#olivia crain my beloved i think of you every single day

[jeniffercheck]

This is a brainrot question but I just realized you wrote my favorite hill house fic about theo and olivia and i was wondering if you think there are similarities btwn how olivia handled the situation with the bullies and with theo's really tough time and how moms karolina and shiv would?

oh my god now we are TALKING. firstly that's one of the fics most near and dear to me and any time i find out someone has read it i get so so happy so thank u :') <3333 if u haven't read my theo & olivia fic this might be a little confusing but under the cut for a long ramble about this topic lol

interestingly there are definitely some similarities!! it's funny that there are, because my characterization of olivia in that fic is based on the concept of olivia + the forever house, which is very much an idealized version of olivia, and when i think of shivlina as parents they are entirely NOT idealized. at the same time, olivia & theo's relationship is strained in that fic, and would've been regardless of how perfect i could've made olivia, and that is due to the center of it being a worried mother who can't figure out how to help her child no matter how hard she tries or how much she wants to, which leads to bad choices and arguments and a lot of resentment on both ends, and i actually do see a lot of that in shivlina!

idk if you have seen some of the posts about talia (oc shivlina child) and karolina, but i guess thinking about it now, that relationship plays out pretty similarly to theo & olivia where talia is acting out and generally not being very kind or forthcoming to karolina, and karolina simply just doesn't know/understand why she can't just be let in (which would majorly solve part of the problem, as we see in the hill house fic!!!), and it does become this spiral of overcompensation (olivia grasping on to any bonding moment she can with theo, no matter how short-lived), of thinking maybe she needs to discipline more, (theo being more afraid to get in trouble than she cares about her own well-being), of thinking maybe she's too overbearing and if she steps away it'll be better (olivia letting theo stay out late, sleeping outside of her bedroom instead of trying to talk to her point blank), etc.

so side note: olivia and theo to me are more of a sign of the times; theo was afraid of the fallout of coming out, and olivia was afraid of pushing her before she was ready, because back then it would've been a much bigger deal, but it was still something she was just unprepared to handle, like she didn't know what to do or how to help & i see shivlina as those kinds of parents where they do love their kids and they do want to help but they just don't understand the source of the problem (and in shivlina's case, THEY are the problem = generational cycles), and because of that they also don't know how to fix it and they would certainly get desperate and they would make bad choices like i said earlier, but i think the heart of it, and why i love olivia crain so so much, is that they would love their children and truly want to do right by them, but it's hard!!! bc gay angsty teenagers are hard to deal with!!!!!!!! but they would figure it out too those fucking girlfails<3333