#or that he was in any way justified

[casually-slips-into-coma]

literally cant deal with people saying that since the trial episodes revisit to the s1e5 fight louis is at fault. watching with your eyes closed fr

[potatobugz]

its like this, basically

[sabugabr]

Days before disaster

[idontmindifuforgetme]

used to daydream about fairytale reconciliations after pretty much every platonic or romantic fallout i ever had, but sometimes it’s healthier to just accept that someone will never own up bc they don’t think you’re worth the trouble. anyone who truly cares would move mountains just to make sure that they communicate w you if they truly want to rectify the situation. but sometimes it’s their ego getting in the way, sometimes they have a narrative of you in their head they’re determined not to break, and sometimes they just don’t care enough about you to even consider it. they don’t have respect for the friendship or relationship in its posthumous state bc it was nothing to them, or at the very least it doesn’t eclipse their pride or their desire to appear correct in a situation or just outright the need to be done w the situation rather than be a good person. still guilty of this but i’ve been getting better at just nipping the delusion in the bud and just being okay w accepting that someone truly does not care. until they prove they do that is the assumption i go w every time. and it is saving me a lot of heartache

[kindaasrikal]

Nya and Ronin the uncle and niece duo you could’ve been.

Morro and Lloyd the cousin duo you could’ve been.

Pixal and Unagami the mentor-mentee/older sister-younger brother duo you could’ve become.

CRYPTOR and Pixal the sibling duo we could’ve had.

MR E AS ECHO AND ZANE THE BROTHERS YOU COULD’VE BEEEEEEEN

[lord-squiggletits]

Speaking of Tarn, I know it's a meme to make fun of him and it's kind of justified bc he is deeply cringe and sad and pathetic, but I also think ppl spend way too much time shitting on Tarn for being weird/creepy and not enough time shitting on Megatron for deliberately singling him out and targeting him for brainwashing so that he would BECOME that weird and creepy. Like. Everyone wants to call Tarn horrible and weird but no one wants to acknowledge that Megatron is the person who made him that way. Not even from just an indirect sense of "oh he liked Megatron's writings" no.

Literally Megatron converted Damus/Tarn and personally groomed him as a protege (that he ultimately didn't actually care about at all) as a deliberate action just to spite Optimus. There was no "oh Damus/Glitch was already kind of suspicious and weird and evil" TARN LITERALLY WAS NOT THAT WAY UNTIL MEGATRON MADE HIM THAT WAY like come on y'all

[peace-hunter]

i need optimus to be a Worrier next movie. i need him to be in charge of and responsible for thousands if not millions of mechs and realize they all depend on him and be Fretting about it. i need him seeing people, his people, being in danger and Freaking The Fuck Out.

but most importantly i need him to see one of his friends risk their life for something, anything, and realize that "oh. this is how it feels"

"Is [this] worth dying for?"

"Yes, it is."

this is what he made D go through every single day

[bread-wizards]

I think that Orym actually does doubt Imogen, but this isn't a thing that is unique to Imogen. Orym doubts all of them to an extent, because paranoia is something he struggles with (and this is continuously reinforced by the story).

It's not a 'good' thing that he should never get over, nor is it an immoral character flaw that proves he actually hates Imogen. However it's also not something I think he can get over as long as the threat of having to possibly fight his friends exists.

"I have all the faith in the world in you guys, all of you. And I have also spent time thinking how to neutralize each of you."

[monotone-artist]

[id in alt]

some idw redraws

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Truth and revenge is best served cold.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

Deeply sorry (not really though) to say this but there is no way in hell EA told Bioware to put all the stupid shit they put into their stupid game or interfered to the extent that the game has all these aggressive flaws because EA.

[dollopheadsandclotpoles]

Aight let's hear the thoughts on the difference between wicked the film and play lol 🙈 I saw the tags and I'm intrigued

Ok so disclaimer, it has been a long time since I watched the play or any of the bootlegs so I might be forgetting some details, but I did used to watch the bootlegs all the time and saw the play when I was in the US, and Wicked was even my foray into writing fanfiction so it's always had a very special place in my heart.

I will say to start that I really loved the movie and thought it was incredibly fun. I love that they adapted it in a way that embraced the spectacle potential of the stage play, and while there are obviously going to be some things I prefer from the stage play (as a long time fan of it), I still think it was an incredibly well done adaptation.

The one biggest difference though, I felt, was in the portrayal of Elphaba. Initially I couldn't really put my finger on what felt off about it aside from the fact that they had her crying a lot more than I remember. But after discussing the movie with some friends who had never seen the play, one girl said that she felt Elphaba's turn-around into risking it all for the Animals felt too sudden. That was kinda when it struck me — she wasn't as angry as she was in the original.

In the play, Elphaba is incredibly angry by the injustice of being treated like she's an outsider just for the way she looks, and when she sees the Animals being treated the same way, she feels an immediate kinship with them. The Elphaba of the play is angry yet resigned (her 'I'm Not That Girl' is more of a resigned 'this was bound to happen' vs. the sad realisation moment the movie made it out to be). She's sarcastic, she's loud. She first greets Fiyero by shouting at him and whacking him on the head with a book. She is hurt and sad also (of course) but it is buried so deep that it is only Glinda that actually sees it, making the Ozdust dance moment the impactful moment that it is.

I then came across a discussion on Reddit where someone was saying a similar thing — that Elphaba wasn't as angry as she was in the play. But someone else responded with the fact that 'it would have been hard to watch a 3 hour movie of someone being so angry.' Another commenter bemoaned the fact that they mellowed both the main characters down because they didn't want 'two unlikeable female leads.' And that kinda got me thinking about how they likely 'softened' her to make her more 'likeable' and that kinda felt off to me... because that kinda goes against the point? The female rage is a point of the story that struck a chord with me. It is a story that allows it's lead to be angry, JUSTIFIES it. There are angry men who have led countless movies and shows and who are celebrated and fawned over and embraced, but having an angry young woman in a lead role is risky? I never found Elphaba unlikeable and clearly neither did most of the other people who saw the play (would it be the success it was if they did?) but now that it's reaching a wider audience were they afraid making her too 'angry' would make fewer people root for her? I do think classifying Elphaba as an 'angry' character is a disservice to the nuanced nature of the character, but I did feel like the movie highlighted the sad/hurt aspects of her character more than they did the side that is angry at injustice, but still strangely idealistic and resigned, still believing till the very end that there is an easy solution and the Wizard can just 'fix' everything that's wrong. And so while I do love the adaptation, I feel a bit cheated that they gave us a version of Elphaba with some of her more sharpened edges sanded off, so to speak. I also think the reason her 'turn around' felt too abrupt was because we don't get to see her anger. If you don't see how angry she feels at the world, you don't understand how close to the surface this outburst was, just waiting to bubble out of her. You don't get to see why it was so easy to paint her as a 'Wicked Witch' for a moment of passion when she's been treated like crap her whole life and had to hide behind his anger in order to survive. You don't truly understand why she was willing to risk it all for the Animals because you don't understand how this is her moment of finally deciding to let her rage free and USE it to make the stand she's been wanting to make her whole life.

I still feel it was a brilliant adaptation, I just felt like I missed that aspect of it a lot and it made her character feel a little less nuanced to me. But I could be forgetting certain details, or remembering wrong, or just be plain off — happy to listen to opposing viewpoints.

[starbuck]

Was thinking earlier about “People are not stupid, Ives.” “Really?” and how Ives’ self-centered misanthropy is so important within the larger thematic context of American Imperialism. Imperialists prioritize their own interests over all others since they believe that those they have deemed “others” are unworthy of human consideration. On an individual level, this comes down to believing that you are better than other people, more worthy of life and happiness. 

This is how Hart ends up working with Ives as a willing coconspirator… Even before Colqhoun’s arrival, Hart clearly looks down on the other residents of Fort Spencer. He describes them so uncharitably to Boyd that it isolates Boyd from everyone before he’s even met them. Hart hates his job and the life he lived that got him there and he copes by believing that he is, at least, a superior type of person to everyone under his command. 

In that way, Hart killing his former comrades in cold blood doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s the logical conclusion of his superior, misanthropic perspective pushed to the extreme. He’s better than them, so why SHOULDN’T he kill and eat them? Don’t you understand? You have to KILL! to live! You have to KILL!!!!!!! 

[cosmic-walkers]

I haven't seen a lot of people talk about him but harry melling absolutely killed it as wriothsely. for one of the first times we see the character of wriothsely really focused on in tudor media, he did an outstanding job at portraying a flawed, torn, nuanced and morally ambiguous risley. i loved him, and his ability to have amazing chemistry with mark rylance.

i could almost look past the fact that he didn't have red hair, in s2 even tho the s1 actor had it. idk maybe they ran out of lightener, copper hair color and 50 vol developer on set but he did good.

[sonknuxadow]

my honest reaction