Mentally transporting myself into a ps2 game to chase lizards

Sometimes I get insecure about my husband and Nicole's past relationship. I get insecure that even after all these years and she's reached the ripe age of 21 ( or 22) she still goes to great lengths to avoid any form of contact with my husband and I.

I think she still harbors feelings of resentment and possibly love for him.

Sometimes I worry if she really makes the effort, she can steal him away. I'm feeling like I'm living the narrative of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" song. Sometimes I feel pathetic that I feel like I stand no chance of keeping my man.

It's so medieval and childish, but those feelings surface sometimes. I'm older than her. A lot older. I have a body of a mother that has beared life to three kids. I am overweight, my hair isn't luscious and thick as it used to be thanks for the constant urining from overactive bladdar and older age, hypodontia has never made me smile cute and I just can't complete with younger and attractive woman.

It's sad to acknowledge this and feel helpless. All the efforts to get. My groove back have backfired. Either, my broken leg, fucked up bladdar or something happening gets in the way of my ability to reach my dream body.

This year was supposed to be my year. But, I somehow ended up pregnant once again and it's thwart my chance of achieving my goal weight.

I feel downright insecure about myself and embracing it has been quite a learning curve.

Every year Akio Ohtori loans his sister out to a bunch of teenagers, grooms said teenagers, makes all of them fight each other several times, does irreparable emotional damage, hopefully THOROUGHLY cleans the inside of his car because Christ alive.

And all of this, all these surreal, intricate rituals, are so he can lose a sword fight with a door.

This has happened multiple times. He doesn't even seem particularly upset about failing. Every year Akio Ohtori loses a sword fight with a door and somehow does not feel like an absolute clown. Could NOT be me, I would never try again. I would lie awake at night every night after the first attempt agonizing about how stupid I must have looked and how my sister absolutely would have laughed at me if all the organs she needed to do so weren't getting shish-kebabed six ways to Sunday.

all things live and all things die

What can I say? They're my favorite.

Did Brambleclaw actually disown the Three when the secret is revealed? I don't remember this happening (then again, it's been a while) but it does bug me how all three go "Poor brambleclaw :(( He was such a good dad to us and he has to learn we're not even his biokits :(((( poor guy" while simultaneously shitting on Leafpool and Squirrelflight despite them showing them more care and affection before AND after the reveal. If he does disown them, then.... WOW is the double standard real here.

In-canon? It's something you have to approximate. They don't seem to have a concept of ""disowning"" because blood relation is taken as such an insurmountable, FUNDAMENTAL fact of life. He doesn't write them out of his little kitty will and testament, but his actions ARE disowning.

It's as if the fact he is not their biological father is an automatic disowning. From the reveal onwards, he is immediately cold, distant, and the "betrayal" is mentioned often. The Three also explicitly don't blame him for his behavior, like it's just to be expected that he's Not Their Dad anymore.

Lionblaze in particular stares longingly at him several times, really missing him. And like... that's kinda what gets my goat so much

I do believe Brambleclaw is entitled to his feelings of betrayal. I believe Squilf was ultimately in the right to lie, actually, but he's still allowed to be upset and angry that she didn't trust him enough to tell him something so important. THAT SAID, YOU ARE NEVER ENTITLED TO TREAT OTHERS POORLY.

And that's what GETS me. He isn't upset that it was all revealed in such a painful and embarassing way when this could have been avoided, or that his lover struggled with this lie for so long without him, or that he feels he's lost his children. Squilf points it out in The Last Hope-- He's so ANGRY at Squilf that he will THROW HIS FAMILY AWAY

Lionblaze seems desperate to be his son again. Hollyleaf is gone for months, and Brambleclaw is still huffing about the secret when she comes back from the dead. Squilf is fawning in the hopes it makes him talk to her again. Doesn't matter. Brambleclaw Is Upsetti Spaghetti so the narrative will never examine his role in hurting this family he apparently loved so much.

(Narrative seems to understand full well that when Squilf lies for a good reason, that doesn't invalidate the hurt Brambleclaw felt... but when Brambleclaw is upset for a good reason, it actually DOES validate what he put her and his kids through)

In BB it is explicitly a disowning. He cuts them off as his children, and they reciprocate. BB!Lionblaze does so in a ball of fury, vowing that he has ONLY a mother.

i got the stranger variant of the ending(s) this time (the last achievement i needed), and i think some of the dialogue options for going to her without the knife were new? including this exchange:

which did, in fact, make me tear up a bit. contrarian :(

Harringroveson where each of them genuinely believes that the other two are a couple who bring him in for sex sometimes.

Eddie: They’re two hot, popular, jocks. They just make sense. I'm a freak. I'm just their funny weed hook-up and that's it.

Steve: They’re outsider metal heads, they talk about music and weird books I've never heard of. They just make sense. I'm bullshit. I've got a big house and a big dick and that's it.

Billy: They’re good people, they're nice, they've got friends, friends in common even. They just make sense. I'm scum. I'm hot and great in the sack and that's it.

everybody! quick! tell me what aro joy means to you <2

Source

It’s crazy how he could be this self deprecating especially after years of people fawning over him and being labelled a sex symbol.

I'm certain someone's already had these thoughts and posted them somewhere, but I recently got to thinking about how, in an alternate plane of existence, there are eldritch tentacle beings with a serious fetish for vertebrates and digits.

They're imagining the firm strength of arms, the multitude of fingers. The dexterity of a handful of phalanges, the rigidity of the bones inside the yielding squishiness of flesh, like steel rods inside sponges. The way arms and hands can squeeze.

Getting flustered as they imagine their tendrils intertwining and curling between a handful of fingers like ivy over a trellis.

The stinging stripes of scratches from hard keratinous nails as opposed to the bruising mini-vacuums of suction cups.

You know they get tattoos of dozens of overlapping, intertwining hands or long, visceral scratch marks down their tentacles.

Not to mention the fact that vertebrates can have hands and feet. Variety!

Honestly with all the Rise MM crossover content I’ve been seeing I’m surprised no one has expressed the comedic potential of Rise Leo and MM Leo

MM Leo: You’re so confident. No matter what you and your brothers go through you’re sure that you can make it. How do you do it?

Rise Leo: I lie to myself

MM Leo: W-what?

Rise Leo: Everyday I wake up and I say ‘today’s going to be a great day!’ But I’m lying. And I’m not sure how much more I can take!

Rise Leo: Good luck kid! *insane, tired af laughter*

someone will go on about how horrible their experience with the public education system is. that it ruined their teenage mental health, didn't teach them shit, taught them to put all their worth in academic success, suffered bullying and self-esteem issues, etc.

but bring up home schooling and they're instantly like "bUt wHaT aBOuT soCiaLiZInG??"

as if the miserable experience of eight hour school days they just described is the only means (or superior form) of socialization for kids.

i need to write more for switch eris this is not a drill

as usual im yapping in the tags 💀

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!

Stede you know you wouldn’t have to be okay if Ed wanted to date someone else right? You’re adorable how could he ever want anything else?

No, I'd be okay, I'd understand. I'm nothing special, really, and I love him too much to dream of denying him.