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like, are they in cahoots. can they laugh together. do they have a similar enough or at least complementary enough outlook that they can connect over something being funny (even if it's funny in a fucked up way! sometimes those are the best in-jokes!)

Like. Have y'all played FFXIII? Do I need to explain FFXIII to you? In FFXIII you're starting in a train and when a terrorist attack breaks the rails and opens a passage to some ancient ruins you wake a god and receive an impossible task that will turn you into a monster if you fail to deliver. And then the games makes you go through an ice lake->an abandoned mine->an enemy weapon's factory, to reach the city the train was supposed to take you, where you do some politics and, when it fails, you fight against the army and then you have to flee and long story short you get thrown into the open world, the vast land of giant animals whose corners are filled with hidden ruins of an ancient civilization that still glow blue and where people turned into monsters by failing the gods still roam. Like do I have to spell it out? And people have hated stupidly on FFXIII back then for "railroading you" but like that was the point! That was the point that at the beginning you're hopeless and stuck and you don't know how you're going to not turn into a monster, but as the plot unfolds new possibilities appear, the truth of the conflict between the gods get revealed, and you realize that you will have a chance to stand up for yourself, to fight the gods' fate and win yourself a better one.

And like I'm sure it was a different challenge for the vXIII/FFXV team to have to make the open world interesting to roam around from the very beginning of the game, without all the context of an earlier narrative. It's possible that there was another version of this part, one that wasn't as much of a barely disguised product placement for camping gear and Luna had actual speaking lines in her scenes and maybe even one where the narrative wasn't as mangled and re-explained through loading screens but like. It had to be there in this form already, at least a little bit. Like that's what makes it work, right? You're seeing it too, right?

Because - and glorious irony, people hated on the ending of FFXV the way they were hating on the beginning of FFXIII, said it was empty and unsatisfying, but it was also the point! That was the whole thing! You start with this boundless, joyful trip through seemingly endless good days, but then, the politics catch up with you, and the gods' plots catch up with you, and as they do the days get shorter and your options become fewer, until all there is left is to guide yourself forward like a lamb to the slaughter and accomplish the horrible fate that was decided by the gods, that you can't escape anymore.

And sure, I like FFXV for many of the things it does for itself. but I don't think I would have loved it the same if I hadn't noticed, if I hadn't thought to myself "haha they're putting us in a train, the thing that made people hate FFXIII-wait" the first time around. I love it for the well written parts and for the poorly written parts and for the fact that, for all it tries to pretend, it is still the game they were setting out to make in 2006, and that they carried over a vision of game design that had something to bring to the table. Like isn't it amazing, that we can see so clearly in it how the structure of a game, the choices in level structure, can inform the narrative instead of simply depending on technical limitations or fashion trends? That you can make an open world or a hallway or an arena, both, all three, depending on what best serves the story and emotions?

And then because square enix loves making money more than they are ready to take an artistic stand, they went oopsie sowwy, here's some more endgame content and extra hard bosses that didn't need to be here, please don't resell your disk! and I lied actually in my first post I can be mad at the writing in this game. I'll never get over this I think. if royal edition has zero haters it means I'm dead etc. But like. But like. Expanding the absolute most grace I have within me to everything in this game. That's my interpretation. Informed by how much I loved the OG Insomnia level, empty as it was. Was it empty out of real artistic vision or lack of time, we will probably never know. Maybe both! Is all the stuff from episode ardyn and the dawn of the future book and the extra solheim lore actually "stuff we had to cut in the process" or is it "new stuff we made to try and aligh with some of the most popular fan theories so people would keep engaging", maybe both! And they're not going to give us an honest answer now and probably ever, tbh. and I don't care.

Jewish baby named Edgardo Mortara is seemingly about to die in Bologna, 1851

Catholic nanny secretly baptises him to save his soul, which she’s not exactly the kind of authority who can do that, but w/e, it’s interpreted by the church as valid later

Kid survives

1857 her secret gets out, a baptising makes a kid a Catholic according to the Church and a Catholic can’t be raised in a non-Catholic household in the Papal States, so the church authorises the police to kidnap Edgardo from his family

Raised personally by Pope Pius IX, Jewish family not allowed to take him back due to Church doctrine, this action destroys the family with grief and despair

This case gets international infamy with the Pope not understanding why everyone’s shiting on him for doing this, including allies

Emperor Napoleon III shifts from opposing Italian unification to supporting it as a direct consequence

Bologna falls the next year, 1859

Kingdom of Italy forms 1861

By 1870 Rome is lost to the Italians and the Papal States are no more

(Edgardo Mortara goes on to become Father Mortara)

The most infamous of these cases was the Finaly affair. Two Jewish children in France, Robert and Gerald Finaly, were placed in a Catholic nursery in 1944 in anticipation of their parents being deported to Auschwitz, where they were both murdered. Their aunt, Marguerite Fischel, survived the war and went to find the boys so she could take them to live with her. However, the nun who had custody of the boys, Antoinette Brun, adamantly refused to give them up, reportedly saying that “The Jews are not grateful”

What followed was a years long custody battle where despite being repeatedly ordered by courts all over Europe to return the boys, Brun took them to many different countries and hid them, with the support and help of other nuns and priests. It was suspected at the time, and later confirmed by documents released in 2020, that Pope Pius XII had supported the effort to keep the boys away from their surviving family and have them be raised Catholic.

Thankfully, after negotiations between a sympathetic cardinal in France and the chief Rabbi of Paris, the boys were finally recovered and reunited with their aunt.

I wish I could say that the phenomenon of the Catholic Church kidnapping children and keeping them away from their families for the purposes of forcefully raising them Catholic is unique to Jews, but it’s not. From the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century, the Church ran hundreds of residential schools in the US and Canada where indigenous children were kidnapped from their homes and forced into these cruel and inhumane “schools”. The children were forbidden from speaking their own languages or practicing their own cultures and religions, their hair was cut, and they were subject to emotional, verbal, spiritual, physical, and sexual abuse. Many of the children died due to malnutrition or medical neglect, their bodies buried like dogs beside the schools. The Catholic Church was not the only Church to participate in this, but they’ve been the most reluctant to fully acknowledge and apologize for it. It was only in 2022 that Pope Francis apologized on behalf of the Catholic Church for their part, but some people found the apology inadequate.

"People back then always married young it's natural!!!" Every single 1800s guide I've ever met casually mentions that, of course, you really shouldn't get married before you're at least 20, and waiting until 25 is usually better.

Or, like. Okay here's a long segment:

Just firmly going "it is crazy sexist to blame The Wife for overspending when thirty seconds of asking questions will immediately establish that her husband was outright lying to her about how much money they had. Talk to your wife like a normal person."

Or--okay, here. A section on being honest and not writing love letters in secret, because that's usually a good sign that there's something untoward going on....

....except that he then immediately acknowledges that sometimes, the reason you're hiding this from your parents is that your parents suck. That there are parents who frankly have not earned the right to approve or disapprove of your partner.

"Men and women being friends with each other is literally normal. Don't be a controlling freak."

"If you have to abuse a child to keep order in your classroom then you're a bad teacher."

The nonprofit’s set to receive a donation of 21 tons of tubers this weekend from suppliers in the Midwest. Hoping to get the starchy vegetables to people in need, the nonprofit will host a “Potato Palooza” event on Monday in Park Hill. “Anyone is welcome to come. They can bring tote bags, wagons, you could back up your pickup truck if you wanted to,” Hissong said. The event is 9 a.m. to noon at the Park Hill Food Recovery Hub, 6090 East 39th Avenue, on July 27.

This is the dream

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