#also you can pry autistic gundham from my cold dead hands. that boy deserves to be treated better by every single person around him

[danggirlronpa]

"Gundham’s two theoretical moms?" Tell me more 👀

I absolutely will!!

Brief meta time: one thing that I always get really up in arms about with media that revolves around teens is the assumption that all of their parents are, behind the scenes, M/F biological parents. It's a really nefarious form of ingrained homophobia that convinces the audience that if there was a single parent, or gay parents, or adopted parents - well, surely they'd point it out somehow! After all, that's not The Norm. If you aren't explicitly told otherwise, always assume The Norm. It's not any individual audience member's fault; it's the same built in assumption of media that argues everyone is cishet until proven otherwise, and talks about adding characters "just to seem woke." It's subconscious and implicit.

As a gay person who has always wanted to adopt children, that obviously grinds my gears. So I go out of my way to headcanon a character's parents in all sorts of different configurations.

Actual headcanon time: For me, Gundham's mom always read to me as a single mother struggling to raise an autistic child on her own, without knowing how to accommodate his needs. I tend to think of Gundham's mom as the Most Normal Person Of All Time. Firstly, because it's funny. But secondly, because the arc of "Mom doesn't understand her child in any way but loves them so much that it ultimately changes her life so that she can support them" is one of my favorites. I tear up a little just thinking about it.

So in my head, Gundham gets his diagnosis, and his Mom is like alright. I can do this. Let's find a support group to learn about how I can be good to this child. And she goes to this support group and IMMEDIATELY meets just the most gothic magic lady she's ever seen. Just an absolute banger of a woman. Big titty goth gf. Who, Gundham's mom learns quickly, is one of the leads of the support group, who helps parents understand their children based on Her Own experience with autism!

From there in my head it's a very straightforward "this hot woman is teaching my kid how to recite magic incantations and telling him he doesn't like my cooking because it's destructive poison but it will make his body better at resisting greater poisons later. Oh God I'm in love with her" story, paired with goth gf's "oh I fucking LOVE this lady's psuedo-goth child, and it's so sweet how hard she's trying so that her child can bloom happily like this, and her food may be poisonous but she is so lovely, I wonder how she feels about gomez addams pick up lines" story. Gundham never considers goth lady his actual mom but that's OK! She's happy as his Mentor In The Arcane Magicks, and his mom can be his Mentor In Owning Hamsters. And together they love each other and Gundham so much!! And his Mom gets to be VERY smug when he's the Ultimate Breeder instead of the Ultimate Dark Mage. Superior mentor privileges.