#i do not like how people are just awful about rhea overall because a lot of her behavior is due to her trauma | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

selfproclaimedunicorn · 7 months

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If my OC was canon how would the fandom treat them? - for Ella!

Oh boy. My daughter is so much to think about this with

This potentially dips into light spoilers, but oh well. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ella would get the absolute most rancid discourse. She's selfish and brash and quick tempered with a tendency to lash out, she gets to a point where she thinks threats and violence can solve most of her problems: she's her dad with morals who is capable of occasionally apologizing. Fandom would hate that (God forbid women do anything), especially since she's not really on Rhaenyra’s side anymore after they grow up (purely because of growing apart and them both being fairly self-destructive). There'd be all kinds of half-baked meta stripping her of her nuance to say she's a completely irredeemable villain who's probably abusive to her kids and is an awful, self-serving bitch who's not actually Valyrian since her mom is Rhea Royce. Takes about how she helped Yorick to turn Aemon against their dad and Rhaenyra and Viserys (never mind Aemon is a little hater all on his own) and how she doesn't deserve Vermithor/stole him from someone who deserves him more and trying to paint it like it's a bad thing that Jaehaerys is rolling in his grave about her claiming him (he's doing that because a woman claimd his dragon, regardless of what she acts like, and I think that's beautiful).

On the flip side, she kind of accidentally came fresh from the I Am Not LIke Other Girls So I Think That Makes Me Inherently Progressive self-projection factory, so there'd probably be boocoos fic of the aforementioned Fandom Types writing "fix it AUs" where Ella "gets over her internalized misogyny to defect to the feminist side of the war" because she "realized Rhaenyra is her true friend and that this will honor Laena's memory and also her dad will/does love her."

Just a lot of overall misunderstanding of her character.

Ngl, I sort of struggle to think of what people who like her would do (outside of the "I don't 100% get Ella fix-it fics. Which, if you have those caveats, do you like a character, or do you just like what you want them to represent?). I can only assume half of the Ella Stan's time would be spent defending her from people who try to make her sound worse than she is. The other half is spent on psychoanlizing her and screaming about much they revel in everything that's wrong with her or going frame-by-frame on her tender moments (with her mom, with Vermithor, with her brothers, with her friends, with her husband and kids. It's all fair game)

In terms of shipping, I may or may not have a big document on the notes app of my phone where I have listed all the potential fics I think people would write if my babies were canon. So, looking at the bits about Ella: Harwin or Larys would be her most popular ships (outside her canon pairing, I am excluding her currently unmet husband), I feel that in my bones. Episode 3 would set either of those up & people who wanna ship her with someone besides Ser Robert Tyrell would not let that go. Ella/Laena & Ella/Yarwyck [another OC/her cousin] would probably be pretty well liked too, but given How Fandoms Are, I can honestly see Ella/Rhaenyra being more popular than Ella/Laena even though that one makes less sense (to me). Also, because this is The Targ Show and it's unavoidable (especially with how close they are), I know people would ship her with Yorick/her twin brother (and maybe even her younger brother/Aemon--nevermind that he's 11 years younger than her). I don't like it, neither of them would like it, literally only their dad would like it, but it would be there.

#asks #ocs #oc: ella royce #fic: sins of the father #this was really fun #sotf commentary

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inkperch · 6 months

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What I would change: El

starting off strong with my all around faves (and buying more time for me to actually finish BLs but shh), the Black Eagles.

And swinging right for the fences: Edelgard.

No notes, perfection.

Jokes aside, first thing that comes to mind is getting rid of the stupid joke options in her rat support. Like, god I hated that- I didn't pick either, on my playthrough, and remember that support as one of her more interesting ones, only to see most people remember it for El's scream being cute. Which. Sigh.

Other than that, absolutely give her supports outside of her own house+ Lysithea. Even more than the other Lords, she's the one who needed that, and it baffles me she didn't get it, they would not only allow her to get some juicy conflicting stances on her whole plan, but they would give the game a chance to justify why the other characters are willing to fight and die against their own country. As for the neat character stuff of her only supporting with those in her own house (The whole 'she doesn't let anyone get closer than the mask she wears' thing Edge of Dawn is all about-), just keep all of her other supports locked to post timeskip- hammering home that your actions have allowed her to let down her walls, just a little, and believe that people will follow her even when they know the real her-

Probably for the specifics I'd say the feargus four would need it most on their end of it (to explain why those three would follow her against their actual, genuine, friend in CF) (I'll go into that more when I finish BL when I do the Lions) , Leonie could get a pretty neat one about the fact El is. Kinda sorta absolutely complicit in Jeralts death, and shes going to honour her promise to Jeralt to look out for Byleth, but she's not best pleased with where that path has lead her. And just to even it out between BL and GD, Lorenz would have a fascinating tension with El, given that he'd be aligned with her whether he wanted to be or not, placing him on significantly more shaky ground on whether or not she trusts him-

(Mercedes would also be a good shout for a support, especially seeing as there's a certain someone to motivate you to recruit her on CF, but I feel that would, execution wise, likely end up too similar to Manuela's supports)

Which yeah, just a general aside, I'm absolutely giving all four (yeah four, I'm doing Ashen Wolves too) Lords more supports all around. Lord Supports are like, the place to explore the different routes differing character motives- (not applicable to AW, but doesn't need to be all four of them are getting more supports)

And, one that may be more of a hot take than above: downplay the fuck out of the romantic implications, replace them with Byleth filling the parental void in El's life. This is, to be completely honest, my read of canon anyway, the 'oh look, El's got a crush' moments all read a lot more of a general 'oh look, El's embarrassed to admit she's got a softer side,', and it really enhances the foil status between her and Rhea/Serios to read her relationship with Byleth as her seeing them as a parent and mentor- for. Somewhat self explanatory reasons. Rhea is commiting atrocities to get her mother back, El softens enough to commit far less atrocities because she has someone who can fill that role in her life (and also. She just really needs good parental figures yall-) (I have no doubt I'm gonna feel the same about Dmitri when I'm done with BL, these kids just need parents who aren't dead-)

Also: give her a way to get her hands on Seiros' stuff. Hell, give her only the shield (odds you're using SwordEl are low anyway), tweak Rhea's stats to accommodate and have her always discard it as a sign of just how much she's slipping on a CF route- she's so thoroughly stopped giving a damn about her own safety it's sword only time, get ready to be stabbed-

Let El find it on some routes as like a side quest or a map specific thing (The overall lack of late game optional quests does annoy me a bit overall)

Also on gameplay: pleeeeease let me use El's cool armour look as Wyvern Knight. I wanna see her cool badass armour but I can't because I like being able to move--

One last story note: give us more about El's siblings. Tell us about them, make us feel their absence in the narrative. Probably easier to do through Hubie than through El herself, given her absolute point blank refusal to dwell on the past, but if handled right could work as a show of her character development- she's no longer charging blindly into the future, shes willing to confront the pain of her past. (especially could work if you actually got to fight the Slithers, preferably pre-final-boss, and so get too actually see the part where she finally gets out of her abusers thumb which oh yeah that's a whole chunk of her character I would handle differently that I'm saving for when I get to talking about the Slithers-)

I think that's about it? And yes I did go back to doing these as one per character, it was getting long shh, gonna go through the BE in whatever the hell that order they default too in menus is meant to be, then the Golden Deer, Blue Lions, Ashen Wolves, the church, and then the Slithers (and then probably one or two 'oops I forgot to mention this' posts lol) gonna try and do at least one a day.

#fe3h #fire emblem #three houses #edelgard von hresvelg #edelgard fire emblem #It's been a hot minute since I finished my first CF and I only just started my second #So this is the one most likely to get a follow up lol #(will it be entirely bitching about armoured units? MAYBE)#fire emblem 3 houses

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holdharmonysacred · 3 years

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I want to read the Something Awful LP of FE3H but the fact that OP is doing Crimson Flower last combined with this one person in the thread having to constantly speak up in Azure Moon’s defense combined with several other weird comments about Edelgard and Rhea gives me super bad vibes. I’ve heard too many horror stories about hardcore edelgard stans, I won’t want to binge read the thread and get punched with extreme turbo ableism towards Dimitri or people being horrible about Rhea the literal genocide survivor.

#i know i bring up the rhea thing in every single post but i have to hammer it in every time #the writers made their fantasy pope lady - who is the final boss of edelgard's route - a LITERAL GENOCIDE SURVIVOR #it's pretty ugly on a game level that the lady WHO WANTS TO MAKE SURE HER PEOPLE DO NOT GET GENOCIDED AGAIN #gets consistently framed as suspicious or bad or an untrustworthy awful oppressive authority #even though the bulk of the non-byleth decisions she made were either her getting fored to work in preexisting systems #or were her TRYING TO MAKE SURE HER PEOPLE DO NOT GET GENOCIDED AGAIN #but the way i see fans talk about her is INFINITELY worse #i do not like to see people call THE LITERAL GENOCIDE SURVIVOR 'evil'.#i do not like to see fans hard buy into edelgard's imperialism and racism.#i do not like how people are just awful about rhea overall because a lot of her behavior is due to her trauma #where said trauma is SHE IS ONE OF THE ONLY SURVIVORS OF THE GENOCIDE OF HER PEOPLE #listen. you don't have to like rhea. i get why people wouldn't like the fantasy pope character.#especially when she can get a little WEIRD about byleth the self insert (though in all but one route she repents big time)#but like. you can not like her. and also not be god awful about her or act like edelgard was right #when again. rhea is a LITERAL GENOCIDE SURVIVOR who wants to NOT GET GENOCIDED AGAIN.

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pynkhues · 3 years

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.... any succession fic recs? 👀

Yes!! I haven't read a lot for it yet, but some of the stuff I've read has been staggeringly good. I'm generally more into gen fic in this particular fandom, but have enjoyed some Stewy x Kendall, Gerri x Roman and Naomi x Tabitha too.

A few recs under the cut!

“I wanted to get out. From under all this. Take the money and run.”

Kendall tells Stewy even though he knows he’ll never get it, not like Naomi does. He’ll never understand the crush of it, the heart-stopping head-fucking fear of failing a tyrant. Kendall’s been ignoring the shape of it for a long time, putting pieces of it together in the back of his mind in total darkness like a blindfolded man. It doesn’t matter that one day his dad will die. It doesn’t matter about the money or the hostile takeover or the stolen files or any of it. There’s no running. Kendall’s Logan Roy lives inside his head.

Stewy laughs. Stewy laughs for a long time.

“There is no out, Ken, what the fuck are you talking about? You were born this and you’ll die this. You are what you are, and what you are is a fucking Roy.”

Kendall hates him, for a moment. Lightning-strike furious. What the fuck does he know about any of it, about his dad’s swinging dinner plate-sized hands, about getting 24% name recognition in reliable international polling, about puking every time you think about a car swerving off the road in the rain. About finding out that you can do something unthinkably, unimaginably terrible, and it doesn’t matter to anyone you know but you. There’s a scar on his arm that no one else who hasn’t already been told how it got there can ever know about, and he’s sick of it, and it’s not fair. He hates Stewy for a moment because Stewy’s right.

“I wanted to do the right thing, Stewy, for once in my fucking life.”

Stewy laughs again, more briefly, and the predator flash of his eyes in the neon of the motel sign is a torture all its own.

‘There is no right and wrong, Ken. How the fuck do you not know that yet? Not for people like you. Like us. There’s shit you get caught doing and there’s shit you don’t.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You really, really fucking don’t,” says Ken, and fuck, there it is. The road less travelled, that only he has ever driven on. The path he’s down where Stewy can’t follow. That place beyond Stewy Hosseini where he never thought he could go.

“You’re not telling me something, and when I find out what that is, and I will find out what it is, Kendall, don’t you think I won’t, so I am warning you that when I do find out I am going to be righteously fucking pissed,” says Stewy, and if Kendall thought those were a predator’s eyes before—

“Yeah, you will,” says Kendall, because he knows exactly how perceptive Stewy is. Exactly how weak he is. Exactly, precisely what both of them are.

And treat this night like it’ll happen again by postcardmystery. 8k words. Kendall x Stewy. Post s2. (CW: internalised homophobia, some homophobic language)

I tried to pick a shorter excerpt, but I literally couldn’t, this fic is so. good. The voices are pitch perfect, and it’s got this incredible build to it overall that goes back and forth between time and point of views and just rips your heart out. The premise itself is pretty simple – after the press conference at the end of 2.10, Kendall calls Stewy, and they drive through rural America while Kendall has a breakdown, and it’s just - - unspeakably good. I love it so so so much, I have no words.

r/roysucks Connor’s gf just posted on Instagram (instagram.com) submitted two months ago by webbedscrum_2279 23 comments share save hide report

[–] DM_ME_SAMESMAIL 40 points two months ago I too like to escape to my yacht in the Mediterranean when my family and I are on trial for covering up rape and murder. permalink embed save report reply

AITA for accusing my father of multiple crimes on his own news station? By amleth 3k words. Gen fic. Post s2.

And now for something completely different – epistolary fic which is just reddit news threads of the Roy family drama. I love an epistolary fic and this is just totally charming, and made me laugh a lot out loud.

“You’re quiet,” she observes. “That’s a first.”

“Yeah, well, the Turks beat it out of me. Gave you a run for their money.” He waggles his eyebrows. “So what is this? Whips and chains? Are we doing the whole boat-sex thing? I heard Shiv and Tom are looking for a third —“

Gerri finds what she’s looking for: a black leather binder. She drops it on the bed and begins paging through it, and Roman cranes his neck enough to recognize that it’s just full of documents, not like, dick pics. “I’ve given some thought to what you proposed a few weeks ago, and I agree that we should make things official in some way,” she says, and he blinks.

“Uh,” he says. “Which — what part of it?”

“Take a look.”

Gerri closes the folio and hands it over. It’s deceptively heavy, and the print on these pages is way too fucking fine, he thinks, paging through it. “Is this some kind of, like, Fifty Shades of Roy sex contract? Because it’s not that I’m not into it, but I think there’s a strong argument for going paperless —”

“Strictly speaking, this isn’t legally binding,” Gerri says. “Just something I threw together with regard to our business arrangement going forward. But with no respect to the family — the past few weeks have really illustrated that no one should take anyone at their word right now. Give me a little more than your word.”

Evacuation strategies for a yacht on fire by devourthemoon. 11k words. Gerri x Roman. Post s2. Explicit.

After the events of s2, Roman and Gerri fake being married as a professional alliance, only, y’know, maybe it’s not so fake. This fic is just so, so much fun, and messy in the best possible way. The author nails all the character voices, and the sex scenes are just the right amount of hot and ridiculous, and I just love it all a lot too.

Kendall estimates it will take an hour for the first articles to go up. Some rapid-fire blog without oversight—the New York Post, maybe, or wherever those Vaulter hippies have skulked off to—will slap a catchy headline on it and report his words verbatim. Give or take a gif of his face when he switches to script number two. New York Times, Washington Post, AP, those fuckers take longer. They like to bleed the story like Middle Ages plague doctors for its marrow, fact-check and add context and analysis and as many backlinks as their servers can handle. Still, a couple of hours, and his face will be plastered on every major news outlet. His voice will play over the nightly talk shows. He’ll trend on Twitter. A few more days, and he’ll be the star of analysis segments, podcasts, weekly briefings. Maybe, fuck it, maybe he’ll trend on Twitter again.

It’s been years since Kendall read Shakespeare. But that shit sticks with you, gets under your skin and emerges when you least expect it, like eczema or Keynesian economics. He knows how the media will spin this. Kendall Roy Attacks CEO Logan for Years of Corruption. Prodigal Son Disrupts Family Legacy to Restore Credibility. That’s how Hamlet ends, right? And Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, even Titus fucking Andronicus. The spilled blood sinks into the ground, the seedlings sprout forth from the soil, and a new castle is built on the bones. Order out of chaos, or at least close enough an approximation that the tabloids will buy it.

Legacy for profit by owlinaminor Post-2.10. Kendall Roy. Kendall through Shakespeare analogies – just - - ooooof. It's a beautiful, lyrical character study that weaves through Roy family history and teases at a future none of them are even sure they want. It's gorgeous writing.

For the next few days Shiv would have to keep the pressure on Kira like an open wound because there were other women, victims that Nate’s people were going to find one by one as soon as that phone call disconnected. Mo was her father’s friend, good friend, for a long, long time. Nate and Gil, Sandy and Stewy, too many sharks in the water and the share price probably dipped to a new low but she would never check a stock ticker. Her husband’s nerves fraying at the edges on national television. She had promised a woman she’d never met before that she would kill roughly one third of the top male executives of her family’s company. Her company.

The last look Rhea gave her before she shut the car door was concern close to fear—no longer the same woman who heard their pitch in the safe room, who laughed with her at Argestes. Rhea had only looked into the abyss; she got cold feet and she didn’t even know what it’s like to grow up in it.

Her family’s company is hers, will be hers. Even from a whale fall, new life would spring.

Feed his flesh to wayward daughters by reogulus. 2k words. Shiv Roy. Set during 2.09.

This entire fic is set around Shiv bribing Kira not to testify, and god, it is so good. It’s bleak and rough, and really hones in on the complex ground Shiv walks as a character. It's another brilliant study of what it takes to be a Roy, and the way they make the awful choices in order to fulfill this legacy that they don't even know they want.

Kendall sets down his fork. “So. Tell me. Is it everything you wanted? Is it what you thought it would be?”

Roman stills. He never does that. He’s constantly a menace in motion, slouching and fidgeting, worse even than Kendall at his amphetamine peak. “What? The view from the tippy-tippy-top?”

“His regard.” Kendall wipes his mouth with the edge of the white cloth napkin. It comes away pink from the steak. “Dad. He’s all yours now.”

Roman still hasn’t moved. Finally, he lurches, like corroded machinery come uncertainly to life. “Yeah, man. It’s fucking tight as hell. I love every beautiful daddy and me moment I was a good enough little boy to earn.” He snorts. “Fuck you.” His face goes curiously slack then, like something Kendall’s own face would do. An intermission in the performance, an energy cut. Something genuine finding its way to the surface. “Why don’t you tell me. When you got everything you wanted, how the fuck did that make you feel?”

Nauseous, is the first word that springs to mind. Sick. Scared. I’ve never had everything I wanted, there’s that. I’ve never once had a single fucking thing I wanted. There’s that, too.

Interim leadership by arbitrarily 2k words. Roman + Kendall. Post s2.

I love Roman and Kendall scenes generally, but this one which features Kendall and Roman meeting for the first time a few months after the press conference in 2.10 is just a bit magic. The push pull dynamic that's just inherent to them mixed with the genuine affection and brotherly love is really special, and arbitrarily embraces both in equal measure. It's a great little fic.

There are lots more of course, and I'd also recommend checking out other works by these authors, but I hope this is a good place to start! :-)

#hbo succession #succession fic #fic recs #welcome to my ama #kendall x stewy #gerri x roman

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masterserris · 5 years

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all things considered, i think the blue lions ending is the “true” ending and at least the happiest of endings... we’ll see when the dlcs come out tho

spoilers under cut

THE TEA IS SIPPETHED

it’s literally the only ending in which dimitri lives and becomes the “savior king” and saves the continent and creates a new democratic government to fix the broken old noble/chest system.

edelgard dies but like. she did that to herself by LITERALLY STARTING A WAR AND KILLING THOUSANDS OVER 5 YEARS. like that bitch had it coming. she may have wanted a better future by getting rid of a corrupt church but fuck that bitch honestly she coulda gone about it in a better way

idk about the golden deer route, i havent seen much on it, but eh dimitri still dies and i think so does edelgard so it isnt much better. just slightly better than the black eagle route. church route is also in the same boat.

idk man dimitri and the blue lions literally did nothing wrong. the kingdom did nothing wrong, they only ever acted out of self defense. so fuck the empire honestly afjsafnjaksfajksfjaks for as wack as dimitri gets it ONLY happens because of MASSIVE ptsd, depression, and anxiety caused BY the empire, his step mother, and edelgard. like his step mom had his whole family killed in front of him, blamed it on duscur to destroy them, then she got killed by edelgard i think or smth. his dad LITERALLY was beheaded in front of him and people/buildings were burned too. like holy fuck he’s just a KID goddamn

anyways, the empire is literally the invading imperialistic army so. yeah. no. edelgard can’t just be like: “aw ur in the wrong dimitri!1!! you are a bad person to keep fighting back and killing more people!!111!! even tho i started all this shit and killed thousands of innocent people to begin with!1! i burned a whole village mother fucker!”

“UR A DELUSIONAL PRINCE FOR DEFENDING YOUR HOMELAND AND CHURCH ALLIES”

before killing him. like fuck. that. bitch. UGH.

like he didnt even know it was his step mom that did it until later when he finally takes the throne. it’s bullshit, all he knew is some bastards like the flame emperor were behind it, that’s all. he wanted Rightful revenge for the murder of his family, the destruction of garreg mach and the “death” of his teacher, AND the 5 year war that butchered the continent and his homeland.

dimitri is valid as FUCK for being pissed at her and the empire. wack. it’s all wack. he’s the best boy and the only route that leads to a good ending for him and the kingdom overall is the blue lions route so there.

he gets all crazed but honestly who wouldnt. dont gaslight the man for having a super fucked up life and stressful from like age 10 and on. he deserves peace for all he’s been through and he does a fucking fantastic job once he gets his shit together.

edit: based on all the likes i’ve been getting on this i can probably just assume that I Am Right About This

sorry i dont make the rules nsfjanfjannfjnnjk

also all the shit edelgard wanted? dimitri went and did anyways. he got rid of the bullshit nobility and made things more of a democracy. like all she did was kinda pointless and made a lot of enemies.

sure, byleth still has that thing in their chest but who GIVES A FUCK. they still live their life just fine like damn. rhea retires the fuck away regardless. so she aint being a tyrant anymore. byleth is in charge. like damn all the “good shit” from the black eagle playthrough is IN THIS ONE PLUS DIMITRI LIVES AND MORE PEOPLE LIVE AND HAVE GOOD LIVES.

so yeah

also also: empires always ALWAYS crumble as nations desire their independence. in a few decades after edelgard leaves you can BET your ass someone will wanna revolt from their control. imperialism never works forever folks. look at all of human history for that example. the other nations in fodlan should remain free.

i think by the end dimitri rules all the lands in fodlan? mainly bc the empire just got dethroned and they are destabilized (the alliance is also destabilized but i think they are mostly ok), so it makes sense he would rule/join the two (empire/kingdom) together for mutual growth. but they are still at least sorta recognized as their own territories. they aren’t just wiped from history like edelgard did ffs.

ALSO. ANOTHER THING (sorry i keep editting this bc i have so many thoughts)

THE FINAL FUCKING CUTSCENE OF BLUE LIONS

AFTER FUCKING EVERYTHING HE OFFERS EDELGARD HIS HAND. EVEN AFTER THE WAR. AFTER SHE TURNED INTO A FUCKING DEMON AND TRIED TO KILL HIM. AFTER. FUCKING. EVERYTHING. HE STILL GIVES HER ONE LAST CHANCE

HE FUCKING MEANS IT TOO, THIS AIN’T SOME BULLSHIT PLOY.

BUT NO, SHE FUCKING STABS HIM WITH THE KNIFE HE GAVE HER ALL THOSE YEARS AGO. SO HE HAS TO KILL HER WITH HIS LANCE. HE ISN’T STARTLED OR SURPRISED. JUST HURT.

STONE COLD AFTER BEING BETRAYED BY HER OVER AND OVER AGAIN. HE JUST RIPS THAT SHIT OUT AND DROPS IT ON THE FLOOR. HE’S DONE WITH HER AND NEEDS TO MOVE ON.

BUT! BUT! BYLETH LOOKS BACK AT HER AND SO DOES DIMITRI, BUT BYLETH STOPS HIM. DON’T LOOK BACK. MOVE ON. THE FUCKING HAND HOLD. LIKE DAMN. BEST BUDS FOR LIFE. THEY GOT EACH OTHER’S BACK LIKE NO ONE ELSE.

AND THEY MOVE ON INTO THE LIGHT TO THE CHEERING CROWDS BECAUSE AT LONG FUCKING LAST THE WAR IS OVER AND THEY STILL HAVE THEIR INTEGRITY.

after all the bullshit, they still have the highest moral ground and actually fix things. even after offering their enemy peace.

----------------------------------------------

after the cutscene!! the epilogue!!

LIKE MOTHER FUCKER, THIS IS ALL THE PROOF YOU NEED THAT HE IS THE BEST BOY AND HAS THE BEST ROUTE FUCK OFF

DEMOCRACY: CHECK

HELPING THE DISADVANTAGED: CHECK

LISTENING/HELPING TO MINORITIES/FOREIGNERS/DUSCUR: CHECK

CORRUPTION FREE: CHECK

BYLETH IS FINE AND IS THE NEW ARCH BISHOP FOR A BETTER CHURCH, RHEA JUST PEACES OUT: CHECK

MOVING PAST HIS MENTAL ILLNESS AND PTSD FOR THE BETTERMENT OF HIMSELF AND OTHERS/THE KINGDOM: CHECKITY FUCKING CHECK

THE ABSOLUTE LEGEND HIMSELF, DIMITRI

edit edit: also look at the murals specifically, i’m gonna point out some shit real quick.

first, dimitri’s:

It’s in nature. Birds and trees and leaves. Calm and harmonious.

Children are playing and smiling, food is being passed out by the soldiers to the people. they are thankful.

byleth is addressing the people, writing out reforms and decrees, making sure things are aright.

the people of duscur are literally at the side of dimitri, the king.

looks like people from the alliance are on the far left of the mural, they are carrying gifts but they dont seem unhappy about it. just. normal.

dimitri is lower than everyone on the canvas besides a person on their knees asking for help and literal children. he is seated down at THEIR level, smiling AT them and doesn’t mind the kid pulling at him and playing. very relaxed. he’s sitting on just a regular ol’ tree stump. no throne. no opulence. just him, bc that’s all that’s needed.

NOW, LET’S LOOK AT EDELGARD’S OOHH BOY:

she is the tallest above them all, next to her is a divine figure, she is holding a staff as well. she is power. she is above all other peoples. she is STEPPING on a national flag with impunity. she doesn’t CARE she is the one in charge and no one can stand against it.

everyone from the other nations are bowing their heads and being submissive, but they certainly dont look happy. they look anxious as hell. their kingdoms are literally being trampled by the emperor. she is in her grand castle, gold and red and opulent. power and riches and rule.

the common folk, however look up to her. they see her as a second saint seiros. a better one. hence the divine figure next to her. she is like a god to them. not ideal. they seem happy, but no. they are looking to her for guidance in a troubled time caused by HER actions.

let’s not forget the mage in the back holding a knife. things are far from peaceful.

the two very different moods of these pictures say all. one is true peace where everyone seems to be thriving with a compassionate ruler.

the other is domineering and crushing in presence. people are anxious about the future with violence still on the horizon.

yeah, no. blue lions >>>> black eagles.

(i’m currently playing through golden deer which is looking p good so far, def better than black eagles and then im gonna do the church route. we’ll see how THAT goes anfjanjfnnfasjns)

edelgard stans dont interact

#spoilers under cut #fe16 #thoughts #fe #fe three houses #dimitri #edelgard

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crystalelemental · 4 years

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Ok... my thoughts about the DLC. I played on hard, and the side story was INSANELY challenging, which was nice because I was craving that. That said... it was really short. They had a perfect opportunity to do playable Sothis and/or Rhea and DIDN'T, which I can't really wrap my head around. It could have only been for one or two maps (the last two) and I would have been satisfied! But nothing. I was kind of hoping for a new part 2 route based on the Ashen Wolves with playable Sothis/Rhea, but...

But no, that didn't happen. Then finally, in addition, neither Constance nor Hapi have marriages with F-Byleth, and there are no new marriages at all besides with those characters? I mean. I'm not happy. I get that Yuri can marry both Byleths but like. Make the others like that. I prefer playing as FByleth because I feel her eyes are more expressive but I can't marry who I want and thats stupid as hell. If this is the complete DLC, I dont think id recommend it to anyone else, honestly.

I’m actually glad we didn’t get a new part 2 route. I feel like such a decision could’ve very easily been made to be the “peaceful” route, akin to Revelation, where it’s everyone getting to be happy, but is kind of stupid and badly handled. So while it would’ve been nice for everyone to live, I feel like that would’ve thrown off the balance a bit.

As for the rest...under the cut.

My big issue is they didn’t explain much. I was honestly hoping for more of an explanation on the how and what of Sitri. Church route explains that Rhea made Sitri, but we get exactly no insight into exactly what she did or how that’s even possible. I would have liked to get to know more about Sitri’s origins. At one point, my guess for Sitri’s body in Abyss was that Rhea just kept the clones down there in her closet and Aelfric just happened to find one of them.

I love Rhea, don’t get me wrong, but I also feel like a lot of this route kinda backpedaled on the Church route exposition. What I mean is, Church route has Rhea admit to creating human life, and mostly using it as a vessel for her mother’s return. She doesn’t seem to care much beyond that. Even Byleth, ultimately, is meant to be a house for the progenitor god, who she ultimately attempts to erase by having Sothis reincarnate in them. It’s really not a flattering picture for Rhea, who honestly seems really corrupt and selfish in that moment.

Ashen Wolves instead presents this idea that she really cared a lot about Sitri, and was upset at her passing, so much so that she preserved the body in Abyss. That...doesn’t really line up with what we know of Rhea, as it applies to the vessels she prepares. I’m all for Rhea actually being nice, and being kinder than most people seem willing to give credit for, but this route felt like it too that almost too far in the direction of “Rhea is innocent.” Sure, okay. She really loved Sitri so much that Sitri was like a daughter, and that’s definitely why she kept the body perfectly preserved. That seems very believable from the person who is currently trying to have us destroyed to bring back her mother. I guess the parallels with Aelfric are cool, but eh. There’s a lot that didn’t feel perfect in this route. I did hear someone on Twitter claim it was Conquest levels of dumb, but I don’t really agree. I think it was ultimately fine, it just didn’t address the things I’d hope for, and mostly focused on Aelfric’s dick inadequacies. I went into this hoping for more depth on mysteries within the main game, but instead we got something...completely unrelated, and it’s not bad but it’s not entirely what I had wanted.

I think deep down, I was hoping for what would never happen, which is for anyone to just say Morph or Quintessence. I know that wouldn’t happen, but the dragonkin are called Nabateans. Nabateans. Nabata. Tell me this is related to Elibe, dammit. I don’t care how, just do it.

As for gameplay, it was...fun? I have a lot of thoughts but I’ll stick with two. One is, reinforcements on these maps suck. They’re obnoxious and awful and I hate them. The map conditions are unique and fun, and there are certain conditions that prioritize moving your ass forward rather than trying to just tank out, which is a good way to make use of characters who aren’t Edelgard and Hilda. I just feel like certain maps went way, way too heavy on reinforcements as a thing, and it really bogged it down. The DLC is overall pretty short, but some maps felt like an eternity with this dumb shit. Also Yuri pulls a “set the town on fire to protect it” move by having Hapi summon a bunch of monsters when we’re down to the last three enemy units. Thanks buddy, that...that’s good thinking there.

The other is that I...actually love the pre-set classes and everything. I get that people like customization, and the lack of the weapon triangle facilitates that by ensuring no one’s completely fucked because they made an army of Wyvern Lords and Gremories. But...what’s stopping you from making an army of Wyvern Lords and Gremories? They’re categorically the best classes, why do you need anything else? I feel like the lack of weapon restriction alongside the lack of a weapon triangle allows you too much freedom, and it results in a lot of the core gameplay being kinda...less involved. Skills aren’t that strong, no weapon triangle, no weapon restrictions on your units, double magic casts means you literally never think about running out because there’s so many...the challenges of the game start to become “I can one-shot anything from anywhere because Meteor or Thyrsus,” or “I’m going to bait these enemies out with my godwall, who will tank exactly 100% of all threats with no issue because nothing can stop them.” It’s not really as fun. I like to play for stats, but I also like the knowledge that no pure stat wall is going to body the game if you’re not playing smart in most cases. I feel like Three Houses doesn’t have that. A unit with strong mixed defense and good attack basically faces no issues at all. It makes the main game even more of a chore. I appreciated Ashen Wolves for locking in your base stats, your class option, etc. But at the same time. Callie played it and I directed, yet I have no desire to play it myself now. Because...nothing’s going to be different. I can’t use different characters for different purposes, and without the customization aspect of the main game, that means there’s...basically no reason to replay it. I like having things overall be a bit more set, but as a side-story where all characters are deployed, it lacks variety.

All that to say, I kinda agree? Like, the DLC pack really feels like it’s more for the characters and classes added to the main game. Which is 100% fine with me. I am all about Dark Flier Lysithea and will never give this up. Also Constance best girl, it’s bullshit she’s not a bi option.

#ashen wolves

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markoftheasphodel · 5 years

Text

Semi-blind PT#1 (Blue Lions) FE16 reactions: Chapter 17 Complete

Well, that was a shitshow of a bloodbath...

Monastery exploration stuff first. Great to have Dedue back; I immediately invited him to tea and cooking to build up his motivation after having been gone. I went and manually instructed Ingrid to raise her damn Authority back to the point where she could command a battalion. I unlocked a bunch more supports, some fun and some really touching (Mercedes and Dedue talking about recipes was quite poignant).

And then there was Felix’s B-support with Dedue, which... yeah. “Rabid Dog.”

The thing is, I think Felix is a well-written and compelling character. Pretty much the entire cast I’m using this route is (BL + Church folk + teachers + 4 GD/BE recruits). It doesn’t mean he’s not being awful to Dedue and Dimitri both. And yet... he does have a point that a dude who tells you “I’m so loyal to this guy who is off his rocker that I’ll gladly commit war crimes for him” isn’t a fucking terrifying thing to behold even if he spends his free time tending the roses.

Just like Cornelia is kinda right about calling Gilbert a senile old fool. Hell, Gilbert admits his particular brand of self-flagellation is foolish. He just can’t bring himself to stop, however half-hearted it is at this point.

The arguments go round and round with no actual right answer at this point in the narrative-- loyalty and honor and faith and fidelity and the actual value of abstract ideals as measured in human lives. Ingrid and Felix and Rodrigue and Dimitri and Dedue with the shadows of the death hanging over them all, Annette and Gilbert and their little drama, the void left by Rhea, and the people just kind of trying to get on with their lives. It’s the stuff that made me love Fire Emblem in the first place, rendered in multi-part dialogue whereas the SNES era could only touch upon it.

(THRACIA. REMAKE. NOW.)

Which brings me to Our Lord on this route. Dimitri takes the concept of a War of Shadows!Marth or a Leif-- grieving, angry, OK with some bloody revenge, still a child carrying the burden of other peoples’ ideals-- and takes it to its awful conclusion. I harp on the Leif comparison because it feels pretty valid; the Tragedy of Duscur in both the “ambush murder” part and the “overall atrocity” part is this worlds’s version of the one-two punch of the Yied Massacre & Fall of Leonster, the existential body blow that everyone in Dimitri’s posse is reeling from. The Kingdom’s surviving adults aren’t capable of properly adulting on account of it-- though Rodrigue at least tried.

And, like Leif, it takes the brutal death of one of those few remaining adults to snap him out of his illusions about what the war is really about and what he as its future king needs to do for his people. Rodrigue may’ve been marked for death from the moment he showed up just by being an NPC surrogate parent, but the way it was done-- a direct payback for Dimitri’s own poor conduct in war-- was damned effective.

Wouldn’t have guessed on the front end that Rodrigue was a more sympathetic version of Dorias (with son Felix serving as his surly August!) but yeah, he pretty much is.

[Speaking of flawed parents, gotta love how upfront Byleth is about Jeralt’s drinking problem whenever it comes up to Alois. Nah, he just drank a lot. Eh, remember the old man by getting a nice bottle of booze. Pour one out for the Blade Breaker.]

Oh yes, the actual Battle of Gronder Field. Holy shit. The Black Eagles weren’t so bad, as Ingrid and Seteth (B-supported fliers) took on the left half of the map without TOO much trouble and then got down to Edelgard and eliminated her. The Golden Deer just slaughtered everyone else. Annette’s initial gambit weakened Claude and his peeps but nobody could land a second hit on Claude to take him down-- not with gambits or support chains or Hero Relics or the g-damn Creator’s Sword. Hilda and Raphael and Lysithea were terrifying. Since I was on Casual Mode, I kept playing as my units died just to see how bad this shit would get and if anyone could actually take down Claude. Dimitri couldn’t, and at Level 41 he was the highest-leveled of my entire crew.

At the end, a mortally wounded Ingrid landed the final blow on Claude with her holy weapon. She was the only remaining Blue Lion on the field and had survived to that point by dodging Golden Deer arrows and the amusing fact that the AI for Claude and Lysithea prioritized the Crest Beasts over winning the game. So yeah, I got to progress in the game but at an appalling cost. Yay Casual Mode.

Also... CLAUDE’S ON A WYVERN??? Man, Heroes made me think he was cavalry.

RIP to Bernadetta and Raphael, dead for real and mourned by their Lords. Hubert and Hilda retreated, and I deliberately left Petra alive but Lysithea wasn’t so kind. I think Petra’s final quote sounded like retreat and not death tho. Lysithea the walking nuke was still standing, untouchable, when Claude fell.

Damn.

#fe16 spoilers #fe16 #mark joins the blue lions #jugdral meta #jugdral remake speculation

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megscommonplacebook · 6 years

Video

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Abby Wambach: Barnard Commencement 2018

Here is the transcript:

Abby Wambach, Remarks as Delivered

Greetings to President Beilock, Barnard faculty, trustees, and honorees: Katherine Johnson, Anna Quindlen, and Rhea Suh.

And to each of the 619 bad-ass women of the Barnard graduating class of 2018: Congratulations!

Doesn’t it feel like the second you figure anything out in life, it ends and you’re forced to start all over again?

Experts call these times of life “transitions.” I call them terrifying.

I went through a terrifying transition recently when I retired from soccer.

The world tries to distract us from our fear during these transitions by creating fancy ceremonies for us. This graduation is your fancy ceremony. Mine was the ESPYs, a nationally televised sports award show. I had to get dressed up for that just like you got dressed up for this, but they sent me a really expensive fancy stylist. It doesn’t look like you all got one. Sorry about that.

So it went like this: ESPN called and told me they were going to honor me with their inaugural icon award. I was humbled, of course, to be regarded as an icon. Did I mention that I’m an icon?

I received my award along with two other incredible athletes: basketball’s Kobe Bryant and football’s Peyton Manning. We all stood on stage together and watched highlights of our careers with the cameras rolling and the fans cheering—and I looked around and had a moment of awe. I felt so grateful to be there—included in the company of Kobe and Peyton. I had a momentary feeling of having arrived: like we women had finally made it.

Then the applause ended and it was time for the three of us to exit stage left. And as I watched those men walk off the stage, it dawned on me that the three of us were stepping away into very different futures.

Each of us, Kobe, Peyton and I—we made the same sacrifices, we shed the same amount of blood sweat and tears, we’d left it all on the field for decades with the same ferocity, talent and commitment—but our retirements wouldn’t be the same at all. Because Kobe and Peyton walked away from their careers with something I didn’t have: enormous bank accounts. Because of that they had something else I didn’t have: freedom. Their hustling days were over; mine were just beginning.

Later that night, back in my hotel room, I laid in bed and thought: this isn’t just about me, and this isn’t just about soccer.

We talk a lot about the pay gap. We talk about how we U.S. women overall still earn only 80 cents on the dollar compared to men, and black women make only 63 cents, while Latinas make 54 cents. What we need to talk about more is the aggregate and compounding effects of the pay gap on women’s lives. Over time, the pay gap means women are able to invest less and save less so they have to work longer. When we talk about what the pay gap costs us, let's be clear. It costs us our very lives.

And it hit me that I’d spent most of my time during my career the same way I'd spent my time on that ESPYs stage. Just feeling grateful. Grateful to be one of the only women to have a seat at the table. I was so grateful to receive any respect at all for myself that I often missed opportunities to demand equality for all of us.

But as you know, women of Barnard—CHANGE. IS. HERE.

Women have learned that we can be grateful for what we have while also demanding what we deserve.

Like all little girls, I was taught to be grateful. I was taught to keep my head down, stay on the path, and get my job done. I was freaking Little Red Riding Hood.

You know the fairy tale: It’s just one iteration of the warning stories girls are told the world over. Little Red Riding Hood heads off through the woods and is given strict instructions: Stay on the path. Don’t talk to anybody. Keep your head down hidden underneath your Handmaid’s Tale cape.

And she does… at first. But then she dares to get a little curious and she ventures off the path. That’s of course when she encounters the Big Bad Wolf and all hell breaks loose. The message is clear: Don’t be curious, don’t make trouble, don’t say too much or BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.

I stayed on the path out of fear, not of being eaten by a wolf, but of being cut, being benched, losing my paycheck.

If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing it would be this:

“Abby, you were never Little Red Riding Hood; you were always the wolf.”

So when I was entrusted with the honor of speaking here today, I decided that the most important thing for me to say to you is this:

BARNARD WOMEN—CLASS OF 2018—WE. ARE. THE. WOLVES.

In 1995, around the year of your birth, wolves were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park after being absent for seventy years.

In those years, the number of deer had skyrocketed because they were unchallenged, alone at the top of the food chain. They grazed away and reduced the vegetation, so much that the river banks were eroding.

Once the wolves arrived, they thinned out the deer through hunting. But more significantly, their presence changed the behavior of the deer. Wisely, the deer started avoiding the valleys, and the vegetation in those places regenerated. Trees quintupled in just six years. Birds and beavers started moving in. The river dams the beavers built provided habitats for otters and ducks and fish. The animal ecosystem regenerated. But that wasn’t all. The rivers actually changed as well. The plant regeneration stabilized the river banks so they stopped collapsing. The rivers steadied—all because of the wolves’ presence.

See what happened here?

The wolves, who were feared as a threat to the system, turned out to be its salvation.

Barnard women, are you picking up what I’m laying down here?

Women are feared as a threat to our system—and we will also be our society’s salvation.

Our landscape is overrun with archaic ways of thinking about women, about people of color, about the “other,” about the rich and the poor, about the the powerful and the powerless—and these ways of thinking are destroying us.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

We will not Little Red Riding Hood our way through life. We will unite our pack, storm the valley together and change the whole bloody system.

Throughout my life, my pack has been my team.

Teams need a unifying structure, and the best way to create one collective heartbeat is to establish rules for your team to live by. It doesn’t matter what specific page you’re all on, just as long as you’re all on the same one.

Here are four rules I’ve used to unite my pack and lead them to gold.

Rule One: MAKE FAILURE YOUR FUEL

Here’s something the best athletes understand, but seems like a hard concept for non-athletes to grasp. Non-athletes don’t know what to do with the gift of failure. So they hide it, pretend it never happened, reject it outright—and they end up wasting it.

Listen: Failure is not something to be ashamed of, it's something to be POWERED by. Failure is the highest octane fuel your life can run on. You gotta learn to make failure your fuel.

When I was on the Youth National Team, only dreaming of playing alongside Mia Hamm. You know her? Good. I had the opportunity to visit the National Team’s locker room. The thing that struck me most wasn’t my heroes' grass-stained cleats or their names and numbers hanging above their lockers—it was a picture. It was a picture that someone had taped next to the door so that It would be the last thing every player saw before she headed out to the training pitch.

You might guess it was a picture of their last big win, of them standing on a podium accepting gold medals—but it wasn’t. It was a picture of their longtime rival—the Norwegian national team—celebrating after having just beaten the USA in the 1995 World Cup.

In that locker room, I learned that in order to become my very best—on the pitch and off—I’d need to spend my life letting the feelings and lessons of failure transform into my power. Failure is fuel. Fuel is power.

Women, listen to me. We must embrace failure as our fuel instead of accepting it as our destruction.

As Michelle Obama recently said: "I wish that girls could fail as well as men do and be okay. Because let me tell you watching men fail up—it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to see men blow it and win. And we hold ourselves to these crazy, crazy standards."

Wolf Pack: Fail up. Blow it, and win.

Rule Two: LEAD FROM THE BENCH

Imagine this: You’ve scored more goals than any human being on the planet—female or male. You’ve co-captained and led Team USA in almost every category for the past decade. And you and your coach sit down and decide together that you won’t be a starter in your last World Cup for Team USA.

So… that sucked.

You’ll feel benched sometimes, too. You’ll be passed over for the promotion, taken off the project—you might even find yourself holding a baby instead of a briefcase—watching your colleagues “get ahead.”

Here’s what’s important. You are allowed to be disappointed when it feels like life’s benched you. What you aren’t allowed to do is miss your opportunity to lead from the bench.

During that last World Cup, my teammates told me that my presence, my support, my vocal and relentless belief in them from the bench is what gave them the confidence they needed to win us that championship.

If you’re not a leader on the bench, don’t call yourself a leader on the field. You’re either a leader everywhere or nowhere.

And by the way: the fiercest leading I’ve ever seen has been done between mother and child. Parenting is no bench. It just might be the big game.

Wolf Pack: Wherever you’re put, lead from there.

Rule Three: CHAMPION EACH OTHER

During every 90-minute soccer match there are a few magical moments when the ball actually hits the back of the net and a goal is scored. When this happens, it means that everything has come together perfectly—the perfect pass, the perfectly timed run, every player in the right place at exactly the right time: all of this culminating in a moment in which one player scores that goal.

What happens next on the field is what transforms a bunch of individual women into a team. Teammates from all over the field rush toward the goal scorer. It appears that we’re celebrating her: but what we’re REALLY celebrating is every player, every coach, every practice, every sprint, every doubt, and every failure that this one single goal represents.

You will not always be the goal scorer. And when you are not—you better be rushing toward her.

Women must champion each other. This can be difficult for us. Women have been pitted against each other since the beginning of time for that one seat at the table. Scarcity has been planted inside of us and among us. This scarcity is not our fault. But it is our problem. And it is within our power to create abundance for women where scarcity used to live.

As you go out into the world: Amplify each others’ voices. Demand seats for women, people of color and all marginalized people at every table where decisions are made. Call out each other’s wins and just like we do on the field: claim the success of one woman, as a collective success for all women.

Joy. Success. Power. These are not pies where a bigger slice for her means a smaller slice for you. These are infinite. In any revolution, the way to make something true starts with believing it is. Let’s claim infinite joy, success, and power—together.

Wolf Pack: Her Victory is your Victory. Celebrate it.

Rule Four: DEMAND THE BALL

When I was a teenager, I was lucky enough to play with one of my heroes, Michelle Akers. She needed a place to train since there was not yet a women’s professional league. Michelle was tall like I am, built like I’d be built, and the most courageous soccer player I’d ever seen play. She personified every one of my dreams.

We were playing a small sided scrimmage—5 against 5. We were eighteen-year-olds and she was—Michelle Akers—a chiseled, thirty-year-old powerhouse. For the first three quarters of the game, she was taking it easy on us, coaching us, teaching us about spacing, timing and the tactics of the game.

By the fourth quarter, she realized that because of all of this coaching, her team was losing by three goals. In that moment, a light switched on inside of her.

She ran back to her own goalkeeper, stood one yard away from her, and screamed:

GIVE. ME. THE. EFFING. BALL.

And the goalkeeper gave her the effing ball.

And she took that ball and she dribbled through our entire effing team and she scored.

Now this game was winner’s keepers, so if you scored you got the ball back. So, as soon as Michelle scored, she ran back to her goalie, stood a yard away from her and screamed:

GIVE ME THE BALL.

The keeper did. And again she dribbled though us and scored. And then she did it again. And she took her team to victory.

Michelle Akers knew what her team needed from her at every moment of that game.

Don't forget that until the fourth quarter, leadership had required Michelle to help, support, and teach, but eventually leadership called her to demand the ball.

Women. At this moment in history leadership is calling us to say:

GIVE ME THE EFFING BALL.

GIVE ME THE EFFING JOB.

GIVE ME THE SAME PAY THAT THE GUY NEXT TO ME GETS.

GIVE ME THE PROMOTION.

GIVE ME THE MICROPHONE.

GIVE ME THE OVAL OFFICE.

GIVE ME THE RESPECT I’VE EARNED AND GIVE IT TO MY WOLF PACK TOO.

In closing, I want to leave you with the most important thing I’ve learned since leaving soccer.

When I retired, my sponsor Gatorade surprised me at a meeting with the plan for my send-off commercial. The message was this: Forget Me.

They’d nailed it. They knew I wanted my legacy to be ensuring the future success of the sport I’d dedicated my life to. If my name were forgotten, that would mean that the women who came behind me were breaking records, winning championships and pushing the game to new heights. When I shot that commercial I cried.

A year later, I found myself coaching my ten-year old daughter’s soccer team. I’d coached them all the way to the championship. (#Humblebrag.) One day I was warming the team up, doing a little shooting drill. I was telling them a story about when I retired. And one of those little girls looked up at me and said: “So what did you retire from?” And I looked down at her and I said, “SOCCER.” And she said, “Oh. Who did you play for?” And I said, “THE. UNITED. STATES. OF. AMERICA.” And she said, “Oh. Does that mean you know Alex Morgan?”

Be careful what you wish for, Barnard. They forgot me.

But that’s okay. Being forgotten in my retirement didn’t scare me. What scared me was losing the identity the game gave me. I defined myself as Abby Wambach, soccer player—the one who showed up and gave 100 percent to my team and fought alongside my wolf pack to make a better future for the next generation.

Without soccer who would I be?

A few months after retirement, I began creating my new life. I met Glennon and our three children and I became a wife, a mother, a business owner and an activist.

And you know who I am now? I’m still the same Abby. I still show up and give 100 percent—now to my new pack—and I still fight every day to make a better future for the next generation.

You see, soccer didn’t make me who I was. I brought who I was to soccer, and I get to bring who I am wherever I go. And guess what? So do you.

As you leave here today and everyday going forward: Don’t just ask yourself, “What do I want to do?” Ask yourself: “WHO do I want to be?” Because the most important thing I've learned is that what you do will never define you. Who you are always will.

And who you are—Barnard women—are the wolves.

Surrounding you today is your wolf pack. Look around.

Don’t lose each other.

Leave these sacred grounds united, storm the valleys together, and be our salvation.

0 notes

wtfwid-blog · 6 years

Text

Olympian Abby Wambach’s Barnard College Graduation Speech Transcript

Greetings to President Beilock, Barnard faculty, trustees, and honorees: Katherine Johnson, Anna Quindlen, and Rhea Suh.

And to each of the 619 bad-ass women of the Barnard graduating class of 2018: Congratulations!

Doesn’t it feel like the second you figure anything out in life, it ends and you’re forced to start all over again?

Experts call these times of life “transitions.” I call them terrifying.

I went through a terrifying transition recently when I retired from soccer.

So it went like this: ESPN called and told me they were going to honor me with their inaugural icon award. I was humbled, of course, to be regarded as an icon. Did I mention that I’m an icon?

Later that night, back in my hotel room, I laid in bed and thought: this isn’t just about me, and this isn’t just about soccer.

But as you know, women of Barnard—CHANGE. IS. HERE.

Women have learned that we can be grateful for what we have while also demanding what we deserve.

Like all little girls, I was taught to be grateful. I was taught to keep my head down, stay on the path, and get my job done. I was freaking Little Red Riding Hood.

I stayed on the path out of fear, not of being eaten by a wolf, but of being cut, being benched, losing my paycheck.

If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing it would be this:

“Abby, you were never Little Red Riding Hood; you were always the wolf.”

So when I was entrusted with the honor of speaking here today, I decided that the most important thing for me to say to you is this:

BARNARD WOMEN—CLASS OF 2018—WE. ARE. THE. WOLVES.

In 1995, around the year of your birth, wolves were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park after being absent for seventy years.

See what happened here?

The wolves, who were feared as a threat to the system, turned out to be its salvation.

Barnard women, are you picking up what I’m laying down here?

Women are feared as a threat to our system—and we will also be our society’s salvation.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

We will not Little Red Riding Hood our way through life. We will unite our pack, storm the valley together and change the whole bloody system.

Throughout my life, my pack has been my team.

Here are four rules I’ve used to unite my pack and lead them to gold.

Rule One: MAKE FAILURE YOUR FUEL

Listen: Failure is not something to be ashamed of, it's something to be POWERED by. Failure is the highest octane fuel your life can run on. You gotta learn to make failure your fuel.

Women, listen to me. We must embrace failure as our fuel instead of accepting it as our destruction.

Wolf Pack: Fail up. Blow it, and win.

Rule Two: LEAD FROM THE BENCH

So… that sucked.

Here’s what’s important. You are allowed to be disappointed when it feels like life’s benched you. What you aren’t allowed to do is miss your opportunity to lead from the bench.

If you’re not a leader on the bench, don’t call yourself a leader on the field. You’re either a leader everywhere or nowhere.

And by the way: the fiercest leading I’ve ever seen has been done between mother and child. Parenting is no bench. It just might be the big game.

Wolf Pack: Wherever you’re put, lead from there.

Rule Three: CHAMPION EACH OTHER

You will not always be the goal scorer. And when you are not—you better be rushing toward her.

Wolf Pack: Her Victory is your Victory. Celebrate it.

Rule Four: DEMAND THE BALL

By the fourth quarter, she realized that because of all of this coaching, her team was losing by three goals. In that moment, a light switched on inside of her.

She ran back to her own goalkeeper, stood one yard away from her, and screamed:

GIVE. ME. THE. EFFING. BALL.

And the goalkeeper gave her the effing ball.

And she took that ball and she dribbled through our entire effing team and she scored.

Now this game was winner’s keepers, so if you scored you got the ball back. So, as soon as Michelle scored, she ran back to her goalie, stood a yard away from her and screamed:

GIVE ME THE BALL.

The keeper did. And again she dribbled though us and scored. And then she did it again. And she took her team to victory.

Michelle Akers knew what her team needed from her at every moment of that game.

Don't forget that until the fourth quarter, leadership had required Michelle to help, support, and teach, but eventually leadership called her to demand the ball.

Women. At this moment in history leadership is calling us to say:

GIVE ME THE EFFING BALL.

GIVE ME THE EFFING JOB.

GIVE ME THE SAME PAY THAT THE GUY NEXT TO ME GETS.

GIVE ME THE PROMOTION.

GIVE ME THE MICROPHONE.

GIVE ME THE OVAL OFFICE.

GIVE ME THE RESPECT I’VE EARNED AND GIVE IT TO MY WOLF PACK TOO.

In closing, I want to leave you with the most important thing I’ve learned since leaving soccer.

When I retired, my sponsor Gatorade surprised me at a meeting with the plan for my send-off commercial. The message was this: Forget Me.

Be careful what you wish for, Barnard. They forgot me.

Without soccer who would I be?

A few months after retirement, I began creating my new life. I met Glennon and our three children and I became a wife, a mother, a business owner and an activist.

And you know who I am now? I’m still the same Abby. I still show up and give 100 percent—now to my new pack—and I still fight every day to make a better future for the next generation.

You see, soccer didn’t make me who I was. I brought who I was to soccer, and I get to bring who I am wherever I go. And guess what? So do you.

And who you are—Barnard women—are the wolves.

Surrounding you today is your wolf pack. Look around.

Don’t lose each other.

Leave these sacred grounds united, storm the valleys together, and be our salvation.

#inspirational #olympian #abby wambach #soccer #female #athlete #speech #graduation #barnard college #2018

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