Sigh…

… The relationship between Nate and Eliot from Leverage is, despite being very strongly written and generally equally balanced out with the focus of the rest of the inter team relationships, one of the most underrated relationships on television. Eliot is almost exclusively viewed through the lens of his relationship with Hardison and Parker which, although definitely a massive factor and an extremely strong and interesting relationship, is often over-credited as the nigh exclusive reason behind his character development to the point he is occasionally portrayed as prioritising them above all else, or them being the only people who care about him/treat him as a person. While semi accurate, as a result his other relationships are often pushed by the wayside, with the one with Nate suffering the most due to a view of Nate that exacerbates his flaws and neglects the good parts of his character, especially in regards to his interactions with other characters. Nate is often viewed as an overly controlling, callous, alcoholic manipulator who uses Eliot as a weapon and is reckless and arrogant, but this is a gross misrepresentation of their relationship and its nuances. Eliot’s loyalty to Nate is integral to his loyalty to the rest of the team, as both the cause and the result, and the beginnings of it are well displayed at the start of the series, and it’s for this reason that it is the focus of the third episode, with the following episodes driving it home. The difference between Eliot’s loyalty to Nate and the rest of the people he’s worked for is that Eliot chooses to follow Nate’s orders rather than ever feeling under pressure or forced to; Eliot can openly argue with him without ever having to worry about assassins being sent after him later or something like that. Nate may huff and puff and talk shit—hell, he might give as good as he gets, but that’s all he’ll do, and when he’s not on a bent, he may even listen. It may not look it, but that’s a display of trust, the emotional honesty of arguing. The actual point is that Nate does not use him as a weapon—rather, he proves to Eliot that he can have a noble purpose again, something Eliot thought he’d never be able to have back, and gives him something good, pure, innocent, and beautiful to protect again. Nate is the first person Eliot has honestly chosen to follow in years, and his absolute loyalty to the former is apparent in a whole slew of different ways over the course of the series, from following even unexpected orders to standing up to Nate when he disagrees with something to being willing to kill for him (and knowing Nate would never truly ask that of him) to be willing to kill to keep him from killing to the seamless way he manages and corrals the team on jobs to working in concert with Sophie to manage Nate’s self destructive behaviour. Eliot is a lynchpin of the team, and his relationship with Nate is just as important to his development as his relationships with the rest of the team, and besides Sophie, he is Nate’s most trusted confidant. In this essay I will thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Dethvanity is really funny to me conceptually as an episode because you can see how little they had to make the characters insecure about for the bit. They swing for obvious lowblow choices with Pickle' baldness and Nathan's weight and even those require some suspension of disbelief because ok. Sure. Nathan '(said extremely proudly) never skipped a meal in my life!' Explosion is insecure about being a big man now. Nathan *guy who everyone thinks is smoking hot 99% of the time* Explosion is a tiny bit larger than usual and is insecure about it now. Lol. Lmao even.

But anyway then we hit Skwisgaar and Toki and there's like NOTHING to swing for, you can see them going uhhh ok Skwis doesn't sleep he probably drinks a lot of coffee, and Toki? Shit, what does Toki have to be insecure about with his looks. He's perfect, he's adorable, he's ripped. Um. FUCK IT, HE'S DOING NOTHING BUT EATING LEMONS. WE GOT NOTHING, WE GOT NOTHING, JUST GIVE THE BOY CITRUS FRUITS.

WOE 🍋 BE UPON YE

I'm sure i could make some smarter points about the attempts at applying vanity in this ep and how outside of this and a few other moments i do actually like that the show rarely takes pot shots at things like Nathan's weight, but you see Nathan has shirtless scenes in this one and so my intelligence is impeded when all the blood rushes out of my head and into my-

man, reading ch3 was a ride, it's like all fun and jokes and then all of sudden, Nope! It's time to be sad now! but it's so good with it? like, I really enjoyed how seriously you took it, and that moment in the classroom was really like 'oh shit this is legit' in a way that had my heart just sinking in my chest and with the tone whiplash from the rest of the fic so far, it was just literally so good to read. also, seeing byleth and the rest of the class just kinda grapple with wth to do with dimitri while he's deep in this episode is just very interesting, especially when they all have their own hangups and issues with everything. 👍

YESSSSS. I'm always so excited to post the moment the story actually kicks into gear, and this chapter was it for Weekenders. A lot of fun.

I wrote a post a while back about people's discomfort with writing severe mental illness,

and while I wouldn't say Weekenders is a spite fic, it was influenced by how difficult it was to find non-modern AU fic that wrote Dimitri specifically as somebody on the schizophrenia spectrum/bipolar.

It was so hit-me-over-the-head obvious while I was playing! His entire personality and behavior flipped on a DIME in Part 1, and it flipped 'back' in Part 2. He couldn't switch topics, he was ranting incoherently, he was having headaches, he was doing nothing but training, he obviously wasn't sleeping or grooming, he was convinced a 12yo had orchestrated an assasination - that's not depression/anxiety/PTSD, and it's not even just a psychotic episode (mania does have elements of psychosis, hence the paranoid delusions). And, obviously, the actual hallucinations, delusions, antisocialness, lack of grooming, impulsivity, etc, of Part 2 that rang very loudly of a schizophrenic/schizoaffective psychotic break.

But equally important is the fact that Dimitri's illness did not make him hateful and homicidal. Dimitri was always a hateful person. I don't think he's naturally hateful nearly to the degree that he shows while having an episode, but one of the most important lines in the BL route is when Dedue just says that Dimitri was always angry and hateful, and that he just hid it. His behavior in late Part 1/part 2 is him losing all capability to hide it. I don't think he's a pathological liar, and I don't think the Dimitri we see throughout Part 1 is 'fake' - I just think he withholds a lot. Dimitri's cruelty is just as important as his generosity. His hatred is as important as his empathy. The horrible sides of his illness are just as important as the comfortable sides. Do you see what I mean?

That is what interests me about Dimitri so much. Dimitri wants to be Marth. Dimitri tries to be Chrom. Dimitri dresses up like Roy. He is not. He is an angry, paranoid, brutal murderer. Any depiction of Dimitri that forgets that - that unironically only protrays the Dimitri that he shows the world and never the sides of him that he's ashamed of - is kinda buying what he's selling, and it both demonstrates a deep disinterest in who he is and a discomfort with the sides of his illness that aren't palatable.

Dimitri's psychosis did not make him hateful (I think his PTSD had a lot more to do with his anger problems). It made him scared. Mania and psychosis are a very, very scary experience. His mind is constantly telling him that he's in danger, that Byleth's in danger, that everybody and everything around him wants to hurt and kill him, that he is a sinner if he doesn't avenge his dead family. And Dimitri is a good child soldier, and he knows that we destroy our enemies with prejudice. He's a good leader, and he knows that the BL are never safe and that their enemies are everywhere. He's a good son, and he knows that you have to avenge them. Violence solves problems and Dimitri is scared and angry and if he doesn't solve the problem he can't protect the woman and people he loves.

This is serious to me! I'm trying not to make this THAT long but I could go ooooon lol. I understanding wanting to either make him realistically/explicitly schizophrenic OR make him violent, because violent schizophrenics are a bad and harmful stereotype. But I think both sides of him are important, because I don't want to whitewash Dimitri's illness or his experiences. It's scary for the people around you. It very frequenty is triggered from trauma and hardship and it is informed by your life. Like many characters in FE3H, Dimitri is the product of the evils of his world.

Byleth's arc in this story is about her growing into a human being. It is shown as a beautiful thing. It is wonderful to be a person. It would contradict the message of the story to show Dimitri as anything else but a human being - flaws, traumas, SMI and all. He was Marth to her. That's the point.

I went on for soooo long lol but thanks for the ask!

THE BEST OF THE NORMANDY SUMMIT

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, Primarch Adrien Victus, Dalatrass Linron, and Urdnot Wrex With: Comm. Specialist Samantha Traynor Commander, you need to keep Cerberus at bay- I can't overstate what a victory a treaty between the Turians and the Krogan would be for the Alliance. We need all the help we can get... Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

and if i said mikoto t2 innocent. then what

this book is acruakly soooo disappointing

what do you mean that rgu, the show everyone claims is so much more feminist than torture porn male gazey pmmm, which is bad bc it was directed by a man which means its for men apparently so none of its messages abt misogyny are worth taking seriously…….. was also written by a man.

atop of all of this i still hold a grudge over him insinuating that chinese people eat cats. btw. and he still gets to race in china and singapore 🥰 what a man.

QYICK POST EXPLAINING SOME THINGS. ryoma's stupidly tragic backstory... HEED the tws

Actually I exceeded the tag limit crap I'll rb w a continuation after I shower

loved that when we saw other people lose their souls they didnt turn into violent killing machines. inadvertantly implying that sam naturally has no/low empathy and is naturally inclined to solve problems in a violent ruthless way, but he holds back and figures out how to solve them with mercy and kindness and patience instead.

return to form

(alfendi design inspired by @/teenytinyapprentice !)

Board certified abyss 12 HATER

was playing star allies again (i have 70+ hours in star allies) doing guest star as dmk and

so dmk's mask has a lot of scratches, right? there's the big slash across the eye, obviously, but his star allies model also has a ton of tiny scratches on it, which means the mask is well worn

mk in star allies on the other hand doesn't have any scratches on his mask

because he has to replace it every game he's in

dmk is better at keeping his mask intact than mk is

Me: So I got this multi-chapter fic right

Brain: Uh-huh

Me: Focuses around Silver and Espio starting as complete strangers with flaws and issues they gotta work on.

Brain: yeye

Me: Like I’m trying to be casual in the writing so I don’t want big world-saving high stakes objectives or like big adventures.

Brain: .....mhm....

Me: So like the fic is gonna have a lot of focus on them talking and bonding and trying to help each other grow

Brain: .......MMMHMMMMMM

Me: But it also feels weird because of the lack of Big Adventure™ and other things I had in other fics, like even if the story grew clear enough to start writing, it feels I don’t even have a genre I can name?? Like even even "adventure" doesn't feel right.

Brain: .

Brain: Romance. Your genre is romance.

hot take but. oda is honestly one of the most interesting prominent side characters in y0 to me. like. don’t get me wrong obviously i don’t condone his actions, but speaking as a character design guy, i think he’s got a whole lot of complexity to think about in his story and identity that people tend to ignore/overlook because he’s not a black and white “good” person. like no shit he’s morally fucked, that doesn’t mean his intense pining and crazed level of dedication to tachibana and the lengths all his guilt and repressed love for the man he saw as the best thing to ever grace his life drove him to aren’t interesting to think about– if anything it makes him more interesting. he was. really something

the portrayal of social anxiety in dear evan hansen always bothered because like. okay. so the initial misunderstanding is actually 100% believable, just straight-up what 15- or 16-year-old me would have done in a situation where i keep getting shut down when i try to speak up. just go quiet and go along with whatever's going on. and from that point on, i would actively avoid everyone involved in the situation as much as i possibly can. just escape, get away, not deal with it again. and now i have a permanent debuff of anxiety and guilt forever. if i was forced to talk to the murphys again, i would quickly clarify what was actually going on, because at that point there's no easy escape, and trying to create a lie is infinitely more stressful than fessing up, apologizing, and freeing myself of the situation.

but evan isn't me, so let's say for him, crafting an elaborate lie is somehow less stressful than telling the truth. okay, i can buy that. what fucking baffles me, though, is how much he seemingly gets into it without feeling any anxiety at all about this horrible stressful situation he's got himself in? to the point that he goes off his meds because he says he doesn't need them anymore? you would think that hinging your entire social life on an elaborate lie that could be exposed at any moment would be the most stressful thing imaginable for someone with "getting a little bit embarrassed in front of other people makes me actually literally want to die" disorder. but no, he's just fine now lol