Villain I have done thy mother

Main character is robbing a house when they realise they aren’t alone. A kid catches them in the act. Never having been great at dealing with stress, the protagonist blurts out the first thing that comes to mind: “you’re a wizard”.

A little backstory:

1) The kid is, in fact, a wizard, albeit unaware of this fact.

2) A magic school has been trying to covertly enroll the child, but is thwarted consistently by the parents.

3) The parents are chill but hate the education system or something idk just anything more interesting than the whole “I hate magic” dramatic jazz hands thing. Maybe they just want their child to have basic technological literacy.

So now the school is trying to use the protagonist as an in with the kid, the parents are trying to convince the protagonist not to let the kid into the school, and the protagonist just wants to learn magic goddamn it and also maybe not have to make a living by robbing people.

The kid keeps threatening to call the cops, but the school keeps intervening in increasingly ridiculous ways.

Maybe the child is subject to a prophecy but the parents are philisophically opposed to godly bullshit so have instead made a very complex plan to kill some BBEG that’s off to the side. They are incredibly unhappy to discover that was the deific plan all along.

Or cannibals.

Main character is robbing a house when they realise they aren’t alone. A kid catches them in the act. Never having been great at dealing with stress, the protagonist blurts out the first thing that comes to mind: “you’re a wizard”.

A little backstory:

1) The kid is, in fact, a wizard, albeit unaware of this fact.

2) A magic school has been trying to covertly enroll the child, but is thwarted consistently by the parents.

3) The parents are chill but hate the education system or something idk just anything more interesting than the whole “I hate magic” dramatic jazz hands thing. Maybe they just want their child to have basic technological literacy.

So now the school is trying to use the protagonist as an in with the kid, the parents are trying to convince the protagonist not to let the kid into the school, and the protagonist just wants to learn magic goddamn it and also maybe not have to make a living by robbing people.

The kid keeps threatening to call the cops, but the school keeps intervening in increasingly ridiculous ways.

Maybe the child is subject to a prophecy but the parents are philisophically opposed to godly bullshit so have instead made a very complex plan to kill some BBEG that’s off to the side. They are incredibly unhappy to discover that was the deific plan all along.

#KEEP THIS ALIVE

op is absolutely right. this is coming from someone who researches and teaches on age and society professionally. modern western society is age-segregated to an unprecedented degree and there is ample evidence that it is absolutely fucking us over. it’s linked to everything from economic hardship to mental health crises.

intergenerational friendships are important. adults who never interact with young people outside of a defined institutional relationship with a built-in power imbalance (like being a parent or teacher) don’t develop the capacity to treat young people as equals, which reinforces patterns of abuse, neglect, social disempowerment, and silencing. young people who lack meaningful connections with adults outside of those same institutions miss out on an incredible source of support and guidance. and everyone misses out on the basic human joy of friendships that could have been really meaningful if we didn’t have this weird, broken ideology that says young people have nothing interesting to say, and no value to adults who don’t either want to raise them or exploit them or both.

like, sure, with any relationship between a minor and an adult, the adult has a responsibility that the minor doesn’t. some shit only comes from life experience. but like… that teen who comes to dnd on fridays, the younger coworker, that person met through fandom? i’m not gonna pretend we’re not friends just because i’m older than they are.

Intergenerational friendships are like??? So varied?????

Like maybe you’re 16 and working your first job, and you have an old Chinese man as a regular who sits at a table and reads the Chinese newspaper his family mails him, and you start sitting down and talking to him when it’s slow. And he tells you all about the life he’s lived, of being a child in the aftermath of world war two. And he talks to you about the prejudice he’s seen, and the way he sees people treat each other, and how much things have changed. And you learn a lot.

Or you meet a 30-something mother of two that walks with a cane in a group therapy session, and when you speak to her she opens up about her struggles with drugs, and how she wishes to stay better so she can be there for her kids. And she teaches you about having a more open mind when it comes to religious beliefs when you’re an edgy atheist teen.

Or you’re very isolated in your hobbies, and you meet a group of college students that share your interests and are fine letting you join in on their card games and D&D, and you not only learn the games but you get used to a group that’s accepting and just wants to have fun and make everyone comfy, and you learn not every group of people has to be judgemental and scary.

You’re saying that instead of making teens aware of the signs of toxic relationships, and keeping an open line of communication so we can help them take notice of and avoid these things… You’d rather we lock teens in a box where they’re deprived of the positives?

Force so many teens to be around peers that bully and disregard them, when they have prospective friends in local clubs and support groups that just aren’t necessarily in their peer group?

Hardcore Tumblr users really are just puritans huh? Hell even historically, households were made of many generations, and kids helped out in the community and met the adults that kept it going.

Years later we still get updates on her life, and a bunch of those people went to see her perform on stage six years later when she got the lead role in her college(!!!) production of She Kills Monsters.

I got really close to an adult volunteer with a queer youth group in high school, and she took me in like an odd, overenthusiastic niece. I did have a crush on her a little, but it was the sort of thing that teaches you what you like in a person without meaning anything more than that. She and her wife loaned me a pile of lesbian books to read, taught me to cook, and helped me learn to drive. They were like family. 

My grandmother’s friends, who I’ve known all my life, are also my friends. One of them is in the last year of her life now, and as sad as I am to lose her, I’m so grateful to have known her, to have been friends with her as close as she and my grandmother were. I’m also grateful my grandmother and I can share this grief and joy.

Afghanistan’s independence was in 1919.

Egypt was in 1922.

Iraq was in 1932.

Jordan was in 1946.

India and Pakistan were in 1947.

Myanmar and Sri Lanka were in 1948.

Libya and Oman were in 1951.

Sudan was in 1956.

Ghana and Malaysia were in 1957.

Singapore was in 1959.

Cyprus and Nigeria were in 1960.

Cameroon, Kuwait, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone were in 1961.

Jamaica, Uganda, and Trinidad and Tobago were in 1962.

Kenya was in 1963.

Malawi, Malta, and Zambia were in 1964.

The Gambia and the Maldives were in 1965.

Barbados, Botswana, Lesotho, and Guyana were in 1966.

Yemen was in 1967.

Eswartini (Swaziland), Nauru, and Mauritius were in 1968.

Fiji and Tonga were in 1970.

Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates were in 1971.

The Bahamas was in 1973.

Grenada was in 1974

Seychelles was in 1976.

Dominica, Tuvalu, and the Solomon Islands were in 1978.

Kiribati and Saint Lucia were in 1979.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines were in 1979.

Vanuatu and Zimbabwe were in 1980.

Antigua and Barbuda and Belize were in 1981.

Saint Kitts was in 1983.

Brunei was in 1984.

In addition to that: Northern Ireland is still a British territory. So are the Falkland Islands and Bermuda.

Not all women can become pregnant. Not everyone who can become pregnant is a woman. 

people are full to the BRIM with stories and honing that storytelling into a specific practice (ex. writing) is for sure a learned skill that takes tons of practice to do effectively but…… it’s there. it’s there and anyone can tap into it if they’re given opportunity and an audience to say it to.