Just a Little Magic

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OpenAI scraped the entire web. All of which had been a labor of love from humans. Wikipedia is the backbone of a lot of LLMs, and that was volunteer human labor. They stole it and now they're selling it back to us.

When they're rich and live in the city, she gets more suitors than her sisters, which pisses them off. So she refuses them all, as kindly as she can, saying she's not ready to marry, but would they perhaps be interested in her sisters instead? But even that pisses them off, because they think 'oh, not only are you too good for any of these men, but you think we want your leftovers? We know you're only pointing them to us out of pity.'

The family loses their money and Beauty does cry, she's heartbroken by this news. But she wipes her tears and declares she can't cry, she can't upset her family, someone must be strong. So she tries to keep her chin up and a stiff upper lip. And her sisters call her stupid and simple-minded for it, "Look at her, she's so dull that she carries on like normal even though we've lost everything. I bet she never truly knew or appreciated what we had."

When her father goes to see after his ships, and asks what gifts the girls would like, Beauty didn't even actually WANT a rose. She wanted nothing but her father's safe return, but she knew that if she said "Nothing for me, thanks," then her sisters would accuse her of only trying to look better than them. So she asks for the simplest thing she can think of. But then her father comes back with the rose and tells the whole story about the Beast and her sisters go "Beauty, you dumbass, this is all your fault! If you'd asked for anything else, this never would have happened."

She goes to the Beast, and she's happy for a time.

And her sisters are happy without her. They've gotten their own suitors now, and by the time she visits home again, looking more beautiful and healthier than ever, they've even gotten fiances... ...who immediately start ignoring the sisters and start trying to court Beauty instead, making it clear they'd like to break off their engagements and marry her, if she'd just say yes to one of them. Beauty didn't even do anything and her sisters get angry at her mere existence.

Hell, they were actually already angry when she returned home, because they were mad the Beast hadn't killed her like they all thought he would.

And Beauty must have known that. What must that be like, knowing your sisters are angry you're not torn apart by a monster?

And they ask her to stay a day longer, acting like they changed their ways and they love her after all, just so he will kill her. They actively try to get their sister killed.

Her dad's not that great either. "Oh yeah," I hear you saying, "he did ultimately agree to bring his daughter to the Beast's castle, fully believing she'd be killed for him." No, I'm talking about earlier.

When they came to their country house, the merchant and his three sons applied themselves to husbandry and tillage; and Beauty rose at four in the morning, and made haste to have the house clean, and dinner ready for the family. In the beginning she found it very difficult, for she had not been used to work as a servant, but in less than two months she grew stronger and healthier than ever. After she had done her work, she read, played on the harpsichord, or else sung whilst she spun. On the contrary, her two sisters did not know how to spend their time; they got up at ten, and did nothing but saunter about the whole day, lamenting the loss of their fine clothes and acquaintance. "Do but see our youngest sister," said they, one to the other, "what a poor, stupid, mean-spirited creature she is, to be contented with such an unhappy dismal situation." The good merchant was of quite a different opinion; he knew very well that Beauty outshone her sisters, in her person as well as her mind, and admired her humility and industry, but above all her humility and patience; for her sisters not only left her all the work of the house to do, but insulted her every moment.

ala mhigo was torn by garlean invasion, their entire people scattered and forced to leave to the rest of eorzea. there are so many displaced ala mhigans that LITTLE ALA MHIGO EXISTS, FULL OF ALA MHIGANS WHO COULD NOT LIVE WITHIN GRIDANIA OR UL'DAH

Rejected by the elementals of the Twelveswood and unable to adapt to Ul'dahn custom, Ala Mhigan refugees eventually settled in southern Thanalan. In exchange for supplies, the residents allow the Immortal Flames to maintain a presence, and Little Ala Mhigo now serves as a post whence to watch the movements of the Amalj'aa

you literally interact with meffrid in A REALM REBORN

IN FUCKING GRIDANIA

WHERE THE PALACE OF THE DEAD THING IS. IN THAT SMALL CAMP. BECAUSE HE TOO WAS FORCED TO FLEE

how can you look at lyse in the eye and see stormblood in a vacuum and not understand that the entire point of lyse becoming the face of the resistance is the fact that ala mhigo does not abandon her children, regardless of where they are and who they are? that she rejects this position of power over and over because she understands she's unfit to lead as someone who didn't fight for her own homeland?

THE LITERAL GYR ABANIAN ANTHEM THEY SING AT THE END OF THE MSQ EXPLAINS IT. COME YE WAYWARD BROTHERS, BEREFT OF HEARTH AND HOME

this is why lyse is tied with hien, because he was born DURING garlean occupation. he has never seen a free doma, this is something they insist upon on his side of the story. they are linked because hien has never seen the country his father died for and yet he is here to continue the fight and ensure doma is liberated. its the exact same for lyse. hien's life hinged on the desire for freedom, if his own people didn't want to be free then he was going to kill himself because there is no point in him fighting for and existing as a symbol of freedom. both of them had their people acknowledge they're needed!

wayward brothers! in the lyrics of gyr abania's anthem!

wayward daughter! as the theme for tsukuyomi!

this is why yotsuyu is also important! why fordola is important! they are still, at the end of the day, daughters of their own countries who matter as much as anyone else who embodies the perfect upstanding citizen! it matters that yotsuyu is treated as doman (even after the questionable decision of giving her amnesia which just. feels like an easy "feel bad for her bc we couldn't figure out how to make a victim turned perpetrator seem empathetic"), because her pain and suffering came as a result of doman patriarchy. it matters that fordola grew up as a "priviledged" ala mhigan child within garlean camps! because neither group accepted her or her family in the end, because she was always going to be seen a traitor and a savage regardless of what she does and what she accomplishes!

This was prompted by me and my boyfriend discussing handedness and being able to tell apart left and right. And me, being ambidextrous, was baffled by how do people with an obligate dominant hand mix up which side is the one with their Writing Hand and which one isn't?? And my boyfriend pointed out that I go "turn left - no I mean right" so much when giving directions that I have lost my navigator privileges.

I argued that mixing up the words isn't the same thing as mixing up the directions. Like if your mom accidentally called you the dog's name doesn't mean that she literally can't tell you apart from the dog. And he looked at me like this

Bottled Up | Chapter 1 : Alive Again | Pages 18-22

A Nervous Old Man (right) and his Emotional Support Violence Machine (Left)