kowalskiology101

[kowalskiology101]

The end of an era is nigh

Well ok that sounds super dramatic. It's not, honestly. I'm just saying If We Stay, the modern family series I wrote, is coming to an end. One is being posted on Ao3 and I have 6 WIPs with base outlines and the final one I'm hoping to get out by June 26th, 2024. Why then? Because that'll mark a year since I started writing and posting Modern Family. I won't stop writing MoFy as I have more ideas and AUs and a request, but If We Stay was born of Return to California and me still hating the ending of the show. So I wrote a broadly spanned 5 more years in the lives of the Tucker-Pritchett family and the ending will be one year later and basically a summary of what everyone in the fam is up to.

I didn't want to go to Jay's death, he'll already be 80 and I already did a broadly applicable to this AU story where he dies. Also the series focused on Mitch and Cam and the kids and I want to try to branch into other members of the family or other characters. Anything else I want to add for that universe will be a companion piece and not really a direct sequel or prequel. It'll exist in it's own little bubble of a series

I think I might mark MoFy Foundation as complete too after two more fics I plan for Mitch and Cam's anniversary, but it seems like a solid foundation rimshot...for stories that have to do with the Pritchett family and the beginnings of Camchell.

Anyway, I'll put the official thanks in the end fic when the time comes, but thanks to anyone who came from tumblr who might've read/kudos/commented. I appreciate you all whether you're still in the fandom or not, you really have helped me as a writer and a person. I'm happy to have contributed to the expansion of the MoFy fandom, especially fixing Mitch and Cam and doing Camchell justice. Onwards to awesomeness! <3 <3

#modern family #fanfics #ao3 fanfic #camchell

[kowalskiology101]

A little tag thing I suppose

Tagged by @just-a-music-and-poetry-lover

Thank you for the tag!

If you're tagged, make a new post and share one to two sentences from your most recent unposted WIP(s) with zero context. Let your followers guess!

I have so many unposted WIPs and only myself to blame for trying to do multiple at once

Two people talking to each other:

“I’m fine, are you sure your nose isn’t broken?”

“Pretty sure…and pretty sure I fractured his skull.”

I tag anyone who wants to do it, go ahead

#ao3 fanfic

[kowalskiology101]

My MoFy ranking of 6 main adult characters' parents seen and unseen from loved to despised by me

I come and go from this site as I please. These are my personal opinions. The parents of the 6 main adults who were adults from the beginning.

1.Frank Dunphy- Always supportive and comes to things like seeing his granddaugther's boyfriend's band play in an under 21 club with his daughter in law's brother's gay partner. Always wants Phil to follow his own path and dream big. The biggest dreamer in the show.

2. Grace Dunphy- I feel like how she impacted the characters really says a lot about her. And she wanted someone to take care of Frank after she died even if that relationship didn't work out. And she's one of the few adult family members who seemed to understand and relate to Alex.

3. Jay Pritchett- Mostly high up based on his ability to change through the series. Later seasons didn't do season 5 finale Jay justice as much as it should. He still had issues with Joe's toenails being painted or Manny not being 'manly'. But he and Mitch did come to the middle a bit and I love his overall character arc.

4. Pilar Ramirez- Mainly because the next two are unseen and the rest aren't great. She's very protective of her daughter and she does care about family.

5. Fulgencio Ramirez- honestly we don't know much but from how Gloria describes him, he sounds pretty decent. He could be tied or switched with Jay's mom simply because we don't have enough info.

6. Jay's mom- She seems a bit stern as she didn't like Mitch cutting his spaghetti (depending on how old a kid is, I'd cut spaghetti so they don't choke) but definitely stuck up for Jay when he was being berated by a coach when he was a kid.

7. Merle Tucker- He did have an affair in 1977 but that was pre series and resolved off screen. He may have made a cake topper and visited willingly and given presents, he really was still uncomfortable up to the date of the wedding. We only saw him 3 episodes (2 if you count the wedding as one big episode) He couldn't even tell the two dudes that the 'father of the bride' doesn't exist because sons are gay. Granted, Jay didn't either, but Merle seems like a pretty uninvolved parent. Uninvolved to the point of letting Barb do what she wants and not paying attention to how his kids are being raised. We don't know much about Cam's other siblings, but Pam and Cam are a result of bad parenting (I know script says they do this and that and I know it's a sitcom and not that deep, but I'm a writer and this is my current fandom obsession. So it is that deep for the stories)

8. Dede Pritchett- I'll just echo something Mitch said in the crazy train episode and should've remembered "She's a scheming dragon woman hell-bent on destroying everyone around her" (I actually disliked Mitchell the most in Good Grief for dismissing how horrible Dede was to Claire)

9. Jay's dad- While Dede was a living presence, she really impacted one generation. Jay's dad impacted two. His son and grandson by emotional neglect. He's not mentioned that many times but when he is mentioned around Mitch, the redhead is silent (could just be script choice and me reading too much into it-shush, my opinion). Claire does mention him going on a racist rant about Pearl Harbor bc he saw sushi in a store in the seventies. I admit some fanon interpretations have impacted me, but I don't feel like it's a long shot to assume he was in some form mentally/emotionally abusive. There is a mentioned incident of Mitch not being able to stand salt and vinegar chips due to childhood trauma when he was seven and Cam knows since he was more concerned about Lily underperforming in a talent show at that moment and said 'can't relive this with you right now'. It could be a bully who made him eat the chips, I personally headcanon it being Mitch's grandfather forcing him after he tried one and spit it in the trash.

10. Barb Tucker- What could be worse than narcissistic, scheming dragon lady mother or man who spurred generational (at least emotional) trauma? My issues with Barb were initially just her continuous sexual assault of Mitchell (damn writers for just being ok with this) and being cheated on in the past doesn't absolve her of future crimes. What she did to Mitchell was bad enough, but I've been thinking of her impact on Cam and how not only did she baby him and treat him like the golden child, but years after Cam and Mitch were married, Barb seemingly 'still blames herself to this day' for Cam being gay because she once washed his mouth out with soap in the shape of (leaning tower of Pisa or Eiffel tower). So that got me thinking is she trying to scare Mitch away and somehow turn her son straight? Barb will always be the character I dislike most on this show. More than Pam because it's at least partially her fault Pam and Cam are so 'high and mighty' . Yes, even more than Gil Thorpe.

#modern family #cameron tucker #mitchell pritchett #jay pritchett #gloria pritchett #claire dunphy #phil dunphy #pls take with grain of salt or mountain of salt #reviews

[kowalskiology101]

Hey guys (: I struggle with sharing good things that happen to me with people in real life because I feel like they think I’m just trying to flex or something so

I’m going to the courthouse on Friday for my legal name change!

I’m very happy about this and hope it works out. That is all <3

[kowalskiology101]

I had to for Cam's birthday

Cam's fifty-second thirteenth birthday! He is most definitely celebrating in LA with awesome family and friends and not in Missouri...sigh, let me dream...

I never understood why Phil still claimed the day as 'his special bonus day' even after so many years of knowing Cam.

Welp, back into the ether I go

(I do not own this gif nor do I profit from it)

#modern family #cameron tucker #this blog only recognizes fanon cam

[kowalskiology101]

Nex Benedict.

Say their name.

They were 16 years old. That could have been me, or you, or any of us. They want it to be all of us, and they’re starting with the most vulnerable. The child who was only trying to use the restroom. Not even the one that they told them not to use. They were using the restroom that their school made them use, and still, they were attacked and killed.

No one even called an ambulance.

Nex loved nature, and cooking, and going for walks, and Minecraft, and The Walking Dead, and their cat Zeus. They were Choctaw. They had lived on the Cherokee reservation. They were an Indigiqueer youth. They had so much life to live. So many other things to love.

They were only in 10th grade. They were only 16.

Say their name.

Nex Benedict.

[kowalskiology101]

Nex Benedict.

Say their name.

They were 16 years old. That could have been me, or you, or any of us. They want it to be all of us, and they’re starting with the most vulnerable. The child who was only trying to use the restroom. Not even the one that they told them not to use. They were using the restroom that their school made them use, and still, they were attacked and killed.

No one even called an ambulance.

Nex loved nature, and cooking, and going for walks, and Minecraft, and The Walking Dead, and their cat Zeus. They had so much life to live. So many other things to love.

They were only in 10th grade. They were only 16.

Say their name.

Nex Benedict.

[kowalskiology101]

My favorite ‘I gotta fix them’ couple, Mitch and Cam, back at it again for Valentine’s Day!

#modern family #cameron tucker #mitchell pritchett #camchell #this blog only recognizes fanon cam #animal crossing #acnh

[kowalskiology101]

No one reblogs on tumblr anymore.

No one leaves comments on Ao3 anymore.

Seriously people the lack of fandom interaction these days makes me genuinely depressed, it never used to be like this, makes me wonder what's the point of coming online to do anything anymore.

Reblog a post so other people can see it.

Leave a comment so the author doesn't feel like giving up.

Fandom cannot live on Likes or Kudos alone.

[kowalskiology101]

Hi Neil! I was just wondering, since I know how large your audience is, if you could maybe share my friend’s gofundme for their top surgery? They’re struggling to raise funds at the moment.

No problem if not! Have a good day <3

Sure!

[kowalskiology101]

Mitch and Cam, prepared for festivale!

#modern family #cameron tucker #mitchell pritchett #camchell #animal crossing #this blog only recognizes fanon Cam

[kowalskiology101]

I’m dressed as Mitchell Pritchett in his cowboy getup and my hc is that Cam’s flower name is Camellia while Mitch is Zinnia

#modern family #cameron tucker #mitchell pritchett #camchell #animal crossing

[kowalskiology101]

Welcome to the Tucker-Pritchett duplex! I have plans to make their new home they should’ve stayed in and Jays house. Currently making the Dunphy house

[kowalskiology101]

Welcome to the Tucker-Pritchett duplex! I have plans to make their new home they should’ve stayed in and Jays house. Currently making the Dunphy house

#modern family #mitchell pritchett #cameron tucker #minecraft

[kowalskiology101]

I'm agreeing with you. I never knew the nuances and the points of Dudley's abuse until later in life. Probably because I wasn't very attentive to the subtext, I miss that a lot. I did wonder why Mrs. Weasley only 'pursed her lips' when the abuse was mentioned and did nothing about it. Another case is Neville Longbottom. Poor kid not only had a last name like that (did she have to?) he was bullied at school and his home life was abysmal. His parents were tortured to insanity and his family is horrible. He's consistently being compared to his father and basically being asked 'why aren't you better'. His family kept putting him in dangrous situations to try to provoke his magic from showing up. I don't know what Blackpool Pier is, but he said he was dropped off it.

His uncle held him by his ankles from the window (I don't think that was the pier bc road) and got distracted by a 'merengue' (pie or drink idc, he got distracted from his abuse). Neville bounced safely on the road and his grandmother bought his toad...I would've gotten that kid to a safer home. No mention of grandma is angry with uncle, just- oh we're so happy he's magical! And if he wasn't, he could've died. His grandma was only truly proud of him when he fought in book 5. he was 15 when the woman who raised him finally stopped comparing him to his father so much and actually said she was proud to have a him as a grandson. Kid goes to school at age 11 barely having proved to his family he was magic and is immediately the bullied kid. He's also very forgetful and giving him a plastic toy that tells him he forgot something does nothing to help him because it doesn't say what he forgot.

Snape-I hate fandom loving him. Alan Rickman isn't Snape and idk how he was, he was probably chill. He played Snape. Snape was horrid. Snape abused the kids so badly I'm like-why is this man still here. If he needed to be 'watched' put him on house arrest. Don't let him teach. Poor Neville's so nervous his worst fear is a teacher. Not spiders, not soul sucking monsters, not even the big bad wizard or the evil witch who tortured his parents. The teacher. I never understood those excuses for Snape. Loving Lily means nothing. Snape was perfectly fine with James and baby Harry dying and only hastily asked for them to be saved. Even in the first movie, he's like 'why u not paying attention, Potter?' and I'm seing Daniel taking notes over here of every word like he's Hermione. He's writing what you said, dude.

To add onto the point of Harry, when he was first recruited as seeker, he thought 'Wood' was a cane to hit him with. His aunt also 'aimed at his head with a soapy frying pan' and he ducked automatically. Also when he and hermione got in trouble for being out at night with the dragon in the book, they lost the point lead and EVERYONE in the school turned against him. Even the teachers were a bit bitter with him. He wished at that point to go home. He'd rather have been in the abusive home than school because he was ostracized.

I made this post recently and a few people asked for the full essay, so here it it:

How Harry Potter depicted abuse (and why it was pretty fucking harmful)

Disclaimer: I have not read the books for years so there may be points I’ve either missed out or misremembered. A lot of this is mostly based on what I witnessed within the fandom at the time I was a part of it.

So, I did touch on this in a post I made on a different (now deactivated) account, but there’s one specific point that I didn’t go into detail then that I would like to now. Basically… we need to seriously talk about Dudley.

I’ve made a lot of posts about how the “perfect victim” is a harmful myth, and I realised that Dudley is actually a really good example of this, along with a lot of other harmful rhetoric that his character depiction spreads. I don’t think enough people appreciate the fact that Dudley was also abused by the Dursleys. I won’t say for sure that the way they spoiled him was abusive, because I’m honestly not an expert on child psychology and I don’t know how much spoiling can be considered a form of abuse, because I feel like it would depend on a whole heap of very specific contexts and I’m sure it’s incredibly subjective, so I’ll leave that up to someone else to debate. But I want to talk about the fact that there is canonical depictions of, at the very least, physical abuse towards Dudley.

In book 1, there’s a scene where the Dursleys are driving away from Privet Drive in order to escape from the onslaught of Hogwarts letters, and at one point it’s mentioned that Dudley was hit round the head by his father for holding them up. Obviously, this is (I think?) an isolated event, so I’m not going to claim that this is evidence of any continuous physical abuse, but I do feel as if a lot of physical harm that befalls Dudley is very much overlooked and even joked about within the book series. Dudley was— to put it frankly— very much targeted by those around him in ways that just weren’t fair. The fact that Hagrid used a spell that physically harmed Dudley’s body and that was seen as okay and comical because “Dudley’s a spoilt brat and he deserves it” is just… icky. Dudley was eleven, he was a young child, and he was physically targeted by an adult for something that was objectively the fault of his parents. That isn’t something that should have been seen as acceptable, and I really despise JKR’s depiction of Dudley as a whole. She could have made him a more sympathetic character by acknowledging the fact that he was pretty much doomed from the start, but she never gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was almost always the comic relief character, in the way that he was the “dumb fat one” and any physical harm that came to him was good and deserved and funny, even when Dudley was a young child.

I don’t know about you, but I do have sympathy for children who are spoiled by their parents. I’m not saying any hurtful actions they do are justified, but I can appreciate the fact that their parents basically screwed up their healthy development and left them unable to regulate their emotions or learn important life skills or develop ways to maintain healthy relationships etc. and I think this side of spoiled children is very rarely empathised with in their depictions, and leaves them vulnerable to being incredibly villainised to a point where any abuse they do or have faced is completely invalidated and even seen as being deserved. When Dudley gets hit by his parents or physically assaulted by Hagrid, we are supposed to get some sense of vindication from this, because Dudley has repeated the cycle of abuse towards Harry so therefore, he must deserve the abuse back.

But Dudley is still a child, who has grown up in a home surrounded by abuse to the point where it’s normalised for him, and that isn’t funny. That isn’t something to be made light of. JKR made such light of the Dursleys’ abuse towards both Harry and Dudley that it’s frankly insulting that she was ever a spokesperson for child abuse charities.

Which brings me to Harry himself, although I may touch upon Dudley again if I think of more things to say about him. Harry’s abuse, while definitely less subtle and far more widely recognised, still wasn’t treated seriously at all. For starters, the abuse that he did go through was widely diminished and sometimes even viewed through a comical lens. When the Dursleys shouted at him or neglected him or starved him, it was seen as something not to be taken seriously. The Dursleys were stupid, so their threats didn’t really mean anything. Harry never saw their abuse as a big deal, and from Harry’s perspective, I understand this. He’s put up with their abuse his entire life, so for the sake of his own protection, he refuses to acknowledge how bad it is or that the Dursleys are in any way an actual threat to be taken seriously. It’s a trauma response in Harry, but the problem is… it isn’t made clear that this is a trauma response. By writing from Harry’s perspective and never having anyone actually call out the Dursleys’ abuse, it normalises what the Dursleys are actually doing to Harry. If Harry doesn’t care, and no one else cares, then that means I— the reader— shouldn’t care either.

Here’s where I really have a problem with this: if Harry Potter was written for adults, then I’d have more leniency, because adults are able to think logically and critically about the context and the different perspectives. But Harry Potter’s target audience is children, and they do not yet possess the capabilities to understand beyond the surface level of what they’re told. They will simply believe that everything from Harry’s perspective is correct and accurate, which means they will believe that Harry’s abuse is not a big deal, because no one in the books ever say otherwise.

It’s quite telling that there was a craze of children wanting to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs, and I don’t know how much this was down to just the books or how much it was down to the movies, but I feel like if you’ve written abuse in such a way that children want to emulate it, then you’ve definitely written it wrong.

I did see the consequences of depicting Harry’s abuse in this way while I was in the fandom. I used to see tumblr posts way way back in the earlier days insisting that Harry’s abuse “wasn’t that bad” and that other fictional characters had it way worse than Harry ever did. A lot of their justification for this was that Harry was never explicitly hit by the Dursleys, but this then leads into the harmful rhetoric that physical abuse is the only “valid” type of abuse. Harry did experience severe abuse that no one ever really acknowledged. I wasn’t able to realise this as a child, because the books never made it obvious, but the canonical things that Harry went through would have genuinely impacted his entire development as a human being. He was neglected and shown absolutely no love or kindness or positive interaction as a very young child, which is absolutely detrimental to a child’s development and mental well-being. He was treated as an outcast by everyone around, grew up thinking that he was the least important person and that none of his feelings ever mattered, he was deprived from any kind of fun or joy or excitement, he had his meals revoked as punishment, was made to feel that any questions or thoughts he had were not to be shared, and he was made to sleep in a fucking cupboard. You can pretend all you like that because he wasn’t (explicitly) abused physically then that means his abuse wasn’t that bad, but this is the literally definition of severe childhood neglect and abuse.

We need to move away from the idea that physical abuse is the only “valid” abuse because that’s what I kept seeing within the HP fandom. Harry’s mental and emotional abuse wasn’t taken seriously by the books themselves, so the young audience who were consuming them also did not take it seriously. This leads to harmful ideas about what abuse is “supposed” to look like and also seriously diminishes and invalidates any child who experiences similar abuse to Harry and who reads the books, only to find that the abuse they face is depicted as “not that big of a deal”. It’s not a good enough excuse to say that the books couldn’t be too heavy because of the target audience, because if that’s the case… don’t add in the abuse in the first place. Harry could have just been an outcast who got bullied at school, but JKR specifically wrote all of this abuse and never properly called it out or made it clear why and how it was so bad, to an audience of children who would have taken everything the books said at face value.

I know we say that the author’s own viewpoints don’t necessarily match with the characters’, or that authorial intention doesn’t necessarily reflect the author’s own person. But when we’re talking about books directly targeted at children and young teenagers, then this can’t always be a hard and fast rule. You can’t write about heavy and complicated topics in a way that harmfully depicts them or make light of them and then expect an audience of children to not take what your books say as the word of gospel. Authors do have to be responsible for what they write when their audience is so young, and JKR was extremely irresponsible with how she wrote abuse.

Again, I understand why Harry himself didn’t see the abuse as a big deal, but that doesn’t mean that other adults around him shouldn’t have. Harry repeatedly revealed aspects of his home life, or at least, aspects of his home life were unintentionally revealed to other people, and no one really did or said anything. Yes, the Dursleys were seen as bad, but they were also seen as sort of comical cartoon villains, which isn’t a good way to depict abusers who treat the child character in ways that a lot of real life abused children are treated. Their abusers are not comical cartoon villains, they are people from whom these children need to escape from and find help from trusted sources, and Harry never got to do that. As soon as Harry steps foot into Hogwarts, his abuse is basically forgotten about. It’s never brought up, it’s never mentioned, it doesn’t affect him or the way he regulates his emotions or his relationships with other people or anything like that, because I suppose it wasn’t convenient to the story.

But this is just straight up bad storytelling, and wildly irresponsible, because again: it invalidates what abused children go through and how it affects them. Oh Harry’s abuse doesn’t matter because he’s at Hogwarts now, but abused kids reading those books didn’t have a Hogwarts to go to. They had no catharsis from Harry getting to truly unpack, acknowledge and escape from his abuse, they simply had a made up Wizarding school that they could never actually go to and a character who never seemed to have to deal with the negative effects of what the Dursleys put him through because it wasn’t “convenient”.

JKR did not have to make Harry go through that sort of abuse, or really any abuse at all, for that matter. This wasn’t a case where Harry’s abuse was necessary to the story, and she’s even said that she wanted to write him as even more abused (although I balk at the whole “more or less” abused concept considering that Harry was very much already severely abused, but JKR clearly didn’t take that abuse seriously enough if this was what she considered to be toned down for her editors), despite the fact that she could have just left it at Harry being bullied or something. The way she wrote abuse feels like how a misinformed teenager writes abuse into their OC’s backstory to make it more tragic; they don’t quite understand the nuance and the conversations surrounding abuse or the harmful rhetorics that can potentially be spread, they just want a tragic backstory. I did this when I was thirteen. I grew out of it. JKR is an adult who should have known better than to write something that affects millions of children in a way that was far more light-hearted and unserious than I’m sure she’d ever willingly admit.

Abuse is not something that can just be written about for fun, or for spicy backstories, it does actually need to be represented carefully, responsibly and properly. JKR did none of this, and the fact that her audience were so young and therefore so impressionable, is really quite fucked up. What’s even more fucked up is that the only conceivable way that Harry’s abuse was necessary to the story was so that Harry would remain so loyal to Dumbledore, which basically means that Dumbledore knowingly exploited an abused child.

And Dumbledore was written as the fucking good guy.

I could go on and on about this, but I’m struggling to put all of my thoughts in order. I could mention the way that the Weasleys knew full well how the Dursleys were treating Harry by the time the second book rolled around because Ron witnessed first hand the bars on Harry’s windows and the way that the Dursleys were starving him. He told his mother this and she barely acknowledged it and, in true HP fashion, as soon as Harry returned to Hogwarts, none of that abuse mattered anymore! And none of the trusted adults in Harry’s life did a single thing to stop it.

I could also mention the fatphobia that went into JKR’s depiction of the Dursleys, particularly how Dudley was allowed to be treated because “he’s fat and fat = bad.”

But I want to briefly acknowledge how this affected the fandom and its views on abuse, because I was there, and I had been there since the age of ten. I remember being a young child and not taking Harry’s abuse seriously at all because the books never did. I remember how many fanfictions changed Harry’s backstory to make him far more abused because no one took his real abuse seriously. People made so many posts about Harry’s abuse not being that bad because of how it was depicted, and so many children even went so far as to try to emulate some of it because JKR never made it obvious enough that what the Dursleys were doing was not fucking okay and that they were not just cartoon villains. They were real people who treated real children like that, and no one fucking took it seriously.

I absolutely would love anyone else who has read the books to add on, either to let me know if I’ve missed anything, or if I’ve misremembered something or just to give any extra thoughts. I definitely feel like there’s a lot more to add but I’m tired, and the less time I can spend talking about JKR and her books, the better.

[kowalskiology101]

Well this was something-

Probably won't really be on this site much not that I really was. Social media's never really been my thing and it's probably for the best. I'm not good at social cues, or social anything so if I've done or said something stupid which I probably have, sorry. Except for my review opinons. I really only joined so I could share a piece of art. Was thinking of posting something I have in drafts for Mitch and Cam's anniversary, but that's pretty much it. I'm not much for self promotion which is why I don't link many stories here. Decided to drop the review blog too. Chances are, it'll hit certain fandoms the wrong way and there are very toxic fandoms out there and i'm not one for getting into drama because I insulted someone's fave character.

#rambles

[kowalskiology101]

If fixing them is wrong, I don't wanna be right -A Camchell Haiku

I write your Fanon

My heart longs for should have been

True love and promise

#modern family #mitchell pritchett #cameron tucker #original haiku #camchell