#theme: discourse

[mariigoldzz]

I'm not team Gale but why do people ALWAYS have to compare him to Peeta? He's a well written character on his own.

Book Gale is a cautionary tale. He's a product of radicalization and manipulation. He was angry at the Capitol for what they did to the people he loved and as a result made the biggest mistake of his life. (causing the death of Prim.)

Instead of actually appreciating what Collins was trying to say, ("War changes people.") y'all just compare him to Peeta. He's a boy who was changed by his environment and lost people he loved because of it. It's hypocritical for a fandom that complains so much about media literacy and criticizes the movies for pushing the love triangle to water Gale down to "Katniss's asshole love interest."

Did he do bad things? Yes. Do you have to like Gale? No, but perhaps we should look at him from a different angle and stop attacking people who appreciate his character and the message Collins was trying to send.

Edit: People are trying to tell me he's a bad person in the replies. This post is NOT about that. I'm talking about the themes of his character, not his personality. Don't try to correct me on my own post when I'm not even talking about that?? Y'all act like he's worse than Snow 💀 I literally wrote "Did he do bad things? Yes."

[swordscleric]

I'm only halfway through the second phase of Predathos (which, to be clear is an incredible vibe for a bossfight, love a good head & hands/multitarget-same-entity boss) but I cannot shake the feeling of disappointment and just dissatisfaction I have had with this campaign that definitely started with Dusk/Yu, got followed up handily with the first Delilah/Sun Tree fight and then has been unfortunately reinforced with every discussion surrounding the Prime Deities since Hearthdell. This campaign is fascinating to pick apart, I have been really enjoying pulling apart why it isn't working compared to C1 or C2. But as much as I'm having fun dissecting where the worldbuilding has led to the current weaknesses in the gods' argument or reading other people's incisive commentary on the lack of personalities on the Ruby Vanguard's end, the "girlfailure" nonsense, etc etc, man do I wish this campaign was better than it is.

There are so many avenues of improvement -

Matt telling everyone to prep and write characters for this campaign instead of a C2-esque character-focused campaign.

Matt working religious organisations into the world properly.

The cast engaging with Marquet as a genuine location rather than set-dressing.

Otohan, Ozo and the rest of the Vanguard having more than "*insert snappy line here*" for their personalities.

No Delilah.

Bell's Hells having an iota of curiosity for anything outside of their own selves, including but not limited to: the gods, religious worship, the Elemental Titans and why they were sundered, how the people of Exandria feel about the gods, Vasselheim and its role in suppressing information about Predathos, Ludinus Da'Leth's plan and how it would still break the world if they did it in his place

I don't know why all of this fell into place in the way that it did, but it did. We can endlessly speculate why - the cast resting on their laurels after C2, not having enough time between the animated shows and Daggerheart and Candela Obscura and, and, and - but at the end of the day I really do hope that whatever form the final campaign wrap-up takes, they burn the damn questions asking the cast "what if the world was made of pudding and this character and this character kissed?" and instead pick questions that get them to introspect for a potential Campaign 4. Otherwise I don't know what will happen, but it sure as hell won't be Mighty Nein part 2: Issylra Boogaloo.

[boxeom]

Insane Character Analysis/Rant About Caleb/Mahiru/Xia Yizhou

Okay so MAJOR SPOILERS for Caleb's storyline/Myth/Cards, cw. incest/pseudocest, cw. religious themes.

As much as I love Caleb's eng va, I do have to say that the moments where he's being y'know- insane- don't hit as well as they do in the JP/CN versions. Since the english localization is bending over backwards to remove the pseudocest that is straight up a key part to mc/Caleb's entire relationship, there are a lot of moments that don't really make much sense in terms of tension when you go with the whole "childhood friend" context. I've listened to both the JP and ENG versions of cards I've found the most significant for mc and Caleb and the differences are insane to say the least.

The amount of times "nii-chan/san/gege/big brother" is removed from the english captions is honestly hilarious to me. As long as you don't understand some basic Japanese or Chinese, it might go right over your head. But even as someone who isn't fluent in Japanese, I have a good enough grasp on the language to know that there is a VERY different story being told- so much so that it's gotten to a point where I consider Caleb, Xia Yizhou, and Mahiru three entirely different characters from each other because of how vastly different their writing is by each localization.

Caleb and mc's obvious symbolism is the biblical story of Adam and Eve and the Forbidden Fruit- a story of man's first sin being temptation and receiving enlightenment at the cost of falling from God's Grace. The apple is well known in literature to represent the Forbidden Fruit. It's a theme that commonly alludes to sexual liberation, forbidden knowledge, lustful temptation (not just in a sexual sense), and a physical representation of sin. I have some thoughts that the chip also plays a part in being a more literal version of the Forbidden Fruit, since it lowers previous hesitations and exacerbates more obsessive, possessive, and impulsive qualities of mc AND Caleb as well as their sexual wants for each other.

Now, to me, having the imagery of the Forbidden Fruit in the trope of childhood friends makes little to no sense. There is no taboo to shy away from, no reason for mc and Caleb to feel as clearly conflicted as they do when they start toeing at certain lines- if anything, I feel as though it would be something to be encouraged. But when you take the time to look at and listen to the JP/CN versions, well...it becomes MUCH more obvious why the apple is there in the first place.

Acknowledging the fact that mc and Caleb do and have always seen one another as siblings and developed a codependent bond founded in trauma ties every missing thing that the english localization just can't piece back together while trying to do a "boy next door" theme for Caleb (I mean they literally grew up in the same house, had bedrooms across the hall from each other, saw the other grow up in the closest way anyone possibly could- there's nothing "boy next door" about that).

Below are just a few examples that I've collected that I think both show how the childhood friend angle just doesn't work with Caleb and how much his and mc's relationship is reliant on something forbidden, something that they both know is wrong between them but keep managing to indulge in no matter how hard they try not to;

Now there are DOZENS of more moments like this littered throughout Caleb's entire story and what we have between him and MC so far. And in particular the second row does NOT have mc say "childhood friend" in the JP version (can you guess what she refers to him as instead?). These "dangerous thoughts", the "cushion that stays between", the fear of rejection that Caleb possesses is so much more than just something between two people who grew up together in the context of childhood friends.

The first and last screenshots in particular are some of my favorites (taken from Intertwined Gold and Exclusive Aftertaste). For Exclusive Aftertaste, it's not only a cute moment of mc silently confirming Caleb's suspicions that she was waiting for him but, on a deeper level, acknowledging that she will always love him no matter what happens between them. And at an even DEEPER level, it's mc knowingly partaking in Caleb's favorite forbidden fruit- his favorite sin. They BOTH took a bite from it. And though we never get to SEE what happens, we HEAR the bite they take in unison. It's safe to assume what happens. There's a damn reason the card is called "Exclusive Aftertaste". And then they proceed to never talk about it again.

Meanwhile, in Intertwined Gold, mc is literally expressing that she wishes they'd met differently so that they could be together without having to lie to themselves about what's happening. Like COME ONNNN. Why would a childhood friend EVER need to say this?

In my opinion, getting rid of this intended layer of Caleb and mc's relationship doesn't do his character justice at all. Caleb/Mahiru/Xia Yizhou is an incredibly well written and complex character- he's deeply flawed, traumatized, and in desperate need of connection in any form he can get from the one person in the world he's ever loved with all his soul. It mellows out the moments of desperation, manipulation, and intensity he has during his darker moments that just don't convey the tragedy and bittersweetness of mc/Caleb.

There are a billion more things to say here but it is seven in the morning rn and I've been up writing this in one sitting since six. I will definitely add more when I'm not running on fumes and the crack that is Caleb's character. 🙏🏽

[jazzifer]

the amount of yandere writers that are against proshippers is insane to me. like, i fear yandere falls under dark tropes(especially when that writing contains kidnapping and murder and other stuff)?? i fear being overly obsessed with someone to the point of crimes is a dark trope??

like, it’s okay to be uncomfortable with other dark topics and stuff even if you write it, but telling the community made mostly of dark fiction enjoyers to fuck off is absurd.

when the puritans come to censor writing, they will come for you too!!

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

idk what's worse - a show where the themes are half-assed and not addressed seriously from the beginning, or a show where it first has a strong grasp of the message it wants to spread but then loses it later on and actively goes against that very message.

[ariadne-mouse]

In all this C3 discourse about what the main themes are I have seen viewpoints all over the board. I have also noticed some posts/tags/replies are particularly fired up saying that those who disagree with them are ignoring or putting down the perspectives of people of color. I have also watched some of these same users dunk on posts that are written by people of color, some of whom are sharing their family's irl experience under imperialism/colonialism, or why they either don't think that theme fits in C3 in the ways proposed by fandom or that it would have poor implications if it did, or even just saying that it's way more complicated than how the theme is being presented in these arguments - and then lump them into the complaint of "people ignoring perspectives of POC". Like, yes, it is absolutely a fandom issue that perspectives of people of color get ignored, shut down, or undervalued. But these perspectives are not a monolith and to pretend that they are - or that they must clearly be aligned with a specific view - is reductive and presumptuous, and indeed contributes to that very fandom issue. So in the fervor to decry those ignoring perspectives of POC, perhaps pause to consider - regardless of your own identity but especially if you are white - whether you might be doing that yourself in the exact same breath.

[myfandomrealitea]

Fucking insane how people will see something I post that they agree with but they have to virtue signal that they're not a proshipper before expressing their agreement/support even when the post has nothing to do with proshipping.

[springtrappd]

i think one of the biggest reasons the mimic grates on so many people (including myself) is because it's pay-off without set-up. like. you can have a story about a machine that recreates the horrors of the past in a metaphor for the cycle of abuse & how trauma bleeds into future generations, sure, but you need to write that story first. you don't get to work backwards from your twist! that's not how stories work!!

[mahou-furbies]

Ah Princession Orchestra has character profiles on the website! Let's see...

...ohhh

Oh no!!!

"Theme colour: yellow"

You will be a green mahou in my heart Nagase...

[centrally-unplanned]

Atomic bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki: Based or Cringe?

Hiroshima = based, Nagaski = cringe, we having it both ways today baby!

But okay to not meme, this is a very complex question. Fundamentally, the mass-scale strategic bombing of civilian targets in World War Two was a dubiously effective policy that killed millions of innocent people. I judge no one for strategically bombing tank factories with the accuracy you had in 1943, that is just the harsh realities of that war, but that is not a description of what Allied strategy was (or not just, they also bombed tank factories). There were legions of air power proponents executing a strategy of "maximizing civilian casualties to break the back of the enemy", killing babies was the point, and the horrors of things like the firebombing of Tokyo are literally inconceivable to those who have never been in such times. Morality is not divorced from results - if it worked, if it made Germany & Japan surrender after a night of bloodied streets, then I would be hard-pressed to fault them. But that isn't what happened. It probably did something, sure, but the calculus is grim.

From that lens you can see Hiroshima as a culmination of a horrible strategy; but I don't think that is the only lens you have. World War Two was, in my opinion without peer, the highest stakes conflict humanity has ever fought. Nazi Germany's combination of dystopian vision and backed-by-steel ambition makes it the worst government to ever exist; Japan is certainly in the top 10 as far as these things go. And while we with our tables of GDP and steel output can say the Allies had it in the bag, that is never how people fighting a war see things.

Additionally, the methods of World War Two emerged from the almost-as-cataclysmic horrors of World War One; a conflict that utterly destroyed the governments of half the countries that fought it in. And their replacements were...not great! It was not a war that broke imperialism to usher in liberalism, even if steps were made that way. After WW1, people were desperate to find a way to fight the next war in a way that wouldn't condemn themselves to endless trench warfare they had gone through, one that wouldn't bring them to the brink of collapse, even if it fucked over the other guy.

Strategic bombing was born from this impulse - its founders truly hoped it would break the back of opposing nations, that once you "won air superiority" and started smacking Berlin the white flag would be raised. This didn't happen, but you didn't know that in 1941. Or in 1942. Or in 1943. Maybe it's just around the corner in 1944? You really want to stop now? 90% of Strategic Bombing Commands quit just before their enemy's will is finally broken, don't you know? In hindsight it is easy to say, in 1944, that they should have taken to foot off the pedal, that the war was won, and that this strat wasn't the way. And to be clear, they should have, they should have done that. Better men would have done that. But that is the high bar I am holding them too, not the floor. In this time period most people just didn't think civilians got spared in war, it was a different time. Morality's aim is universal, but the steps of the individual towards them can only be contextual. I think they were wrong, and to be clear by 1945 it was becoming quite obvious that the war was over and this was unnecessary. But few of us are so immune to the sins of inertia in a war.

From that lens, Hiroshima is the most justified civilian-targeted strategic bombing conducted in the entire war. Because unlike the inertia-creep of the Dresden firebombing, it had a very clear purpose - compel the Japanese government to surrender by demonstrating a weapon they could not hope to defeat, something that would save tens of thousands of American lives and likely hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. I believe it did do that - not only do I think it was at least as important as the Soviet declaration of war, but the one-two punch of timing them together was a calculated psychological blow that certainly didn't hurt.

But more importantly Truman was not privy to the sessions of the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War, he could only guess where they stood. Within that context Hiroshima was a calculated gambit that makes sense; because strategically bombing civilian targets was the order of the day at that time, and that all the big solo-military targets were essentially bombed away at that point, the idea of some kind of "display" against a dummy target or something - to a government the US had barely any communication with, wasting a scarce resource - was just not politically in the cards. Hell, neglecting to bomb Kyoto for cultural reasons, and doing things like dropping leaflets warning civilians ahead of the attack to flee, were already tail-end of the humanitarian practices of the time. I cannot armchair judge Truman for making hard calls with the stakes as high as they were.

However, Nagasaki was a classic interia case. It was done because the US had the bomb and we were bombing cities. It made even less sense than campaigns before, because now the US had a "reason" to think surrender might be imminent, so giving it a few days had far more logic. This one I judge much more harshly. It was the decision of a system that just did violence by default. Which of course it was, it was World War Two. But results are morality - Hiroshima probably saved Japanese lives. Nagasaki did not. Them's the breaks.

[ilovedthestars]

also while I'm on this tangent and because I saw someone get a hate anon about this today:

you are not obligated to turn your personal internet spaces into a public bulletin board.

if I was painting a decorative mural on a wall and someone came up and told me, "that's a waste of space! we should cover that wall with posters that raise awareness of [insert activism cause of the day]!" it would not matter if I agreed with their cause. I would tell them to find a different wall to hang posters on. Spaces for spreading current issues should exist and people are welcome to make them. But we do not have to cover every wall in the world in posters. It is also valuable for people to be able to walk past a mural and feel uplifted and like their community is creative and vibrant.

you do not owe anyone your spaces, even if you agree with their cause. you do not owe anyone space on your blog. if you want to make a bulletin board, all power to you. but there is no cause so worthy that it should be used to guilt people into giving up their personal spaces.

[ingravinoveritas]

If at this point you still think Michael and David would somehow be uncomfortable with people shipping them after they've just created their own actual couple-themed Christmas card, I don't even know what to tell you...

[daisywords]

thinking about this post but also it's more than that. do you ever think about how stories starring men are allowed to be about humanity but stories starring women have to be about Womanhood

[a-confused-spoon]

"Arcane was always about love" very very close! It just featured loving characters and relationships, which isn't the same!

It was actually about how "love and legacy are the sacrifices we make for progress" as reflected by Silco's monster ideology to achieve independence and the Council constantly neglecting Zaun, twin sister city of Piltover, for prestige on the bigger picture, and on a minor scale how Jinx had to let go of the idea of Vi's love to fully embrace her potential, and Jayce focusing more on what he can do as a councilor instead of as a scientist (his legacy) and with Viktor (who he loves), and Ekko being unable to let go of his love for Powder even if for the sake of moving forward in the battle against Silco, and Mel having to choose between her love for her mom and the peace pact that Jayce puts on the table for the sake of both cities, and Vi not understanding that destroying Silco and his empire would've driven the sister she loves so dearly away- y'know, it was an ever present thing (as core themes usually are I believe) around which the rest of the themes were written (class divide, found family etc).

And what the story tackled with said core theme was specifically - I can't stress this enough - how hard it is to make that choice because there's not an obvious answer and it's not the same one for every case, especially when there are consequences outside the one's personal sphere, which was exactly why every decision the characters made drove the story forward.

But yes, if you were to transfer the "didn't he try to kill you?" / "Sometimes the best thing we can do is to forgive :D" exchange from s2 to any point in time of s1 it would sounds absolutely natural and reasonable within the context of the story because you should be able to find it you to forgive those who wronged you in the name love- or love conquers all or whatever it is that you mean with "arcane was always about love"- was certainly always the point.

...fyi I'm not saying that s2 can't or shouldn't be enjoyed for what it is (as I know I partly did before taking a step back and questioning a couple things), I'm just saying it made the show lose track of its center point and I think it's something worth noting.

[melonefelone]

Do you think if Arcane came out a few years ago there would be Jayvik animatics to Colors by Halsey or x reader fics based on Daddy Issues by The Neighbourhood of Silco or an insane amount of Genderbent Vi art to make Caitvi straight or-

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

"Is Amphibia gay like The Owl House?" It is gay, but certainly not like The Owl House.