#this is for people who want to join btw

[swampybogg]

[sergle]

yall are about to piss me off by not having any PASSING basic knowledge of the way the u.s. military manipulates its recruits into joining by typing up one of your uninformed, unresearched, unempathetic, individualistic, unbelievably annoying posts about how 100% of the people in the military ended up there because they just Love America So Damn Much! they're extremely mature and informed at time of recruitment, they can totally leave anytime they want, they totally had tons of other avenues in life they could've taken, there was no rush at all to get income as fast as possible, and everyone in the military also totally is part of the combat divisions and personally enjoys being IN the military very much, big believers of violence. everyone in the military is shooting guns all day, that's how that works. they LOVE BLOODSHED. also I love the "amewicans haha" twang to this type of shit because you're actually TOTALLY stealing our Thing, which is turning systemic issues into Individual Issues. Instead of talking about the powers that be, it's so Personal Choice up in here. It's, "well you shouldn't have done it then. I totally wouldn't because I know better." you don't wanna talk about the military industrial complex as a whole, and you don't want to talk about recruiters, you just want to pin the blame on Specific Individual People one-by-one, as if they're responsible for the system that they're being ground up in. someone was in the military? bad person, no matter what. it's easier to believe that, I guess, than to acknowledge that Normal People (with high school educations) are manipulated and incentivized into joining a system that is Bad. at like age 18. but yeah no that 18 year old should have just been smarter lol haha anyway here are some screenshots for no particular reason

side note this reply of someone going "umm just get loans and go into a high paying field it's easy XD" as a direct response to someone trying to explain how most americans joining the military are being funneled in that direction out of a need for money.

and another person who Decided that americans join the military just CLENCHING their teeth thinking of other people, and not thinking completely selfishly about their own selves and their own income/housing/healthcare.

[keirientez]

band au rahhhhhhhhhhh

[necrotic-nephilim]

can you make a discord server please 🥺🥺🥺 the dead dove discord servers i join are always like harry potter or disney related for some reason.

hi! this was a very sweet thing for you to ask of me, trusting me of all people with making a discord server. also you gave me an excuse to make one, which i've sort of wanted to do anyway-

right now the only ppl in it are me and my poor partner who doesn't know jack about DC, but it's all set up! it is 18+ and very much all things go, relating to dark content. but if enough people from here join i think we could have a nice little community over there bc you're so right, most dead dove servers are not DC spaces, and most DC servers are very anti. we deserve our own little space too <3 come join my server or else /lh

[tamarieatsbatteries175]

Wow. What a rollercoaster.

[booasaur]

Harlem (2021) - 1x10

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

is anyone else interested in joining my server? not quite ready to invite people yet but should be soon. just gauging interest right now. “like” or reply to this post and when i’m ready i’ll send you an invite.

server will probably be dual purpose. 

there will be (1) a semi-public side oriented toward general discussion (topics like politics, books, history, philosophy, religion, media, science, tech, etc) and community building (nothing is set in stone yet but i am imagining activities like book club, movie watching, playing games, contests and giveaways, etc). and there will be (2) a private side dedicated to more focused discussions and internal cult matters.

the server won’t be a “safe space” -- i’m fine with a bit of edge (within ToS. not trying to get terminated.) -- but i do want this server (at least the semi-public side) to be /relatively/ welcoming and civil. so if you’re egregiously toxic or vulgar or prone to shitflinging or sperging out you won’t be welcome here. neither will you be welcome if you’re overly sensitive.

otherwise, as long as you follow the rules, you will be fine. though i always reserve the right to executively veto your presence for any reason.

[bluinary]

With no hate to that previous post I just reblogged bc its valid in and of itself:

I get what they're saying, but it's actually *not* like Rick Riordan broke into your house and moved all of your furniture.

It's more like you *bought* furniture and installment services from Uncle Rick's Home Goods in 2008, a lovely niche shop focused on serving our underserved community of neurodivergents. And then, despite your furniture from that time still being exactly as it was when you bought it and billions of exact copies being for sale, when Uncle Rick said, "Hey guys, I'm going to make this same line of furniture out of completely different material, and Im adopting a new installation tactic, but it's going to stick to its general function and purpose," you giddily clapped your hands and said, "I can't wait to see the exact same thing made out of entirely different materials!" Forgetting, of course, that that is literally impossible.

And **then** you came home and found that Rick (whom you left the door open for!) moved all of your furniture slightly to the left. Also he replaced every item with near-identical copies.

"I liked it the way it was very much, thank you!" Then don't get the update, idiot. It is so optional to watch this show. You had to wait a week between every episode. You had to torrent every 40 minute video on a weekly basis, or drive to visit your one family member who won't give up Disney+ anyway. And when things started proving to be different, *you* made the conscious choice to see where things were going. Now you're mad and miffed that it wasn't as faithful an adaptation as The Lion King 2019 was to the original 💀. Coming from an AuDHDer, please understand that your neurodivergent rigidity can only be accommodated so much, my friend. Real people worked hard to make this. Different people from the book's production. *More* people than the book's production. And you know what's crazy is that, despite all of this, some of the tone of minor scenes may have changed, but nothing major truly did. We did it-- we got a faithful adaptation!! If it's not your cup of tea, if your mind's eye just cannot be topped, it's all good. Just say, "this seemed cooler in my head." But oh my god, I'm tired of the Rick slander. The overall crew slander. As if people didn't work their asses off to make this show happen at all. "Rick Riordan broke into my home--" you let him in. *You* watched the show; you let him in and consented to whatever the fuck he was going to do (which...wasn't even much).

If you are scared of coming home and finding your special interest moved slightly to the left, stop letting the author back in through your front door.

[utilitycaster]

trying to decide if it's more productive to elaborate on the D&D post and make it clear that at least a large number of people do not want to hear about your game in the tags and you should reblog the d&d post and then make a separate post that rambles on at length if you ACTUALLY want to keep this between you and your mutuals; or if I should keep doing as I have been, namely, treating it as a glue trap and blocking everyone who's like "lol too bad I'm telling you about my game and you'll deal"

[nerdyfangirlingbooks]

I've had a stupid merlin au idea stuck in my head for days now and I know I'll never get around to writing it the way I want it written but I kinda wanna try anyway even though I am 100% of the target audience

[raelyn-dreams]

Okay I think this might be a hot take and its completely fine if others disagree, but I do genuinely think Mika has adoptive parents, and I don't think that him having them takes away from his character arc or abandonment issues.

First off, I find people are often hung up on the fact that Mika rarely mentions his parents and still refers to himself as an orphan, but from my experience, those are both fairly common behaviors among some foster kids? People irl I've known have kept a respectful distance with their foster/adoptive parents, due to needing time to open up or simply choosing to keep the relationship more impersonal. I think this applies in Mika's case especially since he was adopted very late and then went off to Yumenosaki shortly after, so he hardly had time to get to know his adoptive parents. In addition, Mika's incredibly low self-worth makes it so he doesn't like imposing or asking people for help when it comes to personal issues, especially during ! era. Add in the fact that he's living with Shu to avoid the commute in ! era and lives at the dorms in !! era, and it makes sense to me he wouldn't mention them much.

Adding onto the above, from a writing perspective, I think it's also a pattern with certain characters not to bring up their parents. For example, we hardly know anything about Shinobu or Mitsuru's parents, despite them being on good terms with them and living at home during ! era. There's simply no reason to plot-wise - whenever parents are brought up, it's usually because they were terrible and left long-lasting trauma on their kids (Hinata & Yuta, Tsumugi, Madara, etc). Mika's adoptive parents, from what we know, are just...fairly normal and quite unremarkable by Enstars standards.

I think it's also kind of a plothole (though correct me if I'm wrong!) if he doesn't have adoptive parents because of Yumenosaki's high tuition. The timeline of Mika enrolling in Yumenosaki, joining Valkyrie, and when he was stated to be adopted is pretty vague; all we know is that it's near the beginning of his first year. However, he stated that he joined Yumenosaki specifically to see Shu again; therefore, it doesn't make sense to me that Shu could've paid his tuition, since if we're going by normal tuition rules, he had to have a part of it paid in advance. We know Mika works himself to death, so he may have gotten a part-time job, but it doesn't seem feasible to me if he was in the orphanage to have done that alongside caring for the kids so young. Therefore, him having gotten adopted around a year before entering Yumenosaki and then having his parents pay part of the tuition makes the most sense to me.

In addition, we also hear Shu say that Mika's parents paid his family some money for allowing Mika to board in Shu's house. It doesn't make any sense to lie about this - why would Shu's parents tell him that if Mika had no parents? Why would Mika hypothetically tell Shu that if it was something Shu's parents could easily disprove? Furthermore, Mika's parents are mentioned in both Marionette and Victoria. While you could make the argument he lied in Marionette, why lie in Victoria, which is set so close to the end of ! era? Furthermore, his official ! era profile stated that his family structure at home was "Parents"; that's something I take as fairly canon, since we've never had a lie of this scale on an official profile.

Getting back to my main point, character-wise, I don't think Mika having adoptive parents makes his arc any less realistic. We know that Mika purposefully avoided getting adopted young so he wouldn't abandon the other kids. It seems entirely plausible that potential parents may have been interested in adopting him a few times, but Mika's fear of abandonment or rejection (both for himself and the others) wouldn't allow himself to be. I think that only when he had a clear goal in mind - Yumenosaki - would he allow himself to be. Mika is also not close to his adoptive parents, displaying a vague sense of gratitude and respect, but not the overt familiarity one would expect. If we take both the timeline and Mika's past into account, this makes sense and doesn't detract from his arc of learning that he's valued and human. It would still play out the same, and from my interpretation, that's how I believe it is in canon.

[absolutelyzoned]

it would be really sexy of me if i betrayed everyone who's taken me in and given me a place where i belong just for the fun of it . maybe for the plot and trauma reasons too. but eh. it would be funny!!

[randomnameless]

Do you feel like the fandom has a sort of bigotry of low expectations attitude towards Almyra? Like Rhea is literally satan for not teaching Cyril to read (even though she didn't know he couldn't) but Almyra, where he lived during the time in his life where most kids are learning to read, doesn't get any flack for not educating it's children. And that's on top of treating the whole "ignoring the orphans you create in your raids for funzies until you can use them in your raids for funzies" as not a big deal at best and something Cyril needs to get over so he can embrace his Almyran heritage at worst.

Hm...

I didn't interact with khalidstan side of the fandom, a friend gave me a few links and I clicked, blinked, and they immediately returned lol.

Almyra in fandom in general is... a short summary of what Fodlan's issue is, and the need to use copious amounts of headcanons or to project real life events on the two lines given because 10k years of lore means we still don't know the name of Claude's dad or why the fuck he isn't stopping the raids.

And in a way, I can't really say it's undeserved, to project so much, because we all like to see something new, and something "not often seen" in jrpgs, Almyra's aesthetic was so heavily inspired by real world locations, so of course people wanted to know more about it than about "random medieval european land #8854" and...

Well. The game doesn't say a lot about Almyra, it is mentionned about, someone you are supposed to see as a protagonist with knowledge about this land says some good stuff about it and... that's it!

(at least it wasn't the utter disappointment Hyzante was in TS, because that's another can of worms, but given the "aethetic" picked for the ultra religious people who justify everything by their religion that is actually false and controlled by an old fart using a puppet, and who also enslaves people, and has no redeeming quality bar its last survivor being a Mother (tm) who apparently knows some medicine - let's say this portrayal would have fit well with the early 2000s depictions of a certain religion and its followers in the real world).

So for this new and "exotic" (i fucking hate that word) country, of course people wanted to know more... and when the "more" showed that IS didn't move from the Kaga era with Persia = Verdane, well.

Some people, who really wanted to be invested in Almyra (maybe projecting a lot about it) were disappointed, and had to basically create fanon!Almyra from the few breadcrumbs we got - ending with the "Almyra is wonderful and #didnothingwrong, Fodlan BaD and Syrup must embrace his Almyran identity as Khalid's bby bro!" - canon events can be ignored!

And, as headcanon/fanon, okaay, this can work, I mean, it's not because people make sandwiches with mayo, eggs and cucumbers that I have to eat it, you know? Some people eat those kinds of sandwiches, I don't, don't like, don't read, etc etc.

But then, removing the fandom's tendency to headcanon and, well, be a fandom, in FE Fodlan itself we have... Claude.

And the way the games treat Claude, imo, ultimately fuels those headcanons.

Rather, not only Claude, but more specifically, his views about Fodlan, Almyra and the supposed reasons why they can't get along.

As I posted way too many times in the last 4 years, Claude will - for a reason I suspect is tied to Hresvelg Grey and the red herring called Rhea - never interact with the Almyrans attacking for shit'n'giggles in Hilda'n'Cyril's paralogue. He will not talk about House Goneril's habit to, uh, "take orphans left on the battlefield" with them.

But it's an issue with the Fodlan games in general, you can have an elephant in the room, or a giant dragon, if it goes against the narrative a certain character pushes, that elephant will be ignored, like, the lord won't even have 1 line about it.

The game took time to code Claude having line about random pirates "dirtying" Almyra's good name by pretending to be Almyran pirates to, just, steal stuff - but it didn't took time to code Claude maybe tell to the random peon leading the raid of the week to stop the fuck out - and I ultimately don't think it was a foresight.

Claude will tell you the reason why Almyra isn't well seen nor accepted in Fodlan is because of the Church or the faith Rhea preaches (since in VW Billy will still be head of the church), because the faith Rhea preaches apparently encourages isolationism, xenophobia, etc etc...

And nowhere in the game(s) will someone tell him that, uh, no, the faith Rhea preached welcomes people of all faiths and origins (Cyril sort of does, but this support is optional when Claude will always say the same thing at the beginning, middle and end of his route(s)), or how people do not welcome Almyrans with open arms because of their habit to raid their lands every sunday (re : lack of reaction in the Hilda'n'Cyril support) - Hell, in Nopes, it's Lorenz, not Claude, who tells Almyrans that they shouldn't pillage the cities they are invading (re : the elephant in the room, Lorenz adresses it though, even if it's played for funsies).

So if Claude says Almyra is the second coming of paradise on earth, and the game never bothers to correct him or have him learn, react and reconsider his earlier opinions, why should the fandom bother? Claude is a protagonist and can be the Lord, so of course whatever he says - even in passing, is true!

Coupled with the projection/fanon/headcanon issue of earlier and you have fanon!Almyra - where Syrup needs to ditch the woman who gave him meals and a roof and basic care to return to his "almyran" origins even if in Almyra he was treated like fodder and had "no reason to live".

Why?

Because said woman is a certain fandom's projection on the catholic church + the game(s) need a red herring + Hresvelg Grey + Claude said so and the game(s) never confronts him so it sort of works.

I think, back when I still had faith in redshit, I tried to argue to someone who said "obviously Almyra has more advanced medicine bcs trust me bro" with something like "in a world where singing 2 "Ave Sothis" can heal a fractured arm, what the fuck is advanced medicine?" Ditto for the more advanced ships because they have canons, we're in the Fire Emblem series, who gives a fuck about a canon if you have a mage with long range magic on the other side ? Ask FE4, people can summon meteors - do you really think a "canon" is advanced technology in an universe with magic? (unless we make a difference between magic and technology but it's all sort of pointless, some place isn't more backwards than the other if it uses different methods to reach the same results?).

----

Then, let's not kid ourselves, Almyra, just like everything in Fodlan, has been used by the fandom to demonise Rhea, because Rhea BaD since she's the fandom projected version of Pope Francis and Supreme Leader + Claude think she's the reason why Fodlan sucks.

So with the "Rhea is satan because she never taught Cyril, who kept that information hidden, how to read, but the Gonerils are somehow A-ok despite not teaching him too - granted they also forgot to give him food so at least they're consistent in how they completely don't give a fuck about him" -

I also read the "Rhea is evil because she only saved 1 Almyran Child from House Goneril, but again, House Goneril isn't evil for, uh, keeping more than 1 Almyran child needing to be saved" -

And Nopes gave us the best "Rhea is evil incarnated because she doesn't tell Cyril to run away when people want to slaughter her, unlike what she did for her blood relatives, so it's actually Rhea's fault that Claude had to use Cyril as an archery practice dummy!".

If Rhea must be bad, then everything she stands against must be Good! And that includes the people she bought a fort to defend against!

Tl;Dr : some part of the fandom idealisation of Almyra comes frmo 1/projection

2/Khalid said so and the game(s) never force him to reconsider

3/Rhea BaD (this one is a bit of a cheat, since it can be used to explain 95% of the various discourses that happened in this fandom since its creation!)

[pleafyistired]

anyways, i think mo4 is just a really interesting case of when characters morality is based of their friendship, not really on whats actually good or right. Of course normally, media that revolves around friendship tropes like mo4 has characters that also do everything and anything to protect their friends and loved ones, and its just so happened that these people they called friends are nice and the people who are attacking them are bad. But in the case of mo4, the characters are actually shown to not care that much about the fact that their friends are fucking horrible and not even that remorseful about their actions, they say theyre remorseful but their actions never reflect it. They only care about the people they called their friends. Not the greater good. We felt so wrong watching them because theyre only stopping the “evil cooporation” (that was totally their fault) because their intention was simply their friends were hurt. If mcdr in this case hurt someone they dont know about and is an absolute stranger to them, chances are none of them are going to be pissed and stormed off to stop it. Maybe they’ll say something about that being bad, but its really doubtable theyll do something about it.

morality shouldnt just be based on protecting your friends. And mo4 really showcased it well :3

[furrysmp]

congrats to everyone that is still following me after I saw I had way too many followers to not have at least one antisemitic person following me, the fact that you don't think I murder children for fun is truly a comfort

[thepandalion]

people may be antisemitic towards me on the internet but at least irl I'm wearing a really cute sweater :P