I just saw the screenshot of Bernadetta, as an Adrestian field commander in Hopes, running away in fear and leaving her troops to fend for themselves the second a battle begins on Dimiclaudeblaigan's blog, and i have to concur with her criticisms of the scene; how in the actual fuck did Bernadetta get into such an important position in the army if her crippling anxiety was never solved and she's just going to bolt the second a fight starts??

It's a funny joke, sure, but the only way this makes any sense is if Edelgard gave Bernadetta the position literally just because they were friends and she felt like doing a bit of nepotism by giving her a high-ranking job she was throughly unqualified for, and even that doesn't really work logically; surely there were safer jobs she could have had Bernadetta work on that wouldn't inevitably end with a not-insignificant portion of Adrestia's army getting decimated, especially when she never does anything this (militarily) idiotic anywhere else in the game.

I've seen it too lol

But anon, it applies to Bernie but to any member of the BESF in general, they're joke characters.

Bernie's anxiety and agoraphobia is treated as a joke in those games, and if the shitstorm around Grégoire's support was any indication, she was never supposed to be a character with a serious trauma that will later be explored, like Felix and his teenage rebellion against his Father and/or "chivalry" or Dimitri.

Grégoire tying Bernie to a chair to force her to listen to a lecture is a joke, the "tie to a chair" is the same joke Tibarn uses when he says he tied Reyson to a bed to force him to rest (kinky stuff aside) - it was never about irl abuse. Sure, it doesn't land right most of the times, but again, Bernie (and the BESF in general?) aren't supposed to be taken seriously, they have quirks for funsies and FEH gacha purposes, but Bernie isn't supposed to be a proper call out to the real life situation and "problem" in Japan that are hikikomoris.

Just like Linhardt's haematophobia - do you realise Naruto, with the treatment we all know and hate of its female characters, managed to tackle the issue of a "healer with haematophobia" better something that was released in 2019?

Given how Supremely Aware Supreme Leader is sometimes, I wonder if she didn't saw anything wrong about Bernie being a commander even when Bernie still panics and has a lot of anxiety.

Maybe it was something the devs made on purpose - like yes, it is nepotism (which is WAY better than people being appointed based on their ascendance, right??) and it's another example of "do what I say but not what I do" from supreme Leader, or it was just for a joke because at times the devs seem to consider war as something funny to do between two teatime parties.

In a more serious setting though... Bernie's anxiety would still exist, but be subdued by her choice to fight in this battle (isn't this what we see from Bernie in FE16?) - so maybe this line wasn't added to poke fun at Supreme Leader or have fun at Bernie's expense, but to show how she reacts in a war situation if Billy had never been there to help her?

Please please tell me that Tara just loves baby dekarios

oh she’s invested from day ZERO

top 10 pictures taken right before a specimen jar ‘accidentally’ falls off a shelf ^^^

there’s not enough lizzie ldshadowlady appreciation in this fandom and frankly I think we need to rectify this

she acts terrified of absolutely everyone except her husband, whom she is increasingly exasperated by. she and ren were rivalling dogwarts with their interactions. she was boogeyman twice in two different seasons and essentially did the exact same trap, that failed in essentially the exact same way, and somehow she still managed to get the kill because the person was too confused to process the fact they were being stabbed. she’s a fairy. she’s the shadow queen. she’s totally definitely pearl, she just has an amnesia cold. she spends half her time complaining about her husband, and the other half flirting with him in front of people. her dogs were named dragon, ogre and taxes so they’d be intimidating. ‘and so I left this world how I entered it: confused.’ she griefed the server. jimmy killed her.

i've returned for 2 seconds to tell you that they're not leaving my head. (sort of unrelated but i've been thinking as well. what if vasco died before machete ? what would go down)

.

i would advise against sneaking a bunch of silly billies into your castle

stop thinking so hard about it dude ur gnna get a headache

Fav father daughter duo ✨️❄️

putting croatia and switzerland playing after each other was hilarious like “mama i’m going to waaaaaaaaar” then right after ”i dont wanna go to war” was deadass like germany “i dont feel hate” followed by finland “put your middle fingers up” levels of iconic.... i ❤️ cinematic parallels

i've seen model steve harrington aus. i've seen child steve harrington aus. i present: child model steve harrington

note: this came from my own desperate need to see this conceptualized and i SWEAR i've searched, i just can't find any content with child model steve so. :(

bc little steve harrington was remarkably cherub-like. his large brown eyes and soft pout ensured endless cooing and fussing from his mom's friends. and when he blushed and ducked his head in shyness, they only complimented him more. when he got home that day, his mom smiled at him.

so steve decided that he would put up with the cheek pinching and the squealing. he sat upright in his chair, sitting on his hands so he wouldn't fidget and ruin the image. because he'd do anything to keep his mom smiling at him. if he was being particularly good that day, she'd let him lay his head on her lap on the drive back home.

but everything changed at his father's birthday gala. a nearly eight year old steve harrington sat prim and proper in his seat, but a smile lit up his face--his cheeks round and his dimples showing up. he raised his hand up to cover his giggle, but he couldn't help but laugh at some silly old man with a loose toupee. then he sees his mom approaching, and his face quickly smooths over, going back to the more polite smile he usually adopted when it came to these events.

he'd ruined it. he hadn't continued being the sweet boy his mom wanted. but then, she smiles at him. and introduces him to the man behind her, who says he's a designer. the man holds out his hand, but when steve puts his hand into his palm, he doesn't shake it. the man simply holds his hand, his eyes scanning steve's face. steve tries not to squirm under the attention. but the man nods and smiles at his mom, and he gives two brief cheek kisses to steve, whispering in his ear "you're going to be a star, darling." steve looks at his mom, confused, but she waves him off to continue talking to the man.

a few months later, steve's mom whisks him off on a trip to france. and steve is so excited to go, nearly vibrating in his seat as the airplane prepares to take off. but instead of the eiffel tower and the seine, steve is taken to a studio. he's posed and changed. once again, he's being fussed over, but instead of wealthy socialites, gossiping make-up artists squeal over him. he's "perfect for the shoot" and "the most darling little boy." steve doesn't understand, but his mom is still smiling, so he lets the nice ladies brush powder over his face.

and he looks in the mirror. his hair is a little more tousled and his lips have a slight tint to them and his eyes seem to take up much of his face. he's put into new clothes, and he feels like a doll in their hands. and when he's put in front of the camera, he simply follows the photographer's directions. afterwards, he's bundled into the car and his mom can't stop gushing about how good he was.

apparently, he's a natural. and then she goes back to fussing over him, focusing more on appearance than his behavior now. but she takes him out shopping and they eat at an upscale restaurant along the champs-elysses. and steve is happy.

and then they go back home, and his mom is so much stricter than before. she has him try out all kinds of different hair products, determined to find the best combination to keep it looking shiny and soft. she controls his food intake and what he wears and makes him use weird creams and serums on his face. but this is what makes his mom happy, so he's happy to let her.

his mom is also on the phone a lot more lately, whispering harshly about the quality of brands and steve just assumes she's being picky about the clothes she buys. later, his mom picks him up and holds him, and asks if he'd like to move to italy. she looks at him intently and it's obvious what answer she wants, so steve nods. she smiles and holds him close, and it's the most loved steve has felt in a while.

so they move to italy, and suddenly steve is a lot more busy. he's put in front of more cameras for more people he doesn't know. but he's smiling and pouting and doing whatever they want him to do. his compliant attitude and polite nature have photographers and designers alike singing his praises, and steve always looks to his mom for approval. but she's been arguing with his dad a lot lately, so she's upset more often than not. but that's okay, the make-up artists are always kind to him.

but then one day, his mom takes a phone call in the middle of the shoot. and when it finishes, she's gone. steve goes back in, close to tears, but the make-up artists still hanging around look after him until a car is sent to pick him up. this becomes a trend. and eventually, steve goes alone to his shoots. he's always taken care of by the crew and someone is always there to pick him up, but it's not fun without his mom there.

but he knows that she's always enjoyed him taking pictures, so he continues to do so, hoping that she'll come watch him again sometime soon. and he busies himself with befriending the chatty make-up artists and the bossy photographers and the eccentric designers. and he's such a cute little thing that they can't help but dote on him.

steve is never catapulted into child stardom, as his mom is picky with his jobs, only choosing luxury brands and well known designers for him. but within the industry, they call him the "little prince."

and then steve is catapulted into puberty, but his intense skin regimen prevents him from getting acne, save for the occasional zit. and his diet and religious exercise schedule help maintain his look. and he's still doing remarkably well, especially now that he's fully aware that he is a Model.

and steve has truly grown into his looks. with time, he's grown more comfortable in front of the camera and made numerous friends. nearly all of them are older than him, but they're fun and loud and it fills up the space that normally surrounds him. and they're the ones who get him hooked on american movies. steve remembers living in america, but he's been in milan so long that everything he recalls is vague.

but he watches them and falls in love with the american high school experience. so when he finally catches his mom off the phone and actually in the house, steve asks if he can go to school in america. and his mom laughs. but steve keeps asking, which devolves into begging. and his mother snaps, slapping him across the face and calling him ungrateful. she cries and begs for forgiveness, cowed into shame by steve's desperate attempt to hold back tears.

and so she lets him go to school in hawkins, indiana. an odd choice, but his parents just so happened to own a property there. (in truth, both of his parents expected him to change his mind within the year). but steve finds his place at hawkins high, because even though nobody in hawkins has ever heard of versace, steve is pretty. he's pretty and charming and he knows the right thing to say. after all, he's spent his whole life perfecting his mask.

and even if his mom ended up moving back home with his dad, leaving steve all alone in that big empty house, steve is happy. he's finally hanging out with people his age and high school is so far removed from the glitz and glam of the fashion industry. and he's settled and content with tommy and carol by his side. while he misses his friends back in milan, steve finds himself longing for the clothes more often. hawkins was certainly the opposite of milan, what with the nearest mall being two hours away and only equipped with a macy's and jcpenny.

through it all, steve is determined to be normal. he laughs along with jokes he doesn't quite get and rolls his eyes at carol's cue, and he joins the swim team. and he joins the basketball team. and he goes to parties and kisses girls and wears dumb little polos with his letterman jacket and does everything that he saw in the movies.

but nancy wheeler is different. steve can't forget his time in italy and who he is and was, and he's reminded of his old life in everyone and everything in hawkins. but not nancy wheeler. she's all hawkins and all his. and then the upside down happens.

and then nancy wheeler breaks his heart.

even after three years, his parents continue to ask when he'll go back to modeling, but he's different now. the upside down and billy hargrove beat that starry eyed little kid who thrived in the spotlight. and nancy wheeler proved that adoration and love is fleeting, so what would even be the point of trying anymore? his dad was a little more approving of steve's retirement/hiatus, saying that steve must want to go to college so he can take over the family business.

but when steve doesn't get into college, he's once again badgered by his mom to go back. but he's grown and changed and he's not sure that he can pretend anymore, so he says no. and they cut him off. enter: scoops era.

the measly scoops salary is not nearly enough to cover all of the new bills and expenses steve has, but he's not willing to leave hawkins. so he reaches out to his friends back in italy, and they refer him to their american connections. steve doesn't model at the same level as before, but he poses for a couple of zines and one artist who got a little too handsy at his exhibition. but he's able to make it through until the mall blows up.

this routine continues and he starts working at family video with robin at his side, but he keeps his side job a secret from the kids, using the excuse of visiting his parents to leave town for his shoots. he's not ashamed, but he knows he wouldn't "be normal" anymore if they found out.

but how does he explain his near mental breakdown at the sight of his healing demobat scars. they're raised and ugly, ruining what should have been a perfect body. and even though he uses scar cream everyday, they refuse to fade away completely. and how could anyone stand to be near such an ugly thing when all his life, steve was meant to be pretty? after all, love and adoration is fleeting.

you don't get it. she loved him once. she didn't have a maester, she had a brother. he sold their mother's crown to keep them fed. he said Dany, please. she loved him, once.

it is all love.

sometimes you will see something saying what if it is all worth it or it gets better, doesn't it and in the little heart of you - you feel a darkness.

was it love, the way i was hurt? some things don't have a lesson in them. no silver lining. they were bad things, and they shouldn't have happened. i'm sorry they did. i am sorry they warp the space they hold in you. we tightrope walk around an ever-present grave. we carry that ache for so long it becomes smooth, overworn. i worry that i'll bore my therapist - despite all of my attempts, the pain persists the same, as sharp as it always was.

but it was all love.

every ugly moment after. every bad night. every time you drank too much and cried on the bathroom floor. every time you threw up from anxiety, every time you panicked in the grocery store. everything you ruined, and everything you walked away from.

some small part of you loved you enough. made you get up. made you wash your face and clean your teeth and call home. made you try again, even from the bottom. even when you were so tired of it; of restarting, of having to do-it-all-again. some part of you reached out. some part of you reached up. even there, in the bad spot - you somehow got up.

love will so rarely be big. it will so rarely be a moment like a dawn. love is shy, i think. she keeps her hands in front of her cheeks. she waits to peek out. and if you're not looking, she will look - normal.

but it will all be love. the way you pour yourself a glass of water. the little rabbit outside your window. your friend pushing your hair behind your ear. the way your dog greets you at the door. "put on a seatbelt". "text me when you get home safe". "oh, i started watching that show you love." "have you been okay?" "let's go for a walk" "whatcha doin?" "what should i make for dinner?"

oh, my life is so different these days. i don't have a partner. i call my friends a lot. i keep falling in love with the little tender moments; the glittering ones. you know, the bird in a puddle and the shush of a newly-lit candle. the movie-moments.

i am also learning to love the ugly. every moment i spent belly-flat to the floor, anxious and panting. every hour i stared at nothing, losing time to my adhd. every missed opportunity and bad memory. i am not doing well. i am spiralling.

but somewhere in there, while i am reduced to ashes. some part of me is an ever-burning ember. her little thankless job, her shy and croaking voice. she holds me to my body. she doesn't let me go. stay, she whispers. out of love. my love. wherever it goes.

some of the bad things that happened to me will always be bad. they did not make me a better person. they made me worse. i only learned what i can endure. and i did endure it. and love wasn't just the perfumed moments. love was just ... staying. while it's ugly and hard and horrible. love was just saying:

okay. i will keep trying. keep going. i owe it to the version of myself who brought me here. i owe it to my future. i owe it to the small loves i have found since - the music and the new recipes and the new books and the new hobbies. i owe it to myself to wait for the next best thing. this wall we have hit - love says keep walking. maybe one day we will find a door.

always, always: just one try more.

this is somewhat of a vent post & something i said i would not do again but has been plaguing me enough that i think getting it out might feel better. so. has anydoggy else been. Baffled and upset by nora sakavic’s refusal to speak on how terribly aftg has treated its characters of color? with the author of the series coming back with a new book and starting up on her online activity again, and questions of what she’d change about aftg bubbling up, it’s particularly glaring to me that we are all playing this very long game of pretend where we ignore how badly the non-white cast has been treated & her lack of thoughts on it

and i understand not wanting to bring up nicky and thea because people pick on her for it. i’m not trying to discredit nora sakavic’s terrible history of getting harrassed online by aftg fans. but i think it is very cynical, and it is very juvenile, and most of all very cruel, that she gets to ignore the very real ways the books have set up these characters to be hated. i think it’s obvious why the characters who get the most hate are the only canonical characters of color, and i think we do not get to treat this like a deliberate decision on the fandom’s part when the books have put these same characters in degrading and embarrassing and terrible positions in the first place. aftg is not a story about nice characters with clean pasts, but there is a very specific nastiness to the only characters of color being a brown man who sexually harasses and later assaults the main character, a black woman whose only scene is her lashing out at her love interest after being ignored for the first two books, and the japanese villain who gets maybe two lines of complexity before he goes back to being a terrible person. the white cast, in comparison, while not at all free from flaws, are never shown to commit mindless evil; all of their actions are ultimately justified. the book goes out of its way to give them concession after concession. we know exactly who to side with, because aftg tells us who these people are. does nicky’s assault ever get addressed in the books? does riko’s reasoning to be the way that he is ever gets more than briefly aluded to? is thea reserved even a shred of humanity or grace in her one scene?

anyway. it’s been years of talking about this and the fandom has been constantly hostile to criticism in this regard, and more recently any criticism at all, and it’s Grating to be on the other side of this discussion. it’s exhausting to know that in ten years we do not get even an acknowledgment besides the author saying she will not answer questions about nicky and thea anymore. it’s upsetting and it’s ugly and i wish no one had to talk about this again, but we do because what i thought was common sense has been washed away by a sudden influx of no-nuance adoration for the trilogy. basically i hope we all explode

two hours later edit: you're allowed to reblog this! sorry about the confusion

The L Word | S2E01

Mizuki and Date though like. Imagine being 8 and your parents are filthy rich and going through a bad divorce. Your mom treats you like shit, lashing out at you, hitting you, saying she wishes you were never born all because you were behaving like a child. Your dad is more comforting, but he doesn’t do anything to stop the abuse and he spends his time invested in a completely different family, a girl who you love and look up to but he loves her more than you and it fucking shows. Then your dads new friend, some fucking bachelor in his late 20s, is just like "wow you guys are the worst fucking parents ive ever seen" and next thing you know your dad is sending you off to live with him. And it’s just a massive kick in the head cuz you go from a rich lifestyle to living in some really shitty tiny ass apartment with this guy who’s clearly never been around a child in his entire life and he doesn’t know how to behave and does a really bad job of censoring himself like he has a bunch of dirty magazines that he can’t hide very well cuz it’s literally a studio apartment and also he talks to himself sometimes, it’s really weird. He doesn’t even have the slightest clue what he’s doing

And he’s the best parent you’ve ever had

Because fuck, it all really hurts. You have to cope with having never received any love from anyone, and with the fact that your parents clearly don’t want you and can’t even be bothered to send you with anyone even kinda responsible. And this guy has a scary job with crazy hours and you don’t know anything about him and neither does he. But still, he never once hits you or tells you you’re not allowed to cry. He just gives you space and doesn’t push you to feel any sort of way about him. And sometimes, he’s even kind. He makes you some stew, even though it’s a bit chunky. He lets you sleep in the bed and takes the couch for himself, even though he complains about the massive back pain he’d never trade his spot for a second. He pays attention to events at your school and gives you your favorite stuffed animal when you make good grades, even though you called it ugly. He gets worried sick when you come home with bruises and puts on a goofy voice and trains you to defend yourself and you develop some highly deadly skills and even though it’s really abnormal, he buys you a bench press so you can get stronger. There’s this distance there, and you feel really weird caring about someone who you aren’t related to, but you find yourself wishing it was meant to be like this all along, that maybe, he’s secretly your real dad and he loves you like his real daughter

And when you say "I’m back" he says "welcome home"

Part of me would love to see Bells Hells bring Relvin with them to the big battle with the Ruby Vanguard - if only to get a moment where he and Liliana reunite. Where they lock eyes for the first time in decades. A moment where they can see the grey in their hair, the lines on their faces, and the way they hold themselves like they haven't had anyone to lean on over the years.

Liliana would be forced to confront the past she thought she'd left behind. Of course there was a chance her Ruidusborn daughter would follow in her footsteps, but Relvin was just a man! He should have stayed far away, in Gelvaan, where she wouldn't have to think about him too hard.

Relvin would be forced to confront the woman he believed was his future. The woman who promised to stay with him, but disappeared because his whole self wasn't great enough to be her other half. He had spent decades wondering what had become of Liliana and her quest, and here she was.

She'd look at him and realise just what her single-minded goal robbed her of: a lifetime with the man she fell in love with. And he'd look at her and realise that he hadn't lied when he told Imogen her mother was dead... because the woman he knew died the day she left her family behind.