#you do not need to kneel for the anime kid with a lisp and a mall katana

[keepin-it-on-the-d-l]

Me at Sparrow “Spineless Motherfucker” Oak

[okaybutlikeimagine]

Hello. Thoughts on Dads!Harringrove??? the boys like in their mid 40s with 3 kids. what type of parents do you think they’ll be??? will their grandpa jim spoil them??? i love harringrove parents w all my heart. they both deserve a big happy family of their own 🥰

Hello, my thoughts are it’s the cutest damn thing ever and i could cry just thinking about it aUGH HARRINGROVE DADS.

Okay, so i’ve read quite a few things talking about the Harringrove Dads and adopting little babies, adopting sweet little girls, etc. and i absolutely live and die for that shit. Like i’m so serious, i think it’s so sweet, it warms my heart, i eat it up, i LOVE it

But also (and i’m sure i’m not the first to say it) I feel like they’re NOT the type to go adopting babies. They’re not getting a surrogate to raise a kid from infancy. They may want to, they may have that inkling, they may see Jonathan and Nancy having a baby and get that infamous Baby Fever, but I just… I really can’t bring myself to write that.

Bc (in my canon) Billy was adopted as a 17 year old delinquent. El was adopted as a 12 year old lab rat. Steve was basically abandoned at home when he got too old to be the “cute little boy” their parents could tote around to promote their Nuclear Family image. They’re two boys who were made very keenly aware that there are shitty people out there who believe kids get less desirable the older they get. Shitty people who think babies are worth more than older kids who probably just come with “problems”.

(i’ve also been rewatching Boy Meets World and GUYS. i see a lot of Billy in Shawn Hunter. Boy who’s taken in bc he’s been neglected and he’s a sensitive kid underneath but he’s got this hard, bad boy shell bc it’s easier than crying every day)(AUGH and just like Will in Fresh Prince goddamnit i fucking LIVE for those kids who think and act all tough and use their pretty looks like a weapon but all they really need is a caring and stern hand who’s gonna keep them on the straight and narrow and help them out along the way i am SOFT.)

So if these boys have 3 kids, it’s 3 kids who were seen as the “worst” of the bunch. 3 kids they fought to connect with bc these kids didn’t see anything in themselves anymore but goddamnit, Steve and Billy saw 3 kids beat and broken by the system that told them the older they got, the smaller their chances were of ever getting out of this place. They came with problems and fears and shells harder than Billy’s steel toed boots but like hell were Billy and Steve going to let these kids go the rest of their lives thinking they were damaged goods.

(god now i wanna write OCs of their children. look what you did to me!)

Okay so their parenting style changes as they grow and adopt more kids, as what happens with most parents. They learn what’s good and what’s not so good and they get better at fixing problems (but of course it’s never quite that easy bc they’re adopting kids of different ages).

And of course i’m saying they adopt the kids everyone has turned away, but for their first kid they adopt a little boy, about 5 years old, bc they gotta start small. He’s very cute and has a bit of a lisp and he mixes up some of his letters and he’s… energetic. He runs and he screams and he tires himself out real quick to the point where he just flops down and takes naps where he is, meaning there has been more than one occasion where Billy or Steve has found the child sleeping face first in the middle of a room (the entry room seems to be his favorite. Billy doesn’t blame him, the carpet is softer there than anywhere else.) One time he even flopped down on the middle of the sidewalk and again in the middle of a department store. Both times Billy scooped him up like a rag doll and carried him around the rest of their trip out.

And i know it’s not the BEST movie but i can’t help but think their parenting at the beginning would be a bit like the movie Big Daddy. Like, a lot of well-intentioned but misguided advice, a lot of “real world” lessons (like how to piss on the side of the road), a lot of hurried and frazzled solutions to things because “kids are messy why are kids so fucking messy why can’t he ever stay clean?”

“He’s just a kid, Steve, c’mon-”

“He’s always sticky! How! How is he always sticky? What’s making him so sticky!”

And I just!! Augh!! Imagine Steve at work all day and Billy has off/maybe he’s inbetween jobs right now so he can be home with the kid/whatever and so he has errands to run and takes their little kid with him and the kid’s like:

“What’s your real name?”

“You know that. It’s Billy.”

“…. why?”

And Billy shrugs with an “I dunno, cuz I couldn’t talk and my parents could and they had to call me somethin.”

“You could’n talk?”

“Hey, you couldn’t either.”

The boy thinks for a second before: “Could too.”

“Could not. Not when you were a baby.” He pokes the boy in the shoulder, still very tentative with how much the little tike can take. “Don’t start attacking me! You didn’t name yourself.”

They walk for a second but Billy chimes in before the kid can.

“Hey, that’s not fair though, is it?”

The boy looks up and shakes his head, but he can see the confusion in his eyes.

“You should be able to name yourself, right? What do you want your name to be? Anything in the world, what do you want me to call you?”

Which is how Steve comes home to their child and Billy eating some baby carrots smothered in BBQ sauce and his husband telling him: “By the way, the kid’s new name is Hot Dog.”

“…. what?”

“He picked it out himself.”

And just imagine Billy and the kid are going grocery shopping and Billy catches the boy reaching for a can of spaghetti-o’s.

Billy reaches for the can and takes it off the shelf. “You like these?”

The kid nods.

“Alright then. Watch out-” he hold the kid back gently before chucking the can at the ground. He turns to his boy. “Dented cans are half off. Y’know, Microsoft dropped 3 points.”

His kid nods in awe.

“Wanna pick that up for me?” Billy asks and the kid follows, before rearing the can back to throw it on the ground.

“Woah woah woah! Watch it there!” Billy grabs the boy’s arm, before aiming it a different way. “Aim away from your feet… there ya go. I know they’re kinda tiny targets but still, don’t wanna give yourself a flat tire there.”

The kid chucks it and Billy laughs. “Nice job, little dude.”

And i just have so many THOUGHTS about this!!! Their second kid being a little 9 year old girl who’s real fucking good at boxing and fighting and also a little too good at sneaking out the window. They’ve caught her a few times in the backyard or the front yard, just sitting around shivering. It always gives Billy and Steve a heart attack.

“What are you doing out here?” Steve asks, kneeling down to look at the girl, Billy taking note of her hands balled up into little fists.

“I heard a… noise. A loud noise.”

“Oh, yeah, your brother just dropped a glass.”

“Oh. Did you… did you… hurt him?” Her fists clench tighter, her shoulders get tighter, closer to her ears. Billy sees himself in it. He wants to ease her shoulders down out of her ears.

“No! No of course we didn’t.” Steve soothes, rubbing the girls arms soothingly. She looks skeptical.

But it becomes a pattern, and they realize it’s whenever she thinks something is going on or someone is in danger. To the point where if any loud noise happens, one of them rushes outside to look for Jordan climbing out a window.

Steve’s out there this time, grabbing hold of her middle and helping her out of the window because they’ve let their plants grow a little wiley and she was having a hard time getting past them. He sets her down gently.

“It’s fine, hun. You’re fine. Your dad just dropped a pan.”

“Oh…”

“Y’know, you can’t keep doing this.”

“What?”

“Ditching out the window like this.” He kneels down to look at her. “It’s not safe. And one of these days it’s gonna be snowing and you’re gonna jump out in your PJs and be all cold.”

“I’ve done it before.”

And if that doesn’t break Steve’s heart. He thinks about Billy when he was a kid. About the stories Billy has told him when he’s tired and a little drunk and feeling a little emotional. Steve loses himself in the sadness of the thought for a second.

He brushes a little bit of dirt off her shoulder.

“Yeah… well you don’t have to ever again, alright? I mean it. Nothing is happening to you here. We’re not gonna hurt you… Now give me a hug.”

She accepts it, which is big for her, and Steve squeezes her as tight as he squeezed Billy that one night he found him with a cut on his cheek and bruises all up and down his arms.

And then they adopt another boy. A 17 year old boy. A boy who’s been in and out of so many homes he doesn’t have a number for it. A boy who’s angry and jaded and… loves poetry and is so gentle with children and animals.

And him and Billy butt heads… a lot. They’re so similar… at least he’s similar to what Billy used to be. And it pisses them both off bc suddenly Billy knows what Hop felt- frustration. Utter frustration at this boy not understanding his fucking potential.

And i’ve written a whole dialogue for this but it’s long and very dramatic and I might just end up writing a fic about all of these little sweethearts (bc i have so many ideas!!!) but basically the boy telling Billy and Steve that he’s fucked up. He’s fucked up and no one will ever be able to change that and Billy is adamant that he’s not until he admits-

“No. You’re right, you are fucked up.”

Steve is shocked. “Billy!”

“No, shut up Steve.” Billy points at the kid. “You are fucked up. You’re a fucked up kid, and you know what? I’m fucked up too. And so is Steve. And so is your aunt El, and your Aunt Max, and your Uncle Will and Uncle Jonathan. And y’know what else? Your grandpa Jim is fucked up too. Hell, even your Grandma Joyce is fucked up. Wish I could tell you she’s not but ding ding ding! She is!”

And they get in a fight. There’s no fists, no touching, but it’s a major fight of Billy telling this boy what Hop told him once: You’re our kid now and we love you. And you can leave and never think about us again but we’re never gonna forget you.

And: “Don’t you dare fucking compare us to those assholes because I’m not giving up on you. We’re not giving up on you. You’re family now and no matter what you do, I’m gonna be there to worry about you and be happy for you because you deserve it!”

And Billy gets frustrated with all of his yelling so he grabs his stress ball and walks away, breathing heavy, and Steve is there to look the boy in the eye and tell him Billy’s right. And that he understands that the boy has a past before they ever met him “but Billy had a life before he met me… and same with me and him, and we can still love each other. So maybe we’re just on an even playing field. We get to learn about you while you learn about us and… and even so, we can still love each other, right?”

AUGH I’M SOFT. ANYWAY.

Hop and Joyce spoil them fucking rotten. It’s really hard to spoil a 17 year old boy as stubborn as an ox (“You were bad enough, now you bring me another one?” “You saying you didn’t like taking care of me, Pops?” “I’m saying I have enough gray hair as it is.” “Oh shush, Hop!” Joyce hits him) but they do their best. They give him love and support. Joyce bakes a shitton of cookies and cakes and Hop buys the kids toys (and the older boy CDs and records and band tees)(“I’m trying! The older I get, the less I know what kids what.”)

And they love all their aunts and uncles too! The little girl has a hard time reading and she reads way below her level, so Aunt El helps her out!

“I understand. I learned to read really late.”

“Really?” The girl’s heart lifts a bit. “How late?”

“I was twelve.”

“Really??”

El nods and gives a kind smile. “Yeah, but I learned, didn’t I? I had a lot of help, and I can help you, too! Just like your dad helped me.”

The girl smiles brightly.

Will’s favorite is the youngest boy (but he would never tell the other two that. Of course not.) because he’s silly and he took to Will almost instantly and he likes to roll around in the grass and catch bugs and those were never really things Will liked as a kid and he… he likes that. He didn’t think he’d ever like that but there’s something about this kid that brings out adventure in him. He reminds Will of Mike when they first met. A bundle of energy and excitement that always dragged Will around on adventures.

The older one hangs out a lot with Max and Jonathan. Jonathan likes hanging out with the kid cuz he reminds him of Billy when Billy was young. (“I don’t remember you being this… exhausting though.” Jonathan tells Billy.) (“You’re just getting old, bud.” Billy says with a laugh and a clap on the back) They smoke weed whenever they can and Jonathan gives the boy some good old 70’s and 80’s music to listen to and tells the boy “Meatloaf is not the best of our decade, don’t listen to your father. Either of them, honestly. Their music taste is shit.”

Max hangs out with the older one too. She gives him advice about girls and how to talk to them and she picks up a skateboard for the first time in years because of him. They go to the skate park sometimes and everyone there is amazed that a twenty something year old girl is here to skate with them until she skates circles around them. (She becomes the hit of the skate park)

She also wrestles around with the little 8 year old girl sometimes! She has a lot of heart to hearts with the kid, giving her advice as well and telling her silly stories of both Billy and Steve so that the girl learns to trust them more.

And overall they’re a big, loving family!! And they’re slightly dysfunctional too and i just! Can’t see it happening any other way!! Bc they’re a little dysfunctional but they’re dysfunctional with LOVE and isn’t that what matters???? It’s a lot of work and a lot of sweat and a lot of tears but it’s their family and in the end their kids love them to death bc they realize their fathers love them to death and!!! Everyone’s heart is full and happy and i’m crying!

[tenroseforeverandever]

Dear Father Christmas... December 24, 2023

MASTERPOST

Characters:  Tentoo; Rose Tyler; Jackie Tyler; Pete Tyler; Tony Tyler; OC Hope Tyler-Noble; OC Charlotte Tyler-Noble; OC Wilfred Tyler-Noble

Rated: Teen

Tags: Family!Fic; Kid!Fic; Pete’s World; Letters to Santa; Christmas Fic; Family; Fluff; Hurt/Comfort; Angst; Romance; Love

Summary: When Rose Tyler was little, she always wrote a Christmas wish list to Father Christmas. As she grew older, the wish list became more of a letter to someone she could confide in once a year, but she fell out of the habit somewhere along the way. Now, as a new mum, celebrating her daughter’s first Christmas, Rose takes up writing her Christmas letter to Father Christmas once again.

Rose’s Christmas letters are excerpts from her life with her beloved Tentoo and their children in Pete’s World, written once a year, for each of 31 years.

Chapter Summary: Rose and the Doctor’s children have been campaigning their parents to get them a pet.

Notes: This one was pure fun. I was trying to come up with a critter name for the creature I was picturing when writing this. But in my mind, it looked just the way I imagined a creature briefly mentioned in one of my earlier stories (The Cupid’s Arrow - revised edition) to be like… So why not reintroduce it here? Say hello to the Geruhundian Greehog!

Forever and always, I am so grateful for my talented and dedicated betas, Rose_Nebula and mrsbertucci. Crack that whip, ladies! I’m starting to fall behind! LOL

Thanks to @doctorroseprompts for their 31 Days of Ficmas prompts. A reminder that I am using the prompts very much out of order, but I intend to use them all. The prompt I used today was Snowflake.

Also read at: AO3; FF.net; Teaspoon

December 24th, 2023

Dear Father Christmas,

My children all have different strengths and abilities, and unique, bigger-than-life personalities. It’s funny how you sometimes get glimpses of what they’ll be like as adults as you watch them grow and mature.

Hope (she’s seven years old now. Actually seven and a half!) is the relatively quiet, thoughtful one; she’s the negotiator; the healer; the musician. Once she learned she wasn’t better than the rest of the universe just because she was intelligent, she just wanted to use her intelligence to make the universe better.

Charlie has just started school this year. In addition to being every bit as intelligent as her sister, she’s clever with her hands, clever with gadgets, an engineer, an inventor, an athlete. She is fierce and strong-willed, a passionate activist who wants to save the universe, one being at a time. She’s determined to make the universe bend to her will.

Wilfred is only three and a half, but has as strong a personality as either of the girls, and a logical brain. He’s the opportunist, the puzzler; he loves nothing more than to figure things out. For such a little boy, he has a strong sense of justice: everyone and everything in their correct place. He’s not out so much to change the world as to make sure everything is working the way it’s supposed to, and that everyone gets the chance they deserve.

Alone, each is a force to be reckoned with, but when all three work together, they are indomitable, as me and the Doctor have frequently discovered in the few short years we have been blessed with their presences in our lives.

Recently, their joint effort has been to convince us to get them a pet. Now, most parents would have caved ages ago. But not us. Nope! We’re made of sterner stuff than that, yeah. And trust me, these kids have pulled out all the stops.

Their latest attempt was on Geruhundia. They spotted a baby greehog bleating in the middle of a busy avenue. All of the natives, and most of the non-natives were giving this animal a good, wide berth, yeah, and for all of the best reasons. I mean, you just had to look at this bloke to know that, even as a baby, he just isn’t pet material. But not our kids. Oh, no! They were over there kneeling down and fawning over it before I could say Raxacoricofallapatorius (and I’m getting quicker at saying that, by the way, as the years goes by!)

Now I’ve never seen a greehog before, but the Doctor has told me a bit about them. They are vicious animals, with razor sharp teeth, whose mouths are almost half the size of their bodies. They are highly territorial and fiercely protective of their young. Oh, there’s the Doctor now, with my cuppa. (Ta!) He just said the greehog sounds a bit like my Mum! (I’ll tell her you said that. And I’ve just told Father Christmas. You’ll get a lump of coal in your stocking this year, you will!)

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, the baby greehog. Of course, the Doctor had disappeared on me, gone off to check out a little shop (he still loves a little shop), and we were wandering ahead on the lookout for a good place to stop for lunch, when we come across this baby greehog. I’m frantically trying to get the kids back to my side, where they bloody should be, and, at the same time, keeping an eye open for Mummy-greehog, who honestly, can’t be far behind with her baby blubbering away the way he is.

“But Mummy,” Charlie points out, “he’s orphaned. He needs someone to take care of him. We have to save him!”

I have the counter-argument all ready to go: he’s just lost. No doubt his Mummy will be along, very, very shortly.

“She may never come, Mummy,” pipes up Hope with big doe eyes. “She may be sick or injured, herself. We can’t let this little chap come to harm. I mean, look at him, how sweet he is.”

Let me tell you, Santa, there was nothing, and I mean nothing, sweet about the “little chap”. He may have been enjoying cuddles at the moment, but I was pretty certain I knew the kind of creature he was going to grow into, and I told them as much.

“We juth need to gif ‘im a chanthe, Mama, to pwove he can be a good pet,” Wilfred lisped with a concerned frown crinkling his serious little face.

At this point, I admit, I’d had enough. I stepped forward, and one by one, took my babies by the hand, pulled them away from the greehog (who started whinging again as soon as the cuddles stopped), and tucked each of them behind me. Sure enough, just then, there was a huge commotion from the brush by the side of the road, and this enormous, slathering creature, easily the size of a small car, came bounding into the middle of the road, roaring at us and opening its enormous toothed mouth wide enough to swallow Wilfred whole.

I stood my ground, fully aware of the three astonished and excited little faces peeking out from behind me, and spread my arms wide, making myself look as big and threatening as possible. That greehog may have been protective of her young, but I am Jackie Tyler’s daughter and I come by that same trait honestly, myself. She also passed along to me her stubborn, pig-headedness: I was not going to back down from this threat or any other.

I was aware of the crowd we were attracting, and I suddenly catch a glimpse of pinstripes and great hair from the corner of my eye. He starts in with the “Honestly, Rose…” and then you could hear the gears grinding as he takes in the scene playing out in front of him. Then: “Oh, aren’t you gorgeous! Rose, that’s a Geruhundian greehog! She’s magnificent!”

I might have used some strong language at that point, but the gist was that I fucking knew what the fucking thing was, and did he fucking think he could do something about the fucking fact that it was about to eat his whole fucking family for lunch.

“Oh, easy peasy!” And with typical Doctorish nonchalance, he pulls out his sonic and sets it to emit an ultrahigh frequency that knocks both greehogs out cold. Then he has the nerve to suggest I watch my language in front of the kids.

Anyway, the crowd dispersed, and someone from the Geruhundian equivalent of the SPCA eventually came along to relocate the mum and baby away from the public. I decided we would get lunch to go. I’d had enough of Geruhundia to last a lifetime.

That happened over a month ago now, and while they’ve been campaigning hard, I’m proud to say the kids have yet to break down our resolve to get them a pet.

Life’s funny though, and comes back to bite you in the arse sometimes.

Like I said before, you often get glimpses of what your kids will be like as adults as you watch them play and learn, but sometimes you even catch glimpses of yourself in them. I shared my compassion with Hope, and my headstrong convictions about right and wrong with Charlie. (I’ve also been known to bend the universe to my will, once in a while.) In Wilfred, I see my passionate belief that everyone should get a proper chance in life.

So when I saw that scrawny white kitten floundering through the snow at the end of our drive today, nearly collapsing with exhaustion and starvation, I just couldn’t let her suffer. It wasn’t right, when I could do something to help the sweet baby. After all, she deserved a chance to be a part of a good, loving family, just like anyone else.

Her name is Snowflake, because she’s so delicate and pretty and white, and she’s Mummy’s cuddly little girl, (aren’t you, my love?)

The Doctor’s had a thing or two to say about Snowflake, but among the many traits I’ve passed on to my children, the most powerful of all is knowing how to keep their daddy wrapped around their little fingers. With all four of us working on him, he never stood a chance.

Snowflake is here to stay, a Christmas gift for us all.

Happy Christmas to you, Santa, and Mrs. Claus, and all the elves and reindeer too!

love, Rose