#by virtue of adoption

[ghost-bxrd]

Was rereading What you're looking for (you claim to abhor) and I just realized I'm a little confused on whether Jason is aware that Damian is Bruce's kid or not? Does he just think Talia had a child with someone and ended up bonding with Damian, hence he has a little brother? Or is he aware that Talia has been hiding Damian from Bruce and is too preoccupied with the whole "my family thinks i'm my own boyfriend" mess that the thought of mentioning Damian just hasn't come up?

Yes Jason is aware!

Talia never kept it a secret from him. When she took Jason in after some League operatives found him wandering around Gotham following his resurrection she only waited long enough to ascertain that he wouldn’t pose a threat to a vulnerable kid before introducing them to each other.

Jason was still mostly catatonic at the time so his memories of meeting Damian for the first time are a bit foggy, but after he was submerged in the Pit and Talia caught him up on everything she also informed him of Dami’s lineage.

Jason’s wasn’t really intent on spending time with Damian for a while after that (mostly because he didn’t remember his time before the Pit at all for a few months yet and partly because… well, he was afraid that someone looking like Bruce might trigger the Pit rage).

Damian, true to fashion, stayed away from Jason for a solid two days before he snuck away from the heavily protected Al Ghul quarters and marched through Nanda Parbat all by himself to find his self proclaimed brother.

Jason was both appalled and impressed when he found the kid fighting off two would-be assassins just outside his room. (Talia was mildly miffed that the assassins were already dead by the time she caught up to Damian)

Damian and Jason frequently trained together after that, a lot of times even with Talia personally when she wasn’t yet convinced Jason would be capable of protecting both himself and Damian from tutors who would wish them harm.

Soon the two became virtually inseparable and Jason got promoted quickly first to Damian’s personal bodyguard, then to General of the Shadows and eventually got officially adopted by Talia al Ghul in a ceremony where Ra’s also gave his consent.

Oh wow ok that got off topic real quick I’m so sorry. I’ll just leave this here anyway.

But to answer the last question: 50/50

On one hand Jason is pretty preoccupied with the whole Gotham Drama, on the other hand he never had any intention to tell Bruce about Damian in the first place. As far as he’s concerned, Damian is way better off in the safety of Nanda Parbat with a kickass mom and a homicidal grandad, far, FAR away from Bruce’s crusade and his tendency to put kids in suits.

I hope that answers it 💚💚💚

[angelbitezzz]

They're novel, those Aster twins. It's not often that humans are adopted by monsters, after all

[llondonfog]

OK so Baul and Lilias friendship lives in my mind rent free, so I think that a few days after silver gets sick for the first time and mama and papa zigvolt manage to teach lilia the proper way to care for a sick infant after he comes over to their house tembling with poorly restrained panic, Baul goes over with v little persuasion from his daughter to check up on them.

What he sees is a happy and healthy Silver just quietly smiling up at him from Lilias arms while Lilia is passed out in his rocking chair fevered and red from catching baby's first cold.

Baul immediately assigns himself caretaker duties, doesn't even bother trying to move Silver from Lilias arms and instead just picks them both up to deposit them both in Lilias bed for a proper nap before checking the fridge for tomato soup ingredients.

When he first heard from his daughter that Lilia— Lilia Vanrouge, the once General of the Right, feared commander of the fae armies and scourge of humankind— had adopted a human child and had been caring for it for several months now, Baul had roared with laughter so hard that he split a scale wide open on his cheek.

It was certainly a poor excuse for a joke, the very kind of rumor that the castle fae still bitter over Lilia's persistent existence four hundred years later might spread. The very idea that Lilia, Lilia Vanrouge, would debase himself to care for a human child not of his blood, to stoop so low as to toil over its screeching and wailing demands when he had bathed in the screams of its own kind with a mad vengeance after the tragedy of Lady Meleanor . . . not even four hundred years of honeyed peace was enough to sweeten that wound.

Time, it seemed, had forgotten what was so cruelly emblazoned in the very depths of Baul's mind, in Lilia's own memories, and the nightmares of all those surviving fae who stalked the forests during those blood-soaked nights. Those born in kinder years had never known the horror of human avarice, and even his own daughter had taken up residence with one of their kind despite her father's immense displeasure, simpering, soft-hearted fool that her husband was.

At least, to Baul's proud credit, their lineage rippled strong and true through his grandchildren— and with his daughter due any day under the weight of a third, he's only too certain for another healthy, bouncing, scaled Zigvolt.

So when she had simply stared back at him with crossed arms and an arched brow while he had laughed and laughed and laughed, a sinking kind of horror began to creep into his heart— surely . . . she wasn't serious?

Months— hardly the blink of an eye for faekind, but everything to humans. Months, Lilia had kept a child for several months, and not once had tried to rid himself of it? Not once tried to deposit it upon the stoop of a human village and wipe his hands clean of the responsibility of child-rearing? He had been taking advice from Baul's daughter and her wisp of a husband on how to pacify and coddle it? He had barged into their home, fretful beyond measure with a colicky babe clutched in his arms, and all but demanded them to cure the child?

("Or what?" Baul found himself asking, utterly bewildered and needing to find some kernel of normalcy in the fact that surely Lilia had menaced his daughter's husband some into obeying his whims.

"Or nothing, Father," she said, the taunting ghost of a knowing smile playing about her lips. "In all the years that I've known him, I've never seen him quite so distraught. He stayed by the crib all night, frozen— we had to tell him it was alright to breathe and to hold Silver's hand if he wanted, it was as if he was afraid to hurt him.")

Silver? Lilia, afraid? Holding the hand of some human child?

It simply couldn't be true.

It couldn't be, this had to be some elaborate, poorly executed prank.

He clung to that belief even as his daughter shoved a bundle of medicine, food, and knitted blankets into his arms with the stern instruction to deliver them to Lilia's home (Home! He had never heard the forest cottage to be described in such terms! The place was a hovel, a storage shed for Lilia to dump his treasures before venturing off to the next location, how could it be considered a home?).

He clung to it even as he emerged from the woods to the path that led up to the cottage's door, casting unnerved glances to the strange and new abundance of woodland creatures skulking about the thatched roof and scampering along the thick tree trunk supporting the cottage like a lean-to, soft little animals that would have darted away in fright from Lilia's presence before Baul's own.

He clung to it until he could no more, when he threw open the cottage door with an odd tightness in his chest to see his oldest friend collapsed on a worn and lumpy armchair with a honest-to-goodness human baby snuggled safely within his arms and sucking happily on a stray piece of ruby-stained hair. Beyond them, a soothing glow flickered in the fireplace where a kettle of milk quietly steamed, and the scattered presence of cloth toys littered the living room floor along with (Baul shuddered) well-thumbed pamphlets, their covers illustrated with the cheerful faces of frolicking human children.

What had this child done to Lilia Vanrouge?

[kindaorangey]

sorry to say but the maker-fledgling/parent-child relationship dynamics make DM so much juicier. and i don't mean that in a kinky way in the slightest i mean it's insane to be adamant about never having a child for 500 years, break that vow on a whim and then be a deadbeat dad for a bit. and also on the more lighthearted and sappy side of things it's really interesting for a dying man in his 70s to be given another shot at life, with eternity ahead of him and the power of an ancient in his veins to inherit over the course of that eternity. idk idk! it's just neat.

[sephirthoughts]

hey we in fandoms, and by 'we' i mean you american white people, need to stop equating 'sworn brotherhood' in asian cultures with blood kinship. you're not being virtuous you're ignorant and racist and completely blind to linguistic nuance. also saying two people are sworn brothers is Chinese censorship code for 'these two are fucking' so. shut up.

[crossbackpoke-check]

yOu'Re gOiNg fOr a LiTeR? | "Habs react to Quebec Maple facts", 10.22.24

[clowngames]

besides everything else, James Somerton is a great example of using progressive language to espouse misogynistic ideas. No one sentence of his was outright misogynistic, but when you zoom out and view the pattern it becomes a worldview.

It's insidious because it's hard to prove without making a 2 hour deep dive so you can have all of the necessary examples on hand. But personally I think it's worse than outright "ironic" sexist jokes specifically because it's so stealthy. It takes an hbomb video for people to even notice, and in the meantime it's allowed to continue and do more damage to the people who absorb that worldview.

[queen-esther]

i think it's problematic to say that infertile couples should just look into adoption because, adoption should not be a service for people who'll make do with the next best thing. it should be about providing children who cannot live with biological family with parents. nobody is entitled to a child

+ that's also why IVF is wrong because nobody is entitled to a child in the way that IVF suggests they are as long as they just pay enough money for it. IVF creates moral problems where there shouldn't be any, and someone's desire to parenthood isn't more important than that.

I just don’t understand where y’all are getting off telling infertile couples they’re “entitled” for wanting to have a family. Like…apparently they shouldn’t adopt, they shouldn’t do IVF, lest y’all call them selfish assholes or whatever, but these people pay an arm and a leg to adopt or go through IVF because these things cost a lot of money and there’s no other choice than to pay that money, not because they inherently see children as a product to buy or consume. Easy for non-infertile people to tell them to just get over it, I guess? It’s almost like a superiority thing to be all, “Well you’re not ENTITLED to having children!” towards people who are struggling with something you yourself will never experience.

[rowwrites]

Naruto Twin AU

Had a dream of a naruto twin au except for some reason the self insert naruto twin girl (kushinas hair and eyes, minato face, yk standard) had to go find a tokubetsu jonin or just a jonin for a class project

I'll call her Mikoto / Miko for now or something

So like class project, they're like 4 years old or 5, and it's one of those draw your family and talk about them scenarios and everyone's being mean about it to them bc kids are cruel

Obviously, being SI, she's already told Naruto and thought of a plan to get out of jail free but he wants to draw them despite it being an S class secret. So, of course, she indulges him. Dips out quietly as a mouse and politely asks at the shinobi desk for a Tokubetsu Jonin

By pure chance, one is literally there just going to get a mission. It's also one that, despite them being who they are, is rather neutral about them - we'll call him Haiiro. So he indulges her, "what do you need a tokubetsu for?"

Its serious, the way she looks at him (and adorable since she's a child trying to be serious), "I need a contract written up as a Promise." So he indulges her once more and she pockets the paper and holds her hand out to walk back to the classroom with him.

"We wanna draw our mama and papa-" she says having extracted The Promise, The Contract and Haiiro is internally like 'oh god' and she continues, "But it's a SECRET. SO, we need permission to DRAW THEM but not talk about them :)"

He is in. A situation. He technically accepted this as a mission. Even the shinobi desk ninja accepted it technically. (They didn't read what she wrote properly, she knows it)

So Miko owns that shit. Haiiro gets this feeling he's going to be... sought out more. He also needs to know HOW they know so he can tell the Hokage. But she's a kid so he can't just. Go shove her at a Yamanaka immediately. She looks him dead in the eye and says "so will you do it?"

Fuck it, he thinks, he'll do it, there'll be something funny about this. (Where the fuck is Hound, why isn't he watching her-)

So she slips back into class WITH this Jonin and the teacher is. Stunned. Confused. She thumbs ups naruto and he yells at her that, "Awesome IM DRAWING MAMA"

So she delegates herself to drawing Minato dutifully by looking out the window. If she draws him like a Shoujo man as only a 4 or 5 year old could that's even funnier.

Teacher is BAFFLED. Why is he here, when did the demons sister slip out. What is going on. Haiiro just says, "wait and see. Continue as normal."

So, teacher does. Kids are also curious but can't say anything because Teacher GLARES and gets things back on track. They start talking about their families. Ami gives a snide talk and side eyes Miko and Naruto during it. Sakura recites dutifully. Sasuke goes before them and extolls the virtues of his brother.

Then Miko and Naruto stand. "This is us," they point out, "and this is our parents." Haiiro is torn between laughing and crying. "We can't talk about them cause they're meant to be a secret so that's why I brought Mr Jonin here to let us do this-"

"Our mama was so cool, 'ttebayo!" Naruto says and starts talking about her hair and her face and that, "She was from UZU its so cool."

He wants to shut them up but he also. Doesn't. Bound by mission parameters, he'll claim. Fuck it, he's taking these kids home with him later, theyre SMART. He always wanted minions.

and oh no no what's she doing. She's pointing out the window then at her paper. "Yondaime. Thanks."

Class erupts into shouts. Lots of calls of liars. Naruto is beaming. Miko is smiling innocently, pocketing the paper.

Haiiro is so fucking dead. He laughs and laughs and laughs. He's filing adoption papers later.

[razzberrydazz]

OC Meme - get to know Rana

Got tagged by @mynthara to do this oc info meme, tagging uhhh anyone else who wants to do this if ya want (@larissel I choose you if ya wanna blab about Nashira :3)

I put a readmore for possible game spoilers ahead for BG3, and for potential content warnings (mentions of Dark Urge antics, kink dynamics, and brief mentions of SA), cuz Rana's life pre-tadpole was Not a happy one. Enjoy all the pics of Rana I stuffed into this!

BASICS

Full Name (pre-tadpole): Rana the Gray, ie the Bladedancer, ie The Dark Urge, ie The Red-Eyed Dagger

(Rana loosely translates to Lesser End/Minor Destruction in Drow)

Full Name (post-tadpole): Rana'rox La'Rouge, ie Rana, ie Durge

Gender: Nonbinary/Agender

Sexuality: Pan

Pronouns: They/It (They/Them for Rana, it/its for their Urge)

Age: Mid 40s? Rana doesn't quite remember how old they are.

OTHER

Family: Bhaal (progenitor), Orin the Red (Half-Sister, Bhaalspawn Bloodkin), Mala (Rana's daughter - a product of SA and incest - that they had smuggled away as soon as she was weaned, in order to protect her from the Bhaalist cult and from their Dark Urge; Mala ended up adopted by Jaheira and her family. Mala loosely translates to Secret Breaker in Drow)

Other family: Adopted drow (seldarine) mother called Rox La'Rouge (deceased, killed by the Dark Urge), a pet Displacer Beast called Chewy (deceased), a human man called Rook Haven (deceased, killed by the Dark Urge) who was the ringleader for a traveling circus called the Raucous Rooks (all members killed by the Dark Urge when the Urge first fully manifested in Rana), and several unnamed children both deceased and surviving as Bhaalists (Rana doesn't remember them, the Brain Trauma is Strong).

Birthplace: Spawned in the Cloakwood forest near Baldur's Gate, then found and raised by Rox La'Rouge and the Raucous Rooks circus shortly after.

Job: Originally a bard and acrobat in the Raucous Rooks circus, then became a Bhaalist assassin, then the leader of the Bhaalist cult in Baldur's Gate, then during the events of BG3 acts as an altruistic adventurer. Rana hopes to one day join a new carnival or circus as a clown or daredevil acrobat.

Phobias: Succumbing to the Urge, Pregnancy (Ironically has a breeding kink), The color Red (specifically when it's the Urge), loss of control, succumbing to insanity.

Hobbies: Rana works to teach themself Drow (they never learned to speak it fluently as a kid, and are trying to catch up in adulthood), and other languages in their free time, and write in their journal extensively. They enjoy collecting and sharpening daggers, sword swallowing, juggling, reading, dancing, singing, and playing instruments such as the lyre and lute. They also like trying new clothes and learning new rope-tying techniques.

MORALS

Alignment: Chaotic Good - Rana will go out of their way to do what they believe is good, laws and consequences be damned, if only to counteract their Urges. Sometimes that involves killing someone doing a great wrong, or breaking into buildings to steal food to feed the hungry, or intimidating guards into turning a blind eye to someone just trying to survive, or purposely isolating themselves from others so as to not hurt anyone.

Sins: Wrath (the Urge), Lust, Envy

Virtues: Patience, Courage, Kindness

Introvert / Extrovert / Ambivert

Organized / Disorganized (memory problems)

Close-minded / Open-minded

Calm / Anxious / Restless

Disagreeable / Agreeable / In between

Cautious / Reckless / In between (save yourself I'll hold them back)

Patient / Impatient / In between

Outspoken / Reserved / In between

Leader / Follower / Flexible

Empathetic / Unempathetic / In between

Optimist / Pessimist / Realist

Traditional / Modern / In between

Hard-working / Lazy

OTP: Shadowheart, Minthara, and Lae'Zel (Rana is polyamorous and kinky, and wants to share and be shared with their partners. In an ideal situation, they act as service top and Submissive in a D/S dynamic with Minthara, Shadowheart, and Lae'Zel; Minthara also acts as the Domme of Shadowheart, Lae'Zel, and Karlach. Minthara only agrees to this dynamic if it's a Hierarchical relationship with her at the top.)

Acceptable Ships: Karlach, Halsin, Astarion, Dame Aylin and Isobel, and Abdirak (If Shadowheart and/or Minthara give Rana permission, they'll happily be with other people)

OT3: In a polycule with the entire party (Rana wants to get passed around like a blunt)

Brotp: Karlach, Wyll, Minsc, Astarion, Gale

Notps: Jaheira (sees Jaheira as a mother/grandmother/mentor figure, but is entirely willing to platonically help Jaheira with her kids, considering they find out Jaheira's the one who adopted Mala ie Rana's daughter),

Gortash (Rana's ex-boyfriend from before the tadpole amnesia, whom enabled their Urges and vices. Rana wishes things could have gone differently, they saw potential in Gortash, and mourn what could have been had he not turned to tyranny and extortion. They resent him for what he did to Karlach, but can't bring themself to hate him, because in his own ways he managed to help them by crafting a prosthetic eye specially made for them, and they at one point held some strange distorted love for each other),

Orin (not only did Orin give Rana the brain trauma and tadpole that resulted in their amnesia, but Orin also SA'd Rana during the time before they became head of the Bhaalist cult, which resulted in Rana going into hiding for a year and a half to have their daughter Mala and smuggle her away to a family that would protect her. Rana feared what would've happened if they raised a child within the cult, knowing the traumatic hell of Orin's own incestuous conception and cult upbringing. There was a high likelihood they would have killed the child due to the Urge, if they kept Mala within the cult. Even so, the good still in Rana wanted to find a way to forgive Orin, and drag her out of the cult kicking and screaming. If they could have found a way to renounce Bhaal without being forced to kill Orin, they would. Alas, they couldn't find a way to save their bloodkin from the lash of Bhaal.)

Raphael (Rana already felt like their soul was forfeit by virtue of being a Bhaalspawn, they're loathe to chain themself to a manipulative devil as well, even though they find his honeyed words alluring and the idea of being a devil's plaything is...not entirely unappealing for someone who enjoys being a service submissive like Rana.)

Link to the lil dagger dividers I used for this post

[occasionalpokeboys]

japanese-themed digimon adopts for sale via kofi (dm if interested!)

maneki mikemon $20 cad - closed

wish cherubimon virtue x antibody $30 cad - open

[deimosatellite]

in v+d concepts its so funny bc i keep just. giving alyosha more older brother figures on accident. like ofc ivan dmitri pavel but also like because of the lore theres distantly myshkin and petrusha. why not have rogozhin in there too petrushas already toxic enough. yknow what. and then he kisses raskolnikov on the mouth WHAT

[puppybong]

i think bart has a bit of a southern drawl from all his time spent living in alabama

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Is this

Is this not the essence of Yasmine and Demetri's relationship

I don't dress like a "boy" or a "girl", I dress like you should not ask me to lift any heavy items

[sing-me-under]

Sometimes I read things, and they references other things, and I just have to sit there with the implications of said things and have to suffer, never knowing if the author is aware of those implications or not.

[sidsinning]

Apothecary Diaries is pog as fuck bc serious political issues and dynamics from a woman's POV are rarely depicted in ANY form of media

It's always a man's world where women's issues surround him. Even if we get a female perspective once in awhile- it all comes back to how it facilitates his game in the end. She's a footnote in the overarching scheme of things. Misogyny exists. Back to the real plot.

Apothecary Diaries is strictly from a female perspective and how each class of woman has to act, what limits they have, what rights they have and don't have between each class, etc. These women have to behave a certain way under a patriarchy, which you would think makes it a man's story, but it never is. The women are THE focus of this show, their struggles are THE plot. The focus is about how the patriarch effects them.

Take the concubines for example. The show dives into how bearing a child affects their rank, how traumatizing it is to lose that child, the consequences of that, etc. We have barely seen the emperor who sired all these kids because this is not about him.

Jinshi's personal plot is secondary to Mao Mao's journey- he is mostly there to provide new cases for Mao Mao to solve and to learn more about the shortcomings of his class when taking care of citizens like Mao Mao.

Jinshi is not a bad person, but by virtue of his position in the higher classes, he cannot understand how harsh life as a poor WOMAN is specifically- he can only catch glimpses of it from what Mao Mao tells him and feel outrage but powerless in his wealth and luxury

Mao Mao is a fortunate commoner woman for what privileges someone in her class should and shouldn't have. She happened to be adopted by a knowledgeable man. She is allowed to read, write, learn, and has enough skill to be a poison tester and have a job EXTREMELY out of her class limit as an apothecary, also a job not traditionally meant for women

Mao Mao is not a "noT lIkE oThER gIrLs" protagonist, she is FOR THE GIRLIES. She only wants to help the women around her, and women are whom she has the closest relationships to. She sees a woman being harassed and can't let it stand. She sees a frail, traumatized woman dying from the recklessness of those who should be caring for her and spends day and night nursing her back to health, while also punishing the people who were so careless with her needs.

My girl has STUDIED UP on THE BODY to TEACH these upper class ladies on how to really HEAT things up in the BEDROOM

Sex depicted in Apothecary Diaries is both something women are not shamed to be enjoying, while at the same time being acknowledged as an unfortunately huge economic necessity to market themselves.

Like shit is just so real in this series???

Listen, I can go on and on about how GOATED the series and especially Mao Mao is but you get the picture