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raxistaicho · 1 year

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The difference between invasions

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post.

A good friend of mine and fellow Edelgard fan, Volossya, had quite a bit to say about people trying to compare Edelgard’s war to the one in Ukraine. I’m posting this with her permission:

(This is is from last May, as she references the then-recent fall of Mariupol.)

The thing is, what Putin is doing is not anything like what Edelgard is doing, other than being aggressive militarily. He's not even calling it a war!

Edelgard is attempting to overthrow a military theocracy and a system of oligarchs who hold all the power and can subject their serfs to any level of suffering with no accountability. Any idiot born into the correct position holds the power and the people's taxes are spent according to their whims - and thus often wasted on frivolities while people starve on the streets. That she needs to use a war to achieve change is tragic, but realistic given the forces at the disposal of the status quo. What is her other option? There is no democracy here. The people did not choose this - it is simply how it has always been.

Putin is launching a war that no one wanted in an effort to maintain his country's projection of power. He cares nothing for his own people and even less for the people of Ukraine, as is evidenced by the systematic leveling of cities and the brutalization of the civilian populace. The end result for any conquered regions is brutality against the civilians while Russia's oligarchs strip the region of all of its industry and resources, plundering it for their own gain. This is essentially the reestablishment of the very sort of governance that Edelgard is trying to remove!

Let alone the appalling equivocation of war with the systematic destruction of civilian populace that we are seeing in Ukraine. There are three times that civilian populaces are slaughtered in FE3H: Remire by TWSITD, Duscur by the Kingdom, and Fhirdiad by the Immaculate One. Edelgard never does anything that is a fraction of what Putin is getting up to. The people who do? Your precious Church and Kingdom.

As a last point? These people act as if - of course Ukraine would fight back this fiercely. As if that is inevitable. As much as it shames me to say, this isn't guaranteed. When Putin first moved troops into Donetsk and Luhansk, many Ukrainians welcomed them with open arms - because they thought that Russia would invest in the region, that it would improve their futures to be a part of Russia. This didn't happen - the regions were taken over by essentially local warlords who mistreated the civilian populace, random violence became common, and the Russians looted all of the wealth of the region they could and took it back to Russia. Ukrainians fled those regions to either Ukraine or into Russia proper, because their hopes and futures in occupied Donbas had died. Ukrainians outside those regions saw this fate, and saw the investments that the Ukrainian government put into their cities, and their determination to stay part of Ukraine solidified.

I could easily see a different path, where Putin had invested in Donetsk and Luhansk, and so Ukraine put up much less of a stiff resistance to being conquered. However, Putin's Russia, his complete lack of care for the people, his climate of robber barons, his social structure that is so similar to Faerghus and Liecester, backed by the corrupt Russian Orthodox Church that acts to validate him as the Church of Seiros does, made this impossible, and so he defaults to brute, overwhelming force.

All of this is to say, a lot of people choose what offers them hope and a better future. Edelgard could offer that, and actually cares about the people. I suspect far fewer serfs and peasants would be willing to fight and die for Faerghus than this person assumes.

And yes, I am Ukrainian, I can speak about this.

(As a final note, she wanted me to mention that “Volossya” means “hair” in Ukrainian.)

#Fire Emblem Three Houses #Edelgard von Hresvelg #Edelgard discourse #edelgard positive

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badmusejail · 2 years

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Samuel Oak

--aka the lore is confusing as fuck and i’m sorry about that so i’m writing up this post to try to organize things better for everyone else’s sake.

Prelude

Oak is primarily meant to be a secondary character to Giovanni; with most if not all threads I write him in connecting somehow to Giovanni. That being said, the duo shares lore, and everything in Giovanni’s bio applies here as well.

Mainly, the most critical point is that there was a war between Kanto and Johto; and tension that preceded it for several decades. The war lasted about three years and ended approximately ten years prior to the events of Red/Blue.

Oak was the champion during the war and many years prior; Giovanni and Agatha were two of his elites, and the other two are mostly throwaway OCs that died during the war.

As you may already be aware, much of this lore is based on the ROMHack Firered Rocket Edition, and if you’re familiar with that game, or just me talking, Oak was not a good person.

I’m aware that not everyone is interested in the implications of that. I’m also aware that some people would like to explore that. Therefore, I offer verses that feature Oak in both directions. By default I go with his standard verse that’s more canon compliant. Please let me know if you’re interested in the other verse. I am too, I just don’t want to force it on anyone.

Because the two versions of the characters differ so drastically, its really important to pay attention to the verse tag to see which one any particular thread / headcanon / etc. refers to.

Summary

Oak had a rather unnoteworthy childhood. His mother worked hard to provide for them, his father killed in a tragic accident. Barely getting by, it wasn’t as if they had many toys, so Oak entertained himself by studying the world around him, picking things apart, learning about the mysterious creatures called Pokémon.

But it was a different time then, and once he turned 10 he was free to get his license as a Pokemon trainer and roam the region.

Training and battling was secondary to his goal of understanding and documenting these creatures, but one that he proved himself to be good at. Maybe it’s because his methods were revolutionary in a traditionalistic region; maybe he simply had natural talent.

He took his time, yes--his methods were thorough and perfect--but it really was no surprise when he took the mantle of champion.

He knew about the rising tensions between Kanto and Johto. Everyone did. It was background noise that had shaped the region for generations. Maybe he should have did something more about it. Maybe there was nothing else to do.

The simple truth was that the minute he got the first report of Johto attacking, he knew the war was lost.

But still, he tried. Where they lacked pure power, he tried to use wits to win. He headed the Mewtwo project (Giovanni funded it; though the public still believes it was a Team Rocket affair) he lead the men, he did everything he could, and when there was nothing else to be done, he surrendered.

The act earned him immediate backlash from the nationalistic region and even his own wife and the other surviving Elite. Most people blame the loss of the war solely on him and brand him a coward for not fighting until the end.

Oak was stripped of his license to battle and kicked out from the Pokémon League, but he still had a very respected reputation within the scientific community (of itself more likely to be filled with cowards who sympathized with his decision, or intelligent folk who understood it) and managed to settle down into the role of a professor.

Standard / Good Verse

In this verse, Oak’s fascination with Pokémon stems solely from awe and respect; a desire to understand and coexist with these amazing creatures that walk the world.

The role of champion was accepted less because he wanted to do it and more because it was traditional. He had defeated the previous champion, and declining the position would have not only been unconventional, but also extremely disrespectful.

So he lead a relatively peaceful era in the region; in fact working hard to dispel many of the superstitions the people held and encouraging them to become more open to the world. Despite his best efforts, the majority of his innovations that stuck were really only related to Pokemon battling; battling was traditional, honored, and something the people of Kanto could agree with.

Still, he spent a great majority of time encouraging people to learn more about the world, think critically for themselves instead of relying on rumors, visit other regions, and even tried on multiple occasions to loosen Kanto’s restrictions on foreign species.

Like many geniuses, Oak was ahead of his time, and with a people so deeply wounded and opinionated, there was only so much he could do.

Though he tried to bargain peace with Lance, his offerings were rejected, and inevitably, war broke out. He and Lance both knew that Kanto would buckle under a full assault. In all honesty, Oak wanted to surrender immediately, but knew the people would never accept it, so with reluctance, he fought.

Not directly, given that his place was in the back, as a commander, but he lead, he fought, and he felt the death of each individual as blood on his own hands.

He tries not to think about it anymore. Maybe he was a coward; maybe he was too afraid to put his own life on the line; especially after the war took his son and daughter-in-law from him.

He had to give it to the people of Kanto. They may have lacked brute strength, but they had passion. Unfortunately, passion doesn’t win wars, and it soon progressed to the point that he couldn’t let it go on any longer. Lance demanded his surrender, and he did.

He’s aware that Giovanni (and many, many others) hold a grudge against him for it, but, there’s not much to be done about it. In the case of Giovanni particularly, a part of Oak blames him for the death of the other two elites; given they followed Giovanni’s lead in disobeying Oak’s instructions to wait before entering the battle. Besides, what happened hardly justifies what Giovanni’s done.

It’s not a sentiment he talks about much, but he’s honestly glad that it’s all over. Maybe Johto winning wasn’t the best way it could have ended, but he’s happy just being a professor now, and truthfully, the change of power had very little effect on the people. He really should have just surrendered from the beginning, huh?

Evil Verse

This version of Oak is different on a fundamental level. His goals were never noble or fueled by curiosity, rather with one single intent: power. He understood from a young age that Pokémon were the key to strength and that commanding powerful Pokémon made you powerful, and such lead his research.

Cold and ruthless, Oak doesn’t care about anyone or anything be it Pokémon or human, and will equally take advantage of everything he can. Now, that doesn’t make him sadistic; he protests that label--it implies that he bothers to think about the people around him.

His rise to Champion was a foregone conclusion but no less meticulous; his image perfectly curated to show nothing but unfathomable power, and the people bowed their respect to him.

It was also utterly unfulfilling.

Sure, he was the strongest in Kanto; a pathetic little backwards region that couldn’t tell a Starly from a Pancham.

He had bigger dreams, bigger ambitions; but he wasn’t about to sacrifice what he already had; so for many grueling, unbearable years, he played the part of the perfect champion, a pleasant smiling face, the hero and savior of the region. He found the perfect Elites to support his cause; each easily manipulated and deployed for a specific cause; he encouraged the people to look beyond the horizon of skepticism, even encouraged his Elites to travel the world, learn more beyond the borders that confined them. The backdrop of the war provided convenient propaganda to make sure they never got too out of control, though.

But, the people were stubborn.

Oak wanted more and he grew tired of the grueling monotony.

Well, the history books say that Johto launched the attack that officially started the war, but that doesn't mean there weren’t things going on in the background that fueled the flames.

But it worked; the people, now terrified, all flocked to him to save them. They needed something drastic, something powerful to turn the tides of war...and, say, people that were once against the idea of genetic engineering were suddenly willing to accept it if it would save their region.

And maybe his son did die in the war; it wasn’t like he could save everyone, after all.

One thing led to another. Or, in other words, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Every Pokémon he created with genetic engineering was either unstable or uncooperative; Giovanni failed to listen to orders and ran off with two of the other Elites, jumping into the battle too early; Lance had control of Suicune, Entei, and Raikou.

As the years went by and Johto crept further and further into Kanto, the war effort was obviously a losing battle. Though Oak let the war rage on, weakening both sides as much as possible, he was desperately scrambling for another plan. There was no time. He would even go as far to say that he underestimated the war and was paying the price.

It was Lance himself that lead the charge into Indigo Plateau to strike the final blow. Oak, Agatha, and Giovanni were the final stand; had Giovanni listened, the Elite would have been at full strength, his own Pokémon wouldn’t have been bruised and battered. But Oak had failed to control Giovanni, failed to properly use his assets, and now they were at the zenith.

He surrendered. It was the only logical choice. Agatha followed his lead; Giovanni did not. Too bad Lance didn’t finish him off, but oh well.

Retiring to a position of a Pokemon professor wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but he scrapped together whatever was left of his pride and departed.

It would give him more freedom to pursue his experiments, though ...

#|| OOC | out of character.#|| OAK | the scheming scientist.#|| OAK | HEADCANON | silver fox silver knife.#|| OAK | VERSE | evil.#|| OAK | VERSE | main.

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scythe-lover-a · 2 months

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BROTHER SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! AND LET ME EXPLAIN.

So, first of all. Terrible punctuation. I'm not respecting your opinion nor person just for this reason. Sorry not sorry, it's just a default standard by me I have towards anyone who can't write and never read a book probably in his life. I do it from my childhood, so you don't have to take this one personally.

• autistic - canon where??? It's not. You STFU and learn to use real reasons. This ain't valid.

• I find him attractive. THE WHOLE FANBASE FUCKING DOES, BITCH HE'S A TUMBLR SEXYMAN, YADADADADADA, HE'S ACTUALLY THE MOST SIMPED CHARACTER FROM TOH, SO BITCH WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, WHY ARE YOU IMPLYING PEOPLE HATE ON HIM CUZ HE'S NOT ATTRACTIVE. HE LITERALLY IS. 80% OF THE FANDOM WOULD CHOOSE HIM OVER ANYONE ELSE IN NO TIME.

• ohhh, so getting abused alone makes person deserve good things now??? Ah, alright, give Hitler some clout and bitches too, then, because I heard HE has a tragic backstory. Also Bosha has definitely, too. So this does nothing to prove that huntlow is better than boshalow or whatever its called. I've NEVER seen a person abuse anyone else without a motif of themselves being abused before, and trust me, I've read and experienced a lot of this before. Also bosha's literally the archytype where you can see that she has strict, popular, wealthy and basically amity's parents. So that's not an abuse now??? I don't remember the show correctly, maybe they made an appearance, but this alone definitely proves something.

• adopted is a pitiful thing now??? Bitch don't infatilise him. I believe he deserves better reasoning than just "he deserves this out of pity and bcs i feel bad about his life. :'(((" lol also that's literally the reason i ship him with luz, she literally never acted anyhow worse than willow, who repeatedly disregarded his opinion and completely changed his character so OOC that Hazbin instagram profiles are sweating in a contest of it againist him. Like the blushing anime girl he turns into around ger is tbh like the second worst thing about the ship. >:( also willow has physically assaulted him woth her plants and magic like thrice or so. As a kind of a social underdog who totally related to H. In the moments she completely ignored his opinions and just (literally) dragged him along, it made me very angry and sick. And - also very mad at the writers for not understanding basic concepts as a healthy relationship (i trusted them after the episodes lumity that they have the ability, goddamit) and romantising abuse and bullying.

Also I love Bosha so much, literally the only good character in the whole show with the amalgamations, or however they're called, and some palismen, end of my opinion. Just... I'm not even gonna waste my time defending her. ☠️☠️ MaYbe next time lol

#huntlow anti #marvík kecá #because yes

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septembriseur · 2 years

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this question is a courtesy of me encountering yet another tragically wrong terfy take on ''why women like writing and reading slashfic''. and since i'm an appreciater of your opinions, do you have a fresh take?

I don’t think there is one answer to this question. I think that there are a lot of different currents that have moved, at time converging and at times diverging, to create this as a phenomenon.

One obvious current that often gets mentioned is that for a long time the male characters in media tended to be better-written and more complex than female characters. Part of what I mean by this is also that female characters, for a long time, represented quite a narrow, thin, and normative view of female life that excluded many women. This is still the case— I simply have never seen a female character on TV or in a movie who looked or acted anything like me, and if I’m saying this as a cis white woman who is married to a man, then the situation is really dire. So of course a lot of woman sympathized and identified with male characters, and over time this became a really established and even ossified practice, a “way things were” or “way things were done.”

And I think there are a lot of other highly specific currents over the last fifty-odd years— the gendering of pop culture as feminine, the dominant role of Anglophone fandom in many areas, the narrative specifics of East Asian media and fandom (which I’m not well versed in), the demographics of Western adoption of East Asian media, the effect that this had on Anglophone and East Asian fandom, etc, etc. I’m spitballing, because I’m not a cultural historian. I’m sure that the real list would be much longer. Any thorough account of slash fandom as a phenomenon would have to reckon with the particularities of its historical and cultural situation.

I do think that a lot of slash fic has historically been a way of eliding and omitting the “taint” of the feminine— it’s not at all terfy to point out that the female has traditionally been associated with nature/emotion/artifice in contrast to the human/reason/honesty of the male. The female has also (see Elizabeth Grosz’s book Volatile Bodies) been associated with messiness, leakiness, uncleanliness, both physical and metaphorical. Certainly there is an element of slash fic that seems to want to escape the messy, animal, irrational feminine by envisioning relationships that are between men, and that often take place in a world that is almost devoid of women, and that therefore can be “pure.” But the terf tendency to run in the other direction by embracing what Val Plumwood calls the “feminism of uncritical reversal” and just insisting that women need to celebrate being animal-natural, emotional, leaky, etc isn’t in any way a better solution. It just perpetuates the idea that this binary thinking is legitimate, which it isn’t.

And I think that any explanation of slash fandom that focuses too much on the sex and romance of the whole thing is ultimately going to fail, because in the end narratives of sex and romance are usually not about sex and romance. They’re about power relations: antithesis and synthesis. Romance is about trying to integrate two opposing ideas or positions; trying to create a world in which the two recognize, love, and rest together. And dark slash fic is often driven by the unsurprising ways in which people get off on power relations: submission and dominance, master and slave. The ways in which gender and sex are tied up in power relations are so complex and so rich and so wild. Like: omegaverse is obviously about creating a woman-that-is-not-woman who is also a man-that-is-not-man (in addition to the human-who-is-also animal stuff), right? (As I write this I realize that I want to write an academic paper about omegaverse and might well start doing so.) In a lot of ways it’s actually a pretty intricate and interesting attempt at nonbinary thinking. But it also usually defaults to the idea that a man can be not-a-man, but a woman can somehow never really escape the taint of womanness. There is so much to say about this through the lens of, like, gender as a power relation, postcolonial meditations on cosmopolitanism, and lots of other things. In other words: it’s just not about/not just about sex and gender. And attempt to reduce it to that is going to fail.

All of these things factor into the coalescence of women writing and reading slash fiction. And I know that someone is going to read this and be like, “Joke’s on you; I just do it because I like it,” but I think we’re mature enough to understand that desires we experience as basic/authentic are still created out of a million sociocultural and biological pieces. So both things can be true.

#saga replies #i may delete this in future if i end up writing the paper #even though it's just a sketch

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troquantary · 3 years

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Edward Cullen: That Boy Ain’t Right

So I was doing a reread of @therealvinelle 's collection of Twilight metas, as one does, and in "Edward, Denial, and a Human Girlfriend" she mentions that she doesn't believe Edward is sane. I thought, "ha, yeah, he's definitely not," and also, "but wait, what does that mean exactly, please say more about that." But since she's already inundated with asks, I've decided to use my own head-muscle and explore this idea. (TL;DR: I start out more or less organized, synthesize some points Vinelle has made across several posts (and have hopefully linked to them all where relevant but please tell me if not), touch a little on narcissism, then take a hard left into the negative effects of being a telepath.)

Just a couple things to note at the outset, though. Theses have been written already (probably) about Edward as an abuser. Edward being insane doesn't negate that at all; he's definitely an asshole and just...a disaster of a human being. (I find it more funny than anything, but YMMV.) I'm also going to try to avoid talking specifically about mental illness and how it relates (or doesn't relate) to abusive behavior -- that's territory I'm not really equipped to discuss, like at all. My starting point is "Edward has a deeply warped perception of reality," not "Edward has X disorder."

So: deeply warped perception of reality. The evidence? Goes behind a cut, because my one character trait is Verbose.

Vinelle provides a great example of it in the post linked above, which I'll just quote because she does words good: "[Edward] keeps acting like his romance with Bella is a romantic tragedy, and all the cast of Twilight are actors on a stage making it as sublime as possible." Edward's the one to pursue Bella, but he does so with the full belief, from the very beginning, that it will never last; Bella will "outgrow" him, go on her human way, and he can spend the rest of eternity brooding magnificently over his too-short romantic bliss. [Insert premature ejaculation joke.] Turning her is never an option, even though Alice, Noted Psychic, says that romancing Bella will either end with her dead (exsanguinated) or dead (vampire).

This framing, where he's a dark anti-hero in love with -- but never tainting! -- the pure maiden and eventually leaving her in a grand, tragic sacrifice to preserve her soul? It's fucking bonkers. Bella isn't a person to him in this scenario. As Vinelle points out, Bella's never really a person to him at all; he falls in love with his own mental construct, cherry-picking from what he observes of her behavior and her responses to his 20 (thousand) Questions to convince himself that she is the ideal woman.

Bella's not the only one who gets the projection/cardboard-cutout treatment. Edward sees everything and everyone through a highly particular, personalized lens. He filters his entire reality, which we all do to an extent, but the thing with Edward is that he starts with his conclusions and then only pays attention to the evidence that supports those conclusions. Often that evidence consists of what he admits in New Moon are only "surface" thoughts -- but recognizing that limitation doesn't keep him from taking those thoughts as representative of what people are. Edward then becomes absolutely convinced by his own "reasoning" and won't be swayed from what he has decided is Objectively True. It's obvious with Bella; it's also painfully obvious with Rosalie. (Vinelle explains this and brings up Edward's raging Madonna/Whore complex in the same post, so refer to that again -- she's right.)

He also catastrophizes. Everything. Bella's just vibing in her room, rereading Wuthering Heights for the 87th time? She's gonna be hit by a meteor, better sneak into her room while she sleeps. Bella's going to the beach with the filthy mundanes their human classmates? She's gonna fall in the ocean. Jasper's cannibal pals are stopping by for a visit, but know not to hunt in the area? DISASTER, DEFCON 1, ALSO FUCK YOU JASPER FOR EVEN EXISTING IN MY AND BELLA'S SPHERE YOU UNSPEAKABLE BURDEN. Edward must believe that Bella is vulnerable and in near-constant peril, to support the reality he has created in which he is the villain turned protector and maybe?? hero??? (!!!) for his beloved. So when the actual, James-shaped danger arrives, he goes berserk, snarling and flipping his shit and generally not helping the situation. His fantasy demands that Bella remain human, so instead of doing the very thing Alice, Noted Psychic, assures him will neutralize the threat (and not just a threat to Bella, either, but to Bella's family and any other human James might decide to include in the "game"), he vetoes it immediately, no discussion. Bella Must Not Turn, and he sticks to those guns despite James nearly reducing her to ground beef, despite leaving Bella catatonic with depression (but human! success!) in New Moon, despite Aro's order and his family's vote and, let's not forget, Bella's clearly and repeatedly stated desire to be a vampire. It's going to happen. But he doesn't accept it until Renesmee busts out of Bella like the Kool-Aid man and the poor girl's heart finally, unequivocally stops.

Sane people don't behave this way. I don't want to slap labels on Edward, but I can't help but note that he comes across as highly narcissistic. He's the only real person in his universe, the lone player among us NPCs. That probably has a lot to do with him being frozen in the mindset and maturity of a seventeen-year-old boy, but I think it's also just...him, on some fundamental level. His failure to connect with others and recognize them as full, independent beings with their own wants and priorities isn't like Bella's failure -- she's badly depressed. Edward is...something else, and I get the sense that his sanity has been steadily deteriorating over time. And a cursory google of narcissistic traits turns up some familiar-looking stuff. He's self-loathing, yes, but also grandiose; he hates himself for the monster he is (and hates most vampires besides Esme and Carlisle for their monstrosity, too) but still feels superior to humans, to the extent that he felt entitled to human blood and resented Carlisle for depriving him of his "proper" diet. He eventually returns to Carlisle, but he's far from content -- the beginning of Midnight Sun finds him in a state of ennui, bored and dismissive of (if not outright disgusted by) everyone around him, that has apparently persisted for years and years. He doesn't play the piano, he doesn't compose, he doesn't enjoy anything...at least until Bella comes along and then he becomes obsessed to a disturbing degree with her and his new, romantic tragedy spin on reality.

[Next-day edit: I’m not sure where else to fit this in, but the way Edward casually contemplates violence against people who have, at best, mildly annoyed him is...chilling. I have a hard time writing off his strategizing how to murder the entire Biology class as a result of bloodlust -- it’s so calculated, nothing like the blackout state of thirst Emmett describes when he encountered his own “singer,” and that is probably the default for when a vampire is extremely thirsty. But even ignoring the Biology class incident, Edward still does things like consider, with disturbing frequency, how he might grievously injure or kill Mike Newton, all because...Edward considers him his romantic rival (despite Bella barely giving the kid the time of day). He thinks about slapping Mike through a wall, which might be an amusing slapstick image, except as a vampire Edward’s actually capable of turning this boy’s skeleton to a fine powder. So it’s, y’know, kind of sick when you think about it.

But even worse than that, when Bella tells Edward about how she flirted with Jacob to get at that sweet, sweet vampire lore, Edward chuckles and then, after dropping Bella home, flippantly observes that now that the treaty’s broken, why not genocide? I’m not even kidding, it’s right there in Midnight Sun; he seriously thinks about the fact that he’d be technically justified now in wiping out the entire tribe because a teenager tried to impress a girl with a spooky story. That is fucked. Remember, Edward was there with Carlisle when the treaty was first established. He knows how remarkable it is that they even came to a truce in the first place, that it was only ever possible because Carlisle is...well, Carlisle, and that it marks a pretty significant moment in supernatural history. He doesn’t care; he doesn’t respect it, or he’d never think something like “Ha ha, if I went and killed them all, I wouldn’t even be wrong. I mean, I won’t do it, but I’m just saying, I wouldn’t be wrong.”

Again: not the thought process or behavior of a sane person. (Or a person that respects life in general -- sorry Carlisle, big L.)]

Finally, whether he's a narcissist or not, I think the fact that Edward has constant, unavoidable access to everyone's thoughts is a powerful contributing factor to his instability. He can tune out the mental noise to an extent, but he can't stop it -- so he comes to rely on it like another sense. This causes issues with disconnect and lack of empathy, of course, but there's another facet to this shit diamond: he's basically experiencing a ceaseless flow of intrusive thoughts. His narration in Midnight Sun suggests that he "hears" the words people think, can "see" what they visualize in their mind's eye, and can sense the emotional "tone" and intensity of their thoughts. Therefore, perceiving Jasper's thirst through his thoughts makes Edward more aware of his own, "doubling" the discomfort. This would be a lot to deal with even from just his immediate coven members, but Edward gets all of this pouring into his head like a firehose on a day-to-day basis because the Cullens live right alongside humans. I know Meyerpires have galaxy brains or whatever, but that's a ton to process.

Besides the compounding effect on his own thirst when he "feels" the thirst of others, Meyer never suggests that Edward has difficulty separating his own thoughts from other people's; even when he was newly turned, he recognized Carlisle's "voice" in his head as Carlisle's. That would create a whole different host of issues around identity, but it looks like Edward's escaped that particular torment. However, I can easily imagine that what he does experience is just shy of unbearable nonetheless, with an eroding effect on his sanity over decades. He can't sleep to escape it; he's on a dishwater diet and probably (like the rest of his family) experiencing a perpetual, low-grade physical discomfort due to his thirst never being fully satisfied; and he's around far more people than is the norm for vampires -- even discounting all the humans, his own coven is unusually large -- meaning more noise.

Honestly, it would be weirder if he were all there, considering.

And even though I feel like I lost a sense of structure around where I started ranting about telepathy, I've written like 1.5k words about Edward fucking Cullen and I think that's enough for one post.

#twilight #twilight renaissance #twilight meta #edward cullen #i stared too long and the twilight abyss gazed back #long post #major credit due to therealvinelle for having basically all the ideas already #theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin too since they agree and build off each other's metas a lot #idk how people who write meta can just crank these posts out i've been here for two hours #edited to add stuff i forgot to mention about edward's disproportionately violent fantasies

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f3296 · 3 years

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Hi I just feel like I need to ramble and maybe some one else out there feels the same way. So in the AOT I’m not all that big on ships just because shipping really isn’t my thing but I do enjoy it to an extent. I consider myself to be a multi shipper because again the relationships in AOT are so complex and I love all the characters and their dynamics. My biggest “ship” would be Eurihan just because that trio to me is all sorts of fun and I love their dynamic.

But with that being said, I find myself to be drifting farther and farther away from the Eruri aspect just because as I continue to reread the manga and pay attention to the themes of the story canonically speaking I don’t actually see any “romance” between them. The Fannon concepts of Eruri are fun and beautifully tragic with the fan arts and stories especially in modern AU. They are a very attractive couple and I fully understand the hype but canonically speaking I just don’t see it anymore. I love their dynamic as a whole and brings such a complex look to both Levi and Erwins character that their friendship is something to admire.

And with that being said I feel their complexity of characters and their story gets lost within the fandom. I think the term that is used is “shipping goggles” when canon stuff of the original story gets lost or replaced for the sake of the ship. Which in this case I feel happens a lot in Eruri specifically.

Now I really don’t want people to feel I am bashing Eruri. I’m obviously a fan with my own fan art and my interactions with mutuals so please no one take offense. This is just a quirk I have in every fandom when canon material gets lost for the sake of a ship.

Specifically with Levi.

Now I understand my biases consider Levi is my favorite character and I truly Kin him. But when I watch edits or read DJs or even just scrolling through things like tumblr or Twitter I find myself avoiding the Eruri tags because I get so frustrated when all I see if Levi’s entire character being based around Erwin. The concept that Levi is only alive to fulfill Erwins promise or he only fights for Erwin and completely derailing his character to be centered around Erwin is frustrating.

Levi fights for all the scouts since the very beginning. When else first meet him and he promises the dying scout he would eradicate the Titans, this is a shared dream the scouts had and has said he will do what he can for All of them. Not just Erwin.

Now this isn’t to disregard Erwins importance to Levi. Erwin gave him a purpose to live, he was his friend and trusted comrade and felt he was the best for humanity. Erwin is important to Levi no one is saying other wise. He just isn’t the center of Levi’s world.

Levi trusted Erwin because he saw something bigger than himself and Levi wanted to help Erwin get there because Levi himself if a very loving and selfless character. This I find to be so beautiful of Levi’s (and mikasas) character.

When Levi learns the truth behind Erwins actions and his selfish reasons to fight for humanity was for the sake of seeing in the basement really sent Levi into turmoil. (I feel this is WITs fault for not expressing this properly in the anime) this is why he continued to pester and push Erwin to know his motives past the basement, because Levi wanted to believe he was this selfless leader he had been finessed into believing he was (because we can’t forget canonically speaking Erwin is a con man and enjoys gambling which makes him and great leader)

Levi tells Erwin to die so he would continue to go down with the facade he was a selfless leader and to continue to live up to the expectation. Levi accepted this fault of Erwin just as he had accepted the faults of all his comrades and their selfish actions.

Levi was canonically devoted to Erwin, but not in the romantic way.

Erwin also never expressed a “interest” in Levi in that matter outside of their friendship and Levi’s abilities. It also should keep in mind that Erwin was ultimately in love with Marie, and chose not to have a family and a wife (which he actually wanted) to avoid having a widow. We can head cannon all day long about how “he realized in his last moments” or “behind the scenes” or interpreting smart press stories a certain way to fit the narrative but it’s just important to remember the difference between cannon material and your own HCs.

Now I know a lot of people will read this and think “wow a levihan shipper wrote this” and you would be right I also ship levihan as well. And they are also not cannon in a relationship as well but the romantic implications for them specifically cannot be ignored because you don’t like them. Levi and Hange are canonically best friends. They are known as the “abnormals” of the scouts. They know each other the best. Their relationship is so complex it cannot be defined as a friendship. (Even Moblit admits he doesn’t have a bond with Hange like Levi does) and it’s okay if you just see them as friends, and I honestly don’t blame a lot of people who do considering WIT really bit the bullet with missing key Levi and Hange moments to better fit their dynamic (I’ve seen people say they aren’t even good friends and that breaks my heart they are besties )

And honestly why wouldn’t you want to ship levihan? This ship in my opinion is the least problematic with the least controversy to it. It’s comforting and sweet and gives a sense of love and family. It’s literally a best friends-> lovers trope. Their friendship is what makes this ship in my opinion so pure and honestly why I fall in love with it more everyday.

And I know some will say “what about Moblit?” And honestly, it bothers me how much he is used to argue levihan because I ultimately feel his character also gets dumbed down as a default for Hange just for shipping and it bothers me too.

*and honestly guys Hange and Moblit isn’t even that great in a ship since considering Moblit became an anxious alcoholic trying to take care of Hange and Hange would get so caught up with their work they wouldn’t even notice. NOTE: they obviously cared for each other as comrades and Moblit felt Hange was needed for humanities survival and cared for them obviously but just my opinion I don’t see that ship working in my opinion.

But in reality guys, I never saw any of these characters “getting together” because they’re soldiers. Their hearts were dedicated to the cause of saving humanity first so that’s the beauty of AOT and the ambiguity of the characters relationships with one another because ultimately they all have attributes to love and benefit each other. Even with the forest scene and the plane for Levi and Hange, I never expected A “happy ending” for them in the sense of platonic or romantic because that doesn’t fit their canon narratives. Levi was destined to be the last soldier standing and brings the complexity of being the perfect soldier with a human heart.

*though the implication of romantic feelings never being acted on were there because they indeed paralleled with eren and mikasa

Levi’s literally means “attached” he attaches himself to the people he cares about and dedicated his strength and ability to help others gain their hopes and dreams.

Erwin tragically lost his humanity to become the devil for the sake of humanity which ultimately left him fruitless to his venture.

Hange taking on the burden of making the tough decisions and shouldering the weight of the deaths of the soldiers and Erwins legacy left them feeling loss and useless until their sacrifice.

All these characters have such complexity to them, they are all deeper than their fannon ship and should be appreciated and the narrative shouldn’t be shifted for the sake of a ship.

Levi didn’t fight to the end for just Erwin he did it for all of them.

So again, sorry for my rambles and I hope there will be those who read this and understand where I am coming from with this and understand though I will continue to ship all three, it still makes me sad I feel I can’t interact with some without them destroying entire characters for the sake of the ship.

So again love ships not ship wars. That’s the fun part when ships aren’t cannon you can just mix and match whenever you feel like it ❤️❤️

#levihan #I’m only tagging levihan just because I feel Eruris might hurt me lol #erurihan

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thestalkerbunny · 2 years

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More Shadow Oaks content? More Shadow Oaks Content. Meet the Brimstone Clan, the oldest and redneck clan of tieflings in Shadow Oak (as well as meet Celeste's Vampire Sire.) Granted this is only 1/4th of the actual clan. The actual full family is much much bigger.

Gunter Hedwig is a Drow who fell into the trap that was opium dens during the 1800s. He literally wasted away and died in one and resurrected as a vampire without even noticing for a while. (since he thought being pale and hungry and uncomfortable was just his natural default state.)Thanks to his high tolerance to drugs-he basically traveled the lands seeking a bigger and better high. Around the time of the 80s or so he bit Celeste; although neither of them seem to be able to remember this happening-they just know now they're both vampires and the fun can never end. Eventually they seem to had gotten separated and Celeste was found by her current keeper, Brone, face down in her own pool of blood and vomit. She was legally removed from the care of Gunter because of his neglect of her and himself and will be permitted to see her again if he cleans up his act. He also does not remember this court hearing and does often see her regardless. He lurks out in Warm Waters-Shadow Oak's superior sister city- and deals drugs out of the clubs there, which is were Celeste gets most of hers. he is tragically not that bright and drugs do not help that fact. He's often addled out of his mind and hardly recognizes people, he hardly recognizes Celeste half the time if it weren't for her very loud voice and pink outfit.

Old Man Jeb Brimstone

The Grandfather of the Brimstone Clan, He's the oldest member next to his wife who is older than him by 5 years. A crotchety old koot, he's the embodiment of 'get off my property you damn kids' and 'I remember when you could go to the county fair on only a quarter'. He can hardly hear, his entire existence is apparently a spit in the eye of the god of death as he's survived numerous near fatal events and is starting to go a bit blind in one eye. Brimstone youth have to do a mandatory check in on him daily to make sure he's alive and something didn't fall on him again. Old Man Brimstone manages the junkyard of the town-local lore goes he built the junkyard on top of a Hell Gate-a naturally occurring portal in the world that infernal creatures can pass thru-so true evil cannot escape and spends his free time shooting infernal imps with a sawed off shot gun. Only that's rumor, he just may be an extreme hoarder who managed to movie his weird junk fixation to a property that isn't his house. That rumor is fueled however by the presence of his guard dog, Girl Dog, a massive Hell hound that patrols the grounds day and night.

Mary Brimstone

The original Brimstone Matriarch, Jeb ended up taking her last name considering how she was the one in the family had the land and money and titles. Just as grumpy and confused about everything as Jeb is, Mary is a bit more of a home body-only leaving to go down into the hollow outside the trailer park they all reside in to visit her still. She is a good cook and prides herself on being able to make a meal out of anything that's laying around and insists on a MANDATORY Sunday Family dinner of the entire clan once a month. A family that eats together is stronger together. Most of the family tries to keep her and Jeb in the dark about things like two of the grandchildren being gay and one of her sons contemplating marrying his fey coworker out of fear of how these two old fashioned grumpy grandparents would react. Plot twist, Jeb doesn't care and Mary probably already knows. Her hobbies are hitting people with a wooden spoon and hollering. The children may have a taste of the moonshine when they turn 18, as is tradition, to make sure they KNOW what good liquor tastes like.

Tief and Tire-Autobody and Repair Garage

Ottoman 'Auto Otto' Brimstone is the owner of the Tief and Tire garage and the oldest of the Brimstone brothers. He has a love of everything mechanical and is the kind of friendly old mechanic who will give you a discount just because 'we're neighbors, neighbors don't gotta pay 500 bucks for a new part that I can find and fix in the junkyard for free' The type of guy unafraid to help a stranger fix a flat tire or give 'em a tow back to town when their car is totaled in a ditch. He's the kind of dad who doesn't exactly always understands what his kinds are talking about and struggles to keep up with their lives since they seem to go much faster than he does-but he often supports them even if he doesn't know what the fuck is going on.

Diana is Otto's wife and doesn't really have much going on. Her idea of a good time is sipping fruity beers, feeding her numerous chickens little tiny pancakes and reading trash romance novels. She is often concerned for her kids, but supportive in her own way. She's a bit intimidated by her mother in law and for the right reasons and struggles to try and make her proud with her cooking. She specializes in chicken and dumplings (do not tell her chickens)

Angelo Brimstone is the older employee of the garage, he has a love of cars and things that go fast and is happiest when it comes to fixing and restoring things. He claims that bringing the beauty in something old and unloved back to the surface is very cathartic. He lacks a bit of school smarts but still plans to go thru with his final year to get a proper Class based education. He's divided between Barbarian and Artificer. He belongs to the Brimstone Clan-the biggest tiefling family in Shadow Oaks as well as the oldest. He often is a bit forgetful that friendly gestures he gives to strangers can seem sexual-resulting him being the targeted fantasies of individuals in his age category.

Amelia Brimstone is the younger sister of Angelo who also works at the garage. She prefers specializing in fixing the bodies of vehicles and paint jobs, although there's not much demand for car modifications so she ends up pulling dents out of cars most of the time much to her chagrin as her creativity is squandered. She's often very protective of her 'himbo' of a brother because people seem to want to take advantage of his amicable easy go along personality. Amelia herself is a lesbian, if the mullet, the tattoo on the side of her head, her 'I <3 Womans' sticker on the back of motorbike wasn't telling enough-She is still hopeful although she's probably going to want to look outside of Shadow Oaks-where everyone is in everyone's business.

Fiend and Fey-Attorneys at Law

The finest Lawyers Shadow Oaks can offer. Which often isn't saying a whole lot because everything from Shadow Oaks seems to produce everything made by the lowest bidder-but for once, these two are the people you want in your corner in the court room. Nobody can find a loop hole for you faster than Fiend and Fey-the finest of negotiators and deal makers the both of them. If they can't get you out of jail, they can at least get a ankle tracker on you for the next half year and a house arrest with a community service and mandatory theraphy vist bargin deal.

Rusalika GoodForest-or Rusa-is the fey of the team. A pixie of very small size (and even smaller enlarged sized) Her entire personality is best summed up as Elle Woods from Legally Blonde. Ever an optimist and a fan of cute outfits, the color pink and good skin and hair care, Rusa is very smart despite the 'dumb fairy blonde' assumptions make about her. In the Feywilds, a blue antennead pixie is regarded as someone who would 'make a good spouse'-which is the polite translation to common. Rusa is an unofficial member of the Brimstone clan and often comes to their Sunday family dinners and plays with the younger Brimstones as she is roughly the same size as them. Rusalika lives in a tree in Eidlewood's backyard.

Eidlewood 'Iddy' Brimstone is the fiend of the team. Belonging to the Brimstone Tiefling Family-one of the oldest and most redneck group of people living in Shadow Oaks since the 1920s, he seems to be one of the more accomplished of the Brimstones. He's often cited by his 'feral hick' relatives to get them out of ridiculous jail allegations, which he often assists in getting them out. Eidlewood is very level headed and clinical when it comes to his work. He's very unafraid to tell clients that they will most likely go to jail for their crimes and they will probably be shived in a lunchroom power move to assert dominance by lower ranking prisoners. But he will do his absolute best for you in the court room to get you the least damning sentence possible if you are as guilty as the court finds.

He is unfortunately very much in love with Rusalika and is embarrassed at his hesitance regarding his relationship with her because marriage to a Fey is basically handing a big part of your identity over to them and basically relinquishing a lot of yourself personally for the sake of this union and he doesn't think he could make that level of a sacrifice and thinking about it for too long scares him. Also he uh. Probably should make her his GIRLFRIEND first. Or let her know he likes her that way.

#TSB Draws #Shadow Oaks #Tieflings #Tief #Vampire #Drow #Monsters #The Brimstone Clan #Angelo Brimstone #Otto Brimstone #Diana Brimstone #Mary Brimstone #Old Man Brimstone #Eidlewood Brimstone #Rusalika Goodforest #Pixie #Fairy #fey #demon

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brutal-nemesis · 2 years

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Hi!! So if you don't mind, I have a question re: empathy. So I have excessive empathy to the point sometimes it's stressful, especially when it extends to fictional characters and strangers, whose stories/lives I have no influence over & thus can't act on the feeling and just end up upset over things that don't actually affect me. Sometimes a tragic arc for a character or a news article about a tragedy will send me into frustrated anger or depression.

Anyway I wanted to ask, because it's so hard to pin down exactly what the feeling/reaction of empathy even is...from your POV, what does having low empathy 'feel like'? And is the reaction involuntary like the post says? Because mine definitely is.

Also like the post says, people tend to equate empathy to sympathy/compassion, when they're different. And I admit in my head I still sort of default to that because it's so common. Maybe if I can better differentiate them, I can better 1) not make assumptions about others and 2) regulate my own reactions.

(Sorry for the novel, it's already been on my mind a lot and then that post sent me down a rabbit hole 😅)

Under a cut for me being honest cuz it's just...idk I don't want to upset anyone?

Quite simply, I feel nothing. Not for fictional characters or strangers or friends or family. I recognize that they're hurting, that that sucks, it's awful, I'm sorry, but emotionally there's nothing there, just the logical conclusion that that's an unfortunate thing and thus the appropriate acceptable responses should be given. I don't explicitly try to feel anything, but I don't really try not to, either, I just naturally have no emotional reaction to other people's problems.

It's not that I don't care, I do, it's just not in the same way most people do, I think. To me it's just a fact that I do, and there's still a desire to help, but it's not associated with any feeling. Sometimes it's been helpful, since I've always been able to remain calm in emergency situations when they've occurred, and sometimes it's hard, because I feel like everyone else is on some other wavelength about all this stuff and do you really care if you're not emotionally upset by this in the slightest?

So I think empathy is those personal feelings while compassion is caring/wanting to do something to help. I don't really have much in the way of helping you deal with intense emotional reactions since my typical approach to that is "turn it off" which apparently isn't a thing for most people so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I got nothin

#wow an ask #anon #it's personal time #hopefully this helps!#idk i just always feel like people might be upset and think i dont care #i do it's just different #i mean i guess sometimes #i really just dont care when i should #i can usually force myself to to some degree #but even then if i still dont care on a factual level i can still act like i do #because i want to and recognize that i should #and maybe that part's compassion too or trying to learn it #and we're going to stop there those tags were too much and they will remain deleted

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autumnslance · 3 years

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Character meme: Thancred

Give me a character and I’ll break them down:

This got long cuz I tend to ramble about this dude.

How I feel about this character:

This utter absolute godsdamned bastard of a man. How dare he.

When I really got into FFXIV finally (after only dabbling for a bit), the age gap of his listed 32 and my RL age at the time put the same distance as me and my own younger brother, and that is where Thancred fits. I was FINE with him as a total bro, as the local disaster, similar to a younger sibling I am both fond of and exasperated by. He has a lot of backstory, character development, and changes, even before Shadowbringers really brings his various issues and working through them to the foreground. I love snarky, sarcastic characters, using that to cover their pain and issues. Highly competent but still so full of doubts. Acting out middle child of the core Scions family (now the elder brother figure with Papalymo gone and his own sense of responsibility kicking in in healthier ways).

There's a lot there, and he hits a lot of character tropes I like as a writer and reader both. So for 2 full playthroughs, he was a colleague, a companion, a pal, a bro.

Now. Now when I make a fic writing WoL based off the lady midlander CGI model, now when I decide to make an ace WoL who won't get shipped with anyone cuz we so rarely see that, now when I decide to roll Aeryn through the MSQ and got to meeting the Scions and Ifrit's quest...

Sigh. Here we are, 3+ years and counting, and "Shippy Nonsense" has completely taken over my FFXIV posting and it's all that Damn Rogue's fault. I blame his bonus to sneak attack vs a WoL's smallclothes. I know he took that feat.

He’s still my bro that I am going to tease affectionately while my character swoons, but I am going to be amusedly grumbly about it forever.

(Also I still think his ARR model is Generic Anime Protag #3547 and isn’t all that visually interesting. I like bits and pieces of the HW mountain hobo look. I think his ShB model is better at showing his experience and personality, but still wish there were some adjustments.)

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Fellow Wolcred ships. I love you all. Also it just makes “sense” to me to ship WoL with a Scion over most other NPCs, and Thancred is definitely the default nice handsome male romance option like what one gets at the beginning of a Bioware game (looking at you, Carth, Kaiden, Alistair...). I just. y’know. Thought OC/NPC shipping was for other people, not me.

I have a soft spot for occasional Y'shtola/Thancred and Urianger/Thancred. I feel like he’s a person who’d only open to true romantic relationships with people he’s known and trusted for awhile, because of his own doubts and issues.

He’s totally a Bi disaster though; a lean toward women, perhaps, but certain dudes’ll turn his head.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Thancred & Minfilia for the found family brother-sister trope.

Thancred & Ryne for the same, with father-daughter flavor instead.

Thancred & Urianger for the best bros back and forth.

Thancred & Y'shtola for the best bros in a different way. I also include here occasional side-along headcanons for a FWB situation for them, safe comfort and release--especially after the Lifestream--but without romance; their love is platonic.

(I can’t quite see Urianger doing a casual FWB in the same way tho, he doesn’t strike me as the type; it’s all or nothing there.)

My unpopular opinion about this character

How I see the "temporary eye injury." How he likely wasn't as much of a slut as assumed--while he got plenty, he also used the flirting as a cover a lot (esp given how he drops the flirty demeanor entirely post-Antitower). How he likely wasn't as much of a drunkard in ARR patches as assumed, either; getting blackout drunk makes little sense when the issue was loss of control thanks to possession.

I also think many of the people who think it would have been “fitting” (or just wished for) him to die at the Trolley RP Duty in ShB missed some of the point of Shadowbringers’ overarching themes. ShB could certainly be dark at times, but overall was a story of hope and the differences between remembering the past versus being held captive by it, and the bonds between people. If it were a more tragic story with more pessimistic themes, then yes; Thancred dying then to protect Ryne with their issues unresolved would have been (heartbreaking but) fitting. However, that’s not the story being told; it’s him using that battle as catharsis to beat at his own issues and realize he really had repeated his original mistakes. To make his peace with Minfilia’s loss and then, in the end, work things through with Ryne and be the man he should have been for her.

Ryne gets the fairy tale ending of having her parental figure that she feared resented her tell her he was sorry and fix himself for her.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

We should have seen more of his and Minfilia’s found family relationship in game. There wasn’t a lot of room for it in 2.0, it could have been in the 2.x patches a bit more, but a lot about their relationship is described after she’s already gone.

Ran’jit was Thancred’s kill. There is no way that was originally written with the General porting out last second just for the WoL to suddenly be able to defeat his plot armor. The Trolley RP Duty has the foil character set up, the “last special bullet,” and the player is controlling Thancred at the time. It makes no narrative sense and stinks of executive meddling out of some fear the players would feel cheated by not having it be WoL who defeats Ran’jit, but it’s a serious misstep in the story. We could have, should have, fought suped-up Jongleurs as the speed bump boss to Vauthry, as those characters also were woefully underused.

I’m also hoping for more personal Scion history as we get to Old Sharlayan; while most of the older Scions are from or were educated in the Dravanian Colony, being around the culture and people again shall surely give us more information as to their academic backgrounds.

And we all always need more nutkin interactions and shenanigans.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Lyn Prompts #Thancred Waters #I love him and want to shake him for being Like That

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yukipri · 3 years

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Bad Batch end of season thoughts/ramble, bc it's been a week and I just wanna get it all off my chest...

(end of season spoilers and very disorganized rambling)

First off, I do want to say that I enjoyed watching the show. It fulfilled its primary purpose: entertainment. It was nice having something to look forward to every week, and even though it wasn't quite what I was expecting, it was fun. The animation was gorgeous, I liked all the references and tie ins. I will likely watch it again, and will watch season 2. This is by no means meant to be a hate post.

That being said, it is critical so please just skip if you're not into that!

The thing is...it takes very, Very little for me to love a clone. He doesn't need lines, or a face, or even a name, and the default is that I will love him. He can even be a little bastard, like Slick, and it's fine. I always want to know more about them, and wish they had more screen time and time in general to develop their characters. So given that we were getting 16 (20 eps total if we count TCW S7 pilot arc) centered around these guys, I was expecting to absolutely adore them by the end.

And I wanted to love the Bad Batch, I wanted to love them so damn much, and I tried. But I think one of the reasons why they never fully clicked for me was that their thing seems to be "we're unique, we never fit in, we're outsiders in our own home, among the people who are supposed to be our own family, and so we've found our home with each other."

Which! That's usually a wonderful message, and not a particularly rare or unique one either for stories! I usually dig these kinds of stories!

The problem here is the extremely unique situation of the clones. They are literally created to be identical, brain washed to be uniform. They must conform, or are killed off by their creators, and their conformity isn't a choice in the slightest, but one of fear and necessity.

Their uniformity is something that they are also entirely aware of--it's unavoidable, they're clones. Once out in the real galaxy, they all strive to find and establish unique identities for themselves, struggling against a galaxy that just wants them to be faceless products. It's a shared struggle, and all they have are each other, and their brotherhood is sacred as a result. Shunning unique identity is the opposite of who a clone is--it's what they all want.

So on one hand, it's understandable that the Batch stuck out (when all others who would have also stuck out were culled, when individuality isn't allowed). It's understandable that they would have yearned for the brotherhood shared by the other clones, and when they couldn't have it, they stuck closer to each other. It's even understandable that they would feel bitter, having experienced bullying at the hands of the other clones (but isn't it also understandable that the other clones would feel bitter that the Batch gets special treatment, when their own brothers with less-than-beneficial mutations were taken by the Kaminoans to never return?).

And so we have this batch of clones, who the Kaminoans call "mutated," but also specify that their mutations are "desirable" (implying what happens to mutations that are undesirable...). They have their own unique unit, in which they're able to improvise and act freely with seemingly little to no oversight, so long as they complete their mission. No Jedi to obey, no nat-born officers who look down on them. In fact, they look so different from standard clone troopers that most of the galaxy probably don't even know they are clones. They have their own ship (personalized), they have their own possessions (which we don't really see any other clones have), they have their own barracks (probably also very unique), and they even have access to superior weapons and armor (most of the Batch, minus Echo, seem to be wearing modified Katarn-class armor which is supposed to be for Commandos. we KNOW it holds up better than standard trooper armor).

So I'm sure they had some unpleasant experiences growing up, and I do get it. But at least at "present" end of clone wars, they honestly seem to be living infinitely better than all other clones? They still need to follow orders but they have more freedom, and perhaps most importantly, they have clear uniqueness that is denied almost all other clones. And yes, some of the clones on Kamino bully them, but we've seen NONE of the "regular" clones that we know to be particularly nasty to them, and in fact it's Crosshair who starts it by calling them "Regs."

And how does the Batch respond to this situation? By acting superior. It's Crosshair who says and it believes this firmly, and I do feel that the others are likely mostly influenced by this, but it's also true that Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech don't really deny this either. They don't like the "regs," they do act like they're "better." Poor Echo, who they repeatedly seem to forget is in the room, and who they call "machine" and such...yikes yo

So I guess the point is, I just really struggled to feel sympathetic towards them, and was already on a kinda eh about their premise. They're marketed as "the special clone squad"--and yet they're not nice to the clones I love. I thought that wasn't great, but also hoped that the series would work towards them understanding the other clones better, and I love character development so that woulda been fine--but, nothing. A glance from Hunter at Howzer. Extended camaraderie from Gregor, who I feel they mostly just tolerate for the mission, other than Echo who genuinely cares.

And on top of feeling not feeling particularly sympathetic towards what I saw as a pretty privileged group of clones, the Batch seems to place primary blame of their woes on the "regs" themselves, who again, honestly seem far worse off! There isn't blame directed at the people who demanded the conformity from the other clones in the first place, that made it so the Batch couldn't fit in. The Batch was modified due to the Kaminoans (and implied specifically Nala Se). She's the reason why they don't fit in. And the Kaminoans are also why the other clones have to be so uniform, why they must fight to be people and not products.

Bitterness and pettiness can be fine in characters. But it's frustrating to see in a group supposed to be competent and elite, especially when those feelings have consequences. Sure, it sucks when someone throws a food tray at you. You can throw food back. It's not an equal reaction to feel no remorse when you shoot that guy dead in a blaster fight, when for all other clones, having to kill another clone is one of the most horrible, tragic things that one can do (thanks, Umbara).

Fives was the only clone to actually point a blaster at Nala Se.

We know Omega has deeply personal history with Nala Se. She was Nala Se's personal medical assistant. We see her cry when she takes off her head ornament that matches Nala Se. We know that being back in the lab gives Omega complicated, and probably not entirely positive feelings. But we barely learn more about this relationship, other than these glimpses.

And I get the feeling that to Omega at least, Nala Se wasn't all terrible. If Omega grew up with mostly only Nala Se for company, she had to have gotten her sheltered outlook on life, and her willingness to help others from somewhere. Nala Se intentionally let Omega go, to be "safe."

I think Omega's adorable, and I do like her. But I wasn't able to fully love her to the extent I wanted to, because there was always the fear that she was involved in the creation and implantation of the chips. She knows about them, she would have been positioned to do so. I want to think she would never, and I was hoping the show would reassure us of that, but it never did. We don't actually know how Omega feels about Nala Se, or even the chips and their presence in other clones. Instead, all we know is that Omega doesn't like "regs."

And again, "they call me lab scrubber," and "I helped put (or am complicit in putting) mind control devices in their heads," are kinda, unequal. Again I hope it's not the case. But it definitely kept me feeling uneasy throughout the show.

It really boils down to I don't trust or forgive Nala Se, and the Batch's lack of stance against her and the other Kaminoans, and clear distaste for their other clone brothers, really puts them in a situation that makes it difficult for me to take their side entirely.

And then gosh, Hunter. During Crosshair's whole "you never came back for me," spiel, I couldn't help but think he's kinda right. He had 15 episodes. Sure, it's difficult to get Crosshair back. But they could have done something. They could have done research. We could have had scenes of them wondering where Crosshair is, discussions on how best to find him, even if that discussion ended in, "but we can't risk it right now." They could have grilled Omega for information on the chips, which they really shoulda done either way, but especially since that knowledge is important to understanding what (they thought had) happened to Crosshair. Instead, they just ran every time Crosshair showed up. The show could have done better to show that they cared, and were trying, instead of just, y'know, doing chores for Cid. One, "I kinda miss him," doesn't really count as working on getting him back, at least in my books.

The sole exception to all of this, of course, is Echo. Who really, he works with the Batch fine, he's a former ARC and can more than keep up. Skillset-wise, he fits in well enough. But this season really made me wonder why he's with them at all. Crosshair's revelation and true feelings at the end of the season were no surprise to me, as they're consistent with what we've seen of him from TCW S7. But for Echo, a former "reg" to have to work with someone like Crosshair...even if Crosshair thought Echo was "different" enough to accept him, those are his brothers that Crosshair thinks he's so superior to, and has no issue speaking disdainfully about.

The increasing tension between Echo and Hunter, Echo's interest in helping Rex, in helping other clones, in doing something...I do hope they reach a point where Echo demands they go help, or he's leaving.

They gave Crosshair a chance, despite the fact that his choices were willing. I really hope Echo can convince the Batch to help save the other clones who don't have a choice. Because even if the Batch doesn't consider them their brothers, they're certainly Echo's. They matter just as much as Crosshair, and I really hope season 2 shows it narratively.

To conclude, again I'm interested in seeing what happens next, and I want answers about Omega and Nala Se. I find it interesting that they tied the facility where they took Nala Se in with the scientist dude collecting data on Grogu in the Mandalorian and those cloning labs. All of this is interesting, but at the same time I feel like it's trying to build up to Snoke/Palpatine stuff in the sequels which...I don't care nearly as much about, but who knows, could be neat ^ ^;

I'm okay with, and have made peace with the fact that the Bad Batch probably isn't the "clones-centric" show I wanted, and that they'll continue their own story, and probably continue to not care much about other clones in upcoming seasons. That's unfortunate, but alright. I'm interested enough in their story too.

But at the same time...I can't help but think man, if they have the time and budget to do a season 2, after seeing what was (or wasn't) accomplished in season 1...I wish they'd also make a Rex/Cody/Wolffe/"regular clones" show, because in the end, if you're going to do a "clones show"....that's who I want to see most.

If you got to the end, thank you for reading, and being an ear to my ranting ^ ^; Again this is literally just getting this off my chest. If this take isn't one you agree with, please just ignore. For people who did fall in love with the Batch, I'm happy for you, and regret that it just couldn't happen for me. But, I'm hoping that S2 will change my mind, but we'll just have to see! ^ ^;

#the bad batch #bad batch #YukiPri rambles #really i'm not interested in a debate i just want to ramble

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1990jeevas · 3 years

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I love it when people talk about things they're passionate about, tell me something cool!! Anything you want, just something you find interesting or want to talk about :D

hello anon my beloved, I am in a bad mood so you will be receiving a passionate, yet lowkey of pissy rant about why villainizing bakugou makes me wanna vomit and its NOT just because I'm a dumbass kinnie :)

tws: child abuse (emotional and physical), near death expierences, bullying, kidnapping, suffocation, lots of trauma in general tbh. if you've seen bnha then basically just keep all the general triggering plot stuff in mind incase i missed any warnings

also, note: I havent caught up on bnha in a minute, I'm at like the start of the war arc but I barely remember shit there tbh so like. probs missing new stuff. also bnha spoiler warnings lol

so, for starters, the homie bakugou has like,, a good handful of issues that come from his childhood that explain why he's an ass. he was always praised and never actually reprimanded for being a twat which led to him having a huge ego that ended up fucking him over majorly. this ego was something that his mother acknowledged him having, but literally didnt try to fix it with anything other than violence. see here:

like, instead of trying to help him, she hits and insults him, which is probably what led to his weird inferiority/superiority complex. being constantly told by others that you're outstanding and one day you'll be a top hero because you're rude and aggressive and then going home and being hit by your mother for those exact same behaviors is bound to fucking confuse a child.

so like, now that we've established that its definetly canon that his mother (parents? I think he said parents at some point but masaru doesn't seem like the type so 🤷) hits him though we don't know how much or how often (though if bakugou was as much of a little shit back then ((which as far as we've seen- he was)) then it was probably often), lets talk about how regardless of all that 1) hitting your kids as "discipline" not only doesn't work but is abusive lol like idc if it's spanking/popping them on the mouth for talking shit, slapping them across the face "on occasion", etc. shits not okay 2) hitting your kids!!!! does not work!!!!!!!! it is literally PROVEN not to work!!!!!!!! hitting a child who has done something wrong doesnt teach them to stop doing something it teaches them to be scared of you, which will cause the child to withdraw, removing part of their support system (assuming said abusive parents would even offer that up) and will most likely lead to them thinking they're a bad person, not that their actions were bad, which are two different things. so, ya know, that would clearly have an effect on a kid. like, as someone with a mother who reminds me all too much of mitsuki: I have acted like a complete shitbag and taken my anger out on people to feel better in the past because of the way my mother treated me. though it was nowhere near what bakugou did, I still know first fucking hand what a mother hitting and insulting her child will do, especially if they have no proper outlet for that (friends, a safe place to vent) which bakugou never fucking had.

theres also the fact that just talking to your kid the way mitsuki does (saying it's his fault he was kidnapped because he's weak, all while hitting him) is not??? okay?????? ive seen people arguing that this was just a joke in poor taste but like her son was KIDNAPPED and even if it was a "joke" there's literally NO WAY that would EVER?? BE FUNNY??????? she just sounds like the kind of parent who at the very least says shit without thinking that would traumatize bakugou (because being told right after being kidnapped it's your fucking fault by your mother is absolutely traumatizing) but it comes across as her being emotionally abusive.

mitsukis character as a whole comes across as a shitty mom who doesn't realize she's a shitty mom and thinks bakugou being an ass isn't at least partially her fault even though she's admitted to realizing he has always had an ego problem and doing nothing to fix it except for hitting and yelling which obviously did nothing but make him just as loud and violent as she is.

this is obviously not the entire reason why he's a dick but he was never properly taught that the shit he was doing wasn't okay and people not stopping it and/or praising him endlessly even tho he was a bully is basically the same as encouraging it, thank you very much.

moving on from that, let's talk about bakugous other traumas and how he naturally responds to them. hint: it's with either full blown panic or a fight response (verbal or physical, though usually physical. also sometimes it's the panic followed by the fight response.)

so far in bnha (keep in mind that I am not caught up, I've only read up to the beginning of the war arc and i barely remember those bits so) bakugou has...

nearly died via sludge villain (he was unable to move and was being suffocated to death- keep this in mind)

lost for the first time ever and against deku of all people (this nearly sent him into a full blown panic attack, likely because of that sexy little inferiority/superiority complex combo. think of this as like. gifted kid burnout lite. he has always been the best of the best and now suddenly he is being beaten by somebody who has always been weaker than him, which immediately makes him start thinking he was never actually that good, he's actually a fucking failure, a goddamn fraud)

won the sports festival by default (bakugou counts this as yet another failure because todoroki didnt try his best. had bakugou lost to todoroki full strength, he would've taken 2nd place with a bit of bitching, but he still wouldve taken it rather than refuse the medal as it would be a reminder that he failed. instead of accepting that like UA shouldve, the staff chained and muzzled him on live television and then had all might, his fucking idol, force the medal into his mouth. remember the sludge villain incident and how he couldnt move and was suffocating to death? yeah.)

been kidnapped because of the way he reacted to winning during the sports festival (he was aggressive and tried to refuse the medal because he felt he didnt deserve it and was then retraumatized by being chained up and muzzled. his "villainous attitude" was a fucking trauma response, do not tell me otherwise)

was then chained up once again by the LOV after being kidnapped,,, do we see the "retraumatize bkg" theme yet?

"ended all might" (he literally blames himself for all mights retirement because had he just not have been weak, all might wouldve had more time, right?)

my point with all of these is that bakugou has been severely traumatized and has then had his trauma responses (aggression, fight) used to further demonize him. not all people with trauma react the fucking same and the way the fandom just refuses to acknowledge anger as a valid form of trauma response is gross as hell.

moving away from that topic, bakugou has literally never had any actual friends, they all just used him and didn't care about him which absolutely will fuck up a kid, especially one who already has all that other shit going on. bakugou deadass never had a support system or people to help him grow as a person, let alone properly work through his fucking emotions so it's not surprising that he would take out his bullshit on the one person who tried to help him especially considering he saw dekus actions as him thinking he was weak. bakugou was raised to not seek help, he thought somebody strong shouldnt ever need it, so for somebody like deku (who bakugou percieved as weak and helpless already) to offer up help? deku must obviously think bakugou is even weaker than him, what other explanation could their possibly be!

speaking of which, there's his heaps of insecurities that he basically hid by being a twat and bullying others for most of his life. kid was so insecure he bullied deku for fucking years cause he thought deku looked down on him, thought he was better than him, etc. and that only got worse bc his idol then decided to take deku in, train him and even give him his quirk. there's probably some shit im missing but still he's got issues and always has had issues. that being said, he's actually improving and working them out now which is what makes him a really good, interesting character. it's also nice to see a character who is a dick without some tragic backstory (like his backstory is sad but its not the classic "my family was fucking slaughtered and i turned into a raging bitch who murders people" type shit) bc that rarely happens and it's like most assholes don't actually have a story like that they're just assholes lol

now lets talk improvement! lil bitch has been getting better since he got into UA and im so happy abt it!! he had a rough start what with deku suddenly having a quirk and all but like he is really improving now and it highkey shows that bakugou just mostly needed people who 1) didn't constantly praise him and actually criticized him instead 2) actually fucking punished him doing stupid shit and 3) some motherfucking friends

Since going to UA he's gotten actually feedback from teachers about his weaknesses and how to get stronger, he's lost against others, hes been told he has a shit attitude and is a dick, told he should be nicer and leave deku alone, etc etc. He hasn't gotten in trouble too much with teachers but others give him shit for what he does and aizawa has punished him too, while still acknowledging that bakugou is an amazing and dedicated student, something which no one else had done up til that point. and uh???? homie actually has friends who like,,, don't use him and also call him out when he's a dick. like specifically kirishima has done this shit and him and bakugous relationship is clearly very healthy and beneficial for the both of them. makes me feel all happy n shit, ya know

bottom line is: while it is absolutely valid to dislike or even hate bakugou because he is a massively flawed person who has been very cruel to others, villainizing him for the way he acts which in large part seems to be from a lack of guidance, a shitty mother and heavy amounts of trauma, is fucking awful. his actions cannot be fucking excused, he needs to apologize and continue to grow, but he is also a fucking teenager, who is just now being told that the way he acts is unacceptable by people who dont fucking abuse him (and I swear to god if any people who think mitsuki isnt abusive interact with this fucking post I will fullstop hardblock you, I do not fucking care) and actually treat him like a normal person instead of some prodigy child or someone who needs to be fixed.

people are free to debate my points or whatever bc I know some of this stuff is up to interpretation but like. dni if you're just here to say you hate bakugou for xyz reason or that he's irredeemable. also especially dni if you compare him to fucking endeavor yall bitches make me gag.

anyways thxs for the ask anon <33 sorry this is a kinda messy info dump lol

#shit self #asks #boku no hero academia #long post #bakugou katsuki #yes i am a bakugou kinnie shut the fuck up /lh #this is all /nm btw its just so much easier to make my long posts aggressive yk #this is just how i talk irl but Better Formatted #info dump #kinz #anti mitsuki #discourse #bangerz

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butwhatifidothis · 3 years

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Sacrifice for the Three Lords

So. Got curious about something.

Curious thing got long lol, under the cut

The word sacrifice has a very loaded, very intentional feel to it. For something to be sacrificed, it must be considered less than whatever it is being sacrificed for, whether in the moment or in the long term - it’s the logical conclusion to the act itself. Even if regret for that choice can come later, at the time you are sacrificing whatever is being sacrificed, it is considered less (for example, spending an hour of your time for a stupid meme post you spent too much time on, for a light-hearted start. In hindsight you might think it was stupid or not worth it, but at the time of bungling around in photoshop you considered the time lost as a worthwhile sacrifice to your end product).

With that in mind, how do the three lords view sacrifice? When is it mentioned in their routes? When do they themselves mention it, and what are they pertaining to when they do? I want to focus on the word “sacrifice” specifically, due to the already mentioned connotations and meaning attached to this word in particular

We’ll start with Claude, with his route’s first mention of the word sacrifice being, and I’m not kidding, post ts, at Ailell

What is being sacrificed here is Claude’s independence from Judith. He is expressing a want to not rely on Judith’s help once again but needing to give up that want in order to move on with his goals of winning the war. This is something that he alone is sacrificing with no involvement or need of sacrifice from anyone else - he is the only one losing something from this sacrifice.

The next mention is from Hubert’s letter

The sacrifice being mentioned belongs to Edelgard. Hubert is stating that Edelgard has made sacrifices that must be honored, heavily implying that they were necessary for her goals if they hold such importance as to keep that importance beyond the grave to be passed by those who have defeated her. Claude himself is not sacrificing anything, nor does he state any agreeance to the phrasing used here, but he has said earlier that her methods use too much bloodshed for people to rally behind, implying a disagreeance.

This is the last time the word sacrifice is used in direct relation to Claude. When it comes to all that has happened to others, Claude specifically does not refer to it as something like a sacrifice that he is making.

Though that does not the word is not used further in VW. Dorothea, in VW:

The sacrifice being made here is deliberate and willing on the part of Count Bergliez. He is making the consenting, thoughtful decision to sacrifice himself because he views his men’s lives as more important than his own, and it is implied that his doing so achieved the desired outcome (the safety of his men). He came to this decision by himself, with no outside force making him do this (outside of the circumstances that prompted it - no one person made him do this). The act of sacrificing yourself for the lives of others is portrayed in a explicitly “positive” light coated in tragedy and even then only if it achieved its goal

Lastly, for unique mentions on VW, Annette:

Forced sacrifice is seen as something painful. The making of circumstances where sacrifices must be made outside of the will of those making it is portrayed in a explicitly negative light that is sought to be rid of.

In VW, Claude himself never refers to the loss of life as a sacrifice, and only ever refers to something as a sacrifice when it is him making it in a way that does not affect others. Sacrifice of life is only referred to as “positive” when either 1) Hubert, an amoral character who cannot be part of VW, makes mention of it, or 2) it is the singular sacrifice of one person’s life that they made of their own volition in order to save others, and even then it is portrayed in its context and in later contexts as a tragic event nonetheless

Next: AM

The first mention of the word sacrifice for AM - or in this case, BL - is after Lonato:

The word sacrifice is not brought up by Dimitri. Byleth says that the loss of life must be accepted, the result of which is explicit denial from Dimitri of the supposed importance of sacrificing civilians. Sacrifice of life -and the direct phrasing of it as a sacrifice - is explicitly portrayed as bad in the eyes of Dimitri; he does not believe that life ought to be sacrificed to achieve one’s goals

Next time, post ts:

The sacrifice of lives is directly, verbatim described as needless. The concept of the idea of lives being less worthy than a cause is explicitly called wrong. Human life is given more value than any goal.

Note how this is a direct reference to his behavior in VW, where he sacrifices his life as well as those around him - save for Dedue, whom Dimitri not sacrificing is what allows VW’s story to continue (due to Dedue providing the blueprints to the throne room for the Alliance army to navigate through). Dimitri’s choice to deliberately not have Dedue sacrifice his life is a positive to the overarching story of VW, while his indifference to the now explicitly needless sacrifice others’ make of their own lives for his personal cause is portrayed in a negative light

And while we’re talking of Gronder (note, this also appears in VW and thus also applies to VW):

Ignatz’s further implies that the sacrifice made at Gronder does not mean anything - it is senseless, and without purpose. It must be given meaning after the fact; it holds nothing in and of itself, as it did not bring about its desired outcome

Next, Catherine:

Sacrifice of the self is seen in an understanding light while simultaneously being seen as something that ought to be avoided. It is also something that is shown to be something that must be up to the individual to decide for themselves, though is regardless seen as something that likely should be talked out of doing

Last for AM, Felix:

The voluntary, willing sacrifice of one’s own life, for the betterment of others, is portrayed as something “positive” that must be repaid by those which the sacrifice was made for. It is not something that can be morally justified in forgetting after the fact - the repayment needs to be made in order for the sacrifice to be “positive.” The intended outcome of the sacrifice must be fulfilled in order for it to be seen as good.

In AM, sacrifice is continuously referred to negatively. Dimitri outright denies the possibility of necessary sacrifices, and the only way sacrifices are seen in a “positive” is if they are 1) willing made by the person sacrificing themselves and/or 2) the desired outcome of the sacrifice is definitively achieved, with the latter stipulation still having caveats that prevent it from ever truly being seen as positive (Count Rowe)

Lastly: CF

Edelgard mention the word sacrifice the same time as Dimitri first does, after Lonato:

Sacrifice of life is seen as a necessity. Edelgard views sacrifice as something that cannot be avoided, and as such, she has no qualms in sacrificing her people’s lives to achieve her goals. She views her cause as having an inherit superiority over the lives of the people.

Next, during the invasion of Garreg Mach (once you’ve settled on CF as a route):

Sacrifice of human life is once again seen as a necessity for Edelgard to achieve her goals. She states that she will not stop no matter how much blood she spills for her cause. The sacrifice of life is involuntary to those making the sacrifice, and yet it is seen as something that will lead to a positive outcome. The cause is given greater importance over human life.

Next, post ts, before Claude is fought:

The want to not sacrifice own’s life for their cause is seen as a negative. The idea of attempting to save one’s own life at the prospect of certain defeat is questioned in its rationality. There is a lack of understanding in the idea of not sacrificing one’s self to the cause - this is further shown in Edelgard’s death in all other routes, which is caused directly due to her unwillingness to give up her greater cause. She views her own human life as having less importance than her goals, which is consistent with her ideology of sacrificing everything for the greater good.

Notice the other two mentions of the word sacrifice in CF

Linhardt, at the final chapter (which appears in all routes, mind, but since he does default as a BE I feel it pertinent to include within the CF section):

Sacrifice is seen as a sign of desperation. The idea of sacrificing human lives for a greater cause is no longer comforting or a good enough justification. It being described as “depend[ent] on a throw of the dice” directly implies no control from the one(s) sacrificing their lives.

And the last mention is from Rhea, during the last battle, referring to Rhea burning down Fhirdiad:

Sacrifice is being actively questioned. Edelgard’s reaction to Rhea forcibly sacrificing lives showcases the act as negative. Rhea, in all other routes, is one of Edelgard’s sacrifices she makes for her cause, and now Rhea’s mirroring of sacrificing the people’s lives for what she believes is right is being shown in a explicitly negative light. This is not Edelgard growing to realize that sacrificing human life is wrong as she does not reflect on her own doing so when she criticizes Rhea for the same thing.

In CF, when it is Edelgard speaking of sacrifice, it is always seen as a necessity - something that must be done in order to achieve change. Edelgard actively forces sacrifice on the people due to her believing that her desired outcome cannot be made without it, and so she makes little effort to mitigate this involuntary, large-scale sacrifice.

But, when similar ideals of the value of human life against one’s own cause is applied to those which oppose her, she no longer sees it as morally justifiable to sacrifice the lives of the people, despite her own willingness to do the same. When sacrifice is seen through the lens of someone other than Edelgard, the idea of sacrificing lives for the greater cause is no longer enough to justify it.

In contrast to Claude and Dimitri, who do not view such sacrifice as a necessity and thus do not attempt to justify it/force it upon others (except when Dimitri explicitly is doing something wrong, as directly stated by the game), Edelgard cannot fathom the possibility of being unable to sacrifice human life and achieving her goals at the same time. In contrast to Claude and Dimitri, who hold human life above their goals (except when Dimitri explicitly is in the wrong), Edelgard holds her goals above human life. Human life - including her own - has less worth than her goals, thus making it acceptable to sacrifice.

And, well. Considering that people are still being killed in most of Hubert’s endings due to all of the revolts and rebellions against Edelgard’s abrupt, violent, bloody rule rising up, the commonfolk are still not able to receive titles/military credits unless they marry into families which already have that (save for one character, who was previously noble already), and that freedom of choice is not guaranteed as shown by Bernadetta’s endings, along with the slew of other problematic elements in CF’s endings (especially when compared to VW and AM, whose endings portray a far more peaceful Fodlan)... yeah, the sacrifices absolutely did not achieve their stated desired outcome. And that’s when they were voluntary

#anti edelgard #Anti-edelgard #Edelgard discourse #Edelgard critical #just to be safe #and to be clear - Dimitri did not force sacrifice on his men on Gronder #but more that he only explicitly tries to save Dedue by telling only him to retreat if he's in danger (falls in battle)#he - in that moment and in specifically VW which is his lowest point character wise - has little care for the safety of his friends #Dimitri states that it's him sacrificing his friends when it's more accurate to say he was indifferent to their safety (barring Dedue)#hence the phrasing in that part #but uh like #overall #ignore my ass if this seems too reachy lmao #i just thought it was interesting to look into how each lord uses the word sacrifice specifically #since it holds such a dramatic and intense feeling to it #but i can see how it can sound kinda meh as a premise for analysis lmaooo #feel free to tear it to shreds lol

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cateringisalie · 3 years

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My list of bearable Binal Bantasy VII tags is thinning...

But seriously. Being skeptical of Tifa’s narration of past events is not without merit. By the time the Lifestream scene rolls around she has been through three comas and some grevious injuries. The Lifestream scene is as revelatory for her as it is for Cloud.

The new assertion she was in any way actually friends with Cloud is not only in conflict with the OG’s portrayal but counter to Cloud’s development, her development, the growth of their relationship as adults and why (in general) people have them stay together post game.

Its unnecessary, frustrating and further damaging Tifa’s character who is spinning off further from who she was.

That Tifa and Cloud were not actually childhood friends does not mean they do not have a relationship in FFVII. It does not mean they cannot be together. Tifa “falling in love” with Cloud at the water-tower does not for a second make their later relationship any more meaningful.

All this new ship information does is make the relationship have longer longevity than previously assumed. As if whichever relationship has lasted longer is betterer and stronger. As if this should automatically undercut any other relationship Cloud or Tifa can possibly experience.

(in fact - and darkly cynically - this feels a lot more like enforcing that Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith operate in near exactly the same way. The pairs fall in love in record time (two years prior to the Nibelheim incident both times as far as I’m ware), the boys go missing and the girls never move on with their lives. I get the boys have gone missing without a shred of explanation or closure, but now for both of them people are willing to wipe out a quarter of their lives waiting. Teenagers are resilient you know? They will be inconsolable if this happened but they would bounce back a lot faster and cleaner than they would expect. The approval of the never moving on this is purely to keep the shipping uncomplicated. There can only be one pairing for Tifa, there can only be one pairing for Aerith. And if you think otherwise you’re wrong in canon. And who wants to write or read about a non-canon ship? Unless its yaoi/yuri in any case. I am so tired)

Childhood friends incidentally is not, however much some insist, a common trope of the series - unless you stretch it a fair amount and it encompasses a trivial number of the pairings. And none of the big ones (you know; Squall/Rinoa or Tidus/Yuna).

Could Tifa do with more backstory? Of course. Did Tifa’s mother deserve a name? Absolutely! But not like this. Not when Cloud helping round up cats in Remake is now tied to finding Tifa’s cat in a new authored backstory. This speaks again to the constant magpie-ing of existing imagery and moments from older parts of FFVII to feed the present. The retconning in of importance by changing the meaning of otherwise unimportant moments.

Tifa is not and never was under any obligation to like Cloud as a child. She did not bully him, but neither should she expected to involve him in anything she did. I understand the book has muddied this gloriously, but for what effect?

I mean, I know where the desperation to make Cloud and Tifa childhood friends stems from. I know why you want Cloud to have fallen in love with Tifa at like age 5 or something and for Tifa to fall in love with him at 13. And I rail against it all the time that its not necessary. Being first does not mean better.

Maybe I am old, cynical and exhausted, but I kind of like watching Cloud and Tifa grow closer in FFVII. I like watching Cloud and Aeris grow closer in FFVII. I like to experience these things where I can... experience them? I don’t like reading books which assert things in blunt statements that clarify exactly what the writer intended. I certainly don’t have the patience to wait for a later book to clarify what happened on-screen when I have drawn my own conclusions based on my preferences. Especially as this is all contributing to that continued sense that the OG is a smelly, badly designed embarrassment we would rather tiday away for the crime of being graphically inferior (never mind it was championed on its looks on release) and “goofy” (and apparently unable to run the gamut of emotions I remember from serious to comedy, to silly, to tragic, to pessimistic and quietly optimistic and moving).

I’m coming back to this point to stress it - I want to see the relationship growth. Remake gave me that for Aerith and Cloud even if the details aren’t to my taste. First meeting is awkward because hey, random stranger/Cloud is tired. Cloud gets involved and spends more time with Aerith. And the high-five thing is used as a clumsy/awkward/eh but clear metaphor for how their relationship develops over the course of their time together.

To the point that yes, it makes sense for Cloud to want to rescue her. Less sense for Elmyra and Tifa to be “Well they might not vivisect her” and then delay for two full chapters, but the whole thing flows.

And here’s where I get accused of being a fake fan: I don’t like how Cloud and Tifa’s relationship develops in Remake. Flirting. Tifa being mildly fazed by Cloud claiming its been five years. Scared when he almost kills Johnny. Maybe hurt depending on your resolution scene (hey podcast people! No Gold Saucer multiple dates because too expensive? How are there branched resolution scenes in Remake then?). But there isn’t growth. They seem to fit into each other’s lives without worry, bit of flirting, strange super-intense moments jammed into inappropriate sequences (the train roll, climbing the plate, Cloud remembering the promise unprompted, Tifa not actually engaged with Avalanche’s plans). There’s no sense anything has changed between them, the missed five years has done anything to them.

And I’m sure some would take this as proof of correctness. But... somehow Remake is better for realism despite a lot of new clumsy, but this relationship is not dinged for being implausible? No way does that five year gap not seriously impact any prior relationship to say nothing of developing from scratch.

See this was a neat thing about the OG; while Tifa seemed to have an edge over Aerith by knowing Cloud longer, he was in effect meeting them at the same point in his life and more or less starting from scratch with both. Both ships are valid, and even if Cloud is with Tifa come the end, it doesn’t mean he can’t have romantic feelings about both women.

Oh, but Nojima has changed his mind/always intended it this way. And? I can change my mind about liking what he’s written - and my patience and tolerance of Nojima has waned massively since 1997. To the point where his involvement invokes a pained groan from me.

Plus the hilarious attitude that this is from the same people who insisted “the OG will always be there, stop moaning about Remake”. Well guess what? I don’t like Remake and I don’t really want it around. The OG is better.

Yes, Tifa is under-served and sure, it could be clearer about shipping (but the apparent hostility to ambiguity and personal interpretation is deeply distressing. These things can mean something to you and don’t have to mean the same thing to everyone. Interpreting the romancs - again - not a competition).

BUT

I will take the OG version of Tifa where she believed in the cause, where she had friends (again, yes, the relationship between Tifa and the rest of Avalanche is not well depicted, but it was better than actively curtailing it), where she ran a bar THAT ACTUALLY OPENED AND SERVED CUSTOMERS, where she hated Shinra, where she didn’t know how to treat Cloud because she had only really talked to him once in her life and DESPITE THAT that they great closer and spent their last night before THE END OF THE WORLD together over the Remake.

Where Tifa is wary of Cloud for about 5 seconds, twice and then defaults to constant flirting. Where Cloud is near smothering Tifa every second they’re together and she doesn’t tell him to fuck off once. Where she’s allied with Avalanche but hates their methods (and the pacifists are in a shop around the corner and she is not with them because...?). Where she has some absurd contrived plot about medical bills and buying Seventh Heaven for Barret and Marlene.

Which would lead to a whole other rant titled “Marle is the Worst” but this has dragged on quite long enough.

But seriously; if you argue that we can’t hate Remake because OG is always there, then you have to stop applying Remake back to OG and using it as proof. Which is exactly why many people bemoaned the Remake at all. OG is one thing, Remake is another. I don’t care for the latter.

And I know if anyone does read all this it will be about the meanie Cleriths who diminish Tifa for no good reason. And yes, they are indeed acting in bad faith. But what makes you think for a second evidence will convince these people?

In particular, the argument has raged so long and always will because if people do not like a ship they will not accept it as canon (if they care about this as a factor) NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. Literally. Look at Loki if you want the most recent example of this.

Canon is to many “what I want” and often does not tally with the general interpretation. And you know, if being “canon” or guessing right early wasn’t triumphed as such a vital thing, we might not get these really terrible and pointless arguments.

Canon is a prize but here’s the big secret: fandom - in general - does not care. FFVII is an excellent case example given Sefikura overwhelms the other ships (and I think AZGSC is close?). And that’s not canon. That’s not even in the ballpark of the Cloud/Tifa vs Cloud/Aerith arena (even give that the former is roughly twice the size of the latter, you already won, so please stop?). Canon is only important if you think its important - and you get some more official art of sequences you can gif. And maybe you get kissing/implied sex/marriage/kids, but most of all you get a smug sense of superiority. And the last is why I have no patience with this.

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flovey-dovey · 4 years

Text

Part 2 of my thoughts on Klaus

Spoilers! Did I mention that already?

When they watch Margu playing in the light of dawn, Jesper puts his hand on Klaus’ arm and keeps it there rather than excitedly pat it once or twice to get his attention like a simple platonic friend might. And while Jesper watches her, Klaus watches Jesper with a very warm, affectionate look that Jesper doesn’t try to shirk or shrug awkwardly off.

When Klaus puts his hand on his back, Jesper just smiles wider, and when they return to Klaus’ property the look on the woodsman’s face as he listened to Jesper talk like a doting parent and his solid “I do” in reply to what he was saying says even more.

Heck- part of Klaus’ tragic past was that he and his wife never got to have children no matter how much they wanted and waited, and here comes Jesper with every child in Smeerenburg and beyond at his heels. Klaus even tells him this past, openly, freely and even with a chuckle or two, and right after saying how his life had fallen into aimless misery turns to say “and then you came along.”. Klaus even has Jesper blindfolded before showing him the sleigh with both their names carved into it at what was most likely his request.

Very couple-like and very sweet in my opinion. After the “liar revealed” scene, Klaus sees his name as he climbs in and hesitates, clearly thinking of him.

(also, notice in this shot how Jesper is centered with Klaus- not Alva)

And let’s not forget the mountainside scene after the big chase or the look on Klaus’ face when Jesper echoes his wife’s words with full conviction: “A true selfless act always sparks another”.

Now we’re nearing the end of the movie, so let’s talk about Jesper’s father some more. In the last quarter of the movie, his father comes back and he and Jesper go to the boat that would take them back home. Before they cast off, though, it’s said not long later that Jesper told his father “everything” and how he thought he’d be mad at him. Why? If it was work related, why would Jesper be afraid his father would get upset by him wanting to stay and do the job he gave him? That he wanted him to have? Why would he be afraid his father would get mad at him for finding love in Alva, if that truly was the case? Could it be that part of “everything” was how Jesper did find love, but that it was in someone who didn’t fit into society’s unrelentingly heteronormative mold (gonna be using that word a bit but I’m tired so bear with me), and as a result meant he wouldn’t fit either? Which brings me to a minor point of my opinion: did Jesper ever fit? It could’ve been another reason why his father was trying so hard to impose socially acceptable opportunities on him, or why Jesper had rebelled against them so stubbornly. Wishful thinking, I suppose.

(also, notice the look on Jesper’s face here when confronted by his father’s silent urging for him to come out with whatever he knew he had on his mind)

Before I wrap this up, here are a few other bits and pieces I wanted to mention:

* When Jesper talks at Margu after realizing their toy inventory was running low, he says “they” were running out of toys rather than “he” (Klaus) was running out of toys, which his arrogant self in the first half-ish part of the movie would’ve surely said.

* During one of the times Jesper talks at Margu and asked what he was supposed to do if he failed, he mentions Klaus and doesn’t even bring up Alva.

* Jesper, while talking to Alva about the school’s turnaround and her own change in outlook, looks and sounds more confused/baffled than teasing, flirty or pleased.

* The strongest moment Jesper and Alva share, emotionally, is never more than the one they share while helping Margu write her letter to Klaus. To my memory, he and Klaus share two very prominent ones, with a possible third or fourth (or fifth or sixth) on top of that.

* Alva gives Klaus a peck on the cheek instead of Jesper, who she presumably now has romantic feelings for. Why don’t they kiss before the ending “where are they now” bit? At all?

* Alva, when watching the townies ice skating with Jesper, doesn’t move to pull him out onto the ice for some potentially romantic happenings if she had turned to see the troubled look on his face, laughing and smiling to try and cheer him up or going out on the town to partake in the festivities. This could’ve shown us more of Alva’s character and it would’ve been better than just NARRATING IT AT THE ENDING. And, yes, I know movies have deadlines, but it didn’t have to be more than ten seconds long and could’ve given a look into the town’s culture as it started to reform, and afterwards Jesper could’ve still gone back to the post office to build Margu’s little sleigh, possibly with some encouragement from Alva. Nothing had to change, but it wouldn’t have hurt to at least show their romance forming since a few seconds can go a long way.

* During the ending chase, Klaus and Jesper are literally having a lover’s quarrel.

* Klaus acting like an embarrassed husband when he steps up all covered in red from head to toe and Jesper joking with him about it, earning another hearty laugh from Klaus with ease, and Klaus’ apparent concern when Jesper urges his father outside to talk privately.

* The entirety of the reindeer scene and as they ride off, laughing, when their eyes meet and they realize they were having fun in each other’s company- very naturally, at that.

* Klaus lamenting how their time working together was coming to an end and with it their main reason for being with each other, as underplayed as the both of them make it seem.

* Jesper makes Klaus laugh; them sharing laughs together where I don’t recall seeing Jesper having the same thing with Alva, nor do I remember seeing her making him laugh.

* Klaus picking up and just holding Jesper will never not be cute to me.

So, in short, I hate heteronormative romances- especially when they come out of nowhere and have to be NARRATED at the END of the movie with little to no prior build up or implications that, yes, this is how you should’ve been expecting things to end up (yes I’m still upset about the ending). I saw it coming the second I saw the official trailer and after witnessing all the bonding between Klaus and Jesper I can’t help but feel cheated- dragged along for the ride like I was watching the Titanic sinking as someone was describing an entirely different outcome at the same time. They built Klaus and Jesper’s relationship- romantic, platonic, what-have-you- and then ripped it away to shove something completely unwarranted into my face instead.

If they’re going to have the guy get together with the girl, if they have interactions that show the feeling is mutual and more than friendship, trust and respect (which every good romance should have by default), if they WANT to be together and feel attracted and desire to be together, then I’m all for it- that’s what I expect love to be. But I still feel betrayed and sad and angry at the ending, especially since I feel like Alva and Jesper got together for the simple reason of deterring people like me from thinking Jesper and Klaus would or should end up together, even to the point of killing him off. I can’t prove it, and I’m sure that’s not why he died, but I’m going to say something that I know sounds mean but I don’t mean it spitefully:

I don’t care.

I don’t care if Klaus’ death and the ending it was attached to was poetic or happy-sad, bittersweet or what-have-you. I can’t help but not care because I literally haven’t seen anything break the relationship mold in a movie since I was shown my first movie or read my first romantic novel.

In any case, this movie came so, so close to being the most cathartic thing I’ve ever seen and it makes me so, so sad to have it fall prey to a completely standard method of storytelling endings when it presented such a vibrant and unique setting with the done-to-death theme of Christmas. You don’t even know how sad it makes me where, in this world of cowards afraid to make art for fear of losing money (which, I understand, everybody needs) or properly represent underrepresented groups of individuals or have a man and woman become friends and REMAIN purely friends- maybe even being the wingman/woman for their own relationship- I, against my fears, genuinely thought this film, this beautiful, inspiring masterpiece of animation, would be able to give me the shameless, unabashed and genuine non-heteronormative love I have still yet to see in a movie that doesn’t end in tragedy or act to disgrace anyone from that spectrum.

Klaus and Jesper saw parts of each other- ugly, angry, funny and secret- that nobody else saw, did things for each other that for the life of me I couldn’t find being done for the romance we were “supposed” to root for or even see coming (but, come on, “of course” they got together- what were you expecting, you wishful idiot?). For a movie with the underlying theme of how love was always better than letting spite fester into hate, it sure didn’t give me much to believe in terms of Jesper and Alva hooking up in the end. They could’ve had a friendly sort of love, but we can’t always get what we want. On that note, Pumpkin and Olaf (if that’s what his name is- I forget) getting married in the ending could’ve posed to the two clans “you hate each other, but don’t you love me?”, putting the leaders of both clans in the position of questioning their history and tradition of generations past so they didn’t lose the bonds they have in the present and that new traditions could be worth the effort for the sake of a better future. It’d be nice to see.

Anyway, no matter how it ended, you can’t tell me that Klaus and Jesper weren’t pining for each other more and more throughout the film. You can’t. Because I saw it, and no amount of ham-fisted “oh by the way” narration had to tell me it was happening or was planned “all along”.

Peace out and Merry Christmas to you all, gosh dang it.

- Flovey~Dovey

#Klaus #text post #Jesper #Alva #Klausper #TALL AND SMAAAAALL #part 2

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