#“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Fisher said she's been criticized by family members who have said she is letting her child "dictate" not inviting or not visiting some family members.

"And I'm not ashamed to sit here and tell you my exact words – ‘You’re damn right, my child means that much to me. I love my child that much,'" said Fisher.

Absolutely correct

I'm an antinatalist so I will NEVER inflict life on anyone

But if, in some parallel universe, I was a mother?

I would absolutely cut ANY family member out of my childs life if said family member was bigoted against my child because they were queer or trans or NB

Biological family has no inherent worth or importance

What matters is the family you make for yourself

The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb <3

[milaisreading]

Fun fact! The quote "Blood is thicker than water" is a shortened version of the real one, which goes "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." 

This means that the relationships we choose are stronger than the ones we inherit. This is just a little reminder in case a toxic family member tries to guilt you into talking to them

[impish-ivy]

After my post here, I realized just how many characters have familial relationships.

I think the reason the relationships ObeyMe’s characters have with each other is so wholesome is because they’re all found families.

There’s the obvious one with; the brothers and MC, Barbatos and Diavolo, and Simeon and Luke both very much parental (I think it’s said in canon that Simeon sees Luke like a grandkid?) and then there’s Thirteen and Solomon who have a sibling-like bond. Angels also view each other as sisters and brothers but it’s so distinctly different than the bonds of the brothers.

This game is filled with families made of chosen bonds instead of blood. And I think this is what ObeyMe excels most at—familial relationships.

I never have once thought “hey these two characters don’t feel like they love each other”. Every character feels like their familial bonds are strong and solid—even the more chaotic ones like the 7 brothers. You can feel the love ooze out of every one of their conversations and every interactions, it’s sibling love so it’s grimy but the love—it’s almost overwhelming.

I think their relationship is even more important when given the context that all angels see each other as siblings. Angels view each other as sisters and brothers but it’s so distinctly different than the bonds of the brothers.

[is-on-its-way]

For Mulder, Scully is his touchstone

For Scully, Mulder is her covenant (biblical)

[ramblingsfromthytruly]

BLOOD RUNS THICKER THAN WATER BLOOD RUNS THICKER THAN WATER BLOOD RUNS THICKER THAN WATER BUT BOTH FEEL THE SAME WHEN YOU'RE EYES ARE CLOSED I AM THE RIVER'S DAUGHTER I AM THE RIVER'S DAUGHTER I AM THE RIVER'S DAUGHTER AND YOU'LL BE HER SON WHEN WE'RE BOTH REPOSED

[autistichanseo]

This is a long one !! sorry!! here's some true brothers angst thinking (with comfort at the end) for you guys though <33 (also read the tags after reading this if you do read this maybe cos I go on another mini ramble lmao)

Thinking about maybe when Hanseo and Vincenzo live together in Malta, since all Hanseo’s ever known is getting abused (both physically and verbally) and hurt over any mistake he made no matter how small, he automatically assumes Vincenzo will do the same to him (of course he would, that's what he “deserves”, right?).

So he tests the water with Vincenzo a bit.

To see what Vincenzo’s limits were, what to avoid doing to not get hurt, what the unspoken rules were (after all Hanseok had plenty).

It starts with small things, not tidying up after himself, breaking a plate “accidentally”, leaving milk out to spoil (also “accidentally”).

But Vincenzo doesn’t hurt him.

He helps Hanseo clean up the plate he dropped, checking to see for any possible injuries. He casually tells him to remember to put his things away when they’re all over one of the rooms. He only ever lightly scolds him (it was more a reminder than anything) in a light tone to make sure to not leave out the milk out next time for too long because it’ll spoil, but it was fine, that they could just ask a maid to add milk onto the grocery list.

It both confuses and scares Hanseo.

It meant he didn’t know what would set off Vincenzo, and he couldn’t handle the anxiousness that clawed at him whenever he was around him because of it.

Plus he was apart of the literal mafia, who knew what he and his mafia family (that also lived on the island) would do to Hanseo when angered?? He had seen first hand all of the various ways he toyed with Hanseok, and couldn't forget what Vincenzo had done to him before he joined his side, so who knew what methods he'd use when angered?? He needed to find out what to avoid, and fast.

Vincenzo starts noticing and asks if somethings wrong and why he's been avoiding him, to which Hanseo was terrified (and slightly relieved) that this was when the other shoe would drop and Vincenzo would shout at him or hit him.

But that never happened.

When Hanseo told him nothing was up, that he was struggling to sleep a bit lately so because of that he's just been a quite tired recently and out of it, Vincenzo seems to buy it and offered to get him a therapist, as after all it makes sense he’d be restless after everything that happened not too long ago in Korea. He ruffles his hair and leaves and Hanseo is just left shocked.

Why was he being so patient with him?? Hanseok would’ve hurt him at so many points in this test, why didn’t Vincenzo? (“Any other person would’ve by now right?”)

Was he toying with him? Making Hanseo more and more relaxed around him so that a real punishment would sting more and Hanseo would blame himself for it?

No, he shakes off that thought immediately. His hyung wouldn’t do something like that. It had to be something else.

He needs to know when the other shoe will drop. So he escalates things. Better to know now than fuck up later and have his hopes ruined.

So he keeps “forgetting” to go to his therapy appointments. He “tripped” and broke one of Vincenzo’s prized art pieces, he refuses to move his things or clean up after himself. He goes out to drink almost every day and comes home at like 3am, sometimes blasting loud music when Vincenzo's sleeping.

Anything. Anything for the second shoe to drop.

And eventually, Vincenzo can’t take it anymore, but it didn’t go as Hanseo expected it.

Vincenzo and him get in a huge argument, Hanseo’s refusing to listen (the shoe has to drop now right?) and Vin just exasperatedly like “why are you doing this?” but he isn't shouting at him or upset, just… concerned?

What??

Why wasn’t he mad??

As Vincenzo is asking him to explain why he was being like this Hanseo can’t bottle it up anymore and just bursts out with “because you won’t hurt me!!! why wont you hurt me??? just get it over with and scream at me for screwing up or slap me or anything! just do something so I'm not always anxious around you and... scared everything’s going to- I don’t know, straight up collapse at any moment or something!! just tell me what your rules are!!”

And that's when Vincenzo realises.

Oh.

His heart sinks. Because he now knows exactly why Hanseo’s doing this.

He’s trying to figure out what Vincenzo would hurt him for.

He thinks Vincenzo is going to hurt him eventually like Hanseok did.

Oh.

It takes Vincenzo a moment to process this and it's suddenly silent and Hanseo thinks this is when the other shoe has dropped.

He’s filled with fear once again, but this time it spills over any sort of relief he could’ve gotten at finally “finding out what Vincenzo’s limits were” because Hanseo can’t read Vincenzo’s face right now. He associates that unreadability with the unreadable expression Hanseok would have on his face before hurting Hanseo.

He's bracing himself to get shouted at or hurt so he goes back into Hanseok-mode and takes a step back, starting to cave in on himself as he's about to try to apologise and take back what he just said.

Thankfully, Vincenzo realises this and immediately snaps out of his head to reassure Hanseo. "Hanseo... I'm not going to hurt you... I was never planning on ever laying a hand on you. Ever. Nor was I planning to ever shout at you."

And Hanseo is just.

Stunned.

He doesn't know what to say so he's only responds with a meek "Why?"

For Vincenzo to be like "what Hanseok did to you wasn't normal or even okay in the first place, and you'll never get any of that horrible treatment from anyone again." (Vincenzo will make sure of that).

And Hanseo's just. speechless.

He can't figure out what to say or do so he's just there, starting to tear up like "hyung..."

Because this is when Hanseo realises that for the first time in his life, he's truly, truly safe now.

Because now he has a home, and he didn't just mean the island they lived on, but Vincenzo himself. Vincenzo was home to him, and he was more of a home to him than any fancy villa Hanseo had had before could've ever been.

Yeah, he'll be okay now.

After all, no matter what happens, he has his home to go back to.

[ftl-faster-than-life]

"And the greatest gift they ever gave me...was showing me what family was."

"Barry might be a nerd...but you are such a sap, Wally."

[lyraarylfyrefly]

hmm thinking about a scenario where someone that's ruthless but with a strict code of morals on certain issues dies and is brought back to life later with a slew of shit that sounds like they did it but they couldn't have cause they were busy being dead (the revival happens anywhere from a few years to half a century later)

anyways, the reveal would be that they were lovers, friends, in a situationship or something with a shapeshifter that knew them and that shapeshifter decided to impersonate them to either:

a) honor their memory

b) take revenge on the people who killed them

c) imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

d) all of the above

e) pretending to be the strongest person they know so that no one will mess with them

and that reveal would lead to a spiderman pointing meme with added side dishes of

1- Character A was friends with too many evil people in life #1

2-Shapeshifter is a force of nature or a terrifying character that interacts "normally" with people by shapeshifting

3- Character's A death messed a lot of shit up but everyone thinks it's because a lot of evil rituals got ruined

4-Everytime a new evil character realizes Character A has been revived, either a new companion gets added to the quest or someone else joins the kidnapping attempts and foil the other ones trying to do the same thing

5-Character A coming back to life also really messed up the afterlife for unspoken reasons

6- Whenever Character A wistfully thinks or refers to someone, it cuts to the scariest scene ever of that person and then next chapter or episode, they're acting so silly

7-Character A only gets nervous when 1 thing is brought up

[bonefall]

As someone who was adopted, I find it funny how much of a hate boner Warrior Cats has against adoption. Like, Thunder, my guy, are you not the one dealing with a horrendous biological father? Don'tcha think that the abusive prick is a horrible choice to leave children with? So what if he said he was part of the process in making them? Who they see as their dad is up to them. Blood doesn't create parents, love does.

Unfortunately, I suppose we're all stuck watching adoption be beat with a hammer because screw us? Man, I'm lucky I was someone who wasn't insecure about being adopted (well, to a degree... kinda shook me up seeing PO3 unfold as a kiddo). For a kid's series, they really do not think about the consequences it could have on children.

Thunder feels incredibly inconsistent in his writing, like they had 3 different ideas for what they wanted to do and couldn't commit to any

First he's rejecting Clear Sky and disavowing him as a father having realized that he's a violent ghoul.

Then he's going to bat in his defense just like Gray Wing, thinking "woah! Does everyone really think he's a monster?!""

And then we get to see him fetching Turtle's kits, back to early Thunder Rising character where he can't fathom a person Hating Their Own Father.

He cycles between these depending on whatever the plot needs. Thunder 1 has a GREAT reason to maul Tom, but the whole stupid subplot about convincing the kits that being a housecat sucks wouldn't work unless it was Thunder 3

I'm not adopted, but 2 members of my close family are. One of them was always trying to buddy up to their biodad, in a way that was... honestly, pathetic, sad, and formative to me. Biofather was a HORRIBLE person (I wish I had never been exposed to him) and caused nothing but pain to the entire family. There was no question why he abandoned my family members-- he was a sleaze.

The other is my relative's sister, and she's the type that says, "my adopted dad is my real dad. (Name) was just my donor." The garbage that Biofather put her through was endless, every time her brother dragged him back into everyone's lives, she always got hurt in some way

So DOTC is a pretty painful arc to me. The Skykin family strikes a personal nerve, and the sheer amount of undue sympathy they layer on Clear Sky but not his victims just... it makes my skin crawl.

And god, you can tell that the writers believe the same shit that Male Family Member believes. That something about your genes just draws you towards your biorelatives, and that nothing is more sacred than that, no matter how much this toxic relative hurts you and the people you love.

Love makes family. Blood just bleeds.

[thunderandsage]

you know what? fuck you *popularizes a quote of yours via a misphrasing that completely warps the original meaning*

[brionysea]

they put max in mike's colour for the episode where she gets targeted by the trauma monster. max why are you in blue. why does trauma + monster = blue and blue = mike so mike = trauma + monster. even her hair looks less bright because she's depressed and both the monster and the trauma have her in their sights (max's colour is equal parts "orange" and "rainbow" To Me)

the blue (mike's colour!!!) took over max's character (like how el is pink but the blue takes over her when she's in a state of mutually assured destruction with mike) and then max dies in the bluest attic ever and ends up comatose in the bluest hospital room known to man. thinking yet again of mike vs max and el's feminism. she's her own person who's fully capable of making her own decisions so PLEASE STOP DROWNING HER IN THE BLUE, MIKE!

also the blue attic is disrupted by the red gate. between that, the roses, the spooky fog, and the mind palace, vecna is red. blue + red makes me think of blood in the water which draws sharks (the imagery used for barb's death + by nancy realising the demogorgon is drawn by blood), BUT with this imagery MIKE is the unfathomably expansive ocean and vecna is the piddly little drop of blood. the sea was calm until vecna summoned the sharks? also the possessed mike agenda of blood being IN the water

[canichangemyblogname]

Watching the Netflix-made documentary on Alexander the Great and the actor playing Alexander’s father in the supplemental visual story telling of the archaeology was scripted to shake hands with Alexander and ask him for forgiveness because “blood is thicker than water.” << Those words exactly.

I immediately paused the show and walked into the other room to stand there like this:

[kon-konk]

Mikuni: sure in the process of making My home life better I accidentally destroyed Mahiru's whole friend group, but hey! His mom and dad are both alive and happily married, that makes up for it right!

(nevermind the fact that Mahiru and Touma hate eachother, and that Tsurugi someone Mahiru cares about just doesn't exist in this world)

Mikuni: I heard "blood is thicker than water" and ran with it

[letting-darkness-win]

You don't owe loyalty to your family.

They have to earn it too.

[readingcircletemple]

Editing Thoughts:

As we reach the end of the Circle of Magic series, magic starts to get weird, y'all. I know a lot of people struggle with things that happen that are not previously established, but I never had an issue with them. Yes, this is my series. I grew up with these books, so CoM is kind of my baseline for magic anyway. But I'm going to pitch one more possible explanation fror why I think it works:

I ran across this video by Timothy Hickson a while back, in which he explains how soft magic systems work really well to emphasize the emotional beats of a story. (This, incidentally, helped me understand why I like soft magic systems so much.) This works particularly well in CoM because we see in the first couple of books how emotional states can have an influence on magic--namely, when Tris is angry, she sparks. And she must learn to control her anger.

So at the end of Shatterglass, when Tris basically opens a hole in the ground? This is again, an echo of her anger. And at the end of the Will of the Empress, Tris's ability to be with the other three "physically" while still being so far away is the CoM version of the family member leaving and saying, "I'll always be with you in here (points to heart)."

The thread circle is a symbol of the childhood bond these four form. Then they part from one another, grow, change, and return. For many of us, childhood friendships fall apart as we grow older. We leave friends and that's that. And throughout the book, they struggle with whether or not their frienship has ended--if it was just a childhood thing. And in a way it was, and in a way, it wasn't. By the end of the story, they reform their friendship anew--it is no longer a childhood bond, but an adult one, which comes with all the complexities of adulthood. So the thread circle--the symbol of their childhood friendship--disappears as they form a newer, deeper, stronger bond. And the circle goes deeper--literally moving into their hands--and leaving them with a scar, just as friendships can both open and heal wounds. And yes, it's something new and unexpected, that can't easily be explained. But isn't that so much of what life (and friendship) is?

But I would be wrong. Let us know what you think in the comments.

[reccord-raccoon]

Fire Emblem Siblings week 2023 day 2: fears/books

the Fraldarius siblings protect one of the Gautier siblings from the other

drabble under the cut

Felix ran a hand over the weathered leather of the old diary. His husband's, from long before the thought of marriage crossed either of their minds.

The pages in Felix's hands held all of what was left of the true nature of his brother. Of Both their brothers. No one else close enough to know them had kept a diary as faithfully as Sylvain had.

"Speak of the devil," Felix whispered when he heard the door open behind him.

"Whatcha lookin' at?" Sylvain's voice sounded cheerful, but Felix had known him for much too long to truly believe he was.

He didn't answer. Instead he let his husband brush aside midnight hair and rest his chin on his shoulder.

Sylvain hummed, "That old thing? What about it caught your attention, love?"

Felix opened it to the page his thumb hand been saving and let their eyes scan it before speaking.

"...the well…"

"I remember this," he whispered.

"…Glenn and Felix saved me…"

He felt Sylvain shrug. "Kinda hard to forget. My brother was a pretty big dick."

"…I'm still pretty cold, but Glenn let me borrow some of his clothes while mine dry off…"

"That was the day Glenn and I realized just how bad Miklan actually was. Glenn vowed to stop him however he could. I vowed to protect you."

Sylvain stilled. Too afraid of his emotions breaking through to dare to move.

"I remember how I felt that day," Felix continued, "but I don't think I ever…"

knew how you felt.

The unspoken words hung in the air and young Sylvain's loopy handwriting burned in front of them.

"…Miklan tried to yell at me again later. But Felix and Glenn were there so he didn't. Felix was hugging me and Glenn's hand was on my shoulder and even though I was still scared, having them by my side made me feel like I could conquer the world…"

"Maybe with them I could even fight Miklan."

@fireemblemsiblingsweek