#brought to you by my current hobby of over-thinking Charles Smith's various social relationships

[rockscanfly]

I really don't think we talk enough about how fourteen years (estimated age for Charles is 27, he's stated he was 13 when he left home) of isolation and surviving on his own FUCKED Charles' social skills.

Like I see so many fics where for some reason he gets painted as the emotionally well adjusted one between himself and Arthur. I'm not saying he's not better than Arthur about keeping a clear head about his own sense of self and desires instead of letting them get mixed up with what other people want from him, like Arthur does. But. Fucks sake. That is a dude who will ghost you before talking about how you hurt his feelings, right there. Zero conflict management skills.

Meanwhile, Arthur grew up in a large family and is constantly serving as a mediator to the rest of the gang. And yet so many of the fics I've seen paint him as painfully incompetent at even basic social skills, which simply isn't accurate. He's coarse and has a temper, but he's still Dutch and Hosea's protege.

Lets see more of Charles being the messy one in their relationship. He's an incredible character with a lot going on internally, and I'm sick of seeing him used as the emotional support blanket for a man almost a decade his senior who is, frankly, better at interacting with other people than he is.