dopamining

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something fun for @ethereal-will ! can't say claude is having a fun time though

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wolf lord

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※ please do not repost my art ※   ➜ commission and ko-fi links in bio

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A lot of fantasy goes with Tolkien explanation of fantasy racism being the result of ancestral grudge.

Then you got Dungeon Meshi which is like:

"Elves and Dwarves hate each other because their respective empires make up 2/3 of the imperial core and are stuck in a cold war as the planet runs out of uncolonized land to grab. Elves are able to live in pastoral paradise because they've horded most of the settings farm-able land and natural capital, displacing and mass murdering any natives in the process. Orcs and goblins are hostile to other races because there the primary targets of an ongoing slavery and genocide campaign. The dividing line between human and inhuman is arbitrarily assigned via a phrenological pseudo-science that quickly falls apart when questioned by anyone who wasn't indoctrinated into it since birth."

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evolution of man

more wseyh lorenz art ! just a simple comparison of the change in his personality pre-academy and post-academy, with the current events of wseyh being represented in the middle. i feel very normal about the things that happen to him

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Every time I remember Three Hopes used an "Edelgard was under Thales' mind control" card, I start clawing at my face and turning into a werewolf.

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I think Claude is totally normal with subscribing to the "noble polygamy for politics" system that was prevalent outside of Greek region (and later Roman and wider Christian region) so long as it's not him. Just don't involve him in it,— let him marry off all of his allies' many children / siblings / what have you. Him? He will run for the hills (literally does in game in several endings), don't test him.

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The thing is, I think Almyra would be a home to a whole many more horse breeds, including the infamous group of Arab / Persian ones. The Argamaks, if you will, the Heavenly Horse that is The Status Horse of the Iranian region. Because it would be funny, and because there is history of mixed Horse breeds in ANE region in real life. So next to these short stacks of high speed and endurance there's these long legged beauties.

They'd be a hit with the nobility, bet.

Akhal Teke may not be the same breed, but it is allegedly related, and something similar is likely present. They are also quite hardy and durable despite their lean and long-legged stature.

As for the troops — mounted archers on either wyverns or horses? Reliably the worst thing to see your opponent bring to the table given you are not hiding your ass in a difficult terrain (mountains).

Almyra, if it has 10000 wyvern archers on top of however big, the standing cavalry is would definitely be a military flex for ages, in terms of both logistics and economics, to back it up.

Unfortunately, it's hard to export horses and animals in general, over mountains or over sea. In ships, it's a common problem even in modern times that animals tend to get sick very easily afterward. And over the mountains, there's the problem of the Throat being monitored by the Gonerils. It is easy to scout out a sizeable shipment due to terrain, and it's not reasonable to invest in small herds due to the distance and treacherous terrain.

So, Claude first needs to bribe Holst into opening up more than a small smuggling channel through the Throat, which means a lot of people will have to get normal about a lot of things really fast.

Nader better introduce a voluptuous daughter of his to the man sooner rather than later.

Fandom will never reach enlightenment until it recognizes that Claude is, in fact, The Final Horse Girl. From the Horse Culture Country. That rises The Best Horses. Who loves, and I quote "long rides" and whose Horse AND Flying skills are both E+ as base stats. This is a "can sleep in the saddle" boy. This is a "you just said Horse is a luxury, and I am trying to process that not everyone grew up in a country that is 50% Horse nomads" boy. He doesn't say he loves horses because, "Of course, everyone loves horses."

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Fandom will never reach enlightenment until it recognizes that Claude is, in fact, The Final Horse Girl. From the Horse Culture Country. That rises The Best Horses. Who loves, and I quote "long rides" and whose Horse AND Flying skills are both E+ as base stats. This is a "can sleep in the saddle" boy. This is a "you just said Horse is a luxury, and I am trying to process that not everyone grew up in a country that is 50% Horse nomads" boy. He doesn't say he loves horses because, "Of course, everyone loves horses."

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So, to my knowledge, no one's written the crest of Riegan in a cannibalistic horror light that the "hurt your enemy - get their HP" mechanic implies. I suppose it falls to me to give it ghoulish flavors.

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Almyra should have its own Babylon, and there should be a ruin of an Agrathan fortress at the city's foundation that got unearthed from the Flood.

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me vs. the fact that there are very few historical dramas set in peria and even fewer that don't subscribe to greco-roman or islamic propaganda about it.

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a short rest 🍃🍞

my full piece for The Noble Standard zine! leftover sales are now open till Jan 15 🛒

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(Reinforcements arrive at Merceus)

Lorenz:

Lorenz: No it's fine I just didn't think they would be Almyran

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Further thoughts on why I think there has to be some sort of Fódlani diaspora in Almyra:

Claude does a pretty good job acting and passing as Fódlani in Fódlan, and probably would do an even better job acting Almyran in Almyra; but in Fódlan he's never clocked as being Almyran even as he drops hints all over that he's a foreigner, while the way he talks about his childhood seems to imply he does get clocked in Almyra for being Fódlani. That sounds like Almyrans know more about Fódlanis than Fódlanis know about Almyrans = there are enough Fódlanis in (parts of) Almyra for them to register as a specific group to others, rather than just a few funny foreigners?

Of course it could be that him being a prince + everyone knowing who his mom is makes it impossible for him to pretend to be full Almyran in most situations, but still. Considering Claude's personality I feel like he tried sneaking around while hiding his status as prince, perhaps in hopes of making friends or blending in, then people still went "MIXED BLOODLINE SPOTTED COMMENCING XENOPHOBIA" or something and that's why he's got trust issues

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I think it would be funny if Almyra has its own big weird magical stuff (not aliens, local). Claude sees Sethes' pointy ear and goes, "Ha ha, don't they say yazatas and djinn have pointy ears," and then just has a crisis about it.

Also we have canon lore that Agrathans warred on "other countries" before they attacked Sothis and Children of the Goddess for immortality on Fodlan's territory, which has led to its devastation and Sothis causing a flood to stop the war, wipe out the Agrathans and revitalize the war-torn land and create "new" humans in Fodlan.

Well, there were other old humans and non-human species outside of Agrathans, who most likely Noahed it one way or another (or lived above the rising sea levels). If you posit that that's where some other nations, especially ones further away from Fodlan, take their root, you can have insane written history and mythology for them, especially about Fodlan and Agrathans in particular. Hell, if Agrathans did creepy experiments and made war bases for invasion, you can have relics of their power still causing trouble in other nations.

Easy - a deep dungeon (war beast lab) that keeps spawning a wave of monsters every decade or so and eats anyone who tries to go in.

Claude: Hey, at least you don't have man-eating chasms that spawn demons here.

Byleth: The what.

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We do have a sparce amount of Almyran merchants coming to trade in Fodlan (specifically through Leicester Alliance), who, if the interaction with Byleth to be believed, don't have much trouble with the language or blending in. It might be that a Fodlaner diaspora is present but not immediately connected to power, which makes them an "okay" Fodlaners, though I imagine that will change by the province, with more tensions for the Fodlaners the closer they are to the Throat, and therefore the population of Almyrans (of any ethnic background) that live under the militant border region lifestyle in conflict with the Alliance.

I know the games posit Almyra as the group initiating the skirmishes and as warmingerign pillaging barbarians. I've seen someone in the tags to one of my posts try to refute that, but I've gone over the quests in Hopes and Houses to reaffirm my stance, and there's accounts from Cyril, Shahid, Claude and Nader that corroborate that Almyrans start border scirmishes for wartime glory and pillaging. Cyril's account is most acute on it, and Nader has the most "hey can we pillage now" remarks. I feel the hand of the Greek anti-Persian propaganda. Therfroe, as is, Almyra is written through the classic Orientalist stereotyping despite the incorporated historical lens. Which is not surprising given the present state and history of Japanese nationalism. Anyway. Hate that reason, we need a better one, maybe how Almyrans do the thing that Fodlan also does — swoop in for trade reasons and capture foreign slaves to trade elsewhere. See, this way, this is an enlightened sedantry civilization of its era, going in for reasonable materialistic and not "me man wants to smash big because he needs to tell how strong and brave he is and get much shiny" reasons. Both sides would be stuck in the status quo of the slow conflict at the throat because of this. And maybe we can throw in a cossacs-like system from the Almyran side, where reporting in how YOU have deflected yet another treacherous Fodlaner expedition into your territory will be rewarded with funds and status.

This would make more sense for Claude not to know much about the birder situation because in this set up it's normal for the militant vassals at the border to be busy doing their own thing and cause their own dissonance with the mainstream imperial cultural zeitgeist.

Anyway. Back to the diaspora situation. It totally exists, and Khalid could have totally had tutors hired by his mother out of it for both language and cultural reasons, if somewhat dated. Given he doesn't have to go through too many of them because they get poisoned in the turbulence of the harem politics. Which is more likely to happen to them if they are unprotected minority. This raises the question if one of the legislation conflicts within Almyra is to, in reference to Cyrus Cillinder, pass legislation to recognize Fodlaners in Almyra as a diaspora in need of humanitarian aid.

Their situation is likely still shakey, and they might remain in relative isolation in regards to connection (marriage, employment, socialization) within their own diaspora, which is not uncommon.

Claude being clocked as someone of Fodlan heritage is a good question. Given what we've seen and the real-life skin and looks variety in the Indo-Iranian zone, I actually find it unlikely that when removed from the palace cohort, he'd be clocked as a Fodlaner mix. Unless he gives it up first.

Which, given he's confessed to having been a much bigger brat who would yell a lot and fight to be recognized, is not outside the realm of possibility. We are talking about a fourteen year old boy with a giant chip on his shoulder. I bet he'd have done successful sneak-outs before, for sure, where he passes as an Almyran. Stepping on a rake of being Xenophobia Beamed the moment he feels like he's found a #friend though? I believe it.

Further thoughts on why I think there has to be some sort of Fódlani diaspora in Almyra:

Claude does a pretty good job acting and passing as Fódlani in Fódlan, and probably would do an even better job acting Almyran in Almyra; but in Fódlan he's never clocked as being Almyran even as he drops hints all over that he's a foreigner, while the way he talks about his childhood seems to imply he does get clocked in Almyra for being Fódlani. That sounds like Almyrans know more about Fódlanis than Fódlanis know about Almyrans = there are enough Fódlanis in (parts of) Almyra for them to register as a specific group to others, rather than just a few funny foreigners?

Of course it could be that him being a prince + everyone knowing who his mom is makes it impossible for him to pretend to be full Almyran in most situations, but still. Considering Claude's personality I feel like he tried sneaking around while hiding his status as prince, perhaps in hopes of making friends or blending in, then people still went "MIXED BLOODLINE SPOTTED COMMENCING XENOPHOBIA" or something and that's why he's got trust issues