#childbirth gods

[ericsfanfictions]

New Demigod Cabin: The Tritopatores

The Tritopatores ("thrice-ancestors") are a trio of benevolent Athenian wind gods associated with childbirth, marriage, and the home. Their names are Amalceides, Protocles, and Protocleon, and they're said to be children of Gaia and Helios, or possibly even older. They are ancestor deities that Athenians and other people in Attica prayed to when they prepared to marry or wanted children. They watch over the family and protect the household.

Demigod children of the Tritopatores are always born on Wednesday (because it's the third day of the week) in a location that has the number 3 in either the street address or zip code. Their social security number, license plate number, phone number, etc. always has at least one 3 in it. Children of the Tritopatores are more likely to be born with Down syndrome, since this happens from having a third copy of chromosome 21. When a child of one of the Tritopatores is claimed, a blue triangle with the letter T inside of it appears above their head, accompanied by a soft breeze.

Adult demigod children of the Tritopatores almost always get married and have big families. Daughters of the Tritopatores are three times more likely to give birth to triplets than regular mortals. If a child of the Tritopatores goes through two unhappy/unsuccessful marriages then their third marriage will be blessed with joy, love, and prosperity. They have a strong interest in ancestry and frequently become genealogists or have medical jobs related to genetics. They often find themselves living or working on the third floor of their building.

The children of the Tritopatores always incorporate the number 3 into their usernames and passwords without even realizing it. Their favorite foods are "three cheese" entrees and "triple chocolate" desserts. They often date or befriend demigods from the Athena cabin. They also get along well with other demigod children of domestic deities like Eileithyia and Hymenaeus, and they hold Hera in high respect as well. They frequently visit Hestia while she tends the hearth fire.

The Tritopatore's cabin resembles the Athena cabin and is painted in shades of light blue on both the inside and outside. The flag of Athens flies above the cabin, and the roof tiles change color to match the clouds in the sky. All demigod children of the Triopatores have free access to Ancestry.com and other genealogy sites. Above each of their beds is a group of picture frames that contain portraits of famous or important ancestors. There is always a pleasant, gentle breeze blowing inside. At one end of the cabin is a big widescreen TV, which they use to host movie trilogy marathon parties. There are three chairs in the room, which can magically expand to fit three people.

Demigod children of the Tritopatores can multiply non-magical items into three, and can also create two temporary copies of themselves. They can fly and levitate and have some control over the winds, but aren't strong enough to summon or control storms. By listening to the whispers of the wind, they can hear things that are out of earshot. They are resistant to love magic, and the some especially strong individuals can cause opponents to be inflicted with birthing pains. Children of the Tritopatores have their powers, strength, and stamina increased if they are within a city, and are even stronger when they're inside a home.

Historical Demigods/Legacies: Constantine Angelos, Manuel Comnenos, Maria Callas, many prominent Athenians.

Cabin Members: Aarti Tripathi, Seth and Trinity Adams, Tercero Balza, Trey Fallon, Head Counselor: Atticus Comnenos

[rugwurm]

Fiecare familie nefericită este nefericită în felul său

[cienie-isengardu]

Kid Eileithyia, kid Ares and very concerned Zeus & Hera

<picture #1>

Eileithyia (still little) goddess of childbirth & midwifery: *retelling in great details the most horrible, bloody childbirth she assisted, when Ares was away from home* Ares (still little) god of war: SO COOL!

<picture #2>

Concerned Zeus and pregnant Hera: ...

<picture #3>

Zeus (to still unborn Hebe): Hebe? It's me, Zeus, your father - please, don't be like your siblings! You hear me? BE NORMAL! Hera (to still unborn Hebe): Yes baby, listen to your father!

[english-history-trip]

Just opened Northanger Abbey for the first time, and I'm loving the tone it sets, but goddamn:

"[Catherine's father was] a very respectable man, though his name was Richard..."

[quitealotofsodapop]

Xiaoatian in Century Egg takes the cake for the most dramatic entry into the world for the kids. Not much can beat going into labor in the middle of the Jade Emperor's throne room, while being wet nursed by the Queen Mother herself, and almost the Monkey King almost dying in childbirth. Like Yubei is very close with her eating LBD but it took several days for her to come out afterwards, Xiaoation literally had a span of a few hours

It comes with the title of "Harbringer of Chaos" XD

Each "MK" variant in the Wukongverse has to make their presence known to the world. So far I have these guys planned out;

Xiaotian/MK (LMK TMKATI au): Arrival causes a magtic hurricane to form outside.

Xiaotian/MK (LMK Canon): [REDACTED until S5] Nuwa was involved.

Xiaotian/MK (LMK Century Egg Au): Birth interupts the trial of Sun Wukong vs the entirety of Heaven and Hell over the soul of Macaque. Queen Mother of the West and Guanyin has to step in to midwife.

Xiaoyun (Monkey King Hero is Back au): Extremely tense hatching/birth after almost being killed by a deer spirit.

Xiao Qi (Monkey King Reborn): Artsy rebirth after having given up their life for their new friends + to defeat Yuandi. Vastly understimated how little they'd be.

Xiaoshi (Monkey King Netflix au): Little man busted out feet-first and tried running off Happy Feet-style. Paretns had to chase him down.

Xiaozhen (New Gods au): "Hey there's a free baby in this dumpster."

Ketu & Rahu (Meihouwang au): Born within microseconds of eachother despite one being a Stone egg, and the other a regular unborn baby. Chaos ensued cus no one could tell who came out of where.

[mrs-starkgaryen]

House of the Dragon as Greek Mythology

☀️ (My other collages) ☀️

Jacerys Velaryon as Apollo

[tangledinink]

Would you ever make a non-graphic comic on Donnie laying the eggs?

I mean, I'm not opposed to exploring such concepts, generally speaking, (as I've repeatedly showcased lol), I just don't really know what a comic like that would really entail. I don't have a good story in my mind atm about this, so I don't have any plans r/n. 🤷🏻‍♂��� If y'all have specific questions about his experience and such, then maybe I'd get an idea for something, but right now I have no plans for it.

[burning-river-ghost]

I decided to continue drawing out a potential tarot deck featuring Hellenic gods and heroes/heroines. I have finished sketching out the Major Arcana and now I am slowly colorizing them. Eventually, I’ll do the minor arcana.

Do, here’s Hera as the archetype, The Empress.

[rxttenfish]

Pardon the question, but how do the reimagined merfolk reproduce? In MP I recall them saying that merfolk reproduce in a similar way to seahorses (may be a throwaway joke, but in any case) but the reimagined merfolk are obviously different from how they are in MP in many ways.

ah yes, one of those things that i've had worked out fully for forever but never made a dedicated post on it over here... at least partially because im suspicious of tumblr and its ability to nuke anything even frankly talking about sexual selection and reproductive methods of various animals, oops.

which is why this is going under a cut, oops. like i said, lots of frank discussion of sexual selection and the processes of it. im a nerd when it comes to this.

-

the first thing most humans would notice when looking upon a group of merfolk (of the same species), is a notable lack of dimorphism. there's no dramatic color shifts, no difference in size beyond usual distribution among a population, no odd behaviors, nothing to really sort them out from each other. this is a consistent theme among merfolk in general — while they continually get larger as they age (at a much slower rate than they did growing up, certainly, and not as dramatic as pop media might suggest this to be), it's still fairly close along the existing curve of height distribution, and usually the only real "tells" for an adult merfolk's age is that they get pitted and worn, a little like a statue slowly wearing down, or similar to the age of crocodilians.

which might be a little odd for these hypothetical humans looking onwards, even if they were already familiar enough to be able to tell merfolk facial features apart. even moreso because as frank as merfolk cultures usually are about sex and nudity taboos seem rare, all of their applicable anatomy is internal, so even seeing one entirely in the nude isn't enough to sex them.

the truth has to do with merfolk as a secondarily aquatic tetrapod. i've mentioned before that the early ancestors of merfolk were temnospondyls that responded to environmental stressors in their freshwater environments by being able to take advantage of a wide variety of environments. they have lungs and gills, meaning they can breathe on land very well if they need to move between pools and ponds, and they have gills to optimize their time spent underwater and not have to surface if the going is good underwater. even more than that, they developed both external gills and internal gills, meaning they could reap the benefits of both fast-moving and slow-moving water.

all of this is relevant, because to be exposed to all of these different environments and to be able to move between them when the going gets tough in one, means they had to make longer and longer treks over land. some were dependent on specific vernal pools that they would travel to to raise their young, but this also limited the areas in which they could live, and if those vernal pools dried up then they could not reproduce.

so these early-line temnospondyls made the same switch that other tetrapods have made, and switched to internal fertilization. this meant that, if they were to find another one of their species during their land-travels, they could mate and continue onwards, even being ready to lay eggs right at the moment they found the vernal pool, limiting the amount of time the offspring needed in the water.

however, they did still need vernal pools and water, and were very vulnerable in these stages. and with the existing push towards shorter and shorter time spent in the vernal pools, well, what if they just didn't bother with them at all? it'd put more stress on the parents, but they were already primed to be able to survive through these periods of stress, so it wouldn't be such a huge jump.

so the line that would eventually lead to merfolk and the leviathans both made the switch to live birth fairly early on in their history.

the rest that happens from there varies. this was a more diverse group, back in the day! there were many different species with many different methods for that live birth. some would continue just carrying the fertilized eggs to be dropped off in the next suitable pool they found, some developed them into tadpoles, some went through metamorphosis in the womb and popped out into the world as mini adults, some left spermatophores for others of their species to pick up, some developed evertable genitalia and went at it that way.

but another shift also happened early on in their evolutionary history. them being able to spread out so far and wide meant that there was a very low density of them in any given area, and these low numbers made them vulnerable. if there was high disparity in the proportion of sexes in any given area, they'd feel the effects of that quicker, and when they were already in competition over the same niches as other temnospondyls, crocodylomorphs, marine reptiles, and later early cetaceans, etc who dominated these niches, they were often kept at these lower population numbers.

which was about when these early-line temnospondyls also made the switch to a trioecious mating system.

this happened because sex determination in amphibians is already weird, so it wasn't too far of a leap for a mutation to arise which created fertile dual-sexed individuals. and these dual-sexed individuals had a lot of success under the niche they had already carved out! now, whenever they did find another member of their same species, it was guaranteed that they could mate with them, which meant that their populations were self-sustaining and stable on much lower numbers. due to how their dispersal already worked, inbreeding wasn't as much of a negative factor, and they were even more capable of making it through the disasters and ecological strain that had the other non-lissamphibia temnospondyls going extinct. they could eke out a living wherever they found it, make long traversals over land if they needed to seek out greener pastures, and they were able to sustain themselves in the background without needing as high of a density of themselves in any given spot.

like i said too - this was a diverse clade back in the day! and you ended up getting different variations on this. some species didn't have any dual-sexed individuals. some species had only dual-sexed individuals. some had only males and dual-sexed individuals, and some only females and the dual-sexed individuals, and all in various different proportions and numbers.

what matters here is that merfolk were a part of the line who had evertable internal genitalia, and who ended up entirely composed of these dual-sexed members, making them an entirely unisex species in the modern day.

(this is also where i butt in, to explain from an authorial perspective, this is me kinda... being sneaky with canon and how it tends to phrase things. yes, technically it is the male who gets pregnant with merfolk! but, also, so would females. because they don't have "male" or "female" in these strict terms, and any given individual to them has the potential to do both. this is something that i do a lot with the usual facts given to me by canon, where it's technically true, just because i like to be contrary about it and not take things in the most literal way. it's just what i find fun, i know some other people do it differently, and that's fine with me!)

what this means is that merfolk don't have a conception of "gender". it checks out with their social structure too, because if a merfolk's miivt'ia have a child, then it doesn't matter who actually physically created that child, said merfolk would still consider themselves their parent all the same. the reproductive unit is larger than a singular merfolk or even two merfolk, and at that point, even if they were bisex, then each grouping still has the same reproductive potential as any other.

what this means is that, when miranda describes herself as a princess or a girl or that the king is her dad or she has sisters — these are best seen as translation errors. to a merfolk, the concepts at play aren't gendered. they would not immediately identify themselves as male, they would not immediately identify themselves as female, they'd be very confused and would only get more confused as you tried to explain it to them. miranda describes herself as a princess and uses she/her because she was told that, for landfolk, everyone had to pick one of two and she had to just choose one. she picked "princess" and "girl" because one of the first things given to her as a way to learn english were fairytales, and she really ended up latching onto the princess characters in them.

in fact, this is why merfolk seem to be a little... reductive? when it comes to gender? as in, if you do take the time to explain it to them, you will have to explain it all. which means starting with gender relating to the different genitalia, and you have just told this hypothetical merfolk that it is important to landfolk, who will now operate under that assumption. they will not innately understand why landfolk care about this or all the distinctions thereof and certainly not the nuance of it, so they end up just going "okay, when this landfolk tells me this person is a girl, that must mean she is like this", and potentially getting frustrated when you tell them that that's wrong.

it can't even really work for royals, who do simplify parentage down to two people, and care a whole lot about who is related to whom. for royals in the current merkingdom, its primarily about attempting to preserve a specific lineage. because merfolk lineage is its own can of worms, they simplify - they take the current heir (one who has been groomed and taught how to behave as though emblematic of that lineage and has been guaranteed to have the strongest claim to it), and will find a suitable non-heir of another royal house, for whom they will forbid either of them to make kids with any other merfolk. this agreement is less like a marriage in the traditional sense, and more like the heir's house is briefly sponsoring the non-heir's house, sending extended political and economic benefits to the latter through this connection, in exchange for reinforcing the lineage of the heir and making it more potent, reinforcing their political ties.

this is to ensure that absolutely no other genetics can be involved and to contain the process. because this occurs by who-was-born-where, it also means that only the heir really matters in this ordeal. if the heir dies while the non-heir of the couple lives, and they already have had children, then the non-heir is "locked in" and cannot remarry, obliged to stay within the heir's house in their current position to ensure the current holders of the lineage are brought up and cared for properly. if the heir dies while the non-heir lives, and they have no children, then the non-heir is sent back to their prior family with no benefits, and the next heir is named as though the marriage never happened. if the non-heir dies while the heir lives, then they can remarry as they please, existing children or not. this is not especially popular, as the non-heir's family can accuse the heir's family of being unfair or snubbing them, but it is still perfectly legal and accepted.

for instance: the king, miranda's father, had to marry into the royal family. it was the queen, miranda's mother, who was the crown princess before miranda, and who is seen as passing her inheritance down onto miranda and the other three sisters. when the queen died, the king could not remarry. he was secure in his position as king, but any other marriages would not carry the lineage of the royal family, and at best he would be seen as trying to "dilute" that lineage.

in this setup, it's not all that important who is the donor party and who is the carrying party. either the inheritor or their partner can be the one carrying, so long as it's certain and guaranteed who the baby comes from and that this can be assured with certainty. usually it's agreed between the two of them for whatever reason, though the carrying partner does have a benefit in being a surefire way to prove that they are one of the parents, with zero doubt. inheritors will do this mostly to make their kids look the most "100% royal line, no doubts", but this can also go the opposite way, to cement it down to it being a specific line who carried them and to reinforce the political benefits their prior family enjoys from this arrangement.

which brings me back to merfolk genetics, and why this is so important for the royals to ensure they know exactly who made what!

which is to say, merfolk never opted for traditional sexual competition, and instead erred towards sperm competition.

early on in their lineage, they didn't have a lot of sexual dimorphism to begin with. they were already fairly widespread, and while gatherings around early vernal pools were a pressure towards sexual competition, after they stopped relying on vernal pools, the differences between the sexes became more of a hinderance than a benefit. why would they bother with any colorful spots or being extra big and bulky when you're not even around enough of your species for choice to be an issue? if you can find another one to begin with, then that's really all either of you need, and challenging each other just puts another bind on that low-population issue. they were all function, minimal fuss, beyond some general traits that were seen as markers of health.

even when the ancestors of merfolk first started forming their colonies along the coasts, they didn't change this. there wasn't an initial hierarchy laid out, they were just a large group of the same species arranged in the same area for the same purpose, and also maybe some protection by numbers. they did start to form the early groups that would later lead to the modern miivt'ia, and they started to primarily associate with those groups and socialize with them, which meant that when they wanted to find someone to mate with, that hunting group was always the first and the easiest to access.

why fight over mates in that situation? why compete? the health of the group starts to become directly correlated to the health of the individual, and you've already determined they all have good genes, or else they wouldn't be this beneficial to helping you hunt and survive and evade predation.

but this isn't to say competition isn't happening. there is still the slight edge that natural selection adds in, and with multiple matings between different individuals, the thing that gets selected upon is the sperm itself. faster sperm, ways to kill competetor's sperm, ways to suppress the immune system of the mating partner to ensure that sperm will take, more output, ways to remove competetor's sperm to begin with, etc etc etc. their internal genitals start to get bizarre, both for the sake of excluding saltwater intrusion as they get more and more aquatic, but also for the sake of this sperm competition. this system also means, not only do more matings occur right after each other, but more partners involved. the "default" evolutionary position for merfolk starts to look more and more like a clump of noodles, writhing around and over each other. sexual contact becomes a way to bond and to connect with someone primarily, and a means to reproduce secondarily. it's an easy way to solve problems and to get merfolk to make up, by them simply fucking it out and everyone feeling better for it.

which is where i can get into the actual mechanics of it all!

unfortunately this is also where i run out of steam (also am sick. that will do it too), so i'll absolutely have to make a part 2 to this... and also i'll make another post sharing a few old writings of mine on this topic.

someday i'll make like. a masterpost on merfolk reproduction and what's going on there, but like i said. sexual selection is one of those things my brain goes ham for and i looooove talking about all these additional little facts. like how merfolk pregnancies last 2 years (to match with other large marine predators), and that they're based off of both tiger sharks and the alpine salamander, the latter of which has the record for the longest pregnancy on the planet at up to five years :3

also read Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke if this sounds interesting to you! and maybe listen to the episodes the Common Descent Podcast did on Live Birth and Milk!!!

[yaeggravate]

"The Captain": We tracked down three scholars — Aberewaa, Bosomtwe, and Cuxtal, and combined the results of their research to locate this ancient device.

because i'm normal of course my first thought was that anfortas and chlothar are names starting with A and C. maybe the third alberich (who might be kaeya's dad) has a name that starts with B to complete their little alphabet 🤷‍♂️

[widowshill]

the locket, motherhood, & marriage.

139 / 139 / 136 / 136 / 191 / 191 / 191 / 142 / 134 / 143 / 143 / 144 / 144 / 139 script / 144 / 280 / 144 / 144 / 192 / 279 / 279 / 279 / 279 / 143

[reno-matagot]

Homeric Hymn to Artemis

I sing of Artemis, whose shafts are of gold, who cheers on the hounds, the pure maiden, shooter of stags, who delights in archery, own sister to Apollo with the golden sword. Over the shadowy hills and windy peaks she draws her golden bow, rejoicing in the chase, and sends out grievous shafts. The tops of the high mountains tremble and the tangled wood echoes awesomely with the outcry of beasts: earthquakes and the sea also where fishes shoal. But the goddess with a bold heart turns every way destroying the race of wild beasts: and when she is satisfied and has cheered her heart, this huntress who delights in arrows slackens her supple bow and goes to the great house of her dear brother Phoebus Apollo, to the rich land of Delphi, there to order the lovely dance of the Muses and Graces. There she hangs up her curved bow and her arrows, and heads and leads the dances, gracefully arrayed, while all they utter their heavenly voice, singing how neat-ankled Leto bare children supreme among the immortals both in thought and in deed. Hail to you, children of Zeus and rich-haired Leto! And now I will remember you and another song also.

Source: theoi.com

Img - Diana of Versailles. Adrian Overo

[ladystoneboobs]

i call this collection, contradictory quotes from two boys very, very confused about their families, homes, and loyalties.

[trickstarbrave]

Hey, if god!Nerevar and Voryn have kids, are the kids immortal…? Because if so, their brood might just take over Morrowind and it’d have a lot of comedy potential. And if not, that’s a lot of angst potential as they outlive all their children.

luckily god nerevar and voryn dont normally have the genitals to make having babies work together (except for smth funny i have planned with vivec in a side story) so its not smth ive thought abt in detail

also the gods and higher spirits didnt rly. have children the traditional way i dont think in tes lore proper (DISCOUNTING THE FUCKING KIRKBRIDE SKETCH I HATE IT SO MUCH I WILL YELL ABOUT IT FOR FIVE PARAGRAPHS IF WE GO INTO HERE AND I WILL DERAIL THIS WHOLE FUCKING POST) as the gods preferred to just sit down and make smth new. the altmer who resent their mortality even say that procreation is an inferior form of standard creation spirits were supposed to partake in, and the daedra dont rly bother with procreation really either.

HOWEVER if i use the vivec idea i think they'd only have like. one kid. maybe two. not so many that morrowind would overtake morrowind proper HA HA (that is hilarious to consider tho ngl. if nerevar or voryn had a vagina as the default that would def happen im certain of it) but the kid would be functionally immortal. like a demi-prince is the closest i can come up with: technically within nerevar's sphere of influence rather than their own proper unique god w their own domain. so no angst watching their kiddos die thankfully, but if they were mortal im certain they would be trying to keep them alive forever a la gelebor still being alive and kicking

[quitealotofsodapop]

[Jackpotshipping/Ace and Joker are both laughing cus "We're old as hell! It ain't happening!"]

Maybe if they only stick it in the backdoor, eh?

[Cue them learning the term "geriatric pregnancy" and both panicking Hard.]

Why can I picture Starfruit just googling it after Jackpot said the previous statement and just showing the results to them?

[One half of their twins could still be a dumpster baby/hospital freebie thats a doppleganger for their bio one - just for funsies.]

Ooh! Ooh! Thought! There is this comic that makes rounds on tumblr about some fairies replacing a human child with a changeling - but they forgot to take the human child! So, the mom is confused by the second kid and the dad is like 'hey, twins, good job, honey'.

What if that happens? Like, some demons wanted the child of the Great Sage for some nefarious reason and to keep it hidden, they planned to replace the kid, but they fucked up.

And now Jackpot is 30% certain only one had been born, but 70% are like 'hey, free baby' XD

Referencing these posts about Jackpotshipping having more kids + possible destined Eclipse Twins.

Oh gosh, Ace and Joker are just bragging about how unlikely it is for them to have bio kids at their age, meanwhile Starfruit casually starts typing into his phone like;

Starfruit: "Yeah, oldest mortal human parent was 74." Ace, pauses mid-brag: "Excuse me?" Peach: "Lao Tzu's mom was also preggers with him for like 80 years. So she was like mega-old when she had him." Ace: "Excuse me!?" Starfruit: "Yeah and with changes in like nutrition and stuff, people are having their first bio-kid like a lot later than during ancient times. You guys are like... in your 50s or 60s? You're not out of the woods yet dudes." Ace & Joker: *caught between horror at the knowledge + offended that Starfuit thinks they look that old*

[comic that makes rounds on tumblr about some fairies replacing a human child with a changeling - but they forgot to take the human child!]

I remember that comic!

And that def sounds like a scenario Jackpotshipping finds themselves in. Like they're in the post-natal room after having their single kid (surprise miracle baby), look over, and see that there's suddenly two?? Like, when did that happen???

Joker: "I mean... that epidural stuff is wild. Thing 2 coulda slid out when we weren't looking." Ace: "Makes sense. But now I can't tell who arrived first." Joker: "Eh, lets just say they arrived at the same time. No one will question it. If they do; just say shapeshifting." Ace: "Hehe, gross. Welcome to the world Two-Pair!" Joker: "Oh man, Xiaozhēn [their grown-up dumpster "MK]" is in for a shock."

(Meanwhile with the most incompetent demons ever...)

NewGods!Jin: "I 'fink we forgot a huge step of that changeling plan." NewGods!Yin: "Eh. Probably ain't important. Plus they look better as twins." NewGods!Jin: "Too right. Also I can't remember which is the one we left." NewGods!Yin: "Me either."

I'm also reminded of that brief moment in Good Omens, where the Young parents see the accidental extra baby and are like "Yo, is that a twin?" and the nurse doing the antichrist-baby-swap panics like "Uhhh..."

The Jackpotshipping twins also don't know whos the "bonus" of the pair. The spell used to create a perfect copy of the bio baby is really powerful & rare and doesn't wear off like a hair-clone does. No way of knowing who was a freebie unless you ask Buddha himself.

[spideyhexx]

some pwmov notes!

Chapter 27 -

NIKOLAI BANGING ON THE DOOR

they were gonna go for round two right away oh my god

Oh their banter :)

Chapter 28 -

“I don’t want Alex to go take a shower right now. I want to get in the shower together and make out some more.”

^ that was the only thing I wrote down

Chapter 29 -

THREE WEEKS AFTER THE PNEUMONIA DEBACLE MET TREY

Oh Sarah is so jealous of poppy cncnfn

Grandma Betty knew she was a real one

“I’m gonna marry a man who-“ OH NO

“Alex bumps his leg into like under the table, and when I glance at him, he’s not even looking my way. He’s just reminding me that he’s here, that nothing can really hurt me.”

^^YOURE JOKING

“you won’t be alone…I’m here…”…I think I’m gonna scream!

Oh my god he’s crying, “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.” THE FIRST TIME HES EVER CRIED IN FRONT OF HER WHAT