#(<-eldest sister syndrome)

[punkeropercyjackson]

'It is NOT the job of adults to protect kids in fandoms'Speak for yourself,this IS my job because i literally applied for it by having intergenerational friendships instead of scarring kids on purpose because they don't like abuse on top of already being an eldest sibling and now i have an irl job too.Seek employement

[sofoulandfairaday]

me: of course, people are allowed to have their own opinions and headcanons. all takes that are well-justified are valid.

someone: bellatrix was insan-

me: shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck UP

[orgasming-caterpillar]

When your card declines at therapy so they bring out your mom in her early twenties pregnant with her first child (it's going to ruin her life forever and you can't help her)

[domeniudulce]

I don't know too much about elding ring but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Malenia isn't under Miquella's influence at all that's just what being a sister does to a motherfucker

[amoxicillin-tangent]

"siblinghood, as a series of seasons"

//

[spring]

our father brings you out into the hospital corridor. you are swathed in a linen blanket. i am impressed that you are not crying. 

on the way home, our mother makes some comment, something like i hope you aren’t upset that the baby was born so close to your birthday. i do not respond. i am staring into your eyes, and you are staring back.

-

[summer]

summer, in all its brutality, is us together in the scorching heat. it’s me, the only one who can interpret your toddler babble. it is looking over as you take shaky steps and knowing, before anyone else, when you are about to fall. 

you are old enough to walk now. i still spend my spare time wondering who will catch you. 

such is siblinghood. such is life.

-

[autumn]

when everyone else thinks of autumn, they think of golden leaves. 

we think of the reason why they turn.

this is the nature of siblinghood; we grow up in a burning house. we leave with ashes under our nails. you are the only one who will ever hate our parents as much as i do. you are the only one who could ever love our parents as much as i do. you accidentally call me mom once and i say it’s fine, so long as no one’s listening.

i am old enough to leave, and i fly like a bat out of hell. you are too young to leave, and you stand in the hallway with crossed arms and a glowering face and you burn, and burn, and burn.

-

[winter]

winter is an echo of all we should’ve had; a world where we imagine siblinghood and think of warmth instead of salvation. 

our golden forests have faded to gray. i could not save you from the fall, nor could you save me from the flight. i could not save you from the burning house, but i’ll try my damndest to patch the wounds it left. you hate me just as much as you hate our parents and i love you just as much as i love them. 

i try to imagine a world where i am not stitching up your wounds as i bleed out from my own. there is no such world.

winter is all we have.

-

[spring]

a patch of dandelions blooms to our left. 

have you come to save me? you ask, and i shake my head.

no, kiddo. we already tried that.

well, what are you here for, then? 

the answer to your question chokes in my throat. i’m going back to college. your birthday is my phone password. i still think of you every time i eat a marshmallow. 

you are still bleeding, and you are still smoldering, and you are still glowering in the hallway. i have stitched up my wounds; they are healing into scars. i saved me first. i saved me at your expense. 

i lived to regret it.

i would not have, if i’d stayed. 

i’m here to make a wish. i say, and i hand you a dandelion. wish with me?

you puff the seeds into my face. it is just as annoying as you stealing my clothes in autumn when you were thirteen and cutting up my books in winter when you were five and taking what remained of our parents’ love in spring when you were born. siblinghood is a list of sins you’ll never remember and being the oldest means letting them cease to matter. 

i reach out. pick a dandelion. blow the seeds off in some unforeseen direction.

would you believe me if i told you that my wish was for you to be happy?

you do not respond. but you do not leave.

i stare into your eyes.

and you stare back.

[in spring, we are reborn.]

[crimeronan]

some of you are like "aw, you've written a super close codependent sibling relationship" about princess AU luz and hunter, which is a totally fair interpretation. however whenever i'm writing them it's Always from a default of "it's actually weirder that you guys aren't into each other" and "this is a tortured romance that happens to be completely platonic."

[purpleqilinwrites]

better than.

a/n: i fell in love with danmeshi over the weekend! i have so many thoughts and feelings about chilchuck and his wife and their daughters, so i wanted to write something about them. i wish we knew her name! since there's no canon name for her (yet??? please! i'm manifesting), i gave her one mostly for ease of fic writing but also because i think she should have one haha.

fandom: dungeon meshi

pairing: chilchuck tims / chilchuck's wife

genre: angst, general

info: told from the perspective of the wife; she is named (junnimay); takes place pre-canon

warnings: might not be canon-compliant

synopsis: for the better, she comes to learn that moving with the tides of life is a mercy in itself.

word count: 3.3k

Chilchuck Tims / Chilchuck's Wife

The apple trees were starting to clothe themselves in pale pink blossoms, releasing a sweet fragrance into the air. Kahka Brud took it as a sign of the winter's end, shedding off the furs and double-lined coats of the coldest months, and so did Junnimay. Reaching for one of the thinner woollen cloaks hanging by the front door, she whispered, "I'll be back soon, Fler," to her still-sleeping daughter before setting out for an early morning walk.

A contrary breeze made it difficult for her to shut the door quietly, a rather unceremonious slam of wood against wood following a series of laboured grunts from her lips. Fler had always been able to sleep through even the most turbulent of autumn storms; a little noise a ways from her bed surely wouldn't stir her from her needed rest.

Junnimay wiped her palms down on her cloak even if they weren't sweaty, and she started on the unpaved path that led to one of the larger streets of Kahka Brud.

At the place where the narrow local paths merged into the cobblestone main street, she greeted the elderly gnome couple having breakfast in their front yard. The younger of the two women stopped her with a shout in Gnomish and then waved for her to come closer. She approached the line of potted miniature trees that formed a makeshift fence between the public walkway and the gnome couple's property, and the elderly gnome pressed a still-warm bun into her cupped hands.

With a smile, she thanked the women in Gnomish, biting into the bread and telling them how delicious it was before she continued down the main street. As she chewed on a particularly large cluster of candied orange peel bits in her next bite, she pondered visiting the farmer's market on the way home so that Fler could have some candied orange buns to share at the tailor shop where she worked. It would be good to make a larger batch to share with the neighbours, too.

A splash of deep reddish brown dragged her attention to the present, the burst of colour out of place among the blush-pink apple blossoms and the grey-brown tree barks and the yellow-streaked blue sky. Junnimay almost dropped the last bit of the bun gifted to her, eyes wide as she took in the sight before her.

There were two half-foots under the large apple tree at the end of the street that opened to the southern market district. One of them shook out a grey bedroll that was much too large to have been designed for half-foot use, and the two of them took turns scooching into it and then reclining to watch the clouds.

The taller of the half-foot pair sported an uncannily familiar head of auburn hair, poking out of their shared bedroll that was made for one tall-man but could apparently fit two half-foots comfortably. She chucked what was left of the bun into her mouth before she took slow steps towards the mouth of the market district, keeping her eyes on the half-foot couple the whole time.

They paid her no mind, even if her gaze never left them minutes and minutes after coming from behind them to appear in front of them. They were too in love to notice her.

Chilchuck was lying in bed next to her, but his back had never felt so far.

Even when Junnimay was a child relentlessly chasing after him and his older siblings in a game of tag melded with hide and go seek, the distance of rows upon rows of tomato plants between her parents' house and his was tiny in comparison to the hand's breadth that separated Chilchuck's sleeping form from her. The entirety of the vast tomato field was easily crossed under her quick and stubborn feet, possible to traverse. She didn't feel the same way about stretching her hand out to touch her husband.

When she had yelled something or the other about getting caught in the tomato vines, Chilchuck would've instantly turned around and run to her. He always did, even if it meant that he would lose to his older brother, the person he hated losing to the most. She remembered that being the reason why she liked him; when she called for him, he made haste to come to her.

If she woke him up at this point in their lives, years and years after playing games with ever-changing rules in the tomato field that belonged to everyone in the village, would he be quick to awaken and ask her if there was anything troubling her? If there was anything he could do to help?

Chilchuck shifted as if her thoughts were so loud that they woke him. She squeezed her eyes and mouth shut, pretending to sleep the way their daughters did when they were still red-faced in the way half-foot children usually were in their most tender years. His blanket swished when Chilchuck pulled it tighter around himself, curling in on himself and inching all the more away from her. All was still on his side of the bed after.

She fell into a true sleep as she pretended. While pretending, she was trying to remember the last time her husband broke out into a run coming to her simply because she had called his name.

The neatly placed line of dark bottles filled with various alcohols that Chilchuck accumulated over the years never looked so inviting to Junnimay.

Between her and her husband, he was consistently the more avid drinker. Since she first discovered she was pregnant with Mei and Fler, she found that she hadn't had the same taste for alcohol that she once had as an adolescent. She used to sneak sips from her father's hidden stash of ales from time to time, careful never to take more than a single large mouthful off the top of the bottles that were full.

With Chilchuck out accompanying yet another party of adventurers to one of the dungeons scattered around Kahka Brud and her three daughters asleep, Junnimay thought it was a better opportunity than ever to indulge in a little alcohol. It has been years since the last time she partook, after all.

She tiptoed to grab hold of the bottle she felt was most appealing, the scarlet label on the front boasting that the mead within contained floral honey from a well-known apiary on the Southern Continent. Pouring herself an economical portion into a dark glass cup, she settled into the alcove overlooking the sea and cracked the window open to feel the salty night-time winds on her face.

"Mama," came a sleep-addled voice from past the kitchen and down the hallway. Junnimay made it to the dining table when she found her firstborn daughter rubbing her eyes at the threshold that separated the kitchen from the rooms.

"Mama," Mei said again, sounding a little more awake than she did the first time. "I think Dad's not coming back yet."

The staunchness in her daughter's statement made her inwardly flinch, and she tried her best not to show it on her face. Mei had always been an unusually perceptive child, and it worried her that her daughter might be picking up on the growing unhappiness between her and Chilchuck. She wouldn't be able to bury it from her girls forever, but she wanted to keep any marital issues hidden from their young and still innocent eyes. The world should be sunny and kind when they gazed upon it, more beautiful and right than when she was the one looking.

Junnimay put on a smile, approaching her daughter and putting her arms around her, stroking at her head of wild ginger hair. It soothed her somewhat when Mei immediately buried her face in her chest, her comparably smaller fingers clutching at the cotton of her sleeping tunic.

"Not for a while, little heart," she said, vacantly running the fingers of her right hand through Mei's hair to untangle the knots. "But he'll be back."

It had only been two days since Chilchuck left for his most recent dungeon expedition. He had never been one to complete a job sooner than he said he would, diligently seeing to it that the task he agreed upon beforehand was carried out as promised. It made him an excellent addition to any adventurer's party, but she realised it also made him an absent father and an unavailable husband.

"He'll miss my birthday again," were the condemning words Mei chose for Chilchuck, muffled from the way she was pressing into her mother and clinging. Junnimay's heart twisted at the disappointment in her daughter's voice, as if her father had let her down for the final time.

Mei suppressed a sniffle and tried to mask it with a sound of exasperation, little fingers starting to pinch at her flesh beneath the fistfuls of fabric already within her hold.

It reminded her that Mei, while able to pick up on subtle things that most children weren't, was still a child. It reminded her that Mei still needed her protection.

It reminded her that she was failing quite miserably.

Chilchuck was at the door for the first time in almost three years, and it was akin to seeing a ghost when she swung the door open, not quite knowing if it was definitely him after hearing his voice on the other side. Junnimay blinked twice, squeezing her eyes shut as she quickly completed a simple incantation of protection taught to her by one of the gnome neighbours, and then opened them once again. He was still there, so she moved aside so he could come in.

"The girls are all out today," she said, leaning against the closed front door to resume lacing up her work boots. "Puck's staying with a work friend in the meantime, so you won't be seeing her until she comes back at the end of winter."

He seemed rather displeased at her lukewarm reaction to his return home, but he didn't mention it. Mirroring the burgeoning pile of her grievances about their marriage, she kept silent when he pretended there wasn't anything to complain about. It was a complicated dance that the two of them had perfected over the years, intimately familiar with each step.

"Where you are headed?" Chilchuck asked, sweeping his eyes over her attire as if he were scanning his lock-picking toolkit for signs of wear and tear. She hated it, and it was bitter when she swallowed the feeling with an increasing level of ease, automatic.

"To the bakery," she said, needlessly undoing the fastening tie of her cloak and doing it up again, tighter the second time around. "My shift ends late, so don't wait up for me. There's leftover cured meat and cheese from Mei and Fler's birthday dinner last week in the pantry, if you want to eat."

Chilchuck crossed his arms rather aggressively as she spoke, and she felt validated at his show of displeasure. She was starting to become suspicious that he believed their marriage to be as intact as it was when they were walking away from the ceremony, but it gave her a twisted sense of unity that they were both looking at the same cracks and being afflicted with the same unpleasant feelings.

"The one along Third Street, right?" he asked.

It sounded to her like he was running out of things to say, and it made her all the more eager to get out of the house and fall back into the safety of her daily routine in which he was entirely absent. She had become comfortable as a mother of three daughters whose father's only contribution was a pouch of gold coins every full moon, delivered to the door by an administrative employee of the local Adventurer's Guild.

The money he provided for her and for the girls has been slowly and steadily increasing over the years, and she was glad that he appeared to be making a name for himself as a skilled locksmith. There was a sudden jump in the weight of the pouch put in her hands a few months ago. She wanted to ask about it since Chilchuck was here, but ultimately decided not to, keeping her questions about his work and his time in the dungeons of Kahka Brud close to her heart instead.

There was once that he had snapped at her for being too curious about his work, and that one time was enough for her to become unnecessarily cautious when speaking to her husband about the jobs he undertook.

She nodded, putting a hand on the doorknob and finding solace in the coolness of the metal against her skin. The silence between her and Chilchuck felt awkward with how large it was, taking more space in the house than even the house itself. When it became apparent that he had indeed run out of things to say, she pushed the front door open and stepped out.

"I'm off," she said, expecting him to regroup with a new adventurer's party on yet another dungeon expedition by the time she returned from her own work at the bakery.

In the early hours of the morning when she found herself home again, Mei and Fler were asleep in their beds. They left a note for her on the dinner table, saying that they ate at the tavern close to the main street and that they brought back a portion of wild boar stew for her in case she was hungry.

For once meeting her expectations at the exact line where she drew them, Chilchuck was nowhere to be found.

Mei was taller than her now.

It was obvious that her daughter was bending at the waist to give her a greeting hug, the height difference between them further exaggerated by the thick soles of Mei's work boots. A bittersweet sense of awe nipped at Junnimay as she was reminded once again how much Mei resembled her father.

"Mama," Mei said, linking her arm with her mother's as the two of them wandered the Central Market on an impromptu stop on the way to Fler's home. Junnimay thought it would be nice to take a long walk with her firstborn, since Mei had taken the opportunity to surprise her by picking her up from the bakery on one of her rare free days. "You deserve to be happy, you know?"

Junnimay froze mid-appraisal of the many kinds of honey on display at the store on her left, slack-jawed and wide-eyed as she turned her head to face her daughter. Where was this coming from? Briefly, her thoughts led her to the husband she recently left, and it brought to the forefront of her mind once again her every reason for finally acting upon what was in her heart.

Mei seemed to be taken aback by her mother's inarticulate but apparently tumultuous contemplation, so she cleared her throat, eyes darting to the side as she visibly mulled over her next words. "I saw you talking with a gnome uncle at the bakery. Your smile was so bright," she said, beginning to pick at the unoccupied holes in her belt with her free hand. "And I can't remember the old man ever looking at you the way the gnome does. I think you can be happy with him, now that the old man's out of the picture."

Bodies were skimming the pair of them in the passing as they stood in one of the many footpaths in the Kahka Brud's largest market. There were many sights to behold and smells to contemplate, and there were even more wares on sale. She had to be mindful of pickpockets in a crowd as thick as the one that eternally thronged this market, but she could only focus on the determined jut of her daughter's chin.

"I'm just saying," Mei said, making eye contact with her after allowing her a moment to ponder. "I want you to be happy. Fler and Puck, too. You deserve it more than most people."

Junnimay moved her arm from its curled position around Mei's and used it to pull Mei into a one-armed hug, squeezing. The wet warmth of tears pricked at her eyes, and she gave her daughter the widest smile she could muster in an attempt to keep her face from crumpling the way it did when she cried.

"I am happy, little heart," she said. "But I think I'm not made for a second marriage."

She watched the gears turn in Mei's head from behind the screen of tears in her eyes. Wiping at her face with the back of her other hand, she apologised instinctively to a male voice that yelled a phrase in Elvish for her to move from somewhere in the mass of people behind her.

Mei sported a scowl as she scanned the crowd over her mother's head to see who was intruding on their conversation. Junnimay laughed, making sure to steer herself and her daughter closer to the wall between the honey store and the one beside it.

"Did the old man ruin it for you? Marriage, I mean," Mei said, after her sweep of the crowd proved unsuccessful. The majority of the market-goers were tall-men who unintentionally blocked her view of the offending elf, lost in the commotion.

Junnimay felt the need to put on a smile, but remembered that Mei was too old to fall for it. Mei had been too old to believe her fanfare of a reassuring smile since she was just a child.

"His father told us that since we liked each other, we should marry. So we did," she said. The memories trickled into her mind's eye slowly, obstructed by years and years of trying to fill the space of both mother and father for her girls. Looking back on her childhood in a small village where everyone was a half-foot was akin to looking into an old spyglass, trying with much difficulty to spot something on the far horizon.

Chilchuck's father was far more authoritarian than hers ever was; if he said something was to happen, everyone around him made sure it happened. Her father, while affronted by the other half-foot's demand, was agreeable to the match and gave her his blessing since she had insisted that she liked Chilchuck enough to marry him.

"I wanted my parents to be happy, and I liked the idea of marriage at that time. I didn't stop to think about if marriage was the right thing for me," she said.

Noting Mei's silence and hoping to assuage any anxieties her daughter might have, Junnimay gave her another squeeze, smiling without the express intention of consoling. "But I don't regret marrying your father. Because of him, I have you and Fler and Puck. I gained the world's best daughters."

Mei chuckled at her bold proclamation, sighing affectionately when she leaned up to press kisses to her daughter's cheek. "Mama, you say embarrassing things sometimes," were the words that Mei spoke, but Junnimay knew her well enough to hear the words she actually wanted to say. She smiled into Mei's jaw.

"Are three daughters better than a husband?" Mei asked, a cheeky glint lighting up her eyes.

Junnimay squeezed her yet again, a tense fist of unease inside her chest loosening with the surrender of a long-kept confession that bared her heart. Even the golden afternoon rays of sun became brighter and more beautiful, her secret feelings being received most graciously by her firstborn. She was sure they would be received similarly by Fler and Puck too; the three of them were all warm-hearted women whom she was proud to have birthed and raised.

"By a thousand tall-men leaps and bounds, three daughters are infinitely better than a husband."

[undertheredhood]

imo, dick grayson is the type of person who would post 'am i the asshole' stories on reddit.

[lizbethborden]

Anyway. My mother had surgery for cancer this week and my sister still hasn't been down to see her. It's her days off today and tomorrow. Taking bets on whether she'll turn up

[crippling-pages]

anyone have a book about what it’s like to the the eldest daughter??? I’m in desperate need to feeling heard

[punkeropercyjackson]

He was Zuko before Zuko

[itneedmoreshit]

being an eldest daughter means sobbing every time you have to leave your parents even though your therapist is literally BEGGING you to get out of your hometown

[amaryllis-astra]

Eldest Daughter Gothic Part 2

—You worked up the nerve to ask for advice, once. They looked at you with bewilderment in their eyes and gave no answer. You haven't done it again.

—Your heart races from too much caffeine. You think it will leave your body soon. Maybe that'll stop it from hurting so much?

—On the inside, you are screaming, crying, throwing up. On the outside, you are smiling, laughing, and helping. You can't afford to do anything else.

—You hold your younger siblings close. They are so small and so broken.

—You realize that once, you were smaller and more broken than that. Instead of being held, you were hurt, again, again, again.

—You hate yourself. You hate your mother, for hurting you. You hate your father, for being a coward. You resent your siblings, for being happy. You hate yourself. You're beginning to wonder if there's anything left to hate.

—"It's not always about you," she says. You do not (cannot), find a way to say that yes, you understand that, but dear god why can't something, anything, be about you? just once?

—You are always helping. "Just take a break!" they urge, eyes unfeeling. You don't even want to think about what happened the last time you tried that.

—You have a good couple of days. It's surprising; It doesn't last. She's a ticking time bomb from the moment she sees you genuinely happy.

—You are so angry. You are so angry it fills every bone in your body and you have to bite your lip until it bleeds to keep from shouting insults.

—You are nothing except anger, because you are nothing except pain, and they are two sides of the same coin

—Part of you wants to hurt the world as badly as it hurts you. It takes everything you have not to give in to those urges. It's not a fight you're certain to win.

[starlooove]

Perfecting character voices is so lost rn

[captainclickycat]

I think I’ve put my finger on what gets my hackles up about the phrase “eldest daughter syndrome” and all it entails, and essentially it’s the fact that the way I’ve often heard it used feels like the equivalent of someone using traditional gender roles to determine what men/women are like.

Like it annoys me in the same way that I imagine a woman with a husband and kids would be annoyed if someone randomly said “oh, you must feel like you have an extra child to take care of! You must be run ragged doing all the cooking and cleaning and looking after the kids, including your extra grown-up one, tee-hee!” when the actual answer to that claim is “no, actually, we’re both adults and we both do our fair share of the household chores and childcare, my husband is a decent person who doesn’t act like a toddler and expect me to wait on him”

Like, it’s one thing to draw attention to social trends and imbalances and all that sort of thing. But when you lean too hard into the idea that it must apply to any given person, you sort of end up reinforcing the stereotype instead of pushing against it. Like when I hear someone saying stuff along the lines of “eldest daughters are always forced into a parental role and feel like it’s their responsibility to look after everyone and and and…” to me it feels like they’re assigning me a personality I haven’t actually got and it really rubs me the wrong way. It just feels like the equivalent of saying “women face a lot of social pressure to take care of all the housework and childcare and maintaining emotional harmony and not stand up for themselves too much… and that’s why every woman is a meek beleaguered housewife!” which. Well. No.

[nonbayanary]

Are there any Eldest Sister Syndrome Anezaki Mamori fics out there???

I am fucking FERAL for fics about Mamori's internalized and repressed feelings on watching over a kid who isn't even biologically related to her. I'm talking about all the rage Mamori feels in her heart whenever she remembers how the other kids in elementary school treated Sena like shit, and the absolutely ugly truth that Sena's parents aren't doing anything to intervene in the bullying.

I'm talking about Mamori losing her faith in adults early on, because they did nothing to stop Sena's bullies. I'm talking about Mamori joining the student council because she internally screams, "Fuck it! If they aren't going to do anything about it, then I WILL."

I'm talking about Mamori putting herself in a position of power as a member of the Student Council to protect her little brother Sena, who no one else but her and Riku (who moved a long time ago) seem to care about protecting.

I'm talking about all the RAGE Mamori feels towards the world, but shoves deep down inside her core. And the despair she feels that, "If I don't do it, will anyone else do it???"

I'm talking about Mamori basically fucking PARENTING Sena when his own parents couldn't. She would bring bentos for him, take care of him when his parents couldn't, and she would even go so far as to use her own body as a shield for him.

I'm talking about the SHEER FRUSTRATION that must come over her when she spirals from time to time, because, "Why is it me? Why should I parent someone else, when I'm just a kid too? Why aren't the adults doing anything?"

But at the same time, like an Atlas, she carries the weight of it anyway. Because she loves Sena, and would bear the trauma of parentification if it came down to it.

I'm talking about the amount of utter KINDNESS it must take to forgive Sena's parents again and again, instead of lashing out at them whenever she sees them. I'm talking about the colossal amount of love it takes for Mamori to sacrifice so much for her baby brother, her found family, her beloved little Sena.

In this house, we FUCKING LOVE parentified Mamori, with Eldest Sister Syndrome. She deserves the fucking world and MORE for bearing all that weight.