#a father without children

[delicatefury]

So, a bit of context for all you lovely people reading Dracula right now, which you might have missed or forgotten about:

Abraham van Helsing is both a widower and a childless parent. This is mentioned, I believe, only once or twice and in the middle of more exciting events. But it is important to know that Abraham van Helsing has lost both his wife and his son, and has no other children or descendants.

This is part of the reason he has imprinted on the suitors and the Harkers so strongly. He is an elderly father with no children, a man with a deep sorrow yet a great love of life.

Conversely, Mina and Jonathan are both orphans who recently lost their parental figure in Jonathan’s employer (who they lived with and took care of until his passing), and Arthur has just lost his father as well.

As such, at least 3 of the 5 young adults in the group were primed for an older parental figure to step into their lives. Adults but still needing/wanting a more experienced hand to help guide them, gravitating towards an elderly man who has committed to giving everything he has to help them.

[royaltea000]

[jttw swk oc children] tried out giving them some new clothes but I dunno bout this one… 🤔

Prev:

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 138

Danny squints up at the blurry form cradling him, brain trying to catch up with his situation. He can feel the pulse of his siblings’ cores nearby, gently pulsing contentedly despite the chaos of his last memories. His limbs feel too small and pudgy, too-small fingers gripping onto something as his vision started to clear. 

There was a man, holding him? Cradling his too-small form like he was an infant- was he an infant? He was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be, he had been older but now he wasn’t. He squinted up at the stranger, green eyes meeting green. Huh. They kind of looked like he could be their dad or something. 

[my-name-is-apollo]

One of the best parts of rereading the Homeric hymn to Apollo is that I get to read these moments again:

"But Leto alone stays by the side of Zeus who delights in thunder...and the Father gives him nectar in a golden cup welcoming his dear son, while the other gods make him sit down there, and queenly Leto rejoices because she bare a mighty son and an archer."

– Homeric hymn to Delian Apollo (trans. Evelyn-White)

"And they, even gold-tressed Leto and wise Zeus, rejoice in their great hearts as they watch their dear son playing among the undying gods."

– Homeric hymn to Pythian Apollo (trans. Evelyn-White)

It seems so domestic and mundane. Zeus has plenty of moments where he dotes on his children, but it's really rare to see him do that alongside his lover. He is relishing these moments with Leto, who stands beside him. This is more of a family moment than just a father - son moment.

[thankstothe]

Breaking the cycle of it all

[jimmyspades]

[borgialucrezia]

so heartbreaking how they used to stare at their father with so much vulnerability and trust in their eyes and gullible to his words of comfort because even though he did love them very much he ultimately loved the power he could achieve through them more...

[serpentface]

Don't get too attached

[notbecauseofvictories]

This is going to sound negative, but I think Snuff deserves to be the last Discworld book. I mean, Raising Steam is good in certain ways, a fond elegy to the characters and plots a reader has come to know so well. I don't even object to the visceral pleasure of the earlier novels giving way to something diffuse, harder to pin down. (Unseen Academicals felt like this---a wonderful novel, but not actually a victory; just a plot that rearranged matters in an interesting way.) But there's a sort of...ill magic setting in, by the time you get to the scene where Vetinari gives medals to our wonderful shining heroes of the railway.

Namely, they're too good at this.

Vimes uses the Summoning Dark multiple times, and without even the terrified self-doubt he was showing in Snuff. (I have other issues with Snuff, but that was an interesting thread to pull.) Vetinari not-too-discretely points the Black Clerks at a problem, and it is solved; when necessary, he goes undercover working on something he personally considers vaguely distasteful, and yet becomes the center of a folk song. Moist neither sleeps, nor eats nor makes love to his wife (except sometimes, too rarely in his opinion) but rushes all over doing the railways' job for---what? for why?

They're too good, they've climbed too high; Vimes and Vetinari are edging into myth while still being alive, and Moist was already half of a song anyway, has been since he put on the golden suit.

I'm not saying it's not an interesting setup, because strangely it is. But it feels like the start of something, not closure at all, because what else is Discworld good for if not to tackle the fact that everything glowy and laden with awe will not remain such. Because, you know, that's how the world works.

[remembertheplunge]

You have no children

July 16, 1988 Saturday

“I feel—hurt. Dad attacked this morning ‘you have no children. You will grow old and cold . Hurry. Hurry (have children soon). 

He showed me pictures of his brother Stan and his family. And pictures of his mother surrounded by her grand kids. He said  “look at these happy little families."

I said “Dad, let what is, be. You are trying to play God."

He works his family tree with LA descendants. He does���t want the tree to end with him.

The way I feel is “hey, it’s OK not to have kids. It’s the whole human family that’s important—and how kind and helpful I can be to each individual including myself.

End of entry

Notes 9/12/2024

Although I had begun to tell  people that I was a gay man in 1984, I didn’t tell my father until the mid 1990s.. After I did tell  him, he never brought up the issue of me not having children again. He seemed to be at peace with it. I never did have children.

And, that is not an issue for me, either. My life is full and satisfying as it is. 

I guess that I’m just a happy childless cat lady!

My brother and sister also had no children. So, the family tree ends with us. And, that’s ok. I guess, in a way, the family will go on through my blog. The family tree may have ended, but, its stories will go on.

On July 16, 1988, the date of the above conversation with my Dad, I wa 33 years old. He was 34 when I was born. I was the first born child.

[littlefankingdom]

~ Batgirl (2000)

Okay, I need to talk about this page, because I saw some people saying that Bruce was being manipulative here, and I disagree. Or, at least, it's not a conscious choice. Here is why:

Bruce is in denial about Cass having ever kill someone. His reasoning to refuse the truth is that David Cain is a liar. He saw the video of the murder and also interrogated David Cain, he told himself David modified the video and is lying to him. If David Cain isn't a liar and can say the truth at times, then Cass has killed once.

Bruce is possessive of Cass. He wants her to be his daughter so bad and he is afraid she will leave him. Barbara even calls him out. When he faces David Cain in those comics, it's always personal. It's not about the crimes committed, it's a physical custody battle. He needs David Cain to be a manipulative asshole who doesn't care about Cass, he needs him to not be her biological father but just a buyer on the black market, so Cass has more reasons to stay with Bruce. He is, once again, in denial, because he knows David cares about Cass, as he begged Batman to let him keep videos of Cass. Bruce is in denial because, if Cass already has a pathetic father that loves her, she doesn't need him. (Just like Steph doesn't need him because she already has a pathetic father)

Cass doesn't believe him at all. She also doesn't see it as manipulation, but more as "Batman doesn't know what he is talking about". She doesn't think he is lying to her. And she read people like open books, in contrary to real books. If it's manipulation, it's the worst manipulation on Earth.

[silver-dragonborn]

Imagine this: After the Driftmark Incident, Corlys takes Luke and Rhaena on a sea voyage to learn what it means to be true Velaryons of sea and salt. Laenor also tags along instead of following through with the plan to fake his death because he wants to keep a protective eye on his son and his sister's daughter, Rhaena. Cue a family sea trip where Laenor healthily processes his grief, Coryls learns to understand his son better, Luke builds a name for himself by taking up swashbuckling, and Rhaena becomes a rogue seafaring Targaryen.

[navree]

i just

who raised you, sir? why does MAWS slade insist on starting bitch fights with literally ever person he comes across at all times? why is he physically incapable of being polite or even just not being a dick? why is he beefing with someone who looks more like his comics version than he does? i love him.

[creative-hanyou-girl]

You guys know on how InuYasha, the few times he talks about it, badmouths his father and says he doesn't care to avenge his death when he battles Ryukoltsei?

I wonder if InuYasha starts to regret his mindset towards his father once he himself becomes a father. Or at the very least, he starts to understand his father better. Especially if you want to go by the Movie 2 canon where part of Toga's death was from protecting InuYasha and his mom.

Just makes me wonder if InuYasha looks at Moroha or any of his other children and has the thought that it'd break his heart if any of his kids felt resentment towards him like he felt for his own father, especially when everything he ever does is to protect them. And I wonder if it makes InuYasha start to look at his father's memory differently, now that he's a parent himself and would do anything and everything to protect his kids, even if it meant dying and leaving them without a father.

Not that he'd go and try to get himself killed, as he wants to actually be alive so they don't have to grow up like he did, but you know he'd sacrifice himself if it meant his children could live, just like his father did for him (according to movie 2).

I don't know, I just wonder if InuYasha starts to ever regret the way he looked at his father's memory back when he was a teen once he becomes a father to Moroha and starts to understand his father's actions as a parent now that he himself is a parent. Ya know what I mean?

[ninkaku]

referring to people with mental illnesses as like “healed” in later life is not something i fw because it just sounds like thinly veiled ableism and a very big disconnect to understanding how people with mental illnesses function and can function later in life even if they have a difficulty doing so in earlier stages of life (:

[serpentface]

Question about Couya! Since she is a bastard what are the reasons about her being brought into the main family by her father. Was it genuine care for his child or a way to save face politically/socially? Is her birth mother alive? Do you think she would have had a better life growing up anywhere else?

This is in large part due to how cultural perceptions and legal punishment of adultery varies between male and female citizens, looped into the very strictly patrilineal kinship system.

By legal definition, the word for 'adultery' applies only to situations where a man has an affair with a married woman, or a married woman has an affair with any man. Other forms of affairs (eg a married man having an affair with an unmarried woman) are wrapped into a broader set of sexual misdemeanors and aren't often charged or punished in practice, and the punishments are comparatively minor (if an unwed woman's father pursues charges, the man in the affair is likely to just pay a fine). On a social level, extramaritial affairs in general are certainly not Approved of and seen as lowly and dishonorable, but the average response is significantly less harsh/more willing to entertain Nuance with men than with women.

In this society there's differentiated shades of bastardry depending on the contexts of the child's birth, as well as a distinction for 'nameless bastards' (has not been claimed by their biological father or maternal grandfather, or claimed in adoption).

a) A child born to an unmarried woman via an unmarried man: non-issue for father, potentially serious social harm for the woman (especially if she has never been married and expected virginal, much less severe as a widow or divorcee). The child will not be notably disadvantaged in of themselves (their status will depend more on whether they are claimed and thus provided the social security of a family patriarch), the father will experience no hard disadvantages in claiming them.

b) A child born to an unmarried woman via a married man: mild sexual misdemeanor for the father carrying levels of social shame, even more serious social harm for the woman (often framed as not just loose but a manipulative Seductress of a married man). The child might experience minor to moderate social disadvantages, the consequences of the father claiming them are purely social and will not typically be severe. (Couya is this)

c) A child born to a married woman via an unmarried or married man: both man and woman have committed a crime and can be severely punished. The biological father can technically claim the child but will be disincentivized from doing so. This is the form of bastardry most comparable to the conventional definition, in that it is heavily stigmatized and has effects on concerns of kinship and inheritance.

In addendum to this, if the adulterous wife's legal husband claims the child, this may be punishable if determined to be active concealment of adultery (which is also a crime), and has EXTREME social consequences either way. (Either you're a cuckold too stupid to notice that your wife has been skipping out on you, or you're a MEGAcuckold adultery-accessory willingly rearing another man's child after being horribly shamed by him).

(This is separate from adoption- a man who marries a woman with an unclaimed child after the fact (whether it was a product of adultery or just a general out of wedlock birth) and claims the child is an adoptive father, he is not concealing adultery or being cuckolded.)

A child born in an affair can be considered an heir to their biological fathers (descent and kinship is fully patrilineal and on a Basic level it doesn't matter who the mother is), and can very smoothly and legally be claimed when the affair was not considered criminal adultery. The concern on that front is social perception rather than material legal consequences or kinship issues.

Couya's birth mother was an unwed servant working as a housekeeper for her father Saizen, so the Crime of adultery did not take place. It would be considered a minor sexual misdemeanor, and the woman's father was not about to pursue charges against a nobleman who could Ruin him (and had also formally expressed that he would claim the child, which meant he would not be saddled with a nameless bastard granddaughter). So the concerns here were entirely social.

The affair might have started beforehand but the pregnancy that produced Couya occurred after his wife's third viable pregnancy ended in the premature birth of a underdeveloped boy deemed necessary to euthanize (and tbr would Not have survived either way). This was after Livya Haidamane had a couple early term miscarriages, two viable but very difficult pregnancies wherein one child was very weak and sickly for the first several years of life, and struggled to conceive every time. A lot of people are going to be at least a little sympathetic to a married man having an affair and claiming a bastard in this context. It's definitely ideal and practical to have more than two children, and his wife (while not outright infertile) clearly could not reliably bear healthy children. (The average response is going to be "Well he shouldn't have done it but like, I get it")

Couya being claimed by her father was a mix of genuine care and saving face. Initially it was MUCH more the latter than the former. Saizen made attempts to hide the servant's pregnancy and to keep his own wife out of sight during the late term (to prevent the baby appearing after his wife had been seen Extremely not pregnant). But there's some levels of care involved, he could very easily have fired the pregnant servant and had nothing to do with his bastard and she would have no recompense whatsoever. The choice to keep and claim the baby and ensure its entrance into the world bore as little social scrutiny as possible is an act of care for his own progeny.

This was Not an act of care for Couya's birth mother (beyond the fact that concealing her pregnancy would benefit her in hiding that she is not only Not a virgin prior to marriage but had a child). She probably would have been about 17-19 at the time and was fired a few months after giving birth, and most likely never saw Couya again after this point (if she did, it would most likely be in the context of seeing her as an adult Odonii in public and noting her to look Scarily familiar). She has an Okayish chance at still being alive, she'd be around 50 (and a person who survives the high infant mortality and birth casualty rates stands a good chance of hitting their 60s), though she could very well be a casualty of the drought+famine.

Whether or not Couya's life would have been better is kind of a mixed bag. She had an awful fucking childhood in large part because her adoptive mother Livya Haidamane hated her. (Livya was ultimately a pretty horrible person but not just like. An Evil Bitch. She had A Lot going on and Couya was a living breathing insult to her and reminder of like, every one of her dashed hopes and dreams). Couya is also autistic and presented very intense symptoms as a child in a society that is Not equipped for a mass-understanding and support of cognitive differences. But she still did have an immensely privileged life with profound physical/economic levels of security inaccessible to the vast majority of people in this region, including her birth mother. Saizen also actually Liked her and cared about her, he just wasn't a routine physical presence in any of his children's lives.

Had she been left with her biological mother, she would be in a very disadvantaged situation as a nameless bastard to an unwed mother. Her biological grandfather may or may not have been willing to claim her, and her mother would have great difficulties in finding a husband (which is ultimately necessary for the security of women in this society). I think her mother was a relatively kind person but not like, a perfect angel. She would probably have complicated feelings about her bastard daughter, especially one whose very existence materially disadvantages her and was very, very difficult as a child. So this probably would not have been a good situation for Couya either.

If you broaden the question to ANY other family completely divorced from the circumstances of her birth, yeah it definitely could have been better. But in her case it's like either "Life of grotesque socioeconomic privilege but in an abusive household" or "Life of profound socioeconomic disadvantages in a household that Probably wouldn't have been this abusive but certainly wouldn't be healthy". There wasn't really a good option for her.