#And a bit of my own family's experience

[ghostly-wisteria-tea]

I have this morbid idea, for 616 Marc to spread his "madness".

Like his new friends? I keep seeing how much they mirror Marc's own history of finding a purpose. And I have this funny prompt where it affected the familial relationship of all of them.

It's a weird turn, where things went to a bit dramatic. There is no magic or space mumbo jumbo. It's a bit more grounded than my previous posts.

Warning, it's a bit...not exactly hunky dory. It's actually pretty bad in a way. I'm weird like that.

Badr tried to stop Marc since it clear that Khonshu is not happy at both of them. But Marc roped him to ignore Khonshu's orders. This made Badr uneasy but he trusts his brother's word more, so he donned the suit again. Until he keeps falling on his face for no reason and the statue in his office suddenly cracks and exploded. Showing that Khonshu is not pleased with him even more.

Now he got a full-on mental breakdown and end up choosing to go to Wakanda and get some spiritual training from the head priestess of Bast.

T'challa noticed that Khonshu is acting more and more like how Bast would act so he contacted the head Priestess in his home, but she refused to leave. Saying that if they truly want her help, then they should put the effort to actually seek her than have everything given in a platter like they are babies.

Marc is still in denial about Khonshu firing them and is a bit upset that Badr left. Blaming it on Khonshu.

Reese's own studies start to get compromised as she is get more and more worried about Marc, and her parents start questioning her devotion to Marc. She doesn't realize as she is getting more and more distant from them. Her family chose to respect her privacy and they didn't say anything since Marc seams to be good for her.

At least, at the beginning.

Now they are noticing Reese barely stays in the house anymore and they can feel this uneasiness every time she leaves.

Reese fights back, defending that she is much safer with Marc. This results in a rift with her family.

Her father eventually got targeted by one of the angry gangs Marc pissed off. And Reese end up getting kicked out when she lost her temper and attacked her mother when the woman blamed Marc for getting her husband's legs broken.

Her mother though, didn't turn to a vampire. No one noticed as they are too busy trying to stop the bleeding from Reese's claws. This is another one of Khonshu's doing, but he didn't show himself nor demand that Reese's mother become a priestess. Just reversed the vampirism.

They just wave it off as being very lucky.

Reese eventually moved back with her parents. But there is a permanent cold wall as her parents now see her as less of a daughter and more of a stranger who can kill them anytime.

The only reason they accepted her back is that they Marc talked to them, and expresses his disappointment at them for making Reese sad. Though it's more like an intimidating threat since he is in a bad mood and is subconciously finding anything to get angry at. Even if he tries to be polite, there is an undertone of uncontrollable anger there.

To which Reese's actual father ask why Marc is acting more like Reese's father now, expressing how distant and disconnected Reese have become ever since she started working for Marc. Almost as if she don't see them as her parents anymore.

They tried to explain the attacks, threats and dangers they have been experiencing as someone manages to trace them after they saw Reese staying with Marc for months.

Marc tries to assure that he will do anything to protect them, but they don't believe him anymore. Especially after the news that he is no longer Moon Knight and don't have the protection of a god.

Eventually, they decided to move away as it is too dangerous for them anymore. And that Marc seems to be doing a better job of being a parent to Reese, so they just gave up.

They explain that Reese can go with them or stay with Marc. She chooses Marc and expresses how disappointed she is on her family for choosing to move. Calling them cowards.

Reese's parents remind her that they are ordinary people, not mercenaries and have no knowledge on how to fight. And as much as they love New York, they will just end up dead. Reese tries to reason that Marc won't let it happen, but then they point out that they can see that Reese is starting to have this semi-blind devotion on Marc. One that they are very worried about, but they know that they can't win against the Midnight Mission. And that they can't always depend on Marc for protection all the time like he is some god

It ends in a fight, but Reese was suddenly blown a few feet behind before she did a fatal blow on both her parents.

Reese then explode on how they are useless, ungrateful sh*ts. And how Marc is way better as he actually did something to help, giving her a job and helping her with her new powers, unlike her parents who only acted distant and expressed disappointment.

There is now a silent agreement that they will never talk to each other again as she pretty much rejected her birth family and chose a new one.

Then she realizes what she said to her parents, and greatly regrets it. To cope with that, Reese practically devotes all her energy to Marc. Mostly cursing her parents for not understanding Marc the same way she does, while trying very hard to not hate or blame herself. For both attacking her parents and saying those things.

Edit:She eventually dropped put of college to work at the Midnight Mission fulltime. Moving into the hotel, refusing to set foot on her old now empty house that only gives her bad memories of a life she left behind. And like Marc, she buries herself in doing Marc's work until it is starting to weight down on her as she refuses to make amends with her past.

And since she doesn't have the backing of a god, (or one she can just put all the blame on since she willingly accepted Marc's help by her own accord) she got in too far with a job that is too dangerous, went full Vampire crazy as a last resort, and eventually failed a mission that got more innocent people killed.

This mirror's Marc turning away from his birth father Elias and picking Khonshu as his new "father".

Soldier's mother's illness is getting worst, he copes by attaching himself to Marc more and more. Pretty much to a point of co-dependence that is getting eerily similar to Marc's unhealthy dependence on Khonshu.

He eventually decided to try and turn his mother to a vampire to stop the cancer. Though Marc told him it is a horrible idea, but this did not stop his anxiety. If anything, it made it worst since as a vampire, he is practically immortal while his mortal family/friends will all die and leave him. A fact that Soldier is still having a hard time accepting, and chooses to ignore it as much as he can.

By burying himself on Marc's work to forget his problems, just like Marc himself.

It reached a point that he start slowly having suicidal tendencies when he would rescue others. Since he can no longer die like a normal person, he would chase after death recklessly at the guise of altruistic behavior so that one day, he will die, be free of this curse that is immortality, and be at peace like his mortal family.

His mother eventually starts to ask if Soldier will keep staying with Marc, as she can feel herself dying and wants to spend the last moments of her life with her son. Soldier though, have grown way, way too dependent on Marc's presence and would leave before he got an emotional panic attack, saying that he can't leave Marc alone to suffer. When in actuality he is the one suffering inside as he stays further away from his emotional rock called "Marc Spector". That and he is still feeling guilty at the fact that his mother is dying while he is practically immortal.

Soldier's mother does explain that she is glad that Soldier have someone to look up to, but it seems that it is only creating a bigger rift between them as while Soldier was a henchman, he wasn't emotionally attached to his old boss. But now he is an emotionally dependent acolyte, and his mother can see it as her grandfather used to be a fanatical member of a doomsday cult in the mid-west.

She easily noticed that Soldier would sound like her grandfather when the man would talk about Marc. And this only alarms her even more as her grandfather once tried to kill his wife to "save" her. All she can do is pray to anyone listening, that her son will be safe, loose his unhealthy dependency and come back to his senses.

Someone is actually listening in the shadows.

Tigra's son starts to notice his mother's growing fixation on Marc, and feels a bit bothered at how her mother is trying to push Marc to be a new father figure to him. Even bringing the boy to the Midnight Mission one night to visit. William is just too polite to voice it out, but he can feel something wrong in the air inside the building, like someone telling him to leave. Yet everyone tries to act like it fine.

William is intuitive enough to see that they are all lying.

He is also seeing less and less of his own mother as she spends more time taking care of Marc.

Tigra hopes to get a solid relationship with Marc but it just won't reach that point of perfect commitment so she keeps trying and refuses to give up. But she doesn't see that she is slowly starting to leave her son behind in her endeavours.

William also tries to investigate about his father more, but Tigra changes the subject and tries to get him close to Marc. To keep them distracted as Marc is starting to get more anxiety attacks as the truth starts to officially sink in.

Eventually, William got tired of his mother constantly pushing Marc that he starts to cry at night. Wishing to have his old mother back, before Marc got her attention more. Creating this emotional rift where he asks to be dropped off at the daycare instead than stay at home. Hiding everything behind a smile but slowly breaking inside.

One night when he got tired of his mother pinning on Marc almost to a delusional degree. Even he is starting noticing this and decided to wandered into the streets just to get away. Deliberately getting lost for hours since he knows that his mother is too focused on Marc the entire night to even call anymore. Which got even worse when Marc died as Tigra practically became distant towards Wiliam. Choosing to be silent to avoid lashing on to her own son. But to William, it's like his mother was replaced with someone else.

William even nearly getting targeted by thugs. Said thugs would suddenly find themselves sucked backwards by a strong wind and get impaled with some metal rod stick that just so happens to be on the right spot.

William then found himself wandering back on his home unscathed, even though he really didn't know where he is going and was just following the lit streetlamps, unaware that he was nearly attacked.

Later in the day, street officers went to fix the streetlamps that were actually broken for 3 days straight.

[tinystepsforward]

ngl it makes me want to die a little bit that it's so often trans people who feel that sex is mutable but oppression is always-forever based on asab in ways that allow them to demand that information from other trans people. like it feels fucking bad. it feels bad when it's people holding up someone who posts a lot of selfies as transition goals to a degree they have to clarify what they have or haven't done or what "direction" they're going in, it feels worse when people are out there like "caster semenya is not tma" or whatever the fuck. i am, as always, not a trans woman, but here's a sentiment echoed by many of the trans women around me who log the fuck off, quoted directly from one: "people who draw a clear line where they say that semenya or khelif are tme and then call me tma are just calling me male at this point".

like i get it. i really do. we seek community and shared experiences, and we feel betrayed when people have less in common with us than we thought they did. [*more on this later.] but that's not those people's faults and my god in the case i'm seeing play out on twitter rn this poor person did absolutely nothing to intentionally mislead people, just posted pictures of their actual kid self. who looks a lot like i did, because shockingly enough "we can always tell" doesn't fucking work for trans people either!

on the one hand i move in intersex circles which are unapologetically welcoming in cis "dyadic" people with pcos, because it serves nobody to draw a clear line where mutilation or genetics or some ineffable childhood suffering are what make somebody intersex, especially when most of us (esp in places like nz) have never been karyotyped and are being treated for symptoms without a pinned-down cause anyway. the more of us there are the stronger we are, the more pressure we can exert on a medical profession which doesn't like to consider how common outliers are, how uneasy sex is at all. and then on the other hand there's dyadic trans people on the internet who've yelled me out of spaces because a couple of traumatised incarcerated trans women i worked with as a prison abolitionist assumed i was also a trans woman and i didn't immediately tell them my entire csa-involved history of being sexed in varying ways as an infant and child and/or exactly how big my phallus was at birth or where in my junk config my urethra lives so they could decide i was tme or whatever.

returning to the * for a related but not identical thought: i think presuming shared experiences leads to some fucked shit in general! "oh we all had a radfem phase" or "oh we all were channers" no we fucking weren't and it's particularly obnoxious when me & mine are trying to build trans community locally to organise and resist the growing wave of far-right backlash against our existence, and there's just white people in there on a spectrum from "straight up being antisemitic and trying to get the n-word pass" through "handwringing about how they need to make space for people who aren't politically correct" to "handwringing about how brown people are right to be mad at them but doing shit fuckall". and then the other fucking brown people in the space are on some identity politics shit where they're like "trans joy inherently excludes those of us who could get deported" or "big city white queers are killing us by being visible instead of going stealth bc it stirs up the discourse" or whatever the fuck i've heard pulled out this year. there's a bunch of reasons i primarily organise outside of trans spaces and that's one of them. i've never felt more alone in spaces where people claim we're all the same than being left as the brownest moderator or organiser in a space full of people to whom "this is a safe trans space" apparently means they get to abdicate all other responsibilities not to lapse into presumed shared patterns that are fucking racist or otherwise alienating. i've never felt more alone than surrounded by exclusively trans people who sort people into boxes and assume everyone in those boxes has the transition goals they have. like i was on cypro until it disagreed with me to the point of endocrine crisis and now i'm on t and at both those points people were so fucking presumptive or entitled to my reasons or journey or personal relationship w my body

literally just submitted on (and was invited to consult on) the nz law commission's review of the human rights act and like. it's straight up fucked how many nz trans people fully do not comprehend that any "sex assigned at birth" type definitions fundamentally exclude migrants who have no way of proving it and many intersex people who happen to have been reassigned later or many times or never assigned at all as a baby. we can't make law with this shit and that's why we have to have symmetrical protections for all genders/sexes/expressions/presentations, bc naming and defining a protected class here often leaves the people who already are left out from those shared experiences of marginalisation out in the cold when they face violence

[frobby]

one of my favorite senarios to imagine to put yukio in is sending him 10 years into the future (with the exwires usually) and everyone from their class are like chill adults including himself working their boring ass exorcist job and hes trying to assert dominance over them as the teacher™ but they're all like bro why so serious?

[risetherivermoon]

what if i said hc that lark actually got into space and constellations at some point as a kid because of mercedes being into astrology, (but in more of the scientific perspective in his case) and when he was training hero he would tell her about space and how the sky looked before code purple and thats what sparked her interest in it and why she got the internship at JPL....what if

[lcpmon]

HOUSE. FUCKIN HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sysig]

How is skeleton shaped (Patreon)

[flammedoudoune]

Random interactions I've had in the past couple of days in Japan:

-old naked lady at the sento who did her best to explain to 3 confused french tourists who had never been to a public bathhouse how to proceed, despite us barely speaking any japanese, and her barely speaking any english. She also gave us sweets afterwards. She was lovely.

-middle aged man who stopped us in the street to tell us we were beautiful. He then said "I am crazy", smiled, gave us a thumbs up, and left.

-brazilian tourist who started talking to me in the bus and told me I should go visit Himeji.

-old japanese man who started talking to me in the train station and told me I should go visit Himeji.

[lupins-hehim-pussy]

I think I accidentally made Wriothesley AuDHD. fuck

[bitegore]

So seriously: if you have a serious recoil/disgust factor at uncommonly eaten parts of an animal being in any kind of food context (eg: whole fish being served at a table) and you want to work on minimizing that reaction, I really really recommend eating "normal" versions of those unusual foods, like for example deli-sliced tongue. I know I'm talking out of my ass here, but things like liver and haggis (organ meat), tongue (tongue), and probably a whole lot of others I've never had can be pretty easily made into forms that taste real good and don't look much like a weird lump of flesh you can recognize, and being able to get from "that's weird and gross but I want to get it" to "that's weird but it tastes really good and I want to get it" will probably make building up momentum easier when you move on to less "common" pastures.

Good luck, by the way. I believe in you.

[walkman-cat]

hands up tell me abt Your star trek au right now!! on the double bro. what are the tensions it all looks too kind & magical i don’t trust it yet

(if it is literally kind & wonderful i am grateful i am thankful i am honored i’d just like to hear more)

-@jack-kellys

i'm ngl my star trek au au is mostly running on vibes wbwbwb so it is pretty kind and happy and warm (i just really like how much everyone in the enterprise's crew has such a respect and care for each other yknow. found family and all that innit).

that being said, here are some funky things about the characters ive been thinking about lately (under a cut because i'm incapable of being concise):

the stars were essentially jack's santa fe. he grew up surrounded by stories of starship captains and space and it became his lifelong dream and ambition to captain a starship, something which he dropped everything to attain. now he is captain of a starship– one of the youngest in starfleet's history– and it's wonderful and fantastic and he's never felt more alive! but there's always something gnawing at the back of his mind (he's based his entire life up until this point around this moment, it was a driving force and a beacon to look up to when times were tough. what if the experience is nothing like his dreams and he ends up disappointed? what happens when the mission's over? what'll become of him?).

also starfleet's assigned him a galaxy-class starship with families onboard and he's having a Time because of it (what if they get hurt under his watch. what if he gives the wrong order and a child dies. starfleet officers know the risks of space travel and are aware of this but the families. the children). other than that he's having a great time !!

kath's half-betazoid on her mother's side, but she never knew her mother nor has she ever been to betazoid (i really went woe! being mixed and only connected to one of your cultures but still being unable to fit in even there because of the fact that you're mixed be upon ye!). she's trying real hard to learn more about betazoid and who her mother is even though she knows she won't really feel like she "belongs" in betazoid either. she's working on understanding and using her empathic/telepathic powers more.

oh also!! pulitzer is a notorious and not-well liked admiral, when kath joined the acedmy she officially had her name changed to plumber and has since told no-one that they're related (this surely won't backfire terribly on her in the future)

also because this is the spot (cat) show, kath loves spot (cat) and wants to babysit her and play with her but alas. she is allergic to cats

race cannot catch a break– he's got a massive losing streak at senior officer poker night, spot (cat) hates him, he can't grow a beard but every time theres an impostor/clone/mirror universe situation the other version of him always has a beard (this is half in jest but also it amuses me wbwb)

jokes aside, i've been having a whole bunch of race as first officer thoughts (and a lot of riker and race parallel thoughts but. that's another story). i don’t really know how to explain it other than the way riker acts in the last episode of tng season two (yes, the riker montage episode) when facing death (joking around and keeping up the appearance of flippancy and courage in the face of agonising death because he’s first officer and there are people who look up to him and he has to set an example) seemed very race and very kony to me, in a way. (youve got this to blame for riker beard race. im not sorry)

race is also one of the first people to advocate for les becoming acting ensign. he makes it very clear that he's in les' corner and makes himself responsible for his studies and sometimes his training (and he teaches him poker).

OH ALSO! sarah and davey didnt know les ws going to be onboard and only found out about his presence after they'd set off. did he sneak onboard?? mayyyybeee (he just really wants to be a starfleet officer). after the initial shock (and notifying their parents) sarah and davey start the Let Les on the Bridge campaign (letting him watch the bridge from the turbolift, helping out in sciences and engineering, etc etc) the that eventually leads to les becoming acting ensign. it reaches a point where most of jack's senior officers would probably mutiny all for this kid.

there's more stuff but i'll stop rambling now because, again, i have a problem with being concise wbwbw. thankyou soso much for the ask rizz once again i love your star trek au so much and am always eager to hear more wbwbw!!! :D

[thats-my-passion-right-there]

I finally saw the mean girls musical (the movie one) I have so many fucking thoughts oh my god

[scarysanctuary]

Seeing the crew be able to have fun together, be silly, and childish, and above all else, themselves, is a joy. I cant think of any show where a majority of the cast is not in their 20s but most are middle aged, and they're still finding new friends and romance, they're growing as people, and finding new meaning to their lives, they're building a home and family, their lives aren't slowing down, they aren't seen as less useful, or desirable. It gives me a sense of relief that I don't need to have it all figured out, my 20s isn't the end of the road, new beginnings can always be possible. Growing older doesn't have to mean taking life so seriously, and I can choose to do the things that make me happy, without a thought of how immature it makes me look. I know this sentiment has been shared in regards to media before but there's something about watching these guys run around dressing up in fancy clothing screaming about curses, acting out various scenarios involving "Jeff" for fun together, cannonballing into the water rather than stepping onto a boat, putting on elaborate fuckeries which is really just an excuse to sing and act, playing thumb wars with your bf, dressing up in drag, or even turning into a damn bird. There's a feeling, an assumption, that once you reach a certain age this kind of "nonsense" has to stop, and i think a part of you probably ends up dying, the child that lives inside everyone, but not them, all their inner children are alive, and because of that, I think the crew is truly free, and i find that inspiring.

[peapod20001]

I’m the type that can and will cry if think too hard <3

[janebonbon]

I'm not sure how many people can relate, but it is so funny reconnecting with your culture after so much has been Americanized. It is so funny how even though I never got the chance to meet the family that lived there, pieces of it still live on.

Of course learning language also means learning culture, it's hand in hand. But I look at customs and even just social norms that have lived on and make us odd individuals to the rest of where I live. I still remember going with my mother to deliver home baked cookies to our new neighbors as a welcoming gift and introducing ourselves... And people hardly even gave us the time of day! I remember how shocked we both were, because we were taught that way too. Even at parties with my mom's friends, bringing some kind of gift or extra food (other than the food we were asked to bring).

Isn't it funny and beautiful how those things persist? I think about that a lot.

[cheridraws]

im going to fucking murder the next person who decides to purposely sneak something im allergic to into my food and im not playing

[vmures]

Today's musings are on the complex and fascinating bonds between humans and how those are viewed in various cultures. In particular, I want to talk about found family and my personal experiences regarding the topic.

First, I want to set the stage as to what larger cultural norms are at play for me personally. I'm a US American, generally raised in the South (though there were childhood years spent in the Southwest and Inland Northwest as well) who has, as an adult, largely lived in New England and the Mid-Atlantic regions of the US.

My bio family is...well the politest terms would probably be "a dumpster fire of generational trauma, dysfunction, and toxicity." Those relationships are complex and fraught with issues for the most part. I was fortunate to mostly patch things up with my dad before he passed and after he sobered up and acknowledged a majority of his fuckups as a dad. I still talk with my bio brother, and we love each other, but we're not particularly close these days. I haven't talked with my bio mom for twenty years. The only other person from my bio family that I'm close to is a second cousin who is only a year older than me and who was a dear friend to me growing up. Always felt more like a sibling than a cousin, to be honest.

Despite the lack of supportive and healthy relationships with my bio family, I have a wonderful found family that I've been a part of for more than twenty years. And the thing about familial relationships (found or bio) is that they are layered and complex, and sometimes it's easier to use shorthand to refer to relationships rather than a whole long ass story on how you are connected or, in the case of bio family, disconnected.

My found family is largely made up of a group of women and their partners, plus some of our extended friends. Most are in the same age range, with some variation. And we all consider each other family. For the core group, we tend to refer to each other as sisters, because that is the easiest way to explain our relationship to others. One couple tends to get referred to as the parental units of the group though we do not call them mom and dad.

One of the key reasons we end up using familial terminology to refer to each other is cultural expectations. These folks are my next of kin. They are the ones who will visit me in the hospital should something happen. It's a hell of a lot easier and quicker to say "sister" when visiting someone at the hospital, especially if someone is in critical care and only family is allowed. It was also easier when one of us had to go pick up one of the kids from school or something to be listed as their Aunt. People understand those relationship terms and it's shorthand to help you get through social situations without having to give a longwinded explanation of your relationship that makes you feel like the guy from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with his conspiracy board.

Is this the case with all found families? No. Found families, like bio families, come in a wide variety of configurations. But I bet in certain situations, people do use shorthand just to bypass the cultural bullshit or restrictions that come into play (e.g. visiting someone in ICU). But I wanted to share my experiences and thoughts. Because I am getting a bit tired of some of the "stop using family terms for found family" dialogue. It feels a bit like a slap in the face and someone telling me that my lived experience isn't valid or real.

Like all such discourse, it is nuanced. I agree that people shouldn't police others' interpretations of things (i.e. tell someone they can't ship someone because they are siblings in a found family). But that is a different issue. One more related to people being unable to see that their interpretation doesn't supersede anyone else's--that there is no one true way to see anything. It's all filtered through our own experiences and views.

Human relationships are complex and varied across the board, and languages don't always have words to express those connections fully. English is fairly limited when it comes to words describing relationships. Add in that certain cultures, in my case US American culture, often favor some relationships more than others, and you have a bit of a mess that can make describing your loved ones and family challenging. It would be lovely if we could all keep that in mind when discussing these things. There are many ways to live your life and many types of families, found or otherwise. Maybe someone's experience is beyond your ken, but that doesn't mean it's less valid or real.