#Izuka

[aptericia]

Some more attacks I did for the FE artscuffle, this time featuring Tellians!

Daein!Jarod for @reneethegreatandpowerful

Izuka and the Goldoan sibs + Lehran for @vellatra

[reneethegreatandpowerful]

I don't know why this would you rather came to me but it did and now I need to know.

[fe-smashorpass]

[fefuckability]

Tellius Fuckability Face-off: Qualifier 6

Feel free to rb/comment with your reasoning!

[vellatra]

Behold Thy Mother

Started off wanting to do this up as a comic, but decided I didn't have the "oomph". Maybe I'll do an illustration later though ;)

Spoilers for Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

I had tried my best to forget all the terrible things that had happened, and the people who had done them. The last twenty years would never truly be forgotten – and how could they be? – but, as much as I could, I pushed them into the back of my mind, tried to bury them under the minutia of now – tending my garden, doing embroidery, quietly helping the poor as I could. I never wanted to look back and see those memories again, and, for the most part, my efforts were successful.

Then this horrid man had to turn up on my doorstep and bring it all back.

Just the sight of him – and remembering all he stood for – made me want to vomit. I nearly slammed the door in his face, but I'd been raised to be civil, no matter what. “I never thought I'd see you again,” I said, fighting the wrinkle that stole over my nose. With his sallow skin, his wicked smile, and his dark hair practically wet with grease, my visitor was even more repulsive than I'd recalled.

“Oh, don't shoo me off just yet, milady,” said Izuka, a strange friendliness in his tone, which I didn't like. “I came to see you, because I've found something. Someone, actually, who you'll be very happy to see, I'll wager!” he added, eagerly rubbing his hands together.

“Who could I possibly want to see?” I laughed, bitterly. My husband was dead – not that I'd want to see him if he weren't. I was estranged from my family. I had no friends. And I certainly didn't want to see anyone who kept company with this wicked madman.

“Your son, perhaps?” said Izuka, licking his thin, dry lips which were curling into a smug smile.

“My son,” I half-laughed. “You haven't found him.”

“Oh but I have!” Izuka cried, puffing out his chest. “He's got that mark on his forehead and everything! He was living on the streets when I found him, but I've cleaned him up a bit now. Thought you might like to educate him in the ways of royalty, before we help him take back the throne that is rightfully his.” He tilted his head expectantly at me, an eager gleam in his one good eye.

Izuka was a lunatic. There was no way he'd just stumbled across my long-lost baby. He'd been taken from me at such a tender age. Who was to say he'd even survived this long? Where could he have gone, with the heritage he had and no mother to protect him?

And yet... if there was but a slight chance... how could I refuse, to at least give this street urchin a passing glance?

“You must be mistaken,” I grunted. “But let's have a look at him.”

Izuka smiled wide, revealing yellowed teeth. “Excellent!” He looked over his shoulder at a shabby carriage that was waiting at the end of my footpath, and waved excitedly. “Come along, then, your highness!” A slender form came out of the carriage and shuffled timidly up the path.

It wasn't my boy, I knew that immediately. Perhaps I'd only known my son as an infant, and only for a very short time, but I would never forget what he looked like. He'd had hair so dark, you'd think it was black at first glance, but it was really green, like mine. This boy had hair like Ashnard's – a deep, handsome blue – and when he got closer, I saw that his eyes were the wrong color too.

What big, sad eyes he had. He stopped at the bottom of the steps, hanging a few feet behind Izuka, looking nervously up at me. “...Mother?” he finally asked, sweetly, softly, as if he hardly dared believe it either.

No, this was not my son... but in a lot of ways, he was just like him. Izuka said he'd lived on the street. He had no family, was apparently an outcast... and I saw it now. He did have a strange marking on his forehead, not quite the same, but very much like my son's. With a marking like that, I had no doubt he'd been an outcast his whole life, persecuted for something that was no fault of his own.

Something made me hurry down the stairs to this boy. I gently rested my hands on his bony young shoulders. “What's your name, child?”

“Pelleas, my lady.”

I wrapped my arms about him. “My poor boy,” I said tenderly. “Oh, my poor Pelleas.... Welcome home.”

[f3lldrag0n]

[asktellius]

You only have yourself to blame, Izuka.

This ask was given to me by Vellatra a long time ago.

[anniewalker090]

Izuka Half-Body Character Art

I made this artwork for one of my friends, and they were really happy with it. I hope you all like it and enjoy it as well!

Also, I'm still taking commissions now 💗

[ravelqueen]

...look I'll feel real bad if I let my Japanese Game Aesthetic stereotypes run away from me, but like...Izuka is a villain right??

HE KEEPS SAYING THINGS LIKE THIS AND BEING FULL 'EVIL ADVISOR' WITH PELLEAS LIKE WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO THINK

[rainbowdonkee]

Full art for Christmas Fomortiis (and Lyon) - Dark of Night!

Artist : Daisuke Izuka

[thisisntwaterstones]

you understand my vision

[lostinmac]

The Outrun (2024)

Dir. Nora Fingscheidt

[areseebee]

i appreciate this show's commitment to the very specific moment in time of 2013-14

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[ryanthel0ser]

*looks at what's happening to Bakudeku right now*

Close enough, welcome back Naruto and Sasuske

[vellatra]

Path of Radiance - Alternate Outcome Fic

I was plumbing the depths of my old, often unfinished, Tellius fanfics (may or may not have to do with the Tellius Big Bang event!), and found this one... enjoy! Or don't. :P ;)

– Almedha –

Crickets were chirping in the distance as I stood in the courtyard, counting the constellations. I thought of my son. Did anyone teach him the constellations? I might never know....

Clink.

I started and looked round. “Who's that?!”

Clinkety-clink-clank. The hedges at the edge of the courtyard rustled and gave way as a dark shape appeared within them. Something jingled as the figure shuffled out onto the flagstones, clutching his stomach with one hand. The breeze picked up. Suddenly I knew a lot about my visitor. He was a man of my country, he hadn't washed in several days, and his whole aura was rank with fear. And I knew exactly who he was.

“How did you get here?” I gasped, coming to meet him. “Are you ill? What's the matter? Say something!”

My brother shivered, and hugged me. I could feel a broken chain hanging off his wrists. He brought his lips to my ear and hissed – a low, trembling whisper.

“I came to... f-find you. You need to escape. It's v-very... bad. You're in d-danger. Unngh!” He convulsed in pain, and gripped his stomach again.

“I can't leave my son here,” I said. “What's wrong with you? Why are you chained?”

“H-have... to go,” he groaned, leaning against me. “Ashnard's... hurting us. K-killing us. He's got me. Y-you have to run... while you can....”

“What are you talking about? ...Rajaion!!” for he had crumpled to the ground and lay there, moaning.

“G-g-go,” he whimpered, writhing a little. “Hurry... May....” The shifting began.

“Rajaion?!” I said again. He growled and reverted.

“Leave me,” he hissed. “I'm l-losing my mind. I might... hurt you....” He groaned and shifted again, clawing at the flagstones in anguish.

“What have they done to you?!”

My brother fixed me with a hard, fierce stare. A low rumble started deep in his chest, then burst out in a roar as he snapped at me. I sprang back, trembling. He reverted and sank to his knees, clutching his head.

“S-sorry,” he whimpered. “You... you have to go. Find Soren. R-run away. Before... they get you....” He writhed and shifted.

“I heard him!” someone shouted, not very far away. “He's in that courtyard!”

“Be careful,” I heard a nasally voice say. “He should be changing by now.”

Rajaion reverted again, panting and shaking.

“I won't leave you,” I said. “We'll get away together.”

“C-can't,” Rajaion whined. He looked up at me, eyes filled with tears. “T-too late... for me. Agghh!” And he shifted again.

“There he is,” called a soldier, entering the far side of the courtyard.

A short, gaunt, greasy man appeared at his elbow. “He's going,” he said. “Catch him! Tie him down before he hurts somebody.” Dozens of soldiers ran toward us. I expected them to overwhelm us immediately, but Rajaion suddenly lashed out. Before I knew what was happening, people were thrown to the ground, winded, wounded, dying, or scrambling away in terror. I knew my brother was strong, but this... this was unnatural.

“Stop him! Stop him!” the greasy man was screaming.

“Hang on, Rajaion,” I said, vaulting up onto his back. “I'll get you out.” He bucked and writhed, but I held on. He reached up to brush me off, but I shimmied into the niche between his wings – he never could reach back there. “I don't care if you want to be left behind,” I said. “We're going together.” Rajaion spread his wings and took off as the next wave of soldiers came at us. “Okay,” I said, “I know where to go. Just let me guide you....” I leaned forward and he flew into the night.

– Kurthnaga –

“I'm surprised at how well the garden's been doing this summer,” I said, picking a basil leaf and nibbling it. “Gareth has truly outdone himself.”

“He's full of surprises,” said Ena, giving the garden a surveying look. “Did you know he grew special herbs just for the queen, when...” she trailed off, looking at the horizon. I followed her gaze.

There, soaring over the mountains, was the unmistakable form of a dragon.

“You don't suppose it's-”

“Rajaion!” Ena gasped. She immediately ran her hands through her hair. “Do I look alright?” she said, turning to me.

“To him, you always do,” I said, grinning. “Come on, let's go to meet him.” We hurried out to the front lawn, and down the path toward the woods beyond, where Rajaion seemed to be landing.

“Why's he coming down there?” said Ena. “It's so much harder to land in the trees.”

“You know him,” I said as we hit the tree line. “Sometimes he likes a dramatic entrance.” Ena laughed.

“St-stay back!” said a shrill voice from deeper in. We both froze.

“That's...” said Ena.

“...Almedha?” I called.

“Is that Kurth?”

“Yeah,” I said. Ena and I rounded a thicket and came into a clearing. My brother, in dragon form, was crouched on the forest floor, breathing hard.

“Rajaion!”

“You're safe!” I said, hurrying toward him.

“Don't come any closer!”

We skidded to a halt. Looking up, we saw Almedha perched between his wings. Her hair was coming undone and her eyes were shadowy. There was a bundled cloak clutched tightly to her chest.

“Stay clear,” she said as my brother gave a throaty growl. “He's not safe.”

“What do you mean?” said Ena, nervously looking first at Rajaion, then at Almedha, then back again.

Almedha slowly swung her legs over to one side, then slid to the ground, still holding the bundle. She leaned wearily against Rajaion. “He's... mad,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“What! Mad?” Ena yelped. She stepped closer to her mate, who snarled menacingly.

“Steady,” said Almedha, putting her hand on Rajaion's snout. He kept growling. “Be careful, Ena,” she murmured. “I can't keep him... from hurting you.”

“Hurting me?”

“He's already... killed people,” Almedha whispered.

“What!?” I said, but she couldn't go on. She slid down and collapsed underneath Rajaion. He hunkered over her and eyed us warily, a deep rumble still going in his chest.

But Ena had had enough. “Rajaion! Don't you know me?” she cried, edging closer still.

Rajaion reverted, still snarling. Almedha was right, he was mad – I could see it in his eyes. But Ena was heedless. She sank to her knees beside her husband and embraced him. He stiffened... and stopped growling.

************************************************************************

Father closed his eyes, letting it all sink in. “So... the king is dead, then.”

Almedha sighed. “Yes. I just wanted to run, but when he tried to stop me...” she shuddered.

“It seems he was meddling with powers too strong for him,” he said quietly. “You think Rajaion wasn't the only one?”

“Well, when he tried to warn me, he said something about Ashnard hurting and killing us. I don't know if he was already... being strange at that point?”

“I doubt it, from what you've told me,” he said, pressing his forehead with his fingers. He did this a lot when he was thinking. “It's likely that other laguz were captured.”

“Well then, shouldn't we send a warning to the other tribes?” I said. “I'm sure they'd be interested in reclaiming their people, too.”

“Perhaps, but it would be dangerous for them,” said my father, finally opening his eyes again. “Even with Ashnard defeated, Daein is still full of his underlings. That, and without a cure, anyone rescued is a disaster waiting to happen.”

“...Was I wrong?” said Almedha. “To bring him back?”

“No,” he said. “Between you and Ena, he seems to be relatively docile. Only we must be careful. If he's riled up, there could be trouble. From what you've said, even I might not be able to hold him down.” He paused as a strange noise came out of Almedha's bundle, which she was still holding. “What is that?”

Almedha blushed and looked down at it. “This... is my son, Soren,” she said, pulling the cloak down a little. A thin little face framed in black hair looked out at us.

Father sat in stunned silence. “...Your son.” He held out his arms. “May I?” Almedha gently surrendered the boy. Father looked him over, and noticed one rounded ear. “...You were with a beorc,” he said softly. He looked up at Almedha, who was avoiding his gaze. “Then you cannot shift anymore?”

“How did you know?” she said, glancing up in surprise.

It was Father's turn to look away. “That was Lehran's curse, also.”

There was a moment's silence.

“How hard would it be to go back for his father?” I finally asked.

“His father is dead,” said Almedha. “But... I already told you that.”

We both tensed. “No,” I whispered. “Not... him?”

Almedha hung her head. “Yes.”

Father rose up... and embraced her.