Its Alive?

19, he/him they/them

[specialfanboying]

fighting the urge every day in this fanbase to defend the "kill eito" routes being bad and punitive to the player but god. every time i see it framed as "wow the game's mean to you for choosing self defense" or "this is like the baby hitler dilemma" i swear to god

like. imo the game's right. killing eito is always a bad idea

it's a bad idea on a practical level. to everyone else in the group, eito was a nice if a lil awkward guy. even if takumi tells them he was evil, emotionally, they're never going to believe it. not to mention that "in the future that only i see, he betrayed us" sounds like a really bad excuse, not to mention being a motive that's completley unverifiable by anyone other than takumi. and to the others, what's stopping takumi from killing one of them with a similar, completely unverifiable excuse? every single time you kill eito, you destroy group trust. and depending on the route, you scrape it back through blackmail, have to get it back the hard way but lose more than half the group, or only get it back because something else becomes a bigger problem.

it's a bad idea on a symbolic level! we have the great opportunity to go back in time and change things for the better. by killing eito, we're making the judgment call that actually, only some things can change. some things are set in stone. by doing that, we give up on the ability to make the future better...and so it isn't. at best it's hard-won but hopeful, at medium it's pointless, and at worst it's a far worse ending than the one in route zero.

most of all though imo. this is a game in no small part about war being hell. the reason we kill eito is because we believe there's no way to handle him/prevent him from causing problems without killing him. even though we're wrong. it's trying to just "solve" the problem of eito aotsuki through removing him from the narrative, much like how sirei is trying to just solve the problem of the invaders by killing them. dont worry about how we got here, don't worry about what they're saying, just do as a soldier does and remove the threat.

in that sense, i think it's poetic justice that it never works out that easily. that complicated issues can't just be neatly solved with violence. killing eito doesn't remove him from the narrative. there is no easy solution to eito aotsuki! but that's justified. he's the voice of dissent, the voice of the truth. it's exactly what sirei - and takumi - deserve to not be able to snuff that out without serious consequences.

[mistressaccost]

so gemma was orpheus all along. when she looked back, called mark’s name, and asked him to come home.. innie mark realized he had no feelings for this woman. if she had stayed facing forward maybe the allegiance to his outie would have won out. but gemma turning around made him hesitate long enough for helly to appear. and when she called his name.. it was game over. eurydice embraced the underworld with open arms.

[monophobix]

lesbian situationship vs gay situationship

[vidalswife]

Imagine you're a 400+ century old witch and you somehow end up falling in love with the female embodiment of death, who then has to take your son's soul after he dies, which results in you hating her. Now, you're trying to get your power back, and after years, and i mean YEARS, of not seeing her, she comes along the journey to help you and your coven get to the end of a death mission. You know what she is, you know why you don't like her, but you also know that beyond that you can never hate her. She's the only woman you've truly ever loved, and just her touch can drive you crazy. You spend each day thinking of and yearning for her, and then when the teenager you've taken under your wing almost dies, you plead with her not to take him. She does this for you, she doesn't take him, just for you. And in a campfire circle surrounded by your newfound family, she tells them all of a woman she once loved, who she is physically and emotionally pained by everyday, knowing that she hurt this woman more than she can ever explain, and more than anyone can ever imagine. She says this woman is her scar, a mark of failure and devastation she has to carry with her for the rest of her life. This woman is you. You leave to breathe, knowing it was you, knowing that just the simple word "loved" coming out of her mouth when she was talking about you made every bone in your body ache for her. She follows you, puts her hand on your back, and you can't help but to pull her in for a hug, it feels like heaven, like you're soaring above the sky with nothing else in the world but the two of you, and you realize you haven't felt the gentle touch of this woman since what happened. In your moment of longing and desperation, you cup her face, and you pull her in for a kiss, not only inches apart, but centimeters. A single breath holds her apart from you, and all those feelings you have for her rush back to you in an instant. She embraces it, but pulls back at the very moment. She knows you are vulnerable, she knows you're in pain, she knows you're not ready to feel her again. So she says your name, and she looks at you the way she always has. She didn't have to say it for you to know she loves you, and you weren't sure if her reluctance made you love her or long for her more, or both.

[snacobie]

Been missing da2 lately

[ironinkpen]

there's something so poetic about kipperlilly copperkettle—who hated one of her classmates for daring to be better than her and having a dead dad, who refused to improve herself and instead chose to be bitter and entitled, who was so obsessed with being Special and Important like she felt she deserved that she willingly worked with a rage god, betrayed her party, and killed her friend—getting killed by fucking. Hold Person. her fancy optimal build IMMEDIATELY folding in the face of riz's cleverness and experience and applied knowledge. she spends years fixated solely on racking up EXP and getting the Best Abilities, and then when she dies, she's killed not in glorious combat but by a clever, practical application of a 2nd level spell that she NEVER would have ever thought of using because she has no creativity or adventurers' spirit, cast by the same classmate she always hated with a watch his dead dad gave him.

[frozenartscapes]

New Edelgard Headcanon:

So there's debate in the fandom if she's actually a good artisit, right? Like some people like to think she's actually pretty good, and just hard on herself (which is totally believable given who she is). Others like to think she's moderately good, but she shouldn't get her hopes up about commissions. And then there's the classic "bad anime artist" headcanons.

But I propose this: she's actually a pretty good painter. By our modern-day standards. But in her time, where art has a Very Specific Method, she is not a master by any sense of the word.

Fodlan is based on medieval Europe, right? So let's imagine that, in Crimson Flower, post-war sees a bit of a renaissance, if you will. Gone are artists having to follow the Church's approved style. Art no longer has to be about the Goddess or the Church's teachings. Things take on a more humanistic approach, and as a result, art becomes much more grounded in reality. And so the style of art changes to reflect that, resembling high Renaissance art of our world. The focus was on realism, on perfect form and composition.

Edelgard, however, doesn't care about that. At first, she was. Especially for her portraits. Her memories of her family aren't very good and after almost losing Byleth twice she greatly fears forgetting details over time. But once she retires to the countryside with Byleth, once she is no longer Emperor and is able to actually relax and enjoy life, struggling to capture every tiny detail becomes less and less of a concern. Slowly, as she allows herself to feel and experience the world around her, her style of painting shifts to reflect emotions, rather than reality. And as she does this, it becomes easier and easier to complete a painting in a day. Sometimes even an afternoon. It's about capturing the moment, even if some details are missing. How she feels about the moment are reflected in colours and exaggerated brushstrokes. The whole scene seems to move - she can capture the gentle sway of reeds in the breeze or the ripples of a pond far better than any realism painter of her time.

Basically, she paints like Van Gogh.

But, also like Van Gogh, no one appreciates her art while she's alive. It's so garish and unrefined. The brushstrokes are too aggressive and rough. Those who knew of her from the war would often joke that she'd paint a better image if she simply took an axe to the canvas. But she doesn’t care. She’s not painting to impress anyone - she’s painting for herself. She’s doing this for herself, finally, after a lifetime of sacrifice and strife. She is doing what makes her happy, and to hell with all the snobby art critics.

Centuries later, someone finds an old cottage, one almost lost to time and the forest. And inside, are well over a hundred paintings. The paintings are restored and displayed, finally being appreciated. No one had ever seen art quite like it, and almost immediately a new wave of Impressionism began in Fodlan. The mother of this movement remains mostly a mystery, and art historians pour over every brush stroke to try and learn all they can.

They gain much from the subject matter. The artist was a cat lover. She was fond of gardens, particularly carnations. (She had a whole series dedicated to those.) She had a love of provincial life, and often featured labourers as subjects rather than nobility. One particular subject was deemed “The Fisherwoman”. She was easily the most popular of models for the artist, as she appears in more paintings than any other. There is an ongoing debate on if the Fisherwoman was merely a friend to the artist, or if she was something more.

Every single painting has a solitary, yet elegant signature on the bottom corner: “Edelgard”

Some wonder if this is the same Edelgard who threw Fodlan into war, who was once a fearsome and powerful Emperor who changed the face of the continent. But most scoff. There is no way someone with such passion and love of life would be the same as such a destructive force. Only ghosts and history know the truth.

[thirteendaysintaunton]

there’s actually no way you can convince me that edelgard didn’t become martyred figure in every route she died in. tales of the emperor who saw the injustice in how the common people were treated and had the nerve to stand up to the status quo, publish a manifesto, and personally fought on the front lines to try to ensure what she went through never happened again.

especially in the case of a character like recruited dorothea who knows first hand what life is like on the streets for people who weren’t born “””right”””. or lysithea who experienced the same as edelgard and knows that the lengths at which people are willing to go for more crests, more power, comes at far too high a price. or even byleth who witnessed first hand with their students in white clouds the damage that the system did to all of the kids under their care.

there’s just no way that none of the characters saw what edelgard was trying to do and didn’t say “hey you know what she had a lot of good points”, that word didn’t get out to the common folk who whispered her name in reverence, that some of her former friends/classmates didn’t spread her ideals and try to integrate that into their new society post war

[animepopheart]

★ 【Sakon04】 「 RED 」 ☆ ✔ republished w/permission ⊳ ⊳ follow me on twitter

[c6jpg]

Very fun. But it's not enough. Let me make something clear: you think of yourselves as "magicians", but when you're on the stage you're first and foremost actors. Good actors hone their craft to mesmerize the whole crowd.

[animentality]

[zestyleaf]

Link Gets an Item but Something Goes Wrong: a compilation

[thantos1991]

I just love how Toon Link is just...... Like that

[habbadax]

Took a wrong turn somewhere

[orcboxer]

i took a nap and woke up in all these goddam spinanch

[cardiac-ossification]

[the-punforgiven]

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

“There is a copy of the NES game Golf in the firmware of every Switch system”

Me: Oh haha, what a weird thing, probably some remnant from the debugging process -

“Since that was a game that Satoru Iwata programmed himself, this could have been intended as a way of saying that Iwata is spiritually a part of every Switch and is watching over and protecting every system.”

Me:

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

Oh my God, so hackers have found out the way to enable you to play the game. You know how?

On July 11th*, the date of Iwata’s passing, doing Iwata’s “directly to you” motion with the Joy-Cons on the home screen will play a sound clip of Iwata and launch the game.

(* Before you try this yourself, note that simply changing the date on your system will not work, as this runs off the Switch’s internal internet-synced clock, meaning that changing the date manually will only work if the system has never been connected to the internet)

I… I can’t…

[lunarhalo24]

It goes even further than that.

Firstly, opening the game like this person is in the video is only possible with a brand new unit on system version 1.0.0 that has never been connected to the Internet. Because of this, opening it is pretty hard to replicate, unless if you have a completely brand new Switch. So, even if the system’s internal date is on July 11, it still won’t open if the system version is up to date.

The thing is, it’s not supposed to be opened.

The hidden Golf game has been described as an omamori, which, in Japanese culture, is a charm usually bought at shrines that offers spiritual protection and good luck if you keep it close to you. Sometimes they’re made of cloth, and look like a tiny bag, which can contain a written prayer. People often tie them to something like a purse or a backpack, so that it’s always with them. Here are a bunch of different ones:

Omamori are not supposed to be opened, as doing so is said to remove its blessing.

Seeing as the hidden Golf game on the Switch is so difficult to run under normal circumstances, it’s probably not supposed to be opened in the first place. It’s likely meant to represent an omamori in Iwata’s honor. Its very fitting, because of how portable the Switch is, since people are likely to take it with them like they would with an omamori strapped to a purse or backpack.

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

Hey, everyone. Since we’re now in July and this post is still making the rounds, I’m sure there are people who are going to want to try to activate the Golf game on their Switch on the 11th. So I wanted to provide an update to this:

All of the files of Golf in the Switch system were removed in an update back in late December.

As @lunarhalo24 helpfully pointed out, this inclusion of Golf in the Switch system was meant to be an omamori, a blessing from Iwata. And there’s another important cultural thing about omamori to note here:

An omamori’s blessing is only good until the end of the year, after which it expires and the omamori is traditionally disposed of in a sacred fire. So the files being deleted at the end of last year seems as though it was symbolic of the blessing’s time expiring.

So yes, there is now almost no way to actually access it. Because it was never meant to be accessed.

[diversegaminglists]

Reblogging because this is a really interesting way of combining tradition and technology in someone’s memory and as a good luck charm.

You can read more about the different kinds of omamori here.

[that-house]

Due to centuries of cultural exchange there are a lot of similarities between the hamster religion and that of the chipmunks, both now being functionally death cults. The root of where they differ is how the two religions view this holy death.

To hamsters, death is an art form, an ever-ascending pillar of the strange and the grotesque. Hamsters seek beauty and uniqueness in death, venerating the most outlandish of the dead as saints: Our Lady of the Plumbing, Saint Tim the Blended, and Saint Ms. Cupcake Who Got Into That Barrel of Degreaser, to name a few. Through death, they connect with their god, whose immense corpse formed the world after choking to death on a stray asteroid. Hamsters will spend weeks planning their deaths and awaiting an opportunity to swan dive off this mortal coil.

Chipmunks follow a warrior’s religion. While hamsters embraced humanity as creators of new and exciting shapes and poisons, chipmunks never forsook their wild ways. Chipmunk culture idealizes the divine struggle: to face insurmountable odds and to die with honor. Only by throwing themselves under the wheels of a moving vehicle can they earn their reincarnation and escape the cruel jaws of the fox-god who awaits them in the underworld. Every chipmunk goes to their death secure in the knowledge that they have faced their fate a million times before and that they will face it a million times again.

Squirrel religion does not speak of death.

[sounddesignerjeans-deactivated2]

"well women are good and men are bad but trans people are oppressed so we've made you an honorary member of the good guys" you idiot. you fucking dolt.

[sounddesignerjeans-deactivated2]

"all men are bad except trans men and nonbinary people" I am hitting you with my transgender bite attack

[sounddesignerjeans-deactivated2]

"oh I'm a trans ally"

then fucking stop reinforcing the gender binary, including your precious "man hater" persona you slapped "cis" in front of when trans people became politically incorrect to target

[henk-heijmans]

Just married couple in front of their burning car - photographer unknown

[mooonbride]

I looked up the original photo because I was wondering why the groom had no toes and was convinced this might be AI generated, but no. This is a real photo, but in the original the groom is wearing shoes. OP did you photoshop this image (badly) to make the groom barefoot???…