#even dead I'm the hero

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

#squiggposting #pharma apologism #i'm sure the doylist reason for the writing is just that pharma was a designated villain #so since he's a villain and 'crazy' it's fine for everyone even the good guys to treat him like complete trash #i just think from a watsonian perspective taking a sympathetic approach is way more interesting and logically consistent #what i mean is like. from a meta perspective one of the best ways to show that a character is super evil and not worth saving #is when even the good guy heroes. the ones who are supposed to be kind and compassionate and wise. see him as dirt #and this is also kind of a necessity in most plots bc TF is the kind of series that just needs action villains and long-term antagonists #so not every villain is written or has a plot to be made redeemable. and pharma is one of these bc he's not important or a legacy character #so from a doylist (meta) perspective you could read the autobots' disregard of pharma as a sign of #'this guy is not meant to have your sympathy as a reader. pay no attention to him' #but from a watsonian (in universe) perspective it paints a miserable picture of pharma being utterly forsaken by the ppl he served alongsid #and like yeah i'm super autistic about pharma so of course i view him with sympathy but like #the idea of being a loyal and good person for years only to be subjected to a Torment Nexus of #being blackmailed into breaking all of the oaths you held sacred. under threat of you and all your comrades dying horrible torturous deaths #then when your comrades find out about it they focus solely on the 'harvesting organs' and not on the 'blackmail' part #and then you get literally left for dead by your comrades and best friend hating your guts #and then you get rescued by a guy who uses you as a test subject for his evil machine #this is a fucking nightmare scenario like pharma could hardly be suffering more if the author TRIED to make him suffer #and for me it's like. the evil pharma did can't be decontextualized to what drove him to that. as well as the question of like #how easily ppl can write someone off as evil and turn a blind eye to (or even find satisfaction in) their suffering bc theyre evil #and either brought it on themselves or it's just karma paying a visit #like. i feel like if pharma WERE a shitty doctor and a terrible person his whole life then the delphi situation would feel like karma #but the way it's written and the lore retroactively put in makes it feel more pharma getting thrown in a torture carousel #and THEN becoming evil. but then being treated as if he was always evil or was some sort of bad apple #bc like i'm not opposed to LOLing when a villain gets a karmic torture/death related to the wrongs they committed #but in pharma's case it feels less like karma and more like endless torture + being abandoned by ppl who should have been more loyal

[cluescorner]

Tim Drake has a weird fucking function

The thing about Tim that I find unique is that his life became SO MUCH WORSE after joining the heroing thing. Everybody else had a mid-to-shit life before becoming a hero/living with Bruce and mostly everybody (except Jason who LITERALLY DIED) had their life improved by being a hero/being Bruce's kid (or at least it is typically portrayed as such.

Tim had the exact opposite trajectory. His life wasn't perfect before he became Robin, but like...multi-millionaire/billionaire (canon is unclear, but he's within Gotham's upper-strata) kid with both natural intelligence + charisma and a bright future ahead of him and parents who were emotionally neglectful but nothing really beyond that (which is also a form of trauma, but all of the info we have indicates that the Drakes were no Arthur Brown or David Cain) and he still had other people he could rely on outside of them. He went to boarding school, which could be something horrible OR something amazing depending on your own thoughts/experiences. I grew up having a commute where we'd drive past a really pretty and rich af boarding school that literally everybody in our area DREAMED of going to, so to me the idea of going to boarding school sounds incredible but mileage may vary. Tim seems like the type of kid who would thrive in that though. Based on what we know in canon atm, his pre-robin life was fucking amazing.

And then he starts being the sidekick and working towards becoming Robin. His parents immediately get kidnapped and poison themselves through drinking tainted water; his mom dies and his dad is in a coma. This is not the fault of Robin, but Tim himself muses about the idea that Robin and dead parents are linked: to become Robin completely, you must lose your parents. And with how fate/destiny/canon events can operate in comics universes, maybe he isn't that far off. Once his dad wakes up, their relationship becomes strained as the man grieves the loss of his wife and realizes that his son has been doing vigilantism as a hobby. It is unclear exactly how good of a parent Jack was before the incident, but the results of Tim's involvement with the Robin mantle has definitely made things worse between father and son. Jack will also die within quick succession of 2 of Tim's best friends, his girlfriend, and his other father. He will also effectively lose like 1/2 his loved ones in the fallout of all of that mess including: his older brother, his other friends (both civilian and superhero), and the stepmother with whom he shared what I would argue is his best parent-child relationship (Dana also may have died, but it's left unclear). He has stopped pursuing higher education (the moment he even applied for college he 'died', and it seems he hasn't made another attempt since) and if he wasn’t a major focus of the media before he sure is now. He tries to quit briefly (in fact he initially was planning on quitting once someone more suited came along) and cannot bring himself to do so. Even when he does manage to get away for a while, his superhero life impacts the pre-robin life he is trying to go back to. Leaving is an impossibility, this is all there is for him now. He also isn’t allowed to make mistakes anymore, not when lives hang in the balance. The one who enforces that impossible standard the most (besides Bruce depending on who's writing) is himself. He’s got TRAUMA now and people want to hurt him constantly. He is constantly questioning his own sanity and morality and place in the world. He almost dies like every month. Tim grows colder and less grounded, he is becoming both a better and a worse version of himself at the same time. He’s saving lives in the same few issues as he’s setting up a Saw movie plot for the man who killed his father. He is haunted by the ghosts of his past and the looming figure of his future. His life becomes SO MUCH FUCKING WORSE after he becomes Robin. Some of it is the fault of others, some is the fault of circumstance, and some of it is due to his own actions. But basically all of Tim's worst traumas and life-changing moments are either tied to or caused by Robin. Dick's parents would still be dead, Jason would still be living on the streets, Stephanie would still have Arthur Brown for a father and a lot of other things that deserve their own posts/IDK if they've been retconned, and Damian would still have been raised in the eco-cult where death is a constant. Those are life circumstances that occur without the involvement of Robin, the only one who even needs Bruce involved at all in their series of events is Damian. But Tim? All of what is considered his 'worst' moments occur after he assumes the role.

This idea is what I find the coolest and most fascinating about Tim as a character. Being a hero is usually portrayed as either an outright awesome thing or a righteous duty that one must fulfill or (maybe in a grimmer and/or more grounded story) a sacrifice to your interpersonal relationships/mental health that is made for the greater good. For Tim, being a superhero actively ruined his life (both because of the general circumstances surrounding being a kid vigilante and the choices he made as part of that role). It's never portrayed that way in canon because we need to come out of issues going 'wow being a superhero is so cool! I'm gonna buy the next issue!', but when you just look at Tim's life literally everything really bad that we know of occurred after he became Robin.

#tim drake #batman #batfamily #Red Robin 2009 #Red Robin #idk this is just why I think Tim is a really interesting character. I'm probably not being as articulate as I could be but it's tumblr so #I've had a lot of people say that they think Tim is the most boring robin. And I disagree because I don't think any of them are boring #but it is definitely the hardest to explain what makes Tim interesting to people with only a cursory knowledge #and it doesn't help that a lot of what makes Tim cool relies on his relationships with OTHER characters. #like you can explain why Jason is cool and interesting without even mentioning Batman if you really want to. #with Tim you need a fucking relationship chart and like 11 asterisks whenever anything involving the 'Bruce is dead' era is involved #so I just felt like typing up why I think he can really work as an exploration of somebody who straight up got WORSE after heroing #granted it's never actually stated because DC needs to make money. and tbh the closest we've ever gotten is Red Robin 2009 #which I feel is dubiously canon at best at this rate. was it retconned? did any of it happen in the current universe?

[childrenofthesun77]

I know mahiru is often seen as not smart (his official stats from the guidebook give him a 2 out of 10 for tactics and I think the mental stat is more about mental stability?) and sure he's not a tactical genius like mikuni or touma (both have 10/10 in tactics) but mahiru is extremely socially/emotionally intelligent, which is an intelligence often overlooked in favour of "classic" intelligence (like being good at math or things like chess).

But unlike other characters mahiru knows when to stand his ground and when to lay low and change a person's view slowly over time.

Misono wasn't on his side in the beginning, even saying mahiru could be his servant when mahiru agreed to work with him, but mahiru quickly picked up on the fact that misono was lonely and offered to be his friend. Now misono trusts him completely and recognizes that mahiru's strength lies in gaining allies.

Shuhei openly hated vampires and treated them as things and mahiru responded by humanizing them, listing examples of vampires acting just like normal people, laying the first stone for shuhei to stop wanting to kill all vampires.

He was the one who proposed the idea that tsubaki would come to rescue lilac because tsubaki sees his subclass as family and he was right.

Neither lawless nor licht were overly impressed by him when they first met him, but by the time he asks them to rescue tsurugi especially lawless is one of his biggest supporters.

In C3 he understood that he wasn't going to be able to move if he opposed them and joined them instead, allowing him and the other eves to meet. He also correctly concluded that getting tsurugi on their side was key because he was central to C3's/touma's plans and in the end it saved his life and allowed him to stop touma.

Mahiru consistently trying to protect tsubaki's subclass might also come in handy soon. They might not like C3, but both lilac and sakuya can vouch for mahiru as a person they can trust not to kill them and to aid them in stopping tsubaki from destroying himself.

And stopping tsubaki by convincing him to stop is perfectly logical. A servamp can't be killed as far as we know. Combat only gets you so far. If C3 want to create a lasting co-existence between vampires and humans getting both sides to stop killing each other and to learn to forgive is the only way.

Trying to solve this conflict through conversation and not violence is neither shortsighted nor childish, it's the only reasonable solution.

#servamp #mahiru shirota #mahiru doesn't have to be a genius at tactics as long as he has enough of “smart” people on his side and gets them to exchange information #touma was kind of screwed the second mahiru got tsurugi to turn against him within a week or so #and even with 13 mikunis it looks like mikuni might be screwed #it might turn into a simple numbers game at this point #all the eves sans mikuni and almost all servamps sans jeje and lily are on mahiru's side #add to that the enterity of C3 including some people believed to be dead and tsubaki's subclass against tsubaki lily and mikuni #(I'm excluding jeje because he's captured right now) #that's a lot of people against a small group that didn't bother to gather people loyal to their cause #this isn't chess where both sides start with the same amount of pieces and you can whittle down your opponent #while mikuni played chess mahiru played shogi even if he didn't know it #taking pieces mikuni discarded and adding them to his own side #I'm not sure if superior skill/power in a few single persons means that much if you have a huge number of also skilled/powerful people #working together to stop you #even without literary knowledge that tells me that the heroes are going to win I would bet on mahiru's side #even mikuni's arguments trying to stop tsubaki's subclass from intervening are weak

[cringefailnatsuo]

Nah man because what the hell was this?

First of all, I love how these panels establish a clear difference between Hawks looking at Dabi and Hawks looking at Dabi. In the scene from 240, Hawks is looking at Dabi as he's thinking about completing his mission and contacting Endeavor for backup. Like dude? You're literally staring into Dabi's eyes and thinking about Endeavor and it never crossed your mind that they have the same eyes? Chapter 267 drives this point even further by putting a close-up of Dabi's eye after he reveals his identity to Hawks. You can clearly see Hawks having an "oh shit" moment after the reveal as he truly looks at Dabi and realizes that this one piece of crucial information has been right in his face the whole time.

And second of all, this just highlights how Dabi truly is Hawks' downfall during the raid.

The whole point of Hawks' mission was to gain intel on the League so that the heroes don't make any hasty decisions and have the upper hand in apprehending the villains for good. The fact that the HPSC president specifically told Hawks "we severely underestimated the enemy" and yet he did the same exact thing is, quite frankly, hilarious.

And in retrospect, given the knowledge that we have on Dabi's past from chapter 350, Hawks could have figured out who was behind the nomu, where they were kept, and so many other things about AFO's plan for a successor if he had paid more attention to Dabi.

#bnha #dabi #hawks #dabihawks #canon dabihawks is riddled with irony and that's why it's so great #ok but also i want to know why the hell hawks looked into dabi's background and stopped looking into it when he hit a dead end #like that's so suspicious and he didn't bother digging further? #no 2 pro hero backing down from a challenge?? #i wonder how long it took for hawks to give up searching on info about dabi #honestly i'm surprised hawks underestimated him so much considering that fire is his one (1) weakness #and dabi is one of the more mysterious members of the lov since there's no info about him in the hpsc database or whatever #anyway the 'you should have been keeping both eyes on me' line hits different when you realize that dabi was keeping his eyes on hawks 24/7 #seriously the dude went through the trouble of locating takami tomie just to hear this dude's tragic backstory #and dabi copied hawks' move that one time in like 351(?) and someone called him fast or whatever #god i fucking hate narrative foils #ugh these tags are getting LONG but who even reads the tags anymore? #hello i make one original post per month and have now met my quota

[judesstfrancis]

rewatching nope (2022) today bc it's my day off and god everything about this movie is sooooooooooo. it's so good. truly can't remember the last time I was in a theater kicking my feet giggling bc a film was so well put together like truly every other minute I was staring at the screen in awe like holy shit they did that!! how did they do that that is so cool!! the sound design, the set design, the characters, the THEMES and the NARRATIVE, the blocking in certain scenes. THAT FUCKING ALIEN girl I'm sorry I'll never be normal about this movie

#the way the plot sorta spirals in on itself. u have this thing which relates to this thing which made this happen #and it all just keeps spiraling inward bc even tho they're all different scenarios they are all actually exactly the same #the cinematography choice....... blank hallways and first person pov and the SOUNDSCAPING #the dead silence with just one ambient noise in the background to make it feel off enough that you're like uhh what's happening I'm scared #the HERO of this movie and the way he only won bc he understood animals and knew how to treat them fairly #and yet he and his family still contribute to the spiraling narrative of in the way they try to capture jean jacket on film #2023 best picture winner TO ME #text post #nope 2022 #horror tag

[that-girl-glader]

Ugh I have a problem with watching and liking cancelled shows. Like, let me be happy once. There's a reason I gave up tv. Anyway, shoutout to The Hollow for making me lose sleep, and write this at like 2 in the morning. Watch it if you haven't, but....

#the hollow #the babysitters club #anne with an e #I'm about to do myself dirty by watching dead end even though it's cancelled #like I watched the first episode liked it went about my life found out it got cancelled and was sad about it #the owl house #dc super hero girls #I can't win once???! #you couldn't even give me the hollow #atleast bluey wouldn't do me like that and by bluey I mean australian tv #we should just give australian tv all our animations so they don't get cancelled #renew the babysitters club #pleaseeeeee #please give me one show pleaseeeeeeeeeeee #dead end paranormal park

[randomnameless]

Fates unironically did the "muhritocracy" schtick better than 3H lol; the vast majority of the playable Nohrian characters are commoners who got into high-ranking positions in the Nohrian army due to being exceptional soldiers and getting rewarded as such, whereas the only commoners on Adrestia's side that aren't turncoats (or fodder soldiers that are stated to exist only in throwaway dialogue from faceless NPCs) are Ladislava (non-character with no screentime, personality or even feats to support that she did anything to help the Adrestian army in any significant way), Fleche (slightly more of a character, still does nothing to help Adrestia), Randolph (does nothing to help and isn't even particularly well-recognized or rewarded for his skills, if him being jealous of his superiors is any indication), and Dorothea (only got to a high-ranking position due to prostituting herself in order to get into Garreg Mach, befriending the crown princess of the Empire, and being made into a general of the Adrestian army due to nepotism from that same crown princess).

What makes it even worse is that Nohr rewarding merit for anyone and everyone, regardless of social class or status, is an irrelevant bit of background worldbuilding, whereas Edelgard wanting to reward commoners' merits is one of her most consistently-repeated ideals, but the only non-nobleborn CF playable character only got so far in life due to (literal) peepee-sucking and nepotism, and even the NPCs are either featless non-characters (Fleche and Ladislava) or complain about not being recognized enough despite his skill/is recognized enough and Edelgard just decided a power-hungry, immoral dumbass was meritant enough to be made into a general in her army (Randolph); shouldn't the order have been reversed? Like, the game where one of the main characters' principle ideals is to recognize and reward anyone who's skilled should be the one to have most of her allies be commoners, whereas the one where the concept of merit is completely irrelevant to the story, themes and characters could have just had the characters be mostly nobles instead of consistently making them commoners just for subtle worldbuilding? It's weird.

Want to see an upstanding posterchild of Nohrian muhritocracy?

Chaos will always topple the ones who don't earn their status. It's folks like you and me who rise to the top. And the way we do that is by cutting down all our enemies.

I won't stop at captain. I will keep on climbing!

I'll be a king someday. I'll make it happen—you wait and see.

More seriously -

It's all about the what is actually rewarded.

I've already joked a bit about it, but basically Randolph and Nopes!Caspar want to demonstrate their muhrit by... invading countries, killing refugees or randoms who returned in their home after being ousted by the Imperial army.

Much muhrit, very uwu.

Take Whodislava, as you mentioned, bar being a named NPC who as less screentime than Kronya and is supposed to be a sad casualty for war, while being the posterchild of Supreme Leader's muhritocracy, we don't a thing about her. What has she done to be granted the rank of general? What are her achievements?

At times I'm pretty sure TS was partly written to laugh and mock FE16, but Avlora is basically in the same situation, save that Avlora has more plot relevance and exists bar being a sign the devs hold that's written "please feel bad about this character you've never interacted with and only has 5 lines of dialogue and is only here to garner sympathy when she dies I mean even Fates!Candace had more presence than her".

Avlora was an orphan, trained under Groma - a famous general - who continued to train even when Groma retired, became Adre- Aesfrost's top general and defeated Maxwell in a duel. We have her story - she came from nothing - her feats - she defeated the strongest warrior in Glenbrook - and the entire meritocracy angle sticks : Avlora was a nobody made general because she kicked asses.

The meritocratic Adrestia NPCs?

Randolph... tries to get muhrit, but fails as we protect people and only laments about his status in his House (as he is fucking killing people to gain more status, like dude, priorities?) - so in way, both Randy and Flèche are imo, counterexemples of Supreme Leader's muhritocracy : Randolph kills peons and invades an orphanage to demonstrate his "muhrit" because, otherwise, without any muhrit, iirc it's implied he and his sister will be demoted to randoms in House Bergliez (even if Flèche is supposed to be younger than Cyril iirc? Like how the frick do you want a kid of 12 to demonstrate her muhrit, else she'll be kicked out of her house?).

Whodislava... dies heroically, at least that's what we're supposed to get from her very "please cry" cutscene when she dies in front of Supreme Leader in Tru Piss - as Rhea and her family + knights tried to retake their ancestral home and she prevented them from doing so - or it's the same nonsense as "we killed Ferdie professor :(", we are supposed to feel bad about people who were fighting alongside a demonic beast when, in FE16, we fucking know what they are.

Since the FE5 banner released earlier this week, FE5 paints "honorable" Reinhardt as a pitiful man, because no matter how honorable or kickass or kind Reinhardt was, when it came to defect to protect children from being kidnapped or stop the general nonsense the Empire was pulling in Thracia... Reinhardt refused to do so, pretexting remaining by Ishtar's side, and when that became impossible, he choose death over rescuing toddlers. His situation is supposed to be compared to his sister's Olwen, who, when she discovers the truth of what is happening in Thracia, ditches the Empire to help Leif rescue the children - and, imo, Amalda (who's not in FEH yet!) who is also, basically, a commander who plays a larger Camus role as in, she tries to appeal to her Lord to stop the child hunts, her Lord tells her to eat shit, and when asked why she still fights and why she doesn't defect, Amalda says if she does so, her knights will be killed + Amalda appears as a NPC allied unit in a map to hunt bandits to save a village.

So, compared to those ladies who defect or try to protect whoever they can protect - their soldiers AND civilians who are being trampled by their own army - Reinhardt who doesn't do a thing and picks "death" is, as Olwen's ending puts it "pitiful".

Back to your ask anon, even if I disgress from the meritocracy angle - Flèche, Whodislava and Randy are such non-entities compared to characters with 6 lines from FE5 that even if they try to pull the "I have to do this for my family" or the "I came from nothing and still help my emperor because I am thankful to her for having raised me from being a commoner to a general", our Adrestians NPC feel very, very flat.

Are we supposed to cry for Hans's failed dreams of becoming a king when we kill him? No, but Randy and Whodislava's deaths are overplayed with so much pathos that the game is basically telling you "and here you should feel bad because they died" but... what is more important, the fact they tried to unlock a lot of achievments to demonstrate their "muhrit", or what the hell they were ready to do to unlock said achievments?

As for Doro needing to befriend people to enter Garreg Mach, remember that Doro, being touted as another example of the muhritocracy Supreme Leader's Adrestia aims to be, had to engage in sex work from a young age, to reach the diva status - which has very disturbing implications, that are glossed over because that's FE16 for you. Are we supposed to believe Doro "worked hard" to be able to catch the eye of some deranged fucks when she was a pre-teen to become a diva - or, as Manu puts it in a support that cannot be achieved in Tru Piss, muhrit alone doesn't work to become a diva, and it's actually a pretty font to hide the "dark" deeds young singers in Mittelfrank have to do to reach the "diva" status?

Minor tidbit though, Doro is famous enough for being Supreme Leader's dearest friend but she isn't promoted to "general" in Tru Piss, she's only BESF who's not, at least in her bio, a general Post TS.

Imo the question you raise is actually relevant to how empty Supreme Leader's muhritocracy's ideal is - in both game Ferdie has to remind her that to build "muhrit" or for commoners to be able to gather "muhrit" as nobles do, they have to start at the same lever, and receive education as nobles do.

IIRC, in Supreme Bullshit, despite their feats, Hubert tells Barney they're only a commoner - not even a worthy commoner like Doro - but a fucking random - when muhrit wise, Barney should at least be named general!

In both games, Linhardt is a general... but we don't see anything from him, bar his tropey "i want to study crests and nap and i dgaf about anything else" traits - if that's all there is to him, how and why the crap was he made general??

Why, it's almost as if "muhrit" is a smokescreen to hide the fact that the one who chooses/picks who gets to be important from who isn't does it on their own terms just like irl

What is merit, really? Who gets to decide what is merit from what isn't? Or who is the "best" at doing things, from another?

It's another instance of, imo, Fodlan's artificial feel, the game raises a question/issue, and starts some smoke about it, but without tackling said issues seriously we're left with "I agree and think starvation shouldn't exist anymore" milquetoast and cliché opinions that give the illusion this game is "very deep" when it's just, a puff of smoke.

#anon #replies #fodlan nonsense #those games are so ridiculous tbh trying to 'tackle' this issue with a spoon #and then people buy the 'see this game tackles this issue' #you won't drill a hole in a wall of concrete with a plastic spoon #Hans represents muhrit as in ok he can kill things dead yay #but morality wise? No matter how many people he can kill in one day he was arrested because there are more important things than #this 'he's the best at killing' muhritocratic angle #Amalda and Olwen defect when they are given the occasion and learn abotu the Empire's nonsense #but when Whodislava and Ferdie (and the BESF in general) side with Baldo'n'Waldi they don't? #And we're supposed to cry about their deaths when they fucking use mutated humans as fodder? #like I'm not following jjk that well #but i'm pretty sure Doro's not supposed to go full sad uwus “we've killed mahito professor :'( ” #FE5 #FE5 bestest game ever #they made me merciless on the Camus archetype lol #I really love Amalda and hope she'll eventually be added in FE heroes #FE16 #Avlora kicked ass in TS and even she has the realisation that the fuck she was doing was horrible #and faces consequences for demosntrating her 'muhrit' by slaughtering people

[couldtheycatchkillerqueen]

Regarding the recent post:

Killer Queen is too short ranged of a stand to affect most sleuths and it's not in Kira's character to drop Sheer Heart Attack at the police departament and hope.

Kira generally doesn't have many ways to deal with characters that: Work in teams. Work from far away. Have any sort of records showing that they're invastigating him.

The man had to be bailed out by Bites the Dust and still lost Most sleuths wouldn't even let Kira get away for long enough for him to aquire Bites the Dust so that's not even something to consider in most of these cases.

{But you're really ignoring one thing: It can't be detected by anyone but Stand Users. Why would they think they needed to investigate Yoshikage Kira specifically? There's no evidence of the killings, since in canon, even the police didn't try to investigate the mysterious disappearances. The sleuths would mostly not be able to understand that Killer Queen exists, and even if they assumed it was something supernatural, there's still no evidence. And the man managed to impersonate another man in front of his family, landlord, coworkers, and everyone who may have talked to Kosaku on the street, with only the man's child catching on. Had Hayato never thought to set up a camera in his parents' room, Kira would have never been caught at all. And Kira doing poorly against teams of people investigating him doesn't line up when he's gotten away from them twice (he would have escaped Jotaro and Koichi were it not for Act III, and he did escape the entire Duwang Gang when they were chasing him by severing his own hand), plus managing to keep his identity secret from EVERYONE except Hayato until the kid figured out how to use the time-loop to his advantage. You're right that most of the time Killer Queen wouldn't get to Bites the Dust, but it would be because Kira wouldn't need to. He has eliminated people in broad daylight before, and he could do so again when against someone who can't see Stands.}

#ooc response #not a poll #I'm genuinely a little pissed at the idea that Kira isn't terrifying in his own right #He was an uncaught serial killer even before he got his Stand #He was undetected until Rohan met Reimi #and would have continued being undetected if a literal ghost of his first victim hadn't been there #The man can blow you up #he can turn your watch into a bomb #he can turn your clothes into a bomb #He can create a bomb that will track you as long as you're the warmest thing in the room #And will likely do so if given the opportunity #There are multiple scenarios outside of BtD where if the heroes hadn't been as quick-thibking they would've died #Josuke and the dead man-guided air bubbles #Koichi and his distraction against Sheer Heart Attack #Josuke if Okuyasu hadn't come back to life #Okuyasu if Hayato hadn't sacrificed himself #Hayato if Josuke hadn't used Crazy Diamond at the perfect time #THE ENTIRE DIU CAST IF HAYATO HADN'T THOUGHT TO CALL JOSUKE #Kira is intelligent #Kira is subtle #And Kira could have won #Thank you for coming to my ted talk #And please stop suggesting that Kira would lose against Ordinary Goddamn People #rant post #ranting in the tags #killer queen #yoshikage kira #sorry for using you as an example anon but this has been annoying me and I needed to go for the throat

[smokestarrules]

Ironwood killing Jacques before going after Winter is so funny to me because James didn’t even have to. Bastard was locked up and wouldn’t pose that much of a threat due to being a complete wimp. He killed him because Jacque was THAT annoying. He had already decided to go after Winter once he escaped and then was like “oh one more thing”.

And I think it's especially interesting because it's another time with those two characters that Jacques is actually the one in the right. There's no reason to kill him. He's a piece of shit and deserves worse, probably, but the fact that Ironwood takes the time to take him down specifically because he's so detached from reality and has decided that he's the only one allowed to make decisions about who lives or dies is less about Jacques himself and more about Ironwood losing the last shred of who he used to be.

#like I'm glad the bitch is dead but goddamn. ironwood's not at all the hero he pretends to be and that is made VASTLY clear by everything #he ever does #he's so fucking terrified all the time and he's so in denial about that fact. and that's his eventual downfall #even in v4!!!! to be clear jacques wants the atlas blockade to stop out of selfish reasons BUT HE'S RIGHT. #THE BLOCKADE IS A /BAD/ THING. made out of fear and paranoia!!!! we as the audience just dont want to agree with him ever bc mr schnee is #the WORST #but he's RIGHT. #anyway. yeah. #rwby #jacques schnee #james ironwood #smokey answers #lordjarman

[strqyr]

rwby does this thing where they make a character make a very good point, actually, but said character is also someone the audience would never want to agree with bc they're obviously Bad™ and / or bc their words don't reflect well on one of the Good Guys™ or the institutions they're part of.

this is seen with ironwood and jacques in v4—jacques' complaints about the dust embargo are presented as selfish (and they are) but he's right that the embargo was also hurting the kingdom as a whole (as proven by lionheart pointing out how the mistral council is at odds with the representatives from atlas; by trying to avoid rising tensions, ironwood... raised them) and the same goes for closing of the borders. it is seen with raven pointing out that 1. ozpin is shady, and 2. qrow and tai are still withholding information even when they seem forthcoming with it; i'd even say raven had a point when she said there's no stopping salem, since salem's plan likely involves defeating the gods and i don't see her budging from that considering she's been at it since before the gods even left the planet; ergo the more likely scenario here is that this is something everyone else needs to get on board with instead (back to that in a bit). and finally, it is something that is seen with hazel, who in his grief points out that gretchen was only a child and not ready, which does raise an excellent question: why is the academy system build in a way that an 11-year-old child can attend a combat school? it's not like the academies or even the profession of huntsmen are needed; the system has been in place for 80 years, give or take, since the end of the great war, and humanity clearly managed just fine without it.

that is to say, it's a slow build, trying to get the audience used to the fact that yes, the villains and antagonists of the series do in fact have a point (and before someone swoops in, no, being right about one or more things does not mean they're pure and good for the love of--) and that's going to matter in the end when everyone agrees on the whole "let's defeat the gods" business and that the huntsmen academies as they currently are aren't exactly that great either.

#and like #i'm loving this approach #but i also dread it simply bc so many ppl are dead set on villains being in the wrong #and getting their dues #ya know. revenge fantasies and all #so the moment the heroes and villains are going to work together— #bc GASP who would have thought a show with unity as a theme would... deliver on it? skfdlgg— #they're going to implode #and that day i'm going to be SO happy in my little corner i've dug myself #wydm they're going to make us agree with salem and cinder even a little?? unacceptable /j

[harrowharkwife]

you ever think about wake's notes? about how her revenant wrote that "THE ONLY THING OUR CIVILISATION CAN LEARN FROM YOURS IS THAT WHEN OUR BACKS ARE TO THE WALL AND OUR TOWERS ARE FALLING ALL AROUND US AND WE ARE WATCHING OURSELVES BURN– "

" –WE RARELY BECOME HEROES."

only to end up a hero herself? 'cause i do. i think about that a lot actually

#she's became a hero to her people in the end. you can tell by the way everyone talks about her in NtN #the shrines in BOE headquarters! the portraits of her they bring on spaceflight missions! #i think they're on all the ships bc there was one aboard the ship that harrow finds cam cor and jody on in HtN #that line from pyrrha to we suffer haunts me. 'maybe i just like being around other people that knew her' #god. wake sweetheart you're keeping the spirit of the revolution alive even in death #if i think about her for too long I'll cry so I'm gonna stop myself now and go to bed #awake remembrance of these valiant dead #awake remembrance of these valiant dead kia hua ko te pai snap back to reality oops there goes gravity #commander wake #tlt #the locked tomb #should i get we rarely become heroes tattooed on my body yes or no. i feel like the answer is yes

[x-i-l-verify]

c!Clingy, after stalking a sick, injured torture victim for weeks, breaking into his house, hunting him down like an animal as he desperately tried to defend himself/flee, and murdering him in cold blood in the very room where he was abused, starved, and tortured for nearly an entire year:

#dreblr #dsmp lore spoilers #c!tubbo neg #c!tommy neg #XI Yammers #fam i'm livid #i can't get over this #i'm so fucking mad #your heroes and protagonists fandom! aren't you so proud :))) #of course Tommy's trauma matters more than Dream's trauma Dream's problems Dream's LIFE because of COURSE it does it always has from day 1 #Tommy's wants and needs and desires ALWAYS come first #fuck Dream he deserves all the shit Tommy's given him since his first day on the server and more because he's the ~villain~ #nah fam fuck that noise #Even Dream never wanted Tommy dead! #Exile was bad yadda yadda but the end goal was NEVER Tommy's death! Dream never wanted Tubbo dead either! #I don't think Dream has actively WANTED anyone dead except for Sam and Quackity and even then not permanently #(maybe Quackity but eh that's debatable) #But naur Tommy feels bad Tommy's paranoid Tommy's angry Tommy wants even MORE revenge so Dream's gotta die #murdering him twice already wasn't enough Dream getting tortured for months wasn't enough #he's not allowed to keep his last life because his very existence just makes poor lil Tommy feel too bad :((( #god I hope c!Clingy gets the asskicking of a lifetime once Punz brings Dream back I'm looking FORWARD to it

[uniiiquehecrt]

s/b: i don't like that thor features a love story

me: well let me tell you about how mcu!thor's core trait is his love and that includes love for his people, love for his homeland/home planet, love for his family and his brother in particular, love for the nine realms and earth in particular, and how that all boils down into love for jane— who's the most human of humans to him; who taught him how to be human too — so of course in the film where we're introduced to the mcu depiction of thor, his story is quintessentially a love story in both hope (jane) and tragedy (loki) and how those two things constantly conflict and contradict one another, and leave thor stranded in the middle because he loves both so dearly; patrick doyle crafted a beautiful OST featuring STRINGS and PIANO instead of just drums and horns because thor is strong and heroic, yes, he is, in fact, a hero but he's a beautiful hero because of his love because he is SOFT and it's reflected in the strings in both of his themes and—

#don't even get me started on how the avengers continues this particular theme so well #god the shot when loki has flung him from the ship and he moves to pick up the hammer and hesitates #y'all they intercut dialogue that someone speaks to banner overtop thor at that exact second #AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT SAID? “you fell from the sky” #he knew dang well he was worthy he /just/ used the hammer to get out of the hulk drop but he was thinking of loki #//who let go ... who was presumed dead for a year// #who .... //fell from the sky// #don't even get me EXTRA started on tdw and how it just keeps this train rolling lord the music of thor's 2 themes in that one too i just #lose my marbles every time gang i wish i had more technical terms and fancy composer lingo to explain this #alas all i have is a lifetime of choir classes and HS band + orchestra #which means that i know what i /feel/ but i can't explain it too good BUT HEAR ME OUT I'M TELLING YOU #his themes in TDW and 2011 both spell out /love/ what makes him a hero is his love !! he's love !! #&&. whispers #&&. meta #&&. | marvel. | #&&. thor. #so anyways guess who's listening to earth to asgard + sons of odin again and crying

[the-halfling-prince]

Had this vision in my head, had to draw it. Idk what the context is but here's another teen Zephyr drawing but this time one of my ocs is there too

#I imagine this would be like if the 'we have to dress formal to sneak into this fancy event for a mission' trope was fantasy viking-ified #(yes I know rtte sorta already did that in last auction hero leave me alone) #my posts #my art #Zephyr doesn't know how to sit it dresses. Gay MF doesn't know how to sit outside of dresses. Girl can't sit. #RJ (the OC) is the definition of 'cleans up well' #I did mess up on RJ's hair I put her bangs in the wrong side but y'all wouldn't know that so idk why I'm saying it #Zephyr doesn't clean up well she doesn't even know what that means. She dragged that skirt through the mud. #Putting zeph in all green felt like a betrayal to my color system I accidentally put in place for the main five. #Zephyr's red. Nuffink is blue. Spike is green Eric is orange and RJ is purple. (Madder is yellow but she's sorta a later addition #to the team. Also Hatchet and Spade are neutrals) #Hmm out of all of these characters I've only drawn Hatchet and Spade's dragon. That hideous zippleback I drew a while ago you know #Anyway I'm done rambling #Have a nice night #dragon riders second generation #<btw that's the tag I'm using for all of my teen zephyr and her friends stuff so if it's annoying then there's the tag to block #And if you want more. Well. There's the tag to search on my blog. I've put everything there. #Ugh I hate how embarrassed I get everytime I talk about these guys. 'oh it's so cringe-' bitch shut up #I'll look at other people's httyd OCs and go 'oooh cool I love that' but then the second I go to post mine I'm like 'ugh cringe-' #Cringe culture is dead post the damn drawing write the damn fic. #Honestly at this point I treat Zephyr like an OC. Dreamworks lost their rights to her she's mine now /hj #Like I used the personality Dreamworks gave her as like a baseline and then made her (and Nuffink) better #And I gave them friends.

[curseofpower]

"It'd be super interesting to hear these counterarguments 👀."

@goopi-e Well let's see… where should I start? The mass assumption that Ganondorf just sort of left his kingdom for dead and stayed holed up in Hyrule Castle for seven entire years, (lolwut???) no longer caring about his fellow gerudos or even letting them know what the hell was going on?

Or something else? Maybe something a little dicier? Like the existence of gibdos? Or the fact he didn't save Nabooru after his moms decided her punishment? ... That last one might be a little self explanatory, though, if you understand his mindset.

Ganondorf is a man with a very strong sense of justice and a very skewed sense of morality. I think it's actually because he cared that he'd ever punish or let his people be punished like she was. Twinrova were his mothers too, so, it's likely he trusted their judgement more than anyone else's. A lower ranking pair of gerudo might not have gotten away with dealing justice in his name like that.

But I digress. I know I have to be missing something. I'm just very tired today and have a lot on my mind. Do feel free to let me know, though, if any of that interests you or if there's another thing I forgot to address that you want me to go into.

#q&a #personal hc #thank you for showing interest though. I sometimes feel like my ideas and opinions do little but make me a pariah. #haha... I say 'sometimes' like it's not actually 'always' #anyway when you factor in the fact Ganondorf can teleport/see and speak over long distances the whole 'leaving his people for dead' thing #becomes even MORE ridiculous. Like... come on people. Use your noggin. WHY would they worship someone who abandoned them for seven years??? #Especially when it was clear they had a lot of conflict with the Hylians during those years. but that's just my 2 cents. #And yes I'm aware there was a small group that were likely either anti war or pro hylian and those are who we see at the end credits of OoT #But with any group of people with strong opinions there will always be some with opposing views so I do not take that as a significant #sign of 'abandonment'. if he truly had abandoned them we would have actually heard about it. #(The fact the end-credit gerudos were all wearing white too denotes to me some kind of shared relation or belief system between them.) #Instead we hear them sing his praises and even gossip stones will tell you how much the gerudos love their king. #All of which I think deserves more attention than we give it credit for. #He wasn't just a hero to his people in totk he was that and MORE to them in OoT. #ANYWAYS I'M DONE WITH MY TAG NOVEL. #*SLAMS BEER ON TABLE* *IT TIPS OVER AND SPILLS EVERYWHERE* #BYE

[ladyrijus]

Okay, so I know the Twilight Princess manga is not considered canon, but there is one aspect of the comic that I find very interesting for Princess Zelda's characterization.

In the manga, she's the reincarnation of Ocarina of Time Zelda from the adult timeline where Link defeated Ganondorf at the age of 19, and then was sent back to the past to warn everyone about the Gerudo King. But Twilight Princess Zelda, despite being this reincarnation, lives in the child timeline.

So far, so good?

If you're confused and trying to track how exactly Twilight Princess Zelda is reincarnated from Ocarina of Time Zelda from the adult era despite being from an entirely different timeline, I vaguely recall that the manga says the Triforce of Wisdom allows Twilight Princess Zelda to remember her previous life. With that in mind, we can assume Triforce of Wisdom transcends time due to the virtue of wisdom being existent in past, present, and future.

Anyways, as I was saying. So Twilight Princess Zelda's past life is Ocarina of Time Princess Zelda from the adult timeline and she gains her past memories, thus synthesizing two Zeldas into one. For that reason, I'm going to refer to her as Twilight Princess / Ocarina of Time Adult timeline Zelda.

Now I don't know how far into the story Twilight Princess / Ocarina of Time Adult timeline Zelda remembers. But I can't stop thinking about how once she does, she is now primed for the realization that her child self (Ocarina of Time Zelda from the child timeline) fucked up. Even after learning what she could from an experienced Link, she fucked up so bad that she turned out to be in part, if not fully, responsible for the mass genocide/exodus of the Gerudo people.

And sure, we can argue that's not technically Twilight Princess / Ocarina of Time Adult timeline Zelda, because she never did that. Link had not yet fought Ganondorf to tell her what could happen, and she didn't possess the political influence to stop Ganondorf alone because she was still a child no adult felt like taking seriously.

But it was for that exact reason why she sent Link back. Notwithstanding the guilt she felt for stripping away Link's childhood innocence, she desperately desired to pass the wisdom she shared with Link in her adult years to her past self (the child timeline Ocarina of Time Zelda) so that she could have stopped Ganondorf from laying hand on the Triforce and trying to take over Hyrule under better circumstances.

But that's the fucked up part, isn't it? In the timeline Twilight Princess Zelda / Ocarina of Time Adult timeline Zelda is now living in, the child timeline, Ocarina of Time Zelda tried.

And she still failed.

#and now there is blood on her hands that she can't ever wash out no matter how hard she tries #because she indirectly did cause the genocide #and had ganondorf sent to the twilight realm where all the people who resented her ancestors went to when execution didn't work #AND IT DIDNT WORK BECAUSE SHE SENT LINK BACK WITH THE TRIFORCE OF COURAGE CAUSING THE SPLIT AND GIVING GAN THE TRIFORCE PIECE THAT SAVED HI #god i'm coming up #can you even blame her she didn't even know about all of that #so much for wisdom #also just... imagine dying in an era where ganondorf is six feet under and praying that your hero is doing well in his time #only to wake up to a shit show where your hero (oot link) is dead but ganondorf is alive. #girl at that point i really would have given up #AND SHE DID (gave up both kingdom and life force like rip queen the goddesses fucked you over) #twilight princess #tloz #the legend of zelda #ocarina of time #zelda #link #ganondorf