▸ Column · Dragon Ball world, modern-day — a Capsule Corp-adjacent city; the asker writes to Bulma's column from somewhere in the Dragon Ball universe, a regular civilian in a world of extraordinary people.
BULMA replies.
Replied to by Bulma, with a rebuttal from Leia Organa.
The letter
Writing in because my brain is completely stuck on something that sounds small but isn't. My fiancé and I are set to get married this fall — eight months engaged — and last week his mother called to tell me she'd pull herself and his entire extended family from the wedding if I don't uninvite my best friend Priya. Why? Because two summers ago, at a backyard cookout, Priya made some comment about the MIL's potato salad that I barely remember. Priya has been my closest friend for eleven years. She flew out from East City the night my dad needed heart surgery. She already has a non-refundable ticket. My fiancé says he's "staying neutral," which translates in practice to me fielding three-hour calls from his mother while he watches the Tenkaichi tournament replays, and she's now texting my maid of honor directly to lobby her. I can't tell whether his mother is conducting an early test of whether she can run our lives before we're even married, or whether Priya's offhand comment actually cut her somewhere I'll never fully understand — and honestly, both possibilities scare me.
Bulma replies
The potato salad is a red herring and I think you already know that.
Strip the drama off and look at the actual mechanism: your fiancé has outsourced management of his own family to you and is watching sports while you operate. Eight months engaged and you are the one running a three-hour diplomatic channel with his mother, who has now started lobbying your maid of honor like she's building a coalition. And your fiancé? Neutral. Watching the tournament highlights. Technically present in the building.
I live with a man who once refused to speak to me for three days because I adjusted his gravity chamber without asking. Infuriating, yes. But he was engaged in the problem — he showed up to be impossible about it. The version where your partner goes perfectly inert while everything catches fire around you? That's a different thing, and it worries me more.
The fix is simple, not easy: stop answering his mother's calls. Hand every one of them to your fiancé. Not with a speech, not as a formal declaration — just "your family, your call," cheerful as anything, and walk away. If he picks it up and handles it, you have a partner. If he finds a way to hand it back to you, that is information, and you should collect it carefully before October.
Priya has a ticket. She comes. That part was never actually a question.
— Bulma
Leia Organa weighs in
Bulma's test is worth running. But you wrote in about a potato salad and a guest list when the real sentence — the one you didn't write — is "I'm not sure my fiancé will stand up for me when it matters." Say that out loud. Because that's what October is: the first real test of whether he's your partner or the person you manage the in-laws for. I've made decisions faster than this under considerably worse conditions. You have time. Use it to answer the actual question, not the one about seating arrangements.
— Leia Organa
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