A Minor dispute.
Put it behind you. Deal with it.
No, this isn't related to devoted fans and their discourse lol (even if i had to take a jab at them with the title lol)
Ike: I have to ask, Sephiran. What are you after? What’s this all about?
Sephiran: Why do you wish to know? You would achieve nothing by learning my reasons. You would help no one. I lost faith in lesser beings, and desire an end to them. That’s all.
Ike: So why did you save me on that day?
Sephiran: May I ask you a favor, Ike? Tell me how you feel about it now. Can you bear recalling those horrific memories?
Ike: Yes… I’m fine, now. But I suppose at the time I wouldn’t have been able to take it.
Sephiran: All beings endure tragedies for as long as they continue to live. It has always been the case that suffering is unavoidable. And this grim reality plays out over and over, in every country, under every ruler… As long as there are beings who feel, they will feel pain.
Ike: So what? We should all just give in and die? Put it behind you. Deal with it.
Sephiran: Do not make light of this…
Ike: I’m not. Sephiran, I’m extremely grateful that you once helped me through a terrible time. But we have to accept that occasionally we all have to deal with hard times. I’ve had pain, I’ve had suffering, and I have gotten up and moved on. I don’t try to forget what happened that day. I just accept it… And neither that or anything else will ever stop me.
Sephiran: You are a strong man, Ike, son of Gawain. But not everyone is as strong as you…
This scene is unlocked if you've seen Ike's FB.
Of course, Ike here doesn't know the fuck he is talking about, as he later expresses by wondering why Sephiran is suddenly called Lehran (maybe if the game left Miccy/Yune talk to him before the start of the map, instead of letting him do all the convo it would have been different?).
So, in a way, it isn't as callous as Ike telling Lehran to put the genocide of his people "behind him" or to "deal with it", because he doesn't know what Sephiran is talking about.
But in a way, I have the feeling if Claude or Petra told Dedue to "put the massacre of his family" behind him or to "deal with it", Claude or Petra would have received a certain amount of shit, even if, when they would have said those, they wouldn't have known what the fuck Dedue went through.
Anyways, Ike later learns what, or who, Sephiran is, and talks to him. Maybe he will apologise for his callous words, spoken when he didn't realise what he was talking about ?
Ike: Sephiran... I mean, Lehran...
Lehran: I can't apologize enough. I was so terribly mistaken, and now there's nothing I can do to help.
Ike: Don't worry.
Lehran: What?
Ike: Wanting to do something that matters is enough. Sometimes, how you feel is more important than how you act.
Lehran: Ike I... there's no one that I think more highly of...
Ike: No time for compliments. We still have work to do here.
Lehran: Yes... yes we do.
Lehran apologises for having wanted to destroy the world (and drops Altina in a trashcan because Ike is now the person he thinks the most highly of!) - and in the general scale of things, yes, Sephiran has much to apologise for, so he better start pulling his weight and try to make up for having tried to kill everyone.
But the "your people were genocided? No biggie, deal with it!" is completely ignored - or it is, again, another example of Ike talking shit and the game convoluting himself to make sure he never faces any consequences, even if, in this situation, the consequence would just have been an apology, like the one he gave to, iirc, Mordecai and Lethe after calling him subhumans but not realising calling someone "subhuman" was insulting.
Sure, the line he gives after the fight against Sephiran still holds value :
Ike: If death is what you really want, then I’m not going to let it happen on my watch. I don’t care what you’ve gone through. I don’t care how much you’ve suffered. What you’ve done is unforgivable.
It's not because you suffered, or went through the worst humankind can offer, that you can inflict the same on people!
When Lords like Marth, Seliph, Leif, Roy, Eirika, even Elincia try to understand people and what led them to act as they did - without ever giving excuses or wondering if they could walk with their respective antagonists - Ike here refuses to understand, and only condemns.
Is it because Ike isn't a Lord, so he isn't concerned with some general "making sure this situation never happens again"?
But then, he is the one to say those :
“But, even the dumbest creatures will love their family, their friends and… even love others. They will all have things that they can’t afford to lose.”
“We know that we’ve messed up. We’ll do our best to avoid more war and to make peace our highest priority. Ashera, just give us one more chance. All we ask is for one more chance.”
“You were like a mother to all of life– Your children still require a mother like you. When you watch over us, we don’t always do things that make you happy and sometimes we even disappoint you. Still, I think we would like you to continue watching over us. How about it?”
“We all need to work hard to accept each other. As long as we don’t try and run away from our mistakes, then I’m sure we’ll be able to see each other again one day.”
How can you do you "best" to avoid more wars, if you don't even understand why the current one started, or don't care about the reasons that led the fucker who started this current war to, well, start it?
How can we talk about acceptance if we don't "care" about what the others live through?
So, on top of writing a check his ass can't cash - since he will leave Tellius and not be there to "avoid wars" or make sure people "accept each other" after promising the goddesses "we" will exactly do that - Ike's words here are empty.
-> In a nutshell, Ike reveals with those battle quotes and conversations that he is not ruler/leader material - but we knew that since RD's start since we followed Miccy and Elincia - and more importantly isn't the kind of person asking "why" things happen, they just happen but somehow everything will work out when it will happen again - because the why, or the cause, wasn't identified - and I think it's a perfectly fitting answer for the Tellius Saga and the larger Branded "issue" : we will never know why it happens, it just happens.
(can we say the epilogue, with Ashunera returning, is an ultimate "fuck you" to Ike's empty promises at the end of this chapter, since it starts with another war happening in the background?)
---
Back to that nonsense of a battle convo, I find it really interesting how Ike is basically thanking Sephiran for having wiped his memory when he was a child, to help him "deal" with the fact he witnessed his father stab his mother, because at that time (when he was a kid), he wouldn't have been able to deal with it.
But then, Ike tells Sephiran to "deal with" the tragedies he witnessed and lived through...
After thanking him for sparing him the "deal with it" step- he now asks Sephiran to take - when he was a child.
WTF?
Ike explains how he is thankful, but he ultimately had to "got up" and "move on" from the pain, and accept it. And that's precisely the point, Ike managed to take on that pain, "get up and move on" thanks to Sephiran's own meddling and help - else, by his own admission, he wouldn't have been able to "take it".
But now, he asks Sephiran to take his pain, without any magic amnesia to help, and deal with it?
And while I hate the idea of trauma olympics, grown-up Ike (even in POR) can now deal with the fact his dad killed his mother thanks to Lehran's magic amnesia - but he tells Lehran to deal with and get over - 1) the genocide of his tribe, 2) assassination of his great (etc) granddaughter because she had his blood, 3) the loss of his powers for a crap reason and the knowledge that laguz are bound to "die" if they mingle too much with beorcs as he personally witnessed it, 4) severe depression after realising he is not a laguz anymore but not even a beorc since beorcs will use pitchforks at him even if they regarded him 10 seconds before as sage, and the rest of Tellius' general fuckery? - without magic amnesia or plot hax?
Reyson was very close to pull something similar in FE9 when he tried to erase people in the Forest using "ancient magic", but abandoned the idea when Leanne was found - if PoR!Ike learnt that, would he have told Reyson to "get over" the heron genocide and Naesala's betrayal?
Of course not, because I'm pretty sure Ike knows, before meeting Reyson and even picking Leanne, what happened in Serenes.
And in RD, when he says those words, he doesn't know (but he later will!) that Sephiran is a heron.
Tl;Dr :
Supreme Leader's "minor dispute" is frowned upon by everyone, even if she might genuinely not know about what Nemesis did that made Rhea so enraged, in a doylist reading, Supreme Leader is a character who ignores a genocide to push her own specist agenda.
Doylist reading of that RD scene is, Ike telling Sephiran to man up and deal/get over the genocide of his people - but unlike Supreme Leader, when he comes to learn the truth of Sephiran's despair, he dgaf.
Thankfully, this scene is only triggered if Sephiran survives, so Ike can later explain his behaviour : he doesn't care what kind of suffering Sephiran endured, since nothing justifies what he was trying to do (kill everyone).
Even if the thing he should care, but doesn't want to, is, for part, a genocide.
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idk if this is controversial but speaking of Reid girls n all that, i hate how forgotten Morgan gets since everyone seems to favour Reid. writing a mlm fic? it’s centred around Reid and Morgan is just sorta there, or maybe comforts Reid. need just one queer character? it’s Reid. a trans masc hc? it’s Reid again. and most of all,,, people making any kind of hurt/comfort or angst or whatever to do with csa… and they choose Reid. they make a head canon that he experienced csa, when Morgan literally canonically did, and everyone ignores that he did. and it’s fine to have a favourite character and all that, but it’s… disproportionately skewed in favour of the skinny white boy, yk? it feels so off to me. and also how people seem to totally forget about Morgan’s experiences. idk
aldhskdh it’s definitely controversial but youre so so right for it?? i feel like a lotta people just… ignore morgan. it wouldnt feel as purposeful or malignant if they didnt give the exact things morgan deals with to reid?? the same thing kinda happens w hotch, where people obsess over reid so much that it overshadows the places where they’re similar (like hotch being a nerd or autistic hotch or transmasc hotch) but even then, at least he’s got the hotchgirls to balance it out. where are the morgangirls?? where are they??
it seems like such a waste that morgan gets sidelined as the himbo jock football guy when the writers went out of their way to let us know that’s not who he is?? it’s the one time i think the writers actually did good in comparison to the fandom: they made him one of the smartest, most emotionally open characters. he’s so so caring. and reid is smart, sure, but even morgan has his strengths. he’s a better chess player than reid (something i wish we couldve seen more of), which i think no one ever fucking mentions. morgan seems like an afterthought at most in cm fics, with moreid, hotchgan, and morcia. he’s just.. underappreciated in general in comparison to his white counterparts.
as far as the trans masc hc… ok.. this one might get me into trouble lol but it feels so… uninteresting? he’s “gnc” bc he has long hair ig. i dont wanna say too much more on that bc morgan/hotch seem very comfortable in their gender identity, and it’s probably easier for questioning people to identify with the generally-insecure reid. which is like.. fine ig but it feels? belittling almost? infantilizing/woobifying trans men? idk
this shit is always kinda hard to talk about bc yeah there’s nothing inherently wrong for csa reid hcs or trans reid hcs or autistic reid hcs or whatever, but it feels particularly disingenuous when you have morgan right there who can easily have as many if not more of those popular hcs applied to him. but sure yeah lets just ignore him as the dumb jock lol. lets make him a prop for other characters. lets cast aside his characterization to make reid more interesting. it’s definitely a trend in fandom to hype up the skinny white boy, so i cant reeally blame reidgirls for living up to the stereotype, but it feels like they actively ignore morgan. it just sucks bc morgan js such a fun character
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in which I am a petty bitch
There's all these women on youtube and tiktok who talk about interests of mine like ADHD and historical costuming and fiber arts and I know some of them make a living off their content by now, but every time they mention their husbands etc. part of me assumes it's a situation where her share of the household income is like, part-time job level, and he's the one actually footing the bills behind the scenes for things like their house.
I know, I know. If you get a big enough following, making online content can actually pay a LOT now, especially when people diversify it a lot--youtube and tiktok and patreon, doing ads in their videos, etc.
And I also know that the reason I am Suspicious is because of The Toast--I assumed the folks running it were like, maaaaybe middle-class. But after The Toast closed and Nicole Cliff started posting in other places I realized--her and her husband are actually rich as fuck, and as far as I can tell the money is from her husband. A huge home in suburban Utah, horses, she has a favorite aesthetician and gets botox and just...yeah it's not so bad to run the kind of site that will never entirely pay for itself (The Toast was never going to make anyone wealthy lol) when you're not worried about what you'll do if it doesn't.
And I'm not saying I don't think she should've started The Toast! It was an amazing website with articles I *still* sometimes link to people, even though all the cultural references are dated now, and at least half the images aren't working. The Toast paid their writers, and that allowed them to publish a shit-ton of amazing content.
But it always felt (to me!) like she portrayed herself as the kind of city-dwelling nerdy feminist librarian type that was a lot of The Toast's readership...not someone in a McMansion.
And there's some folks on youtube where I'm just....you do not have a high enough follower count on this incredibly niche material for you to be paying for that nice place I see in the background of your videos, plus all the cameras and lighting and mics and editing software.
It must be nice, to have that kind of financial freedom. And I'm glad their spouses are willing to support them like that.
But I wonder how many possible content creators are out there whose amazing stuff we'll never see because they're too busy trying to pay rent.
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