time travel au, younger kaveh travels to the future
i haven't seen a good "younger versions of a character suddenly show up" AU in a while
but remember the ones where kid kaveh appears where he's very clearly parentified & trying to be mature even tho he's a kid with loads of trauma... + also him trusting adult alhaitham more
(probably sensing the awkwardness from adult kaveh who doesnt know how to acknowledge the fact that his younger self is very clearly not okay
bc that would mean that he wasn't okay when he was younger, bc he didn't really get help back then, and maybe that wasn't okay actually?)
thinking about this more:
imagine adult kaveh running into kid kaveh crying at night because he's lonely/scared/worried about his mother, etc
& even tho younger kaveh says he's fine, adult kaveh sits down & tells him he doesn't have to cry alone, its ok to cry when life's hard
& its a nice bonding experience, esp bc their earlier interactions were a bit awkward (talking to your future/past self is weird, even without unspoken trauma/guilt hanging over you both)
but then adult kaveh later has to process all these big feelings about his childhood...
like, this goes beyond just confirming that he's not responsible for his dad's death. he's known for years that his childhood feelings of guilt were irrational-- it's just hard to shake the guilt nonetheless
and the same goes for the parentification.
seeing his younger self makes kaveh acknowledge that he never properly grieved for his dad... (he never gave himself the chance to)
bc as a child kaveh pushed down his own confusion, (guilt), & sadness so that he could try to cheer up his depressed mother, which is why kid kaveh would want to cry in secret instead of seeking out comfort from adult figures. not to mention the month(?) where his dad seemingly abandoned his family...
(he went to aaru village but didn't send messages back, just an unsent letter to kaveh that was lost)
how was his dad's disappearance even explained to kaveh as a kid? what did faranak even think of this whole situation?
her loving wonderful husband who has been an amazing father suddenly gets closed off after losing a competition and then leaves without explanation...
faranak doesn't know when her husband will be back, so she can't make plans:
does she need to take time off work for childcare?
what does she tell kaveh, who's definitely missing his dad? (as faranak is the "famous" parent, i hc that kaveh's father was the go-to caretaker parent)
did any celebrations or holidays pass with her husband still gone?
the bills still need to be paid even if her husband is missing... (there's no prize money for him taking 2nd place anyways) so faranak's career is still important, even as all these questions need to be handled
she seems to lack support (her husband was the social one, not her)
imo this time period was already a crisis situation for kaveh's family...
faranak undoubtedly was burning the candles at both end (looking after kaveh as a solo parent, still needing to work on architecture commissions to keep an income, the worrying & lack of closure...)
the news of her husband's death in the desert was just the final push
faranak could hold it together, up until she couldn't.
she was already stressed, worried, tired, but now she will have no relief. there will be no homecoming for her husband. kaveh will be father-less
ofc she falls into depression! ofc she stops smiling! ofc she is not okay! who would be?
except the thing is, her son is old enough to notice that she's distraught, to notice that she's been working too hard, to understand what it means when told that his dad's never coming back
so kaveh decides, he has to help. his mom's been stressed out worrying about childcare and the bills and all these mundane adult things
and he can't help that much with the bills. he can't bring back his dad (put a pin in that).
but he CAN make sure he's not a burden
kaveh can help. he MUST help, actually-- his mother's been working so hard for so long, it's his turn to look after her
(he is like maybe 10 btw)
which is how he becomes so emotionally attuned to his mother's worries and problems that he neglects his own
he grows up. he goes to school. he does well in school. he makes sure that all his mother hears from him is good news. his mother moves away, finds new love, she's happy again. he's happy for her.
& everything's all good.... except for his lingering sense of guilt which is eventually resolved with the revelation that sacchin had been behind his dad's sudden change of heart
so yeah, all good now! except for how kaveh's still wary of sharing bad news with his friends...
& how kaveh still doesn't know what to write in his letters to his mother
(everything has to be shallow & casual so there's no reason for concern... which is not kaveh's writing style at all...
kaveh is not a "light & breezy" person, he cares very deeply about so much...)
and his mother clearly doesn't either, so their letters have dropped off entirely
which is fine! mostly, anyways
besides, if there's distance between them, it's probably kaveh's fault? what kind of son doesn't know how to talk to his mother? its not like she was abusive or mean
kaveh can't blame her for anything! faranak was dealt with incredibly bad cards after his dad left them
& she held on for as long as she could.
& kaveh's (physical) needs were met.
resenting her for being sad her husband died would be unreasonable! he can't be upset at her.
he's not upset at her.
...except seeing his younger self worry about his mother's health even though objectively there is not much his younger self can do makes kaveh feel a certain kind of way
...kaveh knows very well why his younger self's first reaction to being found crying is to stop & say he's fine, don't worry about him...
that was hard to learn to do as a kid. but somehow its just as hard as an adult to realise that his younger self should have had more support
remember that pin earlier about his father? yeah, turns out that kaveh's feelings about his father don't just end at "phew, i knew i wasn't really at fault for his death, but now i know for sure it wasn't"
bc before his father's premature death in a sandpit after rescuing others
his dad had abandoned his family. and kaveh literally experienced the exact same horror-terror nihilism doom-gloom overload that sacchin threw at his dad. he KNOWS it was bad.
but kaveh (at likely a similar age to his dad to boot) wouldnt have left everyone behind without a word
so that was... not good of his dad to do
esp with a kid at home
but he loves his dad!
his dad had been an amazing dad! his dad's last moments were even a charitable act saving other people!
all of his life, kaveh likely heard stories about his father's kindness & moral character
so how can kaveh hold his father's one moment of weakness against him?
...except he can literally see the direct consequences of his parents' lives falling apart in his younger self
in the way this child wipes away their tears while saying not to worry in the same breath
and it makes him feel a certain kind of way. maybe even a mood where crying is a necessary way to express all these feelings that he's been trying to avoid thinking too hard about for more than half of his life
but imagine if kid kaveh runs across adult kaveh crying in private
and of course adult kaveh immediately tries to pull himself together because he doesn't want to upset his younger self or put all of these heavy thoughts onto his younger self who's really too young to have to worry about all of this
...which is immediately pointed out as being hypocritical by his younger self. because kaveh may be a kid, but he's still very smart. and his older self had just told him that he doesn't have to cry alone.
and yeah. kaveh did say that didnt he?
except he really doesn't want to explain to his younger self why he's crying. the whole point here is that his younger self has been burdened with understanding too much of the problems of adults around him, and not enough of his own
wait... his mother's diary talked about how companionship was more important than understanding. maybe he doesn't need to explain. his younger self doesnt need to understand why he's upset. maybe its enough for them to sit together and feel bad--
because what happened to their family WAS bad. and its ok to personally be upset by it all
at least at the end of it, kaveh's no longer as distant and awkward around his younger self!
he's probably more aware that he's got more emotional processing to do after his younger self is safely back to his own timeline
...but at least he knows now that he won't have to be alone
(bc ofc alhaitham notices that multiple versions of kaveh have been crying in their home)
LIKE kaveh is absolutely nice to the kid version of himself
but young!kaveh is already used to being very aware of his effect on other people's emotions
& so he can tell that adult!kaveh isn't comfortable around him...
+ i think young!kaveh would take pride in how mature & responsible he is
so adult!kaveh would try to do things for him, kid kaveh'd push back bc he can do it dw!
and then kaveh is just spiraling quietly bc just bc his younger self could do something doesnt mean he has to, alone
Yanno how we’re all insane and the mascots are now getting shipped, do you think the people inside are now technically shipped? Like I’m convinced the person inside Polcasan has a crush on whoever is inside Metaa and that’s why San is relentless in his wooing.
*cough* I MEAN WHAT NO THERE ARENT PEOPLE INSIDE THOSE ARE LEGIT OFFSPRING 👀
Genuinely surprised you singled out the cover of The Mimicking of Known Successes for criticism, I've always considered it a very eye catching cover and was one of the things that made me notice it enough times to actually pick it up and read it. (And I ended up quite enjoying it. The setting is SO COOL.) Also, how could kind of any comparison to Lady Astronauts be a bad thing??
Oh it's not even really critique, it's just that it very specifically is eyecatching, in a very similar way to how The Calculating Stars was. Like
It's not a direct copying but the stylistic similarities are enough that it's' what my brain pattern-matched to?
And the title is just really asking for jokes about any similarities to older and more successful properties.
(I honestly didn't actually overly care for The Calculating Stars myself, for reasons that boil down to 'this has the moral drama and tension of a tightly written short story stretched out into a full novel, hundreds of pages pass where exactly what you expect to happen, does', and also an alt space race 'NASApunk' setting that starts by literally wiping out the entire USSR via the wrath of the heavens just puts a bad taste in my mouth from the word go, but very possible I was beeing unfair when I read it way back)
