#nuanced i'd say??

[butchfaith]

ok we've been discussing this in our archaeology groupchat and i'm curious

there's no right or wrong answer and obviously this is a very culturally sensitive question- the history (and present state) of displaying human remains is closely tied up with colonialism and (dis)respect for religious and cultural practices, which is why i'm really curious about how many people WOULD be ok with their body being displayed- and why/why not- so if u wanna expand on your answer in the tags please do!!

[reblogandlikes]

I've just come to realise that I've always called Rhysand by his name, Feyre’s mate, or "That Night Court dude." I actually find it hard to shorten his name, and when reading it in the books, I gloss over his nickname to say, "Rhysand" subconsciously, and then I remember...

"Only my enemies and prisoners call me that."

Yes, Rhysand, you got that bloody right. Enemy for sure. There's a few fictional characters I'd fight, even if I'd lose, and he's definitely one of them. Square up!

[cardboard-aliens]

It legitimately makes feel crazy how Culpepper exists only to prop up the male characters. She has one speaking line, and then every other comment on her existence is men insulting and killing her. Her death isn't about herself--it's to highlight Ryan's hypocrisy, Cohen's thin skin, and Sullivan's, her murder's, grief.

Maddening that we're supposed to feel bad for the cop who killed Culpepper, and then stole from his victim's home, and sympathize with his sadness instead of focusing on Culpepper's actual death. Her death isn't hers, more focus is given to the men in her story than her own thoughts and feelings. She doesn't exist outside of men, she doesn't even exist for herself. Her relationship with Jasmine isn't even in the game, it's something added in the book and even there, their relationship is only explored in male characters talking about them behind their backs. Never on screen interactions.

She's not a character in the story, she's a prop for the rest of the male cast, and this can be said for a majority of the female characters in BioShock.

[planetamarte]

earlier this year, i polled for what sonic voice people hear in their heads (albeit forgetting to make the poll more than a day long lol), so with our current fearless year of shadow i figured i should poll for him too!

my personal mental go-to is david humphrey. love that guy<3

[tea-cat-arts]

Honestly, the more I look into mxtx's reasons for not writing side couples (aside from mobishang), the more based I think she is

[yuseirra]

about marrying...

There was a magazine interview where they had Ai answer a couple of questions, and well, she didn't say no when asked if she had someone she wanted to marry. Seeing how she pictured a cute and loving family with Hikaru... I believe they really could have gotten married if things weren't this messed up.

[queeraliensposts]

Illymation: Don't be a dick to fat people.

The internet: EWWWW SHE'S GLORIFYING OBESITY LET'S DOX HER!!!!!!!

[butwhatifidothis]

Still baffled that Hopes so blatantly wrote Claude as the typical Evil Vaguely Middle Eastern Man set on destroying the Good White Nation for his Evil Vaguely Middle Eastern Nation that is often seen in fantasy settings - complete with him being seen as worse than a white woman who does many of the same evil deeds he does in-verse, even by his friends (should it be the bad ending route of SB) - and so many in the fandom were so eager to gobble that shit up. INSIST that "Clearly A Racist Stereotype" is LEAGUES better than "Subversion Of A Racist Stereotype" even. Like I don't think I'll ever get over how supremely fucked that is

[kyouka-supremacy]

There's an alternative Beast Chuuya design where he wears the scarf instead of the hat

[quaranmine]

On Wednesday before I gave my presentation I confessed to a new employee that I was worried it would be too long and she brightly told me her life hack was to just let AI rewrite things for her. She said I should put in all my talking points and ask ChatGPT to give me a five minute exactly presentation. I was like....how is the most polite possible way (since this is a new colleague I shouldn't get off on the wrong foot with) that I can express that I will Not be taking this advice. Ever. I told her that I didn't think we were allowed to use ChatGPT at this job (we most certainly are not, it is a nightmare for any type of protected information) and also that I prefer to write all of my own work. Despite my best efforts the last part of that was still passive aggressive, lol.

Something about being a writer makes it so that it's almost offensive to me for someone to suggest I use AI to do my work instead? Like, the day I reach the point where I let AI write something for me is the day y'all need to be checking me for brain damage because clearly I'm losing it

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Have you ever felt the fanbase itself has become too crowded with people who act like they "know better" then the show?

I've noticed this, specially with artist, that while they claim they're "fixing designs", most either "over-complicate" the designs (Despite them looking good) but they also seem to have a little arrogant over it.

I don't hate redesigns, that's not what I'm saying, but seeing people claim they're "better" or are "fixing" designs while over-complicating a design that's supposed to be "simple".

This is a complex question because fan content that attempts to re-imagine some part of canon has traditionally always been called "fix it" content. The term "fix it" has also always been treated pretty neutrally in fan spaces. Traditionally speaking, saying something is a "fix it fic" just means that the fic is directly addressing canon in a way that other works don't. It's the creator saying, "I want to give you a different take on something that canon did." That take usually exists because the creator doesn't like something in canon, but at the same time, it doesn't necessarily mean that the creator thinks that canon should or even could have done the fix. It just means that they want to share their ideal take on the idea.

Because I come to fandom with that history in mind, I don't see a statement like "fixing Ladybug's design" and interpret that to mean, "This is how the show should have designed her as I've taken into account all of the concerns that one must address in animation." I interpret that to mean, "I wasn't a fan of Ladybug's design, so I did my own take on her," because that is traditionally what "fix it" was shorthand for. It's not a technical evaluation or competitive standing. It's a genre.

This history seems to be ignored in parts of the Miraculous fandom and that completely threw me off when I entered the fandom. It still throws me off! I have no idea what's going on around here!

While many Miraculous fans are using "fix it" in the traditional sense, there also seem to be groups that see "fix it" as some sort of direct letter to the writers/designers showing them what they should have done. To add further complications, one sub group of Miraculous fans is USING "fix it" in that context, which is an issue I will get to in a minute. The other sub group is INTERPRETING the words "fix it" in that context and I can't change that. I can just tell you that this is straight up bizarre to me because what are you supposed to label fix it content if we can't use the words "fix it"? Why are you ignoring decades of fandom history? You are reading way too much into those words!

I don't know if it's because Miraculous skews younger or if it's because of fandom drama that predates my entry to the fandom (I'm a COVID convert, so I didn't get here until after season 3) or if I've just been lucky in the past, but both the reverence and the hatred towards Miraculous canon is highly unusual compared to what I've seen in other fandoms. I'm more used to fanworks having a tone of loving irreverence or mild annoyance where canon is seen as a series of optional writing prompts that you can do with what you will. The reason for that tone has a lot to do with the fact that it's wildly unfair to compare canon to fanon, especially when it comes to visual media.

The fun of fandom spaces is that we can create without the limits that stifle professional productions. It doesn't matter if our stories are marketable or if the designs we come up with fit a theoretical budget or if we only produce a new chapter/drawing once a year. This means that, yes, fan works often have the ability to surpass canon! At the same time, it's rarely fair to make that comparison on a technical/competitive level. I will criticize Miraculous for many things, but here are some of really basic challenges that the show writers face that I - a fanfic writer - never will:

I can use as many sets as I want, the writers are limited to the settings that have been animated

I can make my stories as long or as short as they need to be, the writers have to make the story episodic enough to fit a 20-minute run time while also drawing things out for at least 8 seasons

I can write a story that doesn't have an akuma attack, the show has a very clear rule that every episode needs to contain a fight sequence

I can put the characters in whatever outfit I want, the writers cannot because every outfit needs to be animated

I can take my time plotting out my story from start to finish and even go back and edit things if I feel like it, the writers have hard deadlines and things get set in stone very quickly

The list goes on, but it can be summed up to: as an independent creator, I can do anything I can imagine. I am only limited by my own talent. Meanwhile, the writers of an animated show for kids have to follow very strict guidelines due to things beyond their control such as budget concerns and network rating guidelines. We are not the same. You should not compare us on a technical level.

This is where we circle back to the whole "using fix it as a way to directly criticize canon and show the creators what they should have done" thing. That's not a take that I'm ever going to be comfortable with because fix it content rarely tries to fit the same confines or deal with the same instability that canon is subjected to. If you use fix it like that, then you are taking the concept too far. You're also being quite arrogant.

If I see someone do this, I tend to assume that they're pretty young or that, at the very least, they know absolutely nothing about how TV shows work. What you see on the screen is often not what the creator would have given you under ideal circumstance. Some of the best examples of this come from times when a creator was given pretty ideal conditions only to then have less than ideal conditions when the property was revisited as that highlights that you really can't just blame the writers. The most well known examples that come to mind are Avatar the Last Airbender vs its sequel Korra and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings vs his Hobbit movies.

For a really in depth discussion of LotR vs The Hobbit, you can go watch Lindsay Ellis' fantastic documentary for free on youtube. For this post, I'll just go into the high level stuff of Avatar vs Korra.

Avatar asked for three seasons and magically got three seasons. Korra was supposed to be a 13-episode miniseries, but was expanded to four seasons after season one was done. The show then had budget cuts that messed with the last season due to poor performance. Shockingly, Avatar was the better show. I wonder why? Just imagine what Korra could have been if it had been given four seasons from the start!

At the very least, I can guarantee you that writers wouldn't have ended all of season one's plot lines in the season one finale, leaving them to start from scratch with season two which is generally considered the worst season. Once again, I wonder why?

Because of all that, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a fix it fic out there that takes all of Korra and reworks it to make everything flow better. I wouldn't even be surprised if I find that fic to be better than canon because the fic was only limited by the writer's talent. On the other hand, the actual show was massively limited by things beyond the writers' control, meaning that it's overall quality issues are less a condemnation of the writers and more a representation that even awesome writers can't perfectly adjust on the fly when networks meddle.

Of course, Korra doesn't have extremely fundamental writing flaws like Miraculous does, but the principle remains the same. I can point out Miraculous' flaws with certainty, but I cannot necessarily fix them with certainty. That's assuming too much.

But there are different types of criticism and different ways of engaging with the source material. What I do on this blog is mostly focused on high level discussion of the show's flaws and spit balling ways to fix them without really committing to anything. I'm not telling you how the show should have been written. I'm just pointing out flaws and talking about the things I think the writers could have changed or accounted for, though it is always possible that I'm wrong and this was caused by something outside of the writing circle.

That's why I rarely mention anyone by name. I cannot point a finger and say "this is the person who ruined Lila's potential and this is why they did it." I can just tell you that Lila was poorly executed when she didn't need to be. I don't want you to send this blog to the writers, but generally speaking, it is the kind of feedback that I'd be comfortable giving them if they hired me as an editor or script doctor. When I act in those roles, I'm much nicer than I am on here because I know that the writer will actually read what I say, but I am just as brutal about pointing out flaws because that's what I signed on to do. I'm not here to stroke your ego, I'm here to work with you and help you improve your story.

When I write fix it fics - and I have several - I am engaging in a very different type of criticism. I'm not discussing specific flaws in canon and telling you how to address them within the limits of the show. Instead, I'm giving you my ideal version of a given concept from the show so that you can hopefully enjoy it and maybe even use to find some catharsis for a thing that you also didn't like. I'll also change things about the show just to keep things interesting or to be highly self indulgent. For example, I avoid umbrella scenes in my stuff even though I think that the canon umbrella scenes are cute and well written. It's because they're so iconic that I do something different! Why revisit them when I have nothing to add? I'd just be copy canon! It's more fun to do something new since there are other ways to have Marinette and Adrien fall in love.

It's a very nuanced type of criticism because it's true that these stories only exists because I'm saying that canon did something wrong and I want to show you how it could have been better. But I'm also not limiting myself to the confines of canon or even just improving canon to make my argument, so it's impossible to compare them on a technical level. That's not why I write fix it fic, though. I have this blog so that I can discuss writing concepts and how to learn from Miraculous' failures. I write fix it fics to have fun and indulge my imagination. For example, I have a fic that's basically my ideal take on Chat Blanc and there's no way that would work in the context of canon. In the context of canon, I'd suggest far more minor changes or even tell them to scrap the episode all together.

Be it fix it content or more high level critical analysis like I do on this blog, it's important to remember that canon isn't going to change. Even if we could sit the writers down and convince them of everything that they did wrong and everything that they should do to fix it, they can't actually enact those changes. The story is already out there and time machines aren't a thing. But that's not what fandom content is about. Blogs like this are for people who enjoy thinking about stories critically and discussing how and why they fail. Good fix it content is all about saying, "I didn't like canon and think it would be better if X happened" or even "I liked canon, but got this idea about how it could be different" and then sharing the idea with other fans. This is because any and all fan content is for the fans (and former fans), not the creators.

So yes, I think it's valid to make fan content that "improves" canon. I even think it's valid to compare it to canon in a casual manner as that's just a natural thing that humans do. Give me two versions of something and I will automatically compare them and probably even pick a favorite. The thing that you need to be careful about, the nuance that you have to keep in mind, is that fandom is a casual space to have fun with other fans and to create whatever our talents will allow us to create. When we use terms like "fix it" or say that we like something better than canon, that context needs to be kept in mind. I will never be concerned by a reader telling me that they liked one of my stories more than they liked canon or that they wish that canon had also included a concept I've played with. That's just a statement of preference. I only get concerned when I get comments about how "the writers should read this so they can learn from you" because I didn't write it to teach them. I wrote it to have fun with my fellow fans and that is true for every bit of fandom content I produce.

I know that was long, but hopefully it answered your question? My main draw to fandom spaces is fix it content, so this is something I'm pretty passionate about. If I think that a piece of media is perfect, then I don't seek out fan content for it. I only join fandoms on those rare occasions when media hits that sweet spot of good enough to grab my attention, but bad enough/lacking something to not fully satisfy me.

[preciousbabyrat]

got curious because I was thinking about a friend I had whose british accent seemed super sophisticated and elegant to everyone at school, and then she was like "thanks I got it from Dan and Phil" lmao

[purgetrooperfox]

okay I keep seeing people talking about how bi-han slander takes the form of "he is evil beyond redemption, his actions can never be justified no matter what, he is a villain" but most of the gross misinterpretation I see on this site is more "he did absolutely nothing wrong and could never be mean to kuai liang and canon is wrong actually and if you disagree then you just don't Get Him like I do 💅". which I thought was a joke at first??? why are y'all trying to take away his teeth??? enough character analysis posts that are just bending him into the shape you want him to be. please. he's misguided, yes, he's also a bitch. sure he wants what's best for the clan but he's also so selfish that he thinks Everyone Else is wrong and refuses counsel. he's ambitious to a fault and made a stupid ass decision. OWN IT

[reallyhardy]

Sorry what’s up w the Ethan slater stuff? I know him only from your posts / SpongeBob stuff

HI HELLO please buckle in

yep -- the same guy from the spongebob musical, and my posts abut the spongebob musical.

he blew up completely and now the general public knows him as 'ariana grande's new boyfriend' - their relationship seems to have started off the back of co-starring in the upcoming wicked musical film adaptation.

it's just been like. a monkey's paw curling sort of a way for him to get catapulted to fame, as i had always really enjoyed him as a performer (as spongebob, yes, but also in the other roles i'd seen him in,) and my biggest hope back around 2017 was that he would continue in and be really successful in theatre, get a lot of broadway roles, maybe take on some existing parts i thought he'd really suit, like seymour in little shop or ogie in waitress.......... but instead he booked the role of boq from wicked in a massive hollywood film production instead, where he met ariana grande. THE ariana grande.

and then yeah. at some point, he and grande broke up with their respective partners, (slater leaving both his wife AND newborn son) jumped into a new relationship, and now the whole wider internet knows who he is but certainly not for the right reasons.

there's been speculation regarding whether or not grande and slater had cheated on their previous partners before their relationship began with various sources coming out of the woodwork saying "yes they did" and others saying "no they didn't" -- humans are all perfectly capable of making stuff up, the media especially, so i simply don't know who to trust and i admit it had completely shattered my whole good impression of him - PLUS it gave the wider internet an absolutely awful first impression of him, resulting in, yeah, the (frankly, unflattering, sometimes downright cruel) memes of him popping up on twitter and, as i discovered yesterday, in non-theatre youtubers' videos who would literally never have heard of him if not for the slater-grande romance 🥲

FULL COVERAGE of the situation as it was happening can all be found on the lovely @notasimpleslater's blog under the tag 'ozgate' if you want to delve deeper!

[randomnameless]

Genuine question, not trying to start a fight, why do you get so upset about gods and churches being presented in a negative light in fictional works?

No pbs!

I guess it's a mix of being too common, too forced and having, in general, the cast use common tropish arguments to fight /defeat them.

I rant a lot about this game, but take TS where we have three sort of factions opposing each other, and each are supposed to suck. Who is the faction who never receives any "positive traits" or "pet the dog" moment?

The game force fed us a scene where an Aesfroti soldier - when Aesfrost is depicted as a highly militarised nation with a cult of personality towards their current ruler, that invaded the protag's home and slaughtered several civilians and NPCs in the process - say goodbye to his wife and kids before going to "war" to defend his land against, well, the protags who are invading it to kill their warmongering leader.

As force-fed as this scene was, it, I believe at least, tried to tell us that even the Aesfrosti who pillaged villages and killed their inhabitants are humans, and care about their loved ones, sure it's corny, but it's all about not deshumanising any party.

When we attack Hyzante? Niet, zilch, nothing. No similar scene where random soldiers, or NPCs, worry about what is going on and if they're going to die when their wall has been breached. They just, don't exist in this context.

I think the cherry on the cake is the Golden Route scene, where, apparently, nationalists Aesfrosti decide to turn back against their ultra charismatic leader because, uh, he "lied" when he declared the war and used a false pretense, so the soldiers and people who were butchering babies and invading a city where people were preparing a marriage apparently now have morals and rebel.

There's no similar scene for Hyzante when the cast reveals that the teachings of their Goddess were made up and salt wasn't exclusively given to them by divine intervention, because rock salt exists everywhere. Sure it would be a bit weird and forced that people thinking they're chosen ones and looking down on everyone else suddenly, hm, don't break down when their entire system of belief is shattered, but hey, if the Aesfrostian Gregor can have morals after washing his hands of all this Glenbrookian blood, why shouldn't religious npc #55 not make the same heel face turn?

And then, we have the slavery/human experimentation plot - in general, when TS tries to give nuance, they more or less explain/justify why something that "sucks" is done, it's basically Silvio's character.

Aesfrost' Gustadolph manages to push his "freedom" mentality because his land is a harsh place where people are desperate to survive, salt smuggling is reprehensible, but it's the only way to give some to the ones who cannot afford it. Of course is everyone is free, no one is because, as Gustadolph puts it, they're basically free to die for his ambitions.

Hyzante? Follows a racist creed where Rozellians have to pay for some great sin, and are slaved away in a lake to recover salt until they die. It's, later, justified by Hyzante wanting to keep its salt monopoly else they don't have anything, and wanting to curb down the Rozelle people because they know about the exitence of rock salt (and I guess getting free workers to harvest salt from the lake + having state enemies make his own population docile/not willing to rebel ?).

And then, we have the human experimentations, that are just done for, uhh, Idore's lol. When Hyzante is known for its "advanced medicine" and we could have had the usual dilemna of, idk, having those humans experimentations used to develop this medicine that is reknown in the world (idk, sacrificing a Rozellian to save someone else's life?) - it's not the angle the devs picked. Rozellians are sacrificed to power up an idol, Idore wants to control the world through his idol and soft power (compared to Gustadolph's hard power) and manipulates his people (just like Gustadolph) to do so.

The two are very similar, but who is the final boss? Complete with a transformation in an eldritch monster? The war-mongering imperialist or the jaded old man who is leading de facto a religion?

Hopefully there's the entire "human experimentations for no other purpose than the lols" to settle them apart.

---

I recently watched Dune, and even if I have some issues with the adaptation, the Bene Gesserit isn't portrayed as "comically" evil-er than the Harkonen Empire, I reckon the comparison isn't adequate, because Dune is multi book series when I'm mostly talking about video games.

Symphonia's church of Martel is a font for the Big Bad (tm) to put in motion his nefarious plans, and yet, through the game, we see how random clergymen use their, uh, religious buildings to help people around. Ultimately Martel herself is reincarnated through plot device and tells the big bad to stop being an ass and the story is less about "church and gods evil" but "big bad distorts Martel/church's teachings and role for his plans because he has a tragic backstory"

(but then Symphonia ends with the biggest whitewashing from every Tales I've played for its big bad so I'll stop talking about it because otherwise I'm going to be salty).

Abyss' church is more or less the same thing - the Church is supposed to help people deal with the fact their verse has "predestination stones" where the future is already written, and in the course of the game, we see how it has several factions and one opposes the group (who has the pope as a NPC!) - but it's not a story about "gods bad church BaD".

I remember playing Suikoden Tierkreis a long time ago, and while the game seemed to go through familiar "church bad gods bad" route and we end with defeating a god-like entity... I pretty much loved the twist that, in a game that relied on alternate dimensions/universe, the god-like entity was actually the protag if he made different choices!

In those games, if you fight a religious body and someone pretending to be a God or what not - it's not because people fight against an eldritch creature who wants world domination and to erase puny insects, or is the reason why everything goes wrong, but because, at the end, the conflict/fight is ultimately caused by someone, generally a human or at least a non "god like" entity, wanting to destroy the world.

I don't remember if FE was my first JRPG series or not, but I always liked the idea that if the world is doomed in those games and the heroes must prevent said doom, it's not because a god-like being wants to destroy the world, but because people, humans/randoms are the most shitty ones out there.

---

As for the "tropes" often used to deride fictional churchs and religious people, well, I will again point to TS - which did a splendid job in the Benedict Route where you smash Hyzante after allying with Aesfrost.

There's one battle where out protags diss Hyzantese because they worship a goddess and have no free will, listening to Her teachings and Her says (the traditional "religious people have no free will and listen to their churches who tell them how to think!") - which is immediately countered by one of those Hyzantese characters asking Serenor if he's not the same, but instead of blindly listening to a Goddess, blindly follows Benedict. And it ends with the final chapter title referencing automatons/puppets : who is that title talking about ? The fake "idol" Idore created, or the fake "king" Benedict created?

Anyways, the usual "religions people have no free will because their church/religion tells them how to think" trope reeks of r/atheism and the double standard - bar in this route of TS, but I guess, in TS itself in the Roland route! - is never called out, blindly following a charismatic leader is okay, as long as charismatic leader isn't religious?

Regardless of my IRL thoughts about religion, usually those tropes are presented as a "gotcha!" when they are... not at all, but the games/books leave it at that and we're supposed to roll with it.

I'd say it's lazy writing or, as we saw in Naruto, a quick way to end a story without having to dwelve in characters and their motivations : "you're a god/alien/other being and you're bad, so let us do what we want!" - end of the story.

Hopefully some fillers and to an extent, Boruto gave her more meat bar being the 11 hour villain we had to defeat quick and who manipulated the previous sad'n'lonely antagonists - but it still felt rich from Naruto, known for his famous "talk no jutsu" and trying to understand people he's fighting against, to drop the ball with Kaguya, calling her pure malice and ending with some "let us live the way we want" to wrap up the plot so he can wrestle with his boyfriend later on.

In the end, we often end up with "religion bad bcs the big bad manipulates people through it", as if those mangas/animes/vg never have other examples of charismatic people not using religion to manipulate their randoms/people or "gods bad they should let humans do what they want" when we've read/seen/played through various, uh, really fucked-up shit humans did - but on their own! and ultimately, but it's more in fandom spaces, with have Projection 101.

TLDR : church/religion/gods are too often used in those works as the ultimate scapegoat to either wrap up a story in a rushed ending or to pretend to have "nuance" but still have a common enemy where all the "nuanced" characters can grow/be whitewashed and side together against that "common enemy".

Just like in all things I guess, I prefer when something isn't painted as purely negative and all of the positive traits are erased because there is a need for a perfect scapegoat - sure, bring out too much "nuance" and writing/designing a game/manga/anime becomes harder because there's no "clear cut" antagonist, and yet, the one who always gets fucked in this scenario is the religious/church side.

Want a generic stock villain who will destroy the world so the heroes have to fight against them? Just create a "religion" in your setting, and have the big bad either hell bent on resurrecting Chtullu to destroy the world because Chtullu BaD, or have them be the most corrupt piece of shit who manipulate everything in the shadows, so the rest of the world, even the ones who slaughter others bcs they feel like they must start a war, can be whitewashed at the end.

I mean, there's a saying about diverting attention from a fire by starting a bigger one near, or a trope of "aliens made them do it" : who cares if Madara started a continental war and targeted a village full of random civilians he swore to protect because he lost the elections? Did y'know he was manipulated by a woman, I mean, an eldritch thing created by a woman, regarded as a God, who ultimately wanted to get out of her fridge to kill everyone?

Roland must get over his hatred for Aesfrost for barging in his kindgom and killing hundred of his people while they were preparing for a wedding, because hey, Idore is evil and plans on ruling the world through his sham religion!

I'll forever be salty at TS for not giving Kamsell the occasion to rise against Idore, or not even have minor NPCs get the same treatment as Sycras suddenly going all "u lied to me gustadolph so i won't listen to u anymore + sad goodbyes to my wife'n'kids".

Extremism of all kinds can lead to wars/tragedy/fucked up shit - Sure I don't want to get my History lessons in video game medium when I play lol, but what I really don't like is how it feels like depicting "they're extremists because they're religious" feels like the default/easy answer : want a bunch of brainwashed people the heroes must fight against and can't talk no justu their way out of this fight/will fight without looking too BaD? Depict those people as "misguided" members of a corrupt church/believers of a religion, no one will givea fig. If they are instead supporters of a charismatic leader who throws them through the meatgrinder to further their goals? Well, there's no automatic loyalty so either you have to show/depict it on screen, else it can be challenged at key points to demonstrate how those people - who follow the charismatic leader - aren't completely "mindlessly listening to their leader" or how their leader "isn't that bad after all".

[arcadekitten]

allie is one of the few people that doesn't end up with the person that tried to kill her- good thing bc if she did i'm calling the cops.

I mean Enide didn't try to kill Allie! If she wanted to I'm sure she could. But she doesn't!

In regards to your second point yeah I should hope so they were a child and an adult respectively. I know I like making evil people but I have my limits too