#she just wanted to be a good mother

[bunnieswithknives]

I feel bad for neglecting Hazel so much, I do have many thoughts about her.. and also a mermaid au that im probably not going to do anything with

[dapper-lil-arts]

Top two characters that would have made the most worthy-awesome-incredibly cathartic alicorns

[intriga-hounds]

it will never get old to me how much ponzu enjoys motherhood. 🥹 i have never met a dam who wasn’t at least a little over it by now. she just adores them so much.

today she chose babies over going in her crate for dinner. she hadn’t played with them all day bc i was at work, so she wouldn’t even hear of being put away when she knew i was about to let them out. they’re so cute together. 🥰

[whetstonefires]

The reason I keep banging the Jiang Fengmian drum so hard is not that he did nothing wrong--he's definitely in contention for best parenting in this book but that bar is in the ground--but because most of the takes I see about him are so extremely bad.

If you want to slag him off for trying to make choices that would hurt no one, and winding up properly protecting no one as a result, that's valid! That's an interesting and text-based critique, which opens into his parallels with Lan Xichen!

If you want to blame him for being weirdly over-invested in Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng being bffs, that's fair, that definitely contributed to the weirdness between them. If you want to say he was a poor communicator, that he fundamentally misunderstood his son, that he failed to be emotionally available in a way his kids could get much use out of, even that he should have figured out a way to stop Yu Ziyuan from creating such a hostile environment, all of that is fair game!

If you want to tackle how the worst thing he did to his kids was die I am so interested in how Wei Wuxian went on to abandon A-Yuan by going to his death, and how that might be tied to how his primary adult role model tied him to a boat and went off to a fight he knew he was going to lose.

After his parents had already left him like that once before, presumably less intentionally.

But no, instead I keep seeing that Jiang Fengmian didn't care. That he never expressed affection. That he actively participated in Yu Ziyuan's fucky game of forcing proxy conflict onto the boys instead of constantly trying (and failing) to shut it down, or that he ignored her bad behavior because it didn't affect him, or that he fought with her constantly, or that he was too much of an unmanly coward to stand up to her when she wanted something.

All of which are directly in contradiction to every scene he's in, and several of which manage to invert or erase the actual conflicts between him and his wife that were the source of all that tension.

And which are really interesting, because some of the most intractable elements are ideological--Yu Ziyuan is fundamentally a conservative and Jiang Fengmian seems to want to be an egalitarian, which ofc matched poorly with his hereditary authority as patriarch of a large sect.

The fact that the bit where we get to actually see him failing to parent Jiang Cheng consists of him gently and firmly trying to correct Jiang Cheng's ethics when what was actually needed in that moment was reassurance for the well-founded insecurities that were causing him to be a little bitch, only for Yu Ziyuan to charge in and make everything fifty times worse, is so much more interesting than literally any version of this family dynamic I have seen in fic. It's to the point I'm relieved when writers kill Jiang Fengmian off, because it means they probably won't feel the need to character-assassinate him too badly.

The number of people I've seen come right out and say some variation of 'men can't be abused' is killing me here. No, Yu Ziyuan wanting to hurt her husband does not constitute sufficient proof that he abused her first and deserved it! That's not how anything works!

[tomatoart]

to stay the same sad, sorry mother

[multifandom-nerds-blog]

I'm rewatching Trollhunters in the background right now, and the disfunctional mother son relationship between Jim and his mom is making me crazy.

Like, he's taking care of the household and his mother for years as a teenager and before probably. She is sometimes giving half hearted comments about him not having to do so much, but very obviously she's not gonna make him stop do all the cooking and cleaning. Y'know. Both because they've been living like this for years, and because it's obviously also very comfortable to have someone do all the house work.

Then Strickler comes into the picture, and if we ignore the whole Troll and changeling side of the story, Barabara gets very offended cause Jim doesn't want her to meet him privately. Again, ignoring the whole magic and trolls stuff, STRICKLER IS JIMS TEACHER. If Jim hadn't figured out that Strickler was a changeling he probably wouldn't have a problem with it, but the fact that he does, no matter the reason, should be enough for Barbara to put a stop to the relationship. Her child is clearly uncomfortable with her seeing/dating that guy, for whatever reason, and even clearly vocalized it. But she doesn't care about, or rather, she tells Jim that she "wouldn't expect something like that" from him. Obviously not, cause she may see him like her child/teenager he is, BUT DOESN'T TREAT HIM LIKE ONE.

And then Jim, unknowingly to Barbara, becomes the Trollhunter, and his behavior changes. He's suddenly doing reckless stuff, sneaking out, getting bruises, landing in detention and even at the police station, barely avoiding a police report. What does she do? Asking him what's going on? If everything's alright at school? If he has any other problems? Maybe trying to lower his workload around the house, which again, he's doing most of that as a teenager and longer probably.

Nah. She doesn't do anything until he lands in the hospital. Except for again, dismissing him rather negatively at the one topic he's openly expressing any negative opinions about (Strickler). And after he lands in the hospital she now starts not asking questions, but demanding answers. Demanding answers from a teenager in a difficult situation who is also now acting much more like a teenager than he ever did before, from her point of view at least. Except she obviously doesn't know how to deal with a teenager, cause she has never had to raise or live with a teenager. She instead lived with a child pretending to be an adult for years, that was partly much more of an adult than she was, who did way to much work even before Jim became the Trollhunter. So she throws punishments at him and grounds him, but does he listen?

No. Cause why should he? Not only is he dealing with things much more important than being grounded, yknow, saving the world, he's trying to protect her from the sheer knowledge of the supernatural and physically protecting her from getting harmed. And again, for the majority of the time since his dad left he pretended to be an adult. He was and is the main adult in the household, dealing with important things she doesn't even know about.

The only one's treating Jim like a teenager are teachers, other children and Blinky and Aaargh sort of when they're not in the middle of Troll business. Strickler, in the first episodes where Jim doesn't know about his true identity, is much more of a parental figure to Jim (also after his redemption later on tbh) than his mother.

In summary: Barbara is treating her son like an adult, almost like a partner, instead of a child/teenager. And when that isn't possible anymore she doesn't know how to properly treat him. She also doesn't really care that her son is uncomfortable with her being around Strickler, or Strickler in general. And it takes Blinky telling her (when Jim is 16) that Jim might be affected by his father leaving when he was five years old.

Jim meanwhile is treating his mother more like a child/teenager instead of the adult and MOTHER that she is. Seeing her as his responsibility. Cooking for her. Cleaning for her. Telling her to rest and take breaks.

They obviously love each other other. And their relationship might not be toxic, but it's very much disfunctional. In a way that is mostly negative for Jim.

[ofswordsandpens]

I'm sincerely very happy for anyone who is enjoying the show but every time I see takes that the show has improved the book characterizations or that the book characters are underdeveloped in comparison to the show...

[yardsards]

im like the lorax when it comes to women's body hair. we should let it grow.

[cienie-isengardu]

"She [Mother] would applaud my actions" << & >>" Mother would be so proud"

MK1 Smoke vs Sub Zero (Bi-Han) << & >> MK11 Sub Zero (Kuai Liang) vs Noob Saibot

[helluvahotmess]

'I want you to continue to be who you are.' what if i fucking died what then

[lotus-pear]

you can clearly see where scara gets his good looks from

[jazzy-a]

Hear me out. I love all the ideas people have about Angel Dust and Alastor being able to bond over their shared interest of cooking.

However...

I raise you this scenario: instead of bonding, they go right into competing with one another. One of them being stuck up about the other person's cooking, and the other taking it like nails on a chalkboard. They start off with some backhanded quips before escalating aggressively into a Louisiana vs Italy cook-off. Beignets and pasta are flying everywhere, and the hotel's kitchen will never look or smell the same again... At some point, the Mamis and Nonnas are going to get dragged into this debacle, and people will need to start taking cover at that point because sh!t will go down. Tentacles and tommy guns are coming out and-- how dare you talk smack about my great grandmama's marinara sauce!!

[motherforthefamicom]

witty caption

[sbd-laytall]

Don't mind me, I just have a lot of thoughts about Helena Sandsmark and motherhood.

Young Justice (1998) #16

Young Justice (1998) #18

Young Justice (1998) #19

[winepresswrath]

I will laugh so hard if it turns out that John is making a sincere effort at being a decent parent and it's such an awful outcome for Gideon that I feel like it's plausible. He's giving off such man who thinks of himself as a good guy confronted with oops baby vibes.

[daily-linkclick]

daily link click: 9/10/23

relief