#anti-Balthus

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

„as feminist practice ive become a paid sex object for men“ the brainwashing is unreal. i often feel like these women see the payment in prostitution as an appreciation they lack in their personal sex life. they often highlight how validated prostitution makes them feel or talk about how sad they find sex buyers even though theyre the ones freely choosing to subjugate themselves to male desires.

everyone has it wrong btw the worst pick-me women are college-educated women who enter prostitution as some sort of adventure, to shock their parents and because they have been fooled into believing this is somehow sticking it to the patriarchy and then write books intellectualising prostitution and get invited to tv shows to talk about how misunderstood and nice sex buyers are and that we should feel sorry for them. this is not even a useful idiot this is a terrorist

[butwhatifidothis]

I could go on about so many things wrong with that chapter, but I want to draw attention to something I think Mercedes said. Cap, through her, brought in the anti-religious "Religious people are only doing good because their religion told them to, therefore they are not actually good people. Only non-religious people can do good because they aren't told to do it" crap. He's basically saying that people with religious belief would choose to do evil if not for their religion, and since Mercedes is going to be "good" she can't actually have religious faith. I'm not sure if this is making any sense, it's quite late, but I had to say something about that because it pissed me off so much. Loving your notes and much appreciation for reading the thing so I don't have to!

Ya see, I was looking for the right phrasing for it, thanks for givin' it nonnie because holy shit is that kinda actually everywhere. Like, Mercedes is the most blatant with it in this chapter, but just take a look at all of the other religious characters. Like, every single one of them:

Woobiegard: good person - has religious trauma, explicitly hates on the religion she used to have faith in, is straight up trying to destroy it, and is depicted as morally right in doing so

Marianne: good person - has fic-only religious trauma, talks bad about her religion all the time, prays because she doesn't know what else to do and not because she actually thinks the Goddess will help anyone (since she's learned The Truth due to Woobiegard)

Manuela: good person, but also completely irrelevant to anything - hell, it's easier to forget she's there than most characters, with a pitiful 94 mentions (including author's notes). You could remove her entirely and lose nothing. And the one, singular time she ever talks about religion, it's a slight tweak of her already ass-sucking Canongard A support

Yuri or Balthus: Respectively - has the implication of his existence through two throwaway lines | doesn't exist

Catherine and Gilbert: crazy zealots who can't be saved from their crazy zealotry

Alois: good person - can only not be a crazy zealot if he sides with Woobiegard

Cyril: not even a believer, but in a future chapter he will be called a fanatic anyway since he won't side with Woobiegard over Rhea

And then we get to Mercedes, who is a good person but feels she must be part of the Church because that is her destiny, and she can only become the best version of herself when she sides with Woobiegard. And while, save for Manuela, none of the listed characters are portrayed accurately regarding their religious believes (or lack thereof, in Cyril's case) (or alternatively, in Yuri and Bathus', they're just removed entirely), it cannot be stressed enough that for Mercedes in particular that is literally the exact opposite belief she holds in canon. She literally says that she thinks destiny is pulling her away from the Church, not towards it.

But that attitude is literally everywhere in this fic. If you are religious and you don't either worship Woobiegard or belittle your religion, you are a bad person. You are hopelessly fanatical, you are a zealot who is unable to be saved because you have been brainwashed and manipulated by Rhea and nothing of you is left. Believers lose themselves if they hold onto their beliefs, they change as people and they always become worse, because religion - according to this fic - is inherently bad for people and it must always be rejected for one to be a good person.

Like, of all of the things in this fic, this is one of the most consistent patterns to be found, holding hands with the "follow/listen to Woobiegard or you're a bad person" pattern. The fic will jump through hoops and circle in loops to make religious characters either turn their backs on their religion or become mindless brainless evil zealots who must be killed because they're basically zombies and nothing can save them.

Again, the most blatant example is Mercedes, who in this chapter basically has her religion hard-confirmed to be almost completely true. Crests, in fact, do come from the Goddess - not in the way the tenets say, but they do still come from an actual being that actually existed. Seiros is real, Cichol is real, Cethleann is real, and Mercedes had seen the Immaculate One in the flesh five years ago. The last of which would especially be validating, considering that the Immaculate One is seen as a creature that descends to Fodlan to save followers of Seiros and Woobiegard was causing a bit of trouble for followers of Seiros at that moment. The Saints really did battle against Nemesis and the Elites - how else would Mercedes immediately interpret Seteth saying "the relic weapons that we once battled against at the Tailtean Plains"? Why would Mercedes side with Seteth and Ficleth over Rhea, when they're clearly and blatantly hypocrites in this moment ("We were bad for using the Relic's powers all these years" Seteth says as he stands next to someone using his mother's corpse as a weapon and works under someone who got a NEW Relic made for her exclusive use)? Like, yeah, some of what Seteth is saying makes the Church look bad, but not as bad as his words make himself and Ficleth look.

But, again, Mercedes is a good person, which means that she will reject her religion at the drop of a hat. It doesn't matter how she gets there so long as she does get there, because Religion Bad. You made perfect sense nonnie lol never you worry

[museenkuss]

I hope you don't mind me asking...but do I feel less guilt/judgement about liking things in media that are 'dark' or not 'morally correct'. I want to let go and just have fun and not worry so much, but it feels really hard these days (especially with fandom). People who are very hardcore about morals or "purists" scare me a lot. There are people out there who will ruin other people's lives (doxxing people!) because they don't like the way they engage with works or famdom, and especially with darker material. This rise of moral police have me afraid of engaging with fandom at all these days (especially the constant war between the pros and antis. Why are there even labels for this...). I hate being labeled an awful or corrupt person simply because I like 'wrong' or 'gross' things that aren't even real. I know who I actually am and hearing people who don't know me decide that I'm scumbag who is on par with actually evil people hurts...

Its not real guys, its fiction. Why all this hostility?

I suppose what I am asking is how to let go and let live? I miss engaging with fandom. I miss the fun of messing around with fiction in any way. I want to be ok with the judgement and still have fun. I want to enjoy fandom again with worrying if I am being 'morally' enough for these people. Any advice?

Darling, I know exactly what you mean. I used to have a lot more fun with fandom and writing in general before coming in contact with those types of people, too. It’s really sad imo, but I've also decided to actively work against internalising the hateful atmosphere those groups cultivate

Firstly, what might help is making a sideblog. Separate it from your main, don't link it on main etc and just treat it as your personal corner. It helps with the fear of being attacked - especially if you get personal on main and fear that random weirdos will get nasty on there. It also helps because if you're active, you WILL find likeminded people and they will find you, so you can build your community and have fun in this secluded and safe environment.

Apart from that, what I try to keep in mind is that, as you said, it's fiction. You're not an immoral person for being intrigued by thoughts and concepts - that's the most important part. You said it yourself: You know yourself, they don't know you. Them attacking you has very little weight if all they base it on is "you enjoy trope x, therefore you're bad". In fact, it's plain laughable at times. The puritanism of it all. Of course there are very interesting and nuanced conversations to be had ("Can you enjoy Balthus art?" being a non-fandom example that intrigues me, for one), but I find it very difficult to have this kind of conversation with people who say that liking Hannigram is problematic because they have an age gap. And frankly, I don't see the point of trying to constantly have nuanced discussions about what I do and don't find intriguing about "problematic ships" with people who've made their mind up that fiction = reality = morality.

- But I also have to say that to me personally, aggressively taking the counter stance is draining as well. There are people that get very vicious and venemous towards the purity people (making fun of them, belittling them, writing essays in their bios about fiction and reality etc), but I distance myself from those as well. "Why all this hostility?" extends to this side as well, I think. I'd rather just ignore that whole mess and do my own thing in my corner.

So, in short, I get where you're coming from and I'm afraid as well, which sucks. So my recipe for enjoying ~problematic content~ is: I keep to myself, I create and interact for and with people who enjoy the same things I enjoy and I don't take myself or the counter side too seriously.

I really hope this helped in some way and I hope you can find your joy in engaging in a fun hobby again, unafraid of weird bullies on the internet 🌹

[fuckstoevsky]

Midnights & Sleepers (part 1)

part 2 here

part 3 here

part 4 here

Sleeping Katya - Zinaida Serebriakova // In Bed - Federico Zandomeneghi // Sleeping Girl - Balthus // Lavender Haze - Taylor Swift // Violet Sleeping - John Singer Sargent // Laid Down Woman, Sleeping - Felix Vallotton // Rest - Pablo Picasso // Maroon - Taylor Swift // Sleeping Woman - Oskar Kokoschka // Sleeping Girl - Roy Lichtenstein // The Dream - Henri Matisse // Anti-Hero - Taylor Swift // Your Mouth - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec // Woman with a Cat - Orinta Misiuniene // Sleeping Shepherdness - Franz Marc // Snow On The Beach - Taylor Swift // Sleeping Woman (Kizette) - Tamara de Lempicka // Sleeping Face - Frantisek Kupka // Flaming June - Frederic Leighton // You're On Your Own, Kid - Taylor Swift // Sleeping girl - Sonia Delaunay // Sleeping Muse II - Constantin Brâncuși // Sleeping Woman under the Moonlight - Dimitris Mytaras // Midnight Rain - Taylor Swift

[cartoonnonsensegirl]

The idea of one having the crest stone and the other not sounds like a cool idea. The question is "Which one makes more sense to carry it and fuse with Sothis?" My personal take would be that it'd make more sense for Rhea to revive the goddess in a female body (Sitri was the previous attempt), but that's just my opinion.

Also, they can have variations of the original name to avoid having to use the same name for both of them (alternate spellings, anagrams, similar names in general). Ex. I like to do "Cory" and "Corrine" for "Corrin", and while I haven't played Awakening, I thought of "Robin" and "Robyn" (this is the only one keeping a canon name). For Byleth, I call the male "Byford", and the female "Blythe" (I got really attached to the latter because it just sounds super cute; I use it for all my fanart and fanfics involving female Byleth).

Some other name choices for Byleth I would suggest are: Byron, Beth, Byrne, Belle, etc.

As for personality, I'd leave it largely the same, but if one is to possess the crest stone but not the other, then the one without the crest stone should maybe be a bit more expressive. I would also personally prefer them as siblings to be raised by Jeralt.

Now, for the story. A really interesting idea would be that one teaches one class, and another teaches another class. (the third class might be a toss-up between Manuela and Hanneman, or anyone else willing to teach). That would make for some interesting drama once the "Flame Emperor" reveal happens, and how it'll affect everything from the Battle of Garreg Mach to the Timeskip. This could even impact class transfers; because you can have both Byleths competing to see how many students they can recruit from whichever class they're not teaching.

For example: Let's say Mr. Eisner teaches the Black Eagles, while Miss Eisner teaches the Blue Lions, and they want to see how many they can each recruit from Golden Deer into their respective classes. You could have an even number of recruits (assuming Hilda remains loyal to Claude), or one gets more recruits than the other. Maybe Marianne, Lysithea, and Lorenz side with the Adrestian Empire due to Edelgard's anti-crest ideology (Gloucester's Imperial sympathies in Lorenz's case), while Raphael, Leonie, and Ignatz side with Faerghus. If we factor in the Ashen Wolves, it would make most sense for each to return to their native homelands (Yuri in the Blue Lions, Constance in the Black Eagles, Balthus in the Golden Deer...Hapi could go either Eagles or Lions, but I would prefer Eagles due to her dislike of the church). You could also raise the drama with post-timeskip recruiting during major battles (a good example would be an Adrestian-aligned Lorenz surrendering to Dimitri at the Great Bridge of Myrddin).

And then you have the issue of Flayn; maybe she can pick which Byleth she feels more comfortable with after the kidnapping episode. (if joining the Eagles, however, she could either leave with the church or transfer classes when the big moment happens). Also, when the "Flame Emperor" reveal happens, does an Eagles-aligned Byleth side with Edelgard or with Rhea?

Another thing to consider would be if Jeralt can survive or not. What if when he's supposed to be assassinated, one of the Byleths is able to successfully stop it (with or without Divine Pulse), or Thales is just that powerful to intervene and Kronya successfully carries out the assassination every time?

Bonus question! Should both Byleths disappear during the big battle, or only one? There are a lot of variables to consider here.

fire emblem three houses/byleth eisner enjoyers i need some assistance

i feel like there's a small group of people who headcanon or depict the two versions of byleth as two separate entities that coexist with one another. siblings, even. that's cool!! i do that with robin and corrin, and i wanna extend a similar treatment to the byleths, but not sure how to go about it

for one, i always struggled with coming up with a separate name for them. i know the two genders have a different name in japanese, but it always sounded awkward in english. was wondering if anyone had any alternative approaches to naming them

also, just wondering how three house's plot would be affected if there were two byleths. mainly, for people that think about this sort of thing, how do people rewrite three house's story or byleth's character (if at all) to accommodate the two? (i realize the 'what if the byleths were siblings' concept is probably just a cute doodle idea and not a deep rewrite project like i'm trying to set out to do but i might as well ask anyway)

been thinking of just making one of them Normal without any crest or Sothis shenanigans. that's sort of how i approach my robin siblings au where one of them is just a guy while the other is the vessel as seen in the original game.

BASICALLY i wanna see if i can get some ideas and inspiration from other creatives that like to depict the byleths as two separate characters. i don't really plan on making any sort of work based on my findings, it's mainly an itch i wanna scratch since again i've given a similar treatment to the past avatar characters.

many thanks to those who wish to contribute ^^

[kisant]

So, I’m planning on doing a simultaneous Crimson Flower / Silver Snow split route in which I’m going to divide the recruits between the two routes. Aka, I’m not going to recruit a character for CF if I plan on recruiting them on SS and vice versa. 

I’ve divided them according to personal headcanon reasons, what I think would be thematically interesting/fitting, and what I think would make playing through the routes more fun. This is not meant to be a “THIS CHARACTER WOULD ALWAYS CHOOSE EDELGARD AND NEVER CHOOSE RHEA” or vice versa. 

I’m also going to be playing M!Byleth for the empire route, because my first CF was with female Byleth, and F!Byleth for Silver Snow, in order to really go for the “reincarnation/second coming of Sothis” angle.  And regarding my Byleths’ potential S-Supports, I think for CF it’s going to be a battle between Edelgard (whom I already romanced as F!Byleth in my original CF run, and I’m weak to OTPs), Dorothea and Jeritza. While my main options for the SS route would be Seteth, Rhea or Yuri. 

So these are my picks 

So Blue Lions: 

For the Empire, I’m picking Mercedes for the Jeritza supports, Ashe so that he can avenge his adoptive family and village, and Sylvain because he’s already very anti-crest system. 

And I’m going with Felix, Ingrid and Annette for the Church. Felix, because CF flower Dimitri is the one I can see him tolerating best, Ingrid so that she can live her perfect knighthood dreams, and Annette so that she can reconnect with her father. 

The Deer: 

For the empire, Lysithea and Lorenz were obvious pick. And I chose Empire Marianne because her relationship with religion is INCREDIBLY UNHEALTHY and choosing Edelgard’s side at the Holy Tomb is a good way for her to start realizing that she isn’t actually cursed at all, that the church has been lying to her, and that the “goddess” isn’t actually compelling her to die. 

For the Church, Hilda for obvious reasons, Leonie because she always saw Byleth as a rival and she’d be angry at them apparently “siding” with Jeralt’s killers, Ignatz because he’s both religious and pretty unaffected by the crest system, and Raphael would simply follow Ignatz and and defend the Alliance. 

The Garreg Mach characters:

For the Empire, I like Empire Shamir escaping Rhea’s attempt to indebt her to the Church for life, Alois sides with Empire!Byleth for Jeralt, Hanneman wants to abolish crests and help those who have been hurt by them, and Manuela fits better in this group than with the ones that I left for SS. She also gives a very interesting perspective when recruited for CF and has supports with Edelgard. 

For the Church, Seteth, Flayn and Catherine are SS only, and Gilbert is an obvious pick for silver snow due to his issues and the fact that I’ve already decided to place Annette in this route. 

And finally, the wolves.  Hapi was obviously going to be Empire (she is very anti-church) and Balthus was just as obviously going to be church (pro church and pro Alliance). Constance fits better in Empire, to restore her House and because she has supports with Edelgard. And I actually think Yuri could have worked really well for CF thematically speaking (because it’s all about uplifting the commoners and taking down the nobles, the church and the crest system), but I didn’t want Balthus to be all alone in SS. So now Yuri gets to try to reform the system from the inside instead of tearing it down alongside Edelgard. Sorry, Yuri. 

[gascon-en-exil]

Uhh what's an anti-studentleth?? Is it like "no student x Byleth allowed"??

Yes, predicated on the belief that doing so regardless of context is tantamount to grooming and possibly pedophilia. This is naturally extremely silly, particularly when applied to student characters like Sylvain and Balthus who are over 18 pre-timeskip and most certainly not virgins, but nonetheless it's a mindset that persists in some corners of fandom (mostly on Twitter). There's a milder variant that only views explicit Studentleth fanwork as appropriate post-timeskip, but then of course the purist antis say that's just as bad, that IS is disgusting for encouraging it, etc.

As I said, extremely silly.

[arkus-rhapsode]

Did Cindered Shadows Favor Edelgard or the Church?

So its time to wade into this piece of discourse. So as many know, in the 3H fandom there is nothing more prevalent than the debate between Edelgard vs the Church. Now ideally in a story like this, there isn’t exactly a “right” answer. Each side has their own pros and cons (If you want my personal stance, I’m more in favor of Claude’s ideology than either the church or Edel.).

However, like every debate like this there is a point where it just becomes an “Edelgard did nothing wrong” or “Rhea did nothing wrong” etc. So I’m here to look at the additions made in Cindered Shadows and see if it adds or detracts from anyone’s stance.

Again, this is not a think piece on one side was right or  wrong, this is more an analysis of what has been added through Cindered Shadows and if that adds to the Edelgard vs Church debate

The biggest addition is the idea of the Abyss. A place for those who can’t live on the surface go to be but still under the eye of the church.

Now the Abyss itself is already cause of alarm. Claude himself tries to say something on it at the very beginning of how its not really fair to lock people up in a basement. Already it seems in favor of anti church, but now this turns out to be a tad misleading. Going through the supports, the only person who is actually “locked away” is Hapi, due to her curse. But people like Balthus and Yuri got themselves in trouble. Sure they were righteous, but they still violated laws.

We do know of people like Marianne who are cursed but still live on the surface through hiding that part of them. Now hiding or restricting yourself because you can’t fit into society is very shady. And also speaks to how effective Rhea is at running things if she’s not improving things in Fodlan to the point where some can crawl out of the Abyss.

However, with cases like Balthus and Yuri (and to a lesser extent, Constance) the Abyss does serve as a safe haven. A place where people who could’ve committed wrong doings or been caught up in misunderstandings can flee to. Like asking for sanctuary. Balthus himself being a minor noble shows that nobility are not infallible of facing repercussions. Why they couldn’t put the sanctuary on the surface, I don’t know.

Howver, we see Yuri and Rhea actively working togethr. Meaning that he is willing to put a level of trust into Rhea and the abyss beyond the point of saying “fuck the church.” So for some denizens, the abyss and its people can live with Rhea’s oversight.

We also know the Abyss serves as refuge for those from Dagda and Almyra, places that fought with and are not very liked in Adrestia. Now there are those who can live on the surface like Shamir or Cyril, hell Cyril is an Almyran who is in Rhea’s inner circle. However, both are portrayed as loners or antisocial. So it makes you wonder if that’s just surface life or if its just part of who they are. So the Abyss is either serving as a place for those who aren’t going to be welcome by most of Fodlan as of now or its for permanent asylum of these refugees.

There’s also the case of the side story. Now while the construction of a chalice that feeds on blood so that it could resurrect Sothis is really shady, its worth noting that Rhea locked it up. She wants nothing to do with after her first attempt.

The side story itself really doesn’t paint Abyss as positive or negative, nor Rhea. What does paint Rhea in a negative light is Sitri. The fact Rhea chose her own affection for Sitri over her husbands by faking her burial and just locking the corpse in a chamber of abyss she thought no one would find is really selfish (I thought that maybe it was gonna turn out this wasn’t the real Sitri and instead one of the abandoned prototypes of Sitri). Now being selfish is not enough to say the church is wrong. Rhea’s own choice to affect one person is not having any effect on Fodlan as a whole.

Meaning that Sitri’s corpse and Rhea’s selfishness is less part of Edelgard vs Church and more part of Rhea’s questionable side projects. But said side projects have little to do with Fodlan welfare as a whole and more Rhea and Byleth turmoil.

So what has the Cinedred Shadows added? On Edelgard’s side it adds to the idea that Fodlan is not changing and is in a state where people find it necessary to live underground to survive. On the Church’s side, it shows that they are still offering themselves as neutral ground for those to be housed at garreg mach regardless of past, finical capability, or race.

So who did it favor? Well, I’ll let the audience decide for themselves.

[eclipseharts]

read before interacting.

independent, selective, & mutuals only khalid von riegan blog. minors do not interact. 

01. please read this prior to any interactions we might engage in. i do not have passwords but i do trust you’ll at the very least read this. straight off the top of my head, i must make these points clear. 

i will call him khalid and claude interchangeably. they’re both his names. they’re both apart of his identity, therefore, i will make that clear in my interpretation. 

i interpret khalid as deeply loathing the gonerils. he is nice to hilda on a surface level, for diplomatic reasons. the gonerils took almyrans in as slaves, point blank -- khalid will not jive with that. that’s it. that being said, i’m willing to write with a hilda but i will be extremely picky on who i write with. 

my portrayal is not influenced by j/oe zi/eja at all. the voiceclaim i use is his seiyuu toyonaga toshiyuki.

02. this is a private blog, unaffiliated with the fe3h community. i had a couple blogs here before (one long term one) and quite frankly i’m tired. i love khalid and i wanna write him. if i follow you it’s because i’ve seen you interact with people who i know and trust. 

03. this should be a no brainer but absolutely no racism, cop apologism, ableism, incest apologism, pedophilia apologism is tolerated here. i do not tolerate anti black behaviours - i’m not black, i do what i can to be mindful but if i see anti black behaviours on the dash i will not hesitate to confront you or block you. if i see any kind of bigotryor questionable behaviours  i will block you. this includes shipping byleth and the students pre-time skip as well as dimigard. i don’t like student/byleth ships period. please at the very least tag them. 

04. my writing style is adaptable. i adapt usually to what my partner gives me. i don’t like one liners and i use minimal formatting + icons. do not use sub/sup + small text, i cannot read it and i will change your formatting. 

05. my portrayal is mostly based in verdant wind. however, i am willing to discuss with another edelgard-mun on how we could do a joint crimson flower route in which khalid has a more active role. i’m selective when it comes to azure moon based interactions and i do not acknowledge silver snow. 

06. in terms of shipping, i portray claude as bisexual. however, that doesn’t mean he’s easy to ship with but he’s a very good partner once they’re together. i like shipping but it requires buildup for me vs insta-shipping. if you’re interested don’t hesitate to let me know. however, with that in mind there are some people i don’t ship him with romantically: dimitri, hilda, ingrid, balthus, lysithea, leonie, byleth, any faculty members. my bias is with: edelgard, dedue, petra, lorenz, an raphael. 

07. i have decided, i will point blank not write any smut. however, other not safe for work material might appear and will be tagged accordingly. i will tag anything requested of me to tag. 

08. thank you for reading all this! i hope you have a good day. i’m gany. i’m chinese. i use she/her and he/him pronouns. i’m 21+ and i hope we can write together sometime! 

[cichole]

redsongstress replied to your post “i cant get myself to finish this[[MOR] on imgur cause tumblr is anti...”

is that gilbert or Jeralt

it’s balthus

[paradiselostbythedashboardlight]

So it’s kinda like my thing now that whenever I enjoy something with an ensemble cast, I gotta assign each character a song by The Mountain Goats, so welcome to Fire Emblem: Three Houses as Mountain Goats songs. 

Black Eagles

Edelgard: Going Invisible 2 “I'm gonna burn it all down today and sweep all the ashes away.” This song feels like her mantra for defiantly destroying everything corrupt no matter the cost. Also the slow and increasingly intense performance of the song just feels exactly how her plan unfolds. 

Hubert: Genesis 30:3 “Open up the promise of the day, drive the dark things away. I will do what you ask me to do because of how I feel about you.” I know this song is about having a baby, but the absolute yet tender loyalty feels perfect for Hubert. 

Ferdinand: Sicilian Crest “Look to the West, look to the man bearing the Sicilian crest.” This song captures the exuberance of Ferdinand while also being about blinding overconfidence and hey! It has the word crest! Fun!

Bernadetta: In the Craters of the Moon “If the strain proves too much, give up right away. If the light hurts your eyes, stay in your room all day.” Honestly, TMG is a very Bernie band what with all the paranoid isolation and abusive fathers, but I like that this one captures her sense of epic-level dread over even small interactions. 

Dorothea: Linda Blair was Born Innocent “Hungry for love, ready to drown, so tie down the sails, we're going downtown.” For a girl who just wants love, a song named after a movie about the exploitation of teen girls. 

Linhardt: Sourdoire Valley Song “Dream the pleasant dreams that people dream when they grow up down here.” A weird song about peaceful Paleolithic life that seems to align with the peaceful, sleepy world Linhardt prefers. 

Caspar: For Charles Bronson “Set you sights on good fortune, concentrate, pull back the hammer, try to hold the gun straight.” A song about giving your all, earning your place, and having the heart of a champion despite everything. 

Petra: Deuteronomy 2:10 “I have no fear of anyone, I'm dumb and wild and free. I am a flightless bird and there'll be no more after me.” This ode to a captured animal who is the last of its kind seems to align with Petra’s existence as a sort of exotic hostage in the empire. 

Blue Lions

Dimitri: Maybe Sprout Wings “I thought of old friends, the one's who'd gone missing, said all their names three times. Phantoms in the early dark, canaries in the mines.” This is just the most heartrending song about waking at night from a dream of people who are now dead, just as Dimitri is haunted by his own ghosts.  

Dedue: Sax Rohmer #1 “I am coming home to you, with my own blood in my mouth.” Loyalty, but this time with Dedue’s penchant for having to fight through literal hell for Dimitri in every route. 

Felix: Spent Gladiator 2 “Stay alive. Maybe spit some blood at the camera. Just stay alive, stay forever alive.” Since Felix is committed to fighting for survival rather than heroic sacrifice, this furiously defiant song about continuing to live despite terrible odds seems appropriate. 

Ashe: Sept 15 1983 “Try try your whole life to be righteous and be good. Wind up on your own floor, choking on blood.” A song about an unjust killing for Ashe who has to reconcile his noble ideals with the unjust death of his adoptive father. 

Sylvain: No Children “And I hope when you think of me years down the line you can't find one good thing to say. And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out, you'd stay the hell out of my way.” I mean come on! The title, No CREST BABIES, also its like the ultimate anti-love song for the ultimate anti-love guy. 

Mercedes: Unmasked! “And by way of honoring the things we once both held dear. I will reveal you. I will reveal you.” I imagine this being sung both to Jeritza, masked both literally and metaphorically, with all the kindness mixed with brutal honesty that is Mercedes. 

Annette: Genesis 3:23 “Living room to bedroom to kitchen, familiar and warm. Hours we spent starving within these walls, sounds of a distant storm.” A song about breaking in to your old house aligns with Annette’s own troubled memories of a childhood marred by paternal abandonment. 

Ingrid: Age of Kings “Wolves in the hallway gaining ground. Reach down to the moment when I should have said something true. Shadows and their sources now stealing away with you.” A song about the loss of a heroic past for the idealistic girl who lost her fiancé and watched her own father try to marry her off for money. 

Golden Deer

Claude: Heel Turn 2 “Spent too much of my life now trying to play fair. Throw my better self overboard, shoot at him when he comes up for air.” Claude is so interesting as both a brutal pragmatist but also a dreamer. I really like how he can always survive the game if you let him, despite the compromises he has to make. 

Hilda: Riches and Wonders “I am healthy, I am whole, but I have poor impulse control. And I want to go home, but I am home.” This one is hard since Hilda is a pretty low angst character, but I feel like this song walks the line between her love of the finer things in life versus her eventually learning to stand on her own. 

Leonie: The Legend of Chavo Guerrero “And I need justice in my life: here it comes. Look high, it's my last hope. Chavo Guerrero, coming off the top rope.” Replace Chavo with Jeralt and we have a perfect song about hero-worship and how it can get us through hardship. 

Lorenz: The Mess Inside “Tried to find the creeping sense of dread with temporal things, most of the time I guess I felt alright.” This was another hard one, but given Lorenz’s persistent failure as a lady’s man it seems right that he would just be enjoying luxuries to distract himself from his lack of love. 

Raphael: Animal Mask “That was when we were young and green, in the dawning hours of our team. Some things you will remember, some things stay sweet forever.” One of the few genuinely sweet and happy TMG songs for a sweet and good boy. I am conceptualizing this as being about his childhood friendship with Ignatz and his role as a protector to his sister. 

Ignatz: Unicorn Tolerance “Get a momentary chance to see the thing I've been trying to beat to death, the soft creature that I used to be.” A song about forcing yourself to seem tough when you actually love unicorns, just as Ignatz tries to be a knight for his family, but he just loves art and semi-horny religious iconography. 

Marianne: In the Hidden Places “I turned my face away and I shut my eyes tight. Dreamed about the flowers that hide from the light, on dark hillsides, in the hidden places.” A song to sum up Marianne’s desire to keep herself away from anyone she might endanger. 

Lysithea: The Autopsy Garland “You don't wanna see these guys without their masks on, or their gloves.” This is more metaphorical, but the song is about the abuse of Judy Garland throughout her childhood, which parallels Lysithea’s experience with TWSITD. 

Ashen Wolves

Yuri: Fire Editorial “Lord of the hidden pocket knife. Tawdry dreams all come to life. Save yourselves, save this town, save everything not nailed down.” If anyone deserves to be called the lord of the hidden pocket knife, it’s Yuri. Also, the repeated chorus to save the town aligns with his savage defense of Abyss.

Balthus: Color in Your Cheeks “Come on in, we haven't slept for weeks, drink some of this, it'll put color in your cheeks.” A welcoming yet rowdy song for the rowdiest of boys. Also he is like an actual adult so he can serve liquor. 

Hapi: Possum by Night “All your pack dogs have your say. Let me just find my own way. Moon in the trees my guide. Walk with my jaw hinged wide.” Hapi with her prickly attitude and forced loneliness seems right for this heroic little possum. 

Constance: Game Shows Touch Our Lives “Our house sinking into disrepair, Ah, but look at this showroom filled with fabulous prizes.” The feeling of a little brightness in the despair of something fallen makes sense for Constance’s efforts to reclaim the glory of her house. 

[butwhatifidothis]

🔥 One about your most favorite 3H character and one about your least favorite 3H character

this got a bit long lmao under the cut it goes

Fave: Claude

I've made one of my other unpopular opinions about him - that I don't give a shit about his rendition of the diary scene - pretty clear already, so I guess another unpopular opinion I have is that I also don't really give a shit about his S support?

Like, do I think it - or at least the context before it - could have been done better? Yeah, and I actually added a bit to my rewrite covering that after thinking about this very thing a bit (in the Misc. section, with the jist being that it's more foreshadowed in his route specifically that he's going to leave). But like, the most common complaint with it that I've personally seen is that he thrusts Byleth into a leadership position, but like... what else can realistically happen that would perfectly soothe both characters?

Cuz Rhea's dead, Dimitri's dead, Edelgard's dead - all leaders are dead, and since the game is stupid and doesn't allow side characters to be integral to the main story (meaning Felix, Ferdinand, and Seteth can't just take over these empty roles should they be alive) that leaves exactly two characters left on VW to be able to take on the role of leader of Fodlan: Claude or Byleth. Both of whom, mind, are someone people don't mind being the one to take over, so even with Byleth's inexperience with leading the people still have their faith in them.

And so if we go with the idea that Claude stays and leads Fodlan, Byleth just... does nothing? And just stay his side? Because if Byleth is unqualified to lead Fodlan then she'd be pretty much just as unqualified to lead the Church, so being archbishop is out. Does she stay by Claude's side long enough to pick up leadership skills? But how long would that take? Months, years? And what about Claude? It is specifically his ending with Byleth that shows that the Almyran throne can be taken in as little a time as a few months after he leaves Fodlan, so during that time Claude would most likely lose out on his dream of being able to lead Almyra - and depending on who takes the throne, that could be quite devastating.

So imo, it seems like it's either Byleth gets left in Fodlan to figure out the being the leader thing while Claude sets out to fight for the Almyran throne, or Claude (very likely, especially given the context of specifically Claude and Byleth's paired ending) gives up his dreams of being Almyra's king to stay by Byleth. Or, in a more cynical viewpoint, either Byleth can put on the big-boy pants and learn to lead or Claude falls into the "I'll give up my dreams for you <3" shitty trope.

That being said though their paired ending sucks major ass and I hate it. This is also something I ended up tweaking in the rewrite lmaooo but basically instead of Byleth becoming a useless damsel for Claude to swoop in and save her, having it to where they send correspondence to each other past the border lines (with Claude giving her advice she asks for, eventually growing into them giving mutual support in leadership) would make both a more unique ending and one where Byleth doesn't suddenly become incompetent in the literal one area of expertise they have.

Least fave: Balthus

I. Hate this guy so much lmao. Which might itself be an unpopular opinion, because at least recently I've seen a good bit of love - or at least positive vibes - for the guy. Fuck if I know why, this guy's a total asshole.

And while I have also gotten into this specific reason why I don't like Balthus before, I don't feel like digging for the fairly old post lmao so here it is again: I can't stand his supports with Claude and they account for a solid 70% of the reason at minimum as to why I can't stand him. It's already bad enough that he dangles extremely sensitive information about Claude over his head - which, mind, this is most likely to happen in pre-timeskip, when Claude is at max 18 and Balthis is at minimum 26 - and already it gets even worse when it's revealed that the reason this 26 year old grown ass man is threating someone nearly a decade younger than him is just because he wants to talk to said younger someone's mom who barely knows him, but the cherry on top is that this never gets resolved!

Balthus never takes back his blackmail, even by the end of the support chain - his saying that he Totally Wouldn't Sell Claude Out For Money He Swears is then literally immediately followed by him saying that he wouldn't do that because he "knows" that Claude won't go back on their "promise." That promise that Claude never made and makes clear he never made and that "promise" (read: blackmail) being "I won't rat you out if you let me meet your mom" meaning that Balthus never stepped back and thought "huh, wait a minute, maybe blackmailing someone with extremely sensitive information that could put them in danger is, like, kinda shitty of me to do actually" but no it's just a big haha funny joke don't take it serious guys Balthus is just a hoot n' holler.

It's ass, and I wish I could delete specifically Balthus from the game Doki Doki Literature Club style. Doesn't help that he's a gambling moocher which is a trait that already is kinda hard for me personally to like. I rank him Barely Above Makolov/10 for at least providing some neat bits of lore, if nothing else

[hartsbloodcampaign]

Arc 1 - Guild Job 15 - Mage Council and Mag’therids

Once in Calimport, the team meets the Hartsblood Branch there, including the sauve silver fox wizard Guildmaster Balthus Crane.  They are sent to a nearby guild affiliated inn called The Goldeneye Inn, run by half-elf Roan Var’han.  The team took on some fake identities, and are introduced to an individual who seems to have a tip on The Mage’s Council. His name is Flynn, a shaman (grave cleric) who seems to be in a bad way. He claims, under truth serum, to know where vitally important information is kept. He also claims he desperately wants to take The Mage Council down. He infiltrated the “vacant” Arthos estate before and found it was actually a Mage Council Safe House - but he’s not strong enough to take on the amount of protections on the place.  They decide to investigate the place at night, with Flynn leading. Before this, Lucian and Kian decide to visit Nerys’ grave, with Lucian disguised as a drow. Lucian leaves a lock of her hair. Also during the day: Kian, Lucian, Artio, and Farrow head to the O’Shea Estate. Lucian turned invisible and did some investigating of his own.  They head to Arthos Estate and find that while Flynn did lead them to some information, he also steered them towards freeing a prisoner stored in an anti-magic cell. They find it is a woman, skittish and traumatized. Her name is Mag’therida and she seems to be a type of humanoid that shouldn’t exist - a Tiefling Merr. She’s been kept against her will for years, working with Mage Charter Stones and even learning how to reconstruct broken ones. She is a sea sorcerer, and  recognizes Artio as a fellow mage attuned to the Stones. Within the recovered information in the Estate they find out that in a Trading Hall there is a secret top floor where are all the records are kept of the things they want to keep off books - targets and the name of their assigned hitmen. (( Art by Marieartblog ))

[undsowiesogenau]

Natur und Wissenschaft

Im Zug nach Berlin. Endlich Zeit, »Natur und Wissenschaft« zu lesen. Die neue Ausgabe wartet auf jeder Seite mit spektakulären Artikeln auf.

Zunächst Weltraumforschung. Astronomen wollten sich die Umgebung des Schwarzen Lochs ansehen, das sich im Zentrum der Milchstraße befindet. Dieses Schwarze Loch ist rund vier Millionen mal so schwer wie die Sonne. Man sollte annehmen, es sei nicht zu übersehen. Doch da es 26.000 Lichtjahre entfernt ist, erscheint es am irdischen Himmel nicht größer als ein Tennisball auf dem Mond. Die Astronomen schlossen, um es dennoch betrachten zu können, zwölf Radioteleskope zu einem Netz zusammen, das nun die Eigenschaften eines Superteleskopes hat, das so scharf sieht wie ein Teleskop von der Größe der Erde. Ergebnis der Betrachtung: »Der Materiestrahl des galaktischen Schwarzen Lochs scheint auf die Erde gerichtet«. Wow, kann ich da nur sagen.

Sodann ein Interview mit dem Ornithologen Wolfgang Fiedler vom Max-Planck-Institut, illustriert mit dem Foto einer Feldlerche, das über eine Viertelseite geht. Thema ist das Vogelsterben; seit 1980 hat sich die Zahl der Vögel in Europa mehr als halbiert. Jedes Jahr fliegen hundert Millionen Vögel gegen Glasscheiben und sterben. Katzen töten dreißig Millionen Vögel. Italiener und Ägypter erlegen fünf Millionen Zugvögel – ich nehme an, zwecks Verzehr. Der Vogelkundler berichtet auch aus der Historie: Mao entlarvte Spatzen als Feind des Volkes, weil sie einen Teil der Ernte fraßen. Im Rahmen einer »großen Spatzenkampagne« wurde ihre Population stark reduziert, indem die Menschen so viel Lärm machten, dass die Vögel sich nicht mehr niederlassen konnten und schließlich tot vom Himmel fielen. »Daraufhin kam es zu Insektenplagen.«

Nun ein Stück zu der Frage, was an den Gemälden von Balthus ästhetisch so wertvoll ist – oder auch nicht –, dass es den Ruhm des Malers erklärt. Mir gefällt besonders das Foto, das die Seite schmückt: ein Greis im blauen Polohemd steht vor dem Balthusgemälde »La Jupe Blanche«, in der Hand eine Papiertüte offenbar aus dem Museumsshop. Auf der Tüte wiederum ein Balthusgemälde und der Schriftzug »Balthus«. Wer geht denn vor der Ausstellung in den Museumsshop? Naja, nicht nur Balthusfreunde wahrscheinlich.

Würdiger Abschluss: die Seite »Forschung und Lehre« mit einer Abhandlung über die Unsitte der ausufernden Danksagungen in akademischen Arbeiten. Lobend wird Schopenhauer hervorgehoben, der »Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung« geradezu mit einer Anti-Danksagung begann, außerdem Adorno, der seine Bücher oft Freunden widmete, aber Mitarbeitern nur dankte, wenn sie Freunde waren. Umso auffälliger sein Dank in der »Ästhetischen Theorie«, der einzig einem Fräulein Renate Wieland vom Philosophischen Seminar gilt. Bei den Autoren der Gegenwart sieht es dagegen düsterer aus: »Nicht ungenannt bleiben dürfen Eltern und Familie, Freunde und Lebenspartner, immer öfter gefolgt von Nachbarn, Haustieren und Psychotherapeuten, haben doch sie alle irgendwie dazu beigetragen, dass ein Buch entstehen konnte, das außer einigen gewissenhaften Rezensenten nie jemand lesen wird.«

Zeitung lesen ist echt eine der wenigen Sachen, die ich jeden Tag tun will.

[deadbilly]

There are painted female nudes at the link. So if you’re reading this from work, proceed with caution.

In February, the U.K.’s Manchester Art Gallery removed John William Waterhouse’s sexy swamp girls painting Hylas and the Nymphs, to “challenge this Victorian fantasy” of “the female body as either a ‘passive decorative form’ or a ‘femme fatale.’ ” In New York, there was the viral petition asking that the Metropolitan Museum remove or contextualize the Balthus painting Thérèse Dreaming, depicting an adolescent girl leg up, her eyes closed: “The Met is, perhaps unintentionally, supporting voyeurism and the objectification of children.” While the museum didn’t acquiesce, Balthus’s reputation was already on the decline. Industry experts reminded me that, whereas in the boundary-pushing ’70s, a Balthus was considered to add a sophisticatedly perverse note to one’s collection, in recent years, he’s regarded as a little skeevy.

In its “Here Are the Absolute Worst Artworks We Saw Around the World in 2017” roundup, ArtNet’s Rachel Corbett singled out Richard Kern’s photos of waiflike girls bent over stairs and/or smoking joints — subject matter he’s been exploring for the better part of three decades. “The onetime documentarian of downtown New York’s drug-fueled depravity was a force for sexual liberation in the 1980s and ’90s … But times change and in our post–Terry Richardson world, I think we can strive to be a bit more thoughtful about how and why we use the female nude going forward … In 2018 I’ll be looking out for more from photographers like Deana Lawson, Catherine Opie, Collier Schorr, or A. L. Steiner instead.”

There does seem to be some recalibration toward valuing the female gaze, based on the careers of those four, not to mention the high prices recently paid for nudes by artists like Mickalene Thomas, Jenny Saville, Lisa Yuskavage, and Ghada Amer. But there’s a lot to make up for: Only 27 percent of the 590 major museum exhibitions from 2007 to 2013 were devoted to female artists; only five women were among the top 100 artists by cumulative auction value between 2011 and 2016; and just a third of gallery representation in the U.S. is female.

You can’t force people to collect the “correct” art, of course. In January, L.A.’s Nino Mier Gallery inadvertently performed a kind of experiment, opening simultaneous shows featuring opposite portrayals of the female form: the lithe bikini-, skinny-jean-, and volleyball-uniform-clad glamazons of painter Jansson Stegner and the feminist “Propaganda Pots” (sculptures referencing Eastern Bloc posters about domestic morality, alcoholism, motherhood) by ceramic artist Bari Ziperstein. The former, priced up to $50,000 each, sold out before the opening; the latter, priced at one-tenth of Stegner’s portraits, earned critical raves but sold at a more leisurely clip. The juxtaposition incited some online protests; as local gallerist Hilde Lynn Helphenstein told me, “Immediately in the wake of #MeToo and #TimesUp, the market made a clear pronouncement that it is still focused on work which is sexually exploitative of female representation.” Yet, is it really a shocker that the pretty paintings of pretty young ladies were snapped up faster than the pots?

And let’s not forget that Picasso’s Young Girl With a Flower Basket — a 1905 Rose Period masterpiece (once owned by Gertrude Stein) of a fully naked, flat-chested Parisian girl — is expected to fetch upwards of $120 million and anchor Christie’s big May auction, “Highlights From the Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller.” “Most of our buyers, their frame of reference happens to be art history,” says the deputy chairman of Impressionist and Modern art at Christie’s, Conor Jordan. “They want to be sure what they’re buying has an importance within the artist’s career or the broader circle around that artist or movement.” Current issues just aren’t as relevant to them, he says. “That happens in the lower levels of the market, where there’s more supply, more for people to choose from.”

In other words, any thoroughgoing change in which artists are deemed Important will take a while. And cracking down on male-painted female nudes as a means to this end seems pointless, at least to Marilyn Minter, a #MeToo supporter who nonetheless says she’s seen a version of this before, when her “Porn Grids” ran afoul of anti-pornography feminists in the late ’80s and early ’90s. “I was a traitor to feminism, but my side won,” she says. “Now it’s the return of all that.” Her larger point? “There are no safe places: This is the world, it’s pretty awful, and it’s pretty great at the same time. But the minute you try to pin down sexuality, it’s going to spit in your face. It’s totally personal, it’s fluid. Trying to make rules is a waste of energy. Progressives can take each other apart — we do it all the time — when the bigger enemy is these neo-Nazis. That’s where the energy should be, not trying to police fucking paintings.”

It becomes more and more obvious why the left has embraced Islam so much. Both are puritanical wastelands and we’d be better off ignoring the whole movement. The female nude is one of the most beautiful forms of art, and the puritanical scolds who can’t see that need to go away.

[gascon-en-exil]

I think my favorite thing in those anti-dimidue/dimiclaude takes is the idea that any ship involving Dimitri is abusive bc it saddles his partner with "healing" Dimitri's mental illness. Even if you want to equate Dimitri's issues with a 1-to-1 real life mental illness, god forbid that people use fiction (or worst, FANTASY) to explore such a relationship.

That’s already the explicit draw of Dimileth, framed in formulaic heterosexual terms and all, and yet I rarely see anyone complain about its popularity. I complain quite frequently about the contrived writing used to build it up at the expense of Dimitri’s other relationships, but I don’t mind if a lot of people in fandom are drawn to it. With Dimidue especially there’s the awkward implication that Dedue is being reduced to his skin color, with him belonging to a racial/ethnic minority taking precedent over his own considerable trauma and that he and Dimitri have been leaning on each other to cope for years before the game even starts. That’s not a particularly healthy foundation for a romantic/sexual relationship, but it seems to be working for them based on how much more stable and rational Dimitri is in CF where he and Dedue are never separated. It’s not obvious that their relationship is about mutual healing on account of Dedue being a more stoic individual kind of like Edelgard who gets praised all the time for the way she handles her trauma and because Dedue not having plot armor in Part 2 means that Dimitri can’t reference Dedue being alive post-timeskip except in very specific instances in the story, and not at all in any supports that can be viewed in that part (so all of them except his Byleth C).

And re: your reblog and how Dimiclaude could be considered racist, I think fandom likes to forget that Claude keeps his half-Almyran heritage a secret and never divulges it to anyone except Byleth late in their support line. Balthus figures it out on his own because he comes from a similar background and it could be implied from their last boss conversation in VW that Edelgard does as well, although “sufficient knowledge of [Fòdlan’s] suffering” could also refer to knowing that Rhea is a dragon or something else more in line with Edelgard’s usual screed. Claude passes as a native of Fòdlan apparently without effort, and it’s easy to see how he could do so when Catherine and Judith also have darker complexions while being of full Fòdlan ancestry. Calling Dimitri racist toward Claude for that one line in CS requires that Dimitri have both knowledge that only the player has and ill intent. I’m not buying it.