#sometimes perfection can be perfect hell

[musashi]

CAN ANYONE FUCKING HEAR ME?

[musashi]

#waiting to see how long it takes for this to reach its intended audience aka wendy rocket

Wendy Rocket will now kill for you.

[hikarry]

I honestly can't wait to see some absolutely unhinged angel boy 😌💅

[normal-nightmare]

God. God I'm completely fucking insane about Dick and Jason

Their dynamic is everything to me. They have such a complicated relationship and history. They've been enemies and friends and almost-brothers. The what-ifs and should-have-beens and might-haves linger in between them so heavily. The guilt and grief sticks to their relationship and might never go away. They keep hurting each other but they love each other so much and they want to keep trying, to understand each other

Because that's what love is!! Relationships aren't perfect but that doesn't matter! They keep trying and they WANT to keep trying! Jason sees Dick for who he is and still thinks he's the most amazing thing he's ever seen. Dick has seen Jason at his absolute worst and still wants him around. They've both wanted the other dead and they've fought and gotten each other bloody and they still come back and offer a hand up.

They SEE each other- and that's terrifying. And they love each other so so deeply. The commitment, the sense of duty and obligation, it's all there. They don't HAVE to keep caring or trying- but they do regardless and God isn't that what love is? Trying?

Just. God they're so devoted to each other even when they've been hurt, even when they don't quite know how to show it or get the other to understand. But they try.

God, they try.

[skybluekagikun]

Why does the reaction to every new chap turn into...

[topaz-mutiny]

I feel like every time I hear "Bells Hells broke their word", there's this omission or forgetfulness (and I get it; this campaign feels like it took forever and it's easy to tune out conversations that feel circular and unending) that Bells Hells knows that if the Raven Queen and the Arch Heart were forced to comply by the rest of their family, the Divine Gate would be rent asunder and there would be a second Calamity in order to wrench things back to the status quo – that being the gods are all safe and protected and no one knows about Predathos.

The only reason it didn't happen already was the gods had hope Bells Hells would kill Ludinus (which they did); if Ludinus had defeated Bells Hells then the Gods would have immediately busted down the Gate and commit another Calamity in order to stop him... but the Raven Queen and the Arch Heart made it sound like the Second Calamity would happen regardless of who won, and all because the knowledge of Predathos the GodEater, their most feared predator, was out there.

But, Ludinus disseminated that information across all of Exandria, and there's been information exchange between Ruidians and Exandrians. The only way to take that information back would be to kill all the Ruidians AND kill every single Exandrian, just to be sure. Wipe the slate clean. Start over. Destroy every magical and non-magical record, including the people.

There would be no bargaining with the gods without Predathos, for they are too strong and would have no reason to listen. Any parley of "can you Gods leave forever, or can we leave the Hallowed Cage alone or have Vasselheim turn Kreviris into a military-religious controlled state colony" (that's a Bad Thing) would be met with "or we just kill the entire planet and moon so the information is guaranteed to be lost and there can be no more attempts at freeing Predathos". The Prime Dieties would grumble about it, but they would still go through with eradicating the mortals they love because they prioritize themselves and their Betrayer siblings more than mortals. We have proof of that.

I feel like the Gods broke the social contract first. If we want to point fingers at someone breaking their word, they should be included as well.

[musashi]

[pays for a 9th consecutive lap dance from the same stripper] …so then he fucking... get this... he literally CHASES HER back to the airport and gives her whip back right... and she starts just SOBBI

[edains]

Can you ashley haters think of an original argument for once

[nekrosmos]

Just peeking in to say I think you're a cool person and that you have a place here with all the penguins. And that you're worthy of love, always. No matter what. 🤍

That is incredibly kind of you to say anon ;-; The last part is the toughest to wrap my head around. Something like never feeling like the main character but always a supporting character and all that. I truly appreciate the nikprice army though, what a bunch of lovely penguins, thank you for always being lovely <3

[modgirlyreposts-revamped]

I don't really go here, but all the members in The Amazing Digital Circus are in a polyamorous relationship methinks

[randomnameless]

I mean… fire emblem shouldn't be taking in consideration when making points about representing real world issues or using it as a crutch for sociopolitical arguments irl. One of the best examples in this franchise of "culture bias" and "covet bigotry" is Fates, where Hoshido is too pure, too good, and Nohr is the bad, bad, evil barbaric nation. And this goes so far as to make birthright's story a more watered down version of blue units vs red units story from shadow dragon.

In 3H now the good, pure nation is Fodlan, and those who surround it are either filler to make the worldmap look prettier, or barbarians that like to hunt the good guys for sport (Almyra and Sreng, and possibly Dagda), with Brigid being a repetition of the noble savage trope. Just bc there's a poc guy that wants to unite people and get rid of prejudice in story, doesn't mean that the developpers agree to that or support that.

(Also, let's not talk about Hopes and how Claude's altruistic dream turns out to be unifying two different nations and make the cohabit by force with him as sole leader of both. AKA the typical fire emblem trope of uniting different countries under one ruler, something that's not progressive in the slightest)

Mmh,

Speaking on eggshells here because Fates isn't really my area of expertise, but basically, iirc you can thank Pat for scrubbing the worst of Hoshido!

Fates' best route is Revelation (rip izana) where both countries accept to set aside their differences to work together, meaning that, obviously, Hoshido wasn't only "blue unit land" against Nohr's "red units".

Even through Birthrout, you can catch here'n'there, even in the Pat version!, how Hoshido isn't roses'n'daisies, it's the land where Mikoto takes her niece "hostage" ffs as a measure against Corn's kidnapping (you can't tell me she never guessed Azura was Arete's kid!), where Ryoma (idk if you were the same anon as back then?) as the crown prince ignores the plight of the nohrians and why they were attacking Hoshido because life in Nohr sucks and they're starving (idk if, much like the Leonster/Thracia conflict, Hoshido refused to trade with them and let them starve instead), the fuckery with Mokushu and Shura's backstory, or Hoshido being Misogyny Land (tm).

Heck Birthrout has you march on Nohr's capital city iirc, and fight in the streets - it's in Birthrout that Corn's obsession with taking revenge/defeating Garon leads to Elise' death - so it's not the the "blue unit waltz on red unit lands, routs the enemy and calls a day".

So I don't think the Fates writers really wanted to push the "pure unproblematic land" card with Hoshido compared to Nohr, but rather depict them as both flawed - in different ways - and needing to work together.

Now, I wouldn't say the nations of Fodlan are good compared to the rest of the filler nations that make up this verse's world - after all it's Adrestia who starts hostilities against Dagda'n'Brigid and Adrestia who most recently flattened Brigid and made it its vassal! - but in a sense you're right calling them filler, the FE series in general don't spend a lot of time to depict nations in general, they're just "the place character X is from" and for all of its, hm, reknown writting, Fodlan is following the trend, Albinea is no less different than Cheve (wait, we have one map set in Cheve! kill that) so bar flavor text, they're effectively just "filler".

I disagree about Sreng and Almyra being filler though, if Sreng could be seen as a ref to the Thracia situation or Norh/Hoshido fight for ressources, Almyra?

Is basically Verdane all over again - with the dubious honor of having a Verdanite Lord who, unlike Jamke has some relevance to the plot bar his introduction, but most important, seems to appreciate and want to emulate/import the values/methods of his country to the cast/main plot.

Can you imagine FE4 where Jamke suggests to kidnap Deevtar to seduce lure Andrei in a trap and rekt him?

Of course not.

Just bc there's a poc guy that wants to unite people and get rid of prejudice in story, doesn't mean that the developpers agree to that or support that.

I guess they agreed with the "get rid of prejudice without dealing with the dragon in the room" idea, but the main issue I mentionned and talked about in the other anon reply was the how, and what, doylist wise, it conveys.

"I'll unite people and get rid of prejudice by busting open your country to my people who are as prejudiced as you supposedly are, and I will bring you new values"

That's... not a good way to bring people together lol.

Even in FE16 I found Claude and Almyra's writing a bit odd : why asking Timmy first to stop shunning Bob when Timmy started to avoid Bob because Bob keeps on stealing his lunch money? Shouldn't you ask Bob first to, uh, not be an ass?

In Nopes?

Bob ruins Timmy's house, hits Timmy's toddler sister in the face and still steals his lunch money - but now, Bob has the nerve to tell Timmy that he's doing this to "help" him.

Also, let's not talk about Hopes and how Claude's altruistic dream turns out to be unifying two different nations and make the cohabit by force with him as sole leader of both. AKA the typical fire emblem trope of uniting different countries under one ruler, something that's not progressive in the slightest

Hmmm,

I don't know if you played the older games (FE1 to FE10), but as far as I remember, bar Archanea verse, we have different rulers for each countries and the world is never an unified entity -

And even then, Marth doesn't unify the world by making people "cohabit by force", as forced as it is, everyone gives him their crown.

Sanaki doesn't tell Elincia to suck it as she annexes Crimea in FE10, ditto with Innes and Joshua, or Ced and Ares in Jugdral... I can see Leif's unification of Thracia falling under that criteria, but even then, it's not so much by force than Travant making suicide by cop because he wanted the peninsula to be united and understood he couldn't be the one to do it.

Uniting the continent by force is, on the contrary, what red emperors do, and in traditional FE games, red emperors are defeated.

To return to your main point :

I mean… fire emblem shouldn't be taking in consideration when making points about representing real world issues or using it as a crutch for sociopolitical arguments irl.

Of course, and I totally agree!

The FE series has always been, as its core, a series where a "rightful ruler" returns home to rule "rightfuly" and better than its predecessors, by acknowledging what they did wrong and what they can do now.

That being said, a game is never written in a vacuum : that's the doylist side of various discussions : "What were the devs thinking, was what their reasoning when they decided to make the game this way?"

In 2004, real world persons believed that putting Devdan in their game was okay.

You can give them some flak because different cultural references between Japan and the US world (hell, western world at this rate because damn if Devdan hit "international" racist stereotypes boxes!) - and yet, can you really suppose the devs wouldn't have known, in 2004, that those stereotypes are harmful to real life people and Devdan was basically an insult?

But Devdan was just a living (as much as a fictional character can be alive, but you catch my drift lol) stereotype, the issue was just with Devdan existing.

It was 2004, 15 years later, we expect of IS - not your backwater company! - to never ever fall in the same pits, right?

(well, we had FE13 with the Feroxi main characters who love to fight being dark skinned... so the Devdan dev might still have been there :/ )

FE Fodlan, let it be for design or even names, took some inspiration from RL (it was funny upon release to catch all those links and nods!), and while i appreciated the aesthetic, it was bound to create another "Devdan" issue.

You have Almyra, designed with several RL inspirations (they weren't being subtle with Claude's battalion called the Immortals lol), from design (Claude's clothes and braids!) to units (mounted archers!) to, well, names.

Okay, in itself, it's nothing as insulting as Devdan's existence. But taken with the context?

The devs wrote that Fodlan's aesthetic was supposed to be the Age of Discoveries (1500s and onwards?) so yes, during that Age, you had people who were prejudiced as fuck against people from other lands/different cultures.

But in 2019, we know that those prejudices were full of shit, and either fueled by ignorance, or just, the need to find a good "excuse" to get new lands/manpower/ressources.

Maybe the devs wanted to showcase this part of history : depict the characters being prejudiced against "foreigners" and have them later learn that their prejudice was unfounded !

But... they took the inverse path

Hilda's racist stereotypes? They're shown to be....

True through both games!

As you put it, Almyra are the "barbarians" who : attack the land the characters are from when they're at their weakest, for no reason than to get a good fight - even if it means dying which in turns create several orphans they don't give a fuck about - pillage and "rampage" in cities, let their allies die after accepting a "mutual support" alliance with them, and ultimately rave and scream at their "outdated" values and how you're going to bring them yours.

"You see those people who were derided as savages and barbarians back then in RL - and still are in some parts of the world because the early 2000s happened and in general because racism exists? - Well I'm going to base my fantasy "token barbarian country who is untrustworthy and backstabs everyone" based on them!"

:/

I know you can't compare tomatoes to watermelons, but the Baten Kaitos franchise also has a nation who's, more or less, full of assholes, racists and imperialist pieces of shit. But the devs in those games designed each island/country from scratch, there is no nation that immediately calls back to "RL country X or culture Y"!

you can make a farfetched point about the people wearing ceremonial masks and having totems being a mix of several RL inspirations or at least being a call back to them... but they're part of the most OP people of that universe!

So why? Why, doylist wise, FE Fodlan designed with care - you can't tell me those costumes and outfits were designed in 10 minutes! - Almyra and its characters... only to have them act out as what an english book from the 1780s depicted "oriental" people ?

Unlike Devdan, the racism doesn't ooze out from the way the characters/country was designed, but what role they fit in the story.

It's not a sociopolitical commentary or representing real world but more like another jab at IS for being as prejudiced against non western/japanese cultures and civilisations as they were when FE4 was released, which is problematic in 2019/2022.

(and then you have Square Enix giving us Hyzante in Triangle Strategy, which is even more in your face with the dubious parallels)

[synthshenanigans]

Small pattern I noticed with the power hours is that it starts off semi normal before getting emotional in the middle [either sad or angry]. But mainly they all end with a "well it be like that sometimes" vibe

Not Perfect- "It's not perfect, but it's mine"

Chonny's Inferno- "The bright, white islands high would get the boring ones excited, but trust me, man, you wouldn't like it"

Memento Mori: the most important thing in the world- "So if you only have one chance, you ought to try your best to live as you'd like. One day, you're going to die."

Idk if its intentional but I find it neat

[alexiethymia]

‘ollie’ and ‘eury’

Alice uses ‘Ollie Lamb’ as a pseudonym. There doesn’t seem to be any connection to any existing character, and I’m still confused about ‘Eury Lamb’, like obviously this is a reference to Eurydice. I see some sources saying this is the new name Villhelm Lamb gives to her, or another pseudonym she takes up herself. If it’s one she takes up herself, then it would make sense she’d use ‘Eurydice’. Even if it’s a name Villhelm gives to her, with the hints that ‘Orpheus’ was working with Sam Bourbon (and possibly Villhelm), could the name still have come from him?

Anyway, back to Ollie, what if this is ‘Orpheus’ real name? Like her nickname for him is Ollie, from Oliver, the same way Little Girl calls him, ‘Orphy’.

They are seriously intriguing. I love going back to Identity V lore and finding out about all of these updates. Headcanon-wise (or even canon??), they have all of the hallmarks of twisted devotion, and that is absolutely my jam. No relationship in Identity V is healthy, but seriously, childhood friends? Alice being called his ‘light’, the hints that he wrote the letter welcoming her back and calling her ‘his bravest nightingale’? I am not immune to tragic love stories, platonic or otherwise. There’s how they were childhood friends, ‘Orpheus’ couldn’t forget her and it’s possible that Alice is at the core of his motivation for whatever (shady) things he does, but how Alice and him are being placed on opposite sides, with Alice ready to face forward and to move on from her trauma, but with ‘Orpheus’ who keeps on looking back, looking back.

They remind me of Anastasia and Dimitri, and Ryang-ha and Chateau from Koroshi Ai. But at its best, ‘Orpheus’ is still an unwitting, or possibly willing pawn to the machinations of the manor. At worst, he’s Baron Deross trying desperately to cling and rebuild paradise, possibly responsible for Alice’s death (if she did die, or possibly turned into Miss Nightingale) in between AoM and ToR. (Could be a reason why ‘Orpheus’ possibly erases his memories again for ten years.) That is absolutely my jam. What else can you expect with the heavy parallels to a tragic mythological couple. They’re one of those inevitable, preventable tragedies, and ‘it matters that the love was there’ tropes I love.

P.S. I find it fated that like how her playmate entertained her with his stories, she still managed to continue reading his stories as ‘Orpheus’ even if she doesn’t recognize him (yet). Based on what we’ve seen, she seems to have a veritable collection of his books.

[skrunksthatwunk]

household enemy to the yyh watchthrough number one is the olympics. it's taken us a week to get two episodes into the gamemaster fight

[imflyingfish]

hhhhhrrrrngggggggg

[huskirl]

Ily guys but maybe watch Bojack Horseman or the Good Place or even like. The Owl House or something. I do enjoy Hazbin but maybe it's not the most profound piece of art in the world guys it's okay. You can love something that's kinda bad. Most shows are kinda bad. Other shows are less bad though Hazbin isn't some groundbreaking piece of art and that's fine