#ANYWAY i do indeed have Manythoughts about him and am looking forward to being able to put them together cogently
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copying anon over here because i went to save the ask to my drafts and tumblr sent it directly to the shadow realm, welp:
I dug through your rambles about Hermes, so I'm looking forward to thoughts on Erich with the ancient world's everything lol ~
ahhhh thank you, i'm glad you've enjoyed my rambles so far!! i've been taking the second half of the pandaemonium arc more slowly, partly because i'm been Out of It the last few days and partly because the direction the plotline with erich and lahabrea has taken a turn for has been leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. i've been making my way through it, though, and percolating Deeply on the He and how he and pandaemonium as a whole fit into all this. spoiler alert i love him even more now
(on the one hand, it finally helped me articulate some points that imo make or break an 'abusive parent sees the error of their ways and apologizes up and down and swears to do better, and both that and the context in which the abuse happened leave their victim feeling conflicted about it' arc. so there's that! on the other hand it, uh. it did so by very much being the goofus here lmao, and erich deserved better.)
(the way the whole thing is played off is also just, deeply deeply misogynistic. athena is top-tier nastywoman and i love her for it, and 'mothers--in particular white women, especially to their children of color--can be shitty and predatory and abusive and are accountable for it full stop,' is great abuse rep but fucking WOWZERS)
(which like, i will say that the overtones are not at all lost on me that athena repeatedly goes out of her way to prey on, abuse, and violate not just men of color but black men; dehumanizes them and treats them and their bodies as her property; and is strongly implied to have sexually abused erich in particular. and how the one who gets the brunt of it is her biracial, very VERY not white-passing son, who she isolated from the black side of his family to do whatever she wanted with. it is insanely fucking refreshing to see that shit not cushioned at ALL, and it really sucks that that had to come bundled in with the abuse apologia and misogyny.)
(i am also realizing that this is one of the reasons erich whitewashing, and how common it is in the fandom as well as official art, bothers me so much beyond the obvious. while it's uncertain how much of it was intentional, his narrative evokes not just real-world racism but colorism, and a specific brand of it and how it intersects with abuse. even if just on a doylist level erich was abused for being as dark-skinned as he is, and erasing that is even shittier than your run-of-the-mill whitewashing.)
(anyway. ANYWAY. anyway. all that is a post of its own and i haven't even gotten to the parts about ancient society yet. you see what i mean by having a lot of thoughts about him lmao)
i'm hoping to finish the last leg of the questline tonight so i can start fully putting my thoughts together because god there is SO MUCH, and i'm excited even if i foresee having to grit my teeth through the rest of the moments between him and lahabrea lmao
#final fantasy xiv#ffxiv#ffxiv erichthonios#ffxiv athena#ffxiv lahabrea#thank you anon!! the preview for the notification almost gave me a heart attack and this was really nice to open it and find instead lmao#asks#anonymous#the crit files#ffxivcrit tag#abuse cw#abuse apologia cw#CSA mention cw#SA mention cw#racism cw#incest mention cw#(incidentally athena is a perfect example of why i'm so wary of 'teehee i love evil women and support women's wrongs' in fandom these days)#(it really sucks to have to give so much of Enjoy Fucked Up Lady Blorbos for Being Evil and Stop Holding Double Standards About It)#(fandom such a wide berth; but holy shit it is a *cesspool* of racism and childism and rape/abuse apologia)#(from people who want a single-issue pass to be bigoted; and DARVO and direct harassment at people who try to call it out)#(instead of applying any kind of nuance or intersectionality or critical thought)#(and it's how you get shit like people cheering on their white blorbo's Evil Girl Power for sexually abusing men of color lmao)#(i have conflicted feelings abt both athena's portrayal and erich as abuse rep but holy shit it's been such a relief to see none of that)#(any other fandom would be a radioactive nightmare zone about this and thank fuck it isn't)#ANYWAY i do indeed have Manythoughts about him and am looking forward to being able to put them together cogently#FF tag#ffxivtag#the salt files#warning: worm grass#pandae pilled anon
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