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wake-me-up-inside-imagines · 7 months

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Hii idk if your request are open and if you write polly but could you write a sugawara x daichi x asahi x reader

Where the reader moves from their home country and to Japan and it’s how they meet the three their are a first and it’s how they end up together idk if that makes sense sorry :)

AHHHH YES! There is not nearly enough daisugasahi x reader fics and its a crime against humanity. I will gladly fix that though so I hope you enjoy!

Poly! Daichi, Asahi, and Suga with a foreign reader

Warnings: none

Gn! reader

(The country reader comes from is not named so anyone can read this)

-Moving from your home country to Japan was certainly a nerve wracking experience, especially since you’d be attending your last year of grade school amongst new people in an unfamiliar place, in a language you aren’t proficient in. After a few weeks of loneliness you decide that you won’t sit still and be a loner the whole school year.

-You thought that getting involved in something, a club, and team, anything with other people might help you make a couple friends might be good for you, and you heard a pretty cute guy in your bio class talk about how the men’s volleyball team could use a second manager, so you decide to apply for the position

-When you go into the gym to meet the team for the first time, you’re immediately bombarded by two very eager second years and and a short red headed first year who were very curious as to who you were (the school doesn’t get students from other countries often so they were curious about you)

-Suga takes pity on you and puts the team to practice while you, Daichi, Kiyoko, Ukai and Takeda go over your new duties as a manager with you, and you eventually start your time as Karasunos manager

-The first few weeks are pretty eventful for you, you’re just getting to know the ropes of the job and also getting to know everybody on the team. It doesn’t help that there was some drama between some of the team members and the former team ace (or the fact that after it was all said and done he joined the team again), and it certainly didn’t help that you had to train another new manger when your still new yourself (you don’t blame Yachi though, it’s not her fault, and besides, she’s a very sweet kid).

-It was hard adjusting to the club environment at first, but Kiyoko made sure to introduce you properly to everyone, which is how you ended up talking to the 3rd years more. As much as you both love the 1st and 2nd year students, you need to make friends in your own grade

-Kiyoko begins a habit of starting hangouts for just the 3rd years, nothing big, just a few hours hanging out at a cafe or someone’s house. That’s primarily how you got to know the three third year boys, through these hangouts. It’s a great opportunity to get to know each other better in a relaxed setting

- I imagine the three were already together before they met you, so they’re all used to a polyamorous relationship by the time you came along. They never really thought that they would want to add another to their group, but then again, they didn’t know they would meet you

-Asahi probably fell first, the poor guy wears his heart on his sleeve so it’s pretty easy for him to fall for you. Suga and Daichi could see how enamored by you Asahi was, and after a little time you captured their hearts too.

-They all want to know more about your home country and culture, but no one asks more questions than Suga. He wants to know everything there is to know about your culture, your home, what living in your native country was like, what customs you have, what holidays you celebrate, everything! He’s a naturally curious guy and the other two are either too scared that they’ll bother you or worried they’ll ask something offensive

-Asahi does muster up the courage to ask you about any cultural clothing you might have, and if you’d say it’s ok to, he’d be more than happy to try and see if he can sew it himself. I can imagine him gifting you a handmade outfit if he manages to get the hang of making it for your birthday or some other holiday

-After awhile it’s painfully obvious to anyone with eyes that the trio is hardcore pining after you, it’s a wonder you don’t see it yourself! Sugar’s always trying to get your attention (much to the embarrassment of his boyfriends) Asahi’s stutter has magically appeared once again, and Daichi goes red any time you’re in close proximity to him. Honestly the whole teams just begging for them to ask you out at this point, it’s getting painful to watch

-The three have no idea how to ask you out, or if you’re even into poly relationships, so they settle for asking you to meet them at one of their houses so they can speak to you privately

-Daichi takes the lead, explaining to you how they’ve been in love with you for awhile and that they would really love to date you, but they all understand if you don’t like them or if you aren’t comfortable being in a poly relationship. They all kind of expect you to say no, simply because their relationship is very much outside the norm, but there’s still a little hope inside each of them that you’ll say yes

-When you do say yes, everyone is over the moon. Asahi nearly starts sobbing from joy and relief (he totally thought you were going to reject them), Suga practically tackles you in a hug, and Daichi let’s put a huge sigh of relief before prying Suga off of you. Prepare for a long night of cuddles because now that the boys have you, they’re determined to spend as much time with you as possible

#x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyu x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu imagine #daichi sawamura x reader #daichi x reader #daichi sawamura #sugawara koushi x reader #sugawara x reader #sugawara koushi #asahi x reader #asahi azumane x reader #asahi azumane #kiyoko shimizu #Daichi x Suga x Asahi #daichi x Suga x Asahi x reader

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excelsiorfics · 29 days

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Welcome to ExcelsiorFics!

hello and welcome to our network. :) we are a combination of fic writers and readers who are very passionate about comics, fanfic, and fandom community overall. this blog and its hosts aim to promote/share/encourage fanfiction of and within the marvel comics universe.

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#type: admin post #ef.intro

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peaterookie · 9 months

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Most of us know by this point that the Lupin III manga series doesn't particularly have the best reputation, but why is that?

Is it simply because of the content itself, or is there more behind it?

It is August 10th, the 56th anniversary of the og manga, and I will be exploring the causes of the manga's poor reputation in the Lupin community with as most detail as I can try to be.

Bluntly put, I will not hide the fact that the manga series as a whole contains extremely problematic elements. All three series, OG manga, New Adventures, and Shin Lupin III all contain instance of Lupin and other characters raping and sexually assaulting women.

It certainly gets better as the series goes on. At the last three major arcs of Shin Lupin III, Lupin becomes almost entirely sexless, with some instances of plain pervertedness. However, it is not an issue that cannot be glossed over and it is the by far biggest burden that this series has to carry over its 56 years of existence.

OG manga is the biggest culprit of this, barely two chapter goes by without an instance of Lupin pulling his sexual advances onto random women and succeeding. Those moments of the manga are extremely gross and uncomfortable- and it really makes our protagonist extremely unlikeable, which brings me to my next point:

The fact that the OG manga is the first of the three manga series contribute heavily to its poor reputation.

"Aiee!! No way that the biggest manga preacher in tumblr is slandering the manga! Isn't that out of character!?"

It quite is, luckily I can think. As someone who has spent about 5 months reviewing almost all of the chapters, I can say that I know quite a bit about what it does right and what it does wrong... and it sadly does many things wrong.

Of course, the main thing is the sexual violence, but it is also the series with the least interaction between each member of the Lupin gang, who are characters people already come to really like. Lacking that element takes away what many people regard to be the best part about the series.

The beginning chapters of the og manga are also poorly paced. A bunch of things are going on, and the panelling certainly makes it hard to follow as well.

And to even add to the original issue, the english translation provided by Tokyopop also fucked everything up too!! Many of the extreme dialogues that you come across, including ones that make jokes at Monkey Punch's expense, are done by Tokyopop. Tabbiewolf explains this much better than I can:

"Just remember: a LOT of the…more offensive stuff in the manga is from the TokyoPop translations. I’m not excusing ALL of it, mind you — it was the 1960s and this was an adventure/spy manga marketed at cisdudes, after all — but the script writer for the English version was extremely, uh, artistic, with his localization of the translation."

"it was the early 2000s, manga was trying to appeal specifically to people who didn’t read it: teenaged cisboys who watched South Park, basically ;) So a fair amount of the stuff was very much the new English script, NOT the creator ‘s original work! Some plots got changed entirely just because the Japanese slang from the time didn’t translate."

First impressions matter, and the OG manga makes a very bad impression for people attempting to get into the manga series. Many readers are most likely taken back by how different it is from what they are used to, and they are definitely not going to like the problematic elements.

Those who still try to give it second chances are going to be met with disappointment when they find out these glaring issues are only partially fixed further into the series. Believing that it won't get better, they end up dropping the manga altogether and generalizing the rest of the manga series as depraved nonsense.

And I can't simply blame Monkey Punch for all these issues!! It was the first of what's to come, and he was not aware at the time just how big Lupin III would become in Japan and eventually worldwide. The og manga is very experimental, and you can tell he was only trying to figure out what works. I also cannot blame the people that dislike the manga. People naturally dislike something that is problematic and different.

Heck, most manga fans feel indifferent about the og manga as well, with the majority of them liking Shin Lupin III much better.

I have the statistic right here!!! It's not a lot of people, but there's an obvious majority choice here.

(By the way, if you're enjoying reading this so far, you should totally join my Lupin III server ahem cough cough nudge nudge)

So not even the manga fans love the OG manga. In my opinion, I would definitely not recommend people to read that as their first Lupin manga either. It is the type of media that if you really love the source material in general, then it'd be ok to read.

It is quite a shame to say that the series that does a better job at getting people in the manga, is the third one of the bunch. Most people aren't going to know that however, and they end up reading something that is going to likely give a bad image of the manga.

Ok so I dont have a good segway to the second part of this post so have a panel.

Now I'm gonna talk about how the fandom itself screw up it's reputation!!

(Before you get further I have to say that I have nothing against anime fans, if I do sound like I don't like them it's just sort of poor wording on my end)

Many fans of Lupin III start with the anime, if not probably all of them at this point. This causes a huge skew in public opinion, where those who are pre-exposed to the anime are probably going to view the manga as something lesser than its animated counterpart.

This can be seen particularly in CloudConnection's video of his manga analysis, which is concerningly just a portion of this 18 minute video, but I'll look over that. The portions of the video where he analyzes the manga contain a large amount of negative opinions about it.

A lot of his points are very good, and a lot of them I agree with, like his issues with the rape and sexual assault and how its a good time capsule but definitely not something that people should start off with. But a rest of the points seem a bit unreasonable to make and rather biased, like how the characters feel inconsistent, the bad pacing, and really emphasizing how dark and grim the manga is (it is very goofy and nobody ever talks about that)

And I have to state- It's totally valid for someone to prefer one thing over the other, but my point is that when this opinion is overwhelmingly the majority, it is going to cause the general public's opinion to unfairly be against something, ignoring what it does good and pinning the focus on what it does bad.

That video example was very popular, and I know someone personally that got the wrong memo from it and hated the manga without reading it for a long time, so you can see how it can probably effect the rest of the people that viewed that video.

So what can we learn from this?

We now understand that two of major reasons responsible for the manga's bad reputation is one: the unfortunate circumstance of the OG manga being the first series, and the overwhelming public opinion being unfairly skewed against it.

To wrap this up, I ask you to please give the manga a chance!! Read Shin Lupin first, and be aware of its flaws while also appreciating what it has contributed for the franchise and anime as a whole. I hope you enjoyed this little essay I wrote, and happy birthday Lupin III!

#lupin iii #lupin the third #lupin iii manga #monkey punch #peater rambles

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theseasasleep · 6 months

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Story of Kunning Palace E03 (semi-live reaction)

So, it's our heroine's fate to always be crushed on by the spoiled Princess? LOL

There's no way a young woman who climbed all the way to Empress can avoid most of the path to that fate. In most of the webnovels of this type I've read, reaching that type of pinnacle means you have a fate with it, regardless of the ultimate outcome. The best Xue Ning can do is flip the script on circumstances while doing her best to skirt around the thornier aspects of future events.

1st Life: the Princess thinks back to her first encounter with Xue Ning with humiliation, embarrassment and rage

2nd Life: the Princess will think back on their first encounter with pride, happiness and warmth

So far so good. Although I totally get why she'd want to avoid tangling with a temperamental royal who she had a terrible experience with.

...

I really like how this show is shot. Sometimes you never know with cdramas if you'll get a cheap or pedestrian directing style or a dramatic and/or compelling one.

...

The show is still building its foundations and I'm just so eager to jump into the action!

*fight sequence starts 1 minute later* AND HERE WE GO!

Dude is more pissed off by the damaged qin strings than the assassination attempt! HA!

Xue Ning, as hostage: *minimize connections to minimize involvement* Mr. Hostage-taker, sir, I know Xie Wei only through the grapevine...

Xie Wei: MISS XUE NING, PLEASE DON'T SELL OUR CONNECTION SO SHORT! YOUR FATHER AND I ARE GREAT FRIENDS! IN FACT, YOU ARE MY LIFE SAVIOR!

Xue Ning:

...

Take me instead.

Mmm. Something about the silky oomph with which he said that line combined with his expression... Okay, okay, Zhang Ling He. It took three episodes but you got me: the character of Xie Wei is now officially attractive to me. All he had to do was low key deliver a line that just vibrates with high key threat.

Man, what era are my hormones in? Between finding my mojo over one ML threatening to tear an offensive man's tongue out and fixing my posture when this one is nothing but velvet menace, I need a name for it. I need to know. Should I be worried? Scared? Aroused?

oh. oh. he's so sexy... okay, now you're just showing off; put the murderous sexiness away

Not this man calling her out, leaving her neither a fissure to hide in or a crumb for modesty!

I... I can't wait until he's incandescently in love with her because I just know, I just know it will be so magnificent I won't know what to do with myself.

Girl, while you are absolutely right to defend your current relationship with Yan Lin and right to say it is a flirtation that is undeserving of such rude scrutiny... you (and us) know that man speaks no lies. You are trifling with Yan Lin and you would have done him plenty of harm without the benefit of literal 20/20 hindsight.

That being said, I see @dangermousie point: kicking off a relationship trying to gin up, stoke and maintain fear in the other party is an excellent way to receive future comeuppance in the form of watching the woman you desperately love side-eye you as she lavishes protection and support on her other suitors.

...

I like Yan Lin. Not too sorry to say that. Hopefully Life No. 2 keeps him off the rapist track.

It's nice seeing Xue Ning enjoying festivities. The impression I have of her first life self is that while she reveled in being "wild", she likely didn't really allow herself to enjoy being young and with friends, too busy being hungry.

Dear. God. That seamless transition from earnest Yan Lin in Life No. 2 waxing poetic about his first impressions of Xue Ning to embittered Yan Lin in Life No. 1 waxing poetic about his first impressions of Xue Ning with the exact. same. words. Add to it the implied threat of sexual violence in LIfe No. 1!!!

Chills.

*gagging* Did I say I like Yan Lin? Show, it's going to be hard for me to keep that opinion if you keep flashing back to that.

Me during the Life No. 2 Ning x Yan kiss scene:

I want no part of it.

All right, dude, are you telling me you raped her because she plain text told you she planned to marry someone who could help her achieve her goals?! She didn't sell you out to the devil... Or refuse to shelter either you or wounded family members... but because when you were at your lowest, like the bitch she admittedly is... was..., she told you the truth and cut ties? I mean, that's reason enough not to warn her a coup is coming for her ass in Life No. 1. There's no reason for rape, ever; even if she lit your dog on fire, you can't rape her. Just WTF, guy?!

...

Not that it excuses any of her horrid behavior but I can see how lonely Xue Ning is in what should be her familial home. That cozy scene between her parents and half-sister where in her absence there is only affection and warmth and in her presence, only awkwardness and discomfort.

She lived a childhood in poverty and exile being spoken and looked down upon; returned to her parents' home to find herself being shunted as second-born (in an era where hierarchy matters) and defective instead of receiving proper homecoming. I can see why the attraction of her sole dream, her ultimate goal - becoming Empress - would become all-consuming, especially if such a dream sustained her in exile and fueled her defiance at home.

...

Oh, jesus christ, Yan Lin, don't be an idiot! Don't believe in an enemy soldier during wartime, like...?!

...

So Xue Ning might have accidentally sold Yan Lin out to the devil.

But in her defense, that wasn't her intention. Just to watch him. Like a politics-minded creeper.

Me to Ning as she reads her former coachman cum spy to filth: GET HIM.

#post #tv show: story of kunning palace #teevee #cdrama #xie wei #zhang ling he #gif #references tv show: the office #xue ning #yan lin

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vigilskeep · 10 months

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Other than the whole murder-exile thing, how was Yrsa’s relationship with her brothers?

oh yeah other than the minor fact that one convinced her to murder the other,

i kind of have to preface this with the lore i've invented for their mothers, who in my hcs were all different women. bear with me here. to briefly summarise: yrsa's mother hekkata was the queen of orzammar, king endrin's legitimate wife. trian's mother lady rosdrada was another noblewoman, who endrin took as a consort when queen hekkata initially failed to have children. bhelen's mother gwenef was born artisan caste and was a dressmaker in the queen's retinue until she bore the king a son and was raised to consort

the reason all this is relevant is because they were each very much crafted as their mother's legacies, or at least trian and yrsa were, as both hekkata and rosdrada firmly intended their children to take the crown. they had a tempestuous rivalry, each seeing their child as more legitimate and promising. when trian and yrsa were younger, they were allowed to play as siblings and train together, and there is still some of that fondness there they try to ignore (and often find easy to ignore, considering how irritating they now find each other. but they still fight the exact same way, they have the same laugh). the older they got, the more they were pressured to see each other as competitors, especially by their mothers. that conflict only truly took on its sharpest edge a handful of years before dao, when hekkata died on a deep roads expedition. yrsa abandoned her more relaxed youthful ways, convinced it was her duty to fulfil her mother's wishes and make herself a real challenge for the throne, while trian absorbed his mother's bitterness that, with hekkata gone, endrin still refused to ever take rosdrada as his new queen and confer that legitimacy on trian. (there was actually a scandal over rosdrada pushing too hard for this, leading people to whisper that hekkata's death had been arranged by her too, and rosdrada's loss of favour and reputation meant she has lived a mostly secluded life in the palace ever since. which i mention because it adds to their resentments; they both lost their mothers in different ways and can blame it on each other's.)

bhelen was never seen as a threat in the same way. gwenef was taken under the queen's wing in friendship after she became a consort, having always been part of the queen's retinue, which is why it's natural for yrsa to see bhelen as an ally even when he's serving as trian's second (which, since bhelen obviously resents it, i would read as perhaps a superficial conciliatory measure pushed by endrin? one which is in itself fairly dismissive of bhelen's status). but while the queen was fond of gwenef, gwenef's son's rights were also casually dismissed. because of bhelen's relative youth and gwenef's lower caste origins, it was never expected he would put together serious political backing like the kind hekkata and rosdrada had been preparing since before their children were born, or do anything but be a spare to live his life in service of whichever of his siblings was crowned. while yrsa feels deep down that it will always come down to a fight between her and trian, leading her to reluctantly take the offensive against him in the origin because she believes it an inevitability, she truly never considers bhelen a threat. she's genuinely fond of her little brother, who she was allowed to always consider a sibling, but was also always allowed to ignore. if i wanted to be uncharitable i'd say she was fond in the way you're fond of the family dog: because it's uncomplicated. it never occurs to her that he could make a gambit like this or would want to, just as it never occurs to her not to assume the worst of trian. what she really inherits more than anything from her mother is those fatal mistakes

#yrsa aeducan #sorry for the heavy blocks of lore but this is all so interconnected in my mind there is no way to really talk abt it without the rest #anyway this stuff is all being updated as i go but this is where i think its at rn if that makes sense

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digisurvive · 1 year

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The nail that sticks out gets hammered down

[Image Id: Screenshot of Plutomon’s sprite with its arm open and looking to the front over a forest backdrop. Her dialogue reads: Becoming one helps us understand each other better. No more selfish behavior]

Or Extreme Collectivism as horror.

It’s plain to see that Plutomon’s posture is one that threatens to crush any and all dissent, no matter how small, as well as to erase individuality— with that of its ultimate goal being to merge the enterity of the two worlds together with her, so they can all share her (correct) feelings and values. This is all with the aims to eradicate any selfish behavior, which in short can be any attitude or ideology that disrupts a group. This conduct being horrific is quite obvious, but it's also quite thematically rich coming after everything in the vanilla pre-timeline split.

If Plutomon is someone who values social harmony above all, Ryo existed on the opposite end of the scale: with an unhelpful, uncooperative attitude that went beyond not helping the group—the events leading up to his death are caused by his own imprudent actions, straight up risking everyone when he took off on his own. His bad attitude makes him hard to deal with, and the rest of the group often lets on their exasperation with his doomerism and inaction. Takuma is always tempted with the choice to give up on him and leave him alone.

This attitude is echoed with how the group deals with Shuuji, too; the others often show their (warranted) frustration with his insufferable behavior. Survive’s writing often seems to egg the player to agree with the idea that leaving both Ryo and Shuuji behind would ultimately be for the greater good. It insidiously seems to present the player the idea that isolating troublesome, struggling individuals, the problem children of the group, is for the best. This is an attitude that echoes the status quo of how society deals with individuals suffering with mental health harships: by shunning them out and judging them incorregible. The fact that the option to leave the black sheep behind feels reasonable is no coincidence, and it's the reason the game ends up guilt-tripping the player hardcore over the fact Ryo and Shuuji were never fully integrated into the group.

The fact Aoi ends up going off the deep end of the attitude that prevented Ryo and Shuuji from getting help in the first place, kickstarting the whole tragedy, is one of the nuances that add more value to Plutomon’s absolutism. She views any disruptions to the Harmony of a group as the worst offense anyone can take, and sets out to prevent others from being wrong in the first place. It’s a very Japanese viewpoint: hating to burden others with one’s personal problems and hating the disruption of the communal harmony.

The horror behind Plutomon is an unyielnding, cold perspective over how a group should operate: a social dynamic where you don’t trouble others with your personal failures and problems. Where questioning authority is harshly punished. Where there's no room for anyone's input but the one on top's when it comes to decision making. Where any expression of internal struggle is repressed due being incompliant, uncooperative and selfish. And they can indeed be selfish and disruptive to the workflow of a group, but that’s not necessarily evil or warranting ostratizing. They’re, in fact, symptoms of a deep hurt that needs to be healed in order for a group to operate better.

It's inevitable for individuals to inconvenience a group with their needs, but sharing the burden is the ideal the game presents as an answer to be able to fulfill both the greater good and individual care. Survive proclaims not just that struggling indivuduals deserve care and support but that it’s a communal duty to provide it and a moral failure not to do it.

#Digimon Survive #Digimon Survive spoilers #Aoi Shibuya #Shibuya Aoi #Plutomon #Wrathful route #pretty much just sying how nicely the horror of Plutomons extremism plays off the attitude that isolated the problem children earlier #i got another plutomon adjacent post in the works lol i love aoi sm lol #aoi #meta #mine

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sophieinwonderland · 6 months

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Hello ^^

Usually I never talk on social media but I really wanted to answer your poll on God. Also, I'm not fluent in English, so I'm sorry in advance for my mistakes TwT

While it would be correct to describe God as somewhat plural, to say that He is an endogenic system is problematic for multiple reasons:

1. Man is made in the image of God, and this reveals His nature to us.

If God is an endogenic system, could we say that systems are inherently closer to God than singlets? No, this is heretical in both ways. Neither the singlets nor the plurals are closer to the nature of God because we humans share the same nature. This is similar to gender: God is neither a man nor a woman or any other gender, men cannot claim to be closer to God because they are men (no matter how hard they try 🥲) So is God a man? No. Is God an endogenic system? No.

If He was, it would mean that humans are divided, with some having a superior, holier nature than others, and that isn't the case.

2. It's not a term He uses for Himself.

Most of the terms we use to describe God come from scripture and tradition that we believe are inspired by Him. Words for God are chosen, or at least approved, by God. If we invent a term for God, it would have to preserve God's holiness (+ not contradict Revelation, but it's not the case here). God is sacred, and using "endogenic system" feels off as it's a term that takes God's sacred nature away.

3. Any comparison of the Trinity is heresy.

Then, can we compare God to an endogenic system ? Unfortunately, we soon realized that any attempt to compare the nature of God fails. Yes, it is convenient to teach the Holy Trinity to children by comparing it to a clover or water ...but that is heresy because nothing can compare to God 🤷‍♀️ Therefore, please be careful when trying to compare God's nature, especially when doing so with a secular term, it is inevitably inaccurate and may seem offensive.

4. God's origin

I'm not sure about my last point, i'm not a theologian but personally, I think the term "endogenic" bothers me the most because God's nature has no origin. He is the Creator, not a creation. Everything finds its origin in the One who has none. So using this concept that accounts for human nature and how plurality manifests in humans seems to me inappropriate for God, who has no origin.

To conclude, I want to add that in Christian mysticism you will find people who describe plural experiences like living with the Holy Spirit instead of your own spirit, communion with God, the birthing of Christ, etc. If we can recognize that these fall under the plural umbrella (“there is more than me in me”), please avoid the term “system” or other community term to describe this person before discussing this with them. Most religious people would prefer christian terminology to make sure it is suited to God and distinct from other types of experiences.

Thank you for reading 🤗

Thank you for sharing your perspective. If you don't mind, I'd like to offer my own counterpoints.

1. God's Traits And Making Man in Their Image

In some passages, God is described as a jealous God. So would that mean, therefore, that jealous people are closer to God than those who are less envious of others?

I think you can argue this with any trait that God is stated to have in the Bible. And if God being plural makes people more holy, then it would stand to reason that so would people being more jealous. Except jealousy is also treated as a sin when it's a trait of mortals. So clearly, a human feeling jealous does not make them more holy.

Similarly, I think just because God is plural, it would be fallacious to assume that being plural makes one more holy or closer to God.

I would also like to note that the passage you refer to of being made in God's image uses plural pronouns.

Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’

In fact, the original text used the term "Elohim" for God which is traditionally a plural word. Some Christians have argued that this could refer to the Trinity.

Perhaps a better way of looking at this would be not that God made some people plural and some people singlets. But that God made all people with the propensity for plurality, in God's likeness.

2. We Regularly Use Terms For God That Didn't Appear in the Original Text

Obviously, broadly, none of the words we use to describe God are words approved by God. That is, the Bible is an English translation of older text. And as time has gone on and language changed, there have been updated Bibles using more modern terminology.

But it goes further than that. The very word Trinity doesn't appear in the biblical text. It's not part of the scripture. It's something added later to further understand certain passages.

Certainly, the word Trinity is not considered heretical despite not coming directly from the scripture.

3. Comparisons to the Trinity

Comparisons to a clover fall short because they lead to partialism, where each leaf is just one totally separate part of the clover.

Comparisons to water usually refer to the different states of water, and therefore enforce modalism.

I would argue that a comparison to plural systems avoids these issues. Conceptions of plurality typically acknowledge the overlap between headmates in a way the clover comparison doesn't. See the popular Plural Rings, for example:

And some have even used similar imagery to represent the Holy Trinity:

And while you might think comparisons to humanity would diminish God's divine nature, as you yourself said, mankind was made in God's image which reveals His nature.

The bible also speaks of God's divine nature being revealed through creation.

“They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God”

Would it not stand to reason then that God would design aspects of human psychology in His likeness as well so that humans might better know and understand Him?

4. God's Origin

On this, I will simply say that "endogenic" is an umbrella term currently used for any origin that isn't trauma based, and is used synonymously with "non-traumagenic." It includes the term Protogenic which refers to a system that has been a system since birth or for as long as they can remember.

Admittedly, it's a little strange to apply a -genic label to a being whose plurality had no origin, but I think weirdness of the words aside, I think it's reasonable to say that God's plurality would technically qualify as protogenic in that the Trinity has existed for as long as God has, which puts God's plurality under the broad endogenic/non-traumagenic umbrella.

Though I'll concede that perhaps it might be more accurate to classify the Trinity as an agenic system, with Their plurality having no origin at all.

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voiceofsword · 1 year

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sry to bitch in your inbox abt this but im so glad you pointed out how so many modern enstarries Dont read the stories and base everything off fandom perception.. i saw these users joking about which character would say slurs and someone was ADAMANT rinne would and tho i knew it before it Really struck me then

a) none of them have ever engaged with this text in any meaningful way, ESPECIALLY not the first games' stories, because surprise! characters in es! did Canonically use slurs! and back then Nobody Liked It. we didnt joke about it. most people i know completely stopped paying attention to the characters who did until they apologized. (tho ofc its more a problem w the writing than the characters, but still. we were young. we had the spirit.)

b) people really like using rinne as a punching bag because they dont read the stories and know literally nothing about him except funny drunk drugs gamble man "fuckboy" who harasses niki and the other bees and its. infuriating.

i dont understand how anyone can claim to like a media without ever properly engaging with it, i dont understand how people have fun misunderstanding characters so drastically, and i also think joking about slurs has gotten wayyy too normalized where people feel comfortable saying these things about these characters they allegedly like. and characters like rinne (with a constructed mask of obnoxiousness and such) are the perfect target for these people. which SUCKS. all of it sucks.

NEVER BE SORRY!!!! i hope this is alright to post i thought your ask was good and insightful and i'll add onto it a little bit with my own thoughts (heart emoji)

yeah um ! was definitely a ride. i wouldnt recommend it to everyone but at least we have hindsight and things like slurs and general offensive terms/behaviors can be warned for, so that much is nice. i remember being really upset about a few of these, and then getting back into enstars earlier this year and reading a few of the more current stories + !! stories i was happy to see that the writing has developed CONSIDERABLY in terms of this especially after beasts. something ive noticed a lot of newer fans do (referencing my previous post irt the feeling morally superior) is that if you like a specific character for whatever reason youre actually a horrible person because that character said something awful once. of course youre allowed to dislike characters for whatever reason but dont tell other people they should perish because they like them (as if liking them means you implicitly agree with said views, more often than not One line in a miriad of stories that you might not even have read). but like you said, characters making ignorant comments (an unfortunate occurrence, although rare, it still happens) is not a reflection of 2d pixels on a screen but rather a team of writers..... idk. its a complicated situation. i see both sides and i think people are justified in liking or disliking but this is a game about idol boys (and girl) got dam

yeah i hate how people treat rinne a lot. like because characters like him and eichi are villains that means everything that they do or say is, at worst, a straight, physical threat to everyone around them, or at best, an annoyance that can make the fandom feel justified in making them the butt of reoccurring jokes. idk what else to say about him that i havent said already but its also 3 am now and i SAID i was gonna go to sleep an hour ago but i think i might just be a filthy liar

ALSO its probably because enstars is long, there's a lot to read and although tl's arent necessarily hard to come by you actively have to seek them out. again i understand how this might be a nuisance but instead of sitting down and listening to summaries or analysis ive noticed that a lot of short form consumption content lends itself to people just. posting the most reactive interpretations, and people playing a game of telephone with said information until a lot of the fandom has come to accept this misinformation as true. LIKE SOMEONE ON TIKTOK SAYING HAJIME AND WATARU WERE RELATED? IDEK IF THAT WAS A JOKE OR NOT? and yeah the use of slurs is like ridiculously normalized now im not one to say whether people can or cannot reclaim slurs and people are free to do as they like if they can. i see this one thing specifically with tatsumi a lot where people jokingly bring up how said character is homophobic or make homophobic comments towards characters even if theyre being like. excited or happy. and idk. personally it makes me sad. like maybe its fandom culture now maybe im old (is 23)

WHY WOULD RINNE SAY SLURS HES LITERALLY GAY AND IN LOVE....COME AWN NOW

#i prommy i will stop putting walls of text on everyones dashboards soon and ill get to actually posting drawings and reblogs...maybe #im not posting this one under a readmore bc i dont think. its That long in comparison to my other posts?#but if it is i might add it retroactively? can i even do that #we'll see i guess LMAO #mimthinks

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dracononite · 2 years

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i dont want this to sound mean because i absolutely dont mean it that way.

but genuinely how do you feel comfortable setting prices for your comissions so high? do they sell out?

i ask because to sell comms i have to criminally undervalue my art (legit 8$ for a full body drawing) but no one ever buys comms if its more expensive.

how do you do it.

It's not mean! Artists pricing their work fairly is something I strongly advise and would like to advocate for more often, because I used to undercharge a fair bit as well. I don't take offense to people thinking my prices are high, because I know they're not anywhere close to industry standard, and that plenty of people can afford my commissions, because I do get a consistent stream of clients.

I'd like to get a little more in detail with commission pricing since I know it could be useful advice to artists who have less experience. But it's the end of my work day and this all might be somewhat scattered, so TLDR: I'm comfortable with how I price my commissions because of the time and skill that I put into them, and because I need to price them like that as art is my full-time job.

Now for the long version... To start off with, this is all based on my multiple years of doing art as a full-time job. I started doing commissions in 2017, supported myself through college with my art, and now am financially independent with an apartment lease. In the end this is all from my opinions / perspective, but I do have experience.

I base my prices on an hourly rate that I determined using this wonderful Twitter thread on accurately pricing commissions as a full-time artist. This may not be what you specifically need, but I recommend anyway since it's a great example of pricing your commissions in a way that's fair for you.

Once you've calculated an hourly rate, it's just a matter of timing how long it takes for you to finish a commission-quality piece from start to finish and using that to figure out what the base price of that specific commission type should be. Then you can consider things like add-ons (rendering, additional characters, etc) and upcharges (deadline fee, multiple correction rounds, etc.)

Adjusting your prices to your needs, demand and turnaround time can take a lot of finagling. I constantly adjust my prices, though I try to bump them up by a small bit every few months to account for my growing portfolio and audience, economic inflation, and how much I need to charge in sales taxes. Yes - add sales tax to your prices if you make any substantial amount with art. You can do so easily on Paypal and Stripe invoices! Otherwise, you're gonna get slammed with owed taxes come tax season, since taxes aren't automatically being deducted from your "paychecks" and sent to the gov like salary jobs. Trust me, it's happened to me, and I'm still paying off my 2021 taxes.

Also, doing the actual art is only half of, well, doing art as a job. The other half is what I call "housekeeping" or "agent" work - communicating with clients, building and updating a website/portfolio, posting finished pieces to art galleries, building a recognizable online presence/brand/aesthetic, and actively advertising your work in a way that gets both old and new eyes on it. And you need to keep in mind that this is work too, that you need to be paid for.

Adding all of that on top of what you might originally price your work at may seem excessive or intimidating, but everyone deserves a living wage. Learning to keep that in mind will help your confidence in pricing your work fairly.

Now for a few more tips:

Advertising can be hard because of social media algorithms and economic hardships, but you just gotta keep at it. Learn what type of posts work for you! I recommend using concise, clear language and easy-to-read layouts. Keeping a kind of consistent "template" to your advertisements can help people recognize that it's you before they even start reading.

As you grow your audience and portfolio, you can build a good reputation by being consistent and honest. Communication and turnaround time are huge. I personally give an estimated turnaround of 1-2 months to allow for sick days, weekends, delays and other obligations. Having a solid terms of service is really helpful too. I'm a-ok with anybody referencing mine, even copy/pasting it and adjusting it as you need. Feel free to!

Having small income on the side has been a huge help to doing art as a full-time job, if you're at all interested in it. I get pocket change every week from lineart base sales on my Ko-fi shop, but it really adds up. Patreon is a bigger investment since it operates on a monthly subscription basis. Personally, I use about half of the monthly pledges I get to pay for manufacturing stickers and postage. Even if you don't have a LOT to offer, if you want to do art for an audience and have people looking to support you, Patreon or similar sites might be worth looking into. Monthly sketch dumps, speedpaints, streams etc for a few bucks is more appealing to people than you might think, especially if it's things like storybuilding or character designs. People like getting invested in things!

I hope this helps you in some way, and maybe others out there too. It's taken me years to get to this point, so don't get discouraged! Underpricing art has become such an issue, especially on sites like Amino and DeviantArt that it's affecting artists' self-esteem and view on how they should price their work. But there are always people willing to pay for art. Art is a luxury and should be priced as such! It should be available for those who are seeking it out, not for everyone.

#mail #sorry if this isn't exactly what you needed to hear but i thought this would be useful in some way #art advice #artists #artists on tumblr

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sparring-spirals · 2 years

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I honestly adoring those episode, it has everything I could have hope for

FCG discovering their soul, that they developed themselves

The group fighting (literally) for Laudna

The interactions between VM and BH where perfect, Percy’s understandable anger towards the thought of being Delilah back, Vex’s guilt because she feel responsible for Laudna’s first death, and Pike just being Pike, the best damn baker

Oh, I am absolutely with you on that. GOD what an episode!!!! So many highlights!!!!!! So many fascinating character interactions and conversations and onion-peeling-layers and smidges of angst and determination and love and- nice. NICE. Im still so excited that everything is kind of coming out in interconnected jumbles, and I am absolutely going to end up writing individual metas about more of these, but suffice it to say:

(i got so excited, this got long, sorry. its basically like 5 different seeds of metas)

- I loved F.C.G's reaction to getting definitive proof they were alive. I love that it was almost less joyous and a little more scared. Because it IS scary! All this time, F.C.G has been living their life for others, divining their purpose from others, they haven't really been living like they were. Alive. Realizing you have a life on your own terms, under your own control, is freeing, and that freedom can be scary! and kind of shitty, sometimes! You have all this space to fuck up. You have all this responsibility if you do. F.C.G realizes they have a life, they are alive, their life matters. and their first reaction is "well, shit." thats SO GOOD. "Well, I have to live." "Unfortunately, true." 👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌🥳🥳🥳🥳

- I'm a little less confident on my reads of Vox Machina but from what I knew I really liked how those conversations played out. It all made sense to me. which is nice. Percy with his family and hard won peace around him, seeing his worst fears rise up and threaten. Vex with guilt around her shoulders but the chance to help. Pike with that kindness and sincerity and flour on her clothes and being unused to reviving again but so good at helping. And also Keyleth really needing a nap and a few hugs maybe. Someone get that gal some calming tea, stat. The interplay- Vex touching Laudna's ears, Pike watching everyone with entertainment, THE ASHTON AND PERCY CONVERSATION. god that conversation

- I've got so many feelings about Bell's Hells literally fighting for Laudna, fighting through a mindscape comprised of Laudna's personal demons. I've got SO many. Some people have already written excellent posts about it (@c-is-for-circinate's post here, and @mockingmolly s post here, come to mind), and I already waxed poetic about it right after the episode but like. its so good! its symbolic and sweet and weighted and poetic and like. When Pike proposed it, they all said yes, almsot immediately, with almost no hesitation. This party of people who were always so eager to dive into each others problems, to help each other, getting to LITERALLY. Dive in and fight and help and save. And they did it through a weird fucked up slumber party. perf. (and i JUST READ A OSOT ABOUT THIS and need ti add it here and its about how laudna Isnt Getting A Say In It rn as well intentioned as it is which. also makes it. kind of fucked. god this needs its own post but like. yea.)

- you didnt mention this explicitly but the ashton and percy convo and tbh everything about how ashton reacted to these massively powerful people- the unsureness and reservations then just- straight up opening up to Percy, in a way, in their fury. the changes in them moving them to anger, still, but of a different sort. pleading, but angrily, furious, trying to push reason. so offensive their defense dropped. that conversation was SOMETHING.

- Also not mentioned but like. Imogen, my gal. My buddy. my darling. oh boy.

- chet's little kindnesses and reactions through the ep were also Something

- i hope fearne steals something

anyway sorry lost the plot a little here but YES what an EPISODE i am HOLLERING and BLOWING AIRHORNS 🥳

#(i had a drink and got excited writing this sorry but YES what an episode. so much to unpack)#critical role #cr spoilers #spar speaks #ask away!#c3e36 #....#character meta #?#of a sort

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echoesofadream · 7 months

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can i say i think you might be blaming jk too much for this? jk's part is entirely problem-free. idk i honestly think the only problematic thing for jk himself is him not really getting that jack's part isn't just sexual, like he asked for him to make it, it's also problematic. in his interviews, he seems to view the song as being about 'wanting to be with someone you love'. i don't think his own perspective includes jack's, which involved fucking a whole lot of people and is just there to add more explicitness, as jk's own perspective involves dedication to just one person.

they would have to record the song, then ask harlow to write his verse and stick it in. they would have asked for him to be sexual, which is what his lyrics were. from my experience, someone from the east who learned about problematic stuff by interacting with western culture would honestly trust a western artist to not write something problematic.

jk in these songs is not doing anything unfeminist honestly. he's dedicated to pleasing one girl in both songs. both have consent involved, and the second one straight up says, "if you're ready, if you'll let me"

i'm sorry for saying all this in your asks, i just thought from your previous posts that you might get it when others might not.

like I agree but the meaning is pretty clear if you watch the music video? and did you see the tiktok(?) where jk and jack dance/act to that part and jungkook counts one, two, three four with his fingers. like I think if I put out a song in my name, in a language I'm not fluent in, I would want to know the meaning of the lyrics, instead of evading responsibility just because "I didnt know" right? like the music video is a big part of the problem for me. and that pretty much transcends language.

"from my experience, someone from the east who learned about problematic stuff by interacting with western culture would honestly trust a western artist to not write something problematic." im sorry but idk if I get what you mean by this? genuinely btw ofc! im not taking any offense to your ask just to be clear yeah definitely agree that the lyrics from his side arent problematic they're just about sex and giving a girl an orgasm basically. but in the context of the mv and jack Harlows part I feel more icky about it. I dont know if you know this about me but I am a raging misandrist? so men in general are walking on a thin line with me. if theyre going to sing about sex (I prefer when they dont – in fact I prefer when people dont sing about sex like this in general, call me a prude I really dont care so. altho I do have many sexual songs on my "jungkook cover this" playlist but theyre mainly about well theyre different and usually by Kim Petras..) and especially (this is just a personal preference) idont like hearing about heterosexual sex. and like obviously this isnt problematic in its nature (or is it? I havent read enough feminist theory sorry) it's just personally im not gonna dig it like jungkook isnt doing anything wrong singing about these things obviously! im just being a hater on my own blog, not everything I say is valid criticism! just my own feelings about things! I think men should be castrated for less than this in general like those are just my feelings

that said I dislike the trend of jungkooks music in general and on a feminist level, wasnt his last mv about begging a girl to have sex with him? like yeah it was endearing because he was submissive about it the whole time but now this, i dont like it.

dont apologize its totally OK, thanks for the ask! im hard on him because my expectations are so high!

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adelle-ein · 1 year

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Lace's Engage Review: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly (minimal spoilers)

So I ended up deciding to get Engage shortly after it released, and I uh…have some thoughts about it. Far too many thoughts. As usual.

This is intended to be a spoiler-light review for those on the fence. There's pretty much no story spoilers, they all pertain to gameplay aspects. Also these are my opinions. They're subjective. You'll probably disagree with me. And I don't want to fight about it. Like at all. Okay? Okay.

Overall, I think the gameplay and general style puts me most in mind of the GBA games, with maybe a splash of 3ds-era (Fateswakening, that is, echoes is really more its own thing.) The general focus on the maps and battle, the feel of said maps, the game mechanics, the relative length and varied quality of supports, some characters being very gimmicky while others are more layered — it definitely doesn't feel like Three Houses, and it's more of a return to traditional FE form wrapped up in a strangely-colored package. The story is quite bad, but in a more "average FE story way" — some sweet moments, not a bad concept at all if a common one, but poor and very straightforward delivery. Alear is very Corrin-like in that they aren't the smartest and get largely worshiped just for breathing, which is definitely tiring, but they do actually have a consistent personality and characterization unlike Byleth. C-B supports are mostly (not all) for humor, but several A supports are surprisingly thoughtful and well-done. Unfortunately, the game falls down hard in what, for me, are a few key areas. Basically, maybe this is a three out of five stars? Something like that?

The Good:

Let be known, for starters, that I am a ~casual~ gamer. I'm bad at video games! Some of this is disability and some is just me! I like to play things on easy! So obviously my perspective will be different from someone playing the whole thing on maddening-classic-ironman-nuzlocke-yunaka solo-what have you. Also, I've played FE7-16, along with both Warriors games, played Heroes since day 1, and read/watched other people's playthroughs of 4/5/6. So those are my "qualifications"…so to speak.

Starting off: The graphics, character designs aside, are really very nice. Everyone is much more expressive, things are much smoother and less jagged than in 3h, and the environments and scenery are very pretty. The pre-rendered cutscenes look detailed and high-quality. The lighting is good and fairly dynamic, and textures are crisp and don't have that photoskinned look to them. Sommie is very cute, honestly. You can run around and explore the maps a little bit after battles, and it's clearly just a mechanic so the devs can show off how good the environments look. Honestly, they're very good! Cute, detailed (you can see inside buildings sometimes and they're fully furnished,) and well-designed. There's also some other cute and well-done details around the Somniel. For example, there's a ton of different models for the various cooking meals (I'm not sure I ever saw any reused? There's a LOT) and they look pretty nice considering you only see them for like ten seconds apiece. Also, I do think Three Houses had a prettier interface, but Engage's is much more comfortably readable with its font choices. Minor thing, but a good thing.

The maps and battle system are clearly the focus of the game, and the game continues to throw new things and gimmicks at you without feeling cheap or getting stale. The Emblems being used both by and against you contribute to this, but there's also some single-map gimmicks and returning ones, such as unique boss AI or moves, that add variety. Offensive staves, more varied weapons and maps, lots of fun ways to mix it up within the main story maps. Just the fact that bosses now have multiple HP bars, for example, adds a lot to gameplay and makes every map just feel like a unique challenge, which I haven't gotten from FE for a few entries now.

While the characters overall aren't quite as layered or deep as Three Houses's, some are genuinely very good, and many are likable in spite of that. Honestly, sometimes when Three Houses pulled out the "depth" card, it just ended up ruining a character for me (ie the Gonerils' child slaves that are never mentioned again…). There wasn't anyone in Engage that I hated at all, really, and that was refreshing. No womanizer character, no "racist but they feel bad about it," nothing like that. I enjoyed them a lot, I think they were fun and colorful (if perhaps maybe too literally colorful) and while a few were reduced to gimmicks, they weren't the majority, and nearly all show a lot of deeper motivation once you get digging. Sure, some of them bring up their hobbies too much, but uh, I'm one to talk. I think they were a fun, lovable cast overall, if perhaps not the ones with the most depth, but a good level of depth for what I personally want out of a Fire Emblem game. They also didn't feel clogged up with "filler characters" the way the earlier games sometimes do. You do get a few prepromotes thrown at you in lategame just in case, but no groups of four cavaliers with interchangeable personalities in case you fuck up and kill two. Everyone feels like they have a reasonable amount of characterization and care put into their writing, even the cast's weaker members, and the result is a generally memorable and likeable group.

While the supports aren't as long and many aren't as deep, they all go up to A, and a lot of them are just fun and enjoyable to watch. If you've only played Three Houses, or only like Three Houses's cast, then yeah, they'll feel weird to you, but if you do like the casts of older FE games, I don't think they're any worse than those (and frankly, they're better than some.) They're fun, some are quite creative, and I don't get any of the "ugh, we HAVE to include these" vibes that sometimes came across in Awakening and Fates. Those two games suffered from needing to include S options for almost every M/F combo, and Engage enjoys being freed from it. Characters are paired together because of their existing connections, traits in common, or because the writers just had an idea, and things flow very well. Overall, it feels like a throwback to FE6-10.

This is a personal note for me, but Three Houses felt like the writers had just discovered the concept of mental illness and wanted to use it as a crutch. Engage steps away from that, and for me personally, that's a huge improvement. After so many "hates: herself" characters, so much depression and anxiety that was portrayed downright callously or even cruelly, and the absolute nightmare of a parody that is Bernadetta, it was a relief to not open every support wondering in which way the writers were about to mock me. I know some mentally ill people liked the way characters were written in Three Houses. I am not one of them, and found it awful. I'm so glad they've decided to step away from their "PTSD is sexy, anxiety is funny, listen to characters tell you they stopped being suicidal because of [Player], listen to Bernadetta scream at the top of her lungs as wacky music plays because agoraphobia is a laugh riot" crusade.

The overall "throwback" feel of the game is genuinely nice. I had sort of missed getting to play what feels like a "regular" Fire Emblem. Personally I like it when the game varies formula, but it frustrates me when FE does two extremely similar games in a row (like how Fates tries really really hard to just be Awakening Again), and I was sort of expecting FE17 to be Three Houses Two (again, because Three Hopes is already that…). It was a pleasant surprise to find that Engage overall has its own identity while going back to basics with other aspects of the formula. I don't love everything that came from this (as you'll see below) but there were many things that I really enjoyed, mostly the actual gameplay itself and how fun it was.

As far as the main plot, in a spoiler free version: the idea was good, the execution was off. Pacing is kind of a mess, and the writers fail to give the deuteragonist and other significant secondary characters enough material and screentime to get you as attached to them as they clearly want you to be. This seriously drags down the whole thing. Take the exact basic concept, rearrange the ordering of the chapters and the priorities for screentime, maybe don't fight the Hounds QUITE as many times (it gets ridiculous by the fourth go around and you're still not done…) and certain scenes would hit a lot harder. The emotional core just isn't there because the pacing is so wonky. Parts of the script, animation, and voice acting also fall down at key moments (one character's scream of grief and rage just looks and sounds absurd.) I do like some of the messages, which break up the usual Fire Emblem narrative in key ways, and I don't think it's a terrible plot. It's just another mediocre one. I would personally rank it similarly to Binding Blade or Awakening, which is to say, unimpressive and predictable, but not horrifically bad or anything. It's a bit frustrating though, because I think it had the potential to be genuinely heartfelt, but unwillingness to provide any lore combined with really bad pacing combined with badly distributed screentime leads to kind of a mess. I have more detailed/spoilery thoughts on the plot here, but be warned, I SPOIL EVERYTHING.

The CGs are really well drawn and pretty-looking. Minor but true. The credits are really very nice, I enjoyed them and wish other FE games had something similar. The S-support CGs are not as well done, but the faces are not as, well…Bad as they are in 3h. I'll take it, basically. The rest of the CGs and illustrations are good though! The ally logbook and the little screenshots you unlock of the characters are also cute.

Also Sommie is admittedly adorable. I had to warm up to it but the way it follows you around the Somniel making its little footprint noises? Fucking precious. And hey, if you don't like it, you can just not feed it and it'll stay in its shrine so it won't bug you. Overall, the Somniel is very optional. I don't like minigames (and some of them are too painful for me with my health issues), so I didn't play any of them much, and that was totally fine and didn't slow me down. I personally see this as a plus. Also you can design a cute little card to hand out to anyone you do multiplayer with. With stickers! Lots of stickers!!

…If every aspect of this game had as much care put into it as that card designer, I would be rating it five stars. Alas.

The Bad:

The UI and quality of life features leave a lot to be desired. It is not easy to find or figure out how to do things in this game. For example, you can raise your bonds with Emblem Rings in the Arena area of Somniel, unlocking skills from them that you can then inherit. Great! But, uh...to inherit those skills, you have to go through a loading screen and travel to an entirely different area of Somniel, the Ring Chamber. I've spent a very long time traveling back and forth between the two as I unlock skills. It's a strange oversight, and one that is unfortunately repeated again and again all over the game. The menus are cumbersome, weird, and annoying, and sometimes really frustrating to navigate because there are just too many things going on in a single interface (The ring menu is just not enjoyable to use in my opinion.) Auto-equipping things sounds great until you realize it takes everything off your non-deployed units and the choices it makes are nonsensical. You don't have any kind of notification for support conversations being unlocked, and neither supports nor bonds are indicated as being available from menus either. If you're trying to win over a particular character with a pile of gifts, you'd better hope they randomly happen to spawn into Somniel, or you can sleep over and over until they do, because it's just luck of the draw. There's just a lot of weird, nagging little details that make things very cumbersome.

The thing that really bugged me, personally, is that Engage has no real way to fix up your lower-level units. Thanks to the royal/retainer setup from Fates returning, Engage throws a lot of characters at you very quickly throughout midgame. You can't use them all, so many have to hit the bench. Oh, but that's okay, right? There's skirmish battles infinitely respawning on the map, after all! Well...wrong. The level scaling for those skirmishes is based off the toughest members of your army, and is usually actually higher than whatever story chapters you currently have unlocked. Left Jean on the bench? He's staying there, since every enemy you can spawn for him to face will kill him by blinking. And the levels scale fast. Even sitting out a few maps can be terminal, as it was for my poor Yunaka. No matter how fun you might find some of the characters you skipped, you'll simply never get to use them. The modes in the Somniel are specifically set up to be anti-grind, and have limited uses...or don't gain EXP/supports/SP...et cetera. Weirdly enough, characters will also complain in this game if you don't use them, for some reason, since you can't actually do anything about that. Guess what, Panette, if I deploy you now you're going to immediately be Corrupted food, and there's nothing I can do to fix that.

This extends to every other traditional FE "grind." Other than a few potential exploits people have found, which are very, very slow, there is simply no way to reliably support grind with non-Alear units. Non-Alear units ONLY gain support points with each other by using staves on each other, eating meals or doing arena battles with each other, or...by defeating an enemy on player phase only and only with the units directly adjacent to them. And you can only have one mealtime between every two battles, not endlessly stuff yourself with different duos a la Byleth and Shez. Even with Corrin's support-gaining skill and regular mealtimes and arena battles, supports gain at a crawl. Gold runs out fast and the only way to get more is the miserably difficult, high-level skirmishes.

I have one massive file each in Awakening and Fates in which I have every single unit fully built, all their stats and A supports maxed, and full sets of skills (except for my least favorite units…), from both spamming reeking boxes and the DLC maps, all just for fun. That's not possible in Engage. Awakening/Fates didn't have NG+ because they didn't need NG+. Engage does. In Awakafates, you could, if you wanted to, have a fun, enjoyable postgame/lategame to collect everything and try completely wild combinations out. In Engage, there are a number of skills and builds and abilities that, while cool in theory, are just never possible to try in-game without insanely slow grinding. Finishing the support log is a nightmare ask and pretty much impossible in one file unless you are insanely devoted to having units healing each other with Micaiah's ring in the corners of high level maps for IRL days on end. It’s pretty much impossible to max all donation levels or collect all bond rings, because again, no NG+. This certainly doesn't matter to many players, but it does to me, so that's why I'm sharing. I wouldn't be surprised if we get some DLC maps designed to help fill this in a little, and personally, I think that sucks. Sure, the DLC maps in Fates/Awakening speed things up a lot, but they aren't absolutely necessary as you can still use map battles easily enough. If they add DLC grinding maps to Engage, they will be the only options available. Lame. Even if it’s a free patch, the game currently feels like it’s missing a basic feature. Withholding that for hype or money reasons is just obnoxious.

The throwback paralogues, meanwhile, are…kind of a slog for me. The Emblems make a fairly bland speech about their motivations and then fight you on a map designed to look like various random maps from their corresponding games (and I mean random — some of these choices were far from iconic and downright inexplicable. Why a random beach for Celica? Why is Sigurd on a Seliph map, albeit a well-known one? Why is Lyn's map from FE6 aaaaaaaaa.) While the gameplay on these maps is tight and challenging, that's pretty much where the well-done fanservice begins and ends. Actual characterization of the Emblems is few and far between, pretty much limited to Bond conversations. In the story proper, they're exposition bots.

The Ugly:

Just coming out to say it: God, these characters look so bad. Alear is hideous. The colors are all over the place and clash with each other horribly. The battle outfits are just eyesores (although the Somniel ones are generally improvements, you can't equip those in battle, so what's the point?) The job outfits are REALLY ugly (that sage outfit is goddamn hideous.) Nearly all the characters all have either Boy Face or Girl Face, and Girl Faces all look like they're about eleven years old. The weird medieval/modern/fantasy/??? mashup look doesn't work for me. Every non-pre rendered cutscene had girl Alear making her blank stupid blob face, and no matter what expression she made she just looked really weird. Her design is, for me, simply so weird and ugly as to be distracting at all times. Meanwhile, so many characters like Yunaka, Panette, and Hortensia are just downright distractingly bad looking. I can't take the face stickers or clown dresses seriously at all, and they're not even fun to look at. Orientalism, as usual, abounds in both some default outfits (Seadall is...so bad) and dress-up options. The artist was a poor choice for FE, but I don't think most of the blame lies at her feet — the choice itself was bad, and there's no direction to speak of when it comes to the overall look of the characters. Most of the countries don't appear to have any coherent cultural identity in clothing designs the way Nohr and Hoshido did, for example (barring Firene's passion for flowers and some recurring patterns among the Brodians.) If it weren't for the copy-pasted faces, many of them would look like they came from different games altogether. Even the generic soldiers look awful. It's disjointed and ugly. The entire design team fell down hard on this one.

The Emblems honestly leave a lot to be desired. Some aren't bad, but that blobby girl face doesn't really work for most of the female Emblems. Celica and Eirika's hair looks atrocious (do they have terrible bedhead or something?) and Leif just looks incredibly off in a way I can't quite define. Design-wise, this is a very bad looking game. Which is a shame, because all the animation upgrades now feel completely wasted on terrible designs.

And, of course, Fire Emblem gonna Fire Emblem: the S-supports are just a mess overall. The datamined ages don't appear to be present in the game proper, but based on the under-18s being made platonic in the NA localization, I'm assuming they're still canon. This means Alear is 17 and capable of marrying a number of people in their twenties and above, even in the localized version. To be fair, I think the localizers were fucked no matter what they did here. Leave in marriage to Anna and the game will rightfully be slammed. Take out every romantic relationship and the backlash will be incredible. But where do you draw the line for a 17-year-old dating a 15-19 y/o? There was just no way to win this one, and I guess going with 18 makes as much sense as anything. This is not me defending the original devs, who suck. This is just me thinking about how the localization team really just could not make any good choice here, thanks to the original game's fucked up "lol you can marry anyone" choices. Whole thing is gross all the way around. There's a pretty small handful of characters that are both left romantic and not creepy choices for Alear, so we're back in the same situation Fates and 3h left us in, where all the super popular avatar ships are just weird and unpleasant and people call you a monster for not liking them. Great, thanks a lot, intsys. All of this being said: the game itself really doesn't include these ages, and most people aren't even going to realize they're a thing. You need to go online to even find out. So who only knows why they exist to begin with (Anna etc romantic S-supports still gonna be real bad no matter what, though.)

And no, there's no romance or paired endings between non-Alear characters, just some vague non-explicit implications in certain a-supports, as per usual, because playersexuality is all that matters to anyone anymore. Let's all publish thinkpieces about how FE said gay rights or whatever though! Woo-hoo!

Verdict:

So, all that being said…Engage is really fun. It is also a hot mess and while the gameplay is overall strong, there are certain aspects that don't seem to have been thought through at all. Its greatest strengths are its map design and focus on core gameplay, but its weaknesses lie in quality of life and options for grinding and more casual fun. There's no postgame/ng+/etc whatsoever despite the game really needing it. And the designs look terrible. I personally don't think it was worth the $60 (maybe more like $40), and mostly decided to go ahead and buy it so I could lend it out to the family. Of course, your mileage may vary, but those are my full thoughts on the game as a whole.

Also don't ask me how it ranks in the series overall, it'll take at least a few months before I can form concrete thoughts on that. All I can say it doesn't inspire sheer frothing rage and I will probably play it again. No the best FE game but not the worst either. That's all I got.

Stan Sommie.

#txt #elyos #lace reviews

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angelsdean · 1 year

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Despite claims that Dean calls women "bitches" when they reject his advances.

Uhm??? That is not what I said?? I said he called women bitches when they did something he didn’t like? Namely their enemies. In fact when he was attracted to a woman he treated them like a true gentleman. It was their enemies he was aggressive towards. And saying the word ‘bitch’ was directed towards women 3 times is fair and all. But how many of their enemies in season 1 were women and how many were men? And did he actually ever run into a female enemy that he did not call a bitch in the earlier seasons? Idk no offense or anything it feels like you’re taking this a bit personally. The tone in your post about how much he used the word bitch was kind of coming off as confrontational. I’m looking at this as a case of bad writing rather than anti-deanism or whatever everyone thinks is going on here :(

I'm really very sorry if I misunderstood that! From the way it was worded in the previous ask: "it was because he tried to fuck anyone with boobs and the minute a woman did something he didn’t like he turned around and called them a bitch" I read that statement as suggesting "the minute a woman did something he didn't like" in relation to the flirting / trying to sleep with them. Like, woman rejects him trying to sleep with her >> he calls her a bitch. But now I can see what you meant in the context of villains / enemies. And I do agree, the three only instances from just looking at s1 were directed only towards enemies and it's something I do want to continue keeping track of as I watch.

I'm also sorry if my tone came off as confrontational, I definitely did not mean for that either. I was mostly in "academic" mode lol so it was more about "disproving" the claim that he calls women (who are not enemies, but potential interests) bitches. I really find all of this fascinating and engaging and like you said there is a lot of bad writing to look for and also just, the show being a product of its time. Unfortunately early 2000s television was rife with casual sexism and misogyny and we definitely saw that leak into the show and some of Dean's behaviors. The writers have their own biases and bigotry too which is definitely important to consider when we're doing these analyses / character "studies."

I'm not mad at you personally, anon, and do invite you to continue to share things you find too and add to this conversation. If I came across as a bit defensive or confrontational it was less about you and your individual ask and more toward the general "fanon" view a lot of people (dean 'crits' or 'antis' or whatever) have toward Dean that often is not based on actual evidence from the show or is based on one small thing that has gotten exaggerated or misinterpreted in fanon. And since I've been rewatching recently it's just so hard not to be like !!!!!!! when I see how canon things don't match up with some fanon interpretations.

I have some other asks in my inbox that may have been from you ? I'm not sure, that I also plan to answer but this was the most recent and I just wanted to clear things up and apologize<3

#tone is hard to convey thru text sometimes i'm rly rly sorry if you felt like i was attacking you #i was just in my 'this is a thesis to prove or disprove' headspace #replies

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klaineownsmysoul · 2 years

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Job free?!? She is a bar owner! U know the bar she's always wanted but rarely visits.. maybe now a days you can run a business like that online coz who needs to be there... Oh I'm sorry she is working.. using the bar's ig to post videos of D on tv talking about said bar.. bills, day to day running?! Huh that's not important

NGL - I thought this ask was going in a different direction when I read the brief summary on my notification. Then I read the whole thing and went from "oh sweet lord here we go again" to getting a good laugh, so thanks.

D's always pushed the whole "its her bar, I'm just there to play the piano and draw in the crowds and do all of the promotion for it" storyline but he really went into overdrive on that View debacle: telling us that for as long as he's known her, its been her dream to own a bar. Which - ok, fine. No problem with that. Lots of people want to own their own business. The difference is that they usually put in the blood, sweat, and tears to make their dream work. You have to work so hard to make small businesses and food and drink establishments successful in this country. I have a family member who's a chef and he owns a small string of cafes and a bar where he lives and he also caters so needless to say, he's very busy and constantly traveling back and forth between businesses to make sure things are running like they are supposed to. He doesn't have time to take off for a few weeks to chill in first class hotels and go to fancy parties and hob knob with celebs as his spouse's plus one. While you can hire managers to take care of the smaller day to day items, if you're the owner, its ultimately your business. You are the one who wanted this in the first place - you should spend the most time there of everyone, not the least. What else is she doing that would prevent her from being at her lifelong dream? And when I say “being there,” I mean as the owner, not as a customer. Far as I can tell, the last time she was there was Halloween when she showed off her bump in that cheap SW costume. That time - as well as any other time she’s made a spectacle of herself front and center of the piano - she certainly wasn’t doing anything that resembled “work.” Its been 4 years and one thing has remained constant: she wants the title, credibility, and public praise of an owner’s role but isn’t interested in doing any of the work to earn it. She wants a place to drink with her friends and get pics taken of her and her famous spouse and the famous people his name brings in. The rest of it is left to someone else to figure out. If she really cared about her bar, she wouldn’t readily abandon it at the drop of a hat for literally any reason whatsoever. Those weekend trips to Vegas, overseas jaunts with his stylist, weeks away in Europe to be a plus one at things that don’t require her presence and that D is more than capable of handling on his own and now months in NYC - they don’t exactly scream dedicated caring boss, no matter what bs posts from the staff on Insta say. I’m honestly sure that the only reason this place is still in business is D. His constant promotion of it, the way its traded on his fanbase as customers since day 1, the way its billed as “their” bar which just adds another component to the fake fairy tale love story - none of those factors include any real contribution from her. Not to mention the endlessly repetitive and/or offensive theme nights that by now are old and tired. And yes - while the advent of the internet has made things like actual paperwork that used to have be done on site and by hand portable, they still have to be done. You can’t exactly do things like inventory from another time zone either. Does anyone actually believe she’s sitting poolside approving payroll and purchase orders? And no - cackling in a hotel room as your spouse once again uses a tv interview that is billed as being about his new Broadway play to plug your shitty bar and then posting the video to the bar’s Insta story isn’t work. And now she has the excuse of the baby to use, so it’ll certainly be interesting to watch and see how many things of D’s she manages to find time to go to so she gets her attention while the bar falls even further down her list. I’m thinking at this point that if having a newborn at home hasn’t slowed down her thirst, nothing will. And isn’t D just the luckiest?

#anonymous

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