seeingteacupsindragons

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Saw some Reader/Stanley fics and was initially puzzled, because, like, he’s a cranky, violent, untalkative chain smoker. I don’t want that guy in my house. Why would I want to marry him?

But that’s unfair. I may not be into him (or anyone, because, aro), but he really does have a lot to recommend him as a partner, as Xeno would certainly be happy to tell you, at length, repeatedly, at every opportunity.

(He’s such a braggart, but he’s also a braggart for people whom he has decided are His, and it’s honestly quite endearing and sweet of him. But this post ain’t about him)

So let’s take a page from Xeno’s book and renumerate all of Stan’s many appealing qualities as a potential husband, because I think it’s easy to forget in the face of his sheer, overwhelming devotion to Xeno that he’s an important enough character to have other personality traits, and that Xeno trusts him so much for good reasons.

Stan’s Laser Focus

There’s no way he’s the youngest special forces commander in history without it. He knew exactly what he wanted early and promptly worked his ass off to get it. There was no dawdling about what he wanted to do with his life.

Stan is efficiency incarnate. No wasted words, no wasted actions, no wasted time spent worrying about incidentals, no wasted equipment. He doesn’t tell Xeno to shut up because he doesn’t care or doesn’t understand, he tells Xeno to get to the point. Because the point is the information he can do something with, that he needs to accomplish his own goals. He’s got shit to do, and as fascinating as the science explanations are and all, he trusts Xeno to have that part locked down.

Goal-oriented is hot. I think?

Stan’s Reliability

Stan is competent as fuck, but this isn’t actually about that. Of course he can be trusted to put a bullet in someone correctly. That’s his job, and he’s fucking fantastic at it. And that’s sexy and all, but it’s not that he can do stuff, as much as he says that all the time. It’s that he will.

Xeno describes this as him being a professional, who will complete any task he believes himself capable of. And...sure. Yeah. But professionals get to agree to whether or not they’re going to take a job. And for the people Stan cares about? That answer is always an immediate yes.

Stan’s Patience

Has to have it, to be a sniper. Has to, to be friends with Xeno with his long explanations of shit. Stan might be efficiency incarnate, but Xeno is...not. Senku is, but Xeno’s not Senku. Stanley will be quiet and wait, listening and attentive, and patient.

Is he hard working? Yes. Does he move quickly and make quick decisions? Yes, and I’ll expound on that at length. Is he also willing to sit and wait for the right opportunity? Yes, because he knows better than to not.

Stan’s Strategic Brilliance

One of the first things we’re told about Stanley (by Xeno, because of course) is that the whole “machine gun greeting” thing was Stan’s idea. Which makes sense! He’s the commander-in-chief. He makes the military strategy.

After all, Senku might be “chief” of the Japanese team and their scientific leader, but Gen is the man listed as “strategy.” Being a brilliant scientist is not the same as being a good strategist. There are, after all, different kinds of intelligence, and in Mecha Senku questions, Xeno openly admits that he would beat Senku in a match of rocketry because it’s his specialty, but Senku might well beat him in “general science.”

Military strategy is Stanley’s specialty.

Petrifying light he doesn’t understand? Well, he intuited from Xeno that staying awake would help you when petrified, and realized immediately that the petrification was unavoidable. Therefore, his instant orders were to protect yourself/get cover (and we see people globally taking defensive positions when the world is getting petrified again, which is called out later as the smart thing to do) and stay awake. Stan gave good instructions in seconds with no time to think of a plan, while he’s enacting his own plan of “Protect Xeno Because Xeno.”

Xeno is getting spirited away with Senku and co.? Shoot for the arms of the best fighters, obviously. Called out as a terrifyingly competent decision. Like, we get him silhouetted in very imposing fashion when Senku and co. realize what he did. And for that matter, looking immediately to Xeno and realizing it was Morse code and immediately taking notes (or...making Charlotte do it, but whatever). Panama Canal? Knew what he had to do, and what Senku and co. were doing. Realizing, because he knows Xeno so intimately, that Xeno was sending them a warning, and decided what to do about it without even knowing that the warning was.

The moon situation, where he realized negotiations were going to shit and that he needed to approach the situation differently and now? His quickly put together threat worked, and the freakish alien machines complimented him.

He’s good in a crisis. Like Jesus is he good in a crisis. This is the man I want at my side when life goes to shit and my house burns down or floods or my parents die or like, idk, other life shit you want a partner for.

Stan’s Composure

While Stan does lose his shit sometimes, for the most part, he keeps a very cool head under pressure. This is probably in large part because of his military training, but it doesn’t really matter where it came from, just that he has it. He worries, but he doesn’t worry needlessly, doesn’t worry loudly, doesn’t worry others, and he doesn’t panic even when he’s losing his shit. Prepares for the worst scenarios while planning for the best.

Panic doesn’t help. Gotta make decisions based on logic, and logic says calm down and trust himself, his abilities, and his allies.

Being calm under fire is just hot. I think. Probably.

Stan’s Leadership

Stan is/was a military officer who jumped the ranks quickly...and officers don’t get promoted for being good with a gun. They get promoted for being good leaders.

And leadership—real leadership, not just ordering people around—is rooted in trust. Trusting your people to know what they’re doing and to actually do it. Trust from your people that you know what you’re doing and your decisions are sound.

And we see that. He also trusts Charlotte’s piloting to lead everyone away from him, and she in turns trusts him enough to commit a war crime for him (girl, maybe don’t, the Nuremberg trials would have your head). He trusts Maya to keep Gen handled enough to not even look back when they’re headed down to the submarine, and she trusts him enough just stand back to let him handle the Perseus takeover. He trusts Leonard when Senku and co. suddenly pick up speed even though it makes no sense and Leonard himself is freaking out.

They trust him enough to question his conclusions and add their own input, knowing that he’ll actually give them a reason and they won’t get punished for “questioning” or insubordination—I think they genuinely expect an explanation more than him to change his mind. Charlotte says he “wins every game he plays.” They trust him enough to walk into battle next to him and they trust him to keep them safe, and that he’s deserving of that loyalty.

Stan’s Brilliance Just in General

Stan’s not a scientist. And he tells Xeno to shut up a lot. But he doesn’t ever do this with the implication that he doesn’t understand what Xeno’s saying. He pretty much always cuts Xeno off because they’ve got more important, practical concerns. Stan knows how to set Gen up for the makeshift polygraph and that’s what they’re doing without being asked. He recognizes what a pyrophoric weapon is, even if he can’t remember the exact word. All Xeno said was that the stone swallow still had brain waves, and Stan correctly realized that meant keeping awake would keep you alive.

And snipers...cannot be stupid. He has to do so much math, and he does a lot of it without fancy equipment or his tables and charts he would have had pre-petrification. We see him calculating geometry in his head to find Senku in seconds, because all he has is seconds. We see him measuring and identifying potential targets are quickly and decisively, and when Luna looks over at him, his training says to be frustrated, but his head recognizes the opportunity. He wakes up from being a rock for 12 years, and does basically instantaneous math he would never have had to even imagine before—and it’s correct.

His character profile implies this is because he’s been such close friends with Xeno for so long and seen so much of his work that he’s just internalized a lot of this. AKA, he can keep up with Xeno, and he understands what Xeno is doing, even if he doesn’t especially care.

Stan’s Honesty

I think this one might be what I would find most appealing in a partner: Stan doesn’t lie.

He’s smart as hell. He’s capable and competent as hell. He never says he can’t do something...but if he couldn’t, then Xeno trusts him to say that.

After all, “If Stan says he can do something, then he can,” isn’t a statement of Stan capabilities. It’s a statement that Stan is honest about them. Xeno says that Stan will complete any task he believes himself capable of. He won’t tell you he can do something if he can’t. He doesn’t need to brag. He doesn’t need to show off. He doesn’t need to tell you he can do something he can’t when he has so many things he can do.

Which speaks to a kind of inner self-confidence that is honestly amazing. He trusts himself, he trusts his people, and they trust him because he is reliable, trustworthy, capable, and honest.

The Marines have a motto of “No better friend, no worse enemy” and Stan is that to a T.

Hot.

(People find that hot, right?)

[seeingteacupsindragons]

there’s a thing I think about sometimes when I’m writing that I call ‘the rabies condition’

by which I mean: there are no contraindications to getting the rabies vaccine for post-exposure prophylaxis.

every other vaccine usually has a few contraindications like ‘don’t take this if you’re allergic to it’ or ‘if you’re pregnant discuss the risks and benefits with your doctor’ or ‘don’t give to children below age 6′ or something, but not the rabies vaccine. if you’ve been exposed to rabies, there is literally no medical reason that can justify not getting the rabies vaccine–you can be deadly allergic to literally every single ingredient and the correct decision is still to administer the vaccine, because if you don’t, you’re 100% guaranteed to die of rabies. even the life-threatening allergies are a step up in survival rate (especially since anaphylaxis is something that can be managed, even if there are risks associated with it)

which is to say, the rabies condition: if a character has been ‘exposed to rabies’, aka, in some impending absolute worst-case scenario, like the apocalypse or some death curse or the destruction of their entire city via demons or whatever, then that character has to take action and the consequences and risks no longer matter, because literally any other outcome would be better, and 1% chance of survival is still better than 0%. that doesn’t make those actions necessarily good, the same way that injecting yourself with something you know you’re deadly allergic not a good thing to do, but it’s still better than dying horrifically of rabies. desperate times and desperate measures etc

and then, after your character’s prevented some horrible thing by doing some almost equally bad thing, they should absolutely experience the consequences of those choices.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

One of the fun things about Stanley and Xeno both working for the US government is that their salaries are readily available publicly. I could also backdate the information to 2019 if I wanted to, but I don't, so.

I mean, that pay's not great, honestly, but for a 25yo? He's doing okay. And if he doesn't live on base, he also gets a housing allowance that varies depending on where he's located. Of course, this would mean he's born quite a bit later than he is in canon, but I don't really feel like backdating this six years.

Xeno is a little trickier because we can't intuit his exact role. But he does seem to be NASA's preeminent engineer even at his age, and he's well-respected enough to get called upon for unrelated tasks. Ryusui calls him the world's best rocket engineer, but that doesn't necessarily mean he had the highest possible role at NASA.

But let's presume he did. He did have a Ph.D. at 19 after all.

So let's give him a GS-15 scale, which is the highest you can go without being an executive. It's usually supervisors, but top skill individual contributors can sometimes get it, too. According to Reddit, NASA is one of the fastest tracks to getting a high GS level anyway.

Unlike Stanley, we need to know where Xeno worked, but we do! Houston! Because that's where the JSC is, and that's where he worked.

The highest possible Step he could have in his service is Step 5, because as good as he is, he's only so old and can only have so many years of service.

Which would mean he was only a GS-15 for two years max, but that means he probably jumped pretty quickly up to it. Which also implies he has satisfactory job performance, so we'll just ignore the fact that he probably lived in HR's office.

Let's punch all that into our calculator:

Honestly, that's horrifically low for the student loan debt Xeno has probably racked up. But regardless, that does mean he's probably the one paying their mortgage.

Please also enjoy the fact that at least as far as pay goes, Xeno outranks Stan.

Alas, neither of them are making bank, but they chose to work for the US government, so what were they expecting, really?

And Stan accrues 2.5 days of leave every month, and Xeno is getting two days or so every month.

So at least they get time off?

Anyway, while I was looking all of this up, I found this on NASA's website:

I hope no one put Xeno on there (they probably did).

[seeingteacupsindragons]

I love it when the same character honorifics are basically used as a barometer for an evolving relationship over the course of a story.

"...Princess" (Derogatory)

"Princess." (You have disproven several of my previous assumptions but I'm still guarded and critical.)

"Princess," (Mildly impressed but still snarky)

"Princess," (I am coming to terms with how much your office has demanded of you and am finally considering you an equal)

"Princess," (I genuinely respect you, your office, and how much you have grown beyond it since we have met.)

"Princess." (Uh oh I've started catching feelings and am now using your title to remind both you and myself of the distance between us.)

"PRINCESS!" (You are in danger and I am now utterly devoted AND DOWN SO BAD.)

[seeingteacupsindragons]

you don’t have to write something good. you just have to write something unhinged enough to edit later

[seeingteacupsindragons]

As a writer, I think it's helpful to read "wow that was good I wish I wrote like that" books AND "wow that was good, but I have no desire to write like that" books. And to know and appreciate the difference.

Like you can steal from both types. That's valid. But it doesn't have to be sad that some books are great and also not at all a thing you'd write. Those are still good and valuable reads.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

i'm not saying people shouldn't be reading more books, but i do think it's funny how many people thinking "reading comprehension" is just about how good you are at reading books and not like. criticial thinking skills.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Today I was trying to chat up this girl standing with her friend at a lesbian bar and said “oh are you two together?” meaning were you friends before being next to each other at this bar and one turns to the other and goes with all the venom of a black mamba snake “I don’t know Cara, are we?” and I was like you know what? not my table

[seeingteacupsindragons]

its so hard to critique poorly written female characters without someone coming out of the woodwork to be like "yeah FUCK that bland bitch mary sue she ruined the franchise" like hm. no actually i dont want to be aligned with you actually. i'm good over here.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

if you're writing and find yourself thinking 'this is too weird/gross/offputting/esoteric/ambitious/catered to my specific interests + sure to push away a broader audience' that is the devil speaking and it is a lie. you are already firmly on the right path and you need to double down

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Tumblr is so good at days of the week. Why can't we pick a day of the week to all be publicly bad at art and/or writing.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Random fun fact: the plural of "mongoose" is "mongooses" and not actually "mongeese"

[seeingteacupsindragons]

I have to move my car before Tuesday morning for resurfacing reasons, but it's a heatwave and I, like the emo kid I'm still living as, own a car that is black on black and has a moonroof and I kind of. Don't want to go anywhere near its insides right now.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Personally I hate AI because it uses slave labor, is killing the planet and is making people stupid, but that's just me. The soulless art aspect is just one little piece of my grander disdain.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

do you think that a certain genre of queer person is so obsessively weird about pride flag discourse becuase their flags fill the gaping hole in their personality where a hogwarts house used to be

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Do you know where I can read the jeweller Richard novels in English

They're available pretty much anywhere you buy books :)

I get most of my books off Bookshop these days, myself.