#fatherhood au

[coconut-cactus]

Don't mind me, just randomly finishing artwork I put off

(This is so rushed)

[dragonbonez]

He adopted him after that.

[bruciemilf]

AU where everything is the same except All Might is a villain would be incredibly entertaining if you consider nothing would change about Izuku’s heart deep admiration.

Mind you, it’s not a case of delusion. Just a classic example of how bad the Midoriya obliviousness can get.

He fully believes All Might is a hero misinterpreted by the media. No, your honor, that city and that dead villain were like that when he got there.

Bakugou pinches his cheeks and he’s shaking like a tiny, angry dog. “I’m this fucking close. THAT MOTHERFUCKER PUT 20 HEROES IN THE HOSPITAL!”

“If bad! Why give me autograph?!”

“I’m blowing us both up I swear to god.”

To be fair, All Might (All Smite?) does evacuate every area before a battle, is nice to retail workers, and refuses to fight LITERAL TEENAGERS. Homelander could never.

“Alright, young Midoriya, after a 6 months of grueling and slightly unsafe training, you’re finally ready. You’re prepared to be the number one villain!”

“…VILLAIN?!” Izuku screeches, expression sinking with dread, “You were training me to be a villain?!”

Toshinori wants to rip his hair out. “What did you think I was training you for, you half boiled broccoli?!”

“To be a hero like you!”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Izuku, with the biggest, saddest, wettest eyes in the world looks up to Toshi, and Jesus, he understands Nana. “But I love you. You can’t be bad.”

“…Of course I’m not bad. This was just another mere test, my boy! And you passed, as expected.“

He’s gonna suffer through the villain redemption program if it means Izuku keeps smiling like that.

“Alright, fuckmuppets, let’s get this over with.”

Mic is enraged, “YOU PUT MY HUSBAND IN THE HOSPITAL?”

“Womp womp. Do you prefer morgue?”

Bakugou almost rips off the door to the teacher’s office, “YOU MADE MY BOYFRIEND EAT YOUR HAIR?”

God, He hates redemption arcs.

[jiangyanlissidepiece]

(POV: little Ning Yingying overhears the peak lords gossiping about her Baba and corrects them!!)

—

“What?” Ning Yingying blurted out before she could stop herself, pure confusion on her face. “Shizun doesn’t sleep with women!”

Several faces blanched, and Yue Qingyuan rapidly began to look constipated at her bluntness.

“Oh honey,” Qi Qingqi said, pitying. “You shouldn’t even be hearing about this.”

Ning Yingying shrugged off the hand the older cultivator placed on her shoulder, now even more upset. “He doesn’t sleep with my aunties. That would be weird. And gross.”

“Your aunties…?” Mu Qingfang’s eyes cleared. It looked like he was rapidly putting things together in his mind.

“Your aunties are at the Warm Red Pavillion?” Qi Qingqi seemed stuck on that fact, eyebrows raised high.

“Yes!” She tried not to stomp her foot. Just because Baba didn’t mind when she acted childish, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t. “Why else would he go and visit there?”

Wei Qingwei coughed awkwardly. “Well, I mean…”

Qi Qingqi stomped on his foot, and he let out an unmanly screech.

“Why do your aunties live at the Warm Red Pavillion?” Qi Qingqi asked carefully, eyes narrowed.

“Ba—Shizun says it’s because he doesn’t have enough money to pay for them to leave.” The little girl looks sad, but then she brightens up again like a flower in the sun. “But he says he’s getting there, so they might leave soon!”

“Oh.” Shang Qinghua said, looking paler than usual. “Well that’s fine, then.”

“Did you almost call him something else?” Asked a female peak lord who Ning Yingying didn’t recognize.

“Baba says I can’t call him Baba in public…” Ning Yingying informed them glumly. “Because people might think he didn’t adopt me. And that they might treat me differently. I think that’s kinda stupid, though, but don’t tell him I said that…”

Yue Qingyuan put a hand over his entire face, and groaned.

[hhhhleb]

getting to know each other

they got stuck in the Void(?) for an indefinite period of time…without Ink's brush and vials.. they have nothing to do but talk i guess..(more thoughts in tags)

related to this thing with sci and this red ink thing

[varpusvaras]

Fox had never really interacted with children before.

There had not been any time or opportunities for him to interact with the younger troopers on Kamino. They were all divided into their respective age groups, and then further by their ranks in training, so Fox had been surrounded only by his immediate peers for the first decade of his life. He had seen glimpses of the younger clones, of course, through the windows of the training rooms and passing by him on the hallways every now and then.

There were a lot more children on Coruscant, and Fox had even talked to many by now, but they had been fleeting moments as well. Just a few words here and there. The longest conversation he had ever had before this had been with the younger Jedi, who always greeted him and his troopers enthusiastically whenever they happened to be near the Temple. The young ones were nice enough, and always asked him so many questions, but still, there had always been a very distinct barrier between him and then. Never able to get too close, never able to from anything meaningful, not like some of his brothers with Padawans did.

All in all, Fox had never really thought that kids would in any way be an important part of his life, ever. It wasn't like he was ever going to have his own, after all. Some of his brothers enjoyed that sort of thought, having a family and all of that after the war was over, but Fox had always been a realist. The chances of the majority of them surviving long enough for any of that were slim, and even though they were slightly higher for the clones stationed on Coruscant, Fox wasn't betting on any of them. He was a soldier, and a Commander at that. He always had to be ready to die for the Republic at a moments notice. There was no room for dreaming about the non-existent future.

So, no, Fox had never imagined himself as a father, nor had he ever had any allusions that he would even be any good at it. Children were tiny and fragile in a way that he had never been and expected and needed things Fox had never received while growing up, and he had no delusions about being able to provide something he had no experience on to someone else.

All of this was going through his head as he clicked on yet another hair-braiding tutorial and started watching.

The Twi'lek on the screen made it look absurdly easy for someone who didn't even have hair. Was this some innane ability that all Nat-borns possessed? That didn't seem correct, but Fox wasn't sure what else it would be. He didn't have clumsy hands, quite the opposite, but this all seemed very complicated, and from the way Leia had asked him to do it, Fox had the distinct feeling that there were expectations placed on him about it.

Had his other future self done this too? Stared at one tutorial after another and practiced until it came as a second nature to him? So much so that Leia now held some sort of presumption about Fox's skills on the matter? If so, Fox cursed him to the deepest pits on Coruscant's lowest levels. Fox already had enough expectations placed upon him. He didn't need this as well.

He wasn't complaining out loud, no. This was not on Leia, after all, this was on Fox's dumb other future self who had decided that it was a good idea to play house with people who were absolutely, definitely, irrevocably way out of Fox's league. Well, what Fox had always been was an chronic overachiever, so maybe it all had been inevitable in some sort of twisted way, and had now led to Fox sitting in his office and staring at yet another tutorial. Leia was thankfully still content in playing games on Fox's datapads, as she had been for a better part of two hours by now. Were children supposed to be spending that much time staring at screens? Fox was pretty sure that he had heard one of the Senator's complaining about their children having too much screen time and being all whiny because of it. Fox didn't know. He had spent the majority of his life staring at screens. Well, the other future Fox could only blame himself for it all, since he had been the one who had decided to have a kid and learned to braid hair in the first place.

Fox watched the tutorial to the end, and then rewinded it a couple of times more. This one didn't look too complicated. He could do it. It was just hair.

"Alright", he said. Leia snapped her eyes up from the pad to him. "Come here, let's try it."

He didn't need to tell her twice. Leia hopped down from the couch immediately and ran to him, leaning against the edge of his chair in a very distinctly practised way. Okay. Fox could do this. It's just hair.

Leia had very soft and very long hair. The military-graded soap that Fox had had to give her had not yet scrubbed away all the nice products that she undoubtedly had been using so far, unless she just happened to have very soft hair naturally. Maybe that was just a thing. She was a princess, after all. Fox could imagine a princess just having hair like this.

Right. Divide to two parts. Easier to work with when you have less hair at once in your hands. That was easy. Tie up the half of the hair you aren't braiding yet. Easy as well. Then start from the top of the head, from the right, over, then left, over, bring more hair into it as you go. Right, over, left, over, right, over, left, over. Do not get distracted and mess it up. Right, over, left, over, right, over, left, over. Bring more hair into it as you go. Remember to keep it equally tight all the way. Tie up firmly at the end and fluff it up a little, like so. Then take the other side and try to make it as symmetrical as possible. Start from the top of the head, from the left, over, then right, over, bring more hair into it as you go. Left, over, right, over, left, over, right, over. Tie up, fluff it up a little.

Fox felt like he had held his breath the entire time. To Leia's credit, she had stood completely still the entire time, not complaining about Fox pulling at her hair maybe a bit too tight even once. Fox was sure that he had pulled her hair a bit too tight a few times. Not that he had meant to, but still.

It wasn't like he had been made for this.

"There", he said, as he had finished adjusting the hairtie on the second braid. He did not ask her what she thought. Fox could very much see all the places where he had left the braid a bit too loose and where he had not managed to pull all of the strands properly into it and where they were now sticking out. At least he had made two braids, and he had tried to tie them up tight enough so they would last more than ten minutes.

Leia straightened her back, and very carefully, she ran her hands over the braids, before standing up on her toes to see her reflection on one of the screens on Fox's desk. Fox braced himself a little, almost on reflex. They were just two braids, and not very neat ones at that. He had seen so many ways to braid hair in much more complex and beautiful ways that she probably expected from him, rather than the ones Fox had managed to construct on her head. She was a princess, after all, and princesses were supposed to get all of the best things in the Galaxy.

Not whatever mess Fox was capable of.

He watched as Leia turned her head a bit to see her hair better from the reflection, and then how her face split into a bright, toothy grin.

"Thank you Buir!" She turned around, and before Fox could say anything, she had climbed halfway onto his chair and wrapped her arms around his middle as far as she could reach. "Can I play a little more?"

"Uh", Fox tried to figure out how to speak with his suddenly very uncooperative tongue. "Sure. Just a little more."

"Okay!" Just like that, she was off again, skipping across the room back to the couch, her braids bouncing up and down with every step, and she jumped onto the couch and pulled the datapad back on her lap. She looked up at him one more time, and grinned at him again, before going back to whatever game she had been playing before.

Fox looked at her for a moment longer as she played. She was wiggling her feet happily as she did so, like this was all up to the bar she had come to expect in her life until now. As if Fox had managed to do something correct, just like her actual parents.

Fox swallowed, and turned back to his work. His heart was beating very loudly for something so little.

He didn't hate it.

[newkatzkafe2023]

I would *love* to see the genderbent version of the Baby Fever / "Impregnate me now!" post. Depending on the Monkey, it could be the Queen herself rather than the S/O asking for a baby

Ohhhhhhhhhh I agree on the queen part, yes indeed😁😁😁

(Lmk Wukong) You have been giving her baby fever for a long time, for years you had tended to no only the baby monkeys FFM but also to Mk, Mei and for some reason Redson. Your like another father to them, a scary one but well not as scary as pigsy but your Definitely much stricter then him as you push Mk a bit to do better things Mostly for her own good. One day she and Mk lost you at that Mall, and the found you comforting a crying girl who got lost from her mother. She cried and hid her face in your chest, and you wrapped you jacket around her she was immediately comforted as she called you baba feeling safe with you while you spoke with mall security. Yup that was the final straw..........

(Wukong) Mk their's something I need to tell My husband

Back At FFM

(Wukong) IMPREGNATE ME AT ONCE!!!!!!

(Male Y/n)HUUUUHHHH?!?!?!?!?😳😳😳🥵🥵🥵

(NR Wukong) I doubt she would get baby fever on the fly, but you do things that may build up to it. Like it's one thing for you to take Care of Li as you treat her like a daughter and treating Her boyfriend Stu like a son. What stranger is that you do the same for Their friends as well, even spoiled rich girl Ao bing wasn't safe from your fathering. Wukong finally asked what has gotten into you lately, that's when you told her that you wanted a baby cub. You told her, when a lost boy had mistaken you as his father and even when you found his real father, he still wouldn't stop calling you baba and you felt strange ever since😣. Wukong jaw dropped her husband got baby fever and he doesn't even know, well then...........

(Wukong) F*CK ME!!!!!!🤤🥵

(Male y/n)...........................Now I normally would but I feel like it's different this time😳😦

(HIB Wukong) Ohhhhhhhhhh boi you make her ovaries explode every second of every day. I mean, they did that when she first met you, and you kept doing that now. You take care of silly boy the most making sure he stays out of trouble, and make sure to groom Luier and take care of her hair. When Wukong saw that she was down for the count, then you delt the final blow when you were called baba by both the kids and some other children in the village who saw you as a father figure. Wukong couldn't take it anymore

(Wukong) cubs, cubs, Cubs CUBS!!!!! I WANT MORE CUBS🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵

(Male y/n) WUKONG PLEASE WE'RE IN PUBLIC!!!!!😣😳

(MKR Wukong) She would never know she had baby fever until its to late for her, like it's was one thing for fruity to address you as baba and you don't have an opinion on it. Then she sees it everywhere you guys go together, whether it be a small boy who needs his ball back from a tree, or a little girl who sad that her plushie ripped and you sat there and sew it back to together. Then what shocked Wukong was how you got lots of rebellious teenagers to open up and vent alot easier then the monk and even their own parents did. Wukong was admittedly impressed with your quirks, but the blow was a mother struggling with her baby and you took the baby boy from her and he immediately stopped crying as you spoke sofly to him.

(Wukong) I.....I think I wanna baby😳😳😳

(Male Y/n) Yeah, I'll do that in a minute hun🙄😒😑

(Netflix Wukong) Now I see her baby fever being caused by her lack their of a family growing up😥 She was all alone for most of her youth until you made it better. Well then she met dragon king, and Lin and finally you, the village weirdo although you were completely unorthodox you were kind, patient and supportive. You never judged her and for that she fell in love with you, but lately she's been feeling a bit hollow like something is missing until she saw what it was. You were playing with the village children, from making up games, and drawing and making snacks for them. Wukong eyes Widened at the care you give to them, and so it clicked she knew what was missing.

(Wukong) Y/n...I want a baby🥺

(Male y/n) ABOUT TIME I wasn't doing all the fatherly stuff for NO reason😑😠

(BMW Wukong) You were always quite rough around the edges and that's what she like about you, but what she didn't know what about your baby fever. It was a bit before she met you and you were hired to watch over a celestials child for a few days, and you turned out to be more of a father then the girls really that which broke your heart then you met your wife. You never brought it up to her in fear of you would come off as pressuring her, but your wife was smarter and more aware then you thought.

(Wukong) Ohhhhhhhhhh Y/n, how do you feel about cubs

(Male Y/n) I would like that, but I hope you know their might be more than one at the first try😐😐😐

(Wukong)..........what do you mean by that😳😳😳😳😳

(Destined one) Ok, so you were acting strange lately. She's been noticing how you like to lay on her stomach at all times while slightly whimpering. She felt your hollow feelings and mild depression and it's been going on for a while. When the destined one asked what was wrong, you just told her that something was missing. That when you and your wife had separate experiences, she had saved a young child from another demon who wanted to eat her, and the little clung on to her for safety while in the village you had tended to a crying little girl who scraped her knees and you put a Bandage on it making her smile and you both figured out what was missing.

(Destined one) IMPREGNATE ME AT ONCE!!!😫😫😫

(Male Y/n) I WANNA A BABY MONKEY CUB!!!!!!🤩🤩🤩

(Both) WAIT REALLY?!?!?!?😳😳😳

FEEL FREE TO REBLOG

[clydimos]

Does Lil Petey exist in the wild west au?

Yes!!! He’s an orphan that looks eerily similar to Petey so lil’ peteys like “ ur my dad now!!!!! “ and wont leave him alone

[journey-to-the-attic]

au where this was how ik and diavolo met for the first time when she was like seven

[angelxd-3303]

Could you redraw this but with the Bros? Please it would be so damn funny- 😭

It actually started with the Amazon box meme, then I remembered this ask and emerged from my trance to see this.

[nomsfaultau]

The Lambs Wolves Wear!Philza and Gendered Horror

This is an essay detailing my thoughts on gendered horror in my fic The Lambs Wolves Wear, wherein Philza’s children are replaced by monsters and he’s forced to maintain the mask of a family to survive. And I’d just like to put a disclaimer for tumblr “reading comprehension” dot com that I’m not a raging misogynist that believes men and women are separate species with no experience overlap, but instead observing societal expectations.

Gendered horror is about who is allowed to experience fear. The archetypical example being a final girl, as women are allowed to be emotional and scared and crying when being murdered, but men are often not afforded that. Because of societal pressure to repress their emotions, men are allowed fear but not allowed to show it. Furthermore, gendered horror is about what types of fears are narratively allowed to be done to different genders. This is blatant in topics like sexual violence, but it goes far deeper into the themes horror explored through different genders. Thus, I see merit in examining the types of horror Philza experiences in The Lambs Wolves Wear through a gendered lens, particularly as it pertains to his role as a father. This essay is going to be centered on the traditional Western paradigm of fathers as bread winners/protectors and mothers as nurturers/homekeepers, and how that pertains to gendered horror.

At the start of the story, Philza does not fall cleanly into the false societal dichotomy of father/mother roles. He can’t, given his status as a single parent, forced to provide both physically and emotionally, and excelling at both. Thus, he is in a position to explore horror from both the roles of father and mother within their societal archetypes.

Philza’s story is about the horror of failing to be a father.

Imbedded within the very premise of The Lambs Wolves Wear is Philza’s failure as a father to protect his family from external threats. He has already lost. He could not prevent his children from being taken, either through violence or threat thereof. Finding himself within the archetype of a vengeance hero with a classic slaughtered family, Philza naturally seeks violent retribution as is expected of him. However, it is not something he can deliver. Every second is a constant pounding reminder that he’s both too weak to protect his family and too weak to avenge them. Even worse, as time goes on he finds it increasingly difficult to even want to fulfill this expected violence in a deep betrayal of his missive to protect. Not only is he physically weak, but morally so as well. It’s an incredibly emasculating experience for him.

Second, as the damage the monsters inflict mounts, Philza loses the ability to provide sustenance to his family due to the razed cropland and slaughtered livestock. He is cut off from his work and left without a way to fulfill his family’s needs. This represents a second failure in protecting his family, albeit from a non physical threat. This aspect of fatherhood he weaponizes against the monsters, admitting his insecurities to manipulate them. It is the only grief that Philza is actually allowed to express, becoming an outlet for some of his fear. But not much, because men are expected to be unwavering and shoulder the responsibility without appearing weak. As a father he is not meant to be scared. But Philza spends the entire story so deeply, harrowingly afraid. This is the only place he succeeds as a father, in suppressing his emotions so others don’t know how badly he’s doing.

Still, Philza ultimately fails his duties as a father, unable to provide safety, physical needs, or vengeance.

Philza’s story is about the horror of being a mother.

First, establishing he fills an archetypal female role. While Philza outwardly suppresses emotional displays of fear as is expected from him, as the reader we’re privy to his harrowing terror and imposing sense of helplessness, which means from a narrative standpoint he’s still failing to hide his emotions. This emotional vulnerability is more permitted with women. Next put a check mark next to physical weakness compared to giant hellbeasts and undead armies. While male weakness compared to a foe is often explored given the aforementioned duties of protection, as a man Philza is still expected to try to fight back. He doesn’t. This emphasizes his powerlessness. And lastly, he is expected to preform massive amounts of emotional labor and other duties associated with motherhood. So, he is well positioned to explore certain (societal) aspects of female horror (though obviously not all).

The sole thing Philza can provide is emotional comfort, which falls within the traditional motherly role of nurturer. It becomes his only use, stripped of independence from the loss of his livelihood and the strict expectation that he will be a good parent (or else). He is put on a pedestal, expected to have no flaws, to never get angry or frustrated or overwhelmed, to have desires or ambitions outside of a motherly role. The wants of his “children” always comes first, even when it’s destroying him by violating what he needs. His only use is as a mother, and so he must be a perfect one or die. This aligns heavily with classic females roles in fiction (Being thus: Mother, damsel, whore, witch). Mothers in fiction are typically defined exclusively by what they provide for their far more important children, or what they fail to provide through their death. They are not people outside of their defined role. Philza is allowed no identity outside of nurturer.

Where once Philza had a role as a breadwinner, he is quickly stripped of that work, his domain becoming the household. He cannot leave, because why would he need to? That would get in the way of always being present and emotionally available to help his “children”. This cuts Philza off both from his community and from independence, as he is now reliant on the “children” to bring in food and water. Furthermore, the “children” are questionable providers yet Philza doesn’t have any other means of securing resources. This reflects the financial dependence that many women have been trapped in due to societal constraints limiting/forbidding jobs, bank accounts, being single/familyless. With no other option of survival, Philza has to pretend to be in love or be destitute (or murdered). The domestic abuse he experiences is endured because he is utterly dependent on the “people” abusing him, much like many, many, many women. And even should he escape, Philza was a subsistence farmer dependent upon his land, now the territory of the “children”. Razed as it is, it’s still the only means of survival he knew before he was forced to become a stay at home dad. So he stays. Home is a prison, but it is the only way he can survive.

Philza is forced to be responsible for the emotional state of others at the cost of his own mental health, and is expected to be perfect and exclusively dedicated to nurturing. He is controlled through dependence, isolation, the thin veneer of a family unit, and physical intimidation/abuse, which are themes deeply related to the horror of motherhood.

Closing thoughts:

In general media, there is a trend I’ve noticed in one gender adopting the role of another, specifically not in a trans context. A woman adopting a man’s role is empowerment. This is the marvel action girl heroes, the girlbosses, the ‘I learned to fight from my brothers’. But a man adopting a woman’s role is horror. It is the fear of the oppressor that they could be oppressed. Male horror is becoming dependent, the assumption dependence is inherently horrific because it can be abused so readily. And so in male horror, being a final girl is not just the horror of the experience, but of physical and EMOTIONAL weakness. Becoming a final girl -becoming a girl- is an unimaginable horror. If and only if you define womanhood as weak, crying, fragile, dependent, and identity-less outside their singular archetypal role.

The Lambs the Wolves Wear concerns itself with exploring those power inversions, a parent being abused by children, a father discovering the horror of motherhood. And. Well obviously I’m trans, so the message isn’t preventing said gender role transitions (well perhaps dismantling the roles into something healthy each individual decides but! Not the essay for that!). Similarly, children become caretakers for their elderly parents, or become parents themselves. It is a hierarchy that already naturally subverts itself. The horror is not from change, it is from power and lack thereof.

Crucially, as Philza desperately reaches for the vengeance hero archetype, we will likewise explore the horror of trying to maintain the man>woman and parent>child power hierarchy/expectations. The question becomes not forbidding these dynamic shifts, but how to facilitate them. How to REMOVE the horror, remove the abuse of said power dynamics both in their status quo and in their subversions.

So yeah. the gendered horror of Philza Minecraft, everyone.

[prosperdemeter2]

Fuck it Friday - neighbors!AU

Coming soon 😉 @mattsire @wildlife4life

“Chris,” Eddie called out once they were inside. “Company.”  “Patty!” Chris cheered when he saw the baby in his father’s arms. “Daddy, you met Patty!”  Pat started to cry. She was awfully quiet which was… disconcerting considering babies weren’t usually quiet. Apartment 3B looked crushed by the start of it, and he swept her perfectly out of Eddie’s arms and into his own, “Oh, baby girl, I know,” he soothed. “You don’t feel good, I’m so sorry.”  “Oh no,” Christopher empathized from the table. “Is Patty sick?” “Think so, bud.” Eddie answered and pushed Apartment 3B towards his couch. “Sit.”  “Bossy.” Apartment 3B muttered, a trace of humor in his eyes.  “You got in at the same time I did.” Eddie reminded him pointlessly and waited until he was seated to grab the in-ear thermometer from under the kitchen sink. “Okay,” Eddie shook it and turned it on, waiting for the screen to light up before placing it softly in Pat’s ear as she breathed harshly against her father’s chest. “Has she managed to eat anything?”  “Yeah,” Apartment 3B reached up a hand to hold the thermometer in place. “I thought she was teething at first, but she’s three months old, you know? Pretty early for that to start.”  “Mm,” Eddie hummed and settled on the coffee table. “Not always. Did you check her gums?”  “Yeah,” Apartment 3B defended. “I’m a paramedic, man, I’ve checked everything I could think of.”  Eddie blinked, “Paramedic?”  “Yeah.” Apartment 3B shrugged. “Well, no, not technically, since I haven’t passed the certification yet, but I’m working on it, you know? And I’m out of my probationary year so I kind of know what I’m doing? I could call Hen but no one at the station really knows about Pat yet and I don’t really want to explain to them that they were right, you know?”  “No?”  “I’m not just this irresponsible guy, right?” Obviously, since the guy was a paramedic or, at least, a firefighter. And here Eddie had been… judging him for coming home late from work like Eddie wasn’t doing the same thing. “It’s not my fault that Abby had her, named her, and left without telling me she was pregnant.”  “This is so much information to be getting before I’ve even finished a cup of coffee.” The thermometer beeped. 99. “She might have an ear infection.”  “I don’t know how to give a baby antibiotics.”  “Luckily, they tend to clear themselves up.” Eddie said with a laugh. “And a warm compress might just help ease the discomfort.” He stood up, wincing as his knees cracked and left the thermometer on the table. In the kitchen, Christopher was watching them with a concerned crease to his brow, his glasses slipping down his nose. “Patty’s fine, bud. Just a little sick.”  Chris chewed on his lip. “Is Buck okay?” He asked when Eddie turned on the faucet and grabbed a clean washcloth to hold under the hot water tap.  “Buck?” Eddie echoed, glanced at his son and then over at Apartment 3B. Pat-Patty and Buck. “Yeah, bud, he’s just worried.”  “You get really worried when I’m sick.” Chris said slowly.  Every good parent should. “Yeah.” Eddie agreed and rested his hip on the counter as the water heated up. “How often do you see Buck and Patty?”  “They’re friends with Carla.” Chris explained with a shrug. “They’re nice. Buck’s a firefighter.”  “You don’t talk about them.”  Chris shrugged again, “I don’t tell you about Carla’s boyfriend either.”  “Carla has a boyfriend?”  Christopher flushed, “You didn’t hear it from me.” 

[witchofthesouls]

Imagining Tarn on a high-tech Zoom meeting with three tiny newsparks in onesies, like mewling, bundled kittens, tucked under his chin gives me life.

[succucrazy]

Alastor trying to teach Louise to fish. And by teach I mean just letting her wing it and hope for the best until she figures it out

[sincerely-sofie]

Twig: Hey Ark, when does a joke become a dad joke? When it's apparent!

Ark: ...

Twig: I adopted a litten.

Litten is just out here happily collecting additions to his found family and Darkrai has a heart attack when Twig brings him home to have a hot meal before the kid prances off to adventure some more.

This is also bringing to my attention the possibility of these two adopting an orphan or two and my brain is going at light-speed thinking about it.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

what would megumi’s life have been if he was actually raised by the zenin from day one? like either gojo lost the custody battle or they were able to scoop him up before gojo ever reached them. i doubt they would want to keep tsumiki with them so she’s not there for little baby megs.

i think it would be really cool to see a zenin raised megumi interacting with his fellow classmates when he attends the school, not to mention the contrast between him and gojo. like on paper they both should have gotten the same treatment-being pampered and spoiled rotten but we also know that the zenin think that hurting little kids makes them stronger so it would be super interesting to see megumi realise that the stuff that happened to him wasn’t normal and for gojo to have a guilt trip bc he wasn’t able to help megumi when he needed someone to help him the most.

So I have a fanfic that I’ve half written (no idea if I’ll ever finish it—I’d love to, it’s just hard to find the time) about EXACTLY THAT that I talked about in this post for an ask game.

That being said, that entire thing happens from Tsumiki’s perspective, and I agree with you—I don’t think the Zenin would have ever actually taken her too. They don’t want her. She’s not Zenin. She’s not a sorcerer. They only bought Megumi. For the most part, Megumi is absent from that post, and you asked about Megumi. So this is what I think would happen on Megumi's side of that post I linked.

It comes down to two things:

1. He is never, ever happy with the Zenin.

2. He never lets go of his sister.

Megumi’s old enough to remember Tsumiki when the Zenin take him away. He's old enough to love her. And I think that Megumi loves very quietly, but he also loves very violently. He wouldn't let his sister hold his hand on the walk to school, but he would sacrifice himself for her future.

I think the Zenin took him from his sister, and I think he kicked and screamed and wasn't strong enough. I think they thought he would forget her eventually.

And then I think he bit most of the Zenin Clan.

At the end of the day, what Megumi wanted was the one thing the Zenin were not willing to give him. They were never like the Gojo clan, they were never going to pamper him, but there are a great many things in this world that they would give the Ten Shadows finally returned to them. But they would not give him a non-sorcerer, non-Zenin sister who would only be a weakness to him. They refused to let him have any contact with his sister, and that was the source of a lot of what soured.

Any Megumi that was taken in by the Zenin would have been taken in to Naobito's household directly. He would be announced as the one who finally inherited their most cherished technique, and he would be declared heir, and the Zenin would call him beloved for it.

They would keep him in a room that was large and empty and almost always dark, and he wouldn't be allowed to decide when he slept or woke, and the door would always be locked from the outside. They would give him a wardrobe of expensive clothes that he hated, and he would never get to pick which of them he wore.

Megumi would hate them. He would hate all of them.

He's just not the type to be comfortable with or enjoy the adoration of others--especially when it's not backed up by genuine love. Megumi is someone who very much values sincerity and depth to emotion--it's one of the reasons why he seems to respect Yuuji so much. Yuuji is a good person who follows through with what he says. He's not just going to talk about wanting to save people--he's there making the sacrifices as he does it.

The Zenin do not actually love him. And he knows it. He's experienced love before, and this isn't it.

They love the idea of him. The fantasy of him that lives in their heads. He has no interest in being their little god prince to contend with the Gojo's own. He knows who he is, and it's not this. He wants to go home. He wants to find his sister again. He doesn't want to do this anymore.

And I think that's a feeling Megumi never escape: he just didn't want to do this anymore.

Megumi would feel like a bug pinned beneath glass in the Zenin compound. He would constantly have people managing him--when he ate, what he ate, what he wore, when he slept, when he woke, when he trained, what he did. Having to become a jujutsu sorcerer signified an inherent loss of control, but it's nothing compared to the sheer objectification that he goes through when the Zenin have exclusive control over him.

He has no power of what clothes he wears. How his hair is styled. His schedule, his diet, the people he speaks too--he's suffocating and the Zenin are just increasing pressure on him.

I don't think Gojo ever thought that would be Megumi's life.

We’re gonna just have this imagining exist in the same world as the Tsumiki centric fic described in the linked post, and in that, the reason why Gojo never took him in was because he didn’t know Megumi had a sister. He showed up, saw the divine dogs, realized Megumi had the Ten Shadows, and decided he couldn’t do this. He was a mess. He was grieving Suguru and Haibara. Megumi looked just like the man who killed Riko, and apparently inherited the fucking Ten Shadows of all the goddamn things. The Zenin would lose their shit, and Gojo didn’t have the energy to fight and told himself he didn’t need to, because if Megumi was the Ten Shadows he’d be cared for like a prince with the Zenin. He turned around and left and spent the rest of his life with Megumi in the back of his mind, always nagging him with whether he made the right decision. It wasn’t until Maki got there and made a few worrisome references to Megumi's standard of living that he started to really worry that he had made the wrong one, and it wasn't until he found out about Tsumiki that he knew it was the wrong decision.

It's like this: The Zenin hurt Megumi in every world.

It would be bad no matter what, but it really gets bad because Megumi refuses to stop trying to get back to Tsumiki. She's his sister. They didn't have anyone or anything in this world, but they had each other, and he couldn't let these people just take her away. He’s feral about it. He refuses to fit the mold they keep trying to cram him in. He’s trying to scale the walls to escape. He’s increasingly desperate and angry and the Zenin are getting more and more frustrated the longer he fights them. He’s the heir to the clan, and he can’t stop trying to leave it to get back to some random girl who isn’t his real sister and isn’t someone they’ll ever allow him to have.

It gets bad.

They put him under increasingly strict levels of control. He’s constantly being trained, which means he's constantly being hurt. He’s not allowed to speak to anyone without the clan head’s approval. He is under absolutely constant guard after he manages to get over the wall and halfway to his old neighborhood before they catch him again. Tsumiki’s name is not allowed to be said aloud, or his old name. He forgets his name used to be Fushiguro, but he doesn’t forget Tsumiki. He doesn’t let himself.

I think it escalates until it hits a breaking point. Megumi becomes increasingly self-destructive and non-responsive to everything they try. They push him to extremes that start risking permanent damage.

I think Megumi would try to hurt himself, eventually.

He wouldn't be in his right mind. He's in the most shit situation possible. He's undergoing pretty severe abuse. He'd be at the end of his rope from the lack of control over his own life, and he'd be spiteful as hell towards the Zenin. And the only thing he has to hurt them with is himself.

As a character, Megumi has always considered his own sacrifice as an acceptable means to the end of getting back at someone. Mahoraga, intrinsically, requires him killing himself as a way of killing someone else. He'd hurt himself if it was the only way he had of hurting them.

Naobito would cover it up. He'd never, ever want the rest of the clan to find out that it happened. It was already bad enough that Megumi openly hated them--he couldn't have the Zenin seeing any vulnerability in what was meant to be their most powerful member. He'd put Megumi in total lockdown until he could make it all go away.

Then they'd make a deal.

A binding vow. Megumi could never purposefully hurt himself again. He could never again try to leverage his own safety against the clan.

And in exchange, Tsumiki would be taken care of.

The last time Megumi saw his sister, she was on a sinking ship. They were running out of food, money, options--he doesn't know if she even has food anymore. He doesn't know if she lost the apartment or if there's still running water.

They're not letting him see her. But they are letting him take care of her. He can sacrifice another piece of control over himself, and she'll never have to worry about money again. They'll pay for her housing, her food, her education, for her every desire for as long as she lives. The trust the Zenin set up for her will be a generous one, and it will be managed meticulously by a trustee who can make sure she'll be provided for until she's old and grey. And Naobito will vow to never hurt her or send someone else to hurt her. She'll be safe. She'll be taken care of.

Megumi makes the deal.

In the end, the deal's what sort of breaks him.

Because he doesn't promise to stop looking for her, but the Zenin manage to make it a part of the terms anyway. When they approach Tsumiki's mother with the offer to be her family's beneficiary, they include a requirement that Tsumiki be moved to another city entirely with no forwarding address given. She needs to be somewhere that Megumi can never find her again.

The Zenin keep the old apartment. They pay the rent every month. And the next time Megumi manages to make it off compound, they let him make it all the way there before dragging him home. They let him see the empty apartment with all its empty rooms.

Naobito wants him to know that Tsumiki's gone. He wants him to know that he'll never find her again.

He tries to run a few more times after that, but he never makes it very far. He doesn't have anywhere to go.

In the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki, just once. She's on a class trip. He's on one of his very few and far between allowed excursions off the compound grounds, and he sees her in the crowd and recognizes her, and he ducks away from his escort before anyone can stop him.

She remembers him. He didn't think she would do that.

She tries to save him. He didn't think she would do that either.

She still loves him. And he was always too afraid to hope she would do that.

It goes the same way it did the first time. There's a car, and the Zenin shove him in it. She's on the outside, and he's trapped within, and he wishes she didn't scream so loudly when it happens. The sound never seems to leave his dreams.

His sister still loves him. Naoya hits him in the back of the head. He wakes up, and it was like she was never there at all.

But they hit him harder, after. Like they're trying to beat the memory of her out of him. He has even less freedom, when he already had next to none at all.

But he still has a sister. He has a place to go that isn't here. He just has to figure out where that is.

He wouldn't really have anyone in the Zenin clan. Most people are just... weird about him. Naoya's violently abusive. Naobito's weird and violently abusive. Everyone wants him to be someone he's not.

Maki would be his favorite.

He doesn't care about whether she's got cursed energy--his sister didn't have any. And she's obviously strong. She doesn't treat him like a divine blessing or try to force him to act a certain way. I think they would have genuinely liked each other, but kept each other at a distance. They're both trapped in an abusive situation and keep themselves safe by keeping everyone else at arm's length.

He would have been happy to see her get out, though. He would have told her that she could have his spot as heir or head or whatever when she came back if she wanted it. She would have told him that if he ever got out... well, fuck it. They could be something then. Family. Whatever the fuck they weren't allowed to be here.

She would have told him she's sorry, and she would have meant it. The only one she she regretted more than Megumi was Maki. He would have told her not to be, that if she dared to be sorry for getting out that he would never forgive her, and he would have meant that too.

I think his relationship with his own techinque would be very different in a world where the Zenin raised him. In canon, his issue is that he doesn't view himself as someone who could be powerful or win in the long run, but in this world, all he ever hears is how powerful he is. Pride of the fucking Zenin. The most powerful of them in centuries. Meant to rival Gojo fucking Satoru himself.

I think his real issue would be controlling it.

His technique would be a source of negative associations for him. It's the reason why the Zenin took him away. Most of his interactions with it have involved getting beaten and hurt by either his family or a high-level curse they shoved him in front of. I think he'd have a lot more firepower under his belt than at the start of canon, but he'd have less of a fine tuned control over it.

He lost control over his own life because of his shadows. It think that would manifest in struggling to control his own shikigami at times. he's not as in-sync with them as he is in canon.

Eventually, he'd go to Jujutsu High. He would be the only one in the first year class at the beginning, just like in canon. And he'd finally meet Gojo Satoru, the man he's supposed to topple.

He looks at Megumi really goddamn weird.

He's... enthusiastic. About. Teaching. He guesses. And constantly asking prying questions about the Zenin, but not in the sort of way he'd expect from a rival. In the sort of way he'd expect from someone concerned about him. Which is stupid. And annoying. And weird. He keeps a distance from everyone. They've all heard about the Zenin clan heir, and he has no interest in having to fit or break whatever mold they've already cast him in. He's better off on his own.

Maki's there. She's cordial where other people can see it, and in private, she takes care of him in a way that's terrifyingly close to familial. He's not sure if he likes it. He's not Mai, and she's not Tsumiki, and they both want someone they can't have.

She isn't sorry she left. She is sorry she left him. He can hate her for it all he goddamn pleases.

Of course, if this is in the same world as the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki again. He finds her in Sendai.

He gets to keep her, this time.

Gojo Satoru, of all the goddamn people, intervenes and becomes his sister's benefactor. It's super fucking weird. He won't stop looking at Megumi strangely. He won't stop insisting that he didn't know he had a sister, like that matters.

That would sort of be the first time in a long time that life actually gets better for Megumi.

I think he would ask to go by Fushiguro again, once he asks Tsumiki what his name used to be. He'd ask her if she minded it, him taking the name again, and he'd ask the rest of the school to call him Fushiguro instead of Zenin.

Predictably enough, Naobito loses his shit when he finds out, but it's not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as he thinks it is? Because Gojo intervenes.

Gojo keeps intervening.

It drives Megumi nuts, because if anyone was supposed to hate him, it was this guy. If anyone was supposed to be against him, it was this guy. This is the guy he was supposed to rival. This is the guy who killed his shitheel bio dad.

Gojo's just... good to him. He keeps him safe. He keeps him safe from his own goddamn family, and that's--no one's ever done that. No one's ever protected him from the Zenin.

The Zenin try to remove him from the Tokyo campus and move him to Kyoto the second they find out Tsumiki's there, and Gojo just... says no. It causes an uproar, and he doesn't fucking budge. It's treading dangerously close to him kidnapping the Zenin clan heir, his refusal to let them remove him from the Tokyo campus, and he doesn't care about whatever problems it causes him.

Megumi's his student. He doesn't want to leave. So Gojo won't let them take him.

He personally goes to Kyoto and collects him, the one time the Zenin force him into a car and move him when Gojo's off on a mission. He tells the higher ups to get fucked. He changes Megumi's student I.D. to read Fushiguro, and he causes problems for Yaga and the assistants until they start calling him Fushiguro as well.

Megumi's different with the other students once his sister is there.

He's more connected with them. He becomes best friends with Kugisaki and Itadori. He gets closer with the second years. He's visibly happier, and it sort of casts in sharp contrast how unhappy he was before this.

And Gojo? Gojo's so goddamn sorry. He didn't know megumi had a sister.

The thing is that now that both Tsumiki and Megumi are on campus, it sort of haunts Gojo with what could have been. They're both fantastic kids--funny, smart, resourceful. And it's painful watching them try to rebuild what was taken from them. And it could have just. never happened. Because he could have saved them both. He could have been their family.

It's sort of painfully obvious the Zenin abused Megumi, and it fucking haunts him. He doesn't even have to read into Megumi's behavior--he sees it happen, right in front of him, with how they try to control him and push him around. He wants to kill them for it. He wants to hate himself for it. He could have saved Megumi and he just. He didn't.

He wishes he did.