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uss-edsall · 4 months ago

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Band of Brothers and the Holocaust

Speaking as someone who has studied the Shoah, but her focus was on what Allied soldiers did when they discovered a concentration camp? Band of Brothers' Why We Fight is the most accurate portrayal of liberating a concentration camp in any WWII media.

It has every single element of what happened, while also conveying the human experience of the tragedy.

In the following post I am going to write out the general nature of what happened when an Allied unit found a concentration camp. Interspersed will be dialogue in indents and italics direct from Band of Brothers.

The war is coming to a close. The soldiers are looking forward to going home. The mood is fairly upbeat, morale is high. There's been rumours that some bad stuff's been happening, it's known Jews and others were being persecuted, but it's not something on the mind of the average American or British enlisted soldier. Your farmboys and streetrats want to go home. They want mom's food, dad's firm hand, to play with their kid they haven't seen in three years - six if they're British.

Then...

It sure is quiet. He is right, fellas.

They find it.

A camp situated far from anywhere else. A camp in a wholly deforested area. A camp where no birds sing, no animals make noise. Ashy smoke on the horizon. Skeletal figures in striped clothes, staring at them, averting their eyes like beaten dogs. The smoke of burning buildings, dead bodies just laying about.

Major Winters! Uh, we found something. We're out on patrol and uh, we came across this. What, what, what, what? Frank, Frank, what is it? I don't know sir. I don't know.

The reaction, of course, is sheer horror. The deaths these men have seen were almost all in combat. This is not combat. They don't have a word for it. This is genocide, but they don't know that word. Genocide as a term has not been invented yet. It will be specifically to describe what they are now bearing witness to.

Look at their arms. Like cattle. Goddamn.

These soldiers don't know what to do. They've never seen anything like this before and there are no contingencies. But they are men of action. Trained to act no matter what. After the initial shock, after the initial arrival, they spring into motion. These prisoners are starving, obviously. They need food, they need water, they need medical attention. The soldiers distribute what they've got on them, try to help where they can, how little they can.

All right, boys. These people need care. Give them water and any spare rations you might have. Grab me some blankets, quick.

They find and procure more food and bring it to the camps.

Let's go, let's pick up the pace, come on! Sergeant Martin, get whatever we can fit on the deuce and a half.

Their desire to help, to save, it kills people. Refeeding syndrome - the severely malnourished, the starving, feeding them rations meant to keep a man at the top of his physical fitness going every day, the rich bread and cheese of a regular bakery, it overwhelms the stomach. Survivors on the day of liberation do not survive it - dead from the actions of their saviours. This is something Band of Brothers does not, perhaps thankfully, depict on the big screen - instead speaking of it.

Proper medical authorities arrive. They are the men who stop the haphazard nature of the liberators' actions, creating systems. They've never seen anything like this either. They're also working off the cuff - but they do know what they're doing, much better than your average kid from Brooklyn.

We need to stop giving these men food right now. They're starving. If we give them too much to eat too quickly, they'll eat themselves to death.

These medical authorities come with the establishment of proper authority in the region. And it's quickly determined there's nowhere to take these survivors who suffered so grievously. There's no place big enough, centralised enough to keep them safe from others, to keep them in one place to be properly fed and properly treated. No place, except...

We need to keep them in the camp til we can find a place for 'em. You want us to lock these people back up?! We got no choice, Nix. Otherwise they might scatter. We need to keep them centralized so we can supervise their food intake and medical treatment. So, until we find some place better...

The soldiers who have come to the rescue must force the liberated back into the camps. Back into the sight of all their horrors that they want to leave so badly. They have to, to help them get what they need.

The initial forces have to move on. The war is still continuing. They are combat troops, the spearhead of their respective frontline. They aren't guards, they aren't doctors. Their expertise lies in killing, not saving. Yet they tried to do so, to save those they could. When confronted with that, who couldn't?

Tenth Armored are gonna supervise clean-up. What about us? We head out for, uh... Thailheim, Thalheim, tomorrow.

The morale of the men has been shattered, having become first-hand witnesses to the Holocaust. So too, however, has their resolve to see this thing through been hardened, sharpened into a blade that will cut out the heart of fascism in Germany. They react with anger, enraged at the fact that German civilians insist they did not do it.

I said shut up, you Nazi fuck! You're not a Nazi? My mistake, you fat fucking prick. How about a human being? Are you one of those? Or are you gonna tell me that you never smelled the fucking stench?

Martial law is enacted. Commanders give orders to force the populations of nearby villages, towns, cities, to come out in their Sunday best. Everybody who can walk must come - come to the camp, come to see the horrors that they had ignored. Imprint the memory in their brains and know they let this happen. Then, with their own hands, pick up the bodies and bury them. This is what Nixon sees when he returns to the camp after Easy moved on - the 10th Armored enforcing it.

People of Ludswiglust were made to bury the bodies on the palace grounds of the Archduke of Mecklenburg, for example. At Ohrdruf, Colonel Hayden Sears yelled at his soldiers herding German civilians around a makeshift crematorium. "Make them look at the hooked poles for turning over the roasted bodies. Make them stand closer and look!" This is a term used by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as Forced Concentration. It was a policy, at first made by battlefield commanders and then moving up the ranks. No person old enough to comprehend it was allowed to live in ignorance.

Something not depicted in episode nine but is depicted in episode ten are reprisals.

Some troops reacted to the devastation with bloodlust, a vindictive need to take matters into their own hands. Historian Max Hastings wrote of a British tank commander who drove into the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, pulled out a pistol, shot several guards and drove away. At Dachau, soldiers of the 157th Infantry Regiment machinegunned between 35-50 SS camp guards in a spontaneous reprisal. Heinrich Wicker, the commandant of Dachau, was summarily executed. An official investigation concluded, "in the light of the conditions which greeted the eyes of the first combat troops, it is not believed that justice or equity demand that the difficult and perhaps impossible task of fixing individual responsibility now be undertaken."

What if this guy’s just a soldier? What if he’s an officer with no ties to the SS? What if he’s innocent? You know what? What if he’s a fucking Nazi commandant of a fucking slave camp? Which one? Which camp? You don’t have any proof. Were you at Landsberg? You know I was. You think he’s a soldier like you and me? A fucking innocent German officer? Where the hell have you been for the past three years?

Notice that I have mentioned all these things and then gave dialogue from Band of Brothers for them? How I have barely added more detail of things that were not depicted? It's because Band of Brothers is the only series, movie, or anything else I know to depict the Holocaust and then accurately depict how the liberators of the camps reacted to them - in every single way:

Discovery. The urge, the need, to help - somehow. Distributing food and water too rich for the starved. Orders to stop and herd them back into the camps. Continuing the advance. Forced concentration. Reprisals.

Band of Brothers has it all - I've never seen anybody do it better.

#Band of Brothers #Why We Fight #long post

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rawliverandgoronspice · 2 years ago

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THE GERUDO POST

(aka an attempt at a critique of how gerudos were handled in BotW and before)

Oh no. TOTK being right around the corner, it might finally be time for the Gerudo Post.

(aka half of the reason why I made a Zelda sideblog in the first place)

So I want to preface all of this by saying that, as you could probably tell already, I’ve always adored the gerudos. They have fascinated my small child brain when I was 7; then the obsession made its comeback when I was 14, and now, here we are, almost 28, and I’m still thinking about the gerudos. I think they might be among my favorite fictional cultures for their potential and their understated storyline. I guess growing up in a very Arabic neighborhood, coupled with being bi-culturally latinx (?? does Brazil count?? you tell me), also always made them feel like home to me –especially when I was very young and there was not a lot of cool female representation flying around that managed to involve fiercely independent PoC women, flaws and teeth included.

This whole weird-essay-thing tries to do two things. First: analyze the place gerudos have occupied in the series, their initial problematisms and their subtextual narrative arc during the Myth Era coupled with their relationship to Ganondorf. Second: tiptoe to Breath of the Wild and poke it with a stick to see what happens –and in doing that, explain why I believe a lot of their characterization was defanged in service of smoothing their past with the hylians instead of deepening the culture on its own terms, and why I’m a little apprehensive about what that might mean for TotK even though I adore seeing the best girls at it again.

Those are the uhh terms of service??

And now, we must go back to 1998.

OCARINA OF TIME ERA

There’s so many things about the gerudos that are noteworthy and rich, and they’ve made for a complex piece of Zelda lore ever since their introduction –and when I say complex, I don’t 100% mean it as praise. The very racially charged decisions made about their inclusion have been discussed at length by the fandom, especially when it comes to orientalist and Islamophobic tropes being deployed pretty thoughtlessly in Ocarina of Time (their sigil being literally a crescent moon and star originally, the parallels are pretty obviously there).

We’re talking about a band of amazon-like, big-nosed brown women from the desert ruled by a single Scary Evil Man born once every hundred years hellbent on conquering Hyrule who they apparently worship like a god, characterized primarily as thieves, decked in jewelry and orientalist-inspired harem/belly-dancing clothing, hostile to the white good guys of Hyrule (especially men), unblessed by the Goddesses and so deprived of elongated ears (this is true for OoT –we’ll come back to that), also known as a demon tribe with their deity straight-out described as evil-looking by Navi (on my way to cancel you on twitter Navi you watch out), and secretly led by evil twin witches who can turn into a single seductress and, as two mothers, raised their Scary Evil Guy king who happens to basically be the devil.

In so few words, gerudos are the future that liberals want.

It’s worth notice, also, that Ganondorf’s characterization in this game is… kind of relentlessly uncomfortable to play through, especially before the 7 year skip. The utter assumption of depraved and evil intents from every character surrounded by dialogue that does little to hide its biases in spite of having generally very little proof to back them up –even though, in the game’s context, every character is correct to call his eyes evil and the darkness of his skin a moral judgment in on itself. The scene where Zelda demands that we believe her conclusion that the sole and only brown guy in the entire kingdom is evil and will do harm, and the game straight out refuses to progress until we concede that her dreams are prophetic and that this man must be stopped at any cost even though she has no more proof than her discomfort… hits different on replay.

I’m restating all of this not to pretend I’m making a novel and thought-provoking point, but to bounce back on a tumblr post I saw a while back (that I can’t find anymore!! I’ll link it if I find it again) –and so express what it is that gripped me with the gerudos in spite of their pretty damning depiction… and actually maybe thanks to it.

There’s a surprising amount of texture to Ocarina of Time’s worldbuilding that exists folded within the things introduced and left hanging, or in its subtext –and whether on purpose or not, I believe it is why people keep coming back to this iteration of Hyrule.

What was that about the king of Hyrule unifying a war-torn country? Why did the gerudos break the bridge connecting them to the rest of the kingdom during the 7 year timeskip while still worshiping Ganondorf, and why are the carpenters trying to rebuild it against their apparent wishes? What was that about gerudos imprisoning hylian men trying to force entry into their lands? What was that about the secret death torture chambers right next to the Royal Family’s tomb and connected to the race of people who were, apparently, born to serve them?

Nothing? Oh okay… okay… okay….

The same can be said about this strange depiction of this hostile tribe, consistently described as wicked yet suddenly friendly once you prove you deserve their respect once you... defeat them, so you now have joined them? Ocarina of Time isn’t very consistent when it comes to characterizing them as their occupation (thieves) or as a proper culture, with a king and a strange system of rulership that seem to involve at least 5 people: Ganondorf, the Twinrova, Nabooru and the unnamed random woman who decides you’re now part of the gerudos because you slashed enough of them with your sword and hookshot, which, uhh ok.

They’re but a ragtag and negligible group when discussed next to gorons and zoras and hylians, but they also clearly have their own religion and at least a 400-hundred years old history (probably far longer than this) and hints of a written language of their own. I’m not sure the game itself knows what it wants them to be, beyond: intimidating and hot and cool, but also wicked and, because of Ganondorf and the way you barge in their forbidden fortress (heh) with the explicit intent to dismantle their king, in apparent need to be saved from themselves.

Speaking of rulership and the Spirit Temple, let’s have a quick tangent about Nabooru: I always found her characterization when meeting with Child Link pretty strange. I refuse to mention the promised reward, which feeds into everything orientalist mentioned above, but I always found her moral compass so extremely convoluted for someone coming from gerudo culture. Nabooru says that, despite being a cool thief herself, she resents Ganondorf for killing people as well as stealing from women and children. Stealing... from women. Nabooru. Why are you this pressed that he steals from women!!! This feels so out of place, that the only girl of that hostile culture that betrays her king and befriends you, is the one that upholds moral values that only a hylian could possibly hold.

Either way: the strange unquestioned contempt of the game for them as a culture, mixed with the occasional bouts of heart, friendliness and badassery, makes it hard not to consider their depiction as pretty biased in favor of the hylians finding them at once exotic, scary and exciting, and could hide a more complex reality you might only get one side of –especially when you know there were originally plans for Ganondorf’s character to be more gray and motivated than what the campy final version ended up being. To be blunt: even in the context of a game for children, and maybe because of that fact, it all reads like a reductionist and imperialist/colonialist reading of a more complex situation.

This might seem like A Lot coming from a game where the actual game writing can be this overall flimsy and simplistic due to the standards of the time (it’s rough, it's so rough). But I would have never dwelt on that thought about a little children’s game if not for the mainline entries that came soon after, because... ooo boy.

The sense you’re not getting the whole story was certainly not helped by the introduction of Wind Waker Ganondorf, and the chilling emptiness of Gerudo Desert in Twilight Princess.

AFTER THE TIMELINE SPLIT

(I’m skipping Majora’s Mask, not because I dislike them in the game or think they’re not worth talking about, but because it’s a parallel universe and they’re never even called gerudos and their reality seems extremely different from their sisters in Hyrule so I think it’s okay to call them tangential and not dive too deep in this particular depiction)

Here’s something I want to highlight about gerudos and how they were characterized before BotW came along: their absence. Not only their physical absence, the lack of any gerudo character that calls themselves gerudo, but their absence from the text itself.

It’s not that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess retroactively scratch them off existence: we can clearly see Nabooru’s stained glass art in WW as well as recognize them being mentioned in Ganondorf’s final boss soliloquy, and WELL there’s quite a lot to say about their imprint over the world of TP. They are there –or at least they... were there. But nobody ever talks about what happened.

In Wind Waker, there was the deluge. It’s assumed lots of people died then, and those who survived scattered across the Great Sea. Are they sealed under the waves? Have they drowned? Is Jolene, Linebeck’s ex-girlfriend in Phantom Hourglass, a distant relative of one of the rare survivors? It’s unclear, beyond the fact that Ganondorf is the only living gerudo we see in this entire branch of the Timeline split.

In Twilight Princess, the desert which bares their name is empty. The hylians never mention that it used to be the name of a tribe: they’re not even named when Ganondorf is introduced for the first time, reduced once again to a mere band of thieves. We learn his plans to steal the Triforce in OoT were foiled, and that he may have turned to war. Then he lost the war, and was executed in Arbiter’s Ground: a strange structure in the desert, a mixture between a temple, a prison and a coliseum. What looks like gerudo writing coexists with hylian symbols, which often look much fresher. This dungeon is the Shadow Temple of TP: a prison hosting the worst criminals the kingdom has ever known, now haunted and cursed. Besides the locations, the only character that vaguely look gerudo in the entire game besides Ganondorf is Telma, a character with pointed ears that never seems to identify as anything but a hylian. What happened? Who’s to say. Nobody ever says anything. Not even Ganondorf bothers to mention them the way he did in WW –and though the game’s story is quite focused on another exiled tribe seeking revenge and dominion over Hyrule as retribution, the parallel is never explicitly drawn. So who’s to say what happened there. Who’s to say.

And in A Link to the Past and the games forward? The only mention of other gerudo characters are Koume and Kotake, resurrecting their son in the Oracles games through their own sacrifice and failing to bring anything back but a monstrosity incapable of making conscious decisions. Granted, most games in that extremely weird Fallen Timeline predate OoT and therefore had yet to make gerudos up at all. Still: canonically, between the gap of OoT and ALLTP, whatever it may be, gerudos disappeared here as well.

I think there’s something subtle and a little heartbreaking about the fact that no matter what Ganondorf does, the gerudos always end up dying out. His yearning for Hyrule, its gentler wind and the Triforce blessing its lands always costs him the kingdom that he does have already.

Now, does he care? A lot of people would argue that he doesn’t, that he used them like pawns for his own ambition and saw them as servants more-so than sisters, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Nintendo’s official opinion, but… One very powerful thing about most of Ganondorf’s incarnations (focusing on the human ones) is that he never seems to reject his cultural heritage. They could have gone for him wearing more kingly hylian stuff given the whole underlying theme of envy and pride surrounding his character, but never once does he try to look more hylian, beyond the ear situation that seems to be tied to the Triforce of Power? Either way: he is gerudo. Several of his outfits reference his mothers, as well as general gerudo patterning and jewelry. His heritage is something he proudly displays, even hundred of years in the future when there is no one left to remember what it means but him. I think it’s a very potent piece of characterization, an arc that crosses over multiple game and says something pretty intense about this character’s fate and his inherent destructiveness over the things he touches –starting with the Triforce, all the way up to his very own body and mind. His mental breakdown by the end of Wind Waker, when the king of Hyrule himself forces him to give up on the thing he sacrificed everything for, takes a new kind of weight with the whole picture taken into account.

(not to excuse genocide or general egomania-fueled madness and violence, but one thing doesn’t mean the other isn’t also relevant)

Regardless of whether this is a tragedy for Ganondorf as their uhh complete failure of a king, honestly, it is undeniably a tragedy for the gerudos themselves: a once-in-a-lifetime joyful event turned into a never-ending nightmare from which there seems to be no escape, their legacy now condemned to fade to black, leaving nothing behind but a demon boar forever laying ruin upon the world.

One may say I’m taking on the bleakest explication for the gerudos’ absence when there could be others. It’s true! Perhaps the gerudos are just chilling off-screen, completely fine, not interested in whatever is happening in the kingdom nearby and their disaster child having yet another temper tantrum about not being the Goddesses’ favorite boy. It’s possible! But regardless, what little elements we do possess as players doesn’t seem to support this, even if it remains possible –and regardless of actual gerudo lives, gerudo culture is definitively a goner in every single timeline.

Even if they did survive... Hyrule still won its unification war.

(I won’t mention Skyward Sword as they are not really a thing there, except for a butterfly that seems to suggest the Gerudo Province was a thing before the gerudo people –I don’t know what to do with this honestly– and the whole Groose situation, which, I’m not sure what to make of either beyond the fact that he may have gotten cursed by opposing Demise? And then went on to start the gerudo tribe, which ended up being an all-women group for some reason? Maybe? It’s not confirmed? I feel like it’s more of a fun tidbit than a central piece of the gerudo puzzle, so I’ll leave it there like I would a cool rock I brought back from a walk and that I don’t know where to put in my house)

Then, Breath of the Wild happened and changed things.

BREATH OF THE WILD

(Additional short note, but: while I won’t mention Four Swords Adventure, since it’s a weird one that almost nobody has played and severely messes with the Timeline, we kind of see the beginnings of what is about to happen in Breath of the Wild in this game –gerudos coming back without much explanation, then distancing themselves from Ganondorf to become friends with hylians because he was too hungry for power and now they are nice and have good reputation because they are our friendsss)

I was actually so happy to learn gerudos were making a comeback in a mainline Zelda game, and this got me more excited about Breath of the Wild than basically anything else the game involved. And getting to explore the Desert once again, meeting this new batch of impossibly tall buff girls, getting more about their language and their culture, Riju and the rest of the little girls are adorable, the grandmas are so cool, the sand seals??? sign me the fuck up??? And above it all, hanging around Gerudo Town at night and feeling as warm and cozy as little me liked to imagine how freeing it would feel, to stay there and watch the desert behind the safety of their walls in OoT… This was great. I loved it.

It was a huge compensation for the criticism I’m about to make, but did leave me with… questions regarding how their culture was going to be handled moving forward.

I’ll start with something small yet deeply revelatory, then work my way from there.

So... gerudos’ ears are pointy now.

This is pretty significant. Lore-wise, it’s been said that the elongated ears of hylians are there so they can better hear the voices of the gods. It’s considered a sign of holiness in-universe. There's a bunch of really thoughtful analysis on tumblr over that whole Ganondorf ear situation, which is a mess but also very interesting, but the short answer is: I think the absence of pointy ears was a clear design choice to originally signify them as Less Good. Even when Ganondorf gets pointier ears, they never get as long as hylians’. Worth noting: not every non-gerudo character has pointy ears: gorons, zoras and ritos (among others) do not possess this trait, and there are even some humans that have regular rounded ears in the series –though they always seem to be of lesser relevance, if not downright peasants in Twilight Princess. Pointy ears always tended to implied a strict hierarchy in the series: basically, the more pointy, the more Protagonist you become.

(also their eyes becoming green instead of the traditional yellow/golden, which looks more wicked and demonic --and cooler also tbh)

The pointy ears imply two things. From within the game, this could be interpreted in two ways: either that gerudos… converted, for a lack of a better term, and are now considered holy through their worship of the Golden Goddesses and/or Hylia, or that their mingling with hylians through tens of thousands of years had them acquiring this trait out of sheer genetic override (though they have kept their mostly-women birth rates, their big nose, darker skin –for the most part– and red hair). Probably a healthy mixture of both. Design-wise, it signifies something quite simple to the player: they are on hylians’ side now. They are good guys. We can trust them, even if they still have a little spice in them. They aligned themselves with us and against Ganon in all of its manifestations (even if he’s but an angry ghastly pig being parasitic to everything it touches in this iteration). They are on the side of Good, definitively, and will fight evil by our side.

On that note, I think it’s worth bringing out another major change from their initial iteration, which is their overt friendship with Hyrule as a whole, and with the Royal Family in particular. Despite not allowing any voe inside their walls (we’ll come back to this), their relationship with hylians is pretty neat. They have booming trade roads, travel and meet with the rest of the cultures, and are fierce enemies with the Yiga clan, who are renowned for being huge Calamity Ganon supporters. The tables certainly have turned. I want to bring out, in particular, Urbosa’s friendship with the queen and her role as the cool aunt taking care of Zelda and protecting her from evil (to be noted: I am not familiar with Age of Calamity so if I’m mischaracterizing her in any way, please let me know). The gerudo sense of sisterhood has been extended to the royals they used to fight against. I would go on and say the cultures peacefully coexist, but I think that what we’re looking at here is a case of vassal behavior, just like we used to have from zoras (in the non-Fallen Timelines) and gorons. This is a huge departure from gerudos being openly rejecting of Hylian culture in their initial iteration, and something that is worth returning to later.

Okay. Now it’s time to mention the weird obsession BotW gerudos have with romance. I didn’t take notice of my issues with their writing until I realized how prevalent of a theme that was. Now, the reason given for gerudos to refuse entry to males (of every race) has much more to do with preventing young gerudos to make mistakes than anything else, and is actively being put into question by the younger generations –which would make sense. But the amount of NPCs that either lament their lack of match, talk about their husbands (because they marry now apparently) or are invested in romance, and a very limited understanding of romance at that (heterosexual, closed, etc), makes for much more of the population that I initially expected. There’s no mention of what’s going on with their males, if there are new males being born and either exiled or abandoned, or if Ganondorf being technically still alive have have cut them off male heirs. Either way: no more kings, only girlbosses chiefs.

To have the gerudos so interconnected with Hyrule, not only through trade but through extremely coded romance where they have to make themselves palatable to a future male partner and enforce fidelity, was… a choice. The extremely brief and skippable mention of gerudos sometimes going to Castle Town in search for boyfriends in OoT became half of their personality traits in this game. We went from a race that was fiercely independent and mocking of the unworthy men who tried to mingle with them, to… this. Now I’m not saying some of the sidequests aren’t cute, or that I didn’t like the wedding, or that the grandma near the abandoned statue of Hylia (so she was worshipped at some point) clocking us and talking about her love life wasn’t one of my favorite gerudo conversations. I’m saying that the vibes have definitively changed. For the better? I’m not sure.

I once stumbled upon an article that said that Breath of the Wild gerudos were a huge improvement compared to their original introduction, because they were no longer presented as evil and hostile thieves groveling at the boot of a single man, but as a full culture allied with the protagonist and actively involved in the story, while still getting their Cool Girl Badass moment (again can’t find it anymore, I’ll link it if I stumble upon it again). I see where this comes from, but I honestly can’t help but consider it a reading that assumes something pretty major (though through no fault of their own, as the games tend to hammer this down as hard as they can), and that being hylians as the unquestioned anchor of Good.

Which, in spite of what the games want me to believe, I… feel uncomfortable taking at face value.

To me, regarding how gerudos are being incorporated in that goodie narrative, this is kind of a case of surface-level feminism trumping over colonialist/imperialist concerns. It becomes more important to perform the aesthetics of being cool and friendly and independent than scratching at any deeper problem that would risk making people uncomfortable. This is kind of Green Skin Ganon all over again: oh wait, isn’t it a little icky to have the evil bad guy being brown while faced by the most aryan-looking ass heroes of all time? Okay, then let’s take the brown guy and make his skin green so we don’t have to feel bad anymore that the conflict has racial undertones!! Solved!! There’s nothing questionable about changing a PoC's features to make it more monstrous and less human, right?

To me, it’s kind of the coward option: instead of accepting the messy reality those initial choices created (and their interesting nuances if taken at face value), let’s just… rewrite the PoC culture’s history to make it feel less uncomfortable for the white heroes. In many ways, it is an extension of what hylians have always done: scrubbing the weird and messy things about the past and shoving them deep down into the spooky well and far into the desert prison and away in alternate hellish dimensions, and then make up a very simple story where they get to feel good about themselves –except this time, it’s the fabric of the games, the literal reality, bending backward to make it happen. Which, in my opinion, makes it much worse than before. Now, there’s no conversation. The fabric of reality is changing their own history so that there is nothing to discuss anymore. Ganondorf was always evil incarnate. He never had any point. It was always 100% his own fault, his own hubris, his own fated wickedness. He was always demonic (and green, very important –having a flashback to people on twitter accusing artists restoring the TotK green skin to the original brown of wanting to make Ganondorf black, and like….. how do I put it gently…..)

And, above all else: gerudo are to distance themselves from his legacy so they can stay in the club of the Good and Just and Holy.

Because here’s the messy thing: as much as I love seeing the gerudos again in Breath of the Wild and as much I love for them to have survived the Era of Myth (??? somehow ???), this… kind of changes Ganondorf’s character arc. No longer do we have the story of a king who wanted more, either for his people, for himself or both, and led his culture to its destruction in his search for absolute Power, while remaining ironically incapable of maintaining what little he already had. This starts from him kneeling to the king of Hyrule in OoT and leads to the deluge, Arbiter’s Ground, his own mothers dying for the sake of his failed resurrection. Breath of the Wild changes this: now, the gerudo were apparently fine without him? They apparently did their own thing and became suddenly and inexplicably disconnected from his actions? I know it’s kind of implied they side with hylians at the end of OoT, but it’s honestly never really explored why they would cheer for the death of their king while never seeming to resent him before except for Nabooru –there are mentions of brainwashing for those who resist him (as well as “other groups in the desert”, tho they are never mentioned again), but it’s hardly a proper plot point for the majority of the tribe, aaaand they still die by Wind Waker in the Adult Timeline, in spite of their potential alliegance…

(again, this shift towards submitting to Hyrule actually started with Four Swords Adventure, getting crisper with each iteration)

There used to be this polite blur regarding Ganondorf’s relationship to them, how much he used them and how much he acted in their name (with arguments for both sides), and I think this messy and debatable question mark was one of the most compelling aspects of his character. Gerudos rejecting their relationship at a near-cosmic, reality-bending level, removes a huge layer of complexity to both parties… all for the benefit of making hylians come out cleaner out of this whole exchange, their moral grayness barely a whisper in the distance.

I’ll kind of go on the record and say that I suspect the addition of Demise to the canon to serve a similar purpose (at least in part): if Ganondorf becomes but the manifestation of a demonic curse, and is no longer an extremely messy character brimming with agency and drive, forcing the heavens to reckon with said agency in a way he was never meant to access, born from a complex set of circumstances from which we clearly get only a limited and biased perspective, then it becomes extremely clear that he’s a Bad in a way that isn’t worth exploring further. Even if he does have some points, he is a Bad. It’s what matters most. Not to say I even hate what this angle can bring to the table or that I want him to become Good (I don’t –I’ll talk more about why I dislike most takes on him being a helpless victim to the curse), but once again, who benefits from adding another Unquestionned Baddie to the equation to rest upon? Not him, and not the gerudos, that’s for sure.

So. Why did I, me, personally, like the gerudos in the first place?

Beyond the inherent coolness factor of their culture and the fascinating mysteries of what is merely suggested, I think… I think I loved gerudos because we were obvious outsiders. Because their rejection of Hylian culture was so sharp and extreme, their value system so different, and their writing, their religion, their relationship to power and hierarchy and worth wanted nothing to do with hylians. They didn’t need hylians, beyond them having potential resources to steal. In fact, the threat of hylians influencing their culture was such that the entry to the Fortress was forbidden to everyone (I don’t think men were ever singled out, by the way, even though they are mocked relentlessly). I think there was something inherently hopeful about this semi-matriarchy resisting the outside world, and especially its notions of what girls were meant to be –it was 1998, and every other girl character in OoT, besides Impa and Sheik that?? is another can of worms entirely, is either helpless or someone to save. For them to reject this narrow vision of femininity was, in my opinion, much more radical than what we got in BotW. Less nuanced, more problematic perhaps? But also much more powerful. Gerudo Valley is home, not to a town, but a Fortress.

Hylians were worth being resisted.

In Breath of the Wild, their refusal to let men enter their town is kind of boiled down to a fading tradition over-focused on romance, a meek little game of chase. Their entire goal seems to be finding a hylian to settle down with. Say what you will about the single man and the many girls (never explored and completely open-ended in its implications, btw), but at least it wasn’t… that. At least it opened the way for different ways for people to exist and imagine culture and civilization, outside of the heterosexual couple, the christian-infused patriarchy and its trickling down implications. What I want to say is: let my girls tell hylians they ain’t shit!! That they aren’t the end all be all of reality! This is what made gerudos so compelling in the first place! Where is that bite now? Where is that self-definition?

It’s gone, because hylians need to be Good. So we tee-hee at the creep running laps around the town, we disguise ourselves to breach their trust and infiltrate their town (though there is nuance to be had there, gender be complicated etc), we watch them pine after shitty dudes and take classes to become the perfect approachable woman and make love soups with ?? strange ingredients honestly, and we witness them get very friendly with the Royal Family they used to conspire against, dying to protect the princess against the manifestation of their ancient king reduced to a raving puddle of Bad Boar.

Hyrule, unified against him.

TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

For posterity’s sake: this post was made before the game was released. I’ll probably update my thoughts on a separate thing later on.

I don’t think gerudos allying with the hylians and burying their own legends about Ganondorf as deeply underground as they can until it blows up in their face is a bad setup at all. It’s actually pretty juicy, and there’s a ton of fascinating stuff that could happen here –even some involving gerudos taking a firm stand against him while still reconnecting with their past and the choices they made once. This is my hope with the title of the game: Tears of the Kingdoms. Let’s examine them all, account for the damage, and decide how we move forward from there with the full knowledge of where we come from.

What I am afraid of (and I already made posts about that) is the scenario where gerudos rallying against Ganondorf, which I expect will forcefully try to take back his place as their king, is used for cheap feminist points that completely fail to examine, well. Everything mentioned above. Where reality bends itself out of the way of the Goddesses, and hylians’ responsibility in any of this mess, so that everything bad is 100% Ganon’s fault and so he must be cast aside and torn away from the Cool Gerudo Girls and this is 100% justified and deserved because we are Independent Women Who Take No Shit from No Men (unless they are the king of Hyrule or any random hylian they wish to marry apparently).

I’ll say this here because it’s been burning my mouth every time I see discourse about Ganondorf and the gerudo: gerudos declared him as their king. To make a really bad comparison that I dislike: he didn’t run around to assemble girls and make a cult around himself, he was born with the cult already formed around him (and it’s not a cult, it’s just a different mode of governance –hylians also revere the Royal Family like gods, don’t they?). This heavily changes the dynamics at play. Not to remove any agency from him to do a little invasion about it, but chances are the ancestors to BotW’s gerudos fully expected him to behave in this way, at least to a degree –in OoT you see very plainly that they value physical prowess, feats of thievery, witchcraft and general violence. It’s more complicated than him being a Bad and making the poor helpless women go along with the plan uwu –even taking the brainwashing into account, AND Koume and Kotake counting as gerudos too, even if they might not be not fully innocent in shaping the culture and the man himself. If manipulation and forced servitude is the explanation given, I’ll be genuinely mad –because, once more, all the nuance and messiness would be flattened for the sake of making Ganondorf Bad and the gerudo Good (= on hylians’ side).

It bears to be said: I think feminism stances that require, not to criticize (which is fair), but to fully dehumanize and bestialize men of color to make any sense are uhhh bad, and it's worth questionning who they end up serving in the end.

The flip side of this would be to make Ganondorf a poor little meow meow that was secretly controlled by the evil Demise all along, and... I’ll be real. I really don’t think it solves our problem at all. It might even make it worse.

My problem with how gerudos have been handled thus far, being mostly connected to how they behave in relation to hylians Good, is that they’ve been systematically defanged not to threaten the status quo as much as they used to. I think it’s pretty clear why I’m not a fan of Ganondorf being a mere victim of cosmic circumstances; I have a post that goes more in depth about this, but to simplify: my man has legitimate grievances. To make him a mere puppet to Evil Incarnate would, to me, be just another attempt to erase the despotism of the Goddesses, the unjust hierarchy of the world, what hylians have historically done to the races they were in conflict with (looking at the Yiga for the most recent example…)

I’m not saying his fight is clean or even legitimate, that he isn't driven by his own sense of self-importance above anything else, or that he should win (he has no plan beyond domination and victory, that's not a future). But I think there’s something really important about having someone being willing to fully consume himself and everything around him for the simple fact that someone should resist the order of the world. Even if that makes him a heartless, cruel, and egomaniac demon-pig. Even if there’s no Hyrule left to rule. Even if his own people despise him, or are long gone and forgotten.

Is it a little heart-wrenching? Uhh yes to me yes most definitively. This is why Wind Waker Ganondorf hits so hard, and remains (I think) his favorite entry in the series so far. But… I still find this fate of eternal resistance more resonant and empowered, and far less grim, than if Hyrule’s lore absorbs his hatred and rage, gives it to another entity that would be Badder (= more opposed to hylians and the goddesses), and scrubs it off anything icky and uncomfortable, rendering it completely domesticated and non-threatening to hylian domination; rubbed of his skin color, of his complexity, of his own emotions, even made... kind of sexy now, in the same way his sisters have been made before him? I am very, very afraid of him being turned from furious and an unapologetic subject in his own legend to a "redeemed" (according to whom??) and palatable object in somebody else’s, that you now end up having to… save from himself.

Again, I want to trust that Tears of the Kingdom can walk that line and preserve everything sharp and contrasting and profound and thrilling about this fascinating setup. I don’t expect a philosophy course, this is a game for children –but it doesn’t mean Nintendo didn’t do an astounding job with similar setups in the past. Again, I’ll invoke the Wind Waker conflict, but Twilight Princess did a lot of great things as well (Zant’s speech, if you can get past the weird stretches and stumping and NNHYAAAs, is pretty fantastic) –and the subtle writing of Majora’s Mask is also proof enough this series can be complex without being impermeable.

So this is where my hope lies. Not really with BotW’s writing, which, I’m sorry to say, but I found to be below what the series has done in the past (I have no problem with the setup and how the story is explored, I think it was a great idea, but wasn’t ever sold on the actual writing the way I may have been with previous titles –it felt… very tropey to me overall, with a couple of highlights). But Nintendo has shown to know how to write compelling stories for children that know where to sprinkle its darkness and how to preserve its hope, and this is this side I’m relying on for this delicate storyline moving forward.

And now? Now… I suppose we wait and see.

(thank you for reading my impossibly long essay what the actual hell, at least I got it all out of my system, see you in part 2 for when TotK comes out I suppose aaa)

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oneverydelululemon · 3 months ago

Text

SXF MANGA SPOILERS AHEAD, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

So, like many of us in the sxf community (especially damianya fans), i never stopped thinking about ch 96 and the confession. Well, i finally decided to write down what I imagine the conversation between Anya and Damian would look like when he figures out Anya wasn't joking. This little text is exclusively a dialogue, as I wanted to see how I'm doing with writing the natural flow conversation. I might post a prequel to this, showing how I imagine Damian would figure it out and and how Anya would confirm his suspicions.

Now let's go!

The Conversation

In a janitor's closet/behind the school

Damian leads Anya to their meeting place so they can talk in private. Upon arriving, both stand frozen in place, staring at eachother in silence. Both are clearly nervous. Damian is the first one to speak.

D (wide-eyed): So....what you said at the gala....you weren't joking?

Anya only nods, looking down at her shaky hands, fidgeting. She's pale.

Damian observes her for a moment or two before sitting down on the ground and putting all the weight from his head onto his palms, which are now on his knees. Anya does not dare to move.

D: Wha-how? How is that even possible? Since when have you been able to do that?

A (shrugs): A-Anya was born with it.

Damian moves his hands around his head, his brows furrowing. Anya hears him think:

D: Born? What does she mean by born? Can people be born with powers? Do superheroes actually exist? Wait, does that mean.... No! There's no way! Right?!

D: Wh-what do you know about me then?

Anya finally turns to look at him. She sits beside him and returns her gaze to the ground, this time in thought. After a moment, she returns his gaze with a slight smirk on her face. She's still pale, sweating bullets.

A: Anya knows Sy-On Boy likes drinking milk in the morning so he can be tall. Anya also knows he has a dog and misses his big plushie. She knows he threw up after eating green peppers and that he peed in the bed when he was small-

Damian stops her from continuing, clearly embarrassed.

D: Okay, okay, I get it! Stop!

Anya stops talking. He sighs in frustration. She can hear him rambling in his head again, this time in panic. She looks back on the ground, fidgeting with her hands once again. She tries her best to shrink herself, tearing up.

A: Anya kn-knows Sy-On Boy h-hates Anya. Anya understands if he is m-mad and doesn't want to see Anya e-ever again. Anya will leave him a-alone and stop reading Sy-On Boy's mind.

Damian immediately moves his eyes from in front of him to her, his face turning red.

D: H-Hey! Th-th-that's n-not true! And besides, I can't just forget you can read my mind!

Anya starts slowly calming down, wiping tears from her eyes. She looks back at him. He gets even redder.

A (shocked): Sy-On Boy's not m-mad at m-me? Really?

She instantly hears the answer in his mind. She exhales, finally breathing normally. Upon seeing her do so, Damian does the same.

D: You should drink something. Let's go get some water and then go back to our classes. The teachers will notice if we're out for too long.

He hands Anya a handkerchief to blow her nose with. It has his initials on it. She gladly takes the handkerchief before turning her nose into a little trumpet with it. Both seem nore relaxed now. While Anya's blowing her nose, Damian looks away again, a curious expression on his face.

D: Hey, um...does anybody else know about your powers?

A (done using the handkerchief): No. Only Sy-On Boy.

Damian looks at her again, surprised.

D: Only I know about this? Not even Becky? Or even your parents?

Anya nods. Damian hesitates for a moment, brows furrowing once again, before asking:

D: Why did you tell me of all people? How can you trust me with this secret?

Anya looks at him before turning her gaze in front of her. She was silent for a few moments, deep in thought. Then she finally spoke in a low tone.

A: Anya knows what it's like to be sad and alone, and she doesn't want Sy-On Boy to be sad and alone too. Anya thought he would not hate her anymore if she stopped lying to him.

She stops for a moment before meeting Damian's gaze, looking at him with the most genuine gentle smile spread across her face, blushing ever so slightly.

A: Anya really wants to be friends with Sy-On Boy. She wants him to be happy.

She pauses before asking, her face slightly changing into an expression of cencern.

A: Are we friends now, Sy-On Boy?

Damian stares at her for a bit, mesmerized. He answers almost in a whisper:

D: Yeah. I think we are.

His voice becomes louder as he stands up, dusts off his uniform and fixes up his hair.

D: Come on, let's go drink something. There should be a water fountain nearby. We should be careful not to get noticed.

Anya stands up as well, observing Damian.

A: Thank you, Sy-On Boy. You're a good person!

She smiles from ear to ear, beaming. Damian's face goes red again. He averts his eyes from her, turning his back to her. She can hear him say in his head:

D: You can call me by my actual name, you know, I have it for a reason...

He calls out to her.

D: L-lets go, already! We're gonna get Bolts for skipping classes because of you!

He starts walking, expanding the distance between the two of them.

D: Come on, Forger, hurry up! Move those stubby legs of yours before I change my mind about befriending you!

Anya catches up to him gasps.

A: Anya doesn't have stubby legs! Damian should get his eyes checked!

D (blushing slightly from hearing her say his name): ME?! LOOK WHO'S TALKING! I BET YOU COPY NOTES FOR YOUR CLASSES FROM OTHERS! YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE THE BOARD THAT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!

A: WELL DAMIAN SQUINTS HIS EYES LIKE A GRANDPA EVERYTIME HE READS!

D: HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT- oh yeah right. DAMMIT I HAVE TO GET USED TO THIS!

D: I'M. NOT. OLD!!! AND I DON'T DO THAT! THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH LIGHT AND DUST IN THE CLASSROOM!

A: heh.

D: AAAAARGHH SHUT UP!!!

They continued arguing until a professor heard them. Thankfully they didn't get a Bolt, but they were let off with a warning and a suggestion to get glasses.

FRIENDSHIP WITH DAMIAN: 100+

That's it! Thank you for reading! Feel free to let me know what you think!

Byeee <3

#spy x family #anya x damian #damianya #sxf manga #anya forger #damian desmond

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youcouldmakealife · 3 months ago

Text

Fic snippet, Fiona&Holden(/James); from the series that never was

So one of my favourite things is when characters twist out of my grasp and announce themselves to be something different than I initially thought they were. I absolutely love it. The moments I'm aware that I am not in control of the story are some of the very best ones as a writer, because I don't know what's coming, and that's exciting.

But it's also annoying as hell. Because everything I've written that comes next? Yeah, it's not canon anymore. Of all my series, Cards on the Table had the most material already written before I started to post the series, some of it occurring significantly later in the narrative, because Holden came easy, but James was proving recalcitrant, so I wrote a lot of scenes, mostly dialogue (dialogue almost always comes first for me), trying to get my finger on his pulse.

And not a bit of it is canon anymore, even though it's still the same Holden, and mostly the same James (I think the biggest pivot point was when I realized that at his core, James isn't driven by anger, as I originally thought. It looks like that on the surface, especially at the beginning of the series, but it's not anger, it's irritability from being constantly fucking overstimulated and exhausted. He's Fed Up. And okay, yes, angry, but that is a Holden Chase specific trigger he's responding to, not his general state of being.)

ANYWAY.

This scene was jossed a long time ago, but I held onto it, because some scenes you're just fond of. And I'm sharing it for the same reason.

I meant to post this after the 'Fiona knows' reveal but it completely slipped my brain until now.

This is completely AU, thanks to James pulling a Bryce on me, but in another universe, just slightly different, Fiona still makes sure her knowing is a mic drop moment.

(Context for the scene, he has told her he's been fucking a teammate, because he's the same as he was from the start, and so is his brain-to-mouth filter, but he hasn't identified who)

(Forgive me, this preamble is longer than the fic snippet)

“How long did we go out, exactly?” Holden asks.

Fiona’s quiet. “Uh,” she says. “Let me see, it was right before prom—“

Holden winces. She forgives, but she does not forget.

“Six months?” Fiona says. “Give or take?”

“Okay,” Holden says. Still his longest relationship, then. He’s got time.

“Share with the class?” Fiona says.

“Can’t,” Holden says.

“Oh, it’s mystery man,” Fiona says flatly.

“Sorry,” Holden says. He really would tell her if he could.

“Minnesotan Mystery Man,” Fiona says.

“Yeah, I—“ Holden says. “Wait, what?”

“Captain of the Whalers Mystery Man,” Fiona says.

They actually only have one Minnesotan, as far as Holden’s aware, so she made her point the first time, but he does appreciate the commitment to the bit.

“How’d you know?” Holden says.

“Babe,” Fiona says. “You are not a subtle person.”

“I think I’m very subtle,” Holden says, but he can’t even finish the sentence without laughing at himself.

“And you stopped complaining about Erickson right around the time you started fucking a teammate,” Fiona says.

“I still complain about him,” Holden protests. “Have you known this whole time?”

“Pretty much,” Fiona says.

“Well,” Holden says. “Fuck.”

#fic snippet #cards on the table #writing talk #holden chase #fiona macintyre

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blackjackkent · 6 days ago

Text

While testing something in BG3 earlier, I ended up wandering into the initial encounter at Elerrathin's Home WITHOUT Jaheira and discovered some new dialogue I hadn't seen before! Posting it here as part of my ongoing duty to provide any and all Jaheira-related content possible.

This is probably not an exhaustive collection of all dialogue available in this scenario, but I've dug up as much as I can (and done my best to clean up the often interconnected dialogue leaves into something readable :P ).

-----

Starting with Fig!

FIG: Oi, stop a moment! FIG: Right. You look harmless enough. The commander keeps an open house, so you may pass. PLAYER: Who's the commander? FIG: That's secret. And anyway, she's away, so Rion's in charge. So be nice to Rion, or I'll kick you out. (OR) PLAYER: Thank you, noble sentinel. FIG: I'm not a centipede, I'm a guard. (OR, if Minsc present) PLAYER: Wait, little girl - how do you know Minsc? FIG: I'm not a little girl, I'm a warrior. MINSC: Even I could have told you - this was a silly thing to say. FIG: Now pass!

On subsequent conversations:

FIG: Move on. Commander might be away, but I keep a tidy house for her.

-----

Rion and Jord have different ambient banter when you get inside!

RION: Where's the boy got to, Jord? JORD: The boy is upstairs. The girls were a little rough in their play earlier. (Devnote: Wry - emphasis on 'the boy' is in response to Rion calling the youngest child that instead of his name. 'The girls' is an echo of that stress") RION: Chauntea's cheeks, I told them to give him space. That's two volunteers for dishes later, then. (Devnote: Dark foreboding - the girls are in trouble)

JORD: Telk says they shut the Church of Last Hope down. RION: And how did Telk see that, through the bottom of her drinking mug? (Devnote: Snorting, derisive of this friend of the family) JORD: She was stone cold sober. Heard it from Mother Aramina herself - the Steel Watch said they were only 'encouraging the refugees into an unlawful gathering'. (Devnote: Grim humour, passing on stories from the city to his sister) RION: Aye. A warm meal and a scrap of rags to sleep on must be very encouraging. Well, the mother knows-- (Sarcastic - what little the refugees were being offered was hardly reason to shut the shelter down) JORD: That we have space to spare if she needs it. Aye, I passed it on. (Devnote: Smoothly reassuring, cutting his sister off - she doesn't need to worry, he already passed on what she was going to ask.)

RION: Throw some cabbage on your list for the market, Jord. JORD: You know I could just grow it myself. Even a lowly apprentice can manage that much. (Devnote: A little affronted - he's in training as a druid, not fully in his power yet) RION: I know you can, brother. Just being careful - don't want the young ones going all weird from eating mystical greens. (Devnote: Tone is 'hey, I mean no offense') JORD: What do you mean, 'weird'? (Devnote: Now very affronted - his sister has implied his magically cultivated food would poison the kids) RION: Well. Fig. (Devnote: Shrugging - using the youngest of their siblings as an example of how the kids are weird. Just her name alone is argument enough.) JORD: Ah. Fig. Yeah, fair enough. (Devnote: Anger dissipating into immediate agreement - Fig IS weird )

-----

Speaking to Rion first:

RION: Make a habit of just letting yourself into people's homes, do you? My mother's not here, if that's who you've come to see. (If Minsc present) MINSC: Eh, Rion...? We know your mother is not here. She is travelling with us. (Devnote: Speaking up as Rion hasn't seen him yet - a little sheepish to correct her) RION: Minsc? I don't understand - she was chasing down the cult for a lead to save you. If she's already done it... MINSC: Ah, well. If Boo were to be technical, he would say that it is not Jaheira alone who saved Minsc. It was this one here. (Devnote: Still a little sheepish, no direct gesture to player) PLAYER: Who's your mother? RION: ...So you're not here to see her? Who are you, then? It's a bold thief who would just stroll into the druid Jaheira's home. Still time to turn around and go. PLAYER: Wait - I know Jaheira. I've just returned to the city with her. RION: She's... she's alive? Who are you to her - a Harper? PLAYER: A friend. Though maybe not so close as I'd hoped - she never mentioned you. (OR) I'm [NAME]. Your mother hasn't mentioned me in any letters? RION: Don't be too wounded. Up until this moment, she was missing - presumed dead out in the shadowlands. (OR) PLAYER: Allies. We fought General Ketheric Thorm together. RION: General...? We'd heard of the cult army heading this way - I assumed she'd died trying to stop it. RION: But... she's alive. EVERYONE, SHE'S ALIVE! RION: Bring her here. So we can kill her.

On subsequent conversations:

RION: Bring Jaheira home. We are in dire need of a mother-daughter chat.

Rion also has two unique dialogues if you speak to her directly as Minsc. The first, if Jaheira IS present and had the intro conversation:

RION: I hear you've been causing mother some trouble. Remember what I told you about causing mother trouble? MINSC: There was talk of your hammer. And... Minsc's head as the anvil. RION: Good boy. Just remember, Fig has always wanted a hamster. MINSC: Boo would be proud, to join such a warrior in battle! MINSC: But Minsc would be dead. You are heard and understood, Rion.

The second, if Jaheira is NOT present AND Rion doesn't know she's alive yet:

RION: Minsc. I... wasn't expecting to see you. If you're looking for mother, I... well. There's no easy way to say it: she's dead. The great Jaheira finally her match, taking down General Ketheric Thorm out in the shadowlands. MINSC: Ah... Rion? Minsc does not like to correct you, but... I think you are mistaken. Jaheira is not dead! Just a short time ago, she pretended to be angry at Boo for rolling around in her herb-pouch. (This then leads to the above "EVERYONE, SHE'S ALIVE!" line.)

-----

Speaking to Jord first:

JORD: If you're here about the vines, I've cleared them off the neighbouring houses already. Can't promise it'll be the last time. The druid's away for a while - I'm just her son. And apprentice too, for my sins. (If Minsc present) MINSC: Aha! Jaheira has left you some tasks while she was away, Jord? JORD: Minsc? She's not... away. She's gone. I am sorry. MINSC: And I am confused. She is not with us at this very moment, no - but she's around the city somewhere. (Devnote: Quizzical) JORD: What? You know where mum is? Tell Rion - quickly! (Otherwise) PLAYER (DRUID): An urban grove is nothing strange. Life takes many forms, and nature is hardier than any stone walls. JORD: YES! Thank you. Meet my mother when she returns - put it that way, and you might just convince her. (OR) PLAYER: Why would this place need a druid? It's a house, in the middle of the city. JORD: You think like my mother - that's why she keeps a small grove here. To 'return nature to the unnatural'. JORD: Me, I don't think nature ever left. People lay down cobbles, aye, but seeds still sprout between the cracks. (OR) PLAYER: Who's your mother? JORD: Oh. I... took you for a friend of hers. The druid, Jaheira? (OR) PLAYER: I know Jaheira. We're travelling together, in fact. JORD: What? You know where mum is? Tell Rion - quickly!

On subsequent conversations:

JORD: Bring mum back. It won't come to blows, whatever Rion says. Probably, it won't.

Jord also has a unique conversation if initially spoken to as Minsc directly:

JORD: Minsc? MINSC: Jord! I think this druidry suits you - you have grown taller than Minsc! (Devnote: Happy to see Jaheira's son) JORD: You've come back at a... sad time, ranger. Jaheira's gone. MINSC: I am not sure why this is such sad news...? Your mother is with us! Not this very moment, no - Boo thinks she is probably shouting at a tree stump somewhere. (Devnote: Quizzical - doesn't understand that Jord thinks Jaheira is dead) JORD: Wait - what? You know where mum is? Tell Rion - quickly!

-----

And finally Jhessem and Tate, who each only have a couple interaction lines each to direct the player back towards Rion and Jord:

JHESSEM: Greetings, saer. You have not been announced to this court, and we deign not to speak with thee.

JHESSEM: You may enjoy the freedom of our manor house, so long as you behave in a way befitting nobility.

TATE: Y-you're not meant to b-be here.

TATE: Our m-mother wouldn't like strangers in the house. She could k-kick your behind.

-----

I love them all, your honor! (Particularly how excited they all clearly are to learn Jaheira is alive, even though Rion tries to cover it with a tough front. <3 <3 <3 )

#bg3 dialogue #jaheira #minsc #bg3 minsc #bg3 jaheira #bg3 rion #bg3 jord #bg3 jhessem #bg3 tate #bg3 fig #hello i am still here making every scrap of jaheira information everyone's problem #but more grist for the mill of JAHEIRA LOVES HER KIDS AND THEY LOVE HER BACK <3

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identityflawed · 28 days ago

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“arcane s2 was rushed they sidelined vi’s trauma and isha’s death”

please stop talking NOW. idk what you want from the writers but no, they’re not going to devote scenes solely to resolving or exposing trauma for a character whose entire internal drive is to push past their issues because there’s always something “bigger” at hand. vi is at war. her world is at war. from the get go, she has been a stagnant force and the lens through which the viewer navigated the post-s1act1 world because she was in prison and therefore knew very little about it. she remains stagnant because she has no questions about who she is, and the struggles she faces don’t actually give her an identity crisis — she has always been a big sister who protects others at the cost of herself.

trauma resolution scenes come when characters face an identity crisis from them, and are written in as a necessity to justify the choices they will make because of that event. you don’t need that with vi because she just doesn’t change. arcane won’t give you a scene that the story doesn’t need (though i think they have too much faith in their fanbase to read between the lines). vi is always that young girl who protects her sister and wants to live up to expectations. vi isn’t an incredibly self-reflective character and the narrative extends that. she’s emotionally impulsive in many ways and follows her heart before anything else with very little doubt or confusion (she owns up to her own faults and does it vocally and often to great emotional strain); that’s what makes her a great fighter and a great sister. her actions speak for her more than anything else, and she certainly doesn’t need dialogue or a full out addressing of her struggles to be a strong character. people are too hung up on their own projected dream of getting their problems solved and trauma fixed by sweet loving words to understand that in real life, and in WAR, it can’t be that simple.

and regarding isha. she’s a tragedy, but arcane fans fail to understand that loris and isha were not actual “characters” in the sense that they’ll be acknowledged and developed by the narrative. they are people in their own right, but they serve as planks for vi and jinx as surrogates who provided what they so badly wanted — an opportunity to protect and be protected when those were taken away from them at a young age. there’s a reason both these characters share resemblances with people from the sisters’ past; their deaths symbolize change. nobody talked about loris or isha’s death after it happened, because YOU DIDNT HAVE TO. it was so clear how terribly jinx was changed because of isha’s sacrifice; it was her turning point. nobody needs to say “damn it sucks that isha’s dead, i bet you’re grieving huh” in order for the viewers to get the picture. both isha and loris were war casualties who died trying to protect others while initially starting off as signifiers of moral goodness (in the innocence of a child and a compassionate enforcer who left when his job turned fascist).

all this to say that no, arcane is not a fanfic, despite what s2ep7 looks like. and it certainly isn’t over — it isn’t a clean ending because 1) that isn’t realistic and 2) there’s other regions to cover and characters to explore and reuse. you’re not gonna get everything you wanted to see, you’ll only get what you need to see. the writers didn’t sideline anyone. in fact, the reason you see them as developed enough in the first place is because of the writers understanding how to handle what they’re working with.

#arcane act 2 #vi arcane #jinx arcane #isha arcane #loris arcane

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sageandred · 17 days ago

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Carlos getting the answer to who his father's murderer was is closure to the curiosity he's had this year. But it will never make it better. The last scene is a perfect dialogue for the conclusion to this storyline.

Carlos waking up in a panic- Him still having this struggle and his inability to sleep, even after the resolution is an important note.

-Carlos is a problem-solver (as in he thinks in a way where there are clear steps to "fix" his problems/to guide his emotions). It could be the detective in him. He is a planner and it is so like him to "everything is going according to plan"(or "I must complete step A before I get to step B" his way through) his dad's investigation, so that it consumes him until he finds the truth.

"I thought if I figure out who did this, it would make the pain better, but it's worse."

I think if we go back to Carlos' initial hesitance from wanting to raise kids, it makes sense for Carlos; we know him to want to "do things right" and to doubt himself, so much so, that he puts his life on hold (to please his family's idea of him & his sexuality, to look after his best friend, etc). But you can tell there's two different showrunners. Rashad has taken the tarlos kids debate and made it more about not being in the right place in life, but in 4x12, while the same reasonings are an underlying cause, the issue is presented as more as Carlos' desire to experience more with the distinct possibility that he could never want kids (in a lengthier, solo-topic post, I could give my full thoughts on this, but all of this COULD be direct effects of avoiding). In 4x12, this is when Gabriel is still alive and the "not the right time" excuse that he uses cannot originate back to finding closure to Gabriel's death. Both of these scenarios have the same underlying cause on Carlos' end, but the former presentation in season 4 dresses up the issue with circling around the real reason and no immediate resolution at the end of the episode (which is the episode's purpose and couple's "compromise") that I now could honestly see for how some people thought Carlos' hesitancy = genuine disinterest to wanting to ever be a father. I guess what I'm trying to say is Rashad took a direct approach towards the issue, while Tim danced around the subject (could have been intentional for Carlos' avoidance, could have been not executed well; I'm not trying to get into a discourse for that part right now, but...) With Carlos, there would always be something stopping him.

Taking life as it comes, not waiting for when you think you are ready when you kind of know you are ready (in Carlos' case for wanting "the right time" for most siutations that arise with him, not that having a kid doesn't require planning in most cases/logicics-wise that aren't just down to avoiding life steps that seems to occur with Carlos) are general rules of thumb to uncertainties of living. Carlos had to come to that conclusion after his father's death and AFTER trying to conclude something of meaning of his dad's tragedy and STILL coming up with this outcome of no resolution...of no ending to an ultimate life-altering event, and no guarantees to the future he has dabbled about, like traveling to Tuscany or hiking. And it hurts...but it's such a real message!

Another thing that's occurred to me-on the topic of tarlos' involvement in this set-up: Carlos says he hasn't been able to look at the last photo of Gabriel since the day before he died (and not being able to reminiscence because of that pain). But..but, TK when Gwyn died was able to look at her pictures with him when he was little, once a bit of time had passed. That's another little parallelism of tarlos, really highlighting the differences in how they deal with things. Carlos waiting roughly a year and a half before he could view a camera-roll memory with his dad kills me. And TK realizing that after death, your loved ones live on, and having updated struggles even this year that led to talking with Tommy shows the growth in his grief journey...that still shows his grieving.

In thinking about TK's mom's death vs Carlos' dad's death. They were both murdered. But TK's mom's was accidental, which he had resolution on to who did it. And his view on that "last piece being gone" is something he would not have thought in the immediate aftermath of his mom's death. But here is this line now, where he can help Carlos through his sadness, because he's been through it and come to his own realizations in a similar way. And that's beautiful.

And Carlos coming to the conclusion about being a dad, like his dad, who he always saw as a work man and someone he idolized as a loving husband to his mom, despite never having the parental bond where he could be sensitive, is the full circle of this father-son relationship journey, because of how complicated their relationship was.

"You were my dad. And I hope you'll be with me as I become one too."

-And, thus, Gabriel lives on in him through this journey, as he tells him FIRST.

#the fact i'm STILL having thoughts on this #episode breakdown #..as in i'm breaking down from how emotional this episode proves to be #911 lone star #carlos reyes #tarlos #5x09 #tk strand #gabriel reyes #911 ls spoilers #911 lone spoilers

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pepsiiwho · 8 months ago

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ROMANCE REAL!

I'm a heinous, devious multi-shipper and I always have been and always will be but for now I won't get into sleep's harem. Right now I'm just gonna word vomit about my two biggest Hypnos ships and what im thinking of writing for them with the information we have currently with the new teaser.

If you don't like Zagnos, Arenos or Hypnos getting some well deserved loving (in which case, you can fuck off now) then skip this one. If you'd like to avoid spoilers for my next possible wip (not that this is nearly coherent enough to explain anything I'll write) run away. Now.

Okay. Anyway. Hi true believers.

So, the dynamics of both ships are different to me fundementally but on the outside they look incredibly similar (I have a type). the basics being that Zagreus and Hypnos is more a will they/ won't they childhood friend romance with a twist of like "you stole my whole family and I resent you for that" and "you're the one person in this literal hell hole I can't just fix and it's driving me crazy". Initially Zagreus was like, the one constant nice, polite and understanding person Hypnos had in his corner. Because of like 3 lines of dialogue in the first game (of which I shan't even speak!) I fell out of love with the ship just because of how jarring and heart breaking it was. But I have love for them and have worked in tandem with cano, for once in my life, and can fix it all.

This was a long way to say, Zagnos exs. They dated and it was great. Very puppy love but after a point Hypnos got comfortable enough that he felt discontent with the fact his boyfriend was more beloved in his family then he was. They clash over it, Hypnos gets upset that zagreus gets THREE sets of families, HYP'S INCLUDED, while Hypnos can barely manage one on a good day and Zagreus just does NOT get it. Eventually they break up because they're just too different. Hypnos bows out, in his self-deprecating way, and they're done. Considering the second game, I think this happens shortly before Mel is born/ or conceived. One of the two because news/birth is a whirlwind that takes all of Zag's attention so they have a lot of unfinished business.

Obviously the titans attack only like a year or so after Mel is born and then everything goes to shit and my scene of the escape happens. At this point, Zagreus is still very in love with Hypnos— he never really stopped oops— but their time has run out and it's too late. He goes into the fray. Womp womp. We're caught up.

Arenos, on the other hand, was always an escape from the mess of the house and the family drama happening there. Hypnos the forgotten and unloved son paired up with Ares the forgotten and unloved son. They are very different yet have a shared loneliness no one else really gets? It helps Ares has his weird fixation on the chatonic gods and their entire lineage. So they meet at the post game dinner and Ares is instantly smitten and wants to wisk Hypnos away. This is, surprisingly, the significantly more affectionate and fluffier ship in my mind. He wants to adore his god and obsess over him as Hypnos deserves. Ares is a lover boy to me and Someone who's been deprived of such love his whole life needs someone who's too enthusiastic about his mere existence. Anyway, when the titans attack and Hypnos gets out with Mel, he loses contact with Olympus because they go off the grid and he's too weak to reach ares in his dreams or anything. Until Mel begins communication with her kin up top, Ares assumes Hypnos is dead. He is not normal about it. WOO!

Which brings us to now. The scene I have in mind is post game or like later in the game? In this idea Zagreus has been freed and olympians can come and go from the crossroads without alerting the enemy faction.

The concept for both ships is the same: X goes to crossroads and finds Hypnos sleeping, unwoken for (long period of time here) and unreachable. Im imagining the scene from Snow White. X walks up, ruminates on Hypnos and their past together and then kisses him before crumpling on his sleeping form, overcome with grief.

Naturally, the grief is different. Zagreus for lost love. For another thing lost to him through this conflict but due to his own negligence, not the Titan's whims. He chose to ostracize his love, he chose to ignore him when they were all of 30ft away from each other at any given time. His Hypnos, his sleep, who protected his little sister and (perhaps) helped guide his family to safety/defeat the titans whatever. The fates were as cruel as ever.

Ares, in my mind, would find Hypnos earlier. Before the titans are defeated fully. Seeing his lord sleep, his beloved, his heart and dreams left comatose and out of his reach enrages him. He has a new resolve coming out of the meeting, unable to do anything but wish for the utter decimation of any and all against him and the head of whoever put his love in this position.

The crossroad I'm at though (ha) is If true loves kiss can prevail... I love happy fluff good ends but tragedy is so lovely... Id love to hear other's thoughts as well. Feel free to send asks to continue the convo or reply ... or tags of course... sigh... they're so important. Also more Hypnos ships soon.. first on the block: Apollo and Hermes!

#the funnies #hades hypnos #hades 2 #hypnos hades #zagnos #arenos

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adutchlover · 5 days ago

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I'm always interested in the creative process of other writers. So if you don't mind: how do you usually come up with ideas for fics? How does it solidify for you? How do you decide if an idea is good enough to work on? Also, Is there anything you can share about the aformetioned 2 AM wip?

First of all, my God, you sending me an ask made me all aaaaaaaaaa🤯🥺🥰😱😭🥹🤏🏼!!!!

(If anything is confusing or makes you curious, send me a message or ask me! I love to chat, interact and answer questions.)

About how ideas come to my mind:

my process of coming up with ideas for fics is very much based on my mind never shutting up and I'm very driven by music and intrusive thoughts. It's always a little straw that if I light the match, it catches fire. Sometimes the music has nothing to do with the plot I imagine, but just because I'm disconnected from the rest, I just have the idea. Sometimes they're completely loose dialogues (no setting, no context, no before and after), just the conversation and that's all I need, because sometimes the best of my plots come from letting my mind take control, writing everything that comes and then organizing what I was really looking for with it.

How I solidify and deal with:

first, as I said, I let whatever has to come to happen; a dialogue, a thought, a feeling, a random scene. Since I think a lot all the time, I needed to find a quick way to get my ideas out so I wouldn't get frustrated and simply forget what I initially thought, so I have a group with me on WhatsApp to make things easier, where I send texts or just audios (because sometimes I'm getting ready for work and an idea comes to me, so while I'm getting ready I talk to myself about the plot); then, when I have time, I go back to listen to the audios and texts and really develop the plot if I think it's worth it. I usually use what I learned in college to help me (I have a degree in journalism): what (the action), who (the agent), when (the time), where (the place), how (the way) and why (the reason) the central event of the story happened. This helps me have the right questions and motivations for the characters and for the story itself, considering that sometimes all I have for a plot comes from random dialogues, but that I see potential in.

How I decide if it's worth it:

I basically write it down. Since I am very much guided by what I am feeling, if the plot is going through my mind, it will only stop when I write about it. So I have no choice: I write, develop that part I thought of and then I get it out of my head, breathe, drink some water and then come back and think: does it have a future? And if I, now less affected by the rush, feel that it is worth it, then I continue writing after plotting more.

There are plots that I simply get VERY attached to them and I can't do anything unless I finish writing and post urgently (Invitation, I Feel the Rain, What if this is) and others that I get excited about but after I post I feel calm (Swipe your Nose); and there are those that I want to continue but I choose to take a break because I want to analyze the future of the idea calmly (Camboys au, how to by wikihow).

Btw, I talked to Random and one day I would like to be able to share the writing process of The Invitation with you, but that can wait because we have a few more oneshots and wips planned together that are more of a priority for us now.

About the new wip I mentioned I was plotting at 2 am the other day:

I have the plot 90% ready and it will be a lestappen fic set in the mid-1890s, with a Van Helsing-meets-The Vampire Diaries vibe; obviously you must have already understood that yes, it is a vampire fic. Probably a short fic with long chapters? Anyway.I intend to bring chapter one soon and I would particularly like to know if people are interested in this fic because I am very involved with this plot skksksksks

#max verstappen #charles leclerc #lestappen fic #answering stuff #please people send asks #new fic #new lestappen fic #writing process #lestappen #i love askksssss

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honeyhotteoks · 13 days ago

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Hi Chai! I would love to hear your responses to fic writer asks: 5 (if it's from tnt or across stardust I'll die >.<), 24 (because I'm a creative too and am curious/would love some strategies to add to my toolbox!), 28 (would also love to hear how you get through your least favourite parts of the writing process/make them more fun for yourself!)

of course!! tysm for sending these in

5: first sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP

A body breaks through the guards to your side, making a desperate beeline for one of the boys behind you, the girl’s face streaked with tears and hands outstretched, her shoulder checking yours hard as she pushes her way through into the interior circle. (across stardust)

24: how do you recharge when you’re not feeling creative?

honestly after years and years of dealing with writer's block i think i do have some good strategies for this, but the first thing is to make sure you stop any kind of thoughts of shame or being unkind to yourself. i used to do that all the time and it always left me feeling worse. as far as some actual strategies? below is a little list-- - close all those WIPs and notes and just go read some fun stuff. become the reader, get inspired by the amazing things other authors are doing. - movies! tv! watch some good stuff that has inspired you in the past or that just makes you feel good. i love writing dialogue, so i always reach for shows that have dialogue beats i love. buffy, the west wing, er, gilmore girls, things that just hit the notes i like to listen to - when you get an idea for something, just write it down or do a loose outline. if you're the type that sits down and is like "chapter one...." and waits for the beginning, try writing out of order or following passion projects. this has gotten me back into writing every time. - follow little daydreams. i'm the type that makes up stories before i go to bed to fall asleep, and every night i'm just throwing yunho into random scenarios in my mind, i can't tell you how many of these turned into fics. - put some effort into creating a fun or aesthetic writing space. my desk area is aesthetic, very vibey, super mellow with golden lightning etc., and with some lowkey music it always helps me get in the right headspace. - if you're writing kpop stuff, watch some old lives. it always helps me find their voices and their mannerisms and sometimes i'll just see scenes appear based on stories they tell, little things they do, etc. - if none of that works or if you're in a real slump? let yourself take a break. go out in the world and forget about writing. all of a sudden you'll find it again in the weirdest little places.

28: your least favorite part of the writing process

so i write in scenes mainly and write them super out of order. for example, with tnt i wrote the minseok claim attempt, the initial heat scene in the locker room, and the woo/san/hwa drinking and conversation scenes first. totally disconnected and i knew what i wanted to happen, but there were all these middle bits to write. so overtime i kept writing scenes but all the transitional parts (like fading into sleep and getting to the next day etc.) all are actually really tough for me to write and i avoid doing them until like the day of posting. it's a wild way to write, but so far it's worked for me.... but it's definitely my least favorite part.

#answered ask #ask game

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rebornologist · 10 months ago

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Gosh, do you know how much your works are valued??? I hope you do since for some, especially me, these works have been the only thing fueling my ten year long love for khr~ Anyways is it OK to request for college and romantic headcanons of Giotto?

♡♡ hiii dear! Thank you so much for your kind words. If you don't mind, I've just compiled all of my Giotto HC reqs instead of making multiple posts, since there is a (variable) amount of overlap between them.

♡ Giotto in College & in Love ✧

༚✧⁺˳₊˚‿︵‿︵‿୨୧ ⁺˳₊ ♡ ₊˳⁺ ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿˚₊˳⁺✧༚

Giotto was not particularly outspoken in class settings, but he was a fine student and fairly active and keen to engage with the local community. He went in undeclared and eventually settled into political science because it was simply what interested him, in addition to a lot of philosophy and some studio art electives. He’s a good writer, and can whip up a crazy effective grant proposal. He enjoys creating things with his hands, such as pottery, forging simple metal jewelry (namely rings), and painting. As he got caught up with work more, he got less and less time for those creative hobbies.

He participated in a lot of direct action groups on campus and ran for some position in the legislative branch of the associated student government. He had a group of close friends that included G and Cozart, and the group would be found floating around, sitting on grass in the quad or in the student community building’s meeting rooms, discussing various things that may or may not be related to student gov.

Giotto is a pretty hopeless romantic, in the way that.. he has a tendency to see the world through rose-tinted glasses, firmly believing in the good of humanity. While he romanticizes the grind, his partner would likely be the one that reminds him to take a step back and rest. He’s surrounded by people with big hopes and dreams, as he should, but it can be a little too inspiring. He’ll lose a lot of sleep because he spends time thinking about the good and the bad and the ugly and the beautiful.

His partner is always there to listen to him ramble about his hopes and dreams, but they’re also there to ground him, remind him to pay attention to them, to get ready for bed, snuggle up, meditate, literally anything to take his mind off of what his next move is. Sometimes, the next move should just be.. nothing, for now.

They remind him that they want to go into the ceramics studio next week, and he pauses. His breath is held still in his chest as the constantly turning gears slow almost to a stop, and he takes a moment to process before he exhales audibly, with a soft smile “...it’s been a while, huh?”

Initially, he was very formal in the way that he pursued his s/o-to-be. They started as colleagues or friends, and something about them just.. caught his eye. For being such a well-spoken man, he cannot put to words what exactly made him feel so strongly about them, but he feels it very viscerally. He opens doors for them, bringing them tea and coffee, gifting them a little painting or a handmade mug, before finally mustering the courage to ask them out to dinner with a whole ass bouquet of flowers.

I don’t see him as anything but a friends-to-lovers type of man. Even on a first date, the dialogue and banter flow as usual, and there is a natural chemistry on top of their preexisting friendship. He tries his best to pace himself in terms of what is considered a “natural” progression of the relationship, but it’s almost as if he knows that he’s all-in with his partner from the get-go. His loyalty and devotion is unmatched.

One time, as a joke, his partner referred to him as their husband. He malfunctioned right then and there. If he had a tail, it would have been wagging. He laughs it off in front of his friends, as if that was a regular occurrence. Afterwards, on the way home, he hits them with the “Do you really think of me like that?” silence… 30 seconds later, he speaks up again as he is driving, “Hypothetically, when do you think is a good time to get married?” It’s adorable. It does become a regular occurrence after that.

I have written a bit on this before, so ngl.. idk what other bases.. to cover

He’s confident, but he doesn’t have a huge ego. The times where he feels most egotistical, actually, is when his partner is so painfully attracted to him. He’ll catch them gawking at his hands as he adjusts his watch and jewelry, and a playful smile dances across his features, golden eyes twinkling with mirth.

“Like what you see, dear?” He fans his fingers out, displaying the rings on his finger, before flipping his palm upward and gesturing salaciously for his love to come closer.

Is really sweet and enjoys teasing and worshiping every inch of his lover, just so that he can take note of every reaction. He’ll notice every little gasp, every flinch, twitch, whimper, etc. He loves a vocal partner.

Sex is something that he enjoys taking his time with, so if there’s something that you want to leverage to pull him away from his work, that might be it. He tries really hard to stick to his scheduled activities, but he doesn’t mind getting distracted by his s/o for longer than planned. At some point, he starts to account for that when he plans for the day or the week.

It’s really funny when he hits them up with the, “hey babe… my sweet.. angel, darling… I know that we have our date tomorrow afternoon, but.. I have a meeting that evening..” his s/o knows exactly what’s coming, “are you available to.. start earlier so that we can have more time together?” UM YES.

Is not particularly kinky himself, but super open minded to trying out anything that his partner may be into. He loves to please, so he’ll definitely at least be open to hearing about any fantasies they would want to fulfill. Some things are off the table, he’s not a huge fan of play that revolves around non-consent because he’s kind of.. a softie through and through, but he dabbles in praise, gentle degradation, being a pleasure dom, etc.

He’s a little more interested in group play than you’d expect, because he’s fairly romantically monogamous, but if a partner asked to bring other people into a sexual scenario, he’d be like, “oh.. oh, yeah.. are you thinking of [redacted]?” IDUNNO Y/N ARE YOU?!?!

✧ a/n: rb with who u think redacted is

#khr #hitman reborn #khr headcanons #katekyo hitman reborn #khr imagines #khr x reader #giotto khr #giotto x reader #freeing myself from writing about giotto purgatory

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sonknuxadow · 2 months ago

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okay big wall of some of my shadow generations thoughts . spoiler warning obviously

i will start by just saying that this game is soo good like in general. ive said before that i was initially very skeptical of this whole thing but very quickly changed my mind upon seeing the first trailer and im SO glad that it did turn out to be good. this feels like one of the first times in a really long time that theyve put actual care into shadows involvement in a story instead of just throwing him in something for five seconds because they know hes popular. the game IS a bit short but i was expecting that and its somewhat reasonable considering its technically only half the game. but what we did get was great. we are so back .

i love the gameplay i talked earlier about how i like that they put more effort into making shadow play differently from sonic by incorporating his chaos powers into his gameplay, but the doom powers are really cool also and were such a fun addition. ive always wished they would do more with shadow being part black arms but didnt expect it to ever come up again so everything about this is kinda surreal to me

i love love love the optional dialogue i went out of my way to make sure i didnt miss any of it and theres so many cute ones and i have to stop myself from mentioning specific ones on this post because if i do ill be going on forever

also the music was good Obviously thats a given with sonic games. but special shoutouts to the menu music i thought it was a cute detail that sonics side had a remix of it doesnt matter while shadows was a remix of throw it all away. and that all hail shadow remix for the final boss goes sooo hard i was honestly expecting them to use i am all of me but this is cool too

as far as criticisms and nitpicks go. uhhhhh . this isnt that big a deal but i do find it the tiniest bit disappointing that they didnt really leave anything a surprise in terms of the gameplay, if im remembering right they showed pretty much everything in the trailers except for the final boss but im sure everyone knew who that was going to be it was jut the specific form he took that was the surprise. but like i said its not that big a deal especially considering they didnt show much of the story in the trailers so it balances out in a way . also i didnt know what the best place to put this in would be but i just wanted to say i got so excited when i got to the final stage because radical highway is one of my favorite sonic levels . peace and love on planet earth

i also think chaos island was a weird choice for a stage because all the others are from games shadow is a main character in but he isnt in frontiers at all? maybe they didnt wanna repeat games and were running out of ideas so they just threw a frontiers stage in since it wouldnt have any representation otherwise. i dont know.

there is only one real "this sucks" thing for me and its rouge's voice acting. its soo terrible ive never liked her current voice but she sounded particularly bad here to the point where it was distracting..... when it comes to other voice actors who are one of my less liked voices for their character im at least able to say that theyre doing a good job or have improved a lot over the years even if theyre not my first pick. but i swear to god rouge has gotten worse

anyway . good game . the ending made me tear up a little. thumbs up emoji . will probably play sonics side at some point too but idk if ill do it today

#i definitely have more thoughts on the story/dialogue but ill save that for other posts this is getting really long already #sonic x shadow generations #sxsg spoilers

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kawa-goat · 25 days ago

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Revisiting the Plot of Hello Neighbor (In the Big 2024)

Because why the hell not? Spoilers for the game, obviously (but it's been six years, so I doubt that you'd care).

Hello Neighbor is one of those games where I can't put in words the feeling of nostalgia whenever I hear news about the game. News are they're going for a movie now? And a third game, too (which is kinda funny; in my mind, Hello Neighbor was already in its sixth game or so). I don't exactly like Tiny build or its leader, but I remember liking this franchise back in 2017 or so.

So what was stopping me from revisiting (or rather, actually immersing myself into) this franchise after so long? Nothing. I thought as much when I bought this game in Play Store.

I think the first Hello Neighbor is a game that got and still gets a lot of flak for many reasons. Some valid, some not. I still remember, when I first played this game back in its release period in the PS4, I couldn't understand a single thing that came from that game. Just a bunch of puzzles here and there with no reasonable explanation, and a plot that didn't really feel like a plot.

Time passed and having matured a lot, I think differently. The plot they were aiming at wasn't bad--I'd actually say it had a pretty solid foundation--it's just the gameplay itself felt distracting, and didn't shape very well into the story. I'm just telling my personal experience, but I'm certain the average folk in this fandom gets what I'm trying to say.

The idea was good, but the execution was not.

Gameplay aside, what did I learn from replaying Hello Neighbor six years later?

The Actual Story

So I'll only focus on the first game for two reasons:

It's the only game I've played (lol);

I want to make a point by the end of this post. It's something that I've been meaning to say for a while.

So Hello Neighbor is split in four acts. This fact alone is something interesting to note. When you split a story into acts, you're pretty much saying, “Hey, each act focus on one thing at a time so that, when combined, it will tell an overarching story.”

Act one begins in the perspective of a child. Now, I remember from the alphas that the player was pretty much a blank slate that connects you to the rest of the game. Most importantly, the Player was an adult, so you can imagine it was a little surprising for me to see a younger version of the protagonist.

But why? Were they aiming for some character background? At first, I couldn't tell.

Continuing: the child notices something fishy coming from the house just right across the street. As it turns out, his neighbor was supposedly (strongly implied, I'd say) holding a kidnapped child right in his basement. If one pays attention to visual clues (something crucial to a game that doesn't have dialogue like Hello Neighbor), it can be seen that missing person posters were being upheld in town--one for a boy and one for a girl.

I'm sure you can put two and two together and realize the missing kids were being held hostage inside the Neighbor's house.

The initial act is about that. You're trying to sustain the hero by yourself and saving these kids. It ultimately leads to you being caught and kidnapped by the Neighbor.

Act 2 comes. It's the reverse of act one. If before you needed to break into the house, now you need to break out of it. When you succeed, something (probably one of the children) manages to distract the neighbor, making time for you to escape.

Now it's time for act three, everyone's favorite. For some reason, the game takes a massive time skip between act 2 and act 3. You're an adult now, and the neighbor thing seems to be in the past--only the bills aren't, and you're invited to leave your house. You return to the old town from the previous acts, to your old home.

The neighbor's house was nothing but a shell of its past self, with indicators that it burned down.

The player is instructed to enter your old house, but you can explore the neighbor's old house. Doing so triggers a unique cutscene that speaks for itself. The protagonist starts to hallucinate an entity around the house and begins to breathe heavily, only for him to run away from there.

And that's when it all clicked; the story I couldn't understand before.

You see, what Hello Neighbor did was tell two stories at once. One about the missing kids and the neighbor, the other one about you. Your trauma from the incident. Even years after the fact, you weren't able to actually move on, much less solve it.

So Hello Neighbor is a game that tries to tap into the psychological aspect of survivors victims.

Then, the dream sequence happens. Basically, a distorted version of act one is created, and your objective is the same--reach the basement, save the kids.

I can tell why people hate this part. First, “it was all just a dream” is generally bad received by people (although the game is a little deeper than that). Not only that, but you actually spend more time trying to solve a puzzle other than actually caring about the plot.

Anyway, when you make it to the fake basement inside the fake house, you manage to “save” the fake child and enter act finale--a real “face your fears” sort of thing. I feel like it's easier and more accurate to read the Entity as a representation of your past fear rather than an actual being.

After a session of marvelous gameplay, you reach the epilogue of the game. Like I said, act 3 and finale were building up repressed childhood trauma and how to face them on your own. When the protagonist allows himself to go free from the past, he manages to wake up and face the present through a different perspective, without being tormented by unresolved conflict.

Returning to the beginning (the concept of acts), act 1 and 2 contextualize the past of the protagonist with the neighbor plot and the reason for his trauma. Act 3 and finale show how it affects the protagonist and how did he manage to overcome it by himself.

Again, I wouldn't even say it was a good game, but I feel this sort of plot is kinda underappreciated in horror media. Stories that focus more on the mental state of victims and how they are impacted aren't something that you see every day in gaming.

That's something I wish people could understand from Hello Neighbor. Like, yeah it wasn't perfect, but it did try to tell something, to pass on a message.

And yet, people dunk on the franchise a lot because of the first game (and that awful mat pat joke) to the point where Hello Neighbor's mark in media is simply that. A laughingstock. I might be speaking from a biased fan perspective, but it's really frustrating to see how quick people are to dismiss this franchise, specially its story.

The soundtrack in this game is really good, I gotta say.

Since I'm already at it, I think I'll touch the Hello Neighbor books, since I've seen some people claim it's the best source of media from the franchise.

Thanks for reading!

#hello neighbor #narrative #analysis #review #gaming #the alphas were so nostalgic i swear #i wrote this at 3am #wrote this instead of sleeping #worth it

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choices-binglebonkus · 2 years ago

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Every 2022 Choices Release – Rated on a scale of 1-10

Several people have said that 2022 has been the best year for Choices since 2018. And…as sad as that is, it’s pretty true. Like 2020, 2022’s releases had high highs and low lows. As I’ve said once before, the good books were awesome and the bad ones were really, really, REALLY bad. This post is going to be covering every 2022 book release and rating them on a scale of 1-10 because I haven’t done that on this blog and felt like spicing things up. It’s the new year, bitches!

Quick disclaimer: to qualify for this list, a book must have been initially released to wide audiences (non-VIPs) in 2022, because we don’t do that VIP shit here. So, for example, Wake the Dead was released on December 29, 2021, so it doesn’t qualify for this list even though it ended in 2022. With that out of the way, let’s dive right in.

Ms. Match: January 28, 2022 – April 29, 2022

Ms. Match’s story itself was not terrible, but the general skeleton of the plot is super overdone. I am sick to death of the plots centered around rising to the top of the competition and blowing everyone else away, and that’s pretty much exactly what Ms. Match does. The idea behind it is cute, though: we join a matchmaking company and compete in matchmaking contests and challenges to determine who the next CEO will be. My biggest complaint is that the love interest is…not great. The Rival Matchmaker is far from the worst love interest, but my god, they’re so cocky, full of themselves, and overall annoying as hell, not to mention totally uninteresting. Quite frankly? The cutest couple in the book, as unexpected as it was for me, was Veronica and our character’s dad. 4/10, not a terrible book, but it was a chore to play through at times.

Surrender book 1: February 11, 2022 – June 10, 2022

There are a lot of bad books in Choices, but Surrender is definitely one of the worst. We play as a vulnerable divorce-seeking woman whose spouse has cheated on her, which got her into BDSM. As soon as I saw that that was going to be the plot, it was all over. It was not a great look for the BDSM community, which is already stigmatized enough as is. But it gets worse. Our love interest is Reagan Thorne, our billionaire lawyer who’s also into BDSM and agrees to dom for the MC and teach her about BDSM even though she’s a client, which already introduces an imbalance of power. Barring the shitty plot, terrible love interest, and horrible misrepresentations of BDSM, the dialogue is all sorts of fucked in the book. Reagan utters some of the cringiest lines in the entire app and calls us such embarrassingly bad nicknames like…ugh, little lamb. 1/10, horrible book, horrible story, horrible love interest, horrible everything. Some of the outfits were cute. That’s it.

Crimes of Passion book 1: April 6, 2022 – July 20, 2022

Crimes of Passion is one of the best books we’ve seen in a while. Sort of like Most Wanted, it has us teaming up with a love interest (in this case, Trystan Thorne) to investigate and stop a string of murders tied to a serial killer. Unlike Most Wanted, however, the murders in this book are much, MUCH grislier and more visceral, and are tied to a cult as we come to find out. The plot was very gripping and every clue we uncovered was exhilarating. I cared about pretty much all of our friends/coworkers: Mafalda, Ruby, Luke, and Trystan. I wasn’t totally sold on Trystan as a love interest, though, and I’m still not. 9/10, really good story, crazy fucking shit, love it. One point off for Trystan because I’m not really into the whole cocky/flirty and stubborn partner pairing, and I think we should’ve been able to romance Ruby and Luke.

Untameable book 1: April 15, 2022 – August 5, 2022

We return from college to help out on the family ranch which has been barely kept afloat by our controlling misogynist of a brother. We spend the whole book sneaking around with Kit Jackson, our bland-ass cowboy/cowgirl love interest because we don’t want to upset our brother. The ranch is on the brink of failure and we also have to deal with that too, but we’ve already had this same plot a whole bunch in other books, so it’s not super noteworthy. That’s it, that’s the book. 1.5/10, no interesting characters, plot is uninspired, dialogue is SUPER cringey, and goddamn it, stop reusing cowboy shit, PB! You’re never going to make it happen!

The Princess Swap: May 13, 2022 - September 2, 2022

The premise of this story is that our character studies abroad for a semester in the kingdom of Monterre, where she accidentally stumbles upon another girl, the princess, who looks just like her. Spoiler alert: they’re twin sisters and don’t know it until much later in the book. The two switch places The Prince and the Pauper style: the princess takes on the role of college student and sorority girl while our character takes on the role of princess. Both grapple with challenges unique to each other’s lives and navigate them as best they can. Yes, the story was cheesy as hell, but you know what? It was a really pleasant read. I liked Devin all right, but only as a friend for the princess, and I didn’t care for Clarke at all. Otherwise, The Princess Swap was a lighthearted, feel-good book. 6.5/10, by no means is this book amazing, but I’m a sucker for princess stories, and like I said, the book was pretty light and enjoyable.

The Cursed Heart book 1: June 8, 2022 – September 14, 2022

Let me preface this by saying that I did not like Kieran at all. They were ugly, creepy, and possessive, and yes, I’m aware they eventually change for the better, but they really left a bad taste in my mouth. The plot was centered around us being claimed by Kieran and eventually trying to find their missing heart pieces to cure them of their beastly form and general hollowness. That being said, I love the rest of the book. The outfits, backgrounds, character designs, and music are all gorgeous. No joke, The Cursed Heart, in my opinion, is the most aesthetically beautiful book in the app. Not to mention, we meet Leaf, who is absolutely precious. 5.5/10, the rating would be MUCH higher, but Kieran really takes away from the book since the plot is centered entirely around them.

The Nanny Affair book 3: June 24, 2022 – November 4, 2022

The only good things about this book were Carter, the twins, and the fact that this was the last book in this wretched series. We deal with Sam’s former wife coming back from the dead and contend with forced, trashy interpersonal conflict with her while we plan our wedding. Sam and the MC’s relationship continues to be toxic as hell, unpleasant to watch, and impossible to root for. Even worse, Jenny and Aditya start their own affair because Sam and the MC have enabled them, and unsurprisingly, we’re forced to continue enabling them. I can’t even do the horrid quality of this book justice so I’m not even going to try. 0/10, yes I know it’s a 1-10 rating list but fuck it, this book is just that bad. As I said, the only redeeming qualities of the book are Carter and the twins, but not even they can get this book any points. Speaking from experience, falling into a hole is more fulfilling than engaging with this content. This book and series as a whole are so transcendently bad that if they were an actual real-life book, it would be a Worstseller, and I’m so happy this two-year-long nightmare is finally over.

Immortal Desires book 1: July 6, 2022 – October 12, 2022

Immortal Desires is kind of a weird one for me. On one hand, the beginning to early middle is so slow and such a huge chore to play through, but on the other hand, the rest of the book plus Gabe and Cas are so awesome. The premise of a vampire serial killer and cult is honestly kinda metal as fuck, but Gabe and Cas are where the book REALLY shines. They’re each other’s perfect foils and I love interacting with them and seeing them interact with each other. Plus, my parrot loves M!Gabe. And, full disclosure, Gabe and Cas were the only love interests I actively wanted to pursue since Tom Sato from It Lives Beneath. 8.5/10, the story’s pacing was kind of fucked but Gabe and Cas are priceless.

Slow Burn: August 19, 2022 – November 25, 2022

Not much to say about this one. Generic and repetitive contest/competition plot, bland MC, uncompelling Big Bad. I didn’t care about Julian/Julia, and Everett/Yvette had absolutely ZERO chill and always got on my nerves. 3/10, super boring and uninspired, Chef Flynt Stop Losing Your Fucking Temper Challenge 2022.

Murder at Homecoming: September 14, 2022 – December 21, 2022

This one really got my attention when it was announced: our character investigates a murder at homecoming, but I bet you couldn’t guess that from the title. Our character is sort of a busybody and they’re absolutely not perfect in any way, but I truly do think they’re the best MC we’ve gotten in a very, very, VERY long time. Also, they’re named after Valentine from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and I am a shameless sucker for Shakespeare. I also like all the love interests, and I love the non-binary rep we got. The love story between Gabbie Navarro and Joanna Morgan was incredibly tragic and really made me stop and think for a while. But unfortunately, as is the case with most modern Choices books, the ending was very…lackluster, to say the least. 8/10, I love a good murder mystery and the high school setting actually made it considerably more interesting. The ending was a letdown, though.

Laws of Attraction book 2: September 30, 2022 – present

I was originally very worried about this book, because the cliffhanger at the end of book one made it seem like it was going to be an us vs. Martin book. In a way, it is, but Pixelberry really threw us a curveball when we, Aislinn, and Gabe left McGraw-Byrne and formed our own firm. We spend the book uncovering a conservatorship conspiracy which runs all the way up to the mayoral candidate of New York City. I’ve always loved the MC, and they only get better in this book. My only complaint is Joaquin. As someone who has repeatedly hooked up with him in diamond scenes, he is creepy as hell to people who aren’t interested in him. Otherwise, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the book so far, and though it still has one chapter to go, my rating isn’t going to change unless they REALLY fuck it up somehow. 9/10, likable cast of characters, interesting plot and mystery, badass MC, Sorcha fucking Flannery.

The Phantom Agent: October 19, 2022 – present

Not much to say about this one either. The Phantom Agent is basically an amalgamation of Most Wanted and Crimes of Passion. Agent Gray is an incredibly dull love interest and I can’t stand their dynamic with the MC because it’s that super boring cocky/flirty and stubborn partner pairing again. I also can’t stand the MC either because they’re so goddamn annoying. I find myself very bored and unimpressed as I progress through the book and at this point, nothing can save it for me. 3/10, everything is boring. That is all.

Surrender book 2: December 28, 2022 – present

I hate that we have to have TWO Surrender books on this list, but this one unfortunately barely meets the date cutoff. Solely based on the two chapters I’ve read so far, this book is shaping up to be just as awful as the first. 1.5/10, all the same reasons as the first book, but that extra half a point is because I think this book has the potential to improve on the original material. Because let’s be honest here, I don’t really think they could make the book worse.

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fleshing-out-fodlan · 1 year ago

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Crimson Flower Lysithea Story

I think the Three Houses writing is really held back by 1. the lack of impact non lord characters have on the story post time skip and 2. the lack of in depth unique development for characters on different routes. I understand why this was done from a game play perspective (perma death and also giving every single character 3-4 unique story lines is a lot of work and just unrealistic) but from a story telling perspective it definitely isn't ideal. So I wanted to take a swing at giving a non lord a unique story on a route that isn't their own a way that makes sense from the perspective of the developers.

Crimson Flower Lysithea is probably the most obvious place to start, she was also experimented on by TSWITD so there's so much potential for where her story could go. In Crimson Flower, you are working with TWSITD, something that will stir up strong emotions in Lysithea, even if she knows the plan is for the alliance to be temporary. I think this can tie into Lysithea's need to rush everything. We all know Lysithea's life span is shortened, so maybe she's afraid she won't live to see TWISTD destroyed. TWISTD is what destroyed her family and if they're still so powerful when she dies, she has no way to ensure her family is safe from their torment. So, she comes up with all these plans to prematurely bring them down. We get a cutscene at some point of her talking to Hubert, saying she has to have a meeting with Edelgard and Hubert refusing to let her through because he believes it will be a waste of Edelgard's time so he instead tells Lysithea to just tell him whatever she wants to tell Edelgard and he'll pass the message along if it's worthy of her time. Lysithea tells Hubert her plans but he quickly shuts them down, pointing out some flaw that will hurt their team's chances at succeeding. Lysithea gets frustraed and starts hurling her immature insults at Hubert (I'm imagining similar vibes to her Ignatz support here) but Hubert hardly reacts, finding her more amusing than offensive, causing her to get angrier and just storm off. I imagine this cut scene happening after chapter 14 (so right before the battle where you meet Cordelia). After this, you get the explore dialogue for chapter 15. Lysithea's original dialogue here isn't that important in terms of character development (it doesn't really tell us anything new about her character, generally just that she wants to protect her family which is also established by the stuff I'm adding anyways). So, her explore dialogue will now involve her mumbling to herself about Hubert being an idiot and how she knows what she's doing. Then, she notices you listening and gets annoyed, commenting on how eavesdropping is a childish activity.

Then, we have the "Seige at Arianrhod" battle. If Lysithea and Linhardt are both on the field you'll be given an optional quest (kind of like in Remire where you have a quest to save all the villagers but can still win the battle if you fail that quest). The quest is to have Lysithea be the first on to attack Cornelia. If you don't do this quest, nothing else will happen in Lysithea's story. If you do this, it will trigger a mid battle cut scene showing Lysithea attacking Cornelia but Cornelia is much stronger than she initially thought. After putting up a good fight, Lysithea gets severely injured. Edelgard steps in and stops Cornelia from landing a fatal blow and calls Linhardt over and he then teleports away with Lysithea. You then go back to normal battling mode but you can no longer use Lysithea or Linhardt. There will be two options for what happens after the battle.

Option A. Linahrdt and Lysithea did not reach their A support: In this timeline, Linhardt is not able to save Lysithea. In a cutscene where the battle is being discussed, Edelgard asks Linhardt about Lysithea's status and he says that she died. In the midst of the mourning Edelgard makes a comment about how Lysithea didn't seem like herself, how she's usually so well calculated but in this moment seemed to be driven purely by her emotions. The camera zooms in on Hubert's face, showing one of his more contemplative profiles, as Edelgard announces that they can't dwell on the past and must get back to working hard to secure the future Lysithea was fighting for in honor of her memory. All the characters disperse except Byleth and Hubert. Byleth makes a remark about how Hubert seems like he's thinking about something and Hubert makes a comment about how Lysithea had mentioned a desire to take down TWISTD as soon as possible but that he had stopped her from talking to Edelgard. You're then given two dialogue options. You can either say he should've let her talk to Edelgard which will cause you two to lose support points and Hubert will say something about how Lysithea's actions today proved she was not worthy of Lady Edelgard's time. The second dialogue option is remarking on how Lysithea had so much potential. Hubert will respond to this by somberly agreeing and then the cut scene will end.

Option B. Linhardt and Lysithea did reach their A support: In this timeline, you will see a cut scene between Linhardt and Lysithea before seeing one with Edelgard and the Black Eagles recapping the battle. This scene takes place just after Linhardt finished healing her and Lysithea makes a comment about being so exhausted she's about to pass out. Linhardt then says something about how he's going to pass out too after seeing all the blood. Lysithea simple respond with a "..." and Linhardt realizes something is wrong. He makes a comment about how Lysithea's actions were stupid and how she was unnecessarily risking her life and asks what she was thinking (but he does it in his Linhardt way where he's not saying it angrily just very matter-of-factly). Lysithea talks about how she wants to see TWISTD destroyed in her lifetime to make sure they can't torment her family anymore. Linhardt makes a comment about how powerful groups can never be overthrown quickly (maybe he could make some reference to a similar event in Fodlan history but I'm not knowledgeable enough about the history to think of an example off the top of my head) and also says that her dying early to accomplish this goal would be counterproductive. She asks what he means and he explains how she's one of the best mages on the side and how Cornelia was only one person. Even if she succeeded in taking down Cornelia, there'd still be the rest of TWISTD and the black eagles would be at a major disadvantage without Lysithea. He says she may not live to see the end of TIWSTD, it's possible none of them will, but if she focuses on taking multiple, smaller steps, she can make a greater difference than if she just tries to make one giant, risky leap.

After this, you can now unlock the Lysithea Byleth A support. This support will stay pretty similar, I like how it discusses her feeling a need to rush things due to her shortened life span. The main change would be that now she would mention what had happened in the last battle and discuss it and how it ties into the her desire to rush things and how she's starting to make peace with the fact that she may not be able to accomplish everything she wants.

This is where I imagine Crimson Flower Lysithea's arc ending. There are only six post time skip Crimson Flower chapters I believe, so I didn't want to add too many new cut scenes, especially considering that Lysithea is a side character who isn't even native to this route. I wanted the story I wrote to be one that could realistically be added into the game while maintaining good pacing, so I left out some scenes I would've liked that narratively just didn't fit in as well. If anyone has any head cannons for their version of Crimson Flower Lysithea, whether that be a written out story or just small head cannons you like to imagine, I'd love to hear them either in a reblog or an ask!

#fe3h #black eagles #crimson flower #fe3h au #fe3h lysithea #lysithea von ordelia

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