#but the way he goes oh no they’re starting to become incompatible and doesn’t say anything after was just too funny lol

[memethebum]

Loved how Stein offered to give Maka and Soul extra lessons with the magical candles and was probably like “well this’ll help them stabilize their resonance rate” or wtv and then realized what they really need is couples therapy and was like “yea no that’s way above my pay grade” and just left it at that dhsjskak

[hp-fanfic-archive]

an introductory rec list (that no one asked for) to some of my favorite ships: drarry [4/10]

First fic I read for the pairing: Obsession by yesbocchan [2k,T] Harry thinks Malfoy is up to something evil. Until he finds out maybe he's not the only one with an obsession. [just a cute little eighth year fic i saw on tumblr back when i was first getting into fandom stuff (and back into harry potter in general) when i was near the end of high school. it’s cute, it’s sweet, and i was curious about drarry as a concept so]

Fic that really sold me on the pairing: Stealing Sweaters by DorthyAnn [12k,T] It's their eighth and final year and over the course of several months, Harry and Draco have managed to become close friends. Their friends are entirely certain that they ought to be much, much more. So they just decide to... help things along. [listen, everything that DorthyAnn writes is phenomenal, so how could i not fall in love with this ship after this?]

Absolute favorite fic(s) for the pairing: Animus Nexus by MystyVander [96k,T] It's Eighth Year at Hogwarts and it seems Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy hate each other more than ever before. Everybody is sick of it. Somebody was tired of the two enough to curse them, binding them together. What at first appears to be a death sentence to both Harry and Draco turns out to be the thing the both of them needed the most. [it’s enemies to friends to lovers coupled with accidental bonding coupled with discussions of magical theory coupled with wizarding traditions with a few misunderstandings and some angst all set in eighth year and that’s basically the perfect combination for me.] Twist of Fate by Oakstone730 [302k,T] Draco asks Harry to help him beat the Imperius curse during 4th year. The lessons turn into more than either expected. A story of redemption and forgiveness. Pairings: HP/DM (Slash) Timeframe: 1994-2002 Goblet to 4 yrs post-DH EWE Rating T for language, high angst, content. [this fic has lived rent-free in my head for three years and it fucking slaps. there’s angst and fluff and so many bittersweet moments and it’s both canon compliant and completely canon divergent and i am obsessed with it. 40000/10]

Most recent fic I’ve read for the pairing: love me now (touch me now) by swisstae [3k,G] Harry's never had a bath. Draco plans on changing that. OR in which Harry gets his hair washed and Loves It (and Draco. He loves Draco too.) [this fic is adorable and sweet and i enjoyed it immensely.]

Favorite AU(s) I’ve read for the pairing: Alternate Sorting AU (Slytherin!Harry): Malfoy Flavor by Vorabiza [199k,E] Harry’s ready to banish the Golden Boy image and take charge of his life. Unfortunately for him, or fortunately, there are surprises in store for him. [Slytherin!Harry but it’s not an entire canon rewrite like most of the alternate sorting fics i love so much, so that’s fun. also severitus and just the right amount of soul crushingly painful angst. oh and it has a delightfully fluffy little sequel. ] Alternate Sorting AU 2: Electric Boogaloo (Ravenclaw!Draco): Chaos Theory by Tessa Crowley [102k,E] Chaos: when the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future. One gene varies, one neuron fires, one butterfly flaps its wings, and Draco Malfoy's life is completely different. Draco has always found a certain comfort in chaos. Perhaps he shouldn't. (warnings for: major character death, graphic depictions of violence, psychological torture, implied/referenced non-con) [as my notes on my bookmark said: GOD DAMNNNNN. I LOVE THIS FIC. I CRIED SO MUCH AND ALSO THERE WAS LAUGHTER AND JUST GOD DAMN. ONE OF MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITES. so that about sums it up.] Time Travel AU: Annus Mirabilis by Ren [39k,E] Harry and Malfoy are trapped at Hogwarts around the time the school was founded. Stuck with a different way of doing magic, with no chocolate, and with each other, they have to find a way to work together if they want a chance to go home. [i almost never fuck with time travel aus but… this one slaps. also? hogwarts founders era?? hell yeah. also also? their relationship progresses in a way that feels so natural and the tension is so palpable and the writing is excellent.]

Favorite Series for the pairing: Leo Inter Serpentes by Aeternum [746k,E,6 Works] Just one conversation between two eleven year old boys goes slightly differently, and the world changes. Just how much will be different with Harry being sorted into Slytherin, and how much will stay the same? [Slytherin!Harry? Harry, Draco, Hermione friendship? Severitus? All in a complete series re-write that’s currently six completed works deep? What more could you possibly need?]

Longest fic I’ve read for the pairing: I Do What I Want by XxTheDarkLordxX [509k,E] They say you shouldn't touch what isn't yours... Too bad no one told Harry that. A simple mistake that Harry made in his first year at Hogwarts is coming back to bite him in the arse. The war is over but the threat to his life is just beginning. This story begins with a simple apology that changes Harry’s life. It starts a domino effect that leads to unbelievable connections, undying love, unique past lives, unknown villains and an unstoppable family. Follow Harry and his friends on an epic adventure filled with twists, bumps, comfort, enemies, a new life and a lot of love. (warnings for: major character death, some character bashing) [the first (or first few? i forget) chapters are written in first person but they’re an internal monologue and the rest of the fic is not in first person, just so you know. Also, the concept slaps and the fic is cute and i love to see it (and i’ve read it thrice).]

Fic(s) with some of my favorite tropes: Matchmaking: Ron Weasley: Accidental Matchmaker by Phoenix_Waves [2k,T] "There's not a sexual tension out there that the man can't accidentally detect!" George beamed. "And then ask the stupid arse question that's going to light the spark and fan the flames." Lee added matter-of-factly. A fluffy Christmas one shot featuring our favorite older Gryffindors. [god this is excellent: the obliviousness, the mutual pining, the matchmaking, having the older gryffindor kids around and having a good holiday time- it’s all excellent.] Soulmates: Kiss Me Not by DorthyAnn [21k,T] Sometimes a witch or wizard's magical signature is so completely incompatible with another that they repel one another like magnets. On the other hand, if two magical signatures mesh well together, well there are no stronger relationships in all the world. In a sample of a thousand people, the average witch or wizard will be slightly repelled by four or five people and strongly repelled by only one, at the most. The opposite is true for attraction. But Harry Potter can't kiss anyone at all. [this is actually such a fascinating take on the classic soulmates trope. there’s no predestined person for everyone and there’s no magical guarantee of anything, just magic being a little difficult and i adore that. also the writing style is excellent and the characterizations are spot on.] Accidental Bonding + Bed Sharing: Let's Take A Chance On Happiness by endless_grey [21k,E] Harry works with Luna at her magical antique shop, and everything is going pretty well until a mysterious ring makes an appearance. Cue curse-breaker Draco Malfoy and an accidental bond, and suddenly Harry is magically married to his former nemesis. They need to break the bond before Hermione's fundraiser, but Harry doesn't remember "fall in love with the git" being part of the plan. [i discovered this fic while looking for something else, but it’s so good. i love their dynamic and it’s shift as the story progresses and i love both of their friendships with luna just as much. it’s funny and a little angsty and well written and has two of my favorite tropes in it. what more can i say?]

[trisshawkeye]

I'm a little hesitant to weigh in on the discourse going around, since I can't speak to the Chinese LGBTQ+ experience, but what I can speak to is one of the reasons why a queer person might find the nature of the sex scenes in MDZS, and in particular the extras, interesting and relatable to their experience as a queer person.

First off I want to stress that YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ THE MDZS EXTRAS. In fact, if you think they might be triggering or upsetting to you, or just not your cup of tea, then just don't read them. You don't need to read them to enjoy everything else MDZS has to offer. Indeed, if any of the following would wig you out—slightly dub-con kissing, misunderstandings around a sexual encounter due to each party thinking the other didn't want it in the same way they did, an inexperienced couple figuring out what they like and finding out that includes mild consent-play—then maybe you might want to skip the scenes in the main novel too. It's okay to have preferences and for those preferences to not include that. If you don't want to read those sections, then I'm not gonna judge you, don't read them. There is plenty else to enjoy. Look after yourself first!

Okay, with that out the way, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about shame and sexual fantasy.

While not written to this particular audience at all, Lan Wangji is a painfully relatable character for a certain type of gifted queer kid growing up in conservative Evangelical Christian spaces. The combination of having a strict, rule-based moral code one is expected to follow, and being held up as a well-behaved, good example to others from a young age, both in terms of pseudo-academic achievement and in terms of following of said moral code, and then finding yourself and your worldview becoming increasingly incompatible with the code you are trying to live by, is one that really fucks you up. Lan Wangji is a character laser-targeted at my own set up of hang-ups and neuroses, oh boy. I love him so much and want him to be happy.

And to be fair, that's not to say the Gusu Lan sect rules are bad per se, and characters such as Lan Xichen show that it is possible to have a different relationship with them such that they inform your behaviour but still allow for flexibility and compromise. But Lan Wangji definitely strikes me as someone who took rule-following deep into his own sense of identity, and that gets very messy for him when he starts questioning how to handle moral quandaries that the rules can't easily address by themselves, or finds himself trying to follow them in a way that conflicts with how the rest of his sect are doing so.

So when this kind of strict moral purity forms a big part of your identity, and then you suddenly get attracted to someone 'inappropriate' (or indeed, anyone at all as a horny teenager who’s supposed to behave themselves), your new and growing sense of desire runs smack bang into your existential need to be someone who is Good(TM), who follows the rules, who wouldn't in their right mind to anything that contradicts them. You can't just dream soft dreams about sneaking away to kiss your crush and you both enjoying it, because even that is shameful, it's wrong, it flies in the face of everything you're supposed to be and you'd never do that. And so one way for your mind to get around this is for your fantasies to take a darker turn, to imagine that you were pushed beyond all reasonable human limits, that you lost all control, that you were drugged or manipulated, that the other person took advantage of you or somehow provoked you into assaulting them, and that way you can sort of excuse yourself, you can imagine yourself in that situation because at least then it wasn't really your fault, you can kind of keep your internal sense of identity consistent. But now you've imagined you're in that situation and you have that 'excuse', you have a kind of free rein to act out the things you want to do and it doesn't really 'count'. And all the while you're entirely aware that this is a fucked up fantasy, that it would be unforgivable if you did such a thing or such a thing was done to you in real life, and now you're worried that even imagining such a thing is a failure of your moral character, and it builds into a destructive cycle of shame and self-loathing, and it's just a real mess all round. 

Now, I think this is something that Lan Wangji worked through and came out the other side of, and he was no longer ashamed of his desire for Wei Wuxian by the time he came back in the body of Mo Xuanyu (and probably even by the time of the first siege of the Burial Mounds, though it was far too late at that point). But for a sixteen-year-old Lan Wangji to have these violent fantasies about being provoked into raping Wei Wuxian because that was the only way he could imagine himself in a situation in which he could express that desire? And then later in life finding out that consent-play holds some appeal? Yeah, I can see that, I can relate to it.

And so in the incense burner chapter? When it becomes clear they're visiting one of Lan Wangji's teenage fantasies, especially right after the adorably domestic scene that is Wei Wuxian's dream, he is absolutely embarrassed by it, he's mortified—it's obvious he still considers it to be shameful and would honestly rather Wei Wuxian didn't see this side of himself so clearly, although he loves and trusts Wei Wuxian enough not to hide it from him when he says wants to stay. And then, when Wei Wuxian sees where it's going, and finds it hilarious and honestly kinda hot, knowing that it is just a fantasy, and one that meshes well with his own consensual-non-consent kinks to boot, you know what? It's a relief! It's an honest-to-goodness relief and entirely delightful to me that he turns around and basically says, hey, it's okay, this doesn't make you a bad person, you don't have to be ashamed of this, I love you, I'm enjoying this too, I want to see where this goes, let's have sex! 

Because none of this does make Lan Wangji a bad person—none of these fantasies were acted upon except for one intensely-regretted kiss (and then only really regretted on his own part), and then later in the context of entirely consensual, mutually enjoyable sex as adults between him and Wei Wuxian. And being able to revisit those fantasies and take away the shame he's associated with them all this time is probably pretty healing for him! 

Like I said at the start, you don't have to read these chapters. They were not written for you personally, and you are not the target audience for them. If you're going to be at all distressed by the content then I actively encourage you not to read them, it would be a form of emotional self-harm to do so. It's not like you're missing out on anything important (or even very well-written, if I'm being honest, particularly once it's gone through the mangle of a translation that I don't personally think handles the nuances of the smut scenes very well, from what I can gather from various pieces of discussion about it). It's totally fine if you find these kinks unpleasant and don't want to touch them with a barge pole! But that doesn't make having or writing or enjoying these kinks or fantasies somehow morally wrong—it's not shameful, it's not homophobic, and please, please stop accusing the author or fans of being so just because you don't personally like it. Because you’re just reinforcing the shame-based, purity-based thinking that screws so many of us up in the first place.

(Aside: I’m not saying this is necessarily the correct way to interpret Lan Wangji’s character and motivations with respect to these scenes, since I too am a Westerner coming at all this material through the veil of translation and with very little understanding of its surrounding literary context—I’m more describing how, from my own experience as a young repressed religious queer, I found myself vibing a lot with this character and his relationship with sexual desire.)

[mallowstep]

📖 (foxstride)

ask thingy

@foxstride

okay i mentioned this to you on discord but i didn't go into it but. okay. okay. the au where mistyfoot is hawk, moth, and tadpole's mother. this has been just. it's been chewing on my brain and i don't know when i'm going to write it so since u gave me a blank canvas, i'm going to ramble about it for as long as i can.

cw: implied/referenced sexual assault; brief suicidal ideation; standard tigerclan content (abuse, child abuse, starvation, dehumanization, etc.); referenced force feeding

okay oh my gosh okay. this has. so obviously i've been thinking about riverclan lately. a lot. it's rcam. anyway. i don't want. i'm trying to get to the point and not loop around aimlessly for two hundred words but okay but okay. anyway.

i've been thinking of all the different ways i can deeply traumatize misty, storm, and feather. and maybe stone. maybe i'll let stone live at some point. that'd be fun.

right so i've been thinking of that and my ideas are all over the place. i'm going to let primrosepaw live at some point. at one point i'm going to have stormpaw, and maybe primrosepaw or reedpaw (and...what's the other one? is it perchpaw or pikepaw? whatever) the point is i'll have some collection of stormpaw and some or all of mistyfoot's kits escape but not misty and feather so we can do survivor's guilt and.

anyway so i was writing the excerpt for the primrosepaw is definitely there au (it's kind of not Tethered because most of these aren't mutually incompatible like that au could be any of the others), and tigerstar has that dialogue about kits yeah?

so when i was writing it, i was thinking about just. he's trying to dehumanize all of them, right? that's his goal with that line. he's separating mistyfoot from her kits, trying to erase the meaning of their relationships. that's like. that's what i was considering when i was writing it.

buuuuuuut. y'know. my brain is chewing on it. and it just. hm. Hm. what if. what If tadpole, moth, and hawk were misty and tiger kits. hm. hmm. hm.

and so i am just instantly. very on board with this. there's so much potential.

so i Think the point of canon divergence is the rescue attempt. i haven't decided if stormpaw is successfully rescued or not. featherpaw doesn't for reasons i'm circling around to, but stormpaw may or may not. it certainly Matters in a broad sense but i haven't made up my mind, and i doubt i'm going to write Multiple aus about this. i mean i might u never know but it'd b like writing an alternate stolag: i mean i suppose i Could but it would feel weird.

okay almost burnt my dinner i said i'm very this has just been slowly rotting my brain out. i like Angst and it's been a while since i've written any.

okay there was fmtws but really that got me started. i'm not a fluff person. and y'all know that by now.

so Back On Topic. so Anyway after the rescue attempt fails/partially fails, tigerstar takes his anger out at the apprentices being Alive on featherpaw and she gets to. uh. help tigerclan practice fighting.

"Let me see her," Mudfur hissed. "No," Tigerstar said. "I've told you." Mudfur growled. Featherpaw dragged herself to her feet, and Mistyfoot glanced back at her. They would leave they would leave they would leave and then she could lie down again and try not to think. "You're not my leader," Mudfur said, and Featherpaw winced. Mistyfoot could see what was going on, but she was sitting still as a stone. Mudfur pressed into their — Mudfur pressed in, laying a wrapped bundle at Mistyfoot's feet. "Let me—" "No," Mistyfoot said. "Just go." Mudfur dipped his head. Tigerstar's steps moved away from them, but the shouts and arguments surrounding Mudfur were just buzzing noise in Featherpaw's head. She made out, "She's going to die," and she thought, that wouldn't be the worst thing.

thank You featherpaw. you will suffer for the au as a whole. anyway this takes place...i'm not Quite sure but mistyfoot does have a reason for not letting mudfur in. and that reason is she is in Denial about being pregnant.

if mudfur comes in he'll know (i have not forgotten that cats can smell unlike the erins), and mistyfoot is acting in denial. altho she rationalizes it to herself as being for mudfur's protection: runningnose is a medicine cat too, and so tigerstar could off mudfur without much effort.

(also i tend to mix up mudfur and mudclaw sometimes understand i am talking about the riverclan medicine cat, not the windclan deputy. i just mistype them sometimes.)

anyway so she has a legitimate reason (mudfur's continual survival, which is better for her and featherpaw longterm), and she does not want mudfur to know.

yeah.

all in all, this happens before the great battle. mistyfoot fights in it (again, denial), featherpaw and stormpaw are reunited (yes i think i made up my mind), (wait maybe stonefur lives too, and then both pairs of siblings reconnect, and stonefur is like "oh Shit" and. okay yes. maybe. i don't know.)

(there's a Lot. ohh maybe. wait best of both worlds okay. mistyfoot Thinks stonefur is dead. but stonefur doesn't get a proper burial but at the same time riverclan is Not going to go for their deputy on bonepile and even if they do go for it, they're not going to stripe his bones nor are they going to let a Physical Cat Corpse rot in camp. so when firestar and greystripe rescue stormpaw, stormpaw Insists they go back for his body, and then they realize he's Alive but obviously mistyfoot doesn't know.)

(there then i get the Best of both worlds. and stonefur and feathertail are in the Chronic Pain club.)

(also the thing w/ fighting is also what happens in "someday when the world is much brighter". not that Particular scene or in that Particular way, but it does happen. i mean almost exactly in that particular way. but that scene is from a different fic.)

anyway okay moving on i did add too much chili powder to my dinner but that's fine i'm still not over when someone refused to give me more harissa because "it's spicy" like yes i know i guarantee my mom makes it spicier.

back on topic sorry. i've been writing this as i do other things bc i have so much to say about this and i don't want to wait for tomorrow to share this because it's been just Rotting away my brain.

anyway so siblings reunite. it's...terse. it's complicated.

there's some parallels going on right? like because both featherpaw and stormpaw are basically in the mindset of looking after their mentors (which mistyfoot and stonefur feel Terrible about), everyone has survivor's guilt (i don't know what to call like, survivor's guilt when it's not actually survivor's guilt so if someone has a correct word please let me know) except for Maybe featherpaw.

featherpaw might be the Only one here who doesn't have survivor's guilt. i don't really want to explore the one way she could end up with it. that's past my comfort level at the moment.

but stormpaw and mistyfoot are the most physically healthy, and stormpaw and stonefur escaped.

stormpaw: i have not been hurt by this in any way

everyone around stormpaw: you have definitely been hurt by this

stormpaw: i have not been hurt by this in any way

stormpaw and featherpaw become warriors, leopardstar makes mistyfoot deputy (because stonefur is still recovering and also no longer wants the position. mistyfoot doesn't either but she's in denial and she doesn't want anyone else to have it. mistyfoot is visibly pregnant and still kind of in denial at this point. like it's been at least a moon and she is refusing to talk about it.)

right so i think stormpaw's name is going to be stormheart because i don't know it was always weird to me that stormfur and stonefur have the same suffix. like given Everything that's going on it feels weird to me. ig it'd actually be less weird in this, given that stonefur is still alive, but do you know How Close stonefur and stormfur are. they're one consonant cluster off. they're One consonant cluster off.

so leopardstar names him stormheart. feathertail can keep her name because it's pretty.

mistyfoot is a moon away from kitting. she refuses to talk about it. to anyone. whatsoever.

feathertail and stonefur decide to stage an intervention.

(they leave stormheart out not because he's not part of the found family, but because mistyfoot literally will not tolerate a single word about this. like a single word. like she will growl at you if you look at her stomach for too long.

so given the fairly high odds that mistyfoot gets violent, they keep stormheart out of it. she's the least likely to attack stonefur and feathertail.

stormheart finds out about this later and is like "do you guys realize if this went south you had absolutely 0 control over the situation. like what are you guys going to do. you incapable of doing anything to stop her if something goes wrong."

feathertail is like "yes. that's the point."

feathertail is both kind of right and also very internally messed up from being used for "training" when she wasn't allowed to fight back. feathertail also hates if you call her by just her prefix. she does not tell anyone this. misty is aware of this, and she tells stone and storm, and riverclan does eventually figure it out. plus it's not like feathertail is close enough to anyone else for them to call her "feather".

okay i'm getting off topic sorry i've been working on a tpb thing for swtwimb, and the one scene i have is cats making fun of her for not fighting back (again she is not allowed to they might kill her if she does), so they call her "featherkit" and that eventually gets brought down to feather and i'm rambling anyway On topic again.)

so stonefur and feathertail are like. "mistyfoot you are like. a half moon away from kitting. it is impairing your ability to do warrior duties. you need to like. acknowledge this."

anyway after a very terse conversation. after a veeery terse conversation, where mistyfoot is like. very close to just absolutely abandoning riverclan. they get her to admit that yes she is pregnant and yes she needs to stop doing warrior duties for the moment.

she wasn't exactly Healthy when she was pregnant because even tho tigerstar made a Point of making her like. eat enough to be healthy and also not violently attacking her. she had still been starved for...idk long enough for her ribs to show. i'm not sure what the exact timeline on this is yet.

also then After Tigerclan she did not eat as much as she should have because (a) denial and (b) she had been forcefed and so now she's. not doing that.

oh wow i've written long enough for my grammar checker to turn off again. that hasn't happened in ages.

all bets are off from here on out re grammar and spelling.

okay so mistyfoot isn't going to move into the nursery. i believe mosspelt has had a litter of 3 kits, or will have one as we see in asir, but mistyfoot isn't. she's not moving into it. stone, misty, storm, and feathertail share a den. no one else is allowed into it for Any Reason.

so anyway, they expand the den. riverclan as a whole might? i'm not sure who's good at weaving bc i don't have headcanons for this time period. probably not feathertail, but possibly stonefur. hm. anyway, they expand the den, mistyfoot will raise the kits in this den, everyone is on board with this.

mostly because it's this or mistyfoot like. runs away. which obviously no one wants. riverclan is on the side of...the four? riverclan is on the side of the four. even if they're not like, even though the four don't trust them, feathertail and misty especially (stone and storm tolerate it much better). but even tho things are complicated, riverclan is certainly going to do actions. they're certainly going to try to demonstrate their support.

okay so mistyfoot gives birth to her kits, and she is. not feeling good. about it. she's feeling terrible about it actually. she's feeling terrible about things. she doesn't want to name them.

usuuually in this situation, after the queens (collective) decided its in the best interest of the kits to be raised by someone other than their birth mother, the kits would be given to another queen.

but see. feathertail, stonefur, and stormheart are All attatched to these kits. deeply attatched to them. and mistyfoot is not willing to give them up either.

so mistyfoot isn't willing to give them up to another riverclan queen, and feathertail, stone, and storm all Want to raise them, and also don't want to give them to another queen.

the queens confer with mudfur that it is absolutely the worst possible thing they could do to forcibly remove the kits from mistyfoot. like that is the Worst option. they'd be lucky to get the kits alive, feathertail and mistyfoot are likely to abandon riverclan, and if misty and feathertail abandon riverclan, stone and storm will follow.

they're stuck in a standstill for a while. the four eventually do name them hawkkit, mothkit, and tadpolekit. the kits are about a moon old and ready to be weaned. mistyfoot is still extremely tense about the affair, but she's willing to part with them. she's able to recognize that's in the best interest of the kits, mosspelt's litter is about the same age, moving them into the nursery is going to give them a more normal upbringing, everyone is on the same page.

feathertail, who's having a lot of self worth issues, decides that moving into the nursery is her best bet for clan usefulness (which (a) feathertail you cannot keep up with kits and (b) the whole Place she's in is bad to begin with), moves in with them.

the kits decide feathertail is their mother now (they're old enough to understand that she didn't give birth to them, altho i haven't decided if they remember misty as their mother and if they're told any information re their birth parents depends exactly What kind of angst i want to write), and feathertail is. okay with this.

unlike asir, she's not blindsided with the tigerstar-is-their-father reveal, so she does have some issues with hawkkit reminding her of tigerstar, he's not really her Big Bad Trauma Nightmares. she has way more issues with the riverclan warriors directly involved in her abuse.

anyway, i don't know what happens tnp era stuff. i haven't gotten that far yet. maybe this will be another au where hawk and/or moth is a prophecy cat. i'm not sure. i haven't gotten farther than this.

but here you go i started writing this like an hour and a half ago and while i did stop to eat, i also just finally put everything i have for this au on one page and i hope and pray that will stave off the brainrot until i have a chance to actually write it.

[fleckcmscott]

Out of Sight

Summary: Y/N has an unexpected dash of inspiration. Arthur doesn't require much convincing.

Warnings: Swearing, Smut

Words: 4,221

A/N: This fun little request comes from @sweet-nothings04​​. You're wonderful and I hope this meets your expectations. Thanks for the request - I can't imagine ever writing this without it! 🙈 Special thanks to @jokerownsmysoul​ for agreeing to beta!

If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment, feel free to message me, or send me an ask. Requests for Arthur and WWH are open!

Words didn't often fail Y/N, but the admission left her foggy, reminiscent of what she'd experienced after tipping over in a wheelbarrow race at a school fair. Her foot swung back and forth as she sat on the counter. Fiddled with the phone cord and twisted its beige, plastic curls around her fingers. Were there signs she'd missed? Was her gut right in insisting she was a terrible friend?

"Marriage counseling?" she repeated.

Arthur stopped filling his bowl with sandy, pecan cookies, alarm encroaching his features. She waved off his concern, mouthing "not us" before she spoke into the receiver. "I'm so sorry." With a grimace of understanding, he patted her knee and ducked out, sweets in hand. No doubt he'd ask her to elaborate. Not that she had anything to share. Not yet. "I had no idea you and Robert were having problems."

Patricia laughed lightly on the other end. "Neither of us have our bags packed." A whistle came from the background. Vague cheering. Then mild cursing about how terrible this season's Gotham Guardsmen's picks were. She sighed. "The little green monster's dropped-in since your wedding. Don't get me wrong. I couldn't be happier for you if you were my own sister."

Y/N wished Patricia was within arm's reach instead of all the way in Burnside.

"Next month we'll have been married thirty-five years," Patricia continued with a rare nostalgia. "We're a team, Robert and me. But we've both let things go, gotten old. I'd like the spark back before we lose the kindling."

Pursing her lips, Y/N bit back her qualms. Rebutting the steps Patricia had taken was uncalled for, and doubly so when she needed her support. Besides. Y/N understood them. She'd climbed them once, too.

When she'd begun to figure out the direction in which the weather vane of her life pointed, the comfort and confidence she'd shared with her ex-husband had started to wither. Transformed over the years into an awareness that her childish belief in love being enough was inaccurate. It was natural, she thought in hindsight. They'd wed at seventeen and twenty-one. But divorce had been uncommon back then, particularly in a small town in the Bible Belt. The night she'd moved in with a friend (a tactic to delay confessing defeat to her family), Jeff suggested they speak with a professional. Though her heart had known it was over, she cared for him. She couldn't deny them the chance to salvage their union, no matter how remote.

A solitary counselor was available, a disadvantage of rural living. The man claimed to be a pioneer in couples therapy, having begun his practice in the thirties. One forty-five-minute drive later and they'd found themselves squished into a leather loveseat in a smoky, cramped office. Diplomas and certificates covered the walls, the veracity of which she couldn't verify. Dr. Ellis's puffy pink cheeks and offer of sweet tea had been kinder than his approach.

Fountain pens and worksheets were provided with the mumbled instruction to answer honestly. But the questions had not fit her situation. They were for women who desired to be happy homemakers. To plan meals and do the weekly shopping. To nurse children and have dinner ready by six. Responsibilities and life stages that had given her mother purpose - a purpose that mostly eluded Y/N. Every comma and quotation mark inferred fault. And Dr. Ellis had read her responses like a disappointed teacher.

Somehow the filmstrips, accompanied by a crackling LP, were worse. Mr. Provider and Mrs. Housewife were featured. He consistently came home on time. She always wore an apron. The narrator's spiritless voice contrasted with the cheery soundtrack while matching Y/N's mood. A lively ping! cued them to advance to the next still, a duty switched between her and Jeff to practice teamwork. At least the sidelong looks they shared could still connect them.

The slides, the homework, the speeches. They all pointed to one problem: her. Her parents were a model couple. Didn't she know encouraging her husband in his livelihood was her job? That his main obligation was to invite her to share his success? She had to mend her ways. Make herself more attractive. Be grateful he displayed his affection by returning to her after a long day at the office; he could just as easily hang out at The Rusty Boot.

Not a little indignant, she'd stared at Jeff's profile. Downcast eyes betrayed his regret and assured she'd maintain composure, for his sake if nothing else. She fixed her focus on Dr. Ellis and gave the situation a good, long think. Jeff had never questioned her ambitions. Who the hell was this jackass to judge?

She'd covered Jeff's hand, rubbed his knuckle with her thumb. "You're the expert here, doctor. But isn't it possible neither party is at fault?"

"Mrs. Thompson, I've heard that misconception from many of my clients. It's never led anywhere positive. Now-"

"But what if they're both good people?" she interrupted, hanging onto diplomacy by a thread. Her resolve stayed, even as her volume lowered at the prospect of wounding the man she'd loved as a girl. "Good people who've grown apart?"

Dr. Ellis took what she'd learned was his usual position on the corner of his cherry desk. "You're mistaking natural sex differences for incompatibility. Not every husband allows his wife to work outside the home." His paternal smile hadn't diminished the sting of his words. "If you want your marriage to thrive, I'd advise a little more maturity. And I think I have just the book to help you."

Twenty tons of silence festered on the ride home, louder than the pulse beating her eardrum. Distress distracted her from noticing the run in her stockings. And it was drizzling. She cracked the passenger window of the Lincoln Continental, anyway. Closed her eyes at the bite of raw air against her overheated face.

"Look, I don't agree with what that guy says," Jeff started. He pulled at the gearshift and flicked the turn-signal. "Not when it comes to you."

As the car came to a stop, she swiped at her eyes. "I'm not going again." The press of a napkin to her palm prompted a mix of appreciation and annoyance. For his courtesy and that he'd detected her tears. "Do you even like being married to me?"

"Y/N-"

"Please." She flinched at his attempt to embrace her. "Don't spare my feelings."

Headlights from a passing car flashed in the cabin, revealing his stretched lips. He raked back his thinning hair. The quiet shake of his head when he moved to gaze at her was a relief. "I miss the girl I fell in love with."

She offered a slight shrug and pulled the corners of the tissue. "I don't like it, either."

His rapid blink softened her posture, along with the recognition that the dream they'd had was also out of reach for him. "I'm proud of the woman you've become," he said. "Even if she's not what I need."

"I don't want to be a lawyer's wife." A quiet laugh bubbled up. "The oral arguments are terrible."

He checked his blind spot and put the sedan back into drive. "I'll file the papers tomorrow. We can tell your parents and sister together. If you'd like." After some seconds, she'd slid across the bench seat and put her head on his shoulder, heartened by an affinity she'd nearly forgotten.

Counseling techniques must have evolved, Y/N considered. Perhaps Patricia would find help instead of blame. If not, tips in women's magazines were a tacky if economical alternative. She'd have to check the breakroom at work for forgotten issues.

She hopped off the counter and poured herself another cup of decaf. "Let me know if we can do anything. And how it goes."

"The first few sessions were great. I picked up a few booklets. 'Modern Marriage,' 'The Complete Woman...' Oh!" Paper shuffled as Y/N put back the milk. "'Enrichment & Exploration: Tips for Bedroom Fun.' I tried reading it with Robert the other night, but he left when I mentioned massagers and blindfolds."

"He's sixty," Y/N snorted. "Give him time."

Peeking around the corner, she spotted Arthur in his writing nook. He stood to stretch, then grab his lighter and pack of Stuttons. The low sit of his pajama bottoms was enough of a temptation for her to tuck her lip. An unexpected spasm tickled her abdomen. "Brief me on the blindfold chapter."

~~~~~

Nervous anticipation had kept her feverish for hours, ever since she'd bid farewell to Arthur with a "Save a smile for me" on her way out the door. His clumsy smooch lingered as she changed the date on her rubber stamp. While she cleaned the office refrigerator, she spent a good sixty seconds pressing a cup of expired yogurt to her flush cheeks. When the shoulder strap of her canvas bag gave out, she shrugged rather than cursed and settled the tote in her lap. With her plan in mind, the corners of her lips refused to relax .

After working the grand opening of the Gotham Mall, Arthur had the workshop she'd registered him for, a beginners' seminar for stand-ups. He'd be home right around six. That would give her thirty minutes to change into her mini nightdress with the ruffled hemline, dab musk oil behind her earlobes, and put on an LP. Dinner would be delayed - neither of them would be in the mood if they were too full. If she remembered correctly, they had a pizza in the freezer, the good kind with the real pepperoni and rising crust. She just had to figure out if she should wait in the bedroom or lounge on the sofa like a poor-man's Lauren Bacall.

As she unlocked the apartment, however, there came a muffled phomp-phomp-phomp. The unmistakable sound of a sink plunger. Fuck. This was the third time this month. Pushing through the door, she hoped the super had called a different plumber. It had taken ages to clean up the stray sediment left behind by the last one. Upon entering, Arthur's plaid bag came into view, next to his keys on the counter. A glance into the kitchen confirmed he was trying his hand at the repair. 

"Hey." Y/N hung her coat, glad her consternation was hidden by the wall. "What happened to your class?" she asked with deliberate playfulness. "Did they decide you were too advanced?" She crossed her arms and moved to the doorway. Tried to hold onto the tendrils of fading arousal by taking him in.

A pleased chuckle. "The instructor left a message." Phomp-phomp-phomp."It'll be rescheduled."

"I know you were looking forward to it." The rolled-up sleeves of his shirt and flexing biceps were having the right effect. She ambled towards him. "Let me help."

"It's fine. I had to do this a lot at my old place." The set of his jaw tightened as it gave it another go.

They went through the litany of usual questions. Arthur contently reported the mall had gone well, except for a couple of teenagers who'd given him grief at the start. ("Nothing serious. They were just kids.") Her nine-to-five had been quite low-key, she explained, and had allowed her to catch-up on a backlog of paperwork. ("With the new judge, we keep having to file motions for correction.") But when he asked about this evening, she mused and tapped her fingertips on the counter. Horny, annoyed at her thwarted plan, yet nevertheless itching to seduce him

Water streamed as he turned the faucet's handle, followed by his satisfied hum. He tidied up, then washed to his elbows. Grabbed the nearby dish towel and pivoted on his heel to face her. "What is it?" he asked at her lack of response. He wiped his hands a little harder. "I thought you'd be glad I'm already here."

Seeking to allay his concern, she scooted next to him with a gentle nudge. "You know I am. You've been running through my head all day." She scrunched her nose. "I just had this idea for a romantic evening and wanted to surprise you."

"Oh." Pink colored his chiseled cheekbones and his eyes softened. "You still could. I'd like that." Ardor sparked anew in her belly. Unfurled as he leaned into her, grin cutting across his mouth and straight into her heart. "Would ten minutes be enough?"

Her toes curled. His enthusiasm for her, for them, had a habit of sending electricity up her spine. "Better make it eight," she pronounced.

A sharp nod and a pat to her bottom later, he dashed off. Once the bathroom door shut, Y/N rushed to rummage in his workbag, delighted when she found her prize. She scurried to the stereo and put on one of her soul records. Adjusted the volume to a suggestion instead of distraction. Though the genre wasn't his favorite, it never failed to induce the swivel of his hips. Unbuttoning, unzipping, she made her way to the bedroom. Yanked off her tan skirt and jacquard sweater before carelessly tossing them in the nearby chair.

She'd just gotten settled on the foot of the bed when Arthur sauntered in. Clad in his white briefs and wrinkled socks. "That was five," she said and wadded her pantyhose to hurl at him.

He dodged it easily, stepping forward to gaze at her with hooded eyes, their clear green darkened with need. He licked his lips. "I think it was four." Without further preamble, he knelt between her legs. Scrambling up the bed, she kicked subtly against his hold on her calves. Bit her lip on a giggle as he crawled over her lap to smother her with kisses. She rested on the headboard and nabbed his red and gold Carnival tie from under her pillow.

He quirked a dark brow. "What, you want me to wear it?"

Before any reservation could resurface, she smoothed the broad neck of the tie over her eyes and secured it loosely at her temple. Hesitation floated through the air. Threatened to pierce the veil of desire that enveloped her. She wondered what he was waiting for. If he was wearing that wolfish grin he saved for the bedroom. Or if a modicum of anxiety had spawned. She had sprung this on him without prior discussion. The muffled music from the living room switched to the next song. She attempted to peek under the bottom of the makeshift blindfold, tried to make out more than a vague shadow in the muted light.

But then he sunk into her. Wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pressed her into the mattress. "If you're uncomfortable, tell me," he murmured into her mouth. "Please."

The implication of his request, albeit more loving than licentious, wracked her with want. She couldn't halt her shudder. Blindly, she reached to cup his face. "I trust you," she promised. To both him and herself.

His round nose dragged down the underside of her jaw. "Where'd you get this idea?"

The caress of his smile on the crook of her neck caused a delicious heaviness to settle in her center. "A pamphlet."

"On what?" He tugged at the knot between her ample breasts. Fondled her through the thin satin. "How to make your husband high-strung?"

She carefully skimmed the rigid bulge in his briefs with her knee. "It was actually on how to loosen him up," she retorted. He always loved it when she paraphrased one of his jokes.

Every hushed kiss, every whisper of him against her flesh was magnified. Forced her to concentrate solely on him, to pay attention to each move he made. His humid, hot breath teased her nipple, prompted it to pebble with a twinge. When she released an embarrassingly desperate whimper, he snorted lightly and slipped his palm to the middle of her back. Following his lead, she arched into him. His soft curls brushed her as he laved her areola, swirled his tongue around it, her skin coming alive at the contact. Weathered hands that had so eagerly learned how to touch her groped her neglected breast, rolled its peak between slender, nimble fingers. She fisted the pillow, tipped her head, and grasped his shoulder with a cry. "Arthur..."

Getting her going usually wasn't difficult. Especially when she'd been thinking about making love for an inappropriate number of office hours. But the suspense of not seeing where he'd next pet her, of every caress being a discovery, had her core already pulsing for him. The intrigue was a treat. The best case she'd ever worked on. His strokes walked a path to every clue.

His fingertips skimmed her inner thighs. Groaning, he hooked them under the waistband of her bikini, tugged until she lifted her rear. He pulled them off hastily. With a gentle pressure, he encouraged her to open herself to him. She did so gladly, splaying her legs without a hint of self-consciousness. The relatively cool temperature of the room hit her hot, swollen folds and she quivered.

Then there was an odd sensation at her clit. Scratchy. Rough like a canvas. And was that a corner? After a few seconds it was clear it wasn't doing it for her. And she didn't think Arthur was trying to wipe away her slick. Reaching down, she found a twisted bedsheet in his fist. She was relieved he hadn't run to the kitchen for ice.

"Not good?" he asked.

She softened the blow. "You feel better."

The pad of his thumb trailed over her patch of springy hair, a faint tease that sent a dizzying current racing through her limbs. She strove towards him but he didn't oblige. Rather, he took her hand and placed it on her labia. Guided her to dip within her inner lips. A short moan left her, at the sensation and the sound of his increasingly labored breathing, tinged by his deep voice. "You look like sex," he blurted.

Laughing, she halted. Whenever something brazen spilled from his mouth, however left-footed, she adored it. She clasped his sides. "What does that mean?"

"If I'd seen you in a magazine," he started, moving to settle over and straddle her. His hard-on grazed her abdomen, leaving a damp trail of his arousal in its wake. Even as she wondered when he'd taken off his underwear, her muscles tensed and she gasped. Playful pecks met her cleavage. "You'd be pasted on every page of my journal."

Her reply slipped out before discretion could take hold. "We better buy a Polaroid." A stitch of reluctance before she added, "Just keep them in your desk."

He uncurled her fingers and pressed her palm to his chest. "Touch me," he whispered, pleaded. Her pulse quickened. With an unhurried deliberation, he guided her over the peaks and valleys of his body. The lean pectorals she loved to nuzzle after a weary day. The freckled indent of his sternum. Downward, to the slightly loose skin around his navel, then the soft, toned curve of his abdomen.

Unable to resist, she stretched to chart the ridge of muscle leading to his groin. "You make me so wet."

He let out a bashful giggle, edged with excitement. The instant he rasped his next words against her forehead, she knew he was doing his damnedest to rival her. He pushed her hand to his erection. "You make me so hard."

She followed the bulging vein from base to tip, encircled him with a firm grip. The vibration of his harsh grunt rumbled through her and he jerked forward. Released her wrist to stroke her vulva and flick back and forth along her aching nub. Focusing on the satiny feel of his flesh, the heaviness of his length, she felt petite. Feminine. Powerful. Her hand glided between his legs, cupped the sensitive skin with care. His practiced rhythm faltered. The elbow beside her ear trembled.

While he was a captivating visual, one she missed, her imagination was determined to compensate for her lack of sight. Breathless moans spun her fantasies. Perspiration tickled her nose, woodsy and sweet, conjuring memories of his taste in her mouth. Then all at once he was inside her, going down on her, sucking at her while fucking into her. Impossible feats that nevertheless caused a fever in her brain. "Oh, god," she mewled. Her wanton writhing hastened. She ground against his thigh. "I want your cock in me."

He took hold of himself as she held herself open. The blunt tip of him slid just inside her entrance, a drop when she needed an ocean. She grabbed his hips and thrust upward, hissing as he stretched her completely. "You're fucking tight," he uttered through clenched teeth.

She smoothed her palms over his back, memorized each notch of his ribs. The odd angle of his distended shoulder. The strong tendons at the nape of his neck. He crushed her closer, until her mouth bumped his clavicle. She nibbled lightly, licked the salty sheen of sweat from its hollow, drawing her name from his lips and rapid bucks of his pelvis. "Fuck me," she said, a command and an appeal.

A creak came from above. She followed his taut arm to find he'd clutched the headboard. It occurred to her, then, that her inability to see had been liberating for him. Enough to let go of his inhibitions, to give voice to the bawdy, wonderful things he'd said, to not worry about his appearance.

She reached to swipe her clit steadily, relentlessly. Tears pricked her eyes as she became weightless. Her frame seized, and she came with a choked cry. She sniffled and laughed into his neck, overwhelmed by him. The way he made love to her as if he sought to erase her earlier trials and replace them with the present.

His throaty, punctuated groans, his fingernails digging into her ass divulged his approaching release. She ran her foot along his calf, relished in his body as its angles pressed into her. He balanced himself on his knees, snapping into her at an erratic pace. Then all at once he moaned sharply and went rigid, cock twitching. She cradled the back of his head while his essence marked her walls, closed her eyes when he sprawled on top of her.

Raking her hands through his loose waves, she swallowed thickly. Although she'd always enjoyed sex, exploring this way hadn't been conceivable with anyone else. Allowing that match to light, allowing herself to fan that flame had been unthinkable. She'd felt inadequate. Unable to live up to others' demands, especially her own. There'd been too many boxes to check. Revealing herself in that way would have been a demonstration of trust she wasn't quite ready for.

Being an established woman on equal footing with her partner wasn't something she'd believed possible. She'd been content to go without and find meaning through her work. Arthur had helped her augment that. She could be tough as old leather or delicate as gossamer without concern he'd see her differently. If expectations were left unmet, their easy discussions and compromises promised they'd never become resentments. They supported each other - authentically and as themselves.

For the first time, she knew she was loved for who she truly was. And she wouldn't have to change to keep it.

Choppy panting gradually ceased, replaced by leisurely, happy sighs. He skimmed her flank, then the curve of her hip. She tickled his midriff gently, only stopping when he reclaimed her lips and slid his tongue against hers. Tenderly, he loosened the knot at her temple. She blinked at the orange, evening light invading her eyes. When his came into focus, they were still dilated, a tad sleepy. And so full of affection her breath caught.

Cheek propped on the heel of his hand, he raised his eyebrows. "How was it?"

"You have to ask?" she chuckled, swatting his backside.

A stray lock tumbled towards her as he bent closer. "I wanna hear it."

"Wonderful." Her thighs tightened, keeping him within her. "What I've been craving all day."

His smile was a slow build, equal parts shy and deservedly smug. Then he stared at his tie. "I- I don't know if I'll ever be able to wear that again."

She snorted and looped it around his neck, secured it with a half-Windsor knot. "You're a professional, Mr. Fleck. You'll manage."

He rolled to her left and yanked open the nightstand drawer to riffle through its contents. "What else is in the pamphlet?"

"Hey!" She batted him half-heartedly, boosted herself on her elbow, and spooned him. "What if I had a surprise hidden in there?"

Undeterred, he huffed. "It wouldn't beat this."

"Patricia told me about it." He stilled and slanted his gaze her way. "I can get a copy."

At first, Y/N assumed he'd contradict her. That he wanted to keep their escapades private. But once a few seconds had passed, Arthur acquiesced with a smirk and snatched a nearby tissue. Wiped himself off and tossed it in the woven wastebasket. He reclined beside her, hands folded behind his head. "Okay. Just don't give away my whole act."

~~~~~

Tag list (Let me know if you want to be added!): @harmonioussolve​ @ithinkimaperson​ @sweet-nothings04​ @stephieraptorr​ @rommies​ @fallenstarsabyss​ @gruffle1​ @octopus-plasma​ @tsukiakarinobara​ @arthur-flecks-lovely-smile​ @another-day-in-chuckletown​ @hhandley80​ @jokerownsmysoul​ @mrscarnival​

[himbo-the-clown]

Okay yes I’m Jewish Father Brown posting again but I don’t yet have the time/energy to write my Jewish Inspectors fic and I want to project my Jewish Feelings onto these men so hear me out

Not only are all the inspectors Jewish, but they all deal with being Jewish in a heavily Catholic post-war small village in a different way

Valentine:

He’s kind of come to terms with the fact that antisemitism is just... part of his life. It’s gonna happen. He won’t actively antagonise anyone or flaunt that he’s Jewish, but he’s also not about to pretend to be xtian either

Yes he’s an atheist, yes he’s Jewish, no those two aren’t incompatible and he will be pissy about it if you ask him how he can be both. He’ll answer you, sure, but he’ll make it Very Clear he doesn’t appreciate it

Generally, he’s Not Here To Educate the xtians about Judaism

When he first meets Sullivan there’s a sort of moment of Recognition. He makes sure as he’s leaving to drop a hint that he’s also Jewish. Just so Sullivan knows that he’ll at least mostly be safe there

Okay so side tangent Sid headcanon that will become relevant: Sid’s Jewish. He was sent away during the Blitz (I’m estimating based on vague calculations that he was about 15 or so at the time) to an xtian family, and when his parents died he just sort of had to stay. So he was raised xtian and was never allowed to acknowledge that he was Jewish. I mean, most people can sort of tell and he gets stereotyped a lot for it, but he doesn’t know why because he’s just totally oblivious and the family he stayed with were Very Insistent that he was a good xtian boy and not a Jew and he ended up pretty much forgetting. He’s kind of heard hints of it from his grandmother when he gets to see her, but she wasn’t in a position to raise him and she thinks he’s probably safer not knowing

Anyway Valentine is very protective over Sid cause he sees this young Jewish guy who doesn’t even know that he has a whole culture, a whole family of people all over the country. A family who are collectively grieving. Sid doesn’t know what horrors have befallen his people (he knows what happened, but not that they’re His People). Valentine’s heart aches a bit whenever he thinks about it and he sort of vows to protect Sid in his own gruff way.

Valentine is proud of being Jewish but in a very quiet way. He’s not going to change himself to fit xtian society but also he’s sensible enough to know it’s a pretty bad idea for him to be Too Loud about it in Kembleford

Sullivan:

Oh this man fakes everything. He has never been authentic a day in his life. He pretends to be xtian, he pretends to be cishet, he pretends to be neurotypical. Nothing about how this man presents himself is authentic

He’s valid though, he knows the dangers of being different and he’s not about to give people a reason to hurt him

He’s from the East End of London, so he’s actually not used to hiding his Judaism as much. He’s from a heavily Jewish community and he was terrified when he got transferred to a small village

Why does he wear so much hair gel? Curls. Big springy Jewish curls. He can’t let people see them. He’s very very very strict about having hair gel in any time he leaves the house. Enough hair gel to keep his hair straight, which is a lot

He’s sort of... trying. To pretend to be xtian. But he’s really not very good at it. Like I said, he grew up in a heavily Jewish neighbourhood, he doesn’t know much about xtians other than, y’know, all the times they’ve oppressed the Jews. So he sort of goes to church when he remembers and tries to copy everyone else, but it doesn’t work very well. And he’ll pretend to celebrate Christmas but it doesn’t make much sense to him and he’s very uncomfortable

Most of his hostility towards Father Brown is because of the big alarm bells that go off in his head when he sees a priest in general. At all times he’s half expecting the Father to start talking about the “hypocrites in the synagogue” or some other equally thinly veiled antisemitism. He’s had Bad Experiences, he’s traumatised, and he’s having a Very Bad Time

He’s half envious of Sid and half pities him. Part of him wishes he was as ignorant of antisemitism and Judaism as Sid is, part of him wishes that Sid was as painfully aware of it as he is. But all of him feels a weird attachment to Sid because they’re both queer nd Jews, even if Sid doesn’t know it

He also sort of hates the Father for hanging out with Sid because he’s heard all the stories of priests stealing Jewish children to raise them xtian and while it’s not Quite the same situation with Sid, it’s a painful sort of echo of it, and he just desperately wants to save Sid, to teach him about who he is. And because of this mental association, seeing Sid do anything xtian feels like a punch to the stomach for him because it reminds him that Sid doesn’t know he’s Jewish

He got this sort of painful gut wrenching feeling when he saw Sid dressed as a priest. Like he felt physically sick even once he realised it was just an undercover job. It just hit way too close to home, especially with Sid not even knowing he’s not xtian

He’s calmed down a lot and is less jumpy by the time he leaves. He even thinks it’s a little funny when he finds out that the man taking over for him is also Jewish. He thinks about Valentine, he thinks about himself, he thinks about Mallory, and he thinks about how they’re sort of like a family. Almost like three generations, like being the Inspector is a family business. It makes him feel kind of warm and fuzzy in a way he hasn’t felt since his last Passover back in London with his whole family sitting around the seder table, and he can’t wait to have Passover with them again soon

Mallory (beloved bastard man):

He leans into it hard

Yeah, he’s Jewish, and what the fuck do you plan to do about it?

Durham has never really been known for it’s Jewish community, so he’s more than used to being the only Jew around

Part of why he’s such a horrible little bastard man is that he’s come to just accept Jewish stereotypes. His thought process is a little something like “if you’re going to accuse me of it anyway, I might as well do it”

He’s a stubborn guy, so he just decides to embody all the stuff people think he should be. Sure he’ll be annoying and rude and immoral and promiscuous and weak and all the other horrible things xtians think a Jewish man is

No he will not participate in xtian things if he can help it. He will not go to church, he will not celebrate Christmas unless he has to, he will not call Father Brown “Father”

He calls him “padre” because he refuses to call a priest “Father” it’s just too weird and xtian to him

He does NOT like Sid. He hates Sid a lot. He kinda blames Sid for not working harder to hold on to his Judaism (he’s Not valid for this, but it’s how he feels)

Anyway I’m not saying any of this is Good, but like.......let me have my Bad Jewish Representation

Also I like to think he speaks Yiddish :3

Anyway, one day I’ll write my Jewish Inspectors fic

[cuttoothed]

Second fic for @aspecmartinweek, this time for the prompt “Family”. Jon/Martin, because it’s me.

I have many feelings about marriage as a societal convention with a...difficult history, and just as many feelings about marriage as an expression of love and devotion between individuals and also what makes a family so yeah. 

Tags/warnings: Incidental asexuality, sex averse ace Martin, sex averse ace Jon, mention of past break-ups due to sexual incompatibility, Martin’s relationship with his mother, Martin’s self-esteem issues.

*

Martin goes to his first family wedding when he’s five years old. He doesn’t really know what a wedding is, except that they go to sit in a church, and everyone is dressed up fancy, and his cousin Sarah is wearing the prettiest dress he’s ever seen. He asks his dad about it, while the vicar drones on.

“They’re getting married,” his dad explains in a whisper. “Because they love each other, and we’re all going to have a big party to celebrate that.”

That sounds pretty nice to Martin, and at the reception later he informs several of his older relatives that when he gets married, he’s going to wear his triceratops t-shirt, and the cake will be chocolate. 

Stuffed animal weddings become a fixture of Martin’s playtime, after that. He officiates over the unions, wearing his dad’s black suit jacket so he can be the vicar and with his mum’s day planner as the holy book of choice. 

“You know your dad and I are married,” his mum tells him one day, as he’s recounting the wedding of Fred the rabbit and Speckles the giraffe. 

“Really?” Martin asks, wide eyed. She laughs, and takes a photo album from the high shelf, and sits Martin down in her lap to show him the pictures of their wedding day. His mum is in a cream colored dress with flowers in her hair, and his dad is in a fine suit, and they both look so happy. 

Martin thinks that getting married must be the best thing in the world.

*

By the time he’s an adult, Martin has come to terms with the fact that he’s not the kind of person who gets married. Oh, he’s the sort who’d like to. Despite his dad’s piss poor example, he’s always been a romantic at heart. But he isn’t the kind of person that other people marry . 

He’s had a handful of relationships, few of which have lasted past the “wait, you don’t have sex?” conversation. Those that did, eventually fell apart for other reasons; he’s too needy, or he’s too nervous, or he devotes too much time and heartache to his mum.  

He still gets the occasional invitation to a family wedding, checks the RSVP boxes on the card and sends it back:

Yes, I will gladly attend!

No, I will not be bringing a guest

He’s not even sure why he goes, other than familial obligation. He wears his best suit, and sits through the service, the reception, the first dance, an observer to other people’s happiness. He braces himself for the inevitable questions from aunts and uncles and cousins:

Yes, he’s here by himself

Yes, his mum is fine

Yes, he knows they’ve legalized gay marriage now, lovely for all those couples, a real step forward for the country

After each wedding he writes his mum a letter to tell her about the service, and the dress, and the cake, and all the relatives who said hello and wished her the best. His mum never responds, but that’s not surprising. It’s barely even upsetting anymore. 

*

And then there’s Jon, and it’s...well, Martin’s never imagined being quite this happy. 

It’s not perfect, or even easy. There are mistakes and misunderstandings, the raw edges of their personalities sometimes rubbing up against each other in ways that hurt. But they forgive each other, and try harder, and they’re getting better at it every day. 

(In fact, the sex conversation is one of the easiest Proper Relationship Talks they’ve had, and there’s something kind of funny and fitting about that.) 

Jon is also not the kind of person who gets married, Martin knows, though in his case it’s by choice. Jon is pragmatic, doesn’t see the point in a lot of societal conventions and cultural traditions. He understands them—well enough to expound for over an hour on the classist implications of soup spoons one day—but he’s not much inclined to bend to them himself. 

They’ve never actually...discussed it, certainly not in relation to themselves, but Martin is very confident that it isn’t something Jon would want. And that’s fine. Jon loves him—he tells Martin so at least a dozen times a day, and he could never tire of hearing it—and that’s enough. More than enough.  

*

Martin gets an invitation to his cousin Paul’s wedding. 

He deliberates for a full day over whether to attend. He knows Jon won’t want to, and Martin doesn’t want to put him in an awkward position. But...there’s that sense of familial obligation again, and even though Martin is quite sure Paul wouldn’t even notice his absence, he’d feel guilty if he didn’t. He tells Jon about it quite casually, over dinner, trying not to put any hint of expectation into it.

“Right,” says Jon. “Do you want me to come?”

“Oh, I mean, if you want to? You don’t have to, though.”

Jon shrugs. “I’d rather spend the time with you than not. And I’ve never been to a wedding.”

“You’ve never—really?”

“I only had my grandmother growing up, and it isn’t as if I have old friends beating down my door to invite me to theirs. I was expecting Georgie’s to be the first,” he grumbles, “But she and Melanie are really taking their time about it.”   

“Okay,” says Martin, “Great!” He checks the RSVP boxes on the card:

Yes, I will gladly attend!

Yes, I will be bringing a guest.

*

The wedding is almost two months later, but Jon still ends up rushing out to buy a suit at the last minute because he forgot. He looks very handsome, though, and Martin finds himself smitten all over again. 

They sit through the service, and Martin nudges Jon to stand at the appropriate times. He does, politely, and afterwards at the reception, he politely greets Martin’s aunts and uncles and cousins as they approach, introduces himself and—diplomatically—answers questions about how he and Martin met, how long they’ve been together, what he does for a living.��

After a while he starts to look a little wild eyed, and Martin finally rescues him from great-aunt Susannah, towing him off into a corner to recover. 

“How are you doing?” Martin asks. 

“Your family are certainly...inquisitive.”

“Sorry, I know they’re a lot. If it makes you feel any better, they’ve been asking me about when I’m going to settle down and get married for the last decade.”

“Well, it’s nice that they’re concerned about you.”

“Nosey, more like,” Martin snorts. “Anyway, this is what my family’s weddings are like—what do you think?”

“It’s, ahh…” Jon glances around the loud, busy room, pop hits blaring from the DJ booth and fluorescent strobes lighting up the darkness. “It’s certainly something. I’m not sure I’d want our wedding to be like this.”

“Sorry, our what?” says Martin. 

“Oh,” says Jon. “I didn’t—I mean, not to assume or anything—”

 “You want to get married?”

“Not right this second!” Jon says hastily. “Probably not for a—a while? But I have thought of it. Potentially. For the future.”

“Oh, right,” Martin says, too stunned for anything else. The idea that Jon might want to actually get married, to him, is...well. A very new concept. 

“If you don’t want to, of course, we don’t have to by any means—”

“I want to,” Martin blurts, then feels his face go hot. “Not—not right now, like you said, but...I do want to. I want to marry you someday.” 

The words sound incredibly daring, coming from his mouth. Jon’s expression is relieved and delighted, and he grasps Martin’s hand in his. 

“That’s wonderful,” he says. “Martin, that’s....” He kisses Martin’s knuckles, fiercely, and then squeezes his hand tight. “Maybe we could have a...slightly smaller wedding, though?”

“You, me, a couple of witnesses and a registrar?” Martin grins at him. Jon smiles. 

“We can have some guests,” he says. “Once I don’t have your entire family to contend with.” 

“I think I can agree to that,” Martin laughs, and pulls him close. He doesn’t care who else is there: as long as he has Jon, Martin will have his family with him. 

[incomingalbatross]

If I can still offer suggestions for the "things I'd like to see you write" ask meme: Starfleet chaplain Father Brown. What Holmes was really up to during retirement. And I'm still curious about the "RTD doesn't understand hobbits" meta you mentioned ages ago.

Thank you!

I will say that I do not feel remotely qualified to write Starfleet chaplain Father Brown, but I love that concept so much... I do definitely want to read it.

---

I do want to develop a theory I can stand by on Holmes’ retirement!! Currently I am trying to restrict myself to things that could fit into canon without too obviously catering to my tastes specifically. :P (I have an answer that fits my Modern Holmes AU, but that incorporates fantasy/supernatural elements, and I don’t want to make those essential to any of the original Canon as it lives in my head. It’s hard to articulate the distinction, but it’s there.)

---

...So. I started to write some bullet points for that essay, and...here it is. Or at least here’s a decent first draft. I have’t watched any 10 in a while, so it’s not as well-sourced as I’d like, but it’s here!

(WARNING: Anti-RTD content ahead. If you’re a fan of his era, maybe just scroll past this post.)

So, the essence of hobbit-ness is that 

they love the mundane, prosaic and ordinary with a deep love, 

this love is not incompatible with a love for the extraordinary, the wondrous, or adventures, 

the best and strongest heroes are motivated by their love for the ordinary, 

you don’t have to be cool or special or Set Apart to be a hero, you just have to do the job in front of you and keep doing it.

RTD’s era occasionally pays lip service to these ideas, but on a deeper level consistently goes against them.

His companions often dislike their normal lives (Rose in particular), and certainly think them inferior to TARDIS life.

Ordinary people who are content with ordinary lives are often portrayed as comical, small-minded, less worth taking seriously: see Jackie, and post-memory-wipe Donna, who we’re supposed to feel is jarringly diminished by having lost memories of the TARDIS even though she is still herself. 

Our heroes are often separated from what they’re fighting for, sometimes in a tragic Frodo-ish way but also, often, because they seem to care more for the fight than the cause: see Rose and 10 treating Queen Victoria like a fun tourist attraction instead of a real actual person (I can absolutely see why she got fed up with them). The narrative is more likely to dismiss the great mass of people the Doctor just saved than to show us that, “Wow, they were so absolutely worth it.”

The human characters become Cool and Real Heroes in direct proportion to how much they are distanced from their roots and made like the Doctor. This is particularly evident in S4, with Rose appearing in a leather jacket spouting technobabble (I’ve seen multiple Rose fans highlight those echoes of the Doctor, and I think they’re right to consider it a conscious decision on RTD’s part), and with Donna. DONNA. She gets her Summit of Coolness, when “for one moment, one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe”... and how does she get there? What’s the best Donna’s ever been, according to the show? The DoctorDonna. The absolute best version of Donna RTD could come up with is the one where her self is half-overwritten by the Doctor’s.

A couple moments that I think illustrate these themes especially well:

ROSE: Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it? MICKEY: It's what the rest of us do. ROSE: But I can't! MICKEY: Why, because you're better than us? ROSE: No, I didn't mean that. But it was. It was a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I just can't (Rose runs out of the cafe.)

The idea that “going to work, coming back home” is somehow a downgrade instead of the fundamental beauty and worth of human life is...characteristic, I think. And while Rose does follow that by saying that she “can’t” be normal not because it was “a better life” on account of the adventures, but because it involved making a stand and doing what’s right... that just pushes the fallacy a little deeper, because now she’s saying that you can only make a stand and do what’s right in any meaningful way away from home, as an adventure. That there are no battles to be fought, nothing to fight for, in the course of “going to work, coming back home.”

Then there’s “End of Time”:

WILF: No really, just leave me. I'm an old man, Doctor. I've had my time. DOCTOR: Well, exactly. Look at you. Not remotely important. But me? I could do so much more. So much more! But this is what I get. My reward. And it's not fair! Oh. Oh. I've lived too long.

I know the Doctor follows this by making the sacrifice. But...what kind of hero says things like that out loud? What kind of hero thinks “I ought to live instead of you”? And the thing is...I feel like we’re supposed to feel it’s tragically unjust. We’re supposed to feel the Doctor is worth more, because...what? The man he’s saving won’t live as long as the Doctor would have? The man he’s saving is human?

Those lines should never have been said, because they never should have been presented as a perspective with any validity. The Doctor should have enough love and reverence for life that he jumps to save this life for its own sake, sacrificing himself because he feels Wilf is worth it, and not because he feels the unjust universe is somehow making him do it. That’s not necessary to being a good person, but it is necessary to being the type of hero that the Doctor usually is.

And “School Reunion”:

SARAH: I waited for you. I missed you. DOCTOR: Oh, you didn't need me. You were getting on with your life. SARAH: You were my life. You know what the most difficult thing was? Coping with what happens next, or with what doesn't happen next. You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, you showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles, and then you just dropped me back on Earth. How could anything compare to that? DOCTOR: All those things you saw, do you want me to apologise for that? SARAH: No, but we get a taste of that splendour and then we have to go back.

...I have SUCH conflicted feelings about this episode. On the one hand, I adore Sarah, and K-9, and seeing those reunions, and I really love how much this episode meant to David Tennant, and this basically got us the Sarah Jane Adventures which are way up there on my favorite DW content ever. On the other hand...this is such an injustice to Sarah. They took one of the strongest, most independently adventurous characters in all of Classic Who and reduced her to this...droopy, pining figure, who it’s implied spent the last thirty years moping around because Nothing On Earth Can Compare To The Doctor’s Life! :( :( :(

(And then of course SJA itself proved that wasn’t the case, by presenting her as having a life full of adventures and contacts and importance entirely without the Doctor. Which is part of why I love it--although the other part is that everyday life is presented as precious and important, because she has a kid and the problems of Kids and Family and Parenthood are given full weight. <3 )

In short: I think that, on the whole, RTD’s era expresses his own biases towards believing that Cool Adventures and Special Powers and Being Important are inherently worth more than Normal Life and Normal People and Home--which is the antithesis of everything Tolkien embodied in hobbits and the Shire. It’s also not Chestertonian, incidentally, or Narnian (see Rose’s speech above--there’s a reason the Pevensies had to go home eventually, and learn to see Aslan and His work in their own world).

(It’s not entirely like that, of course, but I feel like even the episodes that revolve around the Doctor being Tragically Unable to have a Normal Life do so by...exoticizing the idea? I dunno. We always know it’s not going to happen, and it’s not supposed to happen, so I feel like it’s always a little hollow. And it’s definitely outweighed, in terms of quantity, by the sheer number of instances where being a normie is completely dismissed.)

So there’s my essay! :P

[singingaboutwishingx]

hello! ik u love musicals and the ww so i had a thought—donnajosh the last 5 years au?

oh. my god. pain. why would you put me in pain like this.

i imagine that instead of being a novelist, josh is a political pundit—he has his degrees from harvard and yale, and he’s trying to climb up the ladder. at the beginning, he’s running a political news/commentary blog while he’s in a low-level position for a mid-range news outlet. donna never met freeride, but the drama minor really stuck with her, and it turned out that she was like, really good at being a musical theatre actress. after she graduated, she decided to pursue it full-time.

another difference in this au is that i would kind of reverse the roles. i think that donna would be analogous to jamie, while josh would fill cathy’s place.

i just ended up mapping the whole thing out chronologically by song, so that starts under the cut.

goodbye until tomorrow- donna and josh meet and sleep together. there’s a sense in both directions that they’ve met their soulmate, and it’s glorious.

shiksa goddess- donna is obv not jewish, but she knows that josh is not the guy her parents would want her to date. while they are republicans, and josh’s staunchly democratic views would make them uncomfortable, it’s more of the fact that he’s super outspoken, both politically and in general.

i can do better than that- basically the same as in the musical. josh and donna drive back to josh’s hometown so she can meet his parents. josh tells her about his friend, sam, whose girlfriend got pregnant in high school, and they got married and never left town. he also tells her about his college girlfriend, amy, who blew him off after nearly a year. he doesn’t need much from donna. all he wants is her.

moving too fast- donna gets a callback for the anything goes revival, and they take a chance and cast a complete unknown as hope harcourt. she becomes an instant star, a media darling, and a huge fan favorite. (it helps that they cast big names as reno and billy, which attracts some attention to the production and allows the unknown actors for oakleigh and hope to be pulled into the spotlight.) donna’s in love, and she’s on top of the world.

climbing uphill- josh is writing furiously. he keeps submitting op-eds everywhere and applying for higher positions at other companies, but there’s always someone or some writing that’s just a little bit better. he’s kind of afraid because the underachieving husband isn’t really where he thrives—he’s always had big dreams. he’s happy that donna’s found success, but he’s kind of bitter that it’s taking her away from him so much.

the schmuel song- josh is feeling down about his career. he basically just wants to give up, stop running his blog, and not even try to go any higher at his job. donna assures him that he’s immensely talented, and that she believes in him more than anyone could ever believe in someone.

when you come home to me- josh spends most of his nights alone, trying to write something that might maybe possibly be published, while donna, he knows, is out living her dream. she’s out there doing amazing things without him, but she’ll always come home at the end of the night. he knows that she’ll always come back home to him.

the next ten minutes- yay marriage! happy fun wedding time!

a summer in ohio- josh is hired to assist at a major news outlet in ohio. it feels less fun as the summer wears on, but it looks good on his resume. he misses being separated from donna so much.

a miracle would happen- donna loves josh desperately, and she honestly would never cheat on him. however, since her run in anything goes, she’s been going to all of these events and seeing all these other people who are more successful than josh. and like, the fact that his career hasn’t really taken off isn’t a problem, but she has a feeling that something doesn’t sit right with him. she wishes he’d just be happy for her with no strings.

i’m a part of that- josh sits at opening night of broadway’s new smash hit, which is essentially a star vehicle for donna (i mean, she had to audition, but the part was always hers). he sees her fall for her love interest and it’s so convincing that josh has to tell himself that she’s thinking of him when she looks at her co-star like that (and really, donna’s just! that! good!). broadway is this whole world that he can appreciate but never fully be a part of, and josh wishes that he could be thriving like donna.

if i didn’t believe in you- as josh’s resentment for donna’s constant absence grows into resentment for her success, donna’s disappointment in josh grows, too. she is by no means disappointed in his lack of tangible accomplishment—she knows her own success is such a fluke, but she’s grateful for every minute—but the way he always seems to have reservations at her triumphs. she tells josh that she loves him deeply, profoundly, but needs more support than this.

nobody needs to know- cut? sorry. i simply don’t think that donna would do this. she might have some feelings that lie elsewhere, but no way would she actually cheat on josh.

see i’m smiling- donna takes a couple days off of the show to come see josh in ohio. he actually gets to fill in for a newscaster on saturday night, and he’s really excited for donna to come to the taping. it’s also his birthday, and he thought they were planning to spend it together, but at the last minute, donna is called back to new york to meet with a movie producer about an upcoming project. josh begs her to please come see his taping and just let them work around her schedule, but donna keeps denying him. this could be a huge opportunity for her. she can always watch the recording later and they can celebrate a week late. he makes a comment about her always being gone, and it spirals into a knock-down-drag-out fight. donna leaves for new york.

i could never rescue you- months later, after their marriage has continued to slip away despite their best efforts, donna sits him down. she says she wants a divorce. she can’t be with him anymore because they’ve tried and they’ve tried, but nothing can make him happy for her and nothing can make her not feel like her success is the cause of his lack thereof. donna’s already packed a bag. she walks out the door.

still hurting- and at last, we arrive at the beginning. donna still leaves him a letter even though they sat down in person, and josh reads it and hurts. it’s not fair. how can she just walk away from him and leave him with this heavy grief for their love?

the trouble i’m having with making this au work (not that it’s a bad idea or anything—i think it’s fantastic and heartbreaking) is that cathy and jamie (i mean, mostly jamie) are worse people than josh and donna, and i just like... i don’t really see any universe where either of them cheat on the other or where one is too self-absorbed to realize how seriously cruel they are. josh had a few moments in the show that make me go “well...” about that statement, but on the whole, they’re both really kind, considerate people.

while cathy and jamie were basically incompatible from the start, josh and donna’s marriage fails because they both don’t realize what the other’s problems are. in josh’s case, his abandonment issues take center stage, while donna feels almost wrong for succeeding.

other choices for a ww tl5y au that interest me very much include cj and toby, toby and andy, and zoey and charlie.

thank you sm for sending me this idea!!!

[ineffable-endearments]

Psycho-philosophy & the angels, fallen or not (part I)

I swear I wasn’t taking any mind-altering substances while I wrote this. It’s very heavy and I’m not sure anyone will enjoy it, but I felt like I had to get it out.

And now it’s too long to be just one part. Here is the first part anyway.

It’s established that Aziraphale and Crowley symbolize the “opposing” sides of human nature, but I have a pretty difficult time with believing that they actually represent “good” and “evil.” THEY believe they represent “good” and “evil.” But even before the two of them develop their humanity by spending time on Earth, before they start to affect each other, they both have philosophies that are far more complicated than just “do good things/be helpful” or “do bad things/be hurtful.”

Before you can be “good,” you need a definition of “good.” And the same goes for “evil.” And I absolutely do not think that the characters’ personal definitions of “good” and “evil” match with the narrative’s definitions of “good” and “evil” (which I’m not strictly sure it really has). So...what might they represent more closely?

In extremely broad terms based more in dictionary definitions than in the finer points of academic philosophy, I’d cast Crowley as the individualist and Aziraphale as the collectivist. Individualism is the prioritizing of the individual’s interests over a group’s interests. Collectivism is the prioritizing of a group’s interests over the individual’s interests.

Obviously, this is heavily informed by abuse from their Sides. Hell motivates its demons to behave by making them fear for their own souls using physical intimidation. Temptations are also usually focused on taking advantage of some selfish motivation in humans. Heaven, meanwhile, motivates its angels with the promise of the Greater Good, intimidates its angels with the belief that disobedience is out of line with the Greater Good, and shames its angels for acting with any sort of personal interest.

“What?!” you say. You’re going to cast Crowley, the guy who initially hatched the plan to try to save the world at great personal risk, as the self-centered individualist, and Aziraphale, the hedonist who’s just about ready to watch the world burn at Heaven’s command until Crowley buys him lunch, as the collectivist one?!

Well...in a way. Because while the characters believe they represent these ideas, and while they genuinely buy into them on some level, the whole point is that the two viewpoints taken to extremes end up looking awfully similar. They also rely on each other, no matter how much they try not to.

I should clarify a few things before arguing any more.

The perceived “selflessness” of collectivism is sometimes idealized, and that’s why it maps onto the supposed “goodness” of Heaven, but it doesn’t actually mean kindness, compassion, or goodness. It means not considering oneself - including one’s own identity, preferences, or moral conscience. Likewise, the perceived “selfishness” of individualism is often vilified and gets cast as evil, which is why it maps onto Hell, but all it really means is placing one’s own perspective at the utmost importance, which can be beneficial depending on who’s doing it.

I’ve seen some incredibly smart commentary on the Good Omens book being a just-barely-post-Cold War novel comparing, among other things, Capitalism (heavy on individualism) and Communism (heavy on collectivism). I thought the analysis I read was brilliant, it told me a lot that I had not thought of before, and I would love to read more. But that’s not what I want to talk about here.

In this essay, I’m really sticking to the terms “individualism” and “collectivism” as they inform the psychologies of individual people (Crowley and Aziraphale). I’m trying to have a discussion that I think is important, because it’s important for humans to have a healthy notion of how individuals fit into their relationships and communities, but my commentary is much more vague and not tied to a specific moment in history. I’m frankly not very qualified to talk about the Cold War, anyway.

Crowley and Aziraphale are a couple of paradoxes. At least, they’re paradoxes until they discover Earth as their true allegiance, at which time they just become two balanced angels of neither Heaven nor Hell.

CROWLEY’S PHILOSOPHY

Crowley knows he’s supposed to represent Hell and the kind of self-interested desperation that drives people to damnation - a kind of extreme individualism. But he’s been condensed into an Earthly being who’s formed relationships and preferences and loves and, gosh, although he wouldn’t admit it, a conscience. Unlike Aziraphale, he’s much more OK with this sense of identity, because individualism is not incompatible with being, well, an individual. But he does struggle with the fact that he’s supposed to be working toward The End Of All Things for his own self-preservation when his real wish is for The Continuation Of All Things.

Most of Crowley’s decisions are framed from his own personal opinions. He approaches the world as he sees fit, which includes accepting his job of damning souls because he has to or he’ll get destroyed. He does what he needs to survive, so you could say he “answers to the higher power of Hell for self-interested reasons,” but for moral purposes, Crowley does not answer to anyone. Interestingly, though, he DOES have a conscience based in his own feelings.

By personality (not because he serves some moral power but because it’s just his personal preference), Crowley does not like certain kinds of cruelty. He’s willing to do his job, but he doesn’t enjoy taking free will away from people, for example. And in most cases, outright violence (like Hastur turning into a pile of worms and eating the telemarketers alive) is not something Crowley is into, either. In this case, the fact that he’s self-motivated means he has enough imagination to grasp what it’s like to be another person, and while he’s willing to upset people/give people the opportunity to damn themselves/generally be inconsiderate in public, Crowley simply does not enjoy the experience of destroying others without giving them a choice.

Oh, and we can’t forget: “You’re supposed to test them, but not to destruction.” It’s Crowley’s personal feelings that lead him to believe Armageddon shouldn’t happen, and Crowley’s personal feelings that lead him to act out against Hell.

With all that said, Crowley feels a profound love for the world and Aziraphale (whether he’ll admit it or not) because he really enjoys it on Earth, and he wants to keep enjoying it. Therefore, all of his “individualism” ends up working in the favor of the “greater good” anyway. In the end, Crowley temporarily loses hope and stops fighting, but by this point, he’s already had his positive effect.

It’s kind of like Terry Pratchett’s powerful quotation about witches being selfish. “All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany's Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours!” Maybe it’s not so intentional on Crowley’s part, but the outcome of his love for Earth and his bond with Aziraphale ends up serving the interests of others.

Crowley’s journey involves a less drastic change than Aziraphale’s. Once he thinks it’s possible to fight for the world and survive, he doesn’t have a single qualm about it, because he answers to his own standards, not anyone else’s.

AZIRAPHALE’S PHILOSOPHY

Aziraphale, on the other hand, has to basically figure out that it’s a good thing to use his own judgment instead of Heaven’s. In doing so, he has to rewrite his belief system and even rework his identity.

Aziraphale knows he’s supposed to represent the collective, Heaven, the Greater Good. But he’s been condensed into an Earthly being who’s formed relationships and preferences and loves and a conscience and an identity of his own. At first, this feels wrong to him, because many of his personal interests go against Heaven’s. It’s why he’s so incredibly good at repressing and denying; he has this sense of Self but doesn’t believe he’s entitled to it and doesn’t realize there is any way to separate from Heaven, so as far as he knows, to allow this Self to grow and flourish would ultimately be extremely painful and potentially dangerous. You can tell the other angels aren’t happy with his sense of self, either, as far as he allows it to go (see: any interaction in the bookshop, Gabriel’s behavior over the sushi).

Aziraphale is so oriented toward the Heavenly collective that he literally denies himself his own judgments, his own opinions. He’s convinced that Heaven is the Greater Good, so he accepts that as reality no matter how absurdly wrong their actions might seem to someone with an iota of common sense. He has not been allowed to have an opinion on it, and he will not form one now. He does intensely enjoy performing altruism and does not approve of Heaven’s plans to drown all of Mesopotamia and turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, but he will even push aside the satisfaction of kindness and the fear of cruelty if he’s told that his feelings don’t fit within the Great Plan.

It’s important to note that as far as Aziraphale believes, the existence of Hell and the work that Crowley is doing for Hell is in fact part of the Great Plan. He says as much to the Archangels when they bully him outside his bookshop.

Aziraphale is enthusiastic and adoring about life on Earth and about humans - and about Crowley! And oh, he does indulge. But he sees this all in a rather passive way, at least at first. He is simply enjoying the world and allowing the Great Plan to unfold. He does not think he has the right or ability to defend the world from Heaven’s judgment, even though he wants to. So, like Crowley’s self-orientation coming full circle to serve the interests of others, Aziraphale’s orientation toward the collective comes full circle to become very self-serving.

THE TWO TOGETHER

Enter Crowley’s judgment. Crowley is really fantastic company, but I think the specific thing he did in the long run was to help Aziraphale see that his own desires and judgments matter. Even when Aziraphale temporarily disavowed their relationship, Crowley’s influence was strong - would the Aziraphale who was standing on the Wall of Eden, or the Aziraphale who witnessed the Great Flood, have chased Gabriel around asking if the war was necessary, or would he have called the Metatron to argue everyone could be saved? Even when Aziraphale doesn’t actually ask questions, these interactions are an assertion of Aziraphale’s own feelings and judgments when he’s being told to be quiet and fall in line. And I really do not think he would have made these assertions before his long Arrangement with Crowley. In this way, Crowley gave Aziraphale the world and the gift of Being Himself.

As for Crowley, he doesn’t care about any Great Plan and thinks Heaven’s will is positively odious, but Aziraphale is convinced that the cosmic dance between the two of them is just ineffable. By playing along with that notion, Crowley allows it to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The meaning of Crowley’s existence goes from “just make everyone as miserable as possible” to “balance out Aziraphale” which really means “create a world that doesn’t suck as much as Heaven or Hell, which are both insufferable.” In this way, Aziraphale gave Crowley the world and the gift of Being Part of Something.

[aqvarius]

What are your top 5 worst voltage routes?

oh damn this is a tough one haha. i’ve definitely played routes that i find average/forgettable but it’s hard to think of 5 routes that i thought were actually bad. except for one which i’m sure anyone who has followed me for a few years knows about lmao

i was just gonna give brief reasons but then as i was typing this out i couldn’t stop my loudass brain from rambling so... sorry for all the commentary lol. i do want to preface this by saying that these are more critiques of the writing than the characters (except shinobu haha i despise him). i love many of these characters and have enjoyed their epilogues/sequels/substories. my main gripe with most of these is just underdeveloped, jarring or flimsy character and relationship development, which to me makes the process of falling in mutual love unconvincing. that’s why all of these are main stories because they are about the critical moments of falling in love (rather than future developments such as tackling conflicts together) which i think are the foundation to any further growth. so please don’t take any of this personally if any of the guys i’ve mentioned here are characters that you love!

5. main story: takane momochi - destind: mr almost right

so this is more a case of “love the guy, don’t love the route”. i have to admit that i really wasn’t big on takane at first and then i got to the end of the route and realised that i actually didn’t love the mc. i actually quite like the destind mc in rei and araya’s routes but omg takane’s route is weird. i have no problem with takane kind of being a jerk and i actually really like him but i have a couple of issues with this route. the first is that i don’t really understand nor buy into the reason that they keep seeing each other. the mc learns about takane’s true nature and finds him kind of despicable but then decides that she’s definitely gonna make him fall in love with her, which as a plot point on its own i’m fine with but the way thy go into that discussion is really weird because it arises from the mc being appalled that takane had an affair with some teacher when he was a teenager and somehow leads into that discussion. basically i don’t think that the whole “i’m gonna make you fall in love with me” vs “i’m gonna make you sleep with me” challenge is set up particularly organically. 

it also occurs about halfway through the route which i don’t really think works in term of the pacing because within the shape of the narrative i would call it the end of act 1. act 2 would be them genuinely getting closer and then act 3 would be the conflict that develops between them which results in their breakup. with the structure of takane’s route, acts 2 and 3 essentially become crammed into the remaining half of the chapters, which makes the conflict in act 3 feel confusing and abrupt. i think it would have been more effective if they had set up the personality reveal earlier on in the route and then spent more time developing the budding incompatibilities which lead to the breakup-inducing argument.

the second issue that i have with this route is the mc’s lack of development/not addressing the actual mistakes that she makes with regards to how she sees takane. the mc suffers from idolising syndrome because she’s built takane up into this perfect prince in her mind (i guess kind of like with hiroki from mlfk) even though he’s a regular old (substantially) flawed dude who struggles with the pressure of external expectations bc people don’t see the ~real him~. this is all well and good and is set up to allow the mc to accept his flaws and see him as a real human being but instead she’s just like “your flaws aren’t really flaws, they’re just another example of why you’re perfect bc you engage with them!” SIS. he’s not a character that needs validation in that way bc everyone already thinks he’s perfect. he needs someone who can see that he’s FAULTY and help him through it, not just pass off his flaws and the way he deals with them as another point of admiration. destind mc isn’t even like old school perma-optimistic voltage mcs either, she’s a little more prone to judgement so i wish she (and the writing) engaged a little more with takane’s flaws and accepting them rather than just jumping straight to YOU’RE MY HERO. 

as a character i actually prefer him to araya but the fact that i was more convinced to love araya aka mr possessive liar himself is saying something about the story. 

4. main story: genji higashiyama - in your arms tonight

i don’t have much to say in detail because it’s been like 6+ years since i played his route and frankly i don’t remember the details, but i just remember that he was kind of a jackass and i expected better. i love ex-boyfriend/hatsukoi love interests but just didn’t really like his route. 

to quote from an old comment i once made: 

“omg i thought genji had so much potential bc hot exboyf soccer player hellooooo but he was just such a jerk, he really p-ed me off :<” 

“i kind of don’t like genji because he is a bit of a doucheypants and like really arrogant and a bit of a bully :/”

i remember the mc slapped him once after they made out which i don’t remember the context for but he probably deserved it. i was extra sad because i actually really liked him in soji’s route but he’s the team B guy in that one so......... thanks voltage. also he was a dick to everyone’s sweetheart aiba. i actually like him way more after his ms lol? conceptually i love him but his main story made me sad. 

3. main story: satoru kamagiri - 10 days with my devil

i mean this one was bad but i’m weirdly fond of satoru? i have no issues with sadists and i kind of like him (after having read substories). but this route was weird and the pacing felt a bit off to me. basically i have no idea what made him fall in love with the mc?

because i guess he starts being nice to you when he has to nurse you when you get sick and he genuinely feels bad and cares about you but do you really expect me to believe he was already in love with you when he made a date with you but decided to go hang out with other women leaving you standing in the rain for 6 hours? nah fam.

i also don’t remember what the climax of the story even is because i’m still hung up on being left waiting for him in the rain for 6 hours while he goes other women so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. main story: seiji goto - my sweet bodyguard

i’ve talked a lot about the issues i have with this route (including a couple thousand words of review here) but i’ll just summarise. this is definitely another case of love the guy, don’t love the route. in the GREE version, you meet him from the first time at the beginning of his route and gradually learn about his past, but in the standalone app version, you basically get thrown into the route with no exposition, meaning that you have to already have prior knowledge of goto and his backstory. i had known about it so it wasn’t as confusing as it could have been, but you really just get tossed into the mix expecting to already know about kazuki (goto’s dead ex). plus he’s already nice to you from the start because you’ve known each other for a while so there’s less of the actual seeing his behaviour change bit (which is my favourite part of all main stories - in case you couldn’t tell because all of my criticisms about routes are about lack of proper relationship development). kazuki and goto’s relationship is basically the thing that underpins the entire narrative of the route which is why i find it an issue that you don’t get much insight into it going into the route blind. 

it’s difficult to feel like goto and the mc are actually gradually getting closer in the route because it doesn’t feel like there’s one narrative line that’s building throughout the entire route as much as separate events, more or less. she just... looks after goto a lot? also basically goto is interested in you because you remind him of kazuki and when he starts to like you, it’s not actually very evident in his actions - you find this out because kurosawa basically tells you lmao. 

i actually wanted to leave him and date subaru because honestly subaru in goto’s route especially reads like a much healthier relationship option, but then goto runs in and interrupts a date with subaru and drags you straight off to kazuki’s tombstone and then... it’s a happy ending? his confession feels like it comes out of nowhere because his behaviour towards you doesn’t explicitly change but you just have to believe he likes you now as he confesses in front of his ex-gf’s grave and tells her he’ll see her soon. come on bruv you can do better than this lol. 

1. main story: shinobu narita - serendipity next door

this guy fucking sucks, dude. i can’t think of even one single redeeming quality he has. he’s the reason i stopped playing voltage games for like years and went on hiatus and more or less abandoned my blog until i discovered scm. i know there was a lot of controversy about whether or not he could be considered abusive and i threw that word around a lot back in the day when i liveblogged his route but DAMN at the very least he is just the WORST. the mc wakes up in his bed after getting wasted at a rooftop party and he convinces her that they had sex when she was drunk and then blackmails her into being his girlfriend by threatening to tell the entire apartment block that they slept together. he proceeds to snoop around in all her business, maliciously making fun of her and her work at every single chance he gets (he literally RIFLES THROUGH HER BAG to find her work and mock her about it) and then she looks at one document or picture of his and he gets all uppity about it because he’s a big ol hypocrite. basically he hates the mc because she’s so pure and he’s jaded because one time he confessed to someone and she ghosted him? so he deliberately acts nice to her sometimes so she’ll let her guard down and then follows it up with a common or action so malicious i wanted to choke him. all i’m saying is that there are a number of relationships that i never got closure on and it’s never made me want to blackmail a drunk person into dating me so i can mess them up emotionally  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the thing is, i have played other guys who are a bag of suck at first and then get so much better because of character development. and this is what is totally lacking in shinobu’s route. the mc falls in love with him bc of stockholm syndrome... and basically bc omg he’s so sad and damaged and she wants to heal him i guess? it sucks. they literally have no bonding moments where they genuinely connect except for the times when he’s super mean and manipulative to her and and she’s like omg but he’s so saaaaaad uwu. throughout the route, there is absolutely no character development on shinobu’s part, he’s just the same sadistic bastard who enjoys seeing his mc being hurt the whole way through lol but SUDDENLY you guys are in love? but literally at the end the mc tries to escape from him by moving out and instead of letting her go because he’s the worst, he chases her moving truck down? also he’s weirdly possessive even by voltage standards. 

btw this isn’t even just sadists not being my type - you know i adore kaga and eduardo and even people who take ages to warm up (cough shinonome). and you know i love men who tease and manipulate you a bit (because they’re doing it out of a d o r a t i o n not spite) . i also have no problem with outright assholes as long as we see them change, develop and genuinely fall in love. my biggest issue with this route is that i don’t think pity is the same thing as love, or that someone with his personality can get his happy ending without genuinely changing and redeeming himself in some way. i’m not a fan of romanticising guys who are mean to you because they’re so dAmAgEd and want to take it out on you. (the reason i love people like hue is because even though they’re riddled with grief and trauma, they’re mature enough to handle their emotions and you don’t need to fix them!!!) i genuinely think voltage bombed it with this route lol. it almost makes me want to go back and replay it just to see if it was really as bad as i remember but (1) i never transferred it to love 365 (2) it was on my old iphone and i use android now (3) i don’t want to spend money repurchasing a route that i’m 85% sure i’ll feel is a waste of money (4) i spent £2.49 on the route back in the day when voltage was cheaper and i don’t want to spend almost double that now lol. 

also the last time i read his route i abandoned this blog and stopped playing all otome games for a really long time lmao so................................ 

[strawbrymilkshake]

smoking is bad for you, you know

Dad!Reigen Week 2019 Day 3: Sports || Lessons

AO3 Description: Ritsu, eventually, learns to trust Reigen. (4.7k words)

Ritsu trusts his instincts.

It’s only been quite recently since he learned what instincts even are, but he knows himself and he knows he’s usually right. So, when Shigeo introduces him to his new master, Ritsu knows what to think about this man based on how he first feels.

“Hi, Ritsu,” Reigen smiles. He crouches down to be on eye level with him. “Shigeo didn’t tell me he had a brother.”

Ritsu doesn’t like Reigen.

“Ritsu’s in the grade below me,” Shigeo tells Reigen. “He’s ten and really cool.”

“Oh, awesome,” Reigen says. He turns to Ritsu. “Do you have psychic powers like your brother?”

“Ritsu doesn’t have psychic powers,” Shigeo says.

There’s something bristling within Ritsu when Shigeo says that, but he can’t tell what. He would have been happy to tell Reigen that himself.

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Reigen says.

Ritsu really doesn’t like Reigen.

“You’re a psychic?” Ritsu asks.

Reigen nods, the movement natural.

Ritsu looks away.

“Master’s the greatest psychic,” Shigeo tells Ritsu. “The greatest ever.”

“Of the twenty first century,” Reigen corrects, and stands up. “I’m the greatest psychic of the twenty first century.”

Ritsu really doesn’t like Reigen.

Nobody talks for a few seconds, and Ritsu is okay with that. Shigeo’s busy looking at Reigen in awe, and Ritsu is busy mentally cursing out the inherent injustice that comes with being alive.

Why should this guy get psychic powers, when Ritsu’s been trying his whole life, and gets none? What makes him so special? Is he an older brother too? Maybe younger siblings just don’t get them. And what makes him so great, anyway?

The more he questions Reigen the more he doesn’t like him. Ritsu doesn’t know what it is — Reigen’s too tall, Shigeo likes him too much, and he kind of smells a bit, too. It’s a little…familiar? But Ritsu can’t place it — and his face falls into a scowl as Reigen looks down at them. It’s his instincts, he reminds himself, he doesn’t need to have a reason. He just doesn’t like Reigen.

Still, no one has said anything since Reigen has proclaimed his greatness — there’s no way he’s actually the greatest psychic of the twenty first century, anyway, if anything, Ritsu thinks his brother should hold that title — and he doesn’t see the point in being here any longer if nothing else is going to happen. He doesn’t want Shigeo to think that he’s getting bored or anything, though, so he just glares up at Reigen instead, hoping to leave the strange man as soon as possible.

Reigen looks between the two of them.

“Has anyone ever told you guys that you look the same?”

Ritsu’s heard it before — from teachers, strangers, friends at school. It wasn’t even all that uncommon when people mistook him and his brother for twins. They both nod.

Reigen lets out a small laugh. “You two must get along well, huh?”

Ritsu nods.

Later, when they’re at home and Ritsu has all but forgotten about his meeting with Reigen, Shigeo tentatively asks him what he thinks of his master.

Ritsu looks at Shigeo. He can’t tell what he’s thinking, or what he wants Ritsu to say.

“I think he’s cool,” he lies.

—-—-—

Ritsu doesn’t see Shigeo all that much anymore.

He often walks to school alone, which, granted, is because of his own decision to join the student council, so that one’s on him. But even then, before he entered middle school, afternoons at home were a little quiet and dragging without his brother around, and they still pretty much are — the house is just him and his parents. It doesn’t feel empty, per se, but Shigeo’s absence from the house is far too noticeable. 

Ritsu’s more than used to it by now. Now, afternoons where Shigeo comes straight home from school can leave the house a little crowded; Ritsu thinks of it as a chance to get closer to his brother from all the days they’ve missed. The few off days where, walking home, Ritsu and his brother take up twice as much space on the sidewalk, he thinks of as quality bonding time.

But still, for the trailing end of elementary school, and now as he begins planting his roots in middle school, Shigeo is becoming less and less of a constant in his life.

“I miss you,” he tells his brother, suddenly one day, not sure where it comes from. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Oh,” is all that Shigeo dignifies it with at first. Then, a pause, a consideration, then: “Sorry, I didn’t notice.”

“It’s okay,” Ritsu finds himself saying.

“I’m always at Master’s,” Shigeo explains, even though they both already know it. “You don’t really like him, do you?”

Ritsu blinks for a second, not sure where this is coming from. Sure, he wouldn’t mind blaming Reigen for the slow drifting apart of him and his brother, but it’s a little weird to him that Shigeo is basically offering him that on a plate. He chooses his words carefully.

“I don’t think our personalities mesh well.”

Shigeo nods, satisfied.

And for all Ritsu knows, that could really be it. He never really dedicates much time to thinking about Reigen, or thinking about how much he doesn’t like Reigen — deciding from the get-go to avoid him was really enough. But Ritsu likes to think of himself as somewhat dignified and respectful. Incompatible personalities is a bit of a lame excuse to justify not getting along with somebody — he’s more mature than that.

Ritsu suspects it’s something to do with the fact that Reigen reeks of being inauthentic. Not necessarily in his personality — for all that Ritsu is concerned, Reigen is damn near an open book when it comes to that — but Ritsu has not once believed that this man is in possession of psychic powers. He can’t sense it, he doesn’t have any powers of his own, but he’s lived with Shigeo his whole life. He knows what espers are like. And besides that, Ritsu knows what it’s like to live a whole life without psychic powers, and he can see that in Reigen. He relies on his brother just a little too much.

Ritsu hasn’t discussed any of these thoughts with Shigeo, mostly because he has no idea how to bring it up. He knows, also, just how much Shigeo likes Reigen, how important a place he holds in his brother’s mind, and he knows better than to go about calling the man Shigeo trusts most untrustworthy. There’d be hell to pay.

As worried as he is about Shigeo’s reaction, though, somewhere in the back of his mind Ritsu wonders if it would be better to tell his brother upfront that Reigen doesn’t have psychic powers. It would be better than letting it play out and reaching a point that could have been avoided if Shigeo knew, right? Reigen can’t protect Shigeo if something goes wrong, and Reigen can’t protect himself if something goes seriously wrong, and that’s the last thing Ritsu wants, right? 

He doesn’t want either of them to get hurt, right?

Right?

Right, yes, of course he doesn’t want either of them to get hurt — it’s not something to dwell on, how obvious it is. There’s no way in hell he’d want either of them to be anything other than healthy and sound in mind and body; as much as Ritsu would prefer to avoid Reigen, he’s still a decent person who doesn’t want to see him get hurt. And Shigeo is his brother. Of course Ritsu cares about him.

And despite that, Ritsu still hesitates to tell him. He doesn’t think too much about why.

The conversation between the two reaches a natural resting point, and they’re both comfortable in the silence. Faintly, from their dad’s room, the smell of cigarette smoke gently wafts between them.

Shigeo scrunches his nose up. They never really talk about their dad’s smoking habits — the most mention it gains is a quick, understanding look between the two brothers. So Ritsu isn’t sure what overtakes him now.

“I wish he’d quit.”

Shigeo nods in understanding. It’s something they both feel, but have refrained from saying out loud before. Ritsu is noticing that — most of their conversations go unsaid. He supposes it can’t be helped, with their opposing schedules and all.

“We should tell him to quit,” Ritsu suggests when Shigeo doesn’t continue the conversation. “He’ll listen to us, right?”

Shigeo considers it for a second. “It’s Dad," is all he says. Ritsu understands.

“Well, we can ask Mum and she can tell him to quit.” Shigeo still doesn’t look sure. “They have to start listening to us eventually, right? We’re not kids anymore; we should have a say in family matters.”

Shigeo cocks his head to one side. “You only just graduated elementary school.”

“Exactly. We’re growing up.”

Shigeo hesitates for a second. “Well…if you want to ask Mum then you do it. She won’t like it if I’m the one who asks her.”

Ritsu nods. “Fine. I’ll ask her.” He hesitates. “I’ll…do it later, though.”

“…Okay.”

—-—-—

Ritsu needs to learn to stand up to his brother. He ponders this frankly terrifying concept for not the first time in his life as he stands, arms crossed over his chest, at the front desk of the Spirits and Such Consultation Office. Shigeo’s been out sick with the flu all week. Reigen needs someone to do some actual work around here. 

“Stop glaring at me like that,” Reigen tells him.

“I’m not glaring at you.” He wouldn’t be in this situation if he’d just told Shigeo how much he really, really does not like Reigen. And yet, here he is. Here they are.

Reigen exhales through his nose. “Is it gonna be like this the whole time?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay.” Reigen stands up from his seat and starts walking over to Ritsu’s side of the desk.

Before he can say anything, Ritsu speaks up. “I mean, come on. This isn’t going to be fun for either of us. We both know you would have much preferred it if my brother had gotten Hanazawa or someone to fill in.”

Reigen stops in his tracks. “When did I ever say that? Do you think I don’t like you?”

Ritsu doesn’t have much of an answer, aside from a non-committal shrug.

Reigen blinks for a second, as if shocked. “Well, I do. You’re a good kid.” He walks past Ritsu, grabbing something from a bookcase. “You’re a fine replacement for your brother.”

Ritsu’s heart drops, and he feels his jaw clench impossibly tight. He’s pretty sure he stops breathing for a few seconds, and his nails are digging into his skin. He stands, a statue in the office, and it’s only when he hears Reigen continue to mill about that the tension in his body drops. He takes a few breaths.

“Do you know what I think is funny?” he asks Reigen, turning to him. 

Reigen’s got some kind of folder full of paperwork in his hands, and an expression like he’s not used to this much amount of talking. He doesn’t particularly look like he wants Ritsu to continue, either.

“If my brother thinks that you have psychic powers,” he continues anyway, “then he should have no reason to get me to fill in for him.”

Reigen is still looking at Ritsu unimpressed, but he hesitates slightly in his movements.

“Do you think he trusts you?”

Reigen doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move for some moments. It’s a stalemate of sorts.

Just when Ritsu is about to break into a really quite polite smile, Reigen drops the folder into his hands. Ritsu startles slightly, trying not to drop it.

“Of course Mob trusts me.”

Reigen doesn’t expand upon that any further before he walks back around to take his seat at the desk. Ritsu is busy looking at the paperwork that Reigen oh so kindly handed over, not even really taking it in as he flicks through the pages. He looks to Reigen for an explanation.

“You know the work Mob does here isn’t limited to his psychic powers, right?” He’s pulled out his laptop, giving it more focus than he is to Ritsu. “I give him work experience. He learns how to deal with customers. Hell, he may have even picked up a thing or two about how to successfully run a business.”

Did you teach him about self-aggrandising, too? Ritsu thinks.

“Get to work on sorting those. When you’re done, I’ll give you something else to do.”

Ritsu can’t help but think that Reigen just wants him to sit down and shut up. Gingerly, he takes a seat at the side desk of the office, watching Reigen do his ‘work’ from the side of his eye.

He doesn’t tell Reigen when he’s done with the menial task, instead opting to think on how he should go about organising his pay for today. He supposes putting up with Reigen won’t be all that bad if he gets some compensation. He sits there for a minute or two, not really bothering to hide the fact that he’s doing nothing, and before long he realises that the clicking of Reigen’s keyboard has quieted some time ago.

He waits for Reigen to speak up.

“So… Are you and your brother close?”

Ritsu sighs.

“Hey!” Reigen exclaims. “I’m trying to make conversation, here!”

Ritsu turns to look at him. He looks more frantic than anything. “Do you…” He trails off, trying to look past Reigen’s weirdness. “Do you really care?”

That sets him off. “I don’t know what makes you think that I don’t!” He throws his hands down on either side of his laptop. “Did I do something? Did I say something wrong that I don’t remember?”

“You’re asking me why I don’t…” Ritsu trails off again, for whatever reason unable to say out loud that he doesn’t like Reigen. “You really want to know?” He scoffs. “Well, for one, you’re not exactly the best influence on my brother.”

Reigen blinks, processing the information. “Oh, right,” he says. “This is about your brother.”

“Don’t talk to me about my brother.”

“…You brought him up, though…”

The conversation sort of stutters and skids to a halt. Ritsu knows that he’s not being the most tolerable person right now, and that Reigen doesn’t entirely deserve this out of nowhere — but if he wants an explanation, he’s going to get one.

“It’s not just about my brother,” Ritsu says. “You’re also just…really shady.” 

Reigen doesn’t seem fazed. That seems to be enough evidence to Ritsu — if Reigen doesn’t bat an eye at being called shady, then he’s been called it enough times over the years by enough different people that it must hold some ground. And in all that time, did he never once work to combat it? Did he never put in effort to not give off the worst vibes he could when he meets someone? There must be something inherent to them, Ritsu reasons. Reigen is a fundamentally shady person, and he’s right not to trust him.

Slowly, Reigen’s expression shifts to expectant, and Ritsu realises he hasn’t offered much more than that one statement. The seconds tick by, and as Reigen and Ritsu stare silently at each other, he finds his brain scrambling for what next to say, frantic to build his impromptu case against Reigen.

Except, wait, shouldn’t he know what he doesn’t like about him? He’s been avoiding him all these years; he should know the reason behind it.

And then, a revelation; Ritsu works to keep the epiphany internal, to not show his mind on his face as he realises it. He avoids Reigen at every chance he can get, so much so that he hasn’t even put thought into what he doesn’t like about him — he knows there’s something, obviously, and the actual fact of not knowing the reason behind his avoidance isn’t really his most pressing issue right now — it’s the fact that he’s backed himself into a corner where he has to admit that.

“Nothing you do seems genuine,” he says quickly, hoping Reigen won’t pick up on the non-explanation.

Reigen still looks expectant.

Ritsu clicks his tongue. “I don’t know,” he hesitates, again, searching for what to say, “you clearly don’t have psychic powers. I don’t know how you did what you did at the Claw base, but… Well, if you do have psychic powers, then you’re using them wrong.” 

Reigen leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. 

Ritsu could get into some serious trouble for this, but he continues regardless. “You’re always so flippant about everything, like exorcising spirits is just some fun side-gig to you, and…” He doesn’t know why he’s still talking. He looks around the office. There are some tacky figures dotted about, questionable books on the shelves, the (frankly) shoddy paperwork in front of him, an ashtray across the room from him. It’s good enough for him. “This place is hardly a professional business, you smoke, your handwriting could be better…”

Ritsu blinks, suddenly aware of his words. It’s all kind of nonsense at this point. “Oh. I’m sorry.” Reigen still looks unaffected, both by the words and the apology. It’s just a matter of formality, anyway. “That was pretty rude of me to say, huh?” he continues regardless.

Reigen shrugs. “I asked for it.”

That isn’t necessarily the response that Ritsu wants, but he’s not sure anything Reigen could have said would have satisfied him.

Reigen throws his head back over his chair, apparently taking in what Ritsu said. After a moment or two has passed, he locks eyes with Ritsu again.

“I don’t smoke.”

“What?” Ritsu furrows his brow. “Yes, you do.”

Reigen shakes his head. “Nope.”

Faintly, from somewhere in the back of Ritsu’s head, a memory from a while ago — it would be about three years, now — wafts through his mind. “Yes, you do,” he repeats. “I remember — the first time I met you. Pretty much the only thing I actually remember from meeting you. You reeked of cigarettes.”

Reigen doesn’t respond for a second. Then, “That’s the only thing you remember from meeting me? It wasn’t that long ago, was it?”

“I try not to remember our meetings.”

“…Okay… It must have been a really bad first impression, then.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, anyway, I quit. A couple of years ago, I think.”

Ritsu points to the ashtray on the other side of the room. “What’s that, then?”

Reigen follows his gesture. “That’s for customers. Sometimes they smoke in here, I only smoke at home.”

Ritsu scoffs. “So, in other words, you didn’t quit. You do smoke.”

“Ah, well—” Reigen fumbles for a bit, and Ritsu is interested to see how he pulls himself out of this one. “I don’t smoke here. That’s what I meant when I said I quit.”

“…Uh-huh.”

“Look, I—!” He stutters. “I don’t smoke around Mob, that’s something, right? He asked me not to, so I don’t. I’ve hardly smoked since then, so it’s basically quitting.”

Ritsu’s positive that that’s not how it works, but his mind is a little preoccupied at the moment. “Wait, what? My brother asked you to quit?”

“Yeah, when he was younger. I mean, I get it, it must have been annoying to be around.” Ritsu bites back a remark about how it’s not the only annoying thing about him. “And besides, I’d been meaning to quit anyway. I guess that was just the push I needed.” Reigen looks at Ritsu. “What, is there something wrong with that?”

“What? Oh, no. It’s just…” Something overtakes him for a second — it’s not confusion exactly, but it’s something akin to it. “Well, our dad smokes.” 

Reigen cocks his head to the side, not replying but waiting for Ritsu to continue.

And for some reason, he does. “Neither of us have really talked to him about it.”

Reigen nods. “Ah, yeah. Both of my parents smoked. Still do, actually. I just picked up the habit.” He leans forward, resting his arms on his desk. “Don’t smoke, Ritsu.”

“Yeah, I know not to smoke.” He sighs, picking back up on his train of thought. “I don’t know, I guess it’s kind of weird to me that my brother would actually speak up to you about it.”

“It is?”

The words are practically flowing out of him at this point, a steady waterfall of vented frustrations. “I mean, our dad’s smoked our whole lives; I thought he— I mean, I guess we just accepted it.”

Reigen leans back on his chair again, bringing his hands together behind his head. He takes a long, slow breath. “Mob’s been changing a lot recently, underneath all our noses.”

“Oh.” Ritsu looks down. 

The room’s changed. He doesn’t feel closer or further away from Reigen, but the distance between them is different, somehow. Like one of them’s floated higher and the other’s drifted downwards, or they’ve each changed colours and the lighting of the scene’s all off. He feels further away from himself.

“What are we talking about?” he asks.

“Um, smoking?”

“No, I mean… Why am I saying this to you?” 

“What do you mean?”

Now, what is the best method for telling someone ‘I don’t like talking to you and the fact that I’ve talked to you as much as I already have talked to you makes me like you even less’ without saying those exact words? Ritsu suffices with rolling his eyes.

“Reigen, you know what I mean. I…” He’s not sure what overcame him during the course of this conversation that convinced him it would be a good idea to open up to Reigen — like, seriously, Reigen? Reigen? Really? Opening up to him? — but whatever the reason, he’s there now. And he can’t exactly back out without awkwardly cutting the conversation off. “Look, I don’t talk about this stuff to anyone. I haven’t even talked to my brother about this. I shouldn’t be talking about this to you.”

“I think that means that you’re warming up to me, Ritsu. Have you finally learnt to trust me?”

Ritsu actually recoils at the thought. “Uh, no.” Reigen looks almost exasperated, leaning forward in his chair. 

Ritsu looks away from him. None of this makes any sense. He doesn’t feel confused, but something close to it, he’s not uncomfortable, but it’s almost there. He should have told Shigeo that he didn’t want to come.

“Oh, wait,” he speaks up after a moment or two of silence, “I know what’s happening now.” He looks back at Reigen.

“You do?”

“Oh, my god,” he whispers under his breath. It all makes sense now. Why the room feels different, why he had a heel-turn change of heart, why he can’t make sense of his own thoughts — it’s all coming together. He brings his hands to his temples, protecting either side of his head. “Do you have telepathy!?”

“What? No!” Ritsu continues to cover his temples, convinced at this turn of situation. Reigen rolls his eyes. “I’m not telepathic, Ritsu. I have no idea what you’re thinking. I didn’t make you open up to me, that was something you decided on your own.” Ritsu still isn’t relenting. Reigen sighs. “You know that’s okay, right? It’s okay to talk to me differently than you’re used to. And that…you talked to me about this before your brother. Things like that happen sometimes.”

Ritsu slowly lowers his hands, crossing his arms. He takes a sharp inhale. “Okay, dude. I get it. You’re cool, or whatever, and…I’ll try not to avoid you anymore. I won’t insult you, either, okay? Let’s just work the rest of this day—”

“No, Ritsu, look,” Reigen cuts him off. He breathes deeply. “In all seriousness, I know you don’t like me. I know I’m not your favourite person in the world. And when it comes down to it, that’s perfectly fine; who you do and don’t like is entirely your business, and more often than not, it’s something that can’t really be helped.

"But you’re gonna learn this one day — or, hell, why not learn it right now? No time like the present, right? — it’s a fact of life that you might not like someone, but you still have to work to get along. And sometimes, it’s not even that bad. Sometimes, you realise you were wrong about them. That happens more than I’d like, actually.

“And sometimes, I know it’s humiliating, trust me, but people you don’t like will have opinions that make sense, or good points that will change you, and you pretty much just have to learn how to navigate people. And how you fit in between them.”

Ritsu hates to admit it, but Reigen’s actually making sense. Maybe it’s a little over-generalised, or a little far out of Ritsu’s scope of caring, but he doesn’t get the urge to completely tune out Reigen’s voice. 

“And, also,” Reigen continues, and Ritsu knows that he’s slowly coming to grips with Reigen actually having meaningful advice, but he’s pushing it a little right now, “I know it’s not entirely my place, but you should learn to trust your brother more.”

“Excuse me?”

“All that stuff about me not being a good influence on him, or how you didn’t expect him to tell me to stop smoking — you know Mob’s his own person, right? If I was really such a bad guy, don’t you think he’d pick up on it?”

Ritsu feels like the air in his gut has been completely punched out of him. However slowly he was coming around on Reigen before, he’s now had the rug pulled out from underneath him, and the hard smack of the ground is stinging his conscious. 

Reigen is completely right. How on earth did this happen?

Has he really not been trusting Shigeo? Since he got his psychic powers, Ritsu thought that any of the conflict between them had all but faded away, and they can now relate to each other through common goals, through similar ideals. How is it that Reigen can understand Shigeo better than his own brother can? Is Ritsu at fault for this?

It makes sense, though, Ritsu reasons; Reigen is older, he knows more about people and he spends enough time around Shigeo. Maybe Ritsu can take some cues from him.

Awakening his psychic powers always seemed like a reset button for Ritsu, like that point in his life was where everything turned on its head. He got the powers he always wanted, and now he never has to succumb to his brotherly envy again. But, maybe he’s simplifying it too much. There’s more to his relationship with his brother than their psychic powers, and there’s more to himself than whether or not he has powers — there always has been. That much should be obvious to him, so shouldn’t he grant the same point of view to his brother? Shigeo’s more than just the greatest psychic — he is not his powers. He’s his own person, and if Reigen is right about him changing so much so recently, then Ritsu’s really got nothing to worry about.

“Ugh,” Ritsu scoffs, the weight of his realisation finally taking hold on his shoulders. “You’re right.” He sits up straighter, looking around the room. It doesn’t feel any different to before, just the way that he fits into it has changed. He looks back to Reigen, and sighs. “So, how am I getting paid for this, anyway?”

Reigen thinks for a second. “What’s your favourite food?”

“Um…I like tofu. And boiled pork.”

Reigen nods, storing the information away. “Let’s see what we can get you after this, okay?”

“Wait, really?” Reigen would really be willing to buy food for him, even when he’s been adverse to him this whole time?

“Of course. Just make sure you don’t tank my business today, and we’ll get something afterwards.”

Ritsu blinks. Yeah, he definitely should learn to trust Shigeo more. His master is pretty alright.

“Thank you.”

[baronvontribble]

okay. alright. i’m doing it. here’s a list of AUs that i have toyed with for the robot and marshmallow, none of which have solid titles (and i will answer questions about any of them):

the big story: the one for publishing, so far. both the most finished and the oldest original story. Adam is a runaway police robot who comes to a group of sympathetic humans to find a new body and a new life as a free man. Ted is part of that group and ends up helping him. goes HARD into the AI minutiae and modern concepts about robotics in a five-minutes-into-the-future setting. tackles mental illness, disability, and is generally super soft and low-key.

team winions: workshopped but not written. still nailing certain things down. basically Ted’s the main support on an esports team and Adam is his newly traded-in DPS/lane partner/AD carry. over the course of a season they do the cute bonding thing, and they and the rest of their misfit team eventually secure a finals win for an NA region that’s pretty much never won anything before that. oh, and this one has art! i mean it’s an old art from when i was first thinking of having Adam be on another team instead of a new trade to the one Ted’s on, but STILL AN ART.

(the one who gets traded away is Owen; Rani swaps to top lane, and Angie and Malak stay in the same positions.)

post-apocalyptica: this was an idea for a platformer. basically, the world has ended. Ted wakes up from complete stasis in a hospital after a few hundred years - healed of whatever it was that got him into stasis in the first place - to find that no one’s left but robots (not androids, though) and a voice on a headset. the voice guides him through the ruins of the city to find meds and possibly other survivors (a thing the voice doesn’t recommend). but when he finds those survivors, he finds out that they were woken up too. by the same voice. every single one of them rejected it once they found out what it’d done, and now they’re fighting the robots to ‘take back the city’.

the voice expects Ted to join them at that point, but he doesn’t. instead he asks where the voice is broadcasting from. then he goes all the way to the top of a ruined skyscraper, and on the very top floor he finds Adam hooked up to a bank of servers. this is the last android, trapped by the limitations of his own memory-bloat, kept functional by a mess of wires that connect him to his own massive server room of a brain. upon seeing this, Ted sits down, unpacks his lunch and his meds, and settles in to try and make the guy a little less lonely.

space, idea 1: one of two different ideas that i’ve considered the two goobers for in the same universe; at this point i’ve decided that if Ted gets one, then someone else will have to get the other, because I want to reuse my goddamn space universe. barring that, i could use another idea for a framing device, but i’ll talk about that later. for now, we will say Ted is in training to become a human partner for a ship pilot AI. or was. he’s being threatened with getting kicked out.

why? who knows. it’s Ted. that is not the point. the point is that he is given an opportunity to redeem himself by joining an experimental program that will give him telekinetic powers via alien spores, but to harness them he has to have nanotech and an AI implanted into his nervous system to monitor and regulate the bits of his brain that will spontaneously burst into irreparable cancer the moment he starts the treatment. the cancer is the flipside of a radical regenerative ability that the spores also cause.

Adam is the AI, one of many. he doesn’t want to be there. none of them do. it’s a last resort assignment given to AIs that are about to be sent to run remote He3 scoops out in the sticks. Ted is also one of many humans and most of them are pseudo-dropouts for one reason or another just like he is. very few of them are well-adjusted, and the usual anime training school shenanigans ensue.

but then a dark thing happens. a test subject who was thought dead seemingly comes back and starts killing the AIs, which can potentially kill the people who really need them in their brains. panic ensues; the leader of the program tries for as long as he can to cover it up because it’s a skeleton in his closet, specifically, but eventually it comes back to bite him and everyone else on the station. so it’s up to Ted and Adam and their friend-group to save the day and get everyone who’s still alive off the station in one piece.

space, idea 2: Adam is a freshly minted AI who has a problem: he goes through partners like other people go through shoes. technically he has the right to refuse anyone for any reason, but his handlers think it’s getting a little ridiculous that he’s refused so many. it’s also expensive to keep trying to match him up with people again and again, and no algorithm can really predict the personality profiles that’ll end up being compatible with him since so many have proven not to be.

then Ted stumbles into his airlock, and he gets An Idea: the human can’t act in ways that are incompatible if his good word is the only thing keeping them from getting arrested. so, he takes advantage of the opportunity and says he wants this one as his partner. this one that’s an actual criminal.

his handlers give up, and this is how the story begins. i don’t know where it will go from there. maybe i’ll use my conspiracy plot where Zach’s trying to start a galactic civil war and they uncover his machinations together. or maybe i’ll use the Fermi paradox plot where they’re scouting and they find a Pioneer-level probe out in space only to find its planet of origin completely dead except for a lone caretaker AI overseeing the stored memories and personalities of a million long-forgotten souls. it’s the kind of setup that can go anywhere.

the framing device: but then there’s this. this thing i thought of to tie them all together. if i start with the last and write the rest, then this would be the thing that let me keep writing AUs with abandon: the VR idea. set in my space universe, it would be a procedurally generated full-immersion VR experience compatible with both humans and AIs that allowed them to live fully fleshed-out alternate stories for themselves, either alone or with others. the stories would follow narratives, have plots, have stakes; the promise is that you can spend your time in the sim being the storybook version of yourself.

now, there are settings. when you go in you can tweak the realism, set up what tags and genres you feel like going for, how much drama you want, how much violence you’re feeling up to seeing or experiencing. and all of it is safe, controlled, and probably really expensive. but it’s supposedly the best vacation your credits can buy you without having to go offworld, so it’s an immediate sensation in-universe.

this would be how i’d tie it all together. and i could use it for multiple character pairings. i could even reuse characters if i said it stored imprints of previous users or had stock characters. but for Ted and Adam? they’d use it as a way to meet and fall in love and be with each other in a thousand timelines across a thousand different worlds, and they’d never get tired of it.

anyway, yeah. those are just the ORIGINAL ones. i’d write them in WoW or Shadowrun or Divinity: Original Sin or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or Stardew Valley or Slime Rancher or Cyberpunk or DnD or Fallout or Starcraft or Overwatch or ANY universe if i thought i could get away with it. these boys will always jump into any AU i dip my toes into, and be the first to volunteer themselves for any plot i come up with. if i bring one, the other is coming too in one form or another. that’s just how they are.

now you all know why i never get anything done that doesn’t have them in it.

[thecorteztwins]

Inhuman royal family in the Evo verse

I was hoping someone would ask this one! How to work the Inhumans into Evo is actually something I’ve thought about a lot, because I love the Inhumans and I love Evo, but they SEEM so incompatible, since Evo doesn’t really have any other superhuman species besides mutants, and just plonking some in doesn’t fit the tone of the universe, in my opinion.The EASIEST option is just to make them all mutants, give them some human names (Blackwell Bolton and Maxwell Bolton for the Boltagon brothers, Gordon for Gorgon, etc) and let their Inhuman names just be their codenames. But...I feel like that takes away their Inhuman-ness. That is, I think them being this weird isolated people with their own culture who are wary of outsiders and consider themselves superior to all others is a really important part of who they are, and I’d like to keep that.So my idea is they are mutants, but they’re not just normal “I grew up as a normal human in a normal human family til whoa I got my powers!” mutants. They’re an extended mutant family that has lived in an off-the-grid commune for GENERATIONS. The idea is that their ancestors were mutants whose powers surfaced much earlier in history, like Logan or Magneto, or maybe even before them. Persecuted by humanity, who believed them to be witches (like maybe they came up during Puritan times in America?) they fled and formed their own secret community. They’ve welcomed in new blood here and there over the years, but it’s still very small and tight, implied to be a little inbred. So they’re people who are mutants, who grew up knowing they were mutants even before they got their powers, whose parents and grandparents before them were mutants, whose neighbors are mutants, who have only ever known other mutants. To them, it’s HUMANS who are the weird ones. And since they didn’t have the word “mutant” til very recently in history, they’ve always called themselves “Inhumans”. The “Rite of Terrigenesis” in this version wouldn’t be what gives them their powers, but instead a coming-of-age ritual that they perform after their abilities first surface. They go deep into a mist-filled crystal cave at the center of the commune, and meditate on their new abilities until they come up with their new “Inhuman name” to reflect said abilities. So they’re given human names at birth and then take on names like Triton and Medusa later. Which makes a bit more sense than “yeah the kid we named Triton just happened to turn into a fish guy when he got his powers, what are the odds”.The emergence of mutants en masse amidst the general populace has shaken their sense of identity, as they always considered themselves a unique people, and caused debate among them if they should reach out to these other mutants, attempt to rejoin humanity, if these other mutants count as “Inhumans” too or if you have to be raised in the Inhuman culture to count, should they help the persecuted mutants in the outside world, etc. As for Xavier, he actually learned of the Inhumans long ago via Cerebro, even before he formed the X-Men. He visited them and offered them the chance to send their children to his school, but they declined, wanting nothing to do with the outside world at the time. However, since he had found them, he knew, as they did, that the rest of mankind would sooner or later. So he worked together with them to develop technology that would “block” devices like Cerebro, should anti-mutant forces ever develop them. Thus, the Inhumans stayed hidden successfully---until SOMETHING happens.I don’t have a distinct idea as to what. Off the top of my head...I’m going to say Crystal ran away, wanting to explore the outside world, and she got attacked/captured by a Sentinel. When the X-Men liberate the mutants being kept in the same holding facility as her, they of course get her as well. From her, they learn about the Inhumans, and they want to go meet them. Xavier, however, is like “no, they want to be left alone, I’ll return Crystal privately.” And Crystal is like “but I don’t wanna go home!” but since she’s not being treated badly there, Xavier is like “well you’re going” because he knows the Inhumans, he knows they’ll just come take her back by force. So Xavier takes her there in the Blackbird with some of the older X-Men. But the New Mutants, of course, are all “hey if this teenager says she doesn’t want to go home cuz it’s boring, she shouldn’t have to!” and they stow away, intending to “rescue” her. So after Crystal is handed back to her family, the New Mutants sneak out of the Blackbird and come help her escape AGAIN, but they get caught by her sister (Medusa), cousin (Gorgon), and sister’s boyfriend (Black Bolt). This is how we meet the Inhuman royals, and how they come into conflict with the New Mutants.And somehow or another, by the end of it they’ve decided they want to explore the human world too, and convince the elders/their parents to allow them to be the first explorers into the outside world since the community’s founding, as ambassadors to the “NuHumans” (as they call other mutants) They don’t become permanent members of the school or the New Mutants/X-Men, but they do have a temporary stay at the Xavier’s mansion and attend Bayville High for awhile as “transfer students” from the country of “Attilan” (the name of their commune) Xavier probably helps a lot with convincing the Bayville high officials that “Attilan” is TOTALLY a real country, guys, it’s a tiny city-state in the Himalayas! And the reason they’re white is because it was founded by, um, European missionaries!And now after that VERY LENGTHY SET-UP, here’s the Inhuman royals! As teens! Because that’s the fun of Evo!

Blackwell Bolton aka Black Bolt: As in the comics, he doesn’t speak due to the destructive nature of his vocal powers, which almost destroyed the Attilan commune when he was a child. Because of this, he feels great responsibility for the commune, and protecting it to make up for the damage he did as a baby, even though it wasn’t his fault. His first thought is therefore always looking after his fellow Inhumans, and his reason for coming to the outside world is mostly just to protect the other kids while they explore. His teachers are told that he is deaf-mute but that he has a hearing aid (he wears a fake one) so he can hear them, just not reply. The reason given to his teachers as to why he doesn’t speak sign language is that “oh he does but only Attilan sign language, and there are no interpreters for that in America!”He’s seen as the “strong silent type” by the girls at Bayville High, and it makes them VERY interested in him. The guys claim it just makes him “weird” however, mostly out of jealousy. I imagine there’s a scene where the Bayville guys invite him to play sports or have some other athletic competition, and they expect they’ll humiliate him because there’s no way the weird foreign disabled kid will be able to be good at anything...and he ends up EFFORTLESSLY WHIPPING ASS!He and Medusa might already be dating, I did call him her boyfriend earlier, but I think maybe Romantic Tension might fit Evo better. The show was ALL ABOUT THAT ROMANTIC TENSION. BB/Medusa/Max might be the new Jean/Scott/Rogue?Maxwell Bolton aka Maximus: BB’s younger brother, of course! I’m not sure if I’d make him a villain yet or not? And whether he is or not would influence if he keeps his powers a secret or not. If he’s not going to be a bad guy, then he doesn’t keep them a secret. If he is going to be a bad guy, he keeps it secret so that he can more easily use them without the other Inhumans and X-Men realizing what he’s up to. And if he’s a bad guy....what’s his motive? Do these Inhumans still have royalty? Is BB still in line to be king? Or is it something else? Also, he probably still disdains regular humans (and possibly also “NuHumans”) like in 616, so if he’s got some villainous plan that could give him motive to come along with the others to the human world. But it could also be he just wanted to hang out with Medusa, who of course he has to have an unrequited creepy crush on.Max is obviously a science/engineering whiz, basically the new Forge, and ends up being INCREDIBLY useful on the X-team for this. I think that there should probably be a scene where he and his tech single-handedly trounce the Brotherhood, all with a smirk on his face. So at first they love having him around, but his personality quickly grates on everyone, even MORE than the other Inhumans (who, it turns out, are all kind of snotty besides Crystal)I think I wouldn’t write him as obviously “mad” at the start, just very energetic and enthusiastic about his work, so hyper and weird but nothing to suggest he’s truly unstable. But there increasingly starts to be moments where he just goes “too far” against enemies or even just people who bother him, to the point it starts to be worrisome, with eventually the others having to actually FIGHT him to put a stop to it. I think that, as with the “Royals” series, there would definitely be acknowledgement and exploration with how ableist Attilan society is, that they had no sign language for Black Bolt, no way of recognizing or treating whatever it is Max specifically suffers from, with the explanation being that in this universe, they never moved on with the rest of outside society on these matters, that they still look at these ailments the way their ancestors did long ago. I think there would have to be careful balance to show that he’s not evil BECAUSE of his illness though, more than he actually ends up failing in said evil because said illness trips him up. Something like that. Also the idea wouldn’t be that he was hiding his mental illness, but that it’s developing/getting worse now that he’s hit puberty. And there should be a really emotional scene where it’s been figured out what’s going on and he begs Xavier to fix him and Xavier explains he can’t rewire Max’s brain on that level ;A;Madeleine McQuillan aka Medusa: As mentioned, she’s either Black Bolt’s girlfriend already, or there’s at least Ship Tease between them. She keeps her hair tightly bound so that she can’t subconsciously use it in public. She’s very sensible, responsible, etc., and is basically the “Jean Grey” of the group, except she’s much more no-nonsense, she can be kind of cold and harsh but only when it’s actually called for. She’s basically the serious sister to contrast Crystal’s free spirit, and she takes the leadership role in the group alongside Blackwell, being the one who reprimands the others when they get out of hand or doing something dumb that might get them hurt, reveal their powers to normal humans, etc. But she also defends them against the X-Men when the X-Men try to reprimand them for the same things; she’s very much got a “these are my idiots and only *I* can call them idiots!” attitude, and she cares about them and feels responsible for them, something Blackwell can relate to. I think her arc should be less about romance, and more about her and Crystal’s relationship, their differences and conflicts, and each coming to understand and appreciate why her sister is the way she is. Crystal McQuillan: Might give her an elemental-themed codename if I can think of one! Anyway, she’s the open-minded free spirit of the group, curious about the human world and eager to explore it. She’s very fun-loving and doesn’t hesitate to follow her heart, but the downside means she’s impulsive, childish, and doesn’t think about others before she acts. Due to her enthusiasm for the human world, she’s been consuming human media since childhood (probably something she and Max did together as kids actually), and thus seems the most “normal” to the Bayville kids and X-Men alike, and fits in with them the best out of all her family. The boys especially like her, and I imagine she’s got ship-tease with Sam Guthrie and Duncan Matthews both. I think there might be an episode where she starts getting involved with Duncan and Jean tries to warn her what a jerk Duncan is, but she ignores her and then ends up in some real trouble because of it. There should probably also be some obligatory moment where Pietro winks at her during a battle with the Brotherhood and she calls him cute or something, but nothing beyond that.Gordon Peters aka Gorgon: First thing, someone will ask him why that’s his codename since weren’t the Gorgons what the mythological Medusa was, and he’ll explain that there’s another creature in lore called a Gorgon that is a bull-like creature. Because there is, and his codename baffled me until I found this out.Anyway, Gordon ends up fitting in at the school IMMEDIATELY. He’s a jock, he loves to party, he fits right in with the “popular crowd” even while all the other Inhumans (except Crystal) struggle to various degrees to integrate. Same powers, he wears specialized boots/shoes to disguise his hooves and block the effects of his stomps if need be. I don’t really have any ideas for him besides that he probably gets a human girlfriend or at least is implied to be as popular with the ladies as Blackwell (and unlike Blackwell, he reciprocates the attention!)Carson and Tristan, aka Karnak and Triton: Haven’t picked a surname for them! I also haven’t decided if Karnak’s powers come from training like in the comics, or if they’re actually POWERS like in the ABC series. I’m thinking the latter. Either way, he’s even colder and harsher than Medusa, and way more abrasive about it, so he rubs people the wrong way easily as much as Max does. Thus it annoys the X-team EVEN MORE how useful he is. There’s probably a scene where he goes toe-to-toe with Logan during a fight in training after Logan has wiped the floor with everyone else, but instead of this making Logan or the kids LIKE him, it actually just makes them more irritated with him. The fact he doesn’t care at all makes them like him even less. He’s kind of like Jean in that people resent him for his talents, but unlike Jean this doesn’t cause him any conflict. The only thing that bothers him is when everyone else is BEING AN IDIOT.Triton had to live in the Attilan lake ever since his powers surfaced. He didn’t think he’d be able to go on the trip into the outside world, but once Maximus had access to the level of tech available at Xavier’s, he was able to build him a breathing apparatus. It fits around his neck, and he hides it with scarves and turtleneck sweaters. He uses an image inducer like Kurt, of course.Due to the fact he hasn’t been able to socialize much since he was a kid, a lot of his social skills are very awkward, and he comes off as shy and weird even when he’s TRYING to fit in very hard with the other kids, he’s just so happy to be here but they all think he’s a weirdo. It’s also hard for him to prove his worth in combat to the X-Men since like...he doesn’t really have any powers? He’s just really good at living in an aquatic environment. In the comics he has a lot of training, but in Evo I think he’d lack that, and thus be pretty useless in a fight unless it was underwater. Kurt would see him as a kindred spirit, and go out of his way to be his best buddy, take him to social events, etc.Lockjaw - Of course Lockjaw has to be included! Since there’s no Terrigen Mists though, I think he’d just be a normal dog! Still probably an unusually large bulldog, like the size of a pit bull or Saint Bernard, maybe he’s a mastiff, but he’s not cow/hippo-sized like the comics and show. He also cannot teleport, but maybe he has some kind of teleporting device put on to him by the Attilan parents as an emergency portal back home should the kids ever need it. 

[kierkehaard]

Do Facts Care About Your Feelings?

Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings (or, for short, FDCAYF). 

We’ve all heard this sentiment echoed before. In Ben Shapiro’s PragerU episode of the same name, on his Twitter feed, from the mouths of the millions of conservatives and alt-righters who tune in to his podcasts - the right wing has essentially heralded it as the be all and end all of one-liners to ‘destroy libtard SJWs’. At first glance, it seems like an impenetrable argument: after all, if facts did care about one’s feelings, then they’d cease to be objective. 

One thing I’ll credit Shapiro with is how effective this phrase is at conveying what he’s trying to say. It accomplishes multiple things at the same time. 

It:

1. Labels his opposition as ‘emotional’,

2. Makes a statement about the nature of facts, 

3. Establishes the possession of facts as incompatible with his opposition, and

4. Therefore implies that his opposition is blinded from the truth by feelings.

Hold up. Let’s take a look at Point 2 for a moment. It almost seems like FDCAYF is an epistemic claim; he’s discussing how facts work, and how we can get to know them.  I thought it might be interesting to see just how much this one-liner holds up to philosophical inspection.

Spoiler: eh, not much. 

How The Argument Works

First, let’s talk about what exactly Ben is saying here. He’s making an analysis of what facts are, and proposing a certain feature that all facts share (that feelings do not affect them). In order to figure out whether this is correct, we of course need to understand what a fact is. 

Many people, including some academic philosophers, would roughly define a fact as ‘a proposition that is true’. What this means is that, for something to be a fact, it must be truth-apt (be a statement that can be true or false), and it must be true. The reason why the first criterion is important is because it discounts statements that simply cannot possibly be true or false, like instructions or exclamations. ‘Go do your homework’ cannot be a fact because it doesn’t propose anything; likewise with something like ‘oh my god’ or ‘blimey’. On the other hand, a statement that does propose something that can be true or false like ‘tigers have four legs’ can be facts, as long as they’re true. That last bit is why ‘tigers have four legs’ is a fact, but ‘the grand canyon is a species of tiger’ is not; the former is a true proposition, while the latter is a false one. 

I would think that most supporters of Ben would agree with this idea of what facts are; I imagine most people would. But this poses a problem for FDCAYF. After all, there are some true propositions where feelings and perspectives do matter. The statement ‘Billy loves basketball’ proposes something that could either be true or false. Let’s also assume that Billy does, in fact, love basketball. The truth of this claim does depend on feelings - in this case, Billy’s. Going by this idea of what facts are, we have to accept that ‘subjective facts’ do exist, and that therefore there exist some facts that do ‘care about your feelings’. Many philosophers are comfortable with accepting this, but obviously a hardcore Ben Shapiro fan would want to defend the FDCAYF. Admittedly, this idea of ‘subjective facts’ is quite nitpicky when looking at the facts Ben Shapiro usually refers to when he raises FDCAYF; stats, scientific studies - objective facts. So for the sake of good faith, maybe we can raise a definition of facts that’s more charitable to Ben Shapiro: ‘facts are propositions that are objectively true.’ What we mean by objective here is mind-independent, with the truth of the statement not depending on any feelings. This way, the only ‘facts’ that we have to deal with are the ones that Ben Shapiro actually approaches. It also means that he by definition cannot be wrong about facts not caring about your feelings, which is basically shooting this entire analysis in the foot, but bear with me. In the next few sections, we’ll discuss how even this charitable idea of what Ben Shapiro means by ‘facts’ doesn’t really give us the full picture of how facts work. 

(PS: it’s worth noting that someone who sees the world as something leaning towards Idealism would reject this new definition as incoherent altogether, since under Idealism there would technically be no such thing as a mind-independent, wholly objective fact. But that’s besides the point, so we’ll save Idealism for another future post.)

Fact Versus Ideology

So. Let’s pretend everything we said earlier didn’t matter. We assume that facts by definition don’t care about your feelings, and so accommodate what Ben Shapiro uses as ‘facts’. Here’s the irony, though: it’s precisely by accommodating what Ben Shapiro says in context that we see this idea of facts fall apart too. Let me explain why.

The running trend with Ben Shapiro is that he’d claim some fact, then he’d promote it as an objective reason to support some conservative stance. For the sake of example, we’re gonna talk about the topic he arguably most famously does this with: transgender rights. More specifically, when he talks about trans people, he would point to the fact that they’re ‘biologically male/female’ to justify not referring to them by their preferred pronouns. (case in point here and here). He would use some biological fact, like how a male-to-female trans person would still possess XY chromosomes, to say that the conservative stance towards trans people is factual, and therefore conclude that those who disagree are simply ‘being offended by facts’ and ‘factually wrong’. 

Going back to our Shapiro-approved definition of facts, we can see that his claim on male-to-female trans people possessing XY chromosomes is indeed a fact. However, Ben is trying to push for something deeper than just stating a fact; he’s also making a call to action. The argument he’s forming here is that ‘trans women are biologically male’, ‘therefore trans women are men’, ‘therefore we ought not to call them women’. This is the part where it becomes real messy, because we realise we aren’t just dealing with facts in and of themselves, but rather their political relevance. And while the facts themselves could be independent of how one feels, the political values that one infers from them - as we will see - are not. 

What makes the fact ‘male-to-female trans people possess XY chromosomes’ more politically relevant than, say, the fact ‘koalas have smooth brains’? It’s the context under which we perceive the political. In other words, It is what we deem as politically problematic or politically relevant that leads us to decide which facts matter. The fact that trans men possess XY chromosomes might be a matter of huge importance to a neoconservative like Ben Shapiro, who thinks that one’s identity is defined biologically, but that fact would be less politically relevant to a more progressive-minded person - at least in determining a trans person’s identity - because they think that identity is primarily defined socially. It simply goes back to one’s ideology, and one’s general worldview of how society operates. Another example would be how the fact that ‘there are 6 times more empty homes than homeless people’ would be a matter of huge relevance to a communist, or a left leaning liberal, but would at the very most be a matter of curious interest to a conservative, simply because their ideology already inherently constructs an ‘if you didn't earn it, you don’t deserve it’ mentality. A fascist would find the fact that ‘African Americans, despite forming 13% of the population, constitute 50% of the prison demographic’ to be extremely politically relevant, while a socialist democrat would not, seeing that as explained ideologically through systemic oppression and injustice in the judicial system. There are countless examples we can choose from, because there are countless ideologies that each enable and are enabled by the facts that they find important. This isn’t to say that all ideologies are the same and that the one we choose to lean towards is a matter of subjective taste; it simply means that we shouldn’t deceive ourselves into thinking there is a fact-based reason to subscribe to one, and that people of other ideologies are not beholden to facts. In actuality, political discourse isn’t about what the facts are, it’s about which facts are important and give motivation to act. Ben Shapiro may be right in claiming that ‘[certain] facts don’t care about your feelings’, but how we use these facts does care about our values and worldview. 

Reason Versus Feeling

Our earlier paragraph discusses how he conflates possessing facts with possessing rational beliefs about what these facts mean, and we have gone through why this is problematic. But in making this assumption Ben actually commits to a more fundamental claim about rationality, and that is the drawing of a dichotomy between rational action and emotion. That is, he’s saying that one cannot be both emotional and rational. To be fair to him, this is not a very uncommon idea; think of the many times we’ve seen people say ‘stop being so emotional and use your head’. But that way of thinking, of ‘Reason versus Feeling’, might not be as clear and obvious as we think. 

Let’s start with understanding what it means to be rational. I think it’s fairly uncontroversial to say that to be rational is to act in accordance with reason; that is, to do what one has more reason to do. The prospect of getting a free chocolate bar could give me a reason to steal from the convenience store, but the stronger motivations of not wanting to be arrested for theft and not wanting to do something morally wrong would give me more reason not to steal, making not stealing the rational decision for me (well, assuming a perfectly normal circumstance). So what exactly is a reason? Such an abstract concept might be hard to define. But looking at the previous three reasons we’ve raised, we can try to come up with some necessary features of a reason. For example, we know that a reason can’t exist in and of itself. There’s no such thing as simply ‘a reason’. It’s always ‘a reason to do x’, or ‘a reason to believe x’. Reasons are always predicated on some other action or thought. This brings us to our second, and more important, feature of reasons: they always exist to justify or motivate a certain action or thought. They inform us about our motivations in acting on/believing something, and it’s through weighing our many reasons for and against this that we decide what is reasonable and rational. This obviously means that reasons are extremely diverse, and is the reason why philosophers like to make different categories of reasons when analysing them: we’ve got object given reasons (reasons derived from certain features of the object in question), state given reasons (reasons derived from the current state we’re in), hedonic reasons (reasons that involve our own personal pleasure and happiness)… but the category of reasons we’re gonna talk about today is much, much simpler than all of that: what about emotional reasons?

When we get ‘emotional’, it usually doesn’t just happen randomly out of the blue. Something happens, or we’re in a certain state of mind that makes us react emotionally. Certain states of affairs gives us reasons to act emotionally, and then we evaluate whether or not said emotional reaction is a justified response. Granted, many times we end up acting emotionally and irrationally. But that doesn’t mean that every emotional reaction is not reasonable or rational. If Steve steals my lunch, it is reasonable for me to be annoyed and tell Steve off. It’s not reasonable for me to murder him in a ravenous fit of wrath, but that’s because I can evaluate that this emotional response in particular is not warranted. In fact, think about every time someone got mad and asked one of his friends ‘was I being unreasonable for acting that way?’, or every time a parent had to ask themselves whether they were too harsh in their reprimanding of their child. If emotional reasons didn’t exist, then these questions would be useless and meaningless, since every emotional reaction would be irrational. Arguably, the whole subreddit r/AmITheAsshole deals with the problems of sorting out emotional reasons and deciding whether or not the emotional reaction these reasons led to was reasonable. The assumption about the distinction between rationality and emotion that Ben Shapiro makes when he says ‘Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings’, then, while not one that is altogether uncommon, is not really all that sustainable, since our feelings and the way we act from them can be evaluated from a rational lens. 

As a matter of fact, even our favourite neoconservative himself does this evaluation all the time. Every time Ben decides that a condescending retort is in order, every time he reacts with incredulity at another ‘outlandish leftist headline’, he is deeming this specific emotion as an appropriate reaction. But we usually don’t think of these things as acting emotionally. The point I’m trying to get at here is more than just Ben’s inconsistencies with his own dogma; it’s driving more towards how we treat emotion as a whole. We don’t usually think to call contempt and condescension emotional, despite the fact that they technically are. In fact, we’d celebrate them as ‘savage’ or ‘absolutely destroying’ someone (think ‘Ben Shapiro versus SJW cringe compilations’). On the other hand, we’re quick to see those who express outrage and anger and compassion as being emotional (and, to some, therefore irrational). Our discussions and analyses about what exactly constitutes reason and how emotion fits in are all well and good, but the discussion simply wouldn’t be complete unless we also talk about how we as a society approach this issue. And judging by the looks of it, we evaluate what is ‘emotionally irrational’ based not on what actually is emotional, but rather based on what emotions are socially approved. Delivering a ‘sick burn’ is perfectly reasonable and great, but getting ‘triggered’ is uncool and going off-the-hook. Worryingly, what we judge as being an irrational emotional response isn’t just about the scale and extent of the response, but the type of emotional response itself, and it’s not altogether clear why we should believe that some emotions are simply inherently more irrational than others. Natalie Wynn, better known as Contrapoints, puts it better than I think I ever could

Perhaps a more accurate, albeit less catchy, phrase that describes what Ben Shapiro means in FDCAYF is that ‘Rationality Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings’. But the line he draws between the rational and the emotional, as we’ve seen, doesn’t really work all too well. Practically speaking, when we’re dealing with issues as sensitive and important as politics, sometimes being emotional is precisely the reasonable thing to do. 

Conclusion

Writing what’s essentially an entire essay on one single statement, on hindsight, might have been a bit of an overkill. But I do think there’s a lot to be said about FDCAYF and how it’s used. I absolutely agree that we should be looking at hard truths instead of what our ‘feelings’ would want us to believe, and I absolutely agree that people can sometimes get unreasonably emotional. But the truth isn’t as simple as that. Emotions aren’t something to be reviled and altogether avoided in politics, and we can’t separate facts from the ideological context that enables them to be political. And while Ben Shapiro and his followers aren’t particularly known for their attention to nuance, I think it is at least important that this nuance be known. 

[unwiltingblossom]

But then you are contradicting yourself then; if you say that in Japan the woman gets the man she loved not the other way around then Mai did loved Zuko and so did Katara loved Aang. According to that, it worked fine. And about sasusaku and zutara being similar, their similarities just end at aesthetics only. Don't get me wrong, I ship sasusaku hard and perhaps might have ship zutara if the show was stretched, but Zutara is actually pretty dark. There's just too much rift that needs to be ....

cleared that the 100 year war brought. Then differences in lifestyle like Zuko belonging from the imperial lifestyle while Katara coming from tribal land.  That wouldn’t have fit well. And the bond; Sasuke and Sakura knew each other since childhood. They shared the happier times. That wasn’t the case with Zutara. They started off pretty bad to the point that Zuko ended up nearly killing Aang. The piece you wrote was certainly enlightening and very informative but to compare Sasusaku with Zutara             

Side characters don’t count like that. That said, I did account for Mai, as she is the ‘damaged’ and ‘woman of inferior morals’ that the ‘damaged’ Zuko deserves.  This is similar to if Sasuke had ended up with Karin. Basically, the men need to be ‘good enough’ for the girl, if they’re not the paragon of virtue (the hero), they get a woman who isn’t as ‘good’ as the heroine. This obviously doesn’t really apply in a canon that lacks ‘good guy hero, good girl heroine, bad boy rival/support’ element, but you can see it even in unlikely places, such as X-Men (Scott will always get Jean in the end because he’s the boyscout, while Logan is the bad boy whose love will never measure up to Scott’s, due to his looser morals).

As for Katara loving Aang…  e h h. She falls squarely in the ‘hero earns her love by being a good hero’ square. As Aang hits checkpoints of strength or advances on his hero’s journey, Katara has moments of ‘oh no he’s hot’ or similar. This culminates in him confronting her about his feelings right before the end of the series and her rejecting him on the basis of being ‘confused’. Cue finale, where Aang completes his journey and saves the world. Katara immediately seeks him out and kisses him, resolving her confusion offscreen. Conclusion: her confusion was settled because he completed the prerequisites to unlock her ending.

As for Zutara being darker than Sasusaku…once again… e h h.

I can’t really presume to argue with authority against someone who actually knows the fandom, but I’m going to say what I know of it anyway, and if I’m wrong you or others can correct me.

1- Zuko and Katara are not 100 years old, therefore you cannot project the tensions of the entire war on their relationship and simply say it can’t work under those pretenses. It’s an unfair measurement they appear to overcome in the course of their on-screen relationship anyway.

1b- Sakura is a hardcore village loyalist who is never given any reason to question the Leaf dammit kishimoto and Sasuke views - not completely incorrectly - the village as collectively at fault for the total massacre of his family. While he does change his perspective to ‘the shinobi system as a whole is at fault’, the reason they end up on opposite sides for a while is an extremely personal trauma to Sasuke,  and part of the hatred and oppression of the Uchiha that stretched back to the village’s founding.

2- Zuko being royalty and Katara being tribal doesn’t appear to be a real concern? Do they often butt heads and find themselves incompatible with each other due to this difference of raising? Even if so, would this reasoning not equally apply to Kataang, as Katara comes from a hunting and gathering tribal system, while Aang comes from a peaceful and serene temple monk lifestyle? 

2b- If we consider different raising to be important, then we have to consider the differences between Sasuke and Sakura’s raising. Sasuke is essentially the younger prince of the Uchiha and a genius, with incredible talent that everyone (except his father, at least by his perception) believes means he will OF COURSE end up with some legendary or amazing status…until he’s seven, when his beloved older brother inexplicably goes insane, murders the entire clan including their parents, then forces Sasuke to live through watching those murders repeatedly before abandoning him because he’s ‘not worth killing’. He then lives in his empty home where his parents died, all alone, from that point until joining Team 7. Sakura, on the other hand, has completely normal and unremarkable parents no one knows or cares about. She’s bullied as a child because her forehead is big and she’s timid, until Ino befriends her and teaches her to be tough. For the most part, Sakura doesn’t really have a traumatic childhood like Sasuke does, and she doesn’t truly understand the isolation and pain he suffers until he leaves. When it comes to different backstories, they have quite a rift.

3 - It’s true, they do start out as enemies, but Sasuke and Sakura become enemies, and I don’t know if Zuko and Katara are ever seconds away from outright killing each other and need intervention. I don’t deny that Sasuke and Sakura have a deeper bond to begin with, but there is certainly plenty of angst and hostility between them during the time that they are enemies, despite the fact that both of them love each other and are suppressing it. 

4 - Does Zuko almost kill Aang to the tune of puncturing his lung with his fist and leaving him to bleed out, almost call down a giant lightning storm to kill him, poison him almost to death, or get into such a brutal and long lasting beat down that he blows off Aang’s arm and then nearly kills him through sheer exhaustion and (again) blood loss? I legitimately don’t know the answer to this. However, if the answer is no, I don’t think Zuko ‘almost killed’ Aang as hard as Sasuke ‘almost killed’ Naruto. Therefore, this shouldn’t count as a point against him in a debate over whether Zutara is darker than Sasusaku.

Now, I’m not saying that one is better than the other. I’m not saying they’re identical. My only point here, really, is to show that at least from what I can see…Zutara is not particularly darker than Sasusaku. Yes, Zuko and Katara began as enemies and Sasuke and Sakura didn’t, no Sasuke didn’t ever kidnap her and had to be deeply provoked to try to kill her, but considering how much time is dedicated to moving Katara and Zuko to a point where their relationship has grown beyond that (even as platonic friends, the point still remains the same), I don’t see the reason to hold it against them.

I also said in the post itself that they aren’t identical, merely that they ‘have the same energy’ and that there are some direct parallels between them, so that it’s close enough to make this observation.

Your second ask seems to end abruptly, like there should be a third, but I don’t see one and I have waited a bit to be sure.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on any Zuko and Katara points, but from what I have seen, addressing your specific points, I don’t see the rift between the ships that you do, and would be surprised to find anyone who strongly OTPs Sasusaku and Kataang and NOTPs Narusaku and Zutara.