#I will say the cast of characters I have complex thoughts about are limited cause I keep going back to specific comfort characters

[zip-toonz]

Anyone wanna talk to me about Pokemon characters?

[avelera]

Ugh, popped on Twitter to geek out about the Wheel of Time S2 and immediately find a bunch of WoT dudebro fans complaining that a 15 book series of 800+ pages each isn’t getting the exact word for word adaption that exists inside their heads when they read the books. And let me remind you all, these books were my life, my first fandom, and basically my personality pretty much from when I first read them in 1999 until Robert Jordan died (alas, I read to the end but Brandon Sanderson never quite captured the magic of RJ’s writing for me again, even if I think he did the best job anyone possibly could.)

So let me just say from a place of deep respect and obsession with these books that any hate for the show based on it not being a page for page adaptation is patently insane. Much of Wheel of Time relies on the strengths of prose which are untranslatable to a visual medium. Stuff like how magic (or the One Power) feels to cast makes up a huge proportion of the book. You can externally portray a feeling, sure, but there are still limits.

They forget that Book 1 was written to be standalone and has a ton of inconsistencies with later books that need to be shored up. That means logistical changes which cause necessary alterations almost all of which have actually been massive improvements in my mind. For all my love of Wheel of Time, its pacing is atrocious and I think even RJ would agree that if he could go back with the whole story in mind and edit it to be more streamlined, he absolutely would have. The show HAS to do that or we’d still be in the goddamn Two Rivers with the book pacing.

Centering the first season on the White Tower and Moiraine’s POV makes sense. The book relied on Moiraine being a Gandalf figure that gave information away at the pace of reader reveals, in tiny drips meant to tantalize a slow-paced book’s reader. That would be immensely frustrating for a tv show viewer of a story set in a sprawling fantasy world that needs tons of explanation and world building up front to have any idea what’s going on. Focusing on Moiraine, who has the answers, instead of sticking to the ignorance of the kids isn’t just a good choice it’s very nearly the only choice you can make. The White Tower is one of the most complex and interesting parts of that world. Centering it and introducing it earlier was an incredibly wise choice.

Other smaller choices make sense too if people thought about it for two seconds. Aging up the kids makes sense. They’re teens in the books and it would be incredibly awkward on screen. But once you age them up, it makes sense that at least ONE of them has been married before. Perrin makes SENSE to have been married if he left Two Rivers later. He’s a responsible guy with a good trade and a level head on his shoulders. He’s sweet and caring and mature. Of course he got married, he’s from a small farming community in a medieval-esque world with shorter life expectancies. Furthermore, I love Perrin to death but his obsessive fear of hurting Faile later is frankly ungrounded in anything that isn’t benign misogyny on some level. It doesn’t update and translate well on its own. Giving him Laila, giving him the manner of Laila’s death grounds his later attitudes towards Faile so well I literally gasped when I put it all together.

Other changes like in S2 having Min and Mat meet the way they do in Tar Valon was genius. It matters more that Mat and Min have rapport than that they meet in the same circumstances as the book (and Mat wouldn’t even remember that meeting anyway lol). The rapport set up and the way it showed Mat’s genius and con artistry was brilliant. Showing these characters LIKE each other was incredibly engaging and endearing which is so important because the adaptation has to be enjoyable to non book readers too, especially since the 15, 800+ page books of meandering pacing are pretty much impenetrable to new readers. Book readers simply can’t make up the majority of the audience, there’s not enough of them to sustain a show with any kind of budget which WOT requires. Thus, it needs to be an enjoyable show in its own right, not just a meandering exact adaptation ffs.

I can literally point to any show change and say it was either logical, practical, thematic, or simply genius. Wheel of Time desperately needs an edit to be accessible to modern audiences. What an adaptation prioritizes is always a risk that’s going to be run for a fan of the original material but so far I’ve been wildly impressed by every choice made in how logical or thoughtful and most of all loving it was to the actual important emotions and themes of the book. Any complainers are seriously missing the point of what an adaptation even is.

[peterpumpkinhead]

about yibo's recent controversy

it's bad!!!!!

I'm a black fan of his and needless to say, I'm devastated lol

Yes, I fully understood the context of the scene. Yes, I also understand there were many black people on set (and I will not hold them responsible or use them as tokens to justify what cannot be justified). Yes, I get that actors have contractual obligations and have limited say in what makes it in the film, in spite of what people might think.

That being said, there's a reason why blackface is 99% of time and abhorrent practice in the arts. I leave 1% out because, in certain instances, like in the show Mad Men, it appears for the sake of historical accuracy and it is MEANT to cause revolt and disgust in the audience.

The fact is - as much as the plot of the film is based in real life, blackface, as an aesthetic instrument, reinforces many negative stereotypes, it perpetuates itself in the collective imagination and is more so a tool of dehumanization and naturalization of the relegation of black bodies to the category of costumes, props, tools.

I don't even need to get into the paternalistic approach of foreign law enforcement, coming from powerful countries of the global north, working in developing countries and portraying themselves solely as heroes - which is the storyline of a film that has no main black characters and relegates the black cast to either victims, criminals or extras in the background.

The entire cast, crew and production company should be held responsible for this enormous error, so I won't single one person out.

Being critical and demanding a response is not the same as being a hater. I'm nobody's hater, or anti and I believe in measured, strategic responses to a situation like this. But being angry is a very, very valid feeling right now.

I myself work on television and ~believe it or not, am a socialist. You don't need to explain away the inner workings of the entertainment industry or the complexities of cultural impact and ongoing symbols of oppression. I'm *quite* aware.

But, as a good old socialist, I must ask the question: what do we do? My thought process is: I fear that the Chinese audiences will not give two damns about this, which does not mean we shouldn't mobilize ourselves to demand change, an apology and consequences.

Being someone's fan is not the same as joining a cult and my admiration for the actor involved is not larger than my responsibility to social justice and to my people.

So I suggest we contact and comment on posts made by international brands endorsed by the talents in this film - like Dior, Chanel, Lacoste, Pantene, etc. We need to ask them if they're ready the back actors who have agreed to this outdated, highly insulting practice.

This film will not be getting my support and I will not defend actions that need no defense. I'm nobody's attorney, I'm a working class artist and I know better than to infantilize a grown man, as much as I've a history of admiring him.

[anthuan0]

I finished Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne finally, and I wanna talk about my thoughts on the game. Imma keep it brief cause this is a very long game, and I probably will never get done if I don't limit myself.

Gameplay

Where to begin, where to begin. I think my favorite thing about it was the Press Turn system. It rocks. Everyone knows it rocks. It adds so much to every battle. And when it goes just right, and you get a bunch of press turns on an enemy. Chefs kiss, mama mi 🤌. Of course, when the opposite happens and you get mauled by a bunch of demons, it feels horrible, but I don't know it just added more tension.

But the battle system would be nothing without the demons. And I can say that I love how the demons were handled in this game. In SMT 1 the first game in the series I ever played, I felt like you were too constricted on what demons you could use due to the alignment system. I loved all the freedom you could have when it came to recruiting and fusion in this game. But I gotta say my biggest issue with the game was with one of the aspects of fusion. I HATED how I couldn't choose what skills to pass down. I spent so much time just re-rolling and re-rolling... and re-rolling, for the skills I wanted. I heard they changed this in the remake, though, so I'll have to check it out since that really was my biggest issue with the game.

Character and Story

Now, this is where the bulk of my enjoyment came from. I loved how the bleakness of the world was juxtaposed with the little pockets of civilization you would find. Seeing demons and souls just go about their daily live was always super fun. The dialog in this game is truly top-notch. To me, the most notable aspect of this games identity.

When it comes to the overall story I can't I remember specific details too well mostly cause I played this game over a broad period of time, but what I can say is that it felt epic, it felt important. The game really makes you feel like you're just a small part of something bigger as you fall deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole.

On to the main cast of rapscallions,the conception cabal as I decided to call them just now. Hikawa, Isamu, Chiaki, Yuko, and Futomimi. Overall, I loved the cast. I've seen people take issue with how the characters were handled throughout the story. They're mostly off doing their own thing, going through their own revelations. A lot of people feel like this hurts their characterization due to us not seeing their growth step by step. Yes, I would've loved to learn more about these characters more intimately. But the fact that their journeys didn't revolve around you added to the feeling that you're just another another player in this game to conceive a new world. In the end, I ended up finding their motivations to still be believable and compelling.

My favorite characters were definitely Isamu, Yuko, and Futomimi. Isamu, because I have a bad tendency to isolate myself and his plan to create a world without the need for human interaction really impacted me.

Yuko was probably the most complex character to me. She seemed like such a kind person, and you could tell that she truly cared about her students. However, she was still willing to end the world in the hope of creating something better. And sort of, used said students to guarantee that a new world would be made in case she couldn't.

Finally, Futomimi and the Manikins. I loved the Manikins, man. They were tragic, but also some of the funniest characters in the game. I loved how genuine Futomimi's kindness towards his people felt. And it broke my heart when he was killed.

There's much more I want to say about characters like Chiaki,Hijiri, and Hikawa,but this post is getting too long.

Ending

The ending I went with was The True Demon Ending. For one, because I already did so much of the amala labyrinth, I wanted to get something out of it. And 2 because I love it thematically. I like the idea of putting an end to this endless cycle of death and rebirth in order to build a world that we're free to build up continuously without the threat of it being destroyed later on. I also love Lucifer's role in it. He's a more complex figure than just being an avatar of chaos, and I appreciate that.

Will probably do Isamu's Ending the next time I play it.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

Music: Bangers all throughout. I love just how many songs there are. Usually, RPGs reuse a lot of songs.

Favorite demon designs:

And favorite boss design are all the gods

Annnnnd, I feel like I've put most of my thoughts on this game down. Overall, it's a great game. 9/10 one of my favorite RPGs I've played.

It wasn't even that brutal. It can be frustrating, but the game is very generous with save points, and the like. So give it a try, don't be put off.

[viiinx]

- I mean, yes I agree. However the fact that Ferdinand is still supporting the nobility system so vehemently still shows that questioning the very system is by itself very revolutionary! Hence why I think Edelgard can't be said to have barely out her plan... I believe we cannot except fe3h characters to intuitively meet all the idea fitting our modern standards. Just questioning the system by itself is something with such lack of precedence in Fodlan that it requires deep reflexion in itself. And if you look at how Edelgard done it, we can see that she managed to have a wide systemic views including the complex relationship of the Church, nobility and crest which is seriously impressive. Especially considering a lot of other characters tend to tunnel vision on one specfic problem, often trying to fix the effect rather than the cause. For example, you have Ferdinand wainting better for the commoners while still supporting the system that led to the commoners to have so much problems in the first place.

But even going aside from a political discussion, I believe the Game vehemently shows how much thoughts was put into Edelgard plan. Firstly, Edelgard is denoted to be much more concerned than politics than nearly all of the cast with how, for example, she has in her likes "debating historical viewpoints and strategies", how she brings politics in nearly all of her supports or how she is the only character who enjoy the monarch study book gift. Secondly, the game show the results of such concerns with how she wrote a full manifesto or how her ideology is the one who's the most concretely described. If Edelgard ideas are poorly though out, then I have to say I fear for the state of every other characters ideas!

- Even with the distinction between lacking empathy and just it being one of her worst skill, I have to say that I don't understand while you still maintain Edelgard has a limited empathy? To me all her supports shows the contrary, that Edelgard is a very empathical person who works hards to overpass her flaws ( like how she get easily frustrated ) because she genuinely just care so much about other:

• Her Bernadetta support is Edelgard trying to be gentle with Bernadetta despite how frustrated she get with her, and therefore growing more patient and less prone to anger due to her empathy for her

• Her Ferdinand support is Edelgard, despite her initial annoyance towards him, honestly complimenting him and telling him how important he is to her to reassure him when he feels down. Moreover, her Hopes supports is her trying to comfort him about his father despite him being the man who caused her and her siblings torture. Even if she terrible at it, it still comes from a place of empathy.

• Her behavior with Byleth after their father death is her placing herself in Byleth shoes, someone grieving their only family, and trying accordingly to help them. Even if again, it ended up being pretty bad for most people.

• Her behavior with Petra, as much as their relationship is limited by their circumstances, is a mark of empathy. Pragmatism would dictate her to profit of her position of power over Petra in the war. However, as the screenshot in my other reblog indicates, she let her choose her side in the war even if its against her. Don't get me wrong, that's the right thing to do. But in the context of Fodlan, I would say such act is motivated by empathy. I believe that, while we can certainly heavily criticize Three Houses writing on those subject, Petra is showed to feel no resentment over Edelgard and even feel saddened fighting against her for a reason.

• The way she consider all the unamed soldiers is also definitely a huge mark of empathy. You see her adorns the grave of soldiers with flowers, in general mourn the loss of the war, makes repetitive attempt at showing mercy... Those act have no pragmatical purpose and sometime even complicates things. I cannot see another interpretation that Edelgard putting herself in the place of people she don’t and probably never know and feel for them

I'm just repeating myself, but to me it's really a matter of applying this emphaty efficiently. Overall Edelgard flaws to me are just very much more about social skills.

- The debate is getting a bit outside of the interpretation of fe3h, but to me there's a moment where you need to step over people boundaries when those are unhealthy. To give a personal example, I have struggled sometimes with unhealthy diet habit, and if it wasn't for my friend who pressed on the subject despite my clear boundary of not speaking of any weight related matter I would have been in a much worst space today... In general, as someone who's familiar with subject like self-harm, eating disorder or suicididal though, I have to strongly disagree that going over someone unhealthy boundaries is a unempathic act. To get back to Hubert, he is not a mindset where he will ever question by himself that he needs to carry out gruesome act in a solitary path. He needs friends to question this deeply unhealthy mindset where he pretty much view himself as a weapon before than a human, even if he rather have no one press on it. It’s an emphatical act for Edelgard to try to help Hubert and be a real friend he can count on. Someone who struggle with empathy would have very much just used him without any consideration, as Hubert try himself to be seen as just a tool.

Also, I think that even the question of unhealthy boundary aside, the deep involvement of Edelgard in the matter Hubert keep secret is by itself enough of a reason for Edelgard to press on the matter without it being unempathical.

- Oh, I'm sorry for misunderstanding your post! Because then yeah, I would say her making Ferdinand uncomfortable is just a case of Edelgard being bad with people. She empathize with his emotional turmoil, that's why she's coming to him, but she's definitely not equiped to deal with all that ( she's trying at least 😭 ).

Also I only brought up Ferdinand because of my mistake, I wanted to show that Edelgard actions were reasonable and not unempathical for brushing off Ferdinand. I really didn't mean to try to bring the discussions around his flaw!

- I admit I personally don't know much about the subject of empathy vs sympathy and english isn't my first langage so you probably know best ^^" I just read the Wikipedia article on the subject and empathy seems so broad. After reading it I'm even not sure that sympathy might be something distinct from empathy, in the sense that it might actually be part of it??? Since it's your post, we're going with your definitions of the term. Did I understand well that for you, empathy is placing yourself in another shoe while sympathy is caring about someone?

On another matter, I have to disagree on Edelgard shortness for people "not on their side". For example, Edelgard is shown as pretty calm towards Rhea, pretty understanding even if sad towards a SS!Byleth... I do agree with she get frustrated more easily with the persons she dislike though.

And I won't lie, to me you cannot only speak of how Edelgard can be prone to frustration over misunderstanding without speaking of her effort to overcome such misunderstanding. The trend in her support is that she can clash hard with people due to her short fuse, but due to her perseverance on trying to understand them she end up forming a really strong bond with them... What I mean is that Edelgard frustration and anger tend to be most of the time something short-lived, especially in regards to her prolonged effort to overcome it. I would probably not qualify Edelgard frustration along with the term dismissive.

But overall, I also do not believe her frustration comes solely from her not understanding why someone else isn't reacting the way she expected. When you look at her Hanneman or Manuela supports, you see that she's on the contrary curious over their belief or act that she doesn't understand. Or in the Caspar support, Edelgard is only shown as angry when Caspar directly insult her and she otherwise ask a question and starts to reflect when Caspar respond differently than expected... Actually, while I don’t doubt Edelgard get frustrated for not misunderstanding, would it be possible for you to refer to the some specific moments in the games that show what you mean? ( It don’t have to be the exact dialog, I can search it if you give me even a vague description! )

- Oh sorry for the misunderstanding ^^" But if I now understand well your argument, Edelgard is explicitly against the crest as part of a wider system and not just the phenomenon of crest by itself? Her revolution is also just has much against nobility and the Church than about crest?

( Also as a side note, I took your response as you being positive with discussing. However while I personally enjoy having a debate, I know not everyone wants that, especially when they get long. As I am the one who came into your post, please don't hesitate to tell me if you want me to stop interacting with it! I totally understand if you just want to express your own though in peace. )

I lied. Put your clothes back on. We're going to talk about how Edelgard is a product of her environment.

Edelgard's motives for change are purely based on her own experiences and what she does want for the commoners is poorly thought through and has no more depth other than "I want them to be our equals" whilst having no planned out steps to actually do anything about it.

It is Ferdinand who makes her realise that commoners require free education to even attempt to be able to attain the same level that the nobles are given on a silver platter.

But of course Edelgard wouldn't think about that, because she doesn't have to. She had grown up Princess of a kingdom with the promise of Emperor at her feet since she was around 10 years old. Even when she wasn't promised Emperor, she was promised a comfortable life. Her education would have been paid for her. Of course she doesn't understand the struggles of commoners, because she has never had to.

Edelgard has been through hell but she has not been put through inherited disadvantage so why would she ever consider what it is like to be raised a commoner????

And so of course, when Edelgard sees the church exploiting and hurting everybody she immediately blames crests and becomes so tunnel visioned on her own experiences to make her stronger, she becomes blind to the other very real and much more important issues happening around her.

Edelgard lacks basic empathy and whether it is just something about her or it comes from the intense trauma she experienced as a child, it makes it impossible for her to relate to commoners and pretty much anyone who has a different lived experience to her. To the point where she even treads all over Hubert's boundaries, and he's the person who is the closest to her at the start of the game and agrees with her and her ideals the most.

This not to say she lacks sympathy, I believe she has a lot of sympathy for people. But she cannot for the life of her put herself in other people's shoes and think about how they are feeling/would feel.

This partially causes her lack of basic respect towards Petra and her racism towards Brigid, holding their freedom over their heads in exchange for Petra risking her life for FIVE YEARS and if she doesn't. Well then. No freedom for Brigid. However, this is also caused by being raised within the Adrestian Empire, especially within the Imperial nobility.

But her lack of empathy extends to her friends. I've mentioned Hubert already but she repeatedly makes Ferdinand uncomfortable, she gets snappy with Bernadetta whenever she's panicking, she outright calls Byleth pathetic for grieving their dead father DESPITE STILL GRIEIVING HER OWN DEAD FAMILY. There are hundreds of instances where Edelgard just simply cannot understand anything from someone else's point of view.

I don't hate Edelgard. I don't think I'm capable of hating any character but I definitely do not like the way she goes about things and treats other characters. She has many many many flaws but I do believe she is a product of her environment. As well as a victim of shitty writing (but that applies to all the characters).

[ehlnofay]

If you’ve read it and you’re interested, here are a few notes for the curious, elaborating on various points of this story (which I am posting here because APPARENTLY you’re not allowed to put a thousand words in the end notes):

the first note I made about this idea, ages and ages ago, is a little scribble in my nonsense notebook under a headline reading "COHESIVE-ISH STORY IDEAS". (The same page also has the seed of one of my other pieces, Comfort.) It says: "Arabella's stint at the College - can't slow down. Ancano? Check the timeline. Character study - why it couldn't work"

I was glad to be able to flesh out Arabella’s spellburn a little in this piece, since it’s a character detail she’s had since before I started posting any of my writing at all. I headcanon spellburn as a very common thing that has afflicted just about anyone who has ever tried to do magic, usually in a very minor sense – attempting a spell that outpaces one’s expertise and ability, or cutting corners and not casting a spell correctly, can often result in injury that’s about as serious as spilling hot water on your hands while pouring tea due to overexposure to raw magicka. The severity of the burn depends on how catastrophic the mistake was, and can take very different forms depending on the type of magic and the circumstances. Arabella’s burn is the result of casting a pretty basic flames spell drastically incorrectly, with the primary goal of turning as much magicka to fire as quickly as possible and no regard for anything else (no particular attention made to the finesse, presentation, or safety of the spell), so that the change from raw magicka to magefire happens at the exact place and moment it passes from inside her body to outside of it, and then continuing to do that regularly for years. The consistent overexposure had an exponential effect; at this point re-irritating the burns hurts much less (up to a certain point) but it only does more damage, and because all the injury is caused by magical energy, magical healing not only doesn’t take but has an actively harmful effect. This is a common effect of spellburn to an extent – with one-off cases, restorative spellcraft must be done carefully, but can still ultimately resolve the problem. In severe cases, or when spellburn is not yet healed, it can be inflamed by exposure to magic; there have been mages who overextended themselves so drastically that they could never cast again, though generally even the worst spellburn is treatable with time, care, and consciousness of one’s limits in the future. (count how many times I said “spellburn” in that monster paragraph. only, don’t – I did, and it was only six, which was much less than it felt like.)

I did actually think through Brelyna’s spell a bit, too – and then none of it made it in because there’s no way she would tell Arabella about it. It’s a complex conjuration/alteration combination spell that was meant to give the target the qualities and abilities of conjured creature archetypes. But it’s a bit past Brelyna’s skill level, so half the detail cut out when she tried to cast it and it simplified down to just making the target more like said archetype in physicality. which went over poorly

I also figured I’d write out a quick summary of Arabella’s Normal Backstory which she is Normal About for any who are curious; I put as much context as I could into the story where it felt natural, but given that the crux of the narrative here is Arabella deciding that after a very long time of being full-on in survival mode she’s just going to chill out now and being genuinely shocked that the trauma she never once tried to work through or even acknowledge is still affecting her, there was no way that I could finagle her narrative voice into explaining things in clear detail. She prunes off every thought that gets too scary before it has a chance to flower; she doesn’t think about any of this if she can avoid it (which she damn well does her best to). In short: Arabella’s family, for as much as her life as she could remember, was part of what was essentially a grassroots underground political collective that opposed Dominion occupation and government. She never really cared about this much until she was about twenty, when the local government caught wind of this and set fire to three buildings that functioned as meeting spots (one of which was her parents’ house, the others the home and business of family friends). Arabella ran into a justiciar warrior, the world’s worst fire spell made its first iconic appearance, and she left Falinesti. The next few years were spent roaming around Valenwood stealing shit and causing petty problems for the Dominion wherever possible; this all went pretty well until the third time she was arrested, which she got out of just like the first two but was a significantly worse experience, and now she had another murder charge on her head (this one they actually knew she committed) and a government that knew what she was capable of, so she left again. Spent some time in Cyrodiil mostly being highly traumatised from her time in Valenwood and hating Cyrodiil for not being Valenwood (god I could talk about this for ever), and then eventually decided that enough was enough and if she wasn’t going home then she may as well go do something, and isn’t it convenient that she promised her home something she could do? Then – well. We know how that goes.

(There’s not a great deal of time between the end of this story and the beginning of the Thieves’ Guild questline, which is incidentally where Arabella does end up staying long term despite her best efforts to fuck it up as drastically as she does the College. This piece sets up the headspace she’s in at that stage… pretty grim. I can’t wait to dig into it more.)

A Study in Self-Immolation

In which an eager young student learns the arts of spellcraft and staying (and almost all of that is a lie.)

posted another longer-than-usual story! this is a project that has been on the backburner for a good long while; I'm glad to finally finish it up. this piece explores my character arabella's foray into academia and the reasons why it goes the way it does. should you feel so inclined, please check it out - I would be absolutely bloody delighted :)