#characters can have negative development

[late-draft]

If there is some confusion about "which times it's ok for Katara to be a healer" and "which ones are not", there's a simple differentiation - moments when she offers to do individual acts of healing feel like realistic choices, they are individual acts. The incongruency is between her insisting during the series that she doesn't want to be a healer but instead to be a warrior, and then somehow ending up as a healer with no big achievements in life after the war.

I'm not saying it's absolutely impossible to write any character as changing their opinion through life, but the thing is - no writing has actually been done for that for her, plus it's a super sharp contrast to her very solid characterization as a fighter during the entire series. It's understandable why it would not be liked by a large number of people with whom her original character resonated.

[ender1821]

im a child of divorce

[hishighnesstheprincess]

Guys I'm gonna be so fucking fr with you if this turns out to be real I'm fully giving up on these movies

[nats-uvi]

Angst time :D👍

You can read my rambling about her in the tags

[asgodintended]

the tradwife-ication of jason todd is so bad literally bruce didn't even need to pyschic lobotomy him and try to send him to metropolis. the fandom has already done that

[smile-files]

i continue to find ii3 baffling. why did they make it (this isn't to hate on the season, i'm genuinely curious)

[nullians]

Okay, not to undermine just how bad the teenage years were but the 20s are a different kind of torment…

[randomnameless]

Are we ever going to get an in-universe explanation as to why Rhea sets a city with civilians still in it on fire at the end of CF, or is it forever going to remain the "devs wrote Rhea doing something evil so the audience wouldn't feel bad about killing the final boss who'd done nothing wrong up to that point, regardless of how grossly out-of-character it is for her to do that" excuse?

:(

I was typing an answer, switched tabs, and what I already typed disappeared...

Anyways...

Watsonian wise, the game iirc tells us Rhea intends to use the "fiery tiles" as hazards to slow down the BESF's progression to rekt them - and I personally find nice how the devs picked peg knights to act as reinforcments - cementing the "strategy" aspect of the Berning, aka Rhea's own troops are immunte to tile hazards, but the BESF isn't.

Doylist wise, I feel like it was one of the moves the devs pulled out to illustrate how far Rhea fell from... well, what she once was.

It's the culmination of her breakdown, her point of no-return : we came from a Rhea who valued Fodlan and its people more than her own survival and who would refuse to sacrifice anyone to ensure her safety to... a Rhea who lost so much (her remaining family), is PTSD'ing hard and was betrayed by Billy and Humanity "again", she snaps and now will sacrifice Fodlan and its people to get a chance of surviving what she perceives as the second act of the genocide of her species.

Forget the "not feeling bad" aspect of this fight anon, because, at least with the Jp audio, every scene involving Rhea, before this fight when she lost Seteth'n'Flayn, is in Tailtean, or even in this fight laments in her battle quotes, conveys, kuddos to Inoue, anguish, desperation and anger.

The BESF pushes her - during the entire length of this short route - to her breaking point, she breaks (but it's not only a furious/angry breakdown!) and Firdhiad Berning is the consequence.

Imo, even if the gapmoe and the Supreme Court tries to act as if the BESF is "in the right" or wonder what's for dinner, the foes are much more humanised/developed/are mourning on screen that, save for some devoted people, I firmly believe Tru Piss wasn't supposed to be seen as a "Good Route", but more like the Tales games sometimes have a "Bad End" path.

The final close-up on Billy's dead eyes after they lost Nirvana is, imo, telling enough - even if gapmoe and the game mechanics + IS' obsession to sell you Supreme Leader as a S material waifu you can romance sort of killed this intent, since you can get your "and they lived happily ever after" ending and marry Supreme Leader.

Tl;Dr : Tru Piss is written in a way that would make anyone (even on a first PT!) feel bad about the people you're trouncing, from Judith crying about Ignatz'n'Leonie's loss of their future, to Hilda sacrifying herself to save someone against her former nature, aka when it comes to do the "right thing" Hilda will do it even if it costs her life, to Faerghus' desperation to defend themselves at the point of willingly make the ultimate sacrifice and turning into demonic beasts and Dimitri's tender scene with Dedue, or Felix and Rodrigue fighting side by side to defend their land (and dying together) - to ultimately, Rhea losing her mind, breaking down as she learns of her kin's fate and relieving her previous PTSD hard, ultimately telling the player that they betrayed the gremlin living in their head (even if game mechanics means that gremlin is the worst mother in the entire series) and ultimately, herself.

If you're not a first PT, but Tru Piss is your last PT and you know about Rhea'n'Billy's backstories... Well.

I don't like the "you made hit you" rhetoric because it fucking sucks and irl is used by scum, and while I don't think the Firdhiad Berning was made to make Rhea look "evil" so you wouldn't feel bad for rekting her... the game painfully reminds the player, each time, that they are the instigators of this war, they are the agressors attacking people who, in this last map, will do anything to defend themselves.

It's ugly but it's the War the BESF, aka the player in Tru Piss, started/supported.

[gameofthronedd]

Criticisms of Sansa as/being a static character or experiencing no character growth/development makes 0 sense to me.

Is her development more subtle? Yes. But it's there.

Does she have less development than other characters? Also yes. But not because she's less important or purposefully trying to remain the same.

She's physically trapped in a hostage situation. She is also mentally/emotionally trapped. She's walking on eggshells in a hostile court where she can't trust anyone. She doesn't have the opportunity to effectively grow and develop emotionally and mentally as a young girl should.

Arya is forced into the wider world to survive. She travels and meets people, and her narrative focuses a lot on her learning about the world. There is a stark difference in that Arya has an open world to explore, full of novelties and mentor figures, whilst Sansa is constantly confined and tied down to a particular place (whether it be the Red Keep, the Eyrie etc.).

I have a lot of thoughts on GRRM but he doesn't disappoint when it comes to building main characters with realistic portrayals of human nature, trauma etc. Sansa's static nature and gradual change is realistic, metaphorical/symbolic (mentally trapped, lost autonomy, stuck in time etc.) and adds a different pacing to a character arc.

[gonnabeokaykid]

thoughts in the tags. genuine reflection of the season so far. not with any malice. more slightly sad resignation and a reminder to feel joy.

this is just a tv show after all <3

[darkfires]

you guys just don't know how to write angst anymore. putting people who say they like "toxic yaoi" in my dni cause they have no idea how to actually write toxicity

[megshummusic]

I AM PUTTING THIS BITCH IN A HYDRAULIC PRESS

[kinos-fortress-2]

i just woke up and realized my art did developed holy crap

[vessuna]

in addition to the last hc because i forgot to mention it, but yuuji does see family in the people he's met, ( gojo, nanami, nobara ) . but the thought of calling them family is what makes him wary. he is a child who had one single family member stay by his side as an even smaller child, who has then lost that family member, and that leaves him with an understandably childish anxiousness about it.

[tellmegoodbye]

I've had some time to collect my thoughts after a couple of days so here they are even though nobody asked.

I really loved the finale. It was devestating, no doubt, but I think this is their best one yet and I absolutely loved how they handled it. There was so much grieving in this episode, not just from Carlos, but from Owen and Judd as well. But despite everything they chose happiness and the wedding ending up being beautiful and bittersweet and joyful all at once.

There has been the question of deleted scenes but there's really only one we've seen so far that I would have loved to see in the episode. Other than that, I'm just glad we get to have them all as extras. I don't think the wedding needed them though.

Another thing I'd like to add is that yes, sometimes storylines can feel rushed in shows where you have a lot of characters and especially if there are clear favorites within a fandom. There was a lot going on, but that doesn't necessarily mean any one character's storyline is less valuable than another's. I guess I'm speaking as less of a fandom member and just more as an enjoyer of the show if that makes any sense. I love all of the characters in this show, and while I would be lying if I said I liked every single storyline, that doesn't mean I wish they didn't happen. In this case, however, I loved all of the storylines and I think they all made sense together given the theme of this episode. I personally don't think any of them shouldn't have been there in favor of getting more wedding content.

Honestly, my only regret is not getting off of tumblr as soon as the final bts stuff started coming out. I'm pretty bad when it comes to guessing things so if I hadn't been aware of the theories I literally would have had no idea and it would have hit me so much harder. It still got me pretty good though.

Again these are just my opinions so feel free to ignore everything I say if you didn't feel the same. I'm happy though, and I'm going to continue being incredibly annoying about this show. ♡

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

A Tale of Seashells & Shenanigans

YA fantasy

follows a grumpy 19yo who works in the fantasy thriftstore

when a girl tells them she accidentally donated her selkie sealskin on their watch, they have to go on a quest with her across the sea to the other store the donations were sent to against their will

but things quickly go wrong and they get stranded on a desert island, and they have to survive by busking, and hitchhike with some pirates to make their way there, and their frustration eventually grows into attachment

nonbinary ace disabled (cane user) MC, aroace ‘love interest’, QPR-ish