#i don't remember how to tag either

[onthevirgeofdestruction]

Words: 4,473 Warnings: Physical Health Discussion, Exercise Discussion, Financial Requirements Mention, Self-Defense, Food Mention, Passing Mention of homophobia Characters: Roman, Patton, Virgil. Small Janus and Logan Sighting. Universe: Whole Castle Genre: Family Fluff Additional Tags: Logan Sanders | Logic is Extra about Safety, Good Parenting for Nervous Children, Working out Big Feelings™ in a fun way, Familial/Platonic Physical and Verbal Affection, Virgil Sanders | Anxiety is a good big brother

Whole Castle

Chapter 24: Progress

    Roman popped his head into Patton’s bedroom after knocking, and he sat at his table, poking around on his tablet. He didn’t normally pick the tablet over his other options, but he still wasn’t getting outside much. Patton only had educational games, so it was nice to see him playing with them on his own, but this was the fourth day in a row that he’d been sitting on the floor. The occupational therapist said that Patton wasn’t being active enough to catch up with his development.

    “Patton, dear, do you want to go play on the trampoline or go to the park for a bit?” Roman offered softly. Patton shook his head in response, looking up at Roman with mild concern. Roman smiled back at him and said, “Alright, let me or Virgil know if you change your mind,” before closing the door behind him.

    Roman crossed his arms and stood in the hall, wondering how to proceed. Patton wouldn’t enjoy going to a physical therapist, he knew he wouldn’t. But unless Virgil or Remus wanted to do something particularly physically involved, Patton just wasn’t interested in doing it. He tapped his chin and foot, leaning against the opposite hall for a moment. Remus was only taking violin at the moment, and he hates it, so Patton wouldn’t be interested. Roman found a ‘Fundamentals of Movement’ class for kids his age that was full of things he found fun, but without either Virgil or Remus going, he likely wouldn’t participate. Remus’s parents were very hard to convince of anything that wasn’t advanced, so he couldn’t rely on Remus attending a basics class for Patton. He didn’t know how long that unwillingness to participate was going to take to treat in therapy, either. Roman hummed in contemplation.

    There might be a workaround. Something that will play to Patton’s little duckling instincts. It wasn’t surefire, but with any luck, it could be better for everyone. Roman headed farther down the hall and knocked on Virgil’s door. He could hear the TV playing softly inside. It took a moment and the TV noise paused, then Virgil called out that he could come in. Roman opened the door and saw Virgil lying on the bed with his feet up on the wall, watching TV upside down. Roman chuckled through his nose and came in, closing the door behind him so that Patton won’t hear and possibly get spooked by the discussion.

    “What’s up?” Virgil asked lazily.

    “Virgil, would you be interested in taking a class? Something like dance or martial arts? You seem a little cooped up in here, and it could be fun. It doesn’t have to be high pressure,” Roman asked carefully. He knew Virgil struggled with trying new things in the past and didn’t want to bring up those feelings again.

    Virgil looked at Roman for a moment curiously before responding. “There’s a couple of classes I’d be interested in, but I didn’t think we had the money for that kind of thing,” Virgil replied carefully.

    “I know my income is iffy at times, but we can afford it as long as it’s not too expensive,” Roman replied warily. Logan handled the budgets, so he couldn’t give specific numbers to be able to reply with, and Virgil often liked specifics for his anxiety. “But that does mean that it would be nice if I had a few options to find something we can afford as well as something that had a class for kids Patton’s age,” he clarified.

    “Oh, you also want Patty out of the house? Thinking about committing crimes with Logan?” Virgil raised an eyebrow with a smirk.

    “Be gay, do crimes,” Roman replied with a little shrug and a breezy smile. “Patton needs a little more exercise, and I think the best way to get him to do it is if it’s something you’re doing. I certainly wouldn’t want to deny you a fun class, either, but you never asked us about taking one. You’ll both be in different classes still because of the age groups, so you’ll still have you-time. And I’m sure Logan would try to sell getting Janus to go with you to the de—I mean, his mother—if you wanted that.”

    “I call her devil-woman too sometimes,” Virgil whispered conspiratorially. “So you want me to go so Pat will go?” He asked, clearly bothered by that.

    “No, I want you to go for you, and then if I am lucky, Patton will see you having fun and want to go to his own class. This is still your choice, other than the fact that we need to be able to afford it and get you there and back. If you had asked before now, we would have signed you up for something without considering him, but I’m asking now because if you have fun it might get Patton’s little need to be just like you all worked up enough so that he goes, is why I thought of it in the first place. But that doesn’t mean I’m forcing you to go to a class you didn’t choose or to attend at all.” Roman smiled at him, trying to be as reassuring as possible. He didn’t think that if he was Virgil’s age, he’d have liked the idea of having to go to get someone else to go, either.

    “Oh. Okay,” Virgil accepted it very easily, much to Roman’s relief. “A mixed gender class. Aikido or Capoeira for martial arts. They’re both more defensive, which I’m kind of bad at. Kickboxing would be good, too, but I’m not sure Patty would like it. Gymnastics could be cool if the place has a lot of equipment, and it’s not just tumbling. Pat and I love playing the drums at the park, so that’s an option. No kinds of dance that aren’t a martial art. I’d be too uncomfortable, even if Pat might like it. Maybe when I’m older,” Virgil listed off, counting off on his fingers as he lay up on the bed.

    “Goodness, Virgil, you’ve really thought this through,” Roman stated, rather bewildered by all the things that Virgil listed off, without looking at his phone or anything else to give him answers. He didn’t normally handle being put on the spot well for this kind of thing. Roman expected to have to get back to him at a later date.

    “At least half my class is in those kinds of things. I’m mostly friends with the other scholarship kids, but I’ve heard about almost everything in the area. I kind of got jealous and looked it up, too. Feel kind of stupid for never asking, you’ve always tried to find a way to get me things I ask for, you even got that trampoline…” Virgil trailed off, looking up at the ceiling and dropping his hands to either side of him on the bed.

    “It doesn’t have to be about the time, Virgil. Maybe we should have asked you, too. But we’re asking now, and we’ll see what we can do. Is there anything else you are interested in that you don’t think Patton would do?” Roman asked, just to make sure he felt like this was his decision.

    “There’s a motocross class that’s pretty popular, but it sounds really expensive since the gear costs extra to rent, and you have to be at least 14 for it. It sounds extremely fun, though. There’s also a ninja-themed class that everyone talks about. You get trained to jump around and hide in the padded city in the gym. You can do stand-alone classes without signing up weekly. I’d do that just to get to see it. Everybody who’s been always raves about how fun it is,” Virgil answered quietly, noticeably uncomfortable with answering honestly.

    Roman had to suppress a grimace at the motocross class. It was probably too expensive and would not pass by Logan’s silly protectiveness, but he was extremely positive that he could get Remy to take Virgil to the ninja class. Remy loved signing up Virgil for those day classes when they went out before they got Patton. If Roman chipped in a bit, maybe he could drag Janus along, too. But he had to come up with a way to distract Logan and Patton for that one so that Remy can Virgil-sit alone. Maybe some type of educational trip.

    “You have a scheming face on,” Virgil pointed out, sounding very amused.

Finish Reading on AO3

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

imagine...

...that some things have changed (including some marigold ventures?) and Atlas May is like uh oh both lackadaisy & i are doomed, but if i set up my own death maybe only i'll be doomed and lackadaisy might have to shutter but perhaps more so on involved people's terms, such as mitzi being fine financially, but also if she thinks it's her fault that'll be good for maintaining my posthumous Image to her, perhaps she did some defrauding again? and i'll have mordecai, my trusted & effective gunman, be the one to fatally shoot me, & of course he doesn't want to, but it's Mere Work Ethic time, what's he gonna do besides argue at all maybe, ultimately refuse? (no) and he may hate it but he's not going to want to fully turn on mitzi or anything after because then what would have been the point

[theinfinitedivides]

every time i think about how Megan Thee Stallion is technically filed under the bisexual women category on Wikipedia but there's no mention of it in the article itself except something along the lines of 'she's continuously expressed interest in women :))))' a kind of incandescent rage fills me that i cannot even begin to describe. not even remotely this needs to stop

[uncanny-tranny]

By implying that children are too stupid and rude to learn about the world and learn how the world works and how to interact with others, you are casting responsibility away from the people who are responsible for that child's upbringing and placing the blame on the children (who don't have the autonomy given to them to be allowed to decide what they want) who can't help what they do and do not learn, often.

If the children aren't okay, then investigate why before turning to thought-terminating clichés of, "Well, the kids are just stupid and dumb and aren't even worth the effort because they're lazy!"

[qcomicsy]

Lately I've only been wishing to grab a comic about my favorite character and just have a genuinely good time reading it.

[peridots-pixiwolf]

[Start ID. A drawing of @mieczmaszyna 's character Izzy. In the words of its creator, Izzy is a humanoid robot with a white chassis, oval head, black headset, square green glasses, claws, and a tail resembling a cable plug. Ai wears a cowboy hat, vest decorated by a star and bottle cap, pants with tassels, spurred boots, and a red bandanna. He's viewed from the side, kicking up one leg and holding both arms out in front of itself to shoot finger guns, looking excited and rather jaunty. The background is a dull yellow-green, muddied by the warm reddish tone of the drawing, and in paler green are the words "BANG BANG!!" by ais arms. End ID]

robot cowboy!!!

[bijoumikhawal]

also it really is shit how several popular bloggers were like. Horribly bigoted towards ace people when it was cool, but once it stopped being trendy they 1) deleted those posts so receipts couldn't be pulled 2) maybe put up claimed "redactions" or said "omg its been years if you really wanna know wether i still hate those people dm me" but never apologized for their behavior lmao. I don't think any of the people who did that actually changed, I just think they know it's not such an acceptable/fun target to bully anymore. It's really sick how that type of bullying was encouraged for years and how few people repented for their behavior.

[o-uncle-newt]

I read Possession by AS Byatt after people told me "if you liked Gaudy Night you'll like this" and WELL.

Warning- spoilers for both books abound below!

So it sounded great- as a lapsed academic (though not in the field of literature by any means) there's a part of me that loves reading about academia because it's full of such obsessive people, and this book seemed to be exactly that and so I was excited.

Then I read it, and on the one hand, my first thought was "all these people are dull as heck, the only sane modern-day one is Val, and at the end of the day the historical stuff is just two people having an affair, who cares." My second thought was "there's just enough stuff here that makes me think that maybe the author knows that all of this is stupid, like the fact that Val is obviously one of the few sane ones here." But the ending made me doubt even that. Essentially, and I say this even as that lapsed academic, the author could not convince me to care about the important things at stake here, and as a result couldn't get me to care about the people who only seemed to care about those things.

I didn't care about Ash and LaMotte- they came across as two people high on their own supply who had a tawdry affair. (And each of them is the less interesting person, as a person, than their official partner!) As a result of not caring about them, I couldn't POSSIBLY care about Roland, Maud, and the rest of their crew, because their only functions were to be possessed by, and weirdly possessive of, these two entirely unworthy individuals, whose in-universe historical and literary significance Byatt couldn't convince me of, and to use that possession as a mirror for their own very lame romance. Beyond that they're utterly uninteresting, and there isn't even meant to BE much beyond that so it's not that surprising.

Anyway, I didn't like this book much, but it still made me think a lot. And there's a way in which a certain kind of person might say "well if it made you think then that's surely a sign of some positive quality" and... maybe? I don't know. I didn't hate all of it, and some parts were interesting, and I do have a whole separate list of things about the book that bug me including a breakdown of some of the book's (perceived by me) themes that I particularly disliked lol. Perhaps I'll post it another time. So I guess you can say it spurred me to thought, but loads of things that I don't like do that, and the only positive thing that that draws from me is that they're not downright dull.

The thing is, after finishing the book I was immediately struck by that "if you like Gaudy Night..." element, because it has a situation that felt weirdly similar (if for totally different reasons)- a young scholar stealing a letter from a library/archive. The circumstances are different- in Gaudy Night, the scholar does it to hide its existence so as not to contradict his thesis, and in Possession, the scholar does it so as to explore the document further, though still secretly- but there are still some interesting parallels vis a vis class. Possession goes into the class thing more than Gaudy Night does, but neither book goes much into it- the scholar is lower-class and someone who has scraped their way to their position, and is encumbered by a female partner of lower social and academic standing, and in the end they are juxtaposed against scholars who come from an elevated class and who have more money and opportunity. In Gaudy Night, Arthur Robinson is judged by the likes of Lord Peter Wimsey and a college full of women who don't have to do anything but think, teach, write, and grade papers; in Possession, Roland has to convince a bunch of academics of standing and resources to take a chance on him (and while this is more about money than class, he's the main one who's like "maybe it's good if Lady Bailey gets her wheelchair"). Byatt elides over this at the end by having him magically become in demand and on his way to achieving his academic goals, but I think in both books, the class element really could have taken on more significance in the text.

(I'd add as well that Byatt pits the upper-class and moneyed Maud, who of course is doing things for "the right reasons," vs the evil American businessman who clearly... doesn't care about Ash enough? Despite how much he clearly and obviously cares about Ash? The book was way more interesting when he seemed like a valid rival to the British team, who only thought that they deserved the letters more because of their obsession, rather than how it turned out at the end where the American dude is an actual cartoon villain. What made him genuinely less worthy besides having money without class, and of course having the bad taste to be American? What makes one scholar's possession more justified? Sayers was never this unsubtle.)

So that made me think more about Possession vs Gaudy Night, and the thing is, there are actual living people in Gaudy Night! Say what you will about the unworldliness of the academics at Shrewsbury, but you get a very keen view of their personalities by the end, even as they are (by necessity given the rules of their world) subsumed by academia, or subsume themselves in it. And the people who do fall in love are REALLY in love, and you understand why...

And somehow a book from 1935 feels far more interrogative of the possession (or lack thereof) found in love and romance, and just about the place of women in academia and relationships overall, than one from the late 80s. In Gaudy Night, Harriet accepts Peter once she has determined that despite their power differential (brought on by class, money, history, and to a degree gender) he will not threaten her personhood, because he has proven himself to her. In Possession, Maud accepts Roland because she has the power (money, class, position, even height) and so Roland actually cannot threaten her- and yet still that final scene is about her being taken by him, basically to prove some kind of a point. In contrast, in Busman's Honeymoon, the euphemistic sex scenes are about Peter trying to please Harriet.

When I say it's to prove a point, I'm paraphrasing Byatt, incidentally- who said: "And in the case of Maud I had made it very inhibiting. She was a woman inhibited both by beauty (which actually isn't very good for very beautiful women because they feel it isn't really them people love) and she was also inhibited by Feminism, because she had all sorts of theories that perhaps she would be a more noble kind of woman if she was a lesbian. And so she was a bit stuck. And Roland was timid because I am naturally good at timid men. It's the kind of men I happen to like. He's a timid thinking man, so of course it took him the whole book." I mean... yikes, but also that explains a lot. Maud can only bring herself to be with a man who is weak/effeminate (?) enough to justify whatever weird psyche Byatt has imagined up for her, but still she needs to get over her inhibitions and under him because... reasons. I don't know.

(Height is also interesting here as a point of contrast- Byatt makes Maud taller than Roland to make a point about how on the one hand she retains the power but on the other hand there is now even more of her that has to surrender. Peter and Harriet are the same medium height and wear the same size gown.)

I think the thing that most stuns me is how regressive Possession feels when it comes to gender politics on relationships than Gaudy Night does. I'd need a whole other post to talk about this, but the theme of Possession seems to me to be "relationships that produce things (whether art or children) are worth more than ones that don't." Roland is better with Maud than with Val because Val is a second rate scholar who drags him down (while supporting him financially) and Ash is better with LaMotte than with Ellen because LaMotte didn't only inspire his writing (Ellen's contributions are described only in the negative "didn't impede"), she gave him the child that Ellen refused to. Incidentally, in both cases it's the man pursuing a relationship that will give HIM something... But, to paraphrase Peter in Busman's Honeymoon, one wouldn't want to regard relationships in that agricultural light. Gaudy Night is about how two people can produce great things without each other but choose to be with each other for their own, and each other's, happiness. They aren't each less apart, and as I noted in a prior post, they don't need to solve cases together or conjoin their work in order for their relationship to be worth something. It is worth it for them to be together because it encourages some kind of inner balance within them and between them, as people. They enjoy collaborating but that is by no means the basis of their love (and, incidentally, I think that a lot of, if not most, detective series romances fail this basic test of "would they have fallen in love if they were accountants who met on a dating app." Peter and Harriet definitely would have- would, say, Albert Campion and Amanda Fitton have? I do NOT think so).

And here's the thing- another reason why Byatt's quote above is so off-putting is that it makes it clear that not only in the text but on a meta level, the purpose of the relationships is to prove a Point. I found Roland and Maud to have zero chemistry, and honestly I was expecting them to get together 3/4 of the way through and split up at the end when it turned out they had nothing in common- it seemed like that kind of book. I was kind of stunned when they only got together at the end in an "it's meant to be" way because nothing about it seemed meant to be. They were stuck together by that one thing and they each apparently needed the relationship for some kind of self-actualization or historical rhyming or other. (Whatever I say about Ash and LaMotte... at least they seemed to like each other!)

Peter and Harriet... they get together because they love each other. Do they change over the course of Gaudy Night, and over the course of the other books they share together? Of course they do. But if it makes sense, I'll put it this way- Harriet doesn't accept Peter's proposal as proof that she got over her hangups, Harriet gets over her hangups so that she can accept Peter's proposal. Her hangups only matter because they were keeping her from this particular kind of happiness- she was a fully actualized person even with them. She is a person who does things for human reasons so that she can build a mutually happy life with the person she loves, not a little plot mannequin being moved around in order to tell the author's desired Message. People can say what they want about Gaudy Night and its flaws, but despite the intricacies of its construction, nobody can call the characters' actions and motivations anything but brutally human.

Whether within their universes or on a meta level, the books have SUCH different things to say about the value and nature of love, the place of and purpose of sex, the place of art and intellectual accomplishment in relationships, all of the above in the context of femininity… and I can't help but feel that each time, Gaudy Night wins the contest. It's possible I'm missing something major about Possession, and maybe sometime I'll post the rest of my notes about the things I disliked and people can tell me what I'm wrong about- but if nothing else it made me appreciate Gaudy Night even more, so for that I'm grateful.

[miharuhebinata]

you guys really weren't kidding about how fucking good lake mungo is

[energeticpoltergeist]

i have yet again drawn something Fire Emblem related

still kinda sucky at drawing FE characters, but im slowly figuring it out and seeing as i have plans(which i'll hopefully be able to act upon sooner then later, no promises though) im going to be getting a lot of practice in my future anyways yeah, Chrom time

[sophieinwonderland]

circ is such 4 hypocrite. they cl4im to be pro endo 4nd then keep being friends with bigots (they're besties with J4S 4nd other people who've h4r4ssed you so its not surprising). even more recently they c4me out 4nd reve4led themselves to be one of the mods of the 4nti endo 4nd bigoted sysbox tumblr blog 4nd its so fucking dis4ppointed. i never re4lly liked them bec4use of how much they h4r4ss tulp4s but their recent post on th4t blog is such 4 new low. THEY H4VE SUCH PICK ME ENERGY. they're liter4lly joking 4bout being better 4nd more 'civil' th4n most pro endos 4nd endos (you know the people they SUPPOSEDLY support so much), which re-enforces stereotypes 4bout endo systems. they literally do not give 4 shit 4bout us or our rights 4nd i wish more plur4l collectives fucking stopped supporting them just bec4use they make 're4lly nice and friendly sysmed cdd system' their whole br4nd. they're like those people who 4spire to be 4 model minority. they dont c4re. they h4ve never c4red. they only c4re about their own 4cceptance and getting popul4rity but dont c4re 4bout the rest of the community. im so 4ngry. my littles who used to find their blog comforting 4re fucking he4rtbroken. i knew they were shit but im so 4ngry 4t myself for not being 4ble to protect my system. im so 4ngry on beh4lf of my system and on beh4lf of the whole plur4l community. we deserve better

https://www.tumblr.com/sysboxes/745040882164760576/which-mod-is-circular-bircular-arent-they-pro?source=share

i hope this is ok4y to send. im just re4lly angry and your blog h4s 4lw4ys been 4 s4fe sp4ce for us. th4nk you for everything you do btw. despite the h4te, you 4lw4ys keep posting 4nd fighting for our rights. my system 4dmires you [ ^-^] <3

I'm sorry you feel hurt and betrayed.

It's terrible to put your trust in someone and find out they aren't who you thought they were. But for what it's worth, I don't think you let your system down.

Life is about making mistakes and learning. You can't refuse to trust anyone just because you get burned in the past. Maybe it hurts now, but I don't think any lasting damage was done.

Personally, learning this... I find myself largely indifferent. I'm not at all surprised at this, knowing them. They've modded anti-endo discord servers, so why not an anti-endo sysbox blog?

My own feelings on Circ are complicated. I do not consider Circ safe for endogenic systems given their reblogs and support of anti-endos, and frequent parroting of anti-endo talking points.

At the same time, I actually do think their presence in anti-endo spaces has been a net positive for our goals in those communities. Circ has bragged a few times about making their anti-endo friends more pro-endo. And while I wouldn't say those friends became allies to the pro-endo community, many did switch to more neutral stances which I do think helped reduce hate against endogenic and pro endo systems in those spaces, and that seems like a good thing for me.

So I guess, while I don't care much for Circ as a person due to history there, I can acknowledge that their influence in anti-endo spaces ultimately serves my goals.

Besides, it's really upsetting some anti-endos so that's fun to watch! 😁

And you know, they have a point.

Like, if I was following a pro-endo blog and learned that one of the mods was anti-endo... and an anti-endo who bragged about making pro-endos more anti-leaning, I would be very suspicious of not just that one anti-endo but all the mods on that blog they were friends with.

How can you trust that your anti-endo sysbox mods haven't already been converted to the other side and aren't just lying to you about their syscourse stance???

Now you might think I'm just intentionally trying to spread mistrust and division among anti-endos by saying this... get them to turn on each other and tear themselves apart from the inside. And you'd be absolutely right! But that doesn't mean I'm wrong, and it doesn't mean me stating my motives aloud will make it any less likely to work!

And I would even like to say that I do appreciate the mod team on that blog being able to look past an alleged pro-endo's syscourse stance. Even if it's only for this one kind-of-hypocritical exception since they still refuse to interact with any other pro-endos.

Yes, I SophieInWonderland, endogenic tulpa, support sysboxes for having a pro-endo-identifying mod!

And since antiendovents crossposted in the inclusive plural tag, this is going straight into the anti-endo tags so the entire anti-endo community can see me expressing this support that I'm sure won't create any waves at all. 😈

[medicinemane]

Should make a pain killer that actually kills (or even touches) pain

[shimmerluna]

i do think there's probably something suspicious about the way everyone loves Ca$h and Quinni and their depth while essentially reducing Darren to their shared supporting character and/or the sassy black woman(/person in this case) stereotype, but I feel somewhat hypocritical bringing it up

[kestrel-wish]

Why is it whenever I notice a silly little similarity in something I feel the need to share it immediately.