#pressure from the parents

[cheesenchalk]

i never know how to phrase it but something about the way beatles biographers and people in general view paul's reflexive placating persona and determination to smooth things over as manipulative or duplicitous and john's reflexive barbed persona and habit of lashing out as brave and subversive despite both being equally defensive mechanisms to shield themselves from the world that resulted in them saying things that weren't true says more about how we culturally view kindness or friendliness as inherently untrustworthy or flimsy and anger and carelessness as more believable as someone's true nature than it says about either of them in actuality

[bunnieswithknives]

I feel bad for neglecting Hazel so much, I do have many thoughts about her.. and also a mermaid au that im probably not going to do anything with

[strangersteddierthings]

The thing is, Steve has learned, that becoming untouchable isn't all he wants it to be.

People were too quick to try and reach out for him, ask for more than he was willing to give. He hadn't wanted to give up his first kiss to some random girl at some random boy's twelfth birthday party because of spin the bottle. He hadn't wanted to play Seven Minutes in Heaven with Jenny Jackson or Linda Simons at Tommy's birthday party the following year. He did want to take Mary Linscott to Snow Ball, but she just wanted to make out behind the bleachers instead of dance with him. He didn't want to do that but then Brian called him stupid for not wanting to, and asked if he was queer. So, Steve had turned right back around and dragged Mary back under the bleachers, kissing her until it was time to go to prove Brian wrong.

(Even though Steve knows Brian isn't wrong. That Steve had wanted to ask Brian to the dance as much as he'd wanted to ask Mary but knew better than to do that. He saw how they treated Eddie Munson last year for the suspicion of liking other boys and Steve wasn't going to let that happen to himself.)

Brian had congratulated him after and asked what base he got to. Steve didn't want to get to any bases, but he couldn't say that, so he just punched Brian in the arm and said 'more bases than you' which was true because Brian's date didn't kiss him even once.

Then Carol Perkins approached him at lunch, shortly after Snow Ball, and asked if Steve would be her first kiss. Not because she wanted to kiss Steve, but because she wanted to kiss Tommy H, but didn't want to be bad at kissing. Steve agreed because he liked Carol. Not in the way she liked Tommy, but mostly because she'd asked.

No one had done that yet.

She came over to his house on a Saturday because she didn't want Tommy to catch them and think she didn't like him. They made out in his room because, despite his parents being home, they didn't really care who was in his room with him or if the door was open or shut. Probably didn't even notice he had someone over. She leaves an hour later.

By Tuesday Tommy and Carol are an item and by Friday they were Steve's best friends.

However, for reasons Steve doesn't understand, more girls keep asking him to be their first kiss. And maybe it's because he's already got a reputation, or maybe Carol let slip he'd said yes when she asked, but Steve finds himself kissing a lot of girls he doesn't want to. He doesn't know how to say no. Can't find a reason too. Brian's words play in the back of his mind every time he thinks about saying no.

(Are you stupid? Are you queer? He doesn't want to be either of those things, and given his grade in biology and pre-algebra, he's really only got a hope of avoiding the queer label. His father would tolerate a stupid son. He doesn't think he'd survive if his father had a queer one.)

There are a few girls he's been crushing on that ask him and that was nice. One, Alice Baker, even becomes his girlfriend for a month. His first relationship.

Soon eighth grade gives way to being a freshman and Steve, who has always been handsome and cute, catches the eye of upperclassmen now.

And Steve's not sure how it happens, but he ends up moving past first base with another girl whose name he can't remember, or possibly never knew. He doesn't remember asking her for hers when she led him into one of the bedrooms at the house this party was at while he was way too tipsy.

And then it just grows. The reputation and what people expect from him, and he doesn't want it, but he's never said no before so can he start now? Doesn't he need a reason to say no? If he doesn't have a reason, does that make him queer? He should be wanting this. What boy doesn't want this?

And maybe he does want it. But not like this.

He doesn't want to be slightly drunk at yet another party, following the first girl that grabs his wrist and pulls him after her into whatever secluded area they can find. He doesn't want to keep saying yes when he wants to say no.

The summer between freshman and sophomore year he confides in Carol. It's a risk. Carol can be cruel, quick with her words to tear you down, to spread the rumor that will ruin your life. But she's also fiercely loyal.

He tells her he's tired of kissing people he doesn't want to.

Carol is quiet for a long time, and Steve almost thinks he's made a mistake. But then she speaks.

"Okay. Let's make a plan."

And they do. Then suddenly Steve is untouchable. Carol teaches him how to see the weakness in people and call it out. How to wield his facial expressions as a weapon and a shield. How to put on the air of being the most important person everywhere you go so well that everyone else begins to believe it. How to fall back on the fact his parents are rich, gone often, and, almost most importantly, well known in the community. It gives Steve's name a weight to throw around.

More importantly, all of that culminates in people no longer asking things of him. Instead, they look to him to take the lead, they wait to be asked. It makes Steve feel in charge of his life for once.

But now.

Now, years later, having survived a spring break from Hell and averted the apocalypse, Steve watches Eddie hang off Argyle with ease, fling an arm over Jonathan's shoulder while laughing at a joke, easily pull Dustin into a headlock or wrestling match.

Easy touches that Steve should be able to do, too. A jealousy wells inside him almost as much as the unease he feels in his stomach at the mere thought of letting them know they're allowed to reach out and touch him, too. That Eddie's allowed to reach out and touch.

But then he remembers what happened when he let people have that power over him and he can't bring himself to do it.

It settles in Steve, then, the realization. When you become untouchable, you're unable to touch.

-

@nburkhardt @i-less-than-three-you adding my own lil bit of angst into the mix now (:

[the-way-astray]

let’s be super clear: there is zero canon evidence that alden ever pressured or neglected any of his children. zero. if you want to make him that way for fic or fanon purposes, fine. you do you. but the second you try to use that in a serious anti alden argument, you lose credibility

[bet-on-me-13]

Surface Pressure

So, I was listening to the Song Surface Pressure from Encanto, and I got inspired.

In this AU, Jazz was the one to get turned into a Halfa. She took Danny's place when he got nervous and took the Photo for Sam, but tripped on her way out and hit the Activation Switch. She manages to hide her Ghostly Form from her Parents for about a month, before the Ghost Attacks begin.

She does mostly the same stuff as Danny, but because of her interest in psychology, she manages to actually figure out and befriend some of her Ghosts earlier than Danny did. But it's still insanely difficult work.

Because unlike Danny who just had to deal with School, their Parents, and Ghost Attacks, Jazz has to deal with School, Cooking, Cleaning, making sure Danny is safe, telling off her Parents, dealing with their Inventions, and constant Ghost Attacks every day. The pressures of being the only responsible person in their house weigh on her more than ever before.

And she also notices one more thing. Danny may not have been in the Portal, but he was in front of it, and he has been raised around Ectoplasm his entire life. The Portal was just the tipping point. Jazz realizes that Danny is slowly becoming like her, and that is yet another source of stress on her Plate.

(Maybe Sam and Tucker become Liminals as well? So she has to worry over all of them?)

Eventually Danny says enough is enough, and he tries to help, but Jazz refuses it at every turn.

Then they have a similar conversation to the Song, where Jazz let's loose some stuff about how much pressure she has been experiencing her whole life being the Strong one in the Family, the one who deals with everything and takes care of everything, the one who practically raised Danny when her Parents were busy (always).

She has to shoulder all the burdens of their life so that he can live a happy one, because that is her job as an Older Sister, and she needs to fulfill it. She feels the pressure building up every day, but has to keep it stamped down every time it bubbles up or she could snap and he needs her so she has to force it down.

But she knows she is cracking, and she knows that once Danny fully becomes a Halfa, it will become too much for her to keep in check. So she needs to do the one thing she hoped she would never have to do.

She Calls the Justice League, and turns in her Parents as Mad Scientists and Villains.

[whetstonefires]

You know I'm realizing one reason you keep seeing mdzs modern AUs where the Jiang parents are alive mainly so they can dramatically fail and betray Wei Wuxian by cutting him off financially--defaulting on his college tuition or formally disowning him etc--isn't just that people want to translate the Burial Mounds II arc into modern terms while keeping Jiang Cheng clean of it.

(Despite the fact that the internal logic of Jiang Cheng's character is largely built around him being a person who would abandon someone he intensely cared about under these specific circumstances.)

It's because it's hard to set up a modern analogue for the way that Jiang Cheng is responsible for Wei Wuxian, as his Sect Leader.

We live in a highly individualistic society. People are trying to write Wei Wuxian Tragically Wronged, and because there's a normative expectation that people in the position of parents will provide you with resources, and certainly won't withdraw them without warning, but no such assumption that people in the position of siblings necessarily owe each other support, making this work in modern setting with Jiang Cheng in his canon role would require a lot of extra work, just to get a less readily resonant result.

But I keep thinking about it. Because something that's getting lost here is, not just the nuances of character and relationship, but like...it's sort of key to the story that cutting Wei Wuxian off was, in fact, Completely Socially Appropriate.

The level on which it was a betrayal is subtle, and deeply cutting. And intensely tied up in the very different opinions each of Jiang Cheng's parents had about what obligations existed in their family wrt Wei Wuxian, and what these meant.

The level on which it was the obvious, normal course of action is blatant. That is to a huge extent why it happens: because Jiang Cheng's instinct to conform is a survival instinct, reinforced by trauma, and Wei Wuxian's choices meant he had no coherently compelling reason not to obey it, and enormous peer pressure to do so.

The fact is that Jiang Cheng was making a reasonable choice, the actual thing 'anyone would do in that situation,' unlike Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao's respective wildly warped ideas about what that is.

Wei Wuxian wasn't betrayed by Jiang Sect like your foster parents cutting you off because you're disobedient. Wei Wuxian was betrayed by Jiang Sect like your brother refusing to drop fifty grand to bail you out of jail.

Of course Wei Wuxian tells him not to. And of course the fact that Jiang Cheng already chose in the moment not to pay a cent because Fuck You Wei Ying still stands there glaring, a precedent that can never be taken back.

And then later he's betrayed by Jiang Cheng like your brother cooperating with a police investigation into a manslaughter you really did commit, that's being handled like domestic terrorism. And then like your brother calling the cops on you. And then like your brother helping the cops find where you're hiding.

I'm personally fascinated by the way Jiang Cheng's lifelong resentment for the way Jiang Fengmian reliably bailed Wei Wuxian out of everything informed those decisions to do the normal thing, the way he's reacting against his dead father as well as against Wei Wuxian and the actual situation.

But even without that daddy issues angle, the fact that the person who made that choice was Jiang Cheng, and that it was simultaneously the reasonable appropriate normal upstanding citizen rational thing to do and so shitty Wei Wuxian would be entitled never to forgive it is sort of. The Point.

Of the scenario, and also to a considerable degree of the entire finely tuned narrative construct that is Jiang Cheng.

[dat1angel]

When Ra's needed an heir, Talia impregnated herself with The Detective's DNA to give him the perfect offspring. When she delived fraternal twins the boy was raised to one day take over the League and the girl was kept around so that she might one day provide the LoA with new recruits. When she came of age and learned that the only reason she was kept around was the idea of her future children, she fled. They never found her.

Years later, Duke Thomas introduces his family to his new boyfriend, Danny Fenton.

[hypewinter]

The expectations from everyone around him had been too much. His sister and teachers wanted him to be a good student. His friends wanted him to be the perfect hero. The town wanted him to be everywhere, all at once. And his parents wanted him strapped down to a table.

Danny couldn't take it anymore. It was all just too much. So he left. He disappeared, covering his tracks and only leaving a note to let everyone know he was okay.

He traveled a while before he eventually encountered some heroes investigating an occult crime. All he did was give them a little hint and suddenly they were all over him. He had panicked for a second. Memories of his suffocating past came to him. But to Danny's surprise, these heroes were more worried about him than anything. Something about the knowledge he possessed being dangerous.

It actually felt a little nice being worried over like that and before he knew it, Danny found himself tagging along with these heroes. Apparently they were called the Justice League Dark and their whole schtick was investigating the occult.

Danny had thought he was over the whole hero thing, but he didn't mind helping the JLD. There where finally capable adults in his life who protected him. Who cared for him. They never expected him to balance two contradicting responsibilities. Nor did they expect him to be their main heavy hitter when facing a threat.

For the first time since he had turned on that stupid machine, Danny was allowed to be a kid again. He was allowed to be annoying, to ask a million questions (no matter how dumb) and most importantly, he was allowed to have fun.

Being a hero with the Justice League Dark never felt like the world ending pressure he was under back home. They had even told him he was welcome to quit anytime! Not that he wanted to.

Sure, Danny felt guilty about never contacting his friends and family and letting them know how he was doing. But he was scared. Scared that they might try some way to force him back home.

He could never go back to that place, he just couldn't. To do that would truly crush his soul.

[pingvin-king]

Deruth: That’s my son 🤧🥹 That’s the boy I raised

Ron:

[avocado62524]

[sunriozz]

Had a butchlander teen au thought where HL comes to billy when he couldnt handle his abusive household and billy would put his own (motorcycle) helmet over HL's face so the latter could cry without fear of billy judging him how his family always did.

[macaiv]

Source: The Washington Post

[stgroversfire]

mmmm dont have time to dig into it rn but. i imagine lan wangji felt a lot of the same things raising a-yuan as jiang cheng did raising jin ling

and of course there are some very big differences too, but i imagine the love they felt for their kids held a lot of the same baggage.

[audliminal]

Anyways I'm so fucking relieved that Porter was evil actually. Bc I was actually so damn mad that he got to be right about Gorgug. Like there's just something insidious about the idea of a teacher who comes in and says they know more about what your path should be. And they push and push and keep telling you that they're only hurting you bc they know you can do more. And it doesn't matter if you feel that way or even if you want to do more, bc they've decided they know the right path for you. And it's only ever your life and your sanity on the line; they're risking nothing. So I was so fucking mad when Gorgug succeeded at the barbificer thing and Porter got to be all 'see? I was only pushing you bc I believed in you' bc you better believe if Gorgug hadn't managed it, the blame would've been on him not Porter....

Anyways with the hindsight that Porter is basically the big bad, it suddenly becomes a question of if Porter even wanted Gorgug to succeed. Like they had to know the Bad Kids were the biggest threat to their plan, so like. Undermining them in whatever way was possible would be smart. And so instead of Porter getting to be Right about how to treat Gorgug, it's like. Was he sabotaging him? Was he trying to make Gorgug fail? And it becomes more that Gorgug succeeded in spite of Porter's bullshit.

[sprinklersart]

they should show up to kazansky family events together occasionally over the years and do fun family things like share an air mattress in the living room with ices 19 year old cousin and take a 4 hour trip to the grocery store just for milk and chainsmoke behind the shed with ice’s sister. they deserve it ❤️

[lokh]

in a world where the dungeon meshi cast are playing a ttrpg. did shuro just like inexplicably get roped in one day and he just. kept showing up