I Think Id Be Super Normal And Not At All Over Emotional If Glenn And Taylor Met And Taylor Referred

I think I’d be super normal and not at all over emotional if Glenn and Taylor met and Taylor referred to him as his grandfather without hesitation. I think Glenn would be super normal about someone treating him like family without an asterisks at the end

has this been done and follow up question is it funny

After this episode I have so many thoughts and feelings about the Oak-(Swallows)-Garcia men/boys that I absolutely need to write down:

Henry saw his father's example of how to treat people, and decided he wanted to be nothing like it, so he became kind and compassionate and deeply, deeply caring. And he tried to pass this onto his sons because he wanted the hurt that he went through as a child to end with him.

But Henry didn't have any good examples of how to be a parent. His father was dismissive and cruel, and his mother apathetic and afraid. He had no one to show him how to teach and guide his sons, and he was afraid of over-managing their lives the way his father had, so he erred on the side of giving them ample space to figure things out on their own and supporting them as best he can.

So the twins are told from birth that they are loved unconditionally, that no matter what they will be forgiven. They are told this so much it practically becomes white noise to them. Even if they burn down their classroom, or destroy the tree in the front yard, or start a cult in a city in another realm, their dad might get mad for a bit, but he won't really do anything about it, and it'll all be okay, he'll laugh it off and tell them how much he loves them. They're having fun, it's not like they've done anything that serious!

Until suddenly, they have done something very serious. They have done something so horrible that it very nearly ended the world entirely. What did they expect would happen afterward, do you think? I imagine that they thought -that Lark at the very least thought- that Henry would be furious with them. If there was anything for Henry to be really mad at them about, to never forgive them for, it has to be this, right?

But... he's not. Henry doesn't blame them, and when they blame themselves he says that he forgives them? This doesn't make sense to them, and we can know that this doesn't make sense to them, because Lark's spent the past few weeks hating Henry because of Walter's injury, something Henry was only indirectly involved in. We don't even know if Lark ever forgave Henry, so what reason would he have to assume his father would ever forgive him for doing something infinitely worse?

The twins are scared, because they think they should be hated, and they don't understand the unconditional love and forgiveness that their father is offering them. So Lark does what many scared and confused people do: he lashes out at what he doesn't understand. Every time Henry tells him he's not to blame for what happened, or that he loves him, or that he forgives him, Lark rejects it.

Sparrow takes a different approach. He's already been told that he needs to be a "love wolf", but he's only really taken in that lesson in a "letter of the law" kind of way. So he tries to be nice. He says the nice things, marries the nice woman, and he says the "right" things when he gets angry to try and absolve himself of all blame. He's trying to emulate his father's approach to life, but he doesn't actually understand it, so his actions are hollow, and quite often ingenuine. And he blames himself for the Doodler's release just as much as Lark does, so he also feels that he's fundamentally unlovable. He marries a woman who cheats on him because why should it matter that she maybe doesn't love him when no one ever will?

If you believe yourself to be unlovable because of something you've done, you don't believe in unconditional love, so it is impossible for you to give unconditional love.

This is the environment Normal is raised in, with a mother incapable of sharing her own opinions out of a dedication to centrism, and two father figures who believe themselves to be fundamentally unlovable and are therefore incapable of extending unconditional love to anyone else. There are conditions that he needs to meet in order to be loved by his dad, and he doesn't meet them. He probably hasn't for awhile, but he only really realized it recently when Sparrow just told him outright.

And the incredible thing about Normal? This doesn't break him. He holds onto his identity even though he's hurt and upset that his father isn't proud of him. Normal saw his father's example of how to treat people and decided he wanted to be nothing like it, so he apologizes for yelling at Taylor, and he stands up for himself, and he still loves his family even though they've hurt him. Just like his grandfather did, Normal was raised in an environment that tried to stifle him and separate him from other people, and instead chose to love himself and others as much as he possibly can.

And this difference between the generations is illustrated so well through Lark/Normal looking into the Doodler's mind:

Lark sees inside the Doodler's mind, sees that it wants to be loved, sees that it's hurt people without meaning to, fucking sees himself in it, and decides that it deserves to die.

Normal sees inside the Doodler's mind, sees that it wants to be loved, sees how things always go wrong when it tries to reach out for that love, sees himself in the Doodler, and he decides that the Doodler needs help.

(And you just know that if Henry had been the one to see inside its head instead of Lark, he would've done the exact same thing. Normal is such a good character to carry on Henry's legacy, it makes me want to fucking cry.)

Doing a freshplay through of Hades for reasons. And got to this gem.

x

I will miss you if they finally realize about you, Tumblr the website and app Twitter account. You shined bright, you magnificent being.