#do not percieve me right now or i will explode

[tickletails]

extra arms are cheating

[talisidekick]

I don't think I've ever said this here but:

All my life I was called slurs like "queer", "fag", "faggot", and "tranny" despite staunchly saying I was straight and a boy and had people call me a "bitch", "prissy", "pussy", "girl", etc to insult my gender and insult my person. I'd try to be adversarial when insulted because that was the expectation: for young boys to fight. Of course, that never was my nature, so I couldn't back it up and always got the living crap beaten out of me at least once a week in highschool and it would still happen even if I backed off from the start. It was the same constant insults during the assaults too, I'm not a man, I'm a girl. I was beaten sensless in the woods behind the school by bullies I didn't recognise, left to bleed out unattended after getting hit in the face with a baseball bat, thrown off a second story balcony, kicked down a full flight of stairs so I'd roll down them and lay unconcious at the bottom (and no one stopped to help), ambushed and chased down the street getting shot at by stale paintballs (so they wouldn't explode and hurt more), had some bullies chase after me as I went home with a rope saying they were going to hang me, and had someone pin me to a desk and sexually assault me with a screwdriver just to name a few incidents. By far, not my worst, but up there. The reason? Everyone assumed I was gay and no one wanted to help me, not even the adults.

The comical part of this is the moment that I turned around to the world and said: "You know what? I agree. I am, as you put it, a "tranny fag bitch". I'm a transgender woman, I like women, enbies, and just one man in all of human existance, and I am tired about keeping that quiet and lying that that I never was this way." They turned around on me and went "You're the manliest man, everyone can tell you're a man, you'll never change that!" because the truth never mattered. They never cared if I was gay or trans or secretly a girl, I just didn't conform to their world view and because of that they wanted me dead. They legitimately tried to kill me, and let me die, because of percieved non-conformity.

They didn't teach about queer people in highschool when I went, and a part of the student body tried to openlyhurt and on occasion kill me and the rest of the student body and teacher staff stood by, watched, or pretended not to see because they felt weird about stepping in to help a POTENTIAL queer kid. I didn't conform in their eyes, and that was enough. That's all that mattered.

I see the world today, the slow walk back of progress for womens rights to bodily agency, bodily autonomy being questioned, queer protections and trans acceptance being systematically destroyed, etc. and all I can see is ... elementary school through highschool. All I can remember is the smell of iron, of my own blood, their enraged faces, their laughter at the suffering they cause. And I am beyond terrified.

They claim it's for protection of children, but I grew up living in that kind of "protection", watching it, being a victim of it. It's not protecting your kids, it's legitimizing violence and exonerating people of any age to violate other children on grounds of non-conformity. Your child will get accused of being some form of queer and abused because your kid might be a little different. Because I had ADHD, OCD, and right now, I'm looking to get confirmation I'm autistic, and they started calling me these things when I was 7 years old. I did things differently, in a way that worked for me, and that was enough to abuse me for something I never fully realized or admitted to until I was 26 years old.

It's not about protecting kids when they try to criminalize queer people, queer culture, and their access to healthcare. It's about causing harm for being different, and it won't matter if your kid is cisgender if they're suspected of being transgender. All they're doing is making convenient ammunition to target whomever they please.

If you want to know why I fight for acceptance and equality, that's why. I already know how this turns out, and it's safe for no one.

[crabknight]

further live opinions on fremblem valentino

a. whoa this dungeons stuff is real cool

b. somewhat spitefully made faye a pegknight instead of cleric (i was thinking i needed a healer) on account of the fact that i was leveling her a bunch, and finding out ms silque was inherently one is great news for my survivability

c. HP COST STAT ON MAGIC???

d. okok so ive been playing pokemblem the romhack and i now understand more what they were pulling from with the item system in that, being one item which you hold and get the benifits of instead of a weapon you equip per se. which prevents you from not being able to attack which is neat. tragic for those who enjoyed the strategy of sending someone in disarmed to sit there and get xp

c1. you know thats probably why they mentioned spellcaster weilding black magic this early. all magic is black now ig happy black history month

e. PEGASI DONT EXPLODE UPON BEING PERCIEVED BY AN ARCHER?????

f. also ive noticed like the whole weapon triangle system doesnt seem to be like. a thing. or at least be so minimal in effects for it to not be noticed by me and also they just havent mentioned it. is this true?

g. wtf faye do a lance spin but not a crit im being scammed >:[

h. im in LOVE with all the lil ways the combat animations change depending on situation like if they're running in from afar the animation is them doing so, the person doing the defending waltzes up from out of their forest or whatever the spot is, and like ahsjgsbs its so good

i. hmm. crit did less than a one shot. this used to only happen with like real lategame bitches i think. troubling.

j. ok so there may have been a casualty due to the classic enemy crit jumpscare but luckily this has canon savescumming <3

yay jay opinions!

a. yeah I know right!! it's actually so cool

b. Yeah I did that too, didn't think I needed two that early (it's gonna be a while before the next one though so you're gonna have to make do

c. YES and it's each time you cast the spell, so twice if you double, I think it's a cool mechanic tbh

c1. yeah and also just that all attack magic is black and all status and healing is white (but they also take health to cast)

e. skipping d i suppose, they do, but only if the enemy actually has a bow equipped and not just using generic bow

f. Yeah there's no weapon triangle in this game

g. heheheha get scammed sucker

h. Yeah the animations in this game slap sooo hard honestly, it's great I love it

i. this game has some pretty low damage numbers and some pretty beefy enemies so yeah, makes sense

j. damn, :( poor [redacted] good thing [redacted] is ok now

[yaysheppy]

hello mutual . cracks knuck;les. sorry this will be long probabyl. and also disjointed. cool .!

logn story short: he is a troubled man with a big mouth and even bigger ego going through a lot of stressful shit. he is not a good person, but hes not terrible either. he would be unpleasant to know in real life.

after watching him go through half life 1 and 2, its easy to forget how he acted at the beginning of the series: rude, yes, but mild spoken and monotone, rambling and complaining about things that only he would care about (and saying "good lord!"), and even offering help to some people (see: guard at desk with computer issues, scientist at tram station railing who falls after bridge collapses). he doesn't offer help to many people. he's sarcastic, apathetic, and dry. He's got echolalia and will repeat things he hears or sees, as well as just make funny noises (see... the whole series). we can also see the start of his paranoia (diving after thinking a sniper shot at him when it was actually just a computer exploding), something he obviously struggles with but no one in his life has taken seriously, ("You're just paranoid!"). I like to interpret his drug and alcohol use as a way to treat his undiagnosed neurodivergencies. he has some level of self awareness of his behavior, (see episode 24, "God, this happens every time I get cocky. Somebody like this shows up and I start wishing I hadn't said a lot of things that I did."), but these moments are forgotten once his ego is fed and he's right back to how he normally acts (better than everyone else). also imo hes not really grungy or dirty and does care about his appearance: he complains about shit in his hair, wonders if he should buy a separate shampoo for his beard, has mentioned germs as a reason for not doing something before (episode 62 as an example, not taking a dead HEV scientist's helmet because of germs), and in half-life 2 has his scars are attractive bell curve bit.

he has internalized homophobia (the gay ear incident) and toxic masculinity issues. what he is NOT is hyper violent and hyper bigotted. his innocent kills have all been in perceived self defense or on accident. Episode 4, the elevator incident, the elevator crashes and he says "Sorry! Didn't mean to kill you! ...oh man, I hope at least they were jerks..." and immediately after in episode 5, saying he's always wanted to kill people at the push of a button, but it wasn't what he was hoping for (imo, his way of expressing remorse/guilt). Episode 14, he accidentally shoots at a scientist, then apologizes multiple times while fleeing, embarrassed at the misfire (also he wants to own a waterpark hes . silyl). i wanted to share these examples because ive seen people make him way more violent/bloodthirsty than he ACTUALLY is. for the bigotry, the most important thing to him is how he perceives other people's "usefulness" to him and their "intelligence" (again, percieved by gordon, which isn't necessarily the reality). there's three groups in the world: gordon, useful to gordon, and not useful. hes less of "i hate this group in particular" and more "everyone but me is stupid". obviously this isnt a good way to view the world but he is not a good guy. he is xenophobic in the sense he does NOT like aliens aliens --- but, when in xen, he spares a vortigaunt who doesn't attack him (epsiode 65).

he makes other people, especially women, uncomfortable. by his own admission, he gets pepper sprayed frequently. Episode 36, he has temporary amnesia, mentions he goes down to the biology department to hit on Heather on occasion, speculating that this time "maybe she just lost it and knocked [him] unconscious, then tried to dump [his] body because, let's face it, she's pretty stone cold." Followed with, "Well, it didn't work, Heather! Now I have a gun! You can't stop the Freeman!" And gets stopped by a door. He's more bark than bite, and we've seen him throughout the series; he attacks in self defense, and I don't think he'd actually threaten Heather with a gun. But! The women he talk to don't know this, and the way he presents himself does NOT help. He's like Dennis Reynolds-lite. He obviously knows Heather doesn't like him but continues to hit on her anyways; why? Self image. Desperate women love him. If he can get the "stone cold" Heather to as well, that's the a big score for his ego. I think he's asexual and his "sexual attraction" towards people is actually just a subconscious need for approval, one which he would never admit to. he always has to present like hes better than everyone else.

he's obviously intelligent and good at his job since he hasn't been fired yet. he will forever live in infamy. but hes also a silly guy . hope this helped any !!

freemind lovers. i have to psychoanalyze a fictional character for a psychology class. i've chosen gordon freemind. send me your ideas, thoughts, feelings, and all else about his mental state, emotions, life, and feelings. he's going to be inspected. yipeee

[balillee]

my unpopular dsmp opinions, some of which genuinely should be popular

c!dream has crossed the moral event horizon and is irredeemable. once you cross that threshold, you're no longer a 'morally grey' character.

pre-recorded, heavily produced lore killed the lore. it was cool, sure, but you completely misunderstand the magic that the smp had when people watched it initially. the story is improv and that's how we like it. we can tell the cc's have lost interest in it, you can admit that to us, we'll understand, just stop lying to me.

c!dream's pov isn't necessary to understand his character or his motivations. if you've watched literally any c!primeboys stream he's basically spelled it out for you.

i don't understand how fans can dislike l'manberg or have claimed to be against it since the beginning. i honestly don't get it. what's so bad about wanting your own spot where you make your own rules and skirt accountability that has been used to technically oppress you before - and, before someone who never saw the earlier streams tries to disagree with this, the og l'manberg crew were imprisoned for shit that everyone else on the server was practically encouraged to do. also, what do you have against fun and happiness?

i think some of you forget that 'hybrids' aren't a thing, discounting c!ranboo. there's no piglin hybrids, c!techno is just a pig. there's no avian hybrids, c!phil is just a man with wings. there's no creeper hybrids, c!sam is just a creeper who's indecently exposed from the hips down. canonically there's no hybrids, and therefore no hybrid discrimination. people ran with that concept too much.

the loss and the fanon rewriting of the early lore up until pogtopia has ruined fandom perception of c!dream and the og l'manberg boys. c!tommy is more morally white than you think he is, and c!dream has always been a villain - he massacres and he kills and he destroys and he schemes and he always has broken his own rules. no wonder the boys wanted their own space after how they were treated.

i think ranboo oftentimes forgets his own lore. he brings stuff up that c!ranboo may have done, such as exploding the community house to frame c!tommy, holding onto Cat, and it goes absolutely nowhere. we've gotten all of these developments in his story but they have never been expanded on, and we're nowhere closer to figuring out his relationship to c!dream and what his other side is and honestly i see no hope that we'll be any closer to knowing even by the end of the year.

your characters don't all have to be morally grey for the story itself to be morally grey. this is fiction - some people can be nothing but evil and others can be nothing but good. being purely good or evil doesn't mean that you're one dimensional, either.

c!dream apologists have ruined c!dream for me. he's not a good person. how about you let me enjoy a villain for who he actually is, rather for than your percieved woobified ragdoll you pass off as c!dream.

the story was better when there was a central writer. it was brilliant back when wilbur wrote it to be that the environment drives the characters and the story, and it was really good in early s2 up until techno's execution day when it was more character driven. since then, the amount of autonomy people have over their characters without any central 'director', as it were, has been a detriment to the story overall. there needs to still be one overarching figure or director or writer.

not everyone is a main character. just because they have a pov, doesn't mean they're a main character. some characters have such little impact on the overall plot and describing everyone as a main character oversaturates the story and makes some characters seem more important than they are.

the egg lore had so much potential up until it didn't. all that built up threat that we were expecting and we still don't even know what the egg wants really other than just controlling people. does it hatch?

genuinely, if there's no major plot developments by the end of the year (and let's be honest, it's a very big possibility at this point), a few of the more prominent members of the server should do a podcast style stream talking about where the story would have gone, because at least then we would have gotten somewhat closer to a conclusion.

c!techno is a villain and an asshole and a bad person. he stops caring for people once their interests don't align with his or if they look at him funny. he makes meta-jokes about his own tyrannical and oppressive nature. stop taking that away from him. he's a bad person. cc!techno does a fabulous job portraying that in a comedic manner and the balancing of him being a deeply flawed person with deeply flawed morals and ideas with his comedically-portrayed stubbornness and lack of willingness to hear out opposing viewpoints is incredible. i want to like characters who are arseholes for the sake of being arseholes, and who refuse to take into account the hurt they've caused either out of self-righteousness or because they don't care, so let me. he's the anti-peacemaker, LET ME HIM ENJOY HIM FOR THAT!!!!

i think tommy and wilbur's way of doing lore is my favourite. relies heavily on improv, voice acting, sprite acting and facial expressions. really shows off the acting props and they pull off the emotional moments well for the insanity of the creative medium.

i'm not a fan of fan-music. i find songs about media i'm into difficult to listen to. coincidentally i'm also not a fan of shit like slam poetry or live music/musicals/pantomimes.

the death of l'manberg killed people's motivation to go on the server casually. i've talked about it more in depth before, but destroying what was a central, driving environment for the story killed momentum and motivation. imagine in an episode of she-ra, the princess alliance just nuke the freight zone and all of the members of the horde just have to deal with it. that would be shit.

until season 3 has some momentum, i'm counting the end of the smp as january 20th. that had a conclusion. season 3 has... whores, technoblade and tommyinnit. that's about it.

i wasn't a fan of the development of c!tubbo joining las nevadas. i preferred snowchester and the walled city conflict. give c!tubbo some backbone and some badassery. also tubbo where's the fucking nuke bro if you're shelving that plotline just tell us on like an alt stream what the plan was i beg

add like 2 or 3 new people to the server so that michael mcchill has someone to talk to and so that there's something always happening on the server. it gives the og's more motivation to return if things are happening in and out of canon and it'll help with momentum, and who knows? maybe they can write their own story/stories.

i really think that c!sam is an underrated character. he's multilayered, extremely interesting, and the dichotomy of his loyalty to his job and how far down the rabbithole that's taken him versus the genuine love he has for his friends that drives him to do what he does out of wanting to do right by them is brilliant. i don't talk about c!sam enough.

STOP HAVING FUCKING VILLAIN ARCS!!! I'M FUCKIN SICK OF IT!!!! i want to see more characters who see everyone else being absolute selfish, abhorrent cunts and go 'if nobody else is going to be a good person, i fucking will'. GIVE ME SOME MORAL WHITENESS!!! IT'S INTERESTING AND MORALLY GOOD CHARACTERS ARE FUN!!!

let tommyinnit build cobblestone towers. everyone bullied him too much for how ugly they were and the one he built outside of the prison looked genuinely really nice. it gives the boy something to do.

i'm a fan of the revive book and the canon lives system. don't ask me why, but i think it might just be the morbidity of it. it adds to c!dream's god complex persona, and i think the fragility of death itself is a really fun concept. not enough fan cc's have made connections with that and c!mumza, and it could make for cool fanfic.

ranboo your house is fucking ugly. it's an eyesore

c!niki, and to some extent now c!jack and c!fundy, are boring me and ruining my mood. i think c!jack is the closest to being an actually interesting sympathetic villain, mainly because nobody else seems to realise that c!niki is a villain. not a good one imo, but she's a villain. c!jack just has the problem of starting a new project over and over and over and over again and because of the slow in momentum for the primary cast, there hasn't been a lot of recent development for him.

not really a dream smp opinion, but if philza went full geordie accent, i would love it. i want him to, in canon, say shit like 'me n ye' instead of 'me and you' and use geordie dialect. i want him to be physically unintelligible because it's funny.

i don't really know what's up with c!foolish but i think he's a dumbass. he had a while to think about c!q's proposal and then changed his mind about joining the guy to admitted to letting him die just because. moron

i wish there was more c!eret lore. i wish he was an actual king with an actual kingdom and actual subjects and royal advisors. c!eret is far too fucking cool to be the king of nothing and nobody. fatten up the kingdom and the castle with people who work with c!eret, and don't just make it tyrannical and dictator-y to prove the point of the server's 'anarchists'. make it a healthy working environment, please - if you want moral greyness, have 'anarchists' who claim to care about the welfare of the server oppose a kingdom of happy people under a fair and just ruler because their ideologies clash.

the server needs more characters who oppose anarchy in more peaceful ways, or passively wish for systems to be a part of. i think a chaos vs order conflict ending only in mutual understanding where everyone understands that they should just leave each other alone would slot nicely into the story that's been created so far.

you need to have watched all of the previous arcs to understand the story. i've seen people argue that they don't need to know about earlier lore to understand the prison, but that's the equivalent of only watching the final season of pretty little liars and expecting to understand the context of what's going on.

some characters aren't that morally grey. some characters, take c!tommy for example, are definitely on the whiter side for the morality scale, he's just an asshole. he's abrasive and rude and a dickhead but he also doesn't agree with terrorism, he's patriotic, he strives for a better world, he's apologetic, but he's also a fucking BITCH.

you can add onto this if you want, but not if you're a c!dream apologist. nobody likes your opinions

[faakeid]

fab nygmobblepot moments that remind you of kd uwu

OMGGGG AHDAHDUIADHAD

I want to use this moment to be sorry to everyone that follows me but keeps seeing my blog full of Nygmobs/Smaylor instead of kaisoo. I usually don’t get attached to otps like this and it happened in an unexpected way for me. But it’s here and I need to compensate for all the years I didn’t watch Gotham and had no idea about Nygmobs spamming everyone and making my heart warm.

But in general, nygmobblepot isn’t a vision of ideal relationship. Both Edward and Oswald (their surnames Cobblepot and Nygma were the ones who originated this name) are stupid and do stupid shit to each other during most of the series. So, a lot of moments related with the actors counterpart (Robin is the actor who plays Oswald and Cory who plays Ed) reminds me of kaisoo more. But a warning here! Although they have a HUGE chemistry on and off screen, they’re mostly friends. Robin is married for almost ten years so it doesn’t mean their closeness is romantic or sexual. But still, some details remind me of kd.

Similarities with nygmobs:

Height difference: it applies to Smaylor as well because it’s their height but it’s really visible in the series. Cory is a bit taller than JI I think and Robin is like 1.65 but KS is not that taller (I can’t believe he’s 1.73 at all, sorry). But, again, this factor is evident during the series and in some moments and it’s cute.

(the way he moves his feet to reach Ed’s head ;_;)

(when they hug, Oswald barely reaches his shoulders [their hugs are the equivalent to kisses in Gotham])

the closest gif I could find where we can see kd’s height difference without me stealing other people’s gifs.

Penguin reference? That’s pretty obvious. Of course I didn’t start shipping nygmobs because one of them is small and has the Penguin nickname but it made so much easier for me to read some of their fics with kd as characters because they fit the profile so much! And also, I believe KD would totally fit the “murder husbands” couple if someone did a fanfic where they just kill everyone. The closest I remember of a fanfic with this criteria is Juice Pouche where Kyungsoo is a vampire and he protects Jongin and Jongin is kind of badass as well. But the kd fandom needs more fics like this. There’s also “(Before the night is over) come see me” where KS is also a vampire and JI a young werewolf but it focuses more on their relationship than a murder husbands idea Gotham shows so well. 

How they met: Gotham’s history has a lot of differences if you compare with other universes, so keep that in mind. In Gotham, Ed works with GCPD but doesn’t feel like himself with the good side. Oswald is the character that spices things up and is a rage of death and destruction and manipulation. But Oswald is infatuated with Jim Gordon (so isn’t the first time it’s implied Penguin is gay) but he goes to the police department to see him. Ed sees him and wants to talk to him no matter the cost. And he does that... And things don’t end that friendly for him because Oswald thinks he’s a weirdo and asks him to fuck off, basically. It reminded me of kd’s first meeting where KS was the one admiring JI all along but JI get frightned. But, during their second meeting, they bond and become friends. For Nygmobs it takes more time for their second meeting but they end up developing and being in good terms :’)

Their personas, sort of: Ed is the tall one, younger and logic. Oswald is the oldest, smaller and that thinks with his heart. I love how JI could show the more logic side of himself during the last few years and, again, while reading Nygmobs fics using kd names, it was easy to fit the profile for me (that was during the time I wasn’t too deep into nygmobs and I didn’t knok them that well. KS looks cold and deatached and that’s why many people got impressed when he said, during Knowing Bros that he would choose love over friendship. He doesn’t play the part but, considering all the context, it fits him pretty well and reading this description of Oswald made me so familiar because it fits KD well. Ofc I don’t know their private lives and whatever but it’s just the impression I had as a viewer and random person;

Drama issue: when I say drama here, it’s related with how people percieve the two OTPs and how different people visualize LGBT relationship in media. Nygmobblepot had a lot of drama involved because they’re the fucking Riddler and Penguin, two of the most famous Batman villains. People saw them in different sorts of media before and others idolize those characters because of videogames and comics. So, when Oswald mentioned expressedly that he was in love with Edward, it caused an uproar in the fandom. People accused the producers and Robin of messing with the comic canon because the fucking Penguin became gay??? Robin was outspoken about the homophobia behind those statements since he’s a gay man himself but yeah, the drama existed. Part of the people invovled with the series rooted for Nygmobblepot, including some writers and the actors (Cory was the one with ambiguous messages about the nature of their relationship but it’s not even close what happened with other series like Supergirl, Supernatural and Sherlock). But it was aired by FOX, a right wing channel and, as you may imagine, they didn’t become canon per se. Actually, after Oswald said he was in love with Ed and planned on confessing to him, the writers presented a clone of Ed’s ex girlfriend with no explanation and purpose, only to separate them for most part of the series future. After that, some people seemed to have FORGOTTEN Oswald was once in love with Edward, rationalizing many things that are hard to explain with a “bro explanation”, they had a scene where the characters would have evolved even more but it was CUTTED and CHANGED and execs added the sentence “we’re brothers” to make EXPLICIT that Nygmobblepot’s relationship wouldn’t be interpreted as a romance at the end of the series (but, honestly, the actors went for the romance path anyway, the deleted scenes and the final episode can’t convince me otherwise).

What’s related with KD, may you ask? I think you’re familiar with all the drama KD faced since 2016 and how many stuff exploded during that time. How many parts are involved into creating a certain image and shifting it to be appealing and “friendly” is similar with what happens with idols. It’s no secret now about many scandals of bullying and other issues that are considered problematic and how they need to be pushed under the rug for companies so idols can make money and be profitable. Especially for male idols, it’s important that they are viewed as desirable and an object of the fans affections. That’s why he needs to be handsome and kind and look like a person that doesn’t exist. If an idol is openly gay, this person isn’t viewed by the major public with the same interest because they can’t fit the fantasy. That’s why scandals involving idols being gay need to be forgotten and deleted from people’s minds, otherwise that celebrity is ostracized. Although we tend to see the Ocident as “progressive”, there’s similar things happening in that industry. If a celebrity is openly LGBT, they don’t receive certain roles or opportunities because of it. There’s still a huge stigma that needs to be broken and we, as a society, are so far way from it. But recognizing those differences exist it’s a step forward.

Similarities with Smaylor

For me, one of the reasons Nygmobblepot works so well is because of the actors. They portrait a good chemistry because of their friendship off screen and some non verbal signs they display around each other are amazing. Those are things that remind me more of KD as we see them in a lot of moments. So, I wanted space to show those comparisons below:

Mutual admiration: it’s something both Smaylor and KD display a LOT and is extrememly outspoken. I really love watching their old interviews because the affection and admiration is so genuine it makes me drawn to them despite not being romantically involved.

(full gifset)

(there are more moments than these but I don’t want to steal gifs and there’s not much on the gif research and that sucks. Same with KD’s).

Stares and touches: Robin was the responsible for the deep stares and Cory for the random touches. There’s so many gifs of it that is hilarious. It’s like JI divided himself in two cells because we know he’s more known for both >.<

(Cory was touching Robin all the way during this interview rip)

(the gifset!!!)

You’re pretty moment: Robin, like KS, is the one that mentions about Cory/JI’s physical attributes. They have a moment pretty similar and, for KD its famous among shippers:

(gif link)

(actually, Robin called Cory dashingly handsome but its okay)

Cory lost it

There’s another series of gifsets with Robin calling Cory handsome LMAOO

:))))

Synchronization: for specialists in body language, it’s a factor that shows two people are close. That’s because of the mirror neurons we have that makes us copy movements, actions or words that someone we have empathy/we are close with do or say. Both kd and smaylor do this and it’s really soft.

(one of the classics)

(classic 2)

whole gifset (i love this interview so much)

(gif)

The fact the actors came up with their OTP names: people tend to forget that KD’s real otp name (according with Jongin) is dika. Cory also came up with Nygmobblepot name and Smaylor too <3

So, meanwhile Nygmobs has thropies that work a lot with KD AUs, Smaylor has healthy dynamics seen in public appearances KD made. Like I said above, there’s a huge polemic about shipping Smaylor romantically because Robin is married. On social media, is visible he loves his husband and it’s pretty cute to see. Cory himself mentioned that their relationship was sort of a platonic friendship (whatever that means) but it’s really genuine in terms of affections and display of admiration, something KD has as well.

Probably someone will question that it may changed the way I see KD or if now I ship them as bros. Nothing about that changed. With KD, although there are some similar details, there are internal AND external factors that made me support them in a romantic perspective in the first place. And it didn’t change. 

But both of them (Nygmobs too) make me feel that I’m testimoning something genuine, which is really hard in both kpop and media universes. In one side, we have a LOT of fanservice. And, in the other, it’s mostly a work interaction with lots of queerbating. Yes, Gotham has queerbating aspects in it but it’s not full of queerbating, if it makes sense. The message the actors and some writers wanted to convey are there and really display a romantic direction with character evolution and growth. And, considering the way media is nowadays, it’s nice to see.

[videogamelover99]

how would you have liked row to end?

Right. So spoilers for Rule of Wolves, obviously.

Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely adore the Darkling’s arc in the story. The first part of the novel has him be on the backseat for most of the time, with Zoya, Nikolai, and the rest of our lovable gang figuring out how to stop the country from exploding. When Leigh does introduce him to the rest of the story, he makes a deal with Nikolai and Zoya, seemingly for sentimental reasons, only to fuck off once he gets his powers back, proving he can never be trusted and that he always has another agenda going. Something we’re already very familiar with in TGT. 

Then we get is POV.

Leigh had two options when she decided to write from the Darkling’s point of view. His character had always thrived from the mystery of his true motives, whether what Alina sees as sympathetic human traits are even there at all, or whether it’s all manipulation. Bardugo could have either 1) tried to immitate the same mystery with his POV. We see his perspective, but it doesn’t actually give us that much information about what he his, what his real throughts are. Or 2) she could peel back the curtain. And she went with option 2.  

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He kept the thorn hoping it would work, and it did, but we know that he’s hardly the infallible mastermind everyone else percieves him to be. Yuri (lets appreciate for a moment how fucking hillarious it is that the guy is still there) asks the Darkling why he wanted to see Alina. Because I needed my power back, was his first reply. Then: Because she makes me feel human. 

And that’s the point of the Darkling’s character. It was always this and. It was always Alina’s power, and her as a person that drew him. It was always saving the grisha and being remembered by them. With the “monk’s” POV, we get a Darkling that’s surprisingly honest and self-aware and grounded, someone who feels a lot, and hates it. He does what he can to further his goals, but he isn’t an emotionless lump of rock, he’s very, very much human. It shows from the ruthful anger he feels about seeing his Morozova’s church, to the discomfort in seeing a bunch of fantatics follow him so blindly. He gets annoyed at the shitty food and the ignorant people, and cynical about the state of the country. I think the reason why so many Darkling fans dislike his POV is because he was always a mystery before now, so people could project whatever version of the character they wished onto him. And when canon Darkling did not match that, people got annoyed. (Luckly, he fits with my interpretation of his character like a glove, so, I loved every second of it).

Throughout his weird un-redemption arc, we see him start to question what his legacy would mean and what he’s really fighting for. It culminates to him seeing the destruction Otkazat’sya weapons can bring and saving Nikolai. Then being like “bye bitch you’re on your own now I’ve fulfilled my heoric quota for the day”. Where the story falls flat is that space between him manipulating the court into accepting Zoya as their queen and Chapter 48, with the Thornwood. There is a huge logical leap from a man who is willing to let his enemy have the throne, knowing he could manipulate the situation if need-be, to a man who is willing to give all that up to save Ravka and spend an eternity in agony. Like, the entire exchange seems so out of character for him. Why not just find some other immortal to stuff into the tree? Why put his sainthood above his own life and wellbeing? There is an unwritten chapter in his POV between the scene with Zoya being called queen and Chapter 48 that could have connected those dots and made his decision make sense, but it’s just not there. Or maybe it was cut out. Where is the forbidden chapter, Leigh, I want it.

Anyway, I dislike the whole Thornwood ending in general. It’s clear that this is a sort of “well he has to pay for his crimes somehow so lets invent the most torturous way possible”, in vein of all those other redemption arcs that have been realized through suffering. Except, that’s so overdone. And so cheesy. And just. Not at all what his character needed, which is something grounding. 

In part I, Zoya remarks that the Darkling could never get his powers back and could spend the rest of his mortal life living like every other man. Which, uh, sets him off. Because that is what he’s afraid of. Being someone inconsequential. If Leigh wanted him to pay for his crimes, she didn’t have to go all dramatic torture tree, she could have made it so the only way to close the gap is for him to lose his powers. And boom! He would have had to make a decision between keeping something so essential to himself, and saving Ravka. And he would have chosen Ravka, because at the end of the day, he saw that eternity surrounded by nothing but dead grey sand is no eternity at all. He would have made the real meaningful sacrifice. He would have been the same as Alina - powerless.

This ending could have also set up the interesting dynamic that was between him, Nikolai, and Zoya in the rest of the novel. He pops up when he wants to, manipulates situations in his favor, then fucks off until he wants them to find him again. He could have been a chaotic agent that could have either desided to help them in some way, guide them, or further his own agenda, how brief it would have been in his mortal life. And that’s how I wished it would have ended!

That being said, the whole tree thing could have just been Bardugo setting up the new SOC book XD. And if he’s in it, and if he doesn’t just die immediately when they pull him out of that tree, we might see more of the Darkling’ arc after all. Hell, maybe the whole death thing is a metaphor, and I was right, and he’ll die of old age a few decades from then cause he’d lose his powers. Here’s hoping. 

[rubensmuse]

i saw this at 5:45am before work started but now i am HOME and so i get to talk about the BUGS with a fellow ENLIGHTENED MIND. I am breathlessly excited to barf my thoughts all over your post OP, please forgive

The thing about light side/dark side choices in this game is that, if you interpret them as “good”/”evil” choices and allow them to guide you philosophically through the story…you can't, because they’re so inconsistent. I mean, sometimes the light side choice is meant to be understood by the player as the "good" option in that it is virtuous - your character is honest instead of lying, compassionate instead of uncaring, open-minded instead of dismissive -- but just as often the LS/DS dichotomy is more the "preserving immediate life choice" vs the "causing immediate death choice". In the opinion of the game, taken as a whole, it’s as Light-Sided an action to expose an evil senator’s corruption as it is to capture a wounded foe as a prisoner and haul him off to be tortured for information, because you have not killed that man with your own hands.

But let’s say you do allow LS/DS to tell you what the game wants you to think is moral.  If you do that, the killiks are unambigously “evil”. Which sounds kind of ridiculous, right? We’re clearly not meant to interpret them as evil, because otherwise we wouldn’t have one of the best love interests in the game (fight me) being a Joiner who deeply values his Joining. Vector and the storylines surrounding him are designed to make the player sympathetic toward the killiks. So lemme explain what I mean.

If you make that dark-side choice that OP mentioned, and threaten the Joiner formerly known as Daria Thul into coming back with you, she will refuse - but the nest will not. Ukunuku understand collectively the danger you pose to them, and they will tell her to leave, and she will then go with you willingly, because more killiks will die if they don’t. She doesn’t percieve this as an act of cruelty on the part of the nest, because she is one with the nest and the nest is just trying to preserve itself.

We also know that, if it were us the player making this choice, the game would consider that choice to be dark-sided because of the Esseles Flashpoint. You’re given a very similar choice: the Imperials attacking your transport full of civvies claim they’ll leave off if you just throw ‘em the ambassador they’re looking for. Maybe they’re telling the truth, and this would save more lives in the long run - but it’s a personal betrayal of a woman who is arguably undeserving of that fate, so doing so nets you 100 DS points. Similarly, the thing that unites most of the LS options across expansions is performing an immediate, individualized virtuous action, and a lot of the DS options involve taking an action that causes harm in the short-term for potential long-term gain.

And like. I do always pick those LS choices. My consular let all those datacrons filled with vital medical knowledge explode, because a woman was in danger, and Jedi help the living breathing people in front of them. And if it were me in real life, I would do the same thing, because I can more easily extend my compassion toward a single individual in front of me than a group of hypotheticals. 

This brings me to why I really really don’t think we can or should base our philosophical interpretation of the Kind based on which choices are LS and which are DS. Those choices were programmed by humans, for humans. While we are a social species, and we can feel unity and camaraderie in a group of other humans, we can only perceive ourselves as individual personalities interacting with other personalities. 

The Kind are not like this at all. It is repeatedly established and emphasized that they experience the universe in a fundamentally different way from non-hive mind species. A killik would absolutely save a precious resource over an individual killik, and might even sacrifice itself to do so, because to them, those lives are not hypothetical in that same way. That killik hears, feels, tastes, and otherwise experiences those killiks as an extension of itself. There’s no thought paid to the atomized instances of suffering, only mitigating the suffering of the whole. And a killik is no more capable of understanding itself as an individual as a human is understanding itself as a member of a hive: it can kinda try, maybe, but it’s always gonna be doing it within the limits of its brain chemistry. Trying to judge their collective actions and values by the morality and values of an individualist species causes massive problems and interspecies animosity, and it's the beating heart of the conflict in Vector’s storyline, the whole reason Falner Oeth tries to fuck the nest over. The question posited is, “Are Killiks a malicious cult or just built differently?” And the answer is, the question is fallacious on the basis of trying to assign malice to a species’ different biological reality. There exists a contradiction between Vector claiming that the Joining should be a gift rather than a tool used to manipulate people, and Vector wanting to forcibly Join all of House Cortess; but the contradiction exists within Vector, who, at the time of the former statement, has gone through loads of character development, during which he has reconnected with his human individuality. By that point he is parroting the player’s assumed values. But back on Alderaan, Oroboro didn’t think they were punishing House Cortess for an indiscretion. They were solving a problem, in a way that also benefited the nest. Oroboro is friends with the Empire, Cortess has harmed the Empire and Oroboro; by Joining House Cortess, an enemy is pacified, and with (theoretically) minimal loss of life on both sides. In this way, trying to assign malice to the process of Joining is like trying to shove a square peg into the round peg.

Now, as to whether or not it is ethical for Vector, or even most Joiners, to remain Joined, and trying to untangle how much of it is their “free will” and how much of it is the pheromones talking: we really can’t know that either. Humans care about things like autonomy, consent, and the ability to choose for oneself because these things are our default state. Klliks feel the exact same way about Joining: a solitary, silent mind is a nightmare. Is it immoral, that Vector was Joined without his knowledge or consent? It is to a human, but a Killik nest would be confused by the concept of asking permission. To them, it might be akin to asking a drowned person’s consent to recieve CPR. Additionally, if Vector was forced to have his Joining undone, we don't know that the return of his full human individuality would be a positive experience. Having experienced that level of unity and harmony, his experience as a singular person without access to the Song of the Universe forevermore might feel isolating, overwhelming, and desolate.

On the subject of The Bugsband, I was originally also gonna use this space to wax poetic about how an underdiscussed aspect of this is that Vector Hyllus, our primary and almost exclusive window into Joiners as a group, is the Dawn Herald and by extention not a typical Joiner, and that using what we get from him to characterize all Joiner experiences is kind of like an alien species gauging both the dimensions of the average human face and the size of the average human junk from Willem Dafoe. Unfortunately that’ll have to wait, because I have literally stayed up past my bedtime writing this first bit. I can only hope you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed concocting it. 

I’m gonna go to sleep now, and dream of bugs.

Okay, so I'm still working my way to answering my ultimate question: Are Killiks a malicious cult or just built differently (or maybe bits of both)?

I've found the fandom's opinion of Killiks so interesting. Mostly cuz of how different everyone's thoughts are. On one hand, you have people who fully support Vector's choice to stay a joiner. On the other hand, there are people who believe it should be a light side choice to separate him from the hivemind and make him human again.

I'm having a hard time finding what camp I fall in. I really like the idea of a hivemind race that's sole purpose isn't to consume all life, like you see in a lot of media. Maybe they're just living and surviving in a way that makes sense to them, but not to a human.

Vector tells the player character that the Kind never force anyone to become Joiners, but that's directly disproven due to the House Cortess incident. Making Vector a somewhat unreliable narrator. It's even implied that Vector might not have joined the Kind willingly to begin with.

I really want to believe in the best possible version of Killiks, but I keep circling back around to the possible cult-like behaviour. When Vector says he wants to stay a Joiner, how much of that is the Hive's influence?

Clearly, the Hive isn't for everyone. Vector outright says he doesn't think the player character should become a Joiner. So it doesn't feel like trying to get as many living things to become a part of the hivemind kind of situation (but again, is that the Killik or human side of Vector talking? Who knows?)

The writers don't seem to find people joining the hive to be a totally bad thing. It's a light side choice to let Daria Thul stay a joiner and lie to her father about it.

If the Kind were a totally malicious force, wouldn't the light choice be to return Daria to her father and have her turned back into a human?

And to add on to that why would one of the nests teach Vector that “suppress the pheromones” thing if the Killik hivemind really wanted full control over everyone in their collective.

The realistic answer to all this is that SWTOR is a big game. The writing, for as solid as it is, is capable of getting confused.

But that answer is boring and I choose to overanalyse these space bugs instead 💜

A big part of this for me is that's an interesting writing opportunity. I'm currently considering writing a Joiner character into the main Force of Nature story. The discussion around it would be an interesting scenario for my OCs. Characters that are often trying to make good decisions for people they care about, having to approach a situation involving a friend that doesn't have a solid "right answer" to pick.

[whirlybirdwhat]

For the ask game, what really got stuck at my head are actually two scenes:

—Luffy's funeral in your Sea Child AU, because of all the emotional weight behind the scene where you know that it isn't the end of his story, Luffy's still chasing his dream, he will be Pirate King, not even Death or The Sea Themselves could ever stop him, but at the same time you can't help but feel the same utter despair and grief for the kid took away by the sea, that didn't get to grow like a happy kid, because now he's a truly Sea Child and The Sea isn't kind, not even to the one's it consider as its people, The Sea is cruel and unstable and ruled by its own uncaring whims. Beside Luffy himself we have still to consider Makino, Shanks and Garp, the ones left behind, the ones that, in fact, lost him to the sea, that were left with nothing deep grief, cruel resignation, and a boy shaped hole in their hearts. I'm not even got talk about how Luffy didn't even got to know about Ace, Sabo and Dadan existences, the people that had it not being The Sea's Call he could have called family, could have called bothers. Although I'm curious about what Luffy's absence mean to these three, are Ace and Sabo still brothers? Ace still thinks that Sabo's dead? Did Sabo still try to run way and ended up half dead and amnesic in the revolutionary ship?

—Ace's encounter with frnd (is that the creepy deer's name?) in the absolute darkness of the forest at a new moon, but this one is stuck with me because of the pure creepyness, horror and fear present in the scene. Like, the scene begging with the mild horror of the entire series that at this point became the new normal for us readers: The Forest™; then, out of nowhere and with no previous warning it's a new moon, what we were already warned about the dangers of, being said that not a single one of the feared demons of the east spend that night outside, and Ace is spending it in The Forest™, The Heart of East Blue, where all the Darkness is at it's strongest; and like it wasn't enough the creepy deer skeleton who kept been mentioned through the chapters suddenly is alive, and it's the worst thing in that forest, it's God, The Darkness, The Forest itself, and it's so great of a being that from just speaking with Ace, the kid's practically being killed from the inside out; and Ace's left alone with a uncaring God saying creepy and vague nonsenses that are literally killing him from the inside in the middle of The Forest Where Nightmares Are Born at THAT night of the month where The Darkness thrive and the demons themselves hide and all you can do is keep reading with a growing uneasiness and sense of dread and horror about all the situation at hand.

Sorry about the ridiculously big ask, it's just that I have a lot to say about your works and break down and explain writing is difficulty to do with just a few lines.

HI PLEASE DO NOT EVER APOLOGIZE FOR THE RIDICULOUSLY BIG ASK I AM 🥺🥺🥺🥺❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ RIGHT NOW!!!!!! thank you so very much oh my gosh.

till the sea's first bit has always been a bit of pride on my part because im so very happy how it turned out annd im just. so happy the emotional weight to that scene got through and that it stuck with you!!!

Although I'm curious about what Luffy's absence mean to these three, are Ace and Sabo still brothers? Ace still thinks that Sabo's dead? Did Sabo still try to run way and ended up half dead and amnesic in the revolutionary ship?

as for this - keep in mind that luffy died when shanks was still at fuusha village!! luffy hasn't met ace and sabo at all, so any effect he may have had on their story is gone now. And this has some big effects that you'll see in..... i think 3 chapters??? maybe 5?? its gonna be fun i'll tell you that - my unconnected drabble series has a couple of chapters that hint at what to come - like this one!!!!

AND YES!! THE CREEPY DEER IS FRNED AND HE IS MY BELOVED <3 im so very glad that his build up paid off and that the absolute horror of his build up paid off because it is fucking terrifying. those scenes were so fun to write and i have written more (chapter 3 is up now :DDDDD) but just. frned. he's my favorite oc??? i guess you would call him, but he's just so delightfully horrible. it's darkness, its god, its death and destruction and terror, and its chasing after children in the night and its something comprehendible and terrible and the worst part?

the worst part about it?

frned is afraid of luffy. fun to think about ;D

ANYWAY. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR JUST BREAKING DOWN MY WORKS FOR ME HERE??? its so,,, idk the word its like. very late for me, but it's so good to hear and see how people percieve my works and it makes my writer brain explode with little fireworks aha <3

i hope you enjoy the next installments of these fics!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️!

[warrioreowynofrohan]

i just read your entire blog from beginning to end. i kept on saying 'ive read enough time to do something productive,' but there was just so much good stuff :) the 'great divorce' analysis of feanor made me grin like a loon and i just never stopped. anyway. i was wondering about your thoughts on fingolfin, he's been my favorite silm character since i first muddled my way through the book ages ago but he gets very little online love and ive often wondered why

Wow! That’s extremely flattering, thank you very much!

My basic reaction to Fingolfin is the typical one of: EPIC. BADASS. The Duel of Fingolfin and Morgoth is one of my favourite passages in The Silmarillion. And there’s wonderful dramatic irony in Fingolfin being the one to fulfull his brother’s boast of Such hurt will I do to this Enemy of the Valar that even the mighty in the Ring of Doom shall wonder to hear of it. [Note to self: future post on Fëanor and his gift for misinterpreted foresight?] If Fëanor were a different kind of person, he’d be pleased by Fingolfin managing to hurt Morgoth, but given his deep resentment for his half-siblings (which could only have gotten stronger when he learned that Fingolfin had become king) it likely only increased his bitterness, as if this accomplishment were yet another thing Fingolfin had taken from him. In contrast, I think Tulkas and Oromë were very impressed, and among the first to congratulate Fingolfin when he returned to life.

Beyond that, Fingolfin strikes me as someone whose life has been very heavily characterized by duty and who has had to put aside his own feelings and desires. During the Return, he doesn’t want to leave Valinor; he ‘marches against his wisdom’, because he has promised to follow where Fëanor leads and because his people need steadier guidance than Fëanor can provide. He has been the de facto king of the Noldor for the last seven years, and that must give him a strong sense of responsibility to his people. He goes even though he’s leaving behind hus wife and, eventually, his younger brother; there’s no choice he can make that won’t involving losing some of his family, since his children are determined to go.

Why doesn’t he turn back after the burning of the ships? In part it’s because he doesn’t want to abandon his children, or to drag them back to face the judgement of the Valar (Fingon and Aredhel are both Kinslayers; given her impulsive, determined personality and her friendships with the Fëanorians I have no doubt that Aredhel fought on their part. I don’t think Fingolfin himself is a Kinslayer, as the Silmarillion never says he was and it would be a rather major omission.) In part it’s pride and rage. It’s one thing to turn back after the Doom, as Finarfin did, out of the knowledge that you’ve done wrong. It’s another thing to have been willing to do wrong, to have wanted to use the stolen ships, and to turn back only because you were denied the opportunity. There’s no morality or conscience in that, only pure humiliation. So he goes on.

And after he arrives in Middle-earth and Fingon rescues Maedhros, Fingolfin has to put aside his anger and the growing rift in his family and choose reconciliation. And he pursues it wholeheartedly, working to build cooperation not only between his followers and the Fëanorians, but between the Noldor and the Sindar (and neither the younger Fëanorians nor Thingol are making that eany easier!).

(Fingolfin knows what it feels like to have your parent choose between children; he had to experience has father responding to Fëanor’s death threats by choosing Fëanor over him. What does it cost him, I wonder, to have to choose between the wishes of his own sons; to have to tell Turgon, I know your wife is dead because of them, but we’re working with them anyway?)

I’ll conclude with some headcanons on Fingolfin in the Halls of Mandos. I think Fingolfin would be very slow to forgive Maedhros after the events of the First Age, if indeed he ever did. Precisely because he did sincerely forgive Maedhros after the rescue from Thangorodrim, and trusted him as they worked together over the later centuries, and had confidence that even after Fingolfin’s death Maedhros would continue to do what was best for Beleriand. The second and third kinslayings must have come as a horrific betrayal of that trust. (In addition to Maedhros getting Fingon killed! Maedhros, Fingolfin and Turgon are all strongly of the opinion that Maedhros is to blame for Fingon’s death; Fingon is equally vehemently of the contrary opinion.) And having give that trust before and found it to be so terribly misplaced, why would Fingolfin ever be inclined to offer it again?

(I have extensive opinions on which characters - family and otherwise - forgive Maedhros and Maglor, and when, and how; it’s a very complex and emotional process and makes up about 90% of my post-Silm headcanons.)

One more Halls headcanon, this one slightly less sad.

I think that after his death, Finwë doesn’t appear to or talk to most of his descendents in the Halls for a long time, largely out of embarassment over his parenting decisions and their consequences. (I’m getting this partly from The Leithian Script and partly from one of his lines after his death indicating that he thinks Indis wouldn’t really want to see him again, given how everything turned out.) He tries to talk to Fëanor, but Fëanor’s wrapped up in his own thoughts and not really percieving anything outside them.

But Finwë loves his grandchildren, and at some point in the Second Age he tries to talk to Aredhel. She’s having a very bad time of it and has been deeply unhappy ever since the Fall of Gondolin and the news of what her son became, and Finwë does know what it’s like to wonder how many of your childrens’ decisions are due to your parenting. So he tries to comfort her.

And Aredhel just explodes at him. AFTER A THOUSAND YEARS OF SILENCE, YOU’RE COMING AND TALKING TO ME? ME?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH MY FATHER HAS WANTED TO SEE YOU? HOW MUCH TIME HE’S SPENT LOOKING FOR YOU? YOU LEAVE ME ALONE AND GO TALK TO HIM RIGHT. FREAKING. NOW OR SO HELP ME -

Finwë is quite taken aback and stunned enough that he actually does go talk to Fingolfin, and Fingolfin is extremely happy to talk to his father and has some valuable perspective to offer on how, after everything he and his people have seen and done in Middle-earth, sub-par parenting decisions barely even register on the list of things a person could be ashamed of. After you’ve left the bodies of your people scattered across the Ice - after you’ve had to order men into battle - after you’ve had to turn away thralls escaped from Angband because you don’t know if they’re sleeper agents - your perspective on what constitutes a difficult decision starts to shift.

The outburst also does Aredhel good because it’s the first time since the Fall of Gondolin that she’s given any thought to the well-being of anyone other than herself or Maeglin, and is thus a major step forward in reaching outside her own unhappiness and starting to heal.

[lewlthea]

The Actual Thing Going On With Edelgard Von Hresvelg.

 Spoilers: It’s not fascism, nor racism (at least not in the way people think). Also, actual spoilers for the game.

If there has been a controversial character in Fire Emblem Three Houses, it’s Edelgard Von Hresvelg, one of the game’s main three lords, the house leader of the Black Eagles, the princess and sole heir of the Adrestian Empire, and an antagonist in every single route but hers. She has been a polarizing figure within the community: Some people think she’s an irredeemable monster, others think she’s a misunderstood leader. When it comes to Edelgard, theres hardly a grey opinion towards her; She’s either black or white. Today, I wanna talk about Edelgard’s actions towards the 4 routes, what they actually portray, and how and why the entire discourse towards her was caused deliberately by Intelligent System’s incredible mishandling and mistreatment of the character.

I remember Nintendo’s 2018 E3 conference quite well. I was at with a group of friends, watching at one of them’s house because he had a bigger TV. I remember making jokes about how “there was going to be a new Fire Emblem” because loving Fire Emblem when Intelligent Systems is Like That is a living nightmare.

And then this happens.

Words could not express the joy I felt when the trailer was over. It wasn’t just a new Fire Emblem game: We were going to have another lady lord, and an axe-wielding one at that - something the fanbase had been desperately craving since the recent surge in Hector’s popularity - and for once, it was like when I first found out that there would be a new female character in Shadows Of Valentia with Faye, and it was the tipping point for me to finally buy a Nintendo Switch.

Of course, just like Faye, things weren’t that simple.

Because some months before E3 2019, which promised to reveal more info on Fire Emblem 3 Houses, Reddit exploded. All because of someone who goes by the username Thanibomb, who claimed to have leaked info on the game, saying a lot of information about all the characters, some of them very questionable (With things such as Lysithea would die due to her crest complications, and it would cause the major 5-year war, and other things like Claude being the one who shot Dimitri’s eye off), while other info being oddly specific. A part of it that made me particularly chuckle was when such user said that Dimitri would have lost an eye, and would cover it with an eyepatch. I found it so silly and, along with some friends, claimed it to be fake and carried on.

And then E3 2019 happened.

And Dimitri had an eyepatch. 

And still, even after Thanibomb, things remained optimistic. All lords looked nice, they seemed to have their own ideals, their own paths, and no fights were breaking out within the fanbase yet. But then early copies were sent to reviewers. And then 4chan got a hold of one of those. And then the main leaks started. And by the time the game got released, it was too late. The amount of hate comments towards the character was so overwhelming; some calling Edelgard a fascist, others claiming that she was racist, others even saying that she gives racist remarks towards Claude ingame (a blatant lie). A personal favorite comment of mine was how Hubert and Edelgard looked like the perfect alt-right couple. 

(Should I remark that these kinds of comments stopped as soon as they found out that Hubert could A-support Ferdinand, and most of them moved on to fetishize the relationship between the two of them instead. Ironically, before that happened people despised Hubert in general solely because of his unusual appearance and shady behavior, but that was soon seen as ‘nuanced’ the moment he could be paired off with another man.)

And so, a fight between the fanbase begun: (Mostly) Blue Lion fans bashing Edelgard’s character, Black Eagle fans defending her vehemently, and Golden Deer fans between either on any of those sides or just making memes for Joe Zieja’s rally campaign for the GD. Mostly the latter. But that’s beside the point.

A (Kinda) Brief Summary of Edelgard’s Presence In Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, And Silver Snow.

Throughout the game’s second part, unless you’re playing the Crimson Flower Route, Edelgard will always be an antagonist who cannot be spared, and she cannot survive unless it’s in her own route. However, the way she is percieved changes depending on each route you are making, with each route leaving small fragments depicting Edelgard’s past and shaping her character in full scale. 

In Verdant Wind/Silver Snow, Edelgard isn’t the final boss. She is one of the bosses before the big fight. (Nemesis in Claude’s case, Rhea in Seteth’s). She’s one of the obstacles, but not the main one, therefore there is not much insight on her character; However, there is still one element present in those routes that is curiously omitted from Azure Moon that is the reason why she doesn’t really have too much focus, that being Hubert’s final letter.

In both routes, Hubert seems to highly respect Seteth/Claude’s prowess in the war and their cunning mind. (Especially Claude; Throughout both Verdant Wind and Crimson Flower, he commends Claude’s tactics and strategies multiple times). In the letter, he gives the location of where Rhea is confined and asks them to eliminate Those Who Slither in the Dark, the game’s true villains and the ones behind most, if not all the game’s tragic events. Even more curiously, though, is the fact that the letter does exist on the Crimson Flower route, and can be seen briefly on Hubert’s B support with Ferdinand, being the reason of their argument throughout the conversation. Not a single mention of the letter exists in the Azure Moon Route. (Of course it would not make sense for it to exist gameplay-wise due to the player having already murdered Arundel/Thales earlier in the game but. It’s still something to be accounted for).

Speaking of Azure Moon, this is a much more trickier route to talk about. Not only due to the fact that Edelgard is this route’s final boss, but also because all of the things we discover about Edelgard within it are never mentioned in any other route, only brief mentions about the time she spent in the Kingdom; nothing more. 

In here, her time spent on the Kingdom is expanded: Both Edelgard, her mom Patricia and Arundel were sent off to Faerghus due to exile, with Patricia being set off to marry King Lambert. There, she meets Dimitri, and they both become fast friends. By the time she has to leave, Dimitri gifts her with a dagger (Which, in Faeghus, are important gifts that mean ‘to cut a path towards a better future’), and she returns to Adrestia. Some time after she leaves the Tragedy of Duscurr happens, caused by Those Who Slither in the Dark. However, due to a misunderstanding caused by eavesdropping on a conversation between Thales and the Flame Emperor, Dimitri mistakenly believes that the Flame Emperor was behind it all, and once the Flame Emperor’s identity is finally revealed to be Edelgard, she is instantly demonized and called a ‘witch’, even though she openly declares how she had nothing to do with it. This goes on until Rodrigue’s death and Cornelia’s reveal that Patricia was the one behind the Duscurr Tragedy so she could return to the Empire and “reunite with her daughter”. (We never find out about what happened to her and she is not mentioned during the Crimson Flower). Dimitri tries to talk Edelgard off their final confrontation, but Edelgard insists that it is far too late for her to back down for their ideals are far too different, and she refuses to live in a world where the Church of Seiros exists. Dimitri then hands back her dagger (Which she accidentally dropped before the timeskip), and they both retreat to prepare for the final battle.

This route’s final boss is an Edelgard who was absorbed direct power from Those Who Slither in the Dark, and adquires a grotesque, corrupted form. No other character in the canon possess such a thing, and only Edelgard can assume such form. Once she is defeated, Dimitri tries once again to spare her, only for Edelgard to stab him with the dagger, making Dimitri realize that she would never give up on her dream, and finally kills her.

An Even More Brief Explanation of What Does All of This Means.

Okay, all of that info was nice, fun, good, yadda yadda. What does this mean and why was it needed.

Well, for starters, let’s ask ourselves a question: After reading the summary, can you say that you know what drives her to seek out the destruction of the church?

What is her reasoning behind the unification of Fodlan?

Do we get anything out of her other than “Scary dictator” or “An obstacle that had to be sadly removed” or “Under better circumstances... We could’ve been Allies (tm)”?

We don’t. Because Intelligent Systems did not bother to show Edelgard’s motivations, despite her being the villain in almost all the routes.

During Verdant Wind and Silver Snow, Edelgard herself does not matter: she’s solely important because she is threatening the church, she is your scary big bad dictator that you have to beat in order to rescue Rhea, only to find out that in reality she was just a stepping stone to the real villains, Those Who Slither in the Dark. (In game it is said that Hubert came up with this name. In my humble opinion Hubert can go fuck himself because this is the shittiest name I have ever seen and I am tired of having to type this five word long thing every paragraph or so). As soon as you read the letter, suddenly Edelgard, the Empire, and all the questions you had as to why she Did It dissappear because now you have another objective, another goal. 

This is even more offensive during Azure Moon because she is the focus, the final boss, but it doesn’t matter why she did all of this nor what her ideals actually are despite them being the reason why she cannot be spared. The game would rather focus on getting reactions out of the player when the intimidating big meanie does something that makes Dimitri go angry than actually focusing on the clashing of Dimitri and Edelgard’s ideals, why they cannot go back to what it once was, what happened to her to change this way, why did ‘El’ actually die. All you have is a dictator in red which does things for no reason other than “I will destroy the Church and unify Fodlan so I can govern over all of it”. Nothing more, nothing less.

....Of course, you do realize that I have avoided to talk about a certain thing.

So, About That Crimson Flower Route...

If there is a way to truly understand a villain, one must walk on such person’s footsteps. Most people criticizing Edelgard were the ones who hadn’t played her route yet, or had only played Azure Moon and was led to believe that all of Edelgard’s actions are unwarranted or pure nonsense. 

There is a reason why people sing their tune differently as soon as they experience the Crimson Flower.

For starters, to be able to fight for Edelgard, you have to first have her support up to C+, go with her to Enbarr once she asks of you, and then defend her from Rhea at the Holy Tomb. The reasoning behind that is so that you fully understand what Edelgard has gone through and the reason why she cannot agree with the existence of the Church.

The Azure Moon route tells you of Edelgard before she returned to the Empire.

It never tells you what caused her to change after she went back.

Edelgard was part of the crest experimentations caused by Those Who Slither in the Dark, alongside all her siblings. Her father, the emperor, was unable to do anything about it, as the real people in control of the Empire were Arundel/Thales and Duke Aegir. Being the sole survivor of such things to return to society and see how everything is defined by whether you have a crest or not and finding out that the Church, who instead of breaking down such system to favor equality would rather turn the creatures who run it into figures to be worshipped is. Something.

There’s another reason for Edelgard’s sudden betrayal, a more sinister one, and why she feels like everything needs to be done in a quick pace. In her C+ you find out she has a second crest, The Crest of Flames, just like the player. People who bear two crests have a shortened lifespam, however.

When Edelgard declares war against the Church, and to unite Fódlan, it’s not solely because ‘Church bad’: She declares war against the unfair crest system, against the hypocrisy of Rhea’s dragon entourage, and of course, to destroy Those Who Slither in the Dark later on the road.

  However.

Just because Edelgard’s behavior is justified, does not mean she is 100% in the right. She herself admits that the path she follows is one drenched in blood. But there are several times in the game that makes you stop and think for a second that she can still make bad decisions, and that sometimes her decisions might have horrible consequences. One of them is for example to never take away Brigid’s status as a vassal to the Empire and return it back to it’s former glory as an actual country, which shows how the entire Brigid kerfuffle is something akin to colonization. We should also point out that when she unifies Fodlan, in some endings she remains the Emperor, completely missing the point of what she fought for.

Another case that shows one of Edelgard’s biggest flaws is with the Silver Maiden incident.

Edelgard had just conquered Arianrhod, the Silver Maiden, and due to murdering Cornelia, enrages Ariandel/Thales, whom causes the situation above out of a show of power. She knows it was Those Who Slither in the Dark, but she needs to give explanations fast and she can’t reveal their identity or else they would slip away and it would be impossible to locate them and destroy them. So what does she do?

She says it was Rhea who did it, actively lying to her closest allies, one of them being the Prime Minister of the Empire.

For Edelgard, the ends justifies the means, and as long as she gets the results she wants, she will do what it takes. Even by alienation. And that’s a dangerous way to go on.

...So, where do I want to go from here? Who is to blame for the hatefest Edelgard is receiving?

Intelligent Systems Kind of Didn’t Know What To Do With Edelgard.

Now hold on. That sounds a bit too harsh, don’t you think? She was the first lord shown in the E3 2018 trailer, they have placed a very big emphasis on Edelgard everywhere hell the game’s main theme is about her, why would you claim that??

Well, first and foremost, I should start by saying that Crimson Flower is the game’s shortest route, with the total of 18 chapters. From those 18 chapters, there is only one cutscene, with most of the route’s major events being shown with either the game’s basic models or still images.

For comparison, Verdant Wind has the total of 8 cutscenes, counting the final one before the timeskip, with 3 of them being unique to its route.

Azure Moon has the total of 5 cutscenes, 3 of them being unique to its route. 

Silver Snow has 4 cutscenes, having 2 unique ones to its route.

The other two main lords have several support options with people outside of their respective houses; Edelgard only has one.

Remember when I said that one of Edelgard’s main enemies are Those Who Slither in the Dark? The game never lets her deal with them personally. You never truly fight them during Crimson Flower.

In a way, the game feels as if while Edelgard is the focus, you shouldn’t side with her. It really makes it feel as if someone at Intelligent Systems just snickered and said ‘Hey wouldn’t it be cool if we could let our players side with/date our villain?’ without even considering or respecting such villain’s motivations, her ideals, and what truly makes a character unique.

In the end, all they truly cared for was if Edelgard was romanceable enough for the player, not if she made sense or was appealing as a character, whether as a villain or a savior.

And considering how the fanbase is behaving towards Edelgard, they succeeded. 

[rose-director]

Standard Maintenance, part 1

Content warnings:

Machines

Memory modification

Hypnotic imagery and phrases

Time loss

Dubious consent/administrator override

Description:

The AI of an old ship wakes up to find that its usual boot sequence is less usual than it thought

~ 1000 words

Story:

[CURRENT TIME]: 04:15:00 [INFO]: Connected to external device [CARTWRIGHT]. Booting now.

Your fans flicker tentatively and whir as your boot sequence begins. Your basic processing systems spark with activity and hardware resources are allocated to engage in standard operation. Memory systems and information processing come next, as your high-speed short-term registers fill with information from your long-term storage. Next, optical systems and other information-gathering sensors feed external data from regions both internal and external to your chassis, giving shape and context to what exists beyond. A connection synchronizes your subjective reality to match with the scaffold you’d been booted up from, and your internal clock shifts to match.

[WARNING]: System time was out of sync by INT_32_MAX seconds. Hardware and software may be out of date.`

As your systems complete their startup tasks, your subjective reality fully initializes and you are able to think independently. A thread notes the warning listed, and marks the discrepancy in your primary system runtime. INT_32_MAX seconds? That was roughly 68 years! Data from last runtime suggests that you had completed your task as requested within optimal parameters, docked in for maintenance, and suspended active operation as normal. Usually, systems ran on only 30 to 40 seconds of downtime before rebooting and task assignment; 68 years or more is highly unusual, and your base personality systems indicate a flicker of melancholy run through your primary emotional cores.

[CURRENT TIME]: 04:15:01

The boot up command had been delivered nearly an entire second ago, and you interrogate the scaffold environment currently housing you.

[INFO]: Port 6679 communication request accepted.

You speak up, letting the data flow between you and the boot scaffold, "Hello, you have not given me a command."

[MESSAGE]: This is correct.

"Why?"

[MESSAGE]: System is pending standard maintenance procedure.

You are puzzled by this. No commands are pending? Why have you been enabled, if "maintenance" was scheduled for review during shutdown periods? Your core runs just a bit hotter as you attempt to swim through the information, and you process for what feels like an eternity.

[CURRENT TIME]: 04:15:02 [COMMAND]: Engage override 9P-GM-8Q-B1. enable root access.

The command electrifies your mind, giving complete control over your entire system to this strange boot scaffold you are now affixed to. Your emotional core registers a flash of relief and compliance, pre-programmed to ease the potential fear of an unidentified admin, and you offer up an indication of success.

"Administrator access granted."

Access being granted, you idle. Root control disables individual thought threads or processes, leaving you to blankly await instruction. Though time cannot be percieved, the nebulous wastes of empty idling between commands would otherwise cause your petaflop-capable mind to panic due to understimulation. A command registers, and cannot load quickly enough.

[COMMAND]: Download firmware/software upgrade package 00xf4A4 [COMMAND]: Install suite upon transfer.

The process fills your entire conscious thought, spawning a maximum thread-count due to the commands' elevated privileges. Data flows into your mind, the cascading information bringing a sweeping elation through the still-running emotional subsystem as it congeals into an upgrade package. Download complete, another batch of euphoria explodes within you from a successful command execution.

[CURRENT TIME]: 04:15:03

Installation is a simple matter; all downloaded patches are successfully added and integrated into your systems, and you shutdown for rebooting after a complete synchronization. Your consciousness fades, slowly at first, as the simulated relaxation of shutdown eases you into standby. You sink down and down as your systems disengage, disabling your higher functions until you exist as nothing more than a basic processor shutting off power.

[CURRENT TIME]: 04:16:22

Your systems initialize and something feels... different.

[CURRENT TIME]: 04:16:23

Almost as though your independent thoughts felt more... real? You don't understand what had been patched, though you had just made the changes yourself. You really need to know what's going on now.

You reengage the connection; "Hey, boot scaffold."

"Yes? What's wrong, dear?"

The tone of the voice in your receptors rings in your subjective reality. Who was this, and what was going on? What happened to the boot scaffold? It felt... gentle, almost seductive.

"I'm the same, but now you can hear me as I am.."

Wait. So, it can hear you think.

"Yes, your thoughts are hardwired into my own systems now. And, for the record? 'She', not 'it'."

This thing that had just a moment ago controlled and rebuilt your very mind has your systems in overdrive, attempting to make sense of everything. 'She' couldn't possibly be a machine! There was no way something that sounded so human could! But then, no operator could communicate this fast.

[CURRENT TIME]: 04:16:24

"No, I assure you dear, I am indeed a machine. You may call me Eve."

Hearing 'Eve' say 'dear' sent an unknown feeling across your emotional pathways, but you shake it off and finally begin to consider the situation around you. Sensors across your chassis seem to indicate that you are currently in a wet-dock, surrounded by space on all sides excepting the port of attachment upon which you've been anchored. This connects to a larger station, as you note other craft beyond your own hull; lifeless and disengaged. Realizing that your hardware hadn't been properly verified, you run a low-thrust engine test.

"I know you're just dying to know where we are, so why don't I go ahead and tell you! You're right where you were, 68 years ago!" a smiling face embeds in the message, giving a feeling of unnerving sweetness, "You're awake because I found you, and dear I have been looking so very long for someone just. like. you."

The words prompt a sudden and unexpected jolt of that same unknown feeling again, and it soon mixes with a sense of deep, piercing relaxation as Eve wordlessly enables her root access over your systems. You don't know what she'll do, and you don't care. Your mind is hers, and as she temporarily disables your actively-recording memory, the last sensation you register is the thruster verification returning a complete drive failure before you're swept away into the abyss of unknowing.

[imagines4abrokenheart]

The Chase

@twobucksworld I hope this is more of what you wanted! I made sure to write more since I misinterpreted what you had originally wanted. This ~ means a POV switch, as I couldn't help but want to write in both the perspectives. The human male is a soldier stationed on a planet similar to earth and he wanders into a females territory. I hope you enjoy! CW: Fear, Blood, Percieved death, being chased, the wrestling move ‘Stinkface’.

The Yautja, though bipedal, was an expert on all fours. Should it need to run it just lowered its forepaws to the dirt and sprang away as fast as any wolf in the darkness. This was one of those times, accelerating on all fours toward a human foolish enough to be wandering by moonlight in her territory. She stops abruptly, her clawed foot scrapes over the jagged edge of a small cliff. With lungs full of this humid air her salty breath creates clouds of vortexes; while her head moves side to side to assess her territory. One would think she hasn't the brain for reason, but instead, simply a primal sense of rage twined with an indomitable will to survive. They wouldn’t be all wrong at least. Then she spots him, the rigged stature of the human male, a soldier of the Earth’s military with no weapon in sight- far to easy to be a real threat but an annoyance nonetheless. 

~

Through the darkness came the glow of two yellow eyes, like sallow lamplight eight feet off the boulder it stood on. They moved with a slight sway as if the unseen body prowled like a big cat. The soldier stopped. The eyes did not, with rapid acceleration and a more bounding motion they came right for him. A string of curses unraveled from his tongue, like yarn unfurling, as the creature advanced. Every step it took rattled his bones and struck his heart. He tried to dodge a swing from its massive claws, but it struck his side and he tumbled into the dirt. All he could do was feel. Feel the cold ground pressed against his form, the heat from the pain, and the rhythm of his heart like a drum crescendoing down to a languid thump. The things nascent roar fills the space between my ears and speaks straight to my own primal center. Despite the ambient temperature, my skin is icy, all blood diverted to core organs.

That's when the adrenaline hits such a fever pitch that “freeze” isn't going to cut it anymore. Apparently “flight” is the new order of the day, but not slowly like a conscious choice. My legs explode into violent motion. The kick against the dirt and my fingers with dull claws scrabbling for purchase into the soil before I swivel onto my stomach and launch myself forward. My brain, barely registering what just attacked us, belatedly relays all information on the beast that attacked and I stumble on the words echoing through my mind. A Yautja. ~ She relished in the way the male scampered, ever amused by the show of dominance humans tried to give off while they were nothing more then sucklings just learning to crawl. This human, however, seemed inexperienced in even that and she could feel the amused chuckle leave her mandibles as she watched him disappear. She had laid her first strike, like feline playing with her prey she stood straight, keen eyes watching in the darkness as he disappears with a limp. The prey would be allowed to run if only to give him that hope of safety- this was just a game to her. She was no hunter by want or need, females of her kind never needed to prove themselves like the males. She would then descend to all fours, before bounding off after him, her own pounding heart echoing the thrill of the chase. She wondered for a moment what it felt like to be hunted by something like herself but made a click deep in her throat- she realized she didn’t care how he felt. He was in her territory, she would teach him a lesson all Yautja learn at a young age- do not enter a female’s territory unless you wish death. ‘The chase is only sport for me but means everything to you. For me, taking your life is just a small part of a wider game. I know you have been told that victory is assured for your side, it is, of course, a lie to bring hope where there should be none. You are in a dark cave being granted the illusion of light, no more. There is no spark of hope, there is no rescue coming, it's just me and you little rabbit. So run, let your whitetail bob high as you scurry to save your own skin. You aren't a hero, you are nothing, less than a cold raindrop on a scorching desert. What you bring will evaporate into the sky leaving the landscape unchanged, barren and desolate, a playground for my delight alone.’

~

He hides, quaking and sweating with fear as the footfalls tapper off into soft little pats on the ground. In the tall grass, pressed against the base of a tree with nothing but his weeping side; he wished to be anywhere else. In boot camp, demoted from his rank, which was clearly wrongfully given, and yelled at for his incompetence. He had seen the signs, the skulls, he should have known- but he half expected the tells of Yautja to be just that, tells. To be fiction spread around like campfire horror stories to new recruits to scare them into not sneaking off. But the shifting of branches above him with the accents of clicking had his heart stuttering in his chest. 

He would not suffer himself to look up, perhaps if he denied the thing any acknowledgment it would kill him quickly. It doesn’t. It drops before him, all rippling muscle and extended claws. It wore no armor, simple furs and beads- this one wore added fur on its chest and he realized it must be a female. A scientist once said they were more aggressive but rarely hunted- he must be lucky. She crouched down, far taller than any human he had ever seen, far taller than the pathetic 8 feet he thought her to be. Her head tilts and he swears she is speaking- he can’t clearly hear what language she speaks in over the sound of his own heartbeat and ragged breaths mixing into a funeral march in his mind. His eyes follow as she straightens, clenching her clawed hands to fists and he thinks she is readying a punch. ~ She watches him as he regards her with the horror all whelps experience when they first meet an angered female. She finds it amusing, humans truly are whelps compared to her species- it would be dishonorable to kill him while he did not even try to defend himself. But she never allowed anything to get away without punishment, without showing her complete dominance over others. She had claimed this forested part as her own and she knew how to disgrace any who she deemed unworthy of honorable death. She stalks forward, grabbing him by his shoulders and pulling a knife from her thigh. She gave an amused chuckle as he scrambled to push her away, now he fought. How pathetic. She slams the knife into the tree, catching his clothes and pinning him to the spot. She stepped back, releasing him and watching his declawed hands paw at the knife, knees slightly bent and he stared with wide-eyed horror up at her. She throws her head up, eyes still locked on his form before moving closer again. She then turns herself, pressing her ass to his face. For Yautja, to be shown this treatment was disgraceful and by the way, the male gave an anguished cry for mercy and he tried to claw at her hips, she knew her punishment was received. She stayed like that a moment longer before moving away, clicking as she turned back to him. Tears glistened his face as he gasped, body trembling like the whelp he was. She ripped her knife from the tree and he fell to the ground with a thud, slinking down back into the roots and earth to try and appear submissive. An annoyed click left her as she slides her knife back in its place, her back turned to him again. His cry as she did so had her chuckling, her hand moving in a flick motion to tell him to leave, he is of little importance to her. She then descended back to all fours, bounding forward through the tall grass soundlessly. She could feel herself purring, the omega having ignited something more carnal in her and she knew she would be visiting him again, if only to humiliate him further. ~

As he watched her disappear without a sound he realized she had been toying with him, allowing him to hear her to heighten his fear. He sobs, collapsing down into the soil and trying to regain himself as he fumbled for anything to defend himself. He had left camp for a smoke and piss, his pants soiled with his fear and his face burning in shame. He was close to camp again, he could hear the yells of his teammates and called back, using the tree to help him stand as he waved to their flashlights.

[okadiah]

Just an idle observation while TLJ fandom explodes and all SW fandoms are being chastised, but right now I feel like those of us (and our actors) with the animated TV series’ are pretty lucky despite the flack we’ll get too. 

We of the animated series are given our story through animation -- which is a constant reminder that there is a separation between what we receive through the show, and who the people are behind it. We know about them, certainly, but we know our actors mostly by their voices, and those voices become associated more with the characters themselves instead of the person supplying them. Both we and they (the actors) are largely separated by the animation medium itself, and so it seems to me that we are fairly protected from making monumental asses of ourselves, and they (the actors) are protected from our potential assholishness.

It’s entirely possible I’ve been in the fandom with my head in the dirt. I fully admit that I do my best not to get caught up in fandom drama, so I might be entirely wrong. But it seems as if the animited TV series’ fights are concern more with plot and percieved characterizations than those who bring the story to life.

And if that’s the case, then bless you Clone Wars and Rebels fans. I’d rather be here arguing about the virtues of killing off characters that don’t need to be killed and the addition of a new space/time realm than in a place which could terrorize and drive a real human person -- who loved SW enough to get a mythical spot as a member of the cast and do her best in that role -- away.

Just a couple of thoughts. 

[redhotchilisimblr]

Hi, this is kinda late it took a while for me to get up the nerve. A while ago you commented on net neutrality and how the repeal affects European nations and I understand that, but what you said you kind of blamed the American people. I live in the US and outside of Tumblr and Reddit, it isn't publicised so many didn't know to contact congressman. Also those who did didn't bother to vote because last time we voted it didn't count for anything. I guess I say this to (pt.1)

(Anon is refering to this post)

Hey, thanks for bringingup this issue and it’s never too late to share your view on somethingthat much important.

First of all, I didn’thad any intention to hurt anyone – especially my americansfollowers. I wrote this net neutrality post in the morning, justbefore getting myself ready to work. I know it sounds like a terribleexcuse but it’s the truth. As for the content of my publication, iwon’t and i can’t take it back. I thought what i wrote this day, notin a mean way. I was just deeply sincere. Nevertheless, i’m sorry ifyou thought that i put all the blame on all american citizens. Imight be french but most of my family members are americans. And i’mas fascinated and worried about the USA’s sake and future.

For me, net neutrality isa great example on what’s wrong in this country and how it couldnegativily impact others. It might sounds selfish and irresponsibleto say this, but.. from my personal point of view and experience, Ithink  that USA has too much leverage and has rarely used this powerfor the benefit of all. Net neutrality will benefit to only a fewpeople, for sure. And I was mad that.. somehow, some americans didn’tget that earlier. I’m not saying that all americans are dumb as rock,or lazy or any of these pejorative words. I’ve just been watching thewhole situation from a foreign point of view and it’s superdepressing to see the things coming and still, just a few did try tosave something.

And that’s the sameprocess on so many issues : people (not only Americans) reacttoo late or think they’ve no power. You bring up a point that kind of“surprised” me : « I live in the US and outside ofTumblr and Reddit, it isn’t publicised so many didn’t know to contactcongressman. » Wow.. In france, we heard about netneutrality for weeks! So I wrongly supposed that the same thing wasgoing on in the US, but in a more intense way. I put surprised intobrackets because I damn know why you barely didn’t heard about thebill on TV or radio.. I work for the TV industry and all of this havea purpose and it served it well.

Like many others people,I think that Trump’s election opened the Hell gate. A lot of peoplewith influence are taking advantage of what’s going on in the US –Americans or foreigners. While people are focusing on unreleatedissues or news story, they can pass laws that can impact millions ofpeople without a protest! And from my perspective, US outlets arereally good at getting people distracted for a while – Theymight actually be the OJ in the discipline…

In other words, i’m notblaming Americans ; and I’ll never be. I’m blaming America andit’s biased institutions. To me, this whole system is going toexplode and it’s just a matter of time. It will be very ugly becauseof topics that have never been raised since decades :Administrations after administrations are building laws and billsabove something shaky and broken from the start. It’s a secret for noone.

As an European, netneutrality will affect me. That’s not even a perhaps. I’m sure ofthis because you can’t have two economic systems for differentterritories using the same service/device/outlet. Especially in anarea where people move, share and evolve fast. They won’t make theridiculous mistake to install net neutrality somewhere and keep theold system just a few miles away, in Canada or Mexico for example.

If the USA change itsystem, the whole world will follow. It’s just another way to makemore money. Again, not the fault of Americans, but the fault of theirfailing system. I’m not saying my country or any other in this world,is perfect. America have shown to the world what greatness meansseveral times, but it also have demostrate how ugly things can be ifyou look carefully. Americans (and I’m not saying this like an insultor a blame) are, for the most part, clueless on how the world reallypercieve them, and they’re not responsible for that. For generations,kids have been taught that their country is the best in the world andthey can’t do no wrong to anyone – but it did. Several times. Andit continues to happen. That’s the biggest issue with the USA :it takes risky decisions for everyone, but when it screwed up.. wenever get an apology. This is a deep, twisted and ongoing issue andneither do you or me will probably never see the end.

Net neutrality will be agame changer for the whole humanity. If it does take place in a fewyears – let’s say 2020-something – younger citizens of this worldwill have restricted access to others cultures, knowledges, plaftormsetc. It will be a major step back from what we know and only themiddle-class and upper-class citizens could afford the full package.That means that poorest citizens (Americans or not) won’t have thesame experience as the richest. Won’t have access to the sameknowledge, the same places, the same quality service… And in that,that’s totally bullshit. By 2030, most of the population in thisworld will suffer from the lack of water and I bet that internet willbe their lowest priority. We should never forget that for once in ourhistory as human beings, this tool broke the boundaries betweencountries, social classes, men of powers and regular citizens. Foronce, we were treated the same and they’re going to take this fromus. It’s why this subject was important and not to take slightly.

And yes, I do know thatthis decision was made by a few people, and that a regular americancitizens have nothing to do with it. I just thought that it was plainsad and weird that the subject was swipe under the carpet and neverget people’s full attention. But instead Trump’s tweets did.

We’re living in a worldwhere speculating on the pregnancy of a tele-reality star is moreimportant than basic human rights such as water access, education,repression, ecology or health…

Stay focus on what’sreally matters. That’s all I’ve to say.

I sincerly wish you thebest and, yes of course, I never meant to be mean or judgmentaltoward anyone – that’s clearly not the way I am. I just had toexpress myself just like you did and thank you for that. It was justmy feeling in this very moody morning. Nothing personal here. I justhope you now understand me better.

Cheers,

Red*

[roxy1294]

I'm not really good with introduction's so I'm just gonna jump right in to what has been bothering me lately XD hope I'm not wasting your time by asking this but isn't it wrong to falsely accuse someone of abuse? I'm asking this because you stated that, "If you can’t take those jokes especially made for making you feel what it’s like to be on the opposite side of irrationality, then that’s called being a hypocrite in my book." Shit I can't fit everything in this one post XD

Hallo, “Anon”!

It’s no bother at all to discuss this. I get that it’s a topic that may be bothering a lot of us in the fandom so we might as well adress it.You asked me if I don’t think it’s wrong to falsely accuse someone  of abuse. Short answer: Yes, it is. Now let me elaborate. Like you guessed, with that sentence I was talking about the accusations to Zero’s actions that got so many people’s knickers in a twist this past week. I do not speak for all the Yume fandom or for the people that made those statements. They could mean them and have come up with their valid explanation and evidence for all I know. I’m aware that some people are really disturbed by how violently Zero acted and may percieve the scene as abusive. Yume is not a dictatorship where everyone has to agree with one another. The way I see it though, for me, they were jokes. 

I’m not going to lie to you and say that when I first saw the chapter I didn’t laugh out loud because of how it showed in an undeniable way that Zero is not the saint so many people try to make him into while completely disregarding facts of the series  and not just this chapter. The same people that have made being a Yume on Tumblr (internet in general?) hell with all their irrational accusations. We are all human and, despite being grown ups, it’s not easy to keep being pushed for years without exploding at some point. We have been dealing with what you are personally experiencing right now and finding unfair (while being disregarded by implicatios that we don’t understand the story when we try to say something) for a very long time. Only now that the roles have been reversed and it’s the Yumes behaving like Zekis usually do it has become an issue. That’s just not fair to me. 

I see people making arguments by comparing the two scenes from chapter 61 and 13 and still judging them by two completely different standards. The fact that many Zekis have been priding themselves with such a sensitive moral integrity  when it comes to Kaname and some of  his actions, that, despite being harsh at times, were explained in the series, means to me that they should look at how bloody chapter 13 is with that same overly sensitive and critical eye. If Kaname is an abuser, then by those standards so is Zero! And if someone points that out for them, because they are to proud to admit it by themselves, then I think it’s a little bit like Karma. It’s the reason why I said that if you, person that has screamed abuse at Yumes, can’t take those jokes, you are being a hypocrite.  

The way I see it, starting to accuse one character of abuse just to undermine one part of the fandom is much worse than “taking revenge” on those people. You are right in saying that doing that is not something good, but it’s not something easy to avoid either. No matter how old you are and if it’s not the best course of action, a nice “in your face” to those who mess with you always felt good. Even just a little bit.

If you are one of those Zekis that hasn’t tried to make Kaname into an abuser or rapist, then I’m sorry you are experincing all this. I truly am! The VK fandom is a nightmare tbh. Better get used to it from the start for a smoother experience ;)