#and love being weaponized against us

[silverirony]

shrue changing the promised bride tale to better suit their political agenda was just so. from a story about a young woman who gives herself over to the trawler-man to avoid getting married (a parallel to carpenter's aromanticism) to a pro-war propaganda meant to encourage helpless people to sacrifice themselves to feed the gods. they created a love story from something that was never meant to be one and then weaponized it. i am going insane

[5ummit]

All Hail, Lord Sauron! The New Dark Lord!

[kurithedweeb]

I just learned why Shad hates Irene in canon and knowing what I do now about everyone’s favorite the Matron, I can say with my whole heart,

What the hell, Irene

[nadiajustbe]

Everytime a person reablogs my hmc book post as "#studioghibli" an angel loses his wings

[randomnameless]

Typing a reply made me re-check Big B's paralogue

And I remembered this post where I ranted about some stuff

Big B goes :

It's not exactly a real Relic, per se. Nope. It's a replica. Crafted after the War of Heroes. It's a secret family heirloom of sorts from my mom's village.

Now, we know the weapons "similar" to Relics were used during the War of the Eagle and the Lion by Loog's side, so yes, Relics (even if they don't belong to the Elites, they are still powered by Crest Stones and made of Umbral Steel unlike Aymr!) were still being made post WoH.

And that makes me think...

In the earlier post, I was kind of trying to make sense of Willy's conquest and came up with the idea of him brutally putting to the sword/axe/whatever he used the clans and people who knew how to "craft" relics, aka "seeking more power", but also, just people who know because this secret must be hidden at all costs.

Willy's callous actions might have been done with the best intentions (protect Nabateans) but it still led him to slaughter people whose only "sin" was... knowledge.

Fodlan games being what they are, we will not know if Vajra Mushti was made of "material" that was "already harvested" in Zanado, or if a Nabatean - post Zanado - was trounced to craft it, like a random one who was not present during the initial genocide and ultimately was killed for the same reasons. We know Pan was most likely an Agarthan person, was he the one who gifted "new golden weapons" to Loog's side? Were those weapons from "freshly harvested" Nabateans, or made from the "previously harvested" ones whose bones were in the barracks?

Now, concerning Balthus' in particular...

This relic is, per his words, something crafted after the WoH and it was treated as a heirloom in Kupala. Mmkay.

But we also have this :

There's a story they tell where my mom grew up. Long ago, the village got in a squabble with some folks looking to conquer the place. A village elder gave some holy red stuff to their wounded soldiers. Some kind of liquid, who knows... After she did that, some of them made a complete recovery, against all odds. The rest of them were changed, but not for the better. They up and vanished before long. Crests suddenly manifested for the ones who survived.

The Apostle Chevalier left Garreg Mach after the Rite of Rising and went in the mountains, most likely Kupala.

Then, he gave his blood because some people tried to conquer the village (tfw Kupala is located near the Almyran border?), some people got crests and the others, well, didn't (Balthus wonders what "vanished" means, but maybe it means they were turned in demonic beasts?).

And then... Balthus says the gauntlets were "crafted" (so he calls them replicas) so it's knowledge they were "made" and we know what kind of "material" was used.

Assuming Chevalier was a Nabatean (since the only occurences of people healing and getting a crest thanks to magic blood come from people who got their transfusion from a nabatean, Nopes!Seteth mentions how an Elite was supposedly "cured" after getting a crest...) - this would mean he fails the rite of rising and retires in the mountains, live in a village with humans, humans are threatened so he saves them -

and then he is fucking harvested and crafted in a weapon

(Vajra-Mushti has two crest stones (tfw gauntlet) so maybe some random Agarthan gave them the second "crest stone" if Chevalier only had one)

Nabatean Chevalier helps humans and is harvested as a result by the same humans he saved and who knew they could "craft" weapons from him.

(in the best course of action, just like Aubin, Chevalier died "from natural causes" and humans later used his bones to craft the relic, instead of killing him)

Wouldn't this mean, at the end of the day though, that Willy would be, in this theory, right?

If humans know how to craft "golden weapons", they will craft them, regardless of the nature of the "material" used - the people of Kupala were saved by Chevalier the Nabatean... and they show their gratitude by desacrating his remains to build a weapon and treat "it" as a "family heirloom"

(if not straight up killing him to craft said weapon!)

Given how fond Yuri was of old man Aubin, I picture him having the same reaction as Edward from FMA who found out the "being" he transmuted wasn't his mother, when he will find out "what" is the nifty relic he uses.

(granted, given the age of all parties and how the Fetters of Dromi were previously in Dagda, I wonder if Aubin was the one who was turned in an accessory, or if it wasn't another snow dragon...)

In the end - current Fodlan (or post WoH fodlan) - isn't safe for Nabateans because humans will always seek new "weapons" so what was is the solution to adopt, now that this "knowledge" is out in the wild?

If Willy picked the "erase those who know" option, he slaughters innocent people and doesn't even manage to bury the secret, since Chevalier (and maybe the ones from the Loog War?) was harvested, so he just killed a bunch of people for no results.

Rhea's lie about "gifts from the goddess don't think about it"... was sooner or later not going to work anymore, one of her scholars nearly managed to pierce this secret but desisted, and the few relics that "appear" spontanously, called "replicas" or what not throw a wrench in this narrative (just like crests gifted via transfusion!).

No wonder why Rhea thought only Sothis could find a solution - but anyways, what is the solution in this situation???

[fuwaprince]

When somebody only uses my chosen name while putting me down, it kind of makes me wish I didn't have a name at all.

And when somebody only uses my pronouns when they try to coerce me into something, then switch back to they/them when talking about me to anybody else, it kind of makes me uncomfortable af.

I sincerely do not enjoy being labeled or referred to. Being referred to is such a negative experience for me irl.

Yet not giving people a set of name/pronouns when they ask automatically seems to make them think you're secretly a serial killer trying to cover up something?????? Or like you're untrustworthy and must be hiding because you're a Bad Person instead of just not wanting to label yourself.

Can I just please not be forced to label myself for everybody else's comfort?

I feel like that information is so personally intimate anyways like unless you know me and we're close, why do you even care? I don't think it's necessary for the first stages of getting to know somebody even though in this culture we've normalized it to be that way.

Plus if I don't give you a name then I have the opportunity to earn one. Give me a name that you think I deserve and let it be what you honor me by instead! How about that? It's probably the only way I'll be comfortably perceived since some people will change my labels as they see fit regardless. Just call me what you like, I feel like my name/pronouns have been corrupted as is

[thelibraryofsylphide]

Pantheon, the Unbreakable Spear, Soldier of Humanity

Pantheon Moodboard series: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

[irl]

yea

[hechose]

mmm the way armand, if he stopped to think for ten seconds, could have actually heavily related to claudia. that he just wanted to be chosen, to be loved first and for all he is and not all he has to be. not for the shell of an image outside, but for what he is within--

[hayaku14]

i love when hakuba quickly switches from "why tf would you date this menace of all people, kudou 🤨" to "how do i use this against kuroba 🤔"

[orcelito]

Shino raising his dead friends and friend's dog from the dead with the power of bugs as one friend's cousin watches [not clickbait]

[diveyne]

just wrote a ted talk about sylas and sylas/morgana thank you for listening

[psilactis]

I just watched the first Furiosa trailer and.... I didn't like it

[lord-squiggletits]

Ahhhhh I really didn't imagine it, I still dislike Barber's way of writing Orion/Optimus just as much as I did on the first reading and all it took was rereading a few screencaps from one specific scene.

Literally I don't know which part annoys me more: Jetfire existing in the background solely to go "ORION PAX FUCKING SUCKS AND IS A HYPOCRITE", Orion being written like an edgy asshole who hates everyone, or Soundwave talking like an unhinged terrorist and the narrative expecting me to see Orion as the hypocrite for using violence to arrest terrorists.

Soundwave is seriously like "You have no proof we assassinated the Senate, but if we did assassinate the Senate it would've been justified, but also totally trust us bro, just because we could've hypothetically murdered the entire reigning government doesn't mean that we're violent bro come on just bc we assassinated-- I mean could have hypothetically had the means and cause to kill like a hundred people doesn't mean we were gonna kill anyone else, come on bro why are you calling us violent just bc we think some murder is okay" while Jetfire is in the background like "WOW ORION I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE WILLING TO BE VIOLENT IN RESPONSE TO OTHER PEOPLE BEING VIOLENT. YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR OWN SIDE'S FLAWS EVEN THOUGH YOU'RE LITERALLY DOING AN INVESTIGATION TO DECIDE WHETHER ONE OF YOUR COPS COMMITTED AN UNJUSTIFIED KILLING OR NOT. YOU HAVE DONE LITERALLY NOTHING TO TRY AND FIGHT THE CORRUPTION IN SOCIETY." (Jetfire had no way of knowing about OP and crew fighting the Senate's schemes in Shadowplay and Elegant Chaos, but as a reader it's very frustrating seeing Orion getting lambasted as never having done anything to fight society's corruption when he literally did, and by the time he was even working for Zeta Megatron was already evil and had the whole Senate assassinated.)

Like ughhhh oh my god I could have maybe enjoyed this story under a better writer but as it's written it's some "yet you participate in society, curious" levels of political commentary where at least one character seemingly only exists in the scene to shit on OP (something that happens a lot in Barber's works, like with Pyra Magna and Slide) and where OP is framed as a hypocritical asshole for a reaction that's very understandable given the context.

And also it's weird because Barber wants so badly for you to read Orion as some sort of hypocrite for being against terrorist activities but being willing to employ violence himself to arrest terrorists, yet... it turns out the big twist of the story is that the Decepticons WERE smuggling weapons and Soundwave DID lie to Orion (even if it was unintentionally), thus vindicating Orion's entire distrustful attitude? Like, it seems as if it was supposed to be an ACAB story showing how evil the police are for killing people and how Orion (as a cop) is evil for being a cop that uses violence on behalf of the state. Except uh. Then Barber wrote a plot where the Decepticons literally were smuggling weapons all along (and this is alongside lore from Megatron: Origin where we as the readers know for a fact the Decepticons/Starscream killed the Senate) so.... Like, it just seems to me that if Barber wanted to write an ACAB story about how the state monopoly on violence is bad, he probably shouldn't have written the Decepticons as actually being terrorists who literally did lie about smuggling weapons?

I feel like a better way to write an ACAB/anti-state-monopoly-on-violence would've been to like, explore the way that states take advantage of catastrophe/using scapegoat political movements to gather more power to themselves and justify removing citizens' rights with "it's an emergency, we're taking away your freedoms to protect everyone." Like, maybe Zeta passes some law saying that officers can search citizens without a warrant, which he justifies with the fact that Decepticon terrorism is so rampant that officers need immediate permission to conduct raids/searches. Except this is obviously a problem because people have a right to privacy, and probably the cops are super overzealous and end up arresting innocent people without cause (like idk, maybe just being friends with someone who is sympathetic to the Decepticons gets someone landed in jail? Maybe Jetfire gets arrested bc he's critical of the state and has hung out with Decepticon sympathizers before). So then Orion has an actual "are we the baddies?" moment where he wants to stop the bad people, but he realizes that his side are infringing on people's citizens and justifying police brutality for the sake of a nebulous "greater good," and that even though he and his cops were given greater power to supposedly "protect citizens," in practice they're actually doing great harm to citizens by invading their privacy, creating a surveillance state, and imprisoning people without just cause? Basically "we were given this power to stop terrorists from hurting civilians, but now we're hurting civilians too so are we actually doing any good?" Because that way Orion and his cops would ACTUALLY be in the wrong and their state monopoly on violence would be an actually widespread institutional thing where they're clearly being allowed to do bad things just because they're cops. Not just Orion investigating one singular police killing.

But with the story written as "Orion suspected the Decepticons of murdering the Senate (he's correct about this) but still investigated one of his officers to see if he committed a wrongful murder (literally him paying attention to his own side's wrongdoings, Jetfire), and it turns out the Decepticons WERE smuggling weapons and doing terrorism (Orion was correct about this)" it's just.......... like, Orion may not be morally correct, but his hunches/investigations about the suspected criminal activity were literally correct. AND HE WAS WILLING TO DO THIS INVESTIGATION IN THE FIRST PLACE. But for some reason he's still framed as if he's an asshole for this? Even though this is a point in the pre-war lore where Megatron won't back down from violence and has lost his way from his original pure intentions, so it's not like Orion can just go "let's put down our weapons and be friends and mutually trust each other to not stab each other in the back."

It just feels as if Barber's intentions to write an ACAB story where Orion is framed as being too judgmental and quick to be violent don't line up with the actual events of the story. The story is desperately trying to call Orion a hypocrite, but he really just seems as if he's reacting understandably to the events that are happening around him, so there's a real dissonance here where I don't understand why the ACAB story had the cops be right about the Decepticons committing terrorism, and I'm also supposed to see Orion as an asshole for correctly not trusting the Decepticons???

[death-rebirth-senshi]

Not to gush about my own characters again but I so adore the juxtaposition of the brutal look of the great stars as a weapon and the golden Erdtree armor. Poetic.

And patches is there because this was my first playthrough and I wasn't sure if I should join Volcano Manor immediately. Kind of unfortunate that you miss this encounter with him if you go to Volcano Manor immediately upon reaching Altus Plateau.