#hard to say when it doesn't exist

[giffingthingsss]

It's interesting for me to think of what Seska's background could have been. It's interesting that this cunning spy should be so drawn to Chakotay. A twisted person kind of desperately clawing after something. Of course the desire doesn't express itself in any way approaching healthy.

And it's interesting that she winds up in a society where she has to play submissive, although no doubt she would have ended up murdering Cullah and ruling the Kazon through her son.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

LOVING your fantasy au, has Home tried to attack or steal the soul of anyone in the party without Wally's permission? What happens then?

not really! i think when Wally first joined there must've been at least One instance where a Neighbor went down, and Home was automatically like "oh cool free snack" and Wally had to shut that shit down quick

but after a nice explanation of "these are our friends / they're off limits" then Home (begrudgingly) backed off. at this point in time Wally & Home are already close enough that Home somewhat respects Wally's wishes

[necrotic-nephilim]

i love your fics and the ideas you describe for the ask games. i'm especially fond of your takes on the rarer pairings and i always smile when i see your posts in the ship tags <3

and don't stress too much about not posting anything, real life is important and participating in fandom should be fun, not something you have to force yourself to do. god knows fandom burnout is real, especially if you feel like people are expecting something from you. just keep doing what makes you happy :)

ghgfhgjhkjhjhg this was so sweet, thank you so much! i *love* talking about rarer rarepairs, especially if it gets other people to ship them too. the popular ships are fun and all, but i truly love spreading rarepair propaganda.

that's very reassuring, thank you <3 i've loved everything i posted here so far and have not felt pushed to post anything i haven't enjoyed, but sometimes i forget i can like. use this blog for whatever i want and not *just* headcanons/fics/mets/etc lol. and i also forget i don't have to rush myself. it's annoying to want to write and either not have time or not have the words work. i used to run a fandom blog in my teens that got very large and felt like a chore and i was so stressed about the need to perform and the numbers and all of that. like if a fic didn't do well i saw it as a personal failing and forced myself to write popular headcanons just for the numbers game. was not fun or sustainable in the long run and i think it contributed to me no longer having any taste for the ship i primarily wrote for. so for too long i treated existing in fandom like a job lol. i've mostly gotten it through to myself that this is a space for me, but i occasionally forget when i'm so caught up in all the things i want to get to for this blog. my to-write list is a mile long and i need to be bonked with a paper towel roll, i think. so it's very kind of you to say this bc the reminder is nice <3

[kennyomegasweave]

I get why Heart doesn't talk. I'm hard of hearing. I'm not deaf, I just can't hear super well and it will continue to get progressively worse. I'm also loud af because of that. I've had people I'm out with shush me in public places because of it and, I get why they do it because everybody doesn't want to hear me yell, but it still sucks. Because I love to talk.

So for Heart, whose parents have completely removed him from society, most likely due to misplaced shame at his condition, there's a huge chance they haven't let him talk since. He probably did try to keep talking at first and I'm guessing they shut it down because he couldn't control his volume and tone. And now he just doesn't.

Which is a whole other level of heartbreaking to me. Deaf people do not owe it to anyone to speak. But people who had hearing, for an extended period of time and not just the first few years of life, are used to talking. That's how we've been raised to communicate since birth basically. And so when people take that away because we're too loud? It hurts. So much.

I don't think he'll start talking again, nor do I think he needs to. But the fact that he doesn't, when he was hearing and speaking for 12 years, and how it was most likely a choice made for him to not "embarrass" his parents? Or make them feel guilty he got sick? And how his parents also didn't even bother to learn sign either? It's just devastating to me.

[yellowocaballero]

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!

[maeamian]

That prisons vs colleges map that's going around and went around other sites like three months ago is absolutely dog shit data visualization that over-constrains its definitions in order to exaggerate a problem.

[bloomingbluebell]

can i say it now?

sage of time/time powers didn't make sense for totk zelda. at ALL.

when in botw, before the calamity, in aoc, did she EVER show an affinity for time powers? i get that it was like this sort of. hidden power kind of thing, but it still doesn't make much sense. not for zelda.

[kjzx]

I've been playing slitherio these past few days, and after some time messing around with nicknames and my own experience with the stuff, I've realized anger is something very easy to weaponize. On my second attempt of having "trans rights" as a nickname I killed a huge ~5k point worm as a teenie tiny 200 point worm simply because it was so desperate to kill me specifically. Anger makes your life harder, but it also makes people really unwise. I fucking bet this is in "the art of war", even though I haven't read it.

[coquelicoq]

been paying more attention to my r sounds in french lately and while i do default to the voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ most of the time, in intervocalic contexts i'm doing what i'm pretty sure is a voiced uvular approximant /ʁ̞/ maybe half the time? i wasn't sure if it was a tap/flap or an approximant, but it does sound a lot like the audio clip for the approximant, and apparently the approximant is often an allophone for the fricative, while the tap/flap is an allophone for the trill (which makes sense since a tap/flap is basically an abbreviated trill), and i don't really do uvular trills in speech.

the fricative has always been difficult for me and at this point i doubt it will get much easier than it is now. it makes sense that as i learned to speak faster i would end up producing the approximant in at least some contexts, and i suppose that it makes sense that the main context in which that happens is intervocalic, since approximants are kind of like if you took a fricative halfway to being a vowel.

the reason i've been thinking about this lately is i've been listening to a lot of stromae and his r sounds keep jumping out at me. i mentioned in some tags the other day his r sounds in bonne journée (skip to 1:24):

Si l'bonheur [tap/flap?] des autres [elided] te rend [trill] malheureux [trill] C'est qu't'es un rageux [tap/flap?] Si l'malheur [trill?] des autres [elided] te rend [trill] heureux [approximant??] C'est qu't'es un rageux [tap/flap?]

that sound in heureux in the third line is really interesting because he pronounces that exact word (within the word malheureux) two lines before, but there he's clearly trilling the r, and here he is not, and it doesn't sound like a tap or flap to me either! it sounds like an approximant!

he does do the uvular fricative as well...specifically in consonant clusters (also in variation with trills) (skip to 1:37):

Tu profites [fricative] jamais vraiment [trill?] de ce moment présent [fricative] En fait t'es juste dépressif [fricative]

elsewhere in the song he seems to trill a lot of consonant cluster rs, so i think it may also be a function of syllables/second - in these two lines he's going really fast, and possibly fricatives are faster to pronounce than trills? they certainly are for me, but i'm not sure if that's because i'm not a native speaker or because of some fundamental property of trilling.

between a vowel and a consonant he's sometimes doing a trill and sometimes something else, i think an approximant but it might be a fricative. hell, maybe it's a tap/flap. (rs in this context are fairly difficult for me to distinguish with any accuracy if they're not trills or really emphasized fricatives, so fuck if i know.)

ultimately i think he (at least in song) trills every r possible and resorts to (not consciously, obviously) one of the other options when necessary. i am nowhere near that proficient at uvular trills and can pretty much only do them on extended notes (because they take extra time for me to pronounce) and on higher pitches for some reason. i'd love to learn the uvular tap/flap, and it's probably the fastest of all the options (citation needed but it feels right lol), so maybe a year from now, when my speaking speed has increased another incremental amount, i'll notice that i've started spontaneously producing those as well. i live in hope.

[batcavescolony]

I'm back talking about Harry Potter and Snape's worst memory because while I hate the author y'all bug me.

Snape worst memory isn't James bulling him or string him up in front of the school, (that was bad I'm not saying it wasn't) it was Lily ending her friendship with him because he called her a Mudblood. With evidence.

To prove my point we have to go read the Deathly Hallows when Snape gave Harry his memories! We get to see the scene again but this time the thing that sticks out the most is Snape calling Lily a Mudblood. Now if that's not enough proof the next memory goes like this.

*Outside Gryffindor Tower*

Snape: I'm sorry

Lily: I'm not interested

S: I'm sorry!

L: save your breath... I only came out here because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.

S: I was. I would have done. I never ment to call you a Mudblood it just-

L: Slipped out? It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends- you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you? I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine.

S: No-listen, I didn't mean-

L:-to call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?

*Lily leaves. Memory ends*

The next memory is Snape becoming a turn coat for Dumbledore so he could keep Lily safe because Voldemort wouldn't spare her.

Snape has had worse experiences then a teenage James Potter being a bully (even if it was shitty). so we look at the rest of the memory and lo and behold what do we see? The actual worst moment of Snape life, the moment he lost Lily forever.

[kevyeen]

I wish being weird and batshit insane was socially acceptable, conforming to societal norms is killing me.

[boxchewr]

i would be a bad media critic because i have a tendency to only consume as much of a piece of media as i want to and then go. well that's enough. and then just stop and completely disregard everything i didn't like abt what i did watch/read/play and also everything i didn't get to and base my opinion on something solely off of what i did enjoy about what i did see. and then never ever look back to finish it

[crossbackpoke-check]

nosy anon again making a return because i think what my brain did was read that i helped find some kind of writing and then did not fully process what the writing was?? but upon rereading i am very intrigued if you ever get the urge to share i will be all eyes/ears/senses required to enjoy things!!

I GET TO DO WIP WEDNESDAYYYYYY!!! the writing exists mostly in the form of a tag (fantastic! 'verse) and also a thirty-two page doc of snippets and planning, so the sense you will be using most is imagination:

don't think i have ever actually formally written out anything about fantastic! 'verse but! the tl;dr of it is that it's a semi-college au: joel is still a hockey player for the lv phantoms, but morgan is a college student-athlete. it's incredibly relevant to the plot that joel falls in love with morgan in the check-out line of a wegman's, lies a little bit, and ends up going back to get his degree.

most of it is just good fun about college kids growing up, but i think there's a lot of parallels between making your way through a development system where traditional "success" isn't always guaranteed (ahl -> nhl, completion of higher education -> pursuit of a career) because that development system isn't always designed for you to "succeed" or have opportunities. heavy quotation marks around success because part of that struggle is learning what you want in life and how you define success. are your dreams achievable? are they still the same dreams you always used to have? it's infinite branching universes of would you still love me if i was a worm (ahl player forever) (a college dropout) (a college graduate) (older) (realizing the fallibility of your body) (uncertain of the future) (human).

silly little snippet:

[dogearedheart]

8i've been thinking about the last asks i got today. and i think it's better for me to take a step back from this account. i know the anon didn't mean anything by it, but i still feel like i am being a negative presence on here and weirding people out with who i am is nothing i want. so, i am not deleting or anything. i am just gonna be less present with sharing personal things or leaving tags. I'll probably be more active on my second account where i don't have that many followers :)

[ame-to-ame]

How ironic that literally the moral of dm is that to live is to consume and to have desires is a proof of living and so wanting is not bad!!! Wanting is not bad!!! But every waking hour I repress myself from wanting that I don't even know really how I feel or what I want anymore

Which is kinda why I have like mixed feelings Abt falin bc I like falin I do she just reminds me of someone and she reminds me of the part of myself I thought I was growing out of but recently I've been falling back into

To not have any dislikes. To not want to hurt anyone. To be nonconfrontational. To forgive and say nothing about your family who cast you out and your brother who left you. To not have any complaints about the injustice of the world enacted upon you for being just a little different, but not really different from anyone at all because like everyone else you were just a kid trying to survive in a world that was new to you.

Falin was most alive to me when she said that she was willing to hurt others to ensure the survival and wellbeing of marcille and laios. Because in that moment she wasn't just someone who would go along with anything who was okay with everything--She wanted her brother and friend to be well. She wanted something!! And I think it's kinda implied with the whole message of the manga that falin was most alive in the end when she does choose to live. She chooses to live by consuming. She wants to live!! She wants to eat! And the lion says that it's the more painful path or something like that. But nonetheless she does it because she wants to. Want. Desire. You have to want something to have any force of will, any proof of living in this world, because how else will you change anything if you're okay with everything and let it change you?

But anyway. Yeah. I saw a post that ended like. I am crude at piano, crude at life, and full of wants (by onenhillion on tt) about being scared of wanting things for fear of rejection and fear of loss but coming to accept it. And imo with my own meaning projected onto it, accepting wanting bc it's such an integral part of being alive. You have to be okay with wanting things and have to be okay with rejection and loss.

Anyway all it is to say that I don't want to have lived a life where I only did things that other people wanted from me. Things other people told me to do. Things other people thought I should do. I want to have at least tried to do the things I wanted and be the person I want to be and even if I fail on the way I will have felt better knowing that I at least tried.

I guess that's why I always try to take the initiative and try to be open and make the first move and whatnot because. Well. Life is too short to be scared or to wait for a better time or to doubt myself. But even then I'm too aware that I'm still not brave enough sometimes that I'm still too scared sometimes. But at least the times I've tried I can be proud of. It's a work in progress. Progress isn't linear. I just have to be more sure and more certain in myself.

God it's my life and I'm the only one responsible for it so. I better be taking the wheel back soon lol.

[mars-ipan]

fortune doodles bc i finally got to play him recently. he's got a little crush but dw he's being So Normal About It