, loud as a catapult he told me; cinders and embers went everywhere, and a few landed on me. But when father went to check me for wounds, he saw me do something I had lacked the strength for previously. I stirred. And for just a moment, I'd opened my eyes. “Immediately he shouted for mother to awaken and barked orders to the servants to throw the bassinet into the hearth, Mother thought he'd been thrown into a fit of rage and wanted all of the things they'd set up for me to be destroyed and began to insist that such an action was a waste of furniture, but the bassinet was already burning by the time she did so, and father placed me inside.

“The fire was all around me, and so the story goes, I stirred in the heat, opened my eyes to the warm glow, I breathed in the smoke-” he lit his fist aflame, careful to keep it far enough from OneOne that he wouldn't damage the little guy. “And I screamed. Father considers that the moment I truly was born.” He remembers waking before the sun in his childhood eager to begin his days, and just as the sun began to raise over the horizon on a certain day his father would pull him aside and begin on the story. “They uh- they left me in there chucking more and more bassinets into the fire until they were sure I'd grown strong enough to survive without it. And by the time that had happened a few months later, my hair had turned red like black coal turning to red embers. So they called me Red Boy.”

“That's a mighty ability tomcat.” The cat chimed in, striding forward and leaning as close to the flame as she was willing to risk. “You say your father realized that ability was yours simply on the fact that you weren't burned by the fire?”

“You were a very brave baby. You already knew what you needed to live but since you were a baby nobody listened to you” OneOne chimed, their cheerful voice surprisngly somber, before the dour voice came in “I can relate, Nobody listens to me either.”

“I didn't know what I needed OneOne, I was a baby. I didn't know anything.”

“I bet you were cuuuutteeee” OneOne chimed again, far closer to their normal tone. Red Son felt his hair spark to life again, his face burning in turn. The cat chuckled.

“Settle down Tomcat, don't want you burning my pod up much like your numerous bassinets before you can fix it.”

[fizzingwizard]

I know you touched up on it in your recent writing, but I was wondering what you thought about the yagami sibling's "I'll never forgive you/you can hate me if you want" scene in the last tri movie? I think it presented such an interesting dynamic especially since, between the siblings, we usually get a lot more doting big brother yamato, making the ishida-takaishi boys feel a lot closer (though I might be remembering wrong, it could also be bc takeru was originally in the digiworld from the get go aka longer). I just wish we had gotten some time to have proper resolution (or hints of) as to how hikari and taichi make amends with each other.

Yeah, it's a great moment, and it's a shame that we don't get to see the aftermath. (side note: I do think it's an optical illusion due to Takeru having been with the group from the start that makes he and Yamato seem closer than Taichi and Hikari. I've always seen both sets of siblings as being very close.) I love what they did with them but it did make the ending feel a little cold: first the reactions to Taichi’s apparent “death” were very belated and then his return is marred by everything else going on... Tri just needed to be one movie longer (or Saikai and Ketsui should have been blended together in one :P)

I don't think Hikari blames Taichi or hates him. I think she does feel betrayed, at least in the sense that, until then, she and her brother always seemed to be on the same path, and now Taichi's made a unilateral choice to go down a different one. But she doesn't think it's an evil one, or she wouldn't have chosen to stay and fight. It's just different and not what she wants. But the reason he can't stay on that path is because he's had to confront his convictions and found they came up short, so he’s adjusted. So I think they would need time to recalibrate their relationship afterward. Taichi must look like someone Hikari doesn't quite know anymore. But she'd still believe that she does know him deep down. And he respects her. This isn't about "Hikari's naive" anymore than it's about "Taichi's evil." It's just their relationship evolving and the growing pains that go along with that.

I guess that's how best I can sum it up, but as I’m allergic to brevity, there’s more under the cut...

I am sure Hikari always assumed her brother shared the vision of the future that we see from her at the end of 02. But as early as Saikai, we can already see that Taichi's grip on that sort of idealism is shaky. At that time what he's worried about is making a mistake, collateral damage, things getting out of hand. But in Bokura no Mirai, it's not about what he can't control anymore, it's about controlling what he can.

In Kyousei, Taichi decides to kill Meicoomon once Meiko breaks down and says that's what she wants (which is another thing altogether). But at that time his resolve is shaky. Instead, he winds up sacrificing himself to protect Yamato and Meiko. Taichi's still our typical idea of a shonen hero at the end of Kyousei.

Bokura no Mirai picks up by handing Taichi what is essentially a riff on the trolley problem. And he wants the third choice: the way that saves everyone. But what Nishijima wants him to realize, I think, is that clinging to the hope that that third choice exists even without evidence is not the way that does no harm. That idealism comes with its own collateral damage. By running from the dilemma, he's saying he's willing to risk all of their lives on a fantasy. Then Nishijima forces the matter and makes the choice himself, and that forces Taichi to reevaluate his own views of life and death. It's no longer "all life is precious no matter what." Life and death are always connected and neither good nor evil.

Taichi returns to the others no longer unsure about what to do. He's accepted that continuing to try to save Meicoomon, at this point, is to treat other people's lives as less important. If, at that point, Koushirou or someone had said "I have an idea to save her," I think Taichi would have done it. But their hope for a miracle has so far only prolonged everyone's suffering - Meicoomon's, Meiko's, the world's. It's because no one has any more ideas and they are out of time that he chooses her death.

Because Meiko/Meicoomon were created just for Tri, and don't have the same status as the classic characters, it's... maybe not fair to call it a cop-out, but even in the framework of complex morality, the writers definitely didn't want to go as far as killing any fan favorites. So that's a degrees of separation thing. And I think Hikari's actions are meant to answer for that. She cares deeply about everyone. She values life indiscriminately, so her ideals don't allow her to arrive at the same conclusion as her brother.

But that doesn't make her naive. The fact that idealism can be harmful doesn't mean it's bad or childish. When Taichi tells her, "You stay that way," I don't think he's just being a doting older brother who doesn't want his baby sister to face the dark world. Hikari's faced plenty of darkness. I think we've always been shown that Taichi respects Hikari very much and I don't think he'd do her the disservice of treating her convictions as childish and his own epiphany as the one true path to adulthood. Instead, he wants her to continue to hold onto her ideals, because he knows it's only by continuing to value those ideals that they'll ever see the kind of future they wish for, and because he knows only someone like her can keep him in check.

Tri also gives a big cryptic spiel about how “the sensitive things are the most fragile” or something like that. And we see Hikari’s fragility when losing her brother causing her to wig out and somehow help cause Ordinemon. But the other thing we see with Hikari is her standing up to Homeostasis, trying to wrestle control back to herself. And it's the Ordinemon fusion that enables Tailmon to support Meicoomon. So even if we say her sensitivity makes her fragile, "fragility" can't be equated with "weakness." There are many fragile things in the world that have a hidden resilience and play an important role in the ecosystem. Hikari’s like that. That’s why her “idealistic” view isn’t silly or naive. It’s an essential part of being human - same as Taichi’s. It’s definitely on purpose that Hikari is the representative of “Light” which very obviously means “life” in Digimon, and Taichi’s huge play in Tri is about, as well as resulting from, death. They're put in contrast to each other.

That's what I think Hikari can't forgive: her brother is basically saying, "You choose your path, and I choose mine." If she had then stormed off and refused to fight, it would be one thing, but she doesn't - she stays and does her part. It's only natural that she'd feel disturbed with what they're doing. She doesn't look away though. She accepts her brother's worldview without sacrificing her own. I thought things would have to be rocky between them for a while afterward because they'd need time to realign, learn how to work together with different value sets. How to make those values support and balance each other rather than tear each other down.

It's not clear at the end of Bokura no Mirai that Taichi's made the right decision. I think that's the point - sometimes you just can't know, but you still have to decide. I'm sure the writers knew fans would be wont to side with their heroes, but that could be deceptive. Maybe that's why Hikari get so much attention in that last scene: the writers are telling us "You don't have to agree with this choice. But time moves forward with or without us."

Those are my thoughts for the moment at least... I guess it could just be “Taichi’s an adult now and helping the others step out of their childhood dreamworld” but I guess I just internally reject that. So maybe I’m wrong but... well, I prefer to think about it this way :P It was a hell of a thing to walk out of the theater like “did that really happen?” Tri just ripped off the idea of “escapist anime movie” and just took itself really seriously and that’s why I looooooove it. Like, I’m so glad we didn’t get a triumphant, feel-good ending. Wouldn’t have minded clearer answers to certain questions *cough* but Tri is definitely unforgettable.

[bakatenshii]

Shouto x Marquie HCs

It’s 00:48AM here so technically it is no longer your birthday, but let’s just pretend it is because it’s the 17th in some time zone okay.

I wish I could say I came up with this concept all by myself, but my other ovary @theygottheircages actually did, so you could say she co-wrote this. Anyways, don’t kill me for the first few bits, I promise it’ll get better! Happy birthday my love, my ray of sunshine @mindninjax you deserve all the love in the world.

Shouto Todoroki was never brought up like most children; childhoods filled with laughter and friends, aimless ambitions and whatnot.

He never had any experience interacting with others his age, or anyone really in general. Which brings us to:

Bullet point 1: Shouto Todoroki does not understand social cues.

Shouto Todoroki is a loser

It’s almost painful for us to see him stumble into conflicts in conversations he has no part of being in. (It provides some good entertainment, though)

But Shouto being Shouto, glorified hotter version of Zuko (I SAID WHAT I SAID), still has girls throwing themselves at his feet. No one is surprised. (Except maybe M*neta)

But Shouto also being Shouto means he has no fucking clue about how to treat a girl.

This boy can barely read the room, you think he can understand women? Madness

So as per, after Shouto’s third dumping, everyone came up with a game:

A bet; How long before Shouto gets broken up with this time?

Is it mean? Maybe a lil. But is it funny? It sure fucking is.

He doesn’t get it. Shouto? Cue the confused math lady meme.

He just doesn’t understand why these girls pursue him for weeks, spill their loves out to him, to... break up with him a week later? r/woosh

Anyways, the most recent break-up had him more confused than usual. The girl had said something along the usual lines of, ‘you just don’t get me, do you even like me?’, but then there was a comment slid in there about how she’d found another man who’d treat her better.

Another man? So she didn’t like him while they were dating?

Bullet point 2: Shouto Todoroki did not ask to be cucked.

Up til now, yall are probably like, this is just Shouto slander! Angel, where is protagonist!! We didn’t sign up for this!!! (Except you did, welcome to my blog where I make the rules hehe)

And for this crack headcanon, we throwin’ in a lil twist. In this headcanon, the hero’s not gonna save our protagonist. Our protagonist saves our hero.

Enter: Marquie

Well, technically, Marquie is exiting the building (Angel shut up you’re not funny) of her work when she spots a suspicious young man...

setting fire. To what? fuck knows. 

But there’s the distinct flare of flames that are lighting up the alleyway (yes! another alleyway!! sue me!!!)

and Marquie? Nah, she’s not having that. How dare someone commit arson, do they know how environmentally damaging that is? God

She marches up to the man, already preparing the script to tell him off:

“What are you doing? We can’t afford more pollution, not in this city—“

He turns around and she comes face to face with... 

a Zuko cosplayer. 

With duo-coloured eyes and duo-coloured hair.

It’s all a lil ridiculous because who the hell dyes their hair that colour, but also more concerning is that he’s setting fire to what looks like the iceberg that sank the Titanic. 

(cue a tomato being thrown on stage because that’s positively the worst joke I’ve made up to date)

He just stares at her though, because frankly, he’s a lil slow.

No, but genuinely the screws in his brain’s just turning tryna figure out why this woman’s just coming at him before—

oh.

and he proceeds to deadpan an explanation about being a hero and his quirk that frankly is a bit too convenient but he’s cute and Marquie’s a bit of a sucker for cute boys so.

Marquie!! do we need a bit of background info? Well I’m about to spoonfeed it to yall anyways.

Marquie is the human embodiment of a ray of sunshine, can make conversation with just about anyone, and honestly, you just subconsciously get whirled into it. Caught up in her flow and whatnot.

Which is precisely what happens, and yeah sure, Shouto’s not giving her much to work with, bc since when was he the talker of the century?

He’s still got the same expression on his face, but he’s enjoying it. He swears, can you not tell?

For once, he doesn’t feel as if the girl’s expecting anything out of him, doesn’t feel pressured to fulfill her image of him, whatever that is. He hasn’t even figured it out himself.

She’s so excited, as she always is. Soon as she realized he wasn’t harming the environment, in fact, staying behind to clean up his mess, he was in her good books.

And a hero? Mate, she’s got a list of questions the length of that Spongebob meme. You know the one. (no, not the ‘The’ one.)

It happens naturally, they’re just going with the flow. He’s still not giving out much input, but she’s more than content with whatever singular-word answer he gives.

It’s fun, and cute, blah blah, their personality just meshes, you know?

They’re grabbing food together because Marquie’s just got off work, and he’s off patrol, and honestly, why the fuck not.

The story’s gotta progress somehow, init.

And the story progresses like this:

They start spending more time together, because the area he patrols just happens to be where she works. 

(God! Angel pulling the strings of fate once again.)

He’s frankly surprised she’s not gotten bored of him, or been offended he seemed so ‘disinterested’ (even though he doesn’t think so, it’s just his face, probably)

She’s happy with him just the way he is, he’s good company, although Marquie could make anyone good company. She’s just that likeable.

She knows how to have a good time, and if she has a good time? You can’t help but also have a good time.

I knooow the motto of my blog is ‘fuck a slow burn’ but man, you want me to write fast burn Shouto? (I didn’t make a pun, everyone thank me for that.)

He’s surprised, you know? Never has a girl just spoken to him so casually, without any traces of ulterior motives (not that he could’ve picked any up, what even are social cues?) and somehow, she’s always managed to know what he’s feeling.

She says something like— I can tell by the expression on your face, it’s pretty obvious— to which we reply:

No, Marquie. That’s just you. Shouto’s got a total of 2 distinguishable expressions and it’s when he sees Endeavor and when he doesn’t.

So yeah, whatever, we all know where this is going. He’s blushing more around her, finding himself wanting to see her more and, what do you know.

Bullet point 3: Shouto Todoroki’s got a crush.

Not that he knows what that is. But Marquie sure does, so instead of the guy taking the lead (because fuck gender roles!! yeah!) she makes the first move.

And when she tells him he’s an idiot for not realizing, we’re all snorting because— now you realize he’s an idiot?

Yeah he’s an idiot, but he’s her idiot, you know?

(GAG, VOMIT)

And maybe he’s googling for the first time: Where to take a girl out on the first date? What to buy a girl for her birthday?

He can’t for the life of him figure out why he doesn’t want to fuck this up this time, but it’s okay baby, we’re all patiently waiting for you to grow up. It’s okay. (It’s kinda endearing)

And that leads us to our final point:

Bullet point 4: Shouto Todoroki will never be cucked again. Marquie has saved him from the cucking, congratulations.

You heard it here first: Cuck Wars 2020 has been ended by Marquie. 

tags: @enjifuckersupreme , @theygottheircages , @yukiimanic , @lookslikeleese , @rat-suki , @baku-no-alt , @blahkugo , @sanguinekeigo , @pomsuki , @zahrashallucinations , @saratour , @red-riot-girl642

[bartsugsy]

I don't really get why everyone is so pissed at aaron for saying "a kid of our own"? maybe it's just me but i don't hear that as him saying seb isn't their son, he does think of both of them as his dads, to me he meant "a kid that would be just ours and no one else" because even though they are seb's dads they do share him, he's not a kid of their own the two of them, that's accurate? I don't get the anger it's not a crime to want to have kids with your husband without a third (and fourth) party

i mean, my opinion is that in the context of aaron’s entire relationship with seb, but much much more specifically the last week of episodes, the whole “a kid of our own” thing was worded super deliberately?

because i think you could argue that if, say, aaron had decided a month ago that they should have another kid and broached that subject with robert, the phrasing would be entirely different

it would be about expanding their family and giving seb a sibling and loving where he and robert are at in their lives, i’d imagine? like, just going by the way aaron has spoken about their family previously

and even, if we go to a specific scene - the last time they spoke about having kids, right before gerry’s death, robron are like u know what??? we are great dads and great guardians, which accidentally gets them onto the topic of having more kids. they have that weird little pause where u know they’re both internally yelling what if we have eight more kids right now, before they’re like loool three kids in the house is enough for the moment right hahaha

but u know they’re fully into this idea

like, this whole conversation is obvs helping to frame the tragedy of gerry’s death, yes, but it’s also a good look at how they’d see having more kids as exactly that - more kids on top of the family they already have

(and there’s a lot of other moments where you can see how aaron sees his place in seb’s life 

fuck rmr when they proposed to each other and rob was like OK AND WHAT ABOUT ADOPTING SEB and aaron was like wait what and then the next day like UH I’D LOVE NOTHING MORE???

like, the show has done months of groundwork of them being a family, everyone refers to aaron as seb’s dad, aaron is always both comfortable in his place in seb’s life and has been very outspoken about that. rebecca has also said multiple times that aaron is also seb’s dad. like, the framing is there.

(i know that people have said that they don’t necessarily think the way they’ve done it is convincing, but not finding it convincing does not mean it didn’t happen on screen. whether the viewer believes it or not is a separate issue.)

as i said, i can’t imagine that, a few months ago or even a week ago, aaron would have broached the subject of babies as ‘let’s have a baby of our own’, with this implication that seb isn’t their own, or that aaron wasn’t genuinely very satisfied with the situation of their parenting 

like, he literally never had an issue that he was co-parenting with two other people. that never came into things as a problem for him.

so then the conversation yesterday is happening in the context of a lot of things :

rebecca wants to take seb away

aaron doesn’t want it and is the most outspoken about that

rob is very much like ok we need to keep the peace but i stand by aaron’s choice here - and so we genuinely do see them working as a team, as this complete unit, with aaron genuinely taking the lead on how to proceed with what’s happening with seb

until rebecca has a meltdown bc she want robron to live 50 miles away from seb but her living 50 miles away from either her boyfriend or seb would be the end of the world

and rebecca is talking about getting the courts involved and staying in emmerdale until a decision is made (and no longer)

and rebecca makes it clear that robert and aaron won’t win, thanks to aaron’s convictions

robert, feeling the need to protect aaron from understanding that he is the reason why ultimately they won’t get to keep their son (as the show frames it) decides that if he gives up seb now, without aaron getting a chance to fight it, aaron might never have to realise why they had to lose seb and maybe it would be easier to not delay the inevitable and ultimately kinder on aaron

which means ultimately that robert sends seb away without consulting aaron

aaron straight up asks robert if he thinks aaron is a bad dad - he feels hurt and undermined in his position as seb’s dad

rob tries to explain why he did it but he can’t really, because the whole point was to save aaron from the truth of it

and i think this was like... the turning point for aaron to start feeling insecure about his place in seb’s life. bc before, seb was living happily with them and they were talking about adopting and legal rights and whatever and no one even questioned how aaron fit in with seb’s life - aaron was seb’s dad and that was that

so i genuinely don’t think he ever particularly worried about the fact that seb legally wasn’t his, or that his position relies entirely on robert??? bc he never had to before????

and rob clearly never really thought about it, beyond knowing that he wanted aaron to have legal rights somehow, particularly once they thought rebecca was out of the picture

robert literally said that he felt relieved when rebecca had left, because it could just be the four of them. aaron barely reacted to rebecca leaving and coming back outside of being worried about robert - he never once wavered in how comfortable he felt as seb’s dad. he spent a whole scene describing elements of seb’s future that he’d been thinking about and all the ways he knew he’d be a parent to seb. 

but then rob ripped seb away from him without even giving him a say

and it was with good intentions and the best rob felt he could do in a horrible situation, but

to aaron i think it was like being hit with the reality of the situation all at once

and then aaron’s struggling and robert is trying to explain things to him and making him feel better and aaron literally spends the entire next day hugging seb lmao 

rob doesn’t get even one hug hahaha 

but then aaron can’t bring himself to give seb back bc aaron knows what it’s like to be abandoned by a parent and rossbecca panic and start bringing the police and the courts back into it 

which makes robert panic because he knows they’ll lose - even though aaron doesn’t

and so he has to ultimately explain this to aaron, thereby causing him the pain he’d tried to avoid

but the fact that rob took seb away without asking aaron still happened

and what happens when aaron tries to take seb away?? the fuckin police almost get involved and suddenly they’re staring down the threat of supervised visitations lmao

bc rob’s say technically outweighs aaron’s

and then robert is pissed bc aaron deciding that kidnap was the right response was obviously stupid and short sighted - particularly since, as robert explained in detail, rob has very strong feelings about not going to court and about parents being amicable where children are concerned thanks to his own childhood

so rob is like fuck u i’m going to the lawyer by myself and i’m gonna ignore your calls all day xoxo - not because rob thinks he has more of a right to seb necessarily but literally because he’s a petty bitch lmao. he specifically makes a point to aaron that he ignored aaron’s calls because aaron had taken seb and not picked up his phone and rob had spent all day worrying that they were dead lmao (and then it caused an entire shit storm lololol)

but again, to aaron, who has already been forced to confront the lack of control he has over this situation that’s hugely life affecting for him, this just feels like even more of a push back

and then robert says ‘my son’ and aaron is once again like ok so you said we’re a team but we’re actually not a team where seb is concerned, it’s all about you???

and rob explains that he’s just angry and so not thinking clearly about his words and doesn’t see that it’s a big deal, but it’s like a final nail in the proverbial coffin, isn’t it? aaron’s spent days dealing with the fact that his own son can be taken from him without him being able to do fuck all about it

and his baby sister has just died, something incredibly out of his control and something he wasn’t really able to grieve over in public

and so whilst paddy is with robert explaining that aaron struggle with grace’s death and that for the pain of their own son being taken from them, all they have is each other, aaron is contemplating this whole world of ways in which he's not allowed to be a parent to his own son

and so his solution is to have a baby with robert - a kid of our own. not another baby - a baby that’s just theirs. who can’t be taken away from him.

this is happening in the context of everything above. this isn’t supposed to be the perfect solution, because the reality is that getting a surrogate and having a baby isn’t going to make aaron stop seeing seb as his son and it isn’t going to cure the fact that he feels this immense loss of control 

like, it’s not going to make him feel any more secure as seb’s parent - something he still very much is. 

this is the longest fucking answer in the world all to say the following: i think the choice of words is indicative of aaron struggling with a different problem and his solution isn’t one that will help solve that problem at all

it’s not that aaron wants a kid with robert without a third party - it’s that he wants a kid with robert because there wouldn’t be a third party, because he thinks that that’s the best way to simulate what he feels should have happened with seb

but it doesn’t actually solve the issue with seb, which won’t ever go away. they’re literally trying to actively stay in seb’s life, as his dads. having a baby now won’t make aaron suddenly feel ok about the situation with seb.

the damage is already done. it was done the second robert gave seb to ross and rebecca. 

bc the reality is that it’s not about having a baby or being a parent. it’s an issue that aaron has with robert. because robert inadvertently caused all of this. it’s the bad luck of a terrible situation yes, but it was also robert. aaron felt completely secure until robert undermined him. not rebecca. not ross. rebecca and ross both were totally treating aaron with the same respect they were treating robert. they didn’t make aaron feel insecure about his place in seb’s life. robert did.

and so having a kid with robert isn’t going to solve that issue at all lmao