So my husband and I work for my parents. I’ve been here for 18 years. In that time I have gotten maybe 3 or 4 raises. I didn’t take a vacation of ANY kind for 5 years straight after my kids were born. My son was literally 6 years old before he went on any kind of vacation or trip away from home. And then it was for 4 days spread across a weekend so we wouldn’t have to miss too much work and leave my parents alone. I haven’t a week straight off of work in 18 years. I’ve had to listen to them fight. I’ve had to have them take out their frustrations on me. After the recession in 2008 it was so fucking stressful around here I was having panic attacks several times a week while trying to keep it together for my husband, my parents, and my kids. My dad was so cruel to me that at least once a month I’d go home and cry myself to sleep because he made me feel like I was literal trash. I was fucking suicidal for YEARS for fucks sake and all they cared about was how I was crabby at work!!! I mean it was straight up shitty here for a long fucking time and while it’s much better (mostly because I’ve worked really hard to detach myself from their shit) it’s still stressful. And I still worry about them and their well being. They are constantly bitching about how tired and over worked they are, and they are getting older and they ARE my parents and well, I worry. I try to mitigate it for them as much as they will let me.

For example, we didn’t take any time off last summer because my dad gave us such a hard time about it we felt too guilty to do it. So again, going on 2 years now with nothing off of work except Christmas and sick days (which, believe me, require me to be super ill in order to be able to stay home, like not able to move ill). Another example, my kid’s birthday is tomorrow and while one of us is ALWAYS here until close at 9PM (so my mom doesn’t have to stay and my dad won’t be alone) tomorrow, understandably, we both want to go home at around 7 so we can celebrate a little with our kid. And we were worried about saying so because we didn’t want to burden them.

And you know what I fucking found out tonight? My brother and my sister in law asked my 67 year old mother to watch their 4 hellion children (ages 2, 4, 7, and 9) for 3 days and 2 nights (Sun, Mon, and Tues) so they can go out of town by themselves. WHAT THE FUCK. And of course she’s going to do it! And they fucking know she will say yes. They should know better than to even ask. I mean what the actual fuck. I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve asked my mom to watch my kids so my husband and I could have even one night alone. I would never in a million fucking years have thought of asking her (or anyone) to do that. Guess what? when you’re a parent of small children you JUST DON’T GET TO DO THAT. I am just beyond pissed right now. And honestly I know I shouldn’t be because it’s really  none of my business (except for the two work days where we’ll be short a person but hey) but I am just...livid. It just feels so unfair I can’t take it.

i’ve been feeling really pretty darn good lately. i’ve been working really hard around my house to try to take care of things that i’ve previously let slide due to a combination of stress, anxiety, depression, being broke, and having small children in the house (no comment on how the first four relate to the last one). the thing is i feel like i’m doing it alone, and i’m going to have to do it alone. all of it. because my husband will literally not start a god damn thing. he’ll let things go until they rot to pieces before he decides to do anything about a situation. i mean, i’ve been with him for 20 years so i know and accept this about him, but i feel like he’s not even being supportive of the work i’m doing? like last night i was musing about what my next steps should be because there are several things that need to happen next and i’m not exactly sure of what order i want to tackle them in. and he sort of....yelled at me? about how curtains and shelves and furniture don’t matter and what he wants is a certain piece of furniture cleaned out and another one moved and i just thought...what the fuck dude? i’ve done literally everything so far. EVERYTHING. he’s put some bags in the car and driven them to goodwill and that’s literally fucking it. i’ve done all the planning, all the cleaning, all the moving. part of me is just resigned to the fact that i will have to do all of it alone, but this is more than i expected. i thought i’d at least get support, or enthusiasm, not like, anger that i was talking about what to do next. i don’t even feel like i’m interested in asking him to go furniture shopping at this point. i’ll just do the whole fucking thing myself and he can sit on his ass and nap. maybe he’ll be willing to come to the store when i need his signature for financing. it sucks to be in a partnership that doesn’t feel like one.

You’ll have to forgive me if my answer is kind of ranty and herpderp because I have been awake for a very long time and am now too tired to sleep. But.

Basically I am generally frustrated with Ellone being the catch-all for all the BAD in FFVIII. Her parents die, her adoptive mom dies, her adoptive dad doesn’t come back for her in time for her and her baby brother to be shipped off to an orphanage, where they live for just long enough to be heedlessly separated and then she spends the next… *counts* 12-ish years of her life living on a boat where she’s under guard 24/7 because all sorts of evil sorceresses are after her and that means she doesn’t get to have a life and is stuck babysitting and hiding the entire time. No fucking wonder she wanted to change the past. 

Her only real use in the narrative is as a tool for other people or a captive princess. Which is just such a damn shame because she was clearly a precocious little bugger as a small kid and had enough of a mind of her own as an adult to actually try and change things. Even if she didn’t succeed/decided it wasn’t actually what she wanted, I feel like she deserves more credit and screen time than she’s given. 

There were a ton of other reasons Squall might’ve gone to Esthar besides “use my long lost sister to save the love who replaced her.” It’s justifiable (given all the reasons mentioned in the essay), but it’s not necessary. Maybe Odine could’ve provided an attractive option. Maybe Esthar’s hospitals are better because, y’know, space age technology. Maybe it just seemed like a safe place to hide. 

But no, they had to have Ellone provide the perfect excuse to go seek her out as a solution to Rinoa’s plight. Like good fucking god hasn’t everyone asked enough of the woman?