#even people not even near the fires

[fromtheseventhhell]

Renly had seemed anxious to know if the girl reminded him of anyone, and when Ned had no answer but a shrug, he had seemed disappointed. The maid was Loras Tyrell's sister Margaery, he'd confessed, but there were those who said she looked like Lyanna. "No," Ned had told him, bemused. (Eddard VI, AGOT)

This is literally people in fandom trying to make shallow connections between Lyanna and [X character] and presenting them as equally important as parallels drawn directly in the text. In fact, this coming after Ned tells Arya she reminds him of Lyanna (in looks and behavior) feels like George cementing the importance of their likeness. Other characters might have passing similarities to Lyanna, but Arya's parallels are much more meaningful than that and are being highlighted for a reason.

[emblemxeno]

I think another reason why I'm of the opinion that 3H's writing falls flat due to superfluous exposition, is that... it actually does what I think is great gameplay-story integration.

And that's the character paralogues!

Every character has a paralogue which ties their personalities and backstories into that mission's plot, without exception. Certain gameplay elements are also introduced to suit why the characters are doing what they're doing in those missions.

They're not flawless of course (map reusal is a bitch), but they are nonetheless stellar ways to tie in the characters to their world.

So what's the issue? The problem then becomes, why the hell is there so much else then?

I'm not advocating for everything else to be cut or for character backstory/development centered supports to be shelved, of course. But when you have paralogues-missions that are very well crafted to engage the player in the game flow and the writing simultaneously-why do the characters reveal the same things and go through similar developments in other places, like supports, the monastery, sometimes even in story as well?

Because you can miss out on paralogues? Well this game makes it so you can skip the monastery, supports can get locked if you don't do them in time, and those sparse story moments don't exist if the side character dies. There's no functional reason why you need multiple avenues to dive into the same few character plotlines, especially when one method does it consistently better and more involved than the others.

And logically or writing wise, there's even less of a reason other than they really wanna make sure you know these characters really well. Which is in no way bad of course, it's great to make a cast that you're proud of and want people to fall in love with every aspect of each of them. But there's nudging your audience to a position, and then there's outright making the line between player control/influence/preference and authorial intent too blurry.

Inevitably yeah, people did love this cast. That's why 3H is so popular and why their characters rank so highly in polls. But I reiterate from previous posts: 3H doesn't do anything special that previous FE games didn't as well. The cast isn't particularly deeper than most FE casts on average, nor is its world/story writing any more impressive. There's just more of it being delivered and put in your face than normal. And because many finer details unique to 3H's plot construction end up irrelevant (or outright contradictory to the main plot when thought about for too long), most of what's pushed is the character writing and backstories and Fodlan's primary backdrop... over and over and over again.

To me, that becomes tedious and ironically makes me care less for the world as I find incessant need to reiterate major aspects of the story near verbatim to be artificial and suffocating. But I'm not most people, and I can't fault others for finding great joy in it. I just thoroughly hope that the gameplay-story interaction is taken as priority like it was with Engage for future FE games, because these are still video games at the end of the day. When your game is being talked/argued about more than it's actually being played (for reasons that don't specifically have to do with archaic design elements as a result of its age)... shouldn't that be seen as a bad sign in the eyes of a video game designer?

[danvssomethingorother]

I love how Zuko just gets to calm down in Ba Sing Se? He gets to just calm down enough to think about his own emotions and life and not be under constant pressure?

Really should have just left him here until he was at least in his 20s, he is not ready to rule anything! Let him just like exist without constantly being shoved around

[ride-thedragon]

Sometimes, I think about Nettles in the Mountains of the Moon.

She's there for 5 years and accessible enough for an army of men to reach her cave.

The last thing she knows is Daemon telling her she needs to go. More than likely, she knows about the death warrant placed on her head.

So the queen of the 7 kingdoms orders a death warrant and the return of her husband and her husband sends Nettles away.

Not only that, he does it in the span of a night, and his dragon shrieks and shatters glass as she flies away.

She flies away, knowing the queen wants her dead and that the person who prioritized her up until that point sent her away. And she stayed

So my question is, is she waiting on someone to find her?

At least in the beginning of it, just for one of the people around her to come find her and tell her she can return.

And after a while, she just let's go of the idea. She's lost the hope in it and just starts to build herself a home there.

So when the nights of the Vale come, it startles her. It's the first time men in Armour have come to her, and conveniently, it's the ones she knows are sworn to Rhaenyra. Sheepstealer attacks immediately, and to avoid bloodshed or any more danger, she just flies away.

[kozakk]

Deleted footage of how this interaction really went. 

[lynxgirlpaws]

you're telling me you have dreams other than horrible things happening to you or doing horrible things and having nothing you can do but watch?

[herd-reject-arts]

Here I go to spend several days by myself in the North Carolina wilderness. Wish me luck. Never gone camping alone (but I have my dogs, and I trust them more than any people I know), so that's intimidating. Hopefully I don't have to fistfight a bear over whatever I'm cooking that night. Not looking forward to no toilet or shower until Monday, but it is what it is. I absolutely have to do this, for my mental health. I'm losing so much money taking the time off work to just have mountain time to myself. But I gotta. My life has been such a chaotic mess for over half a year now - everything that could go wrong, has - and I've never felt so close to just letting myself snap. I can feel it boiling right under the surface at any given time.

But yeah. Should be a time. Might post pictures upon my return (provided a bear doesn't decide I'm on the menu). Wish me luck!

[feralsteddie]

Listen, as someone who grew up in various trailers parks from time to time, I do gotta say the romanticisation of trailers in this fandom is both hilarious and endearing

[marypsue]

A two-sentence thought/observation I had about Stranger Things’ Vecna is ballooning into a several-page thesis on how to construct a memorable villain, visually/aesthetically, and you are all going to hear about it. Eventually. 

[anotherpapercut]

btw to my Canadian mutuals and followers who have been affected by the wildfires: how are you guys doing?? I was in Maryland last week and the smoke was already getting bad there. I can't imagine what it's been like up in Canada :/

[punkcherries]

watched elemental . pixar treads water ‼

[silverselfshippingchaos]

guys I just think my s/i and a.xel/l.ea should be friends

[rigels-nigels]

I miss having summers where not a single day was the air and skies filled with smoke.

[gingerbravecookie]

i hope you know i'm fucking scarwd

[annoyinglibra]

What does this genius in the notes think caused the “bladerunner sky”

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I have this tea cup I made in highschool (it’s really cute and was designed more like those Japanese ones without a handle than it was those fancy English style with even more elements to them) but I never actually asked if the glaze we used was food safe (we all used the same glaze on those cups specifically because the teacher glazed those ones in particular and I don’t remember checking. I glazed and painted every other project but only one of them was something you would use for food and that thing broke a few years ago and was honestly more decorative) and this has haunted me ever since. It’s a super cute cup and I adore it, but I have no idea if I can use it for its intended purpose and while I could buy a lead testing kit I’m not sure how I would check for anything else that might have been in that glaze. I know the color used but not the brand, so that’s not really a help either. The teacher I had left the district after that year because our school district paid art teachers a shit wage and we rotated through them like elementary school kids needing new shoes every year. I’m not entirely sure how I would contact her, but even if I did track her down (something not entirely impossible from what I know about her life outside of teaching us for a year, I would feel slightly weird about it though, even though she was my favorite art teacher) but I highly doubt she would remember something like the glaze she used on one project her students made at a school she taught at for one year. I’m not sure what other testing kits I would need besides lead to confidently say it’s safe enough for my personal use, and it’s annoyed me for several years now.