#Excellus

[fe-smashorpass]

[fefuckability]

Qualifying Round: Poll 4

Feel free to post your justifications in the tags/comments!

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

Do you ever think that maybe Excellus got ~freaky~ with the Shepard's? Like what if we were playing Freak Awakening where everyone is freaky and Excellus has a thing for Chrom's toes

:(

[feshippingpolls]

Malice x excellus

FE: Should they kiss?

Malice x Excellus

[villaincock]

fire emblem awakening IS camp actually

[room215]

when talking about chr0bin content there is no such thing as using the “wrong robin” chrom is literally so bisexual. awakeking is a love story regardless also

[synergysilhouette]

Remaking Fire Emblem: Awakening

I kinda did a remake with "Fates," so I thought I'd make one with Awakening. To be fair: this is all subjective. I'm not saying my choices would make the game more enjoyable for everyone or that it'd be objectively superior. And most of this is plot-related, based on my understanding (or lack thereof) of the game after playing it. I changed a lot, and I've experienced gatekeeping within the community before back in my Reddit days, so be nice with your feedback!

Fell Dragon relevancy and the reduction of villains--It's revealed in retrospect towards the end of the game that certain villains aren't what they seem. Aversa was brainwashed by Validar as a child, Walhart was actually trying to prevent Grima's revival (albeit earning everyone's ire in the process) and was being manipulated by Excellus. Along with this, Grima and Walhart aren't really villains who affect the overall story, moreso placeholders for the main event. Because of this, I'd prefer to keep the focus on Validar and the Fell Dragon Grima, without there having to be those "well, in actuality" moments (as a Kingdom Hearts fan, I'm tired of those)--though we could keep the Aversa being brainwashed subplot; in fact, I'd re-work it so after Validar kidnaps her, she's raised by him to become a friend/servant to Robin (more on that in a sec), so they're the only one who can truly break through to her. Walhart is less aggressive with his approach to destroying the Grimleal, asking for cooperation rather than trying to take over the whole continent and forcing everyone to help him (he'd be allies with Chon'sin and actually have Say'ri and Yen'fay join before later joining our ranks himself), and Gangrel is a begrudging ally to the team because it inconveniences him greatly if the world is destroyed, as it would anyone--plus he realizes his troops are planning to revolt against him and wants to make nice with the people of Ylisse in case he ever needs to abscond.

Robin's background--First off, keep in mind that "Fates" was my first game, and while it copied a lot of "Awakening" (and "Engage" would do the same), the latter will always be my second FE game, and thus I wanted to avoid some tropes. Robin being the child of Validar is kinda burying the lead, and their mother is an unseen NPC, which is a big pet peeve to me with customizable characters; I adore a backstory. Seeing how Corrin, Byleth, and Alear's backstories follow similar beats to Robin's, I'd prefer if we switched it up. I'd enjoy if, rather than going the "nice, mostly absent mom and evil dad" route the succeeding games would go, we instead make Validar a bit more grey. He is still a devout follower of Grima, but not by choice. Coming from a family of worshippers, he plans to defect with his wife and child, but when they are captured and threatened with death, Validar agrees to become a vessel to Grima. This fails and corrupts him, and he raises Robin as the next vessel, his love being twisted with a fixation and obsession with them. His wife helps Robin escape shortly before the events of the game, but she disappears shortly thereafter and is presumed dead. Robin no longer has amnesia here, but has been kept a secret from the outside world, and thus Frederick is correct in being hesitant to trust them, and Robin understands, slowly revealing their origins to Chrom and co. (the full of which is done before the end of Act I).

The confusing paradox/Lucina's Mission--If you weren't mad before, you probably will be now. I kinda found the explanation of "Grima from an alternate future came to the present, gave Robin amnesia and went back to square 1" explanation kinda confusing and convoluted. Given the fact that the future children don't return to their time period anyway, I'd rework the story so that the alternate future that they came from is destroyed, and the children are the last remnants of it. No Grima going back in time with them; he was a being of destruction that brought about his own demise, eventually. The children were simply given a new lease on life, as well as wanting to spare their past parents the heartache of it all.

Making the children from the same timeline--This would mean a lot of extra work, but I'd enjoy it if the story and support convos reflected each character's unique heritage depending on who their dominant parent married. This INCLUDES CHROM ACKNOWLEDGING HIS KIDS HAVING BRANDS. If you recall, that's a family trait, and Lucina (the daughter he has regardless of your choices) has it, and Inigo (a son he could potentially have with Olivia) also shows that he has it. Any other possible kids Chrom can have should also mention having or not having a brand, imo. Morgan's backstory also changes. Here, Morgan comes from the same timeline as the other children (which can potentially happen in the OG game, but mainly if they have a sibling to confirm this), and they maintain a bubbly attitude, albeit not as moronic/silly as in the OG game.

(Art found on Etsy)

Emmeryn and Philia survive--Since I've already reversed the (seemingly) deaths of Walhart, Aversa, and Gangrel, I wanted to focus on Emmeryn. In the game, Philia is killed while trying to save her, and she commits suicide to prevent Chrom from giving up the Fire Emblem. Emmeryn can survive in one of the paralogues, though how this is possible isn't stated, and she has amnesia that makes her somewhat child-like. In my rewrite, Philia and her knights--or at the very least, Philia--doesn't die, and manages to rescue Emmeryn, though she has been roughed up in the process (IDK if I'd still make it because of Gangrel or if it'd be from Validar; probably the latter), forcing Chrom to take the role as king.

Romance options are more flexible--This includes same-sex options for Robin. Obviously this is more of a bonus aspect rather than something that largely affects the story/gameplay, but as a gaymer, this is something I'd enjoy, as well as STILL having kids in this (Fates mentioned same-sex couples adopted, but they don't get xenologues or get to be part of the story at all). Of course, this doesn't mean we can have Robin/Chrom since there's emphasis on heirs and Chrom has a big wedding with a bridge (unless you wanna have them get married and have an offscreen surrogate, which would be neat). Concerning Chrom, I'd enjoy Miriel, Anna, Panne, Tharja, Phila, Say'ri, and Flavia being additional romance options for him (which could come with interesting consequences).

Olivia joins earlier--This is a nit-pick as a Olivia/Chrom fan (mainly because of him acknowledging Inigo more than his other extras kids), but I also enjoy having a dancer on the team earlier.

Perhaps a bit more background/attention for some characters--In games like "Fire Emblem," most of the characters' personality and background is shown in the form of their supports with other characters. This might be unachievable in the game, but I would like more inclusion of the characters who join; the ones who join earlier definitely feel like they fade to the background as the story goes on, and things like Ricken's admiration for Chrom, Tharja's obsession with Robin (cue "obsessive dad" flashbacks), and Stahl's training under Frederick are some of the things I wish the mains story would bring up here and there rather than confining it to convos.

It'd also be nice to have an open-world, exploration-style story like 3H and "Engage," but it's not a necessity; it's just a fun thing I'd enjoy. Plus actually letting us replay our convos like we're able to do in later games would be awesome.

And that's my take! I'm almost certain that I'm forgetting something, but I can always edit this later. Lemme know what you think!

[the-priestess-of-dawn]

If you could change ONE thing about Awakening, what would it be? Adding, subtracting, altering, all on the table.

If I say "the script" can I go in and make whatever edits I want to the characters' lines? I wouldn't even change MUCH, just like... the parts that actively don't make sense (Validar's "you may have killed me in some future past," Grima saying they would cease to exist if Lucina rewrote history even though that's clearly not how Awakening's time travel works, etc.) as well as a few lines that are... um, well... just not very good lines to have at all (Excellus's comment about enjoying inappropriate touching, for example...). I just love Awakening so much that changing things too significantly, even in ways I think are cool, would make me sad.

But I feel like that answer's kind of boring, so here's something I'd like that WOULD be a major change while still (in my opinion anyway) fitting with existing canon...

Grima should be recruitable after clearing the Future Past 3 Xenologue.

I mean, the bad ending (not all the Future Past children survive the map) has Lucina vowing to figure out a way to send Grima wherever they sent Chrom (i.e. back to the main game's world), believing that he will be able to set "the good part" of Grima free. And in the good ending, there's this scene of Chrom and Robin watching over the kids from the afterlife, which suggests that they are not actually inescapably bound with their other self after Lucina seals the fell dragon away. Allowing Grima to be recruited in the main game would therefore be a sensible follow-up to the Future Past story as well as a fitting reward for completing a genuinely difficult map (and I don't think the real map actually gives you anything for clearing it, does it?)

Now, Grima would presumably be totally OP, and you can clear the DLC as early as Chapter 5 when you gain access to the Outrealm Gate, so... maybe instead of just giving you Grima outright, it could unlock a paralogue in the main game that you can't access until the Endgame (like the Spotpass paralogues) or something.

... OR just say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and give us unlockable Grima in chapter 5, whatever, because if you can actually beat the Future Past 3 at that point in the game I honestly think you deserve an OP unit on your team. What about narrative integrity? No worries. Just go the FEH route and give Grima amnesia so they don't actually know why they look just like Robin but with better stats. They meet the hierophant in Plegia and just go "oh gods how many of us are there" and it's fine. The Annas exist. This could be a totally normal thing that happens all the time. It doesn't actually have to derail the plot.

[kafkaoftherubble]

@these-detestable-hands Oh shit, they are within these options!

Also, Excellus? Damn π it would hurt less if you just go out and say you hate me

[azelfandquilava]

No offense intended and I'm cool with your opinion, but I think Cleobulus was meant to be male given the unused material in Three Houses as well as Awakening doing the same with Excellus combined with Fire Emblem's typical sexism and transphobia.

I recognise that the devs probably made that decision. But given that it’s a stupid ass decision I’ve elected to ignore it.

Okay, Memes aside, if it’s true then it really is a fucking daft choice cuz it goes against the theme in Houses of the Agarthans at least being somehow physically similar to their victims.

Female Cleobulus is just infinitely way more fitting than whatever unused “male” Warlock NPC was left in Houses’ game data. And until we get an actual on-screen depiction of them instead of an off-handed mention in some translations I am gonna stick to it.

[fe-smashorpass]

[ro-botany]

In the Original Bad End Timeline, didn't only Chrom and Robin die/not return from the Dragon's Table? Because the children all have some complex/memory about their parents. And this was also after Lucina had grown up enough to learn swordplay from Chrom pretty decently if the Feroxi Champion Battle-thing is any account. ("Who taught you to fight like that?" "My father!") So maybe Lucina just inherited the crown without issue, since that's what happened with Emmeryn.

Well yes, Lissa (and everyone else) do have to survive the dragon's table. But the issue here is twofold.

We *do not know* if Ylissean law favours *children of the most recent ruler* or *siblings of the most recent ruler* for who is next in line for the crown.

For a significant chunk of time, while the shepherds are escaping the apocalypse dragon, the people in Ylisstol *do not know if Chrom and Lissa are alive or dead*. They presume both are dead, crown Lucina, and find her a regent... But when word comes in that Lissa is still alive, Point 1 comes back to bite us in the ass. Is Lissa now exalt? Is Lissa regent? Or is Lissa neither of those things? What factors (rules of succession, rumours of her bloodline, title of princess) affect that decision?

Therein lies my dilemma.

FOR THE SECOND PART ABOUT LUCINAS AGE...

See thats my other goddamned problem, because Lucina SAYS chrom taught her swordplay.

But WHY

WOULD VALIDAR DELAY HIS PLANS SO MUCH

I dont think we can put off the Valm war by enough years to account for Luci growing up, nothing happening in Archaenea would delay Walhart wanting to invade by several years.

And I also have no reason to believe Validar wouldn't seize the opportunity of their return from the Valm war, when they are tired and their forces are weakened and they will be caught off guard, to murder Chrom and give Robin the dragon juice. Like what, did he forget where he put Sable??? Did Excellus drop Gules behind a desk, or forget to kill Tiki for Azure, and now they have to send spies to go find some gems before they can continue the plan???

THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE MAKES MY HEAD HURT ANON IDK WHATS HAPPENING

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

hi to chrom hater anon i'm a professional chrom enjoyer

if you get deranged enough about awakening i think chrom is a very well done character :) he's ignorant but well meaning which meshes in interesting ways. he's not overtly prejudiced to the plegians he knows personally but still *generally* prejudiced because of his upbringing.

additionally in discussions of the ylisse-plegia war he tends to focus on how ylisse came away from it because that state of ylisse is what shaped his formative childhood years (seen particularly in his feelings about emmeryn's early years as exalt). this is UNDERSTANDABLE but still an extremely DEEPLY FLAWED and naive stance when doing politics on a larger scale, which chrom is incredibly ill-prepared for. it's a very childish view of a large scale conflict.

chrom's propensity for violence is a trait that actually deeply fascinates me. he has intense admiration for emmeryn's desire for peace yet he has a very short temper in tense situations (seen in basically all of chrom's interactions with gangrel), and he tends to lash out easily at anyone he views as an enemy. he admires peace but sees no other means to achieve it than violence. isn't that interesting. the implications here. like, he's the inheritor of the falchion, he's the only son in his family, in all likelihood it was expected that HE would take the throne and continue his father's war, but he was so young when the exalt passed that the crown went to emmeryn instead.

it really seems like emmeryn intentionally kept her siblings away from politics, which results in BOTH of them being naive in vastly different ways, with the expectation that she would always shoulder the burden of the crown yet left all the bigger a void when she died.

mind, intentionally being raised to behave this way isn't an excuse either. it's ultimately still something chrom, as an adult, SHOULD examine critically. this is, in fact, a character flaw, and i think its great.

you can then of course do nice little compare and contrast at the shitty dads, i.e. chrom's dad vs validar. robin's first act as an awakened god is murdering validar. robin became the monster everyone saw them as, the one their father thinks they were born to be. it's a neat lil nature vs nurture comparison if you really get into the depths of grima-ology (hi grima ✌️ mutuals).

to dig more into points the chrom hater anon makes.

"chrom is transphobic for killing excellus" do you hear yourself. excellus was an enemy commander. chrom has no personal grievances against the commanders other than they are part of the army with the known intent to raze ylisse.

SAME WITH ROBIN BURNING DOWN THE BOATS. THEY ARE AT WAR. IF ROBIN DIDNT DO THAT THEY'D ALL GET KILLED. they would have to fight the valm forces ON FOOT and BE KILLED VIOLENTLY because they are vastly outnumbered. it would be weird if he WASN'T at least happy about this.

he could stand to be regretful about the massive loss of human life but honestly hashtag robin warcrimes W.

"chrom makes sure to only recruit white ylisseans" i think this is just dev colorism actually. like you know how robin's dad (who is evil) is brown, but robin (who is good) is white? and how that makes no sense and robin should logically also be brown? i dont think chrom would've turned down if like, mustafa joined him. it is simply that intsys was still in their racism era (which is, tbh, only really ended with engage, like, cmon, look at literally all of FE, this isn't a chrom flaw, it's a FE being racist flaw.)

same with the sexism things actually FE is just homophobic and sexist a lot so all the characters are also by extension. this is called doylist analysis

Chrom tells Aversa "One person's life means nothing in the shadow of millions" Chrom is a hypocrite i hope this helps. additionally what aversa is doing is "help the dark god literally causing the apocalypse rn" whereas the sacrifice/save robin choice is "doom people in some hypothetical far off future" which is FAR less personal than "all of humanity RIGHT NOW".

TLDR: the real chrom enjoyers know about his character flaws and love him anyway because it's nice flavor to chew on

also never insult my beautiful daughter lucina ever again. she is deeply compelling even if she is narratively underutilized. anyone who calls themself a chrom fan and hates lucina is a faker and will not survive the winter.

also learn the difference between flaws of the story's writing and flaws of the character otherwise everybody in awakening is sexist.

anon you should read chrom/grima fanfiction unironically we fucking love tearing this dude to shreds for his flaws. this has all been a ploy to say that. chrom is naive and selfish and hypocritical and i love him very much he is my wif e :)

.

[deathbirby]

Not dolphin calling me an incel and misogynist and blocking me because I didn't like Dorothea LMAOO.

What is it with Dorothea fans and misusing the term, "misogynist".

On twitter, I posted about Fire Emblem's history with "benevolent sexism" and tendency to take away the agency of female antagonists, usually via old men brainwashing, as well as the vilification of transwomen like Excellus.

I got a DM and rant from a user called "Dorovaingrid" or "Malka", calling me a "semi intellectual Misogynist", whom had me blocked.

As apparently speaking out against the misogyny and transphobia from a bunch of old and male writers with very conservative beliefs makes you a misogynist.

Dorovaingrid used to be very popular on twitter and was also an Edelstan, but thankfully the fandom eventually cancelled her sorry ass once she started making tweets about how Aromantic Men were just faking it so they could sexually prey on women.

I feel like a newcomer who is getting fed all of the crazy fandom lore. They did what???

They generally go for personal attacks to invalidate your arguments. You don't like Dorothea because of a valid reason? No, you must be a misogynist so your reason is actually just you being sexist.

[gascon-en-exil]

I am curious as to how Engage fare compared to its predecessor in terms of misogynistic writing (we should make a tier list)

Engage has female antagonists with awkwardly-handled sympathetic backstories coming out its ears, but to its credit it levels the playing field by giving all of its antagonists something like that. Granted that most of them get developed in the space of one scene apiece leaving them all feeling rushed and lazy, but at least it's Sombron is subjected to the same type of silliness that Zephia is.

As for a tier list? Hmm. Tellius is generally agreed upon to be the least misogynistic setting in the series, and easily the most even-handed with the fanservice courtesy of the hunky laguz (and Ike) that have broken containment and inspired all manner of porn by artists who don't know the first thing about FE. Both are these are quite surprising in light of the fact that this is also the setting with catgirls.

The GBA games aren't too far behind, having shaken off most (but not all) of the standard Kara misogyny and also being fairly light on fanservice. Both settings definitely still prioritize their male lords, but then so does Tellius in the end.

Engage probably slots in here, with overt fanservice designs at a midpoint between Awakening/Fates and Houses and the aforementioned equal distribution of silly backstory dumps. Veyle is pretty much Julia 2.0, complete with an actual personality this time.

I'm not going to try splitting hairs between them, so I'll lump the Kaga games and their remakes together in a group here. FE1 deserves props for what was a fairly revolutionary decision in 1990: making the lead's princess girlfriend a playable character right from the start and never a damsel in distress. On the flip side, Echoes is embarrassing for reinforcing and even doubling down on a bunch of misogynistic elements in 2017.

It's honestly hard for me to sort out the rest, but I'd most likely settle on Fates and Three Houses being about equally bad albeit in very different ways. The former's in your face about it, the latter isn't but can be just as insidious with the misogyny (one of the points I made in my latest video). Awakening might be worse than both, especially if we're also factoring in its homophobic humor and the SpotPass recruits and...Excellus.

Of course Heroes would be at the very bottom, and it continues to plumb new depths of sleaze nearly every month, but I'm focusing on mainline games here.

[fefuckability]

The Awakening Bracket Qualifier! Starts July 26th at 3pm EDT

Here's how it's going to work:

There are going to be 7 qualifying polls (Four for the men, three for the women)

Pick your favorite from each poll

Polls will run for one week (I'd prefer 3 days but alas Tumblr doesn't offer the option yet)

The top 16 male characters and the top 16 female characters will qualify for the men's and women's brackets.

Polls:

Qualifier 1 (Chrom, M!Robin, Virion, Frederick, Vaike, Gregor, Henry, Libra)

Qualifier 2 (Stahl, Kellam, Gaius, Lon'qu, Basilio, Walhart, Yen'fey, Priam)

Qualifier 3 (Owain, Inigo, Brady, Gerome, Yarne, Laurent)

Qualifier 4 (Validar, Cervantes, Excellus, Mustafa, Gangrel, Old Hubba, Farber)

Qualifier 5 (F!Robin, Lissa*, Emmeryn, Cherche, Sumia, Cordelia, Panne, Anna)

Qualifier 6 (Sully, Maribelle, Tharja, Miriel, Olivia, Say'ri, Tiki, Flavia, Naga)

Qualifier 7 (Lucina, Kjelle, Cynthia, Severa, Noire, Pheros, Raimi, Aversa, Phila)

Characters who are excluded from voting:

Anyone who obviously both looks and acts like a literal child. Some characters are borderline so discretion may be used

Generics

Palette swapped characters (e.g. Victor and Vincent)

Anyone who lacks either a portrait or a unique name

Characters who do not have a unique humanoid form (e.g. Grima, because they either look like a dragon or they just look like Robin)

Characters who are technically included in Awakening via Einherjar, but would fit better with another game's poll (e.g. Marth)

*Yes, I know Lissa is canonically 15 at the start of Awakening. However, there's a two year time skip and she's canonically at least 17, possibly 18 by the end of the game. Taking that into consideration I've decided to include her. Assume she's at her post-time skip age for the purposes of these polls.