#and no other discussion either i think

[genericpuff]

it's so funny that dramatubers are calling the censoring of asmongold from bbno$'s new music video a "controversy" when it's actually a totally reasonable and sane thing to do and the only controversy is the fact that asmongold still exists

not funny haha funny weird

it's just flat out weird that people keep defending this loser, you're weird, go outside

[queen0fm0nsterz]

I really like how Little Nightmares explores masculinity and femininity.

The experience of a female presenting LN protagonist (and even character, if you want to extend to the antagonists, notably the Pretender) is generally one of survival induced solitude, where companionship can be sought but ultimately denied due to circumstance - especially among each other. Six, Noone, Alone and Raincoat Girl all display different degrees of longing for someone to understand them - Six being an extreme on the side of isolation with the occasional source of comfort (the Nomes), Alone being a comfortable middle where she is indipendent and curious while also having a companion, and Raincoat Girl being the other end, an helpful force who seems to desire companionship. In Little Nightmares 1 especially femininity is displayed as the painful experience it can be. It's raw, visceral, and worst of all it's isolating both when you conform to it until it destroys you, like the Lady does, and when you reject the standard of what is expected of someone like you, like Six.

The pain you feel, physical and emotional, doesn't seem to be as important no matter how deep it cuts you. Noone's tumor being hidden and neglected, her headaches being dismissed... and of course Six's hunger, unforgettable in how much it hinders her, but I could also point to her monster form and the physical and mental toll the entire ordeal in the Tower has left on her.

The conflict between Six and the Lady becomes especially poignant under the lens of this argument because it is a confrontation of the two opposing sides of the spectrum, metaphorically. It's a little girl who has yet to experience the devastation of conformity performed as a means of survival facing a woman who lived all her life so set on following these rules that anything outside of them is perceived as a threat.

(One can't ignore the more obvious point of the class difference with Six being at the very bottom of the chain and the Lady being at the top, which certainly influences the dynamic, but I digress.)

Femininity is hyperindependance in the Little Nightmares world. It's the desire to be left alone while also longing for understanding. It's ambition and curiosity, but it's also the loss of identity both in the pursuit of it and in defiance of it. You end up being alienated either way; you can't really win.

On the other hand, I find that generally, masculine Little Nights protagonists tend to be driven by sentimentalisms and emotion. They are often defined by what community surrounds them, be it a single friend, family member or group; the most lampant example of this are, of course, Mono and the Thin Man, but the same argument can be made for the Runaway, whose story ends up leading him into finding a genuine community with the Nomes, something that no female protagonist experiences. You could argue it was clever foreshadowing, and it was! But does it make the observation any less valid? Personally I don't think so. Low also seems to be pretty set on keeping Alone by his side, although it might be too early to tell; however we do know he's a dreamer who dreams of a future where he and Alone can escape the Nowhere. You could call him a romantic.

Masculinity in this world can be care and fortitude, but it's also singlemindedness. It's the ability to find companionship and meaning while also letting one's own hubris destroy it.

Otto himself is an incredibly interesting example of this because we can hear how his desires, his emotions, are eventually what ends up driving Noone into the arms of the Ferryman. It's a prime example of how masculinity and femininity clash with one another -how his emotional wounds and eventual loss of clarity caused a little girl to fall prey to that hyperindependance where she refuses to be helped by him even when he does mean it.

(Along with his vaguely misogynistic remarks, but again, I digress...)

This singleminded focus on one's own emotions is what I think makes the Thin Man and Mono as relatable to many as they are. His is an endless cycle of violence caused by his own hand; by his own inability to process his emotions in a way that can allow him to progress and move forward. It's not a justification of Six, whose eventual exhaustion was what caused her to react the way she did, but rather it is an observation through again metaphorical lens.

The Thin Man is stuck in a dark room that gets progressively smaller because his inability to understand his wrongs causes it to shrink. He's locked in a bubble that is not entirely of his own making, but it is his responsibility to burst. But how can you burst it when you have no conscience of the fact that the room has been getting smaller to begin with? How can you care, when all you can think about is the emotional hurt that brings out the worst of you, the part that you don't even realize is the worst of you?

Masculinity can be just as isolating as femininity not because it's visceral but because it's fragile. It's unaware of itself while also being incredibly concentrated on the self. It's based entirely on how one is perceived and treated and thus easily destroyed once one is left alone to their own devices, which is why it requires community. Once that community is taken from you, it shatters, and leaves one without the tools to rebuild it.

I suppose the true difference here is that, at their worst, while one is self aware to the point it is actively damaging to the self and everyone around you, the other is so out of touch with itself that it can cause unintentional hurt to the self and others which can't be processed properly.

At their worst, they're monsters that help make each other, you could say. At their best, they're companions who help each other.

(This is in no way an attempt to diminish one or the other, by the way, nor does this reading apply to every single character. Both social constructs have their good sides and bad sides. The main quartet of Six, Lady, Thin Man and Mono are very strong cases, but I was simply making a general observation.)

[bayetea]

jason and hazel's beef in hoo was always way more interesting than whatever percy and jason had going on sorry. the differences in gravity and intrigue in the jason/hazel relationship vs jason/percy are only further compounded by the ways they're connected and the ways that their stories are similar

because 1. they have a HISTORY they knew each other before he went missing!!!!! they were in the fifth cohort together!!!! hazel is the ONLY person in the prophecy 7 that was in jason's life before he disappeared and had his memories stolen. yes they didn't know each other well but if you ask me that was just a bad writing choice rick made. can you imagine if they used to be friends/if jason had grown to be a big brother figure to hazel only to go missing for months and then they have a very awkward reunion on the argo because he barely remembers her and then she's even more betrayed because he doesn't wanna save nico initially. the drama. we could have had it all man

2. beef between a son of poseidon and a child of zeus/jupiter from the grace family? yeah been there done that why are we doing this again (and it was way more engaging the first time). god I wish we had gotten a big fight between a child of jupiter and a child of pluto instead

3. their issues regarding nico were way more high stakes than the silly alpha male posturing rick was trying to force between jason and percy especially considering how mega nerfed jason is written in hoo because no one's allowed to be on equal footing with percy

4. the tacit layer of betrayal in jason being hazel's ex-centurion/praetor only to end up preferring chb (to be clear this particular conflict belongs to jason and reyna and is more impactful between them - but since hazel is actually on the argo and reyna isn't she can still be an opportunity for this camp jupiter/camp half-blood conflict to be explored with jason)

5. I'm just gonna say it - I think hazel ought to have complicated feelings about white authority figures in a military camp as a black girl from the freaking jim crow era (not that this would have ever been explored satisfactorily in the books because as far as rick is concerned hazel is colorblind and hardly ever thinks about race despite growing up segregated. which is crazy unrealistic but whatever)

6. something something about the parallels that jason and hazel have about making hard choices about their pasts in order to have a more fulfilling future

7. this isn't necessarily interesting in and of itself but I just think it's neat that they're both big three roman kids with greek siblings that they didn't grow up with. what could have been interesting is jason seeing how close hazel and nico are and feeling some type of way about everything he never got to have with thalia and some exploration into how that impacts his feelings about the rescue mission. I'm starving for more grace sibling content by the way

8. they both have really awkward romantic conflicts in their pasts that intrude upon the present (whether he and reyna were ever even slightly romantically involved or not) because the jason/reyna thing is written as a initial source of conflict/uncertainty for jiper in the same way that hazel/leo (sammy) was a conflict for frazel to grapple with. this is interesting to me because like... hazel is connected to reyna and jason is connected to leo. like there could have been a moment of connection over letting go of pasts loves to wholeheartedly pursue new ones in the way that both of them are (were) with piper and frank

9. they both died. this bullet is a joke but I just thought I should put it here

10. percy is a well-established character and hazel and jason are new in hoo. percy has 50 povs in hoo and hazel has 28. economically speaking it would just be a more effective use of your limited pages to spend more time developing important interactions and conflicts between two new characters (esp new big three kids) who already have a more interesting foundation than the one involving our previous protagonist of 5 entire books

11. beryl grace and marie levesque. think about this for a second. ok that's all

12. both had their pasts taken away from them from major deities and are continually haunted and influenced by their presence throughout hoo

imo hazel and jason are the most weirdly written new additions to the main cast but I strongly feel that rick severely underutilized the way that characters like those two could play off of each other. hazel isn't just a sweet little cinnamon roll she is passionate and contemplative and morose and guilt-ridden and jason isn't just a bland rule-follower he is kind and committed and loyal and conflicted and they're both painfully self-sacrificing and I just think it's such a shame that these two characters with great concepts on paper and so many obvious threads to connect them didn't get as much as attention as.... whatever happened in kansas did

and I mean if you like the jason/percy conflict that's fine, but I think it's worthwhile to compare the merit of them because rick chose to centralize and build up to one more than the other when he had such perfect material to expand on the other instead and I think that says something about his biases. and I think part of the issue is that rick struggles with strengthening tension and applying complexity to conflicts between male/female characters that aren't romantic or onesidedly antagonistic like clarisse/percy. we have several noteworthy conflicts between male characters but when women are involved it's like rick doesn't know how to put them on equal footing and apply platonic depth. imo this is just another reason why big three girls (hazel/thalia/bianca) don't get to be as powerful and transformative in the overall narrative as big three guys (percy/jason/nico). all this world-changing narrative weight is afforded to big three kids but hazel in particular is weirdly excluded from all of that and doesn't get to have much impactful interconnectedness with the prophecy or with other big three kids. what happened to big three kids being super dangerous when put together or when they're on opposing sides of conflicts!!!!!!!! we had impactful percy/thalia and percy/nico and jason/percy and jason/nico conflict where is the fleshed out jason/hazel beef - it's right there!

anyways tldr all I'm saying is that jason and hazel complement each other well and rick was too hung up on the Colliding Of Alpha Male Strong Dudes (that he didn't even write well) to see everything that hazel and jason could have had instead

[teyrnacousland]

Thinking about Illario again. Illario has been through a lot. Just as much as Lucanis. He lost his parents at a young age, as well as aunts, uncles, maybe even a sibling. He was raised just as isolated and friendless, and was tortured and neglected as much as Lucanis. Illario is very familiar with grief and loneliness.

And Illario knows Lucanis is going to die soon. They both might, they're Crows, after all, but Lucanis has just... accepted it. He seems to almost want it. He refuses to take any step to prevent or delay that fate. He will never decline dangerous jobs, will never quit, and he will, however reluctantly, accept a position that they both know will place a huge target on his back.

And Illario has to live every day knowing that one of his only two remaining family members, and the only person who actually cares about and loves him, the only person Illario really even likes let alone loves, is going to die. Any day now. He has to think about it on every job they do, every day they continue to be who they are; the only surviving Dellamorte heirs. He has to think about all the loss and grief he's been through, and know that the worst is yet to come. Not that he didn't love his parents, but he was young, and it was so long ago. Losing Lucanis, who he loves, who he's known and loved for like 30 years, will be the worst thing he's ever had to experience and he has to know it.

Have you ever known you're about to lose somebody close to you? Have you ever had to wake up every day with the thought that this could be their last haunting your every waking hour? Have you ever found yourself wishing, even if only in the deepest farthest back part of your thoughts, that they would just die already because you can't take another day of worrying and waiting? I have. Anticipatory grief is hell.

And I think that's where Illario is at with Lucanis. Every day is like that, watching Lucanis tightrope along the edge of death and just waiting for the worst day of his life. Illario doesn't want Lucanis dead, not really. (Even if the thought "I'd be First Talon if you weren't here" has crossed his mind.) He loves Lucanis. But Lucanis is going to die anyways, so he might as well just get it over with. Lucanis himself said his calling is death, and Illario's is First Talon. You could, in a twisted way, argue that this is what Lucanis would have wanted.

Illario has faced loss before and come out the other side, so once Lucanis is gone it'll hurt, but he'll be able to start moving on. And Illario will get what he's always wanted: he'll have proven he's the better Crow, he'll be the favourite (by default), and he'll be First Talon, like he wanted. So he'll be fine. Everything will be fine.

[tashiduncandonaldson]

and if i say that tashi’s injury was truly a freak accident that would’ve happened regardless of the dorm room fight, and neither art nor patrick is to blame for it, what then?

[dykedvonte]

did you see the article wrong organ tweet abt an interview with the lead writer —>

https://t.co/5dcfeePkz3

The article really should honestly be read by people who try to make any of the characters actions black or white and ignore the other themes in the game. It specifically mentions these aspects that people try to make seem undebatable or uninterpretive and makes sure to use wording to say it can stem from multiple things and never confirm or deny anything.

I do remind people that the interviewer does not work for Wrong Organ so I am only using quotes and paraphrased statements rather than their own deductions as those should be taken with the same grain of salt of an analysis you see on twitter or tumblr and even my blog. They are still a subjective eye compared to Kasurinen’s direct statements.

Particularly pointing out that Jimmy, while deplorable, is still supposed to complex and his actions are not fueled by some comically sick amusement. And that Curly’s actions are not just rooted in one thing and not just rooted in rape culture but also include other social and systemic factors besides the shallow idea he’s just dick riding for his friends. It’s meant to be interpretative and I need to point out that the main writer says that “good intentions mean nothing when it’s gotten that bad”. A lot of people like to think Curly was only acting with intentions for himself or Jimmy when it’s was a misguided attempt at overall peace that ultimately failed and whatever processes behind that are to be nitpicked, not if he was acting out or malice or disregard.

I wish more was talked about specifically with Anya, Daisuke and Swansea but I understand why they weren’t as Curly’s actions/inactions pre-crash and Jimmy’s actions throughout all segments are the main impactful forces in the game. People should really read it for themselves but sit on this quote directly from the main writer:

[lovelessrage]

An aroallo canon event is walking into a space designated as friendly and safe to "all of the aspectrum" [awesome, sounds good, I like being able to talk to people about issues that affect all of us] and realizing very quickly that you are not included in "all". It's the constant need to stick up for yourself in what is supposed to be a safe space that burns aroallos out of your community spaces. If you have a stark lack of aroallos in an all-inclusive zone, ask yourself if the environment is actually safe and welcoming, or if they are expected to constantly be their own advocate with no safety net. It's immensely common and underdiscussed.

Are you sticking up for the aroallos around you? Are you asking how you can be better? Are you expecting to rely on being "called out" rather than learning for yourself? Do you know what aroallophobia looks like? What sex negativity actually is? Please don't let aroallos fade away into the background of so many boundaries crossed and lines drawn that they have to go. We need bridges between the community now more than ever, and that means making it a two way street on each one.

[throes-of-warm-tornadoes]

okay no offense but i’m not a fan of Five finding his “real life” dolores. like, that diva was literally a coping mechanism for him. a tangible reminder that he was so lonely that he made a literal piece of plastic his companion. i think the idea of it is sweet but at the end of the day i think that if Five did find someone romantically it should be someone that makes him feel silly and carefree, not someone that is a fleshy replica of an Apocalyptic Souvenir

[emblemxeno]

I think the thing that really bugs me when people talk about "3H is so much better than Fates in terms of grey morality"... is that it only focuses on a very specific subset of greyness as a whole. When you actually take a step back from the perspective the game shows you, it's actually not morally complex in the slightest, especially compared to Fates.

For Fódlan, you're introduced to a fundamentally broken system that thrives off of eugenicist breeding, abuse, tyranny, technological stagnation, religious dogma, theocracy and experimentation that saw a young girl watch her fellow test subjects almost all die having Crests implanted into them just to create a superhuman. Said theocracy is staved by a consummate liar who's basically "Corrin, but gone wrong and a terrible human being" with an inability to let go of severe mommy issues or the ability to let go of her hatred and genocide denialism, intentionally keeping up a lie to make the most of it. Said subject leader ended up wanting to cast down the oppressive system to make one of "merit," but becomes an imperialistic, authoritarian revanchist who stages a war of total conquest to enforce that order, and in her ending, doesn't even fully dismantle the titles of nobility outright. Dimitri was genuinely a decent person before the massacre that killed most of his family and almost everyone he loved, causing him to go under severe psychosis that, when unraveled, causes him to turn into a bloodlusted maniacal tyrant who's more in line with Ashnard from FE9 than the typical "good boy lord" archetype since Marth. The least horrible of the bunch is a neoliberal schemer who sides with the strongest side (in VW it's the Church, in GW it's against the church) who can and does show a willingness to drop his interests like a hot potato when it suits him and openly intended to have Almyra invade Fódlan to establish the continent as his own suzerain state. And each of them, if not held back by the sheer divine grace of Byleth's mute ass, ends up committing tons of atrocities in the opposition to manipulate the audience into thinking they chose the "right" side. Hell, even in YOUR route it's strongly implied you're doing the things in the other routes and the story just doesn't want you to consider it because you're the good guy from your POV.

They're all awful and war criminals, and no matter what people say, that isn't moral greyness or moral complexity. Having a story where there isn't a clearly-defined sense of right and wrong, good and bad, to define morally grey conflict as a whole leads to a story where they're all horribly awful if the story isn't smart enough to recognize it doesn't fully absolve them as a person for your actions nor does it dehumanize them. People set a 0-100 scale that's never in the middle assuming a war criminal is either a goodest boy who did no wrong or a violent monster who needs to be put down and not made excuses for it, when the truth is that people are far more complicated than they seem on the wholesale. 3H doesn't do this, it wants you to think your side is always the good guys and the enemy side is sympathetic but still the bad guys. And it does this to avoid pushing forward the truth that you're genuinely no better and that the story is openly feeding you an extremely impressionistic lie of events. This is where any moral greyness falls apart, as without any kind of acknowledgement of your side's failings in a morally grey conflict, there is no hope of making a story that's actually morally grey. You created "hero defeats woobie villain" type story-writing, just slapped a coat of paint calling it morally grey when it isn't.

To give a contrast, Fates goes out of its way to avoid ignoring the actions and consequences of Corrin's choices. All of the routes have players make choices that cause a severe lapse of judgement that leads to bloodshed on both sides and innocent people on both sides dying. On Birthright, you're intentionally invoked ludonarrative dissonance by Corrin in that route being loud and aggressive of killing Garon and not questioning the "good kingdom vs. evil empire" conflict... with not only Corrin not even trying to stymie the bloodshed, but the abundance of route maps and killing waves upon waves of enemies influences that bloodshed and is meant to make players question their actions even as they kill recruitable, named soldiers on the other side. Even Ryoma, by openly lying to Corrin about not about being blood related, is more morally complex because he did so in order to keep Corrin and his family together and because it's essential data, nevermind that Ryoma is strongly implied to know Nohr is starving and just... do nothing about it, feigning ignorance with Silas's explanation in Birthright Chapter 23. Even as far as Corrin being a genuinely good person, they still kill thousands in-story and they don't really care about who lives and who dies as long as it's not their Nohrian siblings, and this leads to Xander accidentally killing Elise and then committing suicide by cop. All while Corrin teaches Ryoma to change as a better person.

Conquest is even more morally complex and grey; Corrin goes back to Nohr with the inability to betray the only family they've ever known and try to end this madness internally, before realizing the privilege they commanded as a Nohrian royal and tried to sabotage the Nohrian war effort and work in any kind of change. He succeeded in ensuring no casualties in small skirmishes, but he failed miserably trying to ensure no deaths in Cheve as it suddenly made them realize the rot is far too institutional for them to fully reform; Garon is a flesh-puppet piloted by Anankos with no regard for anything but destroying both kingdoms, his two trusted men are evil, and the Nohrian royals are deep in denial their father who was once loving and kind has become rotten and abusive and caused so much trauma they don't want to even acknowledge he's been gone for so long. It's a frightening realistic depiction of an abusive household with how the Nohrian royals self-rationalize their control over a fundamentally fucked-up situation, and Corrin begins to see that when Azura reveals Garon's true form. Knowing that the Yato as is isn't strong enough to pierce Garon's blessing from the Rainbow Sage and actually defeat them (which is strongly implied if not all-but-confirmed to operate similarly to Ashnard and BK's blessings in FE9), they need to show Garon's true form to the army... so they intentionally and knowingly abet the genocidal invasion of Hoshido, needing to sacrifice his ideals to save as many people as he can in the least horrible, fucked-up way possible. Along the way while they save a few thousands die in the invasion and Corrin ends up seriously mentally breaking up along the way as he's forced to nearly kill his two brothers and become demonized by the nation he's putting to the sword for the greater good, as he's forced to keep up the lie of a heartless invader until it just... becomes too much. And this is the route people have the most issues with, despite being the route that is so fucking complex that it gives everyone the moral sympathy needed to be empathized with, while not excusing their actions.

What Fates does exceedingly well that 3H doesn't is that it recognizes that the characters' choices are their own actions, and expects readers to pay attention to dialogue to connect fundamental revelations of the plot. It doesn't need to make its characters morally hazy-feely or war criminals with fundamentally unsympathetic traits to make them morally complex, it does this by having the fundamental concept behind Fates is two forces of good people being trapped in a fundamentally violent and horrible war that threatens to tear the continent apart in the process. And Fates does that so exceptionally well by having actual moral complexity to the characters that merits reasons to go down each of the routes while not being so non-committal to calling out injustice or bad actions in the story that it completely destroys any point it has. With Fates, I get the feeling of two families and armies of good people trapped in a war that's engineered by a broken god wanting to destroy the world and both kingdoms. With 3H, I get the feeling many people in Syria felt about each of the factions being staffed with war criminals, rapists and mass-murderers. I can sympathize with all sides of Fates because it recognizes their actions as they are while not diluting their complexity as characters. I cannot sympathize with 3H's lords because they are all so solely-defined by their end slates that no amount of blood, violence or suffering will ever be enough to end the war and them crossing lines even Ryoma would never, ever do. Ryoma, as in the guy who runs basically Fates's equivalent of the Ninja CIA with all the ugliness it implies. Even he wouldn't do what Edlegard, Rhea and Dimitri stoop to in their oppositional and player routes, and while the story humanizes Ryoma, it just expects us to love 3H's blorbos so much we just begin making jokes about how war crimes are "expected" of the series and we should still forgive them because... the story presents it better?

It's a major reason the shitting on Fates's story while lofting 3H as the better one irritates me so much; Fates had an actual writer who was committed to the greater narrative and nuances of the characters that got botched in the implementation of the JP script (which was why IF was even more panned there than Fates was here, which has regular appreciators outside of hardcore FE fans) and got fixed in the localization (despite its flaws), while 3H expects people to just believe they're the good guys without actually thinking about what their actions entails or making consequences stick. And I think it's most infuriating because the reason why people got so weird about Fates, especially Conquest, is because it was so willing to make the player feel uncomfortable with their actions and provoke intentional dissonance in their actions of being rewarded for the right inputs as a Good Gamer™ versus the very visible suffering it causes, and it not saying to the camera "And That's Terrible" and expecting it to be evident within the context and subtext of the work. For many people, it wasn't, and gave such a bad first impression regardless of the sheer cohesive validity of the work that they just wrote it off and dismissed an amazing story as too little value to actually analyze. Meanwhile, 3H's logos, ethos and pathos follow-through sucked ass, but people forgave it because of the lore boner people had and because, when you break it down, 3H is no different than the "good guy vs. evil empire" stories the fandom derides, it just does so in a way that makes those your route deems "evil" sympathetic even when they really aren't. It was so telling that when FE fans said "We want grey morality!" what they really meant was "We want to be morally, objectively correct and rewarded for being a Good Gamer™ while the enemy army has a sob story that makes them sympathetic while still morally, objectively wrong!". In hindsight, it's not hard to see why, Arvis, Lyon and BK are the series's most popular villains, but it's not good writing to apply that to a story about war criminals while thinking sob stories serve as a sufficient excuse to unconscionable atrocities, because FE fans don't want to feel responsible for their actions. They're literally the kind of people Spec Ops: The Line critiques about the typical military FPS dudebro wanting to feel like a hero for being a war criminal, only implied to an intelligence ego-driven bunch of virgin nerds who cannot agree on basic fucking canon details.

...this was a really long ask, so I'll TL;DR it with "FE fans are bad at media analysis and really should stop calling 3H better written than Fates when 3H refuses to actually analyze its own context while Fates does so extensively in giving each of the cast initiative, including for their own fuck-ups."

While I will push back a little against some of the assertions regarding Rhea and Claude (and also Dimitri somewhat) given their circumstances of being the ones on the defense in 3H, I vehemently agree with your assessment, and that's why 3H in general falls flat for me in its storytelling.

Fates, as you say, has intentional dissonance that makes you question your actions when provided with more information the further you get into the game. 3H's dissonance just reads very unintentional.

Edelgard's entire route is obvious low hanging fruit, especially the scene where she executes Dimitri, accusing him of "being obsessed with her" when she's invading his country for no fucking reason other than wanting to enforce her will on independent countries. Instead of going to therapy, she decided to kill a bunch of people, she's nuts and will never not be a shit person.

But to your point, there are other lines in 3H that read similarly ridiculous, fanning the dissonance.

Edelgard and Claude's lines to Kostas in chapter 2 about "being noble and commoner isn't different and you don't have the right to kill actually", and they both sound like immature fuckwads. Claude's consistent push to pry information out of people is insensitive at best, and borders on invasion of privacy. Claude constantly both sides-ing the church and Edelgard, and that's not even going into the shit he pulls in Hopes. Dimitri both sides-ing the dynamic of nobles getting rid of their successors for not having crests. Dimitri constantly trying to find the best in Edelgard after he begins his recovery, to the point where an unbelieveable parley scene occurs, like give me a break. Rhea is never able to confront her issues and mistakes on screen unless she's dying or being romanced by Byleth. Sylvain's "battle of ideals" line in Azure Moon, Dorothea being sad over Ferdie in AM or VW despite him being kind of a coward in that he doesn't have the stones to bite back at Edelgard, Mercedes also has a line about Ferdinand, in general just the entire spiel that side characters make about fighting old friends because "there's no choice."

Does this cast have any self awareness or agency, or not? That's why I rail against Byleth's presence in the plot so much, because he's treated as the end all be all of what is right/moral/correct. Sure, characters can feel bad about what they're doing, but because Byleth (i.e. the player) is there, they must be on the right path in the end. And everyone has to be sypmathetic when you're against them because there has to be room for Byleth (i.e. the player) to have enough reason to join them in another route, otherwise the multi route structure doesn't make sense.

In concept it's already a story structure that warps itself around what makes the player insert feel most good, but in execution it's somehow even worse. And that's because all of it is done in dialogue, many lines of which I've already mentioned. You're not supposed to think about the material reality of the shitty things these characters do and say, because the priority is that they can tug at your heart enough for you to excuse them/fix them/justify them.

Claude is ultimately not a bad person as a whole, but the game really wants you to not consider how feckless and fickle he can be when faced with bad odds, especially when he kind of effectively abandons an entire country that he's supposed to be leading whenever Byleth's not supporting him. Rhea and Dimitri are snug fit into either "crazed opposition that must be taken care of" or "person project that You need to get a handle on", both interpretations taking agency away from making the player seem like a bad person or going in the opposite direction by making the player the ONLY person who's able to save them from themselves. And Edelgard is the queen of never being held to account the damage that she does, always skirting responsibility in-game and in the fandom because "she just did what she felt she had to," "sometimes change takes sacrifice and horrible choices," or "she just wanted to WALK with you, sensei!" All in an attempt to get you to not care what you do when siding with her, and to make you feel bad for her when you don't side with her.

The player must never feel bad about the objectively bad things they do, and must always feel correct and justified in the things they feel are correct. That's the 3H M.O. When you recognize that the people you side with are kinda shitty no matter the route, it's not because the writers wanted you to, it's because you put the time in the think about it long enough. The game wanted you to feel bad about the war because "we used to be FRIENDS", not because of the terrible things you do in the war in the first place, as if the methods and machinations aren't a significant part of why warfare fucking sucks.

And as you say, and I mostly agree on, is the Fates M.O. is not shying away from the negative impacts that Corrin's choice had. In Birthright, Corrin's close Nohrian allies/siblings die because of the choice he made, because siding with Hoshido had a ripple effect on how those near and dear to him were treated by Garon. Another part of Birthright's narrative is the Hoshidan cast having to get used to Corrin just being himself, and trusting that a Nohrian isn't who they believe them to be. Exposing Ryoma's ignorance and showing that his arrogant juggernaut plans aren't gonna cut it when it comes to establishing a lasting peace, is critical in showing that, yeah, mindlessly fighting Nohr doesn't fix the root problems. It intentionally pulls the rug under the player by going "yeah your side kind of fucking sucks for charging at Nohr all this time, when these are people with dreams, loved ones and livelihoods."

Conquest puts a twist on this, by having Corrin be relatively successful in some areas when it comes to changing perceptions towards Nohr, helping people gain autonomy from a brutal regime, and actively undermining the horrible things that war has its soldiers do. The rug pull is then done during chapter 13, and again after the Sakura map, where Corrin is smacked with the reality that sometimes you fucking fail at what you're trying to do in story, despite the player succeeding in gameplay. The player representative doesn't have complete control nor is he treated with kid gloves in Fates when faced with the ugliness from his side and the opposition.

And what's greatest about it, is that it's showing you, rather than employing a missable dialogue in a monastery about how sad it is to fight against former classmates. Dude, I know it's sad, is that really all you can say? The message begins to dull when it's bashed over your head too much, and especially when there's no meaningful impact in story, all because there can't be because Byleth (the player) has to be accounted for as the ultimate arbiter of who joins him or not. You can't avoid feeling shitty about Scarlet, like you can with Ferdie. You can try your best trying to get around the retainers in Fates when you fight them, but they still have crushing death lines because the story is written to accommodate the fact that you're killing people who aren't evil at their core. 3H has to make sure you can avoid that before a war even starts. Flora and Ryoma's suicides, Xander's suicide-by-cop, Takumi's descent, the fates of the Kitsune and Wolfskin who were caught in bad circumstances (something that, despite claims of poor writing, happens all the fucking time and is another shitty thing about war that more need to recognize); the topics of isolationism, war profiteering, subterfuge and treason, spy networks and thievery, the ethics of bystanderism, FUCKING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES.

That last one-alongside the general idea of trying to win a war with as little bloodshed as possible-is one of the prime driving forces of an ENTIRE ROUTE in Fates, and is still pretty prevalent for Corrin's beliefs in the other two. In 3H? Barely a footnote in all honesty, and more so an extension of how other characters are perceived. Edelgard forcing civilians to stay when Enbarr is under siege? Claude says "it takes some resolve, I gotta hand it to her." Remire being destroyed and the Empire doing fuck all? Uhhh, look over there, they got taken in by Rhea, don't worry about it. What about the effects of the Alliance being dismantled and given to the Empire, Kingdom or the church? Or showing more of the people in the monastery town that face the most danger from the Imperial invasion or the thieves after the timeskip? None of this is treated as the horrific circumstance it is, so it ends up as fridge horror you think about at 2 a.m.

Thinking about how the war affects the common people and civilians isn't the main priority in any of 3H's routes as far as I can remember, since it's just lumped in with the vague "too much bloodshed, doesn't war suck" aesop. We never dive into the specifics of why war sucks in 3H because doing that has the potential for the player to materially feel bad about what they're doing, so instead we always have a cushion to assuage our feelings in by being reminded that Byleth (the player) is the pinnacle of good and always knows the right thing to do in the end. Which is shallow, vapid, and utterly spineless in a simulation game series about war.

A lot of this is fueled by my anti-3H though, so I'm very willing to take corrections on things I flat out get wrong, I haven't played that game to completion in like a over a year, so the details are finally getting hazy.

[fromtheseventhhell]

If we get a scene of Arya crowning Jon, it needs to parallel the scene of Jon gifting Needle to Arya for me. A personal scene between the two of them that's about their unconditional love for each other. It isn't about Jon becoming King but about Arya supporting him in the same way he supported her. "Girls get the arms but not the swords. Bastards get the swords but not the arms" come full circle with two outcasts supporting each other occupying spaces that society says they can't

[wonder-worker]

Wild how we know that Elizabeth Woodville was officially appointed to royal councils in her own right during her husband’s reign and fortified the Tower of London in preparation of a siege while 8-months pregnant and had forces gathering at Westminster “in the queen’s name” in 1483 – only for NONE of these things to be even included, let alone explored, in the vast majority of scholarship and historical novels involving her.

[slayerdurge]

pre-tadpole durgetash + constant PDA around moonrise towers (that drives ketheric utterly insane) pt. 2

[splinteredsweets]

i'm gonna go insane

whenever i watch the opening of wreck it ralph i can't help but wonder ... ok so originally and for years i've always thought the other bad guys just didn't fully understand how much shit ralph has gone through for his entire life and they have better lives which i think is in parts still true , as they do appear to have get-togethers often and they seemingly have other friends while ralph had no one , but i unfortunately don't feel like that's the extent of it and that there's more to it than that .

on one rewatch something about their phrasing bothered me ... 'we've all felt what you're feeling and we've come to terms with it' like this could either - again - mean just that 'we didn't exactly like doing bad things but as bad guys it's our job to' but then i thought ... what if they also experienced a similar situation of mistreatment by their good guys and npcs ? what if they still experience that ? but it's just easier to deal with because they all have each other ? if bad-anon isn't just for 'im bad and that's good' but like the only place they find acceptance ?? bc like when ralph is walking home from pac-man's , the other characters he comes across say 'bad guy coming' like ??? do all bad guys experience this ??? but we just don't get to see it ??? ralph is the only one stopped by surge protector in the instances we see but who's to say the other bad guys don't get stopped on occasion too and we just don't see it ? or maybe they're let off easier bc they've 'accepted their place' . oh my god .

and at the end of the movie , ralph is treated better by the nicelanders , which is good ofc , but how are the other bad guys doing ??? if they've been through something similar , are they being treated better too ??? i sure hope so ... like maybe there was like some kind of meeting offscreen like 'hey can we stop outcasting bad guys for just doing their jobs please' idk ... i just have a horrible terrible feeling there's no way the other bad guys aren't facing or at the very least have faced similar discrimination . it's just easier to deal with bc they've had to forge a community to support eachother . because no one else will give them the respect after-hours . im sure someone else has mentioned this before idk i just need to get it out b4 i lose my mind

i could phrase this all more eloquently but i think i might just end up overthinking myself to death i tend to do that a lot

[ganondoodle]

with every thing i learn about what the directors of totk said in interviews it all just gets worse huh?

the thing about the shiekah tech just vanishing and nobody caring enough to look into it was already rough and now i learn they said that -after botw zelda wondered if hyrule as a kingdom was still needed but then totk happens- just sounds like she wondered if hyrule as a kingdom still needed to exist in the way it had been (which would be an interesting change for once and also make sense for her character) and then they took her back into the distant past with the super good guy king of a godly race to teach her the lesson what her place is and that yes, their monarchy needed and good and really given to her by "gods" and what if big evil black man shows up again

i dont have the energy to get into it further but needed to say soemthing about it bc it keeps bothering me :(

[im-still-watching-anime]

sabaody is kinda foul for separating all the strawhats the very DAY that zoro, sanji, and usopp decided to wear their cute little matching stripe outfits like they probably planned that kuma, they’re not gonna look as good all separated like that🙄

[moe-broey]

Summoner potential is endless. You get an influencer who has perpetual tiktok voice and everyone considers it to be an accent (it... could be considered one?). And maybe with the right combination of magic and machinery (from Reginn's homeland) they can continue to do what they do. You get a Christian missionary who considers it "Part of His Plan" that they've arrived here to "Do The Lord's work and spread the good word" (this probably has extreme political repercussions whether they are well-meaning or deeply evil using this as a revenue for power/control. It's a whole ass historical domino effect). You get a conspiracy theorist with an INCREDIBLY skewed perception of the world, so whenever any Hero asks Anything about that Summoner's world, you're just getting bunk information. Net-negative information. Summoner, who when the Miriel FBs took place, believes the moon landing was faked and that the earth is flat. You get an evil politician and the Order just kills them within a week and goes back to the drawing board (self indulgent scenario. More compelling hypothetical would be the Order being forced to work with that guy, much like the fallen Heroes, becomes a whole ass political drama. Also might depend on how evil the politician is though, sometimes you do just have to make it look like an accident). You get the opposite end of political radicalization where this Summoner is disenfranchised and among many things is anti-monarchy, making all the royals and nobles within the Order's ranks a bit uncomfortable. You get Jerma985