#because she talks about her family and her culture

[a-very-tired-jew]

I was just hit with the memory of one of my first encounters with a goy trying to claim they were Jewish and easily being found out, and I wonder if anyone else on jumblr has ever experienced something similar. I was at a show for a band I liked, and am friends with, years ago at a small bar. While another band was playing I was chatting with the lead singer and he was asking me about Judaism. I had to explain that I was secular and hadn't practiced in years so my input on the religious aspect wouldn't be as complete, but that it didn't make me not Jewish or any less. We got into the concept of ethnoreligion, Judaism being a closed practice, how it doesn't proselytize, the secular cultural aspects, and so on.

At this point a woman behind the bar comes up to us angrily slurring her words and says what I'm talking about is insulting and blasphemous (flag one). I ask why, and she says because she is Jewish. She claims that you can't be a secular Jew, you can only be religious and that she would know because she was extremely devout (flag two).

Huh.

So I asked why she was working on shabbat because I'd seen her taking drink orders and pouring for customers.

She got confused and asked what did I mean. What is shabbat?

I laughed and told her that you're not Jewish at all if you don't know what shabbat is, and especially not an extremely "devout" Jew if you're not keeping it.

I remember her getting angry and stomping off and trying to kick us out. The manager came over and apologized and said she was a regular who liked to cause trouble but she was allowed to stay because she jumped behind the bar and helped out when needed. I asked the manager if she was Jewish at all and she got a weird look and said no. She's Baptist, her entire family is.

Later on I found her sloppy drunk on the floor and complaining that no one wanted to take her home that night.

It was one of the most egregious fake Jew moments I've ever had that was also one of the easiest to catch.

For my own safety I won't name the band because that would actually ID me as well, and for safety sake I'm trying to keep this vague but accurate. Which sucks because they're a great band and I love them, but antisemitism being what it is, I'd rather not risk it.

[p-h-a-n-t-a]

I tend to fixate on evan as a character at times because his whole shtick is that hes mysterious and has issues tm, but also because i have also been the haunted (literally spoke to ghosts as a child) ass white kid (white) suffering from food insecurity (yall ever have a mustard sandwich, its bread heels with mustard on them. Thats how i learned to like mustard.) So i relate to him quite a bit.

But, i cant help but be deeply curious about the other misfits and their lives, struggles, and their mysteries.

I frequently work with kids like Jammer (ive been christened with a nickname by middleschoolers. Its Shawty DooBop. Im glad its that and not "that mean ass librarian") and I wonder what his life is like on a day to day basis. Did he pick his sister up from her after school program? How long has he been writing? A lot of kids I know, no matter how much they like the sports they play, were originally put into them by parents hoping they could be something great, but what would he want to be if he wanted to be something different? Did he ever read the maximum ride series? Does he actually like dragon ball Z or is it more of a cultural osmosis thing?

K is deeply relatable to me on a number of levels (nonbinary tumblrina) but also deeply alien. Do they talk to their family at all? Do they feel remorse for cyber bullying people over steven universe? Do they get mad at themself when they have to remember people cant just be tropes, they also have to be people? Even themself? When will they go to therapy????

Sam black, britain, butler my beloved. Fellow child of divorce, how much did that influence your comunication? How long has being an influencer been her focus? Does she actually want to inluence, or does she just want friends? She struggled in school, did anyone ever try to help? Would it have been better or worse to be on an iep plan? Does she still talk to her family much now that shes famous, is it out of love, or out of that family wanting her support and her energy? How has T2 stayed a teacup pig? Those usually grow into potbelly pigs of some sort. Does she feel like her magic has actually hampered her ability to connect with others because she is so easily liked? What were the sailor moon forums like, what happened after your pink pal stopped liking pink?

Also to the magic mommy of all time, what was Bombini's life like? A 600+ year old wizard who seems to have lost everything dear to him and is upholding the memory of people long lost built on foundations that were crumbling from the start. Dudes middle name is kyle. He seems like a paralell to our sad ass white boy, if they had decided to uphold the nature of magic and the old ways, would evan have become like him? A shuffling, sad, impossibly old steward? Also whats happening on tadershacourt. Whos the shadow man with Khan.

God i have so many questions, im deeply glad misfits and magic got a season 2 but i do think it has just given me more to be insane about. I managed this with only 4 eps and a holiday special, im gonna explode. Truely the tumblr coded series of all time.

[fyeahnix]

Hiiiiii I love your blog and your writing so much.

I know you have a hc that Sevika is bilingual, can you elaborate on that? Who taught her Spanish? Did she grow up speaking it? Does she do that thing where she forgets the English word for something and has to make up something to describe it? Does she say things in Spanish when people ask her to tell them something knowing they don’t speak Spanish so she can go “what, I told you already?”

Also I would die if she referred to me as “mi mujer” 😭😭😭

Thank you, have a great day!

Hello, anon! Thank you for the kind words 😄

So, yeah I think I mentioned this in a random throwaway Sevika headcanon post and haven't ever elaborated on this. But yes...

One of my headcanons for Sevika is that she is trilingual, and that stems from her family. First and foremost, I don't play League and I don't know shit about League lore outside of the bits of research I did to write for some Sevika stuff. I do see that League lore is incredibly detailed and expansive (which is fascinating to me) but there's still a lot that hasn't been explained from what I can tell? It looks like there are multiple languages that exist in Runeterra, which makes sense considering how many sentient races and ethnic groups there are. So let's talk about that for a second so you can understand my thought process on this. Walk with me here.

First off, this is, of course, a fantasy universe so the concept of languages and the countries they come from don't exist in that universe in the same way they do here. For example, there is no country called Spain, and therefore, there is no language called Spanish. So how does that work in my head? Easy. Use an existing language as a proxy for a fantasy one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean...are the characters speaking English in Arcane? Clearly no, because Germanic languages and the countries they derive from don't exist. They're speaking whatever local language exists in that universe. I figured why not add some other IRL languages for flavor? So with that being said, this is where we get to another headcanon.

If we're going by ethnic background, I like to imagine Sevika as Afro-Latino from her father's side and South Asian through her mother. Why? Her VA, Amirah Vann, is Afro-Latina (African American father and Puerto Rican mother) and speaks fluent Spanish. Sevika's name appears to be Indian in origin and I mean...like look at her lol. She is clearly meant to be, in our world, South Asian, most likely Indian. I obviously do not know what region of Runeterra this ethnic background would translate to. Maybe Shurima???

Given that background (and the bit of trivia about her VA), that's how I came up with her being trilingual. Learned all three languages growing up in the home. "Spanish" from her father, and a third language I haven't decided yet (Hindi? Urdu? Sanskrit? Punjabi? Don't know yet, need to research) from her mother.

Why? Well...why not lol. Truthfully, I thought it'd be interesting to make up some additional reasons why she's so fit to be Silco's right hand. Piltover and Zaun are port cities, and being port cities, you're going to come across a lot of people from a lot of different cultures who speak a lot of different languages. Basically the idea here is that Silco chose her as his second because of a variety of factors:

Multilingual, helps with gaining trust and securing deals

Trusted patron at The Last Drop

Same end goal of liberating Zaun

Loyalty

Can hold her own if shit goes south

Intimidating (she's fucking huge and can beat your ass)

Good at reading people

Surprisingly good at negotiation when she does bother speaking

And now that we know that Sevika herself was the one handling the majority of the deals (she said so herself in Season 2), I like this headcanon even more lmfao. Like here's an excerpt from an unreleased piece of writing I did that mentioned it:

The downside here ofc is that I, personally, only speak one language lol. I took Japanese in high school for 4 years and can't remember much except how to read hiragana and katakana (should have studied more!). I am absolutely going to have a lot of blindspots when it comes to things that only bilingual folks or folks who speak more than one language experience, and that is something that would be worth doing a bit more research on. Quirks like the ones you mentioned are things I forget that people experience 😅

That is a bit long so sorry for that, but I hope this answers your questions well.

Keep in mind: these are just headcanons. That's it. This is for fun. If you think something different, then do you!

taglist: @gaudesstuff @archangeldyke-all @abitohoney @sexysapphicshopowner @iamaboringrattat

@ash-fall7 @the-anonmaton @peanutbutterprincess @thesevi0lentdelights @kylorey25

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

I think Family by Choice failed on the San-ha plot, which is too bad because it was otherwise a good drama.

We have the confrontation with San-ha's mom, where he basically says he was wrong for not showing how much pain he was in when he lived with her. Okay. Not my favourite but I'll accept cultural differences because, dude it's not your fault you got parentified and became weirdly mature, that's your parents' fault (both of them, where is Police Dad when he needs to defend his son?) And you shouldn't blame yourself for your sister's death, if you still do maybe go to therapy.

Just go to therapy in general, because He Has a Sunshine Girlfriend does not in fact solve all problems, especially since he never really talked to Ju-won about what happened to him which includes his mom hitting/scratching him and a massive burn scar on his back. Like why even show us that if we don't get to see what the girlfriend thinks about it. She's going to notice.

They also never made it clear what the mom was doing when she left them for 2 days (in the Cdrama she was gambling I believe), which I think is important

Far too much Love Solves Mental Illness and not enough San-ha being honest with this solving love.

[witherydithery]

Us knowing so little about his past outside of his time in Ketterdam really just emphasizes Kaz's obsession with Rollins and Jordie's death. Like how the death of his Da gets, like, one sentence, meanwhile, everything he's done since he was nine years old has centred around Jordie's death. It also really furthers the death of Kaz Rietveld that we know so little about who he was, like maybe he never even existed.

Kaz's backstory makes me sad often because we actually know so little outside of his trauma. It makes sense for his character and arc, that what we know of him, is generally just his pain and primarily his experiences in ketterdam. But what about his home life? Who was his mom? Was kaz the kind of kid to follow jordie around when he was just trying to hang out with his friends? Did him and Jordie even have friends? Neighbors on nearby farms? Who were the nearby adults who may have known of what happened to their father? Did any of them try to help them, or stop Jordie from leaving? Are there people still there who remember the tragedy of the Reitveld family? Does anyone remember them?

[palaceoftears]

Magnificent Century Rewatch: One Picspam per Episode

Episode 17: The Double Joy

-My dear mother used to say "walk barefoot on earth and it shall take away all your troubles and sorrows, earth shall give you happiness and joy"

-Your mother spoke well, one can only find peace in earth. But I'm not sure if it is on earth or in it.

[itspileofgoodthings]

did you know my sister’s boyfriend wants to read Hamlet now because Nina and I talk about it so much wkksksjsjsjd

[pears-trinkets]

.

[the-last-quest]

Homework this week is hard cause no one has the same amount of hate for this books that I do

[reflectionsofgalaxies]

god, grief hits you at the weirdest fucking times

[designernishiki]

I wanna flesh out a yakuza oc but every time I think about it I end up thinking about an oc of mine who already Exists who’s not a yakuza oc. but is, in fact, an oc who is a yakuza. and that fact is genuinely completely unrelated

[todayisafridaynight]

It's been wonderful being able to talk about these things for me too! I haven't really had the opportunity since Y7 came out, so I'm positively buzzing. And no worries about the tone of your post about Daigo's article haha, I appreciate it when issues are pointed that I might've missed otherwise since that's at least something actionable.

But I'm obviously not going to stop anyone from venting frustrations with the wiki or with Fandom as a platform; I frequently find myself frustrated too! It's one of the things that keeps people editing the wiki. I'm honestly fine with whatever as long as it's not accusing us of being fujoshi for the billionth time lol, but for better or worse I do like to clarify what we're trying to do if there's any confusion.

Speaking of, Mine's relationship tags are kind of a funny story! So a lot of them have these dotted underlines and question marks, right? You're supposed to be able to hover over underlined terms to see a short definition (on desktop) and click the question mark to see an article with all the definitions on mobile, since hover actions aren't possible on a touchscreen.

But since the article was and still is under construction, Fandom doesn't show the link to logged-out users. So I had no idea it just looks like we're saying the tag is ambiguous lol. It's up now though, so it's hopefully easier to understand what we're trying to do!

I just found it funny I specifically added that feature to reduce confusion. Half the grief we get over Mine's "romantic interest" tag is because people assume we're saying it's mutual (we chose the term to try and avoid the "mutual" connotations of "love interest," but I guess that didn't work out). I also thought it might help with somewhat esoteric tags like "co-parent" (which was put in place for Jo and Arakawa and then I kept thinking of others) and "surrogate son." Turns out it's tough to boil complex relationships down to one term!

I definitely have SO many questions about New Year's Day and I probably always will; for the space of only one night, it's a huge blank. I certainly do have to wonder if shipping Masato off to America was decided then and there. There's a lot that could possibly be expanded on in RGGO (further interactions between Arakawa and Jo included lol), so I've got hope for that too now that we're back to random events. I'd be really interested to see how you'd portray it someday!

Talking about Nakai and Tsutsumi reminded me, Nakai mentioned he read the whole script in a day so he "wouldn't do a disservice to Arakawa or Sawashiro's characters." That kind of stuck out to me precisely because there are so few scenes between them compared to like, Arakawa and Ichi, and they're all relatively low-impact in comparison.

Of course, it could be marketing on account of him and Tsutsumi getting to co-star again, or the scenes could simply have stood out to him more for that reason, or he could've had a different impression of the ratios having read the script rather than played the game. But the part of me that makes me want to go Off The Deep End speculating is kind of wondering if there were other scenes planned?

And absolutely! I'm not able to reblog often because the post editor's been crashing whenever I try to tag my posts, but I hope you know I love your work and I'll support pretty much anything you put out! I'm very excited to share my findings as well.

A lot of it's to do with Mine's relationship to Western culture vs. Japanese culture (his "westabooism," basically), so that's specific to him, but there a lot of interesting concepts and theories in Japanese psychology regarding familial bonds, met and unmet emotional needs. They work as an explanation for his probable feelings of alienation from Japanese culture, but I feel they would make for an interesting lens to examine the Arakawas through as well.

I actually hadn't ever considered the similarity with regard to Mine and Jo's dads, but that makes so much sense! If I were to take it a step further, I think feelings of "abandonment" by their fathers have had long-lasting effects on both them and Masato. Jo we've been talking about, his father was technically still "there," but he wasn't in his corner, which feels much the same as abandonment to a child.

I think Mine's internalized a lot of the same feelings even though his father never meant to abandon him (I guess Jo's may not have, necessarily; alcoholism can destroy a family whether the individual wants that to happen or not). Like, unfairness, displacement, lack of control, the loss of the only support you have and so on. I think dwelling on that is what sent Mine's mental state spiraling, and what made it imperative to just believe Daigo was "dead" to try and move on as soon as possible. He didn't want to be hurt the same way again.

It's also probably what he was projecting in his ridiculous villain speech during The Orphanage Scene; the reason offering kids support in the way Kiryu does is a form of "victimization" in his eyes, at that moment, is because that support can be ripped away from you at any time. The scene is kind of hilarious to me because it's like, "okay we need Mine to have a kick-the-dog moment, his actions have been too understandable," but I do get it from that angle.

Similarly, I think those feelings of abandonment are why Arakawa faces the brunt of Aoki's abuse, because it's like, "YOUR negligence is why I had to go through all of that." So I get why Jo, like your sister, wouldn't want the finger pointed at him, but at the same time… damn. Perhaps if Arakawa had never had that talk with Masato, things might've been different. I get the impression he wouldn't be able to endure keeping things to himself for as long as Jo, though, given things like the letter he sent Ichi in prison.

Oh, yeah, Jo is CRAZY protective of Masato too! "If anything happens to him, killing you a thousand times would be insufficient!" I think part of his overreaction to having Masato's money is also that if Ichi can't listen to orders that fundamental, who's to say he listened to the orders to keep Masato safe? I guess if you see Ichiban as incompetent to the point of almost being a malicious actor, you might think that.

I'm sooo so glad you've noticed the rest of those similarities haha, I've been rotating them around in my brain like a cube for ages. A Venn diagram would be so fun to see! That's such an insightful look at the differences between Mine and Jo's offices too. I was a little confused about the placement of the social spaces, or even that they're there, but if you look at it as clearly separate from his personal spaces, it does make sense.

Also, not to harp on the books in the offices too much, but I compared the textures a little earlier. Mine's are basically all (very expensive) encyclopedias and language phrasebooks in English, Italian, French, and German, in contrast to Jo's discrete hardcovers and series of art history books. They're probably all stock assets lol, but I think they're surprisingly good fits; Mine dumping considerable time, money, and energy into his fascination with Western culture and Jo being the type to not want people to know what he's reading totally works for me.

But yes! It's kind of funny, because Yokoyama wasn't much of a Mine fan in his early days, but I hope he and the others keep on writing characters like him. I think of it as Mine's "legacy" in a series where past characters aren't acknowledged too often; the most I can recall are that Hakuho mention in 4 and the fencing around the Touto roof perimeter.

Speaking of, I love Mine's missed shots in the finale specifically because he's an excellent marksman in his Okinawa character story. Why? How? Who Knows, He's Perfect. (Probably not as good of a shot as Daigo though lol)

And yeahhh, there are other interviews, but it ain't the same! It was the most in-depth one I know of. I think this is one of the only remnants, and I shall entrust it to you.

But yes, exactly! And I'm also glad Y7 introduced more people to them (myself included), Tsutsumi's my favorite actor of all time and Nakai's brilliant. They make a great combi! Of the things I've seen where they co-star, I think Princess Toyotomi and Hero SP are both solid; the latter is a special for a longer show, but I honestly didn't even notice lol. Musashi I wasn't personally able to get through even though I've read the book, so I'm not sure how it plays out between them.

Also I DIDN'T KNOW TORU DIED IN PURE??? That came out of nowhere oh my god T___T But if you're ever looking for anything rare, feel free to ask! I might know a guy (gender neutral) with a stash, Fly, Daddy, Fly included.

OH MAN MINE'S WIKI ENTRY I've definitely made my opinions about it known, but now knowing the truth behind it it's kind of funny and still so unfortunate. I'd almost want to recommend a section dedicated to the topic since it's such an integral part of his character, though I also understand wanting to keep the wiki strictly to factual information and to exclude speculation (or "speculation" anyhow- it's definitely more of a concrete situation, especially going off of the information provided in your pinned post on the topic. If anything, that sort of information would belong to the "Trivia" tab wouldn't it- but again, it's such a deep situation it can't really be summarized in one or two sentences) and the topic being too niche to have a page dedicated to it. It's nice to know that the subject isn't trying to be brushed under the rug though and it's just a matter of awkward formatting/incomplete work!

Furthermore on The New Years Event, I would LOVE RGGO to expand on the topic since they've been so liberal with the stories they make and the depth those stories add to the characters. Honestly, I was expecting Masato's card to have that as its accompanying character story, so it's unfortunate that he doesn't get it or any story as far as I'm aware (or maybe he does have one and my poor pull luck has just prevented me from getting the card to find out myself, but I've looked as much as I could and couldn't find an upload of it). Oh well, I guess it's the old "if you want something done you gotta do it yourself-" not that anything I could make could ever be up to scratch, so I'm glad I do have people interested in what I have in mind :)

About Nakai, I wouldn't feel wrong trying to accredit his comment to a time before he knew the full plot or saw the full game and was just debriefed on the general story/character relationships, and I also wouldn't put it past RGG to have deleted scenes/ideas (if those do exist, RGG please let me in your vault I'd like to take a peak...)!

The psychology of Mine is another topic I've been wanting to officially tackle for a while now, so I'm glad I have this chance to share some of what I have mental bullet points for.

Moreover, Mine's dad and how he "left" Mine undeniably impacted him significantly beyond physically leaving him alone, and it definitely manifests in The Orphanage Scene and his idea that killing Daigo would be "putting him out of his misery". In those instances, he sees Daigo and the orphans as victims of an unfair reality, Daigo being comatose, and the orphans having the endure the struggles of being orphans (and that added-on, projected anxiety that their comfortable lives now could vanish at any second like it did for Mine). Mine's mustache-twirling villainy is funny for its absurdity, but I also genuinely appreciate it since it lets us peak into his warps philosophy better. It doesn't justify his actions by any means, but it explains to us why he can justify his actions as from a place of love or pity as opposed to thoughtless evil.

To add on, Mine's relationship with his father, from what we're allowed to gather, was healthy and positive. Because of their positive relationship, the removal of such adds credence as to why Mine's desperate to get that love again. It especially makes sense considering Japan's horrendous attitude and negligence towards orphaned children that was even demonstrated during Mine's childhood while his father was alive.

And as an inverse aside, Jo's relationship with his dad was toxic, whether it was due to blatant abuse or combined negligence. It's fair to assume that Jo never got to experience genuine, secure love growing up, so as a result, it's not something he actively seeks out. He's been without it long enough that it's not something he necessarily craves like Mine who used to have it until it was taken from him.

Masato certainly makes it clear he felt isolated despite the efforts Jo and Arakawa repeatedly went through for him, and it's apparent it's an unfortunate side affect of internalized ableism. It definitely doesn't help anyone's case that Masato had seemingly been informed of the night of his birthday's events (from Arakawa's point of view, obviously), and it's clear that knowledge gives ammunition as to why he resents him.

You're right on Jo potentially seeing Ichi as a bad actor, it's not as if he has disdain for him for no reason! Like even if Ichiban hadn't taken Masato's money the way Jo could have imagined, the idea that Ichi can't be responsible in one avenue can easily lead back to Ichi having the potential to look after Masato, especially when he seems to be the one who predominately looks after him when he's tasked to.

I've already got my program open to make my little chart and have my reference pictures ready, so hopefully I can have that silly thing out soon haha- I'm glad you're interested in seeing it, and I hope other people will like to see it too! Jo and Mine really are my favorite antagonists, so it's funny (and I guess not surprising) that they have parallels to them.

To add on to that though, I think it's fun to look at the extra details, no matter how small; I'm probably more happy than I should be that you looked at their office's books, but I can't help be a fan of the details you found (whether they're generic models or not, I'm running with them- I've done more with less before lmao)! Mine having language books is definitely in-line with his interests, but Jo having art history books is weirdly endearing (and dare I say another point for "these are the same picture" comparing it to Mine's own love for art). Jo being so private to the point of blocking out the binds of the books he owns is so accurate to him and his secrecy, and the concept that he likes to read about art in his spare time is a new favorite concept for me.

Mine really isn't acknowledged much after 4; in comparison to Ryuji and Nishiki, he's remembered throughout the series the least (you can argue the same for Ryuji, but considering he gets a whole new life in Dead Souls, I think it's fair to say that makes up for the mainline series forgetting about him. Though I guess the same could be Mine getting a prominent role as Hijikata in Ishin... Definitely not as cool of a spot as to be a playable protagonist with a machine gun arm if I'm honest). In that, it's great that his likelihood can exist in future characters, and I hope they continue the trend of phenomenal antagonists in LaD8 and onward!

I'm eternally grateful for this frame you've gifted me thank you so much- Nakai's smile is such a blessing honestly, I'm glad if anything survived from the interview it can be this shot at least.

I've got Princess Toyotomi and Hero SP added to my watch list, DEFINITELY something I'll be excited to check out as a reward once I have all my important business taken care of this week! Honestly, I haven't seen Musashi either: while I was looking through their filmography I saw it was a project they did, but I've always been bad at watching long series so I didn't take the time to see their performance together.

For things I have seen though... yeah he dies SORRY IF THAT WAS HOW YOU FOUND OUT </3</3 Honestly I didn't expect myself to love the series as much as I did (admittedly it was predominately because of the leads and their relationship), but when it happened I was both- dare I say crushed- a little humored a little funny in a dark-comedy way.

And if you do have access to harder-to-get films, I'd absolutely be interested in hearing about it. One of Nakai's movies Good Morning Show has been haunting me for weeks: it sounds like such a fun movie yet I can't find it anywhere </3

[royalreef]

(( Since its the dash topic right now:

Miranda has a strict regimen of birth control that she’s been placed on and will remain on until she’s been properly married and the time has come to have heirs. Until that point, she can’t go off of it, because it’s maintained by the Merkingdom and doing so before ordained by them could be seen as potentially questionable behavior that takes the rest of her rule into question.

This is primarily for the prevention of bastards — any royal that’s caught with a bastard child, had with anyone who they are not properly wedded to, is a massive black mark on their record. Other royals highly prize the sheer blackmail potential of the existence of a bastard and would absolutely use the, intentional or accidental, weakening of another noble family’s inheriting line to their full benefit. Royals are incredibly eager to stab each other in the back, and the existence of a bastard child is practically a target painted onto their back.

This is bad enough when it’s a bastard child between two royals, but it’s far worse when it’s a bastard child between a royal and a non-royal. The more powerful the royal’s station, the lesser the non-royal, and the stronger the blackmail material, and the stronger the potential repercussions of having made a bastard.

Because of this, if a royal has a bastard, chances are that they don’t know about it. If a royal does come across the information that they have a bastard child somewhere in the world, who potentially could claim inheritance of their family line but was not claimed by said family line at their birth, then their first and immediate move will be killing said child. There’s too much at risk to let them to live, and they’ll often murder the family and community of the bastard child as well, just to make sure that their tracks are fully covered and no one finds out about this. It’s too dangerous to let them live, and it’s too dangerous to let anyone know.

Because of this, if communities discover that one of the children within them is the bastard child of a royal, well...

While there are certainly communities and families that will happily welcome a child in, even a child who was born of a royal, and will swear themselves to secrecy and promise to keep them safe — they aren’t a majority, and it’s easy to see why. A bastard child puts them all at risk, implicating all of them in the political games that royals play, and the commonfolk seldom get out ahead in these games. There are other children too, other people, other lives put at risk, all because of this single action, and they all know what the wrath of a royal looks like. They all know how painful and brutal those deaths can be, and they know entire communities have been wholly wiped off the map because of this.

Oftentimes, if a community discovers one of their members has had a bastard child of a royal, they’ll turn that member and bastard child in. Whether to the Merkingdom, or to a competing royal who is all too eager for blackmail and willing to offer protection in turn, or to the royal parent themselves — it seldom ever works out as fully intended, but it’s still better than the alternative for most of the communities who do it.

Even children between two royals who are properly married to each other that aren’t fully planned out and arranged to be born ahead of their conception aren’t immune to this backlash either. The royals take the manner of inheritance and their family lines seriously, and implicating themselves as not taking their duties seriously and having full responsibility to hold onto their title is not only dangerous for what the consequences could be, but also dangerous for how other royals will react.

The hierarchy of royals within the Merkingdom shifts constantly, and holding onto what control they have is a deadly and tricky game.

[lizzy-bonnet]

Working in the yarn shop on Sundays, I have a group of regulars who come in specifically then for my advice on their knitting projects and over the years I've gotten to know a lot about them - their ailments and their spouses and their children and their careers and their mothers are all things they find themselves telling me about over the course of trying to bring forth a knitted piece. Most of them are women, most of them are over 50, and most of them have been through a lot and are trying to reclaim something for themselves through the act of creation. A while back, one of these older women opened up to me about how when she first came to this country it was just her and her daughter and they were so happy until her husband joined them, when he promptly began making her miserable. Now, decades later, all her children live far away, she spends all her time taking the husband to dialysis, her sciatic is bad and she may need heart surgery (who will take care of her, I find myself wondering), and she comes to see me once a month or so to talk about a new project and tells me it is the only thing she does for herself.

Today she came in with a smile on her face and delightedly introduced me to her son, who will soon move closer to home with his family. Then she says, as if commenting on the weather, that on Friday her husband died, and tomorrow they will hold the funeral. For a second I had tonal whiplash from the conversation and then I realized, oh, you're unburdened now. Like the relief in her face and her body were palpable. The son shows a picture of a cardigan to me and asks if it can be knitted, and we pick out yarn and a pattern. She's so excited to make it for him. She beams when she looks at him; he is tall and handsome and polite, and wants to wear something she made for him. She is proud of this man she raised.

It just made me think of the many, many women who come from cultures where leaving a crappy spouse isn't an option so they shuttle along doing their best and trying to find some beauty and joy in whatever way they can. Kids may not visit often because their spouse isn't welcoming or there is bad blood, so they are lonely. I remind her, we have our social group. She hasn't come to it much before because she is always taking him to dialysis, but now she says she will come often and meet the other women. Many of them are like her, but in the craft they find companionship that has been absent for so much of their lives. I hope there will be renewal for this dear lady and that she can learn more about herself and what brings her joy.

[some-random-fandom-chick]

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[kavehater]

Hmmm I want people to yap to me about kaveh and alhaitham but I’m horrified of using the tags on here lest I attract the demon spawns - h//ik//veh fandom in the flesh