any recent thoughts on AOTM!al & AOTM!charlie? (particularly the post-AOTM!lucifer-visit chapter?)
Hi, I love you for asking!
Okay, I'm currently working on a collage with the working title "you have the thing", based on "Me and Mr Wolf", a song on Jay's AOTM playlist, and every variation of "you have the thing..." in that song:
"I have the thing you love/But the need in me is way too much": Alastor and Angel. Angel has beauty and Alastor is convinced the need in him is way too much at the start of their relationship I've revised my stance on this one, it's Angel and his borderline, see the conversation they have in the tower about yeah, you love me, but you ain't known me that long.
"You have the thing I love/But fear in me is way too much": Alastor and Charlie. Alastor is afraid of offering touch in case he’s rejected. Alastor does love her in a paternal way and is embarrassed at the prospect of not being able to fill that role for her, of not being good enough for it. She also has way less of a hard time with intimacy than he does.
"You have the thing I love/But the need in me is way too much": THIS is Alastor about his relationship with Angel. Angel has the thing he loves-- beauty-- and he is also terrified his need for Angel is too much and he's going to be abandoned.
"I have the thing, the thing you love/You love/You die/Die": Alastor and Vox. Alastor has the thing Vox loves— a sense of self. He also doesn’t love Alastor; he loves an idea of Alastor.
Now, let me narrow in on what you actually asked about, Charlie and Alastor's relationship, specifically post Lucifer encounter.
The image I'm using for "the fear in me is way too much" is that moment in the pilot when Charlie physically picks up his hand and removes it from her shoulder.
It feels really painful, honestly, with the text from the fic I'm using:
When physical contact was an assertion of power, he was not vulnerable, but to touch with the hope of being accepted? Welcome? One might as well hand over a knife and present oneself to be stabbed. That was a concession of dominance, to give another the power to humiliate by recoiling in disgust. Lips sneering back over their teeth, eyelids flaring, incredulous that one had been delusional enough to think their touch was desired.
I've already posted about this before so I'll spare us a rehashing of everything I've already said, but! I think part of what makes this so sad is it's the self-fulfilling prophecy that is Alastor in this fic. "Yes, yes, I've done it to myself, I know!" as he says in chapter 29.
Alastor comes into that hotel and is AWFUL in the pilot. Again, I've posted about it before, so I'll spare a rehashing, but jesus christ, he is just... horrendous to Charlie and Vaggie. He makes probably the most huggy person in Hell averse to physical contact with him right out the gate. It's SO understandable she reacts to his touch that way in that scene in the pilot. He's come in and been insulting beyond belief and extremely presumptuous with that touch. Charlie also doesn't know he's aroace; she just knows this man put his hands on her without asking.
There's an argument to be made that he's being that... aggressive with touch in the pilot to make it sting less if/when people react that way. As Husk puts it in chapter 29 about Alastor's Whole Deal, "And you're givin' them permission to think like that 'cuz you're doin' it first. Like it can't hurt your feelings if you're the one sayin' it. I've been down that road, and it doesn't lead anywhere good." It's not quite that, but it's a very similar flavor of self-sabotage. "Charlie rejected my touch because I was aggressive and pushy and brassy, not because she would do that under any circumstance imaginable (this is a thing I can tell myself if I never make space for the possibility of the latter being untrue)."
To be honest, just this evening I was thinking about that paragraph from the hug scene and thinking about how it reminded me of an ex who was very touch starved and would periodically be like "is this okay?" while we were cuddling like we usually did and I would be like "yeah and I appreciate the check in but at this point you really can assume that this is fine". I'm going to scream if Alastor swings in that direction with touch with the people he loves after responding with venom to cover his vulnerability in all things-- see the makeup scene with Vaggie where he switches to anger when Vaggie asks him if he's embarrassed about suggesting maybe he can be Charlie's father figure, see the scene where he makes Charlie cry ("I deliberately chose to express my opinions in the most hurtful way I could devise, for nothing more productive than diverting your attention from my wounds," as he says when he apologizes), see his Whole Deal. Anger is his go to emotion. When in doubt, lash it out!-- I'm thinking about him checking in with Charlie about touch and am ready to squee about it, oh my god. He deserves more than one person (Angel) who is a safe person for him with touch and I'm sure Charlie would love to be that for him! Part of the friction in their relationship is that Charlie is a more tactile person than he is!
Have you read "The Beautiful Changes"? Because if we don't have time for it in AOTM, I would love to see that aspect of their relationship explored more in TBC! I just... want more of their relationship so bad AUGH.
Their relationship is so special to me AUGH. They're found family. They're autistic4autistic (and narcissist4narcissist?) and they deserve every good thing in the world. They're drastically different people and they somehow get on the way they do. Incredible. Groundbreaking. Showstopping.
In a similar vein to Angel saying he doesn't believe in virtues and flaws, I was talking with @mmaurysiek earlier today about Charlie's "Schrödinger's NPD", and they said that one cue she might have NPD is "the fact that Charlie attempts to tackle an idealised impossible project that no one has ever done before her — first, and only learns the basics of groundwork after she's already started". To me, this can also be a positive: she just gets stuck in because she's confident she's up to the task. A lot of people's best traits are also their worst traits, you know? Or are double-edged swords. I know there was this post about Harry Potter characters about this that got really big a while ago, haha. And it's true!
I was chopping up the apology in the library for the "You're Not Special" collage last night, and stumbled onto this gem that I hadn't properly rotated in my mind yet:
"I have felt from the start that it is better to be frank with you regarding my narcissistic motives, in large part because it is more believable," Alastor replied, flicking an ambivalent ear. "Because I am selfish, because I am a pragmatist, I hope you may find it easier to trust that I truly wish to make amends. We need not debate my capacity for remorse, because I have more tangible reasons to desire forgiveness and avoid further transgressions. You may know that redeeming myself in your eyes is in my best interest, and as such is what I will sincerely strive to do. Do you see my reasoning?"
"Yeah, I do," Charlie spoke up. She shared another glance with Vagatha, but this time she seemed to be leading the conversation taking place between their eyes. "You're a-a...you're an asshole," Charlie declared, turning back to him, "but...but I believe you. So I want to hear what you have to say. Because my self-image depends on giving people a chance to do better, even when it's hard."
Self-awareness. Wonderful.
"Then let me provide the fodder your self-image requires. Perhaps we shall demonstrate why it is an image to be admired, in its uncommon way. [emphasis mine]
I wanna circle back to that so bad! I want them to have a conversation about what it means to navigate the world as people so concerned with their self-image and at times so convinced of how great they are, and how that might be admirable in some ways. Or maybe that's not what he was getting at, and he was saying that he admires Charlie's image, that even though he has no stake in the morality of her project, he finds her passion compelling, interesting, and to him, that's the most important thing a person can be to be liked by him. Anyway! Alastor! Please explain what you meant by that! I'm too autistic for subtext sometimes!
I'm also thinking about him being embarrassed when Vaggie is doing his makeup and how there's this underlying sense he may not be up to the task of being Charlie's father figure, which is... very very understandable. They have very different moral compasses, and Alastor has literally never tried to have a healthy relationship where he isn't given more leeway to mess up as a literal or adoptive son with his mother and Rosie respectively. Angel is the first intimate relationship he's trying to have be healthy with someone as an equal, and then with Charlie it's without that fervent fanaticism he feels for Angel, and if he wants to be her father figure, he has to be more mature than her in some respects. He literally JUST started trying to cope with his emotions less destructively, and he and Rosie have their antisocial4antisocial playing with each other that just... Does Not Work with people who don't have ASPD if you play as hard as they're implied to? Alastor and Rosie are trusting each other to pull their punches/limit their bite strength and that's a foundation of that relationship dynamic. It's a very unique relationship dynamic that doesn't necessarily provide a ton of framework for relating to someone who doesn't have ASPD.
I do a toned down version of this as my autistic, non-ASPD self, where I think political debates are hella fun and I like to do that when I meet friends' folks, and this can be vastly uncomfortable for other people. I anticipate this and ask my friends for consent before I talk politics with their folks if I'm invited over. IF given that consent though, I WILL take it and run with it and you DO have to tell me you're uncomfortable, because I'm not setting your boundaries for you. I can also forget that other people exist in vicinity of a social game, like, my friend and I got an Uber recently and I got asked what my degree was in as the driver made small talk and I said politics and I kept making small talk without giving away any of my more controversial/non-valence issue beliefs for so much of the ride home because I've turned that into an art at this point, but my friend told me she was so stressed afterwards and I was like ah. Yeah. Should have considered your comfort more. My bad. I just got so excited to flex my mastery of this art.
Rosie and Alastor like to talk circles around each other and force concessions and there was apparently a period where they went years without talking while Alastor learned his manners. This does not translate well to most other dynamics. I think this would drive someone as screamingly genuine (one might also say "disgustingly earnest", as one of my now exes said about me) like Charlie up a fucking wall. She's too conflict-averse for this to be a game for her too: she would be prone to use it to avoid conflict as opposed to as a communication system the way Rosie and Alastor do. (And once again on the traits not flaws or virtues thing, ages ago when I was picking a buddy to help me buffer my dad for a mandatory visit, my mom suggested one of my friends on the basis that they like to play social interactions like games, and I now know that friend is probably at least a bit antisocial. They've never dicked me over as a friend and we vibe. Anyway.) And when she does want to express a concern, she does it head on. It's one of Charlie's strengths. See all these private conversations with Alastor where she addresses concerns, the about his and Angel's relationship, and the apology in the library.
There's also the question of whether Charlie loves Alastor. They've only known each other for three to four months. Alastor has that crystalline moment of empathy for her when he realizes she's suicidal in the Lucifer chapter, but most people don't usually go from "I feel absolutely no moral regard for you and nothing for you as a person at all" to "your personhood is fusing with mine" like a tripped switch like that. Because this is a Found Family fic with a happy ending, I'm assuming she will, but that's not actually guaranteed, and it doesn't mean she does as of right now in the fic (chapter 44). It would be perfectly reasonable if Charlie doesn't love the person she herself described as an asshole in the library apology scene, because he is an asshole, who would happily rip out the average person's spine and use it as flail, who takes pride in his monstrous Becoming and being a Cannibal. Alastor loves her, but does Charlie love Alastor? (Is the real test of whether Alastor can handle loving someone who doesn't love him back not actually Angel, a borderline who falls for him romantically so so fast once their feelings are out on the table, but Charlie, who is at most Schrödinger’s narcissist with a much more empathic compassion driven approach to navigating the world? OOGH, discuss.)
I'm also aware that just because he has that rush of empathy for her in that moment and he realizes how much he cares for her then, doesn't mean it's been that sudden in build up. I mean, that scene with Vaggie is before that. His apology, where he says he is regretful (if not remorseful) is in part because he might have damaged their relationship and he values it.
Okay gonna wrap up here for now because friend needs me
