#I still have dishes to do

[coockie8]

There's no way any anti who throws the "go file your taxes" insult is actually an adult, right? 'Cause an adult would know you literally only file your taxes once a year and only at a like really specific time of year usually :/

[simcardiac-arrested]

IM SURE YOUVE ALREADY EXPLAINED IT SOMEWHERE but.. may i ask about the story in bitter choco decoration. I like those guys :)

you’d be surprised but i apparently have never talked about these particular ocs’ story in detail on this particular tumblr blog. so i shall do just that…. i tried to summarize but it got kind of long oops, as it always does when i talk about my mentally ill ass ocs

so! as u might already know the guys in the video are rikki and william, and the animatic happens from rikki’s pov. rikki is basically the golden child of the family—smart, well-behaved, always keeping her parents satisfied, etc etc. generally she is put under a lot of pressure a lot of the time. and then her family decides to get an insurance child so to speak—just in case rikki fails in life—but they don’t want to go through the trouble of raising another one, so they decide to adopt.

that’s where william comes in, baby! now he is decidedly Not the golden child. he is the problem child. parents thought they could reform him—well, not much to show for that. but him and rikki surprisingly get along, even though they’re opposites. william actually gets someone who cares about him for once and wants him to be okay, and rikki gets someone who wants her to be more bold, stand up to others and consider what she herself wants instead of people-pleasing. he even gets her to make snide jokes and cut her hair. they’re best friends, it’s nice. for a while.

but, none of it is perfect. you know how rikki always seems to be smiling even though she’s clearly not having a good time? and you know all those red eyes that appear pretty much everytime william’s on screen? rikki has so many layers of masks that william never really feels like he actually knows her. and william, even though he mostly wants rikki to do her own thing, can still kind of be selfish and controlling (because he’s a teenager, and traumatized, and scared of losing his best friend, but it doesn’t change the fact that rikki feels the same pressure from him as she feels from their parents).

so this all culminates when they’re in high school and rikki buries herself in work—she wants to secure a good education and a good job so that she can actually get them both out of this shitty abusive household. for the first time in her whole life, she has a Goal that she personally has chosen. she now has someone to work hard for. but she also ends up spending a lot less time with that someone because of her studying, and it eats at william and eats and eats until—it turns out rikki’s hard work has actually paid off. she’s gotten a scholarship, and she can leave for a good university and she’s finally achieved something that she herself has wanted to do and not anyone else. for both of them. for her brother.

except her brother doesn’t react with support, like usual. he’s not cheering her on now that she’s fulfilled her dream and beyond. he just looks betrayed. because they’re best friends. they promised to be there for each other, to get out of this hellhole house together. how could she leave him behind? how is he supposed to make it without her, who is he going to have on his side? william loves her and wants her to be happy but he doesn’t want her to leave.

so in turn—because rikki is a) an avoidant little bitch who would rather masterfully evade conflict than try to have an opinion and b) doesn’t want her brother to hate her forever and not speak to her ever again—in turn, rikki, as always, as second nature, lies. i mean, it’s her dream, it’s something she’s been working towards for years, but she’ll stay. she’ll leave it behind. it makes perfect logical sense to her—best of both worlds: she doesn’t spend the last summer at home with her brother resenting her, and she still gets to actually go to university. it is basically flawless.

all up until, you know, the day comes where she actually has to move out and go to university. and william inevitably finds out that she lied to him. and they fight. it’s not good. it’s not happy. they end up separating on really bad terms, and not talking for the next 7 years because william runs away from home pretty much soon after rikki leaves (it’s not shown in the animatic but he does go MIA, rikki visits home once on holiday to find that her brother is just Gone, no one knows where he is, her parents couldnt give less of a shit, not great all around!!!) then rikki ends up graduating and looking for an easy first job, just to kind of set her foot in Job World.

unfortunately, it is also the exact same easy, convenient job that her brother ends up picking. hoo, boy. long time no see.

[muppetsnoopy]

that marie kondo might be onto something because I just bought a $20 butter dish off facebook marketplace and the whole time I was like am I just being a sillybilly.... am I being indulgent and wasteful...... I could get this for like two bucks somewhere else......... and then I bought it and took it home and put it on my counter and it perfectly matches our new cooking set and every time I see it I snile so sneetly so maybe there is something to be said for unapologetically pursuing joy :)

[randomnameless]

Do you think Edelgard perceives herself as a victim? I’ve been thinking and I can’t decide myself, on one hand she clearly hates the idea of people being victims or helpless, and constantly reframes the victims of the war as “necessary sacrifices” instead of, y’know, tragic causalities of a war she started. She plays up her sad backstory to try to get Byleth to join with her in WC, but then she does all these things to concentrate as much power as possible on herself. On the other (other) hand, she pushes the culpability of the war on everyone except herself, and has trouble taking accountability. She’s obsessed with controlling everything but she doesn’t want to be blamed for the problems she’s created. What do you think?

Oh!

(sorry for replying one literal month later lol)

I find Supreme Leader hard to write because of this, but in a way, I believe that yes, she does.

However, for all the flak Faerghus gets for "ToXiC mAsCuLiNiTy" and "Chivalry BaD", there's something very toxic with the way some Adrestian victims (often women... blame the writers I guess?) deal with their abuse.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Doro because I already typed a lot about her, but while she still sees herself as a victim from what she endured and suffered in her childhood, she adopted the toxic mindset of "this suffering is a thing of the past and I grew from that/beyond that to become the person I am now" - which we can also see in Manu who suffered from, roughly, the same traumas.

Petra also follows this pattern, being a hostage and treated like shit, but she grow "beyond" her status of a victim to become the strong person she projects and believes she is - it's only out of House that she realises more accutely her status within the Empire, the reality of her situation and, in Houses, refuses vassalage to Adrestia to make her country independent without having to "ask the Emperor".

It's the same pattern : "I was a victim" but "I became strong" so "I am not a victim anymore, this is something of the past".

Applied to Supreme Leader...

Well, trying to ignore the Agarthans and her dad's own infuence on her character (which is kind of hard, since the games try their hardest to make Agarthans responsible for everything BaD and we're not clear on how much they had an influence on her), I think Supreme Leader believes she was a "victim" of abuse.

But - through further abuse and surviving said abuse - she became strong* enough to "not be a victim anymore".

Which is why her line of "if the weak remain weak it's their fault" feels like it echoes part of her mindset : she was a victim but became strong enough, maybe by hardening her own feelings to become "strong", so she is not the same helpless "victim" she once was.

If she managed to do that, then everyone can do the same.

As for the "necessary sacrifices", since early 2019 someone theorised that "the people" she pretends the fight for as seen as some general "concept", much like the "greater good". So if some people are sacrificed, it's for her ideals - the goal and aim of her newfound strength - , and it piles on her drive, she must realise them otherwise those people would have died (and she would have suffered) for nothing.

However, despite acknowledging her past self as a victim, and because she's now "strong", she's not above using her past trauma (but actually, still present! Remember the rat scene?) to reach her goals, because, at her core, Supreme Leader is soemone who is very determined. Maybe it's her only drive to grow beyond the trauma, or her own illusions, or a mix of everything, but AM made it clear, Supreme Leader is not above, well, using herself if it means seeing her goals come to fruition : unlike Lobotogard from AG, AM!Supreme Leader willingly transforms in Hegemongard.

This is the cost she's willing to pay, so while the memes about Lord Farqaad were on spot, I still think that Supreme Leader is ultimately willing to sacrifice** herself for her goal (but only when there's no other way to ensure her future will come to fruition, and in a way, I guess she thought she would survive the Hegemon transformation, jury's out on what she meant to do in AM's finale, but imo, she still tried, even beaten and battered as she was, to claim Dimi's head).

Ultimately I think everything's a bit muddled by the fact that, as @fantasyinvader pointed out, Supreme Leader is a liar and knows the importance of maintening good PR.

She lies and manipulates the truth to reach her goals (which again, is a red flag when CF claims to want to restore the "distorted history" of Fodlan!) and for all the flak I give them, the devs managed to scrap enough material to give us a peek in Adrestia's mindset (or at least its top nobles), they're not people who self reflect, they are salty because they aren't ruling the world anymore, and they feel like they are better than the rest of Fodlan.

Put everything in the mixer, and you indeed have Supreme Leader (but also her court, especially Ferdie in SB who dares to say, as he is invading and trouncing people who don't really like and accept the idea of being invaded, that the fear those people feel are only in their mind, or something like that? Like, dude, you're rolling over their people and country, of course they'll fear and hate you!) giving her weird rhetoric lines (why are people opposing me if they are going to die?), victim blaming (something Treehouse swallowed like honey, if their lolcalisation is anything to go by, remember, it's Rhea's fault for not offering her head on a platter that is the reason why the War continues in CF!) and so on.

IDK if the devs wanted to bank that much on the Dany parallel with her "if I look back i am lost", but again, I don't know if her drive to make a "better Fodlan" is motivated by her trauma, Adrestian revanchism, Ionius telling her dumb things or Agarthans agarthaning, but her goal and vision are everything to Supreme Leader.

So she will do anythign to see them realised, even if it means sacrificing her people, starting a war, tweaking "the truth" or using her own trauma to motivate and recruit powerful people who might assist her with her goals.

To reply to your question, IMO she sees herself as someone who had once been a victim, but won't let that stop her from reaching her goals, even if it means creating thousands of "hers" in the process, because, in her mind, reaching her goal is more important than anything else.

*I know, she refutes Dimitri's claim that she is "strong" or laughs at it, but imo, it was more in the sense of "I was weak and became strong" so everyone can "become" strong.

**I don't think she wanted to throw away her life, but more something in the lines of "putting my life on the line" or sacrificing her precious (and to see how precious it is, just play CF lol) humanity.

[houseofchronicpain]

My wife is away at a conference this week and lemme tell you

Being homebound disabled hits differently when there's no one else here

So much respect for those of you who knuckle through this on your own on the regular

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

The whole discourse about the privacy/secrecy/support thing has been sitting with me for a few days (I mean other than it always does to a certain degree) thanks to all the excellent discussion happening and I know I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times before, but I think what we're seeing and what we're going to learn (e.g. from TTPD) is that it wasn't just the support issue, but how it was shown/handled.

We've all gone out of our way to show that introversion =/= lack of support. Someone can be shy, reserved, etc. and still show up for their partner, whether in public or at home. To chalk any of the differences up to the clash between introversion and extroversion is unfair to folks who count themselves among either tbh.

@thisisctrying said something the other day that hit the nail on the head about how if that support had been offered in private, there very well may not have been a Joever to begin with, or at least not at this point in time. (Sorry for loosely paraphrasing, and for namedropping you! Long time listener, first time poster.)

If this were a case where the "shy" partner said, "I am really uncomfortable with the spotlight personally and do not want to court it, but I will support you in your ambitions and offer you whatever you need to make them happen and make the glare bearable," I suspect that would have gone a long way to making Taylor feel seen and comfortable in pursuing her goals in the way that she now has. Again, that might have been more akin to the balance that seemed to have been struck around 2019 from what we can see, but even speaking in a general sense, there are lots of couples out there, celebrity or not, that have similar approaches where there are highly driven people and busy careers involved.

(A famous example being Dolly Parton's marriage. Tbh I know next to nothing about her and Carl, but she's always heralded as an example in this regard, because her husband is famously uncomfortable with the spotlight and hasn't accompanied her to public events in decades, but she's said that she never minded that because that was always work to her, and what was important was that he supported her in pursuing all her career goals and basically ensured she had a place to call home to return to at the end of the day.)

We're kind of in a brave new world with her current relationship because it felt like, at least at the start, we were maybe watching her figure out her boundaries in real time as to what she was comfortable with or not and adjust accordingly. Like so many have said, I fully believe the extreme privacy thing was initially driven by herself and her experiences in 2016, and she needed that quiet time to recover from all of the things and figure out how to exist in the world again.

Stating the obvious, it seemed like eventually privacy was equated with secrecy, turning the relationship and the celebrity into the elephant in the room and something to never be spoken of to the outside world. People are free to choose whatever works best for themselves and their relationships, and for some the separate public lives might work, but the “kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath” theme is all over her work and it’s clear that it’s a sore spot for her, because she’s been made to feel shame just for the life she leads so many times in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s pretty obvious something Not Great was happening behind the scenes, which didn’t just amount to “she wanted to be a public celebrity and he wanted to be a private hermit.” (Also, in case anyone forgot, this is a person who also chose a public-facing career who also has to engage in press for it, but I digress.) As her career reached new heights post-folklore, if she had the support at home to do all the things without judgment and with encouragement, and in turn offer the same support to her partner, she may have very well lived just fine with that, not unlike Dolly Parton’s case.

By reading between the lines in all the press since, as well as comments on tour and general ~vibes~ with TTPD teasers, it seems like one of the issues was that that was likely not the case. There was all the stuff that we saw — the reticence to acknowledge each other in the media (particularly on one side), the lack of public support even at events at which they were both in attendance for their respective jobs, the great lengths they went to not to be photographed together at events they attended yet no problem taking pictures with other friends and coworkers, the jobs that separated them, the withdrawing from the public even for work accomplishments, etc. Which could all be manageable if a couple chooses to do so together and are not inherently a sign of trouble in themselves.

But what we’re seeing now I think is a reflection of the things we weren’t seeing then, and it seems to indicate some very deep hurt. (I know, call me Captain Obvious.) And like so many have been saying, it feels likely that that part of that hurt is rooted in that very lack of private support where a person would expect it from their partner. Obviously as a Taylor fan blog I’m going to be more inclined to understand her side of a story, but tbh, it’s also because… this is sooooooo common, and something I’ve experienced in my friend group. (@taylortruther is right when she says most breakups are the same one way or another lol.)

One partner is resentful of the other’s success, or resentful that the other’s priorities begin to evolve as new experiences unlock new goals, or feels the other’s ambitions are not worthy of pursuit, and coupled with perhaps their own struggles in the same domain, it’s easy to see where that can chip away at the other partner’s morale and faith in the relationship. I know I’m just speculating here, but I also don’t think it’s totally unfounded. (Again, because a) I’m picking up what she’s putting down and b) it happens to sooooooo many women even among us dull normals.)

With all the pointed mentions about how much Taylor feels supported in her current relationship and how she in turn loves to offer the same show of support to not only her partner but other loved ones, how she’s stepped out more in the last year to a whole host of events, how she’s mentioned feeling like she locked herself away for years and she’s just proud of her partner and happy she can show up for him even if the chaos around it is unsettling, it paints a picture of what perhaps was happening before last year.

To feel like you’re all alone in carrying the weight of the relationship (or burden of it), of twisting yourself into knots to accommodate the other person’s boundaries (or insecurities) but not feeling reciprocity for your own has to be so painful. (The idea that it may have been even darker and to have a partner not only be unreceptive to your own needs but even perhaps resentful/dismissive/belittling of them is even more painful to think of. I guess we’ll find out when TTPD comes out if that was the case, too.)

At a certain point, that lack of acknowledgement will force your hand to be able to reclaim yourself. And it feels like the further removed Taylor in particular is from it, the more she moves from being sad about the life she felt she gave up by leaving, to angry at the life she felt she was giving up by staying. Especially being in a relationship now where it seems like everything comes much easier, where she can be open about the person she’s with and show up for them, all the stuff that seemed as challenging as climbing Mount Everest in her past is nothing more than a molehill at best in her current life.

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s privacy that inherently spells doom for a celebrity relationship like this; it’s the mutual support and respect that does. If Taylor had felt that in the later years of her previous relationship, I think we could be seeing a different, though not necessarily unfulfilled, person right now in 2024, who’d be happy on tour but whose personal life would look a little different. But it seems like by losing that support she lost parts of herself, and we’ve seen her reclaim that in spades in the last year, and perhaps to degrees she didn’t even realize she could from before all the Bad Stuff started happening in her young adulthood.

I know this was extremely long-winded and unnecessary, especially about total strangers we only know through scraps fed through the media, but I just always bristle at this idea that issues like these boil down to “personality differences,” as though one person wants to live in a city and the other on a remote island, or some shit like that. The whole support (and gender tbh) issue is one that’s just very close to my heart because again, I have seen it play out with so many of my friends in long term relationships and marriages and I just think people in relationships (and women in particular in some circles) deserve better than to feel like they’re being, well, tolerated.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Headcanon that Seven of Nine and Naomi actually find Neelix’s cooking to be fine because it’s the only food they’ve ever eaten/their first introduction to food and when they get to Earth everyone’s so excited to show them Alpha quadrant foods but neither of them likes anything they’re offered very much. Seven doesn’t really care either way except that she has to get used to a whole new palette and Naomi likes the obvious (Ex: candy, cake) but frequently complains that nothing tastes ‘right’. Naomi: -pushing away a slice of pizza- I don’t like it... Tom: You’re kidding me. You don’t like pizza? Naomi: It doesn’t taste right! Make it how Neelix used to. Tom: You want me to put gerhalorian beets and yuk mushrooms in the sauce so it congeals into a lumpy, slightly sour mess? Is that what you want, Naomi? Naomi: Yeah :(  I want Naomi and Icheb to work tirelessly together on a side project for years until finally doing it - being able to communicate clearly with those in the Delta quadrant! Icheb uses it to speak to the other borg children (now adults) and Naomi immediately uses it to call Neelix and ask him to find the nearest time portal and toss a big box of leola root into it. She’s been craving it for years! No one told her the Alpha quadrant didn’t have leola root, she wouldn’t have gone otherwise!

[ghost-proofbaby]

i don’t know if anybody else needs to hear this but -

go do that thing you need to do. whether it’s cleaning, checking the mail, doing laundry. do it. divide it up into bite sized pieces or tackle it all at once; whatever works for your brain. get yourself a lil treat (favorite coffee, snack, album, show) and do it

[storybook-souls]

*thru clenched teeth* i am allowed to do the thing that is kinder to myself even if i don't "deserve" it i am allowed to--

[gideonisms]

the Immediate switch from "this is bearable" to "I wanna kms" any time my boss switches up the schedule by an hour at random (happens weekly)

[demeterdefence]

my energy has been low lately so i've stuck to just liveblogging chapter releases, but i was thinking earlier about why lore olympus really nettles me and it's truly indicative of a wider issue.

it's disappointing that a major ancient religion that is still practiced by some people today has been reduced to a caricature of itself, and i say this knowing that there are thousands of reinterpretations of the greek myths, there will always be a new opinion or retelling of them. retelling the myth of hades and persephone isn't necessarily the issue, so much as the constant and dripping disdain to the cultural roots. we don't need to be greek to appreciate the story, but why remove everything greek from it? why westernize every aspect and remove ties to the cultural roots? why whitewash everything from a myth thousands of years old?

part of the reason these myths continue to resonate with us is because the themes are still relevant today. the loss of a child, the struggle against impossible forces, the (often patriarchal) powers against you, a mothers love. these stories hold power, they gave hope and inspiration, they created meaning and connection, and they were vital to the people who lived in that time, in that place. they will resonate with us for many years still, but stripping the roots and core of it out only makes it a hollow, shallow imitation. it's reality tv with neon colours, no love or heritage present; it's cold and shiny and plastic, and it insults what it claims to portray.

[honeybeeffdrawshere]

He runs the kitchen in hq, which is about as stressful as you'd expect.

[simgerale]

me after attempting to get back into sims and realizing i had a lot more to do than play the game

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Some mild existential dread in the house today

[echotunes]

having roommates is truly just (does other people's dishes) (can't sleep because they have people over) (does other people's dishes) (cleans moldy food out of the fridge) (stares at their growing collection of deposit bottles on the shelf) (does other people's dishes) (takes a cold shower bc someone used all the hot water) (stares at drinks left in glasses that haven't moved since last week on the communal table) (does other people's dishes) (has no cutlery) (does other people's dishes) (does other people's d