#she exists because of ONE line

[pinkmeanschaos]

Can't be drawing Atomic Betty again and not draw my oldest OC!

[sonknuxadow]

crazy how ive been seeing people absolutely losing their minds over the way amy is written in the generations remaster and how she was character assassinated and her crush on sonic was removed and im playing it right now and the literal first thing she does when you free her from white space is call sonic cute which is nowhere close to what she said in the original. wtf are you people on about

[longagoitwastuesday]

This is about Hindley:

«After a short suspense it was opened by a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine’s, with all their beauty annihilated».

And this is about Heathcliff:

«a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair. He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch, as if intending to open for himself. “Who can it be?” I thought. “Mr. Earnshaw?”»

Heathcliff is the character most often described as tall (and altogether big), with Hindley also being described as tall, as well as Linton, Heathcliff’s son, being said he was tall for his age (which is fitting).

I find so juicy that Heathcliff and Hindley look somewhat alike, at least structure-wise, enough to make Nelly think for one moment Heathcliff could have been him, and scratch the idea because no, that's not Hindley's voice. You resemble the man who destroyed you. It goes both ways. His child looks like his sister. One could think it was her child instead. A stranger will think the boy your son. You'll smile at the irony.

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[meyhew]

i have something to say 👩🏽‍🦯‍➡️

[xxplastic-cubexx]

every day i think of xmen evolution wanda and everyday i wonder if- while she does have the fake happy memories with magneto- how does she actually FEEL about him when he's brought up or she thinks about him

is there just this underlying anger/rage but she cant ever place why so she ignores it ....... does she just feel numb ....

[luvevee]

Getting into Mouthwashing is awesome until you wanna autistic babble to others about it only to realize most of the convos discussing the game are 95% about Jimmy and nobody else, please I want variety

[bumblingbabooshka]

B'Elanna, Neelix, Tuvok and Chakotay needed to star in an episode where they just talked about their different beliefs and approaches to spirituality/religion. Paired off and all together. I need to gain more insight. I need characterization and I need it to be messy.

[heir-less]

I have very little to say about the royals currently, but I do still follow them (like the main family, not just H&M) and I think the lack of work William and Catherine have done since becoming P&PoW is fucking ridiculous, and I don't understand why more people aren't talking about it. Especially William.

Instead we have to talk about Harry's dumbass doing the 50th ill-informed interview as if any of this matters beyond him and his family. The work ethic of the future head of state and his wife matters infinitely more.

[whatwillyousing]

i really love this. the imposition and projection of happiness because thoughtful explorations of autonomy are too sad and horrible to entertain apparently that is

[randomnameless]

More about a certain beast masquerading as a human -

Teaspoon translation hasn't gotten to that point yet, so I'll keep on checking but in her expedition dialogues with Barney, Flayn goes :

Is there something amiss with my face? I like to think my features are of a similar and pleasing proportion.

Traditional reaction from a character who is stared at by the avatar.

In JP though...

わたくしの顔、何か変でしょうか？　目も 鼻も口も、皆さんと同じだと思うのですが

(years of reading naruto raw scans made me recognise 目 lol)

Google'd it goes like this :

Is there something strange about my face? My eyes, nose, and mouth are the same as everyone else's

Sure, you can interpret it as Flayn saying she's like everyone else aka has "similar proportion" to everyone else... but with the context - and giving how Flayn doesn't mention her ears at all! - it's much more interesting that despite being a "creature masquerading as a human", Flayn desperatly wants to be seen (to continue masquerading!!!!) as someone who isn't strange, but we could also infer that she is worried about her nature and appearance : she's not strange, after all, she is pretty similar to a human!

Which leads to the second point :

It makes me very happy indeed to know that you think of me as a friend

わたくしのことを、お友達だと思って くれているなら嬉しいのですが……

It's more or less (according to GT) the same thing, but note Flayn's ellipse, she'd be happy if Barney - out of anyone - would consider her to be a friend. Is she doubtful that it would never happen because she knows Barney has ties to Agarthans? Or she is just afraid that she cannot make friends with humans, because she's not one of them?

That friend thing is developed in her exploration lines :

Ask about their friends.: Do you think the others consider me as one of their friends? 皆さんはわたくしのことを、仲間だと 思ってくれているのでしょうか……？

She feels insecure about how she is perceived by the others, aka the members of the AG cast - even if she joined their ranks and has been fighting with them!

(it almost makes me think of a scenario where she joins a class, then her Leader ask her to stop having power over humans and says she should have been comatose somewhere else instead of wanting to reunite with her family, after organised her abduction and exsanguination, so she leaves that class, but her former classmates - who participated in her rescue mission - can now kill her because they believe she is a monster and a cruel beast without any regard for human life. Her life would suck in that scenario!)

Long story, short story : Flayn wishes to make friends with humans (and even agarthans, if she knows about Barney!) but is still worried that they will shun her, or straight up refuse to befriend her if she is perceived as different (or if her identity is revealed).

I guess both games could have tackled that issue - especially in her supports with two lords - but that would mean ditching your pot of Hresvelg Grey, and we can't have that.

Instead, we have a very fine cup of tea, while Flayn gets reduced screentime by virtue of being associated to Rhea, who is BaD bcs she exists.

[the-unofficial-village-idiot]

I gotta know if emma-may was into the whole death-robots thing

[lancesweetsun]

for all my babbling, my brilliant friend remains too mature of a story to me still, not because it's out of reach to me in terms of topic, but in terms of feeling and experience instead. so i'm really looking forward to being consumed by it repeatedly as i age.

[melien]

Been a bit quiet (aside from story posts that I occasionally draft) but I've been archiving a lot of old stuff including my OG Fletcher legacy to have easy access to it in the docs (and maybe get some inspiration/thoughts for the characters who are still relevant in my verse by seeing how their original development went) and damn one of my main takeaways was that I absolutely slept on Kyle and Lyra as a couple. Now that I have a special soft spot for couples that are best friends first I see their beauty and I love them both separately and together😭

[ruvviks]

"The outer reaches of space remain unexplored by humankind to this day, but its greed is relentless. We grasp and yearn and hunger for knowledge— answers to questions we cry out into the endless void expecting to understand, expecting the stars to respond. The stars will not, but one day something else will— and we will not like what it has to say." — Rome Solomon, Beyond the Exosphere (1965)

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[eruditic-akechi]

Albedo knowing he's a homunculus just means he never had to acknowledge his mom got fucked to have him because she DIDNNT NEED TO so. Between that and what most of his memories of her say about her? He just assumed that his mother didn't have sex because that's his mom y'know!!! His mom that's never interacted with a man long term in his life and is emotionally the 🕴️ emoji! The only other person she regularly interacts with is her best friend Alice and they're just friends, right?

Literally no one in his life understood why he was so shaken up by the revelation that his mom gets some and REGULARLY