"My Children"

This post is going to be something that most people would probably find embarrassing to admit, but for some reason, I don't feel that shame. While I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that I consider the Weasleys the greatest family of all time, I'm struggling to actually find a place where I've said it. Whether I did or not, just let it be known that they are my favorites, and if I were ever in a position where I had to choose a fictional family as my own, I would choose the Weasleys hands down.

I treat that fact as if it's well known because in my head it's like it should be. It's difficult for me to fathom why anyone would choose a different family over the Weasleys, and considering I'm hmweasley just about everywhere where I'm on the Internet, my feelings toward the Weasleys feel like they should just be a given to everyone.

What isn't remotely as obvious, is which characters I've regularly made a habit as referring to as my children. Because I have. It's a fairly recent development, and maybe it should freak me out because it might be a sign of my age or something. It's at least partially Tumblr's fault, but there still has to be more to the reason why I decided to adopt it all of the sudden. I don't know. All I know it that a year or two ago, it started to become a lot more common for me to use "my child" when talking about certain characters.

This isn't something that I say indiscriminately either, and it isn't about who my ultimate favorite characters are. I don't refer to Alec Lightwood or Hermione Granger as my children. For some reason, that would feel strange to me. Yet there are other characters where I have no problem doing it with. It's not age or anything either because that doesn't line up. For some reason, there's just something about certain characters that lead to me saying it without fully realizing that I'm saying it.

Until I say it enough about certain characters that it becomes ingrained in the way I talk about them of course.

I noticed it with Naruto first. There's a large possibility I was saying it about other characters earlier and just didn't realize it, but Naruto was the first one where I said it one too many times and stopped myself to think, "Wait. Why am I doing that?" I still haven't really got an answer to that either.

So, yeah, I regularly refer to Naruto as my son these days, although I've tried to avoid it so far on the Internet. It felt like it would come across as a little crazy, but I'm not sure why because I know this is actually pretty standard Tumblr speak. I know that had an influence on why exactly I keep doing this.

*NARUTO SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH*

I even started referring to Hinata as my child, but that felt weird considering they get married. So now I've tried to start referring to her as my daughter-in-law instead. (But if I slip and just say "daughter" or "child" then I just go along with that be close enough to daughter-in-law anyway.) When I started doing that, I knew this whole thing was probably becoming a bit much.

I still refer to the two of them as "my child"more than anyone else, but here is a pretty definitive list of the characters I actually use the term with: Zuko for Avatar, Gaara from Naruto, Sai from Naruto, Harry Potter, and Teddy Lupin. I don't know why the group of them, collectively, became the only characters I ever really use this with. It couldn't really escape my notice how many people on that list are orphans or just have really terrible parents. That fact has to be at least some part of why my brain decided to throw the term at them.

No matter what wound up causing it though, it's becoming an increasingly regular part of my vocabulary, and I honestly can't decide if that's a good thing or not. While I don't really see any harm in it, sometimes I become a bit self-conscious of the fact that a lot of people would view it as either weird or just a bit too extreme of fangirling. But I can't see myself not referring to them as my children in the not so distant future whenever I'm watching or reading about them.