#and I'm just is this what she goes through in CF?

[randomnameless]

2 weeks later

They were probably close friends! I think Edelgard's actions did hurt Rhea so much because of the reasons outlined above, but over and on top of that, this is a betrayal from the descendent of her friend, the friend that she trusted enough to give her Crest to

Willy mention!

Bear in mind that during CF's final map - the one where our beloved Supreme Leader accuses her of hating human and humanity because she is a nabatean, but that was cut with the localisation for some reason - what are the names of the golems fielded in Firdhiad?

Chevalier - an apostle - Luca - a saint - and a bunch of other people we don't know but... one of the golem is named Wilhelm!

ergo, when Rhea is at her worst (tm) at least mentally, she relies on golems named after people who are/were pretty close to her, the apostles who helped her try to resurrect her mom once, a saint (we don't know what was her relation to Saint Luca) and... Willy, a human.

Interestingly, if you used Supreme Leader to fight her in the previous map, the "human hating Rhea" mourns having to fight Supreme Leader because... Supreme Leader is Willy's descendant, and 1k years later, to Rhea, Willy is still the guy who "supported and saved" her.

Fun fact, Nopes amped it up to 11 so much that whenever you pit Rhea (NG+ and in the history maps?) against Supreme Leader, Rhea always mentions Wilhelm, noting her resemblance to her 1k years long dead ancestor, or wishing he was still around.

To Rhea, the Hresvelgs are first and foremost, Willy's descendants and she has high expectations from them, or at least expect them to act in a way that would not shame or be contrary to what Willy himself once did, or would have done.

Which is why she takes the betrayal from House Hresvelg, especially, very bad, Nopes also gave some voice to Seteth and Flayn about being betrayed by the descendants of the ones they trusted but it feels less "personal" than Rhea's -

But let's not kid ourselves, the reason why she goes ballistic in CF isn't only because Willy's scion goes haywire, but because Sitri's kid - who might be or not her mom - tries to kill her or at least sides with Nemesis v.2.

So to comment on your original post @lumeha, Rhea is hurt in CF (and potentially in the other routes too, but since Billy and some humans are still on her side it's less pronounced) because - as she says it in her last battle quotes - she is betrayed again by humanity after having trusted them again.

Unlike her avian bro, she didn't fig away saying humanity sucks after the War of Heroes, no. Rhea remained because she cares about humans and Fodlan - both as her duty commands, as Sothis' proxy but also, I believe, on a personal level.

As you noted, she cares - loves? as much as she can given her special situation - humans and... CF/Flamey stuff is how they reward her lol - which is why the perceived betrayal hurts so much, and why she is so angry/disappointed/upset.

Thinking about it, like, genuinely, I think characterising Rhea as someone who hates humanity because of her reaction to Edelgard in the Holy Tomb... misses the fact that, for me, she can only react that strongly to what she sees as betrayal because she cares about humans as a whole. That's why it sends her into a spiral. That's why it hurts her to the point of anger : because it stabs her with pinpoint accuracy into the still bleeding parts of her, the part of her that is the only survivor of Zanado. The part of her that was beaten bloody open and to a pulp by humans who were greedy for power and didn't care who they killed in the process.

It feels to me like this is exactly why she gets so deeply affected by this - because she did put a lot of her chips on the bet that humans are better than Nemesis and the Agarthans. To the point of sparing the children of her enemies, their families, their clans. To the point of repeatedly opening her home for them.

That's... not the behaviour of someone who despises humanity

Is she letting herself be close to people ? No. But does that mean she doesn't care for them ? No, not at all. She is just. Closed off. That's not the same as not caring.

[lunarriviera]

yet another shen yi meta [uts2 spoilers]

hi hey hello everyone i continue to be tormented with obsessive thinkings about s2 Shen Yi so i must holler about them/him some more, feel free to stop reading if you have not watched through approximately episode 11 which is where i still am. it's taking me longer to watch because i keep pausing to rewind/screenshot and/or weep in anguish about Him and What He Is Going Through. and how NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION. or insufficient attention. cf. Ryan Gosling in the Papyrus sketch screaming WELL IT WASN'T!! ENOUGH!!

[more. much more. behind the cut]

let's start here, with shen yi's artwork. in this scene he competed with AI to paint a chosen image and, surprising exactly no one, he won, partly because he's brilliant but tbh mostly because AI art is garbage and always adds dolphins, rainbows, and hands with six fingers.

but here's the thing: is no one going to question this? does anyone think to themselves "ah yes, shen yi is absolutely the BEST person in the world to make a painting in 30 minutes that depicts, quote, a lonely man on a beach." so here is this miserably hunched, despairing figure, surrounded by murky howling early-picasso blue, LOOKING IN FACT QUITE A LOT LIKE SHEN YI HIMSELF—even dressed like him (in the snowy white and dainty pastels he seems to favor this season)—and not a single person thinks: huh, wonder if this guy's okay?

in fact s2 seems to be repeated evidence of the fact that shen yi is Very Much Not Okay, and yet no one is really paying attention. he supports everyone else emotionally and they all seem to assume he either a) has no emotional blowback to deal with, or b) can deal with it himself unaided somehow. (through painting, maybe? but have you seen what he's painting lately? e.g. monstrous abusive parent figures, in some kind of breathless fugue state during which he can psychically hear lines from someone else's traumatic childhood?) he goes to li han's house to help her, which is so like him, and he says:

oh! you might think. well, maybe he will self-disclose a little? tell li han about some of his own personal difficulties that he's had to overcome, just to bond with her, get her to open up? HAHAHA ARE YOU NEW HERE, of course he doesn't, he just listens to her while she sobs out her tragic backstory, gives her a tissue, relates her struggles to a vaguely terrifying metaphor of his own device about a sealed room filling up ineluctably with floodwater, then smiles and takes her out for pizza. (totally unrelated but wow the product placement is heavy-handed this season. xiaomi! pizza hut!)

since we're talking about the li han case, consider this moment, too, when he interprets someone's house-person-tree drawing. does no one ever think, "for someone who talks constantly about love and connection, how interesting that shen yi has no family, refuses to date in very pointed and deliberate way, and lives alone with a cat."

shen yi knows all about love! never shuts up about love! constantly dispensing bromides about what real love should be like! and wakes every day ALONE from horrific guilty nightmares ft. creepy small girl in blood-red dress, pls will no one help this man pls he's drowning.

couple more bits and then i swear to god i'll shut up i'm starting to feel really stupid. but first consider this little story, in three parts:

"an image of despair" um okay well…technically it's just a dead body, albeit after a fairly grisly stabbing, but sure go off i guess

2. du cheng: wow even for you that was unusually poetic and weird

3. also du cheng: back to investigating the murder i guess [wanders away]

this kind of thing happens again. and again. either no one notices assorted horrified/devastated expressions on shen yi's face (in the way of classic extradiegetic reaction shots, where the camera sees them—we see them—but none of the characters onscreen do) or, when du cheng does notice, he's immediately distracted by his actual job, and/or the fact that he doesn't really know how to help his partner, because lbr he has all the emotional intelligence of a pony.

one more mini-story in three parts, and then i really will put a sock in it:

shen yi: why, what did i do. why are you looking at me like that

2. du cheng: bc you just lied your whole entire face off with alarming unsettling proficiency, since when are you that good at being dishonest

3. shen yi: hehe

in an earlier episode we also saw shen yi shouting at a suspect in the interrogation room, so convincingly that afterwards du cheng admits, you scared me. lol! says shen yi in carefree manner, i learned that from you! haha! agrees everyone, and they go about their business.

but ghastly things keep happening to and near him. at least once per episode, shen yi makes a face like this, because people are jumping off cliffs in front of him or abruptly smashing things with hammers or just lashing out with all kinds of antisocial behaviors in his vicinity:

to be fair, he has other expressions. for instance he also repeatedly employs his patented creepy ruthless smile, of the "i am going to fuck you up" variety, an expression reserved especially for criminals:

as well, i'm also leaving out all the ridiculously adorable/domestic scenes with him and du cheng, in which they share candy, roast each other about assorted nonsense, briefly co-parent a child, and, you know. are just generally disgustingly married. but that's a different meta.

also, admittedly du cheng does SAY things. he says, "are you still having trouble sleeping," he says "do i not care about you?" and "don't push yourself so hard" and "if you run into troubles, don't try to take them on alone." (i am sparing you all these screenshots since this is a meta about shen yi but trust me i have carefully accumulated every single shred of evidence in which du cheng is protective.) but, as frequently as du cheng expresses concern, he also just keeps clapping shen yi on the shoulder in a brotastic way and then strolling out. which i fear is just not going to be adequate. ("i don’t think this is literally papyrus. maybe that was the starting point but they clearly modified it?" "well whatever they did, IT WASN'T!! ENOUGH!!")

i leave you with two final images of shen yi, seen here continuing to be very much Not Okay, and to quote the bernie meme, i am ONCE AGAIN ASKING YOU, drama, is anyone going to care enough about this man to stop him going over the edge of the cliff with Evil Art Critic Eugenicist Moriarty Weasel Man? because he will, he will do it. because he's lonely and he's misunderstood and he's—

[cane comes out and drags me offstage]

[hot-on-my-watch]

Reading Sherlock Scripts- The Final Problem

As always, here's a video from Erik Voss at New Rockstars for a bit of a refresh and detail spotting from the episode if desired:

What follows will be notes in a few minor differences between the script published on the BBC's website and the finished episode, a few bits of stage direction etc. that I personally enjoyed, and interesting things that I didn't spot before.

I will say that in terms of line changes, I DO realise that scenes need to be shortened, technicsl stuff doesn't always work, and even the best actors get lines slightly wrong - like that one guy that was supposedly amazing as Hamlet but kept mispronouncing "penguin"... so when John says the buffalo gun was from the 40s and the script said 50s... I don't care which is right. I'm not going to google buffalo guns. I'm just writing about bits that amuse me!

Firstly: Mycroft's cheesy noir detective film. I'm not sure I had cottoned on to all the lines about the man "keeping a close watch" on the woman, as Mycroft likes to do, not least on his siblings. Then she refers to "putting (herself) in the hands of the authorities" as Eurus has ostensibly done since TLD.

We then get a few extra lines of dialogue:

Obviously 'Persephone' refers to the Ancient Greek myth of a goddess abducted to the underworld who then becomes its queen, with the use of Greek mythogolgy tying into Sherlock's fake suicide operation 'LAZARUS'. And, "a parade of all the cliches" would have lampshaded the trope-filled nature of the scene.

On to Baker Street! In the script, Mycroft calls himself "an era-defining genius", but in the episode he has been downgraded to "remarkable" and the former label is given to Eurus, who remains "beyond Newton." Poor Myc.

The published script also has Mycroft saying "we played pirates" and describes "an overgrown pirate ship climbing frame", neglecting to mention the "funny gravestones" at this point. Probably Mycroft was too bored and serious to make a show of playing pirates at thirteen.

Something then that I hadn't previously noticed: in the shot of the three children in the kitchen the table is set for four; Redbeard has only just gone missing. In the script, Mrs Holmes can be heard asking where he is.

There's also the stage direction that Mycroft is eating "A LOT", and a description of a following shot of Eurus being interviewed by a policeman following.

Something else I hadn't even slightly noticed - I'd blame the ME/CFS but probably wrongly- the song that Mrs Hudson is vacuuming to. Obviously Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast (which I have seen live) is a fantastically amusing choice genre-wise, but it also cuts off at "hell and fire about to be released."

I'm also compelled to comment at this point on the insanely ridiculous layout of 221 Baker Street and that although I enjoy the transition through the carpet of the living room, that's meant to be where Speedy's is, no?

Anyway, we get these delightful notes for one of the most improbable escapes in television history:

Hahaha, the shipping forecast. We weren't all born Radio 4 listeners, Moftiss! But I love it.

So we go to Sherrinford. Here John has an extra line about seeking work in it as a hospital, to which The Governor replies "it's not a hospital".

Again, I often fail to notice things: this time that the voice radioing for help was John's (even though nothing else would make sense) and that the recorded announcements e.g. "doors opening" are ALL Moriarty. And they planned to have "smiley face insignia" on the doors, and later a "frowney face" on the screens when the alarm goes off- I see why they abandoned that! My favourite bit here is that last sentence about Mycroft:

Mycroft then says in the script that Eurus has been capable of influencing people since she was seven, which has since been changed to five, now fitting with when she would have been institutionalised. In the broastcast episode Eurus gets extra lines now about The Governer's wife: "She smiles at you when you come home...smiling is advertising... I can help you with your wife...I'll fix her and give her back to you." In the published script it is not clear that she has any interest in The Governer's wife at this point.

Rather than being initially compliant to the men with guns and then making his daring escape, the script has John absolutely throwing down. he "lunges" at The Governer in an attempt to stop him from pressing the alarm, and when the orderlies arrive: "Mayhem. Mycroft is already restrained, but John is fighting like a madman. Slams one orderly against the wall, punches another across the room-" Wow.

And then: Moriarty! What a joy! There are a couple of notable changes from final script to episode here. Firstly, the bodyguard on his left has been promoted from "very uncaring in the afterglow" to merely "less caring." And then there's Jim's extra line between "insane criminality" and his question about cannibals:

There's a whole insect metaphor that goes on once our boys are locked in Eurus' cell:

In the Garridebs scene, Eurus gets a few more lines on her view of morality: "

I regret to say that in the script, the phonecall between Sherlock and Molly is even more heartbreaking! Why? How?! Because right before he asks her to tell him that she loves him, she says "for once don't make fun of me." Brutal! My heart!

Continuing notes on the script. The fake cell outside Musgrave has a window with a view possibly involving some kind of visual trickery that I don't understand. The aerial view we get of the London is hauntingly described as "the bomber's view." And to the news that John is in a well Sherlock replies "ding dong dell" which google tells me is a nursery rhyme suitably about a cat having been put in a well by one child and saved by another.

We then get to some of the omitted dialouge that sent me down this script-reading rabbit hole: Sherlock's admission regarding Mycroft.

I also enjoy the insult Sherlock gives Mycroft later in the scene: "he always lies, he's a corkscrew in human form", to which John replies "this time he's been protecting you. *beat* They're not dog's bones." Victor actually gets some lines in the flashback here too "Come on Captain Yellowbeard! We can take the ship and all her treasure! Quick! Quick!" Poor little Victor!

A couple more missing lines here. At the moment of realisation, Sherlock gives us another Greek reference, this time to Homer's The Odyssey: "'And Odysseus replied... Nemo'- latin for no one." Bloody private school kids and their latin ;-) I've written a pretty basic post on the tombstone cipher, but there are far more detailed analyses on here! Then, on speaking to Eurus in her room script Sherlock states the obvious, calling her ritual "a cry for help".

When we get into the closing scenes, we have another moment for the history books: Sherlock calls Lestrade by his actual first name unprompted! Here the script reads "A beat as Lestrade goes- Sherlock has always known his name. He heads away..." But what does this mean? Does Lestrade just think that Sherlock has known his name the entire bloody time, or has he actually? I'm big on the Death of the Author stuff and psychoanalytical readings, and in this case I choose to headcanon that Sherlock really did not know and only memorised "Greg" in The Six Thatchers. I'm open to being convinced otherwise though.

I've written a whole rant on the part where Mrs Holmes says that Sherlock was "always the grown-up" and no one disagrees.

In the script, we also get Eurus acting as violin teacher to Sherlock once again:

I have mixed feelings on Mary's "who you really are, it doesn't matter" speech and was horrified when I first heard it, but the script's shorter version is significantly worse. In the script, she doesn't say "A junky who solves crimes to get high and a doctor who never came home from the war." or "It's all about the legend. The stories. The adventures." She does say "what matters is who everbody else thinks you are. Knows you are." I'm glad they rewrote this!

Also, while the choice of "Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson" mirrors Arthur Conan Doyle's canon and Mycroft's lines at the close of A Study in Pink, it is a bit weird that Mary not only puts her beloved husband second, but also omits his first name. Oh well, they did they thing.

Meanwhile, the montage of the restoration of 221B and life going on. I wouldn't have realised that John is holding the letter on the msntelpiece for Sherlock to stab it, had I not read that bit of script posted by another Tumblr user! Thankyou whoever you were!

A couple of slight differences from the script here. Firstly, the episode has Lestrade and Molly visiting separately, but in the script they come together. One has to wonder why- were they at any point supposed to have been intended as a couple, and it was decided against, given that them arriving together for a professional matter seems unrealistic? Would Molly waiting outside seem like she hadn't recovered from The Phonecall? Did they just want to show her a bit more? Would it have ruined the fun circling camera thing they're doing here? I know, I'm definitely overthinking this!

Personally I really enjoy Cumberbatch's face as he directs Rosie back to johh with an expression we've pretty much never seen from Sherlock! And the fact that where he's pointing at "Daddy" is clearly where the baby's actual father was standing, not Freeman. But it works!

Secondly, Eurus and Sherlock's furious violin jam was intended to turn into: the Sherlock adventure theme! Fun! But, for whatever reason, this seems in the episode to be played by deeper sounding instruments over the top instead.

Finally, the cheesiest of the cheesey. The script ends with these words appearing on screen: The Beginning. That was cool when my friend did it in his children's novel, sure, but I'm not sure it would've worked here. Or would it?

Anyway, if you've made it this far, many many thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my extremely minor contribution to the rich BBC Sherlock fandom! Either way, I very much welcome comments and discussion. "Obviously."

[alyssapothecary]

Tin Foil Hat Theory #2: Sponsor Gifts from District 12 (74th and 75th Games)

The foundation and first part of this theory is the idea that district sponsors can pay to send in items/goods from home, not just select from a resource list that the Capitol provides.

The burn medicine was most definitely manufactured in the Capitol, so my first example is Katniss's second gift in the 74th Games, the bread:

I open the parachute and find a small loaf of bread. It’s not the fine white Capitol stuff. It’s made of dark ration grain and shaped in a crescent. Sprinkled with seeds. I flashback to Peeta’s lesson on the various district breads in the Training Center. This bread came from District 11. I cautiously lift the still warm loaf. What must it have cost the people of District 11 who can’t even feed themselves? How many would’ve had to do without to scrape up a coin to put in the collection for this one loaf? It had been meant for Rue, surely. But instead of pulling the gift when she died, they’d authorized Haymitch to give it to me. As a thank-you? Or because, like me, they don’t like to let debts go unpaid? For whatever reason, this is a first. A district gift to a tribute who’s not your own.

Yes, the Capitol dining area had district bread provided for the tributes, but that scene may have just been so Katniss was able to immediately identify which district baked the bread and paid to send it in. Also, it's still warm. Sure, maybe the Capitol has containers to preserve the temperature of the food... or maybe Thresh and Rue were doing well in this arena and correctly identifying the birds, grains, and berries because it's located very close to District 11. (Then again, both can be true.)

Next gift is the pot of hot broth. Could be from the Capitol, it's true. Could also be from Greasy Sae, the woman who is known for serving up soup and who we learn in Catching Fire is currently starting up a collection back home to sponsor her.

I'm skipping over the sleep syrup for now because it still needs a little more proof and leadup. And that can be found in the food basket after the Feast:

Peeta peers through the rocks and then gives a whoop. Before I can stop him, he’s out in the rain, then handing something in to me. A silver parachute attached to a basket. I rip it open at once and inside there’s a feast — fresh rolls, goat cheese, apples, and best of all, a tureen of that incredible lamb stew on wild rice. The very dish I told Caesar Flickerman was the most impressive thing the Capitol had to offer.

Rolls, goat cheese, apples, lamb stew... Can I just point out that almost all of these things can be linked back to what we've already learned about Katniss's and Peeta's loved ones?

"The strong fatty cheese tastes just like the kind Prim makes" Oh I bet it does!

"We make a goat cheese and apple tart at the bakery” The Mellark bakery? That makes bread and rolls? And as Katniss mentioned twice, has an old apple tree in the backyard? That bakery?

Also (and this might be more of a stretch), when Katniss has lamb stew in the Capitol (breakfast on THG training day, in a can in MJ), it usually has dried plums. The batch in the arena does not. But as we'd just learned at that point in the book, what Katniss does have is a merchant butcher friend named Rooba who probably could've hooked Greasy Sae up with the lamb for a stew. Gale might've found the wild rice. Either they couldn't locate the plums, couldn't have them dried in time (?), or couldn't afford to buy them or send them along. I just think it's interesting the plums aren't there.

Now, if that's enough evidence, here's the second part of my theory:

Mrs. Everdeen sent in the sleep syrup (THG) and the skin ointment (CF).

Here's the thing about the sleep syrup -- whenever it's brought up, it's associated with Mrs. Everdeen.

THG: I uncork the vial and take a deep sniff. ... There’s no question, it’s sleep syrup. It’s a common medicine in District 12. Cheap, as medicine goes, but very addictive. Almost everyone’s had a dose at one time or another. We have some in a bottle at home. My mother gives it to hysterical patients to knock them out to stitch up a bad wound or quiet their minds or just to help someone in pain get through the night. CF 1: “We’ll combine it with sleep syrup, Katniss, and he’ll manage it. The herbs are more for the inflammation —” my mother begins calmly. CF 2: My mother gives me a cup of chamomile tea with a dose of sleep syrup, and my eyelids begin to droop immediately. (Extra MJ: When I finally begin to surface into the sterile hospital room in 13, I remember. I was under the influence of sleep syrup. My heel had been injured after I’d climbed out on a branch over the electric fence and dropped back into 12.) (The reason I associate this hospital scene with Mrs. Everdeen is a theory post for another time)

Picture this: Mrs. Everdeen has been attentively watching the Games with Prim and Gale. Katniss and Peeta are in the final six. Food is scarce after the pyramid blew up. Capitol TV is probably hinting at a special announcement later. She's seen decades of Games, enough to know that a feast is imminent. But one morning Peeta wakes up and panics to find Katniss missing, and Mrs. Everdeen realizes that if he reacts this way now, it will be a real problem if/when Caesar announces a feast. Oh, certainly, Katniss will want to go, but Peeta will be hysterical trying to stop her. And there's only one cheap and easy way to deal with a hysterical patient.

She goes through her apothecary stores, where of course there would be tiny corked vials, and she measures from her bottle of sleep syrup what she deems to be exactly enough to knock Peeta out for a suitable amount of time. And she shells out the money to send it Haymitch's way, because she knows it's worth the chance of getting Katniss (and Peeta) home.

Would Mrs. Everdeen do this? Set aside softer feelings and make a cold/controversial/difficult yet practical call, for a patient's own good? Is it in her character?

“Just give him the medicine!” I scream at her. “Give it to him! Who are you, anyway, to decide how much pain he can stand!” Gale begins stirring at my voice, trying to reach me. The movement causes fresh blood to stain his bandages and an agonized sound to come from his mouth. “Take her out,” says my mother. Haymitch and Peeta literally carry me from the room while I shout obscenities at her. (CF)

Then I realize what it means. “My mother’s not coming back.” “No,” he says. He pulls an envelope from his jacket pocket and hands it to me. I examine the delicate, perfectly formed writing. “She’s helping to start up a hospital in District Four. She wants you to call as soon as we get in.” My finger traces the graceful swoop of the letters. “You know why she can’t come back.” (MJ)

Yes, I think it is.

As for CF: The Everdeens weren't in optimal financial condition to send in sponsor gifts during the 74th Games (especially on day 12), which is why Collins made sure to point out the sleep syrup was cheap. But at the time of the Third Quarter Quell, the Everdeens had victor money and the Games only lasted three days. Which is why on Day 2, after hours of watching Katniss scratch herself in her sleep, we get this:

I plunk down on the sand next to Finnick and screw the lid off the tube. Inside is a thick, dark ointment with a pungent smell, a combination of tar and pine needles. I wrinkle my nose as I squeeze a glob of the medicine onto my palm and begin to massage it into my leg. A sound of pleasure slips out of my mouth as the stuff eradicates my itching. It also stains my scabby skin a ghastly gray-green.

Tar and pine needles. Tar comes from coal. Pine needles come from the woods. Ergo, the ointment comes from District 12, and since it doesn't look or smell pretty, it's obviously a home remedy made by an apothecary. A gift from Mrs. Everdeen and Prim.

(There's also the spile, which I suppose Mrs. Everdeen could've found among her husband's possessions when they were moving their stuff to the Victor's Village, but I'm not 100% on that one.)

It's just really amazing how District 12 came together, and what they sacrificed to bring Katniss home. (Also feels like foreshadowing for the end of Mockingjay, Mrs. Everdeen doing what she can to support Katniss from afar.)

[eternal-echoes]

“For ages, philosophers and scientists have grappled with the question of what it means to be human. Thousands of years ago, Gnostics and Manicheans adopted a dualist view of the human person. In short, it is the creed that professes "I'm not my body." A similar philosophy was promoted by the French thinker René Descartes, whose idea of the human mind was summarized by others as the "ghost in the machine." This view of the human person now serves as the foundation of gender theory: that if gender is tied to sex, the person becomes a slave to his or her body. As Robert P. George wrote, "The idea that human beings are non-bodily persons inhabiting non-personal bodies never quite goes away."(15)

The Church's answer to this disintegration of the human person is an integrated vision of man. To the question, "Can we trust the body to reveal the truth of the person?" the Church would utter an emphatic yes! The human body reveals the person. This teaching, rather than being an imposition from religious authorities, is something people naturally believe.

For example, if you were to say, "I am going to the store," it's safe to say that your body is going there as well. In other words, you don't have a body. You are a body. It's not something you merely have, like you have a pair of jeans. Your body is you. This is not to say that a person is the sum of his or her parts. A woman is not a woman because she has female parts. Rather, she has female parts because she is a woman.

Because the body reveals the person, it is a visible expression of the reality of who you are as a man or woman. So, instead of the materialistic idea that chromosomes plus gonads plus anatomy equals sex, the Church would propose that the human person is not a sexless being that "has" a male or female body. Rather, it is the human person-male or female-who is sexed, and this reality is expressed in and through the body. As Saint John Paul II explained, "It is typical of rationalism to make a radical contrast in man between spirit and body, between body and spirit. But man is a person in the unity of his body and his spirit. The body can never be reduced to mere matter: it is a spiritualized body, just as man's spirit is so closely united to the body that he can be described as an embodied spirit.”(16) … Therefore, the human body alone has the power to make visible the invisible reality of personhood.(17) Put simply, your sex is not what you have, but who you are. Thus, a person's identity is revealed in and through the body, not by one's feelings about the body.

If the body is a reliable revelation, this is good news. It means that the body is not meaningless, but meaningful! The body is the firm foundation of man's sexual identity. One's sex defines our identity, expresses the person, and reveals the soul.(18) As Cardinal Christoph Schönborn declared, "The beauty is real and reliable. Its light can be traced back to God's original guiding intention for man and woman."(19)

-Jason Evert, Male, Female, or Other: A Catholic Guide to Understanding Gender

—

Work cited:

15) Robert George, "Gnostic Liberalism," First Things, December 2016.

16) Gratissimam Sane 19.

17) Cf. John Paul II, TOB 19:4.

18) Cf. John Paul II, TOB 14:4; 20:5.

19) Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, preface, Pope John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them (New York: Pauline Books and Media, 2006), xxiv-xxv.

—

For more recommended resources on gender dysphoria, click here.

[stormsbourne]

hello! i’ve been seeing a few of your fe3h posts recently and i’m a bit curious about something. i believe you mentioned that crimson flower was your first route and i’m just kind of curious… why? like, what motivated you to side with edel and what changed your opinion later on? it was the route that i played last (and enjoyed the least lmao) so i just kind of want to understand what that was like as a first impression of this game. thanks for your time, have a nice day.

Quite simply I decided ahead of time that I really liked her vibe and the vibe of some of the other Eagles. At the time I played I was under the impression that the route would be very different than it ended up being and that it would explain her pov. And it did do that a little bit, but not especially well. I really wanted to go with the female lord option because there's not many of those.

But unfortunately it's just not a very good route! As a first impression of the game it's not good! Multiple times I asked my friends (who were playing Lions) about clarifications of something that made no sense to me, like how sloppy the pre-timeskip scene was in CF or why specific other things happened that were poorly explained in CF. It's shorter than the other routes and the writing is all over the place. The pacing also isn't very good and the fact that you're already established in the monastery with a standing army post-skip feels bad compared to the other routes because there's no moment where your team comes to help you clear it out. They're all already there and are just like hi professor! Glad you're not dead from that cliff incident that wasn't clearly shown in this version!

What changed my opinion later on was playing Lions right after and also discussing things with my friends who were already in it. The deeper I got into lions the clearer it became how much was missing from cf. I think some people really want to believe cf has the best writing and is the secret "true ending" since you have to jump through some hoops to get it, but it turns out it was actually intended as a bonus extra villain route and was supposed to be more difficult to get to accordingly, like an unlock you'd only do after you understood the rest of the game. It also had less budget and time and it shows. Once you've played a different route the things you're missing in CF become like a slap in the face. No reunion cutscene? Nope, ss has that one for the Eagles route. No level where you scrap your way through until your dudes start to show up again one by one? Byleth goes off screen and Edelgard yells MY TEACHER and it's not even clear you fell off a fucking cliff! There's no anime cutscene for the siege of the monastery either! Absolutely insane! It is just a worse route!

I think people who played it first or only played it and no other routes feel like they need to defend their choices by making it out to be the best one and the correct ending for Fodlan. And you know what, it's fine to like the route you did first, but often they say things about the other characters or routes that just really indicate they haven't touched them or all their understanding of them is filtered through the Edelgard route. I did this too for a bit! It's also completely true that thanks to the budget, deadlines, etc. there is a LOT more space to fill in with your own interpretations of what going on, which is where you get the Edelgard as socialist revolutionary from, even though she is very much not that and tells you as much in her supports. There's a level of sports team to it which, who fucking cares, but it would be nice if they didn't repeat "dimitri murders women, not just kills but murders" level nonsense and then argued that if you say otherwise you're like, the bourgeoisie or something. I'm trying not to call some of these arguments twitter brained, but they really are lmao

[deathbirby]

I decided to read a bit of Raxis' essay response to you out of curiosity - see what the points are and all - and uh.

So he says Edelgard isn't JUST trying to unify Fodlan, it's only "a step on the path" so.... she is trying to unify Fodlan. It's just not ALL she's trying to do. How is that a defense?

And then "Dimitri goes full Rufus" by refusing Edelgard's attempt at allowing him to surrender the Church and return to Faerghus peacefully because he believed she'd still try to kill him anyway... making him irrational, but. Hm. In GW, wasn't Dimitri eventually forced to do exactly that due to being unable to protect the Church and Faerghus against the Empire and the Alliance...

If I recall, CLAUDE went to go kill Rhea, and Edelgard and her army followed Dimitri back to Faerghus. So much for allowing him to return to Faerghus peacefully. I dunno, maybe Dimitri can just read the room. Better than Raxis can, at that. I also seem to recall Edelgard rejecting DIMITRI'S attempts to reach out to her/get her to surrender in AM (twice).... she had a really good reason for doing that though, I'm sure. Unlike Dimitri.

Anyway, how does "unifying is just step 1 of making Fodlan better because she JUST wants her reforms" square away with "allowing Dimitri to remove himself from the conflict and return peacefully to his Kingdom?" Those two points are in complete contradiction to each other and are yet thrown out so confidently as rebuttal. Almost like he didn't stop to think about how those two facts didn't actually add up.

I didn't read the rest. I kinda don't feel like I need to. I wonder who he thought the "Lady of Deceit" in the CF chapter that involves Edelgard lying about the church doing something reprehensible was, anyway. Cornelia didn't do anything deceitful in CF's storyline besides sabotage the Kingdom as usual but hey, you'd think Edelgard would love that. Must've been Cornelia. Or maybe it was Rhea. Yeah. Got to have been Rhea.

Definitely Rhea. When in doubt, the green lady is to blame. She didn't share her stash of weed with Edelgard.

But yeah his arguments are shit. Kudos to you for being able to make an actual response to it and not falling asleep halfway through!

Lol who cares about Edelgard not JUST wanting to do some imperialism, she still does it. That's such a stupid fucking argument did he really think that sounds okay??

[sprouseandall]

𝒀𝒆𝒉 𝑫𝒐𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒚𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕

sʏɴᴏᴘsɪs: Inspired by the song with the same name and the movie Five Feet Apart.

Set in 2019. It is the story of a young Indian girl named Asher who had a dream of becoming a singer since the age of twelve when she wrote her first song along. Her world was turned upside down when she got diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF), a lung disease. Making her live on borrowed air, through oxygen cylinder with pipe throwing air inside her lungs and the day she gave up on her dreams she even gave up on her hope and life.

She was 17, when on a regular weekend she caught the eye of Cole Sprouse as she played guitar alongside her friends in the central park of New York.

It started off as friendship but eventually love found its way into Asher's heart despite her efforts. She tries to distance him away thinking she was saving him from a heartbreak by breaking her own heart. She thought she was being brave soldier as she stood alone in this battle when inside of her, she was scared but the almighty had sent someone for her to hold onto. He wouldn't leave her no matter how hard she try because he's meant to love her. No matter what.

𝐒𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐬𝐡 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬?

A/N: It's really special story to me as for first time I put myself into the shoes of the female protagonist. As an acting student it is really important to feel and become that person and respect and appreciate them so that's what l'm gonna do. It's gonna be challenging but worth it to write and I can't wait to see how the story goes but I can assure you that it's going to be a emotional roller coaster and this new story is my way of giving the characters their happy ending or as I say "happy beginning".

I recently watched "Five Feet Apart"... again and it is movie that hits me in my core and make me cry more than Stella as the movie reaches its climax. Also I got inspired by a Hindi song "Yeh Dooriyan" which means "These Distances" I'm a Indian for those who don't know so I understand that depth in the song and two nights ago I got this storyline stuck in my head.

I'm really excited and nervous, l'm doing a lot of research on the disease to make the story as accurate as possible but still if there's a mistake then I'm sorry in advance, I'll try to write as detailed as possible but since l'm not a professional writer go easy on me and at the same time feel free to reach out to make suggestions and recommendations. My DMs are also open forever 💗

On a serious note, I wanna show my respect to all those people who deal with serious diseases like CF and all of other sorts. It's not easy and if you're moving forward everyday with it, YOU ARE BRAVE. And I'm SO PROUD of you guys! I'm always there.

I'll be updating my new story every weekend as college as officially started. So the story isn't just mine anymore, it's ours.

Catch early updates on Wattpad

Prologue (posted on July 23rd, 2024)

Chapter 1 (posted on July 23rd, 2024)

Chapter 2 (26/7) (published on Wattpad)

Chapter 3 (29/7)

Chapter 4 (01/8)

Chapter 5 (04/8)

Chapter 6 (08/8)

Chapter 7 (12/8)

Chapter 8 (15/8)

Chapter 9 (TBD)

[admiral-anime]

Trying to make causal connections.

We've been told a lot in 7 episodes. So, before the last episode of the season destroys our sanity, we'd like to deal with the lore.

So YES! Spoilers below!

Anyway, let's start, uh. at the beginning.

What do we know about the time line?

A very distant future. Humans colonized other planets and remained capitalists. And the black jobs are done by drones. It's a nice place.

People wouldn't be human if they properly disposed of waste designs. So one of the unkilled laborers, CYN, has something called the Absolute Solver.

The silly girl was taken in by Tessa. Not just CYN, though. Tessa is basically hosting all future Disasemblyling Drones.

Apparently, CYN is living at Tessa's house and conducting experiments with Solver on the drones. Tessa can't do anything about it, because CYN is threatening her too.

Apparently, due to the threat of getting rid of drones (that's not certain) CYN is doing something big at Gala.

It's also where CYN is most likely to take over Tessa's body.

On Gala, CYN creates a singularity, and somewhere after that, sends DD in for the kill.

It's been an indefinitely long time.

People on planets other than Earth are trying to curb the power of Solver. And a research center is being set up on the planet Cooper-9. That's where Nori and Yeva are living.

They (as well as many other drones, are infected with Solver. Most likely on purpose.

As we see in Episode 7, people have found a way to get rid of Solver. Or at least reduce its side effects, like CYN or something.

Things don't go well, however, and the possessed Nori does blow up the planet.

Next, the drones become independent and that's where the series begins.

Here's a retelling of the show

DDs arrive on the planet to destroy all the drones. Uzi assembles the railgun. Later she meets N, V and J. Uzi gets Solver powers and N becomes kind or at least stops killing drones. Uzi, dealing with her past, encounters Doll, also of AS abilities. She then goes through Nori's Cabin Favor records. It's apparently part of a research base. Events occur there that cause the program N and V to self-lobotomize, from which Uzi rescues them and becomes their administrator.

A find from the CF leads Uzi and Doll to the laboratory. Teassa arrives there as well. (She is actually CYN). Tessa instructs that the drones from AS must be destroyed. In the lab, Uzi meets Alice, and learns more information about her past. After splitting up with V, they enter an acculturative research center.

Everyone splits up. N meets Nori. Tessa destroys the remains of the drones from the experiments. After that, Doll and Uzi start to fight. Tessa tries to kill Uzi, but N arrives in time to "kill" Tessa. Uzi becomes possessed. The problem is solved, although it is deprived of the developed AS patch. CYN reveals itself and everyone (except N) is sent to the abyss rather than to the earth.

The retelling is over.

I lowered some of the arches. I'm already tired of writing >_<.

There's a separate Thad and Lizzy arc in the series, but they haven't played any significant roles in the story yet, so that's for future posts.

Okay. Why am I describing a time line here?

Basically, to point out the gaps in my understanding of the story.

Are AS owners becoming CYN over time?

So. Why does Tessa being CYN kill drones?

How many years between Gala and the events of the show?

Why did CYN take over Tessa's body?

And the last question that's unanswered. Where did Slover come from?

I'll try to answer these questions as I understand it.

In general, the AS drones have been exhibiting CYN behavior. They were yellow and called N "big brother." So most likely all AS drones are subject to the will of the CYN.

CYN got a better body for herself (I don't know why she needs flesh on metal, I guess it's nicer that way) and wants to get rid of the rest of the dror with AS. Although the fact that CYN kills robots under its control is due to the fact that the local drones involved in the experiments are very stable and do not lose their personalities.

It probably hasn't been very long. The Coper-9 drones did not know the fate of the land. And the DD didn't arrive long ago, for cleanup.

Now, that's where I have no idea. It's likely that an accurate AS entity is more comfortable living in a symbiosis of flesh and steel.

There's no definitive answer. Solver has some strange traits. Basically, it allows you to manipulate space. To destroy and create matter. So he's quite paranormal. However, he also has signs of handiwork. First, the name Solver suggests that he has a purpose. It has to solve some kind of problem. Next, the text, when absorbed into matter, looks like a human-format warning. That's odd. And also the parts of the metal-ornament created by it have a technical color - white with a black-yellow line. Which is a color that's pleasant, generally speaking, in humans. So it is likely that Solver is a kind of extreme software product developed with the use of anomalous tools for unclear purposes.

Uh-huh. That was a long post!

I liked Episode 7 a lot. It revealed a lot of plot details, so I decided to do a retrospective review. I wonder what Episode 8 will bring us!

To all who have read this talmouth of text - my thanks and good luck wishes!

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

(Part 1) (Part 3)

In my previous post about how the writing failed Edelgard and the confusion of shifting her between protagonist and villain, I mentioned possibly doing a continuation relating her to Ashnard.

I've done this many times before, be it in posts or tags of posts, but I've never done it in a full blown analysis post. I decided to go through with it and detail exactly what the issues I find are, because as a villain, Ashnard succeeded with zero hiccups. Edelgard is literally identical to him in beliefs and motivations (right down to wanting Adrestia, his Daein, to rule the continent). However, the fandom ended up split on "is she really a villain or a misunderstood antagonist".

The idea of this pair of posts is to go over exactly how that happened, and why two characters who are exactly identical in their major motivations ended up not being seen by the fandom in the same way. That is to say, Ashnard is collectively understood to be the villain, so why isn't Edelgard?

This post also goes over their similarities and exactly what they are with context from Ashnard's lines, as well as others who interacted with Ashnard.

I also go further into other problems with Edelgard's writing and why it failed to truly decide on a path for her, muddying her writing and story and how some of it serves no purpose to her story or route (ex. her backstory). I also brought up contrasts between her route and those issues with all the other routes, as examples of how the other routes had clear goals/stories in mind that weren't shifted one way or another.

Since this unfortunately got insane levels of massive yet again, I'm cutting the entire thing up into a part one (the previous post), part two (this post) and part three (the next post that will cover a continuation of this post to make it more digestible because it would be too massive otherwise).

To start, I break down the similarities nearly worded exactly the same between both characters:

Question the way in which society was designed

Birth station determines your life

Uses people of low birth to justify atrocious actions. That is, claiming people of low birth are suffering and should be able to rise by their own merits. In Edelgard's case, she uses this as a propoganda tool but never follows through with it (as per CF's ending cards and the many underlying implications, such as censorship, spying on her own people, keeping only her friends/allies in power, etc). In Ashnard's case, he just wants to watch strong people fight each other and take strong people into his service. However, he has two strong people fight to the death to determine who is stronger and takes the winner into his service.

Believes people should benefit from their strength (regardless of what that strength is/brings/leads to, such as TWS and the Death Knight being a mass murderer (this is not about Jeritza directly, we know what his problems are and why he does these things, but she allows for it and feeds into those things by giving him the reign of the battlefield that she does when Jeritza himself does not approve of all the killing he's done) and the Black Knight being used to eliminate all of Ashnard's obstacles that he personally does not want to waste time on or at the time cannot).

Uses strength to "remake" society. In Edelgard's case, she's using force and strength of arms to force Fodlan under one banner (something her immediate family has been doing since Faerghus first split from Adrestia). She uses her strength to rule with an iron fist and obliterate any and all opposition (which she openly admits to). In Ashnard's case, he explicitly states he believes the strong should rule the weak and wants the strong in his service, so he allows people of all status to step up to prove themselves.

Class and rank won't matter (in Edelgard's case this is a lie used to subdue doubt and not something she follows through with. Again, the ending cards. In Ashnard's case he does mean what he says).

The strong are the ones in power. A G A I N, CF's ending cards.

The weak are stuck weak because they are weak. They get no help from Ashnard/Edelgard because they are weak. In Edelgard's case, she wholeheartedly believes the weak are weak by fault of their own and that it is their own fault if they are dependent on others. In Ashnard's case, he believes the weak are weak and deserved to be ruled over because that is the natural order of the world (bitch rly said natural selection lmao).

Ashnard explicitly states he believes the weak cling to the strong, which is exactly what Edelgard believes and she expresses this to Dimitri in AM.

Similarly to how Edelgard and Dimitri end their conversation with the understanding that they will never agree on their subject, Ashnard promptly ends his conversation with Reyson because he understands that they will never agree.

Similarly to how people will not bend to Edelgard's vision because it would negatively affect their life, Reyson refuses to accept Ashnard's vision because he, as a physically weak and frail person, does not have the strength to thrive in Ashnard's ideal world. Reyson is an example of someone who would suffer in Edelgard's ideal world, because he is physically weak and has to rely on Tibarn and previously Naesala to survive. In Edelgard's world, the herons would be useless strength-wise and thus never deserve to rise to the top. They would be bottom of the barrel and by ruled over by people stronger than them.

Since Reyson refuses to accept Ashnard's ideal world, Ashnard's response is that he plans to kill him - exactly what Edelgard does to anyone who stands against her or doesn't want to live in her ideal world.

The only MAJOR difference is that Ashnard doesn't care if beorc or laguz are involved in this world of his. Edelgard wants to eliminate all Nabateans (and she admits as much herself).

This is what I mean when I say... Edelgard is literally the same character as Ashnard. The reason she's not deemed "the villain" by many is because of her affiliation with Byleth, the protagonist. Even on her own route, she is fulfilling the villain role... but because of Byleth's presence, the game gears toward forcing a romance for her, and people generally don't like to see a romantic interest for the protagonist as the villain.

Yes, villains can still have human emotions and fall in love. However yes, due to people not wanting to see romance in a villainous character, people don't perceive her as a villain. Without Byleth, CF is still the villain route.

Interestingly, in Hopes, Edelgard is much more open about her actions and her iron rule mindset. She is also much more open to accepting the truth of her actions and how bad they actually are. She doesn't care though, because those actions will lead to her vision of Fodlan.

I don't hate Byleth at all, but Byleth's existence in CF is a detraction to the writing in the sense of Edelgard as the story's central villain (with the background villains being TWS and assorted others earlier in the game). It's the use of romance and trying to make Edelgard woobified, thus making players feel bad for her and many people never expressing that her trauma does not excuse her from inflicting all this suffering on innocent people, or that invading other countries that did nothing to you or yours is not okay.

Ashnard is ridiculed and despised for doing exactly these same things (invasion, etc), but he doesn't have a player romance to help him save face in the fandom from being what he is - a villain.

No responsibility is ever taken for her actions (any indication that she has done so is lip service from her, as we are never shown that she has done so and we never hear from a single other person that she has done so). This is because she fully believes in her actions, thus sees no reason to be held responsible for "mistakes" when she does not view them as such.

By contrast:

Dimitri doesn't use his trauma as an excuse for his actions... even though his trauma is the direct source and reason for his actions. Again though, he doesn't use that as an excuse to justify it or say it's okay.

Claude doesn't use his trauma as an excuse to say it's okay that he sometimes hurts people emotionally because he pushes them too far with trying to learn about Fodlan so he can bring it emotionally closer to his birthland. Both of them take responsibility for their faults even though they do have trauma as a reason for it and could reasonably use that as an excuse with an apology.

Rhea on the other hand does do some sketchy things and acknowledges that, but she takes responsibility for it in all routes bar CF where she is in the middle of war (i.e. in fight mode, versus all other routes not being directly in the war and thus having time to talk with people and discuss things). In AM, she does step down and go into isolation, no longer involving herself with humanity. SS and VW are more direct with her taking responsibility.

These characters have that in difference with Edelgard, the dev proclaimed villain, because they do not forgive their actions as "it had to be done for the greater good" because they know when they were wrong. Rhea blurs the line there with the whole greater good situation, but she ultimately does it in response to her trauma from her kin being victims of genocide - something Edelgard is notably resuming but which is swept under the rug to make her less horrendous - which is, again, a failure in writing of her character because romancing her is prioritized over her having independence from Byleth/romance and being able to pursue her path freely with her own beliefs. Instead, she makes excuse after excuse for why she's in the right instead of just, like Ashnard, acknowledging that that is just what she wants because it's what she believes in).

I direct you to the Lonato chapter and the fact that Dimitri will literally snap at Byleth and literally call them insane for suggesting that it (killing) had to be done, desperately insisting there must have been another way that did not involve taking those people's lives (mirrored when he has the option, as king, to take a life for being involved in the Tragedy of Duscur, but chooses not to do so and instead reflects on that man's meaning of justice instead of deciding that because they don't see things the same way that the man must die.

However, the thing is, her trauma is only there in the story to further woobify her to make her more appealing as a romance option. Her trauma plays no part in the grand scheme of her goals, and she in fact is working closely with the people who inflicted that trauma on her. It isn't like, for example, AM where Dimitri's trauma is the central cause of his personal growth as a character.

Byleth is also not the central driving force for Dimitri recovering as part of his character arc; it was Rodrigue - the only singular person Dimitri would listen to and take a scolding from and eventually give in and even refer to as "friend", something he does not do to any other singular person before his recovery begins (he in fact pushes Byleth and everyone else away, with his only semblance of sanity left coming to the surface thanks to Rodrigue's presence). Byleth helps in his recovery, but Byleth could not have ever done that without Rodrigue's words to Dimitri. Byleth was sort of an extension to the situation, but it was never Byleth who initiated the events that led to Dimitri's growth. Byleth was heavily ridiculed and ignored by Dimitri prior, so before anyone tries to say Dimitri is woobified for romancing, no, he's not. That's part of his character arc, and it was also not Byleth who initiated that phase of his arc. Byleth was part of it and helped in it, but another major character in Dimitri's life was used to enter that arc phase.

Contrast to CF Edelgard being dependent on Byleth and unable to properly wage war without their presence for five entire years - something that is not the case for Edelgard in any other route, thus making her that much more inconsistent between her own route and the others to make her own romanceable on her own route.

Now, why is this a problem? Because on all other routes, the main characters have motivations and goals that Byleth's existence will not deter.

Claude isn't going to stop trying to make friends between Almyra and Fodlan whether Byleth is there or not.

Seteth is not going to stop looking for Rhea and fighting against the Empire whether Byleth is there or not (and they were in fact actively doing that even before they knew Byleth was still alive, just searching for Byleth on the side in case they were actually still alive).

Dimitri would have fought Edelgard whether Byleth was there or not (which he does in all other routes, but Rodrigue isn't able to properly help him in non-AM routes because the other routes needed to get Dimitri out of the picture to shift focus to the route's main character and the current villain (I say current because TWS gets involved after her death in VW/SS). If Dimitri survived those routes, he would have to be more involved in the story or players would be asking where he is/why he isn't involved. In AM, Claude is excused from the story and we understand he returned to Almyra. In CF, Claude is excused from the story after either dying to Edelgard's army or returning to Almyra. In SS, he's excused from the story as having "disappeared", but the general fandom consensus is that he returned to Almyra (so he in other words, he had somewhere to go outside of the setting of the central conflict, thus could survive all routes). Dimitri didn't have that, so he had to be removed from the story somehow. Still though, he does target Edelgard in all routes.

So again, why is this a problem? Well... all the other lead characters have agency without Byleth on all routes, including outside of their own. Their goals are not halted by anything except death and will continue seeking their goals on routes that are not their own. Byleth does not need to be there for their story to be the same story, even if it ends differently (Byleth is the player proxy to experience each route's story, thus if not present in a specific character's life, will not change their motivations. The end result will of course change, but their attitude toward their goals does not change).

However, Edelgard is very specifically still the villain and viewed as such in all routes except CF. You might think, well of course, since that's her own route... but why couldn't they commit to making the villain still the villain on her route? Why did they go out of their way to lessen the impact of her actions/motivations/beliefs? Why didn't they, in writing, make it very clear that you sided with the villain and thus are also a villain in CF? Why is it that Ashnard has almost identical lines about his motivations to hers, but she isn't viewed as the villain in her route but instead as the hero?

Again - it's the romance option. It's the very unfortunate idea that they wanted to woobify the only female lead to make her more paletteable for the player. Dimitri, again, has a backstory and central arc revolving around his suffering and is the focus of his route, but Edelgard is given a sad backstory that... the story doesn't come back to. That the story doesn't utilize to make her have a redemption arc. That the story only uses... to make you feel bad for her.

It's unfortunate because the only female lead couldn't be solid on her own in her own route. She becomes so sad and lonely without Byleth, and the characters even tease her about it during the timeskip reunion (mind you, in no other route is this an issue and she continues fighting her war very well. She's actually wnning without Byleth in all other routes and is evidently (supposedly?) in love with Byleth on all routes, but still manages to do just fine without them on all routes... except her own).

Edelgard has random cutesy aspects like painting Byleth and being embarrassed about it. She likes to drown herself in sweets and be a girl. These are tactics used by the writers to make her cuter and whatnot... but then, why are those aspects not used in the other routes? Why do the other characters manage their stories and arcs just fine without needing extra cute fluff? They can be married by the player character, but they don't utilize unnecessary and random fluff that doesn't fit in with the vibe of the route.

Then you look back and see, well, they toned down the female only on the route you can marry her. They didn't let her be the character she was amped up to be. They had to tone her down and make her more appealing to players... but they... didn't do this with any of the guys.

Regardless on your stance regarding potential sexism in the writing thusly, it just is fact that this is what happened and this is how the stories were handled. They could have made her a full blown villain of all the main characters, and if you joined them you were now also the villain. But... no, because they wanted a cute girl.

Unfortunately, it really shows when Ashnard is a man and is able to be his own character freely with no obstacles in his writing.

Whether you feel it's sexist or not, the fact is, the romance aspect was a lot more pushed in the player's face in CF. AM looks like it's doing something similar at first, but that illusion is gone when seeing Dimitri in the timeskip and he no longer gushes over Byleth and is no longer polite and friendly. When he does regain his gentleness, a lot (if not all?) of his seemingly flirty and funny aspects aren't used. He's a lot more formal and rational, and he's not reduced to a player's marriage object. They toyed with it, essentially, before the Remire chapter, when Dimtiri's mental health was degrading. Once we got to see the real depths of his character arc in part one, all of that fun, cute, silly stuff was gone, and it didn't return.

Edelgard though? Wasn't written that way, literally having romance be a plot device for her only in her own route where you can marry her. She was changed specifically for her route. The other lead characters (Dimitri, Claude, Seteth and technically Rhea)? All the same across all routes.

Even Rhea's switch flip in CF is still Rhea. It's her when she's pushed to the brink, being fought by the person who has Sothis within them and who possibly was even involved in killing the last of her kin. It's her when she's backed into a corner, but it's still her.

If Dedue survives/isn't transformed in CF, Dimitri's death shows that he's still the same person/has the same motivations and feelings that he has in all other routes when he's not at his lowest point (and when he is at his lowest point in each route, he's written consistently in that state in each one).

Claude will still defend Leicester at all cost in every route, even if it kills him (he can die in AM, but you get game over. But the fact remains that he will stay and fight instead of escaping to safety when he's about to die - something he tells Hilda to do. The only time he leaves is when he's spared in CF after being defeated. In that situation, he still risked death and didn't back down from the battle).

Next part will be in the next post because this is already long and the two posts as one was just... too long lol.

[spnj2fanlw]

Wondering about other people opinions on something. What are your favourite times our main characters were played by other actors, your favourite times our main actors played their character as someone else, like possessed or whatnot, favourite times they were in an altered state and what were your least fav instances of any of these.

Mine are:

Other actors:

1. Colin Ford as young Jared. He just nailed it so well when I read young Sam fics I picture CF.

2. The actor who played young Dean at the boys home and when Dean is de-aged must have studied Jensen because he also was just so Dean to me. Also shout out to the actor who played him in after school special he was also great.

3. Young John and Mary. I just loved them. This shows casting department was just so phenomenal on all levels.

HM to the woman Crowley possessed and had the orgy. She was awesome, lol.

Now for the good stuff...

Other versions:

1. While I think Jared was outstanding every single time he was someone else MY fav was Gadreel. The way Jared changed his body language and speech pattern to match that of TP was brilliant. Even without the blue eye flash I knew which character was on the screen. even when he faked Dean out at the end there were differences.

2. Dean/Jen as Michael. Omg he made that character awesome. I also liked Jake and Matt in the role but Jensen just killed it. Au Michael wasn't bad either just not as good and gets blown out of my head after Jen.

3. Misha/Cas as Lucifer. I really like how Misha channelled MP in his Lucifer. I mean I absolutely love jareds Lucifer too but I'm going to give it to Misha here.

Adding a 4th here which is John as Azazel. JDM was so good I got chills the first time I watched it.

HM to Jared/Sam playing Gary, the kid in the body swap. God Jared made me laugh in an EP I don't even care for other than that performance.

Fav other version.

1 and 2 tie. Soulless Sam and Demon Dean. First the hotness of both like, wow. Also both actors just nail these versions of their characters. The acting in both cases was phenomenal IMO and both characters crack me up.

3. Crazy Sam. season seven broken Sam was spectacular to me. The journey he goes through in his mind and finally as his body deteriorates from the no sleep and mental damage "Lucifer" is inflicting were played so well. The writers kind of dropped the ball a bit in the middle of the season but Jared was always spot on. Born again identity is on my (too large) favourites list because I can feel Sam's exhaustion and what he's going through. Love it.

HM to Misha with Crazy Cas. Another thing I loved in season seven and still wish I could have had more of. Oh man Cas and the Bees and just all of it, wonderful.

HM to purgatory Dean. While not altered like being a demon I think they wrote Dean in such a great way showing the impact a year in nothing but survival mode did to Dean. I like how Jensen plays him as almost having PTSD, jumpy and just always on and taking everything in like he can't quite relax. Another one that should have lasted longer and got looked at deeper.

Ok least fav.

1. This isn't just a least fav but an I hate... I hated AU Cas. The Nazi or German or whatever accent is nails on a chalkboard to me. I just can't. Was Jimmy Novak not American in the AU, lol.

2. I was also not real fond of The Empty Cas. Liked meg as the empty but not Misha's take.

3. Ok nothing else is jumping to mind so I'm not going to sit and think and look for a third which is probably out there and not popping in my head , lol. I feel bad that the two I immediately thought of were both Misha but I can't help it I really really did not like those acting choices, whether they were his or the directors or writers it just didn't work for me.

Hm. Oh I just thought I could say Jared possessed by meg. Not that I didn't like it at all but just that it wasn't as good as other possessions.

So what do you all think? Would love to read some of your favs or the ones you didn't like.

@jinkieswouldyoulookatthis @fallenfar @brookesallow @supernaturalkickparty @fandom-hoarder @ani-coolgirl only if you feel like it though.

[kim-ruzek]

Thoughts on Violet and Carver?

Stellaride?

Cruz and Severide?

I'm not a huge fan of Violet and Carver, but they're growing on me. My heart will forever belong to Hawkami, but I have been open to a new romance with Violet. I mean, I hoped we'd get a non-romance story line for her since god, she's so much more than just her relationships and I wish CF got that, but CF is terrible at getting things like that. And now Gallo is gone, so they - my second faves - are through, I'm not against Carver.

I didn't watch a lot of last season (me and cancer story lines are not friends, especially when my babe Sev is gone) but I did watch the later half of it, and I kinda dug their vibes then but eh, I was still unsure.

And in the premiere, I just felt awkward during their scenes. BUT this episode, this episode I felt something for them. They were cute, and I loved Vi being both awkward and so into him while also being cocky and confident. And I do like Carver. I don't have much attachment to him as a character on his own, but with others, he's a nice balance against them and him and Violet could be cute. I also think they play against each other nicely, which will be needed for when Sylvie goes.

Really, I just think Violet is really pretty and I just need her in relationship so I can see cute/steamy scenes with her... for science, of course.

Now, Stellaride. Stellaride, Stellaride, Stellaride.

My heart adores them. And this most recent episode, ugh I loved them so much. They were being so married, so husband and wife, and I just loved it. It felt like Stellaride - what I fell in love with, what they built over the seasons. Them pushing the beer back and forth, Stella giving Kelly a bit of advice, it was everything.

I do not, however, like the drama that's going to on-going and coming up. Apart from the bathroom scene, the premiere made me so sad. And I don't want this to become a whole thing and I really don't want it to break them apart.

Especially with us losing so many characters, we need the stability of Stellaride. I know the other older house members have stable relationships, but none of which are both on-screen mains, and I just need them to be the reliable married couple.

I think I could end up possibly liking the relationship drama, if all it is is just a rocky bump in their long and happy road, because let's be honest, CF will never not let them have drama and Severide does get tunnel vision when it comes to arson cases. But if it's a means to break them further apart, then I'm not here for it.

Thing is, we won't be able to know until the season is done, which means I'm going to be dragged through the scenes by my anxiety and I'll overall hate the experience because I'm fearful they're breaking apart my darlings and I'd just love it if for once all my ships are happy and together at the same time.

Cruz and Severide. I actually really like this plot line. Because there will be growing pains. (although this is when the six month jump doesn't help, because Sev's been back longer then he's been gone lol. I mean yes, we can infer it's been six months of little instances like that, where Sev dismisses him and to go six months without an apology is a Lot but still). And I'm interested to see where it'll go.

Although I am fearful it's going to lead to Kelly leaving for arson which I won't love.

I think the root of the problem is that Kelly isn't fully happy with squad atm because of arson and also he's feeling a bit insecure in his leadership, as - probably subconsciously - Capp and Tony probably still look to Cruz as some sort of leader, and treat Cruz a little less like one of their own rank and more equal rank to Sev. So he's been extra harsh and nitpicky to Cruz, to gain that control back.

But I will say, Cruz was absolutely in the wrong to go and get that drone. If anything happened, as Sev said, it would've been on Severide's back and at the end of the day, it is just a drone.

But I also think Kelly was unfair in his reaction to Cruz. Kelly himself has been the one who defies his higher ups, and while it is different as he is a LT, it still is a fact. And Kelly is a little bit of a cowboy himself so calling Cruz out, it's a little hollow - especially when you factor in that Sev has probably been extra harsh/dismissive of Cruz these past six months.

So while I think ultimately Kelly was in the right about the drone (although Kelly before would've been in a place to hear Cruz' case for getting the drone and before Cruz would've been the person who still defers to someone else for the last decision whereas for three months he WAS that person making those choices) Cruz is definitely right to feel upset and dismissed by Sev.

This got long! Thank you so much for asking!!!

[horribleauthortm]

Finally participating in one, I've been meaning to take part in FFF for a long time-

Characters: Celine (OC)

Story: Unnamed, goes by CF

WC: 622

Warnings: Mentions of violence, blood, and experimentation

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Celine's job is a desired one, many people would do anything to have it.

Including Celine herself; she'd worked hard for years to get to the position she's in: Representative of the Labs Division (Head Scientist, as some people liked to call her), and Head of the Essence Research Branch.

If she were to be honest, she never thought she'd get this far. It was enough for her that she got a job in the Agency in the first place, a dream of hers and her brother's since they were little kids.

And it came true.

Celine liked her work.

She got to meet and converse with new people constantly, her work was intimate, not some lonely, isolated job, like sitting behind a screen or collecting samples or standing guard. There was social interaction, people to know and talk to.

Not to mention, she thought the soul and its structure absolutely fascinating. To think your entire existence was dependent on such a precise and delicate, yet sturdy 'organ' was simply dazzling to her.

Celine, on top of all that, was a skilled doctor, with the little boost of her healing abilities, and had become the main medic for the higher-up positions.

She would never think to leave this job.

The Agency's goal was noble, it really was. When she'd first gotten the job, she'd sworn an oath to help protect all people across the worlds, and make any necessary sacrifices for that.

"Wait, wait no no NO! Please, I'll do anything else, ANYTHING—"

Anne, the Head of Department, and a friend of Celine, was a good woman, who would do anything to achieve that noble goal. She, too, had taken the oath—she was the first one to declare it.

"Go through with it."

Celine liked to tell herself she was good as well. That she was on the heros' side, working for the greater good and the sake of the public.

"What are you doing to me!? Stay back!"

Some would disagree with the methods used, herself included, but when orders came from above, she had no choice but to oblige.

She tried to convince herself what she was doing really was the good thing.

"Extract it."

But the more she worked there, the more horrors she'd seen her patients go through, not just during their 'talks' with the others, but at her own hands, the less she really believed that.

"It hurts—please, please stop—I beg of you!"

She really tried to make her patients comfortable. She wanted them to feel safe with her, to know that they're not alone in this hellhole they were dragged in. To know that she would do everything she could to help them—that she was doing everything she can to help them.

"Celine, Celine no, don't do it, please, you can't—"

She would never think to leave this job.

"It's okay, I'm here with you, I know it hurts. I won't leave you, okay?"

"W-Why? Why do you do this to me?"

She's afraid the person to come after her won't be as nice. As if she can call herself nice.

"I'm sorry, I really am, but— there's nothing I can do."

Another perk of her position was that she had no one but Anne herself above her. No one else to command her.

Their screams never left her head. The tears and pleading eyes, the begging and thrashing and crying. The blood, the broken bones and cuts, the bruises that would litter their body when they were brought to her.

"Please, Ma'am, there's gotta be something else I can do."

And she found that despite her high authority, when push came to shove, all she could do was say:

"Celine. That's an order."

"Yes Ma'am."

[problematic-fodlan]

I'm going to be a bit blunt here. One of the best parts of SB is the fact that Ingrid and Sylvain die. This is coming from someone who hates how Sylvain is written in AG since that route got rid of all the complexity behind Sylvain and what makes him a compelling character. However, something SB understand and nails perfect as it takes from CF is that Character outside of Edelgard matter a lot to the narrative as it helps gives the story and it themes depth. The antagonists and villains to the story also matters a lot because they are the other half of the story. Something FE often fails at is giving screen time to it antagonist to develop them. Part of why Edelgard sucks as an Antagonist is because she has less screen time and development then Anakos in Fates but also because House inconsistent writing with it messages which can lead people into not liking AM, VW and SS. However, to get back onto the point. What makes Sylvain and Ingrid great as Antagonist is how it all lead back into Edelgard true Antagonist. Edelgard true antagonist is the corrupt system and society of Fódlan, it the world as Shez put it and if I was to write a thematic, academic essay. I would call Fódlan society and it system a Fascist one because it actively corrupts people and makes people into their worst selves. Fódlan corrupt system isn't just uphold by Rhea, CoS, Thalas and TWSITD but instead all who practices corrupt ways like Ludwig Aegir but also extreme and toxic culture like Faerghus that see no other ways outside of the system and willing to do anything for the self-preservation of said culture and system. In this cases, Ingrid is fighting for her King, she is fighting for Dimitri because it is Faerghus culture. She should live and die for him regardless of the man that Dimitri could be. Ingrid and by extension all of Faerghus people purpose in life is to die for her King. Because of this, Ingrid is rob of any individuality we see of her within House, it partly why her best ending where she has fully autonomy isn't in AM. Dying for the king is expect for everyone who live in Faerghus and if they people don't want to do that then it is treason with the punishment being Death. We ultimately see Ingrid die for Dimitri, which causes him grief but also causing him to double down on defending Faerghus as doesn't understand what actually caused Ingrid death if we look at it from a long term PoV. Ingrid death causes Sylvain to seek vengeance, as we know in Faerghus culture. It doesn't matter who killed the Ingrid, instead what matter is avenging Ingrid through the doing something they believe they are own in compensation. In this case, Sylvain is trying to kill as many Empire troupes as possible for Ingrid. The same goes for Dimitri as while he claims Edelgard thirst for blood is unquenchable. His goal during this battle is similar to his CF counterpart in killing as many Empire solider as possible, regardless of if Edelgard is trying to reduce the death toll. In both of these case, they both tie back into Edelgard true Antagonist since they both feeds it existence whilst also defending it. But their character and their depth is giving more depth, weight and meaning not just to SB story but also to CF and seeing the larger narrative of both game from a pro-Edelgard PoV.

-

[meirimerens]

hii ik you hc burakhovsky living separately in the capital and ToG respectively for at least a couple if years after the canon events. what do they keep that remind them of each other when they're apart, aside from their letters? what is gifted, what is taken/'stolen' from the other (a sweater or scarf?), do they craft things.. maybe thats more artemy with tea/herbs but ik ive seen ppl hc that he takes up kitting idk

smilesssss now we talkingggg okay

apart letters (which make up already A Lot):

sent are photographs (cf. this)

by the Time Of Patho cameras become a tad bit more democratized with the apparition of 35mm film in the mid-1910s so i think dankovsky gets himself one (Immortalizing... and all) + i think he knows (likely through andrey or peter) a guy who knows a guy who owns a darkroom and lets him develop his films without asking as long as he pays back so ^ photographs. not just Saucy either even though they do come first. he travels a bit and sends back his holiday pictures. blurry seaside picture of mama dankovskaya who hasn't registered she should not wave because it's gonna be blurry

sent are also postcards (from the city, from travels, handmade by someone in ToG when they're an event)

gifted is food (jams and preserves from mama dankovskaya or from burakh [dankovsky can't make a jam to save his life], honeys bought at the market, candy, liquor, cured meats [a burakh exclusive], indeed tea blends, medicinal balms and creams [also from burakh]), crafted things (herbarium pages [dankovsky drying flowers from the caucasus when he visits with his parents, burakh drying flowers from the town so dankovsky has a memory of it + a new wall decoration], indeed i think burakh takes up knitting but he's bad at it lol but he gets better so dankovsky gets a handmade scarf or socks; burakh makes little ceramic things [a craft of the town], woodworkings), things bought in stores or at flea markets which fit the other (dankovsky big fan of gifting teacups and tiny watercolor paintings of pastoral scenes with cows and oxen). BOOKS also, typically dankovsky, who reads a lot; books are either for burakh (when corresponding he will give updates on his reading list) or for sticky & murky (presents from dyadya). sometimes from the Capital a bigger present like once a record player, and then records.

stolen indeed sweaters and scarves. shirt too (queue studio killers' jenny's "i'm using your shirt as a pillow case" verse). stolen is dankovsky's cravat over and over again, when he goes home bare-necked or only wearing the scarf he came wearing over his cravat you know that red silk thing is on burakh's pillow. stolen is burakh's undershirt which is both funny and kinda twisted because if you've ever worn a pure wool sweater directly over skin you know that shit can itch. but he has other undershirts so it's fine. stolen are pillow cases which by some strange way found themselves in the suitcase instead of the hamper.

borrowed are lightweight blankets or quilts to help stay warm on the train ride home. borrowed are books also, often poetry. borrowed and gifted back are ideas and time. smilessssss.

[bowbowis]

You're not a clown, you're the entire circus. The whole reason my post was made because do you know how stupid it looks for someone who out of their own free will chooses to invade a country, kill the leader and then cry about supposedly having to kill them. If a man killed another for his wealth, the court wouldn't give a damn if he was sad about the victim "making" them murder them.

If you ignore the whole reason why Edelgard is waging a war and replace her actual motives with simple greed, then yeah, it looks pretty stupid. When you consider that she's fighting for what she believes is the greater good of all Fódlan and perceives herself as being confronted with a trolley problem where death and suffering cannot be avoided, only minimized, then it's only natural for her to be distraught when minimizing the harm involves killing someone she cares about.

Secondly, I don't know if you didn't bother to check your sources or tried to lie to my face when I have the evidence available, https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/266. First of all, Dimitri makes the accusation that Lambert was killed for Edelgard, which per Thales is true, https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/110. Secondly, he claims that Anselma was killed by Edelgard, which is the only dubious part because her fate is kept vague.

Ah yes, Thales, a totally trustworthy source who always has Edelgard's interests at heart. The only sense in which what Dimitri is accusing her of here could be considered true is that Anselma was motivated to participate in the Tragedy to reunite with Edelgard and died as a result. A connection Edelgard herself seems to be unaware of and is morally blameless for.

Last time I checked, giving people asylum isn't a valid Casus Belli.

What Dimitri does goes beyond granting asylum. By allowing a belligerent to use his territory as a base of operations he forfeits any claim to neutrality in the conflict. CF in particular has him outright swear fealty to Rhea, which more or less makes the Kingdom an extension of the Church.

I'm unsure if you're being obtuse on purpose, but unifying a continent through warfare is a war of conquest.

It is. But as we see she's perfectly willing to go the non-violent route when the opportunity presents itself.

Oh yes, Claude. You mean how in their meeting, https://hopes.fedatamine.com/en-us/events/639/. Edelgard outright lied to Claude's face per https://hopes.fedatamine.com/en-us/events/606/.

The way the scene is set up makes it pretty clear that this is theater, not a serious attempt to deceive Claude. Now that they're forming an alliance, it's more convenient for both parties to pretend their prior conflict was a misunderstanding. Edelgard is giving herself plausible deniability and giving Claude a way to buddy up with the nation that just invaded his own without losing face.

You actually think that someone who honestly says that there can only be one ruler of this world won't backstab Claude once his use is over? https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/226#event-60

At that point it's clear that she and Dimitri are beyond reconciliation, only one of them can emerge victorious and that person will be the ruler of Fódlan. And no, I don't think she will turn on Claude as long as he holds up his end of the deal. It's repeatedly established that she wants to be a reliable ally and to minimize bloodshed where he can.

Thirdly, even before she knows where Rhea is gone, she is already preparing to launch an invasion of Faerghus and later launches an invasion of Leicester, https://hopes.fedatamine.com/en-us/events/443/#event-96. Funny how the event is called Beginning of the Conquest, almost like it's trying to tell you something.

Of course she made preparations, she'd be an idiot to think the Kingdom and Alliance would let the Church fall without resistance. It doesn't mean they didn't elect to oppose her.

You know it's really funny to me when people go around saying that Edelgard was so sad about "having" to kill Dimitri and others, when she was the one who decided to start a war and attacked his kingdom.

Oh and by the way, Edelgard wasn't made to start the war either, as Hubert all but confirms that it was Edelgard and Hubert's decision to work with Agartha, https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/scenarios/251, and in Hopes, Edelgard explicitly says that her goal is to conquer Fodlan, https://hopes.fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/edelgard/balthus/b/#event-68