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burr-ell · 2 years

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after three hopes it really does seem like the writers consider the agarthan and nabatean factions about equally severe, since 3/6 routes have you fulfil the agarthan plan to remove the church (cf/sb/gw) and 3/6 have you fulfil the nabatean plan to root out the agarthans (ss/am/ag) - the fact they made an agarthan the player and let you kill sothis/byleth permanently in this game kinda cements this idea.

I can see your perspective, nonnie, and I'm definitely frustrated by Fodlanverse's disinterest in really examining the Nabatean/Agarthan conflict, but I think it's important to look at how those things are framed.

For one thing, we actually have 7 routes to look at: Scarlet Blaze, Crimson Flower, Silver Snow, Azure Gleam, Azure Moon, Golden Wildfire, and Verdant Wind. Four of them end with the Agarthans being destroyed and the Nabateans surviving, and in all of them this is presented positively. It's worth noting that the one route in canon where the Nabateans are destroyed first is the only one that ends at night with the characters surrounded by flames, and perhaps the most unambiguously positive and hopeful ending—Verdant Wind—has the Agarthans and Nemesis destroyed while the characters are bathed in sunlight. (@electricprincess96 has a really good meta on lighting in 3H for more thoughts on this.) And on Crimson Flower, where you do an ethnic cleansing of the Nabateans, the ensuing war against the Agarthans is implied to have been long and bloody; on Verdant Wind, where you side with the Nabateans and learn the full truth, it's over with the last stand at Derdriu. I think the writers handled the conflict too ambiguously at times, mostly so the Waifu Du Jour™ doesn't look bad for siding with the mole man Proud Boys, but if you look purely at how it's framed in canon, it seems clear whose side they're ultimately on.

Hopes, meanwhile, is mitigated to me by the fact that it's pretty clearly a bad end by series standards. Fire Emblem games are, historically, about fighting a war to achieve peace, and iirc all of Hopes' endings are basically "and then the continent was plunged into perpetual war :)". For its faults, Hopes doesn't appear to be framing any of the paths as a 'golden route' or even an especially good one—and why would it? The last thing Intsys wants to do is to retroactively declare its most popular, best-selling game to be pointless.

(While FEH isn't the best metric, it's still worth noting that Rhea is portrayed entirely sympathetically there, while the two playable Agarthans are not. Summer Rhea is supportive and kind to Byleth and wants the students to have fun at the beach, and Halloween Rhea doesn't understand how to cause mischief but wants to enjoy the harvest festival all the same and laments how Seteth would think her outfit is inappropriate. Intsys had a golden opportunity to use CF!Rhea for her fallen alt...and they didn't; they used SS!Rhea instead and went out of their way to say that she wasn't a victim of dragon degeneration and that there's hope for her. Meanwhile, Solon and Kronya are unambiguously the same card-carrying villains they were in-game. FEH has its problems, but those choices are still deliberate, and that should tell us something.)

#fe3h #few3h #fe3h meta #lady rhea #asks #it's POSSIBLE they'll give us fallen seiros and have her be CF!rhea but idk. i kinda doubt it #other than brave edelgard and maybe legendary edelgard intsys just is not interested in crimson flower #it was made so straight men could fulfill their fantasies about saving their waifu and marrying her and that's it lol #even if they didn't want to keep things route-neutral idk if they'll ever care about crimson flower the way the west thinks they should #eastern discourse about the game mirrors what we've got going on but 'edelgard was right' isn't nearly as popular over there #and i don't think they're EVER gonna see the nabateans as like. colonizers or whatever americans are making up this week

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iturbide · 2 years

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It’s amazing how IntSys accidentally wrote a sympathetic villain (Grima), but when they tried to do it intentionally they could never stick the landing (Rudolph, Edelgard, etcetera). I think Arvis also counts as an accident at this point.

I think the funniest part of it to me is that they were clearly trying very hard not to write a sympathetic villain in Grima. Awakening makes no effort whatsoever to flesh out the Fell Dragon beyond Evil World-Destroying Arguably Divine Entity (Fun Fact: the Awakening Artbook has a glossary and Grima is believed to be an Earth Dragon, continuing Fire Emblem's love affair with making Earth Dragons the bad guys). Echoes seemed to be trying to double down on it by having Forneus' notes talk about the dragon homunculus projecting "violent thoughts" into his head, and basically all of Grima's dialogues outside the Level 40 conversation are dismissive or cruel.

But while I have talked about my Awakening!Grima conspiracy theory before (which long predates both Heroes as a whole and Echoes, and is pretty much the reason Future Built exists), I think Shadows of Valentia is where they really shot themselves in the foot. SoV is where we find out that Grima is the product of an experiment by a mad scientist who tried to kill them when they were barely a few months old -- and then Heroes comes in with that Level 40 dialogue that's just rife with potential for a tragic, sympathetic villain.

It's actually kind of funny to me how badly Rudolf turned out, because they were clearly trying to make him sympathetic, and it just...went horribly wrong. And they'd actually managed to do it right before him, too! Just look at Anankos, who we spend three games trying to unearth as the real villain only to find out in…DLC? I'm not sure how clear it's made in-game (having never played Fates and all) that it was his love of humanity that proved his downfall, as he specifically stayed in the physical realm despite the risk of degeneration for the people of Valla, and when his degeneration advanced to the point of warping his love for humanity into hatred he tore out the last sane part of his soul in an attempt to find some way to stop the maddened dragon part of himself from destroying everything he'd ever loved (which…well, we saw how that went).

(To be fair, though, I actually do find Rhea and Edelgard both to be pretty sympathetic as villains -- it's only when they're positioned as heroes that I start struggling with the presentation.)

#answered #anonymous #fire emblem #arvis is from such an old generation of games though #that i don't think it's fair to lump him in with the recent ones #fe4 did some damn impressive things #and also was pretty clear about the whole 'incest is bad' bit #at least from what i understand #unlike fates #where your siblings are available as marriage candidates #or 3h where it's your students #and...daughter??? look the whole byleth/rhea thing is weird #the sothis merge makes it so much weirder than it already was #intsys please stop being so damn creepy

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reunionandthen · 1 year

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last rb

#solid-enough post #but the thing that annoys me most abt some kinds of rhea fans is that how they dont understand why fighting for a character like her #would alienate a significant fraction of the western fanbase #whether diaspora of the global south or ex christians or whatever #personally i think she's a cool red herring #probbaly bc i dont possess the kind of religious trauma that would make a character like her viscerally uncomfortable #talk #and a political analysis of the game does show how awkward allying with a character like her is #and this objectively trumps an analysis that focuses more on series/genre conventions #that require a more sympathetic view towards nonhuman characters #by series conventions i mean how nonhumans are almost always a marginalised kingroup that are vixtim to 'fantasy racism'#tangent: im thinking bout my triangulation analysis post and how awkward yet realistic it would be for claude and rhea to #recognise their mutual suffering (and perhaps bond over it)#bc racism is different to fantasy othering #but.....#like i swear my sympathy towards rhea is not the 'fe fan with no political awareness' variety #claude could handle it. it's not any more awkward than anythjg else hes had to deal w #*political analysis as in intsys threw in just the right combination of details they thought were neat for flavouring #to make rhea and the cos a colonising institution #like irl #or smth

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scoutswritingcorner · 26 days

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I need more chaggie x reader omg lol

A Whole Lot of Love

Chaggie x GN! Reader

TW:NONE

A/N: YES THANK YOU ANON FOR FUELING MY CHAGGIE X READER BRAIN!! ALSO SORRY THIS IS SHORT!!

-👑 Since I talked about more domestic stuff last time Imma talk about even more. NOW- I feel like Charlie really loves baking, I don’t know why but she does.

-🎀So if you help her or hell even surprise them with baked goods? They will be so happy. While Vaggie to me seems like she doesn’t enjoy sweets that often but anything you or Charlie get/make she will eat it all.

-👑 Kisses. All the time. Like you wake up? Good Morning kisses. Walking down the hallway? Kisses. Endless amount of kisses.

-🎀 Once again, cook them breakfast and bring it to your shared room? Oh boy- these girls fall head over heels.

-👑 Wear something that represents them? Both are smug as hell and will gladly show you off if you let them. No one can tell me that Charlie doesn’t have a small intsy inkling of a possessive streak. NOT IN A BAD WAY GUYS- Just a little, “Yeah that’s MY partner, you got a problem with that?”

-🎀MORE ON THE PAMPERING THING- Preen Vaggie’s wings with Charlie, it makes it so much easier for her and Vaggie will thank you both later. Or massage her back for her, ya girl has too much stress and needs a little massage.

-👑 Jealous Charlie AND Vaggie? They won’t be suffocating you or anything like that but once they get jealous? It’s very easy to spot. Vaggie is much more closed off and jumpy ready to snap at anyone whilst Charlie slowly starts to close off more. Please please please give them love and kisses. Reassure them that you only have eyes for them, no one else.

-🎀Now another way to know if Charlie is jealous is just storms over and picks you up, no questions asked. She doesn’t know how to approach the situation so she legit scoops you up in the middle of conversation and walks off with you in her arms.

-👑 Speaking of getting picked up, once again it’s something you and Vaggie get used to quickly. Whether it’s Charlie getting excited and twirling you around or you just look like you need to smile? You're getting picked up. -🎀 Vaggie? Whilst not physically affectionate like Charlie will allow you to cuddle her or hug her randomly. She’ll try to hide her smile but everyone knows when you or Charlie hug her? She’s much happier.

A/n: I need more possessive Charlie in my life...

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel imagine #gn reader #charlie x vaggie #charlie morningstar #charlie x you #charlie x reader #chaggie #chaggie x reader #vaggie x reader #hazbin vaggie #vaggie x charlie #vaggie

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real-fire-emblem-takes · 3 months

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hi to chrom hater anon i'm a professional chrom enjoyer

if you get deranged enough about awakening i think chrom is a very well done character :) he's ignorant but well meaning which meshes in interesting ways. he's not overtly prejudiced to the plegians he knows personally but still *generally* prejudiced because of his upbringing.

additionally in discussions of the ylisse-plegia war he tends to focus on how ylisse came away from it because that state of ylisse is what shaped his formative childhood years (seen particularly in his feelings about emmeryn's early years as exalt). this is UNDERSTANDABLE but still an extremely DEEPLY FLAWED and naive stance when doing politics on a larger scale, which chrom is incredibly ill-prepared for. it's a very childish view of a large scale conflict.

chrom's propensity for violence is a trait that actually deeply fascinates me. he has intense admiration for emmeryn's desire for peace yet he has a very short temper in tense situations (seen in basically all of chrom's interactions with gangrel), and he tends to lash out easily at anyone he views as an enemy. he admires peace but sees no other means to achieve it than violence. isn't that interesting. the implications here. like, he's the inheritor of the falchion, he's the only son in his family, in all likelihood it was expected that HE would take the throne and continue his father's war, but he was so young when the exalt passed that the crown went to emmeryn instead.

it really seems like emmeryn intentionally kept her siblings away from politics, which results in BOTH of them being naive in vastly different ways, with the expectation that she would always shoulder the burden of the crown yet left all the bigger a void when she died.

mind, intentionally being raised to behave this way isn't an excuse either. it's ultimately still something chrom, as an adult, SHOULD examine critically. this is, in fact, a character flaw, and i think its great.

you can then of course do nice little compare and contrast at the shitty dads, i.e. chrom's dad vs validar. robin's first act as an awakened god is murdering validar. robin became the monster everyone saw them as, the one their father thinks they were born to be. it's a neat lil nature vs nurture comparison if you really get into the depths of grima-ology (hi grima ✌️ mutuals).

to dig more into points the chrom hater anon makes.

"chrom is transphobic for killing excellus" do you hear yourself. excellus was an enemy commander. chrom has no personal grievances against the commanders other than they are part of the army with the known intent to raze ylisse.

SAME WITH ROBIN BURNING DOWN THE BOATS. THEY ARE AT WAR. IF ROBIN DIDNT DO THAT THEY'D ALL GET KILLED. they would have to fight the valm forces ON FOOT and BE KILLED VIOLENTLY because they are vastly outnumbered. it would be weird if he WASN'T at least happy about this.

he could stand to be regretful about the massive loss of human life but honestly hashtag robin warcrimes W.

"chrom makes sure to only recruit white ylisseans" i think this is just dev colorism actually. like you know how robin's dad (who is evil) is brown, but robin (who is good) is white? and how that makes no sense and robin should logically also be brown? i dont think chrom would've turned down if like, mustafa joined him. it is simply that intsys was still in their racism era (which is, tbh, only really ended with engage, like, cmon, look at literally all of FE, this isn't a chrom flaw, it's a FE being racist flaw.)

same with the sexism things actually FE is just homophobic and sexist a lot so all the characters are also by extension. this is called doylist analysis

Chrom tells Aversa "One person's life means nothing in the shadow of millions" Chrom is a hypocrite i hope this helps. additionally what aversa is doing is "help the dark god literally causing the apocalypse rn" whereas the sacrifice/save robin choice is "doom people in some hypothetical far off future" which is FAR less personal than "all of humanity RIGHT NOW".

TLDR: the real chrom enjoyers know about his character flaws and love him anyway because it's nice flavor to chew on

also never insult my beautiful daughter lucina ever again. she is deeply compelling even if she is narratively underutilized. anyone who calls themself a chrom fan and hates lucina is a faker and will not survive the winter.

also learn the difference between flaws of the story's writing and flaws of the character otherwise everybody in awakening is sexist.

anon you should read chrom/grima fanfiction unironically we fucking love tearing this dude to shreds for his flaws. this has all been a ploy to say that. chrom is naive and selfish and hypocritical and i love him very much he is my wif e :)

#fe #fire emblem #chrom fe #chrom fire emblem #i am no longer neutral on chrom #fe13 #fe awakening #fire emblem awakening #what am i witnessing #fave takes <3

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ro-botany · 2 months

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Since I don't want it to be stuck in Debate Hour Jail forever, today I bring you a Hot Take(tm):

Validar would be a good-looking guy if IntSys stopped making him gray.

My evidence?

I UN-GRAYED HIM MY DAMN SELF, SINCE THEY WON'T.

In both Original Sinister Eyeshadow flavour and the ALL NEW Slightly More Chill Eyeliner flavour.

...Okay, okay, so I changed a few things aside from just the skin tone, but it genuinely does not take much to make him good looking. Here, Ana even made a side-by-side comparison! Do you see how little changed!!! And yet how much better he looks!!!

The philosophy with Validar's design, as far as I can tell, is to make him look genuinely inhuman to sell you on how irredeemably evil he is. To make him look dead, keeping in theme with his role as leader of the apocalypse cult and known controller of zombies.

That's where you get the gray skin tone. The lightless eyes, the vertical slit pupils. The lack of eyebrows that makes his expression harder to read. The way the sinister eyeshadow shapes his face. The weird ass impossible wrinkle on his forehead. It's to make him inhuman and hard to read. And beyond that; his long face and willowy proportions are a pretty far cry from most of the other characters in the game, the ones intended to be attractive.

HOWEVER. IF YOU JUST... MAKE HIM LOOK HUMAN, AND CHANGE NOTHING ELSE.

THIS IS WHAT YOU GET.

Literally all you have to do is:

Give him an actual human skin tone

Give him back his eyebrows

Tell him to stop squinting 24/7

Make the wrinkle on his forehead plausible instead of whatever the fuck it does in canon

Round out his pupils and put a little shine in his eyes

And very suddenly the man is, dare I say, handsome.

Willowy proportions, slim face, and high cheekbones are not inherently bad-looking traits. It's genuinely JUST the eyes and the skin tone that ruin his looks. Hell, even the eyeshadow can stay once you fix those things. Look at him. Look me in the eyes and tell me Edited Validar wouldn't be a niche but beloved tumblr sexyman if he were canon.

He's so close to being pretty. His personality and moral values are absolutely rancid. But his face ain't.

ALSO CAN YOU IMAGINE if the default Robins looked a little more like him? They would look GOOD. WE WERE DOUBLY ROBBED I TELL YOU.

#fe awakening #validar #you can't change my mind #to be clear he does still deserve to be punted into the sun. i just wish he looked good doing it ya feel me #this is written very silly but i AM dead serious #fire emblem stop making only the villains ugly challenge

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felikatze · 8 months

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yall know i take heroes for a grain of salt unless it suits my agenda,,, but man brave robin's forging bonds is all over the place

namely in how the whole grima thing is handled

it swings HEAVILY in favor of the "grima is possessing robin" angle yet it ALSO ties grima's awakening explicitly to robin's emotions, which, why would that matter if he's possessed?

the phrase "blood of the fell dragon" comes up a lot. also iirc first time a grima calls robin a vessel? grima sure doesn't in awakening itself (fp notwithstanding), and also only female grima does it??? either by intent or happenstance it seems that f grima is gunning for the possession angle where as m grima is more on the emotions angle

like there's dissonance going on about the plain text of the conversation ("grima will take control of robin") and the themes of the conversation ("this can be averted if robin maintains hope, and even the grimas could become robin again if they find it")

ok let me just. compile.

obligatory disclaimer: i am in HUGE favor of the reincarnation angle and vocal disliker of the vessel angle but only my fellow grima stans know that and i cant expect everyone to have in depth knowledge of my grima takes. i am gonna Try to be a lil objective here

tldr intsys needs to stop being apolitical and just PICK A SIDE within the grima trenches already. add to this the timeline confusion of depths of despair, yeah, Grima in heroes is very muddy.

ok so i took a whole BUNCH of screenshots and they're all in german because (points at map of where i live) but that tends to follow english closely. expect minor translation differences ofc

C Support

This one is pretty plain in just the grimas waltzing up to robin going "hey grima is gonna possess you one day lmao. get scared"

Choice quotes from this one:

1. Robin: W-who are you? No, oh no... Could you be what becomes of me under the fell dragon's influence?

2. F Grima: Know your place, mortal. You are nothing more than Grima's vessel.

Yah. I can argue abt the validity of heroes lore all I like but within the convo itself this is just plain text.

B Support

So this is where the first doubts creep in. F Grima continues her spiel about Robin saying that "Grima's blood flows in those veins without a doubt." I wont reiterate every single time someone does this bcuz Image Limit, but it is primarily F Grima and Brave Robin.

1. M Grima: The knowledge of what you really are will haunt you forever.

2. F Grima: That is all we had to say to you. Take our words to heart... other Robin.

Here we get into my preferred angle. Not only is M Grima saying that being Grima is Robin's true nature, but F Grima directly acknowledges that she and M Grima are both also Robin, which is an odd choice if it's just Grima possessing Robin speaking. Cuz then the person speaking would not, in fact, be Robin.

Then, when the two Grimas are alone and giggling at their rehearsed performance, F Grima says this:

1. F Grima: Maybe the created discomfort will be enough to awaken the Fell Dragon.

2. F Grima: Maybe soon, monstrous flowers of ruin will bloom from the sown doubt.

So this is getting into the logistics of how Grima will awaken (inevitably, of course /s). In Awakening itself, a read of Robin as the vessel would have you believe only the rite at the Dragon's Table is necessary to do so. Here, however, F Grima says it's Robin's despair that will cause Grima's return, which she has already sown the seeds for.

In fact, causing Robin to doubt himself to sooner awaken Grima is explicitly what the two Grimas approached him for. This is their goal! But why would that even be necessary if all that was needed was for Validar to brainwash Robin and drag them to the Table? No despair needed! Robin's emotional state is irrelevant in that scenario.

You can argue of course that emotional weakness would make it easier for Grima to take control of Robin,,, but that never comes up. It's always Robin loses hope = Grima awakens.

A Support

Here, Brave Robin mentions being of Grima's blood a whopping three times in a row before Chrom can cut in. The Grimas words weigh on his mind and he's looking for reassurance from his boyfriend.

Brave Robin: The blood of the Fell Dragon could awaken within me one day... Doesn't that scare you?

Chrom's response here is notable. (Images cut for the damn 10 image limit on mobile)

Chrom: The day could come, where I, too, fall prey to my own despair. But even then I'm sure that I wouldn't stray from the right path with you by my side.

Again, Grima is not framed as a possessive force, but as Robin's own despair and hopelessness. Chrom would have no ground to compare the two if the former was the case. How would you even compare your own depression with your friend being taken over by a hostile spirit?

This is the dissonance I was talking about.

S Support

Robin, emboldened by Chrom's support, confronts the two Grimas.

F Grima: As long as you live, the Fell Dragon can take possession of you at any moment.

Robin says he has the blood of the demon dragon with the weird as hell "those veins" line. Who says that??? Did yall forget possessive pronouns exist. Just say "my veins" dear boy

anyway.

Robin: It's true that the blood of the Fell Dragon runs through these veins. But that circumstance only calls for more discipline on my part.

Robin: The knowledge of my nature only makes me more determined to never betray my allies' trust.

Here we have both in the same speech! Here, whether he succumbs to Grima is entirely put on Robin and Robin's determination. As well, he says that it's "his nature." Like yeah, this could mean "his nature as Grima's vessel", but that would be a weird use of the word nature (in the meaning of personality and disposition).

Like, again, the focus is on Grima as a result of Robin's emotional state. The two are directly tied and correlating.

To end of, shrortly beforr the Grimas leave, Robin says to them

"Maybe you can escape the Fell Dragon's fangs and walk your own path one day."

Like yeah the literal meaning is again "maybe the robins can be saved from grima" but it can also be taken in a metaphorical sense of "maybe the robins can free themselves from the role of grima."

i'm just generally befuddled. i do like the thematic thread of "robin will never become grima if he keeps hope." but the possession stuff is so entirely literal. but then why - god i already said this.

Grima loving hours incoming! Feel free to skip i just love them.

The one upside for this, for my terminal Grima brainrot - Grima's motivations in this are so tasty to chew on. I mentioned before, the Grimas approach Robin with the intent of making him despair in the face of his inevitable destiny. But Robin doesn't, refutes them - he says that if he changed, so could they.

This is fascinating, cuz I think brave Robin terrifies them for this exact reason. He's just oblivious, he's the one who'll change, just see - yet he doesn't. He is the living proof destiny can change. Here we see again, Grima as hopelessness. They need destiny to be inevitable. Because then it's not a choice to be hopeless anymore. Things couldn't have gone better. What if Robin's bonds weren't meaningless trifles, though? It's a challenge to everything the Grimas had to accept.

But look around. This is Askr. People meet other versions of themselves by the dozen - with different fates and circumstances.

Grimas' reason to speak to Robin really just seems scared of change. The final take away from the S support for Robin is that maybe they can change too, after all. Grima is terrified of change! Of hope! Of becoming Robin again! Because then what was it all for? Why did they have to suffer so much? Isn't it unfair? Isn't the thought that you could've gotten luckier unbearable? Grima is my sopping wet meow meow, if you couldn't tell.

Grima fan hours over, back to complaining.

another layer of confusion for the setting of this is is... when is this robin from, exactly?

so brave robin is said to be the tactician of the "newly crowned" exalt, matching legendary chrom's time period. This gives us precisely two options, each with their own issues:

This Robin is from the two year timeskip after chapter 12, where Chrom assumes the throne after Emmeryn's death.

This Robin is from a post canon ending wherein Chrom becomes exalt for realsies (likely only viable for a Chrom ending).

The issue with the first one is: Robin wouldn't know that he's fellblood at this point? He starts suspecting it in chapter 13, obviously because the grimleal hierophant has his exact name and face, as well as Validar's attempt at telepathy. He'd have to be from after the timeskip if that is the case.

Of course, he could be hearing this for the first time from the Grimas. In that case, his reaction is extraordinarily mild. And his first words to them are "Could you be what becomes of me under the fell dragon's influence?" If he's hearing this for the first time, what a wild conclusion that is to make. Again, he'd have no clue he's fellblood, that this is even a scenario that could happen at all.

The issue with the second option is that Robin... would have nothing to be afraid of? He would have already confronted the self that became Grima and defeated it. At which point this whole forging bonds becomes an entirely redundant character arc that really would just be inferior to the equivalent moment in Awakening itself. Robin cites himself as proof that the Grimas could change, indicating a post-canon mindset, but then, why do their words initially get to him so much?

I don't think he'd just be second act Robin either - Chrom would've already been Exalt for two years at that point, which makes the "newly-crowned" comment odd.

All around I'm.. mildy disappointed with this one. As stated just now, it's a redundant arc that doesn't show us anything new about Robin.

Looking at Soren's - that one really took advantage of the Heroes setting to display Soren's growth as a character. The interactions between him and Ranulf were great and funny, and the way he opens up to his younger self shows that Ike's kindness affected him.

Corrin also got great moments with Gullveig. It was amazing to see a post-revelations Corrin who succeeded in ending a war through communication, and how she carries it forward into solving conflicts now, no matter how dire, by extending compassion to the summoned Gullveig. I haven't finished her own storyline yet, but I already liked seeing her interact with Azura and Lilith.

By comparison, this is a scenario that literally already happens in the game itself. It elaborates more on Grima as a metaphor for hopelessness, yet muddles the logistics of it by not committing to either option to what Grima is in relation to Robin.

All around. Love Brave Robin! Great outfit! He's very cute! Another win for gay marriage! His forging bonds? Mehhhh.

Despite the ongoing discussion of "What timeline even IS this??", at least Depths of Despair gave us something new in a bad timeline chrobin dynamic. this is heroes goddammit. get crazy with it.

i would literally kill for robin-idunn interaction you would not believe. could you imagine brave robin and spring idunn interacting,,,, i am crying just thinking about it.

FEH has done a great deal to really uplift Grima as a character and add more depth to what the game gave us, both in backstory crumbs and the motivation department, so seeing them fumble the bag here is just disappointing. Can they get their own lore together already?

#feli speaks #fire emblem #fire emblem heroes #grima studies #feh #HELLO MY PEOPLE. GRIMA ANALYSIS HOURRS #FEH IS TWO FOR TWO ON ''WHEN THE FUCK EVEN IS THIS???''

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 1 year

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i want ike to be in three houses

for science

#DCB RD Run #y'all know what i'm talking abt if u follow me lmao #ike rly does say all the most perfect shit but most ppl don't even get to see it these days #bc intsys won't make the games accessible and they cost hundreds of dollars for a used copy jfhsagjdg #BUT ALSO this line? REALLY fuckin wish they said to zelgius too with someone anyone even if it wasn't ike #would've been really awesome tho for it to be ike who said it so that zelgius couldn't uwu my teacher his way out of being a villain #what is it with them making ppl be like uwu my teacher and that suddenly make them not a villain fhajgdgsj #like WHERE WAS THIS LINE WHEN IN REBIRTH 2 #we had tibarn with us! ranulf! shinon! oscar! SOMEONE could've said it!!!#hecky schemcky if OSCAR said it? that would be like DAMN u fucked UP tho #if OSCAR couldn't forgive you for something? d a m n sonny that one would cut d e e p #but also?! shinon! being calm about it! and just telling him outright! look! nah! you did all that shit! and now you want to uwu us to death #nah! what you did was unforgiveable and you kept doing unforgiveable things!#i mean come on there's a line out the door of ppl who wanted to get or deserved to get revenge on that guy #YES I HAD TO LET IT OUT AGAIN I'M STILL MAD THAT SEPH GOT THE WHOLE NO U DID BAD #BUT ZELGIUS DID ARGUABLY WORSE BC HE DIDN'T DO IT AFTER LOSING HIS ENTIRE FUCKING MIND #AND HAVING HIS ENTIRE FAMILY SLAIN AND HIS FOREST HOME BURNT TO DEATH #LIKE. COME ON. SEPH AT LEAST HAS A LEGIT REASON TO HAVE LOST HIS MIND BUT ZELG?#siiiiiiiiigh. anyway put ike in three houses so he can teach all the dumb stans how to be a proper mc #yeah that's right i said it A PROPER MC #blorbo is in the corner hiding bc he doesn't like these tags. see his bow? see it? it's poking into the pic #ALSO HOW COME REYSON DOESN'T GET ANY LINES WITH SEPH ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENED POST BATTLE #this post has gone in three entirely different directions in the tags good for me good for me

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prettycottonmouthlamia · 5 months

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So there was a conversation about queer representation in video games, and this got said in response to the perception that lesbians are more represented in video games compared to other LGBT identities (particularly gay men):

"Lesbians are fetishized by straight men, so that's why they're more common"

I'm going to be honest and say it's never really sat right with me from that point on. Not because I don't think there isn't some truth to the matter, but because I think it lacks a lot of nuance and a lot of much more important feminist thought. So let's just, break down my thoughts alright?

What does it mean to fetishize lesbians in this situation?

This is actually something I think is worth examining in a lot more detail, because when you talk about lesbian characters in media, there's usually one of two responses from predominantly cishet men regarding them:

The character(s) in question are vehemently disliked, often getting little attention, or as is common in fandom circles, having their character and the content surrounding them relentlessly criticized.

Strong affirmations that the characters involved are Definitely Not Gay and that it's reaching to insist they are.

This, to me, is kind of strange? It's in obvious contradiction to the idea that lesbian characters are getting the most representation. So what exactly is going on?

In truth, both responses highlight some truth, and to understand this, we need to look at the primary way men fetishize lesbians, which is through porn. When it comes to porn, often there is not an overt need to deal with the people involved as wholly unique individuals with their own feelings and thoughts and what not. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, porn actors are sex workers and that's going to be the result of that. It's just kind of a natural result and porn can handle this either gracefully or not.

But as an interesting side result, this means that it becomes very easy to decouple the actors away from the content. The second reaction becomes a dominant factor here: it becomes very easy to view the women involved as being available and often the primary way this developers from there is the idea of performance: a girlfriend and her friend performing for the boyfriend, or maybe two girlfriends etc. Now, again, there's nothing strictly wrong with that in concept as a sex act as long as everyone involved is aware and consenting and happy with it, but it's how it crops up in regards to how lesbians are viewed.

Lesbians are only tolerated when they're viewed to be available to men, and are often violently disliked when that's shown to not be the case. The world has not stopped oppressing lesbians for being overt in their affections towards other women just because of porn videos. This often has the effect that lesbian characters in media are rarely very explicit in order to preserve that illusion, or the much less comical and honestly perhaps somewhat grosser option I call the IntSys method where you just make your characters all bisexual.

To be clear, I find this really disrespectful and cowardly on principle. It really illustrates the extent that the creatives involved just see bisexuality as a convenience and not actually its own important identity. It becomes a way to still sell your lesbians to men, and frankly, eugh. Lesbians and bisexuals really deserve better than that and IntSys are still in fact tremendous cowards.

Fetishization does not correlate to representation either.

Guess who else is also fetishized by straight men its trans women babyyyyy! This is a very known quantity and its curious how that hasn't also caused a similar explosion in the number of trans women in video games. Actually what it has seemingly actually resulted in is more of the "trap" archetype, the transphobic and homophobic character who exists primarily as a joke.

Which is honestly a nice segway into the next point.

Lesbians do not necessarily represent a threat to masculinity.

If you wanted to know why so many lesbians in media are extremely femme and often conform to straight women beauty standards, this is it. It all has to do with masculinity. In fact, this really ties the knot with the problems with both lesbian representation in media (the absolute dearth of masculine women and butches (sorry that Genshin character is not butch)), the lack of representation of trans women, and the lack of representation of gay and bisexual men.

To transgress against masculinity in general has a habit of making you way more hated in our society which worships masculinity as a golden standard. If a woman is too masculine and is trying too hard to be like a man, she's often virulently hated. For trans women, the rejection of masculinity and the embracing of femininity makes them beloathe, and for gay and bisexual men, having sex with men is embracing what is seen as the female sexual role. We can even circle back here to the fetishization and lesbians and the anger of exclusion: it's okay for women to kiss each other and have sex as long as a guy is involved and enjoying it (and very bad if that's not the case). That doesn't even work with gay men, even though statistically more men are enjoying it.

There's an entire thesis that could be written about the stigmatization of the sexual role of the bottom in homosexuality, or on the eventual estrangement of the femme gay men in queer society. Ideas of masculinity are inextricably tied to straight men's perception of gay men, and unfortunately, gay men are often viewed as directly transgressive. A straight man being hit on by a gay man is often viewed as a direct assault on that straight man's masculinity, and as a result, gay men are just directly hated a lot more. There's a reason violence towards gay men is still staggeringly common. It's not like the video game industry is making any progressive waves in combating any of this either.

But there's one point as well in addition to this I would feel remiss not to bring up:

Are we really laying at the feet of a lot of good, honest queer representation in video games the burden of appealing to fetishistic straight men?

This one in particular bothers me because it is actually worth noting that there is a lot of lesbian representation that has nothing to do with fetishization at all. Not because it isn't sexual in any way, but because its created by queer lesbians wanting to see themselves in the media. So one must ask if there's something else involved.

For me, I have a general pet theory that's called Cluster Behavior of Exclusionary Qualities. The gist of it is that I've noticed that outsiders to a community often do not have one single defining trait that separates them from the majority, but often have more of them. The primary reason for this is that people who are already excluded will generally start to re-examine a lot of the other norms they take for granted. But I think another aspect of it as well is that the more reasons you have for not being accepted, generally the more it just makes you stubborn and angry. What are they going to do, exclude you harder? Ultimately, the industry is still really, really sexist and it's harder for women to even make a foothold in the industry at all to begin with. You're not fighting any less uphill, so why not just make something authentic to yourself and resist a lot of the bullshit?

This isn't to say there aren't gay men in the video game industry, there absolutely are, but I think the pressure to conform is probably a lot stronger, because acceptance really is just right around the corner. Sometimes it is easier to just go with the flow when its beneficial, and I don't judge for that its a bitch of a world and we all gotta eat somehow.

So what do I think at the end of all this?

I think that the fetishization of lesbians actually results in us getting a lot less authentic, well-written lesbian characters and stories, and what it does produce are a lot of ambiguously written characters and token attempts at inclusion that often fall flat. I do think it's likely even then that still outweighs a lot of other representation in video games, but I think there are much stronger factors to explain that.

At the end of the day, we're all fighting for fucking scraps out here. We're not going to get better representation by taking jabs at each other about this. But maybe, one day, we can live in a world where a Final Fantasy 19 has two women absolutely destroying it so I no longer need to see the straight couple from 16.

#video games :(

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fake-fire-emblem-takes · 2 months

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in fire emblem new mystery of the emblem the dragons of dark and light new nintendo wii u and knuckles starring adam sandler (the one with kris) edition, i usually only use the women because there are like 110 units in that game and maybe 1/3rd are women so it makes things easier. except i still use marth. so whenever i play that game i pretend marth is a cool butch teen girl and i forge her a steel sword named Tansgendr

how intsys came up with lucina tbh

#unreality #fakeemblemoc

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strawberry-crocodile · 3 months

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I would like to express my sincerest sympathies for your travails in trying to teach Very Basic Principles Of Humanistic Empathy To Trans Women to MFs who are publicly lobotomizing themselves to be more effective transmisogynists. Even in my thin-skinned era I would not have employed nearly this much spite and coordinated sealioning in making this your problem. Woulda just posted some shit on my own blog about officer-classes-of-men shitting on the floor for my AMAB autistic ass to clean up. You write with an exceptional patience and comprehensiveness for all the willful hostility you face, and- for the cause of giving you a little levity to respond to- you've convinced me to look past the skinny-whiteness of IntSys character design and experience Hresvelg kino. Have a good evening, madam, and may God strike down the keyboards of your haters

I am absolutely honored! idk I guess it just have that autism that makes me think I can explain things to everyone.

And I will say that it is 100% an Anime Thing that all the characters are skinny, Three Houses specifically is being deliberate about how it racializes its cast. As a white girl I can't speak for its efficacy, but it's something to look out for. Remember to talk to Edelgard every month, hope you enjoy!

#blogodile

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vampire-fanboy · 4 months

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Rock Trolls shouldn't of been the ones to want to "unite" everyone by making everyone the same as them

said this earlier on twitter but seems easier to say/explain on tumblr idk why anyway

on twitter i said:

"can i speak for a second and say I wish in the second movie it wasn't the rock trolls trying to make everyone the same? its exactly what punk irl isn't about (rock came from punk) idk, I feel it could've been more interesting too if it was a diff type"

(i think some of the things i said there was incorrect like rock coming from punk but who knows i get my timelines mixed up sometimes LOL if that is incorrect ignore i sowy) anyway

i was thinking abt that again bc i think its interesting and like... to talk about it more here like- hm... idk

(click read more or something if you're genuinely interested in this lol)

i wish in the second trolls movie that the rock trolls was not the ones to be trying to make everyone the same as them, i can't begin to describe that is the entire opposite of what "rock" really is, or at least the type of rock they was displaying is the opposite of what it is

they was leaning a bit into the "punk rock" typa vibe with them due to their designs and such, the music not so much but design wise they feel like they lean towards punk rock, and if thats the case we can assume that "rock" in the movie also encapsulates "punk"

so with that being said it bugs me just a tad bit, that rock of all of them was used to be the ones to be like "we want to make everyone like us! make everyone the same to unite us!" bc thats so far from what actual punk is, in fact the whole thing about punk is to go against authority and express ourselves (yk, our differences)

ik im probably nitpicking a bit but i grew up with a punk for a dad (as in he was literally around when punk was formed, 1970's) LOL, its been apart of my life it is apart of my life so i know a bit about punk culture and what they stand for

SO IDK at the end of the day i dont really care, its a kids movie and i can see by default why they chose rock out of their options to be such a role for the movie, but idk! it just makes me a wee tiny intsy bit :( as punk literally does not stand for uniformity, it fights against systems that wants us to all be the same, it fights for individualism

but w/e, punk has that "aesthetic" that makes it easy to be like "wow theyre intense" bc visually they can be intense LOL, they're also easy to paint as """the bad guys""" due to their aesthetic (big quotes around the bad guys as more near the end as we know barb wasnt really trying to be evil, nor in general are the rock trolls aggressive and/or evil inherently)

anyway to end this off i love barb and i love the rock trolls, theyre so awesome i wish we had more time to develop barb a little bit more felt like she didnt get the screentime she deserved imo, live laugh love barb i dont express my adoration for her enough

if i delete this sorry i got anxious i dont expect this to get attention but if it does (positive or negative) im going to delete it (i have bad social anxiety)

soz if you did find this interesting and i delete it blehh

#issak.txt #trolls #trolls dreamworks #rock trolls #barb #queen barb #anyway dont take this so seriously bc at the end of the day idgaf enough #its a kids movie with a REALLY good message about differences along with history and much more #and i loveee it <3 i love the second movie sm its REALLY good #dont think people give it enough credit sometimes honestly #but yeah just a very minor small nitpick of mine #at the end of the day i dont care that they chose rock trolls for that specific role #im just overly aware of punk and what it means to be punk #im going to delete this post if this gets too much attention btw i got bad social anxiety #and im not up to debating/discussing things tonight. im tired #k bai

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