sharpasafawkes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sharpasafawkes) wrote2011-05-08 02:04 pm
sharpasafawkes) wrote2011-05-08 02:04 pm
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it's that time again!
Yep 1000 comments have passed since I did this thing, so let's have another one! Hot or not/relationship/anything goes meme for Shaun Hastings and Zhores Barsoukova.
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WELP Cesare sure managed to get under Shaun's skin. I could seriously essay about how Shaun and Cesare are so similar to each other, but I have a character limit here. The short form is that Shaun could have ended up as much of a brat and so on, but I think the reason he didn't is mainly because of social status and upbringing. This is both good and bad. When they get along they seem to pick up on each other's cues, and when they're at each other's throats it can get ugly. It can be a constant source of frustration for Shaun because Cesare can give out the abuse, and aside from the occasional comment, he can't really return the favor unless he wants a fight on his hands. Cesare's also a dumb teen sometimes, and thus does dumb teen things... and then much in the same fashion doesn't listen to Shaun warning him that he's about to do something stupid.
...But. Shaun is also very, very fond of him. Even in game while he had nothing but bile to spit out at Rodrigo, with Cesare and his sister he's a lot softer on them. Ac's Cesare is a Templar dick through and through, but he was a cunning one, an efficient one, and in the end, human. Cesare's history is downright depressing near the end, and while history paints it badly, AC paints the years up to his death almost WORSE. History as Shaun learned it paints the Borgias as a flawed family, but one that was a benefit as well as otherwise. In this sense Cesare is a sign that not every world is screwed up, that there's some places where the Borgias and Cesare weren't just tyrants and heartless warlords. There's the part of Cesare he wants to help become a good and just statesman, and eventually surpass his fate. He hasn't really heard Cesare go off on a tear about inequality yet, but if he did it would just feed into this more.
Then there's the part that is a normal teenager, doing normal teenager things, and he also wants to support this somewhat contradictory side of Cesare. He hates, HATES that Cesare partially thinks of people the way he does. he views it as a result of an upbringing that partially stripped away what it's like to be a kid, and for Shaun the loss of choice about what Cesare could do with his life gets to him like nothing else. He doesn't want Cesare to lose that part of him that's normal. Hell, if his world was a non-crazy AC world, he'd try and get Cesare to come back with him. But his world isn't, and so he just does what he can. He figures that Cesare won't ever turn to him as a confidant, but he'll be available if he does.
At the end of the whole mess, saying that Shaun thinks of Cesare as a student, someone to be a total dick to, someone he can anticipate, someone he CAN'T anticipate, someone he likes to talk to, someone he slightly worries about... all of these are oversimplifications really. Cesare is Cesare, and Shaun's fond of him for all his problems.
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But Cesare... Okay, right now he's just really frustrated and is taking it out on Shaun. Sorry about that. He's aware that Shaun sees him as something like a student during the times that they're not at each other's throats and he he's settled it for himself that Shaun does not think of him as the same sort of threat he used to. He thinks Shaun could be very useful to him--actually, Shaun has already been quite useful. Issues of Camp aside, he's very interested in pumping Shaun for information that would be useful to him once he returns to Italy (and he's still operating under the assumption that he will eventually return and will continue down the same path history has him walking). He thinks that Camp is a wonderful opportunity, annoying though it may be, and that Shaun could provide him with the information he needs to eventually get the Good End. He's... unwilling to put himself fully into the student role for this, however, because Shaun does step on his pride sometimes and etc and he's much more comfortable reaching some kind of trade for his purposes.
Cesare won't tell Malik about what Shaun told him. He wouldn't get anything from that. He'd much rather have that left hanging. On a similar note, he really does want to know pretty much everything Shaun can tell him about his family in the ACverse. He wants to know exactly what they did so he will be able to tell exactly where they went wrong. He's still set on following traditional history up to 1503 but is desperate to change events from there on out, with good reason. Shaun can help with this.
When they're not at odds, Cesare actually rather likes Shaun. He's not his favorite person in Camp but he's someone he does in general like, although he wouldn't think to put it like that. He would say that Shaun is useful, convenient... even capable sometimes. That aside, he does like him as a person when he doesn't want to punch him in the face. Which, to be fair, is often. As you said, they are brilliant at getting on each other's last nerve. Cesare doesn't often listen to Shaun because he doesn't often listen to most people, but he does occasionally take his advice. And sometimes he purposefully does the opposite just to prove a point. That point may often come off as "am willful teenager", but regardless...
How Shaun handles the camping will affect things fairly strongly. Touchy subject is touchy and even when he's on good terms with Shaun there's that kernel of mistrust that leads him to, in general, keep him at a distance. It's not something Shaun couldn't eventually work past, but it would take effort.
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"Write crying uke Shaun fic plz Spain?" can do
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sorry, kinkmeme's made me immune to badfic.
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"Take it, little Shaun-chan" Rebecca-sama coo'd as she took her EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA large strap-on and roughly entered Shaun-chan.
It was hot.
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Okay no, the longer version is that Shaun still wants to punch Malik, pretty much everyday. He's still holding the grudge for Malik being a douche in the truth post, but he knows that he should work on things. The fact that Malik was giving out negative fucks over Shaun's past is what's getting to him. It comes down to basically "So I've got to tiptoe around that kadar-shaped elephant in the room and your arm, but you're free to have a go at my history? See this gesture? It's a little hint of I'd like you to do right now."
And this is before we go into the fact that there's the possibility that his family and/or friends might not be. well. In good shape.
The rest of it is the usual: respect, more than a little annoyance, exc exc. He's just terrible at saying it.