ayeshua

[kazmafiette]

This was funnier in my head

[denmarkdenmarkdenmarkdenmark]

Ok silly colored sketch

[sverige-ikea-employee]

Hey Sve! Who would be a good teammate to work with at IKEA?

Germany… well.. Danmark could learn a thing (a lot of things, really) from him. I admire his work efficiency.

[butwhatifidothis]

it annoys me so much when people say "edel had no other choice" as a thought terminating cliche. like even IF that were true, how one goes about that is still a characterful thing that gets minimized to "so it's not her fault stop being mean to her she just did what she had to". like. does she feel regret? does she apologize ot the people she's hurting? does she view it as righteous? who knows, becuase the argument is only ever used as a "stop being mean to my wife" line and not a character thing.

Yeah cuz like. Okay so let's say that starting the war was absolutely not her fault because xyz circumstance robs her of any substantial say in the matter.

What about using Demonic Beasts? What about her siccing her army and different set of Demonic Beasts on her own "friends" so that she could make more Demonic Beasts? Stealing from a gravesite to do so? What about starving her citizens, and being the only lord TO starve her citizens in their route? What about killing Judith as she ran away from her? Hell, invading the neutral Alliance in the first place? What about helping the Death Knight get away with stealing Flayn if 25 turns pass? What about saying nothing about Kronya even after Solon reveals himself at Remire? What about giving Jeritza a hunting ground to enable his bloodlust and not, like. Professional help?

She couldn't even mention a means she's working on to do anything about her starving citizens? Did she have to blame Claude (and everyone really) not immediately bowing down to her as to why the Alliance was violently invaded, and not her violent invasion being the reason it was violently invaded? What about persecuting Church followers who didn't do shit to anybody, did she have to do that shit too? Never freeing Brigid and instead stationing her men there on her route and sending Hubert there off of it; that was forced on her too? Taking Byleth's credit during the siege instead of letting them get the recognition they deserve - what, just, fate forcing her hand once again?

Are we really going to sit here and say because the war "needed" to happen, Edelgard was forced to do literally all of that (and more)? That because Edelgard was "forced" into war, she was also forced to do literally anything involving the war?

Like you said, her stans saying that she "had no choice" but to start the war does nothing to say anything about her as a character, because they also reject everything else she did regarding her war as having anything to do with her agency. They treat "she had to do this" as a means to protect the moral purity they want her character to have so they don't feel bad rooting for the villain to win, not as something that goes on to mean anything for her.

And I'm not asking for her to save literally every single person ever from any harm ever to prove her care about not going to war exists, I'm asking for LITERALLY ANYTHING. Because she quite literally does nothing to mitigate harm from anybody in this war, and regardless of whether the war was "forced" on her hands or not she absolutely could have done something to make sure her people suffered as minimally as possible. Which damn sure isn't seen in her hiding behind them as she sits in her throne room (a thing Dimitri and Claude absolutely don't do, with either similar or less time to prepare to protect their people). Or starves them, a thing uniquely said about her route (as literally all the other ones have the army go with lacking food supplies). Or allows Thales to conscript them under threat of death. Or openly saying that she thinks weak people would only stay weak after her war because they're "too used to relying on others" - because when her war takes everything away from people, it'd be THEIR fault for staying weak, which is *chef's kiss* so kind and caring amiright guys. Definitely shows off that she understands and/or cares about the ramifications of her war onto the people, and not that she has her head shoved squarely and firmly up her ass.

What does it meaningfully mean for the war to not be Edelgard's fault, if she's not going to do anything to indicate that she cares about other people enough to want to not force war on them? Hell, when she very explicitly shows she doesn't particularly care about how it'd affect people, if it affects people in a way that doesn't align with her beliefs? When she very explicitly says she's perfectly willing to sacrifice her people for her higher cause, and then goes on to sacrifice her people for her higher cause? If she doesn't even try to help others because the war was forced on her, that at best makes her one of powerless victim or uncaring defeatist - neither of which fit the resolute caring ambitious revolutionary they paradoxically also want her to be. So, again, what does it actually mean for the war to not be a result of Edelgard's agency, if she regardless of that still shows callous indifference to those harmed by the war?

It's a question no one who posits this about Edelgard is able to answer, because as you said, it's not meant to be anything more than a shallow defense against her own actions. Letting Edelgard have even the slightest smidgen of agency in her own actions means accepting that she is a massive fucking penis. A huge gaping asshole. A plain ol' jerk. Which again! Is INFINITELY more engaging to watch than this marionette strung along by literally everyone around her into "looking" like a villain, only being her "true" self when she's feeding kittens and dwawing her cwush and burping her googoo gaga babyass girlfriend they also tend to make (f!)Byleth over her shoulder

[bnbc]

Alrighty. 4,5 and 11 for the RT lore ;)

WOOOOOO thank you so much for the ask LET'S GO

4. How did your RT feel about Theodora? How did they feel when she died?

Oh, boiiiii! Theodora's ghost haunted the von Valancius' flagship for months, and Idira had nothing to do with it.

Isabella didn't have time to develop any feelings for Aunty Theo when she was still alive but after her death? She became sort of obsessed with her predecessor, tried to know as much as possible about her… and used it to look more like her.

No, Iza didn't model herself and her decision after Theodora, but she worked hard on keeping a certain resemblance between the two of them for people to have less doubts that Isabella has rights to her high position.

Even the signature Isabella's feature, her wig collection, is coming from this place: she wanted to resemble Theodora even visually, so ✨ big hair ✨, high boots, dress jackets and some of Aunty's mannerisms were with Isabella for a long time before the 3rd chapter finally happened.

But this all Theodora lore hunting made Isabella deeply respect her predecessor and regret she didn't have more time with the aunty, even tho Iza suspected that Theodora would find her too soft xD

5. What was their relationship with Edelthrad? Would your RT have been happy with an advisory role, or had they always wanted something more?

Look, I replayed the prologue about 10 times recently and Edel was nothing but a piece of shit to my girlie, who did nothing wrong (yet).

In the beginning, she would be drawn to Edel because he, like her, is a psyker, and as close as Isabella's previous crew became to her, there was always one thing standing between them: they were not psykers. They were her people, but they didn't truly understand if you know what I mean.

And she longed so much for the company of other psykers! After all, she grew up surrounded by psykers and AAT people, so she was even excited to finally have one close, again. But Edel was straight-up hostile towards her.

I think she would be deeply unhappy as one of his advisors, and would long for her old crew she could not come back to. Eventually, Edel would try to get rid of her, and rather sooner than later. I'm not sure she would win this stand.

11. Any non-companion NPC's that your RT has an interesting dynamic with?

Let me indulge myself and tell you how much Isabella von Valancius values her High Factotum. I say 'indulge' because question stands for interesting dynamic but these two are just work besties, nothing truly special — BUT THEY ARE SPECIAL TO ME

So, Isabella spent the last decade serving in the supplies division (I still don't know how you name this service correctly), so when she got to her shiny new position she took it with the motto FUCK IT WE TRADE LOGISTIC MATTER.

First, she gave Janris Danrok the hell, personally diving into details of ship logistics and trade contracts, but she found his work more than satisfying and he found his new Lord Captain understanding the trade and supplies. And they just 👀🤝👀

But okay, to add some spice. I believe I mentioned that at some point Isabella sent Jae from her ship to work from some other spot, saying she's got enough of her lies but still wanted to use her connection and talents. The final straw that bought Jae a one-way ticket from vv flagship was an absolutely minor innocent lie, not worth any drama.

The truth is, Isabella got pissed off because of Jae harassing Danrok, calling her High Factotum all sorts of derogatory quartermaster-connected names, and ON THIS SHIP WE DO NOT TOLERATE HARRASING OUR LOGISTIC TEAM OKAY also Jae never became a friend close enough to find out Isabella served in logistics too, otherwise she would watch her words and wouldn't fuck up so much.

Anyway yes Lord Captain was being fucking petty but who could stop her

TYSM FOR ASKING AGAIN

[atamascolily]

princess tutu re-watch, episode 12

wow, the opening monologue is getting hardcore

love how the rose from last episode has withered, as if we've stumbled into "Beauty and the Beast"

oh my god Tutu had to help Fakir back to his dorm room and he HATES EVERY SECOND OF IT hahhahahaha

cut to Tutu passed out on Mytho's (empty) bed next to him

Fakir: why the fuck are you dressed like this?

Ahiru: Because Tutu isn't technically a student, and if I get caught in here, I can magically ballet myself out of trouble.

Fakir: That is… surprisingly sensible, actually. But don't go around thinking we're friends or anything! I told you I work best alone!

Ahiru: Okay, well, what if we found Mytho together? Just this once?

Fakir: .... No comment.

Rue made a nest in the chapel out of feathers. Mytho is back to being a puppet again.

Rue breaking the fourth wall to address Drosselmeyer directly is HILARIOUS and freaks him the hell out! But she gets him right where it hurts: she offers to tell him the best story, and he is all ears.

(this is where the "Scheherazade" of the title comes from, heh)

are there any official/fan-made maps of Gold Crown Town anywhere?? I'd love to know where all the places are in relation to each other. They seem to visit the pizza place a lot.

I SAW THAT FOND SMILE FLICKER ACROSS YOUR FACE FOR A MOMENT, FAKIR, YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE

oh no, Mytho is evil now. He makes fun of the knight for getting torn to pieces by the raven in the original story.

Fakir: HEY THAT'S THE THING I'M SENSITIVE ABOUT.

oh, that's why Mytho was acting so much like Rue, because it was a crow-puppet Rue was using instead.

Tutu was originally a bit character in the original story, but Ahiru takes the news better than Fakir because she had always seen herself on the sidelines.

Edel: I'm here to be a plot device!

Ahiru: But I love you anyway!

Edel: ... No comment.

Drosselmeyer: I hate it when my puppets develop feelings!

(can you imagine his reaction if all the puppets unionized?)

we hear a random horse neighing and for a moment I thought it was Fakir's as-yet-unnamed horse, but nothing comes of it

Drosselmeyer confirms that he's only using puppets because he can't go directly into the narrative without major consequences.

Bonding time in the catacombs!!

I didn't know ducks could grin so smugly, but Ahiru manages it when she transforms in front of Fakir.

Fakir: OH NOOOOOO SHE KNOWS MY SECRET IDENTITY!!! *barf*

Fakir: "Wait, can ducks drown? No, knowing her, it's possible". (actual quote)

Fakir: Wait, I don't speak duck, please transform--OH SHIT, A NAKED GIRL, I TAKE THAT BACK.

Fakir: Why do you have TWO secret identities, that's so unfair!

Fakir reading the original story to Mytho and him being interested in Tutu's disappearance (and wanting to save her) is so cute!

Rue challenges Tutu to speak her feelings, knowing that's the one thing she cannot do. It's clever and dramatic, I'll give her that. Good thing ballet is all about expressing emotions without words!

Drosselmeyer: Dance, my pretties! Dance for your miserable LIVES!

truly, this episode has everything, by which I mean it's mostly Ahiru and Fakir bouncing off each other for twenty minutes, which is all I really want out of life.

[emblemxeno]

Why do you think the 3H lords are always pre time skip? We know the post skip is more popular from CYL and other things but they honestly pretend like it doesn't exist. My conspiracy theory is if they did post skip they'd have to deal with who Edel actually is and we can't have that! There's no reason to ignore the better designs especially this late past the games release

It's most likely because, in spite of the fact that there's constant discourse and analysis of what happens in the war phase, the academy phase is the most prominent, marketed, and well-known portion of 3H. And usually the longer half of the routes.

The teaching/skill grinding is associated with the school more than the war meeting equivalent, most of the mystery and intrigue happens in part 1, all of the characters are present at the academy during part 1 so it's easy to make house-to-house references, etc. I imagine it's also the more popular look for the characters in the Japanese audience as well, for similar reasons why Persona and it's high school/pre-adult casts and stories are popular; adult life is complicated and hard, so fun, mysterious, school time RPGs and drama is appealing to people getting home from a grueling day at work. Hell, the school calendar in 3H goes by Japanese school calendar rules by starting in April, so home audience appeals are probably important.

[metanarrates]

go off about the tree axe special boy arc speedrun

I know NOTHING about the axe because we only watched one episode this week (whatever one introduced the tree idgaf about which number it actually is) but good lord. its bad.

okay random numbered list of things because my brain has been depression deep fried lately and its easier to just throw together a list of my thoughts rather than making a coherent post:

- the pacing of this episode and this show in general is so fucking weird. we had like six episodes that were kind of nothing and now we're getting a Major Plot Development speedrun. wham, ahiru has issues about her ability to move the plot. wham, there's a secret drosselmeyer cult(?). wham, fakir's author powers (only introduced last episode mind you) are because he's drosselmeyer's descendant. wham, mytho and rue are having the exact same issues we've seen for the last six episodes. wham, there's a magic tree. wham, fakir gets absorbed by the tree. just kidding princess tutu saved him and now ahirus over her insecurity. any single one of these plot points is worthy of an entire episode but they just crammed it into one? its not good. actively makes me not give a shit about the characters anymore too, since they're now exposition machines

- I DON'T LIKE THE DROSSELMEYER CULT. now part of this is admittedly because I am a cult survivor, and the depictions of "hooded guys with secret knowledge" always bug the shit out of me. those depictions never have anything to do with actual cult life and just exist to make something feel spooky. it's cheap. but there's more to it than that.

so drosselmeyer has been in a weird place this season. s1 establishes drosselmeyer as an odd, ominous figure who stretches his fingers into the plot in subtle ways. he gave ahiru her pendant and can take away her transformative powers if it suits him. he created edel and was responsible for her demise. he can stop time when talking to ahiru. though his power over the world is quite indirect, he is still a force to be contended with. there are clear stakes to dealing with him, and he presents an effective threat to our heroes. how can you fight the author of your narrative when he is using all his power to make it a tragedy?

s2 has demoted him to "funny guy who exposits to the audience." he has almost nothing to do now that the raven is the most active antagonist. he talks. he paces in his clock world. he talks to ahiru once or twice, but he's a far less active manipulator of her than he used to be. all that really sucks, but the introduction of drosselmeyer followers completely obliterate any sense of mystery he may have had. he is no longer a shadowy untouchable force that only ahiru (barely) knows about - he is a physical entity who existed in this world, had children, and those descendants can grasp at his powers. rather than being a completely mysterious force to our characters, he suddenly has people who know all about his mortal life.

it completely punctures his sense of threat. if drosselmeyer's powers can be dissected, inherited, and replicated, what is his effectiveness as a threat? if he is a knowable entity who existed within the world of goldkrone, then what is his relationship now to that world? previously, he existed fully outside of it, which made goldkrone feel like an interestingly surreal collecting place of fairy tales, rather than a place that followed the laws of conventional reality. if drosselmeyer existed within goldkrone, and a character within the fairy tale he wrote is now reincarnated as his direct descendant, is goldkrone instead a previously normal town warped by his power? why isn't there much indication of this? how powerful is/was drosselmeyer? what is he to the world, and more importantly, what the hell is he to the narrative of princess tutu?

he no longer exists as a purely representative entity, is what I'm saying. any sense of an established world and his place outside of it has been destroyed and replaced with something WAY less well-defined to the audience. and as for his power...

-fakir being his descendant sucks.

-no, really, I don't think I need to get into all the ways it sucks. it replaces the fakir we know (guy who is a reincarnated knight from their fairy tale who doesn't wanna get killed) with a different guy with different motives (guy with a mysterious bloodline who wants to use his author powers well????) it doesn't make sense narratively. it just HANDS our heroes the power to solve the story, rather than making them work hard to earn it. it's bad and stupid and sucks. if I make an entire post about it ill just get mad with how many ways it sucks. so I'll just relate all this to the tree problem.

-the tree is almost impressively not symbolically charged. i mean, sure, you could pull some symbolism out of it. it's probably a reference to merlin being trapped in a tree. you could pull out some connection to yggdrasil, and of course it's concerned with all things being connected, which is very... tree-like. but it's not remotely connected to anything in princess tutu's themes or symbolic suites! what does it have to do with ballet, or fairy tales, or fate? hell, what the hell does it have to do with WRITING?!? that's what it's meant to be a power source for, isn't it? why?

and look, I don't like the writing plot. at all. it sucks. but if you must include something for it, the object you use to connect to its power should probably seem appropriately symbolic, right? they call people with that power "spinners" - why not a spinning wheel? that feels like it would easily slot into some fairy tale motifs. or I don't know, a magical quill or something. it would make way more sense than it being a magical tree.

a symbol exists to establish meaning. it's a way to quickly define what ideas a story is working with, and what those ideas mean in the context of a world. I know it sounds silly for me to care so much about drosselmeyer and the tree not representing anything, but it's symptomatic of a larger problem.

what are the themes now in princess tutu? why does the tree suddenly talk about "all is one" etc. as a means to hypnotize fakir? what does that have to do with anything that's been established? sure, it talks about defying fate, but at this point, I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. is fate becoming one with everything? is that what the tree's speech means?

previously, drosselmeyer worked as an effective symbol for the concept of fate, as an active personified antagonist who only wanted the characters to experience tragedy. but as discussed, he's been undermined. this new symbol has none of the necessary establishing work done to make it an effective replacement. the raven also doesn't work very well as a replacement. I have no idea what "fate" is in this story now, or precisely why it matters that our protagonists fight it.

and that's the crux of the problem with princess tutu at this point in time. nothing means anything. I don't know what the characters are supposed to be. I don't know what narrative role certain things are supposed to play. I don't understand how certain things are meant to be significant, or what the stakes are supposed to be now. what is happening now has very little to do with what has happened before, and it makes me feel as though nothing that's been established in the show really matters. I'm just watching them all hurtle towards an ending that feels unearned and uninspired.

[slyfire]

FE: Engage - Chapter 7

silly divine dragon

Supports

Alear & Chloé C watching him sleep...again?

😀 what the hell 😀 I mean shoot your shot ig?

Alfred & Céline B Our first B support! "You're a barbarian in prince's clothing." / "Thanks! 😊😊" . Not him flexing like 🦴.

Vander & Framme B

Etie & Boucheron C

Clanne & Vander C hunky-dory!

Alear & Yunaka C

Alear & Ćeline C not a comment on the support itself, but interesting that some of her dislikes in the ally notebook include 'overwhelming happiness' and 'forced positivity'...

oh god Chloé's here watching us sleep again.

oop DLC time LMAO 'Emblem of Rivals'

"I thought Dimitri's stories were getting better with every telling." oh god.

okay, I put Micaiah on Framme so I can get some staff skills. I also put Yunaka w/ Marth, to get some avoid skills.

skirmish time!

skirmish time over! it was fun using marth on someone else.

Céline & Louis C I just fucking realised Louis is J. Michael Tatum.

Clanne & Louis B I really need to see the A support. what is it cooking.

finally, awoken by Alfred; in a conversation that sounded like innuendos 😌.

arena time!

okay, paralogue time!

oh boy, it's Anna. ...she just hid in a chest.

[BATTLE START]

Alear's after-kill laugh line 😳

oh shit, master seal!.

[POST BATTLE]

Alear when someone brings up family: 🥺

Alfred & Yunaka C Abso-tutly! She called him a silly lad. She's so real. WDYM you get that question a lot 😭😭. Oh, even yunaka pointed it out.

Framme & Clanne B Extrovert vs Introvert. "Who cares about the Divine One's shoe size?" / "We do." pfft

Céline & Chloé B please kiss already.

Céline & Jean C

Clanne & Vander B

Alear & Boucheron C "Going to war is stressful for anyone." 10/10 commentary /j.

Alfred & Boucheron C Starting off with a "Nice~" from Alfred while staring at Boucheron. Also what were those sounds, Boucheron. Oh, this is the Alfred thirsting over Boucheron's muscles.

"I heard you have some trouble waking up" oh Alfred...

Okay more supports.

Alear & Louis C

Okay, gonna do the Emblem Tiki paralogue.

Mar-mar!

[BATTLE START]

oh god this map's big. I haven't plays any Archanea games, but I assume this is a reference map.

OMG that map almost killed me. There's was this one dodge I really needed from Chloé that she couldn't do, so then she was in danger + stranded, so I had to save her and yada yada it was a mess. Yunaka w/ edel emblem really saved me in the last few turns. Anyway, I still did enjoy the map!

[POST BATTLE]

aww, I'm glad to see marth & tiki talk. I wish there were more interesting emblem/emblem conversations.

Alfred & Sigurd B reminded me that Lumera asked him something that we didn't see...what does he know.

omfg Edel talking about impressions to Yunaka is so fucking funny since all the house lords did at least 1 in houses 💀💀💀

Alear & Framme B "The Divine Dragon loooves to drink water." so true! a great reminder to be like Alear and drink up! Framme is even a fan of the pepsi hair.

Framme & Cholé C

Céline & Etie B I loved that little Etie animation when she said "And look at me now!" oh my god it's the training teacups again.

Yunaka & Etie C "Whatcha need, pumpkin-seed?"

Etie & Clanne B

so the ally notebook now says that she has a distant relation to Vander...interesting. WTF is judging beets.

Alear & Alfred B If Alear won't eat them, I sure will. Alfred playing the flute to help Alear sleep 😀 He really is trying his best though. noooo Alfred, Alear should be the worthy one, not you!

'[Alfred] was ill as a child, and now seeks to compensate through exercise' 🥺🥺

okay, chapter map time.

lmao "[I'm doing] even worse then usual."

anyway, as expected, I love Alcryst very very much.

she's just like me fr.

we be getting some xenophobia up in here.

[BATTLE START]

Rosado & Goldmary seem like my fav retainer duo so far, just from one conversation.

oh dear, cordelia!Lucina's here.

well that map felt pretty easy.

[POST BATTLE]

man, I hope Lyn's alright...

Well, chapter over!

[kazmafiette]

So SuFinsthetic

[denmarkdenmarkdenmarkdenmark]

What if I make this a shitty MS paint askblog ?

[sverige-ikea-employee]

I thought I was your favourite?

(@ask-hws-norge)

Not even close.

[butwhatifidothis]

Claude, 15, 16, and 25 for the meme

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

Dimiclaude!!!!!! Like man, there are just so many things about the potential of these two characters being together that FASCINATE me and have me in an absolute chokehold. I've said it before but this ship is actually just straight up my fave in 3H period, and is one of two ships ever that has latched itself on my brain (the other being a Bleach ship I've been shipping since I was, like, 13 lmao). I've seen some pretty, um, yikes-inducing interpretations of them, but that just can't beat how much I just like them independent of anything much to do with the fandom lmao.

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

...and on the other hand there's Edel/claude. Like, unironic and genuine Edel/claude, as I personally have exclusively seen it portrayed. It strips Claude of nearly his entire character just to prop up Edelgard in literally every single iteration of it I've come across, and that soured me on it a lot. Plus their vibes do not gel well as anything but Bitterly Divorced Ex's, like holy hell is the chemistry between these two as a romantic ship nonexistent lmao these bitches can't STAND each other.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

First impression: Wow, this guy is gonna be the bad guy for sure. But he also looks like he'll make the ride of bein' bad fun as hell, plus he's the best looking of the three lords to pick from. I'm goin' with him.

Now: Wow so like this guy can be a dick at times but what the hell he is actually so nice and chill. Why is he damn near gap-moe with how mean his words sound vs how nice his actions and beliefs are. FUCK is he handsome

[ecclectricity]

me: i don’t like this character

also me: going on a deep, passionate rant about the reason I hate her raving fans, but as a character she’s fascinating and really complex and fun and was disserviced by not only her frothing fans in the twi//tter fanbase, but also by people who just mindlessly hate her because of said thoughtless eggheads

Three guesses who I’m talking about, and two don’t count

[atamascolily]

princess tutu re-watch, episode 24

You know, there's something genius about having the narrator be truly unreliable… we now learn that the reason WHY the raven grew so strong in the first place is because he was feeding on the love the people had for the prince.

We open with Fakir and Tutu embracing, only for them to collapse as Ahiru passes out.

Autor: Wow, okay, I'm back! What did I miss? Why the hell are you hugging this girl in a graveyard??

Fakir: Hey, Autor, philosophical question for you: am I making stuff happen, or am I just writing down what would have happened anyway?

Autor: Aren't those the same thing? … JK, if your will is strong enough you can do whatever you want--even take over the WORLD! evil laughter

Fakir puts Ahiru to bed in his room just as she did for him earlier--ROLE-REVERSAL, MY BELOVED!

Ahiru: Ah, this is great, Fakir, with your power we can fix everything, no problem!

Fakir: hahaha, right!

Ahiru follow Rue to a house covered with crows and discovers Crow!Mytho (Crowtho?). In a sign of his severe personality shift, the Friend to All Living Beings (Except Crows) almost eats a live mouse instead of the picnc Rue brought for him.

Rue: You know what, let's just dance instead, okay?

Flashback to the Raven reminiscing about the old days to tiny Rue: "You know, you should marry that guy someday, Kraehe; we might be on opposite sides, but he's got style. Plus, he loves everybody, so of course he'll fall for you, too! Someone's got to!"

Ahiru, watching Rue's breakdown: "I KNEW she wasn't really Kraehe this whole time!!!"

Rue tells Ahiru that Mytho will give his heart to the raven if she returns the remaining shards: "So then we'll have no prince AND an evil raven! Nobody wins!"

To be honest, I am surprised Rue didn't try to rip Ahiru's pendant off, but maybe she doesn't know that's how Ahiru transforms. Would be funny if she tried and that's how she discovered Ahiru was a duck though…

Autor: The Raven is coming back? Fucking awesome! I was right about everything! vibrates with excitement

Fakir: Yes, and that's why I need your help--

Autor: What's in it for me?

Uzura gives up trying to explain in words and just lets ghost!Edel do it: the pendant is the last of the heart shards, and that's why it responds to them.

(on first watch, this completely broke me, Drosselmeyer is SUCH an asshole not to tell her about this. Informed consent? I don't know her!)

Crow!Mytho: gotta dance the pain away, someone help me dance the pain away…

Ahiru: Oh, shit, he can fly now!

Tutu explains to Rue that Mytho really wants his heart back because otherwise the shard wouldn't summon her, and she calls the remaining heart shards back.

Heart shard #1: You call this a body? No way in hell I'm going back in that thing when it looks like something the cat dragged in!

Heart shard #2: suck it up, buttercup, the showdown with the raven is about to begin and we need to be in peak form!

Heart shard #3: Hey, Toots, don't forget to keep one shard in reserve just in case this all goes to hell, okay?

Mytho is still a crow, and the raven--an eldritch horror bigger than the city--wakes up!

Raven: YOU'RE GROUNDED, YOUNG LADY!

Rue: Shut up! You're not my real dad!

Raven: finally figured it out, huh? took you long enough. Come on, prince, it's dinner time! OM NOM NOM

Rue's love is enough to break the curse and transform Mytho back to normal!

Tutu rescues him out of mid-air for the third time… this is getting to be quite the habit.

meanwhile, the raven kidnaps Rue and takes her to another dimension while Tutu and Mytho are having a heart-to-heart, because apparently talking is not a free action in this show. Oops.

[chocolatepot]

I've been meaning to sit down and write out all of my thoughts on "High on a Rocky Ledge" because that song does something to me and every time I listen to it my brain is like !!!!! and I grin hopelessly.

I totally get why this song isn't a Big Deal in the fandom, because it's used before Ed comes on the scene at all. But I'm going to ramble on now about why it affects me so much, because I keep thinking up these points and not jotting them down.

So the context where it's used in the first episode, when Stede is reading to the crew. It sounds a lot like a lullaby, positioning him as their father (along with the fact that he's ... reading a child's story to the crew), for all those found-family feels.

He's also dressed in blue and in bluish moonlight which just makes for an excellent image.

Moondog sounds like some kind of traveling pre-modern singer who travels from village to village, and we all (we are peasants in this scenario) gather around him at the fire at night and listen to him sing his strange stories. This one has an otherworldly edge to it, there is a truth behind it that we can't quite reach.

The tune is quite lonely. Stede has always been lonely. He's definitely a lot less lonely with his crew, who are finally on his side at this point in the episode, but he's still alone. He doesn't really have a second-in-command the way (we will find out) that Ed does.

He doesn't even know that he has a SOULMATE out there, just waiting for him to come along! He thinks he's about as happy as he'll ever be - away from his marriage and boring life, on a ship with a crew that finally seems to accept him. He doesn't know what we know!!

The song itself! Man!

High on a rocky ledge lives a Mädel Edelweiß Shy as a shadow, lovely as lace, and cold as ice High on a rocky ledge, I pledge my love to her Ev'ry time I climb up to Paradise

How many times I've been up to see her, goodness knows Huffing and puffing, dressed in the warmest climbing clothes How many chances would be taken in my Hopeless pursuit of the Schnee Mädel Edelweiß

Then spoke a spirit, "If you would win your lady love There's only one way: fall to your death from high above You will begin to grow in snow beside the one You have waited for to be mated with"

Now, I'm an Edel vice to my Mädel Edelweiß Dying to be with her wasn't any sacrifice We're so deliriously happy on our ledge Where I pledge my love to my Lady Fair

You who are climbing breathless to see me and my love Snow flowers growing fonder on Lover's Ledge above If you've the yen to pluck, then pluck us both For we who have lived as one wish to die as one

So like it's all about a love that's hopeless on the face of it - a man is in love with a flower. He wants to be with the flower but he's a human and she's a flower so it won't work. Some kind of magical being tells him that if he falls off the mountain, he'll be reincarnated as a flower as well, so he does it and it works. That's DARK and weird.

It parallels himself and Ed, who are born to such extremely different positions that they might as well be a human and a flower.

In some ways, Stede is the narrator of the song - he has to die in order to be with the one he loves. This happens multiple times: he's said to have died when he leaves his family to be a pirate (a transformation), he gets stabbed and hanged and nearly dies of the fever as well at the time of his meeting Ed (very liminal), he fakes his own death to be said to have died more truthfully and get closure so that he can be fully with Ed.

At the same time, Stede is the flower. Stede loves flowers (and he has been treated like shit his whole life for it); he's picking flowers in the flashback where he's tied to the oars of a rowboat. He is definitely a figure of beauty to Ed, and kind of a damsel in distress - this guy who doesn't know what the hell he's doing as a pirate, who needs to be rescued from himself. (And "lovely as lace", something definitely associated with Stede.)

And that ending: "If you've the yen to pluck, then pluck us both / For we who have lived as one wish to die as one." Hooooooo. A definite parallel to the ending of the season - Ed tying himself to Stede rather than allowing him to be killed.