#i could have devoted more time to this

[timelorddarthswagger]

These bad book adaptations have thrown me so far of my center. Uprooting the rage in me has been a year long process. I need to get back to reading. Far too long have feared a new foray into the literary world. I made small offering by way of new editions into ongoing series.

But even that was a preventative measure to avoid spoilers. The fear of reading something new. Immersing my self in that world as a form of detaching from reality to soothe my mind. Only to be thrust back into the chaos of a bad adaptation is crushing. I'd rather not read a book at all then to be disappointed with an inevitable adaptation. I'll avoid both. And we'll each be poorer for it.

One bad egg doesn't ruin it for the whole class. This is a mold that sits among the strawberries. I know how quickly it spreads.

[elfcollector]

DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS (2009) — developed by bioware.

[deoidesign]

Wearing your boyfriend's jacket

[mofsblog]

Hhhhhh do you ever think about how there's a high chance the reason why Oscar got attached to Arthur so quickly is because he was lonely.

[limonjarritos]

VINCE IS SO DOWN BAD FOR RODY OH MY GOD??? LITERALLY KILLS HIS EX GIRLFRIEND TO MAKE HIM HAPPY???? THEYVE KNOWN EACH OTHER LESS THAN A WEEK??????

LITERALLY LIKE- MY MAN FELL HARD AND INSANELY. LIKE WHO DOES THAT? I wouldn't have it any other way. Just the way that as soon as Rody came into his life he was like 'I need this man to be so whole-y mine.'

When I was playing the game my pet theory was that he fell for Rody's brand of love, for how he loved Manon (he did say that he spoke of Manon when they first met) and Rody's personality.

(read more because I am so annoying about this game vv)

Something something, how Rody loves so intensely to the detriment of himself (Manon told him to stop giving, to for once in his life realise that he needed to take care of him self and be stable. He can't just account for the other person's needs <- barely know her but I get why Rody was head over heels). How Rody's love is similar to his cooking, burning, burning himself, burning and oh so overwhelming. And I do think Vince wanted the feel of that burn for himself, wanted to feel the warmth and devotion of which he had been so devoid of. To understand what it was he was lacking. How love and cooking go hand in hand in the story, how Vince's dishes were devoid of love, how he can't taste. How Rody's love surely would be strong enough, would be the missing ingredient to allow him to finally taste something. (Also lack of taste going hand in hand with what looks like depression of some sort, or perhaps just apathy for life. How bland his own life may be. How such a love, such a person could perhaps bring some taste to his life.) Vince seems to have killed Manon as a form of trying to show Rody a similar type of love. Giving him something, giving him a meal made out of Rody's own love. A gift since he couldn't give his own brand of love in a way that matters, couldn't give it without showing his own brand of devotion. I do think he 100% had an underlying jealousy and hatred of Manon, how Rody was still stuck up on her. How she never once mentioned Rody when her and Vince dated (though outside of Vince's pov I'm pretty sure Manon was just doing the healthy normal thing by not mentioning an ex?? but Vince is soooo gone) which is obviously a sin (he doesn't seem to take kindly to people who are mean to Rody. Such as the article and Rody's old college classmate) and proof she wasn't deserving enough of Rody's love. But alas she was still a gift and show of love to Rody.

On the personality topic (thought I forgot about that did you?), Rody is such a brash and kind person. A perfect foil for Vincent's more stoic nature. Rody willing to try and befriend Vincent, running into the kitchen to talk to him. He showed a bit of said love to Vince by trying to befriend him and how could Vince not want more? (why wouldn't Vince try to reciprocate in his own way. Make him happy) I mean he seems pretty feared by his cooks, and the people at the party have mentioned that Vince is pretty ruthless, not at all a person many wish to get to know. But Rody is willing to, yet Vince wants his undivided attention...

Okay wow this has gone on way too long uhh I'm 100% open to further discussion especially if I forgot something! And I haven't really looked too much into the game past playing it, so any reveals the creator may have given I'm mostly unaware of and would love to be informed of more!

Anyways tiny Vincent attack!

[shima-draws]

Shima is it Coralaw 👀👀👀

...................MAYBE

[canarydarity]

having a normal one watching Bdubs lim life tonight and thinking about how when Bdubs betrayed Tango in last life, Skizz told Tango that for the sake of team best he had to go and forgive him.

But when Bdubs boogey kills Skizz in lim life before team ties is even really formed, Skizz is allowed to have it out for Bdubs for almost the entire first half of the season, even when the clockers ally with them and it would've been easier to let sleeping dogs lie.

Tango, the perpetually extraneous and undervalued member of his alliances...the too often shoved aside and betrayed...being told it was his duty to the team to forgive bdubs and move on....

But no one—especially not Tango—tried to tell Skizz to let it go.

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

There are two scenes I'm really excited to see next season.

Rand's vision in the glass columns at Rhuidean, seeing the full history of the Aiel, reliving the lives of his ancestors all the way back to Charn, servant to Mierin Eronaile and witness to the devastation she caused at the Collam Daan university on the day she released the Dark One.

2. Aviendha talking at length about how hot Elayne is.

[yoruiichii]

and another thing about qijiu is like -

anytime shen (jiu) qingqiu gets into an "altercation" its like:

yqy, thinking: what happened? i need to know from him what happened so i can protect him from the consequences, no matter what it was and no matter how much he might be blamed. and what would have happened if i wasn't there to do so? before, he paid the price for things that were my fault, and last time i left him- (guilt spiral, etc.)

yqy aloud: what did you do?

shen jiu, hearing this, thinking: he thinks i'd do that? how low is his opinion of me really? does he truly think there are no depths to which i wouldn't sink? and i thought it couldn't be lower. so quick to blame me and ignore anyone else's part in this. so quick to distance himself from his sordid past.

shen jiu, aloud: i'm sure it makes no difference to you.

choose your fighter: yqy's unconditional devotion and inability to communicate vs. shen jiu's self-loathing making him interpret it as disinterest and blame (and also his inability to communicate)

[the-priestess-of-dawn]

Grima and Final Blows

The other day I mentioned that I had an essay about Grima to write that I'd been putting off, and between that and all the great essays my fellow Grimleal scholars have been putting out recently, I decided to sit down and finally get it done.

So here you go. An analysis of Grima's difficulties with directly killing people.

Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, because one of my favorite things to explore when it comes to Grima is the gap between their villain act, which they actively play up in front of others in both Awakening and FEH, and their true feelings, which are hinted at in Awakening (particularly through the Future Past DLC) and made even clearer in FEH— their own evil actions are repulsive to them, and they wish they could live normally among humans, but they don’t believe they have any choice but to be the monster that “the fell dragon, Grima” is supposed to be. They are committed to this “fell dragon” character, to putting on a show for everyone, and they are so good at it that it’s easy to overlook that they… uh… aren’t very good at killing anyone important. Not directly, anyway.

Sure, Grima is responsible for numerous deaths. But what is their actual kill count? Well, in Awakening’s main game… zero. (Unless you count Chrom, but, as we witness, that was not a voluntary act on their part; Validar took control of their body. You could also make the argument that Grima “claiming the sacrifice” at the Dragon’s Table counts, but the problem with that is, although it’s obvious that Grima accepts the life force of the Grimleal members as a sacrifice, it’s not at all clear whether or not Grima personally kills them. Although it’s possible that they did off screen, it’s also possible that Validar killed them, or that they were ordered to take their own lives; there’s no reason Grima would have had to lay a hand on them.) In the Future Past, it’s… one, maybe one and half (Naga’s spirit, and Tiki, but only in body. More on this later.)

And it’s not as though Fire Emblem shies away from showing villains directly murdering people, Even in Awakening itself, the intro to Chapter 9 shows Aversa killing a Plegian soldier for delivering an unsatisfactory report, so it wouldn’t have been out of place to let Grima stab a few NPCs as a show of brutality. Especially seeing as Grima is the evil dragon final boss. As early as Mystery of the Emblem, we can see Medeus killing his cleric hostages to restore his own health if you fail to rescue them before trying to defeat him, and as recently as Engage, we get a whole cutscene of Sombron eating Hyacinth. Fantasy violence my beloved <3

Anyway, the point is, Grima could have been written to be much more violent and I don’t think anyone would have complained. Instead, though, Grima repeatedly— and consistently across the series— tries to avoid engaging in direct combat.

Let’s start with what Grima does in the main game of Awakening. We know that Risen pursue Lucina into the past, because we see them fall out of the portal with her in Chapter 1. We also know that those Risen, as well as the others that are appearing throughout the land, are not being directly controlled by Grima, because later in Chapter 13, as the Shepherds are leaving Plegia after meeting with Validar, Aversa, and the Hierophant, they are pursued by more skilled Risen, and Frederick notes that “Either they are learning our ways, or someone is commanding them…” So… It seems that sending the Risen—with or without specific orders—to attack while Grima is not themself present is a favored tactic.

But what about when Grima is present? Take a look at the Endgame: Grima chapter. Yes, you eventually get to engage Grima in direct combat. But not immediately. What Grima does first is…

Grima attacks the Shepherds with dark spikes from a distance, reducing everyone’s hp to 1. Now, here’s what happens next: Grima attempts to possess their past self, Robin hears the voices of their friends and breaks free, Naga heals everyone back to full health, and then the fight against Grima begins… Except actually, the Shepherds have to get to Grima first, because they’re at the top of the map and they’re not budging. Naga warns them that “Grima’s servants will beset [them] to no end.” and she’s not kidding. Grimleal reinforcements will spawn infinitely, and they can hit pretty hard. Even with everyone starting at full health, it’s possible to lose units to these Grimleal soldiers if Grima isn’t defeated quickly. Can you imagine what would happen if Naga hadn’t healed the Shepherds first?

Well, I’d guess that they’d probably all die to the Grimleal without Grima having to face them up close. Which was probably what Grima was going for.

This isn’t the only time Grima tries the dark spikes trick, either. Grima attempts this exact same move in the Future Past 3 when they face Lucina, Severa, Laurent, and Gerome.

Grima announces “With the next blow, I will kill you.” and then demands that they hand over the Fire Emblem as well as the gemstone they hold. The threat is very real. But…

Given that at 1hp, a gust of wind could take the kids out, would it not have been easier and faster to kill them and just loot their bodies immediately? And yet Grima lets the kids have an extended discussion about sacrifice, and even suggests that Lucina would indeed buy a little more time by running… Again, I cannot stress enough that Grima should be able to finish them off in one hit at this point.

So the plan was almost certainly to back off and let the Risen do the actual killing, even though that would be a lot less efficient under the circumstances. And when Chrom and the Shepherds arrive, Grima immediately turns their attention to them, saying “If it’s a reunion you seek, my soldiers shall welcome you on my behalf.” Then they once again pick a spot at the back of the map and refuse to move from it, forcing the Shepherds to fight through the Risen in order to engage Grima in combat at all.

And sure, Grima has some excuses. “I was hoping not to have to flex any muscle,” they say right before the dark spikes attack, as if to justify why they didn’t do it sooner. And of course they taunt Lucina over having to choose to whether to run as her friends sacrifice themselves for her or to stay and fight and die with them. “I must say I shall enjoy this either way!” Yes, Grima, we get it, you’ve made it very clear that you’re an arrogant asshole.

But is arrogance really all there is to it? If we look at what Tiki tells Grima in the good ending of the Future Past, it looks as though Grima’s arrogance has brought their own downfall. “If you had left Mount Prism alone, Grima, you might have stood a chance. Instead, you have brought the Awakening right to your feet.” However, when you think about it… Is Tiki’s continued existence not in itself a result of Grima’s repeated pattern of not really wanting to land a finishing blow? The game states that Grima did in fact kill Tiki… but only in body, not in spirit. This is, according to Tiki, because Robin intervened.

Now, the question I have is… Is it really possible that Robin could have intervened both against Grima’s will and without them having any idea? Honestly, it’s hard to tell exactly how aware Grima is of Robin’s resistance, because they lie about it a lot, e.g. stating that Robin’s spirit perished in sending Chrom back to his own world, even though just moments later, Robin is once again overpowering them. So, keeping in mind that Grima is a liar, was Grima really arrogant to leave Tiki’s body in Ylisstol, and to not make sure that her spirit was fully destroyed? Or was Robin simply able to capitalize on Grima’s propensity towards backing off?

Because surely the only way Grima could be unaware that Robin had acted against them is if Robin hadn’t actually acted against them. I don’t think I believe that Grima really wanted Tiki gone. Naga, sure—longtime nemesis and all. But if Grima had truly cared about seeing Tiki’s existence destroyed… Well, I doubt Robin could have interfered that much.

But maybe it could still be a matter of arrogance. Maybe Grima just didn’t think Tiki’s spirit could do anything with Naga’s spirit gone, and thus didn't care to pay attention to her anymore once she seemed dead enough.

If that’s true, it doesn’t explain why Shadows of Valentia Grima exhibits the exact same habits when fighting Alm and Celica, despite never having been outside of the Thabes Labyrinth at this point in their life. As opposed to the various Terrors throughout the rest of the Labyrinth, which chase Alm (or Celica) down in the overworld to force a fight, Grima is immobile in their room, and will wait patiently there indefinitely until the player chooses to engage. You can even evacuate from the dungeon.

But if you do choose to fight Grima, it proceeds much like the battles against them in Awakening go. The main difference is that they actually will move from their starting position this time, if you position someone in their range. That still requires a fight against (proto-)Risen who are spawning in from the sides to stop your party’s advance.

So… Now it’s starting to look like Grima actively prefers this one particular trick… And it’s a fundamentally defensive maneuver, which makes perfect sense from SoV Grima’s standpoint (they were attacked out of nowhere, after all), but is not really an obvious standout strategy for Awakening Grima, whose taunts and threats suggest an aggression that would be better supported with a more offensive strategy… Consider, too, that Awakening Grima is in fact being even more defensive than their SoV iteration, since they don’t move towards you at all.

With all that in mind, it really, really looks like Grima doesn’t want to fight, especially in Awakening. Not that they don’t intend for the Shepherds to die—on the contrary, they’ve set everything up so that the Shepherds will eventually be overwhelmed—but that they don’t want to land the killing blow.

(And gee, I wonder what might be fueling their reluctance? Being controlled and made to kill your best friend by your own hand wouldn't be totally traumatic or anything, right?)

And then... Funny thing here, I’ve been procrastinating writing this essay for a long time. I originally started thinking about it shortly before the Depths of Despair banner was released in FEH, so imagine my surprise when I saw this characterization hold up in the writing of Fell Exalt Chrom’s Forging Bonds as well… The Grima there says that Chrom was the one to kill the rest of the Shepherds. Now, it’s pretty clear that it was through Grima controlling him, but that’s not the point. The point is that once again, Grima didn't have to do any direct killing.

Look, if it had only ever happened once, I could buy that maybe Grima was just underestimating their opponents, that maybe they thought they could get away without having to put very much work in. But for Grima to operate this way so many times, so consistently, and to their own detriment? No...

Grima doesn’t like direct combat. Grima has trouble even when it’s a fight they asked for.

And when you think about it, that makes their reaction to Robin choosing to land the final blow themself in the sacrifice ending all the more understandable.

“…YOU WOULD… NOT DARE!”

Because Grima would not dare. Grima has always preferred to let someone else land the final blow.

[nullians]

It’s actually insane how fandom in general has become so scared of making weird and dark and ugly works. Like I look at myself and see how I have also subconsciously adapted this instinct to self censor and make things “marketable” and it’s making me want to crawl out of my skin. I need to get weirder and worse and more off-putting hello

[belltherad]

i want the knowledge but to have the knowledge i need to research

[bunnihearted]

𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔

[ccbatman]

actually so evil how much of hal's internal world gets obliterated with the rewriting of his relationships with jessica and martin.

[blueskittlesart]

mineru's power is stated to be some kind of astral projection in a single throwaway line in one of the memories but we never see her using it until she's already dead lol. i wholeheartedly believe the miniature customizeable mecha came first and the lore justification as one of the sage abilities came later

OH YEAH I FORGOT ABOUT THAT. JESUS.

[kurokoros]

but what the fuck was the point of having Eddie, Robin, and Dustin all batting for team st@ncy in S4??? i don't know what would make me angrier. the writing continuing that plot thread or just dropping it and never addressing things in S5. why the hell would you devote time to that in an already bloated season just to drop it in the final??? could these characters not have had anything meaningful to talk to steve about beyond his less than a year long high school relationship???