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dimiclaudeblaigan · 1 year ago

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(Part 1) (Part 2)

Part 3 of the insanely long posts where I discuss the messy writing for Edelgard, why it failed her as a character, and how they had every opportunity to write her well but didn't.

This part continues my comparisons from the previous post. The post was already extremely long and I felt that it would be difficult to read it in one sitting if it wasn't broken up (it might even still be lol).

Like before, the Tellius games are used as examples that discuss what went wrong with Houses and how smoothly the story handled itself, versus Houses' push and pull story, particularly regarding Edelgard (as compared to Ashnard and occasionally Micaiah). That is to say, Tellius knew what it wanted to do and succeeded at doing it. Houses on the other hand wanted something and kept holding back.

It's notable how most characters refer negatively to those who joined the Empire, or there's indication that they were forced to do so.

"Deluding" being a very fucking good word used here, and by Ignatz of all people which says a lot on its own, let alone that he's saying it to his best friend. Basically, the general response to fighting characters from the Empire or who joined the Empire willingly is "you made your bed and now you have to lay in it", whether that's killing your friends or regretting your choice, etc.

"If I wish to live" is a very heavy thing to have to say. Lorenz is basically in no better a position than being a hostage at this point.

This is when attacking him with anyone but Byleth, so it's more difficult to say if he's talking to them or referring to himself (i.e. why would you attack the Empire at a time like this because doing so is reckless). Based on the above quote though, it's fair to assume he's referring to himself, indicating he wants to oppose them and plans to, but at the moment he can't.

Similarly, we have this from PoR:

Forced into service for Ilyana.

Implication by Oscar that Daein is a questionable choice. Shinon explains that he can rise to the top with good skill (which he has) and so chose Daein. This reflects Ashnard and Edelgard's "rise to the top" mentality.

Something else worth noting a bit off this particular topic is that Ashnard and Edelgard both refer to their rule as their vision for "the world". However, as far as the residents of Tellius are aware, Tellius is the world because the rest of the world save for their continent was drowned in a flood a long time ago. Edelgard refers to Fodlan, the continent, as "the world" multiple times in both games. Very notably, all main characters on all other routes refer to Fodlan as, well, Fodlan. When they speak of their ideals for its future, they still refer to it as "Fodlan", thus expressing their desire for the future of their continent, but not implying anywhere outside of Fodlan is beneath them (which would be true to Edelgard's character, as she believes all non-Adrestia lands are beneath her, which is literally one of the first things she ever says in Houses depending on your response selection).

Other than that, here we go with more similarities:

This is very reflective of what characters feel toward Edelgard. What Bryce says is also a reflection of CF's ending cards (those of you reading this who are here for this content and not hate reading know what I mean I'm sure, so I won't put in a full list of examples, but for some: censorship, assassinations, watching the citizens, Caspar's JP CF ending (implied to be no better than Miklan's old group), etc.

For the next one, Ashnard's line is basically the concept Houses gives off as a whole and is also even referring to a few times, that history will decide if someone's actions action were just or evil. It depends on the victors, and that's what Ashnard is saying here.

There's also the fact that he's being told, by a former Four Rider no less, that his path is "so incredibly stupid" (in the most polite, knightly way possible even LMAO. Points for Tauroneo for that one). Considering Ashnard and Edelgard have identical goals and motivations across the board (aside from genocide, as Ashnard doesn't care about genociding any race (i.e. Nabateans for Edelgard) and has no desire to) and this is dialogue given directly to Ashnard, who literally does not respond to the actual comments and pivots to something else (which is exactly what Edelgard does throughout all routes in Houses, be it her own or the others), imo it says a whole lot about Edelgard as well and the intentions the writers had for her as a character.

So effectively, Jill's words here are dismissed by her enemy. I don't recall that Edelgard does this quite so directly to people, but she does use words that dodge the comments aimed at her. She makes it a point to let her enemies know that she does not care.

Granted, at least Ashnard is funny about it! Come back some other time I'm busy is a lot funnier than no u.

Adding this in from RD since it holds relevance to the Edelgard portions of this:

This is if you don't recruit Jill and trigger this battle dialogue.

This is an example of desperately trying to defend the actions of someone you care about but can't actually defend. In this case, obviously Micaiah more or less had her hands tied because of the Blood Pact (an actual reason for the fighting that she was against and literally had no choice regarding, i.e. she wasn't "forced to do it because of the status quo" or any other nonsense used to prevent Edelgard from sounding like the villain the devs literally said she is).

Back to Tanith, boy, I wish she could've been in Houses with this line. For the people, Edelgard says? Look around you, naive classmates of hers who followed her because (insert shallow reason here that even Hopes gave more depth toward). Is all this death for the people? Well, according to Edelgard it sure is. It's deaths for the people! She sees a bright, happy future (for herself!) in all this death!

No, I'm not joking. Well, I'm making fun of it. I'm making fun of the fact that the devs actually thought to have this in the game (Houses) and still tried to pivot around her being a full on villain. Edelgard repeats many times that she will kill and sacrifice for her goals (not for the people, but for her own selfish goals like Ashnard. She uses "for the people" as her cover story, but we all know if we're not here to hate read what those CF ending cards really told us).

Point being, "for the people" is the cover up story, and Tanith is saying "this isn't for the people". Fact is, she's right. It's not for the people. In Micaiah's case as per this game, it's because they're being forced by Begnion (the Begnion Empire, mind you, which in both Tellius games has its own extreme problems among its nobility just like Adrestia) via Blood Pact to continue this fight. Tanith isn't stupid. She knows this mess isn't for the people. That's how Micaiah has to phrase it to get people to fight for her and not turn on her, because if they do decide not to fight, that means they aren't capitulating to the Empire's demands and thus the Senate will initiate the Pact. She convinces her allies it's for the people, who they themselves don't even necessarily truly believe it but force themselves to for a friend's sake.

For Edelgard, it's a cover up story, but of course it's not because of a Blood Pact. In her case, it's back to Ashnard. Her story/character/motivations/etc are a mix of Ashnard in Micaiah's part 3 situation. She's basically Ashnard but with people defending her with lines similar to what they say about Micaiah/why she's doing what she's doing. This doesn't mean Edelgard and Micaiah are the same, no - it means that's just what the characters say about Edelgard in her defense.

Also, if there's an Empire in an FE game, it's the villainous territory, plain and simple. As a few examples because I'm not going through every game:

Begnion is a major antagonizing territory in RD, and in PoR there are many things going on behind Sanaki's back because a good chunk of the nobility is corrupt. Even their army is corrupt in RD. Let's not also forget that the mastermind antagonist of the entire Tellius series' plot is the fucking Prime Minister of the Begnion Empire. He's no Duke Aegir (who is, mind you, also a villainous Prime Minister), but the way he manipulated Ashnard the way Thales manipulated Edelgard is eerily similar. Difference being, he actually cared about Sanaki and they had a very positive relationship which was genuinely real and true, but he did admit to lying to her and whatnot. He staged everything, much like how Thales staged everything to cause a continental war (the entire premise of what Ashnard is trying to do). The Begnion Empire is basically run by corrupt nobles and a guy masterminding a continental war, with Sanaki as the figurehead. It's a combination of Adrestia's corrupt nobles and Thales' manipulation, with Edelgard being the manipulated into action Ashnard who always had these ambitions but just needed the spark to begin his war.

In FE4's second half and in FE5, they are fighting, surprise, an Empire that is run by, surprise, a literal cult of shadowy, underground people waiting to take revenge on the bloodlined people. This is the inspiration they took from FE4 during Houses obviously, but that alone should tell you the Empire is meant to be the villainous territory in Houses. Jugdral had been ravaged by the Lopt Sect and the people were, and knew they were, suffering. All this to revive their god, just as the Agarthans were trying to revive their hero Nemesis. Mind you, Loptous is the villain that the bad people are trying to revive, so... that should probably tell you Nemesis ain't that great of a dude. If he's a hero the villains, anyone considering him a hero is also a villain. Edelgard just also believes anything the Agarthans feed her for some reason and parrot all their beliefs and desires despite being a victim of them. Stupid writing choice for her imo, but that's what was decided. Not to say Edelgard is anything like Alvis, boy oh sir no, that's another topic entirely but don't get me started on it. All I will say is that they're nothing alike. Edelgard says the pretty words but doesn't go through with them nor mean them. He says them and he means them, but he was blocked by the Lopt Sect who had the actual control of the Empire. Every blame was laid at his feet, but he had no real power and that was stated directly in the game.

Grado was basically an empire that was corrupt in waiting. No matter how righteous it seemed due to its leaders, as soon as those leaders died/got corrupted, the nasty people came flocking out. That means they were there all along and as soon as they got their chance, they took it. Take a look at the villains you face and how nasty of people they are. Look how bad it became as soon as Fomortiis was truly in charge.

Dolhr is a fucking disaster I ain't even getting into that internal dragon war turned dragon and human mess LOL; just know it's Not A Good Place. Also consider that Lang (a particularly terrible person) betrayed Grust (a perfectly reasonable place turned corrupt due to Dolhr's influence) to join up with them and Lorenz said Not Today, rebelled, and Lang was in charge of ordering Marth to go fend off that rebellion (and threatened Altea to get Marth to agree to fight). Lorenz continued to say Not Today to the point of committing suicide rather than work alongside them or die for them. He held no ill will toward Marth for what Marth had been ordered and essentially threatened to do (for fear of Altea's position in all this). Seeing Lorenz of all people refuse to take part in Grust's Dohlr loving bullshit, Marth also rebelled. Consider that how every time a Leicester noble sides with the Empire, it tends to be the corrupt or morally questionable ones. Like Marth, people were afraid to rebel. Quite ironically (or perhaps intentionally? who knows the devs ain't said), it ends up being Houses!Lorenz who rebels against the Empire in VW and optionally in AM if recruited (or in AM would die as, again, essentially the Empire's hostage). Like Archanea!Lorenz, he was against the Empire, and like Marth, fought with them for a short time out of the force of threat to himself/his lands and people but eventually had enough and turned on them.

So, did the writing skimp out on Edelgard and Adrestia being completely villainous? Yes. Are they supposed to be? Yes, absolutely. Both in writing and by the devs' word, she is the villain. Did they, in the game, fuck that up because she was marriage material? Absolutely! Did they reduce her character to being a love interest who was obsessed with the player character and couldn't win her war without her love interest? Yes, completely!

What I'm saying is that she had potential to be more interesting (re: I love Ashnard and I've said this many many many times and will never stop saying it because he's a great villain and probably my favorite in the entire franchise, which imo should say a lot when I view him and Edelgard on completely ends of the villain spectrum despite them being identical in all the explained ways) and it was ruined by the devs toning her down so that she could be waifu material.

She had potential to be a well written character and great villain like Ashnard is, but it was bogged down both making her an uwu sweet waifu (thus attempting to negate her bad qualities with the uwu behavior) and trying to insist that she was fighting for a good cause (which I suspect is because they wanted to make her marriage material. You don't see us being able to marry Ashnard or, as a female example of a villain, Petrine - who for that matter directly serves Ashnard).

My point in this last section is that FE Empires have been the villains since its goddamn inception, and Adrestia is no stranger to that, but Edelgard herself was written as though, because she's a woman, had to be fetish bait, marriage bait, and a cute girl. If it was a man running her Empire, we'd have the result of... -lists off every male imperial ruler in FE history-.

It's also a huge shame to me that the first time they truly had a woman in charge of the villainous territory, they completely botched it. It could have been awesome to have a good female villain, but they ended up blurring the lines. They ended up reducing her to straight man bait too, what with all her female relationships having women obsess over her (compare to the other wlw relationships, canonically optional or not (ex. Cathmir being a canon ending and Dorogrid not being an ending), which don't feature the women involved treating their partner how the women treat Edelgard). I'm not saying bi or lesbian players can't like her, but that she was seemingly written with straight male players in mind.

Other wlw relationships aren't written the way Edelgard's relationships are written, which is basically nothing but loving up on her most of the time (both male and female characters do this except Ferdinand and Linhardt, the former of which was completely rewritten to be a 180 and yet another of Edelgard's harem in Hopes). This includes Petra, who is a political hostage. She should be questioning Edelgard as to why her territory isn't free yet despite Edelgard being emperor now, or when it will happen. None of this is really touched on, and Petra just decides that she wants to fight and die for Edelgard (including in Hopes, where her feelings about that are even stronger and she literally says in their A support that she knows she's risking her life but actively desires to for Edelgard's sake, even if it means betraying her own people for it). Instead, they ignore all that for the sake of having yet another female obsess over her.

Now, does this mean people are bad for liking the better sides of her that happened as a result of this? No, people can still enjoy the character we ended up getting because of these side steps - the character we ended up with regardless of their intentions. However, I do think it's because of all these side steps that people don't see her as a villain despite every intention of that being there and being present. However, I also think people should understand why she's also hated because of these side steps. For example, why I hate the Edelgard that we ended up getting, but yet I love Ashnard despite all these many comparisons I've made.

It's just a shame that we didn't get to play on the villain's side and have it play out as, very explicitly, that the player character is now also a villain. That we made the choice for our character to be a villain to side with the villain and ultimately take part in villainous actions. It's a game with a story! That kind of thing should be explored! It doesn't make people bad for enjoying a villain's side of the story with that villain not being side stepped as a good person. If we got to play a route Ashnard I would love that! I wouldn't deny that he's the villain just because I'm playing his route though, and that's what CF tried to do - deny that the villain is the villain. It's not "everyone has their reasons" yadda yadda everything and anything is morally gray. That's what they try to push to excuse Edelgard despite her being Female Ashnard in every other regard.

There's a reason it got to the point of the infamous "no u" line - because they were trying to have a story that justified the villain, fell short of it because the not-villain they kept gunning for the idea of was committing villainous behavior/actions, and couldn't actually justify it in a way that sounded reasonable. It ended up coming like she had no excuse for her actions, which, yes, makes sense, because she doesn't have any! She's the villain! But they... tried so hard... to side step it... when they had nothing they could side step it with... and now that line is the local Houses laughing stock... in the woman's own route...

Lastly, there's the aspect of the war dialogue versus playable characters. There are two things:

Most of the recruitable students in CF only say they fight for the Empire because they fight for Byleth - their professor - not Edelgard. The only characters who specifically say they're fighting for Edelgard are the original BE students. The others claim to only be following Byleth's path (or they simply joined after being spared).

In other words, the recruited characters weren't given dialogue to imply they actually care about Edelgard's path and are not even there for her. That gives off the notion that these characters aren't necessarily even in agreement with her. Very few (such as Lysithea if recruited prior to being spared, and Constance) actually fight specifically for the Empire or Edelgard (and Constance's reason is for herself and not Edelgard).

Basically, the writers didn't bother even trying to give the characters motivation to fight for Edelgard's path, and so made many of them - let's face it - ooc in the process. I won't go over details in this post about specific characters being ooc, but if anyone is ever curious and doesn't already know, I could definitely make separate posts for those.

In comparison, RD gives legitimate motivations to the characters you fight against regardless of which side they're fighting on. Zihark is the most iffy, as his motivations to defect from Daein for the Laguz Alliance make more sense, but even he is at least given the introspection of "why am I fighting for this/what am I doing". Any character who was previously playable in PoR has a legitimate motivation to fight for the side they're on, including the possible defector characters where their dialogue makes sense on either side.

Some characters also understand they're fighting people they care about and just won't fight them. Brom and Meg, father and daughter (a huge disaster in CF when it comes to parents fighting their children and absolutely butchering the parent characters' characterization just to somehow make the situation work even though there were better ways of handling that) won't fight each other, just as Zihark will not attack laguz - fitting right into his character. He will attack back against a beorc, but in gameplay will not attack back if attacked by a laguz.

In Houses, they didn't even bother with this and it made a lot of the relationships feel a lot more shallow. For example, Ilyana is only on the side of the Laguz Alliance in part 3, but she can talk to Micaiah - her previous commander in part 1. She attempts to talk Micaiah out of fighting, eventually deciding well okay fine we're both strong against each other's magic so it's not too bad, to her despondently giving up and saying they should forget that conversation ever happened.

On a very similar note, the dialogue in Houses is often very volatile (particularly in the localization) from recruited characters to their former friends.

They gave off the impression that the Empire is right and just, and how dare anyone be against them. The dialogue is handled in a way that makes almost every character angry (with few exceptions, one being Mercedes against Annette) with their old friends. There is very very little of characters being genuinely upset in a sad way that they're fighting their old friends.

When characters in RD know each other and have to fight, it's always respectful and/or sad. The relationships are respected in the writing - individually - and character's didn't have to be tweaked to make their situaton work.

What does this have to do with Edelgard's writing? It's the fact that characters recruited onto CF treat the war they're fighting on the side of to be the correct side in a way that tells the player "you are the good guys". Now why is that a problem? Because the intent was originally to make Edelgard a villain.

Instead of going through with it, they made it so every character you recruit (including characters who spent their entire lives prior to the war living in the lands they are now attacking and helping an aggressor army invade) didn't just become a villain along with the rest of the people on your side. They make them come off as actually justified.

I don't mean just that the characters themselves believe they are personally justified, but that the narrative itself tries to tell you yes, they are actually justified... even though we're trying to also tell you that these are the villains you're with. The narrative itself pushes against itself, framing you as being in the right, and always pushing characters to be sad about fighting Edelgard regardless of her actions.

While Dimitri has the back and forth in the second half of AM about how he feels about fighting her, he's the only character who has a justifiable reason to feel so conflicted. The narrative is always pushing how sad it is that you have to fight her outside of just Dimitri's feelings. They take it a step further in Hopes, when Edelgard basically has a harem of people obsessed with her and praises her for all she does, never telling her when she's gone too far.

Compare this to Micaiah, who Soren claims is seen as a goddess by her followers. She has the love of many people, including playable characters, who openly doubt her and her actions (specifically in part 3) - repeatedly. Micaiah is not a villain and is not written to be. Characters push against her for answers and reasons (including Sothe, who is basically the Hubert to Edelgard), leaving her in awkward positions where all she can say is that she believes in her king, because the truth is, she has no other answer.

Houses' narrative keeps trying to insist that Edelgard is justified and heroic, while constantly having her lie to the other characters/not answer their questions or concerns, ally with the other villains, invade innocent and neutral lands, conscript civilians, admit to sacrificing her own civilians for her own personal selfish goals (so sacrificing random innocent civilians just going about their daily lives who have nothing to do with her), consider all lands not ruled by her to be beneath her, victim blame anyone who fights back against her, and... the list. Goes. On.

As a character she had potential to be a great villain whose side of the story you could actually play, but for whatever reason the writers just... didn't go through with it. Whether it was for marketing, because they didn't really know what they wanted to do ultimately, felt that you shouldn't be able to marry a villain and didn't want to remove the option to marry her, who knows. It just remains that the story went in wildly different directions and ended up with people having different perceptions of Edelgard because of it.

And if anyone says "but you hate Edelgard so of course you would say all this!", I'm gonna respond to them with a picture of Ashnard and that's it. :)

Also, I hate Micaiah (and will admit she's not the villain) and have for many, many years (looong before Edelgard was even a thought in IS' mind)... but Edelgard's existence has lessened that hate somewhat slightly because of how awful her character is. I don't mean that in a love to hate way either - I mean that treating her atrocious behavior and actions as good and heroic is disgusting and abhorrent to me.

There are extremely, extremely, extremely few characters in the entire overall franchise I truly hate with a visceral hate that goes beyond "ugh they're so annoying". Of those characters, most of them are just well written villains and not characters I hate the stories of (Valtome comes to mind, but he's a very unfortunate case of evil queer villain stereotype. May not have actually been an intentional dig at queer people from IS though and may have actually been a harmless whoopsie (especially given how RD has, iirc, the first trans character in the franchise, which the localization sneakily completely cut out from its existence. Nowadays we have Rosado for queer rep, so that points a little bit more to Valtome being a big whoopsie-we-didn't-mean-it-that-way. Lekain also comes to mind, who at least isn't a big oopsie).

So no, I don't just hate Edelgard for the sake of hating her. I hate her because the narrative evidently couldn't handle her, or the fact that she was a female lead and a villain. Considering that, that's why I wanted to make this analysis - to list off the reasons that I find that the writing failed her as a character. That writing is how my feelings came to be what they are.

She wasn't allowed to be her own character and own it. Ashnard was allowed to be his own character and own it. I don't agree with Ashnard and his world would be shit to live in lol. He's an interesting and amazingly handled character though, and I absolutely love him for what he is.

I love Tellius because of how authentic the writing feels. How real, true and emotional it feels. Both its games don't shy away from putting their leads on the spot. It tackles difficult subjects and it handles them spectacularly. Characters are put into certain situations where they react as you would expect them to, thus not manipulating things here and there just to make a situation fit and work that normally shouldn't.

Yes, I am absolutely fucking telling you that Sylvain would never lay a hand on Dimitri, Felix or Ingrid that wasn't a bro hand or a flirt hand. He is their awkward flirting bro and he would not kill them. Thanks Hopes btw for fixing the recruitment issue and making almost none of the Lions able to defect - because they wouldn't based on who they are and instead of staying true to that in Houses, they changed those things just to fit the mechanic of recruitment instead of limiting who you could recruit to make sense with the characters.

Anyway, I think I'm done with this absolutely ridiculously insanely gigantically huge giant analysis that took three massively enormous parts to finish. Hopefully I don't think or anything else to add.

If you made it this far, you are the good shit.

#DCB Comments #If you managed to get through all of this good job lol #I think I just... had a whole lot to say that I'd avoided saying before bc of the fandom #but I think it's something worth looking at since they've clearly successfully written #a character like this before - exactly like this - and did a fantastic job #I felt very differently in Houses than I did with PoR and this is kind of like... a lot of the reasons why #Edelgard Critical #DCB Three Houses Stuff

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neighawolf · 7 months ago

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18. Saorstinien! Boy did these two dance around this topic. A Lot. While technically both deleveloped emotions during Heavensward, they parted ways (Estinien did his...thing. Saoirse returned to Sharlay to finish her 'degree' and earn her Mark.) They didn't reconnect until Shadowbringers. When everyone else got yeeted to the First, she came in to study and help stabalize aether. They accidentally ran into each other when Estinien was called to do a supply run. There was a lot of tension, blushing and silent blinking at each other. Though I think by pure presence and persistence, silent protection and enduring her berating and ranting with a smile (which always flustered her) It was Estinien who accepted (more than confessed) his feelings first. As Endwalker happened, she was incredibly thankful for his patience in letting her sort stuff out. and she was the first who actually, physically said/confirmed/made official their relationship. 20. Mizurgu! Rielle! Obviously! The two are competitive with one another and often deep in their own funk sorting through stuff and she often has to coax them into talking to each other. She feels like the mother of them sometimes and is fiercely protective of both of them. She doesn't like people teasing them. When Big Scary Sidurgu the Obsidian Heart gets soft and gentle when he holds Mizu's hand or kisses her, Rielle makes laser beam death threats (think Hilidebrand's mom) at anyone who even thinks of making a soft Sid joke. 26. They don't really have a specific place. Their place is maybe...the road? or On the back of Mizu's dragon. The World is their place. Freedom, the next Horizon, The Sky. The choice to go anywhere, and never be alone. 25. Rorianger! They have little conflicts quite often. the "you always leave half full cups of tea everywhere" or "we should go outside instead of staying in, or reading...again." or "you move around too much, its exhausting looking at you sometimes. Just sit still." little annoying conflicts. The only MAJOR conflict they've had was being parents. I talk about that a lot. They resolved it by accidentally adopting a kid. (Rornir saved a girl and just instantly adored her and...that's how he became a dad). The little conflicts they resolve through compromise. A No Magic Monday was implimented to get Urianger to do physical work and not be at his books. Urianger isn't allowed to keep work related books at home to keep from always working. Rornir goes to therapy to resolve his fidgety nature or goes to physical work outs with Alex. Group Spa day has also been implemented.

35. Sera/Shtola/Meric! The Ideal date requires both Y'sthola and Aymeric to not be stuck in the offices/Studies lol. Usually it involves Sera cooking a whole feast. Its his favourite thing. Ideally, he'd be teaching them to cook, flirting and being messy in the kitchen. A cozy candlelit date in a covered outdoor setting, 4 course meal, dessert, imported expensive wine while Y'sthola reads from her favourite story books and Aymeric recites poetry. and they fall asleep cuddled by the fireplace. Or...they just agree to take their favourite himbo catboy to the Eorzean Aquarium and watch him devolve into the purest form of Orange Cat energy. lol

37. R'aurora/G'raha! They both suffer from the condition "work too hard for many days straight and forget to basic function like sleep" So time apart could also be them being miles away mentally for days on end, deep in their research, while being less than 10 feet away. And they both study similar things. Allagan, Technology, souls and life magic. So sometimes the best "reunions" are actually just one of them coming back from their deep thinks before the other, going out to get something from the Last Stand, some lotion or soaps for a bath, their toothbrushes and hair brushes, and maybe some blankets. They just quietly wait for the other to finish their work, or gently pull them out of their headspace and have this tiny little...slice of life reality check. and a little intimate bathing/hygiene check. Their reunions that mean the most are those that reality check each other, and remember to touch and feel alive. 39. Thanlex! (I answered 38 previously. The short answer being "a place you leave and then miss" followed by "A home doesn't need to be four walls and a roof" Alex's ideal home is Thancred.) So I'll answer the next one the list. Their "first" kiss was all they way back in ARR, when Alex carried limp Thancred out of the exploding Garlean building after defeating Gaius. She was doing CPR and he just went in for a kiss. Probably in shock or just being a cheeky little shit. She punched him for it. Knocked him back unconscious. He 'claims' to not remember. But their 'first' emotion filled kissed was actually a role reversal, end of Shadowbringers, after defeating Vauthry and being consumed by Light and Emet's bullshit. She collapsed and he ran to her, tried to get to conscious, cpr turned to desperate kiss. She breathed then immediately vomited light before passing out but...stable ish. Their first, real, real kiss was shortly after, after the conversation with Ardbert and Feo Ul. (you know that whole scene) She was just..really not in a good place. Thancred managed to catch up with her as the party went to prepare to leave. Sighed and faced him, squaring off. "Fine. Prepare your worst. You're owed your angry rant after everything I did. I expect you have much to say." She couldn't look him in the eye. He sighed, smiled a sad and heartbroken smile and pulled her in for a hug. "I'm just happy you're alive, Lex. Nothing else to say." He felt her crying and smiled, wiped a tear away with his thumb and went in it. He was a little shocked when she engaged the kiss back and they just bumped heads lightly and he held her. "I still owe you that drink, yeah. So no dying. Again." She laughed and it melted his heart and that was their first actual kiss.

Because answering this on tweet site is gonna be hard I'll try and make a thread lol but feel free to ask me here!!

I stole from fren <3 Please ask me about my ship dynamics and/or ships (including all the others that aren't Rorianger/Thanlex) they are: Rornir/Urianger Alex/Thancred Bastian/Marcechamp R'aurora/G'raha Sera/Y'sthola/Aymeric Saoirse/Estininen Mizuki/Sidurgu Sorn'daer/Heather (oc)

#ffxiv #love #ffxiv wol #ffxiv oc #oc lore #final fantasy xiv #wol #final fantasy 14 #ff14 #ama #ask me stuff #please ask me these too!#asks open #ask me anything #ask #ask blog #send asks

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love-killed-the-superstar · 9 months ago

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Yeah... I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about BTTS to be honest. Although iirc Serling comes back with them, so thank god he'll be there to help me through that last difficult season. I could have done without most of s5. My favourite episode was Membership Drive because it was great seeing Nano get a happy ending and Mikey and Leo do another superhero team up with the Justice Force. The fact that it was the only episode NOT focused on the demon subplot...

Good point about Sh'okonabo - at least no one will ever call this guy original. Everything he does has been done more effectively by other villains in past seasons. I liked some of Laird's ideas for what they could have done with him, but ultimately it seems like he wasn't too happy with this guy either lol. Besides all the gross-out humour in that episode, I did find the evil goo episode fun, but oh my GODD the ending made the entire thing feel completely pointless.

Raph needs a hug, Mikey needs some antidepressants, and Leo needs his personality back. Don is the one thriving for once, and he has already been through so much, I won't take that away from him.

All the FF notes I've read from Laird's blog have been about TT2 so I haven't seen this Cody rant yet but omg I'm excited for it because it's a relief to know that everyone working on FF wasn't oblivious to how much he fucked the turtles over???? Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy when watching.

"It would make Cody look bad" GOOD!!!! GOD FORBID THE NEPO BABY HAS TO ANSWER TO HIS MISTAKE THAT HAS COMPLETELY UPROOTED THEIR LIVES, RIGHT???? They say never meet your heroes but how about never meet your fans??? These turtles didn't ask to be hero-worshipped, dumped 100 years in the future with no easy way home, and then forced to live with the person who got them into this mess. It would have been SUPER CATHARTIC to let Raph (or honestly, any of them) tear him a new one. I've been manifesting it in my rewatch and it just never happens!! The one thing that consoles me is knowing that when they returned to the present they left Cody in 2105 without Serling and with every single enemy they didn't manage to defeat because they were saving them for season 2. He is going to be so screwed and I'm living for it.

OH IF YOU DO I AM GOING TO EAT THIS UP. In fact please let me cameo in it. I'll help you Mr Dunn. Together we can end Scrappy Jones once and for all.

(Fun fact that isn't really relevant but I wasn't sure where else to put - Darius, Jammerhead and the Street Phantoms show up in the IDW comics! I haven't read to that point yet, so I can't say if they're anywhere near as cartoonish as they are in FF or if it gave them all a more grounded take. But it fascinated me when I found out that they exist outside of FF, especially Darius without Cody. I'm curious to find out what they did with him when I eventually get there lol. I'm relieved that they left Sh'Okonabo where he belongs, dead and buried.)

I think... highly controversial opinion here... I would have taken a second season of FF over BTTS, just because I feel like the cyber Shredder plot is bullshit, Serling doesn't deserve to get stuck 100 years in the past forever, and there were some fun concepts that I wish they'd explored. In my ideal version of FF2 maybe they realised FF1 fell short in a lot of ways and got their shit together and made a good fucking season as compensation, but I guess we'll never know if they would have improved it or not. If it was the same quality as FF1 I'd be annoyed but I'd probably still watch it. I'm dreading watching BTTS. Zell made me watch that webisode and I still have nightmares about it.

I'd end FF2 with the turtles and splinter returning home (without serling because my man has been through enough) through a time portal, only to find that all of their friends have been awaiting their return (maybe ancient one got a vision or smth) in a surprise party. they get embraced by everyone they have helped and loved along the way, and they sigh and say "it's good to be home". like the wedding but with way less awkwardness to it, and ofc I would give Leo and Usagi their much-desired reunion. Oh, and Klunk gets to be there, because I miss him so much in FF. Cody if you don't include a Klunk memorial shrine in your creepy little turtle museum I swear...

Turtle Titan 2 my beloved!!!!!! The fact that Laird wanted him to be a much bigger character in FF2 makes me so happy. He's one of the few characters/storylines I really, really like from FF, not just for who he is as a person but what he represents - that Mikey's compassion and sense of justice made a difference that has impact 100 years later. But ah well, if FF didn't want to use him more, their loss. He's mine now and I'm going to mold him like clay.

This........... actually never dawned on me until you pointed it out. Holy shit? You're right. Where are all the humans?!?!? My best explanation is maybe NNY is like a 'hub' for alien life on Earth compared to other major cities and countries, and that's why there's a higher alien-to-human ratio. I feel like the street phantoms are human, just using some sort of device that makes them ghostly?? But I could be wrong, I was NOT paying attention lol.

O'Neill Tech controlling so much of NNY is wild, because when you have one company running everything, that is HUGELY RISKY. It also feels like even if Darius wasn't actively trying to murder his nephew to gain control over the business, it's still operating under shady circumstances. Like do we really think April and Don would have wanted this cyberpunk hold on NNY? Personally I don't. I have to wonder if Cody's parents were even shadier than Darius is.

Cody is kept inside for ethical reasons. Darius is protecting the world from Cody, not the other way around.

I've wondered about the rest of the building!!!! Accommodation for O'Neill Tech employees maybe? Or maybe it's informally known as Nepo Baby Buildings to the locals.

My opinion on Serling completely changed once I realised what a NIGHTMARE he was up against. The fact that Splinter was actively participating in creating the mess and making jokes like "no it's not terrible that we trashed your home, it's terrible that my sons didn't catch the plate I just threw at the wall" is INSANE TO ME. WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!!!! YOU'RE NOT THE HAMATOS I KNOW AND LOVE!!!!!! Serling is the only one calling them out for their obnoxious bullshit so he's where my solidarity lies now.

I actually love the idea that they're doing this to be passive-aggressive. I choose to believe that from now on.

Lastly - yes, what the hell happened to Leo's personality, did it get banished with the demon shredder? You're seriously telling me he wouldn't take this opportunity to take a night class on 16th Century Japanese Swordsmanship now that he is free to walk the streets? He wouldn't still patrol the rooftops for trouble because that's all they've known for so long? He wouldn't dig into what happened to the foot clan in the future, just in case things got bad again?

The shell thing could have had its own episode tbh. Picture this - medical technology has come a long way and during a routine physical for the turtles Cody repairs Leo's shell without even thinking to ask him first. It leads to an unexpected blow-up because even though what happened to him was terrible, having that scar taken from him without permission crossed a line and leads into a big 'this is what I hate about the future, and this is exactly the selfishness that made you strand us here' rant that blindsides everyone. Even Master Splinter doesn't understand. Leo flees and the guys go after him - some drama ensues - he is eventually found after idk fighting the street phantoms or something. Cody realises how much he's hurt Leo and apologises. Leo doesn't even understand himself why he's not happy at his shell being repaired, but it feels like another part of his story has been lost to time now, sanitised and stripped away from him. You have to take the bitter with the sweet.

By the end of the episode Leo makes peace with it but idk, maybe Cody learns to stay in his own fucking lane in future or something.

@love-killed-the-superstar I hope you don’t mind but this particular part of your recent liveblog just… really sparked something in my brain that I need to get out, re: Fast Forward, and it’s this repeating theme of FF rehashing a plot point from S1-4 but worse. Like the turtles version of a live action Disney reboot.

This turned into a massive rant, oops, more under the cut. Clearly, I have a lot of feelings about this.

Keep reading

#somehow this feels even longer than the last time I'M SORRY!!!!

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