#i think my poor mom suffered guilt when in reality I wish she had more divorces. wooooeeeee this one

[cheapcheapfaker]

ONCE AGAIN suffering as a CHILD OF DIVORCE at age 28 because mom canceled her cable with the whole selling the house to split assets and now I have to PAY for peacock plus instead of just connecting the accounts

[gaiapaia]

Kermit and Friends: Hello, Sigmond

Hello Sigmond, my old friend. Kermit’s come to talk to you again!

Did you know Sigmond Twayne is writing a movie? Even more amazing, Elisa Jordana has been cast as Sigmond’s mom in said movie! I’m not sure when it’s exactly going into production but I can’t wait to see it!

Sigmond returned to Kermit and Friends yesterday to show off his movie board. The film, referred to as Magnolia Boulevard, will be a romance story between Sigmond Twayne and future pop music sensation, Sian Michelle. Gonzo has a role, Leaf King has a role, hopefully everyone a part of KAF will be booked in this picture... stay on the look out for it!

Speaking of movie stars, Andy Dick was featured in an incredible new song by Gene Wilder’s Vacation, who joined the show to share I’m Not Better Than Anyone with the audience. What’s really cool about it is that some of Andy’s quotes in the song were pulled directly from Kermit and Friends! Pretty awesome, huh?

Barry Mezey is also no stranger to being a star, having starred in a reality internet show about his life and in porn film(s) as well. Unfortunately, Barry called in quite peeved at Elisa, wanting an apology from her.

A couple of weeks ago in the Kermit and Friends fanclub on Discord, Elisa typed in chat that she didn’t like how Barry called her and asked about her financial situation. Barry said Elisa is lying despite the fact that he would later say he DID ask her about it. Barry supposedly heard from someone that Elisa was looking for a job. How could Barry help Elisa find a job, though? That remains to be the ultimate question. I mean if Barry has hundreds of millions of dollars like he claims, he could just give Elisa $5 million and her “financial problems” would be solved forever. Barry, however, tells Elisa she needs to pay HIM for his services in promoting KAF. 

Honestly the only thing Barry can do is be nosey and butt into Elisa’s personal business because William Quigley is constantly feeding vitriol/jealousy towards Elisa into Barry’s ear. Elisa grew tired of it and made the wise choice of hanging up on Barry.

One person Elisa would never hang up on is Chad, who called in to let Elisa know that Kleenex told Capt. Muttley that he had Elisa’s old NYC address and that Kleenex wanted to take Muttley to visit the residence. Pretty weird and creepy, I’d say. Kleenex called in to deny it and made a bunch of silly accusations against Chad, but I think the damage was done and Elisa still has no interest in meeting Kleenex when he goes to Los Angeles. Poor Kleenie.

Next up, Elisa would welcome Nicole Hawkins to the program.

Nicole Hawkins is the author of the book F_ck Caregiving. Kind of a shocking title, eh? For context, the book isn’t focusing on people with special needs or the elderly who need assistance to live decent lives. It’s more towards people who rely on others to find joy when, according to Nicole, they should be looking for ways to be happy within themselves. At least, that’s the notion I got from Elisa’s interview with Nicole.

It was a fascinating little discussion. Coach Love wished there was more to it than what took place but there were fireworks to be had.

Coach Love presented a Sharmin Smith hosted show on Friday where Sharmin interviewed country music sensation, Mark Connors, about the allegations he’s had to endure over the last decade or so.

A lot of people were displeased with how Sharmin handled the Mark interview. Since making her debut on Kermit and Friends, Sharmin has been very outspoken about the abuse she’s suffered from the hands of sexual predators and she has mentioned many times how one of her biggest life missions is to see all sexual predators get brought to justice.

Mark Connors once entered an Alford plea to charges brought upon him that included statutory rape. An Alford plea is still a guilty plea despite it not being exactly an admittance of guilt; it’s just a person saying they recognize there’s enough evidence against them where they can be convicted and they don’t want to take the chance to go to trial. At the end of the day, Mark Connors is still a convicted felon because he made this plea deal.

So you would think someone who took a deal like that would catch the ire of Sharmin Smith, right? Quite the opposite. Dare I say, Sharmin was quite smitten with Mark, as was Coach Love. They believe his side of the story, which is that he was set up by the victim’s father, who is now serving decades in prison due to tax fraud.

To me, it’s fine if you want to believe Mark. If you looked at everything and heard every side of the story, and your conclusion is that Mark is innocent, you have every right to have that opinion.

However, things start to look a little fishy when before the interview took place, Mark promised Sharmin and Coach Love certain things, like a big platform to host shows on and the like. So is that why Mark received such a coddled interview from Sharmin?

It’s not my call to make. I like Sharmin and Coach Love a lot, so I’ll just go with the flow. If they want to be Mark Connors fans/friends, hey... more power to them. I sincerely hope the friendship benefits them all and brings some added joy to their lives.

Two people who don’t want Mark to feel any joy whatsoever is Kermit’s new friends, John and Kelly Taylor.

The KAF audience had the pleasure of meeting the Taylors yesterday and boy, are they one feisty couple! They’ve been feuding with Mark Connors for many years now and they were ready to let it all out on Kermit and Friends.

From what I gather, John originally met Mark through a Republican Facebook Group and they became friendly enough to start hosting a political talk show together. Sadly, they had a falling out over something and since then the gloves have been off between them.

John found out about Mark’s past and he’s been trying to expose him ever since to anyone who wants to associate themselves with Mark. How Kelly got involved, I’m not sure but they did accuse Mark of once calling Kelly on Skype and masturbating in front of her. Yikes!

Of course all of this has been brought to our attention thanks to TBob. After last week’s fight vs. Mark and them making up, miraculously Bob and Mark are still friends a week later. I honestly didn’t think it would last but somehow they’re making it work.

TBob has been so charmed by Mark that Bob came to Mark’s defense big time when John and Kelly started going at Mark. Bob got pissed and lashed out in a way only he ever could. It was both hilarious and quite shocking.

Say what you want about Mark Connors... you have to admit, he’s one charming fellow. John, Kelly, and Harry Brogan would say manipulating instead of charming, but either way... it works, and you have to be impressed with the way he has TBob, Sharmin, and Coach Love believing he’s a perfect innocent Angel. Heck, maybe he is... that’s for each individual to decide for themselves.

How does Elisa feel? Well, she’s not buying it. Elisa went on a glorious tirade to end the show that I can’t wait to gif up tomorrow. Elisa’s rant may have actually been the best ending in Kermit and Friends history. We haven’t seen Elisa like that for a few years now. She believes certain people aren’t being honest to themselves about Mark and it just really got under Elisa’s skin, which is so rare to see.

Where do I stand on this entire ordeal? Well... I’m entertained. That’s all I care about. Guilty, innocent, blah blah blah... all I know is Kermit and Friends was absolutely compelling yesterday thanks to these new characters. I’m very excited to witness where they’ll go from here, and to see who will join the fray in the near future ;)

[dear-wormwoods]

Someone truly in the reddie tag saying Myra was not abusive and that she wasn’t like Sonia. Even saying Bev and Eddie don’t have similar arcs bc their abusive situations were entirely different and that people just reach to bend arguments in order to prove reddie. Biggest bs I have read in a while ahdhd

I’m assuming you are new to my blog, because uhh, I’m sorry to burst your bubble anon, but I am also someone who doesn’t consider Myra abusive. Idk what post you’re talking about specifically but I’d sure like to know what ‘proving reddie’ has to do with it, lol. But anyway, I have said before that I consider Eddie’s marriage to be toxic, but not abusive. These two people should not be married. And not just because Eddie is gay and doesn’t love her. Beyond that, they are definitely bad for each other. The entire marriage is a conduit for misery and deception. It’s a codependent circus of projection and enabling. It’s unhealthy as hell! But it isn’t abusive. And here’s why I think that: 

Stephen King wasn’t trying to make a point that Sonia and Myra are exactly the same. He was, however, making a point that when people enter into adulthood and adult relationships while carrying a bunch of baggage from trauma they never properly dealt with, the cycle will continue in one way or another (this is why Eddie and Bev are ‘parallel’ characters, not the surface-level abuse interpretation). Eddie suffered from emotional abuse for most of his life; Sonia was very calculating and intentional about it and made sure that she always held sway in Eddie’s life to suit her own needs. The result is that Eddie is a very inexperienced and sheltered adult who believes in all of the lies his mother told him. He tried to move out three times and failed each time. Sonia controlled him until the day she died. It’s all Eddie knows. So in his mid-thirties, alone in the world for the first time, he doesn’t know how to take care of himself and, more importantly, believes he can’t learn. Because of his history of abuse and control, Eddie can’t fathom taking the reins in his own life and instead seeks out someone who will take care of him the way he’s become accustomed to. 

So, Eddie meets Myra and latches onto her because she’s inexperienced and malleable, like him. She physically reminds him of his mother, so it’s easy for him to project onto her all of the abuse Sonia inflicted on him. And because that life was all he knew, it was also what made him feel comfortable, so he nudged Myra into the role he wanted her to fill - a replacement mom. He did this subconsciously at first, but he was able to recognize it before they got married… and then he decided to go through with it anyway. 

Eddie brought a lot of baggage into that relationship, baggage that Myra was most likely completely unaware of. Obviously he’s a repressed gay man, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Eddie doesn’t love Myra, but it’s not just because he’s gay, it’s also because he has created a maternal figure in her and, since he (rightfully) resents his mother, he also resents Myra. She conforms to that caretaker role and enables everything he’s learned from a life with Sonia, and he in turn enables her bad habits too. Enabling is��toxic behavior, but it isn’t inherently abusive. 

But then, when he leaves to go back to Derry, it all comes to a head. She freaks out because as far as she knows, he’s very sick, and he’s leaving her without an explanation, this man who she is married to and financially dependent on. She has no idea how to communicate, so she resorts to panicky, emotionally manipulative attempts to get him to talk to her and stay. On the flipside, Eddie has no idea how to communicate with her either, so he withholds information, deflects, and snaps at her in moments of frustration. They both have irrational thoughts about hurting each other and they both do and say things that make the situation worse. They are both VERY bad at communication. Because they’re both grown adults with almost no relationship experience outside of each other and are therefore emotionally stunted. 

That whole chapter reads, to me, like “bad breakups 101″ - one person can’t articulate how they feel so they’re deflecting and coming off as cold, and the other person is so over the top emotional that they end up making no sense and coming off as hysterical. And it’s no wonder! If you make it to your late 30′s without ever having much of a social circle or relationship experience, you’re not going to know how to act in a situation like this. And this applies to both of them. If what Eddie says about her is true, this is probably the first time Myra has ever been left by a partner, and it’s happening suddenly and with no explanation. So, she’s hysterical and resorts to manipulation - not out of habit, but out of desperation (Eddie makes the distinction that this isn’t typical behavior for her!!). For Eddie’s part, this is the first major decision he’s made in probably his whole life, and he doesn’t know how to explain himself, so he just… decides not to. And because he does not love Myra, he is completely emotionally detached from her. Their individual reactions to the situation just make it worse for them both - Eddie shutting down makes Myra more hysterical, and her hysterics cause him to shut down more.

People like to cite a couple of damning quotes about Myra as proof that she’s exactly like Sonia, but making that argument requires you to actively ignore the damning quotes about Eddie. There are also quite a few quotes that highlight the differences between her and Sonia, things Eddie himself acknowledges, as well as quotes about the guilt he feels for knowingly projecting his own baggage onto this woman. (Note: see the posts linked at the end of this for a breakdown of all those quotes) The text makes it clear that this was never a happy marriage. Neither of them are better for being in each other’s lives. They don’t help each other become healthier people. Rather, they both actively enable each other’s toxic habits. The marriage is, in a lot of ways, a form of self-harm for Eddie, and he knows it - upon Sonia’s death, he exited the cage his mother built for him and then built a new cage for himself and threw the key at Myra’s feet. For her part, I believe Myra began as an unwitting enabler but ultimately realized that she gained a “purpose” from the relationship (being a caretaker, being “needed”) and subsequently turned a blind eye to all the ways it wasn’t actually a healthy marriage. 

This is such a long post already but I want to make it very clear that Eddie’s cycle of abuse continuing does not actually require Myra herself to be abusive - rather, it is Eddie’s projection onto her that exacerbates the toxic environment. It’s the ghost of Sonia that haunts him in that chapter and throughout the rest of the novel. Myra is not a villain in Eddie’s life - he hardly even thinks about her after he leaves. This is one of the main points that make Eddie and Bev’s parallel arcs different - Bev very clearly has a secondary villain in her life, Tom, and she gets the closure of him dying in the end. But Eddie doesn’t need closure about his marriage, because Myra is just an extension of what Sonia did to him. 

The one time he does think of her unprompted is during his walking tour, and it’s such a great example of what his marriage actually means for him: when faced with the leper offering him a blowjob and other IT manifestations, he wishes he was home with Myra. He doesn’t think of her badly - he’s not afraid of her in any way. But she represents his comfort zone. IT is forcing him to confront things like his repressed sexuality, and he decidedly does not want to do that. That’s the only moment he “misses” Myra. But he doesn’t actually miss Myra. He misses the way her enabling allowed him to escape from having to face himself. And that’s really what it comes down to - Eddie’s marriage is toxic because it’s an escape, a way for him to avoid having to grow as a person and face the hard realities of who he is and what his mother has done to him. Myra isn’t evil, she’s not a calculating abuser like Sonia was, but she is toxic because her very presence prevents Eddie from reaching his full potential and being happy. 

Sonia’s abuse permeates Eddie’s entire life, even well after her death. Her actions dictate how he sees himself, as well as how he acts in relationships. Sonia is the reason Eddie’s marriage is the way it is. Hell, Sonia is the reason Eddie’s marriage exists in the first place. It is Sonia’s ghost that continues to manipulate him throughout the book and it is Sonia’s voice he needs to overcome in the end. If Myra were truly abusive, she would matter more in the overarching narrative of Eddie’s trip to Derry. But she doesn’t matter and because of that, she’s never really given a personality or motivations. She’s truly a blank canvas for Eddie to project his issues onto, and then he simultaneously berates himself for projecting and resents her for existing within his projections. Through all of this, everything always comes back to Sonia. Due to the vast disparity between their respective levels of influence, placing Myra on equal footing with Sonia is, in my opinion, a form of downplaying how bad Sonia truly was. 

Finally, and it’s wild that this even needs to be said, people need to recognize that saying ‘Myra isn’t abusive’ is NOT the same thing as saying she did nothing wrong. Myra was an enabler and that’s not okay, whether she meant to be or not. She also had moments of manipulation, terrible communication skills and poor emotional regulation. She was a toxic presence in Eddie’s life. Saying she isn’t abusive doesn’t mean I’m excusing her actions. But it’s also important to recognize that the chapter in which she appears has a lot more nuance to it than some people realize, and it’s necessary to hold Eddie accountable for his part in making that night so difficult. On that note, holding Eddie accountable and recognizing his harmful moments is not the same as calling him abusive either (fsr that’s become some kind of urban legend, but literally no one ever said he was! ever!!). There does not always have to be an abuser and a victim - sometimes bad relationships are just… bad.

Eddie is obviously a lot more sympathetic than Myra because we know about his past and get his POV. We know that he’s a good person. We also know that Sonia is the root of all of his issues. But the fact is, he has some shitty moments in that chapter, just as Myra does! His past experiences are not an excuse for that, they’re just an explanation. And, because I know there are people out there who equate accountability with victim blaming, being able to recognize where Eddie went wrong and why he entered into this marriage to begin with is NOT the same as saying he deserved any of his misery. There’s a huge, huge difference between accountability and blame. Holding people, even fictional characters, accountable is a good thing. In the end, Eddie is a very damaged person - an inherently good person, to be sure, but sometimes damaged people who are inherently good can, and often do, create, foster, and contribute to unhealthy relationships. It can’t all be unquestioningly pinned on Myra. 

Anyway, if after all of that you’re still confused as to why some people choose not to use the abuse label, here’s some additional reading:

An amazing breakdown of the entire chapter, using quotes, by @tossertozier

A more recent & shorter breakdown using quotes by @richietozierhateblog 

[iturbide]

Hfjdhjf can I please have more information?? I think the reason I managed to float by so spoiler free was half because up until recently I never was super interested in Three Houses, and my knowledge was limited to what I was told about the routes. WHICH WAS APPARENTLY VERY LIMITED. V E R Y.

friend of course you can have more information

legit though I am so impressed that you’ve managed to stay spoiler free regardless of the context, I am massively spoiled for fandoms I’m not even in and yet you’re managing to come at it fresh like I did when I started my Golden Deer playthrough.

also this came in and frankly your wish is my command

But okay.  So.

Dimitri is honestly fascinating and a tragic, deeply flawed character in his own right.  But understanding his break requires backstory.  His mom died when he was still pretty young due to a plague that swept through Faerghus, and when he was around ten his father re-married an Imperial woman named Patricia von Arundel (who is also Edelgard’s mother, hence the step-siblings thing).  Edelgard, as it happens, had come to the Kingdom with her mother and uncle, Volkhart von Arundel, in order to escape the chaos caused by the Insurrection of the Seven, where the Imperial nobles seized power from the Emperor (Edelgard’s father), and the two became friends: she taught him to dance during the three-ish years she was in the Kingdom, and just before she left Dimitri gifted her a dagger, symbolic in the Kingdom of a hope for someone to cut their own path forward.

Two years later, Dimitri’s life basically becomes hell.  While he and his family are traveling through the neighboring lands of Duscur, their caravan is attacked: his father Lambert and his bodyguard Glenn are both brutally murdered, his step-mother goes missing, and he is the sole survivor.  He witnessed the people responsible, but although he tried to tell people what happened, the people of Duscur were blamed for the attack, and the genocide soon followed.  The whole incident came to be known as the Tragedy of Duscur, and it left Dimitri with massive trauma that went completely unaddressed: he suffers from survivor’s guilt and PTSD, he completely lost all sense of taste, he’s had a constant headache since the incident...oh, and also he sees hallucinations of the people who died.  So there’s that.

Now, because Dimitri was only 14 at the time and he couldn’t take the Faerghus throne until he reached his majority at 18, his uncle Rufus stepped in as regent in the meantime.  Rufus is pretty fucking terrible!  In fact, he sent Dimitri at age 16 to go put down a rebellion in Western Faerghus -- and again, Dimitri is a traumatized teenager who’s been getting no help or support.  The people around him, notably Gilbert and Felix’s father Rodrigue, are trying to foster him into the next King of Faerghus rather than tending to his very real mental and emotional needs following the events of Duscur, so Dimitri has been silently bottling up all of his problems for the better part of two years.  He...kind of snaps during that rebellion, and it ends up as a brutal slaughter; Felix bears witness to it, and ever after he treats Dimitri like a wild animal, calling him a beast and a boar.

This is all just piling on the trauma, as you probably noticed.  He manages to hold it together and keep up a calm exterior, though he’s deeply afraid of the darkness within him, and does his utmost to bury it and keep it under control.  At age 17 he comes to Garreg Mach, and over the course of the school year things just get progressively worse: he starts slipping and growing more violent over the course of repeated encounters with the Flame Emperor, since he recognizes the masked mages from the attack on his family’s caravan in Duscur and believes that the Flame Emperor must have been responsible for the Tragedy.  But he pretty much snaps during the revelation at the Holy Tomb, where Edelgard is unmasked as the Flame Emperor -- in the Blue Lions route, he literally crushes an Imperial soldier’s skull with his bare hands in his attempts to get at Edelgard.  It’s shocking, especially since up to that point the super strength that came from his Crest was played for laughs more than anything else.

He continues slipping in the weeks leading up to the attack on Garreg Mach, publicly alluding to his hallucinations and how they whisper to him and vowing to take Edelgard’s head himself.  CF is the only route where he actually stays pretty sane, so we’re going to focus on non-CF routes: in the battle for the monastery, Edelgard’s forces end up victorious, and he’s forced back to Faerghus, expecting to take the throne and rally a counterstrike against her...only to arrive and be accused of regicide when it’s revealed that his uncle Rufus has been viciously murdered.  Cornelia (who is, in fact, a Twisted agent) takes power in the Kingdom and basically hands it off to Edelgard as the ‘Dukedom of Faerghus,’ then orders Dimitri be imprisoned and later executed; but before he can be killed, his vassal Dedue manages to break him out of prison, though the escape attempt apparently costs him his life (he can be saved by other Duscur survivors depending on the results of an earlier paralogue, though -- the important point is that Dimitri thinks Dedue is dead).  After that, Dimitri spends the next four-ish years wandering alone in the Faerghus forests, the isolation exacerbating his already poor mental health until he’s openly conversing with his hallucinations; he also starts attacking Imperial forces he comes across in Faerghus and basically ripping them apart, leading to a lot of rumors about a wild beast on the loose.  Also, somewhere in this five year span he loses an eye.  No, we have no idea how.  Fandom burns for answers.

Now, Dimitri’s fate varies significantly depending on playthrough here.  In Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, he’s literally consumed by his rage and guilt and his desire for vengeance on behalf of those taken from him, and he ends up dying in pursuit of it.  In Azure Moon, he’s lost any real ability to tell reality from hallucination, and believes even Byleth is nothing more than a figment; he continues his single-minded pursuit of Edelgard, committing atrocities of his own and admitting to being nothing but a base murderer, the beast Felix accused him of being so long ago.  But eventually, through the intervention of Byleth and his classmates, he starts to come around a little more -- though it takes Rodrigue’s death and his final words, encouraging him to live for himself rather than those who have already gone, to really wake him up and get him moving forward.  The game takes the turn a little fast, but it’s still really touching to see Dimitri coming back from the edge and recognizing the importance of his own desires.  The campaign continues, they retake Fhirdiad, there’s a parley with Edelgard where she refuses to back down and continues to insist that war is the only option, things get crazy with the final boss like holy shit, but in the end after Edelgard’s been defeated, Dimitri offers his hand to her...and her final act is to throw the dagger he gifted her when they were children at him, and he instinctively kills her in retaliation.

Look, Dimitri doesn’t come out of this smelling like roses.  He killed a lot of people in very, very violent ways.  But he recognizes that what he did, even if he wasn’t mentally sound at the time, was pretty atrocious and spends the rest of his life seeking peace with as little bloodshed as possible.

But okay I have gone on for a long time about Dimitri so if you’re still here, congratulations let’s talk about my favorite Lord.

Claude is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.  That’s literally how he’s presented in the game, and it’s great.  He’s sociable, amiable, friendly, mischievous, and has a reputation as a schemer.  He jokes about his own reputation a lot, especially when he’s called out, but he’s wickedly smart, especially where tactics, information gathering, puzzles, and secrets are concerned.  We literally go through the whole first half of the game getting only the tiniest hints about him personally and what his aspirations are -- we don’t even know where he came from, he legit just showed up out of the blue when Duke Riegan named Claude as his heir -- and meanwhile he’s out there trying to unravel the mystery behind Crests, the Church, and the Flame Emperor -- and while he doesn’t manage to succeed before the timeskip hits, he manages to uncover an alarming amount of information.  Also, despite his reputation as an untrustworthy trickster, he cares deeply about the people around him and does his best to keep them safe, even if it means resorting to underhanded (but ultimately non-lethal) methods.

Once we hit the timeskip, we find out more of the secrets that he’s been hiding.  For context, Fodlan’s neighbor to the east is Almyra, and relations between the two nations have been...tense, to say the least: a few hundred years ago Almyra invaded Fodlan and a bad time was had by all.  In order to prevent it from happening again, the Alliance built a fortress called Fodlan’s Locket in the pass connecting the two nations (the pass being called Fodlan’s Throat).  Presently, the Alliance is headed by a communal council of nobles from the major families, who meet at regular round tables in order to debate business that affects their territories and pass legislature; the round table is headed by Duke Riegan, who had two children, a son set to inherit the title and a daughter who went mysteriously missing years ago.  Unfortunately, House Riegan and House Gloucester have never been on the best of terms, and when Duke Riegan’s heir was attacked and killed on the road while traveling to visit Duke Gloucester, there were a lot of rumors that Lorenz’s dad might have been involved, though nothing was ever proven in that regard.  It left Duke Riegan in a tough spot, though, since he was getting on in years and suddenly had no heir...at which point, Claude ‘miraculously’ steps in with his Crest and is named heir to House Riegan.

Turns out?  Duke Riegan’s daughter didn’t go missing: she eloped with an Almyran.  And that Almyran, as it turns out, became king of Almyra.  So Claude’s an Almyran prince.  Turns out, he didn’t exactly have a great time growing up, though: Almyrans view the people of Fodlan as cowardly and weak, so they viewed Claude’s mom as such...and Claude himself, too, since he was half-Fodlan.  No matter how much he argued or fought, it never seemed to matter.  He got bullied a lot, and started picking up tactics and poison mixing as ways to defend himself...but more than anything, he hated how small-minded Almyrans were when it came to him and his mother.  Then Duke Riegan’s heir died, and his grandfather reached out to his daughter, hoping to have Claude tested for a Crest -- which, as it happens, he bore.  Claude was so excited, believing that things in Fodlan would be different, better...

...and instead, he found that things in Fodlan were exactly like they were in Almyra.  People hated him for half his heritage -- just this time, it was for his ‘savage’ Almyran half instead of his ‘cowardly’ Fodlan half.  It was hilarious, in a sad way, how alike the people of Fodlan and Almyra were when it came to hating things they didn’t know...and that was how he decided on his goal.  What Claude wants to do is destroy the borders between people and forge understanding between them.  He found through hard experience that people always fear the outsider -- but if you break down the walls, there’s no ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ anymore.  There’s just people.  What he wants to do is unify the Alliance, then Fodlan, then perhaps even the world...not through force or subjugation, but by bringing them together, uniting them through what they share in common and helping them understand and find value in their differences.  His aspiration is to ensure that no one has to suffer like he did growing up.

And so, once things are all settled in Fodlan (and he’s assured that he managed to achieve his goal in small scale with his friends in the Alliance), he leaves Byleth in charge, forgoes leadership in the Alliance, and heads back to Almyra to continue working toward that aspiration.  He becomes the king of Almyra so that he can start working toward that larger goal from the other side of the border, intending to open roads toward peaceful diplomacy and trade with Fodlan.  He knows their bonds are strong, even when they’re apart, and he knows that they’ll all be reunited someday.  Also Claude is the only Lord who has the possibility to live in all routes (barring Silver Snow but he’s only listed as ‘missing’ not ‘dead’ so I hold out hope) which I think says a heck of a lot about how great he is.  He’s just so good and so kind and cares so much about people and he makes my heart warm and yes I’m done yelling about how much I love Claude for a moment.

So hopefully that fills you in a little on the other Lords at least in part please enjoy my novel-length ramble.

[unicorn-vibes-99]

Learning to Live With Never

my gift goes to @chloexdecker​ my prompts were monster mash and  "you know, it can be scary sometimes, but... being who you really are is never a bad idea." a quote from Chloe Decker, season 3 episode 8. I had a lot of fun doing this! I hope you enjoy!!!

Trixie was seventeen now and had resigned herself to three truths in this world.

1) She had met the devil, and he was the kindest man she had ever known.

2) Her role model as a child was a demon, and she was the best at taking care of her

3) And finally, when they left- they weren’t coming back.

It was still hard to think about even if it did happen over half her lifetime ago. Ten years flew by when nothing good happened. Her father, Dan, had died in an accident involving a murderer who was after her mother. That had been five years ago and though the ache in her body still felt fresh, she knew it did no good to dwell on it. She had felt completely alone after it happened, Lucifer and Maze gone, her mother guilt stricken, and her father gone she tried to pull herself together and be the woman she saw in her mother, but she always fell flat in her mind. That’s when she met Eve, who helped her in every way that she couldn’t help herself. Eve had become her older sister, helping with things like boys, and grief. 

Which brings us to now, where Trixie was in the school parking lot for her final Halloween dance. Eve had been swarming her with different makeup and dresses all month, and Trixie was glad that was finally over. However Trixie was still curious about why this dance mattered so much more than any of the others. Somehow Eve had dragged her mother into being a chaperone to this specific dance with her, an amazing feat considering Chloe had to work doubles to support the apartment and Trixie since Dan died. 

Eve switched the dress Trixie was going to wear from a green and black homage to Frankenstein's monster, to a red wrap around dress that faded to grey and black at the bottom. Trixie had no idea what monster she was supposed to be, but didn’t mind because when she spun in this dress the flare was something to be remembered. The three women climbed the stairs to the entrance of the school. The hall before entering the gym was dark, and covered in fake spider webs and campy ghosts. In the distance she could hear the song “Monster Mash”. Eve grabbed Trixie’s  wrists and started dragging her to the gym dancing, it was bad dancing but trixie laughed and started to dance nonetheless. 

Just as they were entering the gym Eve spun her and Trixie’s dress flared out into a reverse fire. Trixie knew what monster she was supposed to be now, she smiled at Eve, “Demon?” She asked and Eve nodded. 

“I think it looks fantastic.” A woman's voice whispered in her ear. Trixie would know that voice anywhere, it raised her and helped her through her parents divorce. 

“Maze.” She turned and stood stunned and frozen to the spot.

There stood the baddest demon she knew. Granted probably the only one she knew. Maze wrapped her arms around Trixie but Trixie couldn’t get herself to move. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t dreamt about this very moment a thousand and one times before. She never thought it would actually happen. She thought maybe when she died, she might see her, but not before that. Not now. Definitely not in her high school gym at a cheesy dance. 

Suddenly there was a clatter behind her and Trixie turned to see her mother looking more stunned than herself. The cup that had fallen to the floor spilled red liquid all over the floor. “Maze…” Chloe trailed off. She bent down to retrieve the plastic glass off the floor. “Is… is. Um. is he here?” she stuttered out quietly.

“I wish I could tell you. When I left he was still conflicted over it. Might do more harm than good.” Maze said softly. It felt weird, almost fake, how we were talking about Lucifer as if he were real. Trixie knew he was real, she knew he existed but over the past ten years he felt more like an imaginary friend she had made up. 

Trixie couldn’t breath as she walked over to the dance floor. It was overwhelming, no one could have prepared her for the emotional roller-coaster that the night had become. Eve and Maze followed quickly behind her. Why couldn’t they understand she needed to be alone? This was all too much. She was happy, that was for sure, it was all the other emotions she was feeling that made her unable to even think at the moment. She tripped and began to fall when someone caught her arm and pulled her up. “Now, now we need to slow down. I know it’s a gym but…” the man trailed off when Trixie looked at him.

Someone should go tell her mom yes. 

Lucifer stood silently just holding Trixie’s arm. “Well didn’t the little monster grow up.” He finally broke the silence.

“What are you doing here?” Trixie asked quietly. Tears welling up in her eyes as she lowered her arm and lucifer let her go.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked lowly. Trixie nodded. “I’ve come to all of them since… Since Dan’s death. I’m not your father, But I promised, through Amenadiel, That I would look out for you. I sent Eve when Chloe was depressed. I had Maze come up tonight because I knew after all this time you deserved at least one good thing happen to you.” He whispered quietly.

“So my uh dad… He’s…” Trixie started but couldn’t finish, the words got caught in her throat. Tears threatened to spill and ruin her makeup.

“He’s in heaven, never even smelled the brimstone.” Lucifer reassured her.

Trixie took a deep breath. For the first time in five years she felt like she could breath, like the weight of the world was finally off her shoulders. Her dad was okay, he wasn’t suffering. The tears actually fell this time. Not because she was sad but from relief, which seemed like a worthy reason to ruin her mascara. “Can… Can you do me a favor?” Trixie asked hesitantly

“I don’t know Trix…” Lucifer trailed off.

“You spied on me for five years, I’m just asking for a small favor.” Trixie said with the fire that she had at seven.

“Alright, fair is fair.” Lucifer sighed and crouched down to listen to her request. Trixie whispered in his ear. “No. I can’t do that.”

“You promised.” she pouted.

“Fine, but the aftermath is yours to pick up.” Lucifer sighed and straightened the cuffs of his white shirt.

Lucifer walked across the dance floor starting out confident but slowly losing nerve as he grew closer to the punch bowl. The truth was that Lucifer could watch from a distance how chloe aged and fell in love and eventually died. This was like flying too close to the sun, Chloe could melt all the layers he put up over the past ten years to protect himself, all she needed to do was look at him. By some miracle though she hadn’t turned around yet, too preoccupied by the senior who tried to spike the punch bowl.

Lucifer had practiced a moment like this a billion times, he might open with a cocky line like “did you miss me?” or he might just embrace her, he had a thousand ways he wanted this to go, but everything failed him now. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, his heart beat so loudly in his ears that he was reminded how human he was in her presence. 

Chloe scolded the teenage boy for five minutes while Lucifer just stood there. When she was done she sent the poor boy away and she turned around exasperated. Then she froze. It felt like she was seeing a ghost, in all actuality she thought it more likely that she would see Dan standing there before Lucifer Morningstar. “Lucifer?” the word slipped from her lips like an avalanche down a mountain, shaking the world that previously didn’t have Lucifer and Chloe existing as one.

The word hung between them, Chloe shaking for what? She didn’t know. Lucifer was still frozen to the spot. The air was thick and the music wasn’t there for them. Ten years of waiting had led up to this moment. Lucifer shook off his fear and doubts and smiled his Cheshire grin and held out his. “Detective.” He said offering a glimpse into the past.

Chloe wasn’t prepared for this. She spent the last ten years resigning herself to the fact that she may never see Lucifer again. She was at peace with that fact, but here he stood in what felt like the least likely place for the two lovers. Chloe felt like she was going to throw up, or faint, possibly both. She stared at his hand and back up at his eyes. She wanted to hug him, to kill him, to scream, and to kiss him all at once. 

This whole time lucifer held his hand out waiting for her to take it. It was terrifying to be this vulnerable, he was the king of hell yet nothing mattered except this moment. The eternity he spent living in heaven and hell, couldn’t compare to the bliss and horror of leaving his heart open to this woman.

Chloe shook off the fear and bewilderment and reached a shaky hand out and grasped Lucifer’s. Then everything snapped into place, the music was playing a slow song and the room was quiet for the first time all night. Lucifer pulled Chloe close and their feet had a mind of their own as they began to dance. It was as if the stars had finally aligned and everything was as it should be.

“What are you doing here?” Chloe asked quietly

“I have promises to keep.” He responded just as quietly.

“Like what?” she looked up at him, looking into his deep sad eyes.

“Well first I promised Dan to look after Trixie, and then I promised Trix, that I would have a dance with you.” He said.

“So… after this dance you’ll be gone. Just like before, only this time we’ll only have a few minutes together.” Chloe said as tears welled up in her eyes. She didn’t want to cry, not over a man, but she couldn’t help it. She thought that he may finally be back. 

For her.

It was a selfish idea but one she desperately wanted to be true.

Lucifer nodded and chloe stopped for a second. “Then let's make the most of these last moments.” Chloe snapped back into reality and layed a kiss on Lucifer’s lips.

This wasn’t permanent, but temporary was better than any imaginary scenario she could dream of.

..............................................................

I also drew this in hopes that it could show what trixie looks like in this story. I am not an artist but i am proud of how it looks.

[gracewithducks]

For Freedom (Galatians 5:1, 13-25)

This week, I saw a story online, a story which has since been shared over a hundred thousand times. It’s a story written by a mom named Jen, about something she witnessed at the local pool.

 She wrote, “Yesterday while at the pool I watched a young Mama and her little daughter enter the pool area dressed in very nice coordinating swimming suits…” After spending several minutes on the phone, the mom finally turns her attention to her daughter – spending several minutes staging and capturing the perfect selfies and photos. Finally mom let her daughter get into the pool, but instead of joining her, mom instead got back onto the phone, ignoring her little girl. After about ten minutes, the mom ended her phone call, packed up unused sunscreen and untouched toys – nothing but photo props – bundled her daughter out of the pool, and left.

 Jen writes, “I sat there thinking about what I’d witnessed… I imagined the photos [that mom] took being perfectly edited and posted to social media with a caption like ‘Pool time with my [girl]! #makingmemories.’” And somewhere, Jen thought, another mom – a woman covered in spit-up and peanut butter, with messy hair in a messy house, who’s exhausted and overwhelmed – is going to see those perfect pictures and feel like a failure… but those pictures don’t tell the whole story at all.[1]

 We live in a curious moment in history, a moment when many of us and many of our neighbors carefully curate our online presence – looking for Instagram moments and snapshots worthy of our Facebook wall. But what we share online is only a tiny piece – a carefully screened and edited piece – of our whole lives. And when we look at other people’s best moments, and compare those to our worst, it’s easy to get discouraged – to feel like we’re the only ones with messy hair and messy families and bigger problems than what filter to use. There’s actually research into the ways that social media can contribute to depression and anxiety, in part because we compare our own realities to other people’s edited perfection – and we feel like our lives are coming up short.

What we see online isn’t reality. On some level, we know that – but we don’t always feel it; we forget. And maybe social media isn’t your thing. But we see the same phenomenon when we look to the past: we remember the past by looking at snapshots, retelling stories about the good old days, through the golden haze of nostalgia. We tend to forget the hardships, to gloss over the pain, to romanticize and idealize the past while forgetting what real life was like.

 We do it in the church, too. We like to remember John Wesley as this passionate, pioneering pastor who wasn’t afraid to break the rules to take the gospel to the poor and the lost – but we gloss over the fact that Wesley may have suffered from OCD and depression, that he was a less than inspiring preacher, that he led his pastors with an iron fist, and he was once run out of town and sent back from the colonies in disgrace because he refused to serve communion to the woman who broke his heart.

 When we write our own church histories, we fill the pages with smiling photos and inspiring triumphs, and we gloss over the times when we almost split over music choices and carpet colors.

 And I can’t tell you how often I’ve been in conversation with pastors and church members who wish we could just go back to the good old days of the early church – imagining this idealistic community where people spend all day in fellowship and prayer, with no buildings to maintain, no history weighing them down, where no one is in need and everyone sings kumbaya and boldly shares their faith and promises to love each other until Jesus comes.

But that’s not real life, either. And perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in Paul’s letter to the Galatian church. We don’t often revisit this little letter, except perhaps to trot out some of our favorite verses – and there are some good ones: this is the letter where Paul writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,” and this is the letter where Paul makes the great list of the fruits of the Spirit, which we love to embroider and print on shirts and paint on walls and engrave on charm bracelets… We love parts of this letter, but we can easily forget the rest. The truth is, this is no carefully curated historical document; this is not a workshopped and vetted public statement – but this is a real letter, a very real letter, a real letter fired off by a very real and very angry apostle Paul, to a very real church full of very real conflict and strife. The Galatian Church is one of the churches that started after Paul travelled through the area, preaching the good news of Jesus’s death and resurrection, of grace and eternal life. It’s a Gentile church, a church full of people who weren’t Jews, who weren’t looking for or waiting for any kind of messiah, but who nevertheless found hope and purpose in the message that God so loves the whole world, and not even death is stronger than God’s love.

 When Paul leaves Galatia, he leaves behind seeds of faith and a fledgling community of grace. But after Paul had left, other preachers came – zealous and passionate missionaries, who came in the name of Jesus the Christ, but who proclaimed a slightly different gospel than the message Paul had shared. These new missionaries thought it was great that these Gentiles, these outsiders, had accepted that the messiah had come – but they needed to remember that Jesus was a Jew, he was the Jewish Messiah, who had come to fulfill the old Jewish prophecies and laws. And this meant, to these missionaries, that – while outsiders were welcome, they needed to become insiders; these Gentiles needed to convert to Judaism, to follow the rules of Jewish law, in order to fully belong to the Jewish Christ.

 These missionaries were passionate and zealous about their faith, as they taught the Galatian converts about kosher and cleansing and sacrifice and circumcision. And these missionaries certainly didn’t see themselves as Paul’s enemies, or as villains; like Paul, these were people who’d left their homes behind to travel and share the good news; they were trying to do what they earnestly believed was right, proclaiming the truth they believed to be true, for the sake of saving lost souls. And these new Christians in Galatia wanted to do what was right, too; they wanted to be faithful disciples – and Paul was far away, but these preachers were compelling, and they were right here – so the people started to believe all that they had to say.

When Paul hears what’s going on, he’s furious. He’s furious, because that message – that to follow Christ, you must follow the old rituals and rules – that message, those conditions, undermine the whole promise of grace. Paul’s furious, because the good news of Jesus is that Jesus has done what we can’t, that God welcomes us as we are, with no strings attached. He’s furious, because those well-meaning preachers are acting as if, after the resurrection, all of creation is still the same; they don’t realize that everything has changed.

 That’s why Paul writes this letter. And he is so passionate that he skips right over the usual greeting and blessing at the beginning; in most of his letters, he praises each church for their faithfulness before going on to offer corrections and advice. But in this letter, Paul is so anxious that the Galatians realize they’re being compelled away from the heart of the faith, that he skips the praises and jumps right into his critique. Paul writes this letter – one of his earliest letters – a letter that cuts to the heart of the gospel, that affirms that there is no longer Jew nor Greek, insider or outsider, because the old distinctions have passed away, and we are living into a whole new community and a whole new creation.

 That’s why Paul writes so fervently about freedom, as we heard in our scripture for today: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore” in your freedom; don’t let anyone else put conditions or limitations on the message and grace of Christ.

 “For freedom. Christ has set us free,” Paul writes. “Only do not use your freedom for self-indulgence, but through love, use your freedom to serve one another. Do not bite and devour one another, but remember the one greatest commandment: love your neighbor as yourself.” God has put no limits on God’s love; don’t put limits and conditions on yours. Don’t add restrictions where God has poured out grace, but use your freedom to love as generously and humbly as Christ has loved you.

 That kind of love is hard. That kind of love goes deeper than a few carefully planned photo opportunities – it means loving the people whom we find most unlovable, on the days when we’re feeling unloving and unlovable ourselves.

It means being willing to inconvenience ourselves, to put others before our own comfort and our preferences, to make sacrifices for someone else’s sake. And that kind of love doesn’t come from guilt or duty; it can’t be compelled or forced – but it must be chosen, over and over again. That kind of love – real love – goes deeper than following the rules; that kind of love comes from being free.

 We talk a lot about freedom this time of year. We tell the story of where we’ve come from, and it’s a story about freedom: about brave pioneers who sailed the oceans in pursuit of freedom, who longed to build a city on a hill, to shine God’s light in the world, who fought for freedom, and who’ve continued to fight for freedom, not just at home but around the world, sharing that shining promise of the American dream: make good choices, work hard, and you, too, can have it all.

 We like to tell the story; we repeat it, passionately and with great zeal – the only problem is, we’re a lot like that mom by the side of the pool, more interested in sharing a perfect picture than getting our hair wet, getting our hands dirty, or telling the whole truth. We edit out the genocide of the native peoples; we gloss over all the ways those who fled oppression in search of freedom turned around to oppress others; we hide in a footnote that the society founded on freedom was built by slave labor… and we proudly salute the Statue of Liberty, with her bold proclamation: “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” – while turning our back to those who really are tired, poor, and yearning to breathe free – the parents and toddlers drowning at the border, where the luckier children sleep in cages under foil blankets on concrete floors, with no toothbrushes, no soap, no parents, no hope, and no idea when this nightmare will end.

The land of the free and the home of the brave, indeed.

 And we look the other way because those children aren’t “our” children, because they were born on the wrong side of an imaginary line, because their skin is a different color, and their prayers are spoken in another language. We don’t look. We don’t see. We don’t listen, and we don’t hear, and we don’t care. We say: they shouldn’t have come – when what we mean is, that promise of freedom isn’t for everyone, and we don’t want to share what we have, because we’re too greedy, too callous, and too afraid.

This isn’t about politics. When we’re putting children in cages, we’re talking about morality. When children are taking care of other children, when they’re crowded into warehouses, getting sick and dying and no one cares, we’re talking about basic humanity. If I made my children sleep in the garage, with no soap and no toothbrush and no blanket, you’d call the authorities to take them away. If your own grandchildren, if your nieces and nephews, if your friends were in those cages – you’d move heaven and earth to set them free. Because we know: that’s not right. It’s not okay. And it’s especially heinous in a so-called Christian nation, in a place we like to call the land of opportunity and the home of the free.

 It’s going to be awfully hard to celebrate freedom this year. Surely this isn’t the dream that our ancestors envisioned; surely this isn’t the kingdom that Jesus talked about – where the last are the first, and children are welcomed; where we treat the least of these as Christ himself, and they know we are Christians by our love.

As a people, as a nation, for all that we’ve gotten wrong, we are always at our best when we use our freedom for the sake of others – to fight against injustice and oppression, to stand up for those who are being trodden down. As people of faith, we are always called to a greater vision than just our own personal freedom and our own personal privileges and rights. For freedom Christ has set us free, not to bite and devour each other, not to destroy others with our own greed and prejudice and fear; we are forgiven and set free, not so we can do worse, but so we can do better. For freedom Christ has set us free: free to live with love, peace, kindness, generosity, self-control; free to be guided by the Spirit, to live a different way, to love as Christ loves us, to love others as we love ourselves.

 The United Methodist Church has called for this Sunday to be a Sunday of Solidarity for Suffering Children, in recognition and response to the travesty that’s happening at our border. Families escaping trauma, who have exercised their legal right to seek asylum have been treated as criminals, torn apart, and are being held indefinitely in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. Access is denied, not just to those who want to witness and report on the conditions, but to those who want to help – both private donors and established relief groups are being turned away; donations of blankets and hygiene kits, and offers to help, are being refused.

 So what can we do? First, we need to pray: pray for these children, pray for their parents, pray for our nation, for those who are desperate to help but powerless to do so, and for those with the power to make a change.

 If you want to give, one way to do so is by giving to support the work of the United Methodist Committee on Relief as they minister to migrants and refugees around the world. Although UMCOR and our partners aren’t being allowed into the camps, they are working with several church-run transitional shelters along the border helping those who’ve been approved to enter the country, they are working with JFON to provide immigration legal services, and UMCOR and its partners are also continuing to advocate for access and relief for the families who’ve been torn apart.

 And finally, so very importantly, use your voice. Relief for these children will take policy changes from the top down – so we need to let our officials and leaders know: this is not okay. Not in our homeland, and not in our name. Whatever you do, friends, don’t look away. Jesus waded into the most hurting and broken places – and he told us to do the same. Jesus welcomed the little children and he blessed them – and he told us to do the same. Jesus welcomed strangers, and he crossed borders, and he said, “Whatever you do for the last and the last, you do for me.”

 Don’t be silent. Don’t look away. Don’t let your fear be louder than your faith – there are lives at stake. Don’t look away. Don’t look away. Don’t look away.

 For freedom Christ has set us free – not just for our own sake, but for the sake of the hurting, the oppressed, the weak, the powerless, the least and the lost. For freedom Christ has set us free – not to add new restrictions and rules, not to limit God’s love, but to be a blessing, to love others, and to set them free, too.

 This week, friends, let’s do more than just pay lip service to freedom. May we not be so blinded by the fireworks that we ignore the very real darkness around us. May we not be so caught up in painting the perfect picture that we fail to live our faith in the real world – but speak up, shine in the darkness, offer help, offer hope – and may they know us, may they know who we are, by our love.

  I’d like to close with a prayer shared by the global church, which is being prayed in congregations across the country and around the world today:

  God of All Children Everywhere,

Our hearts are bruised when we see children suffering alone.

Our hearts are torn when we are unable to help.

Our hearts are broken when we have some complicity in the matter.

For all the times we were too busy and shooed a curious child away, forgive us, oh God.

For all the times we failed to get down on their level and look eye to eye with a child, forgive us, oh God.

For all the times we did not share when we saw a hungry child somewhere in the world, forgive us, oh God.

For all the times we thought about calling elected officials to demand change, but did not, forgive us, oh God.

For all the times we thought that caring for the children of this world was someone else’s responsibility, forgive us, oh God.

With Your grace, heal our hearts. With Your grace, unite us in action. With Your grace, repair our government. With Your grace, help us to find a way to welcome all children everywhere, That they may know that Jesus loves them, Not just because “the Bible tells them so,” But because they have known Your love in real and tangible ways, And they know that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate them from Your love. Amen.

   This prayer is from a resource provided by the United Methodist Church, which also includes suggestions for how to take action:

https://www.umcmission.org/share-our-work/news-stories/2019/june/a-sunday-of-solidarity-for-suffering-children

 To find out more about what UMCOR is doing, check out:

https://www.umcmission.org/share-our-work/news-stories/2019/june/care-for-children-of-god

[1] Though of course I can’t vouch for its truth, this story made a buzz; it is shared, among other places, at: https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/28/woman-calls-mum-fake-instagram-photoshoot-daughter-pool-10084403/