#the ugly bits are the secret sauce that make the meal delicious

[ro-botany]

Offtopic opinions

Awakening is a game that was rushed, and suffered a lot of cuts, but when you pay attention to the history the game lays out, you start to see this rich world they were trying to create. And the plot! It takes a standard "the prince must slay the evil dragon" story and it flips it on its head and uses it to explore cycles of abuse and trauma.

I'm not sure I agree there about the game having a rich world.

There's very little to the world building like Chrom's famous ancestor and Ylisse's First Exalt is just a word for a word copy of Marth without any sort of name. Similarly Chrom's father has no name and the crusade is woefully underdeveloped.

There are also characters like the Hierarch, whom allegedly acted as a mentor to Emmeryn but just betrays her with this big event going uncommented on and the Hierarch having no name, his Japanese name is just the name of his class!

The Taguel are another thing having basically no history outside of things basically copy/pasted from the Laguz and the writers couldn't even get Panne's personal history right; she says in one support her birth mother raised her alongside other taguel, but in another says her mom died when she was an infant so she never knew her or any other taguel.

Compare these all to even the first game having oodles of info on Marth's ancestor and the history of the continent as well as its wars.

Or Orson's betrayal in Sacred Stones to the Hierarch, as well as the long history of the Laguz in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn compared to the Taguel's inconsistent lore that acts as a mere footnote in Awakening.

Also personally I find Awakening follows all the standard FE tropes to the letter without any sort of diverging from them.

...If you find killing vast swathes of virtual human enemies disturbing, then strategy games centered around war may not be the games for you. This is what we call a genre convention. You gotta be able to handle killing the little pixel guys to enter.

Its not that I find it disturbing but more I feel Awakening treats war like a game and isn't interested in explaining why the protagonists are killing people or the ramifications of killing people.

Its simply playing into "kill brown men because they're ugly and rescue the sexy brown women from them."

Like even Genealogy of the Holy War talked about how the cycle of vengeance affected everyone, how its still sad to kill the Loptous cultists as they are human beings and that even the head of the cult, Manfroy didn't start out evil.

Awakening, to me personally, just seemed like it only cared about making the player feel powerful by having every enemy be either forced to fight them against their will or be a piece of crap that absolutely nobody loved (Aversa's storyline goes out of its way to say nobody mourns Grimleal deaths for example), whilst every women around just threw themselves at the player.

(Second debate hour anon ask I got too busy to reply to when it came in; My Bad anon hope you're doin well.)

"whilst every women around just threw themselves at the player" Anon, I can't stress this enough:

This is the game where M/F MONOGAMY IS A STRICTLY ENFORCED GAME MECHANIC I'm. I just. Did we read the same supports? Because most of the Robin supports I remember are like, Robin failing really badly at making soup, or losing stuff, or teaching people funny slang and then regretting it.

All the supports had to be written to believably be building friendships, because you can still A rank characters with each other after they're married. Because of this, the vast majority of supports only pivot into anything even remotely romantic directly in the S support. It's usually not done well, honestly, imo. But either way that doesn't leave room for this like, harem anime AU you're inventing in your head.

"Women throwing themselves at the player" did you read the support where Robin accidentally gives Sully the shits and she threatens to kill him, anon. Did you.

Anyway. It sounds like you're reaching for reasons to object to this game on some kind of moral grounds. You don't HAVE to do that, though. You can just dislike the game for non-moral reasons. Or for no reason. It doesn't have to be that deep.

Anyway to address your other points briefly I mean, uh, with way too many words as usual lmao

I'm not about to argue that the game is perfect in any respect. It's not even CLOSE. I've said before and I'll say it again that there's a lot of unused potential in Awakening, from places where characterization is thin to the massive gaps in the worldbuilding. The way this game treats Aversa is gross as hell and it has plenty racism problems besides. Trust me, I am not unaware of or ignoring the bad and the ugly.

To be honest? It being deeply flawed is what keeps me coming back to it.

If a game is perfect, there's only so long you can gush about how good it is. If a game is GOOD, but FLAWED? You could write a fuckin thesis about it. Hell, I arguably have, the word count on the collection of Awakening-related meta posts I've authored or made big additions to just keeps on jumping.

Yes, Awakening's worldbuilding has major gaps; but what we got was legitimately interesting! Piecing together what we got is fun for me! Filling in some of those gaps by extrapolating from the facts at hand is fun! Headcanoning in the rest is fun!

Sure, some of the characters and relationships are sorely underdeveloped, and there are some inconsistencies in the supports and that sucks. But seriously analyzing what's there is fun as hell! Taking the things we know and extrapolating personality and relationships is a blast! And for the more major characters, what's there is legitimately compelling as hell - the amount of scholarship the mutuals and I have authored about mister Grima faildragon himself is proof of that. As is the fact that we have honest to goodness essays about Validar of all characters. VALIDAR.

I can't really compare it to most of the other FE games, having not played most of them. I can accept it's not the best FE by a long shot. But I'm also willing to give it leeway for how the release dates hamstrung it, I appreciate the clear love and effort that was put into it anyway, and I respect it a lot for the part it played in keeping the franchise alive today.

And to be perfectly frank, it also is a story that I stumbled across when I was in a rough patch, and it helped me deal with the Horrors, so y'know. It's a really important game to me for that reason.

If its flaws are dealbreakers for you I may not be able to change your mind. That's ok!

But hopefully this at least gives you some insight into why I, at least, am so obsessed with it. It's flawed as hell and that makes it capital C Compelling.

[bubblegumfiles]

Week 2 Food Diary/Workout Log

And other random thoughts

Day 8 - May 8, 2019

I left home hungry and felt like I was starving by the time I left work. I was very tempted to eat a spoonful of buttered white rice in the fridge even though I had a whole beets, black beans, and broccoli meal planned out in my head. But I didn’t. I chose not to. Instead, I ate a can of sardines and it’s quelled me significantly.

Made it to the gym. I chose to start with an arm day since I tend to be self conscious about my bat wings when I’m wearing short sleeves.

I did 30 lbs on the first three machines and 40 lbs on the last one, two rounds of 15,10,10 reps on each with short breaks between each set. I didn’t break a sweat anywhere except a light misting of perspiration on my neck, which is very unusual for me. I sweat easily. Maybe I didn’t challenge myself enough? Come to think of it, there wasn’t much burn either. Perhaps by some blessed miracle or cosmic joke there is some strength under all this flab. If I am not sore tomorrow, I will increase the number of reps. If I am, I’ll repeat the same thing again. Not too shabby for the first day in the gym.

2 cups of broccoli, 1 cup of beets, and 1/2 cup of black beans was the next meal. Or the only meal so far I suppose. The thing is I am hungry but I’m also a bit irritated so I don’t feel like doing anything, especially not cooking. My family is eating differently and the smell of hamburger meat is permeating the house right now, but I don’t feel tempted to eat it, even with being hungry. I think I feel let down because my mom said we’d go walking together at 6 and I was genuinely looking forward to going. If I’d known she’d change her mind, I would have gone earlier or gotten some cardio in at the gym this morning. Today is my dad’s birthday and I think mama thought we’d go out to eat today. She seems kinda tired though. I’m taking daddy out on Saturday but the place I’m taking him doesn’t have healthy options so I’m just going to eat at home first. I’m feeling sleepy and irritable even though I slept roughly 6 hours, give or take. I’m sitting at 419 on the calorie intake so maybe that’s why I’m feeling a bit frustrated and sleepy. Add that to disappointment and I guess I get where my mood is stemming from. I don’t want to be too hungry at work but it looks like I might end up that way. It’s the stupid anxiety again.

After a nap I felt a little less anxious and by the time I got to the parking lot at work and ate some beans, beets, and a few pineapple chunks, I was feeling better. By the time work is over, it’ll be another day survived. That sounds super good to me.

Day 9 - May 9, 2019

Saw Auntie Sherion at work and she gave me an apple and when I got to the car I chugged some water and had a few more pineapple chunks. The water distended my stomach enough to not feel super hungry during the drive home, which was lovely.

Threw all of these lovely things in a skillet and hit it with some paprika, black pepper, a little sea salt, a little parsley (I have no idea what this actually goes on), and a tablespoon of teriyaki sauce. Did I mention I’m not a cook? I’m sure it’s obvious to my tastebuds. I overdid it on the pepper. I also over cooked the vegetables which made me a bit sad but whatever. There’s always next time. A serving size of cashews did manage to improve my mood though.

Made it to the gym later than I wanted since it was raining when I got off work but I made it. Did 45 minutes on the treadmill at 3.1 speed and between 2.5 and 3 incline. I wanted to do more but Tiff was in distress and while it was easy to hold the phone and walk on the treadmill, I couldn’t do it with the weights so I called it a day. I still felt satisfied because I made it though.

My last meal of the day was really satisfying. 2 red potatoes, broccoli and sardines. Even though I ended up hungry about 2.5 hours later, it was nice not to feel that odd teeny tiny ghost of hunger immediately after a meal that tends to happen continuously these days. I’m not sure if it’s because of the calorie deficit or if it’s because I’m still not getting enough nutrients. Guess I’ll have to look into it later.

Day 10 - May 10, 2019

I ate 2 jolly rancher hard candies at work. When I got home I had eggs, broccoli, and cucumber and tomato.

Did an hour at the gym by accident, which really tickled me. Repeated the same arm exercises from Day 8 (reps and weight included) and decided to get on the treadmill since my feet didn’t hurt. For 15 minutes I did 3.0 incline at 3.0 pace, 15 more minutes and no incline at 3.0 pace, and a 5 minute cool down. I’m starting to believe my theory about healthy food and my brain is right because when I walked in the gym, I felt anxious and embarrassed because there were people there (didn’t expect that) but I was able to regulate my feelings and redirect my focus, so much so that I ended up staying longer than intended! It felt nice to be able to self soothe in a positive way.

Also...I have ankles?!?! Apparently I hold fluid there and have been my whole existence only to find out after attempting to stay properly hydrated that I don’t just go from leg to foot. Who knew? 😳

Next was brown rice, quinoa, sweet peppers and onion. I love eating this. It’s tasty and if I drink enough water with it, it takes away the hungry feeling for a little while.

Some things that are worthy of note: I finally drank a gallon of water in a day and I went to a prom send off with yummy food and stuck to eating fruits and veggies! Omg it smelled to lovely but I know what I want for my mind. The bit that the fog has lifted has provided tremendous relief without the weird emotional blockage that I felt with my medication. Because I’m still feeling the emotions, but it’s like now my brain has the ability to reframe it and the energy to process it. That’s the best way to describe it. It feels...amazing.

Day 11 - May 11, 2019

Had 3 grapes at work. They were so juicy!! Got home and made oatmeal and eggs. No fruit in the oatmeal this time but it did have honey and cinnamon. Also ended up eating a can of sardines too.

I woke up really hungry and decided on a Subway salad but was only a few bites in when it was time to go to daddy’s birthday lunch at Bluff City Crab. Their food is amazing so I may sit in the car to finish my salad before being tempted by the deliciousness. It’s seafood, sure, but how do I calculate the calories in the butter and secret seasonings and sauces or whatever? What if I go overboard on eating but undershoot the calorie intake? I don’t wanna risk it.

Snacked on an apple and it didn’t make my heart start fluttering. Had rice and sardines as the last meal.

No exercise today. I think I feel bad about it. I feel bad in general. Like I wanna cry bad. Not only did I not exercise but today I think I let myself get too hungry so I’m cranky. The biggest reason I didn’t get to exercise is because my free time went to other people. At the time it felt nice to give it but in retrospect maybe I shouldn’t have? I don’t know. I tasted a spoonful of rotel dip but ended up spitting the meat out. I even popped a mini snickers open and started chewing it but it tasted funny so I spit all of it out too. I’d like some different foods now I guess, but I can’t tell if I genuinely want it or I want it because I feel stressed all of a sudden. Holidays do that to me, especially when I’m not sure my mom will like her gift. We’re also supposed to go out to eat at Chow Time for Mother’s Day tomorrow. They have vegetables that I can eat but I really don’t want to go. I guess I’m tired of going out somewhere that has different food options from what I’m choosing to eat right now and not having a good vegetable option to choose from but spending my money on it anyway. I don’t have that problem if I’m not social or when I keep to myself. Only when I try to interact with people more. Every time I end up cutting a piece of my desires to please someone else.

I felt ugly today too. Like the gross kind. That’s when I lost my footing on my emotional state. Right now I want to go have some rotel and Doritos. Should I? Will I binge later if I don’t? Will I fall off the wagon and go back to eating the way I used to if I do? I wish the gym hadn’t closed early without notice. That was the beginning of the emotional spiral. I’d given to everyone else all morning but the moment I went to give something to myself, I wasn’t able. And now I feel a little low. *sigh*

Day 12 - May 12, 2019

Today I ate an unmeasured amount of white rice (probably about 2 serving sizes worth), a can of sardines, and a fourth of a red circle b smoked sausage. Didn’t care for the meat much. No gym again.

Day 13 - May 13, 2019

No food. Went to the gym at 5 A.M. and did 45 minutes on the treadmill. I alternated between 3.0 incline/3.0 speed and 0.0 incline/3.3 speed. Felt relaxed and mellow afterward which was lovely. Also got a gallon of water down.

Day 14 - May 14, 2019

No food. Did some exercise before work. Arms and treadmill on the hills setting. According to the machine I burned 407 calories in 45 minutes. Did another gallon. I feel like I need more water though.