#even if at times from afar

[matan4il]

Send this to ten other bloggers that you think are wonderful. Keep the game going, make someone smile!!! 💜💜 I just really admire you and I love you 💞

Awwwww, my sweet Yelena, thank you so much for this! I hope you know that I really love and admire you, too. You're always so kind, supportive, smart, funny, creative and it is a pleasure and a privilege to be in the same fandom with you! I know rl is kind of... not the kindest to me right now, but I am still very grateful for the good things that have happened to me since I joined the 911 fandom, and you are def one of them. I hope I can pay back at least part of that to you. All the hugs and kisses in the world to you, beautiful! xoxox

(as always, my ask tag)

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 3 - Kingdom of Corona

[eternity-death]

Okay guys now it’s time to consider…

Sunday being in love with Reader… but being unable to act on his feelings because The Dream Master disapproves of it…

The yearning in this would be INSAAAAAANNNE.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

imagine...

...that some things have changed (including some marigold ventures?) and Atlas May is like uh oh both lackadaisy & i are doomed, but if i set up my own death maybe only i'll be doomed and lackadaisy might have to shutter but perhaps more so on involved people's terms, such as mitzi being fine financially, but also if she thinks it's her fault that'll be good for maintaining my posthumous Image to her, perhaps she did some defrauding again? and i'll have mordecai, my trusted & effective gunman, be the one to fatally shoot me, & of course he doesn't want to, but it's Mere Work Ethic time, what's he gonna do besides argue at all maybe, ultimately refuse? (no) and he may hate it but he's not going to want to fully turn on mitzi or anything after because then what would have been the point

[zhivchik]

[somerandomcockroach]

@keferon OKAY BUT LISTEN YEAH I would loved if it was just fun ehehehe and sassy flirting with the demon no one sees pfffht, literally summoned a demon just to flirt with, and I guess it could have been going for a long time, just little strips with their funny adventures and then plot can go to the fact that he wants to give him a body and Shockwave would agree or that they just stay the way they are and just hang out like this together (Alo I remember that you wanted to put Ratchet (I keep writing Ratched instead of Ratchet buuuh) and Drift in it as another demon and their summoner thing whghweghgwe but I like how you made two separate stories for them that happen at the same time, okay I am actually PRETTY MUCH invested in this story, I like a lot how it goes and gets tangled and how mixes up with idw ideas and other stuff a lot)

BUT NOW that you changed it that way, you made a few more things that reader might be interested a lot in, like that promise he made and you mentioning that he will regret it, how their relationship progressively develops, plus the fact that Blurr was a frivolous slob gifted with dark magic AND how the tables turn upside dow and he get consequences for what he did in the most unpredictable way for him and how he surely changes in his behaviour, getting more and more concerned about his promise and maybe truly loving someone for the first time in his life and wanting to change something. And then figuring out that that same demon actually was a person before, someone he knew, someone respectable, kind, shiny, absolut sun of a person, who died (I am still on my knees waiting to know how exactly he died...) miserably to the point that he absolutely can't stand his life as a demon and NOT EVEN being able to kill himself!!! And Blurr was a pupil in his school, he saw him, he gifted him an ability to make his magic work for him, gave the freedom to live among everyone to all who was poisoned with this dark magic. OH WAITA HGSDHAG the thing that beastformers can't walk among transformers and the fact that dark spellers also could not, and how these events happen at a close times, OKAY so dark spellers got their kind of freedom thanks to Senator Shockwave (OH MY GOD what if Orion can see Shockwave and will recognise him right away COUGH) BUT I am wondering if beastformers will get some kind of an official declaration or some kind of school to be educated in and I wonder if Deadlock/Drift (I think after leaving he will change his name from the last episode...) will volunteer to be a teacher t be something more, or he will just end up with Ratchet wandering around the world, or maybe there will be a whole damn revolution where all monoformers and beastformers leaded by Drift go against the system, and maybe these events happen at the same time as a Senator Shockwave fighting for the rights of gifted... Okay I'm getting carried a little bit ahsghag excuse me... OH I GOT carried away A LOT I wanted to get back to the point that Blurr, now figuring out the past of Shocwave, dealing with all the events, dealing with what he has done and find a way to free them, at the same time STILL having adventures and fun since I'm sure he can be a good mood lifter to moody Shockwave and even see him in a really good mood since he is... well, not just a demon made of hatred but the wonderful kind of person in his previous life... (okay being carried away but what if Orion might declare the freedom to beastformers (AJHGAJHSDJAH OH MY GOD I IMAGINED JAZZ AS A PANDA HAVING A ROMAN WITH PROWL AND PROWL NOT KNOWING ABOUT IT OKAY SORRY) after seeing what it lead to after Senator Shockwave. And maybe Ratchet will be able to get his sign back freely after revolution will be successful or he will be forever blind just to be free and safe with his husband OKAY LISTEN I think it is obvious that I really like the thing you do....

[styrof04m]

Still having so many thoughts. The episodes have been marinating and since so much was left up to interpretation that’s all I can do.

At first I was like 3 centuries and she wasn’t able to rationalize rio taking Nicky not because she wanted to but because she had to ? Seems like a bit much. But I thought about it and it’s no wonder she blames rio entirely. Because if she didn’t then it must mean it’s her fault. That her mother was right. That this baby whom she did nothing to conjure that she instead only accepted and waited for. Someone that came from her very soul is doomed from the very beginning. Clearly there’s something wrong with her and if there’s something wrong with her there’s something wrong with rio. Because why would she give her this false hope. That she isn’t evil that she can be good that she can be a great mother only to rip it away from her. To take the purest part of her. Why fill her with false hopes and dreams for the future. And also how stupid could she be. To fall in love with Death. How could this have ended any other way then by her once again not being the one chosen. Because rio is doing her job. Like her mom was doing her job to keep her coven safe. But what about her. What about what she wants. Why are their duties always more important than her. And why does she keep deluding herself into thinking she’s worthy of being loved and chosen.

And so what does she do ? She rejects all of it. She rejects rio and her affections. Her love is pointless clearly. And instead she embraces her mothers beliefs. Stays cruel and manipulative. Because power can’t betray her like love can. Power can’t hurt her like love can. Power is her biggest defense and oldest comfort.

[mmikmmik]

I love how much the King Instarsandtime sucks shit. Like, he says he’s doing it all for Vaugarde, that he loves Vaugarde and wants to save it, and even tries to claim his goals are compatible with the change belief (though I’m pretty sure that was him deliberately lying lol). But he also really, really wants to kill Mirabelle and the other saviors. He’d prefer to fight them to the death rather than “save” them. And if you take SASASAP to be portraying the same character, he’s sickeningly brutal when killing Mirabelle to the point of continuing to attack her corpse. He wants to preserve perfect Vaugarde but not the beloved champions of Vaugarde, three of whom are Vaugardian? “oooooooh I want to put this beautiful necklace away for safekeeping, but let me pry out the biggest jewel and toss it in the garbage first.” Come on man!!! It’s so obvious he only cares about soothing himself and feels entitled to treat an entire country like his security blanket (and its heroes as his punching bag). Thanks ISAT for having a villain I didn’t get tired of killing :)

[kenobion]

Andrew Garfield on The Late Late Show with James Corden

[kerbearos]

huevember day 14: seth

[downinsomanyfandoms]

I should go to sleep else I’ll slip down the sloop of YuuTsu and sobbing all night like their development from Fusion to Masters to brief rare implied moments in Fury matters so much to me you don’t understand I’m still so mad that moment between Yuu and Tsubasa in Fury are nonexistent

[itspileofgoodthings]

I don’t even fully know why but “what do I do when I miss you so much?” / “Just wait, and pray desperately” was a knife to my heart in the best way.

[the-priestess-of-dawn]

Grima and Final Blows

The other day I mentioned that I had an essay about Grima to write that I'd been putting off, and between that and all the great essays my fellow Grimleal scholars have been putting out recently, I decided to sit down and finally get it done.

So here you go. An analysis of Grima's difficulties with directly killing people.

Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, because one of my favorite things to explore when it comes to Grima is the gap between their villain act, which they actively play up in front of others in both Awakening and FEH, and their true feelings, which are hinted at in Awakening (particularly through the Future Past DLC) and made even clearer in FEH— their own evil actions are repulsive to them, and they wish they could live normally among humans, but they don’t believe they have any choice but to be the monster that “the fell dragon, Grima” is supposed to be. They are committed to this “fell dragon” character, to putting on a show for everyone, and they are so good at it that it’s easy to overlook that they… uh… aren’t very good at killing anyone important. Not directly, anyway.

Sure, Grima is responsible for numerous deaths. But what is their actual kill count? Well, in Awakening’s main game… zero. (Unless you count Chrom, but, as we witness, that was not a voluntary act on their part; Validar took control of their body. You could also make the argument that Grima “claiming the sacrifice” at the Dragon’s Table counts, but the problem with that is, although it’s obvious that Grima accepts the life force of the Grimleal members as a sacrifice, it’s not at all clear whether or not Grima personally kills them. Although it’s possible that they did off screen, it’s also possible that Validar killed them, or that they were ordered to take their own lives; there’s no reason Grima would have had to lay a hand on them.) In the Future Past, it’s… one, maybe one and half (Naga’s spirit, and Tiki, but only in body. More on this later.)

And it’s not as though Fire Emblem shies away from showing villains directly murdering people, Even in Awakening itself, the intro to Chapter 9 shows Aversa killing a Plegian soldier for delivering an unsatisfactory report, so it wouldn’t have been out of place to let Grima stab a few NPCs as a show of brutality. Especially seeing as Grima is the evil dragon final boss. As early as Mystery of the Emblem, we can see Medeus killing his cleric hostages to restore his own health if you fail to rescue them before trying to defeat him, and as recently as Engage, we get a whole cutscene of Sombron eating Hyacinth. Fantasy violence my beloved <3

Anyway, the point is, Grima could have been written to be much more violent and I don’t think anyone would have complained. Instead, though, Grima repeatedly— and consistently across the series— tries to avoid engaging in direct combat.

Let’s start with what Grima does in the main game of Awakening. We know that Risen pursue Lucina into the past, because we see them fall out of the portal with her in Chapter 1. We also know that those Risen, as well as the others that are appearing throughout the land, are not being directly controlled by Grima, because later in Chapter 13, as the Shepherds are leaving Plegia after meeting with Validar, Aversa, and the Hierophant, they are pursued by more skilled Risen, and Frederick notes that “Either they are learning our ways, or someone is commanding them…” So… It seems that sending the Risen—with or without specific orders—to attack while Grima is not themself present is a favored tactic.

But what about when Grima is present? Take a look at the Endgame: Grima chapter. Yes, you eventually get to engage Grima in direct combat. But not immediately. What Grima does first is…

Grima attacks the Shepherds with dark spikes from a distance, reducing everyone’s hp to 1. Now, here’s what happens next: Grima attempts to possess their past self, Robin hears the voices of their friends and breaks free, Naga heals everyone back to full health, and then the fight against Grima begins… Except actually, the Shepherds have to get to Grima first, because they’re at the top of the map and they’re not budging. Naga warns them that “Grima’s servants will beset [them] to no end.” and she’s not kidding. Grimleal reinforcements will spawn infinitely, and they can hit pretty hard. Even with everyone starting at full health, it’s possible to lose units to these Grimleal soldiers if Grima isn’t defeated quickly. Can you imagine what would happen if Naga hadn’t healed the Shepherds first?

Well, I’d guess that they’d probably all die to the Grimleal without Grima having to face them up close. Which was probably what Grima was going for.

This isn’t the only time Grima tries the dark spikes trick, either. Grima attempts this exact same move in the Future Past 3 when they face Lucina, Severa, Laurent, and Gerome.

Grima announces “With the next blow, I will kill you.” and then demands that they hand over the Fire Emblem as well as the gemstone they hold. The threat is very real. But…

Given that at 1hp, a gust of wind could take the kids out, would it not have been easier and faster to kill them and just loot their bodies immediately? And yet Grima lets the kids have an extended discussion about sacrifice, and even suggests that Lucina would indeed buy a little more time by running… Again, I cannot stress enough that Grima should be able to finish them off in one hit at this point.

So the plan was almost certainly to back off and let the Risen do the actual killing, even though that would be a lot less efficient under the circumstances. And when Chrom and the Shepherds arrive, Grima immediately turns their attention to them, saying “If it’s a reunion you seek, my soldiers shall welcome you on my behalf.” Then they once again pick a spot at the back of the map and refuse to move from it, forcing the Shepherds to fight through the Risen in order to engage Grima in combat at all.

And sure, Grima has some excuses. “I was hoping not to have to flex any muscle,” they say right before the dark spikes attack, as if to justify why they didn’t do it sooner. And of course they taunt Lucina over having to choose to whether to run as her friends sacrifice themselves for her or to stay and fight and die with them. “I must say I shall enjoy this either way!” Yes, Grima, we get it, you’ve made it very clear that you’re an arrogant asshole.

But is arrogance really all there is to it? If we look at what Tiki tells Grima in the good ending of the Future Past, it looks as though Grima’s arrogance has brought their own downfall. “If you had left Mount Prism alone, Grima, you might have stood a chance. Instead, you have brought the Awakening right to your feet.” However, when you think about it… Is Tiki’s continued existence not in itself a result of Grima’s repeated pattern of not really wanting to land a finishing blow? The game states that Grima did in fact kill Tiki… but only in body, not in spirit. This is, according to Tiki, because Robin intervened.

Now, the question I have is… Is it really possible that Robin could have intervened both against Grima’s will and without them having any idea? Honestly, it’s hard to tell exactly how aware Grima is of Robin’s resistance, because they lie about it a lot, e.g. stating that Robin’s spirit perished in sending Chrom back to his own world, even though just moments later, Robin is once again overpowering them. So, keeping in mind that Grima is a liar, was Grima really arrogant to leave Tiki’s body in Ylisstol, and to not make sure that her spirit was fully destroyed? Or was Robin simply able to capitalize on Grima’s propensity towards backing off?

Because surely the only way Grima could be unaware that Robin had acted against them is if Robin hadn’t actually acted against them. I don’t think I believe that Grima really wanted Tiki gone. Naga, sure—longtime nemesis and all. But if Grima had truly cared about seeing Tiki’s existence destroyed… Well, I doubt Robin could have interfered that much.

But maybe it could still be a matter of arrogance. Maybe Grima just didn’t think Tiki’s spirit could do anything with Naga’s spirit gone, and thus didn't care to pay attention to her anymore once she seemed dead enough.

If that’s true, it doesn’t explain why Shadows of Valentia Grima exhibits the exact same habits when fighting Alm and Celica, despite never having been outside of the Thabes Labyrinth at this point in their life. As opposed to the various Terrors throughout the rest of the Labyrinth, which chase Alm (or Celica) down in the overworld to force a fight, Grima is immobile in their room, and will wait patiently there indefinitely until the player chooses to engage. You can even evacuate from the dungeon.

But if you do choose to fight Grima, it proceeds much like the battles against them in Awakening go. The main difference is that they actually will move from their starting position this time, if you position someone in their range. That still requires a fight against (proto-)Risen who are spawning in from the sides to stop your party’s advance.

So… Now it’s starting to look like Grima actively prefers this one particular trick… And it’s a fundamentally defensive maneuver, which makes perfect sense from SoV Grima’s standpoint (they were attacked out of nowhere, after all), but is not really an obvious standout strategy for Awakening Grima, whose taunts and threats suggest an aggression that would be better supported with a more offensive strategy… Consider, too, that Awakening Grima is in fact being even more defensive than their SoV iteration, since they don’t move towards you at all.

With all that in mind, it really, really looks like Grima doesn’t want to fight, especially in Awakening. Not that they don’t intend for the Shepherds to die—on the contrary, they’ve set everything up so that the Shepherds will eventually be overwhelmed—but that they don’t want to land the killing blow.

(And gee, I wonder what might be fueling their reluctance? Being controlled and made to kill your best friend by your own hand wouldn't be totally traumatic or anything, right?)

And then... Funny thing here, I’ve been procrastinating writing this essay for a long time. I originally started thinking about it shortly before the Depths of Despair banner was released in FEH, so imagine my surprise when I saw this characterization hold up in the writing of Fell Exalt Chrom’s Forging Bonds as well… The Grima there says that Chrom was the one to kill the rest of the Shepherds. Now, it’s pretty clear that it was through Grima controlling him, but that’s not the point. The point is that once again, Grima didn't have to do any direct killing.

Look, if it had only ever happened once, I could buy that maybe Grima was just underestimating their opponents, that maybe they thought they could get away without having to put very much work in. But for Grima to operate this way so many times, so consistently, and to their own detriment? No...

Grima doesn’t like direct combat. Grima has trouble even when it’s a fight they asked for.

And when you think about it, that makes their reaction to Robin choosing to land the final blow themself in the sacrifice ending all the more understandable.

“…YOU WOULD… NOT DARE!”

Because Grima would not dare. Grima has always preferred to let someone else land the final blow.

[dandyshucks]

im going to be so brave and try to stop shying away from sharing my Cats ship bc I rly want to talk about it and make art and writing for it,, it's so fun and I think ppl are hopefully normal abt furries here fjfkdl

[pokemonfrommemory]

Surprisingly NOT carbink evolution

[lavampira]

making tacos for dinner tonight 🙌