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necrotic-nephilim · 3 months ago
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I started in DC by reading fanfics, but as I began to read actual comics, I started to be unable to read the actual fanfic that got me into it in the first place because it's so out of character.
But there are still some stories that I love to read because I love the found family trope so much, even if it isn't really accurate to the source material.
As a comics purist (sometimes), are there tropes that you like enough that you'll still enjoy a fic even if it's not accurate to canon?
oh my god this is SUCH a fun question. bc while i started with the comics, there were certain characters and/or character dynamics where i was exposed to the fanon before the canon (just bc it's hard to read everything when you start out just to read some fanfic) and so i've definitely experienced the fanon to canon transition. (*especially* with Jason Todd. i had only read 80s/90s stuff where he was already dead or the New-52 bc that was on-going when i got into comics and man. the fanon misunderstandings i had about him before i got frustrated and sat down to read all his pre-Flashpoint stuff were absolutely bonkers.) and aside from that, whilst i tend to prefer canon over fanon, i'm not past giving fanon its flowers for occasionally having really interesting insights. occasionally. so some of my fanon "guilty pleasure" tropes would probably be
Morally Grey Tim Drake - this is one where if you try to back it up with canon, i *will* get salty about it. of everyone in the Batfam aside from maybe Bruce and Cass, Tim has the *most* black and white morals. often his internal conflicts are routed in such an inability to compromise his moral views and it can cause him to clash with other characters. he's *very* stiff and rigid in his beliefs and is *rare* to compromise in even the smallest ways. i mean, DC has repeatedly used Tim Drake of Tomorrow/Savior/Gun Batman!Tim for a reason. it's to demonstrate that of everyone, Tim *cannot* have his morals compromised. there's no grey area for him. he's zero or a hundred, so if he tips over the edge of "too far" he tips *all the way*, and doing so is one of his worst fears, how he could go "too far" if he let himself. a couple panels out of context from Red Robin (2009) (which was a grief spiral for Tim to begin with) don't change that. now that said. if it's done *right*, i sort of love Tim being morally grey in fanfic. it takes a specific flavor for me, and it's incredibly important to include that mental spiral along with it, of him struggling to justify it. i don't have any interest in "Tim Drake is loosy goosy with Bruce's morals and has the highest kill count and no one knows teehee" bc it doesn't play with the interesting parts of making Tim morally grey, which are fracturing his psyche. but all in all, i think it's fun to put Tim in a morally grey area and i will read it in fanfic and i enjoy writing it a lot
Joker Junior!Tim Drake - i've not written it on this account (yet) but on my main ao3 account one of my biggest fics surrounds this concept. this is one of those "well *technically* it's canon but only in a specific very divorced from the comics universe and would not work at all in the main timeline" so, i categorize it as fanon in that 95% of fics exploring the concept are not doing so within the Batman Beyond universe, but the main timeline. i just love it. I'll take any excuse to whump Tim, but this concept is so fun. psychologically breaking Tim will always be my favorite pastime. there are so many ways to explore the long-term effects this could have on him, how it could affect the Batfam. i'm not a fan of it being used as a "gotcha" to Jason or Babs' trauma with the Joker to paint Tim as the Ultimate Victim, but it is fun to see how their relationships would be affected by being mutual victims of him. (i have a vague JayTim idea where TIm fully retires from being Robin after being Joker Junior and killing the Joker, making Steph Robin for most of his typical Robin era and Jason still tracks him down out of curiosity bc he wants to know what happened and all. very underbaked but i've got thoughts.)
Renegade/Apprentice of Slade!Dick Grayson - this is another one where yes, this happened *sort of* in canon, but i highly doubt most people writing Renegate!Dick have read or are actually pulling from Nightwing: Renegade. it's just an exploration fo the concept fo Dick being Slade's apprentice and i will always eat it up in any capacity. whether Dick grows up with Slade from a young age, or chooses Slade for whatever reason later in life. it's not anything that works in canon bc it compromises Dick morally (similar to the above with Tim) and therefore will always come across incredibly fanon in most fics. but i can't say i don't enjoy it. it's fun to make Dick a little morally fucked up and see what you can make him under Slade's tutelage.
Jason & Damian Meeting in the League -there's no world where i believe this could work in the canon comics. (maybe in the Young Justice cartoon i suppose, but even then i think it's iffy) i would go as far to say it's wildly unrealistic. i don't see a world where Ra's would let Jason anywhere *near* Damian, bc Jason was Talia's pet project that he didn't approve of. that all said, there's something very interesting about how they *could've* met and them potentially bonding during that timeframe. them being somewhat brotherly during this time because Jason sees Bruce in Damian and sort of latches onto the kid and Damian is full of wonder hearing real stories about Batman and Robin, then that getting violently ripped away by Jason leaving the League is fun to me. it's fun how that could affect them within the Batfam and all. it's super fanon to me, but i do not care. i will eat it up
Bad Dad Clark Kent/Good Dad Lex Luthor - i will admit as a late, i've been less and less kind to this particular fanon bc of everything i've argued with people about, *this* one seems the most pervasive as misunderstood fanon. i don't mind when fanon exists, my gripe is when ppl try to claim it's canon. and the *arguments* i've had over this with people who can never seem to cite an actual comic are... frustrating. but that said, i think there is something fun to this strictly in fanon. the duality of who you expect to accept Kon and who you expect to hurt him being flipped is just sort of fun for the occasional guilty pleasure fic. it can make Kon's internal conflict a bit more interesting. the same goes for the Jon favoritism from Clark, it's not a canon thing (and i rlly wish ppl understood how complicated the timeline of Kon and Jon is and any distance from Clark toward Kon isn't malice, it's that Kon is from a timeline that Clark does not remember in the current canon so Clark just straight up doesn't know the poor kid.) but it's sort of fun to give Kon that complex of being overlooked and forgotten sometimes. making Kon just a *bit* more Luthor than Kent will *always* appeal to me in fanfic, especially if he *knows* it's wrong but craves approval from anyone who will give it.
Good Dad Bruce Wayne - i'll die on the hill Bruce is canonically a shitty father. maybe not to the extreme some people write him as, but he's not great at it. that said, i enjoy it in fanfiction. sometimes, i just want silly fluff or hurt/comfort where Bruce finally gets it right and manages to comfort whatever Batkid is in the fic. one of my favorite fics of all time is hinged on Bruce being a good dad, so i think it's just fun to explore how good the relationships *could* be, if Bruce was slightly less of an asshole. i usually prefer him as an asshole, but there are times i want low stakes nonsense.
Gotham Rogues Having Soft Spots for Robin(s) - just about every Rogue in Gotham has done something absolutely irredeemable, and most of them don't like or care about anyone in the Batfamily. but if there's a fic where one of the Robins inexplicably is sort of close with a Rogue and they have a cute silly relationship out of it? I'll eat it up i fear. Steph and the Riddler are besties? I'll believe it. Tim and Scarecrow get along pretty well? give me ten of these. Rogues protecting Robins just hits a spot. the unexpected nature of the relationship, as well as the fact they see each other regularly, can make a lot of good fodder.
#necrotic answerings#canon vs fanon#batfanon#batfamily#I was *going* to include “Janet and Jack Drake are bad parents”#then realized I don't really like that fanon anymore.#but I used to go *hard* for it even knowing it wasn't canon. it was all projection but still#nowadays I think the tragedy of Tim losing his parents the way he did is *far* worse if they loved him and were good to him.#I'm so serious about the Kon thing i've had *nasty* arguments where ppl got so rude to me telling me to “Google it”#like listen I get it. kon's canon backstory is currently difficult to understand#the timeline of the superboy mantle is a little confusing and most people have not read young justice (2019)#so for fanon it's far easier to simplify it as “clark just kinda sucks to kon” and i enjoy that#but the canon is also fun. it's fun when you consider how fucked up it is most people don't remember kon#and the timeline he remembers doesn't exist anymore.#also technically since they never killed off new-52!superboy on page there could be two superboys/kon-els running around rn. who knows.#i like to believe there is bc it's funny.#i have wanted to write a new-52!konkon/tim/kon sandwich#with the “is it selfcest or not” question#bc new-52!kon wasn't a clone of clark and lex.#so like. he's arguably a different character just sharing the name kon-el for some reason#also on the nightwing: renegade thing i know *damn* well most fanon-only fans haven't read it (no shade in that)#bc the fanon crowd despises devin grayson and she wrote it.#one day i'll write a meta about fandom treatment of devin grayson trust me.#this question was SO fun#i feel like i should have more answers?#if you'd asked me like six months ago this list would be three times as long#but the more i exist in this fandom somehow the saltier i get idk what's happening#so now i'm more and more attached to canon#but i will never begrudge someone for liking fanon#like i said my issue with it is the confusion of what is canon
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phantomsies · 1 month ago
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literacy, empathy and nuance are dead fucking arts and there really is no coming back from it.
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wavesoutbeingtossed · 6 months ago
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ninyard · 6 days ago
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thea for character ask?👀
How do I feel about this character?
i dont have much of an opinion of her except for the fact that i think she's huge wasted potential for the series and how it relates to Kevin.
It could've survived without her, to be totally honest, and the fan hate making Nora decide to essentially remove her from any possible future appearances has kind of turned her into a bit of an unnecessary accessory to the plot instead of a meaningful character?? if that makes sense?? but i don't hate her. she barely crosses my radar bc im so not interested in drama lol
All the people I ship with this character?
Kevin ofc. Kathea because it's funny (is that the right name for it???). Allison because i love hot women
My non-romantic otp for this character?
i. do not have one <3
my unpopular opinion about this character
I really just don't think about her that much. it's suuuuch a waste of my energy to feel any sort of way about her
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age-of-moonknight · 9 months ago
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“Soldier,” Vengeance of the Moon Knight (Vol. 2/2024), #3.
Writer: Jed MacKay; Penciler and Inker: Alessandro Cappuccio; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit
#Marvel#Marvel comics#Marvel 616#Vengeance of the Moon Knight#Vengeance of the Moon Knight 2024#Vengeance of the Moon Knight vol. 3#latest release#Moon Knight#Soldier#that opening page is breath-taking (and perhaps in a literal sense for that dude getting whaled on)#/almost/ succeeded in distracting me from Soldier’s raging survivor’s guilt#but…oof#what really gets me about this issue (and I guess Soldier’s character in general) is how adamant he is about his willingness to die#and yet he continues to live#he didn’t get blown up in his introductory issue he got turned into a vampire and now he’s seemingly outlived Marc#it seems to be asking the question «yeah sure you’ll die for me but will you keep on living to continue my mission?»#which already gets me in the gut but also seems particularly impactful when it’s coming from Marc#considering how much he consistently felt like a dead man walking haunted by his past and alive only to somehow atone for that past#and I very much look forward to coming back to this issue if it’s ever revealed if this new Moon Knight is really Marc come back wrong#because Soldier spends so much of this issue insisting that the Moon Knight he would die for is dead#and it would make that first page wonderfully/terribly ironic#just the concept of the man you feel you should have died for still living but twisted into something unrecognizably despicable#maybe to the point where the man he was is functionally dead#that would be wild
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popotobun · 10 months ago
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WIP Wednesday!
Lately I've been working most on my SVSSS fic that's basically a "What if Shen Yuan was a little older and a little more competant". That's it, that's the fic. I have zero idea where it's going to end up, but I've got two chapters worth scribbled down, so that's something! I've also got an outline for a Tangled-inspired Liushen AU that I don't want to start because once I do, I think I'll keep going until it's done and I want to get more done on the longer fic first xD
I've still got plans for the post-MLC fic I'm working on! I really should finish that, since it doesn't have anywhere to go and should just be the one chapter... Who knows. I let words get away from all the time.
I've still got a couple of FF14 WIPs too, though the MSQ follow-along will always be slow going... I do want to finish the Dark Knight fic, but my WoL was in a Not Good headspace when he started that, so it's on a back burner too.
Feel free to Ask me to work on any of these and I'll post a new paragraph~ but either way, enjoy the snippet!
The entire night passed while he read, the morning only making itself known to Shen Yuan when a knock sounded at the entrance to his room and Ming Fan’s voice announced, “Shizun, I left breakfast at the table for you. Please let this disciple know if there is anything further needed.”
“Nothing but privacy, Ming Fan. I am only to be disturbed by meals for the next three days.” While he recovers is not spoken aloud, but carried in the silence that he lets linger a moment longer than it needs to. “Unless another Peak Lord requires my presence.”
Ming Fan bowed and started to leave after confirming the instructions, but was stopped by Shen Qingqiu’s voice adding, “Perhaps I will meditate in the gardens today. If I am not here, let it be known that I am unavailable for company.”
That should cover most possibilities. He was sure Mu Qingfang wouldn’t be back by so soon, but he couldn’t say the same for anyone else. With the worry from Yue Qingyuan that Mu-shidi had mentioned or potential curiosity as to his recent visitors, anyone could come by! And he didn’t want them seeing him practicing basic sword forms like someone who’d never held a sword before.
Since that was exactly what he planned to be doing.
After breakfast of course.
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walterdecourceys · 3 months ago
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i went to church for the first time in my memory (though i know my mom brought me when i was a baby/too little to be by myself) last sunday (not cause i've decided to go hard lutheran, i got roped into being part of church choir) and my frame of reference is so small with christian church i just spend the whole time wondering what you would have thought of it all sjdfhsd. there was a baptism and it took forever but the baby was very cute
i'm honored that you thought of me actually... i thiiiink lutheran theology is pretty similar to reformed (denomination i grew up in) theology since they're both directly based on the work of reformers 🤔 i don't think i can come up with the differences off the top of my head. either way i'm sure i would have had many thoughts about it.. infant baptism alone i could probably go on for a while about
anyway i hope services are not too torturous for you 🫡 if you get bored you can read some of the pew bibles that's my top tip. exodus is fun
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ebitachy · 11 months ago
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Good evening, I don't know if you are still accepting request, if it is already closed, sorry for the inconvenience but if it is open, could you draw Gouging Fire please?
👍 sinoceratops so awesome
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aria0fgold · 8 months ago
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Thinking more about my isat au and I'm gonna need to change a LOT more than I thought. First things first, Siffrin's connection to the wish. Since in Of gems and pages, all the wishes stayed the same. So why is Odile the one looping and not Siff? So basically, what I think I'd do in my au is that the Universe decided to change things up a bit.
The first time the Universe granted Siffrin the means to fulfill their wish, things went horribly bad (just look at Loop). So this time, the Universe decided to give this new Siffrin, something a lil different. They still gave Siffrin the timeloop But made Odile his proxy. So that Siffrin may have helpers in this new timeline, with Loop as the guide and Odile helping as well, it Should go better, right??? And since the wish is connected with Siffrin's emotions, the Universe can't just completely make it Odile's problem now, sooo basically... Siffrin can still remember Parts of a previous loop PRIOR to their deaths.
That means during the beginning of canon when Siff was crushed by a boulder, he remembers that. And found Loop as well, but when he accidentally ended up touching a tear, he now Doesn't remember being crushed by a boulder but by being frozen in time. At the same time, he ALSO doesn't remember Anything else prior to it. So he doesn't remember that there's a boulder that can kill him by the entrance of the House, he doesn't remember Loop. All he remembers is that somehow, one way or another, he was frozen in time within the House and needs to be more careful with the tears. And because of the way that the loops affect Siffrin now is faaar too different than how it affected Loop, he can't go forwards or backwards in time. Siff will always awaken back in the meadow and Loop will always have to do their whole speech all over again (which would most likely annoy them immediately cuz why? Why is it so different now? Why can't this Siffrin REMEMBER?)
Odile on the other hand, remembers ALL the loops and finds a lot of discrepancies with Siffrin. It takes awhile for her to meet Loop and they get to talk to each other. Their meeting would be pretty... rocky at first. Loop still getting regarded as a stranger by Odile, Loop finding out that Odile is the one getting affected by the timeloop from their own selfish wish. Even if that Siffrin isn't them, it doesn't change the fact that they both made the same wish. Loop thinkin bout being such a favourite cosmic joke of the Universe that not only were they turned into This, one of their family members are suffering cuz of them. And she doesn't even recognize them. It'd be pretty hard at first too cuz Loop doesn't know that their appearance changed yet, there's no mirror. For Loop, they might still look like Siffrin, right? But Odile's reaction to seeing them says otherwise.
Anyway in this au, stage wise, Odile is the actor, Siffrin is the director, and the Universe is the audience. Book wise, Odile is the character, Siffrin is the writer, and the Universe is the reader. Why is Siffrin the director or the writer and not the Universe? That's because the timeloops are Still connected to his emotions, if something he didn't want to think about happens like, that argument with Bonbon (just as an example. I'm wondering if that'll still happen here considering that only happened because of Siff had memories of all the loops in canon. He doesn't have that in this au anymore), time would loop back still, so in a way, Siff Is writing how the timeloops go.
#aria rants#isat spoilers#isat au#of gems and pages au#ogap au#also why did the Universe choose odile? i like to think that the Universe finds her as being skilled enough to be able#to easily help fulfill that wish considering that she Was able to deduce the timeloop when given enough clues#at the same time. odile also seems to be both really close to siffrin (the fact that they go on secret quests before)#and far away from the party emotionally. odile doesnt regard anyone as ''friends'' and so convinces herself that theyre just colleagues#but deep down. she also knows how much she cares for everyone to the point of willing to do unspeakable things to anyone that#dares harm any of them. she cares so much but doesnt know the word to describe it. friends doesnt cut it. the idea of them#being like family to her hasnt crossed her mind yet when the only family she knows of and have is broken and incomplete (her mom left them)#so shes seems to be emotionally distant from them. she wanted to ask bout continuing traveling with the others but doesnt know How#the Universe sees that and thought that should there be anyone that can easily help siffrin then itd be odile. unfortunately#for the Universe. they didnt quite expect siff being too closed off and dodgy in regards to his own emotions#so it still end up being difficult. even more so now that odile doesnt have the Full picture at all. she has no idea why#this is happening to her in the first place. she only knows it has something to do with siff and during the sequence#before new loop+ happened. the Universe most likely gave odile that chance both out of pity and hope that everything#will finally turn out better This Time. but because of the fact that odile Was dying and she exhausted her craft powers#she cant be brought back to the previous loops easily anymore cuz even if its still connected siff. her ability to be#brought back to loops hinges on craft power as well. siff is just the switch to it. so in a way. shes Supposed to be dead now#but the Universe heard siff's wish and granted the means to save odile as well as grant the previous wish he made#its just that such a wish cant be without a penalty. and that penalty is the timer on odile's life. they have only 99 tries left
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coolnonsenseworld · 2 years ago
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I've been working on a lot of new pieces and making them into merch, but before I start posting all of them you can go check out in the shops (linktr.ee/mezzy) Valentine's Bundle - merch that celebrates love (.... I mean klance, but I added Cuddlers as well, because I bet that if everyone had a Cuddler, world would be a better place).
There is a discount code fo 14% off of the Valentine's bundle - 7 codes for each shop (Bigcartel and Payhip) so use LO7E at the check out for a discount!
Happy Valentine's everyone thank you so much for sharing this with me and see you with the next post 💕💖💖
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uncanny-tranny · 1 year ago
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Could you describe your gender using words that are not typically used to describe one's gender?
The wave of exhilaration I got when I finally thought of a story I want to write after being burnt out for over five years, or maybe novels from the romantic movement or the decadent movement, for the latter it would primarily be the manner in which people spoke with each other in The Picture of Dorian Gray
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mad-hunts · 3 months ago
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garciapimienta · 4 months ago
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https://www.instagram.com/p/C-lTTKLIVlW/?igsh=MXMyd2Y0cWl6Y3AzaQ==
on the topic of zubimendi, is it that hard for people to comprehend that players are allowed to reject clubs on the basis that they love their current club? trophies aren’t the be all end all of what makes a great player. some of the comments under that post piss me off, talking about how he lacks ambition and wants to stay in his comfort zone. is loyalty that hard to understand in football nowadays? the likes of totti, puyol, baresi and maldini are lauded for their loyalty. even if zubimendi one day decides to leave real sociedad, people need to realize that choosing to leave his boyhood club where he’s played the past 13 years isn’t going to be an easy decision to make.
tbh at this point I just mostly ignore all the comments and stuff because I think they are just motivated by people's misguided sense of "loyalty" to their club that leads to this attitude of liking and praising players as long as it seems like them signing to your club is a possibility but then being absolutely vile when it starts to look like the signing might not happen (even if it's for reasons outside of the player's control), and this doesn't even happen exclusively with signings, it seeps into other areas too.
So Zubimendi's loyalty would be praised if he was a Barça player rejecting other clubs (see: pedri and gavi for example) but it's "lack of ambition" when barça is the club he's rejecting. On the opposite side, "unwanted" barça players such as frenkie de jong or ferran torres not wanting to leave the club is painted as them being money hungry and lacking ambition and the drive to be better footballers instead of, I don't know, them being confident in their abilities and thinking they have what it takes and that they can make this season a good one and also not wanting to leave a club where they feel good and that they've dreamed of playing at. And another example is the twitter accounts who are now acting like Barça was always too good for Nicowi and are better off without him even though you can scroll back to their tweets from weeks ago when they were saying with nico we would be unstoppable and that we were the best club bc he wanted to come...
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enidtendo64 · 1 year ago
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Hypothetically how much would I have to pay you (real) to finish that YJ girls red eyes looking at the wednesday girls blue eyes sketch a bit more?
going by my commission page, uh probably $200 for fully rendered versions of those pictures, but I'll also add in a picture of Enid and Jackie FREAKING OUT fully rendered free of no charge too!
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dimiclaudeblaigan · 1 year ago
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it's so interesting for me to hear that houses localization changed the script to vilify(?word?) the church bc when i played the game (i recently finished my first and so far only playthrough in lions route) for the first half of the game i was waiting for the shoe to drop to reveal the church is the big bad guys but it never came and the revealed was actually ed. idk if it should have been obvious but i was too focused on suspecting the church to see it or if it was actually subtle as i tend to be oblivious to hints(¿word again?) given in media lol.
idk where im going with this but i hope it makes at least some sense bc i am so sleep deprived rn
and the thing tou said about Henry being changed i am so curious of that too
hope you have a nice day and better sleep than me!
I'll answer the last part first since the rest is more descriptive.
Basically Henry went to Wizard School (tee em) and it was a cool and great experience. In JP, it was... iirc basically close to torture/hellish? It was a more mature situation/topic, but the loc changed it to be silly and fun sounding. For some reason Treehouse in particular seems deeply if not fatally allergic to mature topics and/or properly handling them.
Thank for about the sleep comment and I assure you, I sleep too often!! I wish I could send you some of my sleep and make it extra quality for you. :(
As for Three Houses, yeah, in AM it doesn't really happen that way. Nobody is really vilified (not even the imperialist warmonger invading neutral lands!) in AM (same with AG in Hopes).
What you saw/understood was the whole point! It was made it look at first like the Church was suspicious, but then the reveal was meant to be no, it was a fellow house leader all along. That was what the red herring part about the Church was all about. You were supposed to suspect the Church at first, hence Jeralt's warnings, and if you're playing GD, Claude's suspicions.
Unfortunately what happens in the other routes, especially in CF, is that Rhea's trauma is never explored, no characters stop to understand her motivation, etc. She's just used as the resident bad guy because she's Edelgard's enemy. Basically, you're seeing it from the point of view that Rhea is bad because you see it from Edelgard's perspective... but it fails to work because the game, in particular the localization, amps Edelgard up as a huge progressive hero. AM is the only route that really confronts her about her "views", and even then, it's a mess because all the things she argues with Dimitri about aren't her end goal (i.e. they don't ever end up actually happening in the vast capacity she claims she's going to do).
About Edelgard:
The localization avoids any particularly negative comments about her and changes or outright removes them (true of Hopes as well). In Dimitri's case it would make sense because of their connection, but when it ends up just being another route in the pile of feeling sorry for Edelgard (and... not Rhea, who had her family massacred and their bones turned into weapons), it just feels stale.
They basically tell you Edelgard is very cute and easily embarrassed, and she's just this headstrong progressive woman fighting For The People (tee em). The truth is (as per the game itself, i.e. content they can't change/localized because it's the contents of the game itself) that she's invading innocent lands, conscripting her own citizens, turning her citizens into demonic beasts to add to her military strength (lelz when u can't even rely on ur nation's own military strength without demonic beasts), and victim blaming anyone who fights back (if you have yet to see the extremely infamous "no u" line from Edegard to Dimitri in CF, you've been blessed) among other things.
They basically shove it down your throat, characters and narrative both (in the loc in particular), that Edelgard is good and just, while the story itself is looking at all that like ???. The JP script still tries to take good care of her and her image, but they're a lot more blunt about her/her goals (i.e. they don't dance around them nearly as much).
The localization showers what she does with love and attention, and even when they have to say she's the problem/aggressor, they still pretty it up as much as possible (such as Dimitri wondering if maybe her vision of society could possibly be just and righteous, instead of outright admitting what she's done is absolutely atrocious when it's way worse than anything he ever did, all of which he admits to doing and takes responsibility for).
The JP version is more clear on her being the villain. There's definitely bias toward her (as the writers were, confirmed by an interview), but it doesn't slap you in the face with it nearly as badly. Also, Dimitri has won a character popularity poll every year since the game's inception in Japan. In the west, Edelgard is much more popular than she is in the east. That, of course, is because of the way the loc pushed the writing for her/about her.
Edelgard's "progressive" stuff is supposed to be just propaganda (which is ultimately, even as per the western endings because there's only so much they can change). The way the loc frames it is that it's actually what she's aiming for. It's what she uses to inspire people to fight for her though, not what she's actually doing.
About Rhea:
This one's the real doozy because it's a victim of the above. Since they wanted to pretty up Edelgard's dialogue and make her A Hero (tee em), they needed whoever her main enemy was to be the "villain". Since Edelgard, now popular because of the tweaks in her dialogue, hated and wanted to kill Rhea, so too did her raging fans who gave no fucks whatsoever about any character who opposed her... even if it was just to save their own life!
They changed the tone of Rhea's voice in the loc to make her more angry and villainous sounding, rather than sad or kind. She was basically altered in the loc to make Edelgard look better. Like, of course, in the perspective of playing a villain in CF, she's the bad guy and the enemy. The problem comes when they have Rhea say things that are more aggressive than in the original script, and change her tone to sound demeaning and vicious (when she was otherwise not or not as much).
But like, why? The only reason any of us can think of is because they wanted to market Edelgard more. This is likely a result of the west's views and especially political views, since Edelgard's pretty words would sound good to a westerner's political beliefs... until you dig into them/the actual story content more.
Rhea also being the head of a Church probably got tweaked because of the west's recent irl views on religion. Religion in the west has been looked poorly upon in recent years. Instead of accepting this is just a fictional game though, the loc team just... pushed that they're Really Bad.
Rhea is more of a victim of them needing someone to be worse than Edelgard to make Edelgard look like less of a villain (which again, this isn't the case in the original script nearly as much), and they couldn't use Thales/the Agarthans because you were allied with them in that route.
The other characters vs Rhea as a villain choice:
The goal wasn't to make a playable lord a villain in the loc's case. It was the intention of the original script with Edelgard, but the loc tried to make her actions sound more justified because ??? like idk, I can't wrap my head around them justifying what she does.
Dimitri isn't handled too badly by the narrative itself and he's overall seen as a good person (even the loc didn't alter that or Edelgard's ablest mentality toward a mentally unwell person), so he wasn't really a good candidate for all that. Also, Dimitri's story is one of recovery, and because they ventured into mental illness, he wasn't a good candidate. He was treated well and pretty fairly (Edelgard not treating him particularly well makes sense with her character, but the narrative itself doesn't push him as being a monstrous person. Even in the time he considers that he was, there's depth, logic and complexity to the situation).
Claude being the main bipoc character would have just been an all around disaster if the loc or even original script tried to make him the top villain, yadda yadda (understandably). There was no chance that was going to go over well, especially in the west (have you seen the shitstorm GW caused? And that was with the writing not considering him a villain!!). He was basically safe from the get go as far as villainy if they writers/localizers didn't want serious backlash (there are discussions about the overall treatment of poc characters in Houses/Hopes, but I can guarantee it would've been legit backlash if he was made to be a genuinely and intentionally horrible person, so that wasn't really an option if they wanted this game to actually sell and be enjoyed).
So since Rhea isn't playable and is the head of a Church, that kind of makes her the only candidate. Players will get attached to the other lords and not like killing them, so it won't feel like a badass victory to kill them. I guess for some reason the loc team just... hated Rhea or something?
Dimitri's death in CF is either extremely sad and garners audience sympathy, or in the other version of his death in CF it's clear his mentally stability is starting to break right before he's killed, which in and of itself is another topic. Claude is either free to go by choice of the player or can be killed, and his death is sad and he's not villainized. Aside from how some characters treat Claude's death (in contrast to Dimitri's which is never outright villainized even by Edelgard), the scene meant for the player at the time it happens is supposed to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
So again, it really just leaves the loc team with the option of Rhea if they want to make the final battle seem like a big victory for the player. VW also has its big happy victory, and surprise surprise, Rhea dies in that route (offscreen no less!).
SS kills off Rhea but actually makes it sad, and it's, you know, actually the route that focuses on her/the Church most. AM doesn't kill her off and doesn't treat any character death as a badass victory, and instead gives a bittersweet ending (which again would be in line with Dimitri's connection to Edelgard, and it only feels botched down because of all routes obsessing over her).
So while, technically, the writing in the JP script wasn't trying to make Rhea as bad as the western version of the game, if the loc wanted to go for that, she was the best option. It just... came at the expense of butchering her character to make Edelgard shine, which shouldn't have been done but it was.
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ripplefields · 2 years ago
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Hey, you're fricktic right? Are you still into BFB?
frick tic
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