#How To Save A Relationship From Ending

[queerautism]

Unironically I have a solution to this - Encourage young women to also read Lolita by Nabokov in addition to these books.

[ruporas]

drank too much

[ID: Digital Art of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. Vash’s body is turned slightly away from the viewer as he holds a staggering Wolfwood by his shoulder. He has one foot ahead of the other, the foot in the back used to stabilize himself from tipping over. Wolfwood is tethering into Vash, his weight pressed into him with his arms wrapped around Vash’s waist and his face is hidden away as he leans against Vash’s shoulder. Vash’s expression can be seen, his eyes wide and mouth tight-lipped, and his face is flushed red. A speech bubble comes out from Wolfwood, saying a drawled “Spikeyyy...”. The background are desaturated pastels of blue and green, showing night time, as they stand in the middle of an empty street that is also lit by the moon not depicted. Yellow light is seen coming from the inside of a saloon. End ID]

[kacievvbbbb]

I don't know which is more devasting. The idea that Mihawk and Shanks didn't see each other for a decade after thier breakuptm (which giving that they dueled almos daily for years someone had to have drastically changed their habits to avoid seeing the other)

or even despite all that and not for a lack of trying they just keep running into each other. That their fates are so horrribly enterwined, their yin and yang so bound to the other that despite their best efforts to the contrary it always brings them together again. On the same island in the same know nothing town pretending the other doesn't exist. Because Shanks is a captain on the come up he has a whole crew a burgeoning fleet and territories he can't just drop everything to chase after a petulant swordsman. And if Mihawk can't fight shanks then he can't see Shanks.

And god the tragedy of that of knowing that they are there on the other side of this island because you've known from the moment they arrived. But knowing better/refusing to do anything about it.

On the other hand I do also love the idea that whenever they do run into each other they get into these intense arguments and Mihawk and Shanks have always been prone to fighting but not like this. Because at the end of the day Mihawk and Shanks are both very immature people Shanks is prone to deflecting and distracting to avoid the problem while Mihawk is prone to just completely shutting down when any strong emotions are involved or when he feels like he is not being understood, until he just bursts out in a flurry of rage filled meanness and wrath with a body trail a mile long. And so they just go at each other and the situation is too delicate to thorn filled for Beckman to mediate and so he separates them at least to preserve the integrity of the island they are all presently on.

And then Mihawk goes off and takes his anger out on a marine base cause the pirates have all learned to steer clear of him.

I just think it brings new meaning to Shanks posturing when Mihawk first pulls up on him a decade later. That "you come here for a fight" is a real question and not just playful banter because obviously Shanks doesn't like fighting with Mihawk but why else would he be here? It's why mihawk's little comment doesn't diffuse the tension until he mentions luffy's poster. He is literally and figuratively extending an Olive branch and Shanks couldn't be happier to take it

[sauronism]

armand would rather throw that old man into the trash can, than calling daniel "maitre". he would NEVER fucking do that.

[mephoj]

taco and mephone have fascinating parallels more people could explore if taco haters weren't biased cowards

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[primus-why]

I Feel TFOne Could've Handled This Better...

Hot take but I feel like folks have been really generous with the take that OP was unable to find ~the perfect words~ in the heat of the moment (and thus should be given some grace) when he told D to stand down and "not be like Sentinel"... namely cuz I don't feel that the narrative supports this?

Like-- after all is said and done, OP doesn't reflect on that part of their split. He doesn't have a moment where he seeks validation or voices his regrets over the choice of his words, it's actually cut-and-dry. The narrative (as it stands) supports that OP saw D-16 acting up, so he called him out and stood on business, down to the last scenes where he's basically like "yeah it's a shame but y'all knew I had to do it to 'em."

It didn't have to be much! I'm not saying to absolve Megs, just show OP looking at things from a different perspective/contemplating a bit on that tough choice and the morality of the moment. Some examples of what I wish we had:

B-127 straight up blurting the obvious by later chatting with Orion like, "Wait so you told your best friend that he was acting just as bad as the guy who enslaved us for our entire lives and was torturing him like an hour ago? Oof. Seems kinda harsh." Then have some of OP's regret show on his face.

OP asking Elita-1 after Megs is banished if he did the right thing. Have Elita back his choice up, saying, "You should have seen what he did after you were... gone. It was terrifying. I know it was tough, but you made the right call." OP is grateful for the support, but a conflicted look still flashes across his face before he steels himself to look out towards the horizon... and the future.

Have OP walk past other mechs/former miners who didn't go with the High Guard saying stuff like, "Wish I could've given Sentinel a piece of my mind!" "Yeah, but I'm glad he's gone for good." "Ugh I miss everything." "Oh, it was crazy! Megatron picked him up and then he rrrrriiipped-- oops, hey there, Mr. Optimus... Prime... sir?" And have OP wave hello, looking a bit sick when they leave.

Post-credits scene with Starscream going on and on, asking Megs when they'll be back to teach the upstart Prime a lesson. Megs grabs his face to shut him up. "Patience, Starscream. The Prime thinks I'm no better than Sentinel... but I'll show him. He wants Iacon? He can have it. In the meantime we'll take the rest of the planet! Then I'll come back, crush Prime under my heel, and we'll take Iacon too. Sentinel's reign will barely be a footnote, because I'm about to become Optimus Prime's worst nightmare." The vocal performance would really need to sell this-- like picture Megs saying something like that from a place of anger and hurt, not so much a place of genuine evil or malice.

Basically instead of Orion's assertion being backed up as black and white/good vs bad, I wish we had some different opinions/reactions from the characters sprinkled in there. Like you can't tell me out of allllll the miners who weren't strong enough/willing to go with the High Guard and ended up sticking around that NONE of them were like "eyyo honestly?? Kiiiiinda glad Sentinel is dead. Wish I could have helped, tbh." like come onnnnn...

And you can't even argue that he's not an active threat-- I don't think everyone would see things that way! It's not just about the threat he physically has, but the threat he represents and is very likely to act upon if given the opportunity! He has a proven track record of not only being sneaky and conniving, but also capable of dealing some serious damage/killing people bigger and stronger than him, plus he has the backing of the Quints. All he'd need to do is wriggle his way out of jail and run off to his sponsors, then he'd probably be back to hurt more people! (If the Quints didn't just kill him out of incompetence lmao). There's a lot of "ifs" here, but I think it's a valid argument that not everyone would agree on what is the right or wrong way to handle Sentinel once he was down long enough to, like, do something about him.

I feel the situation needed a bit of nuance. In some way I wish they had kicked the can and had D and Orion bicker while Sentinel escaped, then have D get frustrated enough by the loss of Sentinel to point fingers (and his fusion canon) at Orion, who then falls and becomes OP. (Megs could still show some of thar emotion/remorse right after he does it too.) Not only would this open the door for a sequel, but tbh the Quint might have just killed Sentinel anyways and sought to deal with the miners uprising themselves lol. (Maybe that could have been an after credits scenes too instead of the B-127 bit??)

Would love to see a moment in a sequel where they have a calmer moment after arguing for a bit. Have OP mention how Megs was out of line, that it hurt and even scared him to see him act that way, and Megs can quietly point out "you said I was as bad as Sentinel... is that really how you see me? After everything we went through?"

Then OP can fumble the bag again lmao like "D, I... I'm sorry, that didn't come out right... but you still took things way too far..."

"Why am I not surprised-- your opinion is what matters the most! Maybe that's why you became a Prime, since you're so good at acting like the world revolves around you--!"

*gets interrupted by someone else before another yelling match ensues*

[valeovalairs]

You can pry girl dad Mark Winters out of my cold dead hands.

[andi-o-geyser]

“cody only has under an hour of screen time in all of star wars” maybe to you he does. to me he's the main character

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[lucreziaces]

thinking about the dark side of cesare fanning the flames-- or at the very least just not doing anything to stop them-- of the unholy love/desire he and lucrezia felt for each other when he just playfully chased her around the garden after discovering she was watching him fuck another woman, or when he planted the idea that he'd be the only one to care for her heart, or when he implied the love between them was comparable to the love of God, calling it "as all-consuming and pure as the love of God"....an idea she later reflects in season 3 when she says "one touch of your hand and God comes rushing back" (also in the same scene "whatever it is, it overwhelms".) like, yes, okay I do believe lucrezia is probably the one that shifted their relationship into sexual terrority (not on purpose though!!), but cesare is older by a few years. he would've understood it to be wrong before she did, and he could've sat her down at any point in season 1 or 2 and told her "hey, this isn't how brothers and sisters are supposed to feel about each other. we can't lean into whatever this is, okay?" and then made an actual effort to let her go instead of just half-assing it before then immediately beginning the build up of the already thick sexual tension between them until it was unbearable and she was left thinking her husband didn't care about her because he wouldn't sleep with her, so she climbed into cesare's bed and convinced him they should just get it on because no one else could understand them and people already it whisper about them anyway, so "why deny ourselves the pleasure?" very sick and twisted of him. I kinda hate him for it actually. because if he hadn't gone and created this "ideal lover" in lucrezia's head that only he could fit the mold of, she might've found actual happiness with someone else!! 😡 😡

[helianthus21]

best part about season 3 were the flashbacks to season 1<3

[randomnameless]

I mean… fire emblem shouldn't be taking in consideration when making points about representing real world issues or using it as a crutch for sociopolitical arguments irl. One of the best examples in this franchise of "culture bias" and "covet bigotry" is Fates, where Hoshido is too pure, too good, and Nohr is the bad, bad, evil barbaric nation. And this goes so far as to make birthright's story a more watered down version of blue units vs red units story from shadow dragon.

In 3H now the good, pure nation is Fodlan, and those who surround it are either filler to make the worldmap look prettier, or barbarians that like to hunt the good guys for sport (Almyra and Sreng, and possibly Dagda), with Brigid being a repetition of the noble savage trope. Just bc there's a poc guy that wants to unite people and get rid of prejudice in story, doesn't mean that the developpers agree to that or support that.

(Also, let's not talk about Hopes and how Claude's altruistic dream turns out to be unifying two different nations and make the cohabit by force with him as sole leader of both. AKA the typical fire emblem trope of uniting different countries under one ruler, something that's not progressive in the slightest)

Mmh,

Speaking on eggshells here because Fates isn't really my area of expertise, but basically, iirc you can thank Pat for scrubbing the worst of Hoshido!

Fates' best route is Revelation (rip izana) where both countries accept to set aside their differences to work together, meaning that, obviously, Hoshido wasn't only "blue unit land" against Nohr's "red units".

Even through Birthrout, you can catch here'n'there, even in the Pat version!, how Hoshido isn't roses'n'daisies, it's the land where Mikoto takes her niece "hostage" ffs as a measure against Corn's kidnapping (you can't tell me she never guessed Azura was Arete's kid!), where Ryoma (idk if you were the same anon as back then?) as the crown prince ignores the plight of the nohrians and why they were attacking Hoshido because life in Nohr sucks and they're starving (idk if, much like the Leonster/Thracia conflict, Hoshido refused to trade with them and let them starve instead), the fuckery with Mokushu and Shura's backstory, or Hoshido being Misogyny Land (tm).

Heck Birthrout has you march on Nohr's capital city iirc, and fight in the streets - it's in Birthrout that Corn's obsession with taking revenge/defeating Garon leads to Elise' death - so it's not the the "blue unit waltz on red unit lands, routs the enemy and calls a day".

So I don't think the Fates writers really wanted to push the "pure unproblematic land" card with Hoshido compared to Nohr, but rather depict them as both flawed - in different ways - and needing to work together.

Now, I wouldn't say the nations of Fodlan are good compared to the rest of the filler nations that make up this verse's world - after all it's Adrestia who starts hostilities against Dagda'n'Brigid and Adrestia who most recently flattened Brigid and made it its vassal! - but in a sense you're right calling them filler, the FE series in general don't spend a lot of time to depict nations in general, they're just "the place character X is from" and for all of its, hm, reknown writting, Fodlan is following the trend, Albinea is no less different than Cheve (wait, we have one map set in Cheve! kill that) so bar flavor text, they're effectively just "filler".

I disagree about Sreng and Almyra being filler though, if Sreng could be seen as a ref to the Thracia situation or Norh/Hoshido fight for ressources, Almyra?

Is basically Verdane all over again - with the dubious honor of having a Verdanite Lord who, unlike Jamke has some relevance to the plot bar his introduction, but most important, seems to appreciate and want to emulate/import the values/methods of his country to the cast/main plot.

Can you imagine FE4 where Jamke suggests to kidnap Deevtar to seduce lure Andrei in a trap and rekt him?

Of course not.

Just bc there's a poc guy that wants to unite people and get rid of prejudice in story, doesn't mean that the developpers agree to that or support that.

I guess they agreed with the "get rid of prejudice without dealing with the dragon in the room" idea, but the main issue I mentionned and talked about in the other anon reply was the how, and what, doylist wise, it conveys.

"I'll unite people and get rid of prejudice by busting open your country to my people who are as prejudiced as you supposedly are, and I will bring you new values"

That's... not a good way to bring people together lol.

Even in FE16 I found Claude and Almyra's writing a bit odd : why asking Timmy first to stop shunning Bob when Timmy started to avoid Bob because Bob keeps on stealing his lunch money? Shouldn't you ask Bob first to, uh, not be an ass?

In Nopes?

Bob ruins Timmy's house, hits Timmy's toddler sister in the face and still steals his lunch money - but now, Bob has the nerve to tell Timmy that he's doing this to "help" him.

Also, let's not talk about Hopes and how Claude's altruistic dream turns out to be unifying two different nations and make the cohabit by force with him as sole leader of both. AKA the typical fire emblem trope of uniting different countries under one ruler, something that's not progressive in the slightest

Hmmm,

I don't know if you played the older games (FE1 to FE10), but as far as I remember, bar Archanea verse, we have different rulers for each countries and the world is never an unified entity -

And even then, Marth doesn't unify the world by making people "cohabit by force", as forced as it is, everyone gives him their crown.

Sanaki doesn't tell Elincia to suck it as she annexes Crimea in FE10, ditto with Innes and Joshua, or Ced and Ares in Jugdral... I can see Leif's unification of Thracia falling under that criteria, but even then, it's not so much by force than Travant making suicide by cop because he wanted the peninsula to be united and understood he couldn't be the one to do it.

Uniting the continent by force is, on the contrary, what red emperors do, and in traditional FE games, red emperors are defeated.

To return to your main point :

I mean… fire emblem shouldn't be taking in consideration when making points about representing real world issues or using it as a crutch for sociopolitical arguments irl.

Of course, and I totally agree!

The FE series has always been, as its core, a series where a "rightful ruler" returns home to rule "rightfuly" and better than its predecessors, by acknowledging what they did wrong and what they can do now.

That being said, a game is never written in a vacuum : that's the doylist side of various discussions : "What were the devs thinking, was what their reasoning when they decided to make the game this way?"

In 2004, real world persons believed that putting Devdan in their game was okay.

You can give them some flak because different cultural references between Japan and the US world (hell, western world at this rate because damn if Devdan hit "international" racist stereotypes boxes!) - and yet, can you really suppose the devs wouldn't have known, in 2004, that those stereotypes are harmful to real life people and Devdan was basically an insult?

But Devdan was just a living (as much as a fictional character can be alive, but you catch my drift lol) stereotype, the issue was just with Devdan existing.

It was 2004, 15 years later, we expect of IS - not your backwater company! - to never ever fall in the same pits, right?

(well, we had FE13 with the Feroxi main characters who love to fight being dark skinned... so the Devdan dev might still have been there :/ )

FE Fodlan, let it be for design or even names, took some inspiration from RL (it was funny upon release to catch all those links and nods!), and while i appreciated the aesthetic, it was bound to create another "Devdan" issue.

You have Almyra, designed with several RL inspirations (they weren't being subtle with Claude's battalion called the Immortals lol), from design (Claude's clothes and braids!) to units (mounted archers!) to, well, names.

Okay, in itself, it's nothing as insulting as Devdan's existence. But taken with the context?

The devs wrote that Fodlan's aesthetic was supposed to be the Age of Discoveries (1500s and onwards?) so yes, during that Age, you had people who were prejudiced as fuck against people from other lands/different cultures.

But in 2019, we know that those prejudices were full of shit, and either fueled by ignorance, or just, the need to find a good "excuse" to get new lands/manpower/ressources.

Maybe the devs wanted to showcase this part of history : depict the characters being prejudiced against "foreigners" and have them later learn that their prejudice was unfounded !

But... they took the inverse path

Hilda's racist stereotypes? They're shown to be....

True through both games!

As you put it, Almyra are the "barbarians" who : attack the land the characters are from when they're at their weakest, for no reason than to get a good fight - even if it means dying which in turns create several orphans they don't give a fuck about - pillage and "rampage" in cities, let their allies die after accepting a "mutual support" alliance with them, and ultimately rave and scream at their "outdated" values and how you're going to bring them yours.

"You see those people who were derided as savages and barbarians back then in RL - and still are in some parts of the world because the early 2000s happened and in general because racism exists? - Well I'm going to base my fantasy "token barbarian country who is untrustworthy and backstabs everyone" based on them!"

:/

I know you can't compare tomatoes to watermelons, but the Baten Kaitos franchise also has a nation who's, more or less, full of assholes, racists and imperialist pieces of shit. But the devs in those games designed each island/country from scratch, there is no nation that immediately calls back to "RL country X or culture Y"!

you can make a farfetched point about the people wearing ceremonial masks and having totems being a mix of several RL inspirations or at least being a call back to them... but they're part of the most OP people of that universe!

So why? Why, doylist wise, FE Fodlan designed with care - you can't tell me those costumes and outfits were designed in 10 minutes! - Almyra and its characters... only to have them act out as what an english book from the 1780s depicted "oriental" people ?

Unlike Devdan, the racism doesn't ooze out from the way the characters/country was designed, but what role they fit in the story.

It's not a sociopolitical commentary or representing real world but more like another jab at IS for being as prejudiced against non western/japanese cultures and civilisations as they were when FE4 was released, which is problematic in 2019/2022.

(and then you have Square Enix giving us Hyzante in Triangle Strategy, which is even more in your face with the dubious parallels)

[kavehater]

Chappel Roan saying she’s sad she’s demisexual and then there’s me being aroace as a whole like don’t you think I’m even more sad 😭

[introvertgoat]

hc that throughout the years, jude takes leaves of absences form being high queen to go spend a couple months w vivi heather n oak !!! madoc too ig while he’s still exiled lol. ( vehemently ignoring the stolen heir’s canon sorry not sorry.) family bonding time, far away from the hubbub n chaos of the folk, n also the realization that jude doesn’t mind the mortal world all that much. yes it’s not faerieland, but it’s smth alright n she finds it soothing at times. she’s less unhinged n paranoid compared to when she was younger n the ptsd from her past has decreased in its intensity thanks to heather-mandated therapy ( heather only had to hear a couple times abt the duarte sisters’ fucked up childhood for her to plead jude to go to therapy—vivi alrdy has— n jude relented after 5 yrs of honest-to-god begging. big slay heather our mental health queen 🫂) and so that’s why she can even leave faerieland in someone else’s hands. these visits aren’t too frequent but they r long in their duration. 3-4 months tops. sometimes cardan comes along bcs the bed feels empty w/o jude n— Okay he’s js lonely w/o his wife. sue him. some poor hapless councilor advisor is forced to be in charge in their place (they send letters weekly. ‘please your majesties, when will you be returning home ?’ #urgent LOL) one day jude (age:37) notices grey hairs appearing on her head n she sort of freaks out. not in an entirely vain way either. more like:. oh fuck aren’t i supposed to not age as long as im in faeirieland ?? 3 long discussions later w cardan n the royal folk-human specialist, the conclusion that is reached is that bcs of jude’s visits to the mortal word, as infrequent as they r, theyve seemed to affect the way her body ages. or more aptly put, doesn’t age lol. jude gets some grey hair n lines on her face while still technically NOT aging. n she feels less panicky abt it bcs hey she’s not aging. sort of. meanwhile, cardan finds himself deeply enamored w jude’s grey hair n the subtle creases on her face that multiply slowly. he tells jude js so n she’s like i am not susceptible to flattery cardan greenbriar. hes Serious abt it tho n tells her that he isn’t saying that bcs it’ll make her feel better or wtv but bcs her aging evidently is actually beautiful to him. cue jude sour pursed lips for a bit as she gets these days when it comes to cardan being unbearably earnest towards her but she feels less weird abt the hair n lines so :)

anyways this was a long-winded niche asf hc that appeals to exactly only 2 ppl on this site n im not even confident in THAT estimate lol

[oblako]

she is just a girl who is so so scared </3