#or things not relevant to the main plot

[randomnameless]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't FE15 state that although god's control is removed, there's still evil in mankind's heart that must be vanquished or something along those lines? It kinda makes the whole "humanity f*ck yeah" shtick feel hypocritical doesn't it?

Yep,

Because FE15 couldn't nuke FE2 from its DNA, by virtue of being a remake.

So we have two, contradictory messages in this game : Duma BaD and Gods BaD and must go because BaD and they "make humans do BaD things"...

and you have the "gods might be bad, but humans are still BaD without their influence" message at the end - when the entire game (and the timeline and supplementary materials!!) has been pushing the first message.

So...

In a sea of "Gods BaD" waters coming from the remake, you still have the lone "evil remains in the hearts of men" raft that is, somehow, pushed to the forefront in Part 6 where both Celica AND Alm call Thabes the result of human folly, and the player knowing that Grima - who was originally the RED CAPSLOCK eldritch monstruosity before FEH retcon'd them in a tits'n'ass character to uwu about by stealing Anankos' backstory - was "man-made".

And yet, given how the "last word" about FE15 - as in last material revealed - was the timeline in the Memorial Book, we close FE15's book by "and Duma was BaD".

I mean, look at all those mentions of Rudy being so brave and strong and uwusome -> Duma's degenaration is directly tied to how awesome Rudy needs to be in this calendar.

Rudy is so brave to stand in front of a degenerating Duma? -> Duma was insane!

Rudy is so thoughtful and sticks to his promise to Duma by sealing Mila -> akshually Duma wasn't completely insane because he told him to seal Mila and not to kill her even if I said the inverse 3 lines earlier...

[driftingballoons]

Day 2: Evolution

it may not evolution in the typical sense, but they can’t dwell on that right now

@heropartnerweek

[trans-xianxian]

so many otherwise good wei wuxian posts ruined by op thinking that he thinks he's bad/struggles with his goodness

[xx-k1tsun3-k1d-xx]

sins of the flesh moment

[waitineedaname]

I think I need to make a giant venn diagram between homestuck, hlvrai, svsss, and orv

[arabian-batboy]

When you really think about it, some of these new shounen shows like JJK, BNHA and Demon Slayer are lowkey as bad as older shoenen shows when it comes to how they treat their female characters.

The only difference is that new shounen learned this neat trick where they will allow their female characters to have one epic moment in a side-fight that can easily be removed without effecting the plot too much and somehow that’s enough to gaslight people to think that they’re watching peak feminism.

[puhpandas]

as someone who isnt super excited for sotm for certain reasons I am really glad that like. it's clear that since ruin theyve been setting up for carnival and sotm IS carnival. so now that carnival is finally coming out, afterwards theyll be moving on to other plotlines since the main villain stuff is sorted out

I'm just rlly happy to finally see a clear direction for how the story is gonna be playing out with like "okay these games were leading up to this so after this will be open possibilites" instead of like. absolutely no info about each upcoming game and being left guessing before it releases and just having to wait and see what's in it and if anything you're looking forward to will be in it

it feels like they have a plan and a solid direction for what they're trying to do and after carnival releases thatll be all that buildup coming to fruition. & we already know from the Scott interview that theres another release 'beyond sotm' that's 'super exciting' so maybe thatll be focusing on another big currently untouched (which is basically all of them) plotline, or even the big campaign game that dawko has been calling security breach 2

[yuseirra]

Aratate Shrine is dedicated to the two kami deities, Ame no Uzume no Mikoto and Sarutahiko no Mikoto, and celebrates their marriage to each other. Ame no Uzume is known as a deity of song, dance, and the performing arts. Sarutahiko is known as a deity of guidance in travel and education, among other things. Together, they are kami deities of matrimonial happiness and fulfilled wishes.

The nature of this shrine draws followers with creative aspirations, including some well-known actors and actresses. Many who seek guidance in their careers or love life come here to pray and consult the priest.

So this is the description of the Aratate Shrine that makes an appearance in the story(that everyone goes to pray, it's going to be there in anime S2 soon too!)

Oh.. Okay?? Okay?? Didn't Kamiki mention about wishes when he talked to Ruby and Aqua??(147,153?) About fulfilling them?? Didn't he congratulate Aqua about it? What's with him?? Is he really some sort of god? Actually, I'm pretty positive about the entire Hoshino family being "gods who don't realize they are gods"..(144)They really have to start discussing what they're going to do about those random ideas about gods they've been throwing out there. It's about time, it's the final arc!!

If the guy is about "guidance", it's going to be really bad if he gets corrupted. The songs imply someone being given a "flaw", isn't that about him? I had this thought going for awhile. I really hope they tackle this whole idea of gods being there soon if that's supposed to be important. And if so, saltwater could really have some purifying effects. Sarutahiko has to do with Misogi and I looked into a little bit, it does involve both salt and water. I'm half serious. It really may help him if he gets dunked into the sea then. Have him fall. He won't die. Rather, I feel he CAN'T die. Something is making him suffer but I feel it's also preventing him from death too. I feel like he would have followed Ai long ago if he didn't have any hope of meeting her or such.

[bugsbenefit]

ngl, it IS really funny to me to see people in posts about Finn's panel being happy about "having Mike's cluelessness confirmed", because... what exactly would Finn have needed to say for you to think he wasn't clueless? because saying Mike is clueless is literally the only way for Finn to dodge Mike's feelings/sexuality right now

"yes Mike knew what Will was talking about/that Will was hurt/ that Will was crying, he just didn't do anything about it because... uhm..." he doesn't really have a way to explain the van scene without prompting more questions from the audience

i'm personally not very hard set on any interpretation of the van scene. i think it's possible to write the story from here on out with Mike being confused and not sure what to do with it, thinking Will was a bit more involved with everything than he let on, hoping that Will was actually talking about himself etc. a lot is possible from a writing perspective since they didn't give us Mike's pov at all

but the idea that actors would "confirm" an interpretation in a panel is insane to me. they told everyone and their mother than Will was straight for 6 full years. if anyone asked Noah if Will was gay/into Mike post s3 he straight up lied, because it was in his contract. Will being gay and in love with Mike was only supposed to fully get addressed in s4 so up until then Noah had to reflect the popular/heteronormative audience opinion of Will just being behind in development

Finn talking about Mike's opinions/thoughts in scenes that explicitly go out of their way in canon to NOT show us them isn't going to give more information. they went as far as blurring Mike out of the bg in the van scene. Finn coming in to clear up what was actually going on in his head won't happen until the show officially decides to go there on screen

actors will never give away more than canon tells you since they're not allowed to give spoilers

rule of thumb: if a character does smth and it's ominously left unaddressed in the show, the actor will either lie about it or play it off as unimportant in an interview until it's revealed in canon. you'll only get a genuine answer for what was going on if the scene was inconsequential to the plot. like "what did x actually think about that annoying guy they met in the mall" etc.

and how Mike felt about/thought about Will, his best friend, confessing his feelings in code, which was left unclear and purposefully confusing to the audience, is the BIGGEST spoiler territory you could possibly move into right now

[longagoitwastuesday]

I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.

[locusfandomtime]

okay so with all the hermitcraft muppet stuff… i’m thinking… hermitcraft The Muppets (2011) au… it works beautifully hear me out…

y/n is an autistic person who is OBSESSED with hermitcraft. however by this point, hermitcraft has been disbanded for years. they visit the season 9 world - now under the ownership of some corporation - and accidentally overhear evil xisuma’s plans to purchase the original hermitcraft worlds and destroy them, and the hermits would be unable to stop him, unless they buy the world first for an even higher amount of money than ex is offering. y/n refuses to let this happen and tracks down xisuma, explaining the situation. xisuma doesn’t want to have all the things he worked on with his friends destroyed, so decides, in order to raise the money needed to stop ex, all the hermits must reunite and hold a twitch subathon.

starting with joe hills, y/n and xisuma track down the hermits and ask them to join, via montage. they’ve all moved on and have new jobs. tango is an overworked game dev, doc is a tomato farmer, gem is a serial killer, mumbo is biking around europe, grian is procrastinating, cleo is a fashion director, zedaph is a gameshow host, etc etc. they all agree to help, with varying degrees of hesitance or eagerness

finally, they track down etho. he is now working for a big name company designing redstone machines full time. despite their best efforts, etho refuses to help, satisfied with his current job and lacking any motivation for hermitcraft projects. everyone is discouraged with etho not joining the project, especially bdubs. however gem calls etho washed up and then etho suddenly decides to join them to prove his worthiness

they have a day to try and build as many minigames and cool builds as possible. several “celebrity guests” show up for the event, including scott and martyn. the stream starts, and they try to do competitions and play games, however, the helsmits are there and are trying to sabotage the event. y/n has been questioning this entire time what type of player they are - redstoner, builder, etc - failing to succeed in any of those categories, however, after a heartful talk with joe hills, accepts that there are talents not recognised by the minecraft community at large but are still admirable, and they do a dramatic poetry reading together.

in the end, evil xisuma, refusing to accept defeat, cuts out the power to stop the stream 23 hours and 59 minutes in - a minute short of the time goal. the hermits are at first devastated but then remember that as with any stream like this, they already reached the monetary goal 5 minutes in. in fact, they reached double the goal the moment grian talked, and five times the goal the second etho was in frame. zedaph puts on his wormman costume and talks to ex, who reveals he has only been so focused on destroying hermitcraft because it made him sad to see the hermits celebrated but his favourite hermit of all - wormman - ignored. wormman explains that its okay, because of his nature of being a superhero, he needs to stay out of the limelight to best protect his identity, but he appreciates ex’s dedication to him. the other helsmits run away, plotting their revenge. a new season of hermitcraft is announced, and y/n is unanimously voted to be part of it. gem kills someone. scar proposes to grian. the crowd goes wild. everyone claps. the shot zooms out, revealing the entire thing to have been playing on a computer monitor. cut to zloyxp, pixlriffs, and lyarrah sitting in front of it, furiously taking notes for the first recap in many years

[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.

[wildfairies]

dnd actually rewired my brain and i love it so much i used to have such a hard time focusing on lore but it changed my whole perspective on how much more fun it is to create characters with an in-depth understanding of their circumstances

[brionysea]

if mike was straight, stranger things would've ended after season 2

[fictionadventurer]

The Heir of Redclyffe is teaching me that what Little Women really needed was for the March sisters to have a clever, witty, sharp-tongued, disabled brother who was BFFs with Laurie.

[sonknuxadow]

they werent lying that knuckles series barely has knuckles in it