#“the end always justifies the means”

[haze-of-hyperfixations]

a concept. to consider. what if. what if there was a Remember Them reprise after the Thunder Saga. "We are not to let them die in vain" except he's the only one left so it's "I am not to let them die in vain." and there's no backing chorus of his men. because. they're all dead.

and the line takes on a whole new meaning now that he's the one who chose to let them die.

(not in vain. it can't have been in vain, it can't have been for nothing. i have to see her. i have to see her, because if i don't make it home, those men died for nothing. the ends always justify the means. i can justify anything as long as it ends with Penelope and Telemachus both in my arms again. but if it doesn't-

but it will. it will. it has to.)

and our- ... -and my comrades will not die in vain...

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[crownedwille]

I've come to the conclusion that loving young royals doesn't mean I can't be critical about it, maybe especially bc I love the show so much I have such strong feelings about it, good and bad and I can love parts of canon and agree with it and appreciate it but I don't have to love it all. I have accepted that it's okay if I don't accept the ending and I don't have to force myself to support it. It's okay to not agree with all of canon and it's okay to not side with all of the creators' intentions/views. Loving a show doesn't mean you have to take everything the writers say on face value and that's the only version that is allowed to exist. Canon isn't everything and fandom is about curating your own experience that makes you happy and not miserable. You don't have to dismiss canon in every aspect and ignore it entirely, that's certainly not what I want but there is a fine line between being canon respectful, allowing some parts to exist and sometimes, yes, you just have to say "fuck canon" and move on for your own sanity and wellbeing

[cdroloisms]

Oh I was just haunted by jmah!Dream’s deteriorating mental state

:C my BOYYY

and it's awful, too, because it's not like Dream is in a particularly good state of mind when the prison starts in the first place. and he's in here because he's terrified (and he's in here as punishment) and he's in here because even though Sam hates him--and he's ensured that Sam hates him, and he's planning to do more to make sure of that fact as well (in canon, c!Dream is talking to c!Sam 'all about exile' in those first few days)--Sam will do his job. he trusts him to do his job. he knows Sam, the man that he's worked with for the last month on this project, on making sure this prison is as secure as it can possibly be, one of the final few people to work with him before the events of the green festival, doomsday, staged finale etc. made sure he'd stand alone, just where he was supposed to. this is a Dream that's already been swimming in the lava before Sam travels back in time.

unlike Sam's betrayal in canon, there's nothing slow about what happens in JMAH. there's no ability for him to cope and go yeah, Sam's being kind of serious, but it's no big deal, yeah, this place kind of sucks, but it's survivable, yeah, there's some mistreatment, but I expected that. in an instant, Sam goes from a predictable cog in the machine meant to keep him alive into a stranger hellbent on torturing the fuck out of him, and he has no idea why. Sam is nowhere near as straightforward as Quackity in explaining what the hell he wants out of Dream--he asks for the book, sure, but also for information, also for complete obedience, also for explanations for things he shouldn't know and punishments for things he never did. there is no promise that the revive book will end anything, for this Dream, and no one to give him anything at all but the Warden.

just ,, the lengths to which this Sam is willing to go, the intensity of his obsession, the way he'd be left reeling with no choice other than to endure and wonder why breaks my heart. Dream has no fucking clue to what end this is all for, and i think he struggles a lot with that. worse than just the torture, perhaps, is the familiarity, the sparks of something that is almost fondness, the satisfaction in Sam's voice when he's gotten something and Dream isn't even sure what he's just given away--and maybe it'd be easier to understand if what Sam wanted from him were any more straightforward, if the desire could pan out as something as simple as sadistic pleasure at hurting him or deriving some kind of gratification from making him submit or wanting power or to eliminate a threat or anything, but all that is clear is that Sam wants something from him and will stop at nothing to get it.

c!Dream and identity is already a finicky thing as well as his whole complex about himself and evil--c!Dream thinks he's a person that does evil things to achieve good ends, but he struggles pretty heavily, honestly, with himself-as-evil and being viewed as evil-and-just-evil and actually being the tyrant-villain-monster-snake-that-just-bites, etc, which means that there is a level of vulnerability here when it comes to how he sees himself and builds his identity and the constant, relentless onslaught of . pain and torture combined with Sam justifying it all by Who He Is Innately and monologuing about how he deserves it all, because c!Dream isn't a person that doesn't think that punishment as a concept is wrong and doesn't necessarily disagree that he's evil either. and again. torture self harm box of mental illness. and part of the problem with a Sam that's fresh from Daedalus and then thrust into kind of the worst possible position of reflecting on those conversations by being in a place where he's able to fall hard on old habits to copium his way out of dealing with anything he personally might have done (because obviously he can just Fix It Now) while also having the additional cope of i-am-godsent-to-make-everything-better BY keeping dream in a box, you kind of get a situation where both Dream and Sam are psychologically in pretty vulnerable places and then you're taking a torture machine hammer to those stress points. so it's fun.

i have no clue if that last paragraph made any kind of sense btw.

but ... yeah. even for any character in any kind of state the insane torture contraption of torture efficiency would be. erm. extremely damaging to one's mental health, to say the least. the only good thing for dream i guess is that sam still has his head too far up his own ass to actually git gud at conditioning anyone deliberately and is therefore still largely skating by By Accident, because otherwise his head would've been even more blendered than it already gets.

[dykedvonte]

I feel like THOSE parts of the mouthwashing fandom would absolutely explode finding out that stuff like blood Meridian has a goofy fandom too

I think it’s less that the fandom is goofy and more people think people goofin around or with the sensitive subject matter don’t get the themes or plot or just avoid thinking about it.

I know a lot of people do but like it’s a fandom. People are gonna do weird or crazy shit and I just think we should use the block button more than openly inciting harassment towards something you don’t like vs trying to bring awareness to genuine problems. There is overlap but sometimes what people are saying or how they are going about it is a little crazy.

Then again I’m not used to how people talk about things on sites like twitter or in very popular spaces so maybe this is like normal there.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

everybody [exaggeration] I know is playing BG3 and having fun with the emotional trauma of Durge and I'm over here

like.

yes, I too am playing the game where I'm a goody-two-shoes amnesiac who is horrified to find out that they used to be a REALLY terrible/violent/ruthless individual <------ [is playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning]

[anoras]

you can tell when ppl have only played inquisition by how they react to the wardens lmao. "ugh they're so mean why aren't they listening to me >:(" i watched duncan kill a man in cold blood for chickening out of the joining

[ardentpoop]

haha. oh no

[lotus-pear]

hear me out for genshin x bsd-

atsushi would be a cryo claymore that scales off atk (since the tiger is shown as extremely powerful and can even cut through space) and optimizes physical dmg

dazai would be a geo sword support that increases elemental res, acting as a debuffer (as no longer human works in the bsd universe) he would also scale off em

kunikida would also be geo but catalyst that deals physical aoe dmg.. he'd be an in-slot dps but not an optimal one imao his talents are much better suited to make him a battery unit

akutagawa would be pyro polearm?? or sword?? and he's obviously a heavy dps that scales off crit rate/dmg and tenma tengai could be similar to cyno's burst when, once activated, increases def while simultaneously raising rashomon's atk

chuuya would be an anemo catalyst dps similar to wanderer bc of his gravity manipulation and he would have a melee stance where he atks from the ground and an elevated state where he uses gravity manipulation to be able to atk off-ground. his ult would be corruption obviously and would parallel xiao's where his atk and crit rate/dmg are sharply increased but he undergoes continuous dmg until the duration of his burst ends (in this state he is vulnerable as his def is lowered and he isn't able to accumulate energy meaning he needs a team built around him, preferably with a healer and a shielder)

how does it feel to be the sexiest person on this site w absolutely the most correct and banger takes anon??.. why are u correct on literally everything

[whyarewecalledtheshipname]

rambled this before but MAN that riku is paralleled to terra who's dad was so extremely aligned with Light that he basically nearly fell to darkness/evil out of his /extreme/ intolerance of it??? Eraqus who totally doesn't remind me of MoM??? GUH RRAHH

[moe-broey]

I was maybe halfway into this when I realized this could have been an edit but. Can anyone hear me

[unproduciblesmackdown]

omgg lol [guy who won't stop going "more like scapeGOATED" voice] now hold! on!! lmao [same guy just saw encanto voice] Hold on!!!

[fluentisonus]

while we're talking about it though that's something really fundamental to spock's character I think in a way I don't always see discussed, that by joining starfleet he's making the explicit and intentional choice that he'd rather be seen as a perfect example of an alien amongst humans than as an imperfect vulcan amongst vulcans. I see this framed a lot as him being more accepted in starfleet than he was on vulcan, and I really don't think that's the case at all: he's still very attached to vulcan, and we see all the prejudice he has to face and how little he's understood in starfleet. but what it comes down to is that he'd rather exist in a place where no one understands him and so he has nothing to prove -- even if that means being very alone -- than in a place where he's surrounded by the familiar & meaningful but everyone can see the ways he can't quite fit. if that makes sense

[n1ghtwarden]

she won the idgaf war in the shadowfell

[makerofmadness]

ok can people like not normalize telling others kys EVEN IF THEY'RE GENUINELY BAD PEOPLE??? Like sorry if I don't think it's right to say things that can be genuinely triggering for particularly mentally ill folk under any circumstance when you can just be creative and come up with literally anything else to say but I don't think that basic human respect should just be revoked like a privilege. It's basic for a reason.

Like, no matter how disgustingly vile a person is, I'm not gonna respond to them by saying "I am in your walls" because you shouldn't say that to ANYONE and enabling that is dangerous. "What if they're not mentally ill" you don't always know that

Like genuinely you are a bad person if you say these things even if the person you're saying it too is worse. that doesn't exempt you from criticism and thinking that it does is just setting you up to hurt an innocent person that you may have misunderstood. That's the biggest danger of this. People will inevitably use it against people who ARE right because they THINK they're in the wrong.

[helpimstuckinafandom]

JUSTICE FOR DAVINA CLAIRE I'M SO FUCKING SERIOUS FUCK OFF OH MY FUCKING GOD