#just keep believing we are right

[seviinoxiel]

Kazui T2 VD Thoughts and Speculations pre-MV

I've come back to finally talk about Kazui, one of my favorite prisoners, and give some of my thoughts and speculations based on his T2 voice drama before the MV for Cat drops. This voice drama still keeps a lot of things vague but the one thing I was able to interpret from this is that the Kazui gay theory may actually turn out real.

Eng TL source (big thanks for this):

There's really no other way you could interpret these statements. If he's not specifically gay then he is at the very least LGBT or queer. I will provide some quotes and my thoughts on them below.

Quote 1:

Es raises adultery as a possible cause for his crime but Kazui refutes it not by just saying that he did not commit adultery or infidelity but by also saying that it did not even turn into a case of one, implying that there were feelings towards a third party involved but it was simply never acted upon. Now whether the third party is just one person or a whole gender he keeps it vague.

Quote 2:

His marriage was built upon false pretenses and whether or not he did feel something towards his wife, the foundation of their relationship comprised of lies. Kazui viewed his commitment to the marriage as a sort of self-imposed punishment for his inability to stop his lies. He lied his entire way up to this point and it is only right that he continues to play his part.

Once he got the innocent verdict from Trial 1, he felt a bit relieved that maybe he could open up just a little in hopes of Es and Milgram itself to truly understand him. He took off his ring in order to alleviate himself from his punishment as he was validated into thinking that perhaps his lies could be unraveled. He does, however still feel guilty towards what happened to his wife.

Quote 3:

And then this passage comes along and it really just sounds like an old closeted gay man jaded by facing bigotry his entire life whenever he tried to simply be himself. It is very intense queer coding and if this was not on purpose then I do not know if I can ever trust this series with anything anymore. The emphasis on him lying ever since he was born as a way of survival especially screams queer.

To many queer and LGBT people, coming out of the closet is one of the most terrifying and monumental things you could ever do or ever have done. It feels like laying yourself bare to people who you do not even know if they would accept you or ridicule you. And oftentimes, the way other people act afterwards can feel as if it was a direct product of the coming out and, whenever bad things happen, queer people blame themselves for having even thought that something good would come from being open in the first place. Even though it was not their fault, they blame themselves because that was how society has conditioned them. I speak from experience by the way.

Now, this is speculative territory but I do not think Kazui coming out to his wife ever really affected her mental state to such a degree that she would kill herself because of it. Milgram is quite unreliable with their criteria in picking prisoners (e.g. Yuno being imprisoned for abortion), so I would not put it past them that Kazui was simply convicted for his close relation to his wife, for being a possible cause rather than a direct cause, or for his prior lies which led to that point. I think that was why Es also brought up Kant and how you cannot blame someone for telling the truth no matter whatever situation that may arise from it.

Well, that is all I could say right now and I am excited to see the full MV in around 6 hours. I was very confident in the gay theory before but after this voice drama I am certain about it and I hope I am not the only one. Thank you for reading and once again thank you to @onigiriico for the translation!

[messiahzzz]

When I came across that "joke" from Tav to Quill and Z'rell's comment (plus Halsin), I had to take a minute to process what happened. Gale might be a bit silly and eccentric but he's the kindest, sweetest and most passionate character in that party. No wonder the poor man has deep insecurities to solve, so many people reduce him to an easy target! Ofc one of the side effects would be overconfidence and ambition as a defense mechanism. He's obv lonely; only Tara and Morena ever loved him for him.

his eccentric nature might be a part of it. he is loquacious, outgoing, and doesn’t see the point in hiding his enthusiasm. he is considered to be the weird one. naturally, wizards in general being seen as somewhat squishy and physically weak might also add to it.

personally, i really don’t like the implications of the (widely considered) autistic-coded character being the one who faces the most ridicule by far by other characters and fans (and larian) alike.

some might disagree with me on that, but i don’t find it funny by any means either. mostly it just makes me feel bad. “he deserves it. cocky, arrogant, hubris-ridden wizard needs to be taken down a peg” like he isn’t… y’know… already at his lowest. it also disregards the fact that much of his bravado is part of his carefully curated Great Wizard of Waterdeep™ persona that he has skillfully adopted to mask his general feeling of being defective. being fiercely proud of your skill and knowledge and being doubtful of having something truly worthwhile to offer are mindsets that can coexist. according to fandom, gale is either secret hubris incarnate that is only waiting to be unleashed upon the world or pure baby that can do no wrong. instead of a character that is just as flawed and traumatized as all the others, but no less deserving of genuine love.

to me, the constant ridicule just reads as further feeding into his deep-rooted insecurities and his belief that he (as gale, the person) isn’t someone who holds inherent worth. it really, really doesn’t sit well with me.

[thephilosophah]

hit em with the outfit-fancifying beam

[utilitycaster]

Do you think that Laura and Marisha are deliberately making their relationship somewhat toxic and unsustainable or do you think they see the relationship as healthy? It is just so different from all of the other relationships they have been a part of and not really in a good way. Would love to get your perspective on it if you have one

I am honestly unsure. I would like to say it's deliberate. Prior to it becoming canon, in fact, I, and a lot of other people who were less than enthused by Imogen and Laudna's romance and weren't entirely sold from the start, made the case that we expected they would be talking to each other and would put together a compelling story, not the dull fluff so common in fanon. While whether it's compelling is a subjective judgment, we know for a fact they didn't talk to each other. We know for a fact Marisha was surprised by the question of "Can I kiss you," and Laura was surprised by the answer. We know from a 4SD not long after (4SD #16, Kiss and Tell) that several episodes later they still hadn't talked. We know that Marisha perceives Laudna as holding Imogen back (and that Laudna perceives herself as doing so) from the Rose City Q&A. We know that from 4SD #20 (Episode Twenty) that Laura doesn't like conflict in narrative and Marisha does, and that Laura was thrown by Laudna's regression following Ashton's attempt to absorb the shard (4SD #19, Shard Candy).

I don't know if it's deliberate or not; I don't have any extra insight that isn't public knowledge any fan can easily access. But man, it doesn't feel like these are two actors on the same page about what's going on.

I've touched on this before but mostly in tags or whisper posts but I've always felt ill at ease with a number of for lack of a better term "fandom-approved opinions" and one of the ones that has baffled me the most is this idea that Marisha and Laura have exceptional chemistry. I watched Campaign 1 knowing the endgame ships but deliberately avoiding the fandom, and Vex and Keyleth did not even once occur to me as a thing. I watched the first year of Campaign 2 without a ton of fandom interaction because I was avoiding additional C1 spoilers and it seemed crystal clear that the obvious ship was Beau and Yasha; it felt like Beau and Jester only even had enough potential for me to multiship it as my general "whomever Jester picks" for like, 30 episodes. And yet people - people who didn't even ship either of the above ships and in some cases disliked them- would just say "oh man I can't wait until we get to a campaign where we can finally explore Marisha and Laura's incredible chemistry!" and it's like. I feel like I'm the kid in the Emperor's New Clothes on this! I understand that chemistry is to an extent a matter of taste and subjectivity, but it just increasingly feels like people looked at two campaigns of tables where Ashley was frequently absent and said "well, if I want an F/F ship that's between two of the women in the cast, I guess this is what I have to work with" and repeated to themselves that a flat pamplemousse La Croix was a Piña Colada until they started to believe it. I mean if someone wants to explain it to me in good faith I suppose be my guest and I will try to take it in, but it feels like people just treat this as incontrovertible fact and if you doubt it they're like "don't you have eyes" and it's like, well, pretend I don't. Explain like I'm eyeless and five because I have never understood this. They both have more chemistry with every single other cast member; it's not all romantic but man, I didn't even buy Laudna and Imogen as platonic best friends of two years. I have never had this problem with any other pre-existing character relationships Marisha and Laura have played, platonic or otherwise. It's literally just them. I just never feel like they're quite on the same page.

Back to the relationship between Imogen and Laudna onscreen, this was easily the best conversation since the start of the gnarlrock fight, and it is my hope it doesn't fizzle out the way that did. You can't keep kissing Laudna whenever she fears she's lost forever to Delilah, Imogen. Or you can, but that won't fix the problem. Again: are you disgusted? Do you feel betrayed? If you're not, why did you say that? If you are, how will you move past it? Do you want to be with someone who never feels like they're good enough for you? Laudna, do you want to be with someone who, no matter what they say, you feel you're holding back?

Early in the campaign, my feeling was that of our current situation, switched - Imogen felt her powers were a burden and a curse and Laudna kept referring to them and to her glowingly. It's just...ships passing in the night, no pun intended here. I hope it's on purpose and whatever comes from it is a good story - and either a tragedy or a happy story could be a good one. But I have a nagging sensation that Laudna wants out but is afraid to say no, and Imogen is afraid to let go, and I honestly don't know if the actors have realized this impasse and how the characters might resolve it, one way or another, besides the insufficient bandaid of a kiss whenever the conversation gets too uncomfortable.

[sysig]

Let him dad her!! (Patreon)

[arabian-batboy]

Wanting to only give back the West Bank and Gaza to Palestinians while continuing to occupy the rest of historic Palestine and not allowing the Palestinian refugees who were ethnically-cleansed from there to return doesn't make a person any less of a Zionist from those who want to continue occupying all of Palestine from the river to the sea, no matter how much they swear they are not a Zionist.

[every-sanji]

[clownjacket]

If Kipperlilly DOES end up betraying Porter/Jace as part of a secret other scheme she has (whether good or evil) and it has to do with saving Lucy, I just know she’s going to be a bitch about it and pull a ‘sorry, I only save High Five Heroes’ before leaving her other friends to die or some shit. And then she will take her final form: Magic Betty from Adventure Time, betraying her allies and saving her frost gf at the expense of the world. It would also parallel what Ankarna is going through (‘your girlfriend’s out of town, it sucks’, becoming a little imperialist rage machine under the influence of Porter/Sunstone but not being able to fully turn on Lucy despite going against her values and turning into a violent weirdo). This is my wish. My dream. I am manifesting it. Magic Betty Kipperlilly I believe in you.

[themoonking]

finally finished the priory of the orange tree after putting it off for like a year, and putting aside the fact that it's insanely boring, way too long, and the romance is lackluster, it certainly was a choice to, in a book at least in part about finding common ground and coming together, basically go "religion a is correct and good and its believers can continue on their merry lives, but religion b is a 100% incorrect wrong bad lie founded by a wrong bad misogynistic lying liar, and everyone who believes in it should convert and in fact we're going to end the book by heavily implying that the recently-converted queen is going to slowly but surely pressure the entire country to convert because their faith is wrong and bad". like that was certainly a decision that samantha shannon made.

[fragmentedblade]

Ratio isn't just socratic nor is his method just socratic. There's a lot of sophist too, with how he is paid and the Genius Society looks down on that.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

nah but like

they're "seiros lapdogs" because they're fighting back against the people who attacked them completely unprovoked??? also because it so happens that thales is at garreg mach so they have to go there to reclaim the area to defeat him???

i just hate this because it's just perpetuating things about faerghus and its people that just aren't true. it frames it like they jumped into the war willingly for the church and that they're only here for the church. like nah buddy, it's not faerghus' fault you're out here fighting to protect thales and ludwig.

it also is batshit to me how he and leopold are fighting to stop faerghus from advancing but like... they know what's happening to the empire and that edelgard isn't even calling the shots anymore, yet they still stupidly fight for the very person who is literally razing their country and burning their villages. they know the empire is in shambles and that the kingdom isn't targeting them and is specifically aiming for gm to get it back from who? thales; who, mind, at this point is in his real form and not posing as arundel anymore. everything is laid out plainly, but they still act like faerghus is the bad guy.

but yeah, okay. faerghus BaD for defending themselves, fighting back, finding out who is behind all the puppeteering and heading to take him out. sure, that makes them seiros lapdogs. like what are you, an agarthan mouthpiece??? may as well be like yeah you go retreat and leave you agarthan lapdog. if they don't realize it's Someone Else in charge of course, then ludwig lapdog works fine too.

and it sucks because other than this shit, i like waldemar just fine as a character. it's just like, it feels like they forced someone to have to stick in that final faerghus BaD insult before the grand finale so they just randomly picked someone to remind us that faerghus is Always Wrong as long as they continue to fight back and prevent being attacked in the future.

waldemar here is just basically ag caspar. fighting and risking his life for thales, who is destroying the empire and basically holding the emperor hostage. if the writing here had any decent plot points, they would've all stopped and have been like hey wait, shouldn't we be fighting to get our emperor back? why are we stopping these guys from killing the people who are destroying this country?

and like, they literally went from siding with ludwig during the insurrection to siding with edelgard in this timeline to... jumping immediately back to ludwig as soon as he was at the top of the food chain (thales notwithstanding). as soon as the person in charge changes, they jump ship immediately; then of course get mad that the people they attacked are coming after them... and fighting them as they defend the very people who are letting adrestia become a literal, physical ruin.

it really just tells me that these people don't care about adrestia itself, but status, power and wealth. they don't care about the country itself as long as they're doing well. that's like, the only thing i can get from still fighting with/for ludwig/thales. the fact that they just fight for ludwig again as soon as edelgard is out of commission is also pretty gross to me. they have no loyalty at all.

and it's like, i want to like waldermar and leopold, but they come across as just selfish, entitled and only there for their own asses to be covered. and i get that - that is a realistic take on politicians, but the fact that the game regularly loops back around to faerghus BaD despite that and despite portraying these people as opportunistically selfish is like... what are they even trying to write??

[freckledbastard]

can't stop thinking about kaeya confessing to diluc he's from khaenri'ah and then it immediately cuts to kaeya and diluc sitting on the floor as kaeya gives a history lesson on wtf khaenri'ah actually is and why diluc should still care about the genshin equivalent of the byzantine empire (needless to say it's very anticlimactic)

[bumblingbabooshka]

"Everything you went through was meaningless." [St Voyager S3 E7: 'Sacred Ground']

[dyketubbo]

ik normally we talk about situations like what shubble opened up about, we wanted to take time to think through everything especially because of how upsetting the topic is to us personally. as of now, we do agree that signs point to wilbur so we wont support him and we encourage others to not support him during this time and especially not actively defend him.

but we dont want to make a big deal out of not supporting him so focus can be on shubble and people learning how to see signs of abuse. we're already not very active due to our own recent experience with a traumatizing friendship (we hesitate to really call it abuse yet) but regarding that experience and others weve had we can focus on another big part of shubbles stream: educating others about the signs of abuse. so we want to use the rest of this post to talk about that

abusers will be everywhere and anywhere. yes there will be more in this community, but youll find them no matter where you go and there will be abusers in your personal life as well, whether you end up being abused or someone you know does. theres abusers who are "obvious", who scream and yell and hit. and theres abusers who are charismatic, who will be supportive and funny and yet passive aggressive and backstabbing. and theres abusers who will be quiet and cold and manipulative. and theres abusers who fall into multiple "categories" because theyre complex people just like anyone else and thats why abuse can happen to everyone. because abusers can be anyone.

dont get yourself caught up in how "theyre such a good person", dont get yourself caught up in thinking abuse could never happen to you. if you find yourself in a situation where communication doesnt work, where the other person hurts you over and over and doesnt show signs of getting better, where you keep finding ways to blame yourself and defend them (especially if you find yourself thinking that you deserve how they treat you), where youre scared of them and how theyd react if you told them so, where when you tell them you dont like how they treat you they dismiss you and start treating you worse, look into how to get out of there.

and know that it will take a while. that abuse is hard to get away from. that sometimes youll be trapped for a long time and sometimes youll relapse and defend them even after youve realized theyre abusive. and there will be people who support your abuser over you and people who will hate you and believe your abuser over you. and there will be people who support you but will still support your abuser too for whatever reason. and there will be people who support you fullheartedly and care for you and help you even if it takes you a long time to find them.

abuse is complex. "good people" can be abusive. no matter the fandom, no matter the community, no matter the when who where how why there will always be abusers around. no matter where you go or who you talk to there will always be some case of abuse. the important thing is to educate yourself.

learn about tactics like DARVO (deny, attack, reverse [the roles of] victim and offender), keep notes of the hotlines and organizations about abuse. keep the discussion of how to spot abuse and support the victims open. and always, always, keep more affection in your heart for victims than you do hate for abusers. make yourself someone who can be confided in and trusted to not take advantage of that trust.

and remember: if youre a victim yourself, its okay if you didnt do everything "right". its okay if your feelings keep changing, its okay if you were an asshole victim, its okay if you didnt see the signs even when others pointed them out to you, its okay if you did things "wrong". abuse is hard to sort through and what matters is not whether you "provoked" them, its that they had the power to hurt you and get away with it and they used it, over and over. and thats horrible and what you deserve is to get out and to be able to speak about it without getting hurt for it.

if shubble's story and others like hers resonate with you, tell people. it doesnt have to be public. in most cases it shouldnt be. tell people who you can trust in private and get the support you need so that when youre able and ready to you can get out. and know that there are people like you and even if you feel alone right now you wont be forever

[hirookouji]

Aomine and kise are the type of people to end up accidently married in vegas.

oh most definitely!! thinking abt aomine and kise drunkenly getting married in vegas and then posting it to their stories, giving their pr teams simultaneous heart attacks

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Mel for the unhinged character bingo!

yessss YEEEESSSSSSSSS