#depicting horrible stuff from time to time - i am inviting you to play the games

[theskoomacat]

i finally got both Blasphemous 2 endings and decided to watch the credits but with headphones off. but for some reason after they've ended, i am back at the last boss arena, standing in front of The Child who is, uh, sunbathing - instead of being dumped at the main menu. can't move or use any buttons. i wonder if this is a bug or this is like. the heaven i was promised lol

[daeva-agas]

I am playing Sakuya route in SLBP (mostly for the reward) and I wonder, where Nobunaga hatred toward ninjas comes from? This is like the 3rd game where he shows his disdain towards them. Can you explain why? Because I'm curious.

Oh no, it's that thing again.

Remind me what are the other ones. Is it Ninja Love? Nightshade? Non-otome games?

Anyway, this is a huge rant and IDK, could clog up people's dash so I will put it behind a cut.

I probably shouldn't say these about Japanese people writing about their own history and legends, but I hate this stupid "Nobunaga hates ninjas" trope, so my very grumpy answer is:

BECAUSE STUFFY CORPORATE SUITS ARE SO TERRIFIED OF CHANGE AND CAN'T BE ASSED TO TRY NEW THINGS. IF BULLSHIT TROPES STILL MAKE MONEY, THEN BY GOD THEY WILL KEEP MAKING IT UNTIL JESUS RETURNS.

And I'm giving the benefit of the doubt that they're doing this because "it's a trope that people seems to like", and not because they're just running off "I saw it in an anime/manga/novel/movie once" and never bother to Yahoo search it or open a book about it.

(I'm not all that mad anymore, but like, I will still go AAAAAAAAAAA every time it comes up)

"Nobunaga hates ninja" is a long-standing trope that's been around for decades in Japan. The oldest one I was able to find is this movie series called "Shinobi no Mono". Maybe there's something older, I don't know.

It's a historical fact that the Oda did invade Iga. However, there is so many context for it. Among many other things... one record says it's actually the people of Iga who sicced Nobunaga ON THE PROVINCE THEMSELVES.

It ended up being transformed into a "Nobunaga hates ninja" plotline because the above historical fact is being combined with the long-standing legend that "Iga is a place where ninjas live".

Also, in the 60s and 70s there’s this like... movement where people are really disgruntled at the government, and so because they can’t flat out write works about how much they hate the Japanese government of the time, they just write stuff about peasant heroes or vigilantes fighting against evil samurai lords as a way to vent their frustrations. Nobunaga being one of the easiest character to caricaturise because it’s not like the “evil stuff” they make him do is entirely wrong. The facts are just taken out of context and twisted for the sake of fiction. Evil/demonic/horrible Nobunaga as a trope in general seems to be relatively new from this era too, since Edo and Meiji works seems to present Nobunaga is an admirable heroic figure.

(well, they wrote about him doing kinda mean things, but it’s presented in a way that makes it sound like the writers think it’s “something that just happens” and not a big deal/not an entirely negative thing)

In real life there is no such thing as "sekrit ninjer village uwu", so honestly, if the above account is true, then it's possible that there's in-fighting among the people of Iga. It's what happens with the Saika people. Suzuki (Saika) Magoichi surrendered to Nobunaga and then some time later makes a request for the Oda army to come in and destroy this one guy he really hates.

If the story about the Iga folks inviting Nobunaga in themselves is actually false, I’ve not seen any other explanation for it yet, but I still think Nobunaga invading Iga is just business as usual. At the time of the Iga invasion, the surrounding provinces are already conquered, leaving Iga as this one tiny hole in the middle of what is technically "Oda territory". Maybe Nobunaga thinks this hostile province could cause problems in the surrounding regions, so he wants them gone. It's no different than, say, Nobunaga fighting a war against the Takeda and conquering them.

It's not even Nobunaga in command of the army (as far as reliable records go), so any depiction of Nobunaga personally leading his army into Iga is garbage. He sent one of his sons and a few generals to go off and fight, while he himself only comes in for inspection after everything's cleaned up.

The standard reasoning in bullshit Sengoku trope/fiction is that Nobu just doesn't trust woo woo shit, and only wants to do things the "legit" way (with soldiers and stuff). Ninja is considered woo woo because of their “secret arts”, and because they’re usually depicted as having no lords/masters but themselves, I guess he is wary of them rebelling against him or something.

Funny thing is, even if you actually buy into the ninjas thing, supposedly even the “guidebook of ninjas”, the Bansenshukai, says that the Oda has ninjas, so “Nobunaga hates ninjas” is just silly all around. Bansenshukai is this book supposedly detailing ninja clans and secret techniques and whatever, written in the 1600s, by one of the Fujibayashi descendants (IDK Sakuya’s grandkids I guess) 

[benisasoftboi]

Unorganised thoughts on Silver Snow:

When I finished Golden Deer, I said that it had felt like a more traditional Fire Emblem story than Blue Lions. Silver Snow is that but even more so (though GD is still the most trad-FE cast, IMO)

Having already played those two routes, it felt very much like a whirlwind tour of them both, plus another battle thrown in at the end - a battle that probably should have been harder, but I (completely accidentally) built the bulkiest Byleth imaginable, especially resistance wise, plus high magic - and so, by pairing high defensive stats with Nosferatu, I tanked every attack that came my way 

Gaming, for me, is just doing whatever the hell I feel like, stumbling into good results, and then pretending that I did it on purpose

I spent the whole battle with the Dragon Tales theme song stuck in my head. Kind of killed the mood

I really enjoyed that after wrapping up both the Edelgard and TWSITD plots, they basically Persona 4 you by trying to convince you that the whole game’s done now and all that’s left is to chat with everyone - though unlike in P4, there’s very obviously something left to do because they give you a whole month of prep time, rather than just one day

I felt the same way about this on Golden Deer - none of the characters are appropriately shocked by Rhea’s highly questionable actions 

Also - she says she’s going to explain the whole truth! And she doesn’t! Only the Byleth creation stuff! The other revelations from Golden Deer are missing! Rhea! Why! Are! You! Like! This!

This is actually a problem I have with this game as a whole - they want to keep certain lore and secrets exclusive to certain routes, but it results in every story feeling in some way incomplete. Like, Fates gets a lot of crap, but at least you did get a full story from your half (third? never played Revelation) a game for the price of a whole one. Blue Lions gets the worst of it, I think 

Plus, when you know some of said secrets, it makes characters who refuse to share them in other routes seem weirdly (and sometimes, contrivedly) cagey about things they really do not need to be cagey about. See: Claude refusing to tell Dimitri and Byleth in Azure Moon that he wants to End Racism, and instead vagueing about ‘achieving his dream’. This is not Edelgard wanting to conquer Fodlan and dismantle the entire social structure, Claude, your ideals really are not so controversial that you need to be this coy. Dimitri and I are cool, we getcha 

My one sentence review of the whole game is basically: Great characters, great world building, great gameplay - but really, really frustrating plot structure

I’m also really upset that Seteth does not have a dragon form

Speaking of Seteth, I married him this time around. I mostly decided to do it for laughs, but while Byleth/Dedue is still my number one Byleth pairing, I came to really, genuinely like them together. Seteth is one of my favs, now more than ever

It helps that romancing Seteth feels a lot less... creepy than romancing most of the students. I like Linhardt, but romancing him felt very weird to me because I couldn’t get over Byleth having first known him as a 16 year old under their care. Dedue, for the record, doesn’t elicit this response  because he doesn’t really feel as much like a student to me? Role-wise he feels a lot closer to the knights, and it’s just that he's been enrolled as a student for convenience’s sake, which makes him and Byleth feel more equal than they do with most of the other kids. Helps that he’s also on the older end

Anyway, Seteth and Byleth would be the nerdiest couple ever, is the impression I got from their ending. The confession scene made me laugh in how ‘oh we’ve got a lot of work to do - btw wanna get married? - sweet, now let’s get back to work’ it was. Mark Whitten is a gem

It’s also the the first time I felt like the game was actually shipping me with a main lord (Seteth taking that role in the absence of the box lords on this route). Haven’t done Crimson Flower yet, so no opinion on the Edelgard/Byleth relationship yet, but regarding Claude and Dimitri my (pretty damn controversial, possibly a bad idea to put out there) opinions on them with Byleth are that

Claude and Byleth are platonic bros, regardless of Byleth’s gender. I just don’t get any feeling of romance from their relationship at all, and so pairing them off feels weird (to me, personally - I don’t hate the ship or anything, though)

Meanwhile Dimitri 100% had a crush on his teacher at school, but after more than five years of enduring trauma after trauma, and then half a year of beginning to heal (whilst fighting a war culminating in the execution of his step-sister), Dimitri is nowhere near ready for a romantic relationship. And when he is, I wouldn’t want him with any of the main cast, Dimitri x Village Girl OTP. I guess if it has to be anyone, I’d be okay with Mercedes, maybe Marianne - hell, maybe even Claude - but really, I just want him to get a fresh start. I think that’s the healthiest option for him, in the end

I do think it’s a pairing that could work in an AU where Dimitri doesn’t have any of the experiences he has in canon, though 

And again, this is just my personal reading

I’ll also admit that I may be influenced by the fact that his two most popular pairings are with Byleth and Dedue, who I greatly prefer with each other. Mostly because I love Dedue with all my soul and his ending with Byleth is by far his happiest, in my eyes at least. It’s the only one where he puts some distance between himself and Dimitri and evens out the power balance in their relationship, which makes me happy because oh boy, the Dimitri/Dedue relationship is super interesting and compelling, but also (again, by my reading) all kinds of unhealthy as it’s presented for most of the game - power balance issues like I say, the fact that they tend to indulge, even encourage, each other’s worst instincts and behaviours, mutual guilt complexes - like I say, it’s fascinating, but damn screwed up. IMO, they’re one of the best examples I’ve seen of how unhealthy relationships aren’t always the result of one bad person, and how two good people can end up being very bad for each other

Though it is, again, a pairing I can see working (and actually being incredibly cute) in an AU where they’ve lived less horrible lives

And it’s not like I don’t want them to be friends, I just want them to also develop healthier boundaries and equal levels of respect

oh my god none of this has anything to do with silver snow what am I doing

But hey, speaking of Dimitri - I flip flopped on whether I thought his death was handled better or worse here than Golden Deer. It was given, I felt, more appropriate gravitas, but again suffered from ‘Dimitri’s dead! No, Dimitri’s alive! Oh wait, now he’s dead again’ in like, three successive scenes. And then you see his... ghost? I guess?

Dimitri really seems to get the short end of the stick on routes outside his own. Claude’s non-Deer roles were, in both cases I’ve played, much stronger and more fitting, and Edelgard is Edelgard

Maybe he’ll be good in Crimson Flower. Please. I miss Dimitri mattering. He’s probably my favourite of the three

There’s a point - obviously I don’t fully know Edelgard yet, but from what I got from the White Clouds section, above anything else she strikes me as an incredibly realistic depiction of a slightly edgy, extremely idealistic, but also highly naive and short-sighted teenager

Her whole goal, it seems, is meritocracy. She hates the crest system and the nobility, and she wants to create a system of equal opportunity. I can get behind that, but I really hope she’s prepared to accept the fact that true equal opportunity is basically impossible without recreating The Giver, as inequality is always more complex than one single factor being to blame for everything. Has Edelgard considered other limitations that make true meritocracy difficult to achieve? Has she been working on, say, a comprehensive benefits system? Or is she more of a libertarian type, and so primarily all about negative freedom and removing direct oppression? I hope Crimson Flower goes into detail on this, I’d be genuinely interested to know

I also find it interesting that she gets very angry about the fact that people hurt her and her family as a means to their own ends, so she decides that her own ends are to eliminate the system that lead to that happening - and she doesn’t care who she has to hurt in the process

This isn’t a CinemaSins *ding* plot hole observation, I genuinely think it’s interesting, and not actually that unrealistic

I also suppose her goal is no less naive than End All Racism By Being Nice To People, but Claude isn’t killing and persecuting people in attempt to achieve that, so it invites less scrutiny

I do wonder if I would have felt more strongly positively about her if she’d been my first playthrough. I do believe she’s a person that sincerely means well, and she’s certainly sympathetic, but - hmm. I’ll make my mind up when I finish CF

Anyway, paired endings. A few that I got include Raphael and Bernadetta (by far my favourite Bernie ending so far, seriously, what is that Caspar ending), Shamir and Leonie, which was cute and goofy (as Leonie’s endings tend to be, I notice, I do like that girl), Felix and Dorothea (not my favourite for either, but cute), Sylvain and Mercedes (the same but even cuter), Cyril and Petra (which felt wrong, partly because I love Cysithea a hell of a lot, and also because despite knowing there’s only about a year between them, Petra looks so much older pre-time skip), Ferdie and Marianne (super wholesome and sweet), and Linhardt and Caspar (my boyyyyssss that I refuse to ever separate again)

Not sure what I’m going to aim for on CF aside from keeping those boys together and also Ferdie/Hubert, as I’ve Heard Things

Flayn and Manuela have an A support so I figured they had a paired ending and it turns out they do not, which means Manuela was alone forever and Flayn ran away because apparently she hated having Byleth for a step mother I guess, rude

My Byleth (Myleth?) was prepared to be the best step mother in the history of the world, so offended

I realised ‘Javelins of Light’ is one of my absolute favourite tracks in the whole game. Mostly because it sounds like something out of Danganronpa, which made me nostalgic

I also like ‘Guardian of Starlight’ for somehow managing to sound like a Danganronpa/PMD: Explorers crossover track

I love how out of nowhere the Immaculate One fight is. It really does just feel like they needed something to distinguish the route from Verdant Wind outside of Claude not being around, so they just had a map that was less cool in every way except for the dragon

Is there an explanation for why Nemesis doesn’t show up on this route?

Also - I didn’t mention this in Golden Deer thoughts but I also found that final battle way, way easier than it was probably meant to be because I’d made everyone into a flier and so the floor damage hazard was meaningless

Which I totally did on purpose and not so I could make a stupid joke post about my all-wyvern team 

Anyway, in conclusion, Silver Snow was a good route, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would (I’d kind of thought it was just going to be GD without Claude, which isn’t... totally wrong, but it’s got some other stuff going on too), I liked Seteth getting to have a bigger role, I thought it had the best final boss (if not the best final boss map), and I liked that I got some more Dragon Lore (never a bad thing)

please don’t yell at me for my controversial shipping opinions 

[jurien-ashur]

Discourse

So I didn’t want to have to do this but it seems like it’s unavoidable. For the past couple of months I have been trying to move on from a toxic relationship and move on to more enjoyable roleplay but it seems that she cannot let go. Who am I talking about? I’m talking about Corinne Fletcher (aka Nemy on discord) who is @Fletchlingfletcher on tumblr. Now this post is mainly to clear the air because she as well as Naenia (@paleshadeofrose) have been spreading rumors and speaking about my personal real life in order to depict me as a horrible and abusive person.

For the most part, I just ignored it and just peacefully warned people that this was going on and to disregard it because these people and the friends that they have made in order to repeat these rumors have gotten out of control. So here it is… This is my side.

Corinne’s mun and I had a bad falling out because I just wasn’t having fun with her. After 5 years of Rping the same thing I wanted to try other things which she wasn’t comfortable with. I tried to invite other people into the roleplay and she became very passive aggressive. Now this is in no way trying to paint me out to be  the Dalai lama to where I didn’t do any wrong. It was a constant back and forth of accusing each other of losing interest or cheating-- overall just very toxic because that is the environment that we created with each other after being with each other for so long. I have a very busy life now which made it difficult to be attentive to her. I had school, I worked 10 hours shifts at night, I have family business that has to come first and so I hardly had time to really talk to her as I once did. The stress of her neediness and my shortness with her led to a big fallout where a lot of things were said out of anger. A lot of things that I said that I’m not too proud of but all the same it was said out of anger. I spoke with her again, one time in December to try to patch things up with her and when she didn’t want to do so, I haven’t talked to her since. You can find the LAST conversation I had with her here…

HERE

Five months later, she is still spreading rumors about me and telling people things that we talked about in private to make me seem like a horrible person in order to sway people into not RPing with me. She won’t show them how I tried to mend things. Instead she shows them THIS in order to emphasize what a bad person I am when it’s a conversation of when we were breaking up. Now, I don’t care if someone is mad because a Roleplay doesn’t work out. Ships end. Friendships end. But time heals sore feelings and regardless of how you may feel about someone you should NEVER bring their personal life into the game that has PERSONAL information about them and their family… In this conversation, specifically, it even spoke about my daughter. I don’t care how pissed you are about a ship not working out, you never bring those aspects into a game to make someone out to be a bad person. This is what she sent to a person I was actively roleplaying with.. Here. 

Anyone who would condone this or pretend like this isn’t a serious invasion of privacy is wrong. She has messaged several of the people I interacted with in order to push this narrative and it’s been over 5 months since we broke things off. How do I know this? This conversation from a friend and her was posted 3 days ago suggesting that my friend should block me because of a disagreement we had. You can find that HERE. This evident that she is NOT over our breakup. It doesn’t matter how mad I was about the way she and I broke up, I never suggested to anyone that they should stop speaking to her. Anyone who associated themselves with her a lot, I civilly removed myself from the their tumblr in order to avoid seeing her posts. I cannot tell people to not post her stuff; I only have control over what I can do to ensure my mental health is good. Following someone’s tumblr is not the measure of the friendship that I have with them. But Corinne is actively trying to alienate me from the Tumblr community and from the RP community by showing screenshots of when we were breaking up and I want people to know that that is NOT the narrative of our entire relationship. It wasn’t just me who was bad to her.. WE WERE BAD TO EACH OTHER. There had been days where I would just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling because I was filled with anxiety and she wasn’t helping. She told me that she would not try to sabotage my Rp and keep our drama between her and I which is not truthful. HERE

I can only speculate on her motivation to this but I would assume that she has become bitter and spiteful because I actually am doing better and I’m doing well and my mental health is much better now that we are separated. Yes, in December I tried to mend things but after the offer was rejected, I accepted it and I moved on. And I was happy. And I AM happy. And I want to remain happy.

Now let’s talk about Naenia because she seems especially interested in my personal life. Last night (5/11/19) Naenia harassed my friend trying to confirm some things that is none of her business. However, since Corinne and Naenia have been talking, Naenia wants to concern herself of who I am outside of the game, i.e age, gender, marital status, immediate family etc.. and she wants to confirm if some information about my personal life is true. Her is her trying to guilt my friend into sharing information about who I am when he states several times that he doesn’t want to be involved. HERE.

Now who am I? Who is Jurien? Well for all the people who want to know and all the people who are still reading this. As a mun, I own the tumblr Jurien-Ashur, Misato-Otsuka and Yuki-yukichan. Yes, surprise. Yuki-chan and Jurien have the same mun.

I created Yuki because I had high anxiety, low self-esteem, writer's block, depression and I was generally just angry all the time while playing Jurien. He just wasn’t a fun character to play anymore. I created Yuki more so to converse with people. Not necessarily to Rp though it did turn out that way. I needed to deflate because I was always stressed out. In the process, I ended up meeting a lot of great people who supported me and made me believe that I was more than just one type of OC-- that my creativity was more than just this one thing. From past experiences, I knew that if I invited Nemy/Corinne into Yuki’s world that the same result would happen all over again and people would be turned away because of her passive aggressiveness, so I kept the blog separate. Corinne found the blog, called me out on it and I was reluctant to actually confess. Now that is the problem. Why should I be afraid to let my rp partner know my alts? No one should be afraid to tell the truth when it comes to something they enjoy.

As far as Naenia is concerned, she is bitter because I didn’t want to be in a romantic relationship with her on Jurien. She talked to her friends behind my back to paint this picture that I was abusive to her and leading her on. However.. I have proof that it wasn’t the case. Multiple times I had set up times to rp with her and SHE didn’t show up. In a conversation, I expressed that I was disappointed that we didn’t get to meet up and immediately got defensive and when I decided to end the conversation.. She continued to ‘poke’ and try to get my attention. You can find that conversation HERE. I also made it clear that I didn’t want to be in an rp relationship and that I didn’t want her to wait around for me to be ready for a relationship. You can find that conversation Here. And here is a conversation that was going on at the same time of when she is talking to me reasonably and we are trying to work things out and I asked her for patience because I had a busy life outside of the game. At the same time she is talking to Ashe bad mouthing me. You can find that conversation HERE. Naenia didn’t want to do anything with me because it would be 6am when I got off from work however, she is frustrated with me when I won’t wake up early to Roleplay with her-- because I work 10 hour shifts and it’s heavy lifting. You can find that double standard HERE. She also conveyed that she didn’t like RPing before she had to go to work which I completely understood which you can find that HERE.

After that conversation, Naenia blocked me which I was okay with. I didn’t block her. It didn’t really matter to me but after saying all those things about me and when Ashe and I broke our rp off because Ashe tried to commit suicide.. Naenia pops up in my DM on tumblr again. You can find that conversation HERE. This conversation comes only a few hours after Ashe was discharged from the hospital but because the whole situation was upsetting, I refused to speak with her from that day on. At the same time.. She is telling people that Jurien was Gaslighting her and that he is very abusive (Which could be found here) but Naenia had never stopped actively trying to be with Jurien even after I expressed both IC and OOC that I didn’t want to be in a relationship. She even tried to get Ashe to be the bad person for even showing me the screenshots of her talking poorly about me to her friends while she was sweet as pie when talking to me on most occasions. And got everyone to be mad at her for showing that she was bad mouthing me instead of getting mad at Naenia for saying those malicious things in the first place.

Now again, I’m not telling people to stop talking to these two girls who have been extremely toxic in my life for the past few months. Some people just don’t vibe well together. I don’t want anything to do with either of them after this. They have invaded my privacy and shared that information with everyone who would listen all because they are upset about an rp ship that ended or a friendship that ended. My private life should not be a spectacle. Someone shouldn’t be asking my current RP partners if they know a certain bit of information about my personal life in order to try to convince them not to talk to me because I didn’t want to ship with them. We should not downplay all this and we should call it what is it. It’s bullying. All I wanted was to write and to have fun with the friends I found in game and Tumblr after a bad experience.

I didn’t want to show the information that I had. Hell, I didn’t want to show any of this information but I found that my silence and my ignoring the situation has done little good. People are believing the narrative that I’m this ‘horny guy’ when I have only been with two people in an intimate fashion Rply.

So there you have it. I’m just a player who is trying to move on from a toxic relationship-- a toxic friendship-- a toxic encounter with a tumblr woman and they are obsessing over me. They are broadcasting my personal information and they are trying to alienate me from others because they can’t accept that I’m happy. I’m not broken and I can survive without them.

You can make your own decision about the situation but I did the best I could. I’m doing the best I can.