Here's the thing about all the memes John uses in TLT. Sure, Jod is horny for the 2010s, but I can't believe that after 10,000 years he hasn't bothered to get down with any fresh new material. Never mind a myriad of human culture developing its own linguistic quirks - I'm betting the original Canaan House 16 had plenty of time to come up with some of their own. For example:
Skeleton construct #230 (Scotty Boneman) and skeleton construct #39 (Grunkulous Prime) and their long-running feud
Excessively anatomical descriptions for normal actions e.g 'don't you elevate your supercilium at me, Valancy. Stop oscillating your cephalon in my direction.'
Responding to one of John's unfathomable inside-joke references with a solemn nod and intoning the words 'glumpus glumpus' to acknowledge Divine and Unknowable Wisdom
Forgotten objects that may or may not have been sex toys (Cyrus and Valancy's nude portraits are a continuation of this)
[pointing at a picture of any animal that no longer exists] 'What kind of dog was this?'
Necromantically juicing up your muscles to insane proportions before e.g opening a jar, turning a key, writing down a note
Referring to any distasteful outfit as a 'sex ward'
'or as they say on the Eighth: if in doubt, slut it up' (Mercy and Cristabel do not approve of this one)
Tendon loving care
Convincing one another of fictitious new slang from the other Houses.
[after summoning a bone construct/flesh monster/skeleton army] I can never get the nose right
How many of your own joints can you dislocate mid-conversation before somebody notices
Wearing your lyctoral cape any way except in the way that it was intended to be worn
And, of course:
Lyctor? I hardly know 'er!
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Really need a hotd reader to write a crejace fic where jace survives the battle of the gullet and cregan is his hand or something like that PLEASE FIC WRITERS PLEASE
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im not the biggest alhaitham/kaveh shipper (because im a rare pair ho) but it seems to me that in alhaitham/kaveh getting-together fics tend to be... unequal.
the beautiful thing about alhaitham and kaveh is that they're both equally right and equally wrong and equally dicks about it. but the writers for alhaitham/kaveh much more frequently seem to give alhaitham the burden change (the burden of the character flaw) instead of kaveh.
in any good character arc, the main character has a fatal flaw or misconception, and by the end of that arc they have addressed that flaw in some definitive way. scrooge was a scrooge and learned that being that way was detrimental; merlin from finding nemo was overprotective to a fault and had to learn that he couldn't (and shouldn't) control everything and to let go; the wolf from little red riding hood learns that you should stop while you're ahead.
stories centering around romance tend to lean heavily on character arcs, which makes sense. and since romance generally requires two individuals to be vulnerable and open and emotional with each other, it makes double sense that alhaitham/kaveh authors zoom straight into alhaitham's lack of emotional vulnerability.
this bothers me.
in society, individuals are expected to experience and present emotions in a specific way. if someone dies, you cry. if someone smiles at you, you smile back. if you're at a party, you're supposed to be having fun. if you don't do these things, you're seen as impolite at best and a inhuman freak at worst. when these behaviors are frequent it's often viewed as emotional immaturity, or a lack of ability to feel at all. the inability or lack of willingness to conform to societies emotional expectations of you is seen as a flaw and a reason for exclusion.
alhaitham is canonically disliked and avoided for being the way he is. he prefers it this way, but that doesn't mean the people perpetuating this avoidance are in the right. they are the societal pressure to conform that alhaitham blows off. alhaitham could be the way he is for a lot of reasons: avoidant attachment style, trauma, following someone else's example (eg. his grandmother), or just his base personality. it doesn't MATTER. he is the way he is. kaveh having to accept that should be part of the story.
putting the burden of the fatal flaw on alhaitham, making the way alhaitham treats kaveh and the people around him the problem, feels invalidating. it implies heavily that alhaitham's way of interfacing with the world, alhaitham's very SELF, is incorrect. my suggestion is to flip a larger portion of that burden onto kaveh. kaveh 👏 character 👏 arcs 👏
some examples/recommendations:
- make kaveh project his insecurities onto other people but especially onto alhaitham; he's overly reliant on other people for his own self worth, and he perceives alhaitham's lack of positive feedback as a direct reflection of how alhaitham feels about him. but learns along the way that alhaitham doesn't hate him, kaveh's actual struggle is with hating himself and being unable to his own self as worthy of love. maybe throw in how you are responsible for your own recovery, other people can help but you can't rely on them to carry you through self actualization.
- or, kaveh tries to make alhaitham behave more like a "normal" person, to be more pleasant and emotive and forthcoming, and then realizes he's in the wrong for trying to make alhaitham into something he's not, possibly for all the wrong reasons (not because he likes alhaitham better like that, but bc society says that's healthier and a better/more conforming way to be)
- or you could go ahead make alhaitham's issues the main problem but they're too complicated to overcome in a short period of time, so kaveh has to accept alhaitham is doing his best in his own way and not push for unrealistic and unhealthy changes. he could alter his own behavior to give alhaitham space and time and a safe place to land.
that got sappy so it's past time for me to dip out. go forth and ship things; but maybe consider letting alhaitham be a rude stone-faced bastard if he wants to be.
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