#kat posts

My first embroidery project in years and I'm so happy with how it came out!

A little over 9,000 stitches.

Art by @norremire and pixelled by @dataglitch !

Lady Agatha Heterodyne, the Dread Mistress of Mechanicsburg, is officially THE mad scientist!

I got tagged over on @diary-of-a-teacher but I'm responding here so I can tag some mutuals :D

ty @bentostudy for tagging me!

Rules:

Answer the 11 questions you've been asked

Nominate 11 other bloggers

Ask your nominees 11 questions

Let them know you've nominated them

Current on repeat song? Ooh, I actually have a playlist that gets updated every Monday and Thursday with new music and old music gets taken off to keep it around 3-4 hours long. But the songs that have been on there longest that I just can't take off are Famous by The Strike, Man I Need by Olivia Dean, and sAvioR by HeeJin.

2. Are you a sticker person? Yeah! I don't put them on things like my laptop/water bottle, but I do love to collect them and use them in my bullet journal.

3. Least favourite chore? DISHES. Especially when you live with other people that don't do theirs!

4. Have you ever stolen a glass from a drinking establishment? Nope!

5. Do you have plants? Not at the moment, but I used to have a very beautiful and expansive collection of succulents that unfortunately did not survive my move to a more humid climate.

6. What colour jewelry do you like to wear, if any? I'm not picky with color, I'll match to whatever I'm wearing, but I don't wear any super often. Most common piece is my wedding ring, which is rose gold.

7. Science or humanities? Whilst I can appreciate science, I am horrible at it and I adore humanities, so I will go with that.

8. Have you watched Twin Peaks? No, but I've heard the name. Should I watch it?

9. Favourite artist (art-wise, not music-wise)? I really love Van Gogh

10. Do you like mushrooms? No. Bad texture #ToMe

11. Can you drive? Yes! I have been told by many old roommates that I am a very good/safe driver.

My 11 questions:

Favorite band(s) or artist(s)?

Have you ever been to a cool museum?

Beverage of choice?

What movie or TV show should all of your mutuals watch?

Do you have a favorite or go-to recipe?

Ideal pet?

Favorite book or series?

Do you play any video games? (PC, console, or mobile)

Have you ever played an instrument?

Sweet or Salty?

Do you have a favorite flower?

hi everyone! as i am currently not continuing with my 'a cambridge affair' fiction writing, then i thought i would open my inbox for some ideas and/or requests from you all!

here are some 'strict' rules that i won't accept:

r*pe; inc*st shite; underage stuff (please note that my blog in general is 18+); bdsm/hardcore sex kink stuff; anything to deal with su*cide, self-harm or inflicting behaviour; homophobic, racist & xenophobic shite; anything to do with war or violence.

please note that i currently write only with pedro pascal himself, i don't want to write about the characters he has played as because i haven't seen all of them yet (yeah, fake fan i know lol). may i mention that i love writing pedro with a plus size reader as i am myself a very chubby person haha. if there is a request that i don't feel comfortable or don't know how to write about it, please don't bash me down for it. additionally, i have also added this into my author's note that i'm not a native english speaker and i'm dyslexic as fuck so please do not come at me.

thank you and cannot wait for your ideas/request!

So this AU hinges upon a single concept, which is the idea of "What If Gil & Tarvek Never Had The Friend Divorce And Just Stuck Together?" from there I, of course, took it in my own direction because any simple concept can be spun into infinite different shapes based on each person's different tastes and thoughts.

(Which is to say that the base concept is not particularly original and frankly someone could take it in a completely different direction than I did which I encourage them to do because like.. Two Cakes!!!)

But anyway from there I decided that I was going to use the Collaboration and Communication of it all to solve as many plot problems as I could along a certain line.

[It only occurred to me recently that I could have pulled a Well Met and just had Agatha come onto the scene way earlier and thus spare her the years of Locket Trauma, but I'm already pretty set on my direction so like, do with that concept what you will, I already have my established lore]

Some of these changes I do genuinely think would likely be the natural consequences of them getting to face everything together, and some things I just decided that I could plausibly get away with, and other things (like large parts of my Paris University Arc) I just did because I felt like it.

Obviously my specific tastes, preferences, and perceptions influenced what I've come up with. So like. Is it probably canon-accurate? No. Is it based on how I think the characters might behave in this context? Yes.

But anyway, I digress.

The point is, I had to pick a place for the timeline to diverge and everything to change, and I had to decide what all would change after that.

What I decided was; in the vaults on the day they were investigating the files on Gil, after Gil runs off distraught at the story they find on him, Tarvek makes a split-second decision to go after Gil instead of staying to investigate more (he reasons that they broke in once, they can break in again, the files can wait but Gil needs him now) and catches up to him and explains that while he suspects that the story they found is falsified and they can absolutely keep looking, whoever Gil is related to is irrelevant to the fact that they are friends and they're sticking together. They swear a little pact to stick together no matter what, and then they hear something and realize they should probably get out of the vaults before they get caught.

As a result of this; Gil isn't found upset and brought to The Baron who explains things to him and Tarvek isn't caught snooping in the vaults and brought to The Baron to be accused of spying. As such, The Baron remains blissfully unaware that his vaults have been broken into by two 8-year-olds and Gil doesn't find out he's The Baron's son neither is he told that Tarvek's family are untrustworthy venomous snakes (which is absolutely true but Tarvek is sentimental enough to make a real actual friend to whom he is absolutely loyal anyway) and Tarvek has no current record of wrongdoing with The Baron. So! They grow up. Klaus watches suspiciously as this Valois kid is uncomfortably close to his son but as far as he's aware the kid has done nothing wrong himself and his only crime is being related to awful people and he hasn't yet given any sign that he intends to hurt his son so.. So Klaus watches. And Klaus waits. And he expects that eventually this little baby viper from the snake nest will slip up and reveal himself but.. but it simply never happens. So Klaus only watches this little Valois and his son being best friends and seemingly improve each other as people and he wonders.

Meanwhile Tarvek and Gil, having sworn their little pact of forever-friendship and loyalty, are graduating from shenanigans to scheming. (I've decided that Tarvek has to go home every summer to learn important Valois things because I want him to have at least SOME of his canon skills and I need him to be at least somewhat aware of the goings-on of his family which presumably he wouldn't have known all of at age 8 and would probably not ever be sent in a letter. So he gets some Smoke Knight training over the years and discovers Things about his family. During the summer they write each other letters because of course they do.) And because they trust each other they have an agreement to share all relevant information they have (because sharing ALL information would mean they have to tell each other literally every single thought they've ever had and that would just be completely unfeasible) so Tarvek eventually tells Gil about the Storm King Heir thing and Gil doesn't know the Baron is his dad yet so that becomes a thing they work on together. They're sticking together no matter what, forever and always, so obviously they're allies in everything. They have a little hidden room on Castle Wulfenbach (like Gil's secret labs in canon) and they keep files and reference materials and plans and conspiracy boards and other scheming essentials in there. One time they snuck an armchair in there. They have ideas and they are In Cahoots™ and they share everything.

Also I've decided it would be kinda funny/sorta charming if Gil actually did have some kind of actual relationship with Anevka before the whole Sturmhalten thing happens. (Anevka lives because I say so!!) So at some point Gil starts sending Anevka letters alongside Tarvek's letters to her. Because Gil saw their letter exchanges and was so fascinated by the concept of a sister that he wanted to speak to her. Also because Tarvek had spoken often and extremely highly of his sister and Gil held respect for her by proxy. Frankly I'm not sure what Anevka thought of it but I imagine she would be at least mildly amused by her brother's little minion being so enthusiastic. (Of course, Gil is not Tarvek's minion, obviously, but I'm sure that's how Anevka would see it) Gil is fond of Anevka as Tarvek's beloved sister and kinda-sorta views her as a sister by proxy? not in that he sees Tarvek as a brother (ew no) thus making Anevka also his sister, but more like.. more like.. Gil wouldn't think of the word, but more like a sister-in-law. [I should probably clarify at this moment that I perceive the GilTarvek dynamic as romantically charged. There will be yearning here. The stupidest yearning you have ever seen.]

At age 15 Gil is summoned into The Baron's office for a meeting and is given the "I'm your father and also you should not trust any member of the Valois ever" talk. Which is shocking but not earth-shattering given the lack of emotional whiplash and being completely emotionally compromised, and also that he's 15 and not 8 at the time he received this message. So while Gil is pretty thrown for a loop he doesn't blindly trust the whole "your best friend might be evil, actually" thing because again, he's currently emotionally stable and also older. And Tarvek already told him that his family is a seething pile of venomous snakes in a lot more detail than Klaus provided so Gil doesn't feel inclined to change his opinion of his very best friend over this. Which means that while Gil "uh-huh"s his way out of that meeting he also immediately goes to their Schemes Room, thunderstruck by the news, and tells Tarvek everything. Tarvek is surprised obviously, because they'd actually already found the whole Teufel story so they'd thought that question was answered, but it's not actually all that shocking once you think about it so it's really just a matter of "huh. well that complicates some things and simplifies others.. time to adjust our plans". From there they start figuring out the logistics of that particular political alliance. They'll figure it out eventually.

They are also close friends with Sleipnir and Theo, but they are noticeably obviously unmistakably closer to each other. They are also friendly with some other Castle Wulfenbach students including Tarvek's cousin, Zulenna, whom he, like in canon, schemed to get sent to Castle Wulfenbach knowing it was safe there, which she is unaware of. I imagine she and Gil are still fencing buddies and Tarvek probably tags along in some capacity. I'm not sure if Violetta ends up with them on Castle Wulfenbach but it might be fun if she was? On the other hand she might only join in on the Paris University Arc alongside Bang. This whole thing is very work-in-progress based entirely on whatever concepts I think up that I find particularly interesting or compelling. The Paris University Arc is where I really go ham because there is just so much space to make things up to fill the gaps.

There's plenty more I wanted to discuss but I am growing increasingly tired at the moment so I'll leave it here for now. Rest assured that I will be back to yap more in the future. I just wanted to sketch out the foundations of this AU in the form of the basics of where we start off.