too tired to rly commit to writing a whole oneshot but i have Thoughts about vampire!robert so read on if u wanna indulge me a lil bit :3
was thinking about what if the robertsons always were vampires, just that each generation of mecha man died before their traits could present? like what if it's a kind of recessive gene that just stays dormant until a certain point, and only then does he turn immortal and stuff
maybe it's a thing as well where the gene just keeps getting more and more diluted with each generation, so robert would be a late bloomer, not presenting until he's well in his late 30s or early 40s
i guess this could apply to literally any other type of power but bare with me here i love the idea of robert as a vampire so much cuz it opens up so many possibilities for identity exploration!!!! like robert already has barely any connection with his father so now he wonders what the fuck else was his family hiding and if there are any of his relatives from several generation past still alive if they really are immortal
orrrr what if it's a trait passed down by his mother? or his grandmother? and no one knew this whole time, like imagine what if he's the only vampire in the world or if vampires are actually super rare and he's the last of his kind
it'll also be fun to see the z team help robert out while he goes through the transition process, I'd imagine it would hurt a lot, considering it would involve fundamental changes to how everything inside him works
oh and ofc flambert has to be involved here >:3c i need to see something like robert feeding off of flambae (or the rest of the team too) and Ough there's just so much we could do with this i Love Love LOVE it
» on the debate of flambae's "real name", and why i think changing it is not the greatest idea
I've seen a lot of discussion and debate over whether Chad is a fitting name for an afghan man currently living in LA. while his canon origins are still unknown, thus open for interpretation, i think we shouldn't completely erase the fact that it's what he introduced himself as.
potentially a bit snarky? i can't usually tell when I'm being snarky but it's a topic I've mulled over for some time so just putting a warning in case
if we were to discuss complex ethnic backgrounds, i think I'm pretty qualified, considering the following:
- I'm born malaysian chinese
- my family is ethnically teochew, but I don't speak a lick of teochew, though i guess it doesn't matter considering i can converse in 5 different languages
- i was raised in a very different cultural environment compared to my other malaysian chinese peers. while most are always surrounded by chinese culture growing up, i was surrounded by multiple ethnicities, and lean towards western values due to my time spent on the internet in my teen years. i have spent a long time being singled out by chinese social circles due to this.
- only my family calls me by my ethnic chinese name, everyone else calls me by a variation of the name i chose for myself, even if my ethnic name is what's shown on my official identity documents
there's a part of me that wants to point out that just because the name "Chad" has been associated with memes, it doesn't discount the fact that it's what he chose to refer to himself. hence, i think it's unfair to completely erase it in favor of a more "appropriate" sounding ethnic name.
it's also entirely possible that "Chad" is derived from an ethnic name, so to erase it completely, once again, rubs me the wrong way. i know multiple people who have chosen names that were basically shortened or abbreviated versions of their ethnic name. point is, Chad is still his name, and it's possible that it's part of his ethnic name, we just don't know yet.
since we have yet to know if Chad actually has an ethnic name, or it's just his actual name to begin with, i think it's fair to come up with an ethnic name for him, but i personally believe that letting Chad be referred to as his chosen name by people who aren't his immediate family members is better than replacing it entirely and have everyone call him by his ethnic name. I've had many complicated feelings and history with my own ethnic name, and to be called that by people who had no connection to my past feels weird. people have known me as Luvin this entire time, same like the Z-team now knows him as Chad, when previously it was just Flambae, and notice how everyone only referred to him as Flambae before Chad.
in my experience, i prefer to have different names for different personas i wear for my social circles. my immediate family, extended family, workplace colleagues, online friends and irl friends all know me by different names, though it's always been a variation of my ethnic name, because even though I don't like the history and experiences attached to it, it still represents who i am and I don't want to lose that part of me, it's a way of reclaiming my own identity especially after being raised in such a weird and mixed up cultural environment.
so i guess to summarize:
- let's not pretend Chad isn't the name he canonically referred to himself by
- you can think Chad is a bad name, but it's what he chose to refer to himself, and is part of who he is
- even if there's no deeper meaning behind why Chad chose his name, it's still what he chose and erasing that practically means erasing his identity
- pick an ethnic name for Chad all you want, but ultimately he should still be known as Chad in front of the Z-team
- you can headcanon him having a completely different name, that's fine, but to do it because "Chad is a stupid name that makes no sense" is ignorant at best and malicious at worst
i welcome any opinions. this is me speaking from my own experience and my observation on how or why Chad's name was changed. it's not that serious, he's a fictional character, but I've seen some people who had the idea that "Chad is a stupid name" turn around to pick the most "appropriate" ethnic name for him as if erasing the canon name isn't hypocritical by itself.
i need to stop doing this for every fandom i get into but what if: half chinese robert
especially since its chinese new year...... im returning to the lion dance au idea I've had years ago and im thinking what if robert has to take over the best lion dancing and martial arts troupe in all of LA
at the same time........ qilin mech..... powered by an ancient gold pearl that was granted as a gift from the gods for saving an entire village like a bajillion years ago...... and elliot is trying to steal it cuz he believes it will grant him immortality once consumed (nudge nudge reference to moon goddess tale)
i feel like im so deep in the feels of "cant find what i wanna read so i write it myself" but what does it mean when all im writing is absolutely filthy and nasty smut ,,, like, what does this say about Me. and also why do i keep writing smut with Feelings and put flambert into Situations and make them both cry,,,,, i need to be baptized or something idk
brain swimming with worms cuz i now have like 3 different fic ideas i want to write
- next installation(s) of my d/s flambert series (i have like 17 ideas listed down already and half of them fleshed out in my notes doc)
- robert in a very chinese time of his life (dispatch mythology au but robert centric cuz i want to include all of my favorite deities and tales!!!!!!!)
- vampire robert except he's got the mildest vampire traits but zteam Panics (and then it becomes flambert because its Me. it Will become flambert. or steammech. because ITS ME!!!!!)
there's Not Enough steammech fics out there so im itching to write one and lowkey wanna recycle one of my super old fic ideas of a chef au but it's literally gonna take me like 100 years to write it cuz the last time i tried to write that au for a different fandom it ballooned into a 40k monster i never managed to finish LOL idk what to doooooooooo
honestly i spent quite a bit of time flushing out how their dynamics work between them, and i could best describe it as a very casual power exchange that doesn't cling too tightly to established rules, but rather they share some verbal cues that tell each other they're initiating something
like for example robert would say something along the lines of 'tone the fire down' when he realizes he needs to assert a bit more control in a situation where chad is starting to be a bit of an ass for whatever reason
or if chad feels like he needs a breather from being so Amazing And Sexy All Of The Time (not really, but you get what i mean) he would tell robert something like 'help me put this out'
their whole thing isn't always sexual, but it didnt start that way, it was contained to bedroom playing and then one day they just realized that it could work outside of the bedroom too and just kinda like. went with it
i always feel like people put too much emphasis on sexual d/s when daily power exchange is Right There and it has so much potential on how you can explore the relationship between two people.
im planning to write a oneshot of just pure non sexual d/s but havent rly figured out if i want it to be robbo centric or flambby centric so we'll see,,, gotta think of a scenario and maybe write that over my chinese new year break :3c
