#so many ppl are scared to go on T because of possible weight gain

[boybecoming]

an ode to testosterone weight gain

[itissadbutitsmy-life]

you know what who cares about clarity? have an incoherent ramble about pb, how she treats lemonhope, a couple parts about lemongrab, and proof that phlannel boxingday is the best Dad™ in the entirety of adventure time below the cut

I would die for phlannel boxingday he's so good for lh he is the Best father in the entire series and I almost cRied about it

there's a lot of shitty dads in advtime and a lot of dads that could do better but aren't like malevolent, and there's also phlannel, the best damn guy with the kindest fucking heart in the entire show, and he kills giant sentient birds for a living

Listen h

Wait am I about to cry rant about the one off character again

Yeah here goes he was so good he. I mean. I mean. He's so patient and understanding and gentle and lh nEEDS that h he was fucking broken up in his home and then pb spirited him away and put the fate of his entire family on his shoulders and treated him like he was Very Smart And The Chosen One But Would You Just Fucking TRY. and phlannel grabs him away and goes look. you're a good kid. and maybe you can save your family. but you can't beat yourself up over it, you can't put all that weight on your shoulders. you are able to go save them if you want but you are one of many champions in this world, and someone else will do it if you can't. and until then I'm going to keep you fed and clothed and be a person you can come to with anything, because I have no ulterior motives. I really literally don't. 

and every t ime he talks to him he talks low and gentle, he points things out like how he IS a smart kid he REALLY is he just learns differently, he doesn't force him to do anything he doesn't want to do like every other adult figure in his life has up to this point. he knows he has nightmares so obviously lh feels safe enough w him to talk to him about things like that, or he just pays attention and like. knows he keeps waking up screaming and instead of going "ha that's fine," he goes "kids shouldn't be waking up screaming so I'm going to keep an eye on it," he picks up on lh's concerns and gently tells him it isn't his fault when he drops things,

Like ok here's my thing. I know first impression pb is rly nice, yadda yadda I wrote a whole thing (didn’t post it tho lmao) abt how the Ugly Candy People seem to be the worse off ones and that might be her doing if it isn't just coincidence, and I don't feel like getting into that. but . here's my thing abt the lemonhope two parter and pb

Like first off I'm still pissed she put him in a Special School like. how transparent can you be. she's playing favorites and she's raising him for a specific purpose of being a champion. but it's not like, extracurricular champion school, bc she's clearly trying to also teach finn geometry. or maybe she's just. 

Idk but it seems really fucjibg phony. like. just set him up in a school where he can socialize and learn in an environment structured for teaching and socializing. I know lemon ppl don't Get Along With Others but like. singling him out is just. mmmmm don't like that

Anyways so that's one thing but like. she seems to be such! a nice and understanding lady right? she's soft and sweet and she's dangerous when she needs to be, but like. I know we all know she's kind of a dick and she monitors everyone in her kingdom closely to the point of creepiness, etc etc we know. but like. u know what really gets me in the lh two parter is just. how ......inconsiderate? she is maybe? 

like . yeah she wants to fix what went wrong (lg’s cannibalism and like tyranny etc). she can't or won't do it herself ('can't' meaning she's legally not allowed to, but what the fuck is lg gonna do to her? she can destroy him with a fucking flick of her wrist and literally the only person gaining anything from him locking up his kingdom on every legal level possible is himself if that, and we all know his earldom is quite literally overpopulated.So she has nothing but principle stopping her from barging in and demanding he stop, to protect all the other citizens he's hurting. He'll do anything she asks. like maybe once it got bad he wouldn't, maybe he started to realize she never cared about him and she never would, but honestly even if he did start to realize that, if she fucking walked in the door and said she needs to talk he'd be putty in her fingers. he'd listen and do everything she asks of him, and none of the lemon people are gonna fuvkinh stop her. they either know to fear her from lg or stories or experience, or they just know she's their boss's boss, so to speak, and would deliver her right to lg or just let her pass. Right? unless lg has them on orders to like. kill on sight or something. but those poor kids aren't any match for pb and pb's no idiot, she'd take backup or she'd straight up murder them. there's literally no reason for her to not go. she's gonna respect politics now? NOW? She's a fucjibg monolith and she does whatever the fuck she wants no matter what kingdom she's walking into, and now that her son is hurting every single person he's ever loved, NOW she decides she Can't Just Interfere? Fuck you) but uh since she can't/won't do it herself she needs lh to. ok. fine. But like. over and over she repeatedly treats him poorly, like...... like yeah ok she isn't Being Mean but. idk. you take a scared little kid out of his abusive family, then you repeatedly make him see what his siblings are going through now that he's gone, and tell him over and over that it's up to him to make them stop being hurt?

The lemon people are all just babies ? like ok they're not BABIES they're their own ppl but . but they're. so young of COURSE they believe what pb said and what lg2 said, that lh needs to come back for them; HE got away, so so can they, and he's gonna be the one to do it. They're poetic and tragic like the fire kingdom, but grittier and less pretty and performative. of course they'd latch onto the only hero they were given.

but like. to lh it was probably more like. this lady came and took me away from my family so they'd stop hurting me, but she left all my siblings behind, and now she's telling me I have to be the one to save them? lmao no you do it yourself. you did it once you can do it again.

so uh

so lh's adult interaction so far seems to have been like. 

wait was he one of the ones they made originally or is he a second gen lemon person/ someone lg2 made with lollipops like in that one fanfic 

assuming he was in the FIRST BATCH because I'm mean I guess, his adult interaction has been two people who adore me with all their hearts but can't figure out how to feed me-> probably some affection in here somewhere bc he had to get that harp from someplace -> guy who fucking electrocutes us and other guy who's too scared to stop him -> oh shit what the fuck -> lady who got me out of that situation but won't save my siblings and keeps pretending I'm someone I'm not

u know what, I think that's her whole problem

she made lg to be her heir, that's good, but he didn't act how she expected and she couldn't figure out how to support him, so she sent him away (much as I like to say she did it bc like. neddy was antisocial and scared of ppl too and he was ok if he was kept alone so maybe that was all lg wanted too,,,,, like there was still no reason to throw him at the very fucking edge of ooo aight. get him a house in the grasslands or something.). she tried to help him, realized she was making it worse and actually hurting him, so she tried to help again and it worked, bc all lg wanted was to be loved and not to be told over and over (symbolically) that he was REALLY unwanted, but still begrudgingly needed bc he's the only heir to the throne. so getting a friend who wouldn't hate him for who he was was all he wanted. so she did good and kinda let it be for a while. 

but he also really wanted his mothers love, and he tried to act like her so she'd appreciate him or even notice him. so he makes kids for her, he realizes this makes him and his brother happy (HAPPY), and can't stop doing it because he's alone with his brother and their newborn children and no one's telling them to stop. she fixes it, she lets it be.

He's still unwanted. she still hates him. she hates ppl who don't act how she wants them to. she HATES the duke of nuts whose only crime is eating her pudding (possible she hates him bc he's just So Good And Kind, too, and it's fishy), she clearly doesn't treat all her citizens equally (do you see how trashed some of the backstreets are? I mean maybe people are just smashing them faster than she can fix them, but like. I don't know. I don't feel good about it.), she won't fucking talk to the literal heir to her throne (i don’t thiiink he’s been replaced yet?) except when he makes a mess and needs someone to help him fix it. and then she does it as minimally as possible. she sends fnj to fix it or smth. she just. Really wants nothing to do with her failures I guess. maybe that's it. he woke up screaming and needing things other candy people don't need, and she called him her own personal failing. maybe she feels like she let him down by not making him so he could be happy in her kingdom. maybe she blames herself but instead of working with him and supporting him, she gives him anything he asks for and otherwise avoids contact with him like the plague. 

Anyways so what she wanted was a cute, competent candy person to take her throne right? and she goes to his kingdom and she wanders around and like. no one here is her kind of normal. they're all ugly and deformed and squawky and everything's yellow. and to lg and lg everything is BEAUTIFUL, those are their beloved babies that they risked their lives to have, but she doesn't know that, she just knows that MAN those lgs are weird, and when I try to help them, they get mad and lash out at me.

by her first failed experiment she means the first one that made her feel like she was capable of making mistakes that ruin lives. like even if we call that one comic canon, with that Sweet Pink Goop she made before lg, that goop didn’t seem sentient, let alone capable of feeling the consequences of being alive and different from the other candy people

she looks around and she tries to figure out what she doesn't understand. right? in too old. like maybe getting away from them and looking around their house will give her insight into why her heir won't just act like her, won't just be normal and quiet and do what she expects people to do, why she can't figure out how to help him without making him angry (and scared and hurt), figure out what it is HE expects, because he's a person too.

And she finds someone who ISN'T deformed or ugly or weird, she finds someone who honestly wouldn't be out of place (looks wise) in her candy kingdom. and he's bemoaning his unfair treatment and he's dressed in rags and he's alone and he's young and he's talented. 

And he's what she meant to make in the first place. Someone soft and cute, but with whatever traits she'd been looking for in an heir, presumably. someone who can rule a kingdom decently in her place, even better than her, i have my own hcs about that lmao. he’s someone who doesn't flinch when she touches his shoulder, who doesn't have such a cold stare, or such a shrill and uninviting voice. he's small and he's young and he's soft and he's talented and he's being mistreated

and like. she saw other kids getting publicly electrocuted and she saw lg hitting his brother and she saw the fucking evidence of really violent mistreatment, and she went ":/" until she saw someone who she could sympathize with.

and lh isn't who she thinks he is. He's a lemon person, he's Lemongrab's son (or... grandson or like. nephew. I don't know. young relative or like juvenile member of his species.) he's not a candy person, but he looks like one. he's symmetrical and visually healthy. so she gets maternal and concerned, because now it doesn't look like lg's hurting people she doesn't want to even look at let alone worry about (asshole). now to her it looks like he's neglecting and harming a young kid. And they're all young kids, they're all pretty new, they're all people and they're all being hurt. but she can't bring herself to care what he does so long as he’s hurting people she doesn’t care about, that's his business; when she gets involved he threatens to kill her or he upsets her people or whatever. but when she sees someone who looks like a person, who looks like a person of hers, who looks like a kid and who looks like a healthy kid being abused (chubby and healthy but tattered and shock collared and locked in a bathroom, as opposed to like. another lemon person walking around in nice clothes and a shock collar) she gets him out

and she plays on his feelings, she goes, you're the kid I always expected to raise. you're the kid I was supposed to raise to become a shining champion of my kingdom. I made lg, and he turned out wrong and I dropped him as far off the face of the earth as I could, and now I have Finn to be my champion. but you, you need to be great, still. you need to be my shining star. You need to go back and do what lg2 told you to do in his Fuvking Dying Breaths, because like, suddenly me and him are on the same page I guess. 

I don't super blame lg2 for putting all that on lh's shoulders tbh. He's not much older than the kids, really, and like I said, they're all poetic and tragic. and lg2 was getting eaten too so like can you really blame him for anything at that pt. he doesn't know pb really, all his interactions with her were probably Not Bad but lg hates her and would also do anything for her so lg2 probably hates her a little by association. You're the one who hurt my brother and hurt him and hurt him and hurt him, why should I trust you to come get my children away from a dangerous situation? how do I even know if you consider this a dangerous situation? glob for all he knows she electrocutes her people too when they don't please her. for all he knows this is normal.

actually no I give him more credit than that. he might not know if pb considers it normal or not but the fact that lg fucking destroys his spirit when just months ago he was telling him he was the best thing in his entire life, yeah, he knows hurting your kids isn't normal, he knows hurting your life partner isn't normal, he knows maybe how lg came to this conclusion, but he won't tolerate it if he can help it

Anyways I love him?

so in conclusion pb treats lh like he's a candy person when he's NOT, and phlannel boxingday is the absolute purest most wholesome character to ever walk into that fucjibg TV series and he's the only one who treats lh the way he needs to be treated - like a person, like a smart person, like a person who's been abused and been put on a pedestal, like a person with his own needs and experiences that are different from maybe what you'd expect or wish. That's my conclusion. It's 11 fucking pm I need my dam slEEP

real quick summary bc I think I see where I was trying to go with this long ramble: pb's inconsiderate in that she treats him like a gifted candy person, not a gifted lemon person, let alone just a scared little kid who's been really neglected and abused. she at least seems to just kinda ignore the whole thing where he gets defensive and... grabby? idk bc he grew up in a house where he was hungry and ignored and hurt

idk

you give a kid who was raised in a house where he's always hungry and competing with his siblings for food two cupcakes do you really think he's going to share them

especially when it's very clear that you have many cupcakes

do you really think so

also just. if we go w saying a LOT of lg's quirks come from him parroting how pb treated him, idk she just. doesn't do a great job of not treating lh the same way. sure she apologizes when she calls him unacceptable but still I get the feeling she treats him more like lg did than she'd like to think.