#it wasnt even related to the original post at some point

[felixisfruity]

does anyone know if there‘s a tag limit

[supreme-leader-stoat]

Since this wasnt the point of the post, I'm actually going to mildly correct the thinking here. A lot of American protestant pastors get to "anything short of cheating means divorce isn't allowed" but that actually isn't what Jesus says. He says "unless it be unlawful" and he is talking about in exodus/leviticus where the Laws are talking about what other gentiles must follow while they live in the land of Israel. Mainly, that you can't marry someone related to you [sister, step mother] or the same sex as you [ei modern so-called gay marriage].

It is likely with this teaching in mind that the disciples/Apostles decided in Acts/the council of Jerusalem that gentile converts need only follow the gentile-pertinent laws found in the Scriptures, and not the whole of the Mosaic law. Because, essentially, that's what Jesus said the Jews should be following.

It is very recent in history that its been interpreted that adultery is viable for divorce and re-marriage, because while adultery is unlawful, it doesn't make the actual *marriage* unlawful. Because otherwise, the interpretation has to be "the person who was cheated on gets to get remarried, but the person who did the cheating is still married to their original spouse" which doesn't make a ton of sense.

While it is a Catholic source, I think the Shameless Popery podcast did a video about this topic and it's definitely worth the listen!!

I'll definitely have to do some more digging into the subject when I have some free energy for it. What you're saying doesn't match up with the way that I've always been taught the passage, but I'm open to hearing out other perspectives.

You're right that I technically paraphrased a bit. The full text of the verses (just for the benefit of anyone reading this without context), in the ESV translation I usually use, is

31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

—Matthew 5:31-32

The way I've always learned it is that the law given in Deuteronomy was addressing a culture where women were being cut loose by their husbands for petty reasons, and so they were being given legal protections in the form of a required certificate of divorce which would allow them to remarry and thereby regain the social and legal protections that came with marriage. The Sermon on the Mount then builds on that going "this is still a sacred institution, by continuing to divorce your wives (even if it's all formal and legal) over petty reasons, you're still missing the point and proliferating sexual immorality." And so the only time you should even consider divorce is when the marriage has already been broken by sexual immorality.

There's also the whole debate over how to approach the text in a time and place where either party in a marriage can initiate a divorce and how cases of spousal abuse and violence fit into things, but at that point we're getting into possible eisegetic readings.

[intotheelliwoods]

This is probably going to be the most boring answer ever, but you will see the aftermath of the whole portaling ordeal in the next biggish update! (I have one short comic to work on before I can get to work on all that can of beans... haha beans.) Yes this includes brothers and Casey, you are just going to have to give me some time here to draw all that! :)

@overthinkingintrovert-blue

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Big Leo doesnt really have a defined, singular nickname? Rather than just an assortment of old/fruit related nicknames! Sprout could never land on just one and had quite the arsenal of names to use! The new little fella Poptart, was also about to follow this assortment of nicknames pattern before Sprout gave him an idea of what singular thing to call him

Ha names are confusing... personally unless they are referring to eachother in the comics im just resorting to call them big medium and little pfft

@marnerlue

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Yes!? I would not be going out of my way for a whole arc 2 ordeal if it wasnt cannon! If you are lost on the timeline, feel free to look at this post!

To be fair though, what is cannon, really. If you really want you could just accept this comic as the "true" ending, since it was the original ending I had in mind when I first started the series, everything past that is optional tbh but everything past that is what im going to be working on for the rest of the series so...

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Funny story! Its one thing to get hyperfixations, its another to get, hyperfixations within your hyperfixations? 2AL is my hyperfixation within my hyperfixation within my hyper- point being this ADHD brain has no other ideas. One show pony but its a one AU brain. In fact its a bit hard for me to even focus on other peoples aus because of that hahah whoops-

I say that since again, this whole comic started by accident???? And I have no clue if that luck of just, pure inspiration and motivation will ever happen again ha

+ Whenever I do finish the series (in like, 3 to 5 months maybe?), I for one am very excited to relax and go back to just making fanart for other people, no au to worry about, oh the peace of mind-

Who knows, maybe inspiration will accidentally strike again though, but its def going to be after I finish this series!

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ASBDKJABSDNH!!!!!!!

[sasoxichomoshi]

are the pathless and abzu related? yes, and this connection is way more important than people give credit for (i will be rambling now)

visual cues are everywhere; the beheaded shark statue right at the start of the game, the purification process and the spirit realm architecture all nods to the previous game as the shells and the locked door at cerno's domain are literal imports from abzu, which are all sweet references present in the pathless

everything that concerns the spiritual realm has a touch of abzu (pantone abzu blue when)

i'd also add that i have autistic urges to just write about how the pathless feels like this result from accumulated knowledge/experience from past Nava games - the pathless has both the 'myth of creation' and the journey of the hero combined in order to tell this lil story with these silly characters (i see it all as if giant squid team woke up one day and said "what if we made like a fancy fanfic yknow" really best decision ever), however knowing myself it''d just feel like nonsense rambling (even worse than this) and a bit off topic, but i had to mention or my skin wouldn't stop itching

anyway back to the two games -

i have this recurring impression that abzu allegories and symbolism are woven in the fabric of reality in the pathless - it's not about them directly, but are foundational for whatever is being told here and now

you cannot, in full consciousness, tell me that these are just easter eggs in the pathless that giant squid introduced because it's a past title from the studio; not when there was giant effort in blending the two games sensibly - abzu is brought up in the symbolism, the color palette (red/blue), in the environment, and it's even present in the soundtrack

in short, tying the universe of the two games together was intentional

but despite visually tied, it still made no sense to me; ok we share the color palette, we wander around with the help of a tall one, we defeat the bad one, what else there's to it? is it just the start of the giant squid MCU? giant squid cinematic universe? or gaming universe? (i feel stupid)

regardless, as i answered the question to how, i wanted to understand why - and to make sense out of it all, i resorted to a feature unique to the pathless: written text

what is so important to tell the player that you need written text, something you were avoiding in all your past games but that suddenly you bring back out of nowhere to tell a story in a way you havent done before? i can just assume some topics were too necessary to just left it implied (at best), or never explained (at worst)

one of the reasons i have written this blog post until this point (the main reason, actually) is that i feel there's a bit of an overlook of an essential part in the established the pathless n abzu crossover (can i call it that?), something that permeates everything, but it's not really visible in a literal way

--

as i played the game, godslayer perspective and motives stood out - they are the focus of a good part of all the tablets and dead people's memories - and as i dived deeper into the abzu connections (pun not intended) certain lines got too remarkable:

so,,, godslayer deems this world broken because it's made out of pure chaos, ok i guess it makes sense uhhh wait wait im having flashbacks i have seen this befo-

uhh oooooohhh ok ok get it i can see some parallels ughhh woooow just wow omg

the underlying factor here is that chaos is origin, foundation for both games universes (tho we can all see that at this point it's the same universe)

in abzu, by ordaining chaos the diver brings back life; in the pathless the ordained chaos, the one that constitutes all life, is at risk because someone decided that having everything made out of (essentially) chaos wasnt really suitable for the second industrial revolution i guess

note: if you know nothing about abzu i recommend reading this post cause it explains a bit about what chaos means in abzu, hence it's relevant to the pathless too

and understanding the chaos that impregnates existence as a whole is central in the pathless, which brings us to another focal point the game brings up: religion

you see religion a big deal in the pathless in the sense that it defines factions; you pick a side, and it's what drives the line of action of almost everyone in the island - the pathfinder quest against the tall ones, the godslayer followers vs the tall ones followers, entire communities dedicated to their local gods, and so on

superficially, it's easier to go to the "bad vs good" route where godslayer must be defeated to keep the order and the light and tall ones good guys whatever, the problem of this line of thought is: too much black and white and no gray to be seen

the pathless final message speaks about decision making: you are free to trace your own path (and this message is reinforced through game design and the title and at the final boss fight, you can name it) however, here lies the detail: similar to the chaos surrounding us, it goes unnoticed that the will to take a determined path comes from within

that's why religion is a hot topic in the pathless, it's what allows people to trace a path in a chaotic world, literally

the myth of creation - the eagle mother, the branch, her children - in itself is a form of understanding reality, religion - prayers, sacrifices, lines of conduct, contemplation - is also a form of grasping the real, and from this understanding, this particular view of the world, you are invited to take action; you cultivate the land and you build temples dedicated to your god

you take action based in what you believe, and you can see it better in the dead followers you can commune with through the island, they are fierce in their beliefs, which leads them to make a stand or fight back

it also stands out how the tall ones are imbued with negative traits; nimue shifts moods like summer rain, kumo is terribly jealous and childish, sauro despite everything will resort to violence, cernos is too shy, heck even eagle mother as gentle as she is let atrocities took place before any meaningful action was considered

all the tall ones have their virtues and imperfections because in the end they are also made out of chaos, essentially they are not that different from any tree on the plateaus; but, as the tablets about the masks state, they see things beyond this realm, and with this knowledge they try to guide those that dont see it - it's like this for their followers, and hunter is also guided by them

godslayer is no different, he took a path lead by his beliefs, beliefs those that reject the idea of having life from chaos, which lead to his obsession of fixing what he deemed broken; from his perspective, he suffered in the hands of the tall ones and their followers which made him believe that anything of their nature was treacherous - he failed tho, failed to understand that a single path would lead to perpetual suffering (as some memories states, "i was not meant to bloodshed"), which was a fate his followers had bittersweetly tasted

in this scenario, hunter is special: she's an outsider, she doesn't comprehend her mission just yet neither knows those lands; she's facing chaos in its pure form and in order to make sense of her new reality, she takes the eagle mothers advices; upon taking on the trials of the island she witnessed chaos in its many forms, and she assimilates it, not good nor bad but a 'in between' - that's why (from my understanding), on purifying the godslayer final form, her eyes glow in bright blue not because she's some 'declared since birth' allied of the tall ones, but because it signals purpose, she understands the chaos, the one that causes life and death, and she embraces that view from within and translates it into strength to fight back and endure

there's not a single creature in this world that doesnt feel lost and be it whatever creature - human, tall ones, demons, animals, everyone is trying to make sense of this confusing world we live in, be it through any path at hand - and religion is just one of the possible ways in the sea of infinite available paths

as hunter explores deeper into the island, she bonds with the tall ones but make no mistake, she's not really a faithful follower - and she doesn't need to be - cause she has the understanding that the tall ones represent this organized chaos necessary to the flux of life, she respects them

pathfinder, unfairly treated, will look at the tall ones and see just lies, refusing their guidance, he will strive for a new path not taken before and ignore any previous knowledge about the world, he will build up a single vision for a brand new reality absent of chaos because that's how he was conditioned to see and absorb the world around him

(and that makes godslayer feels even more tragic, having the possibility of seeing the world through new lenses by wearing the mask of the ancients yet he persisted in his views and ignored the reality as it was - chaos neatly woven - perhaps out of hate and sorrow for all past injustices; even in the end he resisted to accept the world that nurtured him, as he too was made out of chaos - and for that he's forgiven)

you and i can both worship sauro, but in the end we will look at the surrounding chaos from different perspectives and i will decide that pottery is the way to go while you see the sword as the suitable option; as the truth stands, this is a pathless land - there's no defined answer

the pathless, beyond the 'pathless land' lesson, has something more to tell - that perhaps the path is already established and to you is given the choice of going forward that path or re-evaluate and change directions;

if i had to define the pathless i'd say it's about what touches the eye and where you rest you hand (which can also explains why the eye is an ever present image throughout the game); through perception you grasp the world around you, you create your views and based on it you take action - will you release the bow string? will you strike with your sword? will you cultivate the land? or will you shed blood? what have you seen that made you act like this?

what a chaotic world

anyway, i have too much to say and no one to listen so my only options are write Big Blog Post or bang my head against the wall if you read until here (complete madness) thanks for enduring until the end

(cant wait to see the pathless references in sword of the sea i have faith)

[baeddelations]

I think this part of my loathing of seeing this article passed around "i am tw, iam staying in the closet" bc it is a diary entry that was explicitly not supposed to be advice or a rubric. She origanilly aays its just 1 narrative to take in then when it gets past around she says hey this was me venting i didnt intend for anyone to read this.

I think this is the major interest in this piece. A view into the interiority of a tw whos been closeted for 20 yrs and her personal xp growin up then being a closeted tw in a University WGS dept. Some ppl might call this a fetishistic interest in the interiority of this tw, oh how they love poking around in the frankenstein monsters guts, poking his brain to see what horrid mismatched limb will jump.

I think the main reason @autolenaphilia interacted with this is bc this article was passed around by a bunch of transmisogynist who are adpting and pulling together the transmisogyny of jeniffer and her recounting of cismanhating that exists in primarily cisfeminist spaces and by extension radical and queer spaces. Jennifer does not bring up cafab transness or transmasculinity once in this article yet it is cited as inspiration for truther framework.

I do think the way that jennifer talks about not wanting to acquiesce is kinda built on a faulty conjecture which is that if she transitioned she would be able to talk about femininity in these spaces... at one point she says this probably wouldnt be true(mb just for her) but then goes back to the original argumentation on many occasions. This argumentation taken to conlusion posits that it is easier to discourse or even exist in those spaces as a tw than as a cis man that u will be more include and less ridiculed. At the time of this article she had never actually tried out this proposition, so she never got to see how this prop is at least in all the copius amounts of personal and anecdotal xp i have false. But this prop is useful for ppl who want push tw have it easier and that men are reviled for being men. Enter prager xcuse me truthers.

I also hate internalized oppression framework, imo it is an idpol tool used to shift blame from the brainwashed oppressed to som aspirational that oppressive ideology comes naturally to. Is she promoting transmisogynistic ideas? Yah, shes not bad for this but it is why its useful to truthers, and part of why it hurts to read as a tw.

@autogyne-redacted i do think its hard to see point 1, 2, and 5 of y shes not trnsn nd say these arent related to passibility. Repercussion are often contingent with passablity. Movin towards phys transn being dysphoria inducing is connected with what expectations of feminity u hav and how u line up with them(i also xp this). And the gap thing is imo her wishing she could be passable w ease and recognizing she cant so settling and saying its not worth it to try.

I think lena is apply a broader scope of trans xp to jennifers xp i dnt think this is even necessarily harmful and i dnt think shes even saying jen is wrong for it shes saying her words are easy to coopt that they are capering to these tmras which they are however unitentionally. U could also take things ive said in the past and warp them into tmra shit. I fortunately didnt write these things in a medium article. She is handling in other ways and this is wut conv therapy wants... thats what it seems they go for a lot again doesnt mean jen is bad nd lena doest say shes wrong for this. The only thing lena says is she doesnt want this for herself thats not restricting jens autonomy. And that the article and responses made her sick. They made me feel bad too. This isnt necessarily a moral judgement. It could be but idk.

All this is a dissection. I hate it. I wish her vent diary post wasnt being aired, analyzed, and discoursed. Im doing it right now ffs! It makes me want to leave the internet. I hope ppl stop talkn bout it...but they wont bc the corpse of this diary can be a useful weapon against tw so itll keep gettn used.

[terraliensvent]

guys i think civ isnt satan (edit: they lied)

EDIT: please see this post, civ played everyone like a fiddle and blatantly lied about having nothing to do with the pet species deletion. keeping this og post up to show how dedicated they were to painting their narrative

so, a few screenshots relating to their bulletin were given to me (you can see my initial thoughts here)

now as with all breaking news there are revisions to be made with new info

(all screens can be found in this imgur gallery, may be out of order because imgur is dummy stupid)

so it turns out, civ and coy actually werent contacted prior to the decision. i do agree this could have been handled differently and there should have been more of a discussion around it, HOWEVER im more inclined to the side of current terra staff. for one, they came to the decision of one adopt every two months for each staff member as compensation for their work on the team. their reasoning for cutting down coy and civ's amounts is to be fair to everyone especially considering coy and civ arent actively working on the species anymore. i dont necessarily agree with the decision to cut customs though, since people have to actively seek them out for that and its more akin to a comm service. i also want to note that i can understand why terra staff wouldnt want to negotiate about the number of adopts with civ and coy, considering that this is how it went last time

you can see in the imgur screens the original terms, notably that civ and coy collectively were allowed to make 12 adopts a month. i can see how it would be seen as unfair to not be able to be compensated as much as the people who left the place to die.

throughout the screens it seems civ is being a lot more reasonable, i think more discussion should have been had with them and after introspecting, it probably wasnt right for them to be banned, however, i dont see why they couldnt just be unbanned. i think that theyre getting lumped in with coy severely here and truthfully that isnt fair to them. i dont know how i would go about the downgrade from 6 to 2, but what i do know is they were being pretty polite about it

coy on the other hand...

throughout the screens they just seem to keep throwing salt into the wound, working through loopholes and being petty just for the sake of it. their behavior i would argue is still deplorable, and their unwillingness to work constructively is probably the reason why they and civ werent included in the discussion. ive gone over coy a million times before, these screens just keep hammering the point home

besides that, there are a couple other things to note:

Tycho's lack of presence

Tycho (furthermore referred to as cal) diverting the discussion to others is something that has happened before, and can be a point of criticism against him, but honestly my personal opinion is that shit happens sometimes. cal has very valid reasons to want to pull away from the discussion, especially with the myo compensation event he seems to be giving his best despite the situation. i am willing to give cal a lot of leeway when it comes to being stressed because we have seen the work that he and his team are putting in. i mean ffs we already have new pet species concepts not even a day after the old ones were removed. hes got a lot on his plate, and coys un-reasonability and demanding things be done NOW would drive anyone crazy even if they werent already dealing with species AND irl responsibilities. you could argue that cal shouldnt be in a place of ownership if he cant take the heat which is a valid criticism, however i think that hes a fine owner, good even, its just that these situations keep popping up one after another and he just cant keep up. these arent things that normal species owners deal with

"disgusting"

so regarding these screens (because i know some civ/coy whiteknights are gonna try and use it to excuse all their actions)

listen, was it the most professional way to respond? no. but also: (assuming it was cal who said these) i would argue this is a totally valid argument. granted, probably not to be directed at civ, but still valid. if i was dealing with the same continued problems from people who arent supposed to even be a part of the project anymore, i would have blown my lid way worse. this comment isnt even that egregious to me, its just that civ and coy have created such an echo chamber that any criticism is seen as sacrilege, and given cal's previously mentioned stressors its completely understandable for him to react harshly when they have to deal with coy drilling up his ass and being petty for no reason

civ's final words

the screens speak for themselves here. i do think there are some things to be criticized relating to civs bulletin (particularly comments painting them as this poor sad puppy dog tossed in the rain) but ultimately they are not as much of a villain in this as coy is. best course of action honestly is to just leave them alone, they were pretty professional in the screens and just seem to want to be done with it

final verdict? coy is an ass. civ kind of isnt. it could have been done differently but i really understand why it wasnt. cal needs a break. new mods are still doing good in my eyes.

and terravent fans eat good tonight

[blueiight]

Maybe Anne didn't even intend it that way but TVL read like a manfiesto of why everyone dumps Lestat aslkjfskf I mean its undoubtedly tragic what happens to him but he's also unbearable and I totally got why Nicki and Gab and Louis&Claudia would wanna get away from him, I didn't read it thinking how sad he's being abandoned, more like GOOD FOR THEM go on and ditch him. The post-QOTD books are much more in line with what anon is describing and I would just advise them to not read that shit. I think what's very underdeveloped is why Louis suddenly wants to go back to him but pretty much all of Louis's choices are underbaked after Interview.

loool lestat de lioncourt’s very terrible no good bad. century? year? decade. the one relevant non lou entity who wants les in tvl is armand + les is blueballing him mostly out of fear of what mand could become if they ever did vamp-fuck. nick couldnt give les what he wanted, gabi couldnt give les what he wanted.. i think book louis individual arc kinda straggles on post interview but it do make some sense but like. post qotd hes essentially lestat’s waifu cuz les other love interests was flops. so i will say it do make soooooome sense why hed go back w les?.. cuz one they were less intimate in the original interview book lew always expressed longing for les yk the whole id be christ’s disciple if he was an evil blonde frenchie bit.. generally compared to his show counterpart he knew significantly less about lestat and regretted that. u can argue the interview was lew himself tryna make sense of his own life, and where lestat fit in relation to himself. as well as who lestat was? tvl is in part the answer to that question.. also end of the first book mand was the one who dumped lew cuz lew wasnt giving him the passion the frenetic longing fizzled out lew buries mand symbolically in the dulac family tomb area then mand tried to get w les and when les curved him he went to go troll dan. tvl leads into qotd & thats like. the vampire mini apocalypse spearheaded by a genocidal controlling ancient god vamp whos defeated w/ lestat symbolically if not literally succeeding the old guard of vamps as the brat prince god mode soon to come. its to a point where les + lew ending back at the mansion where they all started out is very poetic almost… like i say in the house of horrors there was love there.

[correctfullmetalalchemist]

Hey genuinely, I kno it wasnt about the Iraq war, but when FMA was first on air was 2003, and FMAB around what, 2010? Being a teen in America, it totally felt like it was anti-war propaganda about the way the US was in the middle east. I dont think its that unreasonable for a teen, with no historical context about Japan, would see brown-skinned people being treated shitty by a pseudo-European nation and go "huh that reminds me a lot of whats going on in Iraq and Afghanistan"

It wasnt until I was out of college, nearly a decade after my first watch of the show that I even found out there was Japanese context for Ishval. Idk I just think its weird to say "what an idiot that person is" when they may just be missing some historical info.

You dont have to post this, its "discourse" or whatev, I just wanted to share my POV

This has been sitting in my drafts for like a week? week and a half? I meant to respond to it right away, ended up getting into a several hours long conversation with friends in regards to it. Was exhausted by the conversation afterwards and wasn't able to formulate a coherent final response.

I will start off with saying with saying thank you for your earnest response I hope to give you one of the same.

I hear what your saying and I respect it.

One of the incredible things about media is that we can read context and meaning into everything. There isn't a right or wrong way to interpret works. How we see and perceive things is going to be influenced by the current events and the lived history of those consuming that media. This makes consuming all content a truly unique experience for everyone. The people making the media also are able to add influences of their own thoughts and experiences into the work they make.

Maybe people in the early 2000s when watching FMA were able to see the current stresses of the Iraq war being reflected back into the media. It is also possible that when Arakawa was making FMA, or people in the production studios, that maybe they were influenced in certain regards to the Iraq war that was currently unfolding and as a result was influencing Japan as well. Understanding and interpreting media like this is wonderful and allows us deeper connections with art.

That being said, while I understand this perspective and agree with it, that hadn't really been connected to the point I was initially trying to make. That point had originally been "I think it's silly for someone to say this piece of media is definitely about the Iraq war when there are so many obvious overtones to it being a parallel to Nazi Germany." Which I hadn't made clear in the post but was my thought process none the less. A character is trying to be named Fuhrer after their country caused a horrendous war and genocide. Conqueror of Shamballa literally takes place in Germany in the lead up to World War II. That had been the start and end of that thought, just a meaningless argument on the surface level interpretation of an anime.

But that argument I think has lead into a bigger conversation that I think is worth having. I don't want to dismiss peoples ability to relate media with what's relevant to them, but I would also make an argument against people who make definitive claims of how a work should be read and the meaning behind it.

"I think Fullmetal Alchemist can be read as an allegory to the American experience in the Iraq war."

Is a different statement to,

"Fullmetal Alchemist is about the Iraq war."

Maybe its semantics, maybe its not.

I will preface this conversation with the fact I am a young Canadian who was never directly impacted by the Iraq war, the propaganda machine propagating it, nor have any memories of it in general. I simply wasn't a teen in the early 2000s and wasn't experiencing media in that context. I don't fault anyone for being influenced to view media under those circumstances. But I do want to make an argument that if you were one of those teens taking in media in that time and formulating world views and meaning in literature and came out with the perspective that Fullmetal Alchemist is about the Iraq war, maybe its time to expand your thought processes. I'm not trying to say that to be an asshole or argumentative, just a suggestion to challenge the way you interpret works. You can take the broad anti-war messaging and apply it to any war anyone has fought, it doesn't have to be specific.

It's not about knowing about Japan's colonization and its actions against the Ainu people. Many people don't know about that. But like I think we all sometimes get bullheaded into thinking very self focused and forget that sometimes things can be generalized. it doesn't have to be about Iraq, about WWII, about the Ainu. In all likelyhood all of these things contributed some way in the messaging of FMA which has lead to it being the incredible story it is. But that doesn't mean that it is about any of those things in particular. Sometimes it can just be about broad strokes themes that war is bad, you have to take actions to fix your mistakes.

So like to be clear, you are right there is a variety of reasons why people would interpret FMA in that way. I don't begrudge them for that, but I do what to challenge them to maybe think about media a different way, and to grow their understandings of the work. The Iraq war happened in the early 2000s, its the 2020s now, lets see what different ways we can grow, learn, and develop our understandings from content. We all view media differently and that it important but we should also be realistic in this regard and understand that just because we interpret a work in a certain regard doesn't make it correct either.

I want to be clear how I read and derived meaning from FMA isn't better than how anyone else does. At the end of the day, how you read/watch FMA is entirely your choice and that doesn't affect me, just same how I do it is not relevant to you.

I just wanted to kinda of explain my thoughts a bit regarding that post I made. I don't necessarily disagree with it, I think my original point remains to an extent. But this was a really good opportunity to expand the thought into something more worth discussing.

So thank you for your response and thoughts which forced me to think of media in a different perspective. Thank you for your patience as I formulate a worthwhile response. And, sorry for the wall of text.

TLDR: My original point was that I thought it was silly to make a broad stroke argument about how FMA was about the Iraq War when surface reading analysis shows a heavy emphasis on an alternate universe Germany-centric retelling of the World Wars. Upon deeper thought I think there is a lot of ways we can interpret and draw meaning from the media we consume. How we interpret media is a heavily personal decision and ultimately only relevant to ourselves, but I also think we should continue to push ourselves into evolving our perspectives to be more diverse and reflective of other points of view.

[booskwan]

Okay this is so so random but I recently came back to the fandom after be bullied out of it (not by carats but by my school mates who found out I was on AfterSchool Club for an episode and treated me like the black plague) and backstory is I am a white passing mixed kid, and my whole life me and my friends who were also mixed would make jokes calling each other ‘whitie’ or ‘cracker’. And when i left the fandom people where still making White Boy vernon jokes. Fast forward, I am getting back into for the first time in years and comment on a tiktok how i will call Vernon “Frat boy” or occasionally “white boy” to my friends to distinguish him from the other members. And the Original poster answered my comment with a video saying “I hate when White Carats-“ and then proceeded to make fun of my name. I obviously got a little upset and just said things like “im not white, im white passing. Its a little bit hypocritical of you defend one mixed person and then in the same breath make fun of another mixed persons name” (the part about that is my name is related to my culture). Any they pretty much said “doesnt matter, my point stands” and i thought that was valid. I did some more reseaech of recent interviews and while I could only find him being upset about racism and colourism in Korea, I know he has stated he feels more korean and I respect that. So i went back to the original post, deleted I comment where I accidentally misgendered OP and apologised, explained how i felt, said that they were right and left it at that. But now I cant help but feel like a horrible person and I am worried about how my stupid one off joke may make people think im racist or a karen and I am lowkey just freaking out cause in my mind it wasnt a big thing and now i just feel like a horrible monster for saying it at all even if it is a joke and even if i did apologise. Anyway, I just need a Fellow Carats advice/thoughts before i spiral even further.

id like to preface this by saying i’m white so i’m not gonna speak on some of this

i think of course, you can call yourself and your friends whatever you want as long as they’re ok with it but when it comes to a celebrity you can never really know what they’re comfortable being called unless they joke about it themselves, so as a blanket principle i wouldn’t call anyone anything they could be potentially uncomfortable with /lh

i don’t think it makes you a horrible monster but i would just be more thoughtful of what you call other people, bc again we never know what people are comfortable with unless they say so themselves

of course he could have said something either way about being comfortable being called these words but i’ve never seen anything so i’d just air on the side of caution

[cometmystic]

hey!! i dont think youve posted abt this yet so… tell me abt your fav characters!!! :D

im about to ramble and expose some weakpoints on the internet so heres a cut !!! im gonna talk about the three that are in the forefront of my mind at the moment !! maybe this will change if you ask me in a months time,,, maybe not !!! mwah thank you for sending me asks sweetie

lots of history with this girl; soo i found out about her during my first mugen phase ? so like 11-13ish,, there was a genre of character that was modeled to play like smash bros characters, and in looking those up, i found one of this weird woman... hong meiling was her name ? she was related to this weird frog girl whose hat was evil and maybe the mcdonalds song girl ? whatever the case i needed to download her. and i couldnt because the download was down. this sent me uo the wall for several years and implanted her name into my brain,, up until i got into touhou proper thanks to you actually !!

so now im learning about the lore and the characters, and turns out theres more to this meiling than being elusive and pretty !!! so this gloomy, scary place behind one of the touhou worlds most significant battles is guarded by this friendly, easygoing redhead ? and shes fiercely loyal and protective of the mansion as well as gensoukyou, despite being employed by people who almost ate the world right up ? thats so wonderful !! shes so cool !!! and she takes care of flowers, and canonically doesnt like dodging bullets and tries catching them instead, and no one has any idea of what she is...!!!! theres so much to her !!! but most of all, the absolute tragedy of some of her mansionmates getting boatloads of development and lore, while shes,, basically in the same place she started in ? even flan did ! but meiling still gets depicted as just lazying about, despite that trait of hers being in favour of working in the scarlet devil mansion, which people fear and dont visit ? or rather used to... so she should have evolved along with it,, so that sadness also makes me even more attached to her in a way !!

i know shes not the most mistreated character in touhou or anything, far from it since shes a th6 girl and those get Everything and everyone sick of them but... idk !! id love to see more of her shine someday ouo

heres some sprite art i made of her

this character is a whisper in the wind. this character is a shadow in the wall of a cave. this character is the tree that falls with no one to hear. this character isnt real. this character is one of my favourites

like shes drenched, positively oozing with lore and content, and its all so utterly relevant and unique that i cant possibly talk about any of it because i cant be bothered to spoiler tag this,, but like,, reading between the lines of the fiction and uncovering lil things about her and what shes like was the most fun ive had during my dngnrnpa phase, to the point that,, here she is still !! at the tippy top !! and because of things youre intimately familiar with russell, you probably know shes probably gonna stay !! im very sentimental like that

and it wasnt even just lore either, her design kind of instantly drew me to her back when i was part of the original animes speculation circle and,, wow suddenly my sonas attire seems a little um,, familiar doesnt it : ...i promise i had other inspiations for ir too óuo;

heres some pixel art i made of her

finally this girl !! much like is the theme here, some lore to my meeting this one !!! this one predates even meiling, since i think i was 9 or 10,, see there was a broadcast channel here called animax, and its responsible for a lot of my taste even nowadays,, from the name you can guess it broadcast all sorts of dubbed anime all day long, most of which i absolutely should not have been watching at that age, like hellsing and gantz oops... well there was this other one which until like 4 years ago i only had the faintest recollection of,, i think there were demons in it or something,, mostly i remember being infatuated by the blonde girl

well 2018 comes around and the memory of this lady shoots straight into my brain in the middle of a call with you russell, which you might remember ! i describe to you what it looks like and tell you that i think a guy kills her and she has him help kill bad guys or else hell kill him right back ? and you, through intense googling, eventually are able to tell me it was called lunar legend tsukihime. woag ! lore unlocked

i wiki crawl for a while out of curiosity and find out that she has a fighting game that kinda rules, and that everyone hates the anime and you should read the visual novel instead and,, hey were making a visual novel at some point huh russell ? maybe i should study up on this tsukihime thing,, apparently its pretty influential,, and

obviously arcueid is ridiculously charming and fun, and every second with her is a mildly exciting, mildly creepy (fun way) delight, and its hard not to absolutely love her for that alone !! but also like,, much like the love for meiling started like a new phase in my life, arcueid did the same thing, in a very wonderful way ? a phase where were both really into this thing and talking about it so often and making so many new ideas about it together,, were playing higurashi currently and it feels like an extension of this, of her, and like,, its so special

i love what meeting arcueid again after 10 years did for me

heres some pixel art i made of her

and if you stuck with me for this long, heres a lil gift !! a lil happy ending for 13 year old me i suppose !!!

i found her after all ouo

[ithisatanytime]

before this fight was scheduled every thread about jake paul was from the perspective that he was a white guy, even though me and every other organic /pol/ user knew that wasnt EXACTLY the case the pauls have some distant jewish relations. the threads on /pol/ are rarely if ever started by the users they are clearly started the majority of the time by shills based purely on the subject matter of most of the original posts you can literally just look for yourself and that fact will be glaringly apparent unless /pol/ the only website on the internet where you are still allowed to say far right things, is organically mainly frequented by leftists from europe and other places abroad.

the jews and the shills who work for them realize jake paul is gonna embarrass mike, mike was always a great boxer but he was never one of the greats, still holds the record for knocking out the most bums and tomato cans in the sports history though gotta give him that. they are already running damage control for the inevitable outcome, mikes not just gonna lose, hes gonna be knocked unconscious and embarrassed.

Jews run sports. isnt it crazy how during the civil rights era the best boxer in the world just so happened to be a handsome well spoken charismatic black guy who changed his name to a muslim brotherhood name? WOW! what a coincidence! or how about in the early nineties right at the same time jews were pushing gangster rap on the entire world, the best fighter in the world happened to be someone who embodied the gangsta rap attitude to an absolutely absurd degree? a personality that hasnt been matched to this day even disregarding his champion level skills? whats an even bigger coincidence is that while tyson was knocking out dudes in five seconds or less, he just so happened to get into a street beef with a drug dealer who unknowingly must have also been one of the greats of all time, because even though this dude was hardly an amateur mike couldnt put this literal street drug dealer away for TWELVE FUCKING ROUNDS, i would have signed that dude, but im not jewish and therefore not in the fight game so what do i know.

my point is, suddenly the shills who start threads on /pol/ are aware of and making others aware of the fact that the paul brothers are one eighth jewish, and they are transparently doing this as damage control for when a white boy knocks out mike tyson.

[thecherrygod]

my brother is trying to convince the entire family to watch arc*ne (i dont want it in the main tags on accident <3) and he only half succeeded with my dad, but not bc he is interested or anything, but bc he made us watch a fuckton of stuff  as kids and he feels as if he ows it to him, but he still doesnt really wanna do it, and i think that comment actually convinced my brother to be less annoying about it

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Wait I had a thought. Horde Prime was alone and built his own family, by making them all pristine white, identical to him, to use and abuse to his liking. He is obsessed with perfection. Entrapta was alone and built her own family, but instead of cloning she gave each robot in Dryl its own looks, each one has its own personality, they are grimy and gray, and she takes care of them when they break instead of disposing of them. She loves imperfection. Idk what it means but, creation contrast.

OH, I just noticed you were talking about Prime, NOT Hordak!!!!! This is in reference to my colour inversion post, eh? ;)

The question is: Did Prime START OFF alone, like Entrapta (implied) and Hordak, or did he end up that way, like Catra?

Personally, I have the headcanon that, like Catra, Prime was the master of his own isolation - he drove away everyone that would have cared about him. But unlike Catra, Prime had no remorse and no regrets. He was a true monster. I've seen quite a few stories where Prime's homeworld was eradicated, thus, perhaps giving an interesting backstory - having seen disorder shatter his own world, he sought merciless control.

ANYWAY, Entrapta!

What I noticed upon rewatch is: There are a couple of times in the show where Entrapta shows darker shades, with her treatment of her own robots.

I wonder if this was back when they were 50/50 on what direction to go with her character? Or, at least, part of the great evil mad scientist ruse. Like, she is unstable in her approach to her own creations.

Anyway here are some caps.

The ones in the FIRST Dryl episode are kinda slavebots. Like she has one for baths. Don't ask me how that works. And they power down when not in use.

She isn't sorry for getting them destroyed, but fully intends to repair them, carressing the top robot mask.

(also fyi she gave her city to the horde while there were people living in there??? oh dear, it seems dryl wasnt completely empty)

Petting this robot, and then lasering it, as a demonstration. Love the juxtaposition here.

Blowing up a failed experiment in the next ep. Also she watched a lot of them get blown up and reacted with curiosity more than anything else.

Though props to this one for having a cute bow tie!

Then it's a bit different by "The Portal".

THIS is the scene I'm most interested in.

The robots are now "my friends", with the Best Friend Gang being a bit taken aback. And this time, they don't power down when not in use - they're all active in her lab, and one of them even starts to flirt with Bow!

But then she says this!!!

I don't know, there is something a bit fucked up about this line. It is her bitterness about repeatedly getting let down by human friends leaking into her version of the portal world. A couple even speculated that this could relate to her family instead/as well. Which is a tragic thought, and I dig it, though I think face value it's the friendship.

But my point is Entrapta doesn't always value her robots the same way as people. It depends on the robot, mostly. But I think it makes her more interesting if this bitterness/dehumanisation of her machines comes and goes with her mood. It's a flaw and part of her darker side.

Anyway I think there's a difference between these robots and the more advanced AI from later on. For example - Entrapta would immediately protect Emily. She calls her "my most advanced robot yet" and jumps into harms way to protect her.

Though, she does admit to having accidentally blown up Emily more than once in some experiments and maintenance xD but she put her back together.

Of course, back to the original ask, yeah. Prime's robots have absolutely no originality, no quirks, and no elements of humanity to them, as much as Entrapta tries to flirt with them.

[terraliensvent]

https://www.tumblr.com/terraliensvent/752357240651005952/keamuu-is-even-catching-some-shade-from-regular?source=share

iirc keamuu asks for permission from the original artists if she can redesign them and resell the designs for higher, which makes me feel a little better about her doing it. she's posted proof of it on her instagram reels before. though i do thing it's still shitty that she gets to make hundreds of dollars by just adding boobs to a design lol but i guess it's like buying a car and then adding a bunch of shit to it and reselling it for higher

to keep this terra related, i do wonder how she's gonna stay a mod if she's been focusing on her new species. not saying she isn't allowed to have other projects but she ALREADY doesn't do much for terras other than sell designs?

post related

fair enough, but i wish she would at least post the proof of her getting permission like, on the adopt page because its really sketchy the way shes doing it now.

and i mean, despite the “legality” of it i guess, personally it still skeeves me out. i know there are some artists that dont really care if their designs are upsold even with nothing added at all, i think my personal issue is more with how kea presents it like shes tooootally making the design all unique now and that definitely justifies a price hike of $400

its weird to me that even though upselling is a huge taboo, keamuu just gets to do whatever because people love to suck the farts out of her ass

and i agree with your last point too, look on the keamuu tag on here and a lot of people dont really know what kea actually does for terras besides rake in a big paycheck, it would be one thing if she was like best species admin ever but ive really never seen her take on any sort of admin role, for a while i didnt even know she wasnt just a mod

[funneyheehooman]

i cannot BELIEVE I DIDNT LIKE the 'disc finale is staged theory' before yesterday. i cannot BELIEVE myself- ITS SO FUCKING SMART. i just watched animagician's video on it and it puts so many things into retrospect- it is absolutely genius, it is backed up by so, so so much evidence, everything calls for it- c!dream would NEVER be as hasty as he was for the final disc confrontation!!! THIS HAS TO BE IT WHAT THE FUCK??1GRYFT SDFHJA ITUYGH!HUGYTF!!

LMAO-

for shame vil I've believed this theory when it first started going around >:D /lh (pff- What made u turn away from it initially tho :0?)

And ur so right- just overall what happened at the time really points to it.

With c!dream, he was never super flashy, and even if he was he usually wasnt the main focus (ie. Nov. 16th, Doomsday, etc). He'd usually let the others take the more prominent role.

With the disc finale, it just felt so odd to me honestly, he created this blackstone structure just to house everybody's attachments? (this one is more in character but still the extent he does it). And with a very conventiely placed portal that anyone could walk to and get in if they knew where they were going?

As well, before the finale, c!dream and c!punz had a discussion about the nature of their relationship. That even though c!punz is a mercenary, and their relationship has been mostly for transaction sake, they both agreed that their relation goes beyond simple service and payment. That they were friends.

As well, c!dream warned c!punz that being too close to him could lead to him getting hurt. They had to figure out some way to show that c!punz wasn't on c!dreams side anymore. Originally I believe they planned on c!dream tried to steal/or kill c!punz horse pumpkin. But that's never brought up again.

C!punz was the guy who knew where c!dream was located, he knew where the portal was, and he was the one who lead the charge against c!dream. The reason? C!Tommy paid c!punz more than c!dream did (which I sincerely doubt, c!dream used to be one of the richest players, but I digress) c!punz and c!dream both just had a discussion on how they shouldnt be seen as allies. And a perfect opportunity comes right into their laps to show how they arent allies anymore.. just feels like too much of a coincidence.

Then, we get to Enderboo (c!ranboo in his enderstate), both cc!ranboo and cc!dream said that the staring at eachother was on purpose. Why would it be though? If this wasn't planned, wouldn't enderboo try helping his ally? No, instead it's been confirmed that in the beginning Enderboo was c!dreams most common visitor. Also I do wanna mention that Enderboo is just c!ranboo but with all of his memories intact. So Enderboo isnt a separate entity but just the same c!ranboo (this has been confirmed in a lore stream). The relationship between the two is so vague, but I really believe it's a mutual partnership or mentor/student dynamic (esp with the lessons).

And dont even get me started on the stone theory lol- both c!ranboo and c!punz have both gone like "oh we need stone chat, why? It's a secret chat :)/I dont really know ik I just need it" like CMON. That's so fucking suspicious (I'll link a good post about the stone theory here when I find it ;;)

I could talk forever on this theory- like I 99.9% believe it's true theres just too much pointing to it imo

But just imagining c!dream practicing monologuing evilly to c!ranboo and c!punz and they're both trying not to laugh in the background makes me just 🥰🥰

Also the skeppy cage is funny ngl, just imagining that discussion is fkn hilarious pff-

[expired-blueberries]

Ooh what’s the headcanon for frank tennyson you mentioned in the tags in that one post??

okay so forgive the delay in answering but i wanted to rewatch the single episode we ever saw frank in (What Are Little Girls Made Of, aka the one where we first see verdona) just so i could be sure i had my facts straight lol

ANYWAY this is actually gonna be a two part answer, but ill put the headcanons in a list and then ill put more of an analysis (not really an analysis because i dont have time but more of a rambling of my thoughts lol) under a readmore 

- i cant remember if its canon that frank is a lawyer or not. i feel like i remember it being mentioned in canon once but im not positive. so if thats not canon then thats the headcanon

- following that, lawyers work long hours; frank probably isnt at home very often (and we also know this because he only shows up in One. Single. Episode), opting instead to work late at the office. 

- my guess is that natalie is more of the disciplinarian both because of his long house but also because natalie is more uptight than frank is. frank has to be some measure of Not Uptight by virtue of his upbringing with verdona (if he were completely rigid in all things he Would Have Snapped at this point) 

basically frank just isnt in gwens life as often as would be best. i am NOT absolving him of the blame, he 100% should have told gwen of their alien heritage and took more of an interest in her life, but theres only so much time in the day i guess and at the end of it if your only daughter is healthy and seemingly happy, theres only so much you can do.

- also my last headcanon (that does not in any way relate to the previous headcanons) is that frank (and carl and ken and ben) DOES have anodite energy locked away inside of him, but that anodite dna is dormant... until its given a reason not to be. (remember, frank can sense when verdona is around even when shes invisible, despite, in verdonas words, ‘not having the spark’ 

 gwen was able to learn magic and use powers BECAUSE she was exposed to high levels of magic (hex and charmcaster fights when she was 10, along with the charms of bezel)  and also high levels of STRESS (literally her entire life). frank and carl were both kept in the dark about max being a plumber; they both knew he had a double life but they werent sure what it was (carl says this in the episode Grounded, the one where bens parents find out about the omnitrix). frank and carl all told have a pretty calm life, even when they were kids, and despite being around verdona and her mana for some of the time (i imagine she was still just a free spirited then, and probably especially as they got older and were more capable of taking care of themselves, she probably stayed around less and less until she finally left them). if they were put under a high level of stress and a more constant stream of mana, then they would unlock their powers. frank has gwen around, but low stress. carl has decidedly more stress (remember the highbreed fight? also his son is literally the most famous, and most sought after person in the galaxy), but a lower stream of mana. i imagine the omnitrix probably lcoks down the anodite dna so it can keep the human dna sample (ben) as close to human as possible. ken, now in college, has zero mana stream near him, but a relatively high amount of stress (both the dnalien attack and also, just, college). i imagine he might unlock his powers if he were to ever become a plumber and spend more time with gwen. 

when i rewatched the episode, one of the things that stood out to me was frank commenting on not being allowed into gwens room for ‘quite some time.’ thats pretty normal for a teen, but then we remember that gwen has been studying magic for the last five years, since she was ten, so i think thats probably originally when she stopped letting him into her room, so that she could hide her spellbooks and magical artifacts etc. BUT we also know that frank is the one that she invites into her room and the one she tells about meeting with verdona. she DOESNT invite natalie into the room, despite natalie being just downstairs. gwen trusts her dad more than her mom and believes he wont dismiss her concerns (he does dismiss her magic ‘hobby’ but then goes on to explain that there is no such thing as magic, just aliens, so im willing to let that one slide) .

frank smiles when gwen talks about possibly going with verdona, then frowns when natalie talks about ‘wishing [gwen] had taken after [natalies] side of the family’, but then smiles when gwen talks about going again, and says they wont stand in her way. more than anything, including his interactions with verdona, this tells me he (and natalie) have been thinking on this for a long time. he says he and natalie had both thought gwen wasnt an anodite since she hadnt shown any sign of the spark by alien force, but my guess is that, like his mother leaving for anodyne as soon as carl and frank were out of the house (probably late teens or early 20s), he expected that if gwen WERE to be an anodite, she would follow the same path. gwen, however, is sad that they ‘wont stand in her way’. 

gwen needs to feel like shes wanted around. her parents arent telling her to go, but they arent telling her to stay; same with ben. later in the episode, gwen talks about loving her life, but she specifically mentions crime fighting and hobbies, not bringing up family. she isnt as close with her parents as she could/should be, same for them with her. 

theres a few things throughout the episode (usually done or said by verdona) that hint at the type of life frank had growing up. verdona talks multiple times about frank not having the spark, even saying ‘there was nothing [she] could do’ in regards to him at one point. verdona refuses to listen to gwen not wanting to leave at first, dismissing it as a tantrum. she outright says that 16 is too young to make up a mind. verdona is curt with kevin because he isnt an energy being, and doesnt really care for anything ben has to say because hes the same way. once she left, verdona hadnt visited the family for ‘quite some time’, presumably ever since ben and gwen were born, and once she noted they werent anodites, she left again. 

basically, frank (and carl) grew up with a dad with a double life (which they knew about but were NEVER told the NATURE of, not until they forcibly found out during af) and a freespirited mother who seems hung up on her children not being what she wants them to be, and who left as soon as she could. frank, i imagine, probably had to take care of carl a lot as the older brother, especially with a flighty mother around. frank doesnt seem to harbor any hard feelings towards verdona, but seems to take it more as a ‘this is the way she is, there is no changing it’ sort of way. so i guess frank is more used to having to go with the flow than anything else 

(this isnt a jab at verdona - she was away from her home planet and her people, she and her husband were growing apart, and neither of her children were like her; she was effectively alone and i dont necessarily blame her for wanting to leave. granted, i still think she was probably in the wrong more than in the right, but still.) 

listen im SO sorry this is so jumbled i wanted to organize it better but its 7 am and i havent slept yet lol