#nowhere close to having kids

[thisbravegirl]

was looking at deals for prime day earlier just to see what was out there and available and everything coming up was housewares, baby stuff, and maternity stuff and like

excuse me i need to go cry

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Dick is thrown back in time to a couple days before his past self is scheduled to leave on the mission to space, the one during which Jason will die.

Past Dick gets a very frantic and concerning phone call from someone claiming to be his future self, begging him not to go on the mission. And for some reason he‘s supposed to keep an eye on Jason? What the hell is that about? They’re not that close…

[purpleparrot]

pls make sure you and your partner are on the same page about having kids before even talking about marriage i cannot stress this enough

[invye]

So @kacievvbbbb asking about modern AU headcanons had me revisiting my 'modernised' MiShanks AU I thought up a couple months ago.

I call it 'modernised' because it is more of a medium modern AU, where I keep much of the base OP lore and history, but shrink the 'active' world down to just a few islands. The overall tech level and societal developments are much closer to what we have now and I do away with most of the political plot. I haven't yet decided if Devil Fruits still exist, but if they do, they are much more rare and are kind of a thing of legend most people don't believe in. Only very select few people would know about them and the curse associated with them.

So lets get into it, I've got plenty of thoughts on Mihawk, Shanks and how their relationship plays together in a more modern world. (And because Rosinante is also one of my favourites, and I can't seem to not smush them all together, there is a CoraMiShanks bit at the end too.)

- Mihawk -

Basic weaponry is a bit more in line with modern expectations in this AU, but that will never ever stop Mihawk from being a swords guy. Mihawk is the authority on fencing, especially in historical context. He's basically got a PHD in swords, identifying them, maintaining them, using them. He's filthy rich, not just because he won every fencing tournament there is, but also because he straight up inherited that half maintained castle outside of town along with stupid amounts of money from an uncle everyone thought already died decades before Mihawk received his testament.

These days Mihawk only competes in the highest level tournament once a year to defend the title (his 'rivalry' with Shanks makes the news every time) and otherwise spends his time at home, reading, drinking, occasionally taking small sailing trips with his beloved Hitsugibune, and of course training his swordsmanship. Everyone thinks he's just living it up big in Kuraigana castle, but the people in town know that he just wants to raise his kids in peace.

Where did the kids come from? No one knows. They're definitely not his though. Anyway, turns out that Mihawk is really good with kids, so it takes barely a couple years for the whole town to load off their kids with him during holidays and days off school. (Look, Zeff runs a busy kitchen, and as much as Sanji tries to help, he's still too young for the holiday rush. Garp has to leave on Marine assignments at the most random times, and his bum of a son has vanished to who knows where years ago, and the grandkids are friends with Zoro and Sanji anyway and can do with burning out their energy running around the woods behind the castle. Bellemère has to leave on those assignments with Garp most of the time, so Nami joins the fray while Nojiko mostly plays with Perona. Mihawk usually leaves the teen girls be on their own, especially since Robin showed up a while ago to join them [she seems to stay on her own, and Mihawk keeps an eye on her in case she needs additional help, but Crocodile seems to have that sorted already]. Usopp's mom is still sick, and she's grateful to know her son is out there having fun with his friends while she tries the next medicine with horrible side effects.)

The kids love Mihawk. Mihawk loves the kids too and to much of his dismay, the kids know it. He is a figure of authority to them, but also a person of trust, who they can approach with problems and worries when their usual parental figure is unavailable or out of reach. Given that Mihawk is pretty much always around, he begrudgingly accepts his new job as free childcare provider for the town (Garp tried to pay once. They all realised very quickly they get much farther by paying in favours, food, or doing little odd jobs because that old castle always needs something done).

Mihawk promised to teach Ace and Sabo to sail this summer, and with Luffy insisting to bounce around them, he already plans on doing more swimming and child fishing than actual sailing.

- Shanks -

Shanks is still a pirate, but it's all on a much smaller scale. He's still got the 'Red Emperor' epithet, but his reputation is much more Robin Hood of the seas. The Red Force gets into small tussles with other pirates more often than the Marines, and really, as long as they have food and alcohol on board they are all perfectly fine just sailing and enjoying their freedom. No one ever knows where the Red Force is at any given time, but they are known to show up when natural disasters strike, not to plunder the remains, but to help the people rebuild long before the Marines get around to offer their help (once the Marines show up on the horizon the Red Force clears out, a couple shots are exchanged, none of them ever hit). Garp tried to yell them into joining the Marines more than once, really Shanks could even stay captain and keep his ship and crew, he just needs to fly the Marine flag, but they all simply laugh and wave as they go off again to who knows where.

However, there is one week every year, where everyone knows exactly where the Red Force will be. Shanks won't ever miss his chance to duel Mihawk in the grand fencing tournament a couple islands over from Mihawk's home. As opposed to Mihawk, who has his fixed position as defending champion, Shanks fights his way through the other contenders every year. He leans into the pirate reputation, taunting opponents, refusing protective gear, tiptoe-ing the line to breaking the rules. The people love to hate him, it's a spectacle every time. The grand finale inevitably is a duel between Mihawk and Shanks, even after Shanks lost his arm (he sat out for a year and people thought that was the end. They were very relieved when Shanks made his over the top entrance again the year after).

They have long abandoned the actual fencing rules and equipment during the finale. People clap and scream when Mihawk steps on stage carrying Yoru, the black blade just as legendary as his own reputation. Shanks never fails to grin and deliver a witty one liner (the people's boo is part of the performance) and then they lunge. Watching that fight is exhilarating. No protective gear, real blades, and two absolute masters going at each other with a force that would leave less competent fighters with the gravest of wounds. It's every bit as real as it is a performance. Everyone knows Mihawk will win before they even start, and the people can recognise a small collection of moves that they build in every time, the more flashy and wide swipes that could easily be punished but never are. It's not simply about Mihawk winning and Shanks losing, it's about witnessing a piece of history being brought back to life right in front of their eyes.

The fencing tournament has always been held within the context of the summer solstice, and with Mihawk and Shanks putting on their show its become a part of a bigger festival that focusses on celebrating history and old rites, the origins of which aren't always known anymore. Every year after the finale they throw a huge feast, traditional food all over, as historically accurate to a long past pirate era as it can get (Mihawk makes sure of it, that history PHD has to be good for something), dressing up accordingly is very much encouraged. Shanks and Mihawk keep carrying their blades and play up their daring villain and chivalrous hero act and no one thinks twice about drinking with the Red Hair Pirates (they have amazing stories to tell). Usually Mihawk ends up in the middle of a group of kids and answers all kinds of history questions, all professor like, but in his full on historical get up. Shanks catches a glimpse of him and sighs dreamily and all the people he's jokingly been flirting with and threatening to kidnap as part of his role know that they're talking to a very much taken man. They enjoy his company anyway and talk to him about what it is like to raise a kid out at sea as they watch Perona and Uta tease Zoro in the distance.

What people don't know, is that the Red Force winters. Pretty much everyone aside from a volunteer skeleton crew leaves the ship for home during the winter months.

No one in town mentions to outsiders that the Red Emperor stays with the Strongest Swordsman up in Kuraigana castle. Why would they? They're great with the kids. And Uta singing with Brook during the Baratie winter solstice celebration sells out the house every time (the townsfolk get a cheeky 50% off that day, it's a community event after all [except for Mihawk. His filthy rich ass can pay double and wouldn't notice {he does pay double. He does notice. He does not care}]).

- Rosinante & Law -

Because I can't help myself and I love thinking about Rosinante together with MiShanks, this story's active events that would make up a proper fic make it a CoraMiShanks story, which starts with Cora-san and Law arriving in town. (Rosinante is genuinely a situational mute in this one, and Law's illness is a bit less horrifying, and potentially cured/managed with medicine.) They're on assignment from Doflamingo who heard that there's a spot that has gone unfilled in the island's underworld and wants to take full advantage of the opportunity to weasel into Crocodile's operations.

Little does Doffy know that: a) Corazón accepted the assignment so he could get away from him; b) Corazón insisted on taking Law because he's still working on getting Law's illness cured; [c) {depending on if Devil Fruits exist} Corazón may have secretly taken the Ope Ope no Mi on his way out;] d) Dracule Mihawk personally checks out every newcomer in town and seems to know much more than he reasonably should; e) Dracule Mihawk loves kids and bonds with Rosinante in a single meeting that included him pulling Law out of a lake; f) gods damned Dracule Mihawk directly protects Crocodile's operations in a infuriating 'someone will do it so I pick the smallest evil' mindset and Crocodile is so damn smug about it; g) fucking Dracule Mihawk decides to keep Rosinante and Law under his protection; h) and WHERE DID THE FUCKING RED EMPEROR COME FROM???

Doffy is seething at his plans foiled. Crocodile laughs at him, tells him to go pound sand and uses the opportunity to poach a couple of Doffy's operatives. Doffy has no choice but to retreat and plot his vengeance for later.

[sunnyxjarrus]

TW. Vent

(basically me talking about how my relationship with my sister is)

me and my sister have always had what I would consider a forced relationship but sometimes it actually works and flows on it’s own despite the fact that we have practically nothing in common and we are polar opposites and it’s really saddening to think about

anyway my sister and I actually texted back and forth today about snow bc our area got a few inches and she was asking about how bad things are at my moms because we live on a 13% incline on a backroad in a small town so I sent a couple of pictures told her about shoveling the driveway earlier and asked how things were at our dad’s house where she is staying for winter break until her second semester starts in a few weeks (she’s a freshman in college)

and it hit me how even if we have our moments where conversations are easy and we don’t really fight we still fall into the pattern of older mature perfect sister and problematic childish little sister who can’t seem to be able to even compare to her.

Still we mirror each other relentlessly if I do something wrong at my moms I’m ‘just like my sister’ if I dare defend her when they wrongfully comment about her calling her selfish or ignorant for not wanting to deal with them after they literally said the equivalent to hoping she was severely injured at the least ‘I am taking lessons from her’ or ‘being corrupted’ and it’s exhausting

@local-lover-boy

[furiousgoldfish]

I wasn't going to write personal posts on this topic, but this one is for all of the people who insist we are not allowed to call out narcissists for their actions, we are not allowed to call it 'narcissistic abuse', and what we're doing by saying that, is in fact, stigmatizing and marginalizing a group of people with a disorder.

I understand all of you want to be kind, and not accuse someone of being abusive, if they're presumed to be struggling with a disorder. Being accused yourself, that you're creating stigma if you do it, can feel uncomfortable and wrong. And to accuse those who are struggling the worst, of stigmatizing if they speak up about abuse, can be devastating.

Stigma, however, is not created in small, isolated communities of people who have no public voice, it's not created in the space where people go when they have nowhere else to turn to. The public does not listen to victims, they listen to the framing that makes it the easiest to ignore abuse. Which is, coincidentally, the abuser's narrative.

Hearing that narcissists are to be protected and that to say otherwise is evil, can easily take vigor if the most loud, aggressive and forceful people are yelling it, in a community of mostly scared, vulnerable individuals. So you relent and decide, it's simply kind to just defend whoever has a disorder, no matter what it is, no matter the consequences. You find it easier to not do research, to not look at reality, but pick whatever is the most convenient. If people yelling the loudest are saying 'narcissistic abuse doesn't exist! you're hurting people by saying it does!' then it's the easiest to repeat it and accept that it's right.

So now let's scale back a bit, and look at what is going on specifically in the community of abused and traumatized people on tumblr. You have a group of people who are claiming that the narcissists abused them, who can recount horrific, devastating, destructive, traumatic and severely damaging experiences of abuse by narcissistic parents or partners. People who have developed dissociative disorders, complex trauma, chronic conditions and a whole ordeal of mental disorders due to the extensive, long lasting abuse. Most of these people were children, when exposed to the narcissists. Most of these people have loved those narcissists with all of their hearts. For the most of them, it took half of their lifetime to realize abuse was going on, and that their symptoms were not imagined or without a cause. These people have been tortured, and are looking for a safe space.

You also have children here who are currently being abused, who are telling horror stories of their current reality where they're used, exploited, controlled, violated, their identity and humanity erased, who exist only as a resource to the narcissists. They're looking for a way to recognize what is happening to them, why are they feeling this awful, and how to get out.

And of course, you have people in this community who have been abused in other kinds of circumstances and by other kinds of abusers, and we're all trying to figure out what the truth is, who to blame, how to get out of abuse, how to gain freedom, how to stay safe. So it's a community of heavily traumatized individuals, most of them very vulnerable to future abuse, a lot of them children, a lot of them abused and sensitive to other kinds of grooming and abuse.

Narcissists are infiltrating this specific community and demanding to be promoted as safe and non-dangerous, to these specific people. They're not trying to appeal to general public, to psychologically healthy, to people who have resources and community to protect themselves from abuse, no, they're aiming at this specific, already-abused, already groomed, vulnerable, struggling, traumatized community of people, and threatening to smear-campaign, cancel, expel and banish anyone who doesn't accept to view them as harmless.

Why would they do this? Which safe and harmless person would put themselves in a group of traumatized and vulnerable people to bully and threaten them for the sake of 'public image' and 'erasing the stigma'? Tell me what is humane about this. Tell me what is humane about asking a victim of narcissistic abuse to be narcissist-positive on their trauma-related blog. Tell me what is normal about telling a victim of torture to say positive thing about their torturer, or to be expelled from their community as a punishment.

You are extending our torture. You are now the extension of our trauma.

And when you're out here saying 'not all narcissists', tell me how do you know which ones then? Do you know that if you're saying this to a child, they might then happily accept a narcissist in their life, who then might end up torturing the kid? You don't know which ones are dangerous, and neither do they. Are you okay with that? Can you feel peace in your heart knowing you helped this to happen? Can you look at yourself knowing you went and claimed, to a vulnerable, or already-traumatized child or a vulnerable person, to accept this potentially dangerous individual in their life, who then hurt them? Will you tell them it's their own fault and to 'stop claiming narcissists are abusive' if they confide it to you?

You're not even thinking of what will happen to those kids. I was left with narcissists alone. I was locked up in a basement. I was beaten. I was forced to play games where I would end up inevitably tortured and told it was my fault for 'losing'. I was brainwashed into believing that I'm not a human being. I was denied food if I didn't do as I was told. I was brutalized and almost murdered. I was told I would be dead if I tried to escape. I will never recover.

And I'm not even one of the worst cases. Children have been thru worse. Children are going thru it right now.

If you feel safe recommending to children and the vulnerable, to go and accept narcissists in their life, this is what you're risking. This is what some of them are capable of. You don't know which ones. Are you really going to use children and most vulnerable people in society, to test and see if the narcissists would torture them or not? You're really going to tell them to go and associate themselves with a group that has a high count of predators, just so that the predators in the groups wouldn't be upset or feel excluded? Just so you'd feel safe from being told off by them? So you wouldn't have to deal with them?

If you can put kids at risk and feel like you've done nothing wrong, then I don't care what else you have to say. You can no longer pretend not to know. You can't pretend that defending narcissists is a kind gesture. You can't pretend to be 'inclusive' when you barge into a community of victims and tell them to shut up about the abuse they worked so hard to recognize. You can't pretend you're faultless when you insist that the most vulnerable people in the population should be accepting and positive about the most dangerous group to them, so you'd have it easier, so you wouldn't have to even look at what narcissists have already done to us.

We're not your shield. We're not here to be scapegoats for your cowardice. We're not sacrificing children because it's so easy and convenient to bow down to bullies. It's been enough of this. Respect our boundaries. We don't want narcissists to have access to us.

[welcometogrouchland]

I think that Donna Troy and Garth/Tempest should have their kids restored to main continuity (maybe at the age they were last seen pre-52 bc I know they??? Died?????) both bc it'd be nice for those two to get closure/second chances at parenthood but ALSO

Because I think it'd be funny if Dick Grayson. "chronic over achiever used to being labeled the defacto Most Adult of all his teen associates" was in his late 20s surrounded by friends who are all (mostly) either married or separated with kids (some of whom are teenagers due to time shenanigans) meanwhile he's got like. A dog

[foxwarrenart]

One sort of weirdly specific nowhere boys detail is that we know Sam was the only planned child

[theparadoxmachine]

I want to serenade it and marry it and grant it a knighthood for services to my realm and make it an heir to my kingdom omg my crops are at last literally watered and I can breathe through my nose

[mapofthemazeinthemirror]

Wait did Kai have his hair half up?!

[thedrotter]

sweet sweet re:kinder community... I would like to ask y'all how you came upon the game and your experiences with it because i wanna know. im genuinely so curious to hear about other people's experiences and little opinions about this game because of how wild the game is (/pos) I'd love to hear it. do ramble to me about it

[yixiangs]

i need to talk to someone about rtk im going stir crazy

[warriorprincesstramp]

the utter lack of affection or care amongst my extended family is so bleak and miserable

[echo-rambles]

so. werewolf!chan x witch!reader fic with a side of best friend and ghost!seungmin for halloween?

[flufflecat]

Really not feelin it this week. Tag rant incoming

[kittlyns]

Something I've noticed amongst my family is that they would rather keep you at a distance but let you know they're "thinking of you" by praying for you, and not making any real effort to ask how you are, or if there's anything they can do for you.