#shut up about del

[nowis-scales]

Do you prefer Three Houses or Engage?

Whew, okay. I am happy to answer your question, but please be prepared for me to talk a lot, because I have a lot to say on this topic.

I haven’t played all of the routes of Three Houses. At this point in time, I’ve played Verdant Wind and Crimson Flower. As for Engage, I’ve played all of it (though my playthrough posts sure make it look the other way around, heh). From this perspective, it might seem like there is a possibility for a bit of bias here or there. And while I agree that that could be true…

In this specific case, however, I don’t think it matters. I greatly prefer Engage over 3H.

Now, I should start off by pointing out that some of the stuff I say is going to be hyperbolic. I’m at a point where I’m quite jaded with 3H and many of its fans. There’s only so much discourse and disrespect a girl can take before she becomes a little disenchanted with the subject in question. That being said, though… honestly, none of that stuff affects my overall view. It’s mostly just about the way I might be delivering the message.

The thing to understand about me is though I love video games, if it’s a video game with a story as a major point, it automatically becomes the most important part. I enjoyed both 3H and Engage, but… the best way I know how to put why I would choose Engage over 3H is that while both have their share of writing problems, 3H’s bother me that much more.

To me, it just seems like Koei Tecmo and IntSys had this wide scope for 3H and couldn’t narrow down on what they were doing. And yeah, stones in a glass house comin’ from a Fates fan, I hear the people — but for all that 3H gets called this morally grey masterpiece, half the time it just seems like the “grey morality” comes from the fact that they couldn’t agree whether or not EdeIgard was in the wrong. In developer interviews, Kusakihara of IntSys, calls her the villain. Her route is referred to as one where you bulldoze everyone else to get what you want. It’s not exactly flattering, yet that same interview also states her popularity with the creative team. In my playthrough posts of CF, I know I mentioned to the point of annoyance that she rarely, if ever, faces a proper consequence or sacrifice for what she wants. And in Hopes it only seemed to get worse, with the developer interviews there actually confirming that she is actively happier than she ever was in Houses… Even her ending in Azure Gleam, which is sexist and disgusting, can be read as being in her favour, because how can you accuse her of anything anymore? She looks like a grown woman, but she’s mentally a freshly teenage girl! No more consequences! It feels like they’re just constantly flip flopping between “oh she’s right” or “oh she’s wrong”, which is not something you want from a perpetrator of conflict in the narrative. One minute they’re saying she’s villainous, and the next there’s a convenient & unclear excuse that tries to make her a good person for doing it. If something doesn’t favour whatever the devs wanted to highlight in that moment, it just gets unceremoniously swept under the rug. The Agarthans are proof enough of that. That’s not grey morality, that’s just being indecisive and, quite frankly, the opposite of impartial in Koei’s case.

That’s another problem that gets me about 3H’s story. I hate, hate their supposed “worldbuilding” trick where they just throw out minor details about like, a country’s problem with sexism or a group of people like the Almyrans or the Dagdans and just… never elaborate. I’m particularly interested in the Nabateans and the sexism of Adrestia myself, but are those points that ever get elaborated on? No, because it’s time to talk about crests and the crest system, which could have been an interesting look at classism if the concept actually stood up under scrutiny. It is very difficult for me to believe that there is some specific-to-Fodlan classism issue going on when Crests don’t determine whether you become or stay noble. Byleth is not immediately noble once it’s acknowledged that they have one, and Constance’s house fell in spite of it. Considering the possible marriage option for Ingrid in her paralogue, being nobility is not even the only way to ensure success in society. And all this is without even acknowledging the ridiculousness of the idea that the Nabateans would want to perpetuate a system that was actively soaked in the blood of their own. It just feels like, rather than engaging more clearly with how the crest system would actually work and subsequently be attacked, it just becomes this abstract thing that all other interesting thoughts get sucked into, without any concept that it’s real aside from EdeIgard and Sylvain mentioning it. I don’t feel passionately about it, it’s just kind of something that’s there. It could have been interesting to execute, but the way they went about it just doesn’t make it seem real to me — so, again, any attempt at a morally grey conflict there is lost on me.

And then there’s the problem with tell don’t show. I’ve seen people saying that Engage has this too… but 3H is god awful for this. The whole time I was playing Engage, I just remember thinking how much I loved how naturally emotional everything was. When you fight Hortensia again in the Solmic castle, the fact that she’s crying that she just wants her family back is sad. It’s natural. You don’t feel like the game is holding your hand, trying to make you to feel upset on Hortensia’s behalf. You don’t need to be told that Hortensia is trying so hard to be independent and strong and leaderly. You can just hear it in the way that she instead whimpers about how nobody will give her what she wants. You can tell that she’s angry that she cannot emulate her father or Ivy, and that she can’t get Ivy to do the things she wants her to do when it should have been so easy in theory. The way she reacts to the situation laid out before her shows us that yes, Hortensia has been through a lot the last little while and is getting to a breaking point where we might be able to help her. It’s what makes it that much more cruel when Zephia mind controls her to rip her away from us. 3H’s kind of pale in comparison at times, really.

The best way I know how to explain how 3H kinda flops at this is to continue picking on EdeIgard a little (sorry). I’ve rambled about it before, but presumably in an effort to show the legitimacy of EdeIgard’s suffering at the hands of the Agarthans in Crimson Flower, they put in this scene where she sees a rat and gets scared. The implication is supposed to be that there were numerous rats in the dungeon where she was kept when she was being experimented on, and that she now has a trauma response to them. However, when you actually get to the scene, her reaction is obscenely unrealistic — because it’s about being cute. This is a trauma response she’s supposed to be having, and Byleth can tease her about it. When responding to the stimulus of the rat, she doesn’t even respond with intense fear or anything symptomatic of the actual mental illness she would probably have. She just screams, and then tries to act like it didn’t happen, but of course she gets all blushy about it. It is entirely ingenuine, and I can’t just bring myself to emotionally invest if they only know how to give characters subdued, acceptable reactions or have them just tell me that something made them sad or scared. Just hearing that this character has had a sad life — and, conveniently, almost all of them have had a sad life — doesn’t make me feel emotionally connected to them. Representing the more human parts of that struggle does.

Bottom line, I shouldn’t feel like the game is holding up an “APPLAUSE” style sign that says “BE SAD” whenever the characters talk about things that have happened to them.

These are three big things that I just feel really tamper with my enjoyment of 3H to its fullest extent. The game just makes me feel too micromanaged, like it doesn’t trust me to be smart enough to pick up on the things it wants to say. For all that people say it’s the best story FE’s done in years, I would actually disagree on that. It’s the characters and the lore that carry this game. The story is just not that well-organized, nor is it willing to give you any sort of space.

That being said, I do not dislike 3H! At the moment I am… admittedly incredibly sick of it, but I don’t dislike it. There are plenty of things that it manages to do well! Like I just said, I think the lore is really interesting. The Nabateans in particular have always been a subject of interest for me, because there’s something so intriguing to me about them sort of being a parallel being to humanity, but still being so viciously discriminated against. The conflict between Duscur and Faerghus was also pretty attention-catching, and while I’m not super crazy about how the Insurrection of the Seven is portrayed, I do like that this is a kind of political conflict that they would confront.

In fact, the fact that this game does try to confront the more political side of things is another thing I like about it. Whether it does this well all the time is a different situation entirely, but just the fact that they decided to put this in is something I enjoy. One thing I know that I instantly enjoyed about Persona 5 that was also reflected in 3H was the way it brought up how the socio-political issues were affecting the society that everyone was living in. Each country had its own individual problems, with Adrestians struggling with sexism & classism, the Faerghans with their unstable government and newly developed tendency toward anti-Duscurian racism, and the Leicester Alliance with its imbalance/disagreement between people and the doubt surrounding its new leaders. To have these things helps us better understand what the characters are going through, as well as the causes for a war. It also makes the world feel more alive, because now we know what kinds of things each group is up against. It develops them. I’m still not a fan of how sometimes these things are just brought up and dropped in favour of one thing or the other, but there is often enough thought in them to make it most of the way, and that most of the way is awesome.

As for the characters, they have to confront a recruitment mechanic that completely throws their motives out the window at times just to conform to a specific narrative… and they still turned out pretty good, so that really speaks to how great they are! There is a lot of detail to put into each character’s life, and for the most part, the devs took care to make sure that everyone had a tie to someone. If they didn’t, then that felt intentional in some way. Relationships in particular really humanize characters, and I feel like 3H took that into account. I know I said it eons ago, but I’m still so delighted that we know about Maya Kiersten. Other FE games don’t tend to give these minor characters that a main character loves a name, but here we are, getting all kinds of details about her. Same goes for Holst and Rodrigue. It’s fun, and I really like that this happens. It also intrigues me that some of these characters aren’t total angels, and have their ugly sides as well. I need to put this in big bold lettering, but I do not condone the racism of Hilda or Ingrid. However, I do think that it’s an interesting addition to each of their characters. With the ways they are otherwise portrayed, it is possible that you could get too rosy of an image of the two girls. Their own racism undercuts that, it makes them feel more realistic, because bigoted people aren’t all one-note. They can seem otherwise kind and dependable, and still not be able to separate their head from their ass when it comes to being considerate of others. It fleshes them out. Details like this do add a little more to them, even if I wish they would actually explore them more in the context of the world as well. Racism that doesn’t get improved or worked upon is just racism for realism’s sake, and why should people who experience irl racism have to deal with that? They’re very aware of what the real world looks like, thank you.

The thing about 3H in comparison to Engage is that it just trips so many more times. I didn’t know what it was about Engage that just caught me, but once it had me, it had me. The emotional influence was definitely part of it, which I already mentioned, but I think another thing that I just liked in comparison was the fact that it didn’t try as hard as 3H did for some of that stuff. Thematically yes, Engage is more straightforward and doesn’t pile on the angst quite the same. It’s lighter and doesn’t take itself painfully seriously. Nonetheless, the stuff it does try to do comes out beautifully. It (for the most part — we need to have a whole other post about Alcryst) knows when to make you laugh, when to make you feel sad, and when to instill feelings of suspense or hope. It cares deeply about its characters and seeing them to the end of their journey. I never felt like I didn’t know the thesis of the game, and I almost never felt like there was a moment where I really wished they would just tell that part of the story differently. The whole thing just felt very carefully put together to me, and made for a better impression overall because there were no conflicting accounts of what was meant to go on based on the writer at the moment. I could tell that the game trusted me to draw my own conclusions. It made for a much more fun experience, because I love finding these small things woven in by the developers and mining them out like little gems. That’s part of the reason why I love Fates so much. While everyone else is complaining about how awful it is, I get to be searching for and finding all of these amazing parts that just got totally missed. I love stuff like that.

The worldbuilding in Engage is also something that I feel was a lot stronger. Things don’t just drop off. Tensions between Brodia and Elusia, for example, constantly inform the way the characters approach situations. Even conversations that are supposed to be silly, like that of Étie and Goldmary, are informed by that tension. Characters don’t forgive and forget everything that happened to them in relation to their societies just because they’re working together now. Citrinne doesn’t forgive Yunaka for her assassinations right away, she remains suspicious of her for a long time. When Ivy plays a part in the summoning of the Fell Dragon and ends up being part of the reason why Morion was killed, Alcryst holds a grudge against her — even though Ivy was part of the solution for the rest of the group, and even though Ivy herself turns out not to be a Fell Dragon worshipper at all. Things like these are constantly informing the plot and the characters. They don’t just disappear when it is inconvenient for them to exist. This is just one of many examples, but it really made the conflict feel like it was distinct, and thus was more meaningful when they came together.

I also just generally feel like the cultures in Engage ended up being more unique as well. I’ve played the entirety of Crimson Flower and Verdant Wind, as well as about 8 chapters of Azure Moon, and I’m not sure I could do as much to show how the cultures vary as much as I could with Engage. However, to give credit where credit is due, one could argue that the cultures of the Alliance, the Empire, and the Kingdom are less distinct than Elusia, Solm, Lythos, and Brodia because 3H’s conflicts need to build up to the final concept of uniting Fodlan. Nonetheless, the whole point of the nations breaking up from being just Adrestia is at least partially because the cultures are too different, and even if they weren’t… This would still just be more proof of my point that EdeIgard gets stuff weighted towards her. Therefore, I kinda prefer to think that it is not as much of a deliberate choice because the purposeful interpretation is straight up glorifying the imperialism element of the game. It’s just different in the case of Engage, where the differences and similarities are there with much more explicit purpose. The peace of Firene is played quite like the freedom of Solm, for example. Both nations have this seemingly leisurely thing that they value above all else, and it’s something that they know must make them seem overly gentle or carefree to outsiders. Nonetheless, once you start to spend time with characters like Céline and Timerra, it becomes clear just how viciously they fight to protect their people’s right to having those things in their lives. And this, of course, isn’t the only similarity, nor is it the only difference. If you need to see more of what I mean, emblemxeno made a great post on this that might help fill in some more gaps. It’s stuff like this that makes me prefer the way Engage executes its worldbuilding, because you can feel the way the countries influence each other, as well as the things that come innately from themselves. It’s not quite the same as Fodlan’s sort-of similar cultures. The ideas from each place don’t bounce off each other quite the same, so I find they’re not as entertaining to observe.

I could probably keep going on for awhile longer, but the answer to this ask is like… probably way more than you bargained for when you initially sent it, so I might leave it off at that. Any further, more specific questions can always be sent at a later date! I’m certainly not opposed to getting more asks after all ;)

At the very least, hopefully I was able to shed some light on my opinions on the contrasts between 3H and Engage, and why each one either does or doesn’t work better for me. Thanks for taking the time to ask!

[newwavesylviaplath]

lana del rey for vogue italia, 2024

[winged-cries]

you people should shut the fuck up for once

[dangeroustaintedflawed]

evan peters and ariana grande ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

[yepthatsacowalright]

Twitter (and the world as a whole) is an absolute shit show, but I will take comfort in the little things, like Guillermo del Toro retweeting a Hamish Linklater/Father Paul appreciation post in the year of our Lord 2023.

(I will link to his profile because I don't think I can link directly to the retweet. But it is there, it is legit.)

[a-cloud-for-dreams]

Do you think we'll be together in another universe?

I think I'll miss you forever (summertime sadness) Like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky (summertime summertime sadness) Later's better than never (summertime summertime sadness) Even if you're gone, I'm gonna drive (drive), drive I got that summertime, summertime sadness Su-su-summertime, summertime sadness Got that summertime, summertime sadness Kiss me hard before you go Summertime sadness I just wanted you to know That baby you the best

Fanart Credits Respectively: frostkitsuneart (VK) & The_mandywalker (Instagram)

[wickedcriminal]

Drew something for that Deltora Quest book about masks that eat your face

[del-stars]

one-shot | 1.4k

Sirius watched a bead of sweat trickle down Remus’ spine and fought the urge to trace it with his finger. The heat in their room was sweltering, worsened by the complete lack of breeze. The smoke from Sirius’ cigarette wafted lazily up and out the window, dissipating into the cloudless sky. A tiny pool of sweat gathered at the small of Remus’ back, glinting in the light of the afternoon sun, and Sirius found himself unable to do anything but stare. - sirius would like to sign up to be the bead of sweat on remus' back, please and thank you

[kathybluecaller]

An Aioros Appreciation Post

[cherries-in-wine]

Every time I see a lana "fan" body shaming her weight gain young and beautiful starts playing in my head

[sambuchito]

[nowis-scales]

Back to our regularly scheduled program on CF…

Last time, we left off with EdeIgard blaming the Church for the attack on Arianrhod, because here at the BE Strikeforce, taking accountability for how our decisions that affect other people is not where we shine!

(Emblems:

❃ = Positive, not a problem.

❋ = It is entirely neutral.

✾ = It’s a bit negative, but it’s told in a joking way.

✿ = It is negative and critical.

Remember to filter #Fódlan Fault Finding and #Shut up about Del as needed!)

✾ Yeah you’re probs never gonna get to kill me because I don’t think the people are gonna be chill with the imperialism ✾

❋ Me every day of my goddamn life. Not because of anything related to this route though, just like... Koto as a person. I have an anxiety disorder lol. I make unfunny jokes about it a lot. ❋

✾ Those are all excellent questions. We will not be answering those questions for you, Dorothea. The answers to some of them won’t make this route as sympathetic as it wants to be. ✾

✿ Caspar repeatedly assures her that he’s okay with how things are, and she’s like “no no no you don’t understand you’re a victim” and he just comes around like “yeah you admit when you make mistakes”.

Caspar, she’s still making the same assumption about you! Nothing has changed! Also this dialogue about “I admit to my mistakes” sounds like it was damn near lifted from the Ryoma/Corrin support, which is funny because even as a fellow dev’s pet, Ryoma actually acknowledges wrongdoing. Doesn’t get more than a slap on the wrist for it, mind you, but that’s more than EdeIgard gets… which is nothing. ✿

❋ I had a conversation with a friend about a fic idea I had for a sort of “Koto’s Own Wish Fulfillment Rewrite of Crimson Flower” told from the perspective of Petra, and while he liked my initial idea, he didn’t like that I wasn’t thinking of using the concept the story presents 97% of the time when it comes to the relationship between Petra and EdeIgard. I remember him saying that there “really isn’t much evidence that Petra’s unhappy”, and while I don’t think he’s wrong, the fact that there is any evidence is what draws me toward it. I know there are a lot of other points where the game tries to say that their relationship is actually super happy, and I don’t hate those, I just wish their relationship had actual complex feelings attached to it.

Cause if we just go for the route where they’re actually super besties and Petra’s struggles are related more to EdeIgard’s father, then it just becomes another instance of “nobody but Rhea can actually fully hate EdeIgard and anything bad that happens to others is not actually her fault”. The relationship would be compelling if there was more complex feelings associated with and given more depth, but with the way CF presents it, it seems kind of… flat, I suppose? Like anything it has done here, I just feel like Flora and Felicia can do it better, particularly because there’s two of them and each girl’s feelings can be fully realized — Petra can only feel as one person, and that one person has to be nice to Edie 97% of the time.

So if you ever feel like I’m discrediting the relationship between EdeIgard and Petra a bit, yeah, I recognize that I probably am! I don’t even actually dislike the way it’s presented! I just dislike that it’s presented this way in a game that already makes Edie kind of untouchable. I think it would be really cool for Edie’s “moral greyness” to actually bloom, rather than just being several layers of benevolent sexism. ❋

✾ Get our asses Dimitri

Also do they ever explain why he doesn’t have the eyepatch in CF, aside from being more mentally stable than in the other routes? ✾

❋ Rhea there has never been a good king/future king in this game series that hasn’t been willing to throw himself into danger, it's kind of a staple. ❋

[penumbralwoods]

hey you guys know other disorders exist than the ones tiktokers are comfortable talking about right. you know it isn’t always a disorder also right

[fruitsofhell]

One of my new surfacing gripes with FF7R is how a lot of moments from the original game that rested heavily on player investment seem completely stripped out of the remake in favor of everything being a constant 60 hour long movie experience.

Like every now and then I hear the original game get shit for not taking its political messaging seriously at certain key set-pieces that are too game-y and chill like Costa Del Sol and the Gold Saucer, but that's not the whole picture when you consider how much control the player has over the party in that game. Costa Del Sol was just where you landed on the next continent and there was like a guy or two to talk to to point you in the other direction, a few lighthearted interactions to break up the fucked up shit that happened on the boat ride over, and then you could leave. The idea that the original Costa Del Sol indulged in the tourist trap goes only as far as how you as a player approached the space, if you got to Costa Del Sol and felt "Oh, this is a shitty Shinra colonial project I hate it here" you could book it outta there and maintain some of that disgust, but you fucking can't in the remake and its horrible.

For some fucking reason the boat ride over is on a cruise ship instead of a military vessel like before, so instead of a funny moment of humanizing the soldiers by being miserable with them, you get this fucking card tournament quest where everyone is suddenly SUPER into all this shit and doesn't care about any of the obvious underlying bullshit of the boat? And then its even worse when you get to Costa Del Sol because likefhsjkdhf? Everyone is OK with this glaring parallel to real world colonization and exploitation of island nations? Even Barret who literally had an amusement park built on the ashes of his home village by the people who burnt it down? EVEN YUFFIE WHO'S WHOLE SHTICK IS HOW HER HOME WAS INVADED AND TURNED INTO A TOURIST TRAP????

I cannot speak 100% for the original, because I remember it also missing these opportunities and besides that my memory is hazy, but its the fact that it wasn't flooded with all these ridiculous cutscenes and extra set-pieces that force you into experiencing areas a certain way, and a way that is just really fucking OOC?? And like for as OOC as the original could be, THE REMAKE IS 25 YEARS YOUNGER AND WISER THAN IT, PICK UP THE SLACK? But instead we get a fucking beach episode where you can put the girlies in bikinis or some shit. It's such a waste.

I can't think of like a single moment of subtly that the Remake retained from the originals. And it DOES have them under all the silly tonal whiplash stuff that the Remake cranks up to an unhealthy extent.

[rosaaeles]

every day i wish i could draw because i hear songs and get fanart ideas and then have to sit with the fact that i CANT MAKE IT A REALITY

[eightstarr]

the conversation around syd and carmy from the bear makes me insane because people are like "they're in love!!" "they're platonic soulmates!!" and oh my god why are you fighting when the answer is that they're both. and also neither. they're everything to each other and also nothing at all and whatever the feeling is called doesn't matter because it's good and also not enough but that doesn't make it any less consuming and true. but it's also strictly not true because if they let it be true they'll die. but they'll also die if they pretend it's not true. nothing is happening and also everything is happening and it won't stop but it also won't last. and there's a fire in the kitchen. hope that helps!