mom avoids dead anime mom curse because he transitions. he’s always had a complicated relationship with pregnancy because of how woefully little people are told about potential complications and aftercare, and also because of how gendered it is, so after the birth of his second child he’s finally had it and decides to transition

he joins a local community group for mothers and at first it’s played for laughs how often they fall to the dead mom curse, but soon we find out more about how society has failed mothers and people who give birth, from information being withheld, procedures being carried out without consent, lack of accommodations and maternal and paternal leave, racism…

it also turns out that becoming a man doesn’t help with this, not really, because being a pregnant trans man brings its own problems. follow along as he learns more about being a parent and a mother, and maybe even… finding love???

coming to you never because I can’t write!

in response to ur great analyzing of tk in this episode: tbh i feel like i almost understand tk falling in with owen MORE if he was primarily taken care of by his mom. because let's face it, owen seems like the guy who doesn't want to be the bad guy and wants to be liked, and probably left gwyn to do the dirty side of parenting. so you have lil baby tk who has a FIREFIGHTER DAD, a dream for most young boys, and when he is present and there, is probably 'the fun parent' and i think it created a situation where at least in his youth tk definitely idolized owen. i think that's also shown in the season 1 finale when he's questioning why he became a firefighter and he realized it's because of owen. anyways just here to say that your blurb questioning why tk reacted that way gave so much nuance to the show where it's lacking and tbh makes me think you understand the characters way more than the writers and they should hire you okay thanks bye

@maurawrites​ (tagging you since you didn’t mean to send this on anon!)

There's a lot here lol. This is going to be long. Discussion stems from this post about 02 x 12.

First thing's first, I think if we are to understand TK and his character, we have to first understand who Owen Strand is and what kind of parent he is.

To begin: Owen Strand is a very selfish parent. This is not hate, just simple analysis. His whole life is focused on himself, his job, and his comfort. He loves his kid and would take a bullet for TK any day, but TK is not a priority to him. We see repeated examples of this in canon.

You said "Owen seems like the kind of guy who doesn't want to be the bad guy;" this is true. Owen cares what people think of him. He is brilliant, charismatic, charming, and always has to be the best and the smartest in the room, and he uses every one of his "favorable" qualities to his advantage. I love Paul/Marj/Mateo (obviously), and maybe this isn't entirely fair to say since it was the 911LS writers' decisions to go this route in an effort to make Rob Lowe's character look spectacular, but when I consider Owen Strand and the kind of person he is, it seems to me like he hired those three to make a statement (“I’m inclusive, these people are welcome here because I see their worth.”) Not necessarily tokenizing them, but, in a way, putting himself above all the backwater ideas one would expect of Texans. He hired Judd for the same reason, though it took a little more convincing. (”I have empathy for your plight. I am reaching out a hand to show you I am good and I am not your enemy”). That's not to say he's wrong, exactly, only to say that Owen is always consciously aware of who and what he's dealing with, and how to come out looking the best in any given situation. Simply: Owen's actions are statements to other people, and while not exactly a manipulation, it's definitely calculated.

So, of course he'd use that calculation with his son. Of course, given the fact that he was hardly around, Owen would want his son to adore him. Of course, he’d let the brunt of parental responsibility fall on his wife, regardless of the strain it must have put on their marriage with her always being the bad guy. TK definitely idolized Owen, but not because his dad was a firefighter, it goes deeper than that. He idolized his dad because those were the kind of feelings Owen cultivated. Note, I'm not saying Owen did this maliciously, by the way, I'm saying that this is simply the way Owen interacts with people. He preens under attention, even and especially from his son, and he knows how to get that attention. This worked for years, but as TK grew up and his maturity deepened, his perception of his dad would have changed. Owen's absences probably felt more pronounced, became more difficult to deal with, and it’s at this point that TK's worship of his dad morphs from blind adoration to "my dad is a firefighter,  his job has his attention, therefore I want to be a firefighter because I want my dad's attention." I'm willing to bet that a lot, if not most of their conversations when he was a boy, were about firefighting. Not even really because TK cared about firefighting to the extent that his dad did (though he would come to love/appreciate it), but because it was common ground and a tool he could use to get closer to his dad. TK questioning his desire to be a firefighter and his subsequent transition from firefighter to paramedic is one of the first major life choices we ever see TK ever make. Even his sobriety was on Owen's conditions (though I believe TK would have gone back to being sober in his own time).

All of this to say that TK's actions in 02 x 12 can be interpreted in multiple ways and neither of them are wrong. Human beings are deeply complex creatures with deeply complex thoughts and motivations. I agree with this post that it's possible (and likely) TK was trying to incite a physical reaction from Carlos when he shoved him (as seen in the barfight scene, which I rewatched last night and whoo boy, that’s a meta for another day), but I also think it's possible that having to defend Owen against his boyfriend (a person who is supposed to love and trust him, and have his back) also triggered old feelings of childlike worship.

And while we're on the topic of TK's childhood and his relationship with his parents, I'd love to sink my teeth into TK's relationship with his mom real quick because I think, in some ways, TK believes he is the only one capable of truly evaluating and criticizing his dad (failed intervention notwithstanding). This goes back to the "us vs. them" mentality I made reference to in my original post. No one knows his dad better than he does, therefore no one is allowed to judge him so harshly (which he perceived Carlos as doing in 02 x 12). Considering that POV and the fact that TK’s relationship with his dad was built on common interest rather than natural father/son connectedness and cultivated in such a way that Owen shaped his affections, I think TK's relationship with his mom was rather strained. He probably sided with his dad in most arguments, didn't listen to his mom when she gave him a command/looked to his dad to see if he *really* had to do follow through, and things like that. Again, Owen did not cause this strain out of inherent or intentional malice, but it was an unintentional side effect of his actions. Side note: I imagine that was a very lonely household for Gwyn. But anyway, getting back to the topic at hand, I think as TK became older and started to see his dad for the complicated person he is, though unable to fully relinquish that childlike hero-worship (especially since at this point, the dynamic has already been established), he did allow himself to recognize his dad is kind of an asshole in some ways (which is why TK is even able to challenge him now). His mom, at one point on the outside of that “us vs them” dynamic, now rests somewhere in the middle as TK now fully understands that the issues in their relationship are not solely her fault. We see (minor) evidence of this in 02 x 07/08 (idk which) where he asks his mom if Owen said anything nasty to her upon learning that the baby wasn't his, I believe it was, with a tone full of disapproval. He’d still probably take his dad’s side more often than not, but he’d definitely approach the situation with a lot more nuance than he would have as a child.

Geeze, this was long. I wonder if I can get graded on this.