#I really should finish my Crimson Flower playthrough tho

[kyogre-blue]

SS is done.

The most standout part: I got the Rhea S rank. It was good. I support it, but I wish there was a gen version and also that it was available on VW. My general impression is that VW actually gives you more chances to ask after and worry for Rhea (plus Claude is a rather meh romance option), so it would be great if I could get with her there too.

In general, I wish VW and SS were just one route. Both have some nice small details, but given how similar they are, I feel like you'd get a better experience if they were just combined.

Checking my VW endgame notes, it seems VW gives you info dump about Agartha, which definitely feels missing in SS, and SS gives you a bit more detail about Byleth's deal from Rhea, which adds some nice details on the Rhea relationship front. Seriously, they should have just combined them.

(Hilariously, Catherine's endcard outright contradicts the paired Rhea one. They are incompatible, but I got both. Additionally, Ingrid's card seems to be written for Crimson Flower, since it mentions Galatea being "seized" and Ingrid needing to push strongly to be allowed to govern it, which comes across weirdly as a post-war in the Byleth-led United Kingdom, especially since the other Lions kids I recruited all got their lord positions without any apparent fuss.)

Overall, not much else to say about SS. Final take: SS and VW are really obviously the same route, but even though SS was supposedly written first, VW feels marginally better in its focus and I enjoyed it more. However, the Rhea stuff specifically is good, and I wish I could get it on VW. Yup.

Final save file time: 95:19. Minus the VW playthrough, it's 44:07, so a bit faster. Specifically post-route split, it's 20:16, so it seems like the part that I finished faster was actually just Academy phase, possibly because I just didn't care much for the BE kids.

Liveblogging notes:

Looking closely at the battle selection screen, it seems Shambhala is at the very eastern tip of the Empire. There's a bit of mountain that stretches down from the Throat across Airmid River, and it seems to be there.

Narration calls it a "sprawling underground city."

Thales was kind of a chump!

Ah, I just realized I forgot to check his X description blurbs. They probably weren't too interesting tho.

The Agarthans are super mad about living underground and not having "light." Thales also name drops Agartha in his battle line vs Seteth and in the cutscene afterwards. Aside from their ability description, I think this is probably the first time their proper name is mentioned. But we uh, don't seem to discuss this much?

Small scene with Nemesis's coffin is missing, I think. Well, obviously because he's not the final boss now. iirc the scene immediately after the month change, with everyone freaking out over Rhea is new instead. It's a little weird because iirc VW gives you more opportunities to express concern for her. Here, the Rhea focus feels a bit less supported.

Seteth didn't realize you already knew that Rhea is the Immaculate One (which you did, btw).

Seteth "long ago" lost the power to change form, but "it seems" Rhea has not. My dude, did you not know... He does confirm that he's also a child of the goddess, which Rhea keeps hidden in VW. Flayn is also counted as one of the children of the goddess, even though she's more like a grandchild. It's a general term for dragons.

Seteth and Flayn press Byleth about taking over as the leader of Fodlan in some capacity, now that Rhea's future is uncertain.

We find the Sword and Bow of Zoltan in Shambhala. I was wondering about whether these things existed, since Zoltan is a dude that got namedropped in a small quest item description a while back. I also have an Axe of Zoltan though I can't remember exactly where I picked it up. No spear?

Just noting that you use Arcane Crystals to repair magical weapons like the Bolt Axe, Mythril to repair sacred weapons like Cichol's Spear of Assal, and Umbral Steel for relics. Mythril is also used on forging the rusted weapons that require A+ professor rank. iirc they're legendary weapons from other games or something like that. Smithing Stones are for normal weapons of all rarities.

On VW, this month was about Nemesis appearing and us going to fight him, but here on SS, that doesn't happen, so the explore dialogue is all about Seteth telling us that we should become the new Ruler of Fodlan and us taking the month to think about it. Everyone around the monastery comments on this, how we should think about it carefully, how they believe in us, how they're thinking about the future, etc. It's... hm. I think it's okay, but it really highlights how much Byleth has not been setup for this role At All.

They're a mercenary who became a teacher via nepotism and while we do things in the story that you could probably read as proof of Byleth's ability to lead, they don't really feel that way, especially since Seteth can end up spending half the war refusing what we suggest. Byleth is also just... not a real character. So them becoming the big deal leader is kinda... yeah.

Anyway, I accidentally ended the month early. But whatever.

Before you tell Rhea your "decision," she gives you exposition about how she made you and Sothis's crest stone is in you. She wanted to see Sothis again and thought she could regain everything she had lost.

Sitri was Rhea's 12th attempt. She "grew up" without Sothis's consciousness and fell in love with Jeralt. But when she gave birth, the child was not breathing and she herself was also "in grave danger." Sitri told Rhea to take the crest stone from her and put it into her baby. Otherwise, both would have died.

Byleth is suggested to be able to house Sothis's consciousness because they have both the crest stone and a body born from a parent with Rhea's blood.

Rhea is aware that Sothis gave you her power and disappeared, which means Rhea's dearest wish did not come true, but she's accepting of that. She basically entrusts Fodlan and the future to you.

And she just flips out in the middle of that.

"White Beasts" appear all over the monastery. They are from priests and knights that Rhea shared her blood and "stones" with. Tho given how JP plurals work, it's impossible to tell if Rhea is meant to have one crest stone or several. Demonic Beasts also run in??

Enemies are Frenzied Church Soldiers with minor crests of Seiros, Altered Golems, White Beasts (cardinal that has transformed and gone mad due to the rage of the Immaculate One) with Blest Crest Stone Shards (bestowed by a saint and wielded as a weapon), and the Immaculate One herself. She has a crest stone of Serios, can recover HP when near a White Beast and is described as having been driven to an uncontrollable anger due to the power of the goddess.

This battle was annoying because of the Classic setting. The whole business with Rhea having a private army of people whom she shared blood with is, hm. But I get the feeling this was done purely to explain her battle having the same mechanics as with Nemesis and the 10 Elites. It's... an interesting tidbit that these cardinals and such exist, but kinda weird that the crest of Seiros is actually this common, especially since they can ALL presumably pass it down to their kids, and I would expect Rhea had done this for more than just one generation.

(funny concept: after a thousand years of Rhea just sharing her blood all over, a good three quarters of Fodlan has some Seiros crest blood and it manifests pretty much at random in people all over.)

Anyway, final blow by Flayn.

OK, enough screwing around. tbh I do like Rhea, so there's some emotional resonance in everyone being very worried about her and having little voicelines about how they want to pay back the debts they owe to her, and her sadness and suffering and all that. It's not the worst.

She mistakes Byleth for Sothis when collapsing in the cathedral.

They did make a mistake: Rhea transforms in her dressing gown without the mantle or headpiece, but she changes back in full archbishop regalia.

The post-battle exposition exposition is kinda... ah yes, all nations in Fodlan are gone, but you see the Church is leading people toward a new... nation? How does this work. Sorry, but I don't see a religious government (??) as a good thing.

Rhea says she had a vision of flying free and speaking with Sothis while near death. She's happy she survived... so am I.

Rhea's wish was for peace, but she admits fault in propagating a false history and deceiving the faithful. And she did a bit of forbidden experimentation on the side, obvs. We forgive her tho.

I wish there was a gen way to save her, without the romance. It's such a good coda, honestly, without the marriage.

I wish Byleth was a more concrete character. Not necessarily a super detailed one, but with at least some grounding traits.

Still, Rhea romance scene is pretty good. WAY better than Flayn. Why can't I do this on VW..........

Endings: Ashe takes over Gaspard as the new lord. Galatea was "seized" what the heck, though Ingrid did rule it. Felix still ended up Duke Fraldarius. Sylvain talked his way into peace with Sreng, good on him. Lindhart "escaped the Empire" but went missing. Dorothea fled with her troupe to a secret location. Petra went to Brigit. Caspar fell on a battlefield. Bernadetta because seriously ill and lived as a recluse. Ferdinand returned to his territory but went missing. Catherine became Guardian of Zanado, but why was she shaking up with MY wife in solitude? Because in the ending card with Byleth, Rhea is still archbishop and assists the leader of the new "United Kingdom of Fodlan." Shamir became Robin Hood. Alois became captain of the knights. Seteth became very tolerant lol

[necrospellbinder]

New Blog Background; S Support addition.

[felixlearnstodraw]

2020-05-16: finally some semblance of done...i started this with just the conviction that i needed to honour the amazing cast that made up my first maddening and first new-game+ playthrough of fire emblem: three houses (on casual tho--didn’t know what maddening would be like and didn’t feel like restarting if it was too hard or something). but it turned into my biggest drawing challenge yet in terms of composition, posing, level of detail, and shading/contrast. not to mention discipline/stamina over a two-week period. i learned so much and am grateful to move on, but i hope there is something to enjoy from my efforts :)

some notes on the characters and their poses (from top left, counter-clockwise; major SPOILERS for the verdant wind route):

claude (barbarossa, brave bow): i know he looks east asian lol. moving on: i wanted to represent gambits, which were such a nifty and unexpected addition to the fire emblem playbook (stride alone for its versatility deserves a huge shoutout). i think enemy use of gambits could be refined if they want to keep it as a mechanic, but overall, a great layer of strategy in my opinion

hilda (great knight, silver axe): the first character whose pose i locked down: i liked the contrast between her own perception of being non-committal and her actual commitment to those who depend on her. character-wise was not as enjoyable or consistent to me as charlotte in conquest, but her battle-selection quotes were among my favourite (”i wanna go home...” when low-health pre-timeskip broke my heart the first time i heard it. great job salli saffioti (VA) and patrick seitz (voice director))

raphael (war master, killer knuckles): really pleased with how the in-air, gearing-up-for-an-absolute-beast-of-a-punch pose came out. i did a lot of posing in front of my mirror for that one, which was a technique i’ve always known i should use but never did. gauntlets were a cool addition to the weapon roster (and maybe overpowered?), but i wish they had a bit more variation (i think i was spoiled by fates’ abundance of personal weapons)

marianne (holy knight, blutgang): her post-timeskip low-health battle-selection quote is “i won’t run!” and i felt that i wanted to honour that spirit, especially with how fearful she is of everything pre-timeskip. and in contrast to lysithea (see below), i felt that marianne would look to her heroes’ relic as a source of strength, given what she goes through in the paralogue in which she receives it

lysithea (gremory, thyrsus): i originally had her in just a generic magic-casting pose, but one thing i wasn’t expecting from the verdant wind route was its reveal that the heroes’ relics were made from dragon hearts and bones (that were stolen!). this horrified me but completely worked as an explanation for why the relics look so--for lack of a better word--disgusting. i thought lysithea would also find this horrifying, given her history of being subject to blood experiments, so her pose is meant to show her conflicted in using thyrsus despite its incredible power (see: her nuking enemies from up to 5 spaces away thanks to her also reaching S rank in reason)

ignatz (bow knight, generic bow): i drafted so many bow poses where the arrow was notched, but then i took a screenshot of him after loosing his arrow and realized that sometimes the most dynamic pose is the one implying the action, not showing it directly. unrelated: “let me paint you a picture” is an awesome crit quote, which, thankfully, i heard often (thanks, killer bow, king of lions battalion and S rank in bows)

lorenz (dark knight, generic black magic): one of the most consistent characters in terms of making me laugh out loud (shoutout to ben diskin, his voice actor, who also brought such spunk to caspar, who i recruited this run and paired with hilda--their supports were adorable). lorenz is much more likeable imo if you headcanon his objectification of women as a result of being gay but still needing to find a wife because of his noble duty. i guess this isn’t related to the drawing at all but i felt the need to defend my boy 😂

leonie (falcon knight, spear of assal): this pose was such a nightmare but i’m glad i finally figured it out thanks to some good old google image searching (thanks, wikipedia image for parkour!). the idea was to represent how she dodged everything as the falcon knight i trained her into, which seems to be typical of fliers in this game (not that i’m complaining--my previous fire emblem experience is just the fates games, in which avoid-tanking doesn’t really work, so it was cool to see a completely different way of managing the enemy phase in action)

the professor (whom i named big boy lol; mortal savant, generic sword): i completely forgot about the mortal savant class when i was planning everyone’s final classes, so was expecting to keep him a warlock for the endgame since i went for mastering reason this playthrough. then i remembered about it in the final month, and luckily i happened to have high enough sword rank to pass the certification exam so happily, the professor could join his students in kicking butt in a master class :)

wow that ended up being long. but that’s the beauty of fire emblem games i think. each playthrough is such an immersive experience. next for me is the crimson flower route, after just having finished the side story (constance best girl?). looking forward to it!!

[dangototoro]

I finished the last route in Three houses today so these were all my F!Byleth’s endings in order of what routes I played lol: Crimson Flower, Azure Moon, Verdant Wind, and Silver snow. 

I spent 232 hrs and 33 minutes on this game from July 26th to September 30th. lmao I feel thats a lot less than it should be for how long I was playing but oh well. When I start my second playthroughs it’ll probably be longer idk. But now after a break I’m gonna play Link’s Awakening. 

Anyway, really loved this game even tho I’ve only played a few Fire Emblem games (Awakening, Fates, Echoes) I really think this was definitely the one I liked the best in terms of story and character development and the paired end mechanics and all that. It was super fun the wait was worth it for this game and definitely on that i’ll replay a lot in the future.