#eldest cousin things

[loopy4lu]

yesterday was my mums birthday. today we celebrated it with family. i spent the whole afternoon helping set up as an adult. i was the only child helping. the others were completely able to refuse. i help with every step, including passing out dessert. i bring cake to everyone, even my cousin whos taking a breather in the other room. after finishing handing out everything i was asked to, i come back to the cake to find four bowls. two of the bowls follow my nan and i think "oh one must be for me" but each are taken by someone. theres two bowls left. the cake is packed away. the last two people leave. with the last two bowls. my own mother, who was cutting the cake, has forgotten to give her daughter, who loves chocolate cake, a slice of her chocolate birthday cake. everyone has left the room. im following them outside when i reach the door and have to take an extremely deep breath to avoid screaming at the world.

once i finally head outside, everyone is sitting down. i take my seat in the corner. someone glances over at me. i avoid eye contact. "wheres yours?" immediately tears in my eyes. i shrug, "i didnt get one" and my voice breaks. tears steeam down my cheeks. my poor mother whos birthday celebration i feel ive just ruined, apologises profusely and pulls me to the kitchen so i can finally get a slice. everyones confused on why im upset as once again there was a lack of focus on my needs. she gives me a massive slice, not out of kindness but of guilt. she knows i wont eat it all. she knows its a waste, and she knows ill be embarrassed about said waste.

i sit down with my overly large slice. a couple of people try to take the blame. i apologise and tell them its fine, while still uncontrollably crying. we all eat our cake. i get less than halfway when im full. i once again am asked to do things for people when i bring in several plates. after weve eaten theres no further mention of the mistake, and no question as to if im ok and if i want to step inside, even though i am still crying consistently, and even though my sister had been asked many times if she wanted to go inside earlier in the event.

eventually i finally am given the oppurtunity to leave. i sit there as people pack up. i offer to help my mum a couple of times but she turns away. i sit alone. teary eyed. sniffling. feeling stupid and immature for being upset about this. too many sympathetic looks. random stories to try and distract me from my sadness, which are then interrupted for others to say goodbye. perfectly reasonable but still feels as though i am being ignored, especially when they dont even look in my direction. i get two byes that afternoon. one side hug. we head out to our car. i am unable to cry to myself for the next hour and a half. i dustract myself. i get home. evsrythings ok. it didnt matter.

except it did. it really did matter to me. after feeling like im in the back of peoples minds for weeks, this confirmation hit me like a trainwreck. i cant even get upset or moody about it because im supposed to act like an adult in front of others now. except for the fact im not an adult. im a moody, depressed, anxious teen who feels ignored by the world and wants to scream all their misfortunes into the hot summer air. im so tired of acting like the perfect mature cousin when im not and nobody even likes me anyway. theres not really a point anymore. but i will continue to. the only thing that keeps me going is hope, so why not let it determine my mental state. maybe theyll remember me next time.

[simandy]

Being unable to deal with unfairness/injustices will eventually kill me

[oopsallmabari]

i'm just happy that when playing inq i saw that the trevelyans are a noble family noted for their piety and service to the chantry and eventually said 'got it. so the trevelyans quietly have the long-term goal of controlling at least 1 of the circles and eventually installing one of their own on the sunburst throne'. it took me a second to get fun with it but eventually i got there

[betty-bourgeoisie]

Being an eldest daughter sucks ass, but being an eldest granddaughter is a privileges and an honor, so I think it evens out

[fore-seer]

insane about lucina today

[amethysttribble]

You know, I kind of feel like wider fandom trends (tho not only fandom; this is very very present in mainstream media and has bothered me for a long time) has pushed this… preoccupation with oddly strict older&younger sibling dynamics, wherein the older takes care of the younger, and the younger exists as a vessel for the older’s suffering and sacrifice

There’s this weird dynamic of debt, actually? Like, poor put upon Eldest Daughter Syndrome Character #1,348 has done so much for the younger one(s) they should be grateful. And if that younger sibling character is not appropriately Grateful, they are a horrible annoying brat that our sainted eldest must suffer through

In fact, the only way in general to make up for the sin of being the Younger Sibling (implied to be an inherent burden to our theoretical blorbo eldest) is to either be uwu soft and grateful, and/or Step-Up and Take On responsibility for the eldest and provide some comfort to this hurt

It’s all very *waves hand to gesture in Crazy-ex Girlfriend musical number*:

“After everything I’ve done for you-“ “-that I didn’t ask for!”

That younger sibling character is still a character, you know? Not a prop to make the eldest look good or put-upon.

[iamthescalesofjustice]

aunt and her grandkid (cousin's son, 6) are over bc their AC is out for the moment, kid watching minecraft vids. discovered that aunt does not pay enough attention to what he watches to know the name of the actual channel he likes, so if autoplay dumps him into one of apparently several knockoff/parody channels again she cant tell and just assumes that some of these peoples videos arent appropriate. have been trying to teach her how to set him up on a playlist on the actual channel but its rough going.

[none-tadashi-left-hiro]

It's like....m my voice and my actions have the power to influence things.... But yet something always stays the same.... And to what extent does it change things..... Is there ever positive everlasting change from any of my actions......... What am I doing all of this forrrr who am I doing it for.......

[bunni-bun]

🥲.

[hazardsoflove]

some of yalls hyperspecific polls are just extremely common things

[straykats]

screams and shouts

[tragedykery]

you wanna ramble about some of your visions of the little guys? because i would Love to hear <333 (also feel free to ignore this if you don't want to, haha!!!)

thank you so so much for sending this ask ily <333 and I am. so so so sorry this started out as just a short stating of facts but then it began to lead a life of its own (uh cw for animal death)

ok for background info I’ve got this post here with a character list doc etc but it’s not really necessary to understand this

anyway I’ll be talking about sita (tag) bc I love her <3

in the kyoshi novels it’s said that all air nomads are benders but I think that’s stupid. there definitely are air nomad non-benders but they’re uncommon and generally don’t live in the temples.

sita is one of those non-benders. as she grows up in the eastern air temple, she practices the katas and fighting style just as hard as the other kids—maybe even harder—but no matter how hard she tries, she cannot get the air to move as it does for her peers. she feels like an outsider. there’s one other non-bender girl there, but she’s a few years older. they play together a lot, and it helps, but when the girl leaves to travel the world, sita is left behind, and she feels more alone than she ever has before.

she knows it’s not the fault of the her friend or other nuns, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. so one day, when she just can’t take it anymore, she stuffs her bag with food and all the airbending scrolls she can find (she cannot kill the hope inside her that maybe if she practices hard enough…). she gets her bison and flies away.

(she’s sixteen.)

she tries to find her old friend, but she could be anywhere. so she explores the world, and she’s happier than she’s been in a long time.

however, one day, her bison gets sick. she’s camping somewhere on an island in the fire nation, but no one there knows how to help her. she sets out toward the eastern air temple, but as they’re flying over the sea, they get caught in a storm. she worries they’re not going to survive, but by some stroke of luck, they get rescued by a bunch of seafarers on a ship called the ziyou. they’re friendly, and the captain promises to take care of them for as long as they need, but sita was right about one thing. her bison doesn’t survive.

taituk, the captain, promises they’ll drop her off at the nearest port, but.

she has no reason to go to the air temples now. it would only stir up painful memories. and her chances of finding her old friend, alone in the earth kingdom, on foot, are practically zero. she thinks about it.

she knows the crew she had initially thought to be regular seafarers are pirates. but they’re not like what she has heard about pirates. when she experiences a raid (she isn’t expected to participate and can just hide in the room she’s been staying in) she listens anxiously. she can hear taituk give the crew a sort of pep talk, and hears them tell the crew, with the practised ease of someone who has given a speech a thousand times before, to not hurt anyone unless absolutely necessary. “surrender and no harm will come to you,” she hears taituk call out to people on the other ship. and when the merchant ship’s captain surrenders, they follow through on their word.

she gets to know the crew. she learns about their motives, how they’re all outcasts, how they only attack the ships of rich merchants or other pirates, how most of them turned to piracy because there was no other option, to feed themselves and in some cases their families too.

maybe, sita thinks, she can figure out how to make this work.

—

sita’s been on the ziyou for almost two years. she’s gotten good at incorporating the fighting skills she’s learned on the ship into the air nomad fighting style she has such extensive knowledge of. she learns she has a talent for using projectile weapons—though nisha remains the best with throwing knives, she’s easily the second best, and her handiness with a bow and arrows more than makes up for it. she’s decent with a spear too, though she’s more defensive with it than the girl who teaches her, aki, would like.

(the cook, chusak, offers to teach her his weird fighting style of throwing pans at people, but she turns him down. that’s just weird and impractical and more often than not leaves people with bruises, concussions, or broken bones. well, she doesn’t need to learn to use every possible projectile weapon.)

she might not be able to bend air like she had always wished (and still wishes) she could, but as she pins an enemy to the mast with nothing more than a flick of her wrist or the release of a taut bowstring, or feels the salty wind ruffle her hair as she stands in the crow’s nest, she finds she doesn’t mind her lack of bending as much as she used to. she’s made peace with it.

she’s still shocked, though, when one day during a raid (the captain refused to surrender, proud as the beifongs he works for), she looks over her shoulder and sees a woman floating several feet above the deck. her eyes are closed and her long hair whips in the wind, and while she’s wearing earth kingdom clothing and doesn’t have any tattoos, there’s no way she’s not an airbender.

“what’s an airbender doing on a ship like that?” she muses to taituk as they’re hauling boxes of loot onto their own ship. “she must be powerful. to lift yourself into the air and create a storm like that takes a lot of strength.” (no one knows, of course, that was the avatar state, and they don’t realise it for a long time.)

“well, whatever the case, we’re lucky chusak knocked her out,” nisha grumbles. she turns to show the two of them a nasty-looking gash on her shoulder. “she almost got me with one of her own knives.”

taituk pulls a face. “ouch. well, better go see mallik, then.” nisha rolls her eyes and grumbles something sarcastic before walking off, but before sita can tease taituk about being “romantic” (she doesn’t have proof yet, but she knows!), taituk says, frowning, “iraluq said they seemed scared, though. the airbender I mean. scared and confused, as they threw up their arms and knocked her ice daggers away. as if they didn’t know what they had what they done or how.”

sita’s still pondering that over a few hours later, when she hears shouting on the other side of the ship. she rushes there to investigate. she makes her way through the crowd that has gathered on the deck. “what’s happen–”

she falls silent as she sees the airbender standing pressed against the wall, terrified.

“everyone give us some space!” taituk calls. “go on with what you were previously doing. nothing to see here.”

“what happened?” sita whispers to nuvuja, who’s, for some reason, is opening all the crates they had gotten from the raid and checking their contents.

nuvuja’s reply is brisk. “xuan managed to accidentally kidnap a person.”

“how?!”

nuvuja slams the crate she’d been rummaging through shut and opens the next one. “he was supposed to help check the loot but got lazy. just carried crates onto the ship without checking if their contents were the same as the labels. and apparently the airbender fell into a crate of rice when she got knocked out by chusak. lid slammed shut. we just found out while getting stuff for dinner.”

she grimaces as she looks over at the airbender. taituk is speaking to her softly, and while she looks less scared than before, her eyes are full of tears. “poor girl,” nuvuja murmurs. “we’ve got no clue where her ship is now. stranded on a ship in the middle of the sea with a bunch of pirates. she must be terrified.”

sita thanks nuvuja, and walks off to join taituk. maybe she can help.

—

apparently the airbender—hira—does not, in fact, know she is one. or she didn’t, until now. she and sita become fast friends. sita’s a friendly presence, a reassuring constant in the scary period waiting hira’s caught in until they reach land.

“I guess I should go to one of the temples, huh?” hira says a few days after her arrival on the ship. she tries for humour, but sounds breathless. scared. “if I want to learn”—she hesitates for a moment—“bending.”

she’d been both scared and elated to learn she was a bender. apparently she’s grown up as an orphan with no knowledge of her heritage.

“I can try to teach you some stuff, if you want,” sita offers.

hira’s eyes widen. “you’re an airbender too?!”

sita tries to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “no.” she tries for a smile. “but I grew up in the temples, so I know a few things.”

(she knows more than a few things.)

—

it’s weird, teaching someone to bend when sita can’t herself, but they make it work. hira’s a prodigy, easily executing techniques sita remembers took the other girls at the temple months to master. (techniques sita will never be able to do.) sita can help her, teach her, in a way hira will never be able to do for her. you can’t give someone bending, after all.

they meditate together, and cook air nomad recipes with chusak’s help. she teaches hira to read, write and speak the most common air nomad languages, and hira teaches her her earth kingdom town’s language in return.

it would be so easy to be jealous of hira. and maybe she is jealous, just a little. but she doesn’t let that jealousy fester, doesn’t let it turn into resentment. she won’t ever be able to bend, but she can be proud of hira, can be happy for her. can laugh with her as they mess up the recipe for fruit pies and smile at her when she masters yet another kata. she can participate in her culture with another air nomad, one who she knows won’t judge her for being a non-bender. (she spent the first twenty-seven years of her life as one, after all.)

and it will be enough.

(she doesn’t know that hira is jealous of her in the same way, for growing up in the temples. (hira’s spent her whole life wanting nothing more than connection with her culture.) but much in the same way, hira doesn’t allow her jealousy to lead her. she and sita are both air nomads who will always be a little bit of an outsider, and they’ll have to stick together. it’s not just that, though. she likes being around this chatty, lively kid (“I’m eighteen!” sita always protests). she likes to gossip with her and sit in the crow’s nest together and play silly games and have competitions who have climb the masts the fastest. sita is one of the main reasons hira decides to stay when the ziyou reaches the port taituk had promised they’d drop her off at.)

(the rest of the crew notices, that since hira’s arrival, sita seems happier than she’s ever been.)

[icterid-rubus]

Just found out a relative is in the hospital. Feels bad.

[hershelwidget]

once again thinking about that time i finished with my dentist and as she came out to get my father she was surprised to see my dad (who looks like a white guy) and the reason for her surprise was because our last name is Very Chinese (family on dad’s side is chinese) and she was Expecting. a guy who looks a lot more asian . the fact that me and my brother look more asian than he does makes it funnier

[jaseisdory]

I love it when there's choas that most associate with Dan, Dani, and Danny.

___

Dan, Dani and Danny just finished a meeting with the Justice League (with the YJL on the side lines just being nosey) to talk about alliances between the League and the Phantoms.

Superman: Phantom.

Dan, Dani and Danny: Yes.

Flash: Wait, you're all Phantom?

Dani: Yeah, it's our family name, duh.

Superman: We prefer to work with the eldest Phantom-

Danny, who still looks the same age he died but is actually 15: That would be me.

Everyone is shocked.

Dan, scoffed: We're ghosts, our physical age doesn't reflect our actual ages.

Kid Flash: Wait, how old are you guys?

Dan: 4 years old.

Dani: 6 months old.

Dan: Baby-

Dani just stuck out her tongue.

Danny: I'm 15.

Robin: But you show up throughout history?

Danny: I do odd jobs for the ghost of time.

Green Latern: We'll circle back to that later. So, how are you guys related?

Dan: We're the same person.

JL + YJL: Wha-?

Dan: Me and her are variations of that one.

Batman: Elaborate.

Dan: I'm from another timeline that doesn't exist anymore.

Dani: I'm his clone!

Danny: And I'm just Danny.

Flash: Didn't you call her your cousin? Wouldn't she be your daughter?

Danny: It's interchangeable, we change what we call each other everyday. Sometimes I'm their brother, cousin or parent. Which one depends on the day.

Dan: We honestly don't care.

Flash: Since you're from a destroyed timeline, wouldn't she also be your clone too?

Dan: Naw, it's a little more complex than that.

Dani: He's actually combined ghosts of Danny and Plasmius combined with Danny's memories. In hindsight, that makes him their child. Which means we're actually full siblings.

Danny: Which is weird since Plasmius is actually an old man with an unhealthy obsession with my mom and me. He was my parents' college friend and is my godfather and arch nemesis.

Kid Flash: ... There is so many things wrong with that statement.

Danny: And that's why we call him a fruitloop.

Aqualad: There seems to be an issue with archnemesises cloning their hero counterparts.

Dani, squealing: THERES ANOTHER CLONE!!

Superboy: Hi.

Dani, suddenly in Superboy's face: Mom, look! He can pass off as one of us.

Robin: That makes no sense, he has blue eyes and black hair, you have white hair and green eyes.

All three Phantoms, with an inhumanly large and toothy grin, turned human: You sure 'bout that?

Batman: You have human disguises?

Danny: Sure, we'll go with that.

Dani, on Superboy's back: Can we keep him?

Dan: He'll fit right in.

Danny: Superman is his dad-

Superman, bristling: Its not my son.

The Phantoms just stare at him:...

Danny: No.

JL: ??

Dan: I won't make a mess.

JL, confused: ??

Dani: I'll help with clean up.

JL, concerned: !?!?

Danny: No, now help me convince Superboy to join our fraid.

[buttercuparry]

I know I sound like a broken record by now: repeating the same things others have said before but I think banality of it all is the point of my post. The fact that I have nothing new to say– not about the genocide in Gaza, not about the dwindling attention of allies, is HORRIFYING. 

It has been 11 months of a genocide that the UN calls “war on children”. Malnutrition, diseases, lack of suitable medical care have caused Gazan children to lose their childhood; to lose their lives entirely!  

There is no hope left for a future unmarked of pain and my friend Siraj Abudayeh ( @siraj2024 ) , who is father to three sons describes it as a “feeling of oppression”.  He laments that his children have been forced away from their schools, hopes and dreams  by colonizers and where before there were ambitions to excel in either studies or sports, all they know now is helplessness, fear and anger. 

Siraj has told me how his children- Abed, Muhammad and Amir have confessed to their father about how they have begun to  feel guilty for surviving at all now ; after having lost so many of their friends to the genocide they are experiencing survivor's guilt and it breaks my heart to hear that. Abed, the eldest son, is ONLY ELEVEN!!  Can you imagine an eleven year old feeling guilty because he has managed to survive while his friends haven't ? And what kind of survival it is– Half starving, drinking unclean water, forced into tents where sand mites pester him throughout the day?

I am not sure what happened or why the engagement with fundraisers has dropped so drastically lately but there is nothing more atrocious, more horrible than apathy when children are suffering.  It is so strange that we can quote James Baldwin so easily and yet have failed to understand what he meant when he said,

"The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; ...whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality. ”

We have the power that is not afforded to Gazans and therefore it is on us to be attentive no matter how repetitive these posts feel. It is ridiculous and dehumanizing that during a genocide one has to worry about making a post original enough to maintain attention. And yes I know that we won't be able to stop the horrifying banality of Israel’s evil in a day but WE CAN help provide FIVE families that are dependent on this fundraiser with a lifeline during times such as these.  

Please we have managed to get this far after struggling for so long, it cannot be that we will fail Siraj when he is so close to the end goal of 82k !!

So DONATE AND BOOST. Find it in yourself to not just reblog but circulate the fundraiser among your colleagues, friends and family. Share it in your whatsapp chats and discord servers. Share it on every other platform that you may have a reach on.

Currently at $72,987 CAD of the short term goal of 75k. We have 2k left to raise by tomorrow. 

Vetting at 219