#no way that goes without tragedy when one is immortal and one isn't

[itsclydebitches]

Young girls and women who had the Maiden powers cannonball into their souls WITHOUT CONSENT or KNOWLEDGE and were then told by a stranger that the only way to get rid of them is for them to be killed AND that there are people out there who want to do that AND that they have to leave whatever life and family they had behind and never see them again, watching Ruby complain about her "burden": 😐🙄🙁😒🤨🙃

You know, that adds an interesting spin to the age-old Pyrrha debate that I'd never considered. Fans have long dragged Ozpin for (supposedly) manipulating her into taking the powers, citing everything from someone her age being unable to make an informed choice (despite everyone else her age being an adult capable of leading this war), to the lack of information negating any true ability to judge the decision (but information isn't necessary for other characters, like Ironwood). As my asides showcase, I've always felt that this is hypocritical nonsense and does a huge disservice to Pyrrha, both in terms of acknowledging what a hard choice that was and taking into account her own, fatal flaw of feeling like she has to be the hero. (If anything, Pyrrha should have gotten a "Being a leader is so hard and I'm crumbling under the pressure" arc, not Ruby.)

But all that aside, you raise a good point about how terrifyingly passive most Maidens are in this process, with the exception of those who steal the powers (Raven) or are in a highly coincidental position to willingly accept the powers right when a Maiden is dying (Penny). The fandom tried to paint Ironwood as "forcing" the powers on Winter, manipulating her into becoming a tool, but no one wants to acknowledge that Penny would have then done the same thing? At least Ironwood asked Winter, whereas Penny decided on her own who could safely wield the power, giving that to Winter whether she still wanted it or not. The fact that the story frames this as the correct decision by having Winter currently need the power to save herself from Ironwood doesn't erase the fact that she still wasn't given a choice during the actual transfer. Hope you're happy being responsible for the entirety of your Kingdom now, Winter, because you're literally the only one with the power to protect them from the grimm army your friends dropped them into.

Based on the historical implications, most Maidens have not chosen this, have been forced to grapple with all the horrors you've laid out, which puts things like the otherwise morally ambiguous aura machine into a new light. Yes, it still goes against the "natural" state of things according to Remnant culture and yes, Pyrrha was not given a perfect segue into this choice (for various reasons), but at least it was a choice. Regardless of what you think of how Ozpin went about it, that's MORE of a choice than most other Maidens get. Do you want to be somewhat prepped beforehand, given time to decide, have a support system in place to help guide and protect you... or do you want to have these powers slam into you one day with no context? Hell, if we go by what we know about the Maidens as a whole, Pyrrha was the best candidate according to the Inner Circle and the magic itself. It things had gone differently with Amber and Cinder's bug theft, the power might well have gone to Pyrrha anyway, simply by virtue of her being a young, powerful, heroic woman with a Fall-like aesthetic.

Then yeeeeaaah. Look, Ruby has been through it. I'm not denying that. But the show really failed imo to both highlight the appropriate tragedies and allow her to navigate that grief in a way that didn't come across as incredibly selfish. Her actively striving for authority since Volume 4, becoming arrogant in her abilities, losing things and people due in large part to her own stupid mistakes (you kept the Lamp out, Ruby, you lied to Ironwood, you had the bright idea to turn Penny human and therefore vulnerable), the fact that she's surrounded by cursed Maidens and cursed immortals and cursed hosts and cursed aged-up allies and an entire dead village... and then the breakdown is, 'Woe is me, cheering people up is so hard'? Not that the story would ever go there, but I WISH Oscar had been in that scene, just so he could side-eye the hell out of her. "I'm sorry, which of us has been forced to participate in this war and burdened with the responsibility of leadership? Who is slowly losing themselves in the process, to the point where they're no longer recognizable from who they once were? You? Are you sure, Ruby?"

The writers really aren't aware of how that comes across in a story with so much horror going on, or they do and they just didn't bother to acknowledge and grapple with that limited, child-like perspective. We could have simply gotten an arc where Ruby is grieving Penny and, as a result, thinking on all the other people she's lost/how she might have failed those of Atlas and Mantle. Introducing these failures through the lens of her leadership really muddled things though. You chose this. You've supposedly been making decisions as a group. There's too many inconsistencies and retcons attached to Ruby's leadership - and too many other characters going through Objectively Horrific Things - to write the breakdown that way without Ruby coming across as completely oblivious to anyone else around her. And yes, I say that for a character who has been ignored by her team all Volume. She's also ignoring Jaune understandably grieving a whole village of people! All of them are awful nowadays! I miss when the group was actually kind and considerate and fun to watch lol

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

[jellazticious]

Under the cut is the updated Light Plague lore and also me critiquing humanity in the process

but of course, all deep dives of TLP will have discussions of varying degrees of body horror so be warned. Also it's so fucking long

Place is set somewhere in Europe but the apocalypse got so bad that no one can recognize what it was anymore. Even in near extinction of the human race, these assholes are still trying to segregate each other by groups, some bunkers, some labs, some towns and one is a living mansion on top of a tower wrapped in a garden of corpses surrounded by a wall. So TLP's camera or main focus would be four of the "Scorchers" in a bunker called Palethos. Scorchers are literally people who can be told to do whatever, so scientist, mercenary, assassin, resource gatherer, labrat etc. Human for hire basically and it's seen as a high honour to be one but it isn't. Four of them, Mortimer Tacre, Tak the Oracle, The Plague Kiwi, and Cobalt Roussel are the main focus of the theoretic show. Each of them represents a type of unfortunate person in the real world. Cobalt is the people pleaser who only does it because it's the safest thing to do, not once did he ever had a choice of his own, then PK who has been through tragedy after tragedy that he doesn't believe good exist anymore so why should he now, Tak, one of the smartest people that everybody goes to when they need something from them but would shun them otherwise, and Morter, who has never felt true satisfaction in his life but he came to terms with what was never meant to be so he uses what is left of his time to give the younger ones the happiness he never had.

Their jobs mainly is to play security guard for Palethos and data gatherers for 131, the establishment that protects Palethos. Other than tending to the survivors in Palethos, they should also protect them from the aggressive neighbours and mutations which they all call Dallums. Now here's the main course of TLP. The whole thing with the mutations and their miracle medicine, Chlerocyte.

Chlerocyte is a fungus found within a species of warm blooded cave fish that was discovered at the same time in the arctic. It develops in extreme cold and grows in warmth. The fungus attaches itself to the fish and they have a symbiotic relationship for the fish will provide the needed warmth for the fungus and in return, near immortality. Chlerocyte developed in a way that it will remember the body's average state of health or ideal state and reverts any damage if exposed to sunlight. wounds, lost limbs, impaled organs, brain damage, anything can be cured by it. A dying fish could just so easily swim out the vents and heal instantaneously . However, hubris is a tale as old as time. The fact that it's so easy to harvest without any hard method of applying to humans means that people will get arrogant and reliant on it to the point that even the smallest bruise is a call for Chlerocyte. Overusing and abusing the fungus/drug will warp when it should be active. They are supposed to be activated when there is abnormalities in the body. Compared to the fish that stays in the dark, humans are always exposed to the sun. Let the Chlerocyte wait long enough and it will start to "fix" something because getting activated with the sun is telling itself that the body needs it to do something, anything. And so, Dallums everyone.

Each mutation differs from how the mutated is harmed, their imperfections and sometimes what they touch. One of them was a near sighted man with a lithe frame so the fungus took it as a need to give him eyes all over his body and make his muscles swell. One Dallum was a woman nearly losing her life birthing a dying baby so the mutation gives her a flesh sack full of nutrients in an attempt to keep both her and the child alive, it worked but it's so heavy and the baby mutated with the forming of the sack so now it's part of it as a horrendous lump. Another Dallum, a gargantuan one even, was formed during a stageplay, one of the actors started to mutate and whoever he was touching became part of him and the dragon puppet he was leading with. The Dallum acts like a giant worm that constantly sings, the people it eats will merge halfway but not completely so those people retain their intelligence and memories but they are immobile so all they can do is scream to provide the Dallum's voice. Me designing the Dallums is like, I gotta make them compete with each other, they all have to be equally fucked up or gradually gets more and more fucked up. I mean one of them has his head shoved in a deer's ass and another's skin have so much fish attached to it.

The thing with Chlerocyte is simultaneously "fuck around and find out" and "play stupid games, win stupid prices" but also a jab that such a precious thing can be corrupted so badly but this time, the person who abused it is getting dragged with it.

no yeah, there's nothing anyone can do to revert Chlerocyte because according to it, what it does to the body is already perfect and it's making sure no one tampers with it. AKA you can't kill them and you can't just remove the spores and fungus unless you wanna be the ext Dallum in the files.

Anyway, survivors are at war with the Dallums while also at war with each other. At least most of them but not all. Their common enemy are the rich people living on the sky, watching them all for their entertainment. TV screens and cameras are a common theme in TLP if not the butterflies. Yeah, what you watch is sorta what the rich sky people are also watching except they watch the other bunkers but TLP the theoretical show itself are only focused on Palethos. Anyway, to boost their entertainment, they had this group of bounty hunters from across the entire country thing. They are given targets who are either actual terrible people or unrightfully called a criminal. So they released a bunch of vigilantes in the wild and they compete with each other because capturing their heads will grant them so much money. They're in the middle of an apocalypse and they still have inflation and rent debt, this is just like people still needing to work and go outside even if there was a pandemic.

Anyway, yeah, the Hunters are vicious and some of them are almost magic like Solasso. He can make portals with whips and ropes. No one can see him because if he's not hunting, he's bunking in a pocket dimension praising a sun god that he claims to speak to him but there's speculation that it's just his epilepsy. However, epilepsy could not explain the lasso portals so magic indeed coexists with science in TLP. Where did it come from? Funny story actually

Everyone knows and loves Tastriphe, aka Plague Kiwi. silly goose that man is. Anyway, he was working on a portal that can send resources to the near bunker without having to go up and send a delivery while Dallums chase you. Anyway, he failed at doing just that and instead, he opens up an interdimensional portal that invited a lot of universes over and brought over their beloved Ghost of Palethos, Sal Conspire. He is glitching in and out like he's from Spiderverse, silly goose. Other than Sal, while the portal was spazzing in different entries, some magic creatures, elements, and items slipped through the window and boom, earth has more magic than it already has. Excluding PK and Tak, they're like so magical there's not much explanation for them. All we know is PK is a fallen angel and Tak can see the future and do cool spirit stuff.

Tho, the most important thing to note about TLP in its entirety. It's not a story about the main characters. It's a collection of stories not just from the people of Palethos. Everything runs and flows and ties to each other. All of the characters are meant to be written as if they can be the main characters of their own shows because that's what real life is too, your own show but at the same time, you're part of someone else's. it's a big circle.

TLP should have the genuinity of real life but all of them deals with exaggerated or disguised in a metaphor problems

Oh there's also The Reaper Tree but that's spoiler endgame stuff so I'll leave it here now, tata

#The Light Plague #Jella characters #Jellaverse

[doggytail-duck]

Me around season 4: yeah i see no way for this show to end without Lucifer having to go back to hell or Chloe dying

Me now: oh i see. there was nothing or about it

#can't believe they made me watch BOTH OF THOSE THINGS #like i always felt there'd be a note of tragedy there in the end because like. celestial and human relationship hello? #no way that goes without tragedy when one is immortal and one isn't #like at the very least it's chloe's old age that gets them #but their life together having to be cut so short is so unfair #even if they do meet again #i'm emo you guys :(( #although i do feel this might have been the most satisfying end they could have gone with considering what they had #the second they brought in the time traveling child any chance of the most satisfying ending went through the window #(for me it would have been basically this but lucifer wouldn't have gone back to hell permanently #and also deckerstar wouldn't have had a child together but would have adored trixie #idk i like rory i find her cool and interesting but i'm so tired of the main couple always having to have kids #like yeah yeah i get it kids and parenthood are super important to the show but idk for me it would have been more impactful #if luci would have chosen to learn fatherhood through trixie instead of being forced to inflict his own trauma on his child #well part of it anyway. the absentee dad part. it's just very unfair and sad and trixie got done kind of dirty) #but yeah i feel like they did their best and i did kinda wanna cry my eyes out in any case so #there was probably no end that would have left me completely happy though soo idk #liveblogging lucifer #liveblog tag #lucifer spoilers #lucifer season 6 spoilers

[lochnessies]

I mean to be fair to edelgard, if I found out the popes/president were actually one guy who lived basically forever, I'd probably at the very least question thus popeident's leadership skills. Especially if I found out that a good portions of this hypothetical popes religion was fake and that also this pope was basically jesus. Granted, that'd mostly because of a lack of context since this hypothetical immortal popes motives are largely unknown.

Like without the context of her motives, Rhea CAN seen in a pretty negative light. She suddenly goes from a mother/grandmother/wife/daughter who's got issues and is trying to protect her relatives and fodlann with her position while trying to turn some homuncili into her mom, to a dragon lady who's been in head of a major religion that she made up for centuries who actively stiffled/slowed down fodlann's scientific/academic growth for unknown reasons.

Like if you didn't know about Rhea's whole deal, she'd look pretty suspiscious. This isn't me saying "edelgard completely right church bad! Rhea is evil!".

I'm more trying to say Edelgard was SORT of right in being suspiscious of everyones favorite lizard pope, but jumped to WAY too fast onto the conclusion of "The church is definitely evil, because crest=bad and crest=blessings of the goddess, therefore church=bad!"

Rhea WORST 'crime' at most as leader of the church is that she was pretty passive as leader of the church. Like, apart from trying to keep the peace as a whole and hiding technology for a while until she decided (maybe arbitrarily maybe not) that humanity was ready for it, she seemed *largely* content with the state of things as a whole. Granted, that strikes me less as her not giving a shit and more just her not knowing about some if the bad shit going on behind the scenes in Fodlann, and her going "Okay yeah thats bad. Buuuut when mom's back she'll be a way better leader and she'll make everything way better than I ever could. Back to studying and researching homunculi children so I can maybe shove my moms soul into one."

That's my take anyway. Basically if Rhea and the lords had a group therapy session a lot of tragedy could have been avoided. Alas therapists don't exist in fire emblem, just look at the various characters with underlying trauma that they havent dealt with.

I mean to be fair to edelgard, if I found out the popes/president were actually one guy who lived basically forever, I'd probably at the very least question thus popeident's leadership skills.

why? wouldn’t their longevity make them better leaders? they have much more experience and know how the world works. i mean, agree with the woman or not, rhea’s results are hard to argue with. 1000 years is an extremely long time to help mitigate peace. our world can’t seem to avoid conflict every half decade it would seem. so it’s not like rhea is doing a bad job of it.

Especially if I found out that a good portions of this hypothetical popes religion was fake and that also this pope was basically jesus. Granted, that'd mostly because of a lack of context since this hypothetical immortal popes motives are largely unknown.

that’s when you have a nice little sit down and have a chat. and also, rhea didn’t make up the religion. it already existed before the war of heroes. all she did was change a couple of details to hide the fact that nabeteans existed and the fact that the elites were mad murderers to keep their descendants safe.

Like without the context of her motives, Rhea CAN seen in a pretty negative light. She suddenly goes from a mother/grandmother/wife/daughter who's got issues and is trying to protect her relatives and fodlann with her position while trying to turn some homuncili into her mom, to a dragon lady who's been in head of a major religion that she made up for centuries who actively stiffled/slowed down fodlann's scientific/academic growth for unknown reasons.

as for the tech thing, i mean, we see most of the tech inside garreg mach itself and nobody acknowledges any bans so it clearly was an extremely long time ago that they were taken down. also, edelgard never mentions these things as her reasons for war (or at all) so i don’t even think she’s aware of them so how could they color her view? like edel canonically doesn’t know about the homunculi so why would she find it sus?

Like if you didn't know about Rhea's whole deal, she'd look pretty suspiscious. This isn't me saying "edelgard completely right church bad! Rhea is evil!".

like i said above, all of rhea’s more suspicious behavior is never mentioned by edelgard. and everybody else in the game seems to like rhea well enough and not find her suspicious and all the crimes edelgard espouses are lies so what even is there that would turn her off from the archbishop other than the ‘beasts hiding in human skin’ thing.

the only character that has real legitimate reasons to not trust rhea due to personal experience and rhea’s extremely suspicious behavior is jeralt which he talks about in his journal. but that’s noting war worthy.

I'm more trying to say Edelgard was SORT of right in being suspiscious of everyones favorite lizard pope, but jumped to WAY too fast onto the conclusion of "The church is definitely evil, because crest=bad and crest=blessings of the goddess, therefore church=bad!"

i’m sure ionius had a hand in this since edel talks about how she has information about the church from him that’s been passed down from emperor to emperor (basically a centuries old game of telephone). what was told? who fucking know. she never says.

Rhea WORST 'crime' at most as leader of the church is that she was pretty passive as leader of the church.

is that the worst crime though? i mean, it’s a damned if you do and a damned if you don’t situation. rhea isn’t a queen, she isn’t an emperor, she’s a spiritual leader. she can’t force people to do anything outside of her staff at garreg mach. hell, she has no presence in adrestia, the western church hates her, and the eastern tries to help in the alliance but the nobles don’t listen to them.

the alternative is for her to grab actual political power and involve herself in the politics of the other nations and make laws that you have to follow the church’s teachings which is… uh… bad. thank goodness she doesn’t bc i wouldn’t be able to defend that lol

Like, apart from trying to keep the peace as a whole and hiding technology for a while until she decided (maybe arbitrarily maybe not) that humanity was ready for it, she seemed *largely* content with the state of things as a whole.

but she isn’t though. that’s why she’s trying to revive sothis in the first place. she isn’t satisfied with how things are and she’s actively trying to being back fodlan’s golden age through sothis.

Granted, that strikes me less as her not giving a shit and more just her not knowing about some if the bad shit going on behind the scenes in Fodlann, and her going "Okay yeah thats bad. Buuuut when mom's back she'll be a way better leader and she'll make everything way better than I ever could. Back to studying and researching homunculi children so I can maybe shove my moms soul into one."

yeah. when it comes to twsitd and them fucking shit up in the background she isn’t aware that it’s them. after the war of heroes the church had tried to uncover who helped nemesis since the church is suspicious of the fact that a simple bandit was able to commit so much horror on his own. they believed that he had accomplices who helped him, and with good reason. however, no matter how hard they looked they never discovered the puppet masters behind everything since twsitd covered their tracks and nobody knows they exist. the church eventually gave up the search in favor of helping the people and tried their best to put the incident behind them. and by the time of the game it’s been over a thousand years so i’m pretty sure that rhea believes them to be dead lol

then like you said at some point rhea starts her plan to fix fodlan through sothis again.

That's my take anyway. Basically if Rhea and the lords had a group therapy session a lot of tragedy could have been avoided. Alas therapists don't exist in fire emblem, just look at the various characters with underlying trauma that they havent dealt with.

very true.

#asks