#Thales only collects the shinies he lent to humans a long time ago

[randomnameless]

Oh?

That's weird, because I remember I killed them (Flayn died after Caspar pummeled her to death!), and the even have voiced lines/cries when they die.

Maybe if you engaged them with Byleth at least once, even if he isn't the one to deal the "final blow" they retreat?

About Edel's paralogue :

Yep all around, the Alliance is either in shambles (even when she said she wouldn't touch the city! TFW you're invading a place, they try to resist, and then they don't have enough manpower to defend their place against Almyrans) or straights up refuse to work with the Empire, and would prefer to see Almyra invade than to let their lands to the Empire (I don't remember if people reacted to Almyran navy helping Claude in Derdriu, but apparently everyone loved him in the Alliance so, maybe they even warmed up to Almyrans?), but we will never know.

Given how much Holst is characterised by his love for his sister, it's a good possibility lol.

Edel thinks she can get along with Almyra because they don't believe in the Goddess, but they never raided Fodlan because Fodlan's beliefs in the Goddess bothered them, they raided for funsies. So... It's up to you to imagine what would happen in a post CF-Fodlan, but I'm pretty sure Almyra is going to knock at her door.

Thales recovers his shinies!

Hubert was, imo, the best part of CF. It seems only he knows what is going on or what is this route about, and we love him for that. Granted, the "TWISTD" name is his own invention, and the game brainfarted a big time when Rhea and Seteth calls them like that, instead of using their real name, the Agarthans. I know the devs said they don't have a continuity guy, but this felt like it should have been important! Imo, it's as grievous as a Kurthnaga who would call Skrimir a "subhuman"... In both cases, it doesn't make any sense.

But back to Hubert and the Agarthans, the games seems to try to tell us that Hubert is the one who tries to know more about their tech (maybe to appropriate it?) and ultimately tries to have more knowledge about them, to properly eliminate them once the war is over. Note how Hubert calls it House Vestra's war/task, aka the Empire and the Hresvelg can crush the geckos and their Church, but dealing with the genocidal maniacs with advanced tech falls on his shoulders. What would Adrestia do without Hubert?

As for the "Regent" stuff, I'd say it's another oversight of the devs, as sad as it sounds...

Riegan and Blaiddyd having bloodties isn't as strange as it sounds, maybe they're only talking about the Houses, and, idk, one Elite Blaiddyd's great grandkid maybe married one of Elite Riegan's great grandkid, and they shared a bloodline thanks to the resulting child? I always felt weird how Fodlan completely ignored bloodlines and marriage between families and the resulting crest lottery when it spends a lot of time talking about crests... but this isn't Jugdral.

I don't remember that thing about Zoltan's idol, but it's a nice detail!

Yep, Petra is in a difficult situation - Brigid is the vassal of the Empire, maybe if she proves herself useful Brigid won't be a vassal anymore? This paralogue is noteworthy for being different in CF and in the other routes - in the other routes, it's Hubert who acts as the boss, and he is here to "ask" Brigid to participate in the War iirc, when Petra is fighting against Adrestia.

Aah, the turtle paralogue!

Did you notice how this is the only map in the game where your units ask you not to bring the Lord and her retainer? Linhardt says it would make things difficult, but, well, you'll see by yourself, I think he was kind of right here, if Edel or Hubert saw Indech, they would have turned him in turtle soup - after all, he is a Nabatean !

In the story map, if you didn't recruit her, Shamir also dies here (she is accompanying Alois) and mentions in her death quote how she shouldn't have been too attached...

I think later on Lin wonders about it too, and the game never bothers giving an answer, but seriously, if Rhea was routing Randolf and Ladislava, why couldn't she transform in her draconic form and Hyperbeam our party, thus ending the War?

Istg, CF's plot armor is the sturdiest one out of all routes...

This awful nightmare month had FOUR paralogues. So tiring. And they don't even let me kill Flayn or Seteth! Or let me see Rhea murdering those two NPC imperial suckups. Disappointing all around.

To get my notes under the char limit, I'll put the part about the first paralogue here.

Immediately after Claude's death/deportation, we get invaded by Almyra. Holst "fell ill" but big doubt.jpg, since he does not show his face to either Hubert or Edelgard (Hubert can only comment that "it's said" that Holst looks and smells awful). The Alliance supposedly can't cooperate enough to muster forces to support the Locket, even though we just spent lots of time playing up how Claude maneuvered everything to go down with the least amount of damage possible and how the Alliance has been extremely peaceful and cooperative to our occupation and invasion. The Goneril soldiers book it immediately when we arrive, no green units for us. And at the end, Holst politely passes the duty of guarding the Locket to the Empire. Which is another way of saying he refused to do it anymore, possibly on account of the dead little sister. You know, just maybe.

This is hilarious in general, and you can read all kinds of funny things into it, especially since this is the route where the game lies to you all the time with a straight face, so you are free to interpret practically all things you're told as complete bullshit (and you'll be provably right at least half the time).

Personally, I think it's very funny to assume everyone who says the Alliance occupation is going oh so well is either wrong or lying. I mean, sure, Claude supposedly arranged it so things would go peacefully whether he won or lost, BUT he was wrong at least twice about his allies surrendering peaceably and his dying words are about how he misread the entire situation. Yeah, logically this is all structured to contrast how the Kingdom and the Church won't go down as peacefully, but it's funnier if the Alliance is also not peaceful about this at all.

Almyra certainly is not looking like a future friendly neighbor, despite Edie's optimistic outlook.

Live blogging:

Hubert reports that Thales has started collecting the Relics from the Alliance (cool! definitely not a problem! Hilda wasn't casually able to oneshot everyone with that awful axe!)

He also suggests that we have one of our Lions recruits pretend to be a hostage to force their family to betray the Kingdom. Lovely man, so practical.

Byleth: you're using too many Proper Nouns, I can't keep tracks :( Edelgard: don't worry about it, kitten

Nader's in good spirits, at least. The Almyran forces have a lot of wyverns, mounted archers and also giant birds.

Edelgard thinks we can befriend Almyra, she would even consider a treaty. It's not a land ruled by blind fealty to the goddess (lol), so as long as communicate openly and respect the differences between our cultures... OK. We're not gonna mention Claude at all, which is funny.

Next paralogue! Hubie is investigating Solon, Kronya and Arundel. He wants to know their identities, their origins, their numbers, their base of operations, their plans, and where they acquired their dark powers, how they disguise themselves. He calls them "those who slither in the dark."

Now, working backwards from this, it means that he doesn't know these things in early war phase (where we are now), unless we assume he got further in his investigations in other routes.

Also, as has been pointed out, although this is a descriptive name that Hubert came up with, it's also used by Rhea for some reason.

It's a shame that Arundel is just Thales, he has a pretty nice design.

Hubert calls Arundel "Regent" even now. Weird!

We're sent to help some Agarthans who were experimenting in the Sealed Forest but their demonic beast subjects ran wild. Hubert later suggests that this was all a setup to make Edie's faction feel powerless in the face of the Agarthans' experiment (because they are aware Hubert is investigating them), but it backfired because Hubie isn't intimidated at all. He's looking forward to when Edelgard finished uniting Fodlan, and then House Vestra will fight the Agarthans in the shadows. (Hilarious from a narrative standpoint.)

Incidentally, you only need to save more than half the mages to get Arrow of Indra. The "Mysterious Mages" that you save also do not have Agarthan Technology abilities unlike the shapeshifters. Ladislava is popular with the citizens of the empire. She doesn't put up airs, is talented and also beautiful. She's known as the Scarlet Warrior.

There isn't much unrest in the former Alliance territories, perhaps thanks to Caspar's dad's strength (aka keeping them in line by force).

Riegan was once a branch family of Blaiddyd, which is very mysterious given their different crests.

Ladislava's troops depart at the end of the month (February) to the western front. They have high mobility. iirc she's a wyvern rider.

It's a bit funny to get the quest for the Almyran merchant same month as the Almyra invasion paralogue.

Claude told Lysithea roughly that she shouldn't focus too much on whether they win. Unlike Judith and Hilda, she listened lol.

Hubert hanging out in the Deer classroom, thinking about Claude. Relatable. He says that Claude has a compassionate exterior, but underneath is cold and calculating. Harsh! Also, not really in line with Claude's behavior toward his allies.

Linhardt says that there's a passage from the Holy Mausoleum to the Holy Tomb, but he can't figure out the mechanism. It's not really clear where the Holy Tomb is, and I've seen the speculation that it's under the amiibo gazebo... but the Holy Mausoleum is in the cathedral, so the two being connected... it's possible both are true, but kinda weird if so.

Dorothea: They'll write operas about this... I'm sure a pretty actress will play you :) And Edie :)) Maybe they'll throw in a love story :)))) hahaha (extremely awkward laugh)

Just realized you steal Zoltan's idol from the advisory room in the cathedral. Nice.

Hubert and Edie A: He emphasizes again that he's devoted to her due to personal feelings but also that he's not loyal in the sense of following her orders. He does what he thinks is best and if Edie disagrees, or doesn't like it, or is kept in the dark for her own good, well, that's how it is. He also mentions that his devotion became personal after Edie returned from the Kingdom, which calls back to how he and Ionius treat it as some kind of malicious kidnapping.

Petra paralogue: Church is threatening Brigid :( Well, per the Empire's perspective. Catherine is here <3

Jokes aside, Petra's perspective is interesting. Brigid is trapped between the Empire and Dagda, and they don't have the ability to stand against either one. They were dragged into war with the Empire by Dagda, which they then lost, and Petra's father was even killed. So they became a vassal state of the Empire, but given the whole racism issue, they probably were not in a good position. So Petra is focused on basically proving that Brigid is a useful and valuable ally for the Empire. Which is a rather practical approach.

Leonie paralogue... Interesting details that you need recommendations to get into Officers Academy. In the Alliance this means paying nobles to get them. Raphael mentions that his family sold their business to pay for him, iirc, since he wasn't up to running it anyway. Ignatz's parents are more successful, so perhaps they could just afford it. Leonie's entire village had to chip in to buy her way in. Presumably Ashe was sent by Lonato directly (though interesting choice given that the uprising happens very early in the year, so he must have already been planning it). I think the only other commoner is Dorothea, who... well.

Linhardt brings up the crests perpetuate the nobility angle and says to take it up with the Goddess for handing them out like that. But given where Leicester crests actually came from... sigh

Linhardt read about the legend of Saint Indech, so it's free real estate for any other character to read in an AU. Very nice.

Lake Teutates... Indech is a giant turtle. Man, these "dragons" are all kinds of shapes lmao. He attacks with water spikes.

Leonie calls the Immovable One a "magic beast" which we haven't seen so far, only wild beasts and demonic beasts.

Linhardt immediately caught on that the Immovable One is Saint Indech.

Petra has been in Fodlan for 9 years as of the war phase, so she came 3 years before the Academy.

Garreg Mach can be entered from the north by following Aillel, the Valley of Torment.

The map this time is a modified version of the monastery defense map from end of Academy Phase and second battle of the other routes. Previously, I didn't realize that the right hand third is gone. Presumably, this is the gorge that Byleth fell into...

We're fighting an expeditionary force led by Alois, while Rhea and Catherine hold off the rest of our army at the Sealed Forest. Aaah, they're so cool <3 They're also set up an ambush.

OK, so the situation with Flayn and Seteth is that they just retreat when defeated, regardless of who fights them. I thought there would be some scene about specifically sparing them, but nah. They just leave on their own. You don't even have any unique dialogue with Seteth, and Flayn just talks about how she won't kill you since she owes you her life.

Rhea murdered the heck out of Ladislava and Randolph off-screen. Shame, I would have loved to see it.

We killed Alois tho! He felt that, since we betrayed Rhea, Jeralt would not have approved.