#the role of a spouse in a friend group or family is So. Good. esp when they're gone

[thespoonisvictory]

I LOVE a story that starts with something dead and missing in a friend group. When the person who got the gang together is something they can’t even talk about, and you can just feel that they should be a main character in this story, that’s when you know you’re in for the good shit

[halfgap]

This is such a tiny (& likely pointless) quibble that’s been bothering me for a long, long time, way before I got into CR. Basically writers and fandom (esp. recently) are really, really into the whole “found family” or “families of choice” trope, and like. So am I, 100%. But a lot of the thought/language surrounding it -- in all areas of fandom -- tends to veer in a direction that almost always makes me uncomfortable.

Below the cut bc this got rambly & senseless fast lol

Like... it’s sort of this popular fixation on assigning kinship terms to each individual or non-romantic relationship within the “found family” unit. Like, “oh this is the dad of the group, this is the mom, this is the weird uncle, these two are siblings, etc.” And obviously in some cases it’s very appropriate or even comes directly from the writers/characters (which is another issue of its own tbh but.. later). But it bugs me that so many people are so keen on categorizing these relationships through this rigid kinship terminology in the first place. 

(And I know I’m looking at this from a very unfortunately Eurocentric perspective, since there are so many cultures that don’t base their ideas of “kinship” on biology at all and don’t automatically prioritize blood relations as “true” family, which is why my weird specific quibbles on this may be entirely pointless, and I’m open to hearing thoughts. But I also suspect that most of the people participating in this popular trend/habit I’m talking about are coming from a similar cultural perspective as mine...)

Anyway, I can’t really articulate why this has always annoyed me so much other than to say... I feel like people refuse to let the word “friends” just be, and be important & valued? And it’s good that people are re-defining the word “family” so that it can function independent of any blood ties, but this obsession with like, “dad, siblings, the vodka aunt etc” to me still feels strongly tied to the older ideas of kinship through blood & marriage, basically this.. strictly defined family tree sort of deal. If people want to push forward the idea that the platonic bonds we choose & create for ourselves can be just as important or even more important than biological bonds or romantic/sexual ones, then why do we have to insist on these older kinship labels that both implicitly continue to privilege older ideas of family (by people “upgrading” relationships from “friends” to “siblings/parents/etc”) and also bear the same limitations? Like, a great fucking thing about these chosen bonds are that they don’t have to be defined or boxed into any one predetermined social role, they can be amorphous and intense and transcend the language we currently have access to.

Like, when people kept asking Ash and Taliesin on TM if Yasha and Molly considered themselves siblings... That made me uncomfortable, especially after they both conclusively said “no.” Ashley’s made it clear that Molly was the most important person in her life after she left Xhorhas, he’s a soul mate and a friend and a confidant and a buddy but she clarified that Yasha doesn’t see him as “a brother, exactly..” Partly I think it’s because there is a potential dimension of some form of romantic bond within their intense platonic love, but even with that they’d never consider themselves dating or anything like that, either -- or they can also ‘just’ be read as 100% platonic past & present & future, depending on where you’re coming from. Like, it’s ambiguous & amorphous & intense & loving & good, and I like that it defies categorization, I like that the best way to describe them is “they’re very close friends” and that doesn’t mean less than if they were lovers or “adoptive siblings” or whatever. The whole circus was kind of the same way, and Tal even said that Molly didn’t consider any of them a “parental” figure when fans asked about Gustav, but decided that Gustav was the closest to that role if we had to look at things that way. But we don’t!!!!

People also asked several times if Beau and Molly considered themselves siblings -- again, no!!!!! (But I feel like that’s probs bc the cast are also largely used to the idea we get from so much media & stories where a friend/comrade is “upgraded” to a “brother/sister/whatever” after a certain degree of trust/intimacy that Beau and Molly didn’t have yet... but still, I don’t think Beau and Molly ever needed to develop into siblings in the first place!! Ahhhh!!!) Weirdly a funny related example I can think of is that one Community episode when they were like “This study group is like a family!!” but then a lot of hidden trysts and scandals and feelings were discussed/debated, and at the end Jeff admitted that maybe they weren’t like a family, exactly, maybe it was more complicated than that. And it is!!! But that doesn’t mean that group bond matters less than family!!! (Also the ‘wholesome as the family on the Brady Bunch’ -> ‘incestuous & dysfunctional as the cast of the Brady Bunch’ joke is hilarious).

Also!!!! In Leverage when people are so fixated on calling Nate the dad, Sophie the mom, Eliot & Parker & Hardison the kids, or like one weird youtube comment I saw acknowledging how Parker & Hardison are dating, well, now Hardison is just the daughter’s boyfriend!! Like ?????? What? Nate has really dad-like interactions, Sophie sometimes has really mom-like interactions, and I love it all and it’s funny, but they’re not equivalent to a mom & dad. Sophie flirts with Eliot, Nate & Sophie can both be really dumb & competitive with all of the other 3.. Eliot has sibling-like interactions with Hardison and Parker sometimes, and he also has love interest-like reactions, and he also has Best Friend-like interactions, and they’re all good & important & only part of a greater, harder to define whole that forms their bond.

And like, I realize that y’know, ultimately all these words aren’t real, like.. language is constantly evolving because all the ‘meaning’ (denotive & connotative) of these words are something we construct as a society in an effort to best reflect what society perceives as reality/truth... And that probably every individual gets a slightly different meaning in their mind when any given word comes up anyway.. Which is why ‘family’ now doesn’t really frustrate me as much when used in the same contexts as I was just ranting about with ‘mom/dad/brother/sister/etc’ but I dunno. I’m just suspicious of what feels like people trying to re-imagine these bio-family words so they can encompass non-biological bonds, rather than maybe instead trying to just? Keep words like friendship and platonic and whatever and push them until they gain a connotation of importance as much as ‘family’ (& related terms) and ‘spouse’ or whatever has? Because if we don’t want bio families to take precedence over chosen families in any way, then I think our language has to reflect that, and people need to stop fckin dismissing friendship in the first place. It weirdly reminds me of some people trying to get literary arts & humanities etc added to “STEM” bc they believe science shouldn’t be viewed as more valuable than the arts, but then in those very attempts to ““elevate”” the arts, they’re just??? Already playing into this assumption that STEM is higher, more important etc?? And treating arts as some form of science just limits it & removes a lot of the dimensions of art that makes it valuable - & different from science - in the first place? Which was what I was saying before about people trying to cram relationships like Yasha’s & Molly’s into a defined familial one?

Okay I realize this is just incoherent unhinged rambling at this point but I’m just trying to parse my inexplicable frustration on the go here lmao. If anyone who might have perspective on this wants to?? Help me out here, it’d be great to hear your thoughts. Am I just being overly suspicious & nitpicky??? Maybe!!!!! But that’s why I called it a quibble!!!!

anyway tl;dr the M9 are a group of friends, best friends even, and that can be just as important & prioritized as family/romantic partners, but if you really want to say the M9 are ‘like family’ or a family then I guess I’m ok with that too, but for some reason anything more specific than that tends to grind my gears bc I’m Weird

[caainhurst]

@voidbattlemage​

Man, if you ever feel lonely or need to talk you can always hmu. I always try to answer as soon as I see the message. You'll be alright, you just hit a minor bump in the road but you'll get back on your feet.

Honestly I feel like I’m really immature. I’m not saying it to boast, goodness why would anyone do that? I just feel like I’m really far behind mentally and at this stage I should be thinking other ways and my interests should be others.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I just always feel off. Like I shouldn’t be enjoying the things I do enjoy at this age. Not like I’m gonna stop world building, drawing, writing or playing video games. Far as I can tell I’m not hurting anyone.

thank you! also, i wanted to break down my feelings about what you posted and how i feel similarly, esp the first part. maybe you’ll find something that helps you understand you better? at the very least we can discuss haha.

(this got really long and probably off topic but i mean, let’s start here and keep going? maybe? your call)

a little background: i’m 28, white, grew up in a relatively liberal but predominantly white and affluent neighborhood. i was born prematurely, at about 6 months, and my mom has always ascribed me being a so-called “late bloomer” to this. my parents split up when i was 7 and i’ve had depression and anger issues since then; i’ve been taking antidepressants since i was 12. i’ve had mixed feelings about sex and sexuality all my life, and it wasn’t until i was 25 and realized i could actually transition and be the person i always felt i was that i started feeling more positive about this.

i say all of these things bc they get tangled up in my feelings pretty regularly; it’s not very cut and dried, esp when i talk about my current situation. i can’t just say “i’m sad bc i’m dysphoric” or “i’m sad bc i’m unemployed” - it’s not just one thing. 

i feel immature a lot, esp on tumblr. i cringe when i see 30-something fandom moms acting like they’re 15 while also taking on a parental role to minors, but i also cringe when i see 19yo lgbt lefties acting like they have all their shit figured out and mocking those they perceive as lesser. i don’t really think i “should” be anywhere mentally, but i feel like i want to be somewhere ahead of where i am, i just don’t know how to get there.

a lot of my problem with my maturity level is, i spent something like 10-12 years stagnating, actively refusing to grow or leave my emotional comfort zone. i would say this was from... age 12 to age 22/24? i couldn’t find people i could relate to, so i didn’t keep friends. i went from friend group to friend group every year or two bc i didn’t connect with anyone. it seems like almost all of the friends i’ve had have been flaky and uninterested in keeping up their end of the friendship. the only time that wasn’t the case was when we were forced to see each other every day in school. but i mean, it could just be me and my actions and that there’s something i’m not seeing. it happens so regularly it has to be me, but i don’t know what it is i’m doing? maybe i’m just eeyore all the time and i can’t see it, so people get tired of interacting? idk

anyway, people being super flaky makes it even more difficult to make/keep friends at this age than the usual late-20s-early-30s-starting-a-family-with-my-spouse routine, it’s ridiculous.