#i have a lot to say about dimitri my pals. i have many a headcanon to type up

[stergeon]

From that ask game you reblogged (I'm assuming FE3H 🙃):

- What is one canon thing that you wish you could change?

- What is your wildest headcanon?

- Is it easier for you to write angst or fluff?

💥 What is one canon thing that you wish you could change?

oh gosh. this is a lot of power to have and i have too many ideas. it’s hot on my mind because of the vickyvesties, but i freaking hate how almyra is treated in canon. fódlan is atrocious with any and all foreign policy but sweet sothis are they dicks about almyra.

[spoilers for white clouds and azure moon ahead btw]

i also would have loved more screen time for our agarthan pals. i really, extremely do not fuck with clowns, but i still wish we could have gotten more depth from kronya, who was just on the cusp of being really interesting.

i realize i’ve cheated and said more than one thing but whatever i’ve got one more: all of azure moon should be placed in the circular filing cabinet, but especially rodrigue’s death scene. insane to have felix’s dad’s death be entirely about dimitri when felix is standing right there. triple insane to have it happen at all when byleth could just fucking rewind it!!! hello! did you forget you have time powers??? wake up girl!!!! we got an explanation for why she couldn’t undo jeralt’s death, but they don’t even hand-wave away rodrigue’s. byleth just accepts that he’s gotta go. what a joke!!

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

morrowind is yuri and i made a 3.5 hour long powerpoint presentation to defend that stance.

for fe3h, i don’t think my headcanons are too wild for the most part, but i subscribe to the theory that sothis’s dragon form is um. really big. like, say, yea big:

my hottest take? the agarthans were kind of right. unfortunately they were too stupid and evil to make anything of being right.

💘 Is it easier for you to write angst or fluff?

oh, angst. absolutely angst. when the mood strikes and i get the right idea, i can crank out a fluff fic pretty fast, but if i set out to write fluff, i could wind up sitting around for hours trying to come up with something. i’m a lot better at plugging away at angst.

my fluff fics are also prone to taking sudden turns into angst if i don’t keep a close eye on the flow of the conversation. the beginning of chapter 3 of the vesties is supposed to be very light-hearted and sweet, but it was an ordeal keeping byleth from souring it all. she’s so emo in that story and it’s terrifically hard to make her have any fun. i had to scrap six or seven paragraphs and rework them completely because she bummed claude out so badly at his freaking new year’s party, and that simply would not do.

#fe3h #fire emblem #sterge.eml #kyokoenthusiast #thank you for playing my little ask game my friend you are lovely!!! #at some point i’ll write up my rant about the agarthans #haven’t quite organized all of my thoughts on it #might do a fic on it someday. who knows

[somniatcr]

dimitri & ptsd and suvivor’s guilt

as mentioned in a previous post, i genuinely could not stand the way that dimitri’s ptsd  ( and mental illness in general )  was handled in canon. so below the cut i’ll be talking about how all of this will be handled here on this blog, more or less broken down symptom by symptom.

prior to the timeskip, dimitri suffered from both ptsd and survivor’s guilt, which do have overlapping symptoms, though his symptoms were seemingly more manageable as most people never caught on to such and they didn’t largely affect his every day life. all the same, he did have recurrent unwanted and unwarranted thoughts, namely those suggesting what he could have or should have done differently, that he should have died with his family or in their place, having apologetic thoughts, seeing himself as weak and / or unworthy, and so on and so forth. he’s since had difficulty sleeping, furthermore, and has experienced frequent nightmares ever since the tragedy of duscur.

he’s also since felt something of a disconnect with others, namely his childhood friends who, like himself, have suffered immense loss and / or have experienced severe trauma or tragedy. he spends far more time in his own head, thinking about the past  ( the death, the tragedy, his family ),  about the future  ( about making his country better not only for himself, but for his friends and for his people, about being a good leader and king ),  and about everything that’s happening around him  ( about what he could do, about what he should do )  instead of actively engaging or participating. he spends more time thinking about the moment  ( past, present, or future )  than actually living in it. needless to say, this goes on to affect his relationships with his friends who ultimately may have a difficult time genuinely connecting with him on a deeper or more emotional level.

moving on--- following the timeskip, dimitri’s mental health has declined quite significantly and now has begun to affect his day to day life, thus trickling into his actions, his personality, and, in turn, affecting his relationships with others further.

he still suffers nightmares, though they’ve since grown more vivid, more real, and tend to wake him up more violently than they once did. they’re more frequent and tend to keep him up at increasingly odd hours of the night. in addition, he now experiences flashbacks that may be triggered by certain stimuli that take him back to these traumatic moments from his past. essentially, he’s re-experiencing, vividly reliving, his past traumas through nightmares and flashes in this recurrent, repetitive manner and, try though he might, he can’t seem to prevent or avoid it.

his nightmares and flashbacks also tend to elicit feelings of fear or physical or psychological pain--- he experiences chronic headaches as well as discomfort and tightness / tension along the back of his neck as well as in his shoulders and upper back. 

he’s prone to occasional irritability due to lack of sleep, headaches / body aches, and frequently feeling a bit on edge.

he’s big on repression and avoidance, oftentimes attempting to distract himself by throwing himself fully into his work or his training. 

he feels almost constant guilt, shame, and pressure. often, he finds that he feels as if he’s drowning, in a sense--- struggling to keep his head above water and maintain a sense of self, of normalcy; to keep up with his training, with his duties, with his relationships and all of it weighs so very heavily upon him. every step back, every failure, is taken so deeply to heart, so personally, and he blames himself for just about every bad thing that happens, that has happened--- for the death of his parents and glenn, for the state of his relationships  ( namely with his childhood friends ),  for dedue’s death  ( if, of course, he does die for him, which i’d like to think that maybe he doesn’t--- ).  there’s a lot of guilt, a lot of regret, eating away at his heart and at his mind and the more that builds up within, the more that it wears away at him. he also feels ashamed of, embarrassed of, his own state of mind, his own illness, namely when it translates as irritability, anger, and / or outbursts.

he does experience occasional outbursts of rage and aggression. while rare, it does happen, though primarily this occurs on the battlefield, when his emotions are already severely heightened and he happens to be triggered by sights, sounds, and / or events that take him back to certain violent or traumatic events  ( the tragedy of duscur, the various battles and deaths that have occurred during the last five years, etc ).  while he does tend to lost himself in the moment and can become dangerous  ( though significantly more so to his enemies ),  such behaviors are fleeting; they don’t last especially long and, ultimately, he does come to, snapping out of these blackouts and returning to normal relatively quickly. following these outbursts, he always experiences intense feelings of shame and / or guilt for his actions and behaviors.

he’s very hyper-vigilant and has a tendency to be on guard more often than not. as a result, he may occasionally take certain actions to make himself feel more comfortable, such as sitting or standing with his back towards or against a wall, carrying concealed weapons, or preemptively planning escape routes within his mind upon entering a room or a new building / location.

he still experiences unwanted and unwarranted thoughts, though to a more severe degree than he did prior to the timeskip.

all of this said, again, as mentioned before, what he isn’t is cruel for the sake of being so, or violent / aggressive with his friends and comrades, or violent and volatile or easily set off; he doesn’t threaten to maim or to torture or kill  ( slowly or otherwise ),  he doesn’t go out of his way to isolate himself from others, he doesn’t enjoy hurting or killing  ( he still hates it just the way that he used to ),  and he doesn’t suffer from any sort of hallucinations  ( occasional flashbacks, yes, but those are quite different ).

he’s struggling--- he struggles every day, but he is trying; he wants to be better, to do better, and though it’s hard, and though it’s painful, he’s genuinely doing his best  ( well, most of the time, anyway ).  he’s sad, and he’s angry, and he’s hurting, and he’s truly going through so much and sometimes, yes, it gets to him  ( he’s only human and he’s going to have bad days ),  but he cares about his friends, he cares about his people, and he wants to end this war; he wants to be a good king and to make his country better than it is, better than it was. he just has a lot of healing to do before he can really get there.

and maybe he’ll never be the same, maybe he’ll always be struggling, even just a little--- but he will; he will get there.

#i have a lot to say about dimitri my pals. i have many a headcanon to type up #lots of canon divergences to talk about! #but tonight we're gonna start with this #☆. ( dimitri ) #☆. ( hc ) #ptsd //