Family and Fears

                “I don’t know what to do!” she cried out, hugging her wife, tears streaming down her disheveled face.  “Scared…”

 

Though it was only from a Three Houses fan fiction, there is so much human truth in those words.  I find so much human truth in Crimson Flowers with Annette recruited, fears, uncertainties, a dependency on candies and pastries for comfort for stress, a small, yet loyal and kind friend group misunderstood and despised by so many they meet, and the real comfort is one of my favorite Ben Franklin quotes, “We must all hang together or we shall all hang separately.”  There are echoes of this in Engage; Alear carrying Marth, Yunaka carrying the House Leaders, with Edelgard and Dimitri in agreement Claude is foolish (and he’s not doing much to prove them wrong) and Panette carrying a male Byleth fill similar roles, Edelgard still calls Byleth my teacher, a calm, humorous stranger becomes a confidant of an aggressive, axe-wielding refined lady since neither can stand the status quo that wrecked them, and the protagonist marries a character connected to the Tara Platt voiced Edelgard, which, in a way, brings Yuri Lowenthal’s Marth together with his wife.

 

But, three Fire Emblem games later, and while I enjoy these characters, Petra and Monica, all I feel is I accomplished the franchise’s equivalent of Sentai’s Gokaiger, no future installments will be as fun, it has peaked.  Plus something else; I’m hearing my thoughts scream at me that nothing I do is good enough, that I’m not cleaning enough to keep my apartment (though those who visit say I am), I’m not making good life decisions (yet nothing is going wrong other than spending too much time and money on the Internet to feel less alone) and I know for sure I’m lonely and somehow, I’m more comfortable posting and looking at pictures and screenshots of Edelgard, Annette, Byleth, Alear, Yunaka, Abby Trott, Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt than calling a family member.  Is this wrong?  I don’t know anymore, I don’t know how to fight loneliness other than to have smiling faces and funny lines on my computer screen during times when sadness comes uninvited due to loneliness and uncertainty about where my life is going, which seems to be getting more and more frequent.  I have tickets to two concerts and two baseball games, first concert is two weeks from Friday, but that leaves a lot of time alone with my thoughts, which either try to scare me or make me feel worthless.  They tell me the Godzilla series has peaked, neighbors who are homophobic or antisemitic will try to beat their values into me, I will scare away the voice actors I have made small, yet significant bonds with, my family will cut me off for my poor money decisions or that the extremists will seize control of the US Government again, begin homophobic genocide, remove the First Amendment, make the State Religion Southern Baptist Coalition or whatever’s most convenient for them and make it permanent as they align with Putin and set up a column of dictators such as Trump, DeSantis, Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham and Kirk Cameron.  I cannot exist with this fear making my hands tremble and making me weep and long and mourn on an almost-daily basis, and worse, these fears are realistic enough no one can tell me they won’t happen.  I have to confess it, it’s making prayer and my connection with God hard, because I worry He will allow this to happen and they will not be proven to be the devil’s allies and this to be the end times. 

 

What keeps me connected is Jesus choosing to be flogged, humiliated and executed.  I cannot imagine such a God-Man doing that without infinite compassion, which makes me furious that these people act like it is their prerogative and all outsiders are not fit to receive it unless they purge themselves of all thought that criticizes their politics, whether gay marriage, abortion, state religion or the belief that the First Amendment should exist.  I have no doubt that the Republican Party, should it gather enough power, will try to outright annul the First Amendment with Sedition Acts and State Religions that Trump’s puppets will allow and look the other way on.  They will call it a theocracy to pacify their party, when it is a fascist dictatorship that refuses any thought outside a list of what is okay.  With these fears, should I post the pictures to keep my focus away from dark possibility?  Should I lean on my chosen sisters and brothers, or hope my family will respond more like “you know, that requires this country to be enamored with a man so deluded he thinks he’s a superhero and sold pictures of that” than “that’s crazy, that’ll never happen, we’re past the bad stuff.”