#(i'm not an anti or smth)

[hilacopter]

if I see you saying stuff like "jews please call me out and correct me if I ever post something antisemitic!" you better be willing to actually listen and take to heart stuff you might not like hearing

[bookwormangie]

Why do some people believe the term "morally grey" doesn't apply to Snape because "he bullied children"? How does his bullying of children separate him from moral greyness? While definitions can vary on the internet, the fundamental idea of a morally grey character is that they can’t be easily categorized as purely good or evil. Looking at Snape’s character arc as a whole, we see significant positive contributions alongside serious flaws. His inner struggles to do good, his desire to atone, and his vindictive and cruel behavior perfectly illustrate a morally grey character imo.

[yuxinmi]

When the scenario you thought of is sooo juicy that you HAVE to script it in 🤭

[morningstar-chronicles]

me, deluding myself into thinking i shifted every time i misread a word:

[the-sacred-now]

An Open Letter to the Single-Issue Pro-Life Voter

What do you want more: For abortion to be illegal? Or for fewer abortions to occur?

There’s a reason so many of the Left think that all single issue pro-life voters are obsessed with controlling women’s bodies: because most of your official allies are more interested in punishing people for their pregnancies than in doing anything that could actually be called pro life.

But I know many of you really DO want to save lives, to make lives viable. I trust your hearts—because I used to be one of you.

I argued against abortion with the best of 'em, not because I wanted to push my religion into law, or to control anyone, but because of my belief in that life should be defended, and my genuine care for the unborn.

I’ve learned a lot. Some of my positions have changed, and some of them haven’t.

I’ve faced the fact that one person has the right withhold their own bodily resources as a matter of course. Even after our own death, in the United States, use of our body’s lifesaving resources is not legal without our prior consent.¹

I’ve faced the fact that “risk to the life of the mother” is a reality that stalks every pregnancy, always present and recently rising in the U.S., and a person has the right to refuse that risk.²

I’ve learned more about the dangers of ectopic pregnancies, the primary drivers of late-term abortions.³

I’ve learned the truth about blastocysts and how long it actually takes before an embryo resembles anything more than a bacterial culture, and what a 6 week pregnancy really looks like.⁴

I’ve learned that abortion was not even considered an issue for American Christians until after the religious Right lost the culture war around the Civil Rights movement.⁵

But even without all those factors, this counterintuitive fact would have stopped me in my tracks on the way to the voting booth: The number of abortions INCREASES the more legal restrictions there are.⁶

I’ve never actually stopped believing that human life begins at conception (however fragile, alien, and fleeting—especially if it fails to attach to the uterine wall, as happens to an estimated 30-70% of fertilized eggs). Ultimately, though, that’s just my opinion, founded in philosophical thought experiment and ~vibes~ and nothing else—not even the Bible.

But even if it were an objectively true and proven fact…

I would still be less interested in jailing the people who disagreed with me, and more interested in creating the world I want to see: a fair and free society, where sexual assault is rare, sexual education is clear and honest, unwanted pregnancies are few, healthcare is robust and continually improving, and children are desired and supported—before and after they’re born. And yes, in this world, abortions are as rare as they are free of fear and shame.

We may not be able to create this whole reality right now, but what we can do is decrease the number of abortions, in ways that are consistently shown to be reliable.

I’m pro-choice now. And I never had to give up on caring about babies.

I’m not asking anyone to let go of being pro-life. But I am asking you to join me in allying with the people whose policies support life in all its stages. Which is proven to inherently lower the number of abortions.

One party’s leaders push against contraception. Against the sex education that leads to more teens waiting longer before losing their virginity.⁷

Against creating infrastructure that supports people through pregnancy and beyond, against supporting people in feeding and educating their children.⁸

The other party wants to support people in making informed and independent choices about their bodies—which statistically leads to more confidence in saying “No,” or “I’m waiting,” or “Not without protection,” to sex.⁹

They want to support peoples’ health and well-being.¹⁰

They want to create a future in which children are a real option, an option compatible with getting an education, with keeping your income, with food and housing.¹¹

They want to rebuild a financial landscape in which a single income could take care of a whole family.¹²

I used to feel jarred and confused by having to choose between bundled-together policies that saved the lives of the unborn but left everyone else to struggle in a lack of support callously dubbed “freedom”, and policies that promoted abortion access as an important freedom, but aligned with my values of protecting and uplifting life in every other way.

Now that I know easy access to safe and legal abortion lowers rates of abortion, especially when paired with education, healthcare, and financial stability, my choice is more obvious than ever. My choice, as it always has been, is life.

*Sources linked in reblogs + replies.

[greenaswildfire]

The day when grammar saved Aegon's life:

Rhaenyra: A son for a son, Alicent.

Alicent: Princess, you've already killed Jaehaerys. And don't start with the "he was a grandson, not a son", because it was said son for a son, but at no time was it specified "whose son" in your cheap catchphrase. A son for A son, it could be anyone's. So nope, no son of mine will be killed, not unless you kill me first (and ruins rhaenicent, which will cause twitter to melt and brainrot).

[squish--squash]

Just a reminder to my new cotl followers: bishippers are safe here. Do I ship any of it? nope. But I personally could not give a single fuck if someone that follows me or if I follow someone that does.

[radiaking]

i don't really know enough about how chems work in fallout to say coop isn't addicted to chems....but i'm also not entirely convinced that's a thing either....

[elibean]

the way the "NO" was ripped out from his lungs. the pain, the excruciation of it all. his best friend (boyfriend) being ripped away in front of him. oh my god y'all i'm not gonna make it another week

[thousandyearphantombunker]

i watched the movie Akelarre and it's this great period piece story about a group of basque girls accused of witchcraft when the men of their home are away and inorder to postpone their execution they bid time by tempting him with the witches sabbath- what I love about it is their is no supernatural element. None of these girls are actually powerful witches- they are normal teenagers who lie to and fuck around with horrible sexist men with guile and you see how stupid the logic of their inquisitor is.

I've talked about the oppressed mage trope before and why while I don't think it's a bad trope that needs to retire- its certainly very lazy and not a very good mirror to real world oppression at all and their are more believable and compelling ways to depict power as a curse or generate conflict. aang as the avatar is expected to reject a massive part of his cultural identity (his pacifism) and has to let go of his worldly attachments (katara), he has to be the one to save the world cause no one else can and him being rejected by his peers when he wanted to play and being excluded makes sense and he is oppressed for reasons outside of his powers. Steven universe has to struggle with his powers a lot, he almost ages himself to death and ages himself rapidly in reverse, and he projects his anxieties and subconscious thoughts onto technology beyond accident (that sounds like a fucking nightmare) heck RWBY while deeply a flawed show, shows why being a maiden would suck- Amber seems to have been isolated from the rest of the world for her protection (to keep her away from other more powerful magic users that would use her) and Fria an older woman with Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia is isolated as well stuck in her hospital room only allowed Winter's company to ensure that Winter would be the last person in her mind so that the maiden powers would be given to her both woman saddled with incredible responsibility, ice kings's powers came at the cost of Simon's sanity. And it's so much interesting than the shit x men and owl house pulls- love both but whenever they try and make real world parallels to gay rights or civil rights it kind of falls flat.

Whenever I've heard people complain about the issues with this trope it's always from the racial or gay perspective so I wanna try a different lens- disability. discrimination against disabled people often uses the idea that people with mental illnesses are dangerous or have an 'unfair' advantage.

People with BPD and ASPD are often kicked out of therapy and helpful services because of how demonized these disorders people with psychotic disorders are often ignored by police and gaslit on top of having a disorder that can make their grip on reality tenuous- they aren't seen as trustworthy, People with learning disabilities are denied opportunities and scholarships if they mention it and boy oh boy if your special Ed in any capacity say goodbye to AP classes and say hello to being more restricted in what your allowed to do compared to your able classmates, physically disabled people are accused of being fakers and 'too sensitive' and the world isn't all that accommodating (I've seen way too many videos of ramps that aren't useful to wheelchair users at all) and too many people who freak out over disabled people getting accommodations/help of any kind- kids getting extra timr on tests, more bathroom breaks, financial assistance, interpreters etc- to many people they see these as unfair advantages

I remember a boy in my class broke both of his legs at one point and people called it unfair he got to use the elevator and that the rest of us couldn't- i knew another boy who had a concussion who was allowed to opt out of computer class and do math instead and he got crap cause 'he was basically skipping class. My sister had to take highschool all over again because she was a special needs student (dyslexia and ADHD) and the diploma she earned was considered 'invalid' and when she got so sick she passed a lot and needed to recover from a traumatic emergency surgery she got yelled at and got in trouble for using her temporary extra accomodations- i was told growing up that i didn't belong in normal classes because I needed double time to complete tests, that if I couldn't do it in the normal amount of time that meant I didn't know what I was doing and that I was too stupid to be in the second grade and needed to be kept in kindergarten and that went on for years- I'd be told to stop reading the books I bought to school because I was too dumb to read them basically and every tiny mistake I made was used to forcibly push me to be put in special ed (i barely made mistakes btw- so no i didn't beed to be put in sped- I read at super high level as a kid) my classmates would fuck up just as much as I did- no one would bat an eye, i would catch onto patterns faster than my classmates, id point out details they never seemed to see but because of my shit memory and misunderstanding what the teacher was saying meaning that I needed some extra time to complete a test meant I was r34@!d3d and obviously because i needed that extra time i again was told i didn't know what i was doing, my other sister with dyscalcula was forced to take a test without accomodations they knew she needed to prove she was disabled again despite having an iep that was given to them because reasons i guess also she has a personality disorder that she doesn't want fully specified to avoid the problems that could come from a bpd or aspd diagnosis- I remember at one point being told i was basically a cheater for needing extra time, that my autism symptoms was just being bratty (and the way autism symptoms where described made people with asd sound like godawful immature people) and again that if i 'didn't know what i was doing' I didn't belong- the thing about this is these excuses people used to justify this shit are used in fiction towards a group of people that actually are super dangerous and actually have an unfair advantage- they get oppressed using the same excuses but in their case this shit is true.

Disabled people are oppressed because they get disadvantage and that disadvantage is used to justify oppressing them- even your part of an oppressed racial or sexual minority you can still walk and have a normal brain capacity- being black or gay doesn't effect your ability to walk or read or feel emotions it effects your treatment, the way people judge you- but being disabled does in fact effect your ability- it effects your empathy, your physical strength, your intelligence negatively so that already makes life harder than able people then people see that you are unable in someway and use that to make life even harder cause we equate ability with worth and what treatment a person 'deserves'. It's because of shit like that, that I know people with powers wouldn't be oppressed- they'd be beloved, any fear toward them would be justified if their power level reached a certain point and in general they wouldn't be oppressed because oppression flows from power not to it.

With antisemitism Islamophobia and racism and lgbt-phobic rhetoric they have to make up excuses too- they make shit up like 'black men are rapists, Jews are always genocidal hoard all the wealth and are secretly running the universe and are at fault for everything baf and are pedos, Muslims are terrorist and gay people will corrupt our children into being sex toys' none of which is true! Also again disabled people's accomodations (extra time, breaks, getting a bit of extra focus, getting to use an elevator or ramp cause their on a fucking wheelchair) aren't unfair advantages that are negatively impacting able people (me getting to take a short break from class does not take away from your experiences or cause you problems Deborah)

It's funny in the real people are oppressed because they don't have power or even have disadvantages and they have problems like incontinence or being unable to get out of bed and in fiction they are oppressed because they have too much power and are super cool. I love x men Scott Summers has been my favorite x men since i was like 8 but the x men makes zero sense, they would not be oppressed, REAL advantages are never used to justify oppressing people- REAL advantages are used to oppress people (I emphasized REAL for a reason as someone who has accomodations they are not an actual advantage over my neurotypical classmates). Jewish people, gay and trans people don't have special powers so you can throw them in jail easy, people with Crohn's and learning disabilities and cerebral palsy have disadvantages/struggles which are used to justify oppression meanwhile people in fiction are oppressed for their advantages and lack of struggle. The girls in Akelarre have no powers, they only narrowly escape their execution via trolling the guy abusing them into thinking he can see the witches sabbath if he lets them live until the time the men come back, and that's how you do write irl oppression, fma also knew what it was doing with the Ishvalans- no special powers just normal people with a different appearance. Let's not retire the oppressed mage trope there is a place for it but let's be aware that the excuses used to justify it mimic irl ableist excuses and that because of that it can lead to uncomfortable implications if your not careful

it feels like that trope in fanfic where someone is a straight up god mod sue and none of the conflict feels believable because of them having such extreme power that the conflict should be a corpse,.so the writer just makes shit up. I Love stories with this trope (I actually like the god mod sue fanfics and I'm willing to ignore bullshit conflict so long as the drama that ensues is juicy enough) and I'm not offended by it (again x man fan) but again I would love to see people come up with better conflict than nonsensical fantasy racism allegory that doesn't work as an actual race allegory when you apply logic to it. It's overdone and I wanna see people get creative.

Tldr the oppressed mage trope makes no logical sense (how the fuck do you oppress magneto?) and irl peoples disadvantages are used the excuse to oppress them and when the excuse is that the oppressed party has power that power is made up/ its fake/greatly exaggerated.

Also the last time I linked this article the link didn't work so here I go again:

[springs-hurts]

So I'm tryna think if I should finish reading tsoa because I wanna shit on it so badly but don't wanna do it without finishing it or if I should just let it go cause it won't really give me much pleasure and I'd waste my precious time just to hate smth, smone. Don't wanna do that.

[ebenelephant]

saw a take the other day that who the guys end up with at the end of scoobynatural is indicative of their character, and that sam and velma kiss bc sam's straight.

you absolute fools. ignoring the other issues w that statement, if anything sam and velma kissing just goes to prove that he's a lesbian

[skrunksthatwunk]

yakuza: dead souls - american vibes, bigass guns, and why zombies are super weird to have in ryu ga gotoku thematically/ideologically speaking

so i've been playing dead souls recently (hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah) and although i'm having the time of my life with it, there was something about it that kinda felt off to me, and i think i've figured out what it was, but i'm gonna have to walk you through a bit of my thought process to get there.

my first instinct was that it felt... american? and upon further examination i think that boils down to a couple of things:

everyone suddenly has lots of guns and also way way bigger guns

high emphasis on individual heroism (this itself is quite typical for rgg, but it manifests differently here; more on that in a bit)

military/government incompetence, which must be solved by the right individuals having the biggest and bestest guns

[for the sake of transparency i will note that my experience with zombie media is pretty limited and skews american (and i myself am american), so that may create bias. however, the 'this feels american to me' instinct is a rare one for me even in genres where i have seen little/no non-american media, so i think the fact that it did occur to me is notable. what about dead souls triggered that response when little else has? that's why i examined it and, truthfully, i think there's merit in the idea itself.]

the first point is pretty self-explanatory. america's got more guns than it does people, and its gun worship is infamous. japan's ban on guns (aided by its being an island state) means there's far fewer guns in the country, as well as far fewer people with guns (and likely far fewer guns per gun owner, excepting arms dealers/smugglers) than somewhere without such a ban. obviously, there are guns anyway. due to their illegality they are clustered within the criminal population, which explains their presence within organized crime within the series. very few guns will be sitting around in the homes of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

and yet, when the zombie outbreak hits kamurocho, plenty of civilians suddenly have access to quite an arsenal. everyone has the knowledge they need to aim, fire, and reload smoothly and quickly; ammo is infinite for certain guns. characters we've never seen using firearms before suddenly have shotguns under their couches (looking at you, majima). it's not only very different from reality, it's very different from guns' place within the series up until this point, when they were limited weapons used primarily by the enemy.

and they're making a zombie shooter, so of course they would have to do this. it has to be unrealistic to be simultaneously in this setting and in this genre, in the same way that yakuza solving their problems with bareback fistfights instead of guns is itself both unrealistic and necessary to being the kinds of games rgg are.

my point is that this is a kind of focus on and valorization of gun ownership and competency unusual for the series and setting. further, it serves as an argument for why an armed, competent populace is crucial typical in american media.

which brings us to the third point (we'll get to 2 in a minute). guns are often marketed as self-defense weapons. the implication is that the government's defense of the individual (via law enforcement or the military, but particularly the former), are insufficient. this is objectively true. if someone pulls a gun on you at the gas station, will a cop manifest out of thin air to intercede? no. that's impossible. but if you have a gun, or if some bystander has a gun, you or they may be able to do something with that gun to stop the armed person. thus, there is an undeniable gap in the effective immediacy of such responses.

many gun advocates also point to the incompetence or insufficiency of law enforcement, even when they are present to stop an armed aggressor. the fact that law enforcement do not have a 100% success rate in protecting the citizenry is also objectively true.

so, when you are in danger, arming yourself increases your chances of being able to put down (or at least take armed action against) a present or potential threat. whether it is viewed it as a supplement to or a replacement for law enforcement, it is meant to make up for the shortcomings of the government's ability to completely protect all its citizens. it's a safety net for state failure.

back to dead souls. rgg has always centered political corruption in its stories, including politicians, the police, and sometimes even the military, though usually the former two. sometimes this is treated sympathetically (i.e. tanimura, a dirty cop, whose dirty-cop-ness allows him to work outside/against the law to help disadvantaged people, not unlike how kiryu views being a yakuza), and other times it's simply a matter of greed or lust for power (i.e. jingu).

however, something that's almost never touched on so clearly is government incompetence. when the government fails to help people or hurts them or does corrupt things, it's usually due to a competent, malicious bad apple who is removed from power by the end of the game. this implies holes in the system because it keeps happening all the time, but that's on a series-wide scale, a pattern ignored by the series in favor of the individual game solution of "this guy's gone now :) yay".

but in dead souls, the SDF's barracades fall, their men are killed, they are unable to help protect the people outside or inside the quarantine zone. they are weak in a way the government usually isn't in these games. and who is stronger than them? our individual good guys with guns. so we need to be armed because the government is weak and can't protect us. boom. america.

returning to point 2, i'd like to say that dead souls is not particularly more individualistic than any of the other games in the series (other than, perhaps, y7). rgg is an incredibly individualistic series, actually. its protagonists are usually men who defy, oppose, and skirt around the law as a way of helping others and doing what is truly right (with a few exceptions, like shinada and haruka). the romanticized view of the yakuza as a force for helping the community in the face of government incompetence is a real one, and one that tends to manifest itself most in kiryu and how the series treats him. it shows us yakuza who aren't willing to kill, yakuza who cry about honor and justice and humanity and brotherhood, yakuza who never dip their hands into less palatable crimes, or only do with intense regret (and only ever as part of their backstory). the beat-em-up style emphasizes this as well. i mean, what's more individualistic than a one-man army?

put more clearly, this series is about men defying legal and social laws and expectations to live in a way that feels right to them, and about making themselves strong enough to combat those who would get in their way. the individual is placed before the society in importance, (though generally in a way that benefits the community, because they are good guys who want to use that agency and power for good).

all of this is true in dead souls as well, technically. those who live on the outskirts of society are the ones who actually save the day, and the ones who go in there and save people rather than just walling them off and pretending like they don't exist. they have the guns, which are illegal and mark them as criminals, but this broken law is what gives them the power to save themselves when the government will not, and to save their community if they so choose.

where dead souls differs is in the nature of that strength.

rgg places a lot of emphasis on self-improvement, both of one's body and of one's character. do both of these, and you will be strong enough to back up your ambitions. what allows someone to carve their own path in life is the ability to put down ideological and physical resistance by having resolve and the ability to tiger drop whoever won't be swayed by your impassioned speeches. you make yourself a weapon. you make yourself strong. in dead souls, that strength comes from an external, material possession. strength is something you buy (or that you take from someone else). who is able to survive the apocalypse comes not from the heart, nor from rigorous training, but from who has the most, the biggest, and the most bestest guns. it's an intersection of capitalism, militarization, and individualism. simply, deeply american.

[when i was talking myself through this a few days ago, i spent a lot more time on the capitalism + individualism stuff, but i think i'll keep this moving. consider this aside the intermission]

dead souls also differs for a few other interlocking reasons. it can be described with this equation:

zombification of enemies + lethality of guns = loss of emphasis on redemption

if your best friend turned into a zombie, could you shoot them? or your child? or your lover? it's a common trope, but it's a damn good one. watching your family, your neighbors, your town, everyone turn into a husk of themselves, something that looks like them but cannot be reached, is deeply tragic. it's even more tragic when these husks are trying to kill you. unable to be reasoned with and unable to be cured, you must incapacitate them before someone innocent is hurt--or hurt, then themselves made dangerous; each loss adds to the number of threats surrounding you. your life is seen as more valuable than that of your zombified friend, not only because the zombie is attacking you and it's self defense, but because they are no longer a person to you. to be a zombie is to no longer be human; zombification is dehumanization.

and so in a series so focused on connection with one's community, on saving innocent civilians, often on saving kamurocho specifically, one would expect similar tropes to occur. even if one's friends aren't turned, perhaps the cashier at poppo you chat with sometimes is. it's the destruction of that community and of the members one has tertiary relationships with that i expect would occur most within a kamurocho zombie story, since they are likely unwilling to axe anyone more important than that, even if dead souls isn't canon. i'd especially expect to see that in the beginning, before the need to kill zombies rather than contain or redeem them becomes apparent.

this does not happen.

i cannot speak for the entire game, but i can speak of gameplay choices that affect this, and ones i think will not be subverted throughout, even if they are somewhat contradicted by plot events i am presently unaware of.

kamurocho is not a community to protect, nor is it filled with your fellows. it is a playground filled with infinitely respawning, infinitely mow-downable, infinitely disposable zombies. you are meant and encouraged to kill them by the thousands, and never to hesitate or consider whether they may be cured or who may be mourning them. who may be unable to identify their loved one because you were trying to reach a headshot goal from hasegawa. you are not meant to consider them as human, nor beings that were once human, nor beings that could be human again, in the eyes of the zombie shooter. they are merely bodies, targets, and obstacles.

the zombies are contrasted with the true humans, those barricading themselves within the quarantine zone or those living in ignorance outside it. humans are meant to be saved, zombies are meant to be killed. the player character is the only one who can truly help with either of these goals, because the other humans are cowardly, ignorant, or unarmed/helpless. you must be their savior. to be a savior is to eliminate zombies, who are less than human.

the black and white nature of this is also emphasized by another gameplay characteristic: the lack of street encounters. when you traverse the peaceful parts of kamurocho, you are never attacked. you are also never directly attacked by the humans within the quarantine zone. kamurocho feels very different without its muggers and hooligans, but it's because this is a zombie shooter, not a beat-em-up. in a normal rgg title, you'd subdue threats by punching, kicking, and throwing them. you'd use your body in (supposedly) nonlethal ways. dead souls does not have a combat system meant for civilians. you have your guns. you subdue threats by shooting them, preferably lethally. the game doesn't want you to do that to humans, so you never fight humans. this furthers the black and white divide between the salvation-worthy, noble humans and the death-worthy, worthless zombies. combat is only lethal, and only used against the inherent other.

this leads me to the part of dead souls i find most conflicting with the ethos of rgg broadly, and perhaps its greatest ideological/thematic failing.

because the enemy are incurable, dangerous, and inhuman, you must kill them to protect yourself and others, others who are still human. humanity is something that is lost or preserved, but never regained. once someone's gone, they're gone, and you not only must kill them, it is your duty and your right to kill them. you should kill them.

in dead souls, there is no redeeming the enemy.

and that's a big problem.

rgg is about a lot of things, but a key one is the ability of people to change for the better. its most memorable, beloved villains are those who see the light by the end and change their wicked ways (usually through some form of redemptive suicide, though that's another essay in itself). its pantheon of characters is full of those who come from questionable backgrounds struggling to be the best people they can be, to live as themselves authentically and compassionately. it's about the good and the love you can find in the moral and legal gray zones of life/society, and the potential/capacity for good all of us have, no matter how far we may have fallen. it is a hopeful series. it is a merciful series.

this is something bolstered by its gameplay. countless substories are resolved by punching a lesson into someone until they improve their behavior, either out of fear or genuine remorse/development. the games don't just discourage killing your enemies, they don't allow you to (yes, we've all seen the "kiryu hasn't killed anybody? umm. look at this heat action" stuff before, and while they've got a point, i believe it's the narrative's intent that none of this is actually lethal, based on how laxly it treats certain plot injuries (cough cough. y7 bartender) and the actual concept of taking a life, the gravity it is given by the text, particularly when it comes to characters crossing that threshold into someone who has killed. explicit killing is not an option open to you, even when you're being attacked by dozens and dozens of armed men. conflicts are resolved by simply beating up enough guys in this nonlethal manner.

but dead souls is a shooter. to avoid conflict with the series' moral qualms about letting its characters kill, the enemies cannot be human. furthermore, the zombie shooter genre can only fit within the series if its zombies are completely inhuman. this means their pasts as humans cannot be acknowledged, nor the possibility of a cure, nor the characters' own potential conflicts about killing them; or, at least, not in a way that impedes their or the player's ability to gun them down afterwards.

if you can't kill humans in your series, then it cannot be possible to save (in this case, rehumanize) zombies. this is especially true in a game where you are unable to fight humans, and thus human lives are universally more valuable than zombie lives. because if you kill a zombie that can be cured, you are, in a way, killing a human.

and so, in a series where you should always assume your enemies (and everyone, for that matter) are capable of reason, compassion, change, and redemption, and where they are always worth that effort, even if they reject it in the end, dead souls' enemies are irredeemable and only worth swift, stylish slaughter. there are only good guys and bad guys. good guys must be protected, lest they be turned irreversibly into bad guys. good guys are only protected by killing bad guys, and the only way to save good guys is to kill every last one of the bad guys. do not spare them, and do not ask whether or not it's right. only kill.

i love dead souls. it's a silly game. i like seeing daigo in decoy-drag and majima gleefully cartwheeling his way through zombies and ryuji with his giant gun arm prosthetic. it's fun. but when i was trying to figure out what felt off about it to me, one of the words that came to mind (besides american) was indulgent. that, too, felt odd, because i love indulgent media. i am not one to scorn decadent, hedonistic, beautiful high-calorie slop type media. if dead souls was just fan servicey, that wouldn't really bother me. i am a fan and boy do i feel serviced. it rocks. but i think my problem is in what dead souls is indulging.

i think dead souls indulges in the desire to cut loose, and to see these characters cut loose. thing is, they're cutting loose all over kamurocho, and all over the bodies of people they used to (at least in concept) care for. with lethal weapons. it is catharsis via bloodbath, not by pushing your body and mind to the limit in man to man combat, but by pulling a trigger before the other guy can hurt you, or even think about hurting you, for the crime of existing as the wrong kind of thing.

and i just don't think that's in line with rgg's beliefs.

yes, it's probably fair for dead souls' characters to kill zombies. i'm not against that. i'm also not against games letting you do purposeless violence. i spent a good amount of my elementary school years killing oblivion npcs for shits, like. that's not what bothers me about dead souls.

rgg as a series has always taken a hard stance in both its game design and narrative choices against killing and for the potential for redemption in its enemies. and i think the lengths to which it goes to promote that despite the probably-lethal moves you do and the improbability of a harmless do-gooder yakuza is one of the most endearing things about the games. so for this one entry to disregard that key theme for the sake of a genre shift that flopped super hard, well? i dunno. it feels weird i guess. it's out of place not just because it's a dramatic shift in gameplay and style and also zombies are only a thing here (and the supernatural/fantastical are thus only prominent here), but because of what those shifts imply.

so, uh. yeah. my pre-dead-souls thoughts that dead souls wasn't that out of pocket bc rgg's just kinda weird? turns out it was actually super weird to have a zombie shooter in there, but for way way deeper reasons than anyone gives it credit for.

(footnotes in tags)

[lemonhemlock]

Hi hope you're having a good day / night from where you are 💛

I'm curious what do you think Daeron and Alicent’s relationship was like because I see some say that Alicent probably didn't care much about her youngest son, and that's why She sent him to Oldtown personally I feel like that's not completely true because in westeros it was common to send your son's to be a Lord's ward and Daeron was 12 i think when he's sent away so he's not a baby by westeros standards lol

Also what do you think would have happened if either Daeron or Aemond lived ?

hi & thanks! hope you are doing well, too🍒 honestly, this "alicent doesn't like daeron / is ashamed of him" narrative is pure fanon, thought up by people who maybe don't really understand the medieval ward system. fans are free to imagine what scenarios they want but there's no support for that in the text. as i've said before, sending daeron to oldtown is not a punishment.

if either daeron or aemond survived, then it complicates the succession after the dance bc it would go jaehaera -> daeron/aemond -> aegon, son of daemyra. i've argued before that it makes no sense for the greens to disregard jaehaera. she's their elizabeth of york and also has a dragon, which is not a given for targaryen princesses (check out how many of jaehaerys' daughters did not have dragons). she's important. there's more in my jaehaera tag, as well as my thoughts on giving her a mental disability as a narrative get-out-of-jail-free card.

anyway, with a surviving green targaryen male, there's no way aegon the younger gets to ascend, save for the complete military obliteration of the targtowers. but now you have conflicting claims between the greens. jaehaera becoming queen is in accordance with andal law (a daughter comes before an uncle) but she's also a child and vulnerable. she's the only remaining targaryen girl and has also lost both of her brothers who could have served as her future husband. so imo it would make sense to marry her off to her surviving uncle.

now, this gets further complicated by aemond's relationship with alys and his betrothal to the unnamed baratheon girl. whether he married alys or fathered a child with her is not presented as historical fact by westerosi historians. the show will obviously have to choose one option because aemond can't exist on screen in a state of quantum uncertainty. but that doesn't change the FACT that it's left ambiguous in the books. anyway. if he got married, it's a marriage without documents and witnesses, so the legality of it is up in the air. how a fic writer exploring this scenario chooses to resolve this is up to them, but they should bear in mind that the nobles / allies of the greens would not easily accept a bastard nurse as their queen / the prince regent's wife. again, ship what you want, but romance =/= political wisdom & stability. imo the politically savvy choice in accordance with targaryen customs in the asoiaf universe would be to just marry jaehaera and compensate the baratheons in some other way for breaking the betrothal.

ofc with daeron it's all easier bc he's unmarried

in addition, if we're already altering the ending so much, it's important to note that there is no reason for alicent to die here. GRRM nerfs her via westerosi covid only bc he wants a clean slate moving forward for aegon iii's rule. but it's a deus-ex-machina ending for her arc. she's nowhere near death age and is not sickly.

[v-arbellanaris]

Re the power struggle between the Grey Wardens and the Chantry. You can also snatch Anders right from the templars grasp and it's possible that a big reason why he's left alone in DA2 is because he's a Grey Warden. Anders hardly makes his actions in DA2 a secret. He is loudly rebelling, yet the templars leave him alone.

That's why the whole Warden arc in DAI makes no sense. The Chantry and kingdoms of Thedas have no authority over the Wardens, but an upstart order who is effectively nothing but a branch of the Chantry does?

YES! i started writing the post abt the wardens in the middle of collating more info about it but i was so gobsmacked at how much there was just pre-ostagar that i wrote the post before getting to the rest of the series and then the post blew up LMAO

i think part of anders not getting snatched up by templars when he's in the party with you is just nonsense mechanics stuff (they should've had a quest like they did in dao -- tho i think that quest was deleted lmao -- where if you try hand morrigan over to the templars, she leaves the party permanently, or even like in lothering where they can ask that templar what he'd do with an apostate and he susses out that you and morrigan are mages and goes "ive got bigger problems than apostates atm") BUT there is dialogue & quest stuff confirming that the templars raid darktown fairly often looking for him outside of whenever he comes on quests with you, so i dont think he was untouched because he was a warden.

if anything, i think him being a circle mage seemed to be more important than him being a warden since the chantry explicitly sends templars after him while he's with the wardens. to repeat: the chantry sends templars to hunt down warden mages, which is fucking illegal. wardens exist outside of the jurisdiction of the chantry! they have no right to drag warden mages into the circle, even if the warden mage was originally an apostate OR if they were a circle mage. AND justinia was canonically looking for the warden to become inquisitor before she sent cassandra looking for hawke -- the implications for a surana/amell are pretty horrifying.

i hated HLTA for so many reasons, but mostly, i hated it because it justified the inquisition taking action against the wardens, as if they had a right to it. "we're going to stop the wardens from summoning demons to fight the darkspawn and kill the archdemons" and that's a bad thing because Summoning Demons Is Bad, as if blood magic isn't the most effective thing against darkspawn (which! considering the implications of red lyrium being magic repelling is so fascinating. does being a grey warden mean some of your connection to the fade is messed up???). as if wanting to end the blights is bad -- we have solas calling the wardens ignorant and stupid as if the wardens killing archdemons and fighting darkspawn isn't the only thing that has saved the world every time a blight has erupted. and it pisses me off that no real reason is ever given for WHY it's a bad idea, we're just supposed to take it at face value that because solas, an elven god who definitely knows more than we do just trust bioware ok, says its a bad idea, it's a bad idea. the warden's plan is a bad thing because Someone Else Will Use The Demons To Take Over The World and Only The Wardens Could Ever Summon This Many Demons as if kirkwall doesn't have shades popping up outside of the hanged man every other day. corypheus was literally in kirkwall???

it would've been something if corypheus was using the wardens to get the location of the archdemons. wouldn't it tie into his crisis of faith and the sense of danger so much more? he's gone looking for his gods but raising them is definitely going to cause a double blight. but why bother raising the stakes or creating any level of danger for corypheus, right? that's not the point of the game :)

and yeah, the inquisition 100% has no authority or leg to stand on to engage with the wardens or even to kick them out of orlais. yet the quest -- and most of the game -- is framed in such a way that these actions seem justified. in general, this quest was a clumsy way to end a conflict that's been building over the course of the entire franchise -- which can be said about any of the longstanding conflicts addressed in dai tbh.

[nyaskitten]

wu ninjago... I love you...