#this is also shaping up to be the most fucking complicated story i've written ever

[aromothmantic]

NaNoWriMo prep season has begun for me aka "Time to Question All of the Life Choices That Led Me to Repeatedly Attempting This Insanity for Over Ten Years"

[positivelybeastly]

I've got another question for you--how did you feel about Young Hank's "magic arc" during All-New? I've got thoughts and such, but I know this will spur a good detailed response, so!

As you intimated, I do indeed have thoughts, though I caution that my knowledge of this particular phase of Hank's stories I know maybe least well? The 90s and the mid 2010s are my biggest weak spots for Hank knowledge because of my distaste for storytelling trends in the former, and the general just. Disarray of most Marvel books in the latter.

That being said, I did read the books because I was interested in seeing how they handled it.

In a nutshell? Untapped potential. This was most acute in X-Men: Blue, which was simultaneously the best written of the three time displaced books, but which also seemed most interested in focusing on Scott and Jean at the expense of Hank, Bobby, and Warren. The epitome of this was the culmination of the demonic temptation arc.

The fact that it's all brought back to Hank's ultimate desire to want to be there for his friends, to support them, to be there for them in ways he doesn't feel like he currently is able to, is a big plus to me, at least.

That has, at its heart, always been my read on Hank's character - that if he moves on his moral compass, that if he does something rash and ill-considered and dumb, then it's out of a place of misguided good intention, and never malice. That's the heart of my issues with X-Force's characterisation of him as evil, it fundamentally misunderstands that a good majority of his 'bad' decisions are done based on compassion, and it can't bear to even pretend he was ever good or compassionate.

Even his decision to break time in All-New vol. 1 was born out of a want for Scott to be his friend again, out of moral cowardice, out of an inability to hurt and kill a man he once loved as much as his own family. Yes, it was filtered through a dozen brain aneurysms, but that is why he did it, ultimately.

It's also maybe why he's always gotten on with Scott, and then why their 'break up' was so acrimonious. Scott's willingness to do anything to keep mutantkind alive is mirrored by Hank's willingness to do anything to make sure his friends stay alive, but (at least until X-Force), Scott's willingness manifested as morally abhorrent but tactically sound decisions, while Hank's willingness manifested as morally 'better' (no-one got killed) but intellectually stupid decisions that ended up tying things into knots and making them more complicated in the long run.

It's just that, you know, none of this ever really got codified in the books, so it looked like Hank was doing dumb shit to be petty, because Bendis doesn't care about Hank's emotional state.

But anyway.

Hank must be set apart, and appreciated, and loved, or he is nothing. He can't stand to be ignored, or considered useless. That's just the way he's wired. He'll do anything to remain necessary. So far, so good. That's a good read on him. This is the miracle child effect that's dogged Hank's mentality since he was born.

This is really good set-up!

And then it completely bottles it.

I was so excited, man. I thought, okay, so since Warren and Bobby are barely interacting with Hank, and Jean and Scott have their weird love triangle going on with Jimmy Hudson (fuck off), adding Bloodstorm to the team means that she must be a foil for Hank, right? This issue, which introduces her and gives us a view into her mind and makes it clear that she thinks so very highly of Hank, sets up a friendship, maybe even something more, right?

Wrong.

Oh.

Bloodstorm and Hank barely interact again, and Bloodstorm just becomes another accessory to the Scott-Jean-Jimmy triangle, turning it into a weird 'I-don't-give-a-fuck-what-geometric-shape-this-is-'situation. I was so disappointed, man. Instead, Hank is given an almost entirely off-panel relationship with Gazing Nightshade.

And his relationship with his older self?

This is about it for their meaningful interactions, if you don't include him being a bitch to older Hank in Uncanny #600 and Hickman's New Avengers. Considering Hank has changed the most, and was, for the majority of the time the displaced O5 were present, the character who remained alive and whole and who had the most story potential to mine (Warren was memory wiped, Jean was already dead, Scott would go on to die, and Bobby was whatever), the fact that these two barely interact just made me not really care about younger Hank, especially because of two simple facts.

One, young Hank has always been the worst and least interesting version of the character (well, until Percy's Beast came along) because he's just big guy who talks eloquently, and that's fine for a 60s comic, but all of his really unique aspects only came out when he turned furry.

So, you're starting with the least interesting version of the character, which . . . is fine, you can always improve on that. But I don't really feel like they did, because it felt like there was a lack of interest in really moving Hank forward. Both Hanks were stuck in a rut at this time, so, you know, I guess they match, woo. But it just kinda sucked to see so many issues where young Hank was around, and he'd just. Not really do anything that couldn't have been done by another character. He never interacted with any characters that older Hank had special relationships with like young Scott or Jean did, and he wasn't forming new relationships that I could be excited about, either.

Two, younger Hank gets angry at older Hank, right? For bringing them here, wrecking the timestream, all of that? He makes disparaging remarks about turning into a blue homunculus?

Not one single writer every had older Hank turn around and point out that the man who turned them into a blue furry beast was WAY closer in appearance, emotional temperament, and history to young Hank.

Yes, older Hank may be the guy who did it, twenty years or so ago, but younger Hank was the guy who is GOING to do it, because of the tendencies that his magic arc showcased, because of the pride, because of the ego, and his older self, who HAS that context, who KNOWS what he's like, who is AWARE of his personality flaws, NEVER blames him for that! Never takes him to task for the moral grandstanding!

Because here's the thing - yes, Hank CAN be proud, and he can have an ego, but the WORST of it died when he mutated himself, because he fucked up his entire life in the course of one night and he was never able to fix it, just recover from it! He learned!

Young Hank hasn't learned that lesson yet! And despite older Hank being there, and knowing that already, they NEVER talk about it! It's just brushed over! Absolutely goddamn maddening.

Young Hank re-learned a lesson that older Hank knew, and we didn't even get the parts where older Hank even tries to impart that knowledge, because we've got to spend time on bamfs and crossovers to the Ultimate Universe and Kid Apocalypse and the future Brotherhood and a minivan that's bigger on the inside and oh my god what are we even here for, guys? Why are we ignoring this character's obvious main foil, his older self???

. . . Anyway.

It was interesting see Hank turn to something other than science to keep him going, because he knows this is something that's within him, that science is something this version has gravitated towards and excelled in, but he knows that's not always a multiversal constant.

Science is a part of him, but it is not him. Science is just a mechanism by which he understands why, by which he understands because. Hank McCoy wants to understand why something happens, he wants to understand the because, and how he gets there is changeable. So the magic arc should really have been a fulfilment of the promise of these pages from Endangered Species.

But I don't really feel like it really went anywhere. I don't feel like anything new was revealed about Hank through his flirtation with magic. He'll do anything for his friends, even make desperate, dumb decisions; he'll transform himself in the pursuit of knowledge; he'll fix what he broke, and people will take him back with a slap on the wrist and then they'll go back to mostly ignoring him. (It was very significant to me that young Hank's demonic corruption happened without anyone noticing, because Hank is a king of seeming fine while his life is falling apart, and some things really do never change.)

All of these character traits had already been established by previous storylines, but better, tbh.

It was repetitious, just like older Hank's repeating arc going on at that same time of making a massive science mistake, feeling guilty and vowing not to do it again, only to be reset the next time they wanted to do a big crossover event with a big science mistake to fit. I can only stand to see the same things repeated without any attempt to break the cycle or progress past it so many times. This is partly why feline Hank's story has always felt so impactful to me, because it always felt like it was moving forward and he was changing and growing. He learned. At least, it felt like he did.

I don't really think anyone was learning anything in All-New vol. 1 and 2 or X-Men: Blue. I felt like I was just killing time, reading a mostly Scott and Jean centric book that Hank occasionally guest starred in.

As for what came after Extermination - the fact that no-one picked up on the fact that older Hank should have known magic once the memories merged is kind of confirmation to me that no-one at Marvel had any real interest in exploring this side of Hank, so I couldn't and can't quite get excited about it.

It would've been at least neat to see evil Beast break out the magic when he got cornered, but like everything else, Percy ignored that, too. If new Hank has these memories, it has yet to be established on panel, and he seems to be more of the traditional Hank wheelhouse, just progressing in a different way, as detailed in the Infinity Comics releasing atm.

If I had been reading at the time (I stopped around 2015, before Hank got into magic), I probably would've been more invested in the idea of Hank learning magic, but as it is, I came back to it a year or two ago while I was waiting for X-Force to finish, and knowing that it all ended with 'and then the time displaced arc didn't matter to anyone but Scott and Bobby' just meant I looked at all of this like, this is a lot of set-up for plots that never happened and never really went anywhere. Shame. There really was potential here.

I kept staring at Hank, waiting for him to do something, to have a romance, to be tested again and succeed or fail, to show he's learned his lesson or not, to bond with Bloodstorm over temptation, to talk with his older self about what he's learned, but instead, he would have one issue of focus, and then fade into the background while everything else took precedence. I just got bored and started flicking through.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it, though. Maybe there's a issue I missed or didn't pay attention to that will 'unlock' this arc for me and make it all crystallise in a way. I'd love to be wrong.

[reasonoptional]

Hey how's it going, handsome?

Can you put together your top 5 Sanderson's oeuvres? Can be top 7, if needed, but no more than 10. Okay, 15 tops.

Or bette

This is hard to answer, because I just love his stuff the Cosmere so much. First, why the cross-out?

The Alcatraz series didn't make much of an impact. I suppose it would have been so much better if I had read them in 8th grade, but he hadn't written them then. I mean they're funny, but it's just not my thing (plus, my mom was a librarian, and she's definitely not into world domination. That I know of)

Same for the Cytoverse series, I suppose. I really did like one aspect of it (the humans' position in the universe, won't get more spoilerful than that), but on the whole, reading it when younger is better.

But now on to the stuff I did like and read several times, in order:

Warbreaker: the first book of his that I've read, and a great intro to the wider Cosmere, even if you don't know what that is. The one thing that struck me from the beginning was how scientifically it approaches magic, without lessening it. All the characters are sympathetic and multidimensional, even the psycho murderers. Plus, the god Lightsong is one of my favorite characters ever, up there with Sam Vimes from the Discworld. Gotta love a god who's skeptical of his own religion.

Elantris: Hooked on the first page, and the premise is fantastic: there is a city where (certain) people live like gods, surrounded by light and harmony and power, forever. And then ten years ago it all went to shit, and now Raoden needs to fix it, while his intended wife has no idea he's dead (it's complicated), and the militant religion from the neighborhood empire is stirring up a whole new batch of shit.

I had written several paragraphs about each of the Mistborn series (The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages) but then decided that it's too spoilery, so I'll just put the whole first series as a whole: an evil power threatened the world, and a hero rose up to challenge it. He failed, and now, a thousand years later, the bad guy is still emperor of the planet. A crew of magically empowered thieves decide to rob him. Features well-rounded, fucked-in-the-head characters, a complex magic system, two more magic systems in the sequels because of course it does, warring gods, shape shifters, and a surprisingly tender love story.

Yes, we've had Mistborn, but what about second Mistborn? Well, Sanderson has got us covered, v with the Wax and Wayne series (The Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, The Bands of Mourning, The Lost Metal): three hundred years after the conclusion of the first series, most of the characters have become mythological/religious figures, and the world has progressed technologically, so where the first one was fantasy-standard medieval(-ish), the second is roughly Victorian-level, with the protagonist Wax (a descendant of one of the original heist crew) being a law keeper out in the wilds and a less-than-perfect gentleman in the city. Since the world's deity situation changed, it follows that we get a brand new magic system. As per the norm, great characters (including a very well written and well-treated neurodivergent one), more secrets, more immortal shapeshifters (Soonie pups are this world's Teddy bears, inspired by a dog-shaped one from the first series (who is still around and amused by the toys)) and also there's Wayne, who according to Sanderson was not written; he just showed up one day, stole a hat and started making bad jokes.

Mistborn: Secret History answers up some of the questions the first two series pose, and clarifies very little. But we do get to see the Lord Ruler being condescending post-mortem, and somebody gets punched in a very satisfying manner.

Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell: admittedly I read this only because of the title, but it was worth it: an exploration of what kind of people live in a grim world, where the souls of the dead wander about mindlessly... until you break the Simple Rules, and then they kill you. Strong female protagonist, gloomy world building.

Sixth of the Dusk: a story about colonialism from the native perspective, about self-reliance as an individual and as a people, and the toll it takes to live in symbiosis with a telepathic bird. Confirmed to take place late in the game, as the colonizers came in magically powered starships from the planet Mistborn takes place on.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter: another love story, with pleasant characters, intricate world building (twice), complex plot that Painter doesn't know is supposed to have a bad ending. Brando Sando stated that he wanted to write about having a bullshit 9-to-5 job in a magical universe, and this was the result. Features Design, a lovely young lady who is neither young nor a lady, and everybody seems surprised by it (despite the fact that she repeatedly points out she is not human)

And the best for last, the Stormlight Archive (The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, The Rhythm of War, and not soon enough Wind and Truth). A huge series, almost halfway done, and huge in scope and complexity. Dozens of viewpoint characters, none of whom is mentally fine (with one exception, but Adolin is also getting his trauma in future books, mark my words). Incredible world building (again), complex magic system (again), several plots going on at the same time (again), less-than-perfect deities (again), and an interesting exploration of gender roles, not in the way you imagine (oh you like reading? You're either a woman or a pervert). The main point of the series so far seems to be that magic will solve problems, but you have to solve your problems yourself. Oh, and Shardblades are confirmed to exist because Sanderson wanted big-ass anime swords.

White Sand and The Dark One are both graphic novel series, but I haven't read them yet. But they're probably very good.

As for the non-Cosmere works, The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England is hilarious (and scifi).

[edit the next day] I completely forgot about the Reckoners series, which should tell you everything you need to know about my feelings towards it.

[catty-words]

Your writing is so good that I’m almost tempted to binge all of your other shows so I can read more of it with proper context. You’re one of my all-time favorite authors (both published and non). Thanks for your work!

stooop i'm blushing and getting those sweet, naturally-induced ASMR tinglies. 😳🥺 thank you for this message!

if you want my hot takes on what's worth it, i am quite please with 90% of my julie and the phantoms fic (particularly the therapy fic, and i think the stage diving fic holds up as a good time) and the show itself has a low barrier to entry. it's sweet, it's silly, it's one 9-episode season, and the cliffhanger is compelling but doesn't stop the single season from feeling like a complete enough story so as to be unsatisfying. it's sometimes too much 'written for children' for my tastes but the soundtrack slaps and its quality on its face + the themes of the show all centering around art = essential to life genuinely reinvigorated my love for music and led me to reinvent my musical tastes.

have you already watched crazy ex-girlfriend? i have a complicated relationship with this one because season four spun its wheels so much when the premise and execution up until that point made it some of the most poignant television i've ever had the pleasure of watching. the fact that the end was so mishandled means i haven't been able to bring myself to revisit it since its conclusion. i also haven't reread much of my fic - no taste for languishing in my crazy ex feels, y'know? - so i don't know how well it holds up. to the show's credit, though, being in the crazy ex fandom irreversibly shaped my relationship to shipping and how i approach writing romance (a good case for it having delivered on its themes, even if the end itself is so disappointingly weak). my nhie fic being so well cultivated is owed to my work/time in crazy ex girlfriend fan spaces. but do i recommend it? eh, i really don't know! it let me down and i'm not over that.

cw's nancy drew just finished its fourth and final season, and it's a good time! the editing is really sharp, which helps it take advantage of its genre, but it's not overly scary or upsetting. it's horror-lite! furthermore, it's buffy-style literary horror, where the ghosts stand in for more concrete, everyday problems our characters are dealing with. and ace [redacted] is the character of all time, okay? i feel very genderrrrrr about him; i want a miniature version of him to live in my pocket. the cherry on top is that my fic for the show is freaking cute.

do not watch the 100, do not read my 100 fic. i mean, you can if you want to, but i was in a weird and performative space with my own sexuality when i was fucking with the source material and being in a much better place with myself now, it brings me no pleasure to think about my days in that fandom. also the show did literally everyone dirty, i don't know any fans who feel like their investment in it paid off.

i still haven't watched season four and the show eventually ensambles too hard for the amount of time it has each episode, but sex education is a solid show. i've always found it very atmospheric, its world comfortably lived-in, and some of the characters are near and dear to my heart. last i checked, my fic is the only fic worth reading in the fandom, too, so...

final hot take: i don't care for the witcher's relationship to parenthood, which is like, the show's whooooole deal thematically-speaking. it's a testament to how entertained i am by the slutty little bard that i fuck with it at all. but my witcher fic? contains some of the most beautiful lines i've ever written.

do with this onslaught of information what you will.

[thickenmyblood]

i just spent 3 days straight reading WTSIOA and i have 0 regrets. it was so poignant and well written. genuinely on of the best works i've ever read, in any fandom. thanks so much for sharing it with us. i'm a bit dense so i just want to clarify a couple of things about the fic: why was laurent wearing tight clothes? i saw you mention it in a couple of comments and replies but i didn't understand the significance. also, why did damen say auguste would never scar again? (ctd)

Hello! I’m very happy you enjoyed that fic, and I’m even happier you decided to reach out to let me know how you felt. Thank you for the compliments and the kind words! 

Your questions were very interesting, so don’t feel dense for asking them. You apologized for the length of your asks, so now it’s time for me to apologize for the length of my reply. I get carried away sometimes.

So, here’s what I think.

Laurent has a complicated relationship with self-destruction. It was hard to write it explicitly, mainly because I couldn't use terms like 'trauma' or 'self-harm' or even 'depression'. As you can imagine, writing Canon Setting fics is very hard sometimes. There's so much of modern psychology that just couldn't be included for the sake of historical accuracy. Even the Patran physician sometimes felt like a stretch, and so I found myself avoiding scenes where I would have to show exactly what happened in those 'therapy sessions'. I'm very ignorant when it comes to phycology, and although I did some research when I was writing the fic, most of what I found was related to dreams. So that's what I stuck to.

As a child, Laurent has little control over his life. Abuse is, in essence, the loss of control over one's body and decisions. This manifests in Laurent wanting control in whatever shape or form he can get it, similarly to what happens in canon. When the abuse stops, Laurent doesn't magically gain all the control back because A) his uncle has managed to emotionally manipulate him to the point of making him believe that what they had was love, thus still controlling him from a distance and B) Auguste makes it his life's mission to ensure nothing like that ever happens to Laurent again by basically having him watched 24/7 and constantly reminding him that he's too young, that he's not to engage in certain acts, etc.

He's a very controlling child. He doesn't like Aimeric not only because Aimeric has been mean to him and tried to humiliate him multiple times, but because he can't quite control Aimeric the way he'd like to. Child-Aimeric is very fierce and doesn't care about propriety, something that is foreign to Laurent as a prince. Laurent also likes the fact that Jord and Lazar are, up to a certain point, obliged to obey him. He likes to refuse food. He likes control so much he lies to himself about his situation when he foolishly believes he's managed to manipulate Auguste into sending him away to Akielos. Auguste sends him to Akielos because he's been advised to, presumably by the Patran physician and Damianos. It has little to do with Laurent.

As an adult, Laurent still craves control. Here's where the tight clothes come into play. Self-inflicted pain has a lot to do with control issues and over discipline. As readers, we've missed a large portion of Laurent's life, four years where he goes through puberty, and so we can only guess that his need for control has escalated to a more physical level. Puberty revolves around the changes in one's body, changes that Laurent despises because he knows/has been told his uncle doesn't like them either. And Laurent wants to be liked by his uncle.

He wears tight clothes and tight shoes because they hurt him, because he's uncomfortable in them. I think he's been uncomfortable his whole life, for one reason or another, and through these small practices, he's able to control that discomfort. He can regulate it perfectly. 

His self-harming tendencies go beyond the clothes he wears. He does things without caring much about how they will directly affect him. He has a lot of negative feelings towards himself, some he voices out loud, some he does not. For example, he's willing to give himself to Torveld in exchange for soldiers despite having no sexual attraction towards him (it could be argued that he's internalized that to serve his kingdom through marriage is his duty, but he says very clearly to Damianos that he does not want to be married. To let Torverld fuck him would be a self-rape kind of situation). In the epilogue, he calls his past self a whore. As I said, negative self-talk.

He dresses very stiffly in the books as well, hiding a lot of skin. I always thought the laces, despite being just part of his culture, were very functional to his self-imposed "modesty". They're great tools to show restraint.

Moving on to the next question, Damen says Auguste would never scar again because he believes Auguste will be executed that day. Between the scene where Auguste is wounded and his supposed execution, there are only a few hours. It's not enough time for a scar to appear. 

Now we've reached the juicy bit of this ask. So, Laurent and Auguste.

I agree with your interpretation. Auguste's guilt is immense and unimaginable, and he never deals with it 'correctly'. He blames himself for the abuse, for being naive and too trusting. That guilt makes him feel ashamed.

Laurent can sense some of that shame in Auguste, but he interprets it to be shame towards him. Laurent thinks Auguste is repulsed by him, by what Laurent thinks he wanted, and that Auguste is essentially ashamed of him. That is not the case.

In reality, as I said above, Auguste is ashamed of himself. He was left in the role of Laurent's main caretaker (something that is only heightened by the fact that he is the King—the caretaker of the whole kingdom, in a way) and he failed his brother. He failed Laurent so terribly their lives are forever changed and shaped by that failure. 

Auguste's obsession with Laurent being a child has nothing to do with fetish. It's about how Auguste knew Laurent as a boy before the abuse took place, and how he remembers Laurent being back then. He calls him sweet, in contrast to adult-Laurent who is cunning, and mean, and very much like child-Aimeric. Auguste treats Laurent like a child because he wants that version of Laurent back. In fact, Auguste is convinced Laurent's 'true' personality is sweet, but that the abuse took that away from him. If their uncle had not existed, Laurent would have grown up to be very, very different, and that is something Auguste is continuingly mourning.

I think they're both very codependent and bad at communicating. They don't have the tools to address what happened to Laurent, and so the shame and the guilt fester in both of them, making their relationship very twisted at times. You mentioned Auguste's jealousy, but I wouldn't necessarily call him jealous. I'd say he's extremely overprotective, to the point where he ruins things for Laurent. He kept Laurent inside the palace for four years, not even letting him attend Damianos' coronation. (However, Laurent proves time and time again that he's not to be trusted too easily. He did try to run away and get back to their uncle at fourteen/fifteen). Auguste is overprotective because of the guilt he feels. He's overcompensating, basically.

He kills Benoit because of the disrespect he shows Laurent, but also because he can't stand Laurent's objectification/sexualization. Children are not sexual beings, and to him, Laurent is a child, no matter how old he is. 

He's mad at Torveld because he was overstepping. Courtship is important, and to skip the step of asking Auguste first whether or not he can pursue Laurent's affections is a big deal. Auguste views that behavior as predatory because it happens behind his back. This is why he's so angry at Damianos towards the end. Auguste has trusted him to keep Laurent safe, something he's only ever done with one other person (their uncle, duh, we all can see why he's projecting so hard and why he's so angry at Damianos in that tent. It feels like he's failed all over again, thus he feels renewed shame and guilt).

Lastly, Auguste's reluctance to take a pet has to do with control. Laurent is not the only controlling bastard in Vere, apparently.

Because of his uncle, Auguste has not had a moment of true peace in years. Half his country hates him and accuses him of the worst acts he can think of, and the other half follows him out of fear rather than true and free commitment. To have every action scrutinized… to be always in the wrong no matter what and have everyone dissect your choices…. He's just not willing to bend in some areas. I really think he'd rather snap.

Pets are one of those areas. Auguste tells Damianos he's had pets over the years, but he doesn't go into too much detail. When the lords keep suggesting he beds one (but not ANY of them, it has to be a man who looks nothing like Laurent) Auguste views this as other people trying to control him. He can't do any of the things he wants (hug his brother in public without being accused of being incestuous, rule his whole country, execute his uncle, etc) and so he thinks 'why must I give them this too?'

His reluctance to take a wife comes from the fact that the last woman he liked enough to court was one of his uncle's spies. He had her killed in a horrible way and her betrayal has stayed with him. It makes sense that he's a bit cautious of dating again.

Laurent is jealous of his brother's pets, but not because he wishes he was one of them. Laurent is jealous of them because they hold his brother's attention. He's jealous of anyone who takes or threatens to take Auguste away from him. It's because of this reason that he's so irrationally angry at Aimeric in the second half of the story. He hates the idea of Aimeric, who's always been his 'rival', getting to be in a position of controlling Auguste or holding his affection. 

Despite how much Laurent criticizes Auguste, he can't conceive a life without him. He doesn't want Auguste to die, and he also doesn't want to go away forever and never see his brother again. This is mentioned a couple of times, both when he's a kid and when he's an adult. "I don't like sharing" is one of the quotes that come to mind. Again, codependency.

Lastly, Laurent's dislike for pets has to do with his self-hatred and, controversially, with his slut-shaming. He's been on his knees for his uncle, not just sexually. Again and again, he keeps mentioning kneeling/sitting by his uncle's feet on the floor, being fed by him, etc. I think… Although there's a big part of Laurent that still fervently believes his uncle loves him, there's also a small, tiny part that knows or suspects his uncle's interest in him was purely sexual. Which means he was just a boy being used as a pet. Which in turn makes him dislike pets for reasons he can't quite explain. There's always disdain and disgust when he speaks of them, but it's pretty obvious it's not because he cares about the morality of sex work. That knowledge that his uncle used him is subconscious, but it manifests itself in his dislike for pets. 

How can pets enjoy being used sexually? The only way Laurent can justify what happened to him is through the lens of love. His uncle loved him, and that's why they had sex. Otherwise, to 'enjoy' being used without the romantic component lowers him to a pet status. It's degrading.

The ending is very open. Auguste and Laurent have both done pretty horrible things to each other, but they've done so out of love most of the time. Ultimately, the fic is about abuse aftermath and how different people deal with it. As mistaken as Auguste was, I think it's fair to say he loved Laurent very much. And Laurent loved him too. They both lived their lives with only each other in consideration, but Damianos' presence in their lives shifted that dynamic slightly. It wasn't just the two of them against the world (and each other lol) anymore.

I apologize for this deliriously long reply to your questions. It's been a while since I've had the chance to talk about this fic, and I would hate to think you were left wondering things. If anything I've said was unclear, feel free to message me again.

Also, please keep in mind these are my personal interpretations and headcanons. They don't have to be yours. These were my thoughts as I wrote the story, but they aren't more important than any reader's opinions. 

Thank you for giving me the chance to talk more about this fic, and for being awesome and reaching out!

[dextervexter]

dc for the fandom ask? or lackadaisy perhaps??

-breathing hysterically through paper bag-

-swallows paper bag and starts choking-

For DC I'm literally just gonna be picking and choosing the characters based on whatever DC property I've been circling like a shark so

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

Will Harper My Fucking Beloved....

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

Roy Harper specifically from Teen Titans Issue #48 "Wrong Place Wrong Time" this version has only shown up in exactly one issue and he's only in like ten panels but the design is 👌👌👌 and his bastard vibes are impeccable

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

Kaldur. I'm saying he'd underappreciated because I genuinely think he goes through it the most and he is so brave about it. no one is ever asking ".....buddy are you like...okay?" instead I have to just kind of assume he is :( his story lines are always very complicated and he never leaves the plot as the same person. I think he's demonstrated the most growth, and I'm really bitter I didn't get to see it.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

Lightning from Teen Titans. he's been My Child for like...almost fifteen years. He's also the only character I've kept pretty much every piece of art I've ever made for him over the years. I've even kept the goth AU fanfics...

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

Slobo from the original YJ comic series. apparently he wasn't a fan favorite which lead to him being unceremoniously written out/killed very suddenly at the end of the series. so like obviously I'm okay with shouldering the burden of loving this clearly excellent character. honestly I loved how uninvested he was in the team drama, but the moment someone asked him to help with something important, he was all in, no matter how dangerous or illegal. he was an ass too but he genuinely did care about the team and that was cute

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

Captain Super Jr. (Freddie Freeman) Earth 3. this guy is literally just a walking pile of violence and rage. all he does for the literal five minutes of screen time he has is beat the shit out of everyone and then go to jail. I love this guy. I can't describe it properly but his vibes are that he has no friends, tips poorly, and listens to hyperpop but not because it's good it enrages him and he wants to be angry so he can punch more.

I've written like...several plots about what happens to him after being left behind just because I find him and incredibly interesting concept but also....I just wanna make him sad because it's easy and fun

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

Earth 3 Lex Luthor.....like and subscribe to slap his stupid bald head....

I don't know why but I want to study him like a bug. I'm not proud of it. So I'm taking it out on him