#like serious spoilers

[worm-on-the-moss]

Sometimes you work your ass and boney ass replacement off to ascend to lyctorhood and all you get is a second (if sexier) arm amputation and stuck behind a door for like half an hour with your arch-nemesis in romance--inhabiting your crush's body--as her secret, tragic and soapy lore hits the fan.

[flameof]

Okay, Gundam SEED Freedom has completely taken over my brain for the past 24 hours. I ABSOLUTELY MUST GUSH LORE AND PUT IT DOWN SOMEWHERE.

Naturally, there will be major spoilers for Freedom below the cutoff. If you don't want to be spoiled, then TURN BACK NOW, PLEASE.

Okay, we good? Good.

First the lore: A major theme throughout quite honestly the entire SEED series is that of Destiny. Rau le Creuset believed it was humanities destiny to destroy itself, Gilbert Durandal believed humanity would be happiest if their destiny was determined by genetics, and Foundation, the nation introduced in Freedom, follows in Durandal's footsteps, only to a more violet degree.

The main thing that differs Foundation from Durandal is the existence of Accords; basically Ultimate Coordinator MK2. At some point between Ulen Hibiki's initial experiments that created both Kira Yamato and Rau le Creuset, and Durandal being a part of whatever it was when he devised the Destiny Plan (as well as whatever created Rey za Burrel), two particular individuals were a part of the overall scheme. These two were Aura Maha Khyber (the blonde loli), and Lacus' mother.

That's right. Lacus Clyne is an Accord. She, alongside Orphee Lam Tao (blonde dude), were designed with the express purpose of running the Destiny Plan as a couple. Arranged marriage between Coordinators is no big surprise, let's be real. Hell, Lacus was probably genetically coded to be attracted to Orphee, shown in the movie by certain scenes (not show how else to describe them).

But, as you might guess (or know, if you've seen the movie), Lacus still chooses Kira over Orphee. Why? Well, time for some theorycrafting.

It's my believe that the main message of Freedom is one of Nature VS Nurture. Who we are genetically vs Who we are, raised by our environment.

Kira Yamato is a First Generation Ultimate Coordinator, so while he's outstanding compared to normal Coordinators, he pales in comparison to the Accords. But, Kira always said he was more than just the byproduct of Ulen Hibiki's hubris. More than a child of Ulen, he is a Yamato; raised and nurtured by Caridad and Hamura Yamato, after being entrusted to them by Via Hibiki, his mother by blood. Kira's kindness may very well be engrained into his DNA, but it was something he was taught to value by the Yamato's. He could have easily become conceited, like so many other Coordinators, but he didn't.

Just the same, Lacus Clyne, as far as we knew up to Destiny, was raised by the late Siegel Clyne, who almost certainly taught her to value people based on who they are, not what they represent. She can be cunning underneath her cheerful exterior in her youth, but she gravitated towards Kira because he was Kira Yamato; the kind boy who stuck his neck out for a stranger.

A wise dragon once said: Destiny is little more than the sum of our choices. I feel this quote perfectly encapsulates the core of SEED as a whole, not just Freedom. Destiny shouldn't be something chosen for you; it should be something you yourself choose. And in the end, Lacus chose Kira. A common theme in Freedom was the idea of 'Loving someone because you need them', which Lacus herself refutes with "You don't love someone because you need them; You need them, because you love them". Its a sentiment that Kira actually shares, when the woman holding Lacus at knife point threatens to cut our her tongue, or gouge her eyes out, and see if Kira still loves her then, Kira's immediate response... is of course I'd still love her; she's Lacus.

The Destiny Plan, laid out by Durandal, and worked on by so many, like Aura and Lacus's mother, was (ha ha) destined to fail, and I believe it all comes back to the choices two parents, unrelated to each other, made for the sake of their children. Because Via Hibiki got Kira and Cagalli to the Yamato's and Athha's, and all because Siegel Clyne taught Lacus to value the kindness of a stranger, over the power of your destiny.

Funnily enough, I'm remembering a line Kuzzey says back in SEED, about just how much work went into making Lacus's voice the way it is. Turns out; a lot.

It also makes me wonder if Meer Campbell was something of a backup plan, since she sounds identical to Lacus.

Okay, gushing about the new lore done. Now, let's talk about the awesome.

First off: The Immortal Justice is a Shinn Asuka suit, not an Athrun Zala suit. I don't make the rules, but Athrun never sat his ass down in the Immortal Justice.

Next, Agnes Giebenrath can literally be described as 'Coordinator Flay Allster', and I appreciate her for that.

Then, there's all the callbacks to other characters that had passed away, specifically Nicol and Natarle. Those two had complete maneuvers and tactics named after them. They're gone, but never forgotten.

As I mentioned in my last SEED Freedom post, Athrun did stuff with the Z'Gok that would make Char envious. The way Athrun handled that machine made me think he was Master Asia, Undefeated of the East.

Next, as we all well know by now, the way Athrun managed to get one up on the Black Knights' ability to read his mind; by thinking about having sex with Cagalli.

Next! Once more Mu La Flaga proves himself to be the man who does the impossible... by face-tanking FREAKING REQUIEM WITH THE AKATSUKI! Man practically said he had to stop doing that.

Then, there's the new warship, Millennium. Not only is it state of the art, but Murrue, once she starts captaining it, gets her own assault deck where she controls FREAKING GUNBARRELS! The Millennium is a warship sized Moebius Zero!

Finally, for the last thing I want to gush about: Shinn Asuka. Just... all of him. From the fact that he's calmer, earnest, stands up for Kira, drinks his 'respect' juice, and at the end, when he gets the Destiny Gundam back, he faces off against four of the Black Knights, and kicks their asses... WITHOUT TAKING MAJOR DAMAGE. Not only that, but STELLA LOUSSIER makes a comeback, proving definitively that Shinn Asuka is the Kamille Bidan of the CE era, by protecting Shinn's mind from being probed by the Black Knights, freaking them out by going all nightmare on their asses (which is probably just a representation of them being scared by just how much darkness is in his heart), and then immediately followed by him putting the F91 to shame and using the much meme'd about afterimages to kick ass and take names. Shinn may have lost to them before, but only because he wasn't using the machine literally built for him. Also, before I forget, when Shinn went SEED mode during that same battle, the Black Knights couldn't read his mind. Shinn's instincts are just that good.

Okay. I'm done. I've gushed all I can.

[sablegear0]

To make a more articulate post about it, big TotK (and some Metroid Dread) spoilers under the cut:

I don’t know who it is at Nintendo but someone is jamming real hard on letting their female protags turn into literal actual monsters. And I am all about it.

They’re pretty monstrous monsters, too, to Ninty’s credit. While the Light Dragon and Metroid Suit still have some elements of their original person present (eg. The blonde hair and blue eyes for Zelda, the general design of the Varia+ suits for Samus) they’re enough their own thing that the visual and emotional impact are pretty powerful.

The Metroid suit turned Samus into the sort of expected emotional conclusion of the scenario; a vicious, screaming, thing fed up with the bullshit she’s been through and finally able to channel all that rage into a perfected, weaponized form.

Zelda’s draconic transformation on the other hand… is the mythological conclusion to what Skyward Sword sets up. As a living avatar of the goddess Hylia, she’s been able to have a direct hand in mortal affairs. But when the best tools Hylia left behind aren’t enough, things turn full circle and Zelda ascends back to a divine form to protect her chosen hero. She willingly forsakes her mortal influence and individuality for a chance to defeat her ancient foe.

And honestly that’s… like really tragic. BotW showed her struggling with her destiny and her relationship to Link. You find pieces throughout TotK that show how she has finally come into her own as a ruler, historian, and philanthropist. The fact that you find her journal in the house you can buy in BotW implies she and Link has been living together over the time gap (which could be in the neighbourhood of almost 10 years! I haven’t checked on Riju and the Gerudo yet but several pairs of NPCs have had children in the interim). Zelda willingly gives up all of this, the self she spent so much time and effort finally realizing, in the name of her destiny as a facet of Hylia.

But not just that. Not just for that. She does it for Link, too. To restore the chosen weapon for her chosen hero.

Really, it’s all for his sake. She tells the sages about him, she tells Rauru about him. Shrines and mechanisms and prophecies are put in place to ensure he has the tools and information he needs, ten thousand years later, to do battle.

Her last words as a human are “Link, protect them all.”

And she spends those ten thousand years in empty solitude. Still watching over Hyrule and its hero despite the total ego death she willingly commits to in order to protect her home.

Its… sad. It’s really sad. And it’s beautiful. And honestly I commend whoever made the choice to allow the title character to become something like this. Because that’s awesome.

[too-much-sunshine]

It was supposed to be a comment on my other ask but character limit got me so here we go (heavy spoilers below)

I loved picking on foreshadowing and being like "mhmmm I'll keep that in mind" and overall the whole grian is watcher side of plot i was like "i see you just explain HOW exactly" like bro i would have not come up with the Xisuma and the whole void situation THATS SO CLEVER OMG, but the biggest aintnoway moment i had was when i was joking with myself that wouldn't it be cool if grian became an even more of a main character and was able to steal powers like a little shit he is, AND THEN HE IS A MIMIC, i took great joy in that suits his character very well haha

btw i see you and your little cameos of other mcyt, every time there was one i was like "wait is that.... LETS GOOOOOO"

Eeehehehehe I see you bestie UuU putting in the WORK while reading. Foreshadowing is the most fun part of writing and I'm glad it was working for you! As for the Xisuma, I knew from the beginning him and Keralis were going to be main players, but until they showed up nobody knew UuU

I think it's so interesting that people always go "wouldn't it be funny if Grian was a mimic? Lmao that would never happen" and I'm sitting at my computer like "ahaha...yeah...what if... TuT" and I'm so happy people liked it lmaooo

Also, I glad you saw my little mcyt cameos! One of them will be making a reappearance real soon ;)

<3<3<3

[inklore]

come for me if you must but colin and penelope’s first kiss was way more hard hitting than any of the other kisses in bridgerton. it wasn’t fast and wild or trying to prove something. it was slow. gentle. a friend helping out another friend with just a simple peck that could have ended there. but no they pulled back and looked at each other and got lost in with another and kissed again. deepened it. both acting as if it would be the only and last time. colin panting into her mouth. his fingers on her cheek. we have been waiting to see this kiss for two seasons. eighteen episodes. penelope has been waiting for this kiss since they were kids. like!! their kiss holds so much more meaning!! hits harder!! i’m sorry but nothing can top it.

[possamble]

Needlessly close reading and long commentary on chapter 57 and how the audience actually has an extremely limited view on what Marcille has been like over the course of her life.

I am once again thinking about how pre-dungeon Marcille is so quiet and stoic that she seems like a completely different person. How jarring chapter 57 is for the audience. Like you have Marcille, who has been just the most blindingly expressive person with resting baby face

And then the chapter drops a title page of Marcille hearing from Falin for the first time in four years and it's like.

Who is that. Genuinely. Would you even realize that's Marcille without the context clues?

And then the chapter just keeps coming in with the sucker punches.

We have SEEN Marcille meet strangers. It was never with this understated of a smile.

literally who the hell is this. the few times the audience gets to see some Signature Marcille Faces that they're used to is when she finally gets to see Falin again

when she's testing out her new spells

(and when Laios and Falin are fantasizing about her being their damsel in distress, funnily enough)

And then finally. Finally you get to a fully recognizable Marcille when she fucking DIES and comes back to life to geek out about necromancy.

We know she loves magic. We know she loves Falin. So it's not so surprising that she wouldn't be able to keep a mask up when thinking or talking about the things she loves. But why the mask in the first place? Where does it come from? It's tempting to think that, maybe, Falin's departure just hurt her so much that it turned her into a quiet person.

But that's only half true. If you go back, the first instance you see of this incredibly mild personality is actually introduced much earlier, in chapter 17.

What if she was always like that. What if her default after her father died was to hold people at arm's length, to never really emote past being polite and friendly. What if Falin was the first person who was able to bring her out of her shell, and when she left, Marcille just went back to how she was.

And when comparing her detached demeanour with someone else...

It's not exact, but wouldn't you say there's a resemblance? Wouldn't you think she might be trying her best to imitate what she saw of her own mother working as an accomplished mage?

It would certainly explain why she's hiding behind her portrait in her nightmare, at least.

We aren't told that Marcille has been distancing herself from everyone around her using a mature and dignified personality she modelled off her mother. But we sure as hell are shown it, I think.

[egophiliac]

we were fucking ROBBED

[atissi]

hadn't seen anyone post the full comic about laios + falin's family on tumblr yet so. here you go source is from the reddit

[four-pointed-leaf]

happy pride month

[valc0]

Rogue is Jack

Rogue is the Master

Rogue is a pre-Hartnell doctor

[roy-kents]

if you told silly little me watching 5b that evan buckley would be openly, proudly bisexual and dating a man and that eddie diaz would be happy and they’d be hugging again and that they’d both be djing and basically in eachother’s laps drunk partying with drag queens i’d have had an absolute stroke idk what to tell you

[butraura]

Buck saying, “I’m keeping my options fluid,” instead of the usual phrase, “I’m keeping my options open,” is an INSANE choice of words, ESPECIALLY in an episode that everyone is expecting to be pertinent to his coming out / realization. INSANE DIALOGUE INSANE SCRIPT INSANE ACTING INSANE

[ewwww-what]

Nobody is as excited about the preview as I am. I have paragraphs.

[bunnieswithknives]

You can't wake up, this is not a dream You're part of a machine, you are not a human being!

Separated bc I like how they turned out

[phddyke]

Hazbin Hotel is actually healing my inner ex-Christian so hard.

No joke, I nearly started cheering when Lute called Charlie and Vaggie’s love “vile and blasphemous” (and then burst out laughing when Adam immediately followed it up with “Hot as fuck though”). I know that may sound weird considering that I am, in fact, a lesbian, but here me out:

Seeing Christians being explicitly homophobic onscreen? It validates me. It makes me think “Oh yeah, I’m not crazy, Christians are that hateful!” And, call me crazy, but I think homophobia being tied in with villainy is a good thing. Neither Adam or Lute are supposed to be good people; they are very obviously the villain, and that establishes their behavior as bad. Someone on Twitter said that Lute gave them religious fanatic vibes and I couldn’t agree more.

And here’s the thing, too: it’s explicit homophobia, not some dumb metaphor. There’s no way to take it as anything else. And I really need that. I need to see Christians being explicitly homophobic onscreen in the same way that other people need and create worlds where homophobia doesn’t exist.

But me? I want my pain and suffering acknowledged. I want the harm that Christianity does acknowledged. Homophobia is real and the religious kind doubly so. I related to Vaggie so much in that episode; I felt her trepidation about going back to Heaven. Felt like a good metaphor for escaping a fundamentalist church only to be forced to visit again.

And Viv is not afraid to explicitly point this out and criticize them. Like, yes! Say it! They are hypocrites! They don’t care about people being better, they only care about punishment! They maimed one of their own and left her to die because she spared a child! They’re homophobic freaks! They would never see the good that Angel does and how he’s improved and is wonderful, they only see that he’s a drug addict and a sex worker and think he’s worthless for that even though Jesus broke bread with sex workers and people considered the dregs of society. (And of course Angel is gay on top of that.)

And another thing: not only did the Adam line make me laugh, but the second homophobic Lute line about “he blew his shot like the cocks in his mouth” cracked me up too. It reminded me of the pilot where Katie Killjoy said “I don’t touch the gays” to Charlie, which is a line that made me laugh for 4+ years straight. When I told my brother that was the funniest homophobia I’d ever heard in media, he very wisely said, “All homophobia is funny if you think about it.” And you know what? He’s right. It is funny, because it’s so fundamentally goddamn stupid, so let’s give characters ridiculous lines so everyone can laugh at how idiotic they and their beliefs sound.

[ghostlymaharo]

What do you mean Bones added a bkdk montage even though we only got like two flashbacks in the manga

What do you mean they made sure to drill it into our heads that Izuku is coming back FOR Katsuki

WHAT'S GOING ON? BONES?