#and turn into into the plot of the game

[violetren]

I have realised the thing that pisses me off the most about people buying Blood Libel: The Transphobia Fund and then being sad or surprised by the backlash for it "because they don't support JKR or the Devs" is that to be an ally the absolute bare fucking minimum you have to do to be an ally to any minority community is not participate in or encourage violence against them.

And these piss stains not only failed to do that, they actively paid more than my weekly grocery budget to fail at that.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Always a bit puzzled by people saying that anyone who wanted long-term consequences for TotK Zelda's sacrifice are "edgy".

I'm not even particularly in the camp that she should have remained a dragon forever (I think this should have been Ganondorf's fate, it would have been sooo much more impactful than to explode him and move on but anyway). To be honest, I wish the rules for turning back would have been 1) clear 2) active gameplay on the player so that it feels like it's something we have earned, and 3) not make her have amnesia about it and/or at least having her gain some crucial insight because of the experience.

(also: doesn't she crave knowledge? isn't that insanely mean to have her watch over every civilization and every bit of history ever and then take it away from her? kind of dislike how totk privileges the comfort of the player's feelings over what the characters would actually want or need tbh)

To be perfectly honest, I fully expected us needing to turn her back before engaging Ganondorf so we would fight him together, especially since Zelda as a compagnon exists in the game code already (though in a very subdued state). It feels very very strange to me that all of this mechanic of Sages following us existing and yet we never have the very climactic cool Zelda-staple moment of facing Ganondorf or Ganon together (OoT, WW, TP, ST and probably more that I'm forgetting all did this in some way --even BotW had Zelda more involved than in TotK). I'm not sure Mineru was a compagnon that was needed over Zelda honestly, especially given the kind of non-insight she gives us on the zonai (even if the idea of the mecha is cool, it really could have been Zelda using her zonai + sheikah knowledge to pilot one for us or something).

But anyway: yeah, even if this isn't what I would have wanted personally, I think wanting Zelda to remain a dragon is kind of arguably more respectful of her relationship to Link, in a way, that what the game ended up doing. When she enacted this sacrifice, Zelda decided to trust him to such a extent that she lost herself, reciprocated his trust in her and his devotion to her, and now the future of Hyrule exists beyond her and beyond what Hyrule once was, but she trusts them to follow through and be happy and she will watch over them from the stars moving on. It's fine if we manage to save her from that fate, but even if we don't, honestly this sounds like a beautiful story/tragic romance to me, if you want to read it that way. Tragedy doesn't necesserily involve edginess. Fictional pain isn't always mean, or out to get you.

[soybean-official]

The parts of you that support me

[eyndr-stories]

Last Line Challenge

Rules: in a new post, show the last line you wrote/drew and tag as many people as there were words (or however many you want to tag).

Hi @trees-can-draw!!! Thank you for the tag :] <3 I've been getting back into the Monty centered fic i started writing ages and ages ago dfhkjgfhjf (which is actually why i'm up at , 5am ,, ahem anyways)

"The repairs had gone well, and even with the social nightmare they'd agreed to looming on the horizon, Lark felt a sturdy sort of comfortable feeling deep in their gut that had settled in like a home cooked meal."

I do not know as many people as there are words for this fkjgfhkgf so instead i will shrimply tag @shirajellyfish, @victarin, and @lavenoon (very no pressure tags, feel free to ignore <3)

[r7inyz]

finally played this game after hearing about it 3 years ago.. some stuff...yeah

[polarmoon]

life is unpredictable sometimes, which was a fact that benji was forced to come to terms with when tragedy struck the apartment complex in the form of a freak laundry fire.

as hard as benji tried, there wasn't anything he could do to help save iris' father, and nothing could ever prepare him to watch someone die in front of him.

(this is what happens when u have laundry rooms in ur apartment buildings and none of the npc neighbors clean the lint trays. lmao)

[malleefies]

'Of deeds done then, both good and ill, of the leadership of Maekar, the actions of Aerion Brightflame, the courage of Maekar’s youngest son…we know well. The pretender Haegon I Blackfyre died in the aftermath of battle, slain treacherously after he had given up his sword.'

I am a staunch supporter of the Aerion-killed-Haegon hc. Very in-character. I can almost hear Maekar groaning in the background.

[marcirose]

If anyone wants to know why the kingdom hearts fandom has a lot of bad takes and everything in that regard just know it's all kh2's fault

Kh2 is the reason why everyone thinks the disney worlds are filler, why people think Sora "fell off" after kh2, why people think the series is just cool anime stuff but with disney characters, and why people think Kairi still has relevance all cause she has a keyblade (/hj about the Kairi point but also not really)

The games that came after kh2 aren't held in as high of a regard cause everyone expected the future games to be like kh2 when they're very clearly not. Most of the kh3 criticism I saw basically boiled down to "this should have happened like it did in kh2"

Every game after kh2 is doomed to be compared to kh2 like how every final fantasy game after ff7 is doomed to be compared to ff7 cause of how it popped off the way it did

Imo kh2 more or less essentially ruined everyone's perception of what kh is and is also one of the biggest examples of showing the dissonance between what the fans want to see vs the story Nomura wants to tell and that dissonance gets stronger with each game

Kh2 was the turning point in the series that basically told everyone that the story wasn't going the way they think it would go and it completely went over everyone's heads and I think that needs to be talked about

Anyway moral of the story is stop skipping kh cutscenes. That's why y'all confused and why y'all don't know things. If I see any kh4 criticism that sounds like "it should be like kh2" I'll bitchslap you to the moon I've had enough of the comparisons

[fyepertine]

Demon at the Temple

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[pianokantzart]

Some scattered thoughts on Mario Tennis Aces

Warning: spoilers ahead

I love that every time any of the characters talk about the stakes, they're like "we've got to save Luigi! ... and the others I guess..." Even in the finale when they're doing a big tennis match to determine the fate of the world, Wario and Waluigi are booed by the crowd while Luigi... despite still being possessed by Lucien... gets cheered for and talked about in a positive light by the announcers.

What's also interesting is that Wario, Waluigi, and Bowser talk and act very much like their normal selves while possessed. They're being manipulated in some part, with Bowser saying that the racket's power makes him "want to control things more than usual," but it's clear Lucien is exploiting preexisting desires. Luigi, however, never says a word, and is fairly expressionless compared to the others. He is not being manipulated so much as he's been entirely robbed of his senses, turned more into a tennis playing puppet than a minion. But if you think about it... that aligns with the goals each of them had that caused them to take hold of Lucien. Wario and Waluigi wanted the power to defeat their enemies in tennis, and were granted that desire to the best of Lucien's abilities. Bowser wanted to take over the world, and Lucien actually went so far as to fuse with him so they could conquer as one entity.

Luigi wanted nothing more than to hold the pretty tennis racket, and for most of the story... at the sacrifice of every other part of him... he got exactly that.

[teecupangel]

I'm all here for desmond turned into animal phenomenon, so how about him being the Sea Emperor in Subnautica?

https://youtu.be/vo53JsM6R6Y?si=t801R-xmRl5rNTfA

Youtube video for easy reference:

Considering the Sea Emperor can telepathically communicate with people, it’s more or less smooth sailing compared to the other creatures/animals we turn Desmond into hahahaha

So let’s make it a bit harder. Just a tad bit.

The main restriction is he can only connect with people part of Desmond’s bloodline. This means his ancestors. (Elijah, unfortunately, does not count because he’s not part of Desmond’s bloodline but Desmond is part of his bloodline)

His telepathy range is short. Sure, he can still try to contact them out of his range but the greater the distance, the more incomprehensible his message becomes.

And that leads to the misunderstanding that…

An old great one is contacting them.

Because the Sea Emperor is a leviathan.

And, let’s be honest, if someone gets ‘vision’ of this:

Depending on the era, this is more or less going to be seen as the ‘devil’ XD

[6ivers]

im actually. like. actually

[madeofjules]

Peeta, in the arena: *saves Katniss's life before she saves his*

THG fandom: "Katniss didn't need Peeta's help in the arena, she was always saving his ass and would've won without him!"

[taktitty]

FINALLY saw Challengers and all I could think about the whole time was Kevandreil

[sonknuxadow]

also i just have one more thing to say about the movie and then ill probably shut up for now but im really annoyed with how certain people keep going "omg its not supposed to be a sonic adventure 2 movie stop expecting it to be exactly like the game" to shut down any criticism of the trailers... like don't lie to me regardless of how many changes they make it's still very obviously supposed to be a sonic adventure 2 movie theyre taking a lot of plot points from that game and they keep referencing it in the marketing for the movie you have to have never played the game to think its not an sa2 movie

and like. yeah people who were expecting it to be an exact recreation of the game were probably setting themselves up for disappointment but just because it's not supposed to be exactly like the game doesn't mean that every change is justified or that fans of the game aren't allowed to not like it ..?? it's not unreasonable for fans of the games to want to see the stories and characters they love done justice in an adaptation . whatever man