#and do even stuff they don't want to do if they don't want to die

[merakiui]

thinking about ace who starts buying clothes (especially sweaters and hoodies) in larger sizes in the hopes that you'll ask him to borrow you one. don't get it twisted! he's not doing this because of that silly "boyfriend fit" or whatever. 🙄 just,,,, it would be nice........to see you.....in his clothes......and being comfortable...... yeah. on second thought, don't even ask him for a hoodie!!! >:( remember that time you didn't let him crash at ramshackle? now it's his turn to be stingy with his stuff!!!

ace who, whenever the two of you are walking side by side in town, takes the side that parallels the street. you keep switching places with him because you can never walk in one place and ace gets huffy about it. when you ask him why, his voice gets softer and he averts his eyes and mutters something about how it's safer if the guy stands on the side closer to the street. he just wants to make sure you're safe. because..... BECAUSE who else is he going to bother if a car hits you and you die!?!?!?!? you punch his arm and he makes an exaggerated show of almost falling into the street, feigning hurt. and this is why he's staying on this side! ...or something like that, he insists with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

he's also your "excuse me. they asked for no pickles" guy. <3 ace stands up for you an absurd amount of times. if you tease him about it, he'll (with a sly grin) tease you back: "ohhh, so you want me to be a little mean? is that it?"

he's also a "this one's for you" and then completely misses the shot guy.

whenever you come to watch his basketball games or practices, he makes sure to do his best just to impress you (and later rub it in your face because you told him he can't ball. he'll show you!!).

ace who, for every teasing remark and flirt, never follows through. he's all talk (mostly). truly a cherry boy through and through. so what if he gets flustered when it rains and your shirt becomes see-through and he huffs and drapes his uniform blazer over you, muttering about how you're a lost cause!!! so what if he makes sure to save a seat for you at lunch so you won't ever feel left out! so what if he has "that look" or gives you "those eyes" whenever you aren't looking (so fond of you he doesn't even realize it). he's not in love! gross. what a dumb idea. >:p

also also!!! ace who makes jokes that harbor truth. he constantly jokes about sharing a bed (because there's only so much space. definitely that and no other reason...), and if you ask him if he wants to share a bed with you he scoffs and says something playful like, "you'd like that, wouldn't you?" AAAAA NO, ACE!!! T_T you'd like that!!! or you and your other first-year friends dress in fancy attire and go to a fast food restaurant and he goes on and on about how he cuts a pretty cool figure in a suit, wouldn't you agree? you don't even have to say anything; he knows you like it. maybe if you ask him nicely, he'll wear it for you again. ;D

the type of friendship where everything's mostly jokes between the two of you and so those moments when ace is very soft and sincere always catch you by surprise. he remembers things about you that you don't expect him to remember, and ace thinks you're so dumb (secretly affectionate) for thinking he'd forget these details.

or when you go clothes shopping/thrifting. maybe you have bags from lunch or other stores. he insists on holding them so you can look around freely. you give him a dubious look. what does he want in return? he's definitely going to hold this good deed over your head later... ace rolls his eyes playfully and takes the bags from you anyway. you laugh at him: "okay, boyfriend. thanks." he stands there in the middle of the store, bags hanging off of his arms and shoulders, and then it hits him.

he does a lot of things for you that cross into boyfriend territory, doesn't he?

[epickiya722]

I don't think I expressed enough how much I do actually like that Yuji is this... I don't know how to really put it into words but... how Yuji is this unique embodiment of horror and strangeness.

Like, just the details of his character makes him stand out to me. Everyone in JJK has some bit of oddness to them, and he has own unique kind.

He looks like sunshine personified and he is. He is the sweetest kid there is. And he looks like the typical "Oh, he must be the normal one who has to adapt to the horrors the other have to go through" character. Ha ha... no, he is the horror. He is the "creepy child" trope without even showing that he is.

Yuji is the kind of horror you actually have to put thought into to even realize "Oh, wait, that is actually fucked up". Fridge horror, the horror that you think nothing too much of until you really open your mind to it.

Like, he's this own level of odd with how he behaves and thinks.

First, it's his interests. Yuji didn't mind really being in the occult club. Of course, his reasons was that the club time allowed him enough time to see his grandfather. But also, even though he didn't have to really participate, he actively does. Iguchi and Sasaki exploring haunted places? Yuji tags along and isn't frightened at all. Mind you, they like going go haunted places because they like being scared. Why folks watch horror movies and go to attractions, right?

Yuji will play with an oujia board.

Fan of a movie series titled the Human Earthworm and actually can find the beauty and love in said movies. He's so real for that.

So far it's just simple stuff like that, right?

First time seeing a curse? Admits to being scared, but barely even flinches. When Megumi talks about the Cursed Finger and mentions how curses want to eat it? His response?

"Why, is it good?"

IT'S A FINGER?!

When informed about Inumaki's technique? What was the example he uses? "So if he says 'die' then it will happen?" Out of all the examples?! He was more impressed by the technique than actually fearful of it.

That Cursed Doll he had to train with? Called it "cute" and Gojo questioned that. In fact, when meeting Yaga, Yuji commented on how the dolls were cute.

How he fights is even a little odd and unsettling. He immediately goes into action, doesn't even need to hear the bell. He always has this look on his face that "Yeah, your kneecaps are mine". Not once has I ever recalled he actually smiles during a fight. Unlike some of the others who have showcased some enjoyment or some type of being unhinged in a "to hell with it" mood, Yuji always has this almost animalistic glare, that kind of unhinged. He isn't holding back, even against normal people like the high school bullies in chapter 163. Sometimes I question if he even knows how to hold back.

He doesn't like to get violent or kill. If he has to, he will. But it's just not anything he can brush off or be like "Yeah, I like doing it".

Then the idea of dying? Yeah, Yuji makes it clear he knows people will die. Execution placed on his head? He accepts dying with Sukuna instead of asking if there's any way to work around it, find a solution. Keep in mind, Sukuna is downright evil and does nothing but make life hard for Yuji every chance gets.

However, by the end, Yuji changes from choosing to die with Sukuna, so that no one else has to suffer, to offering Sukuna to live along side him even if no one accepts that.

Oh, let's not forget his family.

Yeah, Sukuna I just mentioned? That's his uncle by soul reincarnation. Jin, Yuji's dad who we don't really know what happened to him, is the reincarnation of Sukuna's twin that Sukuna ate in the womb. Doesn't stop there.

Yuji's mother, Kenjaku? Actually a 1000+ year old sorcerer who body hops by implanting their brain into whatever body they find convenient for their plans. One of those bodies happen to be Kaori Itadori, Jin's wife. Jin's dead wife. Kenjaku played wife in a woman's dead body, the same body Yuji was born from.

Yuji was born out of a corpse. With one of the Cursed Finger somehow already sealed inside him.

His other family members include Death Paintings: Choso, Eso, Kechizu, Noranso, Sho-oso, Tanso, Sanso, Kotsuso, and Shoso. His older siblings (technically) through Kenjaku, who was possessing Noritoshi Kamo's (the ancestor) body at the time. And guess what? Their blood consists of a human's blood, a cursed spirit's and Kenjaku's.

Yeah, like them, Yuji isn't really human. Again, born with one of Sukuna's Cursed Fingers already sealed in him. Without Cursed Energy, he was already outrunning cars and possessing strength not normal for the average human.

Oh, wait, and let's not forget his 'appetite'. He will eat anything if it means saving people. And he has. Other than Cursed Fingers, the other Cursed Objects Yuji consumed are his own siblings 4 - 9. Mind you, they were akin to fetuses contained in glass jars. (He isn't happy about eating them or anything for that matter though. I wouldn't be either.)

In all, he's just fridge horror with a some goodness mixed in there. I'm just rambling here.

[kentuckyfriedmegumi]

i wrote an entire analysis on yuji's and megumi's parallels throughout the series

what i think is interesting regarding megumi's and yuji's characters and how they are made to foil each other is that we see from the beginning how their stories are intertwined. from their very first interactions we see them save each other and that sets off a catalyst in how they save each other throughout the series, which is both selflishy and impulsively.

like we see them act without thought, both acting for their own reasons for why they decide to save each other. yuji's selfishness is different than megumi's though, of course. we see him act in selflessness to the point that it becomes selflishness. he WILL sacrifice himself for the greater good, regardless of those around him that care for him, because he thinks that the only thing that matters for his life is that he saves as many people as he can. this comes from the "curse" placed on him by his grandfather.

however, with megumi's selfishness, it comes from his own desire to live by his standards that he's placed on the world in his own twisted view of life due to his upbringing and life as a sorcerer. megumi doesn't think that everyone deserves to live the way that tsumiki and yuji do, and that's why he admires them so much. but this also ties into his self-imagery issues and how he thinks that he doesn't deserve to walk alongside him. this is where his self-destructive ideas come into play where he thinks that everything is fine as long as he can use mahoraga to save the ones he loves because his life doesn't matter as much as others.

we see this foil/parallel (i know this is an oxymoron, but they ultimately have differing beliefs while still acting in a similar fashion) grow between them throughout the series as the save each other and understand the other's struggles. megumi sees that yuji has gone through something after he's revived in chapter 33:

megumi: “itadori, you okay?” yuuji: “well, it’s a big job but i should be fine.” megumi: “no, something happened, didn’t it?” yuuji: “huh, what are you talking about?”

megumi can tell that something has been/is bothering yuuji, even after his insistence that he’s fine at this point, megumi has lost and mourned yuji, while yuji has lost and is mourning junpei.

there's also the classic scene in chapter 63, after yasohachi bridge where they both realize that yuji being alive means that curses are killing more people:

megumi: “don’t tell him.” yuuji: “hey! don’t tell fushiguro. don’t you dare tell him”

this is another instance of them trying to save each other/carry the other's burden as they act as foils. they both feel they are at fault for the deaths and while megumi doesn't regret it ("i never once regretted saving you"), yuji acts in a way that he feels is deserving of his life (in that he wants to "earn" his life because megumi saved him and he doesn't want it to be for nothing)

then of course we get to shibuya and yuji has his moment of giving up and feeling that he is undeserving of living because of the lives sukuna killed. he has his conversation with todo and he is able to pick himself back up, but he still feels like he needs to make up for every life lost. we see the parallel with megumi here in 256 where he tells yuji that he wants to give up. we expect him to get up right away like yuji did back in shibuya, but sukuna cuts them off and megumi doesn't fight back.

then of course their dynamic comes full circle as they both talk in 266, where yuji is able to relate to megumi in his grief and loss and tells megumi that he understands why he's made his decision. what i think is really beautiful about this chapter is that we probably expected the convo to go similar to yuji's with todo, where it's like "i know you're down now, but we must prevail!!" type stuff. but we don't get that with megumi and yuji because they understand each other at a very basic core level. we see yuji give him the choice to live or die as he tells megumi that he accepts him either way.

yuji and megumi are like yin and yang. they have very different motivations, beliefs, and ideals, but they ultimately work together and find harmony in their differences. i think the way that gege has written the two of them and their characters is really cool and it's that very reason why i'm so miffed that we don't get to see a true conclusion to their dynamic as far as this last chapter goes. i would really REALLY like to see a final, good, emotional conversation between the two of them because they deserve it.

[jedi-enthusiast]

Hello. How are you?

Can you raise an explanation as to why The Jedi Padawans were sent to fight on the front lines alongside The Clones and Jedi Knights/Masters, please?

Of course, the Padawans need Masters but I'd assume there would probably be enough inside The Temple to teach them, despite the war...

I know The Jedi wouldn't want to send their children onto the front lines, so I'm trying to think of how they'd ended up there anyway.....

Thanks in advance (if you do have an explanation. If not, thanks anyway).

Good night/morning!

Hey, I'm doing alright---I'm sick rn, but I'm hoping that it'll pass soon so I can get back to my normal shenanigans <3

So the out-of-universe explanation is just that TCW was a show made for kids and so there are gonna be kid characters doing all the cool fighting and battle stuff. Is it pretty unrealistic? Yeah, but this is also a show set in space with magic powers and laser swords lol

In-universe things get a little more complicated and we kind of have to make our own assumptions based on what we already know.

In TPM we see that children...aren't really treated like children, from a young age they're actually treated more like teenagers or even adults. Padme is the queen of an entire planet at 14, a job so dangerous that she has 12 body-doubles who pretend to be her so she doesn't get killed, ready to die in her place---body-doubles who are probably of a similar/the same age. Anakin is allowed to compete in a pod-race on Tatooine at age 9, a race that is shown multiple times to be dangerous and get people killed, and it's treated as completely normal by both his mother and his opponents.

So we can probably deduce that, while the children are obviously still children, they're expected---and shown---to be more capable and independent than they would irl. They hold a level of maturity and responsibility at a younger age, and this is completely normal in the SW universe.

So the explanation is that padawans' ages don't really come into question.

We see from how Anakin and Obi-Wan react to Ahsoka, who is 13 in TCW movie, when she introduces herself as a padawan---they're shocked and view her as too young to be one, with Anakin continuously calling her a "youngling." From that, we can deduce that generally padawans are older than 13 and---in a universe where a 14 year old is seen as mature enough to rule a planet and other 13-15 year olds are mature enough to possibly die for said ruler---taking a padawan who is, say, 15+ into battle isn't really odd or seen as morally questionable.

As George Lucas says regarding Ahsoka being brought into the war, "she's being trained as a Jedi Knight, she's got this."

And so do all of the other padawans, maybe more so since a lot of them are probably older than her. They're Jedi, they're not younglings anymore, they can handle the responsibility and---if they can't---they're still just students and their master is right there to protect and teach them.

That seems to be the canon intention, at least. If you want to take a more nuanced look at it through the lense of them actually being children, rather than the canon intent of them being more mature children who can handle these things, you're probably going to have to come up with your own reasons why the Jedi would bring the padawans into it. In my fics, I usually go with the idea that the Jedi didn't have much of a choice, just due to what their training is/does as well as different concerns with leaving them at the Temple, as well as pressure from the Senate to have "every Jedi available" on the front lines---but you can obviously do something different, if that doesn't sing to your tune.

I hope my ramble answered your question <3

[lavender-phoenix-flames]

I think it is quite funny jc stans and their relentless tries in making jiang cheng good and likeable or going extreme lengths to prove "look wwx is bad too so it's all equal haha"

At the end of the day the text disproves everything they made up, they can blissfully accept and argue their deluded fanon to be true but it never will be. And I sleep well at night knowing that mxtx made him a loser miserable asshole and I had enough reading comprehension to know that.

Also I know jc stans seethe at the fact wwx is the ideal protagonist that he is cuz when you compare jc to wwx you truly see how big of loser jc is, how much lacking he is in comparison. Wwx is so abundant in positive traits, he is literally so good at everything except cooking and then there's jc who barely has any good traits. Their tries to paint wwx as morally grey make them look like absolute idiots cuz the narrative and the author disproves the claim. "Oh but I don't agree with the author" well your approval doesn't matter cuz in mdzs universe wwx's actions are justified and jc's aren't, also most of jc's actions are presented in a negative light anyways.

They try and make him less of a loser making stuff up like "best jiujiu" "best sect leader" "oh look jc knew/predicted everything abt wwx" "wwx is reckless and impulsive and jc is so level headed" and none of these mentioned claims are true and even when author says he is despised by women cuz of his rancid personality they are like "no she is joking ofc ofc" or "he is actually aroace" and don't even let me get started on how they want to pair him up with lan xichen or nie huaisang when in text neither of them cares about him and the fact jc himself is a homophobe and they do it just cuz they want him to not die alone pfft.

Jc stans so delusional, I bet mxtx finds them so funny, I mean how can someone be so bad at reading lol

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

you are love itself (君は愛そのものだ)

cw. fem!reader, childhood friend au, established relationship, love as worship, love as a choice, reader has a defined devil fruit ability

pairing. portgas d. ace x reader

synopsis. his skin is dotted in stardust.

notes. a 1.3k look into those short moments of privacy you have with ace on the moby. i got the title from 'therefore you and me' after rewatching this amazing asl brothers animatic for the billionth time. cover comes klimt's the kiss (1908).

Everything is made of stardust; the stars that made Ace are simply visible to the eye.

They couldn't be contained in the depths of his body like the rest of the world's inhabitants. It's scattered all across his skin in a beautiful display, matching the skies they fell from. Isn't that something? You brush a hand against warm skin in awe. It's all right there. The stars themselves rest upon his skin, how beautiful is that? How could anyone want someone like that dead?

When you were children, Ace told you he would bring you the moon.

What do you need the moon for when you've been touching the stars since you were 10?

Straddling his lap, you can't help laughing as you think you'd been fighting a losing battle from the start. From the beginning, you'd been drawn to Ace and his stars and you wanted to follow where they'd go for the rest of your life.

"What's so funny?" Ace murmurs into your shoulder.

"I think I was born to love you." It is the only plausible conclusion for you to reach after 10 years of loving the same person. For the half of your life you've known him, you've chosen Ace from day one. You will continue to choose him for the rest of the life you have. You chose to chase him all around Mt. Corvo, you chose to be his friend, you chose to join his crew and your heart chose him even if your head had been slow to realize. "We don't need to find the One Piece," you murmur as you lead a trail of kisses from his shoulder to Ace's cheek. "I already have everything the world has to offer right here."

You feel Ace stiffen beneath you before he laughs sheepishly, "I think you need to have your eyes checked if you think that."

"Hey," you lean back so you can see his face. Your brows are furrowed sternly but your eyes sparkle with mischief and your lips stretch into a challenging grin. "I have better eyes than you, I can see the soul."

Ace snorts but his voice is light and as warm as the smile painting his face, "souls of the dead, yeah." Smiles suit Ace more than the frowns that were once commonplace when you were younger.

"That still counts," you protest with a chuckle. He doesn't have to believe he's worthy of it, you'll tell Ace all the same. You cup his face in your hands and enjoy the vibration of his mellifluous laughter under your fingers tips as you squeeze his cheeks. "There's a lot you can learn about this sort of stuff when you can see the dead." How the soul carries its wounds even after death. How the soul carries the essence of everything that makes something itself. How love can carry on beyond the grave.

You've seen it countless times by now in your truthfully short time of being a power holder.

The spirit of a man who wanted a few berries to leave as a surprise his husband could stumble upon to brighten his day.

An elderly woman dancing in the town square, seemingly alone following the steps she took with her lost love long ago. Unbeknownst to her, however, her love danced with all the same as they did once a long time ago.

Pods of orcas full of members past and present, refusing to part from their birth pod even in death.

How beautiful it is, a love like that.

Even while deceased, they choose to remain by their beloved all the same.

Whenever it is Ace's time, he'll take his stars with him and they will rest on his skin just as they did when he was alive. But I'll make sure you're so happy you won't want to stay, you vowed when you partook of the sea's cursed fruit. You carry this vow even now. Ace will die a happy death but more importantly, he will live a long and mirthful life.

(You can tell for as sure as your eyes are dry; the urge to cry and scream in mourning and warning nonexistent. Still it's your heart's desire that you go first so you don't ever have to risk the day you know death will come for Portgas D. Ace.)

"You know what I think," you cease your pinching, letting your lax thumbs stroke his face. Dark eyes look up at you like you're a dream and gold like sunlight rests in your chest. It's light yet heavy and even if your heart is calm, its rhythmic beating tells you something precious. And he's so, so precious. "I think that when people move on, they're reborn as someone else. Then they get to live life all over again. And one day, that's gonna happen to us."

Then you'll cease to be the 'you' you have been and so will he.

Maybe that time, you'll be raised in separate seas and there will be no trio of brothers you'll latch onto. Maybe he'll be born somewhere in Paradise but I'll be from the West Blue. Or maybe he'll be a fishman. Or a giant!

Maybe next time, Ace will be a short girl with firey auburn hair and chocolate brown eyes with the disposition to match. Or he'll be a scarred and gruff dragon moray eel fishman who is an overt romantic.

Maybe next time his stars will follow him as the marker that ties him to his previous life. Then you'll recognize him the moment you see him. But even if I don't, I'll love you then too. You don't need reminders of who he was to make you want him again.

Whatever the outcome may be, you will embrace it wholly.

"Whenever that happens, I'm gonna find you and I'm going to love you all over again. You can be a girl or a giant or a fishman." Or maybe he'll be the tiny human and you'll be the giant. It will be nice being taller than Ace for once, you tell him as much with a laugh. There's a spot of wetness at the corner of his eyes that you wipe away instinctively. "Or… maybe this world runs in one big loop and we get to be us again but that time we get to make different choices. Do the stuff we didn't do last time. But regardless of all the different things I might end up doing, the one thing that is gonna stay the same is that I'll choose you all over again."

There's a pause before Ace ducks from your gaze with a wet laugh, forehead pressed against your shoulder again. The unmistakeable feel of warm droplets subsequently follow. "Thatch must be cutting onions," he chuckles weakly. "Sorry."

"Dummy," you wrap your arms around his shoulders and inhale his scent. There's a natural sweetness it you can't explain; it's sweet but there is a peppery kick. It's been that way since the first day you met him. I love him, I love him, I love him. The sentiment echoes throughout your entire being. "it's okay to cry."

"Would you really want me again?" His voice is soft and unsure like a young bird who doesn't know if it can trust its wings.

Who else would I want?

Why would I want anyone else?

I've known you for 10 years, Ace. There's nothing about you I don't want.

"Over and over again," you kiss his temple once, twice and then a third time before you lift his head and kiss the corners of his eyes. "It's you and no one else."

A noise of surprise escapes you when Ace's lips press against your own but you relax a beat later, humming tenderly. You relish every sensation, how his arms wrap around you tight and how his fingers gently dig into your back. The taste of salt on your lips is akin to the ocean and your heartbeat reverberates throughout your chest.

Yes, it's telling you something precious.

[qiu-yan]

3 6 7 11 16 20 25

bro is trying to get me killed lmao /s

choose violence ask game

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr:

this shit

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

gonna be honest here, the single most annoying part of the MDZS fandom is that one hyperspecific sort of wang and xian stan who insists on shitting on not only the other characters, but also other wang and xian fans who ship the characters in ways they don't approve of. this kind of stan can not only be relied on to have the worst possible takes on everyone ranging from jin guangyao to jiang cheng, they can also be relied on to harass other wang and xian fans simply for putting wang on the bottom. fun times.

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

surprisingly, no one yet. sometimes i feel the hater urge to dunk on the morally-pure version of wei wuxian that the diehard wei wuxian stannies have collectively hallucinated, but i still find the wei wuxian from canon to be quite compelling.

11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered

the "canon jiang cheng" and "canon jc" tags. everyone stfu

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

"morally pure wei wuxian who did nothing wrong ever." to me, wei wuxian's hubris, his unique capability for inventing new kinds of cruelty, his failure to think of the consequences of his actions, his tendencies to run away from negative feelings, and his ultimate failure to protect the people he was trying to protect, are what make him a compelling character to me. these flaws in parallel with his courage, kindness, stalwart moral compass, and genuine love make him interesting to me. so i don't quite understand fans who instead insist on erasing all the morally grey and highly interesting stuff he did in favor of insisting he did nothing wrong ever.

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

not quite what the question is asking, but i found the actual wang and xian romance in the original novel to be a bit lacking. mainly because (as other people have said already) a lot of the romantic development happened when lan wangji was drunk. at the very least, i wanted to see lan wangji's reactions to his various drunken adventures once he sobered up the next day, and i'm rather disappointed we never got to see that.

furthermore, on wei wuxian's end, it did kind of feel like wei wuxian was using this exciting new romance to distract himself from his past problems, even though it also seemed like he didn't actually know all that much about lan wangji. the only version of the romance that makes sense to me is the one where wei wuxian was already into lan wangji (subconsciously or consciously) in his first life; otherwise, wei wuxian falling in love with lan wangji during his second life, when he's yet to process any of the shit that happened in his first life, feels too much like him running away from his problems with a guy he believes will validate all his decisions. meanwhile, on lan wangji's end, i feel like the novel just did not give us a lot to work with in regards to his character. so it feels like, if you want to be a fan of lan wangji, you have to do a lot of the legwork of building up his personality yourself.

what also disappointed me a bit about wang and xian, as well as lan wangji's character arc itself, is that lan wangji is never really challenged on a moral-dilemma level in the same way that many other characters are challenged by the story. how do i explain this...alright, i'll put it this way. i've been brainrotted about madohomu (madoka magica) since i was in middle school. and that's partially because i know for a fact that, if homura was put in the trolley problem and had to choose between [killing 5 strangers] and [allowing madoka to die], she would choose to kill those 5 strangers to save madoka. but after reading MDZS, i realized i legitimately did not know what lan wangji would do in such a moral dilemma. because MDZS equates [being morally righteous] with [supporting wei wuxian], lan wangji is never placed in a dilemma where he has to choose between sacrificing wei ying and doing something the audience would think of as unforgivable.

these are just my own hyperspecific tastes, though.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

gonna put my hater hat on for a second, but i kind of roll my eyes at the jiang cheng haters complaining about how jiang cheng stans keep posting in the "canon jiang cheng" tag. dude, if it bothers you that much, just block the jiang cheng stans. then things will be peaceful in your favorite tag again.

[sleeplesscenarios]

kim dokja: why are people not improving that much when they're with me? :/

also kim dokja: it's alright, friends, i have a plan for everything, you don't need to worry or even think about anything, i have matched every detail of my plan to your current skill level and possible potential, all you have to do is trust and follow me ^^

[sergle]

I'm thinking abt that pretty fall leaves embroidery pattern post and about how like... it is categorically a repost, it's a reupload. right? a thing that is generally disliked. but because it's credited, it's genuinely boosting the artist in question. and it could ALWAYS be like this. reposting content could ALWAYS be a symbiotic relationship, but because sourcing back to the original creator of something is so uncommon, it's just easier to ask people not to repost it at all. and people still don't understand the difference. or they'll go to the effort of cropping out usernames/signatures to repost something, which is More Effort than literally crediting the creator of something you liked enough to want to repost. Like. I literally don't actually care if my own shit gets reposted, you have to understand. I just don't want it STOLEN. But "do not repost" is easier to write on my art than "you can repost this, but don't alter the image/remove my signature, don't you dare write 'credit goes to the artist' because that is not credit, please link back to my original post or someplace that you can actually find me. please use an actual link/url instead of writing a non-clickable link of my username, because making it text instead of a clickable link cuts the number of people who will go to the effort of visiting my own page in Half." All those aggregate themed accounts, those fuckin annoying as hell instagrams and facebook groups that are like "body positive art we love wamen 💕 hashtag feminism" and then MASS-STEAL plus sized art created by women, if pages like these that always go and steal my older self-portraits and other works... If they just put a link to my prints of those pieces in the text of those posts, or, fuck, my commission info page? I would literally be living on the moon right now. I would have a house on the moon

[gratuiciel]

bad toman timeline + text posts

[bumblingbabooshka]

His name is Spring and when Amandus told him that that was a season on Earth he stared at him blankly until he changed the subject [didn't know how to respond] [Patreon | Commissions]

[randomnameless]

The quintessential problem with Claude and the deer is that they should not have been involved in the war at all, or at least not Claude. What does he have to gain participating on it? Nothing, and he makes it even more explicit in azure moon when he dissolves the alliance. He could've pretty easely given the power to Lorenz or Hilda and nope out of there (what he does in silver snow), as it is clear througouht white clouds that he doesn't have as much of an attachtment to Fodlan as he does Almyra. And it isn't like the devs couldn't take the deer studients out during post-TS, when Marianne unless recruited is pressumed dead, and Lorenz unless recruited joins the imperial forces and dies helping the empire.

Outside of the problems with racism and the bigoted tropes related to "savage cultures" the Fodlan games perpetuate, the devs did not know how to use one of their house leaders for the main plot of "church vs empire", and idk if that's because they bit more than they could chew, or if it was intentional taking into account who gets the short end of the stick in both games happens to be mixed and from one of those "savage cultures".

TBH...

It's on the devs for having wanted to add a third lord to their game, but failing to, well, link him to any of those plots.

Supreme Leader's war of unification?

Well, Nopes gave him a part this plot - and yet there's no third choice in this plot : you bend the knee or you die. Nopes' wise, Clout decided (in his route) to bend the knee with his "alliance" that is totally supposed to make Supreme Leader reconsider her desire to roll over Leicester and make it part of Adrestia again!

(Granted, Nopes don't tell us how his plea to stop the war after killing the evil lizard lady will play out and leaves an open ending...)

In Houses, well, he doesn't want Leicester to be flattened, and goes on the offensive (counter offensive?) when Billy pops up with basically what is the plot events of Silver Snow (down to using the same strategy with disguises) with the Gronder Map.

And that addition radically changes... well, everything regarding Claude's relevance : he cannot form an alliance with the Blue Lord or the Kingdom to get rid of the Empire because "plot convenient myopia" and apparently Dimitri BaD enough that he attacks Alliance troops for no reason.

Forget SS, GW (and AM, in a way) is just using plot contrived excuse to... not have an united from to face the Empire. Why? IDK. Each Lord must be the hero of his story, or the unification boner means only one of them can "win" an unified Fodlan i'd guess.

Nabateans and the plot ?

No one gives a fig about that "plot", so it's basically pursuing a side-quest for no payoff.

Now, as @fantasyinvader wrote, Claude's story and journey as one who is ignorant and gets to learn and clear his misconceptions + the background of the land we're living in could have been interesting, doubly so given how Billy is voiceless and cannot play the "protag discovers the world at the same time as the player does" role.

But it has... no payoff.

Much like Rhea's infodump about the World, Relics and Nabateans... Claude reacts to the mention that Billy has a rock for heart, and not about his crest, his shiny bow or the fact that Rhea also had a vested interest in, uh, getting rid of prejudice against people who are perceived as "different" because her family was genocided for that.

Hell, the entire "prejudice" angle from Supreme Leader's war is swept under the rug, so we can have the Deers say nonsense like wanting to rekt Thales for Supreme Leader's sake, while only Flayn and Seteth can hear her "nabateans shouldn't have power over the people"...

There's no parallel drawn in the game about Claude and Rhea's situation - since she's at the center of this subplot - about being perceived as "outsiders" and not being able to do various things from existing to "rule over the people" because of what they are, or even faking their identities and building metaphorical walls between them and the people they're living with because they are afraid of rejection.

Nah, we can't have that, Rhea must be irrelevant to the possible, while also being the biggest scapegoat/dragon of this saga at the same time as a nebulous red herring to sell pots of tea.

Ihthe "fight against prejudice and make people accept each other" angle was that relevant to his route, Claude would have most likely talked or interacted with Dimitri and learnt of his plan to cleanse Duscur's name in his Father's assassination, raised a brow at Petra being a hostage and done something else than give a surprised pikachu face at Rhea's infodumps.

He could have reacted at her reveal that if you might want to live in peace with some people, if those people don't want that and label you as nothing more than fodder or things to be looted, it's not going to work.

And of course, gave a reaction at your second in command (unofficially?)'s reveal that, uh, her house keeps identured Almyran children as war prisoners?

Some people already made some AUs or "what ifs" routes for a proper Claude route and not the nonsense that we got in FE16 where it's basically "I react to the same plot events that happen in the other routes but top it all with a zombie".

The Deers could have been "better introduced" in a plot about getting rid of prejudice, or learning the causes of this prejudice : Marianne was/is hunted because of her blood ties to Maurice - not because what she did, but because what Momo did back then! - Lysithea was treated as a guinea pig and her house rolled over by Adrestia who has a less than rosy views about the "offshoots" that are called Leicester and Faerghus, Lorenz could explain that prejudice, just like piety, are tools used by people whenever they're relevant, like, some people being pissed at foreigners and some who aren't because they make money through international trading like Margrave Edmund does, Hilda justifying her House's animosity towards Almyrans because they lost many people in those pointless skirmishes (maybe a closed ones? Her mom or Uncle or whatever?) which would make Claude realise that "ending prejudice" is a much more difficult quest than, idk, just killing one or two randoms.

The commoner trio might share Claude's views about prejudice and welcoming foreigners, but have more "mundane" worries like being able to have a roof and food to eat, which might be the case of some people in Leicester, or tell us more about Leicester and how it works (give us more insight about the different countries if Fodlan ffs).

Maybe we could have add a Claude who learns and discovers Fodlan, and along the way, starts to love the land as much, if not more, than Almyra and really wanting to protect this land from whatever Supreme Leader's cooking, or becoming an Almyra v.2.

I don't think making Claude the third wheel of the plot was maliciously intentional because of the, uh, implications with RL cultures and Almyra, but more like they didn't know where to put him.

I noticed you wrote the conflict as one that is "the church vs the empire", but I do not really agree - if that was the case, the war would have stopped in VW/AM/SS the second Rhea was caught.

The main conflict is Supreme Leader's war of conquest - with the twist that the devs were really banking on their brilliant idea of making the red emperor the titular waifu of the game that each person/lord/whatever Rhea is must find a way to excuse and/or justify her actions.

With this in mind, AM is basically Dimitri's fall (and rise!) because of his ties to Supreme Leader.

In VW? The game cannot explore too much outside of the Supreme Leader scope so we're left with.. well, what VW was.

Claude cannot go on a journey to discover Fodlan and get rid of his misconceptions... because part of those same misconceptions are used by Supreme Leader to start her war, or the sheer concept of a conquest, aka a nation being rolled over by another is anathema to his, supposed, ideal of wanting people to accept each other despite their differences.

I ranted about it since day 5, but the Nabatean subplot (and Fodlan in general) is accessory to Supreme Leader war, there is no point aka no payoff for learning all of that, because you cannot challenge the one who wants to unify the continent.

As such, Claude cannot deviate too far from this plot - while receiving infodumps about "the lore" - and we end up with third wheel of a bike and characters who, at first and second glance, appear to be irrelevant.

Fodlan ends up unified despite starting as three separate countries, we feel bad for Supreme Leader and mourn her unknown ideals, Rhea is gone and the Agarthans aren't a problem anymore.

the second the devs said leicester was a republic, claude was doomed. Merchant republics are always irrelevent or straight up useless in the FE series!

[twilightarcade]

if I was a character I would've gotten non binary headcannoned so hard

[cluescorner]

They fucking did it again those bastards. Jason Todd fucking dies 2: Electric Boogaloo. Fuck it, let's go for a threepeat at this point. It'll be funny as hell.

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[galehowl]

Been passively thinking about my Digimon pet project and realized what a nightmare it'd honestly be for the Tamer characters in the setting to just exist, due to social media rip.

I can just imagine constantly having videos and pictures of them plastered all over the internet and every soc media site and app, whenever they have to go out and do their job, not to mention the total lack of privacy and some people definitely finding out where they live and all your information and being unhinged about it. Since that's kind of the reality of things as is.

Not to mention that people would probably try to film everything on their phones or whatever, whenever there's a rogue/wild Digimon spotted, or something interesting ( read: dangerous ) is going on, with no regard for their own safety

Should probably consider giving the characters some kind of disguise or something, now that I think about it lol