#Rill loves this for him this is genuinely so great shhshhshshh. shhs. everybody shut the fuck up. except for Nobils

[clannfearrunt]

A slightly edited writeup stitched together from discord ramblings, about Rill vs his adoptive families. Lol. It’s long

Fathom and Mariana are an international and interracial couple, and they’re the same morph*. There are actual layers of bigotry they’ve faced while trying to get married. However, they are also very much pampered kids from generationally wealthy families. They do consider themselves very socially progressive, but this is true only relative to their immediate social circles. They have this Image of themselves as Good People and don’t have the self-awareness to recognize and unlearn the bigotry they do very much still hold, mainly towards other species. This has been a constant source of headache for Rill, who has to live with them and interact with their families.

(*Fish have a system of distinct “morphs” in addition to sex that informs the gender politics of their various cultures. The two morphs are referred to as drakes and hens in this language. I swear I will get into details on a different post. The particular ways the intersection of sex and morph is handled varies a lot by culture, but across most of them people are expected to be attracted to the opposite sex and morph. Relationships between the same morph can face more scrutiny than same sex ones in many places, as morphs are much easier to determine than sex at a glance.)

The big concession the couple made in order to gain their family’s approval was that they wouldn’t have biological children. So of course they went to adopt. But. The reaction of the extended family towards Fathom and Mariana's adoption of Rill, an Inkling, was mostly confusion. Like, most of them didn't exactly disapprove, but were definitely like, "? what the fuck?? why".

Rill himself consistently gets the impression that they chose to adopt him to reinforce their image of being Good Progressive People. When he was younger he definitely got paraded around at social events and occasionally ended up on gossip publications, and he only recently managed to weasel out of ending up on his parents’ social media posts all of the time. He’s a goddamn publicity stunt. It’s sickening. Unlike what Rill believes, it’s not an intentional Thing on his parents’ minds though. It’s definitely there, but it’s subconscious. Anyways.

The Nykur family initially reacted to Rill with an air of condescending curiosity; their view of Inklings is very colored by longstanding stereotypes of them being simple, frivolous, and lazy, and they had met very few Inklings in person to remotely challenge this view. They've warmed up quite a bit to Rill as he quickly adapted and showed himself to be a bright, well-spoken young man. They mildly pity him for not being able to speak their mother tongue (it is physiologically very difficult for Inklings), but he can respond in either an extremely restrictive selection of words he can manage to pronounce, Peixe (a more globally common Fish Language), or in writing, which is just absolutely phenomenal from an Inkling wowww way to go boy! Even now that they’ve grown to mostly like him, though, Rill consistently gets the vibe of being treated more like a talking animal than a family member, let alone a person.

Mariana's family, the Poecilias, were a little bit more familiar with Inklings, as her country’s warm and humid climate allowed a thriving minority population of Inkfish to establish itself there in the past century or so. They were expecting a boisterous, flamboyantly outgoing boy as per local stereotypes but have been pleasantly surprised by Rill's more reserved and shy demeanor. Some of them might like him a little more than they do Mariana lol, she's definitely the problem child of the family. They don't visit this side of the family as much due to the slightly strained relation Mariana has with them, but they do tell her to bring Rill when she does. Rill... doesn’t dislike them as vehemently as he does the Nykurs, but he finds them very draining to deal with regardless. He’s mostly kind of wearily disinterested in them for now.

The extended Nykur family has been more overtly shit towards Rill. Wether it’s because they’re “more” bigoted towards Inklings or if it’s just that they’ve had more opportunities to show themselves he doesn’t know, but it doesn’t really matter. They seem to be under the mistaken impression that the reason Inklings have a hard time with a bulk of their language is because it falls outside of their range of hearing, and they’ve said some heinous shit in earshot. Rill doesn’t... really know what the best course of action is for him here, so he’s been just been quietly seething. When he visits them he mostly just tries his best to stick close to his parents or Nobils, the butler, and not end up alone with the rest of the family. In all fairness I don’t think most of them would intentionally hurt him, but Rill doesn’t really want to find out.

TO Fathom’s credit also I do think he has told off his family over the really overt shit. He's not malicious, he's just clueless (if occasionally dangerously so), and there is a threshold where it's obvious enough that he's gonna know it's Getting Bad. And he does, technically, actually like his son. So Fathom will intervene, but most of the time it's not like. Serious/stern enough. It's very "hey let's not talk politics at the dinner table"-core... You know that vibe of "ohh don't get so mad at your horrifically racist/queerphobic/insert bigotry here uncle it's thanksgiving dinnerrrr let's not ruin thanksgiving dinner 🥺”. Rill gets a lot of this. He hates Fathom so much. Defend him or don’t, make up your goddamn mind.

Rill is genuinely terrified that if he acts out too much he'd just be unceremoniously disowned. It's much less of a hassle for his "family" to distance themselves from him than it would have been if he was their biological child, or even at least the same species. If this happens he has literally no one else to turn to for support. This fear is a central force shaping his Behaviors. I do think it's a significant bit less likely than he's convinced himself it is? Like, his parents are probably not actually going to drop him like a hot potato the moment he even slightly talks back at them. He's not wrong that they could, and on some level it's not impossible that they would, but it is more unlikely than he's convinced himself it is. With a lot of things I have to have this preface of like. Yes Rill's fears are very much rooted in reality. But he's also very much prone to paranoia and blowing up the risk factors of some things. Important to remember both things are true.

Nobils, the butler, is definitely the main thing keeping Rill from imploding prior to meeting Thresher. When Rill was adopted, he saw The Situation and quickly stepped up as his actual main caretaker. Unlike his employers, Nobils was firmly aware of the gaps in his knowledge regarding Inklings and how to care for them, and worked very hard to fill those gaps and give Rill the best physical and emotional care possible. Rill was at one point extremely close to him, as he was the only safe adult in his life. Nobils also helped raise Fathom, so his failure to be a good father to Rill has been a source of deep sadness and frustration. Unlike an actual parent/child relationship, he's very limited in his ability to confront Fathom, since he's his employer.

Nobils cares deeply for Rill, and sees him as something fairly close to a grandchild. His biggest regret was reminding Rill that he was a well compensated employee in a bid to reassure him that he wasn't being a burden to him. This would have been fine for someone like Fathom, but Rill took it very poorly. He’s retreated into himself since then. Rill puts up an awkward pretense of professionalism between them now that Nobils can clearly see hurts him very deeply... But he recognizes he has no idea how to repair his trust, and has resigned himself to supporting Rill as best as he can while respecting this distance.

Rill does still love Nobils deeply, but he's been trying very hard not to. The realization that Nobils is a servant, doing a job came way after he had grown heavily emotionally reliant on him. It was devastating and embarrassing. Rill wasn't quite old enough or idk. Stable enough? to process that "Nobils is here because it is his job" and "Nobils genuinely loves and cares about him" can be true at the same time. Nowadays this is kind of stewing in the back of his mind but he's too stubborn/scared/mysterious set of emotions to allow himself to admit that it's true. There's a complex and deep well of bitterness and longing. He's never going to forgive Nobils for... being an employee? But if he ever quits he'll never forgive him for that either. He's starved for affection, as much as he'll never admit it, and he's infinitely bitter that any he receives from Nobils is irreversibly tainted in his eyes by their financial ties. Rill is also Not Acknowledging how old this guy is. We are not going to think about the passage of time and mortality or anything. Don't worry about it. Nobils will live forever 👍 It’s his job. He’s very good at his job. He would never leave him.

Nobils is so relieved to see Rill finally hanging out with someone his age he seems to actually like (Thresher). Even if he appears to also be imploding about it. This is an improvement. Can we get this boy a support structure! Can anyone help his boy. Please