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grimalkinmessor · 9 months

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I love the Light Grows Up In Wammy's House premises but I also think I love it in a very different way than most people do

Like I don't see it as a Childhood Friends/Rivals™ trope for Lawlight, I very much see it as Light growing up being told that there's someone better than him, someone he must not only surpass, but become—and I think he does the opposite of what BB does. He starts to hate L not because of anything L actually did (because they wouldn't have met) but because everyone keeps implying that L is better than him when Light KNOWS that he's the superior one. Beyond finds out that L is addicted to sweets and immediately changes his diet to include cakes and candies, while Light immediately wipes everything sweet from his mental list of desired foods.

He is perfectly polite, he's the baby of the group, and he can do no wrong in every other aspect of life except for the fact that he vehemently doesn't want to take L's place no matter how hard they push him. He wants to become his own sort of detective on his own merit, and he'll be damned if he has to use L's name while he does it. If he solves any cases it's anonymously, under a pseudonym.

And if he ever meets L, they won't be friends. But that vaguely disconcerting teen/man that sometimes sits in the corners of rooms and talks to no one is very interested in what Light has to say, no matter what it is, and seems to both enjoy it when Light talks shit about L and yet is still somehow annoyed by it. They get into heated arguments and he'll steal Light's things and pull his hair and mess up his clothes no matter how many times the caretakers chastise him for it (though even that happens surprisingly rarely). Light would stop talking to him entirely if he wasn't his only hope of getting out of Wammy's little genius factory both physically and mentally intact.

Light makes plans to run away and runs them by the broody teenager he's tolerated, who helps him pick out any holes in his plans, but somehow the staff always seem to catch Light before he can escape. It happens so often that Light even begins to think that someone's snitching on him, but he's only ever told one other person, and he wouldn't care enough to stop Light from leaving....

Would he?

Or, alternatively, Light never meets that stranger in the corner. Instead, Watari happily sternly informs him that L has personally selected Light to help him on cases. Isn't that great? Isn't it an honor? A and B are practically roiling with jealousy, Light should be grateful.

But Light is not grateful. He takes the news with a big ole fake smile, and silently plots L's mysterious disappearance before he's even come face to face with the man. He wants to make it on his own, he doesn't want to be reliant on L's name and Wammy's money and generosity forever, and he loathes the fact that he's been metaphorically chained to L's title in all the ways he didn't want to be.

A tiny Light, accompanying a teenage L places and becoming his face (both because L is petty and because he thinks its funny when police are introduced to a little kid as their Consulting Detective) around the world, all while they throw vicious barbs back and forth and spend quiet Christmases together and throw each other under the bus for fuckups and try foreign cuisines together and struggle to keep (L)/gain (Light) the power and ground they both don't even actually want.

L gives Light all the cases he doesn't want, like he's doing him a favor, and Light regularly calls A and B to smack talk L behind his back and turn the rest of his successors against him.

I can even imagine some amalgamation of both of these scenarios happening, or even eight more vaguely like them in the vein of L and Light being both completely antagonistic towards each other while also simultaneously growing so codependent that they can't stand not knowing what the other one is doing at any point in the day and also get absurdly jealous whenever anyone else even speaks to them.

Or EVEN a scenario where L doesn't pay attention to Light at all until he's grown and out in the world on his own. Light makes a quick name for himself, decidedly divorced from Wammy's influence, and eventually meets L on accident through a case L is working on, wherein L becomes intrigued with him and looks into his history only to find that he's a Wammy kid and L goes "Oh. You're one of mine."

To which Light takes decidedly poorly given that the claim both riles and razes Things™ in him because growing up with the vaguest desires to be like the man in front of you even though you loathe him and those desires were quickly squashed and never thought of willingly or voiced aloud leaves behind both the intense need to alienate yourself from said man entirely and to get close enough to become better than him for all to see and witness—only for Light to find that he can't alienate himself completely from L anymore because L decidedly won't let him and he can never quite seem to surpass him either because L is constantly nipping at his heels, echoing his thoughts with brilliant deductions of his own, and it turns out that trying to intellectually sprint past someone who only starts running when YOU do and has a distinct headstart is harder than it looks.

#long post #death note au #death note #lawlight #yagami light #l lawliet #i legit cannot picture them purely fluffy im sorry it goes against everything in me to right them and pure and loving partners #theyre awful and theyre perfect for each other #wammys house #beyond birthday #alter #a #a fucking...SEETHES when she finds out that L picked the only one of them who didn't actually want to succeed gim #b is more cynical so he's less surprised but he joins in on a's hate in solidarity #on the inside though he thinks its fucking hilarious #grim rants

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 3, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Today’s news starts yesterday, when Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to demand he overturn the results of the presidential election in Georgia and deliver the state to Trump. Raffensperger apparently recorded the call, keeping it handy in case Trump misrepresented it publicly. This morning, Trump did exactly that, tweeting: “I spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia. He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!” Raffensperger retweeted the president’s accusation with the comment: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you're saying is not true. The truth will come out[.]”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Washington Post both obtained a recording of the conversation and published news of the call this afternoon, revealing that Trump had asked Raffensperger to “find” the 11,800 votes Trump needed to win Georgia. In the hour-long call, the president rambled through the conspiracy theories about the election—all of which have been debunked—seeming to believe them. He insisted that there was simply no way he could have lost in Georgia, and cited the size of his rallies there as proof. Trump asked Raffensperger to adjust Georgia’s vote to give the election to Trump by a single vote, telling him that he could just say that he had recalculated.

Trump made vague threats against Raffensperger and the secretary of state’s general counsel Ryan Germany, suggesting that their unwillingness to find the ballots Trump insists are missing puts them at risk for criminal charges. He bullied them—talking over them and at one point telling Raffensperger “only a child” could believe the vote counting was fair-- and warned them that it would be their fault if the Republican candidates lost in the January 5 runoff election since “a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president…. And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the election.”

After running through all the conspiracy theories and suggesting that Raffensperger and Germany might face criminal charges, Trump said: “So what are we going to do here folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.”

Joining Trump on the call were White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows; lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a prominent right-wing lawyer who had managed until now to keep her participation in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election quiet; and lawyer Kurt Hilbert. Meadows was more reasonable than Trump, but he, too, asked Raffensperger “to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward that’s less litigious.” (Raffensperger replied: “[w]e don’t agree that you have won.”)

Mitchell and Hilbert backed Trump and Meadows in their repeated demand for information about voters, including their voter IDs and registrations. This is voter data to which, by law, they cannot have access. (When Germany answered that the state is prohibited from sharing that information, Trump retorted: “Well, you have to.”)

University of Georgia Law Professor Anthony Michael Kreis told Politico reporters Allie Bice, Kyle Cheney, Anita Kumar, and Zach Montellaro that it is against the law in Georgia for anyone to “solicit” or “request” election fraud. “There’s just no way that… he has not violated this law,” Kreis said. Michael R. Bromwich, former inspector general of the Department of Justice, tweeted that “unless there are portions of the tape that somehow negate criminal intent,” Trump’s “best defense would be insanity.”

David Shafer, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, tried to excuse this extraordinary conversation by tweeting that the phone call had been a “confidential settlement discussion” of two lawsuits Trump has filed against Raffensperger, and that the audio version the Washington Post published was “heavily edited and omits the stipulation that all discussions were for the purpose of settling litigation and confidential under federal and state law.”

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer leading the Biden team’s litigation efforts to counter Trump’s lawsuits over the election, knocked that explanation flat. “Trump and his allies have lost 60 post-election lawsuits, including several in GA,” he tweeted. “There are no cases that could have plausibly been the subject of settlement discussion. Oh, and I represent parties in all of those cases, so I would have had to be on the phone as well. I wasn't.”

President Richard M. Nixon resigned after his people orchestrated an attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., before the 1972 election, and then covered up that burglary. What is on this recording makes the Watergate scandal look quaint. President Trump, his chief of staff, and two of his lawyers have been recorded pressuring state authorities to change vote counts so they can steal an American election. Especially considering that we know Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to help him win in 2020, we have to assume this is not the only call like this he has made in the last several weeks.

The only more thorough attack on our democracy would involve the military and, not coincidentally, tonight all ten living former defense secretaries, including two who served under Trump, signed a letter to the Washington Post reiterating that the military should not be involved in determining the outcome of an election. They warned that any efforts to involve the military in an election dispute “would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory,” and noted that any civilian or military official who either directs or carries out an order to get involved in an election “would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.”

This bombshell recording changes political calculations across the board.

Republicans have been lining up either for or against the president, showing their loyalty by backing his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. More than 100 House members have said they would contest Congress’s January 6 counting of the electoral votes from states Trump continues, without evidence, to claim he won. On December 30, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) agreed to join them, at least for the state of Pennsylvania. Then, yesterday, twelve senators, led by Ted Cruz (R-TX) said they would reject the votes from all the contested states and demand an audit of the election results there. They don’t expect to change the election—the results are clear—but lawmakers backing Trump are hoping to court his voters for future elections as they try to step into the vacuum his removal from office will create.

It’s a cynical and dangerous position, and standing against them are lawmakers like Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), who note that the 2020 election was overwhelming and clean, and that Trump is attacking the very basis of democratic government as he tries to change the outcome of it. They are hoping to pull the Republican Party away from Trump and his followers.

The struggle between the two factions was out in the open by yesterday, and shortly before the news of the recording dropped, two Republican leaders sided against the lawmakers planning to contest the counting of the electoral votes. House of Representatives Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is responsible for electing the House Republican leadership and managing committee assignments and who is therefore very powerful, sent a 21-page memo to her colleagues warning that such a plan would set a dangerous precedent, enabling Congress, rather than the states, to choose the president. She concluded: [B]oth the clear text of the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act [of 1887] compel the same conclusion—there is no appropriate basis to object to the electors from any of the six states at issue.”

Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) also issued a statement condemning the plan. "It is difficult to conceive of a more anti-democratic and anti-conservative act than a federal intervention to overturn the results of state-certified elections and disenfranchise millions of Americans," he wrote.

These two defections from the Trump camp were not, perhaps, surprises, but the news of this extraordinary recording now offers an opening for others to slide away from Trump. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), who has been a staunch supporter of the president but who seems to be trying to position himself for a presidential run in 2024, tonight also rejected his colleagues’ plan to challenge the electoral count on Wednesday. His statement split the difference between the two Republican factions. He reiterated many of the Trump camp’s talking points but, like Cheney, objected to their plan to overturn the election in Congress on the grounds that the last thing conservatives, who object to the power of the federal government, should want is a stronger Congress. Cotton's defection is a sign that the recording is undermining Trump's position.

If there is one good thing for the president in all this, it is that this stunning news has taken the media focus off the coronavirus, at least for a few hours. More than 350,000 Americans have now died of Covid-19; more than 20 million Americans have been infected. “Cases are rising, hospitalizations are increasing, deaths are increasing,” Dr. Henry Walke of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Tim Stelloh of NBC News. CDC Director Robert Redfield agreed, adding that the winter months “are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #political #politics 2020 #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP #GOP Coup attempt

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ninety6tears · 4 years

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king-of-exchanges letter

Wooo kingofexchanges is happening again!

I’m a big fan of SK but only somewhere in the middle of my consumption/obsession; with King being heavy on self-referencing and crossover-friendly treatments, I’d be happy for you to mix and match any of my requests, as long as you can see from my goodreads page that I’ve read the relevant stuff.

Basic preferences: I read everything from G-rated to explicit PWP. I love pastiche for lit fandoms but something that feels more off the beaten path of the original style can also be fun.

I love: Angst, pining, subtle UST, first times, or established relationships with some level of conflict to be resolved. Intense friendship stories. Protectiveness in close relationships as well as in those that wouldn’t obviously appear to be protective at first. A character or characters experiencing a type of attraction that isn’t the status quo for them. Relationships that had a falling-out and neither of them ever really got over it. Characterization that focuses on the nature & nurture of who people have grown to be and the unique ways they take care of or need other characters. Insecurity/hangups over worthiness. AUs of all varieties.

I can handle: underage, dubcon, noncon, torture and incest. Character death. Love triangles. Infidelity.

Do Not Want: Fix-its without sacrifice/troubles. Soulbonding/magical soulmate tropes. Disputes centered around marriage as a show of commitment ("If you were really serious you'd have proposed by now rather than just wanting to live together" and all that). A/B/O, mpreg, or any body fluid kinks. More than a mention of Alzheimer’s/dementia.

Christine ‘83 (FIC):

Arnie/Dennis

Arnie/Christine/Dennis

---NOTE - The movie is more fresh in my mind for prompting purposes but I have read the book, so feel free to run with this request for either version. I do like the dark humor Carpenter brings to adolescence without mocking the angst of being a teenager, not that King isn’t morbidly funny in his own right.

We get very little of them together before Arnie starts to go all possessed but we can tell their friendship has lasted a lot of changes over the years. That hospital visit over the holiday (which I remember was more bittersweet, less tense in the book?) feels like the last time Arnie remembered that he's supposed to be a big part of Dennis’ life. But even before all that, there’s a nice dynamic where Dennis is protective of Arnie and really thinks highly of him (and huh, maybe sees something in his looks other people don’t) when it’s not socially advantageous for him to retain that loyalty, and I’d like to get more of that. Maybe they’ve fooled around once or twice? Maybe Arnie was the one who got weird about it, afraid of the eventual rejection, or they’re both just too repressed? I like the triangle with Leigh too, if you wanted to get into the confused jealousy/conduit attraction thing, just nothing that completely dismisses any meaning of her relationship with Dennis if it’s referenced at all.

If Dennis was the one Christine got dangerously jealous of (either because something happens between them or she just knows) how would that go down differently? Or what if the car decides she wants to be shared by them, and maybe likes to watch them do things to each other (take that however you want it to mean) and either their closeness makes the two of them eventually snap out of it, or they all just become a weird evil threesome? I'm also into the idea of some other fantasy/sci-fi AU in which Christine is something or someone else entirely but is still threatening in some paranormal/inhuman way.

Crossover Tags (FIC):

Peter McVries & Ray Garraty & The Stand

Peter McVries/Ray Garraty & The Stand

---I’m interested in how these two would fit into a story with such an elemental moral war. Both are reckless but McVries more prone to hopelessness and nihilism; would he be tempted to join Flagg without outside influence? Would he just kind of wander around with no sense of purpose until Ray found him? It could also turn the existential misery of The Long Walk on its head, with them losing their families and possibly realizing too late the preciousness of life that way. You don’t have to get into much philosophy or plot either; I’m kind of into the everyday pain-in-the-ass minutiae of the post-apocalypse and people finding ways to laugh about their circumstances and reach for each other in their grief. Feel free to write it as full-on crossover with some of the canon Stand characters appearing.

Larry Underwood & Richie Tozier

---If you have some other idea of where to put these two together, go for it, but I had this idea of Richie hosting an occasional interview special for up-and-coming musicians and Larry being invited on when the single’s just out and being so nervous to meet this famous personality, and maybe they get drunk or high together before or after the interview (bonus points if Larry can hardly get in an answer cause Richie gives him the giggles). They’re kinda both assholes so they get along? They’re both assholes so they kinda hate each other? I didn’t nominate it as a shippy treatment but if you’re really sad I didn’t, hey, stuff happens when people party.

The Dark Half (FIC):

Alan Pangborn/Thad Beaumont

Alan Pangborn/Elizabeth Beaumont/Thad Beaumont

George Stark/Alan Pangborn

---I thought the surprising friendship and trust that takes hold between Thad and the officer who initially believes him to be a cold killer was one of the better aspects of this novel, and the way that connection is so soon polluted by Stark's insurmountable connection to a part of Thad’s psyche is chilling and more than a little sad. I would love to get a shippy treatment of their immediate companionship and/or the inevitable disturbance of it. If you wanted to make it a poly thing with Elizabeth, with all three of them not really pausing in the midst of all these maddening things happening to question opening their marriage to someone they find comforting, I would be interested in how that might underscore the events.

And when it comes to George/Alan...yeah, I want darkfic, potentially outlining Stark’s role in putting Alan off Thad in a more sinister way, whether it’s poisoning the well of Alan’s (sublimated? not yet acted on?) desire and affection for Thad by being sleazily flirtatious in pointing it out, or going to a darker noncon place with all the mingled disgust and misplaced attraction that might provoke. (In the context of this prompt, I’m not super into the gross-out factor of Stark being at the stage where his skin is falling off, but if you can’t somehow set it at an earlier stage it would be better to just not mention it.)

Also, I realize Alan has a family, but you can deal with that however you want; his wife can just not exist for the purposes of the story, but even infidelity wouldn’t put me off if you’re taking the character that far out of a healthy mindset.

The Long Walk (FIC):

Peter McVries/Ray Garraty

---Since we’re never in Pete’s head, it would be great to get anything detailing how his initial distance from Ray quickly erodes into the protectiveness he obviously can’t help over him, if there’s a spark of empathy there even before the first time Ray saves him, or what he’s really thinking or trying to say at some of his more cynical and cryptic moments. I wonder what it was that Parker said to him to imply he thought he and Ray were “queer for each other” and how this apparently was covered without McVries feeling the need to deny it?

If you wanted to write them both somehow surviving, I would love to see how their relationship remains in the aftermath; maybe they don’t exactly end up together because they associate each other with this traumatizing thing, and they have an essential but troubled friendship because of it (and maybe they end up fucking a couple times but don’t really talk about it).

In the realm of more absolute alternate universes...a bigoted boarding school atmosphere, an aggressive correctional camp, anything where a compulsive make-out might happen in the bunks or the showers and then be stiffly denied later on sounds like a backdrop I’d love for these boys if you want to do something bleak-but-not-as-mortally-bleak.

I prefer to think of McVries as having complicated depression that doesn’t just stem from girlfriend problems; I’d prefer you mention the incident with Priscilla as little as possible, but any focus on Pete’s scar is totally fine.

The Stand (ART):

Larry Underwood/Lucy Swann

Lucy Swann/Larry Underwood/Nadine Cross/Randall Flagg

Nadine Cross

---My attempts to prompt for art for these tags may be unhelpful but I’m really into Nadine’s scary paranormal bond with Flagg, the imagery of her hair and Flagg’s tainted handsomeness and everything haunted about her and her life, and how the love triangle with her and Larry and Lucy is really a quadrangle of temptations and baggage beyond the usual moral pressure of romantic entanglements. They’re all figuratively in bed together whether they like it or not, but I could see that presented more literally in art. I also would like anything associated with the individual permutations (Larry/Nadine, Larry/Lucy, Larry/Nadine/Randall?). Desperate/melancholy embraces, or moments of almost touching. That ghost leering over Nadine’s shoulder in her moments of getting too close to tenderness.

#stephen king #christine #the dark half #the long walk #the stand #it

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hotheadhero · 4 years

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Valentine’s Day Affection Alphabet, Remainder

I didn’t get many asks, and I don’t want to waste all this writing, so here we go!

It’s very long by nature of how few asks I got lol, so only the first answer appears above the cut.

A : AFFECTION. how does your muse show affection?

Vocally and physically. Vocally generally comes first. Caspar is generally very upfront with his emotions and attentions, at least until he starts wondering if his own feelings start wandering into romantic territory. However, he's something of a motor-mouth, so if the topic starts unrelated but then veers towards the romantic, you might find he actually has entertained the idea of spending his entire life with you, of traveling with you to see all the things or fighting side by side with you forever. Call him out on it, though, and he will get embarrassed, possibly to the point of trying vainly to deny it.

B : BOUQUET. does your muse like flowers? which ones are their favorite?

Floral adornments are canonically one of Caspar’s disliked gifts. Something something too girly, I suppose? Or they’re too fragile and he’ll either ruin or neglect them. He understands the sentiment behind them if given them as a gift and does have a reasonable(?) eye for giving them if he must (question mark because the flowers he gave Celica and Hubert were not the most positively received, but the ones he gave Lyn for instance were better thought out), but otherwise will nearly never think of them at all. If you must give him a flower, at least make it big and/or multicolored and/or dramatically shaped. Maybe then it’ll hold his interest for longer than it takes him to put it in a vase and forget about it.

D : DATE. what is your muse’s ideal date? where / who with / etc?

Spending time with his significant other, especially if it involves traveling, doing something new, or enjoying nature. He lives for the energy, but a peaceful day/night out in the landscape is a great little diversion. Emphasis on “diversion” as a temporary thing: Caspar would hate “taking it easy” and sitting back doing nothing for life. I feel like his idea of a good retirement (from war) is to become village protector or commander of a decent- (but not army-) sized group - anything with diverse and colorful terrain (or at least a big sprawling field) and lots to do. Crowds fuel him, be they friends, classmates, coworkers, students, children, or what have you. He’ll even take rivals too. Favorite known places to settle down probably include Bergliez (of course), Enbarr, or Deirdru. He could do Fhirdiad too, but Faerghus is cold; thus, that city is probably lowest on his faves list. I think I kinda got off-track here, but this is also a developing area for us. x)

F : FLIRT. is your muse good at flirting? how do they flirt?

No, or accidentally only. Caspar can’t even recognize when someone is flirting at him (everything feels like getting teased instead, it seems XD), but he can be a competent smooth talker when the mood strikes him (do I need to name the same two supports again?). he also seems to be a pretty quick learner in this regard, though the only actual support I have for this is Living on a Prayer--everywhere else he does anything overtly romantic/sensual is when he and the partner are already in an established relationship, I think. (Still gotta work up enough prequel to justify that infamous kabedon, lol.)

G : GIFT. is your muse good at gift - giving or do they struggle to get it right?

Caspar does try, but sometimes he forgets to ask point-blank/enough about other people’s likes (and dislikes) and so has to fall back on what he’s figured or guessed about the person through other interactions. His gifts are usually well-received, or at least he doesn’t want to tell me about any instances in which he’s given a bad gift. (Sometimes he leans on me to get a little extra info XD Hi Inigo.) Beware the prank gift, though - those can be horrid(ly entertaining and/or high-effort). See every Midsommar water-bucket prank, his high-effort prank to Azura, or his infamous one to Lorenz.

H : HEART. is your muse quick or slow to give their heart away?

In an explicitly romantic context, Caspar is both slow and quick to give away his heart and to just one person, mostly because he can’t seem to tell when someone is being romantic with him most times or when he is falling in love with them. It probably happens sooner than he realizes or initially acknowledges. However, he’s loyal to a fault regarding his friends; and the more comfortable he is with someone, the more likely it is he’ll seek them out or spend hours of the day with them (currently, Linhardt is the biggest benefactor here). Spend enough time with them, and you may well be the one he subconsciously gives his heart to~

J : JEALOUSY. does your muse get jealous in a relationship?

Highly subject to change given Caspar doesn’t have an established relationship in TOA canon right now (both relationships he does have are currently marked as war phase AU), but yes, he gets jealous. As with any other distressing topic (e.g. his dad’s involvement in Petra’s dad’s death), he tends to keep his jealousy to himself (though it leaks out in the way his behavior around especially his partner and possibly everything else is a bit hastier and angrier) until forced (term used liberally) to confess. Based on LoP and slightly on his lines upon being denied transferring classes or being killed in battle, following confession to the object of his jealousy, his thoughts would be largely if not entirely self-destructive: I wasn’t good enough; I was never good enough; will I ever be good enough for anything if I couldn’t be good enough for them? Having not further explored this topic previously, I feel like this sense of inadequacy is the single most likely thing to take all the wind out of his sails: He’ll live simply by going through the motions of it; his once-bright eyes will be dull; and good luck getting him out of his funk by any means other than helping him find a new reason to go on. Duty might not cut it at this point; he might need something more personal.

K : KISS. is your muse a good kisser? why / why not?

I only think he’s not good at kissing. Apparently Caspar has other ideas. In all seriousness, though, he’ll be incredibly awkward at it the first few times around (see Amy’s and Hilda’s first kisses), but he’s a quick learner with a great memory for the physical and kinesthetic. He may just surprise you with his boldness...

L : LOVE. who does your muse love?

Depends both on the verse and on either how well I can build him towards it or how quickly he realizes, on his own or with the partner’s help, that he’s in love. ... Typically when I think about this sort of thing, the pre- and post-established relationship parts are the first thing that occur to me; buildup/courtship/etc. are a giant blank. Currently, he loves Linhardt in CF and Hilda in VW. He/I haven’t made any effort to build any other potentially romantic relationships with him yet, but based off game events, but there are about half a dozen possibilities among in-game characters throughout the houses, and I can’t exclude transfer students either.

O : ODE. does your muse have a way with words?

Linhardt seems to think so XD Caspar will never win any awards for prettiness of prose or voice, but he’ll always tell it like it is: simply, honestly, and straightforward. He’s too blunt to deal in poetry (let alone manipulation by any means other than puppy-dog eyes), but he has his moments, usually when he’s channeling his magnificent insight, trying to cheer someone up. Far more common for him to have different moments entirely though... aka put his entire foot in his mouth, even when he’s trying to console a friend.

P : PARTNER. what does your muse look for in a partner? looks / personality?

Also subjective, but let’s see... Caspar would want someone who will put up with him even if he gets a little wild at times. Someone who won’t mind him protecting them (though he won’t say no to someone who can protect themselves either, given his usual favored activities and line of work). Someone who won’t tie him down with expectations he can’t meet or rules he must abide by, who lets him live as he wants and even join him on this crazy ride of coupled life. Someone who understands him, even when he doesn’t understand himself, who will be there when he needs them most. As far as appearances, though, I can’t tell if Caspar has a type. Every one of his most likely love interests look so different...

Q : QUESTION. would your muse ask the big question or expect their partner to?

I can’t tell, but I suspect that since “the question” (of marriage, presumably) comes well after a confession of love, Caspar, being the passionate and high-energy dork he is, would pop the question first. Then again, he knows this is a big decision and doesn’t want to mess this up, so he’ll probably take a while to figure out the “perfect way” to say it... which may well result in some of his pensiveness showing on his face, his partner inquiring after its source, and him bum-rushing (after putting up less resistance than he’d like) into blurting out “the question” and forgoing all his elaborate plans. XD

R : ROMANCE. is your muse a romantic or a cynic?

Given those extremes, definitely a romantic. He has a storybook vision of how love is supposed to go and an overactive imagination to magnify it further. It’s as easy for Caspar to run his mouth on this topic as any other, and he gets actively embarrassed when caught baring his romantic notions like a sap, e.g. with Shamir (most blatantly) or Dorothea (when her teasing catches him off-guard because his imagination ran ahead of her). He can be a cynic in some regards... but none of them relate to romance.

S : SWEETHEART. did your muse have a childhood sweetheart?

Hard to say. Most everybody gets coded as various levels of friend, so whether Caspar realizes if “bestest friend ever” actually means “childhood sweetheart” is a mystery. That said, the only person who might qualify as that is Linhardt...

U : UNREQUITED. has your muse had their heart broken?

Currently, he’s too oblivious/naive in love to have had his heart broken. Not a difficult feat to accomplish when everyone is a “friend” until they tell him otherwise. Once he gets into a relationship, long-term jealousy and any other egregious breach, e.g. spending way too much time with somebody else clear up to cheating on him. is highly likely to do it to him.

V : VALENTINE. how does your muse feel about valentine’s day?

“Candy!!! Oh, I guess couples are kissing too. Bit weird that they’re doing it out in public, but that’s their right, I suppose. I wonder if I’ll ever have someone to kiss like that?”

W : WEDDING. would your muse get married? why / why not?

Having not previously thought on this topic... He would, readily. However, if his partner isn’t up for traveling all over the place, he might end up being a bit of an absentee spouse or parent. Most likely sin would be giving his loved ones too many “things” instead of himself/his time for making memories - and that would be almost entirely by accident, since he wouldn’t even think that he’s doing it (or at least the over-gifting) wrong unless prompted by his spouse.

X : XOXO. does your muse use / like pet names?

Maybe? Not really? If he does, he only tends to use shortened versions of their names (e.g. Lin instead of Linhardt) rather than something more creative (e.g. honey/dear), but not everybody’s names can be so conveniently shortened (e.g. Hilda), and he always uses everybody’s full name (or title, e.g. Father not Dad) in-game. It’s a pretty good step up if he makes and uses a nickname on you. That said, in the manakete!AU I have with Linhardt, he’ll actively refer to him as “tyke”, “kid”, or “child” because that’s what he looked like to him when they first met as humans.

Y : YOURS. does your muse get protective easily?

Oh boy. In the short and “monogamous” term, Caspar will protect any part of his partner that needs protecting - mind, body (or part), soul, honor, you name it. He would offer to walk his spouse home at night or worry after their safety if they’re gone from him too long (being a military child + a morning person, I imagine Caspar is good with time and probably not above setting time limits/a curfew if need be). In a broader sense - Caspar is used to being the brave, strong, upbeat one, the rock to which drowning souls can cling to, the shield behind which everyone else can take refuge. He is, emotionally and physically, a protector; he knows that an unshakable confidence and faith are as effective as a stout body in keeping others safe. According to LoP, his protective streak can and does run all the way out to sacrificing himself for his friends - he can’t stand the thought of things going the other way around. I need to explore this further, but some combination of heroic notions, his father’s stories/actions/fate (especially in non-CF routes), and a well-buried worthlessness/inferiority complex from having never lived up to his father’s precise ideals for him and/or having always worked so hard for so little recognition (see: Julian’s existence, his failure to inherit his family’s title anywhere outside of CF except when marrying Annette, and a teatime line (“They say hard work pays off, but I don’t think that’s always true”)) quite clearly make him think he’s expendable. Caspar hardly ever expresses such negative thoughts and in keeping with his (self-imposed) role as the army’s morale-booster, he’ll put a positive spin even on his own gnawing thoughts. There’s one post in LoP where Caspar tries very hard to stay happy for Linhardt, even though they’ve both just vented all their fatal worries about their fates in the war. Even dying, knowing he’s doing so because he lost/bit off more than he could chew/failed, he refuses to let others worry about him. (”Don't worry about me... I always knew...losing meant death... “)

Z : ZZZ. how many people has your muse slept with?

Possibly subject to change, but - no one besides whoever he commits to. After all, sleeping with anyone else usually involves casual relationships (which I can’t really see Caspar going for under most circumstances) or lying to your SO about doing it (and he explicitly hates lies).

#headcanon #valentine

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