#a real world leader

[mattsmemes]

[tavina-writes]

I saw someone say that Jiang Cheng is written like a classic Jin Yong wuxia villain, thoughts?

Hi Nonny!

I guess, if they meant that Jin Yong always writes his villains as also complex people who are gripped and shaped by their lives and the tragedies that caused them to end up more "villainous" then... that's accurate? Most of Jin Yong's villains are highly sympathetic and tragic people in their own right (most, not all, given that the other flipside of Jin Yong's villains are those who stand in a position of terrifying power and then proceed to punch down socially in brutal and horrific ways.)

Jin Yong's tragic villain characters are often defined by their relationship with the power axis in his works -- you see this especially starkly with Lin Pingzhi in Xiao Ao Jiang Hu, who through no fault of his own (though he thinks its his fault) falls from a gentry young master to someone whose family is massacred, hunted across the landscape, and then sees his parents brutally tortured and is tortured himself before realizing that the shifu who adopted him is a hypocrite who would sacrifice all his students for ultimate power and has in fact, purposefully picked up Pingzhi himself to steal a very important part of Pingzhi's inheritance. After that he goes insane! But the guy genuinely went through the world's worst trauma conga line before he decided fuck it he wants revenge.

The other side of the Jin Yong villain spectrum is a guy like Feng Tiannan from Young Flying Fox who uses his money and relative power to force a peasant woman into gutting her own five year old son in front of witnesses to prove he didn't steal and eat a goose of Feng Tiannan's because he wanted...their family's property. Which was a tiny drop in the bucket of what Feng Tiannan already owned. He just felt like it should be his so fuck it who gives a shit about five year olds! (Feng Tiannan also brutally rapes one of his servant maids and later his friend tries to sell the daughter born of that rape into sex slavery, but y'know.) Does he sound like anyone in MDZS? Jin Guangshan perhaps?

The central thesis of any Jin Yong work (and what I admire the most about his writing) is how he frames societal corruption and writes about power structures, and how concisely and brutally he outlines and defines those reasons people in power do horrific things.

As for the tragic villain situation, I mean, I guess in one of Jin Yong's worlds Jiang Cheng could be a tragic villain. So could Wei Wuxian. Or Lan Wangji. Or Jin Ling. Or Lan Sizhui. Or any of the characters. They've all experienced trauma that's shaped them, it just kind of depends on what kind of story Jin Yong wanted to be telling with that one tbh.

If we're talking about the "socially corrupt bully who punches down and ruins the lives of regular people" and the person you're quoting is using that to refer to Jiang Cheng they might just be a Jiang Cheng hater lmao.

I'd be really curious to see the original context of this claim tbh, because it strikes me as kind of... "I'll say this to cause outrage among Jiang Cheng stans and make them like Jin Yong less and not because I actually like Jin Yong books or Jiang Cheng." when it's being dropped into my inbox with zero context like this.

[trappedinafantasy37]

All forms of media (video games, TV shows, art, movies, books, etc) are all meant to be social and/or political commentaries. In fact, I can't think of an example of a recent creation that isn't political in some way. And Baldur's Gate 3 is not an exception. It is political. And if you think it is not, it is because you are not paying attention, or you are failing to extrapolate the lessons of the game into real life. One of the points of fiction and entertainment is to provide us with a safe way to view and interact with the evils of the world. To show us how evil happens to begin with, and how it is allowed at all. If we can see what evil looks like, and how it comes to pass, then we will be able to recognize it in real life and potentially stop it.

No, I'm not saying that Larian made this game to be a commentary of the US specifically. The things that happen in the game are happening somewhere in the world. Right. Now. It is fantasy for some, but reality to many others.

There is a reason why so many people, most especially women, flock to a character like Astarion. And no, it's not just because he's a pretty bad boy vampire. But because millions of women (and men) in the world understand what it's like to be sexually assaulted. To be enslaved. To be someone's property and a toy. To be used and abused and denied your autonomy. To scream and cry and yell and shout and beg for mercy from the gods. But no one is listening. No one cares. And they say that it is all your fault. Women cling to him because they find comfort in his story and they see a reflection of themselves in him. And they have extrapolated his character into their personal lives to help them heal from their traumas. Astarion is not real. But he represents the millions of people in the world who have been raped.

There are many different ways you can interpret Shadowheart's story, but I always found it to be an allegory for queerness / transness. She knows who she is deep down, but she has been beaten and indoctrinated over and over to believe that who she is wrong. Everytime she exerted a will of her own, she was forced into conversion therapy and had her mind wiped so she can be reprogrammed. And when that began to fail, her god inserted a permanent tether into her soul. To remind her that god is always watching, and will punish her for her sins. Shadowheart rejects Shar because she feels that she is in a safe environment to do so. That those who are around her will not judge her, ridicule her, or treat her like she ha a moral failure for just being who she is. But that rejection comes at a price where she has to choose her parents or chronic pain for the rest of her life. But if Shadowheart does not feel safe to live as herself, she goes into the closet forever and denies herself and has to put up an act for as long as she may live. She forces herself to subscribe to this dogma because she feels she has no other choice, and to be a blind follower means to be without pain. Shadowheart is not real. But she represents the millions of gay and trans people in the world who have been outcasted and abused by religion and the law. Where they feel it safer to deny who they are, then run the risk of the wrong person finding out who they love.

The grove conflict, is a very real reality right now. Innocent people are experiencing a genocide. And the people conducting such genocide have framed these innocent people as evil monsters. These actual literal genocidal lunatics truly to their core believe that they have the god given right to kill these innocent people because they are an affront to their god and that the land they occupy does not belong to them. There are children in the world right now who are burning alive in a genocide because the people who are burning them believe these children to have been born evil. Of course they claim that these refugees are hiding weapons of mass destruction, how else are they going to justify destroying safe places like schools, hospitals, and actual refugee camps? And the people who have the power to do something to protect these innocent refugees, would rather they be tossed out and left vulnerable to their murderers, because that is more convenient than helping them. That the people who can help are purposefully closing their borders, because they too see these refugees as lures for danger. The tieflings are not real. But they represent the millions of Palestinians and many others who are dying in a genocide right now.

And this man is not real, but he is the president elect of the United States. Gortash won. The Absolute won.

And I wish we had a simple and easy explanation of 72 million Americans have tadpoles in their brains and were forced to vote for Gortash. But in reality, not everyone in the Absolute had a tadpole. Not everyone was a True Soul. A mass majority were willing participants of the Absolute. They never once communed with the elder brain and have never received direct orders from it. They saw what the Absolute is, they saw what it can do, and it was not a deal breaker for them. They chose to follow along with it willingly, thinking that the Absolute was here for them. They were not mind controlled, but they were brainwashed in their own way. And for those who are not brainwashed, they simply do not care. They want to revel in the Absolute's cruelty and how it is going to hurt the people of the world because they themselves want to deal the cruelty.

Gortash is a slaver and a tyrant and he is very up front and in your face about it. He feels no guilt, he feels no shame, and he is well aware of how he induces suffering on those around him. And the moment he became Archduke, he slaughtered everyone who got him into power because he didn't want to share it nor run the risk of them turning against him. You may be able to make a deal with Gortash but he was never going to keep up his end of the bargain. Just like an embraced Durge betrays their romance partner, Gortash would have betrayed you (and even Durge). Because tyrants do not share, and they do not step down. Tyrants are not just tyrants only on day one or for just one term. They are tyrannical always and will do everything they can to stay in power permanently. Tyrants do not play fair. They get into power through perceivingly legitimate means. But when you find out it wasn't legitimate, it's too late. They've removed your ability to not only remove them from power, but prevent you from getting anyone else to replace them.

Gortash didn't just come from nowhere. He has been a duke in the city for a very long time. People know who he is and what he is about. The people at his coronation were there out of genuine support for him, knowing exactly who he is and saw no issue with what he was doing because they all benefited from it. The only one at that coronation who was not a willing participate, was Ulder Ravengard (A BLACK MAN). Gortash used a literal puppet government to get himself into power and silenced all dissent.

I do not know about you, but who Gortash represents was pretty damn obvious to me. The game demonstrated how people like Gortash can get into power at all and remain in power. Gortash manipulated people's fear of the world, and he used religion to do it. He implemented the Steel Watch and militarized the police, and to have constant surveillance on the people. Where any slight transgression will be met with hostility, and the people will cheer because they see violence as a necessary means of keeping the peace. Where if you just didn't step out of line, then maybe the Steel Watcher wouldn't need to pulverize you in the street. He uses the media and is constantly pumping out propaganda to love him. He created a problem, news of the problem spread, and then he sold a solution. He promised to keep everyone safe, protected, and made promises of law and order against this unruly chaos (a chaos he created). Where any opposing opinion is othered and regarded as being too radical to be a sane or legitimate opinion. He enslaved a group of racial minorities and used the livelihoods of their children as collateral. And instead of putting the blame on the slaver, radicals like Wulbren put the blame on the slaves.

The events surrounding Gortash and the Absolute have been unfolding here in the States for a very long time and all of this did not just come out of nowhere. This didn't just start happening 8 years ago in 2016, this was decades in the making and there is still plans for more to come. This wasn't an accident, everything is working by design.

Gortash is not real. But Donald Trump is. That should scare you.

[multi-fandom-lunatic]

something something booktok has a BIG problem with white feminism

[codenamesazanka]

Shigaraki/Tenko wanting to destroy the false sense of peace All Might and Heroes created

.⬇️.

Shigaraki/Tenko wanting to destroy everything that lead to the existence of that house, which he conceptualizes as the embodiment of rejection and injustice in the world. Be a Hero for the Villains.

.⬇️.

AFO basically literally created that house

.⬇️.

Shigaraki/Tenko helps defeat AFO

.⬇️.

Deku telling him 'you already destroyed it' is... apparently Shigaraki/Tenko having finally gotten rid of the true cause of (his) rejection and injustice? main antagonist's big problem that represents an overarching major issue of the story/in-universe society... solved? (main antagonist's big problem that represents an overarching major issue of the story/in-universe society not actually being the problem he thought it was but now also solved?)

.⬇️.

No longer a need for there to be a Hero for the Villains, Shigaraki/Tenko dies.

.⬇️.

Heroes not to be blamed in the first place. also fuck everyone else and all other 'actual' outcasts I guess.

[defira85]

HRGH I'm having. A bald egg opinion. But I've done my time in 2012-2015 DA fandom and I don't want to deal with that kind of attention ever again but asdjkfkasjdfha

[akkivee]

i was yet again lol trying to see if i could classify the divisions by story beats, eg posse is the lore division, now that the six division tracks are over and so far i’m of the opinion that it’s

❤️💙: the wordbuilding divisions!!!!! mtc’s angle is primarily shows the corruption within chuuoku and the effects it has, and bb’s shows the world grappling with all of chuuoku’s bullshit, and a lot of that revolves around money issues caused for insane taxes on the people (capitalism kills)

💛🩶: lore divisions!!!! their stories tend to introduce or build on concepts. fp has a hand in every story thread ever and as does mtr, tho i think??? mtr has more focus on other areas whereas posse eventually gets around to each point lol

🧡💜: as crazy as it is to say this when fp is right there lol, i think nagosaka’s the bonds divisions. all four of dh’s main drama tracks have them dealing with their bonds as a trio and three of those tracks are them fighting to keep that bond from fraying bc of their own inaction. bat’s has them protecting their bonds, and their very wide scope of bonds like a community almost, against the actions/interference of outsiders trying to harm the three of them thru their community

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

War Crimes in the Riverlands

ASOIAF:

HOTD:

"WAR CRIMES? IN OUR RIVERLANDS? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! A SCANDAL! FIE ON THOSE EVIL TARGS! Willem Blackwood we hereby charge you with violating the Geneva Convention-"

[magebutts]

they shoulda let us see rook's reunion with their companions right when they rescued them from the fade prison. cowards.

[iwasbored777]

It just doesn't sit right with me that in fanfiction whenever Branch and Poppy get married he becomes a king. He would outrank the current queen when he's not even royalty and usually in real world the highest title that he would get would be prince consort. He would be the happiest troll ever if they get married but they would co-lead and he would help her just like now but she would still be the real leader and things wouldn't change that much.

[droodlebug]

will you tell us more abt your fantasy world’s high elf/orcs please 👀

absolutely!!! Theyre referred as either high elves or orcs depending on where you are in the world and who youre talking to. Some people use one or the other, or use them interchangably.

Before society and sapience came along and whatnot, orcs evolved for rainforests, deserts, forests, and any ecosystem with a heavy focus on plant life (so most of them really!) and lots of sun. Very widespread. Their skin is green, or green ish, and a little waxy to the touch because they have chloroplasts. They photosynthesize, giving them extra energy. Because of that they dont need to sleep much, or even at all, depending on how much sun they've gotten! It also allows them to channel more magic via their appendix (thats the Magic organ). High elf magic users are going to be strongest during the day and a little weakened at night. In thick forests amd rainforests, they would (and some still will!) climb to the tree tops to absorb sun. Hence the name high elf.

They evolved to have tusks in order to scrape bark off trees, get cactus skin, and open cacti and tough-skinned fruits. They are able to properly digest fiber unlike most people. Though, in the modern world as society came together, their tusks are usually viewed with respect. Something to decorate and customize (they dont stop growing!), giving a kind of thanks to their tusks for historically having played a big part in their diet and survival in the past.

Speaking of diet, while they are omnivorous like all elves, they do lean more herbivorous! Many of the groups and places youll find that are orc heavy and orc-led will have an extra care and appreciation for the plants around them.

Unfortunately, I'm still workshopping the societal and cultural parts of high elves and most of my variants. I know where I want everything to end up and some overarching beats of the world, but I get caught up focusing more on speculative fantasy biology and not getting deep into how society would build up, what cultures would be made, and how it eventually all comes together in a modern fantasy setting with magic and technology together and with people from any kind of variant of person being able to be found anywhere withoit surprise, and for it not to be at all unusual to see people that dont fit neatly into any one variant label. That is a hugeee run on sentence lmao.

But ive had this fantasy world in my head for years and try to be very intentional in building a world without colonialism and implying any one variation of person is better or different or good or evil or whatever. It's all just people! I especially want to do right by orcs since tolkein's popularization of them is written as a blatent racist "barbaric" caricature of Black people. Now as I type that I realize I havent drawn any Black high elves! I should fix that. In the meantime heres a couple of orcs ive drawn in the past. Thank you for asking I Loveeee rambling about my fantasy stuff always and forever!!! I hope it's interesting!!!

[randomtheidiot]

You know, the more I look into the Pokémon anime’s worldbuilding, the more I realize that Trip was kind of right, even if he was awful about it. Kanto is a hillbilly shithole and it’s a wonder that Ash, Misty and Brock made it out alive.

Can’t believe I have to say this. This does not apply to the real place that Kanto is based on. I’m talking about the fictional Pokémon region in the context of all the other fictional regions.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Apparently Elon Musk is in private talks to oust Keir Starmer??? How the fuck is that even allowed???? One, the president he's going to be in a government with isn't even president yet so he's not even a government yet and therefore shouldn't be really interfering in politics and two, he doesn't even fucking live in the UK??? He's literally a rich jackass tweeting and stirring up shit in the UK government in the US, mainly stirring up hatred right now towards muslims while using victims of grooming and SA as a shield for it, how the fuck is he allowed to try and oust another countries leader like this??? Plus we all know if he succeeds, he'll try and get reform, Trump's ideal UK government, put in charge next because that's all this is to Elon: getting the world ruled by right wingers somehow.

[lae-zels]

all i will say about dav is that this shouldn't be the same as this 💀

[a-trainer-on-the-internet]

Which region are you based in?

Good ol Unova, which is definitely NORMAL and FINE and EVERYTHING IS FINE DO NOT LOOK AT THE UNOVIAN NEWS RIGHT NOW EVERYTHING IS FINE-

[randomnameless]

Something pretty interesting I missed in my earlier Supreme Bullshit reading.

When Supreme Leader is upset at Lonato, she wonders if going to help him would be feasible, which leads to this convo with Hubert :

You want to save the man, Your Majesty? If I may, we would march all that way for...what, exactly?

Hubert, imo, thinks Lonato as basically already done and dead, Supreme Leader earlier was pissed at Lonato not following their plans, he acted on personal enemity and will most likely have to fight both the KoS and the Kingdom so...

Imagine the consequences of leaving him to die.

Here we have an example of the Supreme Leader who made this route, so interesting : it's not Hubert who has all the dastardry in their duo, Supreme Leader too, participates.

When KT forgets that they gave her a sailor fuku to be "more free", they write her to be in a similar vein as the other red Emperors like Arvis, or, Gustadolph from TS.

It's not "we must save him" or "we can't let him die", but Supreme Leader directly evacuates all that pathos, and thinks, rationally, about the consequences of leaving Lonato reap what he sowed.

We need our vassals to believe the Empire will always come to their aid. Always.

It's PR!

Going to save Lonato is not about Lonato himself, she can't give a fig about the dude, but it's all about public relationships and keeping a façade for her war of conquest : her vassals need to believe the Empire will always come to their aid.

Whether they actually do, or not, is irrelevant - they need to believe Adrestia is "trustworthy enough" to come to their help when called.

And the sheer "we need them to believe" coming from Supreme Leader herself? It's really neat, she's lying/manipulating the events to build a perfect image for her vassals, or the ones who will become her vassals (by choice).

Compare this to the Kingdom/Church "we need to help the ones who need help!" and here, instead, we have "we need to make people believe we're going to help them".

Lonato doesn't act following the plan ? It doesn't matter, Supreme Leader will seize this new opportunity to advance her own goals : aka, making people believe the Empire is "trustworthy" and "reliable".

Good. Now make our plans known to the others. I'm counting on you, Hubert.

What plans? The "we must rescue Lonato because he is our ally" or the true "we must pretend to rescue Lonato to make other nobles join our cause and believe in us"?

And what is intereting is how this exchange, of course, only happens when she is alone with Hubert.

In the following event, where Barney is here and they talk about their powers :

Ah, you should see the look on your face! Did Hubert threaten you? Don't let it get to you. Yes, he's quite good at that kind of thing, but it comes from a place of caution.

Hm... Sure. It's Hubert's way of caring I guess.

But then comes the manifesto :

I want to transform the world into a place where no one has to feel trapped by where they came from.

What's that about the place they come from? Aren't we later in this route trashtalking Annette and the Kingdom peeps because they believe in outdated values like chivalry and sacrifices to protect their loved ones?

When I am done, it won't matter where you are born, whose blood you have, or what powers course through you—everyone will be treated as equals.

When she means equals, she means people will "believe" everyone will be treated as equals, just like Lonato was supposed to "believe" Adrestia was coming to back him up and not just, play minimal part to guarantee their PR but not much more?

That's what we're fighting for, and that is what this war is going to achieve.

But Hubert said this war is a war of conquest ?

So believe me when I say this—I don't care who you are.

And yet Barney is still a nobody commoner, even if pal with the Emperor, when Linhardt is a general?

I only care about what you have done and what you have yet to do.

And what Barney can do with that power you said you don't give a crap about right? But what if Barney's abilities are basically the result of their weird powers, can we still say their power/abilities are irrelevant ?

And, hm, maybe someone can translate this for me ?

人の力に拠る未来を創るため、 すべての犠牲を私は負って立つ！

She says this when she defeats 1k peons, and Googl'd it gives... "To create a future based on the power of people, I will bear all the sacrifices!" - so what this line about not giving figs about "what powers course through you everyone will be treated as an equal"? Could Amelie the lady from Mittelfrank who couldn't end up as a diva be treated like Leopold, or what?

--

Supreme Leader's words being treated as gospel is always imo hilarious, because Supreme Leader has some instances where, when KT's not busy dressing her up with some "Scarlet Blaze Power! Make Up!", she plays the role Arvis already played before her, the dastardly red emperor who manipulates and seizes every opportunity to reach her goals.

In Tru Piss we got the Javelins - but in Nopes? We get those "heart to heart" moments with Hubert that lampshade even more how much of an unreliable narrator Supreme Leader is - she still maintains care to have a level of PR and only confides to trusted people (yay Hubert!) or, in FE16, when, curiously, she has her mask on (Flamey doesn't need PR).

That's why we still have so many pretzels over Rhea's fate in Tru Piss, yes, Supreme Leader claims she wants to spare her when she adresses her in Firdhiad, in front of her allies and the people she has to lie to about her War.

But when she was with Billy? Nah, she can safely tell them that path lead to the death of Rhea and her people, something she rejoices about in their S support.

Too bad Nopes doubled down on "Sailor Adrestia" instead of giving us more of that "Arvis with a skirt" they teased us with (seriously that power move of betraying Rhea in the third chapter was just, that awesome from her part).