merric

Somehow the game where one of the party members gives birth is the least amatonormative of the three. I was very nervous when they got to the City but they kept it classy.

Just look at the details of the maternity scene. Mio's face when confronted with the baby's vulnerability against her own impending Homecoming, her calling for Sena (sister-figure lesbian kouhai) first, Taion's overwhelming jubilation, the shooting of that scene is wonderful.

Compared to like... 1's bland romances and Melia's crush that kinda peters out along with her arc in general, and how Rex being Pythra's Driver is framed (Rex's romances are cute at least).

Shoutout to Mòrag's yearning for Brighid though. That moment was timed brilliantly. 2 being nonjudgmental towards Mòrag, Jin and Malos was reassuring.

Oooohhhhhhh I hate the Lovebomber Rhea reading so much because it paints her outburst in the Holy Tomb as an abuse tactic. Girl in my reading that's INTERGENERATIONAL GENOCIDE TRAUMA being triggered. That's CF's trick. It's true that every other interaction with her is suspect but THAT MOMENT SPECIFICALLY IS IRONICALLY HER MOST JUSTIFIED REACTION! NOT JUST UNDERSTANDABLE!! JUSTIFIED!!! THE ULTERIOR MOTIVE HAS WANED!!!!  And citing "dehumanisation" as if she's the only one that uses that tool and when dehumanising rhetoric is one of CF's unique indulgences/key weaknesses lmaoooo

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Edited 9/1/0/25: small in word count, large in meaning.

It's always been unclear to me how much of the Queer Liberation Fantasy (QLF) reading of CF was/is seen as rehabilitation of canon (Death of the Author) or canon itself.

Because on one hand the QLF is easy to see. People constantly shooting it down, particularly the 'crits', was/is irritating, even if I personally agree that CF is, in the end, not aspirational at all (and neither is AM). And it often veer(ed/s) dangerously close to centrist maligning of violent resistance.

On the other hand, claiming that the QLF is canon is giving more credit to ISKT—who have proven to be obsessed with caricature, white saviourism and heteronormativity—than they deserve. It didn't help when the 'stans' call(ed) their opposition liberals/centrists/conservatives wholesale and especially when they said/say this or that CF antagonist would support [hyperspecific manifestation of ultraconservative angloAmerican repression].

So like no one really explicitly took the specific (not centrist!) position of "CF is by definition revolutionary but has major sociopolitical and philosophical dangers that go somewhat beyond squick/personal preference".

Just remembered the Veyle feet drama and I think I've figured out where it fits into infuriating cycles of discussion on the internet. Warning for poor recall of canon two paragraphs down.

Scenario: person comments that her design may (or may not) double as fetish bait. Nothing wrong with this. The problem is when their opponents start attacking the person for even suggesting the possibility, ignoring the fact that the creators have lost the audiences' faith to a degree that it gave rise to this critique in the first place. It recalls those lolishota enthusiasts and proshippers that are all like "maybe YOU'RE the predator" as if they're bastions of free thought and their opposition are mindless puritanicals, which is facetious at best.

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Thinkin about my feelings towards ace interpretations of Koito Yuu versus Ike Greil Fire Emblem in fandom, particularly through repression and disinterest. At least based off things I remember.

Yuu experienced a degree of repression but I'm happy to see her as asexual (and personally demisexual) because of the broader exploration of her questioning.

Ike on the other hand—I get why fellow (aro)aces can relate to his general romantic disinterest because it is rather queer, but to interpret it as asexuality primarily or exclusively is clueless at best and revisionist at worst. Gay ace is fine, but we have to be honest: it's 2000s video game gay-coding.

The bright side is that it indirectly opens up conversations on the potential of asexual representation. I hope there's a nascent scene centred around ace-coding or something like that out there.

A practice in optimism: the nature of the 'rule' of the Nabateans in ancient Fodlan is so vague that it could just have been a few too many of them were democratically elected to shared territories and the Agarthans didn't like that. For all we know it could be an Agarthan exaggeration to justify their hatred.

Likewise, the arrival of the Nabateans to Fodlan in the first place is vague enough that it could have been a case of immigrants arriving and becoming part of a multicultural society, and the Agarthans didn't like that either, didn't like them becoming influential in the public sphere.

To be clear this isn't a fable about slaying a dragon sitting atop a pile of gold this is implying that taking a certain form, especially one that is inexplicable to certain others, is itself colonial violence.

When the original text can't even decide if the dragons taking on human form was an expression of admiration and desire for coexistence or an act of settler nativism is really telling...

Did people actually think the writers were gonna respect Edelgard in Hopes when they dressed her up like that (especially considering setting and the rest of the cast)?? This is the spiritual successor to the bad trajectory I sensed from Fates' promo material that ultimately swayed me from buying it