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!
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I can’t stop thinking about Art viewing his queerness as something to grow out of.
Why he focuses so hard on Tashi. Why he drops Patrick after college even before he’s with Tashi. Why he speaks to Patrick the way he does in the sauna.
Yeah you could argue he’s mad about the cheating in the latter and I’m sure he is. He’s once again being left out. He can’t stomach it. But he’s also so so angry at Patrick for the way he makes him feel.
He’s obsessed with Tashi. Obviously he is. But that’s the sneaky thing about bisexuality. You can focus on the real attraction you feel toward a woman and use those feelings to push out any attraction you have to men. Which… kind of… works for him. Up until Patrick returns.
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It's incredibly tough because we no longer have social media that's suitable for fandom interactions the way livejournal was. Individual journals + interest communities which could be easily locked/unlocked as you wanted. People had to search out what they wanted etc. Twitter and tumblr just can't do it (and let's not even mention tiktok)
ITS KIND OF SAD......... i was never really on livejournal when i was younger bc i was like 10 and did not know what the internet was capable of offering but even just being on deviantart in the early 2010s gave me a strong sense of community and support...... just a bunch of hobbyists doing their own little things and joining those groups deviantart had was alot of fun for lil kid me!
the best substitute we've got for livejournal these days is like. discord. but thats so annoying especially when theyre specifically locking content behind a discord invite since many of us may not even know if we vibe there!! and its intimidating to be thrown into a group chat with people who already have established bonds ONTOP of not even knowing if youll get along😭
while i think tumblr is relatively good for fandom posting and such i definitely wouldnt call it the best place to make friends with similar interests...... since its hard to really like. have actual conversations with people on here since the ask feature is pretty one-sided, tags arent meant to be responded to a majority of the time, the comments feature barely gets used and the dms system is wonky as hell. and twitter is just a cesspool of reactionary people who dont think before they tweet and are just waiting to make their next callout post, but god is it a good place to hold a conversation and bond with people................ you just cant win these days huh
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one thing that makes me mad as a hornet is whenever I pick up a detective book especially if it’s in a series and I go to goodreads and see a slew of negative reviews becos inevitably I can tell you the tenor of it without even looking. “SHERLOCK HOLMES RIP-OFF” they all scream.
does your story have a duo solving crimes? SHERLOCK HOLMES RIP-OFF.
does your story have the narrator be the sidekick? SHERLOCK HOLMES RIP-OFF.
is your story’s detective eccentric in some manner of dress or personality? SHERLOCK HOLMES RIP-OFF.
I’ve picked up two detective series recently (the gower street detectives, barker & llewelyn) and we are two for two with people gnashing their teeth over it. Sherlock Holmes isn’t the only detective? Hello?? I guarantee if Agatha Christie was a writer now and published her first Poirot story TODAY, people would be gnashing their teeth and growling about how it’s just a flimsy SHERLOCK HOLMES RIP-OFF.
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i know it’s kind of silly, but it makes me so upset when i see something i love, a show, a movie, a song, whatever, and people make content about but they don’t get it. and i’m not talking about the good fan work, there is so much great fan work and i love that. im talking about all these silly jokes and skits about things that mean so much to me. like i’ve seen so many times the same joke over and over about the pillow fort in nick and charlie, and like yeah sure that’s a bit silly, but like it’s over and over again, you would think it is a major part but it’s not. or like i know the hunger games is super main stream, but when i see these skits of like “oh what if me and my bestie were in the hunger games” and it’s just not funny. it ignore any point of the book.
and yes im being a hater, yes this sounds gatekeepy, but it makes me angry.
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alright your rockstar anon is back to talk except off anon bc you have provided me with a new set of brain rot
wouldve couldve shouldve?????? being That song was so real and !!!!!!! one of the things I love about it is the universality of the bridge - “give me back my girlhood it was mine first” can apply to SO MANY THINGS, theres so much relatability to it and there’s probably a trend that blows up to Ellie’s song with people resonating with the song
so I’m just imagining the wave of social media support Ellie gets during that law suit, and while the entire situation is horrendous, the public outside of the courts understands and they support Ellie fully
also cant remember if this is on your spotify playlist but may I propose a song rec: praying by Kesha
hmmmm just re-listened to song rec (I only remembered the vibes when suggesting it) and I feel like the religious undertones are either1) ignore the song rec2) a way to say fuck you to handing out bibles at a festival David
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LOVE thank you so much for being invested in this lil universe it makes me so happy!!! praying is a BANGER and dr l*ke was exactly one of the people I was thinking of when writing this iteration of david. kesha's court battle was really top of mind for me.
tbh I would love to believe in unanimous public support for ellie but after living through the past two years on social media...i think a lot of people would get it and for others it'd take the article and a lot of other women and girls coming forward to break through to them. and it shouldn't have to. but this is the world we live in. it helps that a record producer would be without the built in fanbase of movie stars or directors or big acts, so the backlash to ellie publicly wouldn't be that bad.
the support would probably outweigh the backlash, especially with another big act in her corner (joel's fanbase of random anti mainstream middle aged dudes and the Depressed Community would probably have her back and follow his example) but others would stay entirely silent for fear of retribution until tides really turned.
the saddest part of it is how common it is with women who come forward - and now we suddenly have the precedent of defamation lawsuits for women even daring to speak now even in vague terms. the closest we get to justice is when multiple women speak out and the solidarity that exists there but like...by that point that shit is serial.
the people that get it though fucking get it.
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challenge:
tell me the trait that makes animals unworthy of respect and happy lives, why is it okay to hurt and kill them?
animals don't speak? some people don't either
they aren't as smart as humans? babies eint that smart either
they are alive to be eaten? would it be ok to breed people for food?
it goes on and on, any trait you can think of doesn't stand up when you put it on a human or even an animal you love because you cant morally justify hurting and killing a being that wants to live and be happy.
please just think (even do some research about what their lives and deaths are like) and do something about it.
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