#who everyone thinks is in a happy nuclear family | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

five-rivers · 1 year

Text

The Intern

AO3

Inspired by a variety of DPxDC posts, but mostly this one by @gettingcomfyinyourwalls

Before Danny's Accident, he and Jazz had competed for the title of "the normal one" with an intensity and ferocity achievable only by siblings in families where there was no normal one. After the Accident, he had to cede the title, however reluctantly, to his sister, who then, in a turn around only possible for siblings, then dedicated herself to giving Danny the title of "the one everyone thinks is the normal one." Combined with his chosen friend group - a girl who pursued weird as a lifestyle, and the kid who once tried to use a tamagotchi to hack a vending machine, then gave the tamagotchi an Egyptian burial when the attempt killed it - it was very easy to forget that Danny was not normal at all. Not even if you ignored the whole "half-ghost superhero" thing, which was very difficult to ignore.

It was even easier to forget what kind of not normal he originally was, before the accident, and continued to be even afterward.

However, the world (and particularly Sam and Tucker) was about to be reminded.

"Guys!" shouted Danny, literally skipping up the hallway to come to a bouncing stop between Sam and Tucker. "Guess what!" He was quivering with so much excitement that his edges looked a little blurry.

Tucker put a hand on his shoulder to get him to stop. "I guess it's a good thing, and not that your parents invented a ghost wiggler or something?"

Danny stilled. "The ghost wiggler. My enemy."

"Wait, I was joking."

"Mom and Dad weren't. That thing was evil."

"Okay, okay," said Sam, raising her hands, "it didn't have anything to do with one of your parents' inventions. What did happen?"

"Two of my summer internship applications were accepted," said Danny, almost sparkling with delight.

Actually, he was sparkling. If he had an internship outside of town, he would have to get that under control.

"That's great," said Sam. "Which ones?"

"Lexcorp and Wayne Industries!"

"Lexcorp?"

"Wayne Industries?"

"You applied to Lexcorp?" demanded Sam, appalled.

"You're going to Gotham?" asked Tucker in the same tone.

Danny looked from Sam to Tucker, then back again. "Yessssss?"

"To work for the guy you call Bald Vlad? The one who keeps trying to kill Superman?"

"The place with all those crazy villains and mad scientists? That Gotham?"

Then, together, they asked, "Why did you even apply there?"

"Lexcorp is a civilian leader in astronautics, meteoritics, cosmochemistry, nuclear physics, quantum computing, robotics and medical research."

"Because Lex Luthor is trying to kill Superman."

"And even beyond Wayne Industries, there are so many great scientists in Gotham, like Dr. Isley, Dr. Crane and even Dr. Fries!"

"Danny, those are the villains."

"Well," said Danny, "I figure I'm never going to meet Lex Luthor, being an intern and all, but if I see any dangerous weapons, I can trash them! I have lots of experience."

"Don't you think it might be a little dangerous for you to work for an avowed human supremacist?"

"It’s not any different from staying home."

Sam leaned back to stare at a point over Danny's head, flummoxed.

Tucker, not liking his point being ignored, squeezed Danny's shoulder. "If you miss fighting that much, I'm sure any ghost you ask will be happy to spar with you. The villains, Danny. Why do you want to go somewhere with that many villains?"

"It's not like I'm joining them." Danny rolled his eyes. "I just want to talk to them. If you're so concerned, I can take Dr. Isley and Dr. Crane off the list."

"Why only those two? Why not get rid of the whole list?" asked Tucker, shaking him slightly.

"Because Dr. Isley was mostly for Sam and Dr. Crane was mostly for Jazz. Dr. Fries is for me, and Mom and Dad want me to try to convince cousin Hugo to try therapy again."

"Why," said Sam, as Tucker glared at her, "do you think I'd want you to talk to Poison Ivy?"

"Uh," said Danny, "because you admire her work?"

"Admired, past tense, and that was before she started turning people into trees."

“But the ‘turning people into trees’ part is way more applicable to our lives!”

“Forget about that,” said Tucker. “Why do you want to talk to Mr. Freeze?”

“Well, Doctor Fries is an expert in cryogenics and incorporating ice into technology. I want to be able to do that.” Danny looked back and forth between Sam and Tucker. “Come on, I’m not interning for him. I just want to expand my knowledge base! Just think about all the cool things I could make!”

Sam and Tucker, united in horror and purpose, grabbed Danny by the arms and dragged him bodily into Senior English.

"Jazz," said Sam, hauling Danny forward by the arm she held, "your brother is turning into a mad scientist!"

Jazz looked from Sam, to Danny, to Tucker, then back to Sam. "Yessssss?"

"Well," huffed Sam, "aren't you going to do anything about it?"

"No? Why would I?"

“Mad scientist,” repeated Sam.

“That’s generally a bad thing,” said Tucker.

“It’s fine. Danny has a very strong sense of ethics.”

“And lab safety!” chimed in Danny.

“And lab safety,” agreed Jazz, nodding. “Now, if you want me to help you with your internalized prejudice, I can refer you to some resources I’ve found quite helpful myself.”

“Internalized prejudice is when you’re biased against yourself,” said Tucker.

“Yes.” Jazz returned to the task of arranging her pens and notebook on her desk.

“Wait,” said Sam, “you are not calling us mad scientists, are you?”

“Well,” said Jazz, “Mad Science Disorder isn’t in the DSM, but there’s a movement to have it included in the next edition, and I think you would fit the proposed diagnostic criteria.”

“No,” said Sam.

“Yes,” said Danny.

“I have seen the inside of your greenhouse, Sam,” said Jazz. “You’re at least on the road to being a mad botanist, if not a mad ecologist.”

“I’ve been saying that for years,” said Tucker.

“And you’re obviously a mad computer scientist, with a minor in archaeology.”

“Wait, why are you saying this like they’re college majors?” asked Tucker.

“It’s easier that way,” said Jazz. She frowned slightly. “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. It’s just that you should be aware of it, so you don’t wake up one day and start planning involuntary human drug trials, or something like that.”

“Jazz did that, once. I was five.”

The warning bell rang.

“You should go to class,” said Jazz, pleasantly. “You don’t want to be late.”

“Listen,” said Sam, leaning over the desk to whisper at Danny, “couldn’t you, I don’t know, just do the Wayne internship?”

“Hm,” said Danny, rubbing his chin, “maybe. But I kind of get the feeling I only got the Wayne internship because I got the Lexcorp one.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, like we talked about way back, Bruce Wayne has to be funding the Justice League, at least a little.” He pushed his math homework - already finished - to one side. “It’d make sense for him to keep an eye on anyone Lex Luthor personally hires, on account of the Superman thing. It’s either that or corporate espionage.”

“Wait,” said Tucker, leaning in from the side, “go back to the ‘personally’ part.”

“It’s a special internship?” said Danny, somehow still managing to pull off the clueless innocent look. “It was, like, competitive? You know what I mean.”

“Luthor personally hired you? Reviewed your application and whatever?”

“Yeah.”

“And you think he isn’t going to meet you?”

“Why would he? I’m basically going to be getting a tour, then doing drudgework for a month.”

“I love you, man, but you are so, so dumb sometimes. The man is going to meet you. Jeez, I hadn’t even heard he was doing internships like that for our age group.”

“Age group?” asked Danny.

“Dude. No. Tell me it was at least limited to just high schoolers. Tell me you didn’t apply for an internship meant for college students.”

“There wasn’t any age on it as far as I remember.”

“Mr. Fenton,” said Mr. Falluca, “will you please come solve this triangle for the class?”

Danny huffed. “Rule of cosines,” he said as he stood. “Give me an easy problem…”

“Why is he even in this class?” mumbled Sam.

“Ghost hunting,” Tucker mumbled back.

“How are you even going to get to Metropolis?” asked Sam as they walked away from the school. “You don’t have your license yet.” He probably wouldn’t have his license ever. Three Fentons driving had, evidently, proven too much for the local DMVs. Jazz, as conscientious as she was, had gotten hers from the one in Elmerton before they, too, realized the horror that was Jack and Maddie.

“Jazz is going to take me,” said Danny with a little shrug. “She’s doing a pre-college thing there. Some kind of volunteer thing.”

“And how are you getting to Gotham?”

“There’s a train that goes there,” said Danny. “Like, a regular one.”

“And getting back?”

“Mom and Dad will pick me up.”

“Where will you be sleeping?”

“There’s on-site dorms on each site.”

Sam curled her lips. “The return of company towns in the modern era.”

“I don’t know, I think the Wayne ones are probably fine.”

“But you’re sleeping in the Lexcorp ones?”

“I figure I can disable any subliminal programming devices that might be installed there.”

“Do you not see how crazy that sounds? Tucker, back me up, here?”

Tucker sighed. “Honestly, I don’t think we’re going to be able to change his mind. I’ve been picking out funeral flowers. You still like lillies?”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll call you guys if I need help. Just like you’ll call me if some new ghost shows up and starts causing trouble, right?”

“Yes,” said Sam, exasperated. “But you understand those two things aren’t the same, right? That with the way things are here, there probably won’t be a new ghost causing trouble?”

Danny had made… peace probably wasn’t quite the right word, with the Fentons, the Guys in White, and the lack of an organized overarching social structure, but there was an understanding between him and the ghosts. Without that understanding, he wouldn’t have been able to take the time to apply for internships, let alone actually go to any.

“I mean, if it’s an imposition–”

“That’s not what she meant,” interjected Tucker. “Nope. Nope. You aren’t wriggling out of calling us when a supervillain kidnaps you. She’s trying to talk you out of taking an unnecessary risk.”

“It’s not really a risk for me, though.”

It really wasn’t. Danny might not be invulnerable, but the sheer variety of his powers along with his accelerated healing made that point academic. For most enemies.

“This is the guy who fights Superman, Danny,” said Sam. “For all we know, he’s got some kind of anti-ghost material in the same cabinet he keeps his Kryptonite.”

“I don’t think that’d work very well, actually,” said Danny.

“It was a metaphor. Be serious.”

“I am being serious. This is something I want to do. I want to go there and learn and prepare for the future.”

“You sound like Jazz, you know? You’ve got two more years here. You don’t have to do this. If this is some kind of overcorrection because of the ghosts–”

“It’s not. I told you why I wanted to do this.” He stopped on the sidewalk, pulling on the hem of his shirt. “Is it really that bad? Is it really that terrible that I’m going somewhere and doing something that I’m interested in?”

“No,” said Tucker, awkwardly. “We’re worried about you.”

“And I’ll be fine,” insisted Danny. “Really. I will be. And, you know, like I said, I want to do this kind of thing in the future, so it’s good practice.”

“For what?” asked Sam, crossing her arms. “Scamming supervillains?”

“Well, yeah,” said Danny. “That, too.”

Sam’s arms fell, along with her jaw. “What?”

“Scamming supervillains,” said Danny, starting to walk again. “Like, obviously, I want to either do something with spaceflight or something with a big humanitarian dimension, but scamming supervillains is definitely going to be my backup. Or maybe my hobby. They always have the coolest stuff, and a lot of money, too, usually.”

“Coolest stuff?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, almost skipping, now. “Ice rays, supercomputers, gene therapy, rapidly growing vegetation, limb regeneration, cloning techniques… Lex Luthor came up with a cure for, like, over half a dozen different types of cancer.”

“Because he wanted to kill Superman,” said Sam, taking up an earlier refrain. It had only

“Yeah, but imagine what he could do if we could convince him that Superman got his strength from, like, world hunger or something.”

“I hate it,” said Sam, after a long moment, “but I think you have a point.”

“You two could go into business with me. Some villains go through goons so fast, I bet we could hit them about a dozen times.”

“You’re not planning to do this now, though, are you?” asked Tucker.

“Huh? No. No, not until after graduation. Most I’ll do with any supervillains I see this time around is talk.”

“That’s a lie,” said Sam, immediately. “There’s no way. The first time Man-Bat or Brainiac jumps out of a sewer, you’re going to start swinging.”

“Man-Bat is a geneticist and a chiropterologist, you know,” said Danny. “I’d love to take Brainiac apart, though. Do you have any idea how many planets he’s wiped out? And the stuff he’s got to have–”

“You’re floating,” said Tucker.

“And glowing,” said Sam. “You’re really going to have to work on that.”

“Oops,” said Danny. “Sorry. It’s just, like, everything I’m Obsessed with.” He landed, but still fidgeted, as if shaping something invisible with his hands. Which he might have been. “It’s– I still want to help people.” The plaintive note in his voice made it clear that ‘want’ was, in this case, closer to ‘need.’ “I don’t mind doing the hero thing, and I can’t ignore a cry for help. But I’m not going to just waltz into someone else’s territory and start messing with stuff.”

“I think the territory thing is more of a ghost thing than a hero thing.”

“Eh,” said Danny, “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

Danny waved goodbye to Jazz as she pulled away from the curb, then grinned up at the Lexcorp building. Wow, it was tall. And probably had a lot of really sketchy stuff in the basement.

But! He wouldn’t start poking around with that stuff until he’d been there for at least a week.

(Okay, he’d probably last twenty-four hours at most, but who could blame him? How often did anyone get to poke around the lair of a supervillain who wasn’t their archenemy?)

He walked into the lobby, craning his neck this way and that to take it all in. It was… honestly pretty boring. Not unlike Vlad’s buildings. But he supposed that all corporate buildings were like that to some degree.

“Hello!” he said, walking up to the front desk. “I’m–”

“You’ll have to wait for your parents to come out, I’m afraid, sweetie,” said the secretary. “Company rules.”

Danny blushed. “No, um, I’m here for the internship? The Innovators of Tomorrow Today internship? I’m Danny Fenton. Daniel. Daniel Fenton.”

The secretary blinked at him, then looked down at her computer for a moment. “I’ll need to see some ID.”

“Will my passport be okay?” Danny asked, tugging on his bracelet to get it to lie more comfortably on his wrist. On account of the whole ‘no driver’s license’ problem, he didn’t have anything else, other than his student ID.

“That will be fine,” said the secretary, reaching for it. She looked it over carefully, becoming more and more confused. Danny wondered if she was expecting it to be fake or something. “You’re fifteen.”

“I know I’m short,” said Danny. “But I’m almost sixteen.”

“I see,” she said. “Well. Here’s your visitor badge. We’ll have someone come escort you to the meeting room shortly, and your internship badge will be ready when you start tomorrow. You can leave your luggage here, and it will be scanned and brought up to the dorms.”

Danny bobbed his head happily and took back his passport and the badge. He couldn’t wait to meet the other people he’d be working with. He bet that there’d be a lot of people his age, no matter what Tucker said after he looked it up and saw the website.

A tall man wearing an earpiece and some kind of weapon - a taser, probably - walked up to Danny a few minutes later and scanned his badge. With a few words, he directed Danny to an elevator - one with a keypad code - and brought him up to the tenth story. The elevator opened directly into a… Danny wasn’t entirely sure what to call it. It was square and very large and open, with soft, rounded furniture, a kitchenette, and a catered lunch spread out on several long tables. One wall was all windows, looking down into Metropolis, and another wall was covered in cool, art-deco Lexcorp posters.

There were a lot of people.

A lot of tall people.

A lot of tall, college-aged people. Older college-aged people, even. No teenagers.

Tucker had been right. Great.

A middle-aged woman extracted herself from the loose crowd and came over to Danny, smiling.

“Hello!” she said. “You must be Daniel Fenton. My name is Liberty Rue, I’m the coordinator for the Innovators of Tomorrow Today program.”

“Hi,” said Danny, “it’s nice to meet you.”

Ms. Rue nodded. “Thank you, thank you. We’re just giving everyone a chance to get to know each other before we start the orientation. Please feel free to take any of the refreshments and mingle. All of you are going to be working together closely. Your specialties were electrical engineering and space science?”

“Yes,” said Danny. Although, to be honest, he didn’t really have a specialty. He was more of a generalist.

(Unless you counted ghost science, but there was absolutely no way he was going to bring that up.)

“Excellent. Let me introduce you to the group you’ll be working most closely with–”

What followed was something of a whirlwind. It wasn’t that there was a lot of people, but it was one after the other, and Ms. Rue seemed to be… showing him off, almost? Or showing the other people off? In any case, there was a weird tension to it all.

Was it because he was younger?

He tried not to dwell on it too much, though, because everyone here had so much cool stuff to talk about. Almost all of them had been involved in serious graduate or undergraduate research projects. Strange matter, transient dimensions, reality fields, meta gene analysis, non-quantum teleportation, reproduction of extraterrestrial technologies… Danny was starting to feel a little inadequate. The project he’d sent in was a ‘theoretical’ blueprint for a spy-bot disabler. One that he was proud of, sure; getting a localized EMP effect without a nuke wasn’t easy, but it was doable. And the EMP part was definitely the ‘last resort’ stage of things. It was, after all, much better to hack into Vlad’s bugs and have them send him a hundred hours worth of rickrolls.

In the middle of a conversation about exactly how much room you needed for a decent particle accelerator, Ms. Rue stepped aside and put her hand to her ear. Danny hadn’t noticed the earpiece before, but now he looked at it with curiosity. It was well made, and he could barely hear it, even with his slightly augmented hearing. He wondered if they were designed to counter Superman.

“Mr. Fenton,” said Ms. Rue, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to steal you away for a moment.

“Okay,” said Danny. He followed her back to the elevator, stealing a cookie as he went. They weren’t as good as his Mom’s, but he was pretty sure they tasted the way they did because of their ectoplasm content, so…

Ms. Rue punched a code into the elevator and scanned her badge. “Alright, Mr. Fenton. Go ahead. You’ll be taken where you need to go.”

Well. That was maybe a little sketchy, but Danny was nothing if not curious. He got in. “I’ll be back in time for the orientation, right?”

“If you aren’t, I’ll make sure you’re shown around personally,” promised Ms. Rue.

The doors closed and the elevator went up. And up. Then stopped for a moment, during which Danny felt the tingle of a very thorough full-body scan. And up some more. All the way to the top. The doors opened to a sparkling office. Everything in it was white, chrome, or glass, with smooth straight lines and geometrically perfect curves. It blended perfectly with the skyline of Metropolis framed by the full-wall windows.

Between Danny and the windows was an enormous white desk. Behind the desk was Lex Luthor.

“Daniel Fenton,” said Lex Luthor, inclining his head ever so slightly towards Danny. “It is good to meet you.”

“Thank you,” said Danny, trying not to squeak. “I’m happy to be here. I’m looking forward to working here for the next couple of weeks.”

“It is heartening to see that you are more open to cooperation than Vlad.” Luthor turned away, slightly, surveying the city below him.

Danny took that as an invitation to come closer and peer out the huge windows himself. What did Vlad have to do with this?

“I confess, I found myself frustrated by his lack of vision,” continued Luthor, “but youth often holds wisdom that age lacks.” He turned back to favor Danny with a smile. “On seeing your application, I was charmed by your initiative in circumventing your mentor.”

Danny’s train of thought, such as it was, derailed.

“Mentor?” he asked.

“You don’t have to hide it,” said Luthor. “Not when we are both quite aware of the others’ knowledge. Considering my wealth, I am privy to a number of things that ordinary people are not. Including the beneficiaries of my fellow billionaires’ wills.”

Oh. Oh, no. Lex thought– But why– Was he– He couldn’t be right, but– But did this make Danny a… a… nepotism baby?

The sprout of confidence that had been flourishing ever since he got the letter announcing his acceptance to the internship program withered. This was even worse than finding out he and Jazz were test tube babies. (And that was only so bad because his parents had felt the need to go on a long tangent about how they had selected their donor-parents, as large portions of Jack and Maddie's genomes were unstable due to a combination of the family proclivities and a variety of curses.)

Lex Luthor stood. “Doubtless, you’re interested in the projects I outlined to Vlad when I proposed our cooperation. The device blueprint you submitted for the internship referenced them quite cleverly. I would like to show you how far they’ve progressed since I spoke to Vlad, and then we can discuss your contribution to their success.”

“I don’t have access to any of Vlad’s resources, Mr. Luthor,” said Danny, cautiously. “I couldn’t provide any, er, funding to these projects.”

“I am aware of that. But I think your value goes above and beyond the financial, Daniel.” He put a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “After all, the reason I approached Vlad was his science background. And in a few years… Well. Vlad Masters is not a young man.”

Was that a murder threat? Danny thought it was a murder threat. Oh, boy, did he have something else coming for him if he thought he could just kill Vlad like that.

Luthor directed Danny back towards the elevator, and this time they went down. Far down. Into those basements Danny had been thinking about before.

They stepped out into a vestibule, and a pair of much more openly armed security guards saluted Lex before running through a series of security measures. Danny took note specifically of the ones intended to detect mind control and shapeshifting.

From there, they passed through a series of locked doors and into a maze of gleaming white hallways. The color made Danny’s skin itch. Too much like the GIW for his taste.

Luthor opened a side door, and showed Danny into an empty lab. Empty in terms of people, that is. In terms of stuff… blueprints, prototypes, models, drawings, coffee cups… not so much.

“I had the team take the day off,” said Luthor. “I thought you’d appreciate the chance to look at things without any distractions.”

Danny surveyed the plans with interest. There were similarities between what was being built and the mini-EMP portion of his bug-zapper. There were also echoes of shield technology… some kind of energy projector or amplifier?

“What is it supposed to emit?” asked Danny, unable to hold back his curiosity. He touched, ever so gently, a hollow place he was sure the energy source was supposed to sit.

Lex smiled. “I’m glad you asked,” he said. “Follow me.”

They went back out into the hallway, but only briefly. The next room had even more security, but Luthor bypassed it all with businesslike efficiency and they entered a plain, all-white and bare room.

One wall of this room was taken up by a backlit display cabinet made of square cubbies. Within each cubby was a tiny chip of crystal, like a sample display of particularly expensive rock candy. Green, of many shades, was the best-represented color, but there was also red and blue. That made sense, because each crystal was made of delicious ectoplasm-infused quartz. Danny swallowed. They were making his mouth water, but the amount of death energy they would have had to be around…

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Luthor. “Kryptonite. The key to repelling our would-be alien overlord.”

Yeah. Remnants of a planet that imploded while still inhabited by billions. That would do it.

“I intend to create a Kryptonite field over the whole of Metropolis, one that should, at the least, disable Superman to the point where we can drive him out. I will sell them to the great cities of America, and then, the world. One day, the whole Earth will be protected, and Superman must either leave, or die. But for now, it is still a dream. That is why I need you, Daniel.”

Danny didn’t think Luthor’s weapon would work. Not now. There was too much missing. Too much being missed by scientists and engineers expecting the Kryptonite to behave in a normal, logical way. He was certain, however, that he could make something that functioned exactly as described. He could even do it quickly, building off ghost and human shield technologies. He could see the pieces of it fit together, like a puzzle.

Making it, just to prove that he, Danny Fenton, could, was tempting.

So tempting.

But he had this little thing called morals, and driving Superman off Earth was definitely in the category of bad.

“Well, I don’t know if I can fix problems all your scientists can’t, but I can sure try to help.” He winced a little at the phrasing. Why did he have to use the word help?

“That’s all I ask,” said Luthor. “But that’s far from our only project. Shall we?”

“Sure,” said Danny, not at all faking his smile. Even though he’d have to sabotage this stuff, it was really cool to see it!

Later that night in his dorm room - which was, incidentally, a lot more spacious than he’d expected - Danny rotated the bracelet on his wrist and pressed a button on its side. Inside the thick band was a miniaturized and completely functional version of the spy-bot zapper he’d submitted as part of his internship application. He listened to it click as it went through the different modes available to it. It tweedled at him when it finished.

Only then did he pull out his phone and power it on. He clicked into his contacts and hit the button for his first favorite.

“Hey,” he said, when the call connected, “Jazz, so… Sam and Tucker might have been just a little bit right about my internship…”

May do more at a later time, but for now, this is it. I am incredibly forgetful, so I don't do taglists. Please consider subscribing to the AO3 version of this instead.

#dpxdc #dannymay #dannymay 2023 #dannymay 2023 day 7: weapon

754 notes · View notes

female-malice · 9 months

Note

I want lesbians to be the parents of their children without the government or anyone else trying to get in their way. But isn't a birth certificate more about biology? It would be important for health reasons to know who the biological relative to the baby is, same with the baby's biological sex. Unless I am completely misunderstanding what a birth certificate is and maybe it's more of a government thing than I thought? Now that I think about it, I don't know what a birth certificate for a baby born to a parent and a step parent would look like either.

You are completely misunderstanding what a birth certificate is. A birth certificate is a LEGAL document designating parental rights.

A paternity DNA test is a medical document that shows someone's genetic history.

A birth certificate is a legal document that a child will need every day of their life. A birth certificate designates who is legally responsible for a child's life.

IF YOU PUT A MAN'S NAME ON A LESBIAN FAMILY'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE, YOU ARE GIVING HIM PARENTAL RIGHTS.

Whoever told you birth certificates are about ~biological reality~ is a lesbophobe.

My brother's friend does not legally have a father. His mother did not give his biological father parental rights. She elected not to put his name on the birth certificate. She did not want her shitty ex-boyfriend to have any legal parental relationship with her son. That is her right as a woman.

"Gender critical feminists" want to take this right away from all women because they are blinded by their own lesbophobia.

Please read Letizia's essay more closely.

Don't just open the tab and leave it unread. Here, I'll give you a short section to read right now:

The facts of biology are suddenly forgotten once the so called "non traditional" family is composed of a man and a woman. No government in any country is removing non-biological fathers from birth certificates, even though the man in the birth certificate has no biological relation to the child. On the contrary, most countries have pretty straightforward laws about the recognition of non-biological fathers as long as the couple in question is heterosexual.

I live in a small Italian village, one of those places where secrets don’t exists and your problems are everyone’s problems. The happy nuclear family a few houses down the road couldn’t conceive a child naturally because the husband is sterile. Not the end of the world these days. The Italian law allows IVF to heterosexual couples. The happy nuclear family simply picked a sperm donor, and a beautiful girl was born, she has her mother’s eyes.

The father on the birth certificate is not the donor, however the happy nuclear family didn’t receive a letter from the Italian government telling the husband that he is not the father of his child. No, it only happened to lesbian families in Italy.

So where is your truth now? Your biological reality. Aren't we here to protect children and fight for reality? According to you this man shouldn’t have legal rights on the child his wife birthed. Or does it work differently because their family is approved by the church? Oh but this is different, he has a wife, he is heterosexual, he could have been fertile! Well, I could have been born male. To quote every mamma on the peninsula: if my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike.

273 notes · View notes

comradekatara · 5 months

Note

Here's a completely random ask for you: what holiday (halloween, valentine's day, national ice cream day, etc.) would each member of the Gaang feel unreasonably strongly about? Can be positive or negative feelings.

oh this is a good question! (i hate so many american commercial holidays so this is a great avenue for me to project my frustrations with us capitalism onto these little guys. and to be clear im just doing us holidays bc otherwise there would simply be too many options and i’d be stuck here forever)

aang: he’s not enough of a hater to dislike any holidays. he’s a big fan of april fool’s day, valentine’s day, and halloween, because he appreciates fun and joy and love and merriment duh

katara: every thanksgiving she goes on an impassioned rant about the historical revisionism of the us empire deployed as a propaganda tool as it continues its genocidal imperialist project and the absolutely sick and twisted audacity of americans to celebrate a known lie in a mockery of the atrocities committed from the past into the present (this one may or may not just have been me, yesterday). every november-december she goes on an impassioned rant about the commercialism of christmas, and how it’s largely a fake holiday devised by capitalists to glorify the sanctity of the nuclear family, and how the supposed “secularization” of christmas is in fact a product of christian hegemony, it’s propaganda and you’re all falling for it because you crave hollow comforts in your cold and dismal life, and instead of attempting to look beyond the scraps you are given under capitalism you all just force yourselves to enjoy a facade of happiness and nostalgia because you refuse to admit that you’re fundamentally uncomfortable in your society!!!!!!!! (this is what i think but wisely refrain from saying because it’s not worth it. katara, however...) also she likes valentine’s day sometimes (depending on whether or not she has a boyfriend). she also has a lot to say on columbus day and the fourth of july of course, but this bullet point is already far too long.

sokka: his favorite holiday is pi day. he does not care for any other us holiday (but he has been known to enjoy a halloween here and there), but he specifically hates april fools because aang insists on pranking him every time, for some godforsaken reason. (he’s just so prankable!)

toph: her least favorite holiday is valentine’s day because it promotes m*rriage, one of her most hated institutions (it’s a long list). her favorite day is taco tuesday

zuko: he insists on celebrating shakespeare’s birth/deathday as if it is a real holiday that anyone actually cares about. and he gets offended when no one else cares. his least favorite holiday is the fourth of july, but not for any political reasons, it just has really bad vibes.

suki: she loves halloween because it has everything you could ever ask for in a single day: dressing in elaborate costume, eating so much candy, and getting really drunk. she’s also one of those people who gets really obnoxious on 4/20, at which point mai is like “you know it’s hitler’s birthday, right?” and immediately kills the vibe. just because she can :)

mai: she has a love/hate relationship with halloween, because theoretically it’s a celebration of the gothic, the liminal, the macabre, the ghostly. but in practice it’s just an excuse for everyone around her to get wasted. she hates christmas more though. santa freaks her out and cloying, forced cheer and merriment is unnerving and infuriating, actually.

ty lee: she dreads valentine’s day every year because she simply has too many suitors and it is very stressful. she likes april fool’s day because it gives her the opportunity to exercise her more devious inclinations. she can prank people so well they don’t even know they’re being pranked; on april first the world is her playground.

azula: she has no real opinion on any specific holidays. they’re petty distractions for mindless drones who require a modicum of frivolity here and there to spice up their otherwise dull, worthless lives. however, she quite likes tax day.

#bonus: yue’s favorite holiday is mid autumn festival <3 #lawful-chaos #asks #the gaang and #modern au #sorry for the katara rant in the middle of this post. it was thanksgiving yesterday. im hearing xmas music in stores. i couldn’t help myself #i should make a holiday tag #since a lot of these points are references to other similar posts ive made #okay:#holidays #if u go thru this tag you can find prev posts #instead of having to add bulky links to the post itself lmfao

109 notes · View notes

veerbles · 2 months

Text

every single thing said about kaz is just like, patently false to the point of irony. dirtyhands about a man whose hands are literally spotless because they're never uncovered. without morals or conscience, would do anything for money when it is repeatedly implied he's passed over business opportunities if they involved slavery or indentures. doesn't say goodbye, just lets go about a man who has made it a point to never let anything go. doesn't need a reason when he is proven to never act without a reason, and in all actuality usually has at least two. and this is without mentioning bastard of the barrel about probably one of the only barrel kids to have at least started out with a "normal", happy nuclear family...

and it just makes me think: kaz is deliberately written not to be better than people say he is, but just bad in different ways. he is not good or virtuous or compassionate; the point of having people say things that are not true about him isn't to make a point of his completely different nature.

so the point of it can only be to emphasize how nobody really knows him. to draw attention to his absolute isolation. and maybe to give more credit to how much his 'armour', which is supposed to protect him by keeping everyone away, really only serves to keep him away from everyone else.

#kaz brekker #six of crows #kaz brekker character analysis is living in my mind rent free this week #and not to make this post about kanej - but this whole narrative choice also emphasizes how inej is the only one he (somewhat) lets in #better terrible truths than kind lies etc etc etc #also this is why I am fundamentally against the idea that kaz only opposes indentures because of inej #and why I am also against the idea that kaz aspires to go honest/above board and rule ketterdam at some point #kaz is against indentures but he Will lie and cheat and blackmail his way to working against it.#kaz won't hurt children but his definition of what is OKAY to do with children is dubious to say the least.#kaz has done many things arguably benefitting other barrel rats - but he will be vehemently against 'cleaning up' the barrel #because he's genuinely too fucked up to wish someone a safe childhood in some mercher's house instead of fighting for their own fate #he's MORALLY GRAY. he is MY morally gray little barrel rat and you can pry him from my cold dead hands :)

53 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 11 months

Note

You're not wrong about anything wrt cost of flying, but man is it bracing to wake up to a reminder that I can never ethically see most of my loved ones in-person again.

hmm. i think this is also the wrong way to think about it. flying is not a sin. being in some indirect way responsible for a certain amount of carbon emissions does not Taint Your Soul. and absolutist frameworks for this kind of thing are not helpful to anybody, least of all the people who actually might already be contributing to fixing problems like this through positive behaviors, like voting or political organizing.

the problem with carbon emissions is that they're a difficult to solve collective action problem, where a lot of the incentives point in a harmful direction, not that they are Fundamentally Immoral, and i think that's an important distinction to make, because i think a handful of semi-scrupulous individuals flagellating themselves and depriving themselves of things that would make them happy in the long run has no real effect on big problems like this. you not seeing your family is not going to fix global warming! and there are not enough people who are willing or able to act on guilt alone to refrain from flying that it's going to meaningfully dent emissions from the air transport sector.

what we need are policies that shape collective decisionmaking. this is why a fat carbon tax (especially when coupled with a rebate for lower-income people) can be a useful policy: it might make it harder to fly to visit family, but it won't make it categorically impossible, and it will reduce air travel in general, or encourage finding lower-carbon alternatives that allow people to travel just as much, like high-speed trains or, i don't know, some kind of fancy jet fuel that emits less CO2.

honestly, if you vote consistently for pro-environmental policies and parties, if you donate a bit of spare cash from time to time to the same, and/or if you are minimally politically active in other ways, and you're not, like, the CEO of BP in your professional life, you are fine. go, free from sin. if everyone did that, the problem of carbon emissions could be solved in a few years. now, you might go, "but not everyone is doing that!" well, not everyone is sitting at home miserable because they missed seeing grandma on her deathbed; that won't solve global warming either. in fact, it will do even less to solve global warming, because it is (and i say this with compassion) an anxious, guilt-ridden, useless gesture meant to salve your own spirit, not actually a contribution to solving the problem.

in general, i am really opposed to letting a vast and nebulous sense of guilt on big, systemic problems shape your personal behaviors. none of the behaviors that these feelings of guilt ban ever contribute to significant or systemic improvements in the problem--guilt is not building nuclear plants or preventing oil from being drilled. and in my experience, the kind of people who feel this guilt are prone to anxiety, maybe as kids were made overly responsible for the emotional state of people around them, and thus feel an outsized sense of responsibility in other areas of their life, and they mistakenly think that 1) this is a healthy way to go through life, 2) if they don't go through life this way they're a Bad Person, and 3) most people (or most people they think of as Good People) feel this way.

i wish to free people from this burden. there are no individual solutions to big collective action problems! and if reading about global warming, or racism, or poverty, or any other big social problem fills you with an enormous sense of guilt and has you wracking your brain for ways you can help by cutting/reducing/abstaining from things in your life, congratulations, you are one of many people in this world who can be at least 300% more selfish and still be a certified Good Person. so, uh, chill.

#wait is oil 'drilled' or 'mined' or 'dug up' or what?#what is the verb here to refer to the process of oil extraction #is it just 'extraction'?#you drill *for* oil #but do you *drill* oil?#anyway here's another plug for The Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents #because this kind of Eldest Daughter/I Must Fix Everything syndrome #can be a result of a particular kind of emotional immaturity on your parents' part #and i suspect but cannot prove #a lot of people who feel this way had parents whose emotional state #they had to be very sensitive to

151 notes · View notes

kit-walk3r · 9 months

Text

Are the Evans team Barbie or team Oppenheimer?

It seems appropriate 😂

Barbie

Kit- Originally went to see Barbie because Julia wanted to but ended up loving it. Definitely cried. Loved seeing Barbie’s onscreen that looked like Julia, he could tell it made her happy. 100% had a crush on Margot Robbie after this.

Rory- Is actually one of the background Ken’s and won’t stop telling people. Drags all his friends and family to see it so he can point out himself in the background of a dance number for 10 seconds. Laughs out loud at every joke. Actively uses the phrase ‘Kenergy’.

Gallant- Barbie’s were his first subjects for styling hair so is super excited for the movie. Thinks he could have styled Margot Robbie’s hair better than the actual movie stylist. Everyone thinks he’s crushing on Ryan Gosling as Ken but he’s actually crushing on Michael Cera as Allan.

Peter- Knows all the words to I’m Just Ken. Has the Ken rollerblades and has attempted to run with them on but failed miserably. Is not ashamed to admit that he finds all of the Barbie’s attractive.

Oppenheimer

James- Actually remembers when the atomic bomb happened so is intrigued to see how they’ve translated it to film. Is disappointed that they don’t show the dead. Doesn’t understand why Oppenheimer feels guilty. Barbie is too bright, colourful and happy for him.

Kai- Barbie: a film about empowering women? Fuck that, Kai wants the movie with explosions. Pre-cult Kai would have cried seeing Florence Pugh naked. Considered changing his name from ‘Divine Ruler’ to ‘Death, Destroyer of Worlds’.

Barbenheimer

Tate- Really sees himself in Allen. Can relate to Oppenheimer’s guilt. Leaves both movies crying. Wants Ken’s hoodie that says “I’m Kenough”. Has an existential crisis leaving Barbie questioning who he is. Fears nuclear war after Oppenheimer.

Kyle- Did the Barbenheimer double bill. Secretly preferred Barbie to Oppenheimer but loved them both. Wore pink to Barbie. Gets excited every time he recognises an actor in Oppenheimer. Won’t shut up about both movies after he’s seen them and will fight people on the internet who insult them.

Jimmy- Team Barbie because he thinks every person in that movie is attractive. Team Oppenheimer because he actually loves a good biopic. Afterwards says he would definitely go to a Tupperware Party hosted by the Barbie’s.

Austin- Won’t stop talking about the Barbie soundtrack and costume design. Won’t stop talking about the theatrics of Oppenheimer. Won’t stop talking about Cillian Murphy’s eyes.

Colin- Empowering women!! Emily Blunt!! Colin definitely crushes on Emily Blunt and also loves a movie that empowers women so Barbie and Oppenheimer are his two perfect movies. Clapped at the end of both films.

•—————————————————————————•

Since I’ve seen both of the movies I thought this would be fun 🤭

Taglist: @jellyluvr @howtobesasha @dewberryobssesed @rwottvn @kaismanwich @violetharmonstwin @ifeeltoofuckingmuch @mariefics @spill-the-t @hyperharlz

Want to join my taglist? Just reply here!

#american horror story #ahs #evan peters #tate langdon #kit walker #kyle spencer #jimmy darling #james patrick march #kai anderson #rory monahan #mr gallant #Colin zabel #Peter maximoff #barbenheimer

102 notes · View notes

sixminutestoriesblog · 6 months

Text

marigolds

It's October! For half the hemisphere, the nights are getting longer, the wind is getting colder and the weather is taking on a distinct grey and overcast mood. What better time than now to steal a few last bursts of brilliant, warm sunshine and keep them close against the coming of winter?

Enter October's flower (one of them) - the marigold.

An interesting thing I found while researching this month's flower was that its native to the Americas - and yet some sites list the ancient Greeks and Romans having traditions surrounding the marigold. One of the sites even mentions the flower being introduced to the 'Americas' several sentences after telling me its native to Mexico. I think some of the confusion may come from the fact that there are marigolds of the Tagetes genus, which are the ones I think of when I think of marigolds, that were first mentioned by the Aztecs and are native to the Americas - and there is a flower, Calendula officinalis, called the 'pot marigold' which comes from the same daisy family but is a different genus and seems to originate in southern Europe. To add to the confusion, the Spanish imported the Tagetes marigold from the Americas and from Spain it spread to, particularly, monastery gardens across Europe where it was cultivated into various strains with names like the African or French marigold. The American marigold didn't even have an official genus name until 1753. So, sorting through marigold myths was a lot like playing 'guess which twin it is' for me especially since the majority of the sites I was wandering through either weren't aware of a difference or didn't differentiate. I found one site that marked the difference between them (shout out to growingvale.com). I can understand why. We're only talking flower folklore here, not nuclear codes. My little nitpicky soul though just wasn't happy until it figured out what was going on. I am now going to spew facts at you and try to tell you which flower is which for each of them.

We'll see how I do.

Let's start at the beginning.

Tagetes marigolds were first recorded as being cultivated by the Aztecs, who considered them both medicinal and sacred. That tradition has carried over into Mexico's el Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which is celebrated either in late October or Early November depending on the region. How much of that is straight from the Aztecs and how much is later European influence via Catholicism is still up for debate but the marigold plays a special part in both. The brightness and strong scent of the marigold flowers are believed to help guide the spirits of the dead to their family and to the offerings left out for them. You watched Disney's Coco (or Fox's The Book of Life), you get it. The Day of the Dead is celebrated outside of Mexico as well, with traditions varying from place to place but right now, we're talking marigolds.

In a half step to the side of that, the Victorians also considered marigolds a funeral flower but in a solemn and grief-filled way that made their cheery color inappropriate for any other kind of bouquet.

In South Asia, the Tagetes marigold has in large part replaced Calendula officinalis marigold while still serving the same purpose. There marigolds are used to create garlands and decorations for weddings, festivals and sacred holidays. Both Buddhism and Hinduism attach spiritual significance to the flowers. In India, giving a garland of marigolds to someone is considered a sign of friendship.

Walking it back to our Calendula officinalis marigold, the common name of 'marigold' is actually a break down of 'Mary's gold'. The golden colored plant was often left on alters and shrines to the Virgin Mary in Catholic countries in the middle ages by people that couldn't afford to leave actual coins. Its bright sunshine color and availability to everyone soon became associated with her.

This is the marigold that the ancient Romans and Greeks used medicinally and that medieval Europe thought was a cure against the plague. This is also the marigold that was woven into garlands for doors and livestock in Ireland to keep away fairy attention.

Both branches of flowers are popular with love superstitions, representing never having to lose a love and as a good luck charm when it comes to love.

And let's round things off with a gardening fact. Marigold are considered excellent companion plants for most vegetable gardens because they repel pests from the big to the very tiny kind. Just check before you plant. Their roots also give off an antibacterial chemical that will wreck havoc on your legumes.

Happy birthday, October babies!

#marigold #marigolds #folklore #superstition #cottagecore #herbalism #herbology #october #birth flower #day of the dead #dia de los muertos #dia de muertos #right up there with #dandelions #as a sunshine flower #flowers #language of flowers #meaning of flowers

58 notes · View notes

wanderingpen · 1 year

Text

Thinking about how much the Owl House means to me and people all over the world.

Thinking about how much Luz Noceda means to all of the neurodivergent kids out there. The ones who are bullied and think they're weird and out of place because they think a little differently. Thinking about how she is always herself, and it has a positive impact on everyone around her. Thinking about how she's dorky and geeky and neurodivergent and perfect. Thinking about how she is so true to herself and to her family and they love her because she is LUZ and no one else is Luz. Thinking about all of the children of color who get to see themselves on the screen fighting bad guys and being amazing and never being ashamed of their skin or culture. Thinking about how everything she is stems from herself and her amazing latina, single, neurodivergent mother. Thinking about how she is bisexual and gets a girlfriend and is happy with said girlfriend for years to come. Thinking about all of the queer kids who get to see two girls kiss and love each other and be dorks together like kids should be able to.

Thinking about how much Hunter means to kids who are abused and hurt and scared. Thinking about how he had a happy ending, thinking about how he's healing even after years of abuse and neglect. Thinking about how he shows people that you can heal, that you don't have to continue the cycle, that you are NOT just your DNA. Thinking about how he loses a friend and grieves and hurts but he's okay in the end. Thinking about how he doesn't fit into the nuclear family idea, thinking about how he has so many parental figures and siblings and friends and he doesn't have to be "Hunter Noceda" or "Hunter Deamonne" or "Hunter Clawethorne" because he is all of them. Thinking about how found family is just as important as blood family, and thinking about how you don't have to put a name to something to know it's there.

Thinking about Eda, and how she is a disabled character who stays disabled even in a world full of magic. Thinking about how she embraces her disability and she's never put down for it within her family, and she's just as amazing and badass as any other character. Thinking about how she's queer and sassy and disabled and hot and perfect and she never lets anything stand in her way. Thinking about how she loves her kids and loves her partner and loves life.

Thinking about how much Raine Whispers means to me as someone who is figuring out their gender identity. Thinking about how they are the person that helped me figure out that I am nonbinary (at least to some extent) and thinking about all of the other nonbinary kids who get to see themselves on screen in a fantastic show as an important character who isn't shown of as the "queer quota" character and then pushed aside. Thinking about how they are nervous and shy and talented and brave and a monsterfucker in love and them being nonbinary is just a part of a whole amazing character. Thinking about how they're middle-aged, showing kids and adults that being queer doesn't disappear when you age. Queer people get to live a full, happy life just like everyone else.

Thinking about Lilith and Gus, and how they're obsessed with things that some people consider "strange", and how no one that loves them ever puts them down for it. Thinking about how Gus is a gifted child, who deals with gifted kid burnout and the others give him the space and kindness to help him deal with that. Thinking about how Lilith makes mistakes, like everyone does, but finds happiness in her sister and in her friends and is forgiven because she never meant to hurt anybody. Thinking about how she doesn't need a love interest to be "whole", and that she finds complete fulfillment in her platonic and familial relationships.

Thinking about Belos, and how they really said no, some people do not deserve your forgiveness. No, sometimes people just hurt others for the sake of hurting them, and you do not have to forgive them just because they apologize. Thinking about how he is not even given the honor of a dignified death, thinking about how he is purely fascist and no one ever tries to humor him or give him another chance.

Thinking about the Collector, and how they just didn't understand. Thinking about how they were scared and hurt and traumatized, and all they needed was someone to help them understand the world around them. Thinking about how, while the show didn't forgive Philip, they did forgive the Collector. Because some people really don't intend to hurt others, even if they accidently do. Thinking about how the Collector decided to put space between himself and the people they hurt, to give everyone the chance to heal and how they still visit because he has friends to turn to now, because even if you accidentally hurt people, there will be those who forgive you. Thinking about how they show that you are loved, even if you make a mistake.

Thinking about how Amity and her siblings learned to be better and escaped their Mother's horrible treatment. Thinking about how Amity didn't immediately forgive her father for being idle in their treatment, but also thinking about how Alador is genuinely TRYING and she is willing to give him a chance. Thinking about how she recognizes that she hurt people and tries so hard to make amends, and thinking about how people are slow to trust her again but she finds people that eventually DO, and thinking about how she loves her human girlfriend and thinking about how she's grown and matured and become her own person outside of her mother's influence.

Thinking about King, about how he loves and misses the father he never got to meet, but that he also loves his mother for adopting him and taking care of him. Thinking about how King shows that you can love both your blood and your adoptive relationships and that just because you have one doesn't mean you can't have the other. Thinking about how he loves his sibling and teases her and fights with his family like families do, but they forgive each other in the end because no one ever really meant it.

Thinking about Willow, and her strength and boundless support for her friends, but also how she isn't an infinite well of hope. Sometimes she needs help too, and that's okay. Thinking about how she is chubby and badass and strong and about how she has a boy head-over-heels for her because she is so loveable and so amazing.

Thinking about how everyone is allowed to make mistakes, allowed to hurt and cry, allowed to be different and be queer and be neurodiverse. Thinking about how much these characters mean to kids around the world, and thinking about how much love and effort the cast and crew put into letting their little world touch so many people's hearts.

Thank you to Dana and the rest of the crew. Thank you for showing kids and adults alike that there are people like them out there and that love and hope is not lost on anyone. Thank you for inviting us into the carnival and taking us on the most amazing, magical ride we have ever been on.

The Owl House will live in my heart, and in the hearts of many for years to come.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Bye-eeeee!!!

#the owl house #watching and dreaming #toh spoilers #toh #hunter #luz noceda #raine whispers #eda clawthorne #willow park #gus porter #amity blight #camila noceda #king clawthorne #emperor belos #the collector #penposts #lilith clawthorne #philip whittebane

150 notes · View notes

mundaneandmagicalcreature · 7 months

Text

The Newsreader & gender expectations. Part II: Dale Jennings and being a newsreader

I feel like there's a line connecting Dale's mum with his career ambitions and with how he feels about his sexuality.

Dale's not that young. So, why hasn't reflected more about his sexuality and his relationships? Why is he still trying to erase parts of himself (darling, it won't work)? Why does he assume that everyone wants to get married?

"It's 1987, there was not really the language for him to discover that (and he's working in such a rigid environment), to even really understand what bisexuality is or what pansexuality is or maybe demisexual (sic)." Sam Reid. ABC Radio National

Both Sam and Michael have talked about Dale lacking the language about his sexuality. While it's true that that he may not have come across the word "bisexual" (although the famous Bowie interview is from 1979), I feel like more than a label he needs a narrative. It's pretty common for queer people, when we're discovering our sexuality to look for people like us: historical figures, fictional characters, people in our own life, etc. Just some one to show us how to live.

Gerry also doesn't have a label, and yet he seems much more happy and comfortable in his sexuality. His life history could be that narrative Dale needs: fall in love with a woman, marry, have a child, have a successful career AND have sex with men on the side. But Dale is set on monogamy. Which is absolutely fine, but he can't imagine himself as attracted to both men and women, and monogamous, AND happy.

My theory is that he's never had the time to think about this things because he was an emotionally parentified child. We know that Dale's father died when he was only 15. He had to take responsibility for his mum happiness. And he's holding that responsibility ever since.

This is more fanfiction than analysis territory, but I can imagine a recently widowed Val glued to the TV, watching news. And I can imagine a very young Dale thinking "Now that my dad's dead I have to be a proper man, the kind of man my mum values. And that man is a newsreader."

"I suppose Dale has always sort of believe that the pinnacle of... everything that represents stability and assuredness and the kind of like archetype of what it is to be a man and what it is to be a voice of authority is represented in this newsreader kind of form." Sam Reid. The Newsreader Podcast. 06 | Fireworks with Sam Reid and Michael Lucas

I know that sexuality is not correlated to gender, but these things intersect and the ideal man for society (specially in this moment in time) is a straight man (who gets married to a woman, has children, provides for them financially, etc). Queer men are seeing as feminine and therefore faulty. Dale's running away from being perceived that way.

What I would call "a partner" and Adam calls "a lover", Val calls "a friend". The euphemism makes it pretty clear that she's not comfortable with queerness. Dale wants to make her happy, so he has to be a straight man.

Even after more than a year of Helen and Dale being together, Val says she wasn't sure Dale was going to propose/marry her. Maybe she thought they were going to break up, or that they would continue to "live in sin" (lets note the religious expression for a moment...) for ever. But what I hear (and judging by Dale's awkward reaction, he may be thinking the same) is "up until this moment I was afraid you were actually gay".

By the end of the season, Dale and Helen have broken up. He buys his own house and while he's showing it to his mum, they have that little dialogue. "It's not a family home", once again that idea of nuclear family shows up. For the first time he's going against her wishes. Does this mean he's happy? Sam doesn't think so and neither do I. I think he just switched his mum's expectations for those of the society in general. And society expect for people who work on TV to have big fancy houses, so that's what he bought.

________

(part I)

feel free to comment in whatever form you like, I'm nosy and I like to read what other people think.

#the newsreader #sam reid #maude davey #dale jennings #val jennings #gender #the newsreader season 2 #the newsreader spoilers

54 notes · View notes

thatbadadvice · 1 year

Note

Dear Bad Advisor,

thank you for taking my query into consideration! I'll also take good advice, if you think my predicament is worthy of it. I guess I'll see what you decide on.

Here's my situation:

When we met my husband's family over Christmas, we talked about the upcoming birthday weekend for my kid, near the end of January. Since it was already planned that my husband's mother and sister would spend two days with my kid at the beginning of February, I asked if they were okay with just celebrating my kid's birthday then, since the birthday weekend itself was already very packed. When I say packed, I mean that we had a lot of children over on Saturday and a few of the grandparents on Sunday. They agreed because my kid is only three and they said they understand that it would be overwhelming if too much was going on at the same time.

About a week before the birthday weekend, the fact that my husband's mother had made quite a few comments about wanting to spend "birthday time" with my kid made me reconsider and I invited her for the Sunday of the birthday weekend. She accepted, but immediately switched to commenting that it would probably all be a bit much for my kid. I told her she didn't have to come if she was worried about that. She was offended I suggested that.

Then after the birthday weekend, she commented that her daughter (my sister-in-law) would have wanted to celebrate with my kid too. I said she still could, at the beginning if February, like we originally planned. My husband's aunt commented the same thing to me. My sister-in-law hasn't contacted me for weeks, which is unusual for her. I'm worried she's really upset with me and I didn't notice.

I told my husband's mother and aunt that I feel like I'm made out to be the bad guy no matter what I do. First I invite too many people, then not enough.

They said I should have planned a party with all of them in the first place. I said they should have told me that's what they want when we first talked about it in December. Then we could have talked about it. But I planned a birthday party for all the kids, which was what my kid really wanted, and I tried to make time for all the grandparents and aunts and uncles when it was sensible.

Somehow, even though my kid had a wonderful birthday she still tells everyone about every day, I feel really guilty and sad. Is there a way for me to keep everyone happy? It doesn't feel like it, and I really don't know if I should even try.

Readers sometimes send Bad Advisor their real-ass questions to answer, so the Bad Advisor is periodically going to try her hand at answering them. If you’d like to submit a question for a Good Advice Interlude, use the “ask” form!

The advice I’m going to offer here is predicated on one very important piece of information, which I don’t have: Whether or not your husband is literally capable of communicating with his family.

Is your husband literally capable of communicating with his family? I don’t mean “he’s very important/busy at work” or "he's training for the Iron Man" or “they have a complicated history” or “he’s on Mars and has limited access to email” or "he must protect the nuclear codes from the bad guys who are chasing him down La Cienega as we speak," which are all circumstances in which your husband remains fully capable of communicating with his family and planning for and around any communication challenges. I mean is he literally capable? If so, that’s his job now.

If your husband’s relatives don’t get certain information or invitations or cards or edible arrangements from your husband because he’s busy or forgot or has ADHD or is stressed out or depressed or fell asleep or went on a long hike without his phone, then they don’t get whatever that was, and it’s his fault and his responsibility to correct. If there’s beef, your husband can: (1) resolve the conflict with his relatives. If that doesn’t work, or he doesn’t want to, or he’d rather you do it, he can (2) not resolve the conflict with his relatives. If your husband's relatives harass you because he's not sending them information they need or not resolving conflict with them or not responding to their complaints, you can tell them "You’ll have to talk to Dale about that!" until they come up with something to talk to you about besides demanding you carry 100% of the Family Togetherness And Emotional Wellbeing Load. Imagine how many wonderful things there are on earth to discuss besides haranguing you about a 3-year-old's birthday plans! I bet your husband’s relatives can find one fast when you become a no-reply inbox that issues mailer-daemon errors every time they start up with complaints about how y'all manage your life and your family.

If Dale (sorry, your husband's name is Dale now) won't be the first point of contact for his own family, then that is tough tittums for his family. The current arrangement is undoubtedly already and always tough tittums for you – why is that okay? – so what do you have to lose? Why is it fine for you to be the one person carrying sole responsibility not only for planning a 3-year-old's birthday party (in which you gave these people FLEXIBLE ATTENDANCE OPTIONS APLENTY) but for managing the pissy feelings of a bunch of pissy grown-ass adults who can articulate their own pissy needs, drive their own pissy cars, buy their own pissy Metrocards, hire their own pissy taxis, prepare their own pissy food, put on their own pissy shoes, and can — most importantly — show up when and where they are invited, or not, and not be pissy about it!!!! Sure, it’s “just” your kid's birthday party today, but it's also the next, what thirty or forty or fifty years of your life? Of being the Official Cruise Director And Liaison of All Things Fambly But Also The Help Who Gets Hollered At When The Napkins Are Not Ironed To Lady Grantham's Liking? Man, fuck that!

So, okay. On the off chance your husband is not literally capable of communicating with his family (he is dead? I feel like you would have said that, but anything’s possible), then you’re going to have to do this next part instead. Actually, you should do this next part even if Dale does turn out to be sentient and graciously agrees to field pissy texts from his pissy sister because he’s the greatest man alive and does incredible favors for people that go above and beyond the typical realm of human generosity and goodness, such as talking to his own mother about his own child’s birthday party.

You’re gonna figure out exactly how much other-adults-feelings-management you’re comfortable doing, and then do about a quarter of that amount. Ideally even less. Let’s talk about some of what you wrote:

“... my husband's mother had made quite a few comments about wanting to spend ‘birthday time’ with my kid made me reconsider and I invited her …”

She can ask for ‘birthday time’ using her words if that’s what she wants. You don’t have to guess what she wants and offer it to her.

“I'm worried she's really upset with me and I didn't notice.”

Y’all speak the same language? Have access to Google Translate if you don’t? You are never obligated to guess what someone else’s emotional state is. It is not your fault you are not psychic. It actually wouldn’t be your fault even if you were psychic.

“Is there a way for me to keep everyone happy?”

You don’t ask “Is there a way to make everyone here happy?” which would be the query of a person looking to resolve situational conflict with equal partners. You’re asking whether there’s a way for you to keep everyone happy, which is the query of someone who believes they are uniquely responsible for and tasked with maintaining other people’s emotional wellbeing not just now but indefinitely.

What if any of the other grown-ass adults involved in this situation – your mother-in-law, your sister-in-law, fucking Dale – did even a fraction of the amount of planning, anticipation, and accommodating that you’re doing for them and their needs and their wants and their schedules? Well, you wouldn’t be writing in in the first place, I guess. But listen to what you’re saying here, and look at how much work it is! You’re anticipating the needs of people who haven’t even told you they want something yet! You’re presuming that it is your responsibility to read the mind of someone who is perfectly capable of telling you if she is upset with you! You are wondering how to make all of the adults here happy and literally none of those adults are asking what makes you happy. (Any chance Dale has said he doesn’t care how his relatives feel about y’all’s kid’s birthday party? Any chance you’re caring on his behalf? Free yourself from this!!!!!!! You cannot fix other people’s relationships by caring more about their weird interpersonal shit than they do.)

Here’s the last thing that really stuck out to me, and I hope you don’t take it as me razzing you because I emphatically am not. You wrote:

“… even though my kid had a wonderful birthday she still tells everyone about every day, I feel really guilty and sad.”

Do you see that you made the most important person happy? Do you see that you, a caring and thoughtful and empathetic and motivated and capable parent did the most important thing? You gave your kid a birthday she is still fucking telling people about because it was that great! Fuck whether your mother-in-law had a good time in the general vicinity of your kid’s birthday! If there are smaller fish to fry on planet earth, I don’t know where they live.

But it is a big fucking deal that you feel safe and confident and are able to do the kind of parenting you want and need to do without diverting all of this energy to small-ass fish fries (frys?). When your kid grows up, she will remember the great birthdays. She will remember parents who advocated for her and taught her important lessons and supported her. The person she will become depends on all of those things. It will not depend on how your husband’s aunt feels about a child’s third birthday party.

So: whether or not you can count on your husband to do a thing he should already be doing as the bare fucking minimum in a partnership, you have to figure out a way to get yourself to a way, way lower baseline of fucks given about whether other people like you or are happy with you. That doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk to them, but you don’t have to accommodate and anticipate and assuage them as your default setting.

Easier motherfucking said than motherfucking done, I know. I’m sure you know therapy exists, but uh … do recommend. Other options: have you read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents? This book changed my life. Us people-pleasers learned it from somewhere. Even if you think “Nah, couldn’t be me,” the tools the book offers for navigating relationships with emotionally immature adults (i.e., a great-aunt-in-law who expects you to make her feel good about her invitation to a child’s third birthday party?) are well worth it.

Here’s what else helped me: make rules and pretend like someone else made them and there’s nothing you can do about it. Call them “traditions” if you want, maybe that plays better with Great Auntie Pisspants. From now on, your kid has one birthday party with her friends and one birthday party with family members. No, you can’t change that just because Great Auntie Pisspants asked you to; it’s a “tradition.” When people complain about your rules-slash-family traditions, instead of the endless smorgasbord of options you are not just willing to consider but actively and preemptively offering in case it’s more convenient for everybody, it starts to get a lot less personal. “I don’t make the rules!” you can say to yourself, even though you 1000000% made the rules and you are the captain now, so Great Auntie Pisspants is going to have to choose between BINGO or your kid’s birthday because you’re not throwing nine birthday parties.

I’m guessing that family shit is not the only place your inclination toward making other people happy at your own expense causes you grief. Good news: you can make rules/traditions about all kinds of nonsense. Here are some I’ve had over the years: I “can’t” give people rides; I “can’t” bake; I “can’t” watch Woody Allen movies. I “always” have my phone on do-not-disturb on weekends; I “always” spend at least one winter holiday at home; I “always” avoid highways at rush hour. I don’t know who made the rules (God?) but I can’t break them (I am God, I do what I want, and I don’t want to break my own rules).

You are responsible only for the emotional health and wellbeing of yourself and your child. You and your kiddo are the two people who matter most. You cannot keep everyone else happy, and you should not try.

#good advice interlude #family shit #parenting #in-laws #people pleasing #emotionally immature adults #fucking dale

242 notes · View notes

catholic-character-tournament · 11 months

Text

Round 1 - Side A

Propaganda below ⬇️

Louis de Pointe du Lac

french (creole) in the 1700s, has a crazy Ultra-Catholic brother that he builds a cathedral for on his property out of love, in which he gets turned i to a vampire after setting the place on fire in a drunken stupor because he was sooo damp lestat (insane vampire, also catholic but also not, it's complictaed) just couldn't resist, fire motif continues (he burns a lot of places to the ground, fire kills vampires, etc); denies himself human blood not because killing is wrong but because drinking human blood is a pleasurable experience (drinking blood is also how vampires have sex, so take this how you will), finds himself baby trapped in a toxic patriarchal nuclear family setting with lestat (not exclusive to catholics ofc but, come on) louis would not identify as catholic/religious but literally everything he does comes down to his immense catholic guilt complex and he believed genuinely for a very long time that he was going to hell for existing as a vampire (it's a metaphor)

episode 1 he has a whole breakdown in a confession booth about pimping, drinking, gay sex, etc. then his priest gets immediately murdered by a vampire and he then agrees to be turned by that vampire and to marry him (in his defense lestat is VERY dreamy) and keeps doing the same shit and worse but feeling extreme guilt about everything constantly. he keeps this up for 144 years and counting

He battles with faith so hard dude he spends like half his book being Catholically Guilty for his vampirism. It slaps

He got turned into a vampire after having a big gay crisis in a church. Iconic

Homura

she is a catholic lesbian whose girlfriend became god. she has been through so much.

shes such a lesbian for amdoke

Catholic guilt literally turned her into a demon

she literally watches everyone she knows die over and over and over again just so she can save madoka, the one girl who showed kindness towards her. when madoka ends up basically becoming god in order to stop the cycle of death and violence, homura RIPS AWAY THE HUMAN PART OF HER SOUL so that she can create a world where she and Madoka and their friends can live happily, effectively becoming the devil to madoka's god

She has so much religious symbolism when it comes to her relationship to Madoka. Madoka is God and Homura becomes Lucifer so that she can save Madoka and give her happiness. She literally rips God from heaven and rewrites reality though. The way she sees her self and shapes reality is through the lense of Catholicism.

most fucked up little catholic girl. we love that for her.

Okay homuras entire fuckin arc is stemmed from the fact she is Catholic. Look at her trying to save Madoka over and over again and suffering for it because she thinks if she suffers enough and works hard enough Madoka will stay. Normal people do not go into time loops willingly. Catholics will.

#Louis de Pointe du Lac #interview with the vampire #homura akemi #pmmm #puella magi madoka magica #madoka magica #vampire chronicles #cct polls #tumblr tournament #tumblr bracket #tumblr polls

114 notes · View notes

hilsoncrater · 11 months

Text

no actually fuck right off with the whole "ted had to go back to be a good dad". no the hell he didn't. rebecca even outlined an entire picture where ted could stay with his richmond family and have his kansas family there and it would've all worked out for the betterment of everyone!! there was that option at least.

what's the takeaway from this? in a series that has framed kansas as this past-tense, haunted place for ted? in a series that encourages its characters to grow out of the dark forest they're in? to break out of self-imposed boxes? how can those core messages be taken to heart when the main character can't even internalize them.

and for ted to say "i love our family no matter what it looks like" only...to have it end as a nuclear family? sorry, but what.

story arcs and character arcs combine to form implied messages. implied themes. in other words, the true meaning. you can have four different combinations that create four different meanings which only come together at the end of a story:

fictional world changes + character stays the same

fictional world changes + character changes

fictional world stays the same + character changes

fictional world stays the same + character stays the same

ted lasso, because of this ending, has fallen into the first category. the story arc of richmond has undergone a transformation, yet ted himself ultimately fails to break out of his box.

combine that with the fact that conflict helps create meaning, and that conflict itself is a character's fight against free will. the central conflict in the series is, at its core, about self-betterment. whether that manifests as forgiveness or second chances or being true to yourself.

ted does not overcome this conflict no matter how much he fights against it, because he fails to change as a character. all of his character growth throughout the season is voided by his kansas ending (as well as his behavior in 3x12). spot the difference:

at the beginning of season 1, ted is a lonely man with no real support system who moves across the world because he thinks that is what's best for his family.

at the end of season 3, ted is a lonely man who chooses to cut away from his support system to move across the world because he thinks that is what's best for his family.

so you have a character who does not have free will combined with a story arc (personified by everyone in richmond) that insists free will is achievable.

in what world is this takeaway a happy ending? it isn't. not for ted, at least. ted, who is back to square one.

what is the true meaning of ted lasso, then?

#i would go into the abuse messages & also the absolute waste of set up #but maybe tomorrow #ted lasso spoilers #ted lasso

95 notes · View notes

kyouka-supremacy · 1 month

Note

ooh how about Yosano for the ask game?

Yay Yosano!!! I love her so much <33

Favorite thing about them: Her backstory,,, It's just a masterpiece, for me it's really the peak of bsd's writing. “We don't want your skill. We want that kindness of yours” and “You don't need a skill at all. There's real value in your sadness.” ueueueueueueue. In two chapters it made of a relatively flat character a complex and human one, and we love to see that.

Least favorite thing about them: Nothing, she's great??? I can't think of anything.

Favorite line: There's no line that hits me in particular I can think of, but I really like the emotion / delivery of some of them. This one I like tons:

brOTP: Aaaaahhh I love her I want to see her interact with everyone. Older-sister kind of characters are ALWAYS my favourite. I love her dynamics with Ranpo and I like to think they have this sort of sibling complicity of two people who have known each other for a very long time and love each other deeply. I like her relationship with Fukuzawa, I like how explicitly protective he is of her, I'm glad she has someone she can trust who looks after her and makes her feel loved. (Actually, the Yosano / Fukuzawa relationship makes me emotional. Because Yosano was so deeply traumatized and broken and basically dead when he took her under his wing, and she looks so healthy and confident and serene in the canon timeline, it's basically a miracle; and the only way this could have happened is by having someone who deeply loved and cared for her, someone who kindly guided her through every step of rehabilitation. It moves me a little). I really enjoyed her interactions with Atsushi!! And I like to think Yosano and Kyouka would hang out, I feel like Yosano would be happy to sort of return the favour and help back a little girl who was able to slip out of the darkness just in time; I can see them have this kind of inter generational relationship where they go shopping together and chat about girl things.

OTP: I really like kousano!!! I feel like Yosano deserves her spicy pm love affair too ahah. I think it's got lots of potential for both fluff and angst, and I believe it's a cool relationship to explore for both characters!! I wish they'd meet in canon. When I first watched the anime I was low-key into ranposano, and though I don't feel very strongly about them anymore, I think it's a nice ship nonetheless!

nOTP: Nothing. Really I don't dislike ships pffttt.

Random headcanon: Something I don't think I ever brought up but that I firmly believe in is that whereas all the other ada members live at the ada dorms, Yosano, Ranpo and Fukuzawa have their own house where they live together. Fukuzawa took Ranpo to his home when he adopted him, and then Yosano joined them when they took her in because I mean, there was no way that they could leave her alone, right? So they've always lived together, and they are happy together, they never felt the need to change that. That's the real ada found family for me if there ever was one. Really like deconstructing the idea of nuclear family or of the fact that children can't live with their parents as adults while still being independent. Also it just makes sense? And it's heartwarming to think that Fukuzawa, the lone wolf with no friends of relations, now lives in a happy and lively household.

Unpopular opinion: Yosano existing isn't enough to beat the bsd being sexist allegations, I'm so sorry everyone I wish that was the case.

Song i associate with them: Kilmer by Niru Kajitsu, I just wish I didn't (个_个) There's even a beautiful fanart of Yosano in the style of the Kilmer pv here. Also Fräulein=Biblioteca by nyanyannya, just based on vibes alone (the purple butterflies!!), to mention something a little less depressing lol.

Favorite picture of them:

Favourite panel from the manga:

(Took me like. One hour to pick just one. She's always stunning in Harukawa's art style.)

Favourite illustration:

Favourite illustration in the anime art style:

Favourite Mayoi card:

Send me a character?

#Thank you for the ask I love her!!!! <333 #akiko yosano #bsd #mine #people asks me stuff

21 notes · View notes

the-cookie-of-doom · 14 days

Note

Regarding the split!Kim AU I'm just gonna put my ramble of thoughts out on here.

1. Okay so what events led to Kim wanting to remove his younger self? What inner turmoil, self depreciating nonsense thoughts did he put himself through?

2. Where did Kim find this magic spell and how did he follow through with it without searching for it's consequences/side effects? Did he go down a black hole on the web and found the most reviewed witch/ spell out there to help him? Idk how to words more on this brainrot

3. How long was it till Kim hid what he did and how did young!Kim reach the compound??

4. What all young!Kim must be thinking and what did he do that everyone in the compound realized something was wrong? (Plus I hope Korn is dead in this, he doesn't deserve to be alive)

5. What was Chays reaction to young!Kim and how he takes care of him and spends time with him? (just being the most loving, and Kim feels so touched and full of unknown feelings because Chay?? the love of his life?? accepts and appreciates and treats young!Kim like he's the most precious in this entire world???)

6. Young!Kim's reaction to finding out about Wik? Is he shocked/ surprised/ wonderstruck? In complete awe of himself of the future?

7. How does Kim behave with young!Kim? Is he hesitant at first? But then he sees the way everyone else treats him and has Feelings™ and then thinks (a lot) and maybe something happens like some new stupidass bodyguard shouting at/ hurting young!Kim and Kim just snapping out on him, completely pissed off and in the worst rage he could ever have, completely protecting young!Kim like who tf you think you are?? How dare you??

Okay I think that's all for now, sorry for the spam of Randomness™😅

(yes i typed this up in my notes first so i don't accidentally lose anything.)

Anon darling I'm kissing you on the forehead, you're hitting so many of my story points with these asks! I feel Seen.

I haven't decided what Kim specifically does/feels that makes him want to do this in the first place. Since I started the fic where it's already happened, I just kinda. Handwaved it. But he does comment on the fact that Chay has been pushing him towards therapy, so that's probably part of it. Kim would rather lose all his memories than talk about his feelings. He's also 2 years into dating Chay (which honestly. That's bc I wanted baby Kim to be 13, and aging Kim up to 23 gave me an easy 10 years to work with. Tbh it would work better if Kim were only a few months into dating Chay and he was willing to do anything to Be A Good Person/Boyfriend/makeup for the breakup. BUT I DIGRESS!) Anyway being with Chay makes Kim want to be/feel better, and this is his nuclear solution. It does not work.

I also don't know how he did it! I... hesitate to write white pagan magic in KP fics. Maybe Kim pulled a Porsche and went to a monk for help dealing with his traumas, and ended up with a modified past life ritual that ended up splitting him right down the middle. The most important side effect is the way Kim feels about his brothers now; Tawan trauma happened when Kim was a little older, so the Kinn his child self remembers is still very loving and happy, he hasn't pulled away yet. But for adult Kim, who's memories start when he was a teenager... there was so much distance between him and his brothers, and then he moved out a couple years later, so he feels like they're practically strangers to him. Like really distant family that you only see at weddings and funerals. Meanwhile kid!Kim is a precocious little smol who's cuddling both of them whenever he can. (Khun loves it, Kinn has no idea what to do with it but he loves it too. Adult Kim is jealous but wouldn't know how to accept affection from them.)

It all happens pretty much the next day/couple days later, as of the current time line! Kim goes to the temple and does his thing. Kid!Kim manifests wherever he was when the memory split happens; so he just. Wakes up somewhere in the middle of Bangkok, and has to find his way back to the compound. Meanwhile KimChay are living in his condo, obliviously going about their lives. It takes a while for Kid!Kim to get home, then he's sneaking all around because things are different and he doesn't understand why (and he keeps stabbing people, but like. stabby the Roomba more than murder); Kinn has to find him/calm him down/get Porsche involved and figure out what's going on before anyone thinks to call Chay (who's been busy having sex with adult Kim lol)

Korn is dead! Bc I'm lazy and didn't want to think about all the terrible things he could do to mess with smol Kim! Like I said, Kim is kind of a feral cat just let loose in the compound, surrounded by people he doesn't know and freaking out a lot, until the guards finally get him cornered in his old room and notify Kinn. Then eventually Chay gets a call from Porsche, and he goes to the compound with adult Kim, and it's a whole Thing.

Chay absolutely adores kid!Kim. He's absolutely feral but he's also a cutie pie, and he gets a crush on Chay quick. Chay loves it; he was such a lovestruck kid with Kim, now it's his turn! (And he teases adult Kim soo much about how he like likes him >,<). Adult Kim is weird with his younger self at first, bc as far as he's concerned, this may as well be a random child. So Chay schlorps him up quick bc the poor kid needs love. And Kim does come to appreciate the way Chay takes care of his younger self (he has some very odd memories about it when they're eventually reunited.)

My goodness, young Kim is so excited. At that age, he had all these dreams about the life he wished he could have, but he never thought it would really happen. But he got away from his father, he gets to chase his dreams of making music, he has a (very cute!!) boy that loves him, that he gets to love in return. It's all his dreams come true. Again, Chay thinks this is adorable, that Kim was such a dreamy little kid. (Kim is also so excited when he finds out that!! Chay lets him write songs about him!! that's so cool!!! And Chay writes him songs too!?!?!)

Like I said, at the start kid Kim may as well be some random child, he's vaguely curious about what happened but has no personal investment (kid Kim might be. a little. heartbroken about that. He's very sensitive.) But overtime Kim warms up to him, learns how to love him and take care of him. It's seeing this as someone else, rather than himself, that allows him to "forgive" himself. It's easy to blame himself for all the bad parts of his life when he's not looking that poor kid in the eyes. And bc I think cuddles are important, and Kim definitely wasn't hugged enough as a child, there's many snugs. There are still Mafia Things going on around all this that Kim has to deal with, so kid Kim spends a lot of time with Chay and his brothers, but there are a lot of times where he's asleep between KimChay. He kind of is like their kid in some ways. It's an odd dynamic for Kim, especially when he gets those memories of being cuddled by himself and Chay?? But ultimately it's a good thing for him. (Except the Porsche memories. He doesn't want those 😤)

These were so much fun, thank you for sending them!! I love talking about this AU <3<3<3

#cookie speaks #cookie writes #kimchay #split!Kim AU

16 notes · View notes