#just a very big misunderstanding

[justaghostingon]

In Which Kaeya and Kaveh Have a Horrible Missunderstanding

It starts at a bar in Sumeru. Kaeya is technically on buisness, but really he’s just having “fun” if fun is meeting another khanrian who drops a lore bomb, steals Kaeya’s company (traveler), and leaves without paying the bill.

Somewhat shaken up, kaeya walks up to the bar where he meets Kaveh, who is bemoaning his strained relationship with Alhaitham.

And maybe Kaeya’s feeling nostalgic surrounded by all this wine, maybe Dain’s words about the Alberichs made him want to reaffirm his place in the family that wasn’t crazy (if u count Diluc’s Darknight heroing as sane) but he finds himself emphasizing with Kaveh, and begins to tell his own story.

The two quickly realize their stories are quite similar. Kaveh talks about how his mother left him and Kaeya tells him about how his dad left him too. (Kaeya does not mention he was a very small child at the time, and not a college student, he thinks this is obvious. It is not. Kaveh doesn’t make that connection and it will come back to bite him later)

Kaveh bemoans how he found himself someone he thought he was going to make a new family with, indirectly talking of his secret college dream to marry his first boyfriend Alhaitham (he’s not direct because how embarrassing would that be? Kaeya gets it right?) kaeya emphasizes with his own hopes with diluc and master crepus (both who he uses first names for because he feels like he doesn’t deserve to call them brother/father. But it’s fine, it’s implied right?)

Then kaveh gripes about how it all fell apart and they had a big fight ( “Same” kaeya goes) how it emotionally destroyed him and Alhaitham is now letting him live in his house and that has to mean something, right?

This is when Kaeya, drunk and very much a busybody, (and projecting hard) offers his services. He wants to help these two brothers reconnect

Because kaeya has come to the mistaken conclusion that alhaitham and kaveh are brothers

Kaveh meanwhile, thinks diluc and kaeya must have been dating

Both are very, very wrong

Kaveh takes one look at Kaeya’s fashionable clothing with its daring V neck and thinks Kaeya must be a suduction master who’s taken pity upon him

He agrees

Kaeya starts with reconisence, since Alhaitham is still letting Kaveh live with him, it can’t be as bad as him and diluc, but it never hurts to know ur target

He stalks alhaitham’s schedule, and figures out what he can gleam about his personality.

“The first step is to be where they are,” Kaeya starts, “You’ve got a huge advantage because u share a house. Be useful. Remind him that he needs your support, even if he doesn’t like it”

“I already do the interior decorating! And cleaning! I even cook sometimes!”

“Excellent!” Kaeya claps his hands. “He relies on u, now u just need to figure out what his biggest secret is.”

“I …what?” Kaveh blinks “why? U aren’t seriously suggesting blackmail?”

“It’s not realllly blackmail.” Kaeya waves his hand. “U just want him to know u could, if u wanted too, but u don’t.”

“That’s not going to work on alhaitham, he doesn’t really have secrets” Kaveh says, privately thinking that maybe Kaeya’s not as good at this as he previously assumed.

“A shame,” kaeya sighs “ur sure he’s not moonlighting as a vigilante? Keeping a secret like that is a great way to force them to begin to trust you again.”

“…No” kaveh now definitely thinks Kaeya is not as knowledgeable as he though he was. And might be a little crazy.

Hopimg to change the subject Kaveh goes, “all i really want is to know how to have an open conversation with him wjthout our stupid pride getting in the way”

“An open conversation?” Kaeya looks serious. “That’s going to get physical.”

Physical? Kaveh thinks to himself. Is that really all we need?. Could he really be that bold?

“Does he have a vision?” Kaeya asks oblivious to kaveh’s shock

“Yes? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Is your vision a healing or sheilding one?”

“I can self-heal, yes” kaveh crossed his arms “what are you getting at?”

“That’s good” kaeya nods, lost in his own thoughts. “We’ll need a flat area then, mostly private but close enough to call for help when things get violent…”

“WHEN?” Kaveh shouts.

“I’ll stay by to act as an emergency aid. I can sheild when people closeby are close to death…”

“CLOSE TO DEATH?” Kaveh throws up his hands, breaking Kaeya out of his thoughts “What the F are u talking about?”

“Worst case scenarios.” Kaeya frowns. “You’ve had this fight before, you know how deadly it can get.”

“Deadly? Alhaitham and i had a verbal argument! With words!” Kaveh grabs Kaeya’s shoulders. “What happened to you??!!!”

“He tried to take me out with a flaming claymore.” Kaeya crosses his arms defensively. “It’s how i got my vision.”

“And you still want to get back together????”

“Yes? He’s all i have left.”

Kaveh opens his mouth, and closes this mouth, realizing for the first time in his life he’s to angry to speak.

Wordless, he leaves kaeya and goes straight to Alhaitham

Alhaitham looks up but before he can say anything, kaveh gives him a big hug and buries his head in his shoulder.

Alhaitham is shocked, but hugs back. Kaeya is shocked, becuase he’d never take a risk like that! But Alhaitham was hugging back! Should Kaeya try that?

“Thank you for just being a bit of a dick and not a psychopath”

“Are your standards really that low?” Alhaitham snarks, trying to cover how confused and offput he is by this all.

Kaveh just smiles and kisses him full on the mouth.

Kaeya who at this point, is convinced kaveh and ahaitham are brothers, promptly faints.

When he wakes, he doesn’t talk to anyone, just walks himself home all the way to mondstat in a daze before sitting at thr angel’s share.

Diluc takes one look at kaeya’s disleveled and dazed appearance and demands to know what happened

“He kissed his brother.” Kaeya says. Staring into his glass like it contained the secrets of the universe

“Some cultures do,” diluc points out, cleaning a few glasses while he waits the bar

“No,” kaeya shakes his head. “Not like those cheek kisses they do in fontaine. He was full on making out! With his brother!”

Diluc drops the glass.

“Diluc…” kaeya looks at diluc with big, watery eyes. “Diluc we aren’t thr most f-ed up pair of brothers. There are actually worse cases”

“Why are you telling me this?” Diluc asks, knuckles white on the counter.

“Because if i have to have nightmares about this, so do you,” goes Kaeya.

“Ass” diluc replies, “if u tried anything like that i’d have you reported to the church for the crime of incest.” but he relaxes.

Kaeya hides a smile. In a weird way, it’s reassuring to know that Diluc considers the idea of kissing him as incestuous. It means deep down he must still think of Kaeya as a brother.

Bonus

Meanwhile in Sumeru:

“How to you help someone who’s trapped in an abusive relationship?” Kaveh asks alhaitham

“I’ve found staging a coup most effective,” alhaitham says, thinking of nahida.

“Great,” kaveh pulls out the blue prints to the dawn winery “get the gang together Alhaitham, we’ve got a Wine tycoon to take down.”

The end

[brainrot-jikan]

im not the biggest alhaitham/kaveh shipper (because im a rare pair ho) but it seems to me that in alhaitham/kaveh getting-together fics tend to be... unequal.

the beautiful thing about alhaitham and kaveh is that they're both equally right and equally wrong and equally dicks about it. but the writers for alhaitham/kaveh much more frequently seem to give alhaitham the burden change (the burden of the character flaw) instead of kaveh.

in any good character arc, the main character has a fatal flaw or misconception, and by the end of that arc they have addressed that flaw in some definitive way. scrooge was a scrooge and learned that being that way was detrimental; merlin from finding nemo was overprotective to a fault and had to learn that he couldn't (and shouldn't) control everything and to let go; the wolf from little red riding hood learns that you should stop while you're ahead.

stories centering around romance tend to lean heavily on character arcs, which makes sense. and since romance generally requires two individuals to be vulnerable and open and emotional with each other, it makes double sense that alhaitham/kaveh authors zoom straight into alhaitham's lack of emotional vulnerability.

this bothers me.

in society, individuals are expected to experience and present emotions in a specific way. if someone dies, you cry. if someone smiles at you, you smile back. if you're at a party, you're supposed to be having fun. if you don't do these things, you're seen as impolite at best and a inhuman freak at worst. when these behaviors are frequent it's often viewed as emotional immaturity, or a lack of ability to feel at all. the inability or lack of willingness to conform to societies emotional expectations of you is seen as a flaw and a reason for exclusion.

alhaitham is canonically disliked and avoided for being the way he is. he prefers it this way, but that doesn't mean the people perpetuating this avoidance are in the right. they are the societal pressure to conform that alhaitham blows off. alhaitham could be the way he is for a lot of reasons: avoidant attachment style, trauma, following someone else's example (eg. his grandmother), or just his base personality. it doesn't MATTER. he is the way he is. kaveh having to accept that should be part of the story.

putting the burden of the fatal flaw on alhaitham, making the way alhaitham treats kaveh and the people around him the problem, feels invalidating. it implies heavily that alhaitham's way of interfacing with the world, alhaitham's very SELF, is incorrect. my suggestion is to flip a larger portion of that burden onto kaveh. kaveh 👏 character 👏 arcs 👏

some examples/recommendations:

- make kaveh project his insecurities onto other people but especially onto alhaitham; he's overly reliant on other people for his own self worth, and he perceives alhaitham's lack of positive feedback as a direct reflection of how alhaitham feels about him. but learns along the way that alhaitham doesn't hate him, kaveh's actual struggle is with hating himself and being unable to his own self as worthy of love. maybe throw in how you are responsible for your own recovery, other people can help but you can't rely on them to carry you through self actualization.

- or, kaveh tries to make alhaitham behave more like a "normal" person, to be more pleasant and emotive and forthcoming, and then realizes he's in the wrong for trying to make alhaitham into something he's not, possibly for all the wrong reasons (not because he likes alhaitham better like that, but bc society says that's healthier and a better/more conforming way to be)

- or you could go ahead make alhaitham's issues the main problem but they're too complicated to overcome in a short period of time, so kaveh has to accept alhaitham is doing his best in his own way and not push for unrealistic and unhealthy changes. he could alter his own behavior to give alhaitham space and time and a safe place to land.

that got sappy so it's past time for me to dip out. go forth and ship things; but maybe consider letting alhaitham be a rude stone-faced bastard if he wants to be.

[martyrbat]

dc holiday special (2017)

*puts on my scholar glasses* is the cookie tiny or are his hands gigantic?

[presiding]

you'll never guess which level we're up to in this dishonored 2 rewrite

[burinazar]

Mmph. It’s been a while and I didn’t realize I would still be excessively annoyed/affected by people with negative things to say about my OTP, but I am, I guess.

If it helps to add context, these comments were on a post where an account had reposted (without permission) some sweet gift art of the ship made especially for me, so I may be inclined to take it more personally for that reason. >__>

[fanfiction-artist-prototype]

I love shen jiu as a character as much as the next shen jiu fan; but when you start trying to tell me SHEN YUAN is the "real scum" out of the 2 of them I know you're not actually a fan of the character but of the fanonized version of him.

[good-beanswrites]

Sorry to double up on your inbox, but I had this burning idea.

Suppose Fuuta's sister has had her hair styled like the Milgram girls at various points. What scenarios might come up when Fuuta mistakes the girls for his sister?

I know you were looking for ideas on all of the girls but I got really carried away with this one train of thought with Kotoko, so have some of that instead 😭 I'm such a sucker for 02-04-06 seeming the type to use beauty products and know their way around a lot of hair care, and triggering memories for Fuuta via scents/sounds of his sister's job. And as you've seen I'm so emotional over him seeing Amane as an equal as they both care for each other and she feels like family...

Fuuta was used to people disappointing him.

He’d been let down by his mother, then his father. He’d seen how all of society screws its people over. His own friends had turned their backs on him when things got rocky. Even here, he couldn’t count on any of these people to look out for him. Well, all except one. 

Kotoko. 

He’d actually done a double take when he first saw her. Her hair was styled much like his sister’s; from behind, it could have been her with a bit of dye. 

It wouldn’t have been so bizarre for her to color her head shining black. After all, that had always been his sister’s method of rebellion. His father was a traditional man, and hated to see her chop all her hair off, chop others’ hair off, add more piercings, or change it to any and every shade that wasn’t the family’s natural red. Fuuta had always thought they were all hollow exercises, more for attention than anything else. (It was nothing like the actual action he was taking to break away from his father’s strictness). Seeing Kotoko wear an eerily similar look, and hearing how closely her views aligned with his, he started to understand the appeal.

While the others were intimidated by her appearance, Fuuta found it familiar. Unlike the rest of the prison, he had no hesitation in approaching her. He was more willing to sit beside her at meals. He joined in her conversations in the common area. 

Mahiru kept going on about being everyone’s ‘big sis,’ but she never took a damned thing seriously. Yuno told Fuuta he reminded her of her little brother, but the last thing he needed was to be treated like some baby. Kotoko, on the other hand, knew exactly how to speak with him. 

She came to show him her solidarity before his interrogation. She gave him tips on working out, and joined in his conversations about the injustice of current prison systems. She even had his back when he was scolding Mikoto about taking fighting styles seriously. He jeered at the notion that Kotoko could overpower Kazui. Though, deep down, he’d seen how strong the woman was. For someone the same age as him, and busy with university like him, she had insanely impressive power.

He’d never dare admit it, but he looked on in awe whenever she worked out in the common areas. 

Fuuta found even more comfort in her strength as the trial came to a close. The two ended up with opposite verdicts, but that wasn’t anything new. Teachers, neighbors, relatives – everyone had reasons to praise his sister while dragging up grievances against him. Both women had a sort of brash charisma that people enjoyed. He usually only got the label of “brash.” Kotoko was saved his rant that it all came from their differences in gender and beauty. Fuuta was confident she’d come to the same conclusion already. 

After all, what else separated them? They were here for practically the same reason.

He didn’t let it get under his skin. While the prisoners shied away from him and the others named unforgiven, he could always count on Kotoko to speak with him as honestly and directly as usual. 

The warden and the prisoners weren’t the only ones to let him down: the voices in his head had gone from a fair debate to a loud, nasty mob with each passing day.

They seemed to be at their very worst, now. He was going on a few nights of little to no sleep thanks to their nonstop judgment. Fuuta tossed and turned in his sheets, cursing the new uniform that made it impossible to relax. It had been exhausting, consumed by fear and guilt and anger. Everything had him jumpy these days.

He flinched as his cell door creaked. 

His bleary eyes turned to the silhouette in the doorway. A name instinctively came to his lips. Thankfully, he corrected himself before making the embarrassing mistake. 

“It’s you, Kotoko.” It was strange for her to be here at this hour. And completely unannounced, at that. 

“Kajiyama Fuuta…”

He didn’t care. He smiled. After all, surrounded by so many betrayals, he always felt safer with her around.

[toastsnaffler]

yeah I'm not gonna talk abt it am I...

[lichtecht]

having one of those moments where i am severely dissapointed in dfk 2023

[thornshadowwolf]

Actually you know what this has been happening a lot lately so I'm gonna make a post about it:

This is my personal blog and I like to complain about things including minor annoyances. Most of those vent posts I make about trivial matters are not big deals and you don't need to worry about me holding onto the apparent seething rage I'm expressing for the rest of my life or whatever. They're just little "letting off steam in the moment" posts and half of them are more made out of wry amusement than anything. I'm not actually trying to make a big deal out of it.

[matthoopergay]

boy i wont you…………..

[lesbiten]

as someone who isnt like. huge on d3stiel. i will say it is interesting going through and seeing all the 'big d3stiel' moments in context and some of them are very 'yeah, i get that' and othes are '...you have to purposely take this extremely far out of context and then spin it around in a circle to interpret it the way you did'

[caffeinatedopossum]

I'm watching mob pyscho 100 and it actually makes sense now. I tried to watch it once when I was younger and couldn't understand anything that was going on but now I'm like "oooh we're autistic" lmao. So THAT'S why I didn't know what was going on

[heldcosmos]

the sole possibility of galar losing its energy and sinking into dark times has caused rose to frequently have panic attacks. he has seen no one about them, and most of his own macro cosmos team doesn't even know he suffers of them: he has learnt to manage them and deal with them alone, which isn't healthy and rarely really works. when the eternatus incident happened, though, he suffered the most severe panic attack he has ever experienced, so much that he was taken away from public life for some time until he felt better. this is the actual reason why rose disappeared for a small time after the final events in sword & shield. the reasons of that panic attack are still a mystery: most of his team at macro cosmos believes it was the guilt for putting leon, hop and the mc, not to mention the entire galar, in danger after discovering leon couldn't capture eternatus. but a few people lean more towards the theory that his panic rose from the fact that he failed. that his plan shattered to pieces, and he suddenly felt lost, and panicked because he didn't have a plan b.

[sonsband]

nothing less fun than people who only half remember a single lesson in christianity attempting to explain theology. bonus points if it's not even about christianity.

[revvywevvy]

You like incredibly misunderstood characters. Do you relate to that by any chance? /light hearted

y. yeah. SDGHSDGHSDGHDSHS