#as opposed to engaging with the art in all ways that it is presented to you

[mimiyanna]

Final Fantasy XIV Online I love you so much I love you I love you sooooo much

[els-wonderland]

Ranking Bridgerton Outfits: Season 1 Penelope

Photo credits to Tv Costumes on Pinterest!

Penelope's Debut Dress, Episode 1

I love this dress! It's one of the only Penelope dresses this season with the Season 3 fit that doesn't cut the bust in half. The undertones of greenish-yellow on the cream fabric look lovely with her red hair, and the jewelery is understated and elegant for her presentation to the Queen. No notes.

2. Pink Floral Dress, Episode 2

She looks so fru-fru in the best possible way. The floral embellishments pop here and there without looking garish, and the accessories of her frilled sheer gloves and the flower-and-ribbon headpiece tie everything together so sweetly. Her hair is great too, with the one long ringlet.

3. Lacy Green Dress, Episode 3

Give Penelope more greens like this! Her hair almost reminds me of 1960s updo, and the diadem and necklace tie in well with the lace overskirt. I love the scallopy pattern of the flowers on the lace, it makes her look a bit mermaid-y!

4. Pink Feather(ington) Dress, Episode 6

This one is just so delicate and ethereal, the feathered appliques against the pink satin bodice make her look like an angel. Do you see her walking down the hallway, with that pleated skirt flowing behind her? The only thing that doesn't work with this look is the necklace, it's just too harsh for the softness of the other accessories.

5. Pink Fern Dress, Episode 3

1989 Little Mermaid, take notes. This is how you do red hair with a vibrant shade of pink.

6. Garden Ballgown, Episode 1

So pretty, almost fairy-like with the sprinkling of little flowers in her hair. Something about the overskirt with the flowers climbing up over the already flowery fabric reminds me of a rambling meadow. I don't even mind the polyester gloves, because at least they match decently well.

7. Butterfly Ballgown, Episode 1

Is it in your face? Obviously. Is it giving more Art Nouveau than 1813? Yes. But a little campy? Her prettiest yellow dress? Inexplicable how she could blend into a crowd in something like this? Yeh

8. 'Sunflower' Dress, Episode 3

Probably one of the most historically accurate costumes all season. In certain lights it gets into the nauseating yellow green that I hate on Pen, and the pink gloves are heinous, but I give love the froofy like gathered sleeves, the lower cut of the bust, and the details of the train.

9. Regency Barbie, Episode 7

Nicola Coughlan and the costume designers really predicted Diplomat Babrie all the way back in 2020. The little band of posies around the bust really makes this look for me, thought I could do without the big chunky necklace. Portia definitely picked that out for her.

10. Yellow Walking Dress, Episode 4

Cute! So cute! The shimmery polka dots remind me of a Barbie doll yet again, and the light pink trimming and rosettes under the sleeves make this one memorable for me. Surprisingly simple for a Penelope look.

11. Flowered Promo Dress, Episode 3

I do prefer the promo version with the tiara to the flower, but I'm not mad at it. I think I'd find this dress very over-the-top if it had flowered appliques all the way down, but the way they peter out into tendrils across the skirt puts me in the mind of a country garden. It's nice to see some pops of red on Pen.

12. Orange Leaf Dress, Episodes 1 and 3

I wish they gave Penelope more over-the forehead curls as opposed to the little clusters on either side of her face. Little curls on the forehead feel more 1810s than the latter. The yellow adds a lot more dimension to this fabric, and I do prefer the yellow/ruched trim to the yellow and orange ribbon/plain neckline.

13. Engagement Dress, Episode 6

I don't even mind the black waistband. In fact I'm kind of a fan-it's giving Parisian-themed bedroom-but the white lace descending from it rubs me the wrong way. Love her big, fluffy ringlets.

14. Floral Spencer, Episodes 3 and 5

It's giving a bit of Hawaiian shirt, but I kind of love the combination of the froggy green, saffron yellow, and flamingo pink. I like how the appliques overlap the edges of her spencer, the slightly overgrown vibe of some of her flowered looks really scratches my brain.

15. Yellow Flowered Dress, Episode 8

Abhor the way they did her hair here. The fabric is so dainty, but the dress is a little boring, and I hate the chunky necklaces on her.

16. Grandma's Couch Dress, Episode 7

Grandma's couch/pos. A very soft, cushy, slightly musty-smelling couch. Don't like the centered corsage, it doesn't match anything else on the outfit, and they need to stop putting that necklace with so many otherwise nice looks.

17. Pilled Dress, Episode 8

This dress looks like it's wool covered with pills, and the dark green and hot pink of her necklace and hair ornaments respectively pull my eye from the dress, which I honestly don't mind, because the fabric looks itchy as all hell.

18. Yellow Floral Promenade Outfit, Episode 2

If they'd just take away that waistband, give her a gauzier shawl, and stop piling her hair so high, this one wouldn't be half bad.

19. Yellow Dinner Dress, Episode 4

I truly do believe that pinks and greens suit Pen better than these bright yellows, or even just a more pastel yellow.

20. Dandelion Dress, Episodes 3 and 6

I understand why Pen is holding her arms like that, because having those little yellow balls rubbing against my bare skin would drive me absolutely crazy.

21. Meeting Marina Dress, Episode 1

The hair and that big ol' bow really ruin this one. The fabric looks so peachy and light with her red hair, and I just think some soft curls falling around her shoulders would make her look like such a doll.

22. Yellow Upholstery Dress, Episode 5

This looks like a Target throw pillow. Burn than necklace.

23. 'Mine Is Yellow' Evening Gown, Episode 8

I CANNOT STAND the greenish-gray look of the embroidery on the bodice, which is sad because her hair looks perfect. The cut of the bodice is cutting her bust in half.

24. Chartreuse and Pink Dress, Episode 8

Frankly pukey-looking. The pink trim makes it infinitely worse.

25. Tadpole Dress, Episode 1

Something about this fabric just reminds me of those Tiktoks of people putting frog eggs in jars. That pink shawl is not necessary.

26. Black and Chartreuse Dress, Episode 1

See above- the green, the pink, the black-no.

[blossomajesty-archive]

What to do what to do

Tldr; before I become consumed by the Monhun brainworms again come Wilds I want to move operations to a proper sideblog because:

1) tumblr never implemented account switching and it’s mad annoying to log in and out

2) I'm not allowed to make my real account an admin of this blog and operate that way bc this is a “main” blog. Lame.

Otherwise, just tossing up the question of if I should delete this blog (bc I dislike having an unused account) or keep it up as some sort of archive, since I know people hate when somewhat popular blogs go deactivated. Original post got long so under the cut it goes;

It's been awhile as you can see, but tbh I haven't been "present" much on social media in general. I closed out my last semester of college (yay) so it's been rough for the better part of the past year as I went through the torture gauntlet that is exams and graduation, and another internship. Anyhow this blog is 5 years old woagh, but I haven't actually posted anything related to the story or characters introduced here in like, 3 years.

For this blog in particular, a decently-sized conundrum is that it's not a true sideblog but a separate account, and since Tunglr never made it easy to switch between accounts, its really annoying to log in and out so much (the rest of my blogs are attached to my main account now). Aside that, i've had enough of Wilds' marketing (i'm already sold and don't need to see more tbh) so I haven't been engaging a ton with monhun news and posts recently. In the meantime I was thinking of just making a MH sideblog of the same name for its original purpose of a place to spill my dumb thoughts/screenshots/ocs/whatever (one that's not so out of reach).

The question is what to do with this one; I tend to keep as few accounts as possible so I have no issue deleting it, but i'm also not normal when it comes to art and sure some would be opposed to this blog vanishing. I could compromise and make this one one of those "-archive" blogs for now if that's the case? (For more clarity I never abandon my fanfic stories/ocs if you're thinking you'll never see Surah and the like again. I tend to rotate between a couple casts of characters as my vidyagame interest shifts, bc making fanart and stories for the same series forever is a fast track to boredom and burnout. That also means No, you still can’t repost the art here or use the characters, those are still mine).

One last thing I guess is that the old "ask-a-monster" blog community/phenomenon actually went extinct a long time ago, this blog was set up the way it is for nostalgia mostly. I was planning on making note of all my unanswered asks here for prompts/inspo, but I don't see myself leaning as heavily into in-character asks ever again (with MH characters and anyone else).. It's been fun for character-writing purposes but as the fate of all the ask-blogs tells, building around it is a lot of work and always tends to fall off after a couple years. Heck, it wasn't even supposed to have so many ask posts in the first place (but don't get me wrong, it was still fun and I learned quite a bit). I’ll probably get around to posting the actual writing I’ve done that fills in some of the story gaps, but elsewhere (or in whatever new side location) as I’d rather put the blog to rest as-is than try to revive/reboot it when I'm not too keen on jumping back and forth.

No idea how many people are actually gonna read all this so I'll add this old Surah wip as compensation

[mariacallous]

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) "acknowledges and respects" concerns about the ‘Russians at War’ documentary, but will not cancel its premiere.

“Our understanding is that it was made without the knowledge or participation of any Russian government agencies. In our view, in no way should this film be considered Russian propaganda,” the TIFF statement reads.

Previously, the movie received a wide public backlash. The film provides only small glimpses of the actual combat and does not reveal the extent of the destruction being inflicted by Russia in Ukraine. The documentary features a Ukrainian who fights on the side of Russia saying Ukraine bombed its own eastern regions. Another character broadcasts spreads the narrative about Ukrainian Nazis.

“As a cultural institution, we stand for the right of artists and cultural workers to express fair political comment freely and oppose censorship,” wrote TIFF. “Because filmmakers, like all artists, work in dynamic engagement with their societies, we believe that our role as curators and presenters of film must stand for an unequivocal defense of artistic expression, and a commitment to provide safe, open spaces to engage, critique and reflect on artists' work.” 

TIFF concluded its statement by expressing its understanding of the suffering of the Ukrainian people due to the Russian invasion, while emphasizing the importance of freedom of expression.

“We understand and deeply feel the suffering of the Ukrainian people as the result of an illegal Russian invasion. As we engage with the art made at this politically charged time, we are guided by the democratic values of freedom of conscience, opinion, expression and peaceful assembly as protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for all Canadians including Canadian artists,” TIFF added.

Ukraine’s Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications, Mykola Tochytskyi, noted that legal actions will be taken to fight propaganda.

The publicly funded TV network TVO (formerly TVOntario) released a statement on September 10 announcing no longer airing the 'Russians at War' documentary.

‘Russians at War’ was filmed in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories, without official authorization. The movie was directed by Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova, who formerly worked with Russia’s state-sponsored RT news agency, who stated seeing “absolutely ordinary guys with a sense of humor” and “no signs of war crimes during her time near the front.” 

[taegularities]

i mean this in the nicest way possible because i truly love you, but i wish writers in general wouldnt try to force reader engagement. i often reply with feedback, but at the end of the day, you should be writing because you want to, not because you want validation. i dont know if its just me who feels this way, but when writers constantly mention needing feedback or they wont write/will stop writing a popular series, it feels like a threat. i dont want reading to feel like a chore, where i need to constantly be validating my favorites so they dont get taken away from me. i love you and your writing and i wish my likes were enough. sometimes i, as a reader, dont feel like engaging/leaving notes. sometimes i just want to read and move forward. i feel like many writers have turned appreciative comments from readers into an obligation.

again in no way is this meant to be hateful towards you, i feel like this can apply to many of my favs. i just needed to get it off my chest and hopefully assure you that we like your writing, even if there's less engagement. if you disagree with any of my points, please tell me/ask me to clarify. i dont want to hurt your feelings and i would love to hear from the writer's side!

hiii! no worries, thank you so much for being respectful and wanting to hear my opinion, as well. i know some people let these things out in the rudest manner possible, so i appreciate that <3

so, the reason i haven't been writing atm is because i lack the time and energy to write :') this year has been crazyyyy busy, so i just don't get to it anymore – and since i've been away/less present for a while, i guess i also drifted away from tumblr, too, and then felt like people might've forgotten about taegularities, and then i wasn't sure if the effort would still be worth it (i get insecure at times, but that's a me-problem). now, the reason i (and many other writers) have this worry is bc writing requires an insane amount of energy and brainpower – when i tell you that so many of us actually slave over just a scene or even a paragraph for ages 😭 (example: the last cmi update was far shorter than what i usually drop, but it took me days to just edit one scene). we ache to write all the time, but life also gets in our way – i barely get time to sit down and work on my fics these days… so when i do get time, i want to put it out there into the world and then see the reactions, too… i write for myself, ofc, but for you guys, too, so i can share that joy; or else i'd keep the fics in my docs, right?

and in that sense, when we write something in the rare free time that we get and that we hope others will love just as much as we do, we do seek some sense of validation, even if that sounds odd. it's like – imagine you studied for a test for like 2 weeks, but then don't get the results you hoped for (which might be a weird example, but effort-wise, it's similar, even if fics don't affect writers' lives in that sense). i know there are many who just write and don't care for feedback (even tho i've seen even those who say this be sad about reader engagement which – very valid), but i think that most who expose their soul and heart like this, do want to see people enjoying it/speaking about it/hyping it up. every creator, be it in the movie, music or art industry, loves to see reactions! and think about it – most writers get so genuinely excited when someone sends an ask that doesn't say more than "i loved this so much!! you're such a good writer!!" which is insane?! like, i know that i do – i get so happy and remember these comments 5ever, and it's a 2 sentence review as opposed to thousands of words. the effort here is unbalanced, but we still love it so much. and you don't need to write an essay, you never never do!! i swear, it's always enough to even get a few words or sentences <3 which, in the end, isn't a lot to ask for, you know?

i'm not saying i will stop writing my series. i would stop if it got 0 reactions OR if my life stood in its way too much; i'll keep loving what i write and write out of joy, no doubt. and tbh, i don't care about notes either. like, i remember "ruin you" getting way less notes than cmi but GOSH we had so much fun back then bc of the interaction and the craze made me so happy hahaha and yeah that's what it's essentially about – community. does that make sense? it's tumblr where likes don't make a post circulate – reblogs do, so yeah, unfortunately, likes are not enough :( i wish they were. i totally get what you mean, though. even feedback shouldn't be an obligation, but if you truly like somebody's work, it never hurts to send a tiny message. it really means the world to us when something we adore and are so proud of – creating art, sharing our heart, wanting everybody to see this love – is met with so much joy. and it's fics, you know – we love love love writing, but it's something that can be read. and we want people to read it and we're legit sitting there like "👀 and?? aaaand?" lol it's so nice to know when someone truly appreciates something… ofc you don't have to comment on my stuff, but i promise feedback makes a difference. it's why so many do leave :/ i hope that made sense!! once again, thank you for being respectful!! i love you, too, and am truly grateful that you're here and enjoying my stuff!! <3

[kalahannikolai]

My original Megatron design, in his Present form (left) and a sketch of his Civil War form (right). Easily both my best Transformers art yet, and also my favorite designs I've ever executed. He is truly my magnum opus, it's amazing.

Lore and story below!

Lord Megatron, former leader of the Decepticons and now a shadow of his former self. Once upon a time, he and his sister Arcee had been masterful gladiators in the Pits of Kaon. They were the ultimate fighters, but Megatron found himself wanting for a better life for the both of them. He sought it out beyond the gladiatorial pits, and climbed his way past the obstacles of society to call for a better Cybertron.

But one's path doesn't always go the way they originally intend.

As followers came to his side, rallied by his call for the Senate's dissolution, Megatron would find himself losing his way. Glory and conquest would wet his appetite, and give him a craving for more. The Decepticons he'd founded, gathered under the desire to break down their oppressors, began to wholly relish in destruction. Megatron himself began to laugh during battle, engaged his combat that made him feel the vigor of the pits again.

But Megatron's bloody path would not proceed without an obstacle in its way. The young Orion Pax had been chosen, raised to Primehood and ready to fend off the Decepticon hostilities. Thus was the Autobot Resistance forged in opposition to Megatron's own ambitions. And oppose him they did, so fiercely that they would lead Megatron to fall on a last resort.

Megatron tapped into the dark forces of the universe, and found the gaze of the Destroyer fell upon him.

Unicron himself overwhelmed the Gladiator's true wishes, and began to seed the Decepticon faction with darkness. Seeing his own men reduced to bloodthirsty monsters opened his eyes to what they'd already become. Unwilling to see their people become slaves, Megatron called for a true between the Decepticons and Autobots. The deliberations mediated by Vector Prime himself, it ended with Megatron stripped of command and sentenced into exile.

He took the fall from grace with honor, and left Soundwave as leader in his place.

Today he lingers in exile as he wanders the fringe wilds of Fódlan. Unwilling to interfere in history anymore, but unable to keep himself away, Megatron has found his fate intertwined with a one Byleth Eisner. He watches her journey from the shadows, nudging her when necessary in the right direction; to become the hero he knows she can be. After all, it had taken a hero to defeat him once upon a time. Byleth will need to become a proper one to be what the world needs her to be, and the once and glorious King of Kaon will ensure it.

[askgothamshitty]

How do you decenter men but actually do it?

For me, decentering men means conceptualizing myself, my opinions, my interests, my priorities, and my life as completely independent of men (as a class) and their influence. Because of compulsory heterosexuality, this is not the default for many women and girls, and much of what they do is to appease men so they can eventually fulfill the all-important goal of getting a Husband. So the objective of decentering men means learning to let that go and reorient your life towards yourself and women (as a class) generally.

This may at first be an upsetting thought! Girls grow up being taught that the ultimate goal in life is to get married and have kids, and it’s presented in such a fantastical, fairy-tale way that they can’t imagine anything else being so fulfilling. So the realization that this is not realistic or conducive to a truly autonomous and independent self is unsettling.

Now I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all approach to doing this. Every woman is different and is engaged in male-orientation in different ways, especially when other axes such as race, class, and sexuality are involved. So I think it’s important to get input from different women to see what they say worked for them. Luckily decentering men and 4B-adjacent politics are flourishing right now so there’s a lot of content out there. Go through what you see and think about what might work for your life.

What helped for me specifically was going celibate and not dating men for an extended period of time (3-4 years). This was while I was in college and in my early 20s so it was an important time to be focusing just on myself and my life. This allowed me to learn who I am naturally as opposed to who I am when I’m trying to attract a man. It also helped me let go of that impulse to always think about being attractive, approachable, agreeable. Now this definitely alienated me from others; I did not have the “typical” college experience. But that was a sacrifice I was more than happy to make because i understood that it didn’t serve me and was actually probably not that good anyways.

Feminist theory also played a role; in order to counter male-orientation, you have to understand it and identify it. Lesbian feminist theory is particularly great for this, and I think any woman, gay or straight or bi, can benefit from learning about lesbian perspectives.

Further, getting into women’s culture and enjoying women-made music, films, books, philosophy, art, history, etc. helped build an appreciation for women as humans instead of objects.

Decentering beauty was also a huge factor. I just answered a question about that a few posts down.

That’s all I can think of for right now. An important note: this journey is never finished! So long as we live in a patriarchal society, we will always be negotiating men’s interests vis-a-vis ours. Also do not let any person make you feel bad for just starting out.

[nyalternatehellkitten]

@madharemuses replied to your post “((I have a headache so I'm watching an FE:Engage...”:

[I want to enjoy Engage. I like the art design, I like the characters, I like the gameplay, but for some reason I just can't really bring myself to enjoy it. Also, it lacks replay value compared to most previous titles, so I feel like I spent too much on it.]

@gensokyogarden replied to your post “((I have a headache so I'm watching an FE:Engage...”:

ENGAGE GOOD

((Ayyyy we have the big two(tm) opinions here! Joking aside, I reply to these responses in the same post because I want to share some general thoughts. I'm not trying to pit you against each other by highlighting your opposing opinions lmao. Even though it's been a few days, Engage has been swirling around in my head for about a week or so now, and I do want to give my thoughts to you two, who responded to me, at least, so that post I made doesn't just become a big jebait or whatever the term is. So, spoilers, Zane's thoughts, and etc. etc. beneath the cut. Oh yeah, and it's long so don't read it unless you want to know what I think of a game I've not played, that a lot of people have been dismissive towards.))

I am writing this across several sittings. At the time of writing this statement, I'm watching the Avalanche map, so basically I'm right near the end. (I've also seen some supports, but the guy whose playthrough I'm watching is doing them offsceen because he doesn't want to waste his audience's time with grinding.)

This isn't going to be a structured review, it's more of a slightly-edited thought-dump.

My overall thoughts of this game so far, which is an impression unlikely to change, is this:

Fire Emblem Engage is a game unfairly criticised as worse than it actually is. It's not a super good game, but it does not fall as far below the 'average' standards of the series as much as people say it does.

Before I get into the full swing of things, I need to offer a disclaimer: I am out of touch with the series. I've played FE3-12 and Echoes, which means I'm missing FE1, the game that started it all, and Awakening and Three Houses, two immensely popular games that made big changes to the way Fire Emblem works, brought many new people to the fanbase, and generated a lot of attention. (I also haven't played Fates, but it's a bit less relevant to what I have to say.) I have never been interested in Awakening or Three Houses, but they changed the Fire Emblem 'landscape' so much that I would consider myself out-of-touch simply because I haven't played them.

Addressing some common criticisms

The two main complaints I see first-and-foremost on the internet that dominate over the better-formulated criticisms are: It's too anime and the writing sucks.

Now, the anime thing is stupid. Fire Emblem has always been anime; it's a stale and tasteless counter-argument, but it's objectively true. Most Fire Emblem games at least partially reflect the anime style popular around the time they were made, and all of them draw some influences from anime in general. The designs are too colourful and fancy for my taste, but I still find them enjoyable (Chloe and Etie are probably my favourites? Not super fond of Etie's Archer outfit but the player I'm watching made her a Warrior and she looks fine). In fact, I think this design choice was good; they clearly wanted to deviate from the grimness and seriousness of Three Houses, and can they be blamed for that? Making that sort of story can get heavy at times, so for an anniversary game I feel like going for something lighter was the right choice. Overall, the presentation in this game is excellent; not enough to make me love it like I loved Echoes (which was carried by the presentation alone for me), but good enough that I enjoy seeing it on my screen.

The second criticism is the writing, which is semi-valid. It's almost-good in a lot of places, but there's always one or two tiny details holding it back in my eyes. It's frustrating, because I feel like Engage would actually be quite well-written with a few fairly small edits that remove some of the issues or make the stupid parts (Chapter 10-11 Time Crystal) less stupid. The issue I have with the criticism is not that it's wrong, it's that people act like all of the other games in the series are god-tier writing or something. This is objectively untrue; most Fire Emblem stories are fairly straightforward or cliche plots carried by a cast of one-note, but enjoyable and likeable characters. Liking the characters makes you overlook the flaws in the plot. Just think about how many Fire Emblem games are about awakening or summoning some kind of all-powerful dragon or dark god (or both), and then think about how often that actually bothers you simply because you like some of the characters.

Let's talk about the writing for a moment, since this is an RP blog and therefore revolves around writing

It sounds to me like Engage's writing is actually really average by Fire Emblem standards (it can't be worse than the GBA games at least, if you ask me) but it's issue is that it came after Three Houses, a game which tried to be very different from the rest of Fire Emblem when it comes to writing. I haven't played Three Houses but I have seen people react to it. The amount of time people spend debating and arguing over who's in the right or wrong, beyond just which lord/house they like, shows that the game provoked more thoughts from its players than just "Oh I like this character more than this other character." Engage clearly has not done this, and parts of it that could form a good running theme just don't quite connect. The dots don't quite link up and the stars don't quite align. It falls just short.

In my head, I'm comparing it with other Fire Emblem games and I don't think it's that much worse than some (fairly well regarded) entries in the series. For example, in FE7, everything Ephidel does doesn't really make sense since he's formenting a rebellion in Lycia to gather Quintessence for Nergal to summon dragons... even though Nergal already has enough Quintessence to summon a dragon. In Sacred Stones, Eirika is supposed to be the diplomacy route, and yet everywhere she goes, stuff(tm) happens and she gets dragged into fights because Fire Emblem requires things.exe to happen so that each chapter can be a fight. In Binding Blade, the big exposition was Jahn explaining Idoun's backstory... through the medium of Roy seizing like 20 thrones in one chapter. In Monshou, the big main idea of Hardin being turned evil was great and executed pretty well, but most chapters are "So you're fighting dudes loyal to Medeus or Hardin" and the story is mostly about Marth trying to figure out what's going on in Akaneia. It's not bad, but it's hardly some god-tier story that has the player hanging off the edge of their seat at every chapter.

By comparison, Engage has an issue with build-up and payoff. The payoffs are often good, but the build-ups often don't do them justice. For instance, Morion was a good payoff because while what happened to him was quite predictable, Alchryst and Diamant's boss conversations with him are great. What's lacking is the fact that he gets captured by Hyacinth like... one chapter after he's introduced, after raising a million death flags. If he had been a green unit (or even a playable character with a big "Morion will go back to ruling his kingdom after next chapter" warning, or his stats transferring over to Diamant like with Nils and Ninian in FE7) for a while to let the player get to know him better, then his death would have been more impactful. Let Alear agree or argue with him about certain things; Alear needs to interact with Morion's pretty strong force of personality (that I think is pretty well demonstrated, even if it's quite one-note, in his first appearance).

Likewise, Lumera died too quickly. We needed a few more chapters for her and Alear's relationship to ripen. If the game had opened with Alear sent to Firine (upon Alfred's request, to help deal with Corrupted and bandits), with Lumera accompanying them but not helping them in battles to help him readjust to being awake, then it would have probably worked out better pacing-wise. Little happens character-wise in those chapters, so slotting in some Alear-Lumera interactions would have helped establish Alear's personality and motivations for the rest of the game. After Firine, they could return to Lythos for a little bit of R&R with Lumera promising to teach Alear more about the Emblems. Then the attack happens, she dies before she can, and the game proceeds with Brodia after that. It makes Lumera more impactful because the player gets to see her relationship with Alear more, and it makes their feelings for her stronger too, since they now have time to experience how she's their mother and acts like it.

One last example I will give is Zephia. Her whole death scene is kind of invalidated by the fact that she's been speaking as if the Hounds are her family for the whole game. I think a little tweak could really have fixed it. Take 'family' to be the theme of the story; a lot of Fire Emblem games place emphasis on bloodlines and family. Engage could have taken that both ways: that sometimes, blood family is important (e.g. the royal sibling pairs in the game) but sometimes your found family is just as important (Lumera and Alear) and sometimes your family can be abusive and bad for you (Sombron and Veyle, Zephia and Marni). How does Zephia fit into this? Well, imagine if her dialogue was tweaked ever so slightly. The idea is that she misunderstands how family should be because of Sombron (what he said during the time travel part). She longs for a real family, but because of Sombron she thinks that family should be abusive. Seeing Alear and Veyle helps her appreciate what family should be, and she helps them because of that. She dies thanking Griss, and hoping that Marni will forgive her in the afterlife. There we go, a villain given a better redemption than the weird one she got in the game, and completing a theme/story/lesson for the game as a whole.

Zephia also suffers from the buildup thing. The Hounds have a lot of screentime but they don't really do much with it; Griss and Zephia get their motivations and backstories infodumped as they die, and Mauvier spends the first half of his appearances being all "I am a knight I follow orders" when he should have been dropping hints that his true loyalty was to Veyle, rather than just mechanically following orders. If some of that screentime had been used to develop that Marni wants familial love, while Zephia misunderstands what a family should be, and Griss thinks of Zephia as his mother/older sister but struggles to convey that since his world is dull when he's not feeling pain, then it would have made them more compelling than the four big mooks you knock over 13 times throughout the story. Oh yeah, and of course, they do the "I must retreat" thing way too often. Fighting them feels completely insignificant because they never die until they suddenly do.

Lastly, the characters are all quirky and... oh boy. I've seen people complain that the Engage characters are more one-note crazy than usual. That... doesn't feel true to me. They feel like they're less serious than usual, but that's Engage being light-hearted. I've seen serious stuff (Alfred's illness, Hortensia's feelings about stuff) but mostly it seems to be on the lighter side. I don't mind, but I think it should have perhaps been a bit more of a balance. I will say this thought: of the supports I have seen, character motivations at least seem to make sense and stay decently consistent.

Some of my other criticisms

I would argue that there are a few things holding the game back. The writing, I have already mentioned. While there are plenty of good individual moments, there's often a lack of good build-up or connectedness that makes the whole feel like wasted potential and staleness. The gameplay, I think might actually be the most tactical in any Fire Emblem game so far; you can't just air-drop a god-unit into any situation with 1-2 range as easily because of Weapon Triangle breaking, and chain strikes mean that positioning actually matters, and tanking isn't infinite. This might not be a good thing, however, as I get the feeling that the average casual Fire Emblem player... doesn't care about gameplay much. It can't suck, but a lot of the time they do just want to make their favourite unit into a god and drop them into whatever situation.

One of the biggest problems is the Emblems, however. They're not really written as themselves. They're more like echoes or shadows or ghosts of the character they're meant to be. They often feel like they were written by someone who'd only read a synopsis of what that character was like, instead of seeing and analysing them (which... is probably what happened). The Emblem ring bond supports are bland and soulless most of the time, with often no connection between the character and the Emblem based off their commonalities (though to be fair, writing 12 Emblem supports for each character would have been hell). Regardless, all of the Emblem characters feel way too superficial to actually matter most of the time, they mostly exist to reference their own games a lot or provide the same basic statements about things. The advice they offer in the story is... logical but kind of bland and uninteresting. Sometimes they feel right, but most of the time they feel... not very good, which is not great when they're meant to be a big selling point of the game. It's like the Emblems are supposed to make you so excited about seeing your favourite characters that you don't stop to think if they're acting in-character. I won't comment on them too much gameplay wise, since I think that as much as they are meant to somewhat represent their own games (e.g. Sigurd being mobility and canter, Lucina having dual strike stuff) there's a limit to what you can do since most Fire Emblem games play quite samey.

Another issue I think that Engage has is the lack of post-game. Relying on DLC and Multiplayer to create replayability for a single-player game is just... objectively a bad idea? It's not what people are mostly there for. Watching the playthrough made me think "If I were playing this game, I'd want to run some of the other characters in side battles to see their supports and find out more about them." A post-game would be good for that, maybe with a bonus series of maps like Thabes was in Echoes. As it is, I've seen no evidence of that sort of thing.

I want to say some nice things

So I actually quite like Alear. Not a lot a lot, but a fair lot, if that makes sense. Based on everything shown about past Alear, and the way Alear loses their memories, their character makes sense for most of the game. Past Alear was emotionally stunted because Sombrero is the worst Fire Emblem dad in the series, and present Alear has a serious case of no-thoughts-head-empty at the start of the game. Given that everyone treats them super well (worships even...), it makes sense for them to develop a positive outlook on life, a strong fondness of their friends, a solid sense of duty towards everyone counting on them, and also feel kind of creeped out at being worshipped. Alear also feels a little more complete as a main character to me, oddly enough? I haven't played those games so I can't say for sure, but Robin and Corrin both often gave me a weird vibe like they're meant to be the player's self-insert but didn't commit to it enough. Like they wanted to make a self-insert character but then realised they needed to insert more character for supports, interactions, and story beats. Alear, on the other hand, feels like they wrote a complete character and then had to shove the self-insert in, to their detriment.

I also need to talk about Yunaka. I think Yunaka did something no other Fire Emblem side character (non-main character) has ever done: she immediately made me want to read about her supports to learn more about her backstory. Most Fire Emblem characters show up and I'm like "Okay, so this is this character's vibe. I'll find out more in the supports, I bet." Yunaka though... as soon as I heard her battle/crit quotes and saw how much that differed from the quirky "OwO I am cute thief" personality she was projecting, I was immediately like "There's more here. I need to know what her deal is." The game immediately shows that she's good at acting, and as soon as you put her into combat you see a side of her completely different from the one you saw before, and that sparks curiosity. That's good. Fire Emblem doesn't do that, instead it tries to establish the one note that its one-note characters are based around in a good way so that the player knows what that character's deal is. This time, it did that, and more. I haven't seen all of Yunaka's supports yet, but I will go through all of them when I get the chance to. I must know.

The music and voice acting are pretty good. The presentation and CG art is good. I don't think I need to elaborate on this, I think they're presented in a way that accentuates the atmosphere they're trying to create most of the time.

I'm hesitant about this last bit, but I think the game conveys its characters well. This is something Fire Emblem has never really had trouble doing, so it's not really a thing in Engage's favour, it's just another thing the game is not bad at. The supports (or those that I've seen at least) are good at showing what each character's deal is. That's not hard to do, though it is occasionally not done well (Vaida and Dorcas... a support that shows what their characters are like, but repeats the same joke dragged out three times in a row without really resolving anything).

Edit: Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to say that the really cheesy and campy moments are amusing rather than cringe to me. I think they just barely toe the line at times, but like... given how often the games try to shoehorn the 'Fire Emblem' into it, this really isn't even the worst.

Conclusion

This is the part where I pretend to have a conclusion so it feels structured. I already said what I needed to say at the start, so this is the part I put a bow on it.

I feel like it's hard for me to assess this game. I haven't played it, and I haven't played Awakening and Three Houses, two games that I feel like probably influenced both the fanbase and Engage a lot. But I can't help but feel like it's better than all of the hate it gets. I don't really think it's god tier, but it's definitely not as bad as it's said to be. I think if I did have the opportunity to play it though, I'd enjoy it at least as much as I enjoyed FE6, FE8, and FE11. With the others I played, I think it'd be a bit more up in the air.

If I had to say though, there's enough problems for it to be disappointing, but enough good for it to not warrant the amount of hate I've seen. I feel like the hate it gets is often an instinctual rather than logical thing; rarely do I see people fully explain how they feel, and sometimes some of the people criticising it talk like they're series veterans but it turns out they've played like... 4 games. Still, I can't help but feel like if this game came out after Fates rather than Three Houses, people would have a better view of it.

[vergess]

Copying this to my main for the sake of my organization.

TLDR: some self-aggrandizing asshole decided to vomit some egregious levels of ignorance while pretending to be an authority on the sociology of fandom.

Anyway, to save us all some trouble, the point by point is going under a cut.

Not only because of pervasive issues of (especially anti-Black) racism, misogyny, transphobia/homophobia, and the like, but the particular way those things take shape within fandom.

There is no "particular way" racism "takes shape" in fandom. You're thinking of GENERAL SOCIETY, the supergroup that includes fandom.

Your ignorance of fandom specific and society-wide sociological information is already a screeching red flag, btw. This is why so many "intellectually incurious" people stopped listening at word one. People have been saying that the vulgar masses need to have our culture and art shaped by academic, political, or religious "trained thinkers" since the dawn of civilization. You're literally bringing up an argument OLDER THAN LITERATURE ITSELF and pretending that you have new insights. No wonder people fucking ollied out.

What I mean is that people almost invariably approach fandom at the level of character, often at the level of ship - your primary way of viewing a text is filtered through favourite characters and favourite relationships, as opposed to, say, favourite scenes, favourite themes, favourite conflicts.

Yes. You're literally providing a textbook definition of transformative fandom here. But you're presenting it disingenuously as fuck, by acting like that's the ONLY type of fandom that exists. Again, your ignorance is on display, and it's going to get bigger quick!

Because in the very next pgaragraph we find:

This is reinforced through the architecture of dominant platforms that host fan content, particularly AO3

And here we go. Because if you thnk AO3 is the major platform for fandom, you're WILLFULLY IGNORANT.

Youtube is the major platform for fandom. Next up is tiktok. After that comes other socials, like Reddit, FB, twitter and tumblr.

AO3 is AFTER all of that. It's a small, indie platform. Even in the scope of fanfic, FFN and Wattpad both are larger.

You picked a small site MADE SPECIFICALLY FOR HOSTING QUEER SHIPS FOUND UNACCEPTABLE TO HOMOPHOBES, and then looked around asking yourself, "wow, why are the people on the gay sex website so obsessed with gay sex."

I would like to believe you are simply ignorant, and inadvertantly malicious. But I do not think that is the case, as I will detail later.

Dead Dove: Do Not Eat,” which doesn’t indicate perspective or theme but rather that there is, broadly, some kind of “problematic content” contained therein - often of a sexual nature, frequently as a warning about “bad” ships.

You literally just made this up based on rumours you heard from antishippers. This has ZERO relation to reality.

Dead Dove contains everything from graphic violence to body horror to rape to surrealist meditations on the way the human mind cannot cope with the scale of the universe.

But you wouldn't know, because you're cheerfully ensconcing yourself in an enclave of people telling you what you want to hear, and pretending that's "decades of study and experience." You haven't been 'engaging for decades' you've been swimming in a tiny corner of a tiny pond and claiming the ocean doesn't exist.

Now this is not an inherent problem, as in, it is not inherently incorrect to approach a text and primarily derive pleasure from it by focusing on a given character or relationship,

The sheer HYPOCRISY on display. "Oh it's fine to do this, but don't do it on the websites you MADE SPECIFICALLY FOR DOING THIS ON, because I personally would like to see you do other things. What? Those things are available on dozens of much larger and more active platforms? No, no, I want to see YOU obey MY demands specifically."

It's "not incorrect" to do, it's just that the people doing it are incorrect, for magical mystery reasons that you'll never actually specify, because you can't. You cannot actually give a reason why any of the things you dislike are bad because they aren't. There is no harm being done. Your disliking something does not mean is is harmful to you.

If someone were FORCING you to engage with this disliked stuff, sure, thats actually horrific! Fucking beat the shit out of them!!

But as far as "I opened this fic and I didn't like it" goes, that's not harm, that's someone making a thing you didn't like. Just close the goddamned tab.

And I think a lot of mainstream media encourages (even requires) audiences to engage with their stories at these character- and ship-levels. […;] If you do not care about the familial drama […] because you think the institution of monogamous marriage and the nuclear family is stupid and violent and heternormative, then you will have a difficult time engaging with the show in general.

Okay, I'm going to give you the benefit of my doubt here. Either this is you saying fandom self selects for people who enjoy garbage, a shocking condescending and fundamentally untrue but at least plausible statement.

Or you're saying fandom is responsible for the actions of major media producers, violating basic concepts like linear time. Which would be absurd, but not wildly out of keeping with the rest of this essay.

Let's assume the former.

That's not just a thing we've studied to death and found to be untrue after decades of sociological research.

It's also just demonstrably, on the face of it, nonsensical.

Transformative fandom appeals to people who wanted MORE from a piece of media, not people who hated it enough to walk away. It's specifically about making an experience greater than it was when you first encountered it, by engaging with it communally. By ripping at the facade heteronormative white supremacy creates in art, and forcing diversity, sexuality, and liveliness into an otherwise sterile space.

Which you would know if you had engaged with or studied transformative fandom in any meaningful capacity whatsoever.

A standout example I recently encountered was browsing the fandom tags on tumblr for the movie Prey. […] It is a movie that makes the argument that, despite this alien monster running around killing people, the villains of the franchise are these occupying soldiers and settlers, an alien force who themselves have just as little regard for (indigenous) human life. And when browsing the tags on tumblr, what I found was dozens upon dozens of horny posts about how hot the predator monster was

And here's the crux of the issue revealed. You want other fans to enjoy art in a way YOU approve of specifically. Not any actual concern with addressing systemic issues of racial, sexual, etc violence. Just a desire for more of the fan content YOU like, and less of the hornyposting you dislike.

But you went on tumblr, the famously sexual mosterfucker website, and were confused to find a bunch of people want to fuck the monster!

Meanwhile, on youtube, the LARGEST FANDOM PLATFORM IN THE WORLD, searching "prey 2022 racism meta" provides dozens of hours of essays on that very subject.

And if this is your takeaway from an extremely straightforward film with a very clear message, this is not merely a failure to comprehend the content of a text, this is something beyond it

Oh the sheer vanity on display. The assumption that people cannot be hornyposting AND still have complex feelings about a racism narrative?

Man, the book about holocaust survivors who fantasize about fucking nazis is almost a century old. You're operating under DECADES AND DECADES of misinformation, and you're wallowing in it so gleefully. To the point that you act like anyone trying to provide you with even a single piece of legitimate information are worthy of mockery and derision for not Speaking High Academia Goodly Enough All The Time Forever.

I don't know how to explain this to you, but someone can find the monster sexually appealing in spite of, and indeed even because of, the colonial implications of its narrative. AND people can still be critical of colonial racism while being horny for a FICTIONAL MONSTER THAT I NEED TO EMPHASIZE IS NOT REAL AND IS NOT ACTUALLY KILLING OR COLONIZING ANYONE BECAUSE IT DOES NOT EXIST.

People can enjoy fiction without that meaning they want to fuck racists IRL. I'm sorry that you somehow believed that sexual interest in a fictional character makes you TOO STUPID TO EXIST, but fortunately, you're wrong.

a phenomenon wherein fans will move from one fandom to the next in search of two (usually white, usually skinny) guys to draw and write porn of, uncaring of any of the surrounding context of the stories they are embedded in, and consequently dominating a large sector of fandom discussion.

Again, the gays are not "dominating" fandom. The gays are dominating fandom websites made or popularized for being accessible and welcoming to gay sexuality.

Do you also go into the sexual studies aisle at the library to complain that THOSE are too sexually focused, while ignoring the whole rest of the library, too?

The actual dominant voices in fandom are Straight White Men Ages 18-40. Do you really think Star Wars was made with a bunch of teen and middle aged trans people in mind? Do you REALLY?

Because you keep SAYING that the dominant force in fandom is presumed young, presumed white, presumed female, presumed straight fans. But it isn't. It never has been.

Only in the rare enclaves of transformative fandom spaces made by and for people marginalized for their sex or gender is this "obsession" with sex and gender apparent.

Because we MADE SPACES for those subjects to be engaged with.

And now you march into these spaces, made for engaging with these subjects, and demand that instead we do things your way.

You are so ignorant you've looped back around to accusing transformative fandom of being a nasty gay hypersex conspiracy, literally no different from the latest Fox News "special guest scientist" who uses academic language incorrectly to create an illusion of authority, such that hopefully the audience will obey.

Your stance on engagement with fandom itself historically was (and still is) always first filtered through one of these two labels

YOU JUST! MADE THAT UP!!! AND PRETENDED LIKE NO ONE ELSE WOULD KNOW???? Do you think everyone else on this website was born after 2014, the year antishipping started?

Antishipping, proshipping, and even shipping itself have NEVER been the primary, central function EVEN of TRANSFORMATIVE fandom.

Let alone the archival and analytical fandoms you're looking for while claiming they TOTALLY don't exist.

But at least now we can say with authority that you're being a misinformational twat on purpose!! Because you want to REDUCE fandom to something you perceive as "drama" so you can shit on it and demand that it obey your whims and desires.

Meanwhile, just for the sake of pointing it out AGAIN: antishippers have literally killed people. Literally, no metaphor, people have been KILLED by antishippers. Dead.

Lives ended.

That's not touching on the constant spread of videos/photos showing real, actual child sexual abuse. Nor the dozens of admitted cases of raping shippers to punish them. Now the hundreds of adittmed carses of adults using the label "antiship" as a way to prey on and sexually abuse children.

No, setting all of that aside, because apparently you're the kind of Both Sides cunt that want to put random authors on the same level as CHILD RAPISTS?

THAT. ENTIRE.PHENMONON. ISN'T EVEN 10 YEARS OLD.

2014 was NOT EVEN A DECADE AGO. "Historically," my ass. NOTHING you just said there is true. Do you really think you can get away with lying that brazenly if you use the formal tone?

Because you cannot. Well informed, well educated fans who LIVED THROUGH AND STUDIED the events you're describing exist, and will continue existing. Or did you forget that many of us are "real" academics too? That this is our HOBBY where we engage with our INTEREST INFORMALLY.

Your claim that anyone who is involved in fandom is too fucking stupid to be ABLE to engage with a text in the way you want is based, wholecloth, on the assumption that there is a hard line between literary academia and fandom. Meanwhile, A LOT OF THE INFLUENTIAL FANS ARE ACADEMICS, AUTHORS, AND SOCIAL SCIENTISTS.

But, with classic vanity, you assume that anyone who disagrees is too stupid to listen to, and dig deeper into your cavern of joyous ignorance where something that started 9 years ago and that most people wouldn't even recognize the terminology of has always been a "defining" factor?

No.

That is a lie. Full fucking stop. You are a liar.

Nowhere in this binary is space to describe any other perspective you might take

You're just repeating yourself over and over. "Oh, why do the people on the gay sex website obsess over gay sex." "Oh, why do the people whose hobby is indie romance lit keep talking about indie romance lit on this, the indie romance lit website."

JUST! GO! TO! ANY! OTHER! FANDOM! THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP DEMANDING THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THE GAY FUCKING WEBSITE REPURPOSE IT TO YOUR WHIMS YOU WEIRD PRESUMPTUOUS CUNT!!!!!

It’s not just that the pro/anti divide is juvenile and overly-simplistic

Bold words from the asshole still equating the child-raping death cult to people who read/write for fun, but I mean… we've established that this is a purposefully misleading shitstorm already so.

it is a declaration that all fan conflict must be read through the lens of shipping and shipping only

Do you think that the fandom meltdowns about the removal of Biologically Evil Races from D&D was about shipping????

Do you think that the backlash against the Black storm trooper in star wars was about SHIPPING?

You just throw out anything outside your blinders, huh. You just ignore EVERYTHING ELSE that ever happens, so you can claim it's 'all' about shipping.

My friend, fandom isn't obsessed with shipping, YOU are.

Which, again, I think is a fundamental error of methodology.

Okay, you keep saying "methodology" in a way that makes me think you don't actually know what it means. It's not a special magic term for "critical lens that will make you agree with me."

There isn't even "a" fandom methodology to speak of. Now, at the more precise level of AO3-centered, transformative, romance based fandom SPECIFICALLY, there are some methodoloGIES (PLURAL) that occur fairly frequently. And THOSE are, I assume, the things you have an issue with. But since you continue not to define what methodologies you disapprove of, it's meaningless filler word to make yourself sound smart.

And don't point to your paragraph about capitalism heteronormativity; that's not a fandom methodology and it's not even discussing a method at all, just contextualizing how a method might arise without actually specifying what the method is.

Don't point to your paragraph about Prey, either. You still didn't actually specify any methods, let alone full methodologies. You simply said, repeatedly, that you personally feel like people were missing the point. Nothing about how many times they read the original text; nothing about note taking; nothing about citation; nothing about research; nothing, nothing, notheng methodological whatsoever. Just your personal disgust that people might be horny in a way you think is "too white."

the thorny issues of representation not just as expressed through individual characters but entire worlds, narratives, settings, and themes

So you've just not been tracking the meltdown of the Harry Potter fandom over the last 5 years, either, yeah?

Because these days, that fandom is LOADED with people explaining in exquisite detail all the ways the world building is, itself, deeply racially, sexually flawed.

Or is that too cringe for you to talk about?

Because the Lord of The Rings fandom is also known for this trend. Star Wars too.

There's shitloads of this stuff out there, you simply refuse to leave the Gay Sex For Monster Fuckers website to find it. Instead, you lounge around here complaining about how the monsters are too fuckable and the gays too sexual.

You keep harping on about how this is a western individualism problem, but you're literally just refusing to acknowledge that other things exist. Do you think there are no shippers in Vietnam? Because buddy, there for sure are. I'm friends with some.

And this issue is best perhaps epitomised by reader insert fanfiction, circumventing any need for you to project onto a character by literally inserting yourself into fiction, primarily in order to write/read about a character you want to fuck

Ah, you see? You think the gay sex website has too much gay sex on it.

This then intersects in particularly disgusting ways with real world politics, such as reader insert fics about Pedro Pascal going with you to BLM protests.

Wow, you just really uniquely hate shippers, huh. You really went all in on the "people writing fanfiction are sex criminals" thing instead of "people forcing Mr Pascal to read porn on camera are sex criminals."

Do you also think that the guy who made the camera my rapist filmed me with as a child is the real sex criminal, not the rapist holding said camera?

Even if this is (incredibly over-generously) interpreted as a very poor attempt at being “progressive,” it still demonstrates that many (white) fans are often incapable of thinking about anything outside of a character-centric perspective, quite literally centring themselves in the process, and consequently they think it’s totally appropriate to do things like that

Again the assumption that any fan you dislike is white. No wonder you've convinced yourself no other POC are left to speak up: you call us white when we disagree.

The fact that this is also frequently a racist lens is not coincidental, because again, a chronic focus on (fictional) individuality prohibits any structural perspective from entering the discussion

"Why doesn't this character piece focus on systemic issues more!!!!!"

Mate, just go back to reading "real" literature until you've pulled your head out of your ass enough to answer that question.

To say nothing of the bold audacity displayed in the assumption that a character study cannot comment on social issues, because…. because what? Because it's written by a hobbyist? Because it's not in an 150 year old anthology?

Do you also think poetry is incapable of analyzing systemic issues because it has a narrow focus, too?

Your ego, ignorance, and anger have combined to render you absolutely abominable, yet you wonder why people aren't falling over themselves to fulfill your every wish??

Oh it must be because your sycophants are being excluded, not because you've gone off half-cocked and wholly ignorant, making the same stupid, unfounded arguments based on your own assumptions about other people's beliefs, values and actions.

where people come to the conclusion that the topic of police brutality is little more than a fun stage to enact whatever romantic shenanigans you want to get up to with a hot guy.

No, mate, YOU came to that conclusion. That's not "fandom" that's you. You did that. The writer's reasons for producing that fic are unknown to you. You decided all on your own that it was written by a white person for fun, and not by a person of colour who wanted to imagine that someone they idolize would hold similar moral values to them.

You didn't need any straight white fangirls to do it for you. YOU reduced it to sex all on your own.

But I think that this being the dominant mode of engagement

STILL not the dominant mode of fandom. No matter how many times you say that, it's still not true. It remains false and, at this point I feel confident in saying it is a willful lie.

inherently excludes and marginalises all other approaches, and creates a fandom space where the most valuable way to talk about media is to discuss which two characters you most enjoy imagining fucking each other

Finally, and in conclusion, your experiences are not universal. You surrounded yourself with people insisting that This Is The Only Thing Fandom Is, and then you ignore and deride anyone pointing out that you're wrong.

I can, right now, go on my dashboard and ask people to drop me their favourite meta and haedcanons and get dozens or hundreds of replies from people with the most beautifully complex, nuanced grasp of character, setting, causality, and more and be blown away by the connections they make to real world issues.

You, however, it seems can just go on your dashboard and be flooded with things you hate.

But here's the thing: YOU decide who you follow on here. YOU decide which fandom platforms you frequent. YOU, in this one TINY arena, get to have the actual final say.

Use. That. Power. Revel in it. God knows that as QTIPOC we're not given that kind of authority ANYWHERE ELSE in life.

Use it.

Make your fandom space look the way you want it to, instead of making up a bunch of gibberish.

PS: Some (just a small sample) fandoms active on tumblr you definitely forgot when you were pretending you have authoritative knowledge about how all fandom is about The kind Of Sex You Hate and not about engaging with art wholly and joyfully.

Shakespeare.

Dante.

Other renaissance lit, especially italiana.

Queen (band).

Dracula and assorted Victoriana.

Classical Chinese literature.

Classical Greek and Latin literature.

Poetry (western)

Poetry and calligraphy (eastern, incl middle eastern)

Botany (the science) (VERY popular on here)

[sweetescapeartist]

Happy birthday to Malcolm Little/ Malcolm X/ El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

A great man, a great leader, a great speaker, a great revolutionary. From studying him when I was a teen and still on into adulthood, I have become better at mind control (controlling your own mind by thinking and acting for yourself). My father also played a huge part in me developing mind control at a young age. And from studying how he did things, as well as how my father taught me from childhood, I have become an autodidact in many things. My art being one of those things. In regards to this blog & Dragon Ball, I apply Malcolm X's teachings in just about all that I do.

I don't let my enemy/opponent control my thoughts and I do not let them control the narrative of hating Earthlings (specifically Krillin) as they please. I do not need to engage and debate them at every turn because my enemy has made up their mind. I speak to people like me and to those who seek truth. And I do my utmost to speak in a way that is undeniable and based in facts as opposed to the majority who base their thoughts off of lies. I know my enemy's talking points and how to counter them. I know the subject matter better than my enemy in order to shut down the lies they spread. I learn how the mind works in order to dismantle their flawed logic. I speak with "an open hand" or "a closed fist" when needed. I create my own narritive without relying on those who are popular who have power over the simple-minded people of the fandom. I take my time with my research to make sure my logic has no holes in it in order to combat whatever misinformation is out there. The majority of the DB fandom aren't against us. Only certain ones who hold influence and some others. Many just go along with lies that are constantly repeated by influential people (those with a big following and those with small followings who repeat lies ppl enjoy hearing). I want to continue to be a positive influence of truthfulness against those hateful lies that have poisoned the fandom. And to do so, what I do must stick in your head. Which is why I choose to associate my content with truth and comedy as well as other ranges of emotional responses. Truth is knowing & can be understood by all. Laughing is feeling & can be felt by all. If I can make you have those two things, then I have succeeded. Those unlike us who enjoy lies can only make a person have a raw uneducated emotional response. They cause others to know less so that they can be easier to control. I do not require control of your mind. I only intend to nudge you in the direction you seek & are already on. I cannot nudge those who enjoy lies in the same direction you want to head to. Their mind is already made up. No reason to change the mind of a purposeful fool. Let fools be who they are. Their ideas are rooted in opinion, made up facts that they themselves control. Mine and yours are rooted in fact. They have rudimentary knowledge. We have deep knowledge rooted in truth.

The one thing I am still practicing is how to be more outgoing and more outspoken. I don't like to over speak another person because I like to show respect. But I have to train myself that ppl in present day speak with less respect more and more. So I must speak with more power. I also need to schedule things I have planned in a better way so I can interact more with those in my circle. Follow our code of respect & build more mutural respect for each other in order to stand together against those who hate Krillin & other Earthlings. And once I am more organized, I will be able to produce more content in many forms. I do my best to make sure I am not overconfident. That means that I have overlooked something due to arrogance. So, I keep a calm level of confidence. And if I do not know something, I will admit such and will seek correction when necessary.

And the content I make is fashioned to reach the root truth in the mind of those who seek it. Because a smart man does not rely on his enemy to speak for him or do for him. His enemy will tell him & others like him that there is no fight. His enemy will create a narrative to sabotage him. However, a mentally strong man does not sway from the truth. He stands firmly in it regardless of what comes his way & what opposition he faces. He does not accept payouts to do what he disagrees with and speaks against. He is courageous. He does not back down. He strategizes. He puts plans into action. He inspires others just as others inspired him. He makes it so that others can take what he says and use their knowledge in a similar manner he does in different aspects of life (the fandom or in real life).

I cannot be "defeated" by anyone. No enemy is on my intellectual level in terms of truth nor is any enemy on the level of some of my peers. Only I can defeat myself by turning against what I promote. And that... I will never do.

[nitefyre443]

What is Memento Mori ? Well its an essay a 3 in 1 but follow me here.

Well, I never thought I would be back here but life is works in strange and mysterious ways. What is Memento Mori, well that is a long story but the short of it is after following, listening and chatting with @allgirlsareprincesses and @MarieCGould Mythologist and Creator of @whattheforce, learning and listening I came to two conclusions.

First Conclusion: These ladies were smart and I should hang around for a while and listen. I will come out of this a much better writer.

Second Conclusion: There is something broken in American Pop Culture, and it rears its head every now and then but nothing worst than Dec, 2019..something fundamentally broke and it has created this schism as to what Hope, Love, Death and Sacrifice mean , why they are so vitality important to not only storytelling but art in any form that its comes in. However I could not put my finger on, couldn't put into the words but the ideas and thoughts were forming and then...I got COVID.

So after first surviving and a good year to stew on this along with recovery. This idea finally start to coalesce into thing something. And it start with this thought. American Pop Culture is afraid to deal with Death. What do I mean? Most American Pop Culture and or the American monomyth use Death as a tool. It is an impersonal thing visited upon an evil doer and put back away in its little box. Yet not many actually in engage with the frail, fleeting nature of human life and how beautiful that is.

We have had lost what the meaning of Love and Sacrifice means, sacrifice is an selfless act to given willingly not for the reward of salvation or redemption but an act of love itself. The key word here willingly keep this in mind because Choice will come back later on. And Death, death is never the means in which we find salvation but the end state of life, one we must all face it because we are human. We neither rush towards it blindly, nor should we irrationally fear.

To wrap this up, Memento Mori is my little project were I am going to look at 3 stories that are outside of the Hollywood bubble, and were we can see how Hope, Love, Sacrifice and Death are not opposing forces but work in hand in hand and are deeply part of the human condition, all of these stories end with the death of the Protagonist but as I will present they are not as tragic as they seem. This is going to be in three parts as follows and I can't wait for everyone to read them:

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - Selene who dared to kiss the Sun

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans - The Blood Stained White Demon of Hope

Final Fantasy XVI - The Fallen Angel that loved God's creation imperfect creation

[erwin-l]

“Ferdinand” by Blue Sky Studios Production

"Ferdinand," a Blue Sky Studios production, is based on the renowned children's book about a gentle-hearted bull who defies preconceptions and follows his own way. This animated adventure, directed by Carlos Saldanha, is known for his work on the "Ice Age" trilogy and presents a heartwarming story with recognizable characters, spectacular visuals, and a positive message.

The plot centres around Ferdinand (voiced by John Cena), a massive bull with a heart the size of his body. Ferdinand, unlike his fellow bulls raised for bullfighting, prefers to sniff flowers and appreciate nature's beauty. When Ferdinand is mistaken for a strong and aggressive bull due to a series of events, he starts on a journey to discover his place in the world.

One of the most attractive and relatable qualities of "Ferdinand" is its endearing and sympathetic protagonist. Ferdinand's unrelenting determination to remaining true to himself in the face of society expectations is both motivating and heartening. With his warm and honest voice acting, John Cena brings the character to life, making Ferdinand a beloved and unforgettable presence on film.

The animation in "Ferdinand" is visually amazing, capturing the brilliant hues of the Spanish countryside and creating a rich and engaging environment. Blue Sky Studios' artistry is evident in the attention to detail in the character designs as well as the smoothness of the animation. Every frame is a visual feast, from the delicate petals of flowers to the elegance of the bullfighting arena.

The supporting cast of characters lends complexity and humor to the plot. The three hedgehogs, played by Gina Rodriguez, Daveed Diggs, and Gabriel Iglesias, provide comic relief and memorable moments throughout the film. Ferdinand's encounters with his newfound buddies are packed with witty banter and real friendliness.

Aside from its fascinating plot and charming characters, "Ferdinand" conveys an essential lesson about embracing one's uniqueness and opposing conventional standards. It instills in both children and adults the importance of kindness, empathy, and the strength of being genuine to oneself. This underlying idea lends depth and value to the film, elevating it above the level of a fun cartoon adventure.

While "Ferdinand" is a fun family movie, there are a few scenes that may be too strong or emotional for younger audiences. The bullfighting scenes, while done tastefully, may need a discussion with parents about the sport and its ethical implications.

Overall, "Ferdinand" is a touching and artistically appealing animated film that will leave audiences of all ages smiling. Blue Sky Studios has created a feel-good movie that highlights the importance of keeping true to oneself and embracing differences with its uplifting message, appealing characters, and breathtaking animation. "Ferdinand" is a bull-sized dosage of fun and laughter that will entertain and inspire both children and adults.

[fagcrisis]

yeah it's definitely weird. i do suspect it might be a young person thing (just for the record i am also young and probably prone to this type of thinking just about. different things) because by the time someone who is hard left hits like 5-10 years of actual activism they tend to have learned to pick their battles and see the similarities between things more clearly. it always struck me as weird to single wrestling out particularly because while it's a rotten industry every single field it evolved out of or merged with also has equivalent (if not identical) problems. it's not a unique perversion of capitalism it's just a variation on spectator sports and spectacle theatre those things are. ancient.

ultimately also it feels silly to be passionately opposed to it as a form of entertainment while ok with other things especially considering that pro wrestling has been on a decline in popularity since the 90s and that in many ways it's not the primary representation of the "opiate of the masses"-type entertainment anymore. even in places where it's popular there are typically still more primary exports of mass entertainment. and in the rest of the world it's even less of a big deal.

in my eyes it's a combo of having a very specific superficial image (that, due to the aforementioned describe in popularity, is what most people are familiar with) and ALSO being a performance of combat sport. so it becomes a representation of the scourge of capitalism and the ways in which it reduces the proletarians into base subjects or whatever while not actually being at all different from the majority of sports, entertainment and art. i honestly prefer "wrestling is fake and lame" as a critique.

anyway 1) sorry for the rant 2) davis phone background is awesome i like that guy he is straight up big and has a moustache . also i hope your headache passes ddt is good

nah dont worry about it i love it when people engage w what i post 💗 its why i have this blog. anyway yeah i agree its honestly just the image wrestling presents. its kind of silly and doesnt really matter and i do agree that its a young person thing bc for example my grandma who has been an activist since before my mum was born has enjoyed wrestling when it was on tv after the fall of the soviet union so like, its all fine i think. its also about this whole thing of consumption activism where what you buy and watch decides your morals and i guess you cant just justify disliking wrestling becasue its fake and lame so you have to make it an enemy of communism or whatever. its fine to just dislike things honestly sometimes you dont enjoy or understand something and thats fine, i dont get why people are into chess its patently insane to me and yet ive never accused anyone of being an anticommunist cia agent for knowing who magnus carlsen is or whatever

also thank you my headache did get a bit better im watching that ddt show that went up on universe today and im having fun!

[gobbogoo]

The Last of Us Part 2 and Shadow of Mordor: Two Parallel Takes on The Revenge Fantasy

Shadow of Mordor is not a perfect game, but is absolutely NAILS the feeling of a dark revenge-fuelled power fantasy. It expertly introduces you to the protagonist's loss/hatred through a brief-but-powerful opening, sets up antagonists you want to despise, then sets you loose to enact delightfully satisfying carnage against them.

Your experience of chopping up baddies is actively enhanced by that context of righteous wrath reflected in the player character's over-the-top methods of dispatching foes. It also maintains a cast of memorable-yet-disposable enemies to direct your violence towards with its patented Nemesis System, which adds satisfying, personal context to combat by generating rivals for the player to build an antagonistic relationship with. While narratively the game's revenge theme struggles due to mediocre writing/plot, the gameplay never fails to make you feel for all the world like some dark angel of vengeance. It accomplishes all this while maintaining a degree of grittiness that enhances the weightiness of the revenge theme. You fight in the mud and rain, bidding tragedy twist you into something monstrous and frightening to be unleashed on the deserving.

Compare all this to The Last of Us Part 2, and you'll see it follows similar steps to start, seemingly with intention to set itself up as the ultimate gritty revenge fantasy:

Instead of villains you love to hate, it opens by offering you an antagonist you genuinely despise with all your heart. Instead of simply expressing the weight of the protagonist's loss with an opening scene, the game takes drastic measures to ensure the player actively feels the loss themselves. Its confrontations are grounded in their violence compared to SoM's more impersonal and over-the-top slaughterfests, enhancing that impact of the player's righteous-but-brutal deeds. Its gameplay is both more challenging and more engaging, forcing the player to earn the vengeance they seek through hate-fuelled struggle, all while growing further resentful of the huge and faceless evil they're pitched against.

For a lot of players, that was enough. While I'd argue such moral simplicity goes against what The Last of Us is all about, there were many who played the first game without engaging in its grey shades, ignoring them to experience a simple Protective Dad power fantasy.

But in TLoU2, the game FORCES you to engage with these grey shades by halfway through placing you in the shoes of the people you've been taking "vengeance" upon. By removing them from the antagonistic context they've only been presented in so far, it slams the player in the face with the ugly reality of the revenge fantasy, re-contextualizes their own willful actions, and leaves them questioning their own perspective and judgments. This is a frankly brilliant way to deliver the game's core messages and themes; it communicates the folly of violence and revenge better than any other piece of media I've ever encountered... BUT it comes with a huge downside: It puts the player's motives at odds with the character(s) they're controlling.

You go from personally driving the game's narrative to its reluctant chauffeur, and while the car remains satisfying to drive, you're given no choice but to keep heading towards a distressing destination.

The decision to do this is brilliant from the standpoint of games as art, but it's also terrible from the standpoint of games as entertainment. While I would argue what it accomplished was something no other AAA game had attempted, thus greatly elevating the works' cultural value as a lasting work instead of a disposable distraction, I will admit it runs counter to consumer expectation and in-the-moment enjoyment.

Video games are still too young to have escaped their reputation as a hobby to unwind as opposed to art-form to enrich (especially in the AAA world), and therefore TLoU2 suffered criticism from those that had been seeking the prior, not the latter. Indeed, if its moment-to-moment gameplay wasn't so well-polished and engaging, the game would have been absolutely despised by general audiences. It is only because entertainment can still be gleaned from the fundamentally satisfying gameplay that the player carries on without growing too frustrated or disheartened by being forced to act in ways they disapprove of without any choice in the matter.

Shadow of Mordor provides an excellent parallel here, because both games use methods to build a personal relationship between the player and its antagonists, yet the outcome, methods, and intent are all completely different: SoM uses personal connection to empower the game's delicious brutality by offering rivals you love to hate. Well after the gameplay has grown stale due to lack of difficulty, the player will STILL be having fun violently clashing with and brutally disposing of foes they've built personal connections with.

TLoU2 meanwhile intentionally makes these exact same acts of violence highly unsatisfying by intentionally acquainting you with (or reminding you of) your enemies' existence as more then a vessel of antagonism. This extends even to basic enemies, who all are written and programmed to behave so much like real people with real lives that, despite the game's outstanding combat, the player has to actively repress sensations of guilt and internally justify increasingly unjustifiable actions with the old (and incredibly theme-relevant) "it was them or me" fallacy.

To summarize:

Shadow or Mordor achieves its personalizations almost entirely through mechanical systems that enhance and contextualize gameplay. It uses expertly constructed game mechanics and gameplay experiences to project depth and personality onto enemies and interactions that on their own would feel shallow and limited in personality and design. Sadly this makes its actual written narrative fall flat because it both fails to account for these self-made stories, and fails to build the same sense of connection between the player and the narrative's central antagonists, leaving them instead as unestablished entities that all die anticlimactically upon first confrontation.

The Last of Us Part 2 achieves its personalizations almost entirely through written narrative that directly manipulates and subverts the player's relationship with the gameplay. It uses fantastic writing and narrative context to project meaning and importance onto enemies that on their own would quickly feel like a parade of identical and impersonal goon squads with guns fought forty times over. Sadly this makes its actual gameplay increasingly distressing to engage with, discouraging players from engaging with the most satisfying aspects of the game, and causing them to almost dread completing each objective, as they know they will likely be rewarded only with more distressing developments.

[murdertrashbabyrat]

Look there’s truth to parts of this but I’ve had a completely different experience so I’d hesitate to label it a “causality” for everyone like fandom tumblr isn’t alive and well?! (‘Sometimes I can still hear their voice’ ‘stop telling everyone I’m dead’) I encourage you to find new fandoms and new creators because I’m neck deep in this shit fam. You might be moving on but I’m out here in the trenches with the other people that don’t stop loving what they love and showing it to everyone year after year with no pause. My tumblr experience hasn’t changed in ten years because I follow people who love things and love them hard. Fandom culture is very much alive and well on here even if it doesn’t seem like it to you and I’m sorry that you’re not seeing it in whatever you have interest in.

Besides from my view we can hate one way without worshipping the other just to be in opposition. Streaming services suck for a lot of reasons. That’s a fact. But also “real television” or cable being the only way to watch our favorite shows actually made it harder for a lot of us because the episodes came out at specific times, someone else was using the tv, you missed the first five minutes and now nothing makes sense, etc. Each episode was chocked with ads and MOST importantly, a large chunk of tv was written with the sole intention of bringing you back the next week rather than making any damn sense. Also you constantly feel behind and like you can’t speak to people about it until you see the episode which you might not have time for which is a way worse feeling to have every single week as opposed to a few a season.

To be clear I truly think they both have their pros and cons I just don’t get this idea of worshipping ye olden times like boomers (what like ten years ago lmao Jesus Christ) and calling it “real tv” (omg just realized that sounds like the Watcher tv drama recently lmao) when there were so many problems y’all used to complain about with that too.

It’s okay that it all just sucks because every last piece of it is sadly driven by money(no offense to the artists themselves tbh I’m thinking of the studios). I think it’s just going to keep you down if you insist EVERYTHING is worse fandom tumblr is totally dead and then also straight up disrespect the art that’s being produced on streaming.

I DO think they could fix this problem by just releasing the show episode by episode on their own site goddamn but like sorry I’m not still jerking off to long ass seasons with convoluted plots that are half finished so they can get it on network television fast enough?? Sorry I’d rather see shorter pieces of art then to see someone dragging a dead horse of a show behind them for fifteen seasons and I’ve gotta watch like I’m in a horror movie as it transforms into something boring and deeply repetitive like sorry I’m not still part of the Supernatural fandom let me get right on that I only burned out after ten seasons bet I can watch FIVE MORE of “real television” like are you kidding literally kill me. (To be clear this isn’t even shade on spn it’s just gods perfect example)

A lot of us don’t or can’t commit to long ass fandoms with long ass shows that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy the same level and quality of fandom engagement this just all feels very nostalgia heavy rather than let’s really sit and consider if this is worse or simply just as bad but different as most things presented by rich people for profit are throughout history.

fandom tumblr was another casualty of streaming services. we used to be on here posting about the episodes that were coming out weekly and posting gifs and writing insane shit about the tv shows we liked. now a new season of a show will drop and we’ll talk about it for a week. two weeks tops. and then that show will leave collectively conscious for 1+ year till the next season drops. there’s a reason succession sundays was a blast on here

we used to have real television

[assignmentthesisdissertatio-blog]

Creative Writing Techniques for Arts and Humanities Assignments

Arts and humanities require more than simple literacy to put a pen to paper and start writing. It implies being imaginative, insightful, and most importantly having a voice in the blog. Developing interesting assignments in these areas sometimes can be effortless, especially without any direction. It is here that the Creative Humanities assignment helps Stand out to offer students help and support in completing their tasks. This blog focuses on how you can improve your writing and perform well academically.

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