#That's all I got for positives here.....

[0heartangel0]

PERSONA 5 TACTICA IS NOT GREAT: A VERY ODDLY-CONSTRUCTED RANT

Pt. 6: Villains Bad

When it comes to antagonists in Persona, they tend to be a hit-or-miss, and this is especially true in Persona 5. The main criticism people would levy at this game is how a vast majority of the antagonists are way too overtly evil, to the point where you just can't take them seriously.

Kamoshida is a good example of this. Right off the bat, he's very egotistical, abuses his volleyball team (of minors), is lustful towards the girls of the team (STILL MINORS), asks for sexual favors from Ann (MINOR) in exchange for her best friend to stay on the volleyball team, is heavily implied to have sexually assaulted said best friend (do I need to say it again?), leading to her attempting suicide, forces one of his students to leak Joker's criminal record to the whole school before even showing up (forget why he does this; I guess he did it just to be an a-hole), breaks up the track team after literally breaking Ryuji's leg in a self-proclaimed act of "self-defense", only because he saw the track team and its coach as competition, and planned to expel Joker, Ryuji, and Mishima after they confronted him about this behavior (he even does an evil laugh after stating this!).

The game makes it VERY clear that we're not supposed to like Kamoshida. In fact, he's not supposed to be redeemable at all, and his Palace and Shadow make this all the more clear. However, the game can only go so far, before realizing that the writers basically made Satan incarnate to almost an over-the-top degree, and you just can't take it seriously anymore.

For Pete sake, his Shadow looks like THIS:

While the rest of the antagonists are arguably not as dastardly as Kamoshida (Shido might be an exception), they still come across as over-the-top in some regard, and I think it mainly has to do with how they're presented in their Shadow forms.

Because we're basically seeing the alternate, more unfiltered sides of these people, the game allows us to see them air out their more egregious and sickening personalities. We see this with Madarame, who appears to be a gentle, yet private old man, but his Shadow is shown to be a lot more vain and pompous, claiming everything he makes is pure work of art. DUDE WEARS A TOP KNOT!

But, they're all still basically evil, unredeemable people all the same.

Strikers then decides to change this up a bit by making the antagonists more sympathetic. Yes, they're doing terrible things for their own gain, but they are shown to originally be decent people that were either taken advantage of or screwed over, turning them into corrupt people in order to get back at those that wronged them (it's explained that part of why mainly the Monarchs turn out this way is through the influence of EMMA and her brainwashing them and trapping them in their trauma). Yes, the Monarch's Shadows are still over-the-top, but we at least get to see a glimpse of their humanity and that they're all just misguided at the end of the day.

For instance, Hyodo was brainwashing people to vote for her to be mayor, but it was so she could help her city be the best it can while taking down the true corrupt politicians in power. This is all thanks to an event where she signed off on construction workers who intentionally made a cheaper, thus faultier, snow sculpture that collapsed and killed an innocent girl, and the people responsible threatened to take her down with them if she reported them.

You know what she's doing is wrong, but you understand why she's doing this. All of the Monarchs are like or are similar to this.

Even the antagonists that aren't Monarchs are still presented as nothing more than flawed individuals that just need a right direction on the road. Both Kaburagi and Zenkichi, for instance, are people that want to make changes in the force and justice system, but in order to do that, they must do the very things that they want to change to begin with. As a result, they become no better than the people endorsing and benefitting from this corrupt system and become corrupt themselves.

Because the antagonists are painted in this light, they're all allowed to be redeemed in some way while still having to make up for and learn from their heinous mistakes. This is especially true in Zenkichi’s case, who awakens to his Persona and becomes a member of the Phantom Thieves later upon realizing this (I'd love to go over his awakening, but we'd be here all day).

The ONLY antagonist in this game that is downright evil and irredeemable is Owada, but he doesn't have as much of a presence as the rest of the antagonists, and, in one character's case, is more of a goal/motivation than anything.

Aside from that exception, all of this is to fit with Striker's theme of redemption, and that some individuals are just lost, misguided people that just need a step in the right direction. And for the most part, it works and does its job.

Now, with all of these examples in mind, how does Tactica write their antagonists?

......not great.

They lean in the direction of the original Persona 5 antagonists, who are just made to be awful people that we're not supposed to sympathize with. As a result, they end up falling under the same trap as those antagonists by coming across as way too over-the-top, making it less easy to take seriously as a threat.

But, what made og P5 antagonists kind of work is that they at least posed a threat and did downright disgusting things that gave us motivation to take them down.

Say all you want about Kamoshida, but the fact that he is as screwed up as he is made us the players more gung-ho to kick his shins in by the time we got to his boss fight. Shiho's suicide attempt was supposed to be the catalyst to the thieves finally realizing the consequences of leaving someone like Kamoshida roam free. It shows just how dangerous of a person he is, and why we shouldn't be so lenient towards people like him.

Neither of the Tyrant's in this game gives us this incentive to take care of them nor the threat of what happens if we don't. Both Marie and Yoshiki imprison and put harm to the hat people, but as I've explained in the previous part, they're not real! We don't have a reason to care. The closest we get is Marie brainwashing the thieves at the beginning, but that's about it, and it's taken care of fairly quickly because we GOTTA have all of our party members before this Kingdom ends (probably another reason why the length of it is so inflated compared to the rest).

But that "not real" thing brings up another issue with the Tyrants: they're also not real. Instead of them being the Shadows of the real world counterparts, they're instead an exaggerated interpretation of what they are through the eyes of Toshiro.

This might sound a bit speculatory, but the fact we're given Toshiro's perspective of these people instead of the real deals, it creates this biased viewpoint where we're supposed to trust Toshiro's word for it. While we do see them at the end of the game, a vast majority of the time is us having to take all of these overexaggerated versions of these people seriously. Also, the thieves' trust in him always tends to flip-flop over the course of the game. These are the same people who immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was untrustworthy despite finding him locked up in a dungeon and visually terrified. They don't even believe his amnesia story! But, when he starts to conveniently remember details, they just believe him.

Even if we were to take it all at face-value, the only person that these Tyrants ever really effect is Toshiro, and while I get that that's the point, their threat is diminished and becomes a bit small-scale.

Okay, I'm gonna go over each Tyrant/antagonist one-by-one, and just go off. Let's go!

MARIE ANTO

Marie is our first Tyrant, and she follows the trend that every first antagonist in P5 follows: a lustful abuser who's main colors are PINK. So, right off the bat, she's very unoriginal. Sure, she tries to switch it up a bit by following this wedding theme, but that's just all she is, really; some bridezilla wanting everything to be perfect, all while abusing her groom-to-be for her benefit. You could also interpret it as being a representation of her power, since her marrying Toshiro in her eyes means becoming the wife of a prime minister.

Aside from that, she's kind of an uninteresting character. Her only real character traits is being manipulative, bratty, and short-tempered when she doesn't get her way. In a word, she's a child.

Taking all of the Kingdom crap out of the equation, all she really does is be abusive and manipulative towards Toshiro. She only effects Toshiro (this is gonna be a theme).

But okay, I agree that that's bad (there's a reason why no one likes Haru's fiance), but even her manipulation and abuse is very, VERY unsubtle. In a flashback we're shown, she says OUT LOUD that Toshiro is her "puppet." What kind of abuser calls their victims "puppets"? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of their manipulation tactics? Having them be reliant on them and only them to further use them? Just spelling out how they see you defeats the whole point of that. Also, as I've stated, it's way too obvious and is only there to tell us the audience what is happening (despite this being a rated-T game).

It doesn't stop there because later, we get a scene where Toshiro and the Thieves come across a hallway covered with pictures of Marie and Toshiro, with Toshiro being faceless. This is supposed to represent how little Marie thinks of Toshiro, only seeing him as nothing more than a prop for her rise, so she doesn't even remember what he looks like (this is also spelled out to us, because the game thinks I'm 5).

But, wait a minute-

....okay, then.

But THEN! We get to ANOTHER hallway, where we come across a giant teddy bear that's supposed to be Toshiro (and dear lord, this bear is gonna haunt my nightmares).

The bear basically repeats the same mantra of him only being Marie's puppet, and he only lives to serve her, and without her, he's useless.

After so much of this, it doesn't take long before I scream to the heavens,

How many times must the game repeat the same exact crap, before it thinks it got its point across?? Why does the game think I'm stupid??? You only need ONE instance of telling us, or, GOD FORBID, showing us how Marie sees Toshiro (or, how Toshiro thinks Marie sees him).

IT'S NOT THAT FLIPPIN' COMPLICATED!

THIS ISN'T AN EPISODE OF DORA!! BUT EVEN DORA LETS YOU GET THE THING IT'S TRYING TO GET ACROSS BEFORE SPELLING IT OUT TO YOU! GOD!!

....sorry, didn't mean to do that. Anyway...

Her boss fight is....fine, but also kind of dumb. She slowly approaches you while tossing around bombed bouquets, and you must hit them back at her. Sometimes, she'll throw a giant ring at one of your party members, and they'll be her target. This becomes useful in the second phase, where she hops in her car and starts driving around on the highlighted trail, and she'll follow that targeted person's exact movement, allowing you to set up her running over her bouquet bombs. In the final phase, you then have to get her in position at a FRAME-PERFECT spot so Toshiro can drop a bell on her De La Cruz-style, ending the fight.

Apart from the last two phases being absolutely frustrating, I feel like they could've done more with it. Like.....why a CAR? What does that say about Marie and what does it have to do with weddings, aside from having the 'Just Married' banner? The whole style of the car itself + the whole gimmick of the fight is giving 'Bowser From Super Mario 3D World' vibes. You know the one:

Also, with the constant talk about how Toshiro is her puppet, why not make that literal? Like, actually incorporate the themes and symbolism you set up into the gameplay! Use that creepy bear by having him fight alongside Marie! Hell, give him strings to further push the whole 'puppet' thing! Don't just leave that crap exclusive to dialogue and cutscenes!

They already seemed to have an idea going with that by having Toshiro be the one to finish the fight by dropping a bell on her, but that's it! It just feels like wasted potential....

I honestly have nothing more to say about Marie, unfortunately. I mean, she can brainwash people, which fits her manipulation thing....I guess. I....like her design? It's a mix of a military uniform and a wedding dress. Also, pink.

OH! I noticed right off the bat that her name is so close to being Marie Antoinette, the famous French queen that was beheaded during the French Revolution! The Kingdom itself also appears to be very French-inspired. Also, something-something, "Let them eat cake", she has a giant cake in the middle of the Kingdom at one point with hat people shoved in it.

But yeah, that's about it....

....wait, what do you mean the gang originally thought she was marrying Yusuke? HE'S 17-

YOSHIKI KASUKABE

Yoshiki is our second Tyrant who rules an olden-day Japanese kingdom. He has this appearance of a giant green Buddha figure who presence himself as loving and caring towards his people. In reality, though, he's very controlling, always has his kingdom on surveillance, and has the hat men go to these camps that are really just forced labor.

In the real world, he's actually Toshiro's father, a politician who has abused and groomed Toshiro into becoming a politician like him. It's stated that he even did some corrupt stuff behind the scenes, mainly to rig the elections to Toshiro's favor so he could be Prime Minister. Toshiro collected evidence to expose his father for this but never worked up the courage to do so.

He appears as a Buddha in Toshiro's cognition, because, according to Toshiro, he's referred to in the political world as 'Buddah Kasukabe' for his "serene temperament".

In actuality, he's rather quick to anger (mainly at Toshiro), as is shown through his head splitting apart to reveal a red-headed (not just in hair) angry Yoshiki when unpleased. Now, I got this symbolism fairly quickly, and thought it was pretty neat both concept and design-wise.....if only the game trusted my intellect to not have to say this crap aloud. But alas, THEY DON'T.

YOU DON'T SAY, YUSUKE! I NEVER WOULD'VE GUESSED!!

This is also where Toshiro realizes that the Kingdoms were all conjured from his cognition. And the thing that makes him discover this is SO DUMB-

As Futaba is trying to break into a control room to expose Yoshiki and failing to do so, her saying the "exposing Yoshiki" part causes Toshiro to remember stuff about his dad, and shoves Futaba over to input a password in, and it WORKS!

You might think that it's because he knows his dad, so would have an idea of what passwords he would usually use for his devices, but in REALITY.......just- just explain it for me, Toshiro....

I-

I just-

why-

......whatever......if I think too hard about this, I'm gonna fry my brain.....

Anyway, Yoshiki is also linked to another character who appears in this Kingdom; a woman named Yuki. It's stated that he knows her and is elaborated that she used to live in the palace with him before leaving and helping the people, and later, the Thieves + Erina and Toshiro.

If it wasn't painfully obvious, it's later revealed that Yuki is really Toshiro's mother who passed away when he was fairly young due to an illness that made her bedridden.

Little Toshiro snuck his mom out of the hospital one day so they could go to the park without his father knowing. She collapsed as they were walking back and she passed away a few days later. Yoshiki would go on to blame Toshiro for what happened (I mean, I would blame the hospital for even allowing this to happen in the first place, but whatever). The fact that her death is used to further push how terrible Yoshiki is to Toshiro also feels unnecessary, because....we kind of already got that. We don't need any other examples. Just the fact he abuses and pushes Toshiro into being a politician as a young child should get that across well enough.

It's Marie ALL over again!

And yeah, that sucks, but aside from that, Yuki is SO. BORING. AND FORGETTABLE. It sometimes slips my mind that she even dies at the end of this Kingdom, and apart from Futaba mentioning her a little later, she's never really brought up again. She feels more like a plot device that's supposed to make you feel bad for Toshiro (but I'm getting WAYYY ahead of myself on that train of thought) than an actual character.

I could replace her with my cat ALSO conveniently named Yuki, and she'd be a more interesting character by comparison!

Just look at this idiot! She has zero braincells up there! All there is is FLOOF! And I wouldn't have a doubt in my mind that she'd be a fan favorite if she were in the game!

Also, prior to the reveal, there's a scene where Toshiro talks to her about her safety, and the thieves percieve it as being all lovey-dovey, and they ship the two together, which is just-

UGH.

....OH YEAH, YOSHIKI!

Honestly, out of all of the antagonists, Yoshiki is the most entertaining one of the lot. His whole "love" schtick lends to some funny dialogue on his part, and there's this whole thing where he broadcasts himself reading off poetry to his viewers, and there's a cute little talk segment about it, and it's great. I already mentioned a request mission that ends with Ryuji getting a bunch of merch of Yoshiki, and that's pretty funny (especially regarding the implications that Yoshiki sells merch of himself).

I also like his boss fight. You're basically trying to approach him while avoiding his attacks, enemies, and cameras that will put you in cross hairs. There's also manipulating platforms as a sort of puzzle to progress further to him. Repeat this 3 times, and victory is yours. Much like Marie, though, I wish there was more symbolism incorporated into it. I do like the camera thing, representing how he always has his eyes on Toshiro no matter what (I think), but there could've been more. Fun fight, though, unlike Marie's.

Overall, Yoshiki is a fun character, but one that could've had more. Once again, he only ever really affects Toshiro, and no one else. Again.

ICHIRO NAKABACHI

Nakabachi, while being a fake Tyrant, did more crap than Marie and Yoshiki combined. He blackmailed and extorted his way to the top, and even manipulated students to do his bidding, lest he leaks personal info about them. After Toshiro and Eri lead an uprising against him, many students went on to abuse and make up lies about him, to the point where Nakabachi just went insane, leading to him shoving Eri in front of an oncoming train, handicapping her. He's no Kamoshida, but he's still somewhat of a threat in real life!

Sadly, because he's a fake Tyrant, there's really not much else to him. He's more of a plot device than a character, but unlike Yuki, it actually serves the plot in some way and leads to something tangible. He serves his purpose, and he serves it pretty well...

...despite the fact I already knew he wasn't the Tyrant of this Kingdom, because it couldn't have been more obvious that the Tyrant was Toshiro! Speaking of-

SHADOW TOSHI-

You know what? We'll save him for a later part. Put a pin on him.

SAMAEL

GOOD. LORD (no pun intended). Where do I begin with this guy?

He's the true antagonist and final boss of the game, being the reason Toshiro and everyone else are here in Toshiro's cognition.

He's Yaldabaoth. He's EMMA/Demiurge. Your surprise God of the week who's only here, because something-something, humanity is complacent, or something....But here's what those two have over Samael: they're actually present throughout the course of their stories!

Yaldabaoth was disguised as Igor the whole time and the reason why Lavenza was split in two. He did this all for the sake of "rigging the game" to his favor to prove that humanity needed control over freedom. He was manipulating you this whole time to achieve this goal.

EMMA was established right from the get-go as something used to brainwash and manipulate people. As the game progresses, she starts to grow more of a sentience, to the point where by the end when she's shut off, she turns herself back on, brainwashing everyone who has EMMA on their phones, and essentially becomes a God. That's right; Siri becomes a God, and is the final boss in a JRPG. And people wonder why I love Strikers...

Samael, on the other hand, does none of that. He's never established or even alluded to, until the last few hours of the game, where the characters are literally asking who's behind everything, and he just pops in, goes, "I'm the final boss", and screws off to the world's worst final dungeon in a video game.

Then Lavenza pops up in a train to take everyone to said final dungeon, and on the way there, proceeds to spout 10 MINUTES of exposition on who Samael is and why he's here. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU ESTABLISH YOUR MAIN VILLAIN! The entire train scene was just me going,

Okay, so from the notes I've taken, basically:

Samael is the God of Stagnation, wanting to rid people of their pain and worry by putting fear into them, protecting themselves from potentially getting hurt. He's been doing this for thousands of years. Then, one fateful day, during Shido's calling card, one Toshiro Kasukabe felt a sense of rebellion watching it all unfold. Samael tried to quash this, but couldn't get past his defenses created by Erina, his manifestation of his rebellion inspired by Eri (oh, yeah, we'll get to that). To combat this, Samael created the Kingdoms, using all of Toshiro's bad memories to scare him, whittling down his mind, until he eventually relents.

okay. Okay. OKAY!

SO

Why is this the only instance throughout thousands upon THOUSANDS of years of this happening? How is Toshiro the only person in recorded history to combat Samael's power? Is he just THAT good?

Toshiro's rebellion sparked while he was watching the Shido calling card. Given the nature of said calling card + the thieves gaining massive following at the time + Joker having formed Confidants where he inspired rebellion in them, how was there not ANYONE ELSE during that event that felt that same spark? The same sense of rebellion? Surely, Samael would've tried to also put that out in others. What made Toshiro's so special?

Why hasn't he targeted the thieves or any other Persona user in the series?

Okay, that makes a *bit* of sense, but even when you apply that logic, it turns back to being dumb!

Samael went through ALL of this trouble just to control this one guy, when in reality, he didn't need to do ANYTHING! It's already mentioned that despite Toshiro gathering the evidence to convict his dad, he never got himself to commit due to his fear. He was still engaged to Marie, seeming like he wasn't gonna bail anytime soon. It doesn't seem like he was ever gonna get back into contact with Eri. At the start of the game, his first course of action was to always get the Hell out of dodge!

Samael doing all of this did the exact OPPOSITE, and motivated him, instead. It's not helped by him dragging the Thieves and the whole bloody VELVET ROOM along with Toshiro into the Kingdoms. I'm STILL wrapping my head around why he did this, especially with the Velvet Room. Dragging the Velvet Room only gave the Thieves and Toshiro more firepower to eventually take him down! He was digging his own grave at this point!

ALL he had to do, was NOTHING! HE WOULD'VE WON, THEN! THIS GOD WAS REALLY INTIMIDATED BY THIS GUY?

THIS GUY??

THIS GUY????

And yeah, his boss fight was surprisingly easy for being the final boss, and the cutscene showing his defeat was rather stupid (but I'll save that for when I discuss the ending).

Despite the fact I was never really big on the 'God Of The Week' final bosses Persona always has, Samael is that trope at its absolute worst and then some. Screw this guy!

Okay....sorry that took a bit to cover, but I had to.

Just about all of the villains were a miss for me. They felt very one-note, only seeming to have one goal in mind: making Toshiro suffer. And before you say that that's the point, let me remind you that even bloody GOD wanted to make Toshiro suffer. Even the real-life counterparts of the Tyrants are actually like that, making them less interesting. So much wasted potential with these characters and concepts that are just left underdeveloped, and for why?

So, in conclusion:

Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 4.5, Pt. 5, Pt. 7, Pt. 8

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Remember: The burning sensation is part of the process.

[sideblogdotjpeg]

post battle, one last short rest

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #61 part 1

Danny didn’t like thinking about his old life. He was born to a family of assassins and as soon as he was out he never looked back. He had to fake his death and he changed his name, as far as anyone knew Damian Al Ghul had died on a mission to America. He was determined to keep this secret to the grave. Of course he knew who his dad was, Bruce Wayne was a prominent figure and he knew if we went there his secret would get out and he never wanted to be forced to be an assassin again. Once was enough. 

Danny knew he had a soft heart, his adoptive parents, the Fentons and Jazz had told him so. Jazz knew he didn’t have the greatest childhood or past but she never pried, she understood his business was his and wouldn’t let her own curiosity get the better of her. The only issue their family had was their parents obsession with ghosts. Damian never believed in ghosts, the entire thing sounded like a hoax. He probably never would have believed in them but then life happened. 

Danny believed, but it was kind of hard not too after everything that happened. When he had turned 14, his parents finished their biggest project yet. A portal to the ghost zone, of course it doesn’t work at first and his parents were very disappointed. Danny felt conflicted about the whole thing. On one hand he wanted his parents to succeed and he wanted them to be happy, on the other the portal was the reason he ate alone with his sister at night. He wanted a normal family life, something he was never allowed back at the league. 

He did something so stupid that night.

After his parents along with his sister were asleep, he crept down to the basement and stood in front of the empty hole in the wall. He looked around the outside of it first but nothing seemed to be out of place. Then he stepped into it and before he got too far into it something happened. He knew there were a lot of cords on the floor and thought he had avoided them all, but as he realized he was quickly being acquainted with the floor, he out of instinct held his hand out to catch himself on the wall. Right onto the ON button.

He didn’t remember much but pain after that.

A lot happened in the year after the portal was turned on but Danny thought he was taking things well. His sister found out about everything sooner than he liked but having someone to help him was something he didn’t realize he really needed until then. The ghost attacks were frequent and Danny was having trouble finding the time for school, friends, and fighting ghosts that the assistance helped a lot. 

Danny sat at as desk in Mr. Lancers class, who was going on about the play Hamlet. Danny was only half paying attention, he was preoccupied thinking about the latest conversation he had with Clockwork. Danny was recently crowned prince after his victory over Pariah Dark. He didn’t want the crown, ancients knew what Grandfather would do if he ever found out, but he had no other option but to accept. The conversation left him rather drained and it felt like every word his teacher spoke bled together. 

He eventually made his way to lunch and before he could make it to his destination a blue mist wafted out of his mouth. Sighing he ran out of the room to find a place to transform. Once he was Phantom he wasted no time finding the ghost. Of course it was Boxie. 

Before he had time to even fight though a portal opened up right besides Danny and he was kicked in by the Box Ghost. The world seemed to swirl around him until he landed harshly onto some pavement. The pavement was a roof and he appeared to be in a city. 

Not just any city he soon realized as he looked over to a bank that had the words ‘Gotham Bank’ brightly plastered on the front.

Shit… Danny wanted to avoid something like this, unfortunately the portal was already gone. 

After taking a moment to think about his predicament he decided the best course of action was to call Jazz.

He took a look around the rooftop he was on and when he didn’t see anyone he transformed back. 

Pulling out his cell from his pocket he pulled up his sister's contact on it and hit the call button. 

His sister took a bit longer than usual to answer but the hesitation in her voice caused him to pause, “H-hello?”

“Jazz, it’s Danny, we’ve got a code green,”  he knew setting up code colors with his sister would come in handy. Red meant he was gravely injured, yellow meant the ghost got away and he was in pursuit, blue meant he caught the ghost, and green meant he fell through a portal or something similar. 

There was silence on the other line for a moment and Danny was almost going to say something else but she spoke, “How do you know my name?”

Master Post:

Next:

[3liza]

look I know it's part of a much larger and trickier issue but in a vacuum, "gay people shouldn't own firearms because they will just get depressed and kill themselves" is like something my 80 year old Vietnam veteran father would remark casually during some sort of family gathering and then get REALLY surprised when absolutely everyone got mad at him

[stil-lindigo]

Source

While reading this interview with a West Bank settler, it's important to remember her views do not represent those of all Israelis just like Israel does not represent all Jews. There has been sizeable protest in Tel Aviv against the genocide (quickly squashed under Netanyahu’s police force just like all other pro-palestinian sentiment) but it’s worth reading to get insight into the minds of average people who cheer on Palestinian deaths, and draw up a chair to watch hellfire rain down on innocents. This is the impact of years of settler-colonial propaganda - a complete dehumanisation of a scapegoat population.

It also has to be said that ALL colonialist countries are complicit in encouraging this kind of extremism, by facilitating and stoking the fires of islamophobia post-9/11. Israel is not an outlier - this kind of sentiment is festering EVERYWHERE and attempting to detach yourself and your country's identity from it is like burying your head in the sand.

If you stand on the side of Palestinians in this crisis, you have to be prepared to recognise the signs of islamophobia and fascism everywhere, and stand against them.

[yardsards]

i needed to express a sentiment in the creative stylings of @dunmeshiminimumwage

[luna-the-cretar]

They’re holding hands :)

[biblically-accurate-dca]

super disorganized sketch page because i do what i want

[coco-chip]

🤭💌 🍙

loves trials are never ending

The people wanted more and i have more!

in case you dont know this is a continuation of this post

i have so many thoughts about this au nyall,,,,

anyway heres a look into some of gyros day to day! he does have a job! not one he likes very much but its basically the only thing that keeps him from being a neet

he also has friends (shockingly) pocoloco and soundman were his friends before his obsession and they have some odd quirks of their own

[valhallavalgrace]

How are you adjusting to the whole Norse mythology situation?

LEO: I’ve mostly been bugging some of the older einherjar, and Hunding, a little bit, to figure this place out. Do you know how cool it is that some people have been here since the industrial revolution?? There's no way that I'm the first of my dad's kids to make it here. I just don't know who to talk to about it.

((Leo's coping mechanism re: Norse mythology is just hating himself more bc of course he doesn't belong in his own afterlife. but he won't admit that to anyone bc he doesn't know who can be vulnerable with.))

prev ask

[willyhoos]

you know for someone who loves metamy so much. i gotta say having it be fully unrequited is honestly fitting with metal's whole arc (or rather his LACK of arc)

he wants what he can't have. he's not anything or anyone, he doesn't deserve it. what would he even do with it?

"i don't think i have anything. i don't think i can have anything. i don't know how to have something." (src: 17776)

whether or not you subscribe to the roboticized metal theory, it doesn't change that metal's goals are not aligned with reality. ironically it's the robot that is unable to logically analyze his situation. he wants to be sonic but it doesn't change the fact that he isn't. he wants to win but it doesn't change the fact that he won't. his desires are narratively and morally unfulfillable because what he wants is wrong (factually and ethically.)

and so if he, in theory, wanted amy rose how could he ever actually have her?

the most she would give him is "you're more like him than i thought."

because he's Not sonic. all he can be is sufficiently Like him (sometimes). whatever metal claims he is (and honestly whatever he ACTUALLY is) is irrelevant because he can't MAKE himself sonic. he can't make himself the version of sonic that amy loves. amy loves sonic for WHAT he is (good) not what he's named. the most she could ever do is passively appreciate the traits of sonic that metal is able to imitate. emulate. simulate. fabricate.

sonic's role (in the meta story and in-universe) is so unique and treasured and irreplaceable. the only way to kick him out would be to, idk, replace him with an identical copy and put the old sonic in a lose-lose situation where he could not possibly be believed or sympathized with. or something.

say he gets "rehabilitated," rebels against eggman... you know those metamy fics. what is he then?

-> another job well done. another good deed for team sonic (y'know, the real one).

because it's not just that he's Not Sonic. (and he isn't. even if you believe he once was, he's not anymore in any way that is relevant to the narrative. the narrative, as you know, is the real sonic's pov.) it's that he's not even really a person anymore.

he's been forcibly depersonalized, dethroned, removed from his role (+ promptly replaced with something canonically better!) and isolated from any semblance of humanization. he doesn't even have a mouth. either it was taken from him or he was never given one. and we are not given any glimpse into his thoughts. (they're not important.)

like. this is a dead end. he is a dead end. there's nowhere to run.

he won't "get the girl" (pardon the term) not because he's evil not because he's not sonic but because he is not a "person" in any sense. not literally not socially not narratively not practically not really

idk. whether metal falls in love with amy genuinely, or if it's just out of jealousy/desire to want what the real sonic has/instinct to emulate the real sonic's emotions... it's doomed. he's just a ghost from a doomed timeline and everything he will ever do is destined to fail. he can't kill sonic. he can't hold amy's hand. he can't do anything but lose.

in that sense, metal "losing" amy to the real sonic (as if metal was ever even a contender, as if he was ever real enough) is just another failure in a long, long string of mostly unpleasant memories of a character who doesn't even get to go by his real name. because someone more important took it already has it.

[tankgotstuckinthecircusgate]

my n1 guilty pleasure is thinkin that post m2 lauretta moved deeper into criminal after several years & ended up sentenced to jail somewhere in the middle of 1970s

[tleeaves]

There are two wolves inside me. One wants to embrace a new hobby in dance so I can be active and feel elegant and graceful and strong. This wolf wants to try something new and exciting, finally indulging in something I've always had an interest in.

The other experiences such frustrating emotions on a near daily basis that I want to go back to boxing, which is arguably easier to break into since I've already done it before. This wolf doesn't think of elegance, she just wants to fuck shit up until her body's so overworked and warm it fogs up car windows without having to do anything but sit inside.

Which one do I fucking feed??

[sleepydrabbles]

Passed a jayvik art referencing the ‘in all times, in all possibilities’ quote but brain read it ‘in all times, in all positions’ which… (insert tired stare at invisible camera)

[bonefall]

tall shadows line of "she was only a kittypet" kinda reminds me of the line "they were only slaves" from the prince of egypt.

What kills me about it is that like, at that point in the movie, the Pharoah Is Bad. Him saying that a billion babies where fed to crocodiles is A Bad Thing. It's the point where Moses realizes he can't be part of the royal family without being complicit.

But Tall Shadow says "calm down, Bumble was less than human anyway" and Gray Wing nods along (complete with the jiggly clicking noise that comes with shaking a can of spraypaint) and this is an example of them being reasonable. Level-headed, even, not getting swept away by the passion of the angry mob.

There are so many levels to how fucked up the Bumble Debacle is that you can't explore every floor all at once. It is an onion. It has layers.