#Are you uh... For real? Really really???

[mrfoox]

Ok so.... The tinder Romanian is making me sob he's being sososososo sweet

[warper-in-training]

[ 1:39 am ] I feel like he's watching me – maybe he's as obsessed with me as I am with him.

[wasyago]

the brainrot won

[persimmonbread]

to adore and be adored

[amphibianaday]

day 1421

[eggsploded]

cant keep their quadrants straight

[butwhatifidothis]

I guess the ultimate thing that kills CF for me - or at least nudges it away from me saying I definitively like it - is just how much Edelgard is clearly written with the player in mind before she's written with her character in mind.

Because on all of the other routes, there's a power to Edelgard's presence. Even on BE, there's a sense that for as lonely as Edelgard might be, she still ultimately will do whatever it takes for her to get what she wants. Be that be killing her citizens (or otherwise letting them be killed), endangering her friends, assisting in kidnapping people, allowing Byleth to support her only when they have the Sword of the Creator, covering for TWS - no bar is too low for her to limbo under if doing so means she's even a step closer to her goals.

She's manipulative! She's deceitful! She doesn't care for the lives of her people! Even her friends are forfeit if they try to stand in her way! And this happens no matter how close you, the player, get to her, in the case of BE - C+ ain't stoppin' Remire, and going to the coronation ain't stopping the Holy Tomb.

And in the war phase, she is dominating the field. She has the Kingdom completely on the ropes, down to a few houses standing against Imperial rule, and the Alliance is stuck in neutrality - she may not be able to do much to it, but neither can they do anything to her (to say nothing of the Alliance houses who stand with her). She's far from the underdog in this race, and she shows off how threatening she can be.

CF? Her route?

She scweams at scawy rats. She gets embawwassed when you find her dwawings. She's just so wonewy, and she's just so gwad that you chose her. She somehow fails to capture Rhea, or frame Dimitri for regicide, and so now has to deal with that on the Kingdom's side of the war. But that doesn't stop Elly Welly-kins fwom twying to find her pwecious teacher, because you're just so important to her. She cwies and hugs you when you meet her in the Goddess Tower!! Because she missed you so much!!

It's like... Dimitri and Claude certainly show different sides of themselves on their respective routes. It's the whole point! You grow closer to them and thus see how they treat those close to them, as opposed to being the Kinda Neat Teacher they see run along every now and then. But, like... Claude doesn't become a blushing maiden whenever Byleth speaks with him on VW. Dimitri doesn't scream at scary rats and get called cute for it on AM. They don't get Basic Bitch Gap Moe Traits slapped onto them that are only ever shown to the player and only on their routes. Unlike Edelgard.

Dimitri's endearing trait is that he's this big huge dude who can bench-press forests and arm-wrestle god who still wants to learn to sew and who teaches kids to protect themselves and who buys candies for his friends. Claude's endearing trait is that he's this mastermind planner who has contingency and lie and obfuscation as three separate legal government names who still wants everyone to be safe and happy and hold hands and be friends.

Edelgard is strong, confident, and willing to do some of the shittiest things known to man for her goals. Her endearing trait is that her screams are cute. She's shy about her drawings of the player character. She blushes over the player potentially joking about having sex with her per her JPN version of her C support; you know, the one about how Byleth walks in on Edelgard muttering in her sleep from a nightmare about her tortured family? Perfect time to joke about fucking her! Dimitri and Claude's endearments are, well, endearing; Edelgard's are all straight up embarrassing for her.

Hell, even the smaller stuff is affected! Claude's passion for poisons and mushrooms are things he has no qualms about having others know about, despite how weird they are. Dimitri laughing at shitty jokes brings him no personal discomfort or embarrassment, despite just how loudly he laughs at them. They have traits to them that can easily be uwu worthy, and they don't care! Of the lords, only Edelgard does! Because, it feels like, the only way for a strong, resolute female character to come off as approachable is if she's knocked down a few pegs for specifically and only you, the player.

And that sucks ass! I'm sorry, but when I'm playing Edelgard's route I don't want to deal with her hiding herself away in her room for a month IN THE MIDDLE OF HER FUCKING WAR because she's just so embawwassed! It is so fucking insensitive that Edelgard is literally the only lord of the three who can have her trauma openly belittled at any point in the story by Byleth, all to have some cheap cutesy uwu moment about her fear of rats (calling her screaming in fear cute and INSISTING that it's really cute which is just. Fucking ew man)! Why can we fucking mock Edelgard's manner of speech during the MASSACRE OF REMIRE?

This shit doesn't happen to Claude or Dimitri! And saying "oh just don't pick those options then" is bullshit because no equivalent options exist for the male lords! It's piss-boilingly annoying that the second you choose to see things from the strong confident villainous ambitious female lord's perspective you can reduce her down to this bumbling moeblob just for you (sometimes unavoidably!) like!! Dude!

[halflifebutawesome]

you used to be such a baby.

[syn4k]

to be, or not to be (romanticization of the inevitable)

[bambiraptorx]

the idea of Draxum in academic settings is vastly entertaining to me

[dailyjevil]

Day 300 of posting Jevil every day

[starscreamingg]

Detroit Become Human and why does this game decide that the problem in society is individual people treating androids poorly because those androids are choking them out of the workforce and NOT the corporations and governments who deliberately designed the androids to do this

[flagellant]

The more I think about Wildmender the more I grow invested in it. It's a fascinating interpretation of terra nil and solarpunk since so often the genre is fundamentally rooted in settler-colonialist philosophy, and even games which are intended to be the opposite of that--terra nil comes to mind as the obvious one--just end up actually revealing a different side of the factorio problem, because terra nil is an incredible impersonal restoration of ecological systems. Terra Nil acknowledges climate destruction on a global catastrophic scale and it accepts the responsibility to fix that, but it isn't shown as a human act, nor does it really allow itself the realism of just how terrifyingly impossible the task is to try and literally fix the entire world. Its game structure is supposed to be the anti-factorio but its puzzle structures focusing on efficiency and robotic engineering patterns of rewilding end up feeling more like a dialogue than an inversion. It's trying to say that the idea of humanity as fundamentally destructive is wrong while it doesn't actually ever address the human element.

And then there's fucking Wildmender. A game where you are a single human child in a world of endless wasteland and death, where the only other things are ghosts who remember a halcyon era and the hubris that ended it, wraiths which are consumed by their own greed and destruction of the land for their cursed immortality, and a couple god statues. The entire map is just ceaseless grief, filled with the literal dessicated remains of all the biodiversity that came before the countless disasters. And it's a big fucking map.

And then...the game gives you a shovel and a sickle and a mirror that shows the wraiths what twisted reflections they've become.

And the game says, "The entire world is waiting to be better, and the only way to do that is by doing it yourself, long and hard and hopeless as it seems."

I cannot emphasize enough how overwhelming the task you're handed. There is not a single speck of life left in the world. You are given a shovel and a water bottle and just...expected to do something about it. To look at the literal endless wastes and think you can heal it.

This is what Wildmender cherishes that Terra Nil denies: This is an impossible task for you alone. But it has to be done...and you can actually do it. The way you can turn sand into soil and dig irrigation channels is beautiful. Every single scrap of land that you reclaim is something you had to do on purpose. You had to do it yourself. You had to actively choose how to do it.

And the game makes the reward of even just getting a bit more water into the sand feel like victory. Your starting oasis turns from soil into lush and beautiful meadows--sure, technically instantaneously by doing magic on a specific type of plant. But it took me 4-5 hours before I got there. You have to travel so far into the desert to learn how to grow grass again, and then you realize that this endless hostile wasteland is a fraction of the map you're given. And you look at this sudden profusion of meadowy grassland surrounding your spring and despite how sudden it feels you remember how big the world is. You made more progress in a minute than you did in 5 hours and it's not even a speck on the map. How the fuck is this gonna happen?

And the answer is by accepting that it's going to take a long fucking time and a lot of hard work.

That's how it's gonna happen. Get to work.

[existencebringsonlypain]

hey can someone describe what imagining something is like? like imagining an image?

[madbard]

Quick question for my fellow UTMV fans…

(Glances around, then drops poll and runs.)

(This may or may not be an extension to that Dustplates post from earlier…)

[snek-eyes]

Andi Osho as Sitis (wife of Job) in Good Omens 2.02

[Image ID: A series of gifs from Good Omens season 2, featuring the character Sitis, an older dark-skinned woman dressed in blue.

The camera zooms into a Bible illustration of Sitis lamenting to the sky.

Sitis's face becomes concerned as Job says: "Sitis my dear, this person was looking for the children." She turns, looking defensive, and asks, "Why? Who're you?"

Sitis looks stressed as she chuckles humorlessly and gestures to their ruined house. It is slightly smoking. She says: "Not now, Bildad the Shuhite. Good of you to look in, but we're a tiny bit busy weathering the wrath of God."

Close up on Sitis as her face becomes confused, then changes to horror and disbelief. "…No. God wouldn't!"

Sitis holds back tears as she asks something of her husband. He is about to burst into tears as he shakes his head no.

Sitis implores the angels as Job falls to his knees beside her. "I don't, I don't want more children." A close up of her desperate face. "If my children are dead, then… I will curse God, and—"

Crowley, as Bildad the Shuhite, clasps his hands and rubs them together in a "let's get started" motion. Sitis looks scared and backs away.

Crowley stands framed between Sitis and Job, who are facing each other. He makes a switching motion between them as he says, "Now good lady, simply turn to your husband, reach into his robes…" Sitis looks dubious but reaches towards Job, who abruptly looks very surprised. Crowley interjects: "N-h-higher. Higher."

Sitis and Job's children stand between them. Jemimah throws her arms around her mother who embraces her joyfully.

Job, looking confused, gestures to his restored children as he says to the angels. "But, it is—" Sitis quickly reaches out to Job and interrupts. Clearly frantic and trying to hide it she says, "A-a miracle. It is a miracle, that our new son should look so much like our old son."

Sitis explains very deliberately to Job as she pats her son who is definitely not Ennon on the arm: "No, Job. Look, it's not Ennon, it's… a new child. These are all… They're all… new… children."

Sitis anxiously watches Job speak, and starts to relax until a baffled and annoyed Ennon says something. She tenses and turns to him.

End ID]