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pickypicknoname · 2 years

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[Yan. Warriors] - Concept: iron lung au, slow build horror with an unreliable narrator

TW: Yandere Themes, Weird Alien/Eldritch Abomination Biology - BODY HORROR, Clasutrophobic Themes, Past/Refrenced Death, and Allusions to death, MC/Reader is morally grey since convict.

THIS IS A WIP - VERY UNFINISHED

In the Earth’s deep sea, nobody can hear you scream or cry for help if something went awry. However, in your opinion, you would’ve probably had a better chance of survival or at least, having the higher probability of your corpse being found by someone.

(A decent chance of being laid to rest, something that you definitely don’t deserve after what you’ve done. )

The Earth’s bodies of water were already places of wonder. The vast ocean was a place that was barely known for all the years that humankind had lived in it, and the seas that gave so much weren’t much better.

In the end, humanity never got the chance to learn about their homes. The “Quiet Rapture” that made every habitable planet in the known universe vanish along with the people, plants and animals on them, never to be seen again.

The “Silent Rapture” occurred and all the stars disappeared too.

People went crazy for the depletion of leftover resources, committing atrocities for a single chance of surviving whatever this “apocalypse” was—yourself included.

It was, after all, how you landed yourself in this mess.

(It was either you or them, and you chose yourself over the rest of humanity. You didn’t want to, but you can’t die. You won’t die. Not like this.)

No trials were held after you committed the act. Instead, you had been led to an outside shuttle within a cramped ship. One that resembled the looks of a submarine.

A mission for humanity. A punishment for the greater good. A chance, they said - the same survivors who weren’t much better than you.

A chance for redemption and hope.

So, In you went and- now here you are.

Inside the ship The “Blue Bird” or “Fi”, as you begin to affectionately call her. It was cramped, dark, and suffocating inside the small ship, navigating in an ocean that was apparently made out of a liquid that was identical to blood. Deep red with a scent of iron and copper.

The planet’s name was something you couldn’t care enough to remember, but you couldn’t help but wish you had paid attention to the name or at least searched about the remaining planets before you committed a crime.

It was a simple mission: take pictures and write your findings in a journal. If the mission’ successful you’ll earn your freedom, if not you simply rot in some cage.

All it was was simply taking pictures and scribbling into your journal before ensuring you didn’t crash into anything. You pretty much had it in the bag, but you remained solemn, after all, it was an odd punishment that was probably leading to a horrific ending, or you weren’t even going to earn your freedom after said mission.

You pretty much committed a major crime that would’ve landed you in jail instantly had the world hadn't gone to shit.

Something was bound to go wrong.

And wrong it did.

The wailing of a radio that you hadn’t even noticed, the bursting of pipes within the ship, the dimming light of already flickering bulbs, the sudden fires of the ship, and the sharp thumps that echoed after you hit a wall after the ship began to slowly drift without any navigation.

However, all of the bad things that plagued Fi were not part of the major problem. Not even close.

It took a while before you noticed it with all the haywire mess within Fi, but eventually you finally noticed the odd occurrences around you.

The flickers of the pictures, the slow odd parts that showed within each photograph.

A shape that got somewhat clear inthe grainy photos that you took.

Something had been following you for a very, very long time.

Then it started to show itself, no longer following or caring to hide itself.

A sharp snarl echoed through the walls of the ship. shrill groans and blood-curdling screams ranged throughout the vast ocean. you forced yourself to stay calm as thuds and bangs hit the walls. How the sound of something scrathing and abnging at the ship grew louder and louder. How your heartbeat slammed inside your head, no longer even able to think with the rush of fear and adrenaline forcing you to write and take photos.

You took pictures. So many pictures, not to document it, but to scare it.

It’s a foolish idea since if you had a sliver of truth in your idea, then it probably meant that it was the pictures that alerted it and annoyed it in the first place, but you couldn’t think clearly. Not when said being was attempting to claw its way into the ship.

In the end, it didn't matter.

A sharp thud was all that heard before the burst of water and a piercing wail rang deep as the wall’s were ripped apart as you could only stare in horror.

Sharp, red claws pulled it apart and in came the horroric being that had been following you the entire time.

It’s large with a long, slender, almost serpentine body. Long curling claws dig into the metal walls of Fi. As it slithers forward you can see the vaguely monster horror come clearer with the flickering lights

The being is beautiful in a horrific way.

Its face held a resemblance to human beings, but it was rather obvious that it wasn't a human, not at all.

A gill like pulses, besides its throat, hair like appendages fell over its face that show deep glowing eyes staring back at you. A lantern hangs from the tip of its head, almost akin to the long gone anglerfish. There’s a row of sharp teeth that budge against its maw as it opens its mouth. Long translucent fins and scales scattered across its body. The body looks attached to the end of a fish.

A humanoid top connected to the lower bottom part that looks like a fish tail.

A mermaid, you can’t help think with a hubbling sense of hysteria, a fucking space mermaid.

You couldn’t even let out a scream before it sprang forward. It’s a sharp row of teeth being the very last thing you saw before the blood ocean swallowed you whole like the abyss had swallowed the planets and a large part of life whole.

#cw yandere #tw: yandere #tw yandere #my writing #concepts #yandere lu #rosie writes #fic concepts

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diet-comet-soda · 2 years

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I need people to understand that the point of Hollow Mind was not to convey to us that Belos is just pure evil for evil's sake. A villain not being sympathetic doesn't mean that they're evil "just because".

Belos is a person who has been conditioned by his upbringing and the ideology of his society/community to see certain people as less than human, to separate them out from himself and his community and perceive them as an "other". Belos is, in most respects, a "normal" person. He can be kind and empathetic and want to do right by others. He is human, he has emotions and passions and if you had a conversation with him on the street about a mundane subject, you wouldn't think anything unusual of him. And yet at the same time he can wish genocide upon an entire population, without any cognitive dissonance.

Whether it be the people of the 1600s who labeled people who transgressed social norms as witches to burn them at the stake without remorse, or racists who labeled other peoples as "primitive" or even saw them as a completely different species in order to justify slavery without having to have a conscience, or modern day homophobes/transphobes who label our communities as sinners or groomers or ped*philes so they can kick down at us while feeling like they're being righteous. All of these people live normal lives within the bounds of their own communities. They can care about other people and donate to charity and volunteer to help others, they can do good and believe they're good people.

But to maintain their worldview and the status quo (such as slavery or the nuclear family or the authority of organized christianity), harm is a necessity, so they label those who they harm as subhuman to avoid feeling any more guilty than they would killing a fly. Yet the harm they inflict is very real and horrific. And almost more horrific is how most of the time the people doing it will never be able to see it as horrific; even after seeing someone beg for their life in agony, some might see their humanity and start to change (which is why the most useful ways to unravel bigotry is through proximity with marginalized people), but some will still remain unfazed. Because the people it's happening to aren't like them, because they "deserve" it. It's the same mechanism that allows every day people to see a serial killer get jailed for life and not feel any sympathy or horror, because we identify serial killers as a separate breed from us, as deserving of punishment. And in cases like that, this mechanism can be useful because it allows us to place aside our human empathy and carry out punishment that keeps our communities safer. But for bigots applying this mechanism to marginalized people in order to maintain/bolster current power dynamics, this can cause atrocities. Heck, even non-bigotted people can take this mechanism too far.

That is the horror of Belos to me. The Puritan Christian Witch Hunter, so blinded by his own bigotry, so cold and unfeeling to those he's shared a world with for hundreds of years, so caught up in religious essentialisms. Belos is unforgivable, cruel, and malicious, but he is also not unique nor especially inhumanly evil. All you need to be Belos is to fall deeper and deeper into a twisted worldview, and that's unfortunately not so uncommon. And when those people get access to power like Belos has, like so many fascists and religious authoritarians have in our own world, it can spell disaster.

#the owl house #Toh #toh spoilers #the owl house spoilers #hollow mind

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dreamteamfanblog · 3 years

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Y'know, I don't actually have a well defined stance on the "Should We All Be Treating Dream Better In Prison" debate, partially because I haven't been watching the Smp regularly for a while and am most likely not up to date with everything and from what i've heard/seen I am kinda on the fence, so like, i'm not arguing for either the stance that Dream should be treated better in prison than he is or for the stance that nobody's obligated to be nice to him after the moral event horizon's he's crossed. Like. I am not making a stance on which is correct.

But I will say the debate in Dream's favour makes me a bit uneasy solely for the fact that it really seems like the long standing Dream Apologism (or at least tolerance) tendency back in full force. That's not me saying "We can't criticize the way the prison is set up rn", I myself don't know how I feel about the conditions in the prison. It's not the suggestion that conditions should be better in of itself that puts me on edge. It's the sheer unadulterated passion and fury and intolerance towards characters who aren't Dream next to this very lackluster mumbly noncommittal "hahh yeah that was really bad and not good :(" certain parts of the fandom extend when it comes to what Dream's done.

I see lots of people incredibly passionate about how Dream's mental health is bad now and he's not getting enough nutrition and he's being mistreated, and i'm not going to go on record and say I even disagree necessarily but I will ask where that energy is from these exact same people while Dream's continuing to regularly commit atrocities?

A lot of the "Dream Deserves Better Treatment In Prison" crowd will vaguely acknowledge that Dream is Bad and has done Bad things, but they never match the passion they extend in Dream's favour to criticize him with the same fierceness when it comes to things like his consistent and continued abusive behaviour towards poor Ranboo, the fact that he beat a child to death while locked in the prison together then laughed about it (then smugly taunted about how he could do it again and again and the people on the server were still his puppets), murdering Ghostbur/reviving Wilbur with no remorse or hesitance, etc.

I mean sure all but the most diehard out of touch Dream Apologists will very briefly acknowledge these things with a neutral-negative tone but it's literally so blatantly lackluster besides the same people's impassioned fury over how Dream's treated in prison.

And this isn't a new thing!

People are quick to downplay Dream's corruption in the early days of the Smp before the revolution, people are quick to minimize Dream's role in everything Schlatt did, people were a bit too hasty to insist back when the exile conflict first happened that he very possibly really was just upset with Tommy for griefing and probably wasn't even planning to hurt L'manburg or use Tubbo (which...we know is false now and honestly knew was false then too lets be real), hell, there was this whole cognitive dissonance mental gymnastics thing going on throughout season two where people tried to juggle both the fact that Dream's actively psychologically torturing a child all season and the idea that he's not really a tyrant per say and we don't necessarily need to shove him out of power cause has he really done that much to deser-

you get the idea

It's not apologism per say. When pushed people will acknowledge that Dream's a bad person or that specific things that are pretty impossible to ignore were really awful of him.....then cha cha slide right into "But is it REALLY okay to do/say/feel ____ regarding him???".

It's not apologism. But it is tolerance. And the expectation that his victims be tolerant as well.

During the early days of the Smp, Dream unfairly asserted an authority over people who did not want him to govern them. He dished out punishments, made up rules, dictated the lives of others, involved himself in conflicts that were not his business, etc, and when he was told to leave just a few of these people alone in just a tiny little area of land because his governing was unwanted? He asserted himself supreme authority, named his friend king, and then repeatedly killed and destroyed the land of like four people who literally just asked him to leave them alone and stop bossing them around for no reason. He was oppressive, he killed, he stole, he destroyed everything around him with no mercy because someone asked him to stop bothering them and not enter a plot of land that literally took up like a hill in a plains biome and nothing else at the time. There are one person houses on the server bigger than the original L'manburg land plot. Dream was a tyrant who took five canon lives in one day because he was so entitled he couldn't fucking handle the hit his overblown ego took over such a reasonable request. However many people, even people who will vaguely acknowledge that Dream wasn't a good leader back then, will actively ignore or even openly flippantly downplay his atrocious behaviour while also getting weirdly fixated on, like, the 'drug' van thing. Wilbur is a very corrupt person and he has been since before the Pogtopia arc, I will die on that hill, but within the context of the Independence War....L'manburg was entirely in the right? And didn't really do anything?? Like first off I really don't care how often they do the whole bit of calling them drugs, they're potions, the implications are not the same. Secondly, they literally just scammed Tubbo, and not even out of much all things considered, which are like, standard Dream Smp shenanigans, come on now, and like, when it was blown up and made into this big thing where now Tommy and Wilbur are going to jail.....everyone was kinda just like "wait what the fuck". Like. Eret and Tubbo both literally switched sides to side with Wilbur and Tommy midway through the arrests cause like...what the fuck. Like, as Wilbur himself pointed out, they didn't even do anything illegal, Sapnap just decided on the spot that it was and he's taking them into custody. Tubbo was literally the one person scammed and he was a L'manburg citizen from its very conception. The fact that people have always been so ready to minimize Dream's corrupt bs at the time while fixating on bUt ThE dRuG vAn is really weird. And while most people don't take it so far as to claim that independence was a bad thing to ask for full stop, they're also way too fuckin' keen on making L'manburg's side look a lot less innocent than it was and making Dream and his soldiers look a lot less corrupt, unreasonable, and power hungry than they clearly were at the time, instead implying that L'manburg somehow took things too far or had disingenuous origins despite not actually doing anything illegal or super immoral anyway, they were literally just asking Dream to back off from their absolutely tiny little patch of land and stop telling them what to do, and Dream was the one who declared war outright and then started murdering/stealing/pillaging/burning-and-exploding shit all over the place. A lot of people, even as they acknowledge he's Bad, expect an unreasonable amount of tolerance for Dream while being rather overly critical and judgmental of the other side of the conflict in question to an unfair degree. They aren't defending Dream per say, they're just fixating heavily on the other party's perceived wrongdoings while Dream is doing horrific atrocious things and just kinda gets vaguely handwaved at. Sometimes this dips directly into the "Dream was bad obviously, but was starting a revolution and war against him really necessary when it caused so much bloodshed :( ?" argument as well.

This carried on very neatly into the Manburg-Pogtopia arc, Dream's tyrannical oppressive destructive violent acts are acknowledged by a little "Dream's bad and all" and then is followed up by heavy criticism of the other side for doing something completely reasonable as the "Well, Schlatt was TECHNICALLY legally elected!" argument takes hold and it's implied that Pogtopia maybe shouldn't have staged a coup, I mean, that wasn't legal, y'know? Are they Just As Bad actually? Or if not just as bad at least also bad and therefore worthy of criticism? What right did Every Single Member Of L'manburg have to overthrow a democratically elected leader even if he did wrongly imprison them, exile his political opponents, tear down historical monuments, raise taxes unreasonably, and execute a child in front of a crowd? What about the Law? Aren't Pogtopia technically usurpers??? Isn't that Wrong™? I cannot stress enough how often i've seen people trying Really hard not to look like they're defending Dream while actively downplaying his actions and criticizing the rebellion on its legality as if Schlatt was not literally the only citizen of L'manburg left because he executed/exiled/chased-off literally every single other person in the nation wanted him gone because he was a tyrant and obviously his Legal Election doesn't counteract that despite people's attempts to argue that while Dream was bad (and schlatt too, though we'd be lucky to get any sort of description of what 'bad' entails here, much less one that does justice to how monstrous these people are) did we really have a right to force them out of office so harshly with violence?

Or going into the exile conflict, I like, instantly clocked that the plan was to isolate/hurt Tommy, drain L'manburg of whatever resources he wanted out of them, then destroy them. I think most people with two braincells to rub together at least picked up on some of his plan, and of course it's very obvious that what Tommy did was not exile worthy and that Dream would have picked up any excuse he could think of here. But of course you had a ton of people downplaying Dream's actions/intentions/motives. And somehow the weird hyper criticism of the victims got even more severe. Like. To the point where some parts of the community almost seemed to be engaged in a contest to see who could find the most ways to tone police Tommy, Quackity, and Fundy the most for being upset about tyrannical governmental abuse that put all of them in danger and functionally destroyed one of their lives. Like. They will literally downplay or brush right past Dream's shady horrendous bs so quick to jump right into their best point of how Tommy brought this upon himself or was too emotional or needs to learn how to control himself or is so Selfish because he dared be....baffled and angry by the random unfair disproportionate punishment when he didn't do anything wrong. This exact same bullshit extends to when Quackity and Fundy get upset and snap over the exile decision, people sweep right past how horrifically agonizingly atrocious Dream's actions were and then immediately start calling Quackity and Fundy hysterical at the absolute best but much more commonly manipulative or power hungry for the high crime of being deeply upset that a good friend of theirs was just unfairly exiled on the whims of a tyrant, to the point where there were people outright criticizing them for the fact alone that they dared be upset/question the decision instead of immediately politely accepting it and just letting the leaders responsible get on with their lives with no complaint!

And then the rest of the season was the same shit with people acknowledging Dream as bad but pearl clutching at any sign of action against him or people not being polite and tolerant of him. I think I damn near cracked when people watched Quackity call Dream a tyrant and insist he couldn't get away with treating people the way he does and immediately jumped into how dumb and reckless and mean spirited and power hungry and whatever Quackity is. Literally any time he spoke out against Dream for like any reason in any way! This also extended to anyone else whenever they weren't super palatably polite and tolerant of Dream and wound up immediately labeled all sorts of distasteful things because they actually tried to take action against him or even just had the 'audacity' to say some mean things to/about him or the people who help him commit atrocities! Dream gets away with just vaguely being Bad™ but his victims, whenever they aren't the picture of grace or respect or obedience for two seconds, become any number of very specific and very passionate insults and accusations.

They aren't Dream apologists, they don't condone or defend his actions, they acknowledge him as Bad, but they're so much more angry whenever people DO something about it!

Dream is bad™ but wasn't L'manburg escalating to independence like that so quickly in bad faith, especially after the Drugs™? Dream is bad™ but like he has a point that Schlatt was elected so did the people really have a right to stage an illegal coup there? Dream is bad™ but Tommy shouldn't have been so angry and reactionary when Dream tried to get him exiled for no reason, right? Dream is bad™ but can we really say it's right for Quackity to engage in mild skirmishes with him and insult him??

This weird tone policing in which anytime one of Dream's victims is harsh or mean with him they're suddenly *insert wide range of very harsh insults/accusations* is really weird. Dream is bad™ but if anyone does anything about it besides quietly/politely asking him to please stop that sir? They get harshly critiqued to hell for it wheras there's never any suggestion for what they should be doing besides Giving Him What He Wants Very Politely Until He Goes Away. Any insults or acts of rebellion or god forbid violence against Dream is so unacceptable and the people who do any of the listed things are just indescribably bad. Even when Dream hurts and oppresses everyone to this very day and shows no remourse about a single thing, I still see people out here doing this shit.

And, well, I see a lot of the "Dream Needs Better Prison Conditions" crowd be very critical of people who aren't Dream and literally every time they do anything that could be considered even remotely Mean To Dream and they get so much more heated about that then about the actual horrific things Dream has done.

So while I don't take a stance on the point itself at the moment, i'm at least very wary of the whole situation because there's this long standing precedent of fixating in on people not being palatable™ and respectable™ in how they handle interacting with the person responsible for brutal and consistent oppression against them, this long standing precedent when it comes to narrowing in on how Dream's effected by the people who's lives he's ruined acting out against him or not treating him well and absolutely refusing to extend empathy to the other party who, even when they do end up doing 'bad' things at any point, never do anything near as bad as what Dream's done and yet get significantly less sympathy or tolerance than he does. And while i'm neutral on the topic itself i'm deeply suspicious of this whole debate by nature of this precedent and how a lot of the Improve Prison Conditions For Dream crowd are openly much more empathetic towards him than any of the people he victimized and are more likely to brush by his honest to god unforgivable sins than literally anything at all from the objectively much more sympathetic/justified people he's hurt. It just all feels very familiar and i'm inclined to feel like a lot of the debate can read as worryingly disingenuous on that premise alone?

#dream smp #dream smp discourse

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epicspheal · 3 years

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Hi again! Just wanted to know your opinion on the Pokemon villains, especially towards a chance of redemption. I think the only villains that kinda got redeemed was Archie and Maxie, learning that what they did was a mistake ( a little too late tho) and maybe Colress ( being the true neutral he is), through the Alola games. But yeah, what's you're opinion on them?

Hi Ihopethisendswell!

I’ve been sitting on this ask for a bit just trying to gather my thoughts. To be honest, the Pokemon Villains are some of my least favorite aspects of the games, mainly because in my opinion they’re rarely handled well (except for original Team Plasma and Team Skull, those guys are amazing and I except no slander of either)

I’ll start with Team Rocket. They have a very basic but realistic evil goal (especially in a setting as fantastic as the world of Pokemon). I honestly can’t say I dislike them. I would like to see more teams using their concept of just taking advantage of Pokemon for profit and selfish reasons rather than trying to tie in some philosophy (because to be honest in my opinion most of the teams who try to use philosophy to justify their extremism just end up looking really stupid for the most part). I like Kanto Team Rocket better than Johto’s plot and Rainbow Rocket was only good for the “what if” aspect and adding to the new multiverse lore. As far as redemption...I don’t think Giovanni or the grunts really deserve it.

For Team Aqua and Team Magma, I actually like them in a “so bad it’s good” type of way (definitely nostalgia based as even though I got into Pokemon during the original anime, I didn’t get to play a main game until gen 3). Like the idea of having two separate evil teams competing against each other to see who can enact their plans first is a super cool concept in my opinion but wasted on the idiocy of the “expand the land/expand the sea” goals. I will say I enjoyed their Emerald enhanced plot and ORAS’s expansion on them in the Delta Episode. I think the Emerald clash of Kyogre and Groudon was the most logical conclusion to their schemes. As far as redemption goes, I do think Maxie and Archie should’ve served some jail time like Chairman Rose because their plan was just as catastrophic if not more so.

For Team Galactic, ugh. They’re my second least favorite. They were just boring and made an already painfully slow game even more intolerable. This is where I give the Pokemon Anime credit, they made them more interesting in the games and I actually really loved how it was adapted (proof that when they want to the anime can have some really solid writing). Redemption for them? Nope, you literally tried to rewrite the world. Even with Cyrus’ tragic backstory...still nope.

Now for Team Plasma. This is how you do an evil team. Easily one of my favorite teams to actually go up against in game. I like that they actually tried to tackle an ethical question with Pokemon in Team Plasma. N was a fantastic antagonist and I’m glad he saw the light at the end and he definitely deserves the redemption. And all of the Team Plasma grunts who actually believed in N’s goal deserve redemption. I really enjoyed what they did in BW2 where they had the Plasma House with the misguided former grunts and the confrontation between the old team plasma and Neo Team Plasma about how ostracized the reformed grunts are. Although I don’t like Neo Team Plasma as much (although the outfits are 100 times cooler), it does make sense that the ones still loyal to Ghetsis would try for another attempt. Also it took me a second runthrough of White 2 to really appreciate Colress and his “this is for science” mantra but you know what, I love him. Him and N are really awesome and deserve the redemption. Ghetsis can go jump in a fucking volcano though, him and his followers (: As for Team Flare, they suffer a lot from not getting a sequel or third version. But like Team Galactic the anime adaptation did a lot of good for them. Team Flare is like Team Aqua/Magma for me in that I think they’re so bad it’s actually good. They actually had some funny dialogue bits and there was actually a lot of potential for them storywise if we had of gotten another Kalos game. The Great War, and AZ all had a lot of potential. Plus having an Elite 4 member working with them? That was more of a twist than Lysandre being the boss. And the Xerosic post-game plot was heartbreaking. Redemption wise though, it’s kind of hard to do with a group who literally tried to nuke the world.

Team Skull. I love these guys. I love them so much. This is another example for me personally of an evil team done right. I really liked how they weren’t even evil, just frustrated youth who were failed by Alola’s tradition. Like I could seriously go on about how toxic the Alolan community really is if the fact that a child failing the island challenge (a coming of age journey) somehow makes them feel so down about themselves and feel like rejects to the point they join a literal gang to find some sort of belonging (this is of course not talking about the origins of Team Skull being from a disgraced Kahuna who incurred the wrath of the tapus). Like I feel so sorry for them and I wanted to yell at the Kahunas in game for them not recognizing that their traditions were creating the Team Skull problem. Team Skull definitely deserved their redemption as they reformed in the post game

Aether Foundation though, ugh. Easily my least favorite. I really disliked the Aether Family as a whole as I felt they were invasive to the plot and that the focus should’ve been on team skull and how traditions while important can have harmful consequences. I will say it was nice to have female antagonist and I vastly prefer SM Lusamine to USUM Lusamine. USUM Lusamine was more redeemable but she was less interesting and USUM really screws up Lillie’s development which I dislike (which is saying something because I really can’t stand Lillie).

Team Yell was a disappointment. Honestly there was so much potential because like Team Skull they are a very grounded team (as you can see, I like the grounded in reality teams more so than the philosphical extremist ones). Like I can totally understand why they would form considering how dilapidated Spikemuth is. The issue is that they aren’t given a chance to do much actual evil. Even though Team Skull wasn’t really all that bad, they still did bad things. Which is realistic given their desperation. As desperate as Team Yell was to get Marnie to become champion I was expecting more sabotage and outright hostility. Which while being bad, would be realistic given their situation. That and the fact that no one really calls out the fact the irony of their sabotage actually delegitimizing Marnie’s strengths as a trainer. Like is Marnie truly one of the strongest trainers from the gym challenge or were their people who could’ve beat her who got targeted by Team Yell and ultimately dropped out? Not to mention the implications of ongoing beef between Team Yell and Chairman Rose. Again so much potential wasted. If they had of just made them just a tad more hostile and had someone point out how they were unintentionally making Marnie look bad, they’d easily be one of my favorites.

Macros Cosmos. I think this was the team most screwed over by the plot, and the controversial anime adaptation did them only a few favors. I’ve said this before, but the royal twins historical manipulation plot was more interesting than Rose’s “I’m going to start the Galarian Apocalypse to save Galar” plot. And the sad part is Rose could’ve been a very compelling antagonist. I’ll say that if they really wanted to make Rose an antagonist, they could’ve taken away the Eternatus plot and just used his poor communication skills to cause problems for the gym leaders and champion. A bad boss with impatience and crappy communication skills is something many people can relate to, and I think would’ve been a more interesting plot than trying to force philosophical extremism on to him because.

And lastly the Royal Twins. Man I hated them, but also they’re some of my favorite antagonists. I think people at times look solely at their goofy hairstyles and entitledness and forget how dangerous these two actually were. They had a whole network of spies loyal to them? Imagine a game with them as the main protagonists where it gets to the point you can’t trust the NPCs because who knows which one supports them. Also their historical revision plot is something so relevant today with textbooks being written in a way to minimize horrible atrocities such as the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Granted their plot in game left a lot to be desired, but they had so much potential and honestly a better reasoning to want to awake Eternatus than Rose did. As you can see I prefer the more grounded teams such as Rocket, Plasma, Skull and Yell (in theory) and the Royal Twins given how their goals relate to the real world. I also think in many ways Gamefreak does better with those plots wiriting wise than the philosophical extremist teams.

#team rocket #team aqua #team magma #team galactic #team plasma #neo team plasma #team flare #team skull #aether foundation #team yell #macro cosmos #sordward and shieldbert #ask epic spheal #ask me anything #thanks for the ask!

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scripttorture · 4 years

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Hello! I've browsed this blog a bit and came across the idea that torturers often develop mental illness because of their repeated exposure to the violence/trauma of seeing another person in pain, which I'd never considered before. A) Do you believe torturers can therefore be a type of victim as well, depending on the circumstances, and therefore deserving of compassion/therapy? B) Can you point me to more information about this/what kinds of mental illnesses develop in torturers? (1/2)

C) Do you think it's possible for a mass murderer/torturer character to have a realistic, satisfying redemption arc? Do you know any media that's pulled it off believably? Thank you so much for taking the time to read/answer this if you do! And for this excellent resource!

The most accessible sources that cover this are O’Mara’s Why Torture Doesn’t Work (good grounding, start with him), Rejali’s Torture and Democracy and the appendices to Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth where he describes treating two torturers.

The most current research is about 600 pages of print on demand untranslated French. If you’re fluent in French (I am not and lock down etc has got in the way of me getting this translated) Sironi Comment devient-on tortionnaire?

Broadly speaking the symptoms appear to be the same as those survivors and witnesses develop.

And I will go into this in more depth later but keep in mind there is not anywhere near enough research on torturers for us to be entirely sure about most of this. I’m working with the best information we have right now.

The other two questions are subjective and sort of complicated. By definition a lot of this is going to be my opinion because well that’s what you’re asking for.

I think we need to be really careful about describing torturers as ‘victims’.

Yes they’re put in this situation by social structures beyond their control. It is not their fault that they weren’t given training or support in their job. It’s also not their fault that we have this global message that violence is effective or that so many workplaces are unnecessarily pressured/stressful. Most of the time they are drawn in to abusing others because of the social groups and structures within the organisation they join.

Oversight (with a drive to eradicate torture), funding, training and clear consistent messages about the right way to handle difficult situations would probably prevent most cases of torture.

This does not change the fact that on an individual level each of them chose to hurt other people.

Some of them will have made that choice understanding there was a threat to their own safety if they did not. Some of them will have made that choice just because it was what everyone else was doing. Some of them genuinely believe what they did was the ‘right’ decision at the time.

They still made that choice. And given that we have records of people in similar positions refusing, even when it put them at risk of attack or death, I don’t have a lot of sympathy with the choice torturers made.

The fact I’m a pacifist factors into this. Consider my biases.

Torturers typically show a very low understanding of the impact their actions have had on other people.

They might regret their actions but this is typically framed in a very self-centred way. They usually don’t express more then cursory regard for the victims. They regret it because they’re suffering now, because they have nightmares, because they can’t keep a job. And oh it’s all so unfair.

I don’t know why this is the case. But it’s a feature Sironi described in interviews about her work. And I’ve seen it over and over again in interviews with torturers.

Yes torturers suffer. The symptoms they develop are terrible and have a lasting impact on their lives. They typically can’t hold down jobs and struggle to re-integrate into society in any meaningful fashion.

And yes I believe they should be treated. I believe that anyone with a disease or condition which requires treatment should have access to care and treatment. Whoever they are. Whatever they did.

I believe that as fellow human beings torturers are entitled to a degree of compassion. When I say that torture and mistreatment are wrong I mean it. My position doesn’t change just because the theoretical victim is a former torturer.

I do not think that treatment and compassion should be dependant on a person being suitably victimised. For me the only thing it depends on is their need and their humanity. In the literal physical sense of them being a human.

But we tend to think of ‘victim’ as a simple category that doesn’t overlap with mass murderers.

And I don’t believe the position of torturers is that simple.

Especially when so few of them are charged. Torture trials are rare. Convictions are rare. And sentences are short.

And their victims deserve justice too.

I feel conflicted about calling torturers ‘victims’ because of this complex reality. And because in fiction we have a tendency to focus on the torturers prioritising their voices over the survivors. I feel like presenting torturers as simple victims of society could risk adding to that.

For me the focus has always got to be the survivors.

And I think all of this feeds into how we handle redemption arcs.

I don’t think that writing redemption arcs for villains, even torturers or mass murderers is ‘wrong’. In fact I think that it can be a really good idea. Showing how toxic the environments these people are in is a good thing. Puncturing the way it’s romanticised is a good thing. And showing a way out of it, even if it’s imagined, is not a bad thing.

But if we’re going to do that in our stories then I think we need to think about what redemption means and in whose eyes the character is redeemed.

There’s also a small problem: we don’t really know what recovery for torturers looks like.

There isn’t enough research on them. Partly because of lack of interest but partly because the low conviction rates means sample sizes are small. We’re talking about a limited number of individuals who are jailed and we can’t really ‘prove’ that individuals who weren’t convicted were torturers. We don’t really know what the long term outcomes are, what treatments might be effective or- Much of anything.

Studies on torturers are typically based on very small numbers of individuals. (For a long time Fanon’s work was the only example of a mental health professional talking about torturers specifically. He saw two of them.) They are not statistically sound. And a lot of resources were simply journalists or mental health professionals compiling notes on the handful of individuals they talked to.

Everything I say about torturers is based on things like interviews, a handful of studies that have flaws and anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately as of right now it’s the best we’ve got.

Personally I don’t think there’s enough research on torture generally. Or enough attempts to collate relevant research from other fields. But that’s a rant for another day.

Let’s get back to that central question: what does redemption mean?

I think that it’s pretty easy to write a character changing for the better. You can build up the character’s level of insight into what they’re doing/did over the course of the story. You can show them choosing to stop. You can show them shifting to oppose their former allies.

But bundled up in the idea of a redemption arc is this: is it enough? And who is it enough for?

I don’t think survivors should be obliged to forgive former torturers. I also don’t think they’re likely to interact positively.

I’ve talked about this now and again when asked about the difference between legally defined torture and abuse. Because of the organised and widespread nature of legally defined torture there are usually communities of survivors. And communities that are collectively moving through a recovery process because even those people who weren’t directly attacked are likely to be witnesses, carers and relatives or friends of survivors.

These things echo down generations.

Cyprus gained independence from the British in 1960, my father is too young to have any real memory of the violence during the colonial period. But he referenced it in arguments with my English mother during my childhood. There are people throughout China today who won’t buy anything Japanese because of Japanese war crimes there during World War 2. There are people who won’t eat fish from the Black Sea, because the bodies of their ancestors were thrown into that sea during a genocide over a hundred years ago.

I know that as a both a Greek Cypriot and an English person there are people all over the world who will not want anything to do with me based on what my people have done to theirs. And the fact I wasn’t alive at the time does not really factor into it.

What I’m trying to illustrate here is that this is much bigger, broader and more complex then individual acts of forgiveness.

Survivors are a highly varied group of individuals. And each torturer can have thousands or tens of thousands of victims. Expecting each impacted individual, and any witnesses and all their family members and friends, to forgive these people is… let’s say ‘unlikely’.

So does redemption require forgiveness from the wounded party? Is there any possible action that can atone for the sheer scale of these atrocities?

If we play a simple number game causing this level of harm can be achieved in months or years, but saving the equivalent number of lives takes decades of skilled, dedicated work. If we look at concepts like wergild or jail as ‘paying your debt to society’ then how do we measure something like torture where the numbers are so big?

I haven’t seen a piece of fiction seriously tackle these questions. But then again I also haven’t actively looked for that fiction.

I feel like a lot of fictional redemption arcs judge a character to be sufficiently redeemed based on audience sympathy and the main cast forgiving the character. They don’t typically go on to broaden the scope of the narrative and question whether any one else impacted by the former villain’s actions also sees the character as redeemed.

One of my stories has a former torturer as a major character and I think they are a sympathetic character in many ways. I think that my readers would empathise with them through a lot of the story (which takes place decades after they stopped torturing).

They’re a mentor figure to some of the younger cast members. They’ve acted as a protector to them and taught the younger generation a lot about the minority culture they themselves are from. And they do genuinely care about these people that they helped to raise, consistently sacrificing to protect these ‘kids’. (The ‘kids’ are 30s-20s at the time of the story.)

But they’re also incredibly self centred. They don’t really interact with or have a lot of sympathy for the people they hurt. And while this particular family loves and forgives them society at large views them as a monster. Albeit one that is now leashed.

Is this a redemption story? Is this character redeemed? I genuinely don’t know. In fact that’s part of my interest in writing the story: trying to work out if there is a point, as this character grows, develops and helps others, when I believe they’ve done ‘enough’.

I think that redemption means different things for different people. A satisfying redemption story is different for different people. And if we can disagree so strongly about it with much simpler, smaller scale crimes then where does that leave us with torture?

There isn’t a simple answer or a one-size-fits-all writing solution. There can’t be.

My approach is to try and use the story to see if I can find an answer. Even if it’s only a limited one. For me the story itself is a forum for exploring human complexity and difficult ethical questions.

I don’t think we have a good solution for how to deal with these people in reality yet. But I do hold out hope that a good solution is possible. Fiction is an arena where we can safely explore possible solutions.

I guess in the end I’m not sure if there’s any story or arc that will work for everyone. I don’t think there are any hard rules for writing anything and I don’t think there’s ever a way to please everyone.

Redemption and forgiveness are complicated topics. I think we do a much better job when we engage with that complexity then when we assume a character just has to do a, b and c in order to achieve it.

When you consider someone to be truly redeemed is an ethical question that I can’t answer for you. I don’t think I should. The chances are you’ll know when you think your character has done enough.

Just be open to the fact that it won’t be enough for everyone. Consider reflecting that with the characters, because that can make for truly powerful moments.

In Midnight’s Children Shiva never forgives Saleem, even though Saleem isn’t responsible for Shiva ‘losing’ his life and family because they were both infants at the time. And damn there are a lot of flaws in the movie adaptation but that scene between them in the jail, when Saleem throws that in Shiva’s face hits hard. It shows us so much about both characters.

And I think that’s a better way to approach it then trying to figure out if a character is redeemed yet: figuring out how they’ve progressed, how others respond to that progression and why.

I hope that helps :)

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ty-villalon · 2 years

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Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies is yet another wonderful, lighthearted movie with absolutely no sad moments in it…. I feel like the beginning shows this amazingly, when the main character dies of starvation in a train station. Again though, this is another movie, two weeks in a row, which shows the horrors of war. When combined with the reading and a bit of outside research as well, this movie isn’t actually an anti war movie, even though it shows the atrocities that can come with war. In actuality this anime follows a brother and a sister and shows how a lack of care from the outside world can ruin their lives.

When the siblings lost their mother, they had to turn to their aunt who cared for them, at first. When times started to get tough though, the movie begins to show the victimization of the children. The aunt turns bitter and hostile, yelling at the children saying they do not deserve her food since they do not provide anything. This leads them to run away and search for food on their own. When they fail, Seita turns to theft and gets caught. Once he is caught he is thrown in jail with nobody wanting to hear what he has to say about his situation. Finally he is released due to a kind heart, but the citizens were so enveloped with their own pain that they couldn’t help a child. This lack of help leads to his sister dying of malnutrition later in the movie.

A key part of both the movie and the reading is “response-ability” or the idea of being mindful of everyone around you, not just yourself. Due to a lack of response-ability, the children died. No one helped them, they were left to fend for themselves in a city that had recently been bombed. Their chances of surviving alone were little to begin with, but combined with the fact that no one had response-ability and decided to help the children, their chances got slimmer. Some nice analysis that the reading had on the movie when talking about the response-ability in the anime was when it talked about “why fireflies must die so soon”. It says Seita looks directly into the camera, looking at the audience, asking them the same question. I think this is exactly what the movie is getting at, not necessarily anti-war, but pro response-ability. Being able to stop and help others when they are in need of it, being able to give a helping hand instead of letting others suffer.

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dionnaea · 3 years

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Revelations | Pieck x Reader

pairing: pieck finger x gn!reader

warnings: cursing, some yelling, ends in fluff

wc: 1.8k

a/n: sorry that this is a couple days late! midterms wore me out, and i didn’t feel like looking at a word document for a day or two. hope you enjoy it nonetheless! let me know what you think :)

request: Hi can I request a pieck x male reader (or gender neutral if your more comfortable with that) maybe the reader is a scout that was captured after the attack and she is in charge of watching them maybe they slowly warm up to each other after reader reveals the horrors they’ve gone through with the Titans during an argument with pieck and eventually they start a relationship?

attack on titan masterlist | general masterlist

Yes, you had met some annoying scouts during your training, but you had never met anyone as annoying as the Marleyan soldier that was sent to guard your cells. He spent most of his time either throwing schoolyard insults your way or trying to flirt with every captive. It was ridiculous, and you were getting more than tired of listening to his squeaky, borderline pre-pubescent voice flood the stone-lined hallway. His break times had turned into a safe haven of sorts for you and your comrades, but as the thirty minutes creeped by, you became more and more antsy.

Today, however, seemed to be different as a woman walked in a little while after the regular guard left. She had walked by all of the cells, taking subtle glances inside each one, before having a seat near your end of the row. In fact, she was a mere five feet away from the bars of your current habitat, and you took the chance to study her.

The first thing you noticed was the red band clasped securely around her left arm, denoting her Warrior status. It shone like a beacon or a warning, you couldn’t decide which. Still, why would a Warrior be sent to watch over some captured scouts? And where had the other man gone? Not that you minded his absence. The curiosity started to eat away at you, and you figured there was no harm in asking.

“Hey,” you started. You were taken aback when you realized that she was already looking at you, like she knew exactly what you were going to say.

“He was moved to another post,” she answered your unspoken question. “I’m here in the interim.”

“Ah,” you responded.

Her voice was a bit too soft for your liking; it was unbecoming of a killer, you thought with spite. You didn’t like her being here. A regular, annoying Marleyan soldier was one thing, but a Warrior? It was like a stab straight to every scout’s heart. Your chest started to feel a bit hotter as your anger towards her grew. You hadn’t been there when she delivered the boulders to the Beast Titan to decimate your comrades, but you had heard the tale, a horror story only told late at night. As if she had the right to exist in the same building, on the same continent even as the predecessors of those she had killed.

You scoffed out loud, and the Warrior turned to face you, furrowing her eyebrows as if she were actually concerned. You glared in response. It was stupid, you thought, that she was allowed to have a face like that, the face of an angel, and still act like a devil.

The day passed, her sitting idly by while you did your best to play a card game in your head. You tried to picture all of the cards and their suits and numbers, placing them on the imaginary table you had set up on the floor of your cell. It wasn’t going well, you kept losing, as you kept getting distracted by the feeling of the Warrior’s gaze burning into the back of your skull. It was almost as annoying as the squeaks of the original guard, and you felt a sense of pure relief as soon as she left for the night and another guard took her place.

To your discontent, she returned the next day, too, and the next. By the third day, your blood was boiling. Even though you were always turned away from her, you could feel her eyes on you most of the time. It was pissing you off, and you couldn’t hold back anymore.

“What the hell?!” You questioned as you whipped around, not surprised to find her dark eyes piercing into yours. Hers were wide in confusion, and that made you even more mad. “What’s so interesting about the back of my head, huh? You busy picturing what it would look like with a bullet in it or something?” It was a harsh statement, you knew, but you also believed she deserved it.

She shook her head quickly and with so much force that her crutch started to slide from where it was balanced against her chair. She swiftly reached out to catch it, holding onto it with both hands instead of propping it back up.

“N-no. I just…” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “I just was trying to figure out what you were doing.”

You scowled. “What I was doing?” You repeated incredulously. “I’m wasting away in a jail cell, that’s what I’m doing!” You stood up in a flash, pressing your body against the bars and grabbing onto them until your knuckles were white. “I’m stuck here because of you, you know!”

She shook her head again, denying your statement. “No, you’re here because you killed my people.”

“Well, you killed mine!” You shouted back. Your voice lowered as you spoke again, grief flowing through you. “Thousands, millions even. You slaughtered them all without a thought for their families, and children, and friends. You destroyed our home without regrets, without us doing a damn thing to you, so stop complaining that we destroyed yours.”

The woman was quiet now, her head bowed and hair covering her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and that pissed you off more. You started to go off again, but she stopped you with her next words. “Tell me. Tell me what we did to you. I want to know everything.”

When she looked up, there was an honesty and sadness in her eyes that you never would’ve expected to see. It shook you, and for a second, you saw a normal human being rather than a Warrior. Somehow that look calmed you, and you became willing to tell the stories of you and so many others, both dead and alive.

You learned her name was Pieck, and the two of you talked for hours. You described the horrors of life under the threat of Titans, you told of the atrocities that occurred on the battlefield, you explained to her the loss and grief and overwhelming depression that came with the life every scout and citizen of Paradis was being forced to live.

And to your stupefaction, she listened to every word quietly, nodding her head to signal that she was taking in the information. She didn’t try to sympathize or compare experiences, she just sat and let you talk, letting herself realize her own sins. Once you were silent, you could tell she understood, at least as much as an outsider could. She didn’t need to apologize for you could see in her face that she had plenty of regrets, and Pieck was well aware that an apology would mean practically nothing. It was atonement that she sought now, and Pieck figured a good place to start would be with you.

From that day on, you grew closer with the woman. You never shared mindless conversations, but instead always talked of the past and of your experiences. You heard stories of her Warrior training and realized the brainwashing that the Eldians living on Marley had been put under from birth. A part of you was proud to see that Pieck had overcome it in a sense, happy to realize that peace was truly possible if constructive conversations could be had. It was promising, and slowly but surely, talking to Pieck became the highlight of your day, something you looked forward to as she made you forget about your lonely little cell.

Weeks had passed, and then one night changed everything.

You were struggling to sleep, the thin sheet you were given was not enough to protect you from the cold and the hard bed was giving you a pounding headache. The only comfort you had was the knowledge that you could see Pieck again in a few hours once the sun came up. The hallway was silent other than the occasional moments when the night watchman got up to use the restroom. He sat on the other end of the hall from you, and you were thankful that he couldn’t see into your cell from where he was stationed.

The next time he got up, he didn’t come back for quite a while, and you started to wonder if something had happened to him. Were the scouts finally coming to rescue you? Your heart began to pound harder as you heard the door to the hall creak open and keys jingle. You cracked your eyes open to see who was here only to be met with the sight of Pieck standing outside your enclosure, fiddling with the keys before sliding one into your door’s lock.

You sat up quickly, tossing the sheet off of you and standing to meet her against the bars. Keeping your voice as low as possible, you whispered, “Pieck! What’re you doing?”

She whispered back, pushing your door open and holding out a pile of clothes to you. “Put these on. I want to take you somewhere.”

You obliged quickly, not questioning the possibility that you could escape somehow. Was she helping you to leave? But how would you get back to Paradis? Options were running through your head at lightspeed as you slipped on the long sleeve shirt and jacket. She guided you down the hallway after you were dressed, careful not to wake anyone or stir suspicion. You barely recognized the building as you walked through it as it had been months since you had last seen anything other than stone walls and metal bars. When Pieck pushed the backdoor open and let you wander back into nature, the breath was stolen from your lungs.

It was cold outside, but in a different way than your cell. The air was refreshing rather than stale and the wind was pleasant, not a musty draft. You could smell the light scent of flowers in the air, and you wondered exactly where it was coming from, suddenly craving the feeling of petals on your fingertips. Pieck seemed to understand your thoughts as she led you to a small garden on the other side of the pathway. Upon seeing the dainty plants, you rushed over to them, brushing your fingers over the colors and savoring the different textures.

As you straightened back up, Pieck took your hand gently. You felt a bit embarrassed with how dry yours were, hers as silky smooth as the petals you had just caressed, and you apologized quickly and quietly. Laughing softly, Pieck just tightened her grasp, assuring you there was nothing to worry about by how she pulled you closer. Her being this close was intoxicating, and you felt yourself melt into her, peace washing over you in waves. For some reason, all of this felt new to you, like you were starting over in the world with Pieck, and you were perfectly content to stand here beside her.

It wasn’t until later, when you were back and locked securely into your cell, that you realized you didn’t mind staying a bit longer on Marley as long as Pieck was here, too.

#attack on titan #attack on titan x reader #attack on titan fanfiction #pieck finger #pieck x reader #pieck finger x reader #snk #aot #mere writes

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bigmeatymudcrabchitins · 3 years

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A not-so-brief overview of my Skyrim Dova OCs bc i need to scream to the digital void about my ideas

Freyora Lind, more commonly known by her strange alias “Bjorne Icepick”

A Nord-eventually-turned-werewolf who orphaned during the Great War and taken in by a Dunmeri mercenary whose residence was in Windhelm’s Gray Quarter. Grew up in a cramped boarding house setting among desperate mercenaries of varying backgrounds. Many of them would all come and go, but there was always some sort of a familial bond between them all.

From a young age she got in a lot of fights against people who insulted her for living in the Gray Quarter among the dark elves. Eventually she took a fight too far and was jailed for murder around 14, but was broken out shortly after by a band of masked vampires. Turns out some of her mercenary comrades unwittingly caught vampirism during a contract to clear out a vampire den and had to skip town, but not before ensuring one of their own wasn’t left to rot.

Lived in Cyrodil for about 15 years, but returned to Skyrim pursuing rumors surrounding a cure to vampirism, as her adoptive father would be nearing the end of his elven lifespan and had wished to die a normal death.

Seeing as she was literally a fugitive, and her long-belated parents were somewhat renowned for their battlefield prowess, she took on a false identity. AND an act to match it.

She’ll eat raw meat, chase prey with swords instead of using a bow like a normal person, harp about irrational conspiracy theories, and more. Everyone’s foul reactions to her outlandish act are plainly hilarious to her and only encourage her to act even stranger.

The alias “Bjorne Icepick” was simply the most ridiculous name she could think of.

Not the most morally outstanding. Besides drunken brawling, she’ll steal from anyone who angers her, even if it’s things she literally won’t ever need such as all the goblets in a household. It’s the pettiness that counts. “Try drinking your damn high-end wine now, jackass.”

Calls Dwarven Automatons “Gundams.” Including she herself, no one knows what that means.

Joins the Companions out of homesickness and a desire to fill in a gap that leaving home left.

Hasn’t bothered curing herself of lycanthropy because her whole schtick is being incredibly resourceful, and that includes using any means of power necessary. Still doesn’t fancy Hircine’s Hunting Grounds as her desired afterlife, though.

As her journey goes on, however, her lightheartedly eccentric face starts to fall off as a number of events push her to begin to question the legitimacy of her actions up until that point.

Some of which include the eventual death of her adoptive father (and how she was indirectly responsible for it even if it was what he wanted), Delphine’s ultimatum, the civil war as a collective, learning the tragic history behind the Falmer and the original Companions’ role in it, and killing of Vyrthur (no matter how much he genuinely deserved it).

She grows disgusted by herself down to the core. She takes to skooma to cope, and starts to be plagued by serious skooma-induced side effects. She ends up shutting herself away from all her responsibilities and distancing herself from her friends.

Does she get better? Maybe. I haven’t thought up anything past this point lol

Moureneris Alta

A very, VERY ancient vampiric snow elf, (though it’s notable she was born a considerable amount of time after the razing of Sarthaal)

Survived many atrocities. Stayed in isolation with a band of vampires for countless years out of sheer disgust for the nature of the sapient races. (I’ll explain her full story some other time. It’s pretty complicated)

She was abducted from her isolated lifestyle by a certain person i’ll talk about later. She managed to free herself south of Skyrim, and uh, walks right into that Imperial ambush. The rest is history.

Super ignorant to modern society as a result of centuries of isolation. Exploited for comedic relief. (“What in the name of Oblivion is a Cyrodilic Empire? Are you messing with me? And please, how does levitation magic simply get outlawed by this hypothetical Empire? What are you to do when you fall down a crevice? Just... let yourself perish? How degrading.)

She reintegrated herself into society with vengeance in mind under the belief that all humans are savage bloodlusting murderers who had to answer for their treachery. (And she was royally angry there was no Dwemer left to spite, but partially satisfied at the same time). But she grows conflicted after being shown genuine kindness, even as early as being freed from her binds in Helgen.

Subsequently has a very muddled redemption arc. Queue Dragonborn hero stuff

She has impaired vision, but she cultivated detect life magic to aid her in daily life and combat (think Hyakkimaru from Dororo ‘19 and his soul detection or Toph Beifong from ATLA and her seismic sense). At her peak, she can detect life from about a kilometer away.

She can just barely read, but only if she holds the text incredibly close to her face, not to mention her Cyrodilic lessons were left unfinished after her abduction, making reading a very taxing process. Weary travelers are often spooked at the sight of a floating, ghastly looking elven woman with her nose pressed up against crossroad signs, and it has become somewhat of an urban legend.

Isn’t as nearly as skilled with detecting the dead and tenses up in burial crypts or around other vampires for that reason. Unfortunately, being the Dragonborn and all, she finds herself in a lot of crypts...

When questioned about her background due to her unique appearance: “Oh, yeah. My mother was one of those mer from the east. You know the ones. Dark elves, I think? And my father was one of those er, tall elv- no, sorry, HIGH elves. Yeah. They both died in a big fire or something though. It was horrible. I can’t get the noxious smell or the deafening screams out of my head. Good talk, but never ask me about that again.”

Queue sheltered old immortal antics: “Wow, you’re THAT old? Enlighten me on how it felt witnessing the fall of the Dwemer. Or perhaps the rise of Tiber Septim’s Empire. The Gates of Ob-“ “Oblivion if I know. I lived in someone’s basement for thousands of years. And I still don’t know what everyone means by Empire. You all are messing with me, aren’t you? That really annoys me.”

She ultimately returns to faith in Auri-El and makes it her life’s purpose to help the Betrayed find peace, as well as to seek out any remaining snow elf groups. Probably good friends with Gelebor or something.

Had a crush on Serana. We all know how THAT went. Damned temples.

Was originally gonna spiral into a much darker corruption arc (another ATLA comparison being Jet or Hama) but I just felt bad for her. Moureneris can have a little found peace. As a treat.

That’s her preliminary design made. I’ll need a mod to properly play her, because that right there was made by choosing Dunmer as her race. But I can’t do that. I’m on console, and while I got the Steam port a month ago, my PC’s stone age specs can’t handle Skyrim yet and I’ll need to wait until I can afford a better graphics card (thanks economic inflation)

Alexandre Armasi, jokingly nicknamed Alexandre the Curious

A complete and unapologetic export of my character from a dead and unfinished DND campaign. Except there are no Aasimar in Skyrim, so he’s half Altmer half Bosmer. And his initial last name was Armas but I thought Armasi suited his Skyrim counterpart more, as subtle a change it is.

He’s mainly Bosmer in appearance and constitution, save for his hair and eyes, which are more similar to that of his Altmeri father’s.

I can’t really export his original backstory though because the campaign wouldn’t translate well into TES lore at all.

He’s a writer who came wandering into Skyrim in search of inspiration. While he mainly writes dramatic fables, he wanted to divert his focus to crafting his own bestiary and herbal compendium surrounding Skyrim’s fauna and flora. The ones at home are simply too vague to him!

He’s very altruistic, wishing to spread cheer wherever he goes, through the art of song (even though he was a cleric in DND and not a bard. My bad.) However, many of his verses are just blatant self promotions of his published fables.

But he’s too naive for his own good. Dangerously so. In fact, he says what’s on his mind with little forethought, with little grasp on the consequences of his actions, which lands him in lots of trouble. “I don’t favor him myself, but you guys kill people over Talos worship? That’s not very cool. A bit scary, if you ask me.” or “A Stormcloak rebel? Didn’t your leader kill a bunch of Reachmen rebels years back, or so I’ve heard. By the divines that’s not a man I’d make a symbol of nonconformity.”

He’s also insatiably curious. The type to ACTUALLY shove alchemic ingredients in his mouth with no knowledge of their properties, experiment with dangerous rune spells, throw rocks at pressure plates, and more. Needless to say he’s very accident prone.

Doesn’t know common curse words. People exploit this for laughs. Think that episode of Spongebob.

Everyone is a little baffled that HE of all people is the prophesied Dragonborn of legend. This agonizingly imbecilic writer who has absentmindedly wandered into burial crypts, troll dens, bandit forts, and more, too busy juggling his manuscripts to pay attention to his surroundings.

His past doesn’t exactly reflect his outlook on life. His mother and father fought in the Great War aligned with the Imperials despite their elven background. Both managed to live to see the war’s conclusion, but his father vanished without a trace shortly after, and it seems his mother knows something she won’t tell him.

With plenty of exposure to bad influences, his innocence is slowly lost throughout the course of his journey, and his altruism begins to grow twisted. But nevertheless, he maintains his jovial, social persona, except this time with much darker undertones. Kinda like a creepy dentist or something.

Whoops. He winds up becoming a feared Dark Brotherhood assassin. (Haha get it “Innocence Lost”???) He somehow deluded himself into thinking that the life of an assassin was the right thing to do. But he’s a funky little guy so he gets a pass for his heinous crimes against society

#skyrim #skyrim oc #dragonborn #dovahkiin

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nowthisnews · 3 years

Photo

A group of activists, including leaders from the Black Lives Matter movement, racial justice advocates, and other prominent voices for change have signed an open letter to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, highlighting the government’s ‘unwarranted force against its own unarmed citizens’ and calling for the end of SARS, Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad. In an unprecedented move, the full letter was published in The New York Times.

‘As people who have supported the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and throughout the diaspora, we cannot be silent when similar atrocities take place in African countries. We demand respect for the Nigerian people, especially as they engage in their constitutional right to protest grave injustices,’ the letter states. ‘As president of the world’s most populous Black republic, you assume a leadership role on the global stage. Nigeria matters.’

The letter goes on to map out a variety of actions that the activists are demanding immediately, including releasing protesters and journalists from jail, hold officers responsible for the killing at Lekki Toll Gate in October where witnesses say they saw soldiers open fire on protesters — killing at least 10, and investigate the violence and use of force against the protesters.

In early October, a disturbing video surfaced of federal police officers from SARS dragging two men from a hotel and shooting one of them outside, prompting protests in the West African country and public outcry online.The grassroots movement #EndSARS was created to reignite the push to abolish SARS. Critics of the unit, which was created in 1992, say that it has historically abused its power and been linked to dozens of beatings, hangings, torture and sexual assault. The Nigerian government responded to the initial protests by announcing on October 11 that it would immediately dissolve the SARS unit, but demonstrations have continued, demanding further police accountability and changes for offenders in the unit, who allegedly have been reassigned to other units or law enforcement agencies.

Penned by 60 signatories representing the 60 years of independence in Nigeria, the letter was published on International Human Rights Day. ‘Nigerians deserve better. Africa deserves better. The world deserves better. We remain united in our calls for justice until all Black lives matter throughout the world.’

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free-pancakes · 3 years

Text

A Fire in the Shadows

LeviHan - Avatar the Last Airbender AU

Characters: Levi, Hange, Erwin, Mike, Nanaba, Moblit, Kenny, Zeke

Summary: Levi, the nephew of a fire nation captain, stumbles upon a ragtag group of 5 known as the Scouts, formidably known for foiling the plans of local fire nation control, living in the forests a few miles north of Ba Sing Se. Chapter 1: The Scouts

(crossposted to ao3)

Hey so possibly kinda niche, but I decided to try writing a LeviHan story in an ATLA AU! I don’t think you’d necessarily have to have watched ATLA to understand whats going on. Lmk your thoughts if you read! I surprisingly had a lot of fun writing this

CHAPTER 1: THE SCOUTS

Lightning flashed, illuminating a silhouette of tall, looming trees lying just ahead. Levi winced in pain. The burns on his leg were fairing worse than he thought—he had to find refuge from the rain, fast. He limped as quick as he could towards the forest.

He made his way deep into the cover of trees, and sat down on the forest floor. He carefully stretched his leg forward, out from the beneath the branches above him, letting the rain wash over his wounds. Gritting his teeth, he stifled a yell. His vision began to darken at the edges, and he quickly grasped for the oil lamp and blanket from his backpack before he’d pass out from the pain. The last thing he needed was to freeze to death. He pointed his hand towards the lamp, and released a small burst of fire from his fingertips. Soon after, his vision went black.

———

Levi woke up suddenly, his eyes in a daze, disoriented. He sat up and squinted at the warm sunlight that shined through the foliage above him. He noticed a cool, soothing sensation on his leg, and looked down. There were bandages wrapped around his burns, and the faint smell of some kind of ointment reached his nose. Levi lowered his head into his hands, desperately trying to recall the events of the night before.

He couldn’t erase the images from his mind—a village ablaze, and a defeated group of earthbenders on the ground, fear etched deeply into their expressions. He stood, shaking and staring at his hands, the shouts of his uncle behind him, telling him to finish them off already. Levi closed his eyes, knowing he had to make a decision here, one he didn’t want to regret. He looked forward and made eye contact with the group of benders, and they understood, scrambling to get up and run while Levi bought them time. Levi spun around to face his uncle, and the rest of his memories melted into a blur of flames, searing pain in his leg, and the faint sound of General Zeke and his other comrades shouting in the distance as he escaped the scene.

There was no turning back now, but he wasn’t sure what his end goal was. If anything, he knew he had to avoid running into his uncle Kenny again, or more importantly, General Zeke, but he was fairly sure he travelled far enough to be safe for now. He’d surely be jailed for his betrayal, as the targets he spared were quite valuable, controlling rebellion among the northern earth kingdom villages and cities. And if General Zeke found out this wasn’t the first time he spared the lives of those targeted by his fire nation regiment, he’d definitely suffer a fate worse than imprisonment.

Levi’s mind swirled with endless thoughts, but he pushed them to the back of his mind. First thing’s first: He had to figure out where he was exactly and more importantly, who found him and bandaged his wounds while he was out.

Suddenly, the sound of crunching leaves and branches echoed from the left, jolting Levi back to reality. He panicked, lifted his head from his hands. He turned towards the noise and found himself locking eyes with a bespectacled girl squatting next to him, her face only 3 inches away from his. He let out a startled yelp.

“You’re awake!” she exclaimed.

Levi’s eyes widened. He didn’t know what to do. Who was this girl and how did she find him? More importantly did she see him firebending into the lamp last night?

No, she couldn’t have.

There was no way someone from around this area would tend to the wounds of a firebender. Luckily, he played an undercover role in last night’s mission, so he was in civilian clothes instead of his uniform.

“You scared me a bit—you’ve been out for a whole day. I created my own special remedy for burns and put that on your leg, so I hope that’s okay with you!” He tried standing up, but she gently pushed his shoulder to lay him back down. “You should probably get some rest before I go help you find your parents!”

“What?” Levi croaked.

“Your parents! I’m sure they’re worried sick.” she exclaimed.

“I’m NINETEEN.”

The girl threw her head back and burst out in laughter. Levi felt a vein pop in his forehead. “Oi, what the hell’s so funny, four-eyes?” She fell backwards giggling, wiping tears from her eyes.

“I thought you were the same age as my little brother, Moblit.”

“And how old is he?”

“Fourteen!” She burst out in laughter again, and Levi was sure some artery burst in his brain. He knew he was small for his age, but this was ridiculous. He knew this girl for a total of five minutes and he had never been so annoyed in his life.

After she finally calmed down, she crawled up towards Levi and sat back down next to him. “So, I’ve wanted to ask you— why are you here in the forest? And how did you get those burns? They were pretty severe, to be honest. Are they from fighting or escaping from fire nation soldiers? You must be pretty strong if you survived! Oh and where did you get this oil lamp, it’s pretty nice! And—“

“Enough!” Levi couldn’t think straight as the girl kept babbling on. “You’re not even giving me time to think before asking another question!” Levi replied.

“Well ~sorry~, I thought that the person who just saved your sorry ass deserved having some of her questions answered,” she pouted, looking deep into his eyes.

Levi rolled his eyes. “Fine, I… ran away from home.”

“Oooh a bad boy, huh?" she teased. "Where’s home?”

Levi hesitated so he could choose his words carefully. He had spent time undercover in Ba Sing Se, so he could probably get away with that cover-up. “Ba Sing Se,” he lied.

“Oh a city boy too! Oh you’ll HAVE to take me there some time! I could buy more supplies and ingredients for medications that I make. And I hear the tea shops in there are quite lovely! And better materials to build traps!” Her eyes sparkled with immense excitement and curiosity. Levi was annoyed at her constant talking, yet oddly enough, he was mesmerized by the endless energy in her voice. Who was this girl?

“Well I’ll spare you—I won’t pry into your life anymore… for now.” She smiled brightly at him. “You should join my friends and me!”

She looked upwards in thought, her right hand lightly gripping her chin. “Judging upon the fact you dragged yourself out here managing to survive your injuries and last night’s freezing temperatures, you definitely have the heart of a fighter.”

She looked down and carefully adjusted the bandages on his leg. “And with these burns wounds, my guess is that you’re not a fan of the atrocities that the fire nation soldiers have launched upon these parts either. So! I think you could be a great asset to our team!” She held out her hand excitedly towards Levi, and said, “My name’s Hange. What’s yours?”

Before Levi could respond, the sound of rope thumping against tree bark and rustling of leaves echoed from above. He heard faint sounds of whispering, and saw four shadows approaching through the foliage. A small boy suddenly popped out from the bushes.

“Hange! There you are!” The boy ran and clung onto Hange’s arm, tears welling up in his eyes. “We were so worried about you, you didn’t come back after the storm last night and—“ He immediately stopped talking and looked towards Levi, and his eyes diverted down towards his bandaged leg. Hange reached her hand towards the boy’s head and ruffled his hair.

“Don’t worry, Moblit, I’m alright. Sorry for worrying you. I ran into this shorty here and I couldn’t just leave his pathetic self out here to die of hypothermia!”

A tall, older boy with blonde hair appeared from the behind the trees, holding 2 hooked swords. Then, a much taller boy with bangs covering his eyes, and a girl with short blonde hair walked forward quietly, both holding a bow and satchel of arrows, carefully approaching Levi.

“Hi everyone! Look, I think I just found us a new friend to join our team!” Hange said excitedly. The three older teens approached Levi, glaring with distrust in their eyes. They loomed over Levi, Hange, and Moblit.

Levi mustered the courage to speak with confidence, unwilling to show any hint of fear in his voice. “Who are all of you?” Levi asked.

The blonde-haired boy walked closer, his fierce blue eyes meeting Levi’s gaze.

“Who is this, Hange?”

“A grumpy old shorty I found out here last night! Don’t worry Erwin, he has a good heart. I can just tell!” She looked back towards Levi and smiled warmly at him. He felt a knot form in his chest after hearing her words--if she knew what crimes he's committed for the sake of the fire nation, she wouldn't be saying such things. Despite Levi’s growing fear and sadness in the current situation, her smile put him at ease.

“And I was just about to ask him his name!” She exclaimed, turning to smile at Levi.

In contrast to Hange’s warm expression, Erwin, Mike, Nanaba, and Moblit shot a cool glare at Levi. He scowled and glared back at them, and then looked away from their darting gaze.

“Levi.”

“Levi?” Erwin asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, Levi. Just… Levi.”

“Hm. Well I’m Erwin. Just… Erwin.” Erwin crossed his arms, not breaking eye contact.

“Alright Levi. From the looks of it, you’ll be out of commission for at least 2 weeks with those injuries, but under Hange’s care, you’ll probably be all healed within the next week. Then we’ll decide what we’ll do with you.” Levi stared back towards Erwin, with a glare matching his intensity.

With a subtle, threatening tone in his voice, Erwin added, “And to answer your question, the 5 of us together are known as the Scouts.

”Levi’s eyes widened for a split second, and then he reverted back to his resting scowl, trying to cover up any inkling of fear he might have just shown. Levi knew exactly who the Scouts were, just like the Freedom Fighters out on the other side of Ba Sing Se, but from the rumors he heard, a lot more formidable of a group. They had successfully thwarted fire nation plans in several villages up here in the northern portion of the Earth Kingdom, but have been impossible to pin down, so running into them, let alone speaking with them… was quite a rare feat. But something was even more surprising than this. From the word that spread, the Scouts sounded much older, and he was shocked to find that these guys were just a group of non-bender teens.

Even worse, from the looks of it, none of them trusted him. With the exception of Hange. He could not believe that his fate rested in the hands of a four-eyed weirdo.

With his hand in his pocket, he slid his index finger, tracing the edges of the fire nation emblem on a good luck charm his mother gave him many years ago. However, luck was not on Levi’s side today—This was the probably the most dangerous group of people a fire nation soldier like him could have ever run into.

#levihan #levihan fanfic #levihan fanfiction #atla #i just really wanted to write about levi being a firebender #also i loved the freedom fighters so much and imagining the vets as them is just really fun #snk #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #aot

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kendrixtermina · 4 years

Text

The “Genocidal Edelgard” Shallowtake

I was not going to make a post about this because it’s most likely futile and not going to convince anyone nor do I believe in dinifying the purity police with attention, but maybe it will let some ppl know that they dont have to let themselves be shamed for liking the wrong video game character

Whatever might have been the case in the distant past when Nemesis was around, by the “present day” the Nabateans are not at all some commonly oppressed stereotyped minority - the setting is chock full of characters that fit that bill a lot better like Dedue or Cyril. Characters that are ordinary humans not magic dragons.

And even that is more founded on general purpose xenophobia than from the specific, relatively new early modernity construct of racism. (the dedue situation probably comes the closest)

Sure, Seteth and Flays have to hide from their old enemy the Agarthans, I see how some might find that relatable etc. but most of the population isn’t aware that they exist at all. They hold high status positions, are worshipped by the local religion and Rhea all but rules the entire continent (and says so herself to Byleth in that speech about how she was just “ruling this wayward country in your stead”, “you” being Sothis) - though that is mostly Rhea’s doing of which Seteth and Flayn are relatively innocent.

The interviews pretty much confirmed that the Nabateans constituted the local aristocracy and that many humans genuinely saw the Elites as liberators - though there was definitely also an element of ppl going around killing random Nabateans to gain superpowers, not to speak of Nemesis’ very obvious very unambiguous mass murder. Not wanting to be ruled over by foreign powers is understandable, though obviously killing them all down to the last civilian was just flat out evil - its certainly not a simple situation, we can all agtree Nemesis & the Agarthans were evil but there is no clear defined good guy.

There are historical conflicts you could compare this to, perhaps some conflicts in Africa or the middle eastwhere different groups took turns being the ruling class after the latest war, but it’s not at all like the modern USA or early modernity colonialism, and forcing every real or, in this case, imagined scenario inherently dependent of fantasy elements, into this one framework from the present or near past isn’t conductive to understanding at all.

And in the present day, by the time Edelgard is alive, we are talking about three specific people that she has good reason to dislike individually. Not any sort of group at all.

She calls Rhea a cruel beast because that’s all she’s ever seen Rhea to be. She’s the shadow tyrant who rules her world, who created the crappy world Edelgard grew up in. It’s no different Cubans thiking badly of the castros after suffering through famines - or, no need for such extreme examples really, ppl call their least favorite politicians monsters all the time.

She’s wrong to assume that Seteth & Flayn are wholly on board with this, but on the other hand, it’s not at all a far-fetched assumption to make: They hold high positions in the church though they ostensimbly just appreared out of nowhere one day. Do you have to be an evil bigot to assume that the brother and right hand man to the tyrannical god-queen is condoning & supporting her actions?

The truth is of course that underneath her pseudo-parental facade Rhea is sort of a scared girl, very lonely, very afraid, and ashamed, in a shallow, childish way, for “breaking the rules” just because they are rules. She says she can’t trust anyone, that she feels lonely & isolated... and while no one can blame her for distrusting humans after the slaughter of her people, but the reason she can’t trust Seteth is that she’s keeping her bad deeds secret from him. He wasn’t there the whole time, he just showed up a few decades earlier.

She sees herself only as filling out for Sothis and doesn’t quite grasp that she’s in charge, very much a follower personality bent on stasis & regularity.

Is Edelgard obliged to try & unravel the complex psychology of the tyrant who rules her home to correctly deduce why she would deceive even her own family? By all intents and purposes, Edelgard is the one getting rid of an oppressive government that doesn’t let ordinary humans let a say at all. A government where ppl of others faiths and nationalities are typically oppressed unless they work directly for the church.

It’s like having a disdain for, say, Ivanka Trump. She holds a high position in her father’s administration despite having no obvious qualifications, she appears to be profiting & making bank from her father’s atrocities, she certainly hasn’t done anything to stop him or disavow him the way that, say, her cousin Mary did - if you suffered under Trump’s regime you’d be very justified in assuming that Invanka is probably a bad person.

Flayn only looks young (She might not if we saw her in other clothes). I mean, Kronya could badly impersonate a schoolgirl. At the very least they’ve supported the regime by refusing to question their own side and they show some however benevolent belief that it is their duty to “guide” the people. Leaving her to the Agarthans is certainly questionable, but no more so than doing it with Rhea herself, under the assumption that she’s guilty and that it’s a sacrifice that will prevent larger chaos. The agarthans had their plan long before they created Edelgard as we know her, and she couldn’t stop their plots all on her own.

You could say that it’s callous, distasteful or a deal breaker - as the death knight is her direct subordinate & she makes a personal appearance in mask, I would argue that she definitely knew & sanctioned the kidnapping - but she’s no more callous towards Flayn than towards anybody else.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re evil, or that they deserve to die.... and Edelgard would agree with me. She doing all this to prevent death – flipping the lever on the trolley problem so it crushes one person instead of five so to speak. She always gives her enemies the chance to surrender, unwilling allies the chance to leave, and jails enemies whenever leaving them alive wouldn‘t lead to further death… even the ones she has the most personal reason to hate, like the PM.

As servants of the church who have chosed to back her enemies, she’ll certainly kill them if she has to, but not any more than any other enemy. At no point anywhere in the story does she say anything like that they need to die on principle. Nowhere at all. Indeed there is much evidence to the contrary.

The church paints her as being completely against the religion or even wanting to set herself up as a satanic godess cause it‘s good politics & they don‘t get what she‘s doing – to an extent her own credibility & messaging is compromised by her secretive and at times unscrupulous actions, no one said she was perfect. In truth all she wants is to have the church out of politics, you know, what we have in nearly every modern country outside the vatican and saudi arabia.

You can absolutely let Flayn & Seteth go on CF and there is no word, no fuss about it anywhere. No „make sure to kill em all“ which would certainly be there if the narrative wanted to portray Edelgard that way. It requires the mediation of Byleth as someone they would talk to & not immediately assume the worst of, but, they see the church as the embodymet of all that is good & fighting its enemies as their sacred duty so of course it wouldn‘t be possible for just anyone to talk them down. It‘s framed as Flayn letting Byleth go cause they saved her life once, even if we know from behind the screen that she wasn‘t going to survive a fight to the death against the player-controlled faction.

Heck, even when it comes to Rhea, the one most guilty that Edelgard has the most reason to loathe, she‘s ultimately surprisingly gracious. She gives her the option to surrender – and this is not a lie, she discusses this with Byleth in a lecture question, and seriously ponders the possibility. Here Byleth gets a range of options like „stab her in the back“ and „keep the church under imperial control“ but you know which one nets you the support points? „Strip her of her authority so she can‘t interfere in politics“. She wasn‘t gonna mess with the religious folks & their religion at all, just make it so it‘s separate from government. Rhea could even keep being pope, if she could be satisfied without having complete supreme authority (and ripping her precious artifact out of Byleth‘s chest) – even when she puts her down she‘s not 100% without pity, telling her that „Your duty is done“ (the translators mucked this up)

Couldn‘t be any further from „lets kill them all on principle“.

What really annoys me is how ppl go and twist everything Edelgard says out of context to ascribe a motive to her that just isn’t there.

Common examples:

„If you have Flayn or Seteth fight her she‘ll say they need to die because they‘re nabateans“

Actually what she says is this: „You are a child of the godess. You must not have power over the people!“ Not getting to be privileges rulers anymore =/= being opressed. Stay out of politics =/= Diediedie. Also, this is from the VW/SS boss fight, where they have literally come to get her in her own capital.

„Linhard & Leonie don‘t tell her & hubert about Indech, probably cause he expects that she‘ll go & kill him„

What he actually says is: „Lake Teutates is a place that concerns the saints of the Church of Seiros. It may become bothersome should the two of them find out...“

„It may be bothersome“ as in, „we might get in trouble“, for doing the possibly very inadvisable thing of waltzing into what could possibly be an enemy location to satisfy personal curiosity. If it‘s something related to her agenda she might take over and Linny wouldn‘t get to investigate as he pleases – at very most you might construe it as Linny fearing that they‘ll be accused of consorting with the enemy, but „bothersome“ suggest possible annoyance not imminent murder.

The whole scene ends with Linhard telling Byleth to fill her in later. Doesn‘t sound at all like he expects her to go back with a harpoon.

„She said Claude isn‘t fit to be a ruler cause he‘s a foreigner“

What she actually says: „I understand your ideals are not so far removed from my own. But without knowledge of Fodlan‘s history, I cannot entrust its rule to you“

Now without the additional contexts that Claude won‘t get until after the fight, it might easily feel a bit like the former with the raw spots he‘d have from his backstory, but what she means is that he‘s ignorant of the Agarthan threat – which he is. Edelgard is all for making peace with Almyra and sees fostering isolationism & prejudice as one of the many faults of the church.

Once Claude basically kills Edelgard for information, he winds up having to take care of the storm she had been holding back. But to his credit, he DID „finish the job“ and get the info. But he didn‘t have it at that point.

And I don‘t mean any of this in the least bit as a diss of Claude - He is the smartest character, so there would be no plot if he got easy access to the info. At this point, they both think they can probably do better, and more importantly, both their backstories have made them so that they won‘t let down their guard far enough to cooperate in this scenario.

That‘s also why the outcome in CF is contingent on Byleth‘s choice. - You‘d sort of have to trust that he will also act so as to minimize casualties.

Very disingenious since many players wouldn‘t necessarily trigger these dialogues.

I guess because Adrestia got a vaguely central-european aesthetic (partially; all the countries are hodgepodge mashups and there’s more than enough spanish or ancient roman vibes there) and central europe existed only for those 12 years of tyranny I guess, even though many other places have had similar BS happening, including the US that delights in making craptons of movies about their faraway victory because their governments haven’t added much of value to the planet as of late. -.-

Faerghus (vaguely french/ russian - not at all places where nothing bad happened ever) has actually annexed some territory from their northern neighbors in the recent past, not to speak of the whole Duscur atrocity - but no one seems to go around laying that at Dimitri’s feet, because it would be nonsensical - he was a child at the time and as an individual he is super against it and champions a policy of reconcilliation if he gets to rule. after all, there wouldn’t be much of a plot if the characters inherited three perfect faultless problem free countries.

Edelgard, too, is completely against the previous administration under Duke Aegir (which was in charge during the Bridgid war). She deposed him and is plotting to do the same with Arundel once she can politically afford to do so. For all that one can understand why she would chose the other path (depending on how much she knows about what Edelgard’s doing and why) it makes all the sense in the world for Petra to support her on CF or if not recruited, because again, she got rid of that previous administration.

#edelgard #edelgard von hresvelg #fe3h #fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses

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marithlizard · 3 years

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Impressions of RWBY v8c7, “War”

Will Winter act on her conscience? Will Yang deck someone? Will they deserve it? How annoyed/depressed/horrified will I be 18 minutes and 50 seconds from now?

Farm fields? Somehow I'd thought of the floating city as having only greenhouse-type agriculture. Is there a heating grid underneath the fields, or something else clever? (And, now that I think of it, does Mantle have food production of its own? We'll probably never learn.)

Hooooly.... That is something. That is "Sauron could take notes for his next invasion of Gondor" levels of something.

I never thought about the whale being used in actual combat - it's terrifying enough as a floating fortress and symbol. But Atlas is just a platform in the air. It doesn't have to land, it can just sort of wriggle itself onto the edge.

The human soldiers standing there facing this deserve more recognition than they will ever get. Not all valor belongs to small teams of elite heroes.

Apathy spotted. They're not fast or strong but oh duh they are perfect frontline forces against a human army, aren't they?

Ironwood, you should've evacuated the entire city to shelters hours ago. I hope you thought to prepare the subways for hundreds of thousands of refugees for an indefinite period of time. But then you never thought you'd be facing this, did you. You expected to recover Penny and raise the city and that Grimm somehow wouldn’t be able to fly that high.

Obviously the soldier protesting that order has not actually looked outside and seen what's happening. Which means most of the civilians haven't either. They are not prepared for a sudden evacuation order and they're going to resist way more than the Mantle citizens did. In a less doomed situation it'd be satisfying to think of all those Schnee party guests stuffed into a dark subway tunnel.

Look, I've always seen the limitations of Ironwood's chess-game perspective. And I'm certainly not on the side of a cartoonishly evil dictator who shoots unarmed people when they disagree with him. But just now preserving the relic looks like both the ultimate priority and maybe the only achievable goal.

...okay, they're not resisting. Grimm overhead are very convincing.

A suicide bomb attack into the mouth of the whale makes logical sense. And Winter won't hesitate to carry it herself. She's certainly not going to hesitate because Oscar is in there. Tbh if I thought it would actually work, I wouldn't either - Oscar and Oz wouldn't put their own life over a city full of civilians.

Salem gracefully conducting her army like an orchestra. Emerald has reached her limit for atrocities. Beautifully constructed shots here.

SALEM DEATHWISH THEORY CONFIRMED. Oz has known all along. And horribly, I think he's being sincere when he agrees with Hazel that he deserves to be tortured like this.

(Is that where we're going with the endgame? The gods are summoned, realize Salem expects them to destroy the world and finally kill her, and say "Nah"? )

Oh, Nora.

I guess there's no point in the Manor occupants evacuating. At this rate it would only buy Whitley, Willow and the servants a matter of hours.

Weiss, Vacuo is halfway across the world - even if they sent an army it wouldn't get here in time. Forces from Argus led by Cordo, now that might happen. Though I don't know if they could make a difference. What can take out that whale? SEW is all I can think of.

Yeah, that's the problem isn't it? All the heroic good will in the world only lets you make a last stand in one place. And no matter which you choose you're abandoning someone else. Only in shoujo anime do sparkly love powers allow you to transcend that limitation.

Trans pride statement from May!

Whitley! Okay, he's going to do something to help, and Weiss had better recognize him for it.

Oooooooooh. Oz trusts Oscar, Oscar trusts Hazel, and now both Hazel and Emerald have Jinn's name. Who will use it, and to ask what?

That moment when you realize that Tyrian has had more common sense than you all along. That moment's embarrassing.

Now, how much of all this did that Grimm in the ceiling hear? Was that the Hound? I think perhaps it was.

A nod between Mercury and Emerald. He gets it. And they were saying goodbye. *sob*

Good job, Jaune! Make it to her practical benefit to do what you want. That's how you diplomacy.

"Like Marrow replaced Ortuga, and Winter replaced-" Ow OW. Harriet has the most depressingly mechanistic outlook on life ever. Everyone's a cog, including herself.

Ren's panic and resentment haven't wiped out his understanding and perception. And ...what *is* that? Those petals? Is Ren's semblance evolving?

This is what was being hinted at back in v7, isn't it. In episode 1 when he sensed the Ace Ops about to attack, and then later that odd little moment in the training room. Ren can detect as well as mask emotions now. Nice!

So Winter doesn't intend to make her own attack a suicide run. But how else does she think she can get the bomb deep enough inside to count? TBH if I were her, I'd put the bomb on a timer and make JRY *carry* it in. They'll be in the best position to put it somewhere vulnerable. It's not like they really have time for this "test run" idea anyway.

Qrow in his jail cell, mumbling resentfully about making Ironwood pay, seems so completely irrelevant to the plot right now. I think the writers just don't know what to do with him. :(

KLEIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KLEIN IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAY HE HAS MEDICAL SKILLS

Whitley called him, didn't he. Now I am happy, however briefly.

Well, THAT is not who I expected to finish out the episode with.

18:50 later, I'm not very annoyed, and not as depressed and horrified as I probably should be. There are certainly worse cliffs to leave us dangling off for the next 7 weeks or so.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby v8 spoilers #rwby volume 8 spoilers

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