vanguarddawn

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silly doodles be upon ye 🤲

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timelapse

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Pudgy Problems

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So I was wondering earlier today why my computer's fans were at full blast while idle. Something was obviously up, so I went to check the Task Manager, and...

Something tells me it's not supposed to be doing that.

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i feel these needed to be compiled. feel free to add more genre related posts in the notes if you want

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Sol Badguy

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cherche commission for a friend on twt :3

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Try seriously criticizing an aspect of Fates.

Have I really not done that before, orrrr...? Well, for future's sake:

-I think the new weapon triangle needed to be kept separate between melee (sword/lance/axe) and ranged (tome/dagger/bow). Having both together either doesn't apply as often as necessary (e.g., you're not often using axes against Ninjas as opposed to the more accurate bows) or is actively detrimental to an established role (e.g., mages shouldn't have any kind of disadvantage towards armor knights since killing low res units is supposed to be their niche)

-Limiting weapon ranks and enforcing their caps depending on certain classes was a bad idea imo. Arthur, for example, should be able to be Hero with a better axe rank than sword rank. The one Nohrian dagger class not being able to use all Nohrian daggers (Soldier's knife is A rank while Butlers/Maids cap at B rank daggers) is like, really dumb. You should just be able to grind to S rank for anything, and if IS really wants to be stingy, then limit it to one weapon only like the GBA games, or a preference system like Engage to make it more characterized and personal.

-This might be controversial, but designing the routes based on different gameplay ideologies has aged poorly. Separate game carts is whatever, because each route is a normal FE game's worth of content anyway. But making one route the "casual, grindy, easy" game and the other route the "strategic, limited, difficult" game is... stupid? Just make all routes have good map quality and allow grinding, who gives a fuck how anyone plays these single player games. Have a consistent quality and then people can just pick based on aesthetics and characters. Game quality in the FE series being so often defined by how "hard" the games are just goes to show how weirdly gatekeepy and stick-up-their-ass the fandom was for a long time.

-Corrin not being often as introspective or detailed in a philosophical or moral stance in Birthright as he is in Conquest or Revelation is a huge problem, echoing the same issue that making Birthright the "casual turn your brain off and smile" game embodies, with the story being more "traditional" also being a bit more indicative of that. What's worse is that IS seems to have weirdly reneged on this, considering quotes like these in Heroes:

-The crystal ball that Azura has should not exist. It serves nothing that Azura just telling Corrin about Garon couldn't do, with her evidence being how he reacted to her song. Furthermore, there should've been more scenes where the siblings reminisce on Garon being a good man, so that the dichotomy can lead to Corrin believing in Azura's claims more effectively. As it is, it only serves as a "gotcha" that people use to call Corrin and Azura idiots for not just showing it to the other siblings (even if logically it wouldn't change Xander's or Leo's minds considering they're deep in denial, and Camilla fears Garon more than she loves Corrin).

It's also just pointless in Birthright because Leo can just... trust that Garon isn't the same anymore rather than shaking a Magic 8 Ball to get an answer. The clarification that he can use it because he's such a talented mage further extends the accusations of idiocy towards Azura that she couldn't have just given it to Leo (again context and emotional circumstance have a bigger impact than people think but whatever.

-Scarlet's and Izana's deaths in Revelation were pointless inclusions. Dying from fortune telling is not established in other routes, and there's barely any clarity that it's because Izana died from the Valla curse. Hell, he most likely DIDN'T die from the curse because he didn't turn into foam!

For Scarlet, the "I didn't say it was poison" deduction trope is cute in a mystery novel meant for kids, but is just out of place in an FE game. Moreover, the reason why Corrin was able to figure it out-the flower pin being burned-was only established the scene before, which again, is not in the other routes nor is it naturally implemented.

-To extend Revelation criticism, Gunter not having supports is a dead giveaway for what's supposed to be a mystery. One that the game is written to pin the blame on Azura (or perhaps Takumi as well, given his possession in other routes).

-Yukimura not being playable in Revelation is also a dumb decision, like why? "I need to defend Castle Shirasagi" bitch, against WHAT? The strongest soldiers in Nohr are either dead (Iago, Hans, Zola, Kotaro) or are no longer hostile (the Nohrian royals). It's unbelievable that he's able to leave Hoshido in Birthright-the route where Corrin's party is explicitly avoiding the main military force-but not Revelation.

-A dead horse at this point, but the Deeprealms are a logistical nightmare. Not in the way that I don't believe they can exist, though! There has been gates and pocket dimensions in FE before, since the Dragon's Gate in FE6, and the idea that time could flow differently is also believable. Rather, what's unbelievable is that ALL parents would choose to stick their children in separate realms after the first instance where they found out how things work. There's no good reason to do that, including the fact that I think they could just leave them in Corrin's castle area (unless it's been established that Corrin has to be there, I forgot). Regardless, just leave them home!!! How long is Shiro gonna be able to rule Hoshido when he's probably only a decade younger than Ryoma?

Though I will say, the deeprealms did give way to some pretty good supports with how characters deal with abandonment, loneliness, inheritence and all that.

-The dark magic restriction to Dark Mages and Sorcerers should not have returned from Awakening, not when it's literally only Nosferatu; a VERY NERFED Nosferatu at that.

-Forging weapons should require so many different forged copies to max it. Engage did it perfectly, where you just need a higher amount of materials, rather than more weapons.

-The weapon system with variant debuffs was lopsided and too much to calculate at times. Again, Engage did this perfectly, just limiting more powerful-and heavier and more expensive-weapons for later in the game. Fates did this too yes, but you don't need to add random negative effects to justify using the lower class ones, just have them drop attack speed and that's it.

-The fact that choosing Male Corrin means you're forced to either choose a Corrin-sexual or a 2nd Gen unit to S support or else you miss out on a child character is a MASSIVE oversight that should've been caught when the game was being developed.

-There should've been more gay supports, because while Niles and Rhajat are fantastic characters, them being the only options (for Corrin anyway) put a bad taste in the mouths of really annoying people.

-While I'm not as pushy about it as a lot of people are, they really should've equalized the armor and pants choices for women and men alike. Either they're all slutty and wearing no pants, or they all get to have pants on. Perhaps an exception can be made for Camilla, Charlotte (because it's kind of in character) and maybe F!Corrin (her Nohr Noble outfit is really cunty.

-A little time needed to be spent with the Hoshidan royal family before the split. There's actually a good fix to this, since the Hoshido drama CDs give extra background to things while Corrin is there and before Mikoto is killed, from Takumi's perspective. Since, iirc, the CDs were made by the same writers, there'll be no problem slotting them into the story.

Anyway, that's what I got for now.

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his brainless kit and immense survivors guilt have captivated me

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Regarding a recent anon, one of the things I've found most disturbing about a lot of stan behavior—not exclusive to FE3H's Edelgard, though certainly a common trait among her loudest fans—is the insistence that their faves can do nothing wrong and actually everyone ELSE is the bad guy, regardless of the clear evidence to the contrary.

It's interesting that this behavior occurs in fans of villains, heroes, and anti-heroes alike. I've seen it in fans of Edelgard and Kipperlilly Copperkettle, but I've also seen it in fans of Starfire and Imogen Temult, in fans of Laudna and Daenerys Targaryen. Well-crafted characters, lackluster ones, heroes, villains, doesn't matter. Now to be clear, the most mainstream and widespread forms of this occur in fans of male characters—Solas and Kylo Ren's fandoms are full of it, as are those of Caleb Widogast and Tony Stark. In those cases the fan behavior often crosses from annoying into explicit misogyny and racism, and it is absolutely correct to call that shit out when you see it.

The thing is, though, it's precisely because that phenomenon is so widespread and the poor behavior so blatant that it gets a lot of discussion, and the behavior of the aforementioned female characters' fandoms is either ignored or seen as excusable. It's understandable not to want to criticize how people support female characters, especially when those male characters' fandoms' loudest voices treated them so poorly. But frankly, acting ugly is still acting ugly no matter who is doing it or why, and under the surface of "supporting a female character" often lies ideas rooted in subtler forms of bigotry.

(It's fine, actually, that Edelgard keeps Petra as a political hostage, and actually, it's a shame Cyril can't join up with her and totally help her end slavery (by killing the person who actually freed Cyril from slavery). Starfire was actually always black-coded because she had big poofy hair and was enslaved as a prisoner of war, and how dare Nightwing and Donna Troy have a problem with her killing her enemies. Deanna will be Imogen's new mom and will coddle and coo over her and Laudna, and her sole purpose in the story is to do everything she possibly can to get them together. Stans consistently refer to their faves as "girls" who never had a choice in anything, unless it was unambiguously heroic, and no matter how cute and soft-looking they look in canon, the fanart will sand them down more. The use of the term "girlfail" has gotten popular in these corners recently, and fans who use it get very defensive when you point out how gross that is when we have a bunch of Christian nationalists in the White House.)

In just about any given fandom, there exists a subsection of fans who will, in defense of their problematic faves, adhere to the Narcissist's Prayer:

That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did... You deserved it.

I'm not calling any of these fans or the characters narcissists; on top of it being irresponsible, I simply have no interest in doing so. (You don't need a clinical condition to be a tedious asshole.) But let's call it for what it is: there are very loud and vocal fans of female characters who want to project onto someone whom they believe is simultaneously a super powerful badass and blameless in everything they do, and they will inflict their nastiest high school bully fantasies onto anyone who pushes back, and will insist that they should be allowed to do this in the name of Defending Girls. I Mean Women.

Of course that's not on the same level as blatant bigoted hatred—but does it have to be before we can agree that it sucks?

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*THIS* is y'all's radical, left-wing revolutionary? *THIS* is y'all's icon?

Give me a break. Her stans wouldn't know proper praxis if it hit them in the head.

If you are royalty or of an otherwise privileged social class, you cannot be a revolutionary.

If you risk the lives of your people for your cause, you are not left wing, you're just a shitty fucking ruler.

There should never have to be lives sacrificed for the world to progress forward. To imply otherwise is fundamentally corrupt and morally bankrupt.

If this game were truly bout the business, there would be a proper revolution against Edelgard herself for her complicity in terrorism towards enacted towards her own people (Jeritza kidnapping people, the Slithers continuing their experiments) and not giving a fuck about Remire after it was destroyed. But I'll get to that later.

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The waddle dee cone

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A pet peeve I have with Guilty Gear NSFW art is that Testament is almost always depicted as unambiguously male or female, with almost comically exaggerated features of whichever sex the artist feels like using (typically male), despite the fact that Testament is one of very few characters for whom we have a relatively precise knowledge of the genital situation on, and it's neither of those.

This isn't a recent development either, like some people incorrectly argue with Bridget. The second screenshot was taken from an archived newsletter from 2002, and does state that Testament is androgynous (or rather just transcends humanity).

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Anyone who thinks Rhea in Crimson Flower is her "mask off" or whatever nonsense shouldn't be trusted with anything involving her character ever.

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i cant stop wathcing this fucking video. heavy's dick is velcro. is not that bad.

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mario is going to spin the wheel and dox whoever it lands on

YOSHI lives on YOSHI'S ISLAND