#it said nothing it offered nothing

[felassan]

What kind of spirit do you think Felassan waz?

Swag

[cfserkgk]

Modern AU Lakan and Fengxian (I want them to be happy).

[yridenergyridenergy]

Vicious August 1998

[palmettoshenanigans]

The thing is, "Nothing" isn't something that can feel the ache of loss or lack I think. Like,,, when you introduce things like "something" - where you can have a positive value - you can also have a negative value. You can have ten dollars, and you can owe someone ten dollars. You can have ten more than nothing, or you can have ten less than nothing. Zero becomes somewhat of a doorway i suppose? You never stop at zero and just rest there. Either you're in debt, or you want more. The only solution is to remove Things, Stuff, Etc from the equation. Can't have or owe anyone ten dollars if there be no dollars

When you choose to stop and sit there, at nothing, in the home of Zero, 'more' and 'less' cease to mean anything. Cease to affect you. To me this is oddly similar to the concept of Being Here Now, in the Present Moment, unconcerned with the hauntings of Yesterday or the threats of Tomorrow. I am Here. I Am. Here. Now. That's it.

Now feels very similar to Nothing. Not because there is an emptiness, but because there is a Radical Refusal to engage with ephemeral potentials and what-could-be's. They don't exist. What Is Here and Now exists.

when asked, "what do you want?" the response "nothing" doesn't mean 'there is nothing that i care to want', it means 'i am accepting of what i have Now, and i ask naught for anything else, lest I be distracted from what is Here'.

"Nothing" is like Radical Acceptance. It says "This is what Life has served me. This is what I'm working with. This is where I will focus my attention. Wishing for More of something Good or wishing for Less of something Bad will only serve to create more suffering within me. I choose instead to attend to the matters at hand. The good, the bad, and the ugly."

"I want nothing." == "I am accepting of what I have Now, and I ask naught for anything else."

"I am nothing." == "There are no titles labeling me Greater or Lesser - they are all false. I simply Am."

"This is nothing." == "There is no specialness that makes what is going on between us more or less than. We simply Are."

Andrew does not want. He will simply Be that which he Is, Here Now, with whomever is with him, and he will take them as they Are. And if what Am and Here and Now equates to is something good, well...

He'll take it.

[princessdarth-vader]

I think my ultimate thoughts re; Kipperlilly is that I wish we got a scene where a character was allowed to show her... sympathy. I know there's a tone you wanna hit with a victorious season finale, and a somber note of a teenager falling into a deep well of rage doesnt match that tone but it would've been nice to see.

In my dream world, we get an extra epilogue scene where Riz goes to see Jawbone to go and talk to him, and brings up the thing he mentioned about "seeing Kipperlilly in himself" -- relating that to what Jawbone said at the beginning of the year, and wanting to talk about that deeply set in need for control, and the latent anger he has, and all the ways he is like Kipperlilly, and doesn't want to be.

And in response, Jawbone is able to address the ways in which he failed Kipperlilly, and let her down. That she needed more help than he could provide, that she needed someone who wasn't too afraid of their own biases to shut down her anger, someone who could maybe have given her a support system to turn to instead of Porter. Someone external to the school and the social dynamics within it. Just an acknowledgement from, as far as we know, the only adult in Kipperlilly's life who earnestly tried -- and earnestly failed -- to help her find a better path than her rage.

Just a small moment of acknowledgement that Kipperlilly was a child, an angry, scared, biased and deeply insecure child who was looking for help when she first walked into Jawbone's office, and because of all the adults who failed her, she was turned into something unrecognisable by the time she was 17.

[ratatatastic]

finland trip or alternatively god forbid they leave each other sides throughout the entirety of the 5 days god forbid it!

[harbingersecho]

grif's surgery but just a little more... obvious?

I actually rly rly ADORE frankengrif but I don't have an in-show reason why he'd have extensive long-term allogeneic skingrafts on his face 😔

[emiko-matsui]

Fantasy High is so great because its essentially a revenge fantasy on every high school incel

[delilahmidnight]

Bro genuinely all they have to do now is have Lisa say something about being Carla's safe place or safe space (and mean it) and that is it, I will literally combust and shatter into a million fragments of lesbian transcendence. You will not be able to kill me in any way that matters

[zombified-queer]

Eskew is a love story. A city built wrong on purpose wants to be Just Right for someone born wrong on accident. That's romantic and tragic all at once.

[acebytaemin]

no one’s ever actually wanted to like date me all i get are dudes looking to. Well idk what bc i don’t let them come in a 2 meter radius of me but you know what i mean. And it kinda sucks -___-

[aalghul]

I don’t think it makes sense to assume that Jason was mocking Mia’s past. At all. The thing that got jason painted as violent back in the 80s was his anger against rapists…how does that turn into mocking a victim? and that entire story was written by winick. Do we honestly think winick intended to communicate that? The same writer who made Jason’s first kill a man who was trafficking children? Who had Jason pause in his mission of madness to make sure those kids were found by the right people so they wouldn’t be in further danger?

[randomnameless]

Do you think Edelgard perceives herself as a victim? I’ve been thinking and I can’t decide myself, on one hand she clearly hates the idea of people being victims or helpless, and constantly reframes the victims of the war as “necessary sacrifices” instead of, y’know, tragic causalities of a war she started. She plays up her sad backstory to try to get Byleth to join with her in WC, but then she does all these things to concentrate as much power as possible on herself. On the other (other) hand, she pushes the culpability of the war on everyone except herself, and has trouble taking accountability. She’s obsessed with controlling everything but she doesn’t want to be blamed for the problems she’s created. What do you think?

Oh!

(sorry for replying one literal month later lol)

I find Supreme Leader hard to write because of this, but in a way, I believe that yes, she does.

However, for all the flak Faerghus gets for "ToXiC mAsCuLiNiTy" and "Chivalry BaD", there's something very toxic with the way some Adrestian victims (often women... blame the writers I guess?) deal with their abuse.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Doro because I already typed a lot about her, but while she still sees herself as a victim from what she endured and suffered in her childhood, she adopted the toxic mindset of "this suffering is a thing of the past and I grew from that/beyond that to become the person I am now" - which we can also see in Manu who suffered from, roughly, the same traumas.

Petra also follows this pattern, being a hostage and treated like shit, but she grow "beyond" her status of a victim to become the strong person she projects and believes she is - it's only out of House that she realises more accutely her status within the Empire, the reality of her situation and, in Houses, refuses vassalage to Adrestia to make her country independent without having to "ask the Emperor".

It's the same pattern : "I was a victim" but "I became strong" so "I am not a victim anymore, this is something of the past".

Applied to Supreme Leader...

Well, trying to ignore the Agarthans and her dad's own infuence on her character (which is kind of hard, since the games try their hardest to make Agarthans responsible for everything BaD and we're not clear on how much they had an influence on her), I think Supreme Leader believes she was a "victim" of abuse.

But - through further abuse and surviving said abuse - she became strong* enough to "not be a victim anymore".

Which is why her line of "if the weak remain weak it's their fault" feels like it echoes part of her mindset : she was a victim but became strong enough, maybe by hardening her own feelings to become "strong", so she is not the same helpless "victim" she once was.

If she managed to do that, then everyone can do the same.

As for the "necessary sacrifices", since early 2019 someone theorised that "the people" she pretends the fight for as seen as some general "concept", much like the "greater good". So if some people are sacrificed, it's for her ideals - the goal and aim of her newfound strength - , and it piles on her drive, she must realise them otherwise those people would have died (and she would have suffered) for nothing.

However, despite acknowledging her past self as a victim, and because she's now "strong", she's not above using her past trauma (but actually, still present! Remember the rat scene?) to reach her goals, because, at her core, Supreme Leader is soemone who is very determined. Maybe it's her only drive to grow beyond the trauma, or her own illusions, or a mix of everything, but AM made it clear, Supreme Leader is not above, well, using herself if it means seeing her goals come to fruition : unlike Lobotogard from AG, AM!Supreme Leader willingly transforms in Hegemongard.

This is the cost she's willing to pay, so while the memes about Lord Farqaad were on spot, I still think that Supreme Leader is ultimately willing to sacrifice** herself for her goal (but only when there's no other way to ensure her future will come to fruition, and in a way, I guess she thought she would survive the Hegemon transformation, jury's out on what she meant to do in AM's finale, but imo, she still tried, even beaten and battered as she was, to claim Dimi's head).

Ultimately I think everything's a bit muddled by the fact that, as @fantasyinvader pointed out, Supreme Leader is a liar and knows the importance of maintening good PR.

She lies and manipulates the truth to reach her goals (which again, is a red flag when CF claims to want to restore the "distorted history" of Fodlan!) and for all the flak I give them, the devs managed to scrap enough material to give us a peek in Adrestia's mindset (or at least its top nobles), they're not people who self reflect, they are salty because they aren't ruling the world anymore, and they feel like they are better than the rest of Fodlan.

Put everything in the mixer, and you indeed have Supreme Leader (but also her court, especially Ferdie in SB who dares to say, as he is invading and trouncing people who don't really like and accept the idea of being invaded, that the fear those people feel are only in their mind, or something like that? Like, dude, you're rolling over their people and country, of course they'll fear and hate you!) giving her weird rhetoric lines (why are people opposing me if they are going to die?), victim blaming (something Treehouse swallowed like honey, if their lolcalisation is anything to go by, remember, it's Rhea's fault for not offering her head on a platter that is the reason why the War continues in CF!) and so on.

IDK if the devs wanted to bank that much on the Dany parallel with her "if I look back i am lost", but again, I don't know if her drive to make a "better Fodlan" is motivated by her trauma, Adrestian revanchism, Ionius telling her dumb things or Agarthans agarthaning, but her goal and vision are everything to Supreme Leader.

So she will do anythign to see them realised, even if it means sacrificing her people, starting a war, tweaking "the truth" or using her own trauma to motivate and recruit powerful people who might assist her with her goals.

To reply to your question, IMO she sees herself as someone who had once been a victim, but won't let that stop her from reaching her goals, even if it means creating thousands of "hers" in the process, because, in her mind, reaching her goal is more important than anything else.

*I know, she refutes Dimitri's claim that she is "strong" or laughs at it, but imo, it was more in the sense of "I was weak and became strong" so everyone can "become" strong.

**I don't think she wanted to throw away her life, but more something in the lines of "putting my life on the line" or sacrificing her precious (and to see how precious it is, just play CF lol) humanity.

[egberts]

I'm just gonna start blocking people who send me essay length asks trying to argue about stupid shit because their personal experience was different

[coconut530]

A GOOD GIRL?!

[roseworth]

i ship kyle with like 5 different people but the most important thing to understand about him is that he has never and will never get over alex and if she came back to life he would drop everything to be with her without a second thought