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moe-broey · 10 months ago

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It is extremely difficult to design modern outfits for Alfonse though idk what it is. Sharena will look good in anything from flannel docs lesbian outfit to cute overalls to something sporty to high femme dresses (tbh I still wanna draw her in one of my fave old dresses ..) but Alfonse. There are def a few routes you can take keeping his character/personality in mind and I think they look good/are super cute and make sense but like... esp for me personally, thinking of the v specific way I draw/stylize him...

AH. MAYBE. MAYBE I FIGURED IT OUT BC I HAVE NO PROBLEM DESIGNING OUTFITS FOR HIM IN FEH CONTEXT...... it's cause that bitch is always wearing tights and long shirts that (esp depending on how you draw it) border on being dress-like to straight up robes/skirt-like garments WHICH makes sense for him in universe bc that's p standard wear for men in Askr, in the Order of Heroes specifically. Like

Seliph's resplendent stands out to me as a huge example of this, and you can kinda see it in Corrin's too! Though I do think resplendents often take a lot from the chara's base outfit (both standard and resplendent Seliph having tunics, both Corrins having leggings ect). But speaking of Corrin, espp the lengthening of that bit of fabric at Corrin's hip, looks a lot like Gustav's garments!

Who may be a better measure for men's dress in Askr (normal attire, for a king anyway, and a cultural festival outfit). But I do also think you can glean some details off of resplendent designs too!

Also actually.

This Day of the Life comic that acknowledged Sharena's absence from the DoD banner (BITE BITE KILL KILL SO MUCH HATRED IN THE WORLD‼️‼️‼️) implies that their outfits may have been identical, just in their respective signature colors (blue and pink). And even looking at Alfonse and Sharena's base art, they have a lot in common!

And looking at Seliph and Corrin again, the puffy sleeves seen on Sharena and Henriette aren't necessarily gendered traits. ACTUALLY.... GUSTAV HAS THEM TOO! Alfonse's outfit is an outlier sleeve design wise!

Which is to say, there aren't actually a lot of strict gender differences in attire here. A lot of the clothing looks/feels androgynous esp when viewed through a modern lense (like I'm sure there's a lot of real-world historical inspo that goes into the designs, I just know fuck all about that LMFAO 😅). And esppp the way I've come to draw Alfonse a lot, I do emphasize what reads as femme -- giving him longer shirts, simplifying the strappy armor on his thighs into. Over the knee socks. Over the leggings/tights. 🫣 And that's not even getting into the knee high boots and heels!!!!

WHICH IS. Actually SO FUCKING DIFFICULT. To translate into modern fashion esp typical standard men's fashion, in a way that still feels true to him as well... bc I do believe in femme/androgynous Alfonse supremacy 😤 But he is ALSO. SO IMPORTANTLY. He is VERY MUCH just some guy who is heavily defined by the role he's been put in. Which is also kind of difficult to sort out, what Would he wear, if the standards were completely different and also if he was choosing for himself?

SINCE. I'M CERTAIN idk if I wanna dig for it but -- I'm CERTAIN all his outfits have been picked For him to some degree. The Order of Heroes outfit is a uniform, the bunny outfit is implied/stated to be picked by Sharena. The yukatas in their duo are 1) Hoshidan and 2) I think Anna was the one who picked them? Might be wrong on that, but I do feel like there's a castle dialogue about it. And of course, the DoD outfits are implied to be cultural Askran wear, and going back to that comic -- it seems neither Alfonse OR Sharena have much of a say in what it looks like (her being uncomfortable "showing that much leg" -- that, if given a choice, she may have wanted something more modest).

So like. There is. So much going on here actually.

#fire emblem #sorry for being autistic about alfonse fire emblem. it will happen again. and again. and againm and again and #I WILL SAY ONE THING! it actually is SO much easier to design pokemon universe outfits for him than strictly any modern outfit #the men are allowed to be cuntier in pokemon world. i can put him in white tight pants and boots and a sweater #and no one would bat an eye.#i think i do gravitate towards sweaters for him... maybe turtlenecks.... still it is so difficult.#the funniest thing you can do w modern alfonse though is put him in a hoodie and make him slightly disheveled #and make it SO FUCKING CLEAR. that he is severely distraught and depressed that his boyfriend dumped him #and his boycrush isn't speaking to him.#literally just make him a dramatic depressed faggot <- (SAID W LOVE AS A TRANSFAG MYSELF.)#BUT ALSO. EVEN THOUGH that's said all cheeky like. i think for me it is also so important to put queer elements in him too #like he NEEDS to be giving queer man raised in a strict gender-norm heavy environment #who's like. comfortable in his queerness at this point but by god. did i have to go through all of that. dear lord.#anwyays i'm insane about him. don't worry about it 👍#fe alfonse

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togglesbloggle · 2 years ago

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War’s End: the Rise of Propaganda and the Fall of States from 1914 to 2228, Author Unknown

Chapter 3, fragments.

Warning: Contains discussion of Avatar 1, Avatar 2: the Way of the Water, Avatar 3: the Daughter of Eywa, Avatar 4: the Mists of Pandora, and Avatar 5: the Bonds of Earth. Students of the period wishing to experience these films as intended by their original creators are advised to forego reading this analysis until they have viewed these forgotten gems of 21st century storytelling on their own terms.

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…though all three major transitional ideologies had contributed new styles and techniques (with special consideration to the Mussolinic Triumph of the Will and Marxist Metropolis, among others), demotists remained the undisputed masters of the cinematic form from very early in the war. “Hollywood” was a term referring to both the production center and surrounding urban community of many demotic films, and throughout much of the late 20th century, could be taken to mean films in general, especially those intended for mass consumption (i.e. all propaganda films). Birth of a Nation, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Casablanca, Star Wars, and many other notable benchmarks in the history of propagandistic war films are all demotist projects, and contributed substantially to demotist war victories and popularization. Late in the war, demotist military projects began to adopt filmic nomenclature, such as the Reaganite Star Wars orbital defense laser, or the USS Enterprise, a mobile aeronautical platform.

Even after the final cessation of the first World War in 1991, cinema (and particularly demotic cinema) retained its essential character as a tool of wartime propaganda, such as in Lord of the Rings, with characteristic exhortations to mass violence, manichean absolutism, and ethnoprotagonism. Previous treatments of the subject have claimed that the demotic film project was largely abandoned during the 21st century peacetime; however, this claim would seem to neglect its many artistic and technological contributions…

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…of these is the Avatar Quintet, directed by James Cameron. Though largely overlooked today, the film was wildly popular upon release. Scholarship is often confused on this point; it is true that the film has only a minor noötic shadow, but recent efforts in fiscal archaeology provide an estimate of between 350-500 million viewers per film, a substantial fraction of the contemporary global population. This discrepancy can, perhaps, be accounted for by noting that the Avatar Quintet was, unusually for the time, a wholly original narrative. Cultural norms of 21st century propaganda had pivoted towards the refurbishment of existing, popularized characters; the first of the cinematic commedia had emerged in 2008. Late generations of theater attendees may have been unprepared for conversations and community contributions to films which lacked a pre-existing frame of reference to structure such efforts, despite their enthusiasm for the core experience and the novelty of encountering an unfamiliar protagonist.

However, it is precisely this quality of original narrative which makes the Quintet a valuable object of scholarship in the history of propaganda. Which is to say, it is one of the few films that may be said to represent authentically twenty-first century storytelling. Here, we show that not only is the film an exemplary effort of late demotist propaganda, but that it consciously inherits and extends the legacy of 20th century war films towards a post-demotic frame of reference- in other words, that it constitutes true artistic innovation and plays an important role in the formation of Indo-Euro-Sinic identity during the Long Peace.

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…Michael Bay, among other influences. In this its visual style was distinct from the era’s dominant cinematic commedia, Marvels (though both still used the visual and narrative language of wartime propaganda). Marvels relied on live-filmed human actors to convey character actions, as in the early stages of cinema, but it had matured to the extent of using fully synthetic sets and background visuals otherwise. The Avatar Quintet, on the other hand, relied on a careful mix of synthetic and live filmed representations, semi-textually using synthetic techniques to illuminate the biosphere of its setting, Pandora (including its ethnoprotagonist group, the Na’vi), while leaning as much as possible on live-filming to represent textual humans and human-controlled environments. This was neither arbitrary nor trivial to accomplish; the challenges of producing the Avatar Quintet were noted even at the time. Hence, it must be examined as an artistic and propagandistic choice.

Consider that limitations in style and even in technology in the early 21st century meant that synthetics were often unsophisticated, lacking details and partially breaking narrative immersion. Though less flexible and visually flat, live-filmed settings and actors often carried greater nuance, and could draw the eye as a ‘primary’ feature of cinematography and framing. The live-filmed actors of the wartime-conceived Marvels served in part to advance the core demotist virtues of individualist heroism- simply by virtue of live-filming a character rather than constructing the character synthetically, they could be framed as the central source of agency within an otherwise synthetic scene. To the contrary, the (chronologically postwar) Avatar Quintet’s choice guides audience sympathies in a far more complex way. It begins, as in Marvels, with live-filmed actors representing humans in an alien, synthetic environment, but rapidly adds complexity to this distinction by transitioning the characters’ locus of consciousness to new, synthetic bodies, which hybridize human and Na’vi forms. The films then use fully synthetic (both character and setting) visuals for the middle period of the film, during which both the protagonist and the audience acclimate to the setting and ultimately demonstrate mastery within it, before fully reversing the format by framing the (now totally synthetic) protagonist within live-filmed sets and engaging in warfare against live-filmed antagonist humans. While still fully accommodating the cinematic framework of wartime propaganda, the film visually undermines the assumptions of heroic individualism, aligning the emotional catharsis of narrative to a framing that causes the world, not the individual protagonist, to seem most important and sophisticated. Thus, Avatar anticipates the 21st century’s post-demotist reintegration of Buddho-Christian thought, actively creating a bridge away from the more simplistic heroic individualism of demotism’s classical…

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...but this confusion of identity pervades the Quintet on all levels. The titular Avatar bodies are textual and literal hybrids- represented synthetically, but with motion inputs from live-filmed actors. The fictional Na’vi way of life incorporates its own breakdowns in individuality, textually merging nervous systems with other characters within the setting (most notably for use as battle-mounts.) Even from the very beginning, the (still fully human) protagonist is caught in a confusion of self, participating in the events of the film because of his genetic replication of his brother, and in tension between his personal role as a soldier and his brother’s position as a scientist. The spiritual guardian of the setting (Eywa) is essentially a transcendence of boundaries- she is a plural entity expressing the ecosystem as a whole, containing both living and dead spirits, and is seen to move souls between Na’vi and human bodies as early as the first installment- the “Daughter of Eywa” plotline, climaxing in the third installment with both the (Christian) mortal sacrifice and (Buddhist) no-self transcendence of Kiri, weaves both value systems in to an emergent whole reflected in the setting itself by the merging of Pandoran and Earth ecosystems.

Early in the second installment, Cameron creates a scene highlighting the quintessential ironies of his film: a human being, dressed in war paint and a thin loincloth, beating against the walls of his cage and hissing like a Na’vi, while a Na’vi-bodied character dressed in 20th century military fatigues watches on impassively, sipping a beverage from a metal cup. “He’s gone completely feral,” the blue character says. Where, in this scene, does demotist propaganda assign moral agency? Where does it place the locus of identity? Like the film as a whole, this scene is a koan. Every element of the form is there; the film is ‘correct’ in its construction of wartime propaganda, but it nonetheless points towards a philosophy of the postwar.

It must be emphasized that this irony is entirely within the scope of wartime propaganda itself; to say that this propaganda advances a philosophy of the postwar is not to say that it is postwar propaganda as such. Recall that some of the very earliest examples of world war era propaganda, we find the common phrase “the war to end all war.” Cameron’s Avatar inherits this same purpose and scope- the film is not simplistically pro-war or pacifist, but rather, like the radio addresses and leaflets of 1914-18 from which it emerged, the film argues that war is a necessary component of its own dissolution. Thus, the Avatar Quintet glorifies war even as it undermines the distinctions between persons that make war possible. This is no mere lurching reproduction of demotist patterns in a dying art form. It is genuine artistic innovation, extending and elevating the core social role of cinematic propaganda even as it looks forward to a future where its own format is superceded by…

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...naturally at odds with the Racial Hygiene movement, which was at its peak from 1807 through the 2130s (widely considered a lagging indicator to the increased mobility enabled by advancing industrial technologies). Boosted by early misunderstandings of the role of natural selection in human development, the Hygienists argued that ancestry was a primary element of human attainment and moral value, and took the preservation of ethnic distinctions as their primary organizing principle. Essentially, they discarded the heroism/individualism axis of demotist philosophy, relying wholly on its ethnic components and striving to minimize ethnic strife through careful use of taxonomy and segmentation of global populations. Though they are not generally counted among the great transitional ideologies, since they failed to establish governing states of their own, Racial Hygienists were nonetheless instrumental as factions within other such bodies under a variety of different names. Even today, many modern transpol ‘plexes can trace core ideological themes directly back to the Hygienists, particularly Mormons and the Free Metropol Network.

The Avatar Quintet, with its core themes of admixture between species, was positioned in part as a conscious refutation of contemporary strains of Racial Hygienics. However, any hoped-for debate seems to have been minor at best; recall again Avatar’s relatively small noötic shadow. It is certain that its opponents would have correctly interpreted the challenge; the mystery is why (despite a viewership in the hundreds of millions) there is so little response during a century when ethnic separatism was a primary diagnostic tool. It is possible that its opponents simply decided that the film was not an opportune battleground- owing to the tremendous social power leveraged in its production, as well as its comparative popularity. They may have reasoned that a debate would counterproductively raise the profile of the film, preferring instead to ‘freeze out’ discussion by simply changing the subject…

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...despite this, any relationship to The Smurfs must remain circumstantial pending further scholarship…

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...returning, as it must, to the Earth itself in the fifth installment of the work. Here, Avatar scholarship is at its most controversial. Though the film is replete with discussions of the ‘balance’ and impartiality of Eywa’s spiritual oversight, the analogy to actual egregore-class telosic intelligence remains loose at best- despite the extensive discussions in installment 4 (“the Mists of Pandora”) about Eywa’s own past as a cultivated entity.

It must be noted, at least, that James Cameron’s own work takes the development of telosic intelligence quite seriously- his famously obscene Terminator film (itself a product of the late war period) was instrumental in raising public awareness of the immanent development of telosic minds, albeit through a genocidally alarmist lens. The director was, unambiguously, aware of the development of what he called ‘artificial’ intelligence. Is it possible that, if his early Terminator represented the alarmist view of telosic intelligence, then he intended Avatar to represent a more hopeful approach to the same question? Did his experience of world peace and optimism post-1991 allow him to find more compassionate attitudes towards the still-nascent children of humanity?

We cannot, in the end, truly answer these questions. Without those answers, we cannot fully interpret the full Quintet as either primitivist or technopian; the climactic planting of the world tree on Earth can represent both a rejection of technological progress, and the perfection of that path as mediated by the once-alien. But then, the same ambiguity may have been felt by contemporary audiences themselves...

#this is mostly just my slightly cheeky review of Avatar 2 #plus a bit of a joke about that one Vonnegut line #about getting dressed up in a full suit of armor to go fight a fudge sundae

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