#dtta

here’s the thing, @laithen and I are both quite busy but we have a fair amount written for DTTA so we’re figuring out what to do with it. I may splice together my favorite scenes I’ve written so far since I’ve finally figured out a new plot which will be shorter and easier for me to write, but who knows when that will be! 

The popular Victorian image of the ideal wife came to be "the Angel in the House"; she was expected to be devoted and submissive to her husband. The Angel was passive and powerless, meek, charming, graceful, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, pious, and above all - pure.

Keith has never been this Angel, and never wishes to be.

If you haven’t already....you should really check out the new Victorian A/B/O Sheith AU by myself and @cupidlance, it’s called Death to the Angel (if you hadn’t guessed already) and we have a lot of feelings about it. 

if you like deconstructing and disassembling harmful gender roles and standards of both the past and present while also enjoying some Pride & Prejudice style enemies-friends-lovers slowburn (with significantly more explicit scenes than Jane Austen, but hey, maybe Jane was into that too) and a slightly different spin on the classic A/B/O trope, you should read it. 

Right here. 

Who knows, you might even learn something while screaming internally about how dumb & in love these two are, no matter what AU or era they’re in.

>:))) why yes, I do have art, this AU was actually born out of many many doodles.....enjoy (basically this entire au is shiro being flustered and keith not taking any of his strict society’s BS)

Oh, didn’t you hear? Women didn’t start having periods until 1880.

Obviously, I’m kidding, but yeah, it was so taboo, at least in the Victorian Era, that it went virtually unacknowledged in (Western, English) society. Napkins and “belts” were not readily available, and women had to use a) cloths called “guards” tied between the legs to pretty much just sop up as much as possible and which they had to change pretty frequently, or b) wore “red petticoats,” which were thicker petticoats, often red in color to disguise the, uh....bloodstains. And tampons were sometimes used for medical reasons to stop “abnormal” bleeding...they’d fill little bags with sawdust, ashes, or tanbark (mulch) and just shove em up there. Toxic shock syndrome, what’s that?? It’s a whole lotta yikes. Source

So, in answer to your question, yes we are approaching the societal treatment of heats like periods, since they are similar in that they’re both mammalian reproductive cycles which interfere to differing but still significant extents with daily female/omega life, and yet there weren’t really any great solutions posed to make them easier, and we still have things like the tampon tax and that bullshit. “Luxury items” my ass -_-

Anyway. Clearly, as someone who has periods, I’m pretty passionate about this. Heats and heat supplies in Death to the Angel/this Victorian AU are quite taboo. In this AU, heats are not only considered very vulgar to discuss in polite society, bc I mean...“legs” was considered a bad word back then, they’re absolutely not going to be talking about uteruses. Suppressants do not exist yet, and those that do are herbal in nature and could be potentially dangerous, like many abortifacient herbs. 

Omegas are then forced to a) wait out their heats in solitude if they’re unmated and feel deep shame for pleasuring themselves bc masturbation also VERY BAD in this era :| or b) just let their alpha mate do what they’re supposed to do and get their omega pregnant bc omegas can only get pregnant in heat so pretty much, omegas are led to believe that any heat in which they don’t get knocked up by an alpha, as is their God-given Purpose In Life (SOUND FAMILIAR LOL), is a heat wasted. And that’s always the omega’s fault. Not society’s, obviously......

Keith is, unsurprisingly, not down with this. Neither are the Holts. No solutions were presented to them by their society, so they’re forced to solve it themselves as best they can given their class/dynamic/resources. Thankfully they have some good friends who are more open about all this than most folks in this AU, including Shiro...for now. Shiro will learn >:D