#i guess they wanted to make it justified

[loustatapologist]

Coming here with the most unpopular fucking opinion: i fucking loved this episode. That ending was so fucking upsetting i kept looking away .

Truly hannibal season 2 ending level of fucked up

[fortheloveofexy]

it's a pet peeve of mine when ppl frame Andrew as hating Aaron and being needlessly cruel to him... bc while yes, their relationship is fractured and strained, Andrew genuinely cares about his brother and wants the best for him, he just doesn't know how to show that in a normal way.

like he might not know how to express it in a healthy manner but Andrew LOVES Aaron, like he truly just wants Aaron to be healthy and safe. It's like, his whole Thing. Aaron is one of the most important people in his life. Andrew wants him around. He'd do anything to protect him.

I guarantee Andrew wants to be emotionally close to Aaron too, he just doesn't have the tools to do that and the thought of letting someone in terrifies him. He also has no concept of what a healthy sibling relationship looks like, so he has no frame of reference to work from.

[zinnie-zoloft]

The idea that Roy Harper wouldn’t be friends with Jason Todd because he’s murdered people and attacked his sister once is just blatantly inconsistent with everything we know about Roy

He is constantly befriending, one time even having a child with, people who have tried to kill him and his friends and/or have successfully killed several others

He’s in love with an assassin and let’s murderers babysit his daughter, and people actually think he’d draw the line at his best friends little brother because he went through a revenge phase?

It’s not like Roy hasn’t murdered people either, I think he of all people would understand Jason’s perspective and be willing to give him another chance

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

if you're wondering why I kind of abandoned this blog, there's several reasons (fandom just doesn't feel fun anymore, I'm trying to cut back on screen time, I've been feeling like my faith is in contradiction to what I see/read/interact with on here is for years and years now) but the final straw has been what I see on my dash every day about Israel/Palestine.

I keep seeing people I used to interact with and used to like now peddling conspiracy theories, debunked claims, inflammatory headlines, and even bloodthirsty rhetoric with tens of thousands of notes (when corrections of those posts get ~500 notes at best), and reacting to nuanced conversations like they're calls for hatred, all while turning a blind eye to the very literal vicious hatred or sheer ignorance in many of those big posts. The level of black-and-white thinking is so strong that we are wayyyy past 'us-vs-them,' we're in the kind of discourse where even 'know thy enemy' (being interested in understanding the opposing arguments even just so you can dismantle them) is considered hatred - people can't be bothered to know what they're arguing for or against, nothing short of plugging your ears and screaming for the death of the Bad People is enough. This is a wave of just about the most hypocritical, callous and uninformed 'activism' this website has ever been guilty of and it's too much. I'm done with this.

And yes, this is about antisemitism. You can all shout 'not antisemitic, just anti-zionist' all day long but you have done jack shit to prove you don't hate Jews beside chanting 'punch a nazi' in the same breath you use KKK slurs and cheer for groups that have 'curse the Jews' in their slogan. I trust none of you anymore.

[ambitionsart]

Here me out: Oxventure guild, but make it deadlands.

Corazon de Toro, a infamous outlaw running from his old band. Don't ask him about his past, ask him about his adventures! Did you know he...!

Merilwen, looking for the monster that took down her dear friend. She's going to make them pay, just you watch.

Dob, a travelling musician working local fairs, fayres and fares to keep an eye and ear out for his long lost sister.

Prudence, maybe she's making deals with a long lost ancient evil to keep up her lifestyle, what it to you!

Egbert the travelling priest who wants to tell you the good word. What do you mean I can do weird things, thats the power of God and not a strange dragon demon he accidently made a pact with. Demon's don't exist, silly!

(I may have doodled the opposite, Deadlands as Oxventure Guild if any one want's me to digitise those)

[loch-detected]

I think if it wasn’t for the whole criminal thing I think people would like Cromdo

[hella1975]

i cannot stand the aot fandom this is not a new take at all they are universally intolerable but oh my dayssss u are FORBIDDEN from making ANY take about the show it's actually insane to watch. 'aot is perfect' no show is perfect. 'tell me you didnt get the show 😂🫵' people have different opinions/interpretations about things. 'eren is a good guy they could never make me hate him' i think there's actually 4 seasons and two movies explicitely using him as a tool to show that no one is 'good' or 'evil' they are only trying to survive. hello. the fandom r all so far up aot's ass that they actually discredit its writing in the process and it would be laughable if it wasn't so frustrating

[robotclownindulgence]

Being europen wanting to sell your handmade stuff also not wanting to support etsy sucks so bad man. Alternatives like shopenvy are pretty good but since they're american with only a small percentage of europeans who even know the site exists you're very unlikely to even find anyone willing to pay the high shipping fees for your product and most european alternatives are so squeaky clean and polished the stuff i make is never gonna sell there

[heartbeatbookclub]

There's a lot of ambiguity present in DDLC, and although + does elaborate on a lot of it, it presents some new ambiguity, too. I've already discussed the Protagonist and his entire existence, but I think something people don't even really think about is Natsuki's home life.

In case that doesn't make it obvious, CW: this mini-essay is going to talk a lot about abuse. Take care of yourselves.

Within the original Doki Doki Literature Club, there's an inherent uncertainty in the actual degree to which Monika is personally manipulating the other girls. It's somewhat unclear whether or not Monika is directly manufacturing unappealing traits to give to everyone else, or if she's just exaggerating problems that were already there to the point of catastrophe. In other words, it's unclear as to exactly how much of the game from its outset was something which would happen naturally, or an element of Monika's manipulation.

I think that Plus simultaneously plays into this ambiguity and clarifies a lot of it. There are definitely gray areas left, but the Side Stories in particular answer a lot of questions.

I think what the Side Stories are intent on doing is showcasing all of the girls as characters independent of any potential 4th wall/Monika meddling, and it answers a lot of questions regarding the true depth of each of the girls independent of that manipulation. This includes Monika, actually, and I think what it displays is that Monika's manipulation is far reaching, but she worked with material which was already there.

I've already discussed how the Protagonist is implied to exist within the Side Stories, but vitally, the Side Stories indicate the raw personality (and problems, motivations, etc) of every one of the girls. This includes Monika, and I think makes for a very interesting character study for how Monika became who she is in the main game. That's something I played with a good bit in Coil, if you haven't read it. Monika isn't aware she's being watched and in fact isn't aware of any of the nature of her reality, and thusly puts significantly more of who she actually is as a flawed person on display.

I'm digressing, but only a little bit. Something else this clarifies is the question I asked earlier regarding whether or not Monika was explicitly adding negative traits to the other girls, though it isn't an exact answer: Sayori does have a lot of the same mental health issues displayed in the main game, though clearly not to the same degree. Yuri clearly demonstrates a more obsessive personality, but it's in more of an autistic hyperfixation "I am incredibly passionate about my interests and will talk about them for hours if you don't shut me up" kind of way. I think there's definitely still some factors which are up in the air about Yuri (knives...that's all I'll say), but I think it's clear to see the basis of what was done to her here.

And Natsuki is, well...still pretty ambiguous.

I should be clear; Natsuki's raw personality is still very readily apparent here, and it does do a great deal of exploration of her character, showcasing the real depth of who she is and why she acts the way she does, but there is one critical question which isn't explicitly referred to.

The obvious thing you're thinking of, probably because I mentioned it at the start. Any reference to Natsuki's home life is absent, and it was all I could think about throughout the entirety of her story.

What it's instead "replaced" by in this instance is bullying from a toxic group of mean girls esque "friends". I put replaced in quotes because they are clearly what the emphasis is placed on in lieu of an explicitly bad home life, but I'm not sure I'd call them a one to one replacement. (I put friends in quotes, because...well.)

To be more specific, I'm not sure they're a replacement at all. I think what they are is more a suggestion of deeper issues Natsuki has.

I think Natsuki's behavior and overall attitude when talking about her other friends is very telling with regards to how she views relationships in general. Her immediate knee-jerk reaction whenever anyone says anything negative about them is to, in the first place, minimize anything they did or said as "just playing around", or "making fun of something stupid". Her next response is to immediately place the blame on herself for being so sensitive.

The way she immediately seeks to dismiss and push off any attempts to address any issues with how her friends treat her is heart-wrenching, and constantly blaming herself for responding poorly is doubly so. I think it's also behavior we'd commonly expect of people undergoing abuse, and I'll be frank in saying that I think that her relationship with these people isn't just toxic, it's outright emotionally abusive.

But being in one destructive relationship doesn't necessarily mean she's in another, does it? What is it about this entire situation in particular that leads me to believe there's something deeper here?

It's maybe a little bit of a stretch, but follow me here.

I think Natsuki demonstrates that she is attached to these people, despite their actions toward her. Her immediate defense of their actions, the particular way she chooses to defend them, and her intense fear to even the prospect of cutting them off tell me she doesn't want to let them go. Even further, I'd say her immediate response being to defend them when others attack them is multifaceted, and I think that one of those facets is that someone pointing out how her friends shouldn't treat her that way is probably giving voice to a feeling Natsuki herself has. I think one of the reasons she's so quick to defend them is in order to suppress her own urge to say something.

But why is she so hesitant to say something in the first place?

She doesn't want them to leave her.

This is something which, on the surface, might sound a little strange, but I think more than anything else, greater than any fear of the abuse she might endure at the hands of these heartless weirdos, is a crippling fear of being alone.

There are various things I think underline this trait, big and small (I mean, she outright brings it up when she talks about cutting them off), but I think her entire attitude regarding her friends is representative of someone who desperately wants attention from someone, anyone, whether positive or not. The reason she places all of the blame on herself and defends all of their actions is because she thinks if she brings it up at all, they won't want to hang out with her anymore. She's the problem, because she can't bring herself to put up with it, but she doesn't want them to leave her.

And I think that this, in conjunction with a lot of other elements to her personality, indicate that Natsuki likely doesn't have a very kind home life, either.

I think the biggest thing that illustrates this to me is her sheer willingness to treat the entire situation as normal. To everybody else looking at Natsuki's situation from the outside, particularly as she describes and defends a variety of their actions, it's blatantly obvious what's happening, and Natsuki finds herself confused not only over how other people respond, but how she herself feels.

The amount of time she spends excusing the emotional torment they put her through, and her constant insistence that this is normal, and that she's perfectly fine, she just needs to grow a thicker skin, demonstrate to me that Natsuki doesn't really have a good concept of what "normal" is. I don't think this is all just a conscious denial of reality; I think she genuinely has trouble understanding what's wrong with the situation, beyond that they're acting mean towards her.

"It's just the way things are!"

"I'm the only one who ever has a problem with it."

I think her ready ability to normalize this kind of abuse speaks volumes to how she views relationships in general. I think this is indicative that she doesn't have many good models for what a "normal", healthy relationship would be.

I think that a lot of Natsuki's broader personality, particularly in how she responds to the situation with her friends, and Monika and Sayori's attempts to connect with her, is a pretty fair indication that she doesn't really have a good space outside of her interactions with people at school.

I'm, rather ironically, finding it increasingly difficult to really express everything which showcases it to me in a way which all fits together nicely, but I think if nothing else, that's the point I really want to drive home. It really seems to me based on the way that Natsuki acts that at the very least, she doesn't have a good, safe space at home.

If she did, she would have a much better point of reference for all of this, and I don't think she would be so quick to trap herself in this situation. I think that a big reason she turns to the Literature Club and is so insistent on trying to be friends with everybody in it, despite herself, despite all of the problems and conflicts they have, is because she's desperately searching for a safe place where she can just be herself.

I think she constantly feels like she needs to be on the defensive--in my opinion, a big part of why she finds it so hard to just be nice, outside of something simple like baking for other people, is because her only experience is other people being mean to her, and needing to make a biting comment back. I think that's also why it's so difficult for her to accept others being kind to her: She is so used to just shutting out other people and ignoring them because they're mean to her, that when someone is nice to her, despite her desire to accept it and return it in kind, she instinctively snaps at it, because if she lets anyone in, if she shows any sign of vulnerability, someone will hurt her. Maybe she'll have to admit that the other things people said hurt her, too.

It's like a feral kitten instinctively clawing and biting at the hand of someone just trying to pet it. It's so unusual to them that someone could touch them for any reason other than to hurt them that they feel the need to strike first, until they eventually realize there's nothing to be afraid of.

I think that all of this, in conjunction with how everything else in the Side Stories is presented in reference to the original game, suggest that Natsuki likely doesn't have a very good situation at home.

I think it's vitally important to acknowledge that most people's perception of Natsuki's home life, if it's at all fleshed out, is based on fanon, not canon, similarly to how this whole analysis is really just fan theorizing, and not necessarily 100% accurate. While there are certainly some things explicitly said in the main game, we don't know all of the particulars which go into her home life, and I think this is another example of intentional gaps left by canon that I talked about in my blurb on the Protagonist.

In this case, from what we're able to glean about Natsuki's home, her father is the main parental figure in her life (At the very least, there is no mention of her mother {to my knowledge, it's been a while since I played it}), and from Act 1, he's implied to be extremely strict. Details here are actually one of the reasons I assume this to be correct, because explicitly, Natsuki keeps her manga collection in the clubroom because she doesn't want her dad to find it. In Act 2, this is pushed even further, which is where we get a certain famous line about him physically abusing her, but of course, it's more likely that this is Monika's doing.

I think it's virtually impossible to get an actual understanding of Natsuki's home situation in the Side Stories, because...well, they don't bring it up, but I think it's safe to say that there is reason to believe it's not good. I think it isn't as bad as it is in Act 2, but judging by how things play out in Natsuki's story across the Side Stories...well, let's just say I'm glad she has the Literature Club.

I think excluding any mention of this is probably intentional too, and not because it's an intentional gap being left. I think it would be incredibly out of character based on what we've seen of Natsuki here for her to bring it up at all, both because of her warped sense of normal, and because she wouldn't want everybody around her worrying about it.

This is a subject for fanfiction, I think. Is that foreshadowing? Who knows.

[bruciemilf]

I'm so sorry

But in the alternate timeline where Bruce dies in the alley, Martha becomes the joker and Thomas becomes Batman... what if the joker-ication process of Martha is a slow thing. They all mourn the loss of Bruce in their own ways while blaming themselves. Alfred blaming himself for not being there to fight the dude off before anything happens to anyone. Thomas blaming himself for taking Bruce to the theatre. Martha blaming herself for suggesting a nice walk home.

Overtime Martha gets more confrontational towards the two, "THIS IS YOUR FAULT FOR TAKING US TO THE STUPID SHOW! YOU LAZED ABOUT WHILE MY BABY WAS DYING!"

The words getting more harsh until Alfred confronts her in the kitchen saying it's no one's fault and they should work on comforting each other instead of tearing each other apart.

Martha laughs and slowly the laugh gets more psychotic before she takes the knife she was using and stabs him with it.

Thomas finds Martha laughing over Alfred's body, his blood smeared over her face in the shape of a bloody smile and he screams.

They're both broken.

Hi!! Thank you for the ask, first of all. Sadly, everything that has to do with the joker in a story-focused way (aka where I have to put a lot of energy into) Is a bore hazard for me.

[averlym]

whshdfhfjf.,,,

[mollypaup]

the struggle of wanting to play more horror games but hating survival horror

[fromtheseventhhell]

Honestly, If we're talking about female characters who receive misogynistic hate then Lyanna needs to be high up on the list. She gets so much hate for a) her proximity to a male character (Rhaegar) b) the pure fanon that people have invented surrounding her and c) resentment that she's such an important part of the story. And the thing is, for as relevant as she is, we simply do not know enough about her character to justify the hate that she receives. A lot of it is just people inventing reasons to dislike her. I also find it funny that a lot of people who dislike her are Rhaegar antis who characterize their relationship as forced and non-consensual, but then they'll still find reasons to hate her for it. She's supposedly bratty and immature, but also somehow intentionally seductive and evil for "stealing" Rhaegar and hurting Elia 🙄. I wish people would learn to separate canon from fanon when it came to discussing these characters.

[randomnameless]

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.

[cattywampers]

its not like a perceived sensation of rejection or responsibility for loss (or just loss Normal) isnt the underlying factor in almost every single non-dying loop or anything. surely that wouldnt be the case right. Haha

[bylertruther]

i don't like season three when viewing it as a continuation of seasons one and two, but i do very much like season three when viewing it as the prequel to seasons four and five... hmmmmm.