#neither do any of the women which is borderline heartbreaking

[dolansmith]

Thoughts on the “Trisha Drama”

I’m going to preface this with my previous thoughts of both sides. I didn’t know who Trisha was until after I found out about the vlog squad about a year ago. I didn’t mind her, i thought she brought out an interesting perspective to the group. Then I thought she was literally off her rocker. 

I loved the vlog squad bc I found them in a really difficult time in my life and they kept me from getting too deep into a depression. While I saw some of their mistakes, I saw the best in them all and hoped for change or at least some kind of accountability. 

This is gonna be really long and idk if anyone is even gonna read this/care lol but Im just so frustrated with a lot of the people that are into the vs. Like after really looking into everything that happened, I felt kind of ashamed to be backing the vs bc they’re doing some fucked up stuff tbh. 

So lets do a basic rundown of mistakes made. 

Mistakes in their public relationship:    -Trisha: made sexual jokes about jason’s friends, started arguments about her insecurities instead of starting a conversation.     -Jason: made sexual jokes about girl’s a decade younger than trisha (and 2 and a half decades younger than him), would complain about having to go do things trisha liked doing and would pout the whole time  (i.e. disneyland and a couple of the hamilton viewings), would egg on trishas insecurities, literally dumped her on a daily basis and call her crazy when she voiced said insecurities and then would basically get back together within an hour and practically give everyone whiplash, also talked about her weight and eating habits CONSTANTLY (fucking dick)    -David: inputted himself in their relationship, recorded their fights and encouraged their toxic behavior to both his friends and his audience

Mistakes in the “official” breakup:    -Trisha: talking about jason’s ex and kids, comparing david to ted bundy (a lil wild but tbh not that big of a deal bc no one actually believed thats what she meant but anyway), the brandon thing (we’ll come back to this)    -Jason: continuing to make jokes about fucking a 19/20 year old despite his gf saying she didn’t like it, not putting an end to David “pressuring him” to making said jokes, the brandon thing    -David: ignoring his “friend” when she said not to put something in his vlog, putting his image and career first

Mistakes after:    -Trisha: constantly going on rants about david and Jason.    -Jason: staying in contact with trisha secretly. (ill get back to this too)    -David: putting his image above all else. 

Now we’re going to get into some uncomfortable hot takes. I’m gonna get a whole lotta hate from stans but tbh idc anymore

The Brandon Thing (I’ve done some digging since her video exploding at Jeff): 

   -Brandon began a relationship with a high schooler. She was underage the first time they had sex. There’s receipts and timelines set up. I’d recommend Petty Paige’s Youtube video on it for specifics.     -Lot’s of vs fans say she only brought it up when her and Jason ended so that meant she didn’t really care, but I’d like to point out that she has stated (on more than one occasion) that she voiced her thoughts on this multiple times to the group in Private and no one cared. Y’all are always going on about how she should say whatever she has to say in private but when she does and is ignored, what then? Just a thought.     -Let’s also bring the rest of the vs up in this. How come none of them ever said anything? They’re the ones still out here tolerating him. Pretty hypocritical. I’m not gonna aim anything at the girls bc none of them have Brandon in their videos but the guys? Jeff, Jason, David, Todd and I think Scott too, have all had Brandon in at least one video. They’re out here talking shit about Trisha amongst each other but are friends with a predator? Lmao Okay, cool. 

Jason Keeping in Contact for months: 

   -This was dumb.     -As someone who has suffered from mental health issues and has been in a mental hospital and suffered from attachment AND abandonment issues, Trisha would’ve been better off had Jason ended things and kept them that way. Instead, he ended their public relationship and friendship. He kept her a secret from even his “friends” and then dragged on their “friendship” for months. For what? He should’ve just given her her things and closure and kept it pushing.     -On that, why did he keep her belongings for so long and refuse to give it back until she said something public about it? He ignored her calls and texts about her very expensive things for weeks. Then she made a video calling him out on it, and she got her stuff back.    -I’m seeing a pattern here, aren’t you?

The Jeff Thing (did some digging on him too...by digging i mean google):

   -This one makes my blood boil for several reasons. ESPECIALLY AFTER TODAYS VIDEO. It rlly put everything into perspective omg.     -The starbucks story that Trisha told was the same everywhere: ‘I saw Jeff at Starbucks and said hey. He ignored me and was such a pussy he left his order at the counter after having paid.’ His masculinity is SO FRAGILE that he twisted it into ‘I’m not gonna be fake with someone who fucked over my friend. Can’t fuck them up either tho lol’ and ‘i’m not gonna make shit easy on you, i’m gonna make them feel weird’. What a baby lmfao    -His assault joke rubbed me the wrong way. I know Jeff’s schtick is the whole “I was in jail for a few months and I was a drug dealer I’m big and scary” blah blah blah. Listen, I’ve met men that have been in jail longer (he was in for only 4 months he once said I think) and had worse upbringings than he did and HAD to do some of the shit Jeff was doing (which lemme remind yall, was on his own accord). The men that I know that have lived similar and worse lifestyles than Jeff, would never and I REPEAT NEVER, make a joke about assaulting a Woman over “fucking my friend over”, when the situation was what it was. Which was: an exposé, basically. That’s some petty shit, it’s for the birds. (Also, Todd and Jay’s jokes about the assault joke? Ain’t it. They were just as bad as Jeff’s original joke.)    -Do y’all know what Jeff’s been to jail for? He tried to assault someone that worked at a 7-Eleven after he and his dumbass friends were fucking around in the store and got yelled at and ended up assaulting a woman walking by.     -He also talked about her mental health issues. Maybe he wasn’t talking about her specifically, but it was REAL specific. He said that it was crazy that a “psychopath” that’s been in a mental hospital still had a platform on youtube. That they shouldn’t have one. Trisha made a really good point of, “some could say the same about your time in jail.” Because they could. And mental health can be managed. So can your outrageous anger issues, Jeff. This was really ignorant on his part.     -I also want to remind everyone about the time he said he didn’t understand how men could be sexually harassed. That all you had to do was say no.    -He says he likes to “make things awkward” and make everything a joke when really he’s just being ignorant and doesn’t want to get real hate when he gets inevitably called out

Trisha’s “Dirt”:

   -Trisha doesn’t know anything that the rest of us don’t. We’re just all IGNORING it. Why? Bc David’s charming and Todd and Jeff are pretty? Ridiculous. This is the last vlog squad post i’m going to make because I’m done. So the following is going to be a rundown on the “dirt” on them that made me come to the decision that I wouldn’t be supporting them anymore. I’ll also put my own thoughts and comments underneath in case y’all are curious. Staying silent about these situations is the same as complacency.     -Brandon Calvillo: Covered this but to reiterate, he dated a high schooler and slept with her/dated her knowing her age. He then lied about it in a video to cover his tracks.           *I am well aware that she was months from being 18. This doesn’t make it okay. What does a 26 year old have in common with a 17 year old? And just because this is the first girl we know about, doesn’t mean she’s the first at all or even the last.     -Durte Dom: He was accused of assault at vidcon.            *This hasn’t been confirmed. But it also hasn’t even been discussed. This girl is getting hate from vs stans and the vs have stayed silent. I can understand not wanting to show attention to people who make accusations for clout, but assault is serious and should at the Very Least be acknowledged privately or legally bc it could be considered slander. Don’t let your fans (or your friend’s fans) do your dirty work.      -Jeff Wittek: He has major anger issues. Makes jokes about assaulting women after actually having assaulted one in the past (accidentally but doesnt take away from what he did) and has made jokes about sexual harassment against men not being viable             *tbh he has a “pretty white boy complex”. Meaning he knows that he can say and do what he wants and most people will let it slide bc he’s a pretty white boy. No education needed.     -Jason Nash: Is friend’s with a predator, is quite possibly setting an awful example to his kids, namely his daughter.          *Listen. I’m a feminist, a woman should be able to decide what to do with her body after she turns 18. But being groomed and hit on by grown ass men when you’re barely legal, ain’t it. If you want to and feel ready, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it BUT 9.9 times out of 10, that fucks a woman up in the future. One day, she is going to see her dad hitting on a 19/20 year old Tana and see that her dad’s  26 year old best friend dated a 17/18 year old and lied about specifics and might think that’s normal and how men should treat her. I won’t support that shit.

And as for all the other member’s of the vs, they either don’t care enough about what their friends or friends’ friends are doing, or they’re not bothering to even consider it’s happening and that isn’t cool either. 

Be better. 

As for Trisha, she’s had her own faults and fuckups, no doubt about it. I’m not a big fan of her content but i FELT for her. Her name has been dragged through the mud because of this more than anything else and it doesn’t sit right with me when her only real fuckup in THIS situation was bringing the ex and kids into it the way she did. Everything else either could have been avoided or she had a right to say to the public since they put everything about the relationship out in the open as much as she did. If Jason and David had reached out and admitted their own mistakes and asked her to stop talking about them online the way she was, she probably would’ve chilled out. What happened, what they and their fans (us) have done has been nothing short of traumatizing, no doubt. The way these 30 year old boys (Jeff, Todd, Scott and Jay) are reacting to her? They’re the real joke if we’re being honest.

Note: I’d also like to say that if you do still support them and have differing views than I do, I’ll respect you and your views no matter what. Everyones entitled to their opinion and thoughts. These are just mine. 

#trisha paytas #vlog squad #jeff wittek #david dobrik #jason nash #durte dom #brandon calvillo #scott sire #most of these men are manipulative af #as much as i love zane matt and heath #they dont speak up either #neither do any of the women which is borderline heartbreaking #rant #I did my best to make everything clear but if theres any confusions or questions or if you just wanna have a discussion about it lmk #Discontinuing Speak Now.

[iwanthermidnightz]

When she was 18, Taylor Swift wrote a song called “Fifteen.” “Back then I swore I was going to marry him someday, but I realized some bigger dreams of mine,” she sang, sounding more like a wizened great-grandmother than a rising senior.

“Fifteen” is evocative, if a little sanitized: Nimble mandolin strums mimic the nervous-excited butterflies of the first day of high school, as Swift sings of wide-eyed hope that “one of those senior boys will wink at you and say, ‘You know I haven’t seen you around before.’”

There was a certain emotional truth to the lyrics — do several years’ age difference ever seem more consequential than when you’re a teenager? — but some older listeners were skeptical. “You applaud her skill,” wrote a critic for the Guardian in a mixed review of Swift’s second album, “Fearless,” “while feeling slightly unsettled by the thought of a teenager pontificating away like Yoda.”

Swift, now 31, sings, “When you are young they assume you know nothing,” on “Folklore,” an LP that is both compositionally mature and braided throughout with references to the specific, oft-denigrated wisdom of teenagers. By the end of that song, “Cardigan,” the narrator has excavated such a heap of florid but emotionally lucid memories that she must conclude, with the force of a sudden revelation, “I knew everything when I was young.”

Though it’s not as flashy a topic as exes, fame or A-list celebrity feuds, age has long been a recurring theme in Swift’s work. A numerology enthusiast with a particular attachment to 13, Swift has also released a handful of songs whose titles refer to specific ages: “Seven,” “Fifteen,” and, of course, “22,” the chatty “Red” hit on which she summed up that particular junction of emerging adulthood as feeling “happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time.” Like her contemporary Adele, Swift seems to enjoy time-stamping her music, sometimes presenting it like a public-facing scrapbook that will always remind her what it felt like to be a certain age — even if, with their millions of fans and armfuls of Grammys, neither of these women is exactly typical.

Swift’s critics have often seemed even more hyper attuned to her age. Perhaps because precocity played such a role in her story from the beginning — at 14, she became the youngest artist to sign a publishing deal with Sony/ATV; at 20, she became the youngest to win the album of the year Grammy — many listeners have been fascinated with how her evolution into adulthood has, or hasn’t, played out in her songs. People comb Swift’s lyrics for allusions to sex, alcohol and profanity as meticulously as MPAA representatives do a borderline-PG movie. Particular attention was paid to her 2017 album “Reputation” and its several mentions of drunkenness and dive bars — even though Swift was 27 when it came out.

The relative puritanism of Swift’s music up until “Reputation” did feel like an intentional decision: Unlike the female pop stars who broadcast their “loss of innocence” as a sudden and irrevocable transformation, Swift seemed acutely conscious that she did not want to repel younger listeners — or lose the approval of their parents. At best, it felt like an acceptance of her status as a role model; at worst, it had the whiff of a marketing strategy.

But the mounting obsession with whether Swift was “acting her age” also reflected a larger societal double standard. Famous or not, women face much more intense scrutiny around age, whether it’s those constant cultural reminders of the biological clock’s supposed ticking or the imperative that women of all ages stay “fresh-faced” or risk their own obsolescence. (“People say I’m controversial,” Madonna said in 2016. “But I think the most controversial thing I have ever done is to stick around.”) And while girlish youth and ingenuity are rewarded in some contexts, they’re also easily dismissed as silly and frivolous as soon as that girl strays too close to the sun — as Swift has experienced time and again.

Despite having once been a teenage girl myself (unlike a lot of music critics), I confess that I am not completely free of these internalized biases. I was initially dismissive of “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” a song that appeared on Swift’s 2019 album “Lover.” The first few times I heard it, I wondered what a grown woman on the cusp of 30 was doing still writing about homecoming queens and teenage gossip.

But over time, I’ve come to appreciate the song and its dark vision, which acknowledges cruelty, depression and the threat of sexual violence (“Boys will be boys then, where are the wise men?”) more directly than any of the songs Swift wrote when she was an actual teenager. The senior boys in this song are not the sort who wink and say to freshman girls wholesome things like, “Haven’t seen you around before” — which, unfortunately, makes them feel more authentic. Even the title “Miss Americana” alludes to a larger world outside the high school walls, and the greater systemic forces that keep such patterns repeating well into adulthood.

“Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince” now feels like a precursor to some of the richest songs on “Folklore,” which finds Swift returning once again to her school days with the keen, selectively observant eye of an adult. Consider “Seven,” an impressionistic recreation of her perspective at that age. The second verse, charmingly, plays like a first-grader’s breathless sequence of unguarded observations:

“And I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad and that must be why/And I think you should come live with me and we can be pirates, then you won’t have to cry.”

But “Seven” is not cutesy so much as poignant, because of the tensions that result when Swift’s adult perspective interjects. “Please, picture me in the trees, before I learned civility,” she sings in a yearning soprano, prompting the listener to wonder what sorts of feral pleasure she — and all of us — have exchanged for the supposed “civility” of adulthood.

Quite a few songs on “Evermore,” Swift’s second release of 2020, also toggle between past and present, conscious of what is lost and gained by the passage of time. The playful “Long Story Short” passes a note to Swift’s younger self (“Past me, I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things”), while “Dorothea,” like “Seven,” revisits a fevered childhood friendship from the cool perspective of adulthood.

Most striking is the bonus track “Right Where You Left Me,” a twangy tale of a “girl who got frozen” (“Time went on for everybody else, she won’t know it/She’s still 23, inside her fantasy”). That language echoes something Swift admits in the 2020 Netflix documentary “Miss Americana”: “There’s this thing people say about celebrities, that they’re frozen at the age they got famous. And that’s kind of what happened to me. I had a lot of growing up to do just trying to catch up to 29.”

But Swift’s recent songs, at their best, understand that “growing up” isn’t always a linear progression in the direction of something more valuable. Take the “Folklore” songs “Cardigan” and “Betty,” which use an interconnected set of characters to chronicle teenage drama and celebrate the heightened emotional knowledge of youth. “I’m only 17, I don’t know anything, but I know I miss you,” Swift sings in the voice of James, a high schooler who broke Betty’s heart and has shown up on her doorstep to ask forgiveness. Maybe that is a melodramatic thing to do; maybe it is the sort of thing adults could stand to do more often. Swift’s music helps us to remember that growing up doesn’t automatically mean growing wiser — it can just as easily mean compromise, self-denial and growing numb to emotions we once felt with bracing intensity.

In a gesture to regain control of her songs, Swift is currently rerecording her first six albums (her master recordings were recently sold by Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings to the investment firm Shamrock Capital). Last month she released a note-for-note update of her early hit “Love Story,” and has promised to release an entire new-old version of “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” later this year. It has been amusing to think of Swift going back and inhabiting the voice of her teenage self: On the face of it, “Fifteen” is particularly surreal to imagine her singing as an adult.

In another way, though, “Fifteen” — with its distant reflections on the youthful folly of expectations — makes more sense and carries more emotional weight being sung by a 30-something than it does an 18-year-old. Perhaps Swift was preparing for such an exercise when she made “Folklore,” an album that shakes off years of scrutiny and finds her reveling in the creative freedom to be as young or as old as she wants to be.

#posting the whole article with my emphasis because i thought this was very interesting #taylor swift

[fireemblems24]

Flame Emperor Reveal Analysis

This game is all over the place with this. This level delivered some of the most intense and emotional moments so far, but doesn��t always capitalize on character development and conflict. 

I’m playing all four routes in Fire Emblem Three Houses mostly blind. Below is spoilers for all four routes (which I’m learning the names of now). And for the first it’s actually 4! 

Crimson Flower & Silver Snow

I lied. Originally I planned on writing a different analysis for Crimson Flower and Silver Snow, but the build up is the same. Only the fallout is different, and yeah there’s a lot to say about how things played out. 

The Black Eagles routes have the biggest advantage for this scene because your main character is the Flame Emperor. It does not hold back. All of your students, sans Edelgard and Hubert, are terrified, confused, and hurt. None of them grasp fully what’s going on when Edelgard takes her mask off and orders her army to kill anyone who stands against her. The voice actors do a fantastic job here: Dorothea, Caspar, Bernadetta, and others sell the mess of emotions the Black Eagles experience, and Edelgard sounds stone-cold and in-command. Her betrayal is the gut-punch it should be. 

The level presents a no-win scenario. One of your students is willing to kill you and everyone else you’re supposed to protect, and Rhea is out for blood. No matter what happens, no matter what you do, you lose. It’s a heartbreaking, emotional mess of a situation the writing sets up. 

Even prior to all this, the dance between revealing to much or to little about Edelgard’s true intentions is fantastic. Where the Blue Lions basically dumps the answer in your lap and the Golden Deer gives little to no hints at the Flame Emperor’s identity, the Black Eagles is the only route where I do not know if I would’ve guessed correctly or had so few clues that I didn’t bother trying to guess. 

Edelgard drops enough hints to guess correctly if you’re looking for them. She always questions Byleth about his thoughts on the Flame Emperor, trying to drive a wedge between the Emperor and the heinous actions the masked knight is involved in.  Likewise, Edelgard constantly asks Byleth if he’d pick her over the whole world. She also makes alarming declarations that tow the line between reformer and despot. All of these actions make sense in retrospect - she was fishing to see who would and would not side with her regardless of her actions. 

The scene in the Holy Tomb builds up to a crescendo, Edelgard is defeated, and Rhea makes her demand to kill Edelgard. It’s a bit telling Rhea needed to go so extreme in order to make siding with Edelgard believable, but it’s counteracted  by the game going as far as making Edelgard an enemy unit who can and will kill her classmates. Both women resort to extremes. Rhea is emotional, hateful, and screaming for blood. Edelgard is cold, calculated, and resorting to using victims of human experimentation to kill her own friends. These are two driven, passionate women exposing their ugliest sides in an emotional scene ripe for fantastic character development and conflict. 

And then . . . the wrap-up. 

Silver Snow

Should you choose to kill Edelgard, you land in Silver Snow. Rhea’s angry rant against Edelgard is fantastically delivered and makes me anticipate further development from her character. Back in Garreg Mach Monastery, Rhea  juxtaposes her earlier scene for a softer one. She implies a willingness to sacrifice her life to protect her home, and asks Byleth to take her role should something happen to her. Rhea’s plan all along was to put Byleth (who is connected to Sothis, who is connected to Rhea, though the details are still unknown to me) in charge. After hearing Rhea call for blood, it’s a sweet scene between Byleth and the archbishop. The problem with it is that every route gets these scenes sans Crimson Flower. It’s two great scenes for Rhea, but not unique to Silver Snow. 

And here’s the weird part - there is no unique content for Rhea outside of a few initial lines when choosing to kill Edelgard. Instead, we get the Black Eagles upset and unsure about Edelgard’s actions, a few wondering how much she planned all along and how involved she was in every horrible thing that happened during their school year. It’s necessary, but there’s nothing stand-out in anyone’s dialogue to bring home a real gut-punch. 

Seteth gets the best unique content in Silver Snow when he offers the Black Eagles a chance to defect to the Empire should they desire. It’s delivered softly with no threat behind it, showing an earnest desire for the students to feel comfortable even if it means they’re going to turn around and try to slaughter him in thanks. Thankfully, none of the students leave. Cyril and Catherine automatically join your team, and Hilda is now recruitable as well to make up for losing Hubert and Edelgard.   

The fall out for choosing to stand against Edelgard is . . . fine. For such a unique event in Fire Emblem (siding against your lord, possibly losing two units you’ve heavily invested in should you not know what’s coming), I expected a bit more drama and flare and a lot more Rhea. However, this is only the start, and it gave what it needed to give. 

The stage has been well set. Everyone’s in a no-win situation. Should they lose, they and everyone else in Fodlan will suffer an all-out, dragged-out war. They’ll lose their school and have to fight against their home country (sans Petra) where most of their family and friends live. Killing Edelgard ends the conflict, but she is their former friend, classmate, and rightful leader. She gives them no choice - fight for me or die standing against me. Neither option will leave Byleth and the remaining students wholly satisfied, so I foresee more bittersweet confrontations coming, and I look forward to it.

Crimson Flower 

Deciding to protect Edelgard lands you on the Crimson Flower path. I have to say, I’ve read and watched thousands of stories and this one scene stands out among all others. 

Never in my life have I ever seen characters react to a situation in a way that makes less sense. Even more baffling is how much potential gets tossed out the window. Stories thrive on conflict and character development and this scene is ripe with potential, but instead of even letting the fruit grow rancid they just . . . act like it never existed. 

After Byleth picks to guard Edelgard, Rhea loses it and is ready to tear Byleth to pieces before turning into a dragon. The Black Eagles and Edelgard all run away and, not long after, make it back to Enbarr safely. How they escaped a rampaging dragon or successfully fled Garreg Mach is hand-waved away. This is the kind of hand-waving I can forgive. It’s lazy writing, but it doesn’t really impede the story. What I cannot forgive is the hand-waving that comes next. 

Edelgard has a brief scene where she tells her classmates her intentions - she wants to rid Fodlan of the Church of Serios’s control, claims that Rhea and her fellow beasts have secretly ruled humanity and held them back, and is going to declare war. She asks who will join her. Predictably, all of them do - except Flayn. Edelgard mentions that Flayn has opted not to stay with the group. 

Hmmm. I wonder why. Could it be Edelgard’s lackey kidnapped and tortured her for a whole month, preparing her for blood experiments at the hands of an evil group of mages who just happen to be Edelgard’s allies? Maybe that had something to do with it. The fact the game presents this is as some magnanimous act is hilarious. I believe Edelgard would let someone like, say Petra, turn away too, but she deserves no “brownie points” for allowing someone who she allowed to get tortured and set-up for a slow death as a human sacrifice to leave and not decide to attack her the home where her father still lives. I think this aspect of Edelgard’s character would’ve hit home significantly harder if someone who wasn’t so throughly victimized by Edelgard’s actions had fled, or you actually saw Flayn leave. 

No one asks about the Death Knight. No one asks about Flayn’s kidnapping. No one asks about Kostas attempting to kill students. No one asks about the students kidnapped and experimented on or Remire Village or Jeralt. No one asks where the Crest Beasts Edelgard is using came from. No one asks about the fact she just tried to kill all of them, or what she’s going to do with the Crest Stones. No one even mentions the Flame Emperor. No one questions the history she spilled on them, claiming the church was behind the splitting of Fodlan despite not even having enough knights to guard their own monastery and needed students to help out at events. 

I could buy the Black Eagles running away with Edelgard. The scene where Byleth chooses Rhea or Edelgard is highly emotional. Things happen quickly and no one is given much of a chance to process anything. Rhea doesn’t give anyone much of a choice by shifting into a dragon. I wish they didn’t rely so much on “Rhea bad” to make any sense of siding with Edelgard, but it is believable. What I cannot buy is how no one questions anything afterwards. 

It’s like the whole cast just forgot the first eleven chapters. No one even mentions the Flame Emperor’s existence. The moment the mask came off, it ceased to exist. Everyone mindlessly believes everything Edelgard says, and no one even asks any questions - not about Rhea, not about the history of Fodlan, not about the Flame Emperor’s actions. Barely anyone bats an eyelash at the idea of attacking their own school and killing former classmates, teachers, and friends. Everyone comes across borderline brainwashed. Did the writers have so little faith in Edelgard’s position they were afraid to even attempt exploring it? Even worse is the strategy meeting is just Edelgard, Hubert, and Byleth - the Black Eagles are no where to be seen. It makes them come across like mindless puppets rather than anyone remotely rational - like pawns arranged on a board required for gameplay reasons than actual characters.        

Never in my life have I seen a story throw away so much potential character development and conflict. The situation here is intriguing. Edelgard’s stance is fascinating, but everything falls short when all that’s interesting about it is getting tossed out the window because Rhea is secretly evil and nothing Edelgard did beforehand seems to matter anymore. I am seriously concerned about where this route is heading, because despite the massive potential, it seems like it cares less about that and more about making sure Edelgard looks good rather than complex and interesting, even at the cost of logic, character development, and by turning other interesting characters black so Edelgard has someone she can look better than in comparison rather than standing on her own ideals.     

Verdant Wind

Am I correct in assuming the fandom consensus is that Verdant Wind had the least impactful Flame Emperor reveal? Because it did. 

Edelgard had little to no presence in Verdant Wind. Outside of pre and post class vs class battle banter, her only scene consisted of interrogating Claude and getting and giving no answers. Claude has no connection to Edelgard and neither does Byleth or any of the Golden Deer. When the mask comes off and it’s her face behind it, there’s no emotional response. 

The fallout is equally lackluster. Claude demands answers from Edelgard, which she refuses to answer, and she warps away. Afterwards, things play out the same way they do on every route. And that’s the core issue here. Claude and the Golden Deer bring nothing unique to this scene. Elements of surprise that Edelgard is the Flame Emperor, her willingness to kill all your units to get crest stones, and her declaration of war is there on every route. Claude’s character and goals have had no impact on the plot. 

Analyzing this scene has brought to light my main issue with the Verdant Wind route thus far. It’s that Claude and friends have done nothing to move the plot forward. Things just happen; no character is making anything happen. You could argue it’s the same for the Azure Moon route, but Dimitri’s clearly defined goals and emotional connection makes it a streamlined story with a sense of forward progression instead of plot points getting dumped in the player’s lap. 

It’s too bad, because Verdant Wind could’ve approached this differently. Instead of Claude getting nothing done and shouting about every relic that showed up, he and Byleth could’ve solved mysteries together a la Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boy. For all of Claude’s questioning everything, very little attention was paid to unmasking the Flame Emperor. Verdant Wind guided its players to look at the wrong mysteries - mysteries that ultimately got no answers while ignoring the one part one was actually about figuring out, and if this was flipped, Verdant Wind would’ve had a much more impactful Flame Emperor reveal. 

I will give Verdant Wind major bonus points though. It is nice to see a character question Edelgard about her involvement in things. Dimitri’s too caught up in his Duscur trauma (which I don’t believe Edelgard participated in) and neither Silver Snow and especially Crimson Flower question Edelgard’s actions as the Flame Emperor, but Claude throws at her all the questions I wanted to hear: what about Flayn? What about Jeralt? What about Remire? So congrats Claude, you’re the only character and the only route that’s holding Edelgard actually responsible for her actual actions. If only she was the mystery you were investigating instead of one that went exactly no where for eleven straight chapters. 

Azure Moon

What’s interesting here is that the Flame Emperor’s reveal is less about who the mystery person is and more about our protagonist’s, Dimitri’s, reaction to it. And that is core reason behind this scene’s success. 

Multiple users on here told me to play chapter eleven of Blue Lions first, and I’m both glad and upset I listened to them. Glad, because they were all right, this route had by far the best Flame Emperor reveal, but sad because it all went downhill from there. 

The Crimson Flower/Silver Snow routes should’ve had the best Flame Emperor reveal. After all, those are the routes where Edelgard plays the biggest role, but the follow up to the scene is fairly lackluster, especially in Crimson Flower. Azure Moon, on the other hand, did everything Crimson Flower was afraid to - address the elephant in the room.   

Characters in Crimson Flower respond to the situation as if Edelgard didn’t just try to kill all of them, nor do they ask any questions about her actions as the Flame Emperor. Everyone acts as if none of that ever happened, and by not bothering to even mention it, those actions stick out even worse than they would’ve otherwise. 

The opposite is true in Azure Moon. Everyone is unnerved by Dimitri’s violent outburst. Felix jumps at the chance to tell everyone, “I told you so.” No one knows what to do about Dimitri, nor do they really have time to process anything with Edelgard’s war machine knocking on their front door. However, this is the base expectation of a story - that characters respond realistically to what happened prior instead of teleporting to some surreal dimension where Edelgard isn’t working with people who perform human experimentation. 

So what exactly did Azure Moon do to make this reveal so successful? It utilized the route’s unique aspects: Dimitri’s mental instability and desire for revenge, terrible family history, and emotional connection to Edelgard. 

Unlike Verdant Wind, Edelgard has an actual presence and relevance in Azure Moon thanks to her connection to Dimitri. He cares about her like family, which makes her betrayal more personal and automatically more impactful than in Verdant Wind. Even more brilliant here is milking the emotional aspect of what happened. Instead of focusing on “shocking” the reader with Edelgard’s betrayal, it drops hints about her secret identity with all the subtly of a lead brick. 

You know what inevitable, dramatic, and tragic outcome is coming. Edelgard, Dimitri’s only remaining family (outside of an uncle he’s on bad terms with), is working hand-in-hand with the people who caused the deaths of his family which led to the genocide of a race of people and the source all of his trauma.  Dimitri makes it quite clear he’s out for revenge, and that anything related to Duscur triggers his PTSD so bad it seems like a dissociative or psychotic episode. Azure Moon does not build up a mystery, it builds up an emotional conflict - like watching a train wreck that you know is coming and can’t stop. 

And that’s the brilliance of it - this scene isn’t about Edelgard being the Flame Emperor, we already know that, it’s about Dimitri, who this route is about and who the player is emotionally invested in during this version of the story. 

Nor does this game disappoint here. There’s no softening anything to try and make Dimitri look “better.” He has a full-on violent breakdown. It’s devastating. He is succumbing fully to his demons after fighting against it over and over while getting tossed into triggering situations ad nauseam and getting no help in return (after all, therapy, medication, hell even the concept of mental illness simply doesn’t exist). All the signs that the route has built up explode in an emotional scene, and probably thee best cut scene so far with some of the best voice acting in Fire Emblem to carry it out. Every plot thread comes to a head: Dimitri’s lust for revenge, his unstable mental health, the mystery of the Flame Emperor’s identity, etc . . . 

The upcoming battle has more meaning now. It has what is at steak in the other routes - win or lose and the fear of having to kill former classmates - and more. Because it isn’t just about the battle of Edelgard vs the world, but also the battle for Dimitri’s mental health and for his soul. There’s a bit of a catch-22 here, is Edelgard dying really the best ending? Killing her saves many lives, but at the cost of Dimitri’s mental health? What if she dies and he doesn’t kill her, but what if he does? Would he kill himself now that the dead are avenged? Or what if she lives and this drags on longer? No option is good. There isn’t an easy win button by offing Edelgard or taking over the school. Every possible ending is a bad ending. Your lead character is in the middle of a mental breakdown, and giving into his demons and lust for revenge (which is a separate issue exasperated by ill mental health) and the situation only makes it worse and is to dire to properly let anyone deal with said breakdown. The tension, the drama, the sense of foreboding dread, is all so much more here than in all the other routes. 

What makes Azure Moon’s handling of the Flame Emperor so good is that it widely succeeded where the other two routes failed. Verdant Wind didn’t make the reveal relevant to anything Claude was interested in or working towards. Crimson Flower completely and utterly failed to address Edelgard’s actions let alone use that to create compelling tension. Azure Moon did both. It made the Flame Emperor reveal relevant to the route, even made it actually about the main character of the route. Nor is it shying away from conflict and tension, even if it means letting it’s main character fall out of grace and risking the player’s infatuation/admiration/whatever with/of Dimitri by having him succumb to his dark side. Because it’s not protecting him, he’s going to turn out a way better character for it. 

I will admit though, that I think playing all four routes impacted this a bit. It didn’t benefit Azure Moon, but I think this route spoiling who the Flame Emperor is hurt the other routes. Verdant Wind might’ve had at least some tiny smudge of an impact because it’s the only route where there’s very little way to correctly guess who the Flame Emperor is - the only one where it may be truly a surprise. Crimson Flower/Silver Snow does make it a bit more obvious, but doesn’t quite spell it out for you the way Azure Moon does. Here, the player kind of has to be looking for it. Obviously though, you can only learn this once, and good writing could’ve made all the routes impactful with very small tweaks - have Verdant Wind actually focus on the mystery that’s solved at the end of Part 1 (who is the Flame Emperor) and actually have characters react to and get answers about Edelgard’s actions. I also think the choice between Silver Snow and Crimson Flower looses its tension when you go into it knowing you’ll pick both. Azure Moon easily had the best reveal, so I want to ultimately thank everyone who told me to do this one first - you were all very, very right. 

#fire emblem #Fire Emblem Three Houses #fire emblem 3 houses #fe16 #fe3h #am #cf #ss #vw

[mermaidsirennikita]

October 2018 Book Roundup

This was maybe my weakest reading month this year, in terms of quantity--but it picked up towards the end!  There were good books and meh books, but Anna-Marie McLemore’s Blanca and Roja was wonderful.  If you haven’t tried any of her books--please do.  This one was a beautiful fairy tale retelling full of magical realism and romance, while featuring LGBT+ and disabled characters.  One of the best books I’ve read all year.

Siracusa by Delia Ephron.  2/5.  A pair of married couples go on an Italian vacation together, where their internal strife builds to a boiling point.  This is like... plot-wise, pretty much what you expect.  But I’m fine with “expected” domestic thrillers... yet I hated this.  The prose itself wasn’t bad, and there were themes that I enjoyed.  But the male characters were the types of male characters where most of their pagetime is devoted to how much they hate women and how much they love tits, and that’s so boring.  The women were more interesting, but why bother at that point?

Sadie by Courtney Summers.  4/5.  After thirteen-year-old Mattie is found murdered, her sister--and caretaker in the wake of their drug addicted mother’s absence--Sadie goes missing.  After their cases capture the attention of radio personality West McCray, Sadie and Mattie become the focus of a podcast, “The Girls”.  As the podcast unfolds and West struggles to piece together the girls’ pasts and what drove Sadie’s disappearance, the story also follows Sadie’s journey, and the ghosts that haunt her.  This is a sad one.  Very sad.  If you’re easily triggered, I recommend steering clear because the worst part about Sadie’s life is not the brutality we see, but the reality of what we know has happened.  Summers is very restrained, and the horrid things that happen are not graphic, but... we know.  Sadie’s love for her sister was extremely relatable for me as a reader--I’m the oldest of four, and my youngest sibling is a good bit younger than the rest of us, much like Mattie was a good bit younger than Sadie.  It was a rough read, but very well-written.  The ending didn’t really pack the punch I hoped for, but perhaps that was the point.  Some stories don’t get to be wrapped up the way we want them to be.

The Corset by Laura Purcell.  4/5.  In 19th century England, the privileged Dorothea visits women’s prisons, her interest in phrenology fueling her desire to examine the skulls of murderesses and uncover what makes them tick.  Sixteen-year-old Ruth Butterham, about to go to trial for killing her mistress, sticks out for her youth and her plain simplicity.  Yet she insists that she killed the lady of the house--with just her needle and thread.  As Ruth tells Dorothea her tale, Dorothea begins to question her solid views on the nature of evil--and takes a second glance at those surrounding her.  I love that Laura Purcell is giving us these Victorian chiller novels.  Her writing style, her sense of description, gives everything a horrifying creepiness even when the gore isn’t on full display.  (Though plenty of awful things happen in full view in The Corset, it isn’t quite as lurid as The Silent Companions.)  There is a ton of tragedy in The Corset, and a lot of ambiguity in its ending.  A bit more ambiguity than I’d like, to be honest?  It didn’t pack quite the punch I think the rest of the story deserved.  But it was still great, and I’d recommend Purcell to anyone--especially if you’re looking for spooky reads.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White.  2/5.  Frankenstein retold from the perspective of Elizabeth Lavenza, Victor’s foster sister and eventual wife.  I wasn’t going to pick this up--but then I realized that Kiersten White wrote The Conqueror’s Saga, one of my favorite series ever. I just should have stuck with my gut.  White writes well, but the first half of the book is sloooooow (where’s Victor + flashbacks basically sums it up) and because I was so bored, I couldn’t get invested in Elizabeth and Victor’s relationship.  The toxicity of their borderline incestuous bond is really supposed to make this a great “mad love” kind of story.  But no.  You never even really get the sense that they were physically attracted to each other.  And White should be able to do this well.  One of the centerpieces of The Conqueror’s Saga was the love triangle between Lada, Radu, and Mehmed--and how Radu and Lada were both very drawn to Mehmed while loathing him.  I think she got kind of caught up in the “fix it fic” aspects of a retelling, which--just don’t go there.  I get it.  Mary Shelley was amazing, but also a woman of her time who wrote a book in which the (somewhat) significant female characters get treated like garbage.  Victor Frankenstein is The Worst.  But everything was so transparent; you knew where the story was going at all times, and not because it was a retelling but because you knew EXACTLY where it would deviate.  And the ending?  RAAAAGE.  Just a missed opportunity.

The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke. 2/5.  Frey is one of the Boneless Mercies, women whose trade is death.  She and her group deliver mercy killings upon request--and she’s tired of it.  In order to break out of her role as a Mercy, Frey persuades her band to pursue a mysterious beast, embarking on a perilous journey that will endanger all of their lives.  Tucholke’s prose is beautiful.  Her idea here was amazing--a sort of take of Beowulf with women (and one guy, who was not at all what you’d expect).  She was obviously inspired by Norse mythology, and the overall world and cultures presented are so compelling.  The story?  Is a lot of journeying.  It’s very slow.  I couldn’t get into it, no matter how hard I tried.  It was really disappointing because so many components of this I loved, but the pacing just dragged and it seemed like the story was a stream of events via a road trip, which can be awesome but... the characters just didn’t play off of each other in a way that made me care.  I’m not sure about how much of this was even the book, and how much was me not connecting with it--but is that my fault?  I’m just left frustrated.

Blanca and Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore.  5/5. Blanca and Roja del Cisne are a part of a family with a terrible curse.  The del Cisnes always have daughters--at least two.  And one of those daughters is always taken by the swans and absorbed into their ranks.  Blanca, sweet and light, and Roja, aggressive and resentful, have long worked to attempt to up-end the odds, neither one wanting to let go of the other.  But the magic that controls the woods extends beyond the sisters’ curse, bringing two boys into Blanca and Roja’s predicament, and complicating their fates even further.  This is McLemore at her best.  The writing is beautiful, the romances are fantastic, the relationship between Blanca and Roja is heartbreaking and frustrating and everything it should be.  McLemore also excels at writing authentic magical realism, pulling from her own experiences as a Latinx woman and injecting it into the lives of the del Cisne women.  And as an added bonus, Page, Blanca’s love interest, is a nonbinary trans boy who uses varied pronouns and this is actually discussed on-page; and Barclay, Roja’s love interest, is adjusting to the loss of sight in one eye, and is a survivor of abuse.  McLemore is so careful about how she treats these issues, without ever seeming preachy.  This is a retelling of Snow White and Rose Red, one of my favorite fairy tales--and it’s my favorite McLemore book so far.

#books #book recs #reading roundup #book roundup

[the-mjolnir-owner]

Some thoughts about Infinity War

Now that I slept over it and had some garlic tea to help with my cold, I think it’s time to talk about it. 

Long post ahead. Contains spoilers. Don’t read in case you didn’t watch the movie.

After almost 10 years of MCU, I was surprised they kept their death score so low. I was wrong. It was a risky decision to make things like that and they are brave, let's see how it rolls from now on.

I wasn't surprised about any of this, really, because I was sure all of them would die. The fact that some of them happened to survive was a plus. I wasn't surprised about all the asgardians + some of the sakaarians + Heimdall + Loki (+ probably Valkyrie) dying right in front of Thor right in the beginning. The whole shock value was necessary to make Thanos stand up like a big unforgiving villain and they made it, he killed an entire population of space refugees that consisted of children, elderly people and non combatant, unarmed men and women. You can feel the whole cinema feels as powerless and impotent as Thor, hands tied both literally and figuratively.  Thumbs up for the Russos, thumbs up for emotional trauma and heartbreak and tense moments.

Cons

Loki 

All along I thought he had a plan, maybe because that's what the fandom made me believe, less because of what we actually see on screen. Loki has always been a shitty planner and all his schemes blow up in his face. I believed he had a trick up his sleeve that Thor and the audience didn't know when he took the tesseract, which was a stupid ass decision. But he didn't, in the end there was nothing. I don't know, maybe he thought they'd have more time, but when Thanos asked him for the tesseract, and Thor told him they didn't have it, I could taste the regret that emanated out of Loki. He regrets it, he really does. And he died saving the most important person in his life, and I was angry and sad about how it all ended so soon.

They didn't give us what kind of deal Thanos had with Loki, how did they meet, how did it go, if Loki knew the Dark Order, nothing. It was bad writing, really, because Loki normally has double intentions. It was bad, predictable and it hurt to watch. I thought he was going to use the tesseract himself and manage to save the day but they all died anyway. I wanted Loki to help to kill Thanos, I thought he'd have a secret weapon in the end, or a secret way to destroy him that he learned from the time he spent with Thanos. Nada. I'm sad and disappointed, he didn't deserve it. He was doing everything right this time :(

 Romance

I'm not very fond of romance in hero movies, except in rare occasions where it's well done (Wonder Woman yay) and there was a lot of heteronormativity romantic scenes. I wanted to skip forward all of Wanda/Vision interactions and Gamora/Peter was too clingy imo. We could have saved some time without them.

 Thanos

Ok, I get it he's big and evil and purple. But he had a lot of time of just wondering and doing titan things. Wherever he showed up on screen I showed him the finger like the adult I am.

 The Dark Order

I don't know their names, I don't know their ambitions, they are just random people following orders. They aren't strong or extraordinary and they were easily subdued by our heroes.

 Bruce Banner/Hulk

He's still lost and confused, I get it, but he was exaggerated and borderline boring. Whenever he was on screen I'd roll my eyes. Where is the Hulk when we need him the most? Sounds to me he's only valiant against smaller thunder lords, uh.

 Captain America

Too little screen time, I only remember like 3 things he said, but it was good to have him back and some people cheered in the cinema when he first appeared to save Vision. I wish we had seen more of him, especially more of his interactions with Thor.

 Natasha

Same as Cap. Too little screen time. I love her I always like to see her.

 Red Skull

?? ???? ??????? That's all I'm saying.

 Thor's suicidal attempts

First when Loki died and Thor crawled to him to cradle him closer. I don't think Thor had the energy to leave and if he did, he wouldn't. This time he wasn't going to leave Loki behind and I think he decided the best thing to do was to die with his people and the last member of his family, all of them in a space coffin and none would know of what happened to the asgardians. Of course, he didn't die with the explosion like he intended and he had yet another chance when he tried to reignite the star. It was also sad to watch, how extreme he'd go and how little regard he has for himself and his well being. We have Thor telling Eitrit that he should have hope in a moment, the other moment he tries to get himself killed. Rocket and Eitrit were worried about it too and I don't think there's a solution to it. Thor will go is ready to kill or die or both and he won't stop.

 Pros

 Doctor Strange

He has his priorities sorted and he doesn't change them. He does what he must to save shit and I trust him because he knows what's up.

 Guardians of the Galaxy

It's amazing how they all sound like a big family, I really like them and I loved how they interacted with Thor. I'd like to see a version where they managed to get in time and help the asgardians. Drax telling that Thor is what happens when an angel and a pirate have a baby had me in tears. Peter jealous of Gamora, priceless.

 Thor

And here I go. It's no secret that Thor is my favorite. I always love Thor in every situation and in every movie he's in. In Infinity War he's hurt, he's broken, he's lost and hopeless but he still moves on and that's the kind of hope I need. All of his arc in Ragnarok was pointless. If Marvel was going to kill all the asgardians anyway, why make Thor save them?

Chris Hemsworth's acting is on point, he made the most of every scene as usual. All the emotion on his eyes when he saw Loki/Heimdall dying was enough to have me crying with him, like I was on his place. He has gone through so much and his suicidal attempts just prove that he finally had enough. Marvel finally gave him an opportunity to talk about his family and he talked with Rocket of all the people (creature). It was a gift to have Thor so wounded yet so woke. He knows what he has to do and how to do it and he'll do it even if it kills him because he has nothing left to lose. It hurts, but that's that kind of energy that have things going.

Thor takes the Guardian's supplies and he's ready to steal their ship and they decide to go along, because, come on, what else can they do? Call the police against the asgardian? But Thor knows how to use his words and he convinces them to go with him and help him. More than his good looks, it's good intentions and sincerity.

When he learned about Gamora's family he instantly regarded her as a friend, he knows she's not the one to blame about the mistakes of her Father, and he knows about it all too well.

 Stormbreaker

Thor's whole self-discover journey in Ragnarok taught him that he didn't need a hammer to be powerful, the power was in him all along. Infinity War took it and threw it in the trash. The moment Thor thinks of a plan he thinks of forging a new weapon. Thor in Ragnarok knew he didn't need a weapon. Thor in Infinity War almost died to get a new shiny bigger hammer. I think the idea of it was to make an axe to fight the Gauntlet, and I will only accept it this way. And Thor looks good with an axe.

 Gamora

OMG Why? I wasn't expecting for this at all, neither was she it seems. I didn't like it how they made it sound like that what Thanos felt for her was love, when I doubt that he can love anything. He tries to convince her to come along, he uses Nebula to convince her (and ouch, poor Nebula) but Gamora is strong in her views and beliefs. She's rather die than help him. Little did she know that her death would always help him, whether she liked it or not.

 Wakanda

Poor wakandans didn't deserve any of this, to have this battle on their yard. When Thor did THAT, when he showed up with his new weapon to help them, lightening on his eyes and everything, people in cinema cheered. They cheered again when he wounded Thanos and I know he'll try again and again until he get it. Or die, more likely.

It was pretty obvious to the audience that Thor is by far the most powerful avenger, sided with Wanda, and he'll only grow stronger and more powerful out of spite and hate, those are great fuels. I still wanted Thor to greet T'Challa and to have them recognizing each other like the Kings they are.

 Girl power

When Wanda was fighting Proxima and we all thought the was about to die, Natasha and Okoye came to the rescue and I was so proud and so happy to see them together, like sisters, helping Wanda who is a still so young but so powerful and so full of pain. It was also one of the best interactions.

 After this long essay, I'll say the movie had it's good parts and it's bad parts, like everything in life. I didn't like the ending but I wasn't exactly shocked. I think there's still so much to happen, I think there are so many people to return and all we can do is wait and create new content to fix what we didn't like and improve what we liked. That's what I'll do. If I learned something with this movie, is that I should always be positive. Like Thor. The sun will shine upon us again.

#infinity war #infinity war spoiler #infinity war spoilers #iw spoilers #long post #ooc #//those are my opinions considering what I watched #feel free to disagree but please be polite