#gakuhou's A plus parenting

[luna-loner]

Day 1: Paint Tales From Their Childhood

Asano Gakushuu:

It wouldn't surprise anyone to know that Gakushuu was an expert in the many forms of art; and painting certainly was on the list. What they might not know is that he's been doing it since his diaper days.

Good Guy Gakuhou fawned over every single masterpiece his little Da Vinci made, believing that each one meant something important about his child's development. Each one.

"He already understands the concept of complementary colors!" He squealed when he Gakushuu used red and green.

"He's figured out how to mix colors!" He exclaimed when Gakushuu accidentally added blue to the red blob he 'drew' on the canva.

"Oh, he's practicing Kanji already." He smiled at the random brush strokes his infant son would make. He legit believed every stroke was his boy trying to draw a kanji he'd seen before.

It's safe to say Gakuhou has an album dedicated solely to Gakushuu's artwork, which he still keeps to this day, partly to subtly brag about his kid, and partly to tease said kid.

Sakakibara Ren:

After doing a finger painting at school, little Ren went home with a new goal in life-- to become a painter. His parents got him all the canvas and materials he needed. Ren mostly painted nature scenes since humans and animals were too complicated for his five-year-old self, plus he's always loved nature.

A week later, he was back to his books. He didn't touch his art supplies again until mother's day when he decided to author a short story starring his mom; and since it was going to be about his mom finding a magical rose garden (her favorite flower), he decided to add illustrations!

So he did just that. He folded the papers and used the strappler pins to make a book. He ended up with two extra pages, so he used one to write a short poem and the other to paint him and his mom holding hands (he wanted them to be hugging but it was too hard for him to do). His mom has the book to this day.

Araki Teppei:

Once, little Teppei was reading an article on renaissance artists with his dad when he suddenly decided he, too, wanted to be a famous painter. He got out a normal A4 paper and started painting random stuff since he didn't have a clear vision in mind, so he ended up using a lot more paper than he intended.

Eventually, he settled on a family portrait. Sure, the stick figures had disproportionate body parts and the colors were a bit messy, but his dad loved it nonetheless. Not only did he proudly hang it on the refrigerator, but he had his own surprise for his little artist the very next day: A news article on the famous painter, Teppei, was hung next to the artwork.

Years later, Teppei still has the artwork and the news article.

Koyama Natsuhiko:

This boy grew up roleplaying as a heroic wizard in his own little world. One day, he decided he wanted to bring his magical world to life, and what better way of doing so than by drawing and painting background pictures and taping them to the walls? He was home alone that day, so little dude got to enjoy his fantasy as much as he pleased. The paintings, while simple, really made his adventure all the more immersive.

His folks weren't exactly happy with the mess that greeted them once they arrived home. Literally every wall was covered in at least a dozen paper! Still, they didn't scold him for it...because little Natsu was already asleep by then. Evil little gremlin

Suffice to say, cleaning was a pain, and it took them two weeks until they could no longer find anymore of these papers. (Seriously, just when they thought they've put them all in trash, they find one on the ground, under the sofa, or still tapped to the wall! How?!)

Seo Tomoya:

Unlike the rest, Seo seemed to use his art supplies for anything other than art.

Once, he decided to fake chicken pox to skip school after watching Tom and Jerry (in you case you don't recall, there's an episode where Jerry paints red dots on a sleeping Tom and convinces him he's sick) so he did just that and came 'crying' to his parents.

His parents didn't buy it, and a grumpy little Tomoya was sent packing to school.

When Halloween was right around the corner, Tomoya decided he wanted to be an alian and thought painting his skin green would be the perfect costume. Not only that, he also decided to "dye" his hair green as well.

Guess who spent his Halloween grounded? Yup, Marvin the Martian over here.

In a similar instance, Tomoya discovered something called something called food coloring and decided, "Cool! I can make a flame-colored cake with my paint!" Because if it's colorful, it's edible, right?

Fortunately for everyone, his mom arrived home just in time to stop him. He had such a field day helping her clean up the kitchen...

[tuulikannel]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

So I already got this twice so I guess I should try to get an answer out ^^;; It's... really a tough task though, but here we go! I can’t really pick a clear favorite of them all, so they’re just in random order. (Or actually, I guess they're in the order in which they've last been updated/posted.)

1. Caught Between, my Hikaru no Go fic where Sai's a real kid with dreams of turning go pro, an intersex condition, and not... the greatest parents in the world, I guess. (His mom has grown on me though.) I've talked about this fic a lot before, so I'll just say that I'm so glad I finally started posting it and that I've managed to nearly reach the end - still need to wrap things up, but at Sai's finally where he wants to be in live, so in that regard, all's fine.

2. blind alley, Assassination Classroom fic which, as usual for me, is basically about Shuu's relationship with his dad. The summary is rather short: "One day, Gakushuu decides to end it all. Just, all does not end that easily." I've said it before, I don't even know why I like this fic so much. Maybe I'm just a sucker for sad things? I don't think I've ever said anything about the title, have I? Cause this is a rare case where I didn't have to struggle to come up with a title only to end up with something mediocre. I was originally going to name this Dead End, cause stupid puns & Shuu being in a sense stuck in one, but then realized that blind alley refers to the same thing, plus it has the word "blind" in it... and you could say Shuu is blind to the truth for a good while there. (why I decided not to capitalize it, I don't know. Sometimes things just look better like that to me.)

3. oneironautics, AssClass & The Sandman crossover (no knowledge of Sandman required.) Again, Shuu and his dad are in the spotlight. It's just that I like Gakushuu, I found Gakuhou simply... intriguing. What's going on his brain? How did he really go so crazy? I've never felt like Ikeda's death would have been quite enough for that. They hadn't even been in touch for years! So, yeah, I guess one goal for me in this fic was to create him one potential background where all the problems have their roots. Also, writing dreams is fun. ^^

4. Ok, those first three were clear, but now it's getting hard. I've two random Hikaru no Go fics in mind here... maybe I'll pick the one that showcases my fic-naming abilities, It’s the Zombie Apocalypse! XD Its birth was absolute randomness, once upon a time in the hikago community on Dreamwidth people were playing Let’s Five on Hikago Day. Someone asked who'd be the five characters who'd survive the zombie apocalypse, and reading the answers I was attacked by a rabid plotbunny. This fic... it was just so fun to write. And I like how it's got a true ending and a bad ending (the reader's choice determines which you get.) (And, dammit, I'll mention the other fic I was just considering too: Chika-go, the Hikago & Dresden Filess crossover. Another fic that was really fun to write. And it has my first ever battle scenes. XD Also, I like the title for various reasons. ^^)

5. Then, finally: The End of Silence (The All Paths Lead to God of Go Remix), yet one more Hikago fic. This is perhaps a bit surprising choice, but I can’t help it… there’s something about this little fic I really like. It’s a remix, as you see (tho in all honesty it’s more like a sequel than a real remix, I feel), of Flonnebonne’s drabble The Silent Path where Akari, not Hikaru, was the one to end up with Sai. I had always wanted to write about Akari more, but somehow never had any inspiration. This (though I'm sure it's not exactly what anyone expects XD) fixed that.

[le-panda-chocovore]

I'm finally awake enough to write something coherent so if I may, allow me to ramble back :

You're 100% right about the fact that this AU changes nothing about their actual dynamics, honestly I used to dislike the sibling AU so I totally get you. But now I just think it'd be hilarious, plus we can put some depth in this scenario so here's my takes on the Asano-Akabane Drama :

Gakuhou disowned Karma so he's just acting as if he has only one son and that's all. Gaksuhuu isn't allowed to mention his brother at all.

There's a woman out there who divorced Gakuhou Asano and wasn't completely ruined by the process and I fucking love the idea of them fighting with a fake politeness in front of their lawyers (I think she must be as manipulative and smart as him if they were married). I'm sure she took a few valuable things from him.

Gakushuu and Karma try to hide that they're related. When people find out they just throw a bunch of lies to explain the family drama.

Karma is petty and angry and hurt so he wants to prove to his dad that he is worth something. He's going to show him that he can beat his golden boy without Gakuhou's special teaching, he'll show him that it was a mistake to abandon him. So the reason why Karma cares so much about not putting too much effort into his work is especially because Gakuhou encourages everyone to push through their limits, and Karma is willing to prove to him that he can be better while being lazy. And this is also why Karma is one of the few in Class 3-E who really cares about his grades since the beginning and is ashamed and dissatisfied with himself when he's not at the top.

Gakushuu kinda resents Karma because he got to leave the home and live happily far from their father. Karma has everything Gakushuu secretly wants but knows he can't have, so he's jealous and wants at least to beat him at exams to prove to Karma that he IS the better son. Crushing his enemy is what he has been taught since childhood and his academic status is the only thing he really has.

Gakushuu thinks his father's weird attitude toward Class 3-E has something to do with Karma being there, but he can't ask about Karma because Gakuhou keeps pretending the boy doesn't exist, and he can't ask Karma himself because... well they're not really close actually.

Their mother didn't want to leave Gakushuu with his father, but the boys were given the choice of whose parent they wanted to live with and they had different preferences. The mother tried to stay in contact but Gakuhou actively stopped her, and she eventually got too busy with work to keep trying.

(I also read a fanfic where Karma changed his first and last name so Gakuhou genuinely has no idea that the boy is actually his son)

Alternatively, if we want to step out of the resentment route : they both dickheads and they do fight for the first place but they don't actually hate or dislike each other. They have a "normal" sibling rivalry and they care about each other. They bond over trashtalking about their parents. And just imagine their friends' reactions when they find out that the two are related. Karma's just like "yeah he's my brother" as if it's not the second most improbable thing in the world after Koro-sensei's existence.

What do you think of Siblings Karushuu AU ?

Short Answer:

It's fine, they're cute... I guess. I don't care much for it, not because I dislike the idea, but because I feel like them being siblings doesn't really add much to their existing dynamic.

Long Answer:

I attempted to write Siblings!Karushuu early on. I have 1 complete oneshot, and I think one WIP (I don't remember if I published it in my Scrapbooks collection).

Thing is, I'm not sure what exactly about them being siblings is a draw as opposed to them being unrelated or just interacting in any other premise.

The both of them already have quite a robost family setup that influences their personality - Karma with absent parents, Gakushuu with his too-present father (and ?absent mother).

Sibling AU fics that I've read tend to shoehorn in Gakuhou to be Karma's father, which is expected since he's an established character in canon, and his role can't be omitted without too much damage to the rest of the plot. (Furthermore, if you're the kind of person who is writing a Karushuu siblings AU, you're clearly interested in the Asano family dyanmic (that's actually all there is to Gakushuu) so you're just not going to omit Gakuhou.)

Unfortunately I've observed that this rarely influences anything about Karma. Karma either remains as he is in canon and it's explained that he's a black sheep in his family to have ended up in 3-E, or the plot puts him in 3-A and it's explained that he either has an impending transfer to 3-E/it's his last chance; or that his nepotism is what keeps him in 3-A. Karma's values and principles about academics and the inherent worth of human beings is rarely affected in these retellings (because that's what people like about Karma) but because that's Gakuhou's main shtick, it feels like the whole premise didn't matter at all.

There's even less to say about Gakushuu's mother because neither Karma nor Gakushuu's mothers are present in canon anyways and it's easy to just explain them away as unimportant, given how much space Gakuhou takes up in the mind. Usually I read that their mother takes off with Karma and leaves Gakushuu alone with Gakuhou, so... no changes there.

Another potential appeal is the sibling dynamic between Gakushuu and Karma - but then I'll just question what exactly about a sibling relationship differs from... any other relationship between two unrelated people. Karushuu in canon already has the sort of snarky-bantering-rivalry energy anyways, if that's the thing you're looking for. I've seen fics that write them as estranged by having their parents split them up as kids, but then that's essentially the same as a childhood friends AU. I guess we really can't replicate familial love and the obligation of being blood related unless it's this specific context. The idea that they're cut from the same cloth, only separated by time, but they will eventually reunite... oh hey, we can make them soulmates, put a curse on them, or make a demon pact.

There's also the resentment angle, as overcompeting siblings tend to have, "you look like the other parent" acidity if we throw in a divorce plot. But that doesn't affect their existing interaction, I feel - it gives them different things to say when they fight, but they're still rivals as they would in canon.

I don't know. My point is that I guess I can't think of a premise that would interest me in a sibling au above any other au if I had the option. Any differences that do arise feel miniscule and don't affect the broad strokes of whatever I'm looking for in a fic.

...Not even incest, which is a hot take. Yeah, I read/write and enjoy incest. But come on, whatever Gakushuu and Gakuhou have going on in canon already is far more interesting than anything I could ever manufacture for sibling Karushuu. The strange enmeshment and tension that the canon Asanos have in Mamasano's absence, ...could work similarly to sibling Karushuu's furtive us-against-the-world codependency under their Father's omniscent gaze... if you're into that sort of thing. I could be, but more often than not the Asano family dynamic pulls me away from looking elsewhere.

I mean, I'm just not into the siblings thing. You could be. Don't take this post as my condemnation of Karushuu siblings, I still enjoy reading them and the quality of the fic takes precedence. I've had my expectations pleasantly subverted before.

Hehe thanks for the ask! I love rambling

[emersondarling]