#also I would go into why I like each fe character but. I think this is too long already lmao

[kingofanemptyworld]

Hope your end of year has been lovely, so far! I can personally say that I gravitated towards your inbox because your responses to people’s asks are very friendly and chatty, you have such nice responses about your fandom takes. (Also, that was after I followed your blog, for your Pokémon x Wind Breaker AU posts). Fandom is what a person makes of it and you make the fandom brighter, imo. (I hope that wasn’t weird, I just like chatting with you about wind breaker).

Today I ask you about your favorite characters and what you like about them? My personal favorites in Wind Breaker are Tsubaki and Suo. I absolutely love the entirety of Tsubaki’s backstory, as I’ve mentioned before in another ask, and I love how he’s just so unapologetically himself despite the difficulties he faced in his past. His character is the definition of coming to love oneself and as someone who has read all kinds of shounen for years, Tsubaki’s character arc and how Nii-sensei handled it cemented Wind Breaker as one of my top 10 series of all time. Nii-sensei broke so many shounen tropes with Wind Breaker, but Tsubaki’s character arc definitely left me in awe.

I also saw in your recent posts that you’re a fan of Fire Emblem! Any faves from that, or particularly games? I got Engage as a gift but haven’t gotten to play it yet; I did play Fates, Awakening, and Three Houses though! (My all time favorite best boy is Ashe from 3H. He is the sweetest best boy.)

sincerely, Wind Breaker Anon

(wow that was longer than intended, sorry 😅)

wind breaker anon, hi!! my end of year has been very nice so far, and I hope the same is true for you!!

one, so happy to hear you came for the Pokemon AU and stayed for my nonsense. two, I do try to be kind in my replies, even when I don’t agree with the person. like, I’m respectful so long as the other person is, too, y’know? fair’s fair, and all that. three, I am FLATTERED that you think I make the fandom brighter, that is literally the nicest thing I’ve ever heard 💙💙💙 please know you definitely make my fandom experience brighter, too, it honestly makes my day when I see I got an ask from you.

as for favorite characters, I have a three-way tie for first: Sakura, Togame, and Tsubaki! Tsubaki actually because of really similar reasons to yours. He’s such a breath of fresh air in the shounen genre, and I am so, so happy with how he’s developed as a character and his interactions with the rest of the cast. also his character design is so stinkin’ pretty, i adore his hairstyle and the girls’ furin uniform he I guess made himself? also like. this is just a me thing. I like that he’s tall and broad-shouldered. usually if you have a feminine-presenting guy in anime they’re short and skinny and really just. androgynous? so I think a lot of people irl don’t relate to them, whereas tsubaki absolutely has more traditionally masculine features and still happily dresses as he does. I think that’s neat

Togame is… i just like him a lot 😅 he’s entertaining as an antagonist, then just delightful when he comes back as an ally. his devotion to choji is so inspiring, and i love the extra bits we’ve learned about him from nii-sensei’s notes. like he’s just an old man in a young body and he’s great.

I think sakura I’ve talked enough about lmao. He’s a wonderful MC, stellar design, great development. he’s a tsundere. what more could I ask for?

omg you’re a fire emblem fan too!!! hell yeah!! I got into fire emblem when awakening came out (previously my only exposure to the games was Super Smash Bros. and I really liked Ike for whatever reason) and just. fell head over heels for the game mechanics and the characters. I’ve played everything that’s come out since then (fates, three houses, warriors, three hopes, engage, and the mobile game heroes because I’m insane). asking me to pick favorites for that is… hard. like my forever favorites are probably Chrom, Lon’qu, Cordelia, Frederick, Lucina, Morgan, Inigo (Awakening), Silas, Jakob, Azura (Fates), Dimitri, Claude, Sylvain, Petra, Dorothea, Hilda, Ashe (Three Houses) and Diamant (Engage).

Also! huge fan of the protag characters, Robin, Corrin, Byleth, and Alear. Awakening is near and dear to my heart, and as much as I love Three Houses it’s probably my favorite game. I’ll never forget the way I felt when the ending cut scene with Chrom and Lissa played for the first time, god, I was a mess

Which is. Way more than you asked for. But if you get me talking about fire emblem I will literally never stop, sorry about that

[emblemxeno]

Random Fates thoughts that I wanted to write down

I think a personal reason why I love Fates' (and most other FE games') writing so much is because Fates doesn't shy away from meaningfully analyzing and criticizing how war comes to be and what it does to people.

It rightfully points out that Nohr's militaristic culture is bad, as well as Hoshido's isolationism and xenophobia. Most of all though, it rightfully deduces that war is unnatural, a product of terrible and/or aggrieved and resentful people stoking prejudices and anger in others, so they can end up profitting off it when the innocents start fighting each other.

Anankos even says, verbatim, "Why should I suffer alone?" He's all powerful, but access to power can corrupt someone over time and make them go off the deep end. It happens where one unfair backlash forces him into exile. He becomes resentful, paranoid. And he begins to spread that volatility to others. The war that eventually breaks out is then able to fuel itself because of cyclical violence, vengeance, and ignoranace, aspects that Fates also heavily touches on.

Nohr and Hoshido would not have as hostile a relationship that they have were their cultures not set into motion by Anankos' influence, first by razing Valla, then corrupting Nohr through Garon, then by attacking Hoshido. Nohr, while still suffering from poor harvests and rough terrain, would not be obsessed with conquest as a way of survival. Hoshido, while still isolationist, would not sink into outlandish xenophobia that results in anyone with ties to Nohr being branded a monster or a traitor.

And who else profits from the war? Other notable scumbags, like Iago (wants power), Hans (wants his own country), Kotaro (wants Hoshido for himself), etc.

There's other little things that, thanks to Corrin being the protagonist, sets up a certain lens to see through, as well.

Every life is precious and every time one is lost, it's treated with necessary weight.

Being a prince and a relative of both royal families means your action has more consequence than just fighting your siblings, it affects the situation of the common people and military as well.

Compassion, empathy and will is the cure to destructive warfare. Corrin would never meaningfully be able to pick a side, had he not been written being raised in Nohr, nor written as a character who's unendingly kind, broadening his horizons and has an unflinching moral code.

I just love this stuff! I know most people prefer the "both sides have a point, no one's truly at fault here" kind of message that a certain other game presents, but I think that comes across as victim blame-y and almost inane in how there's no endgoal.

No, actually, it's not reasonable to propose that people will always eventually devolve into war because they have clashing ideals. In fact, what hastens a war's ignition is unconditionally validating every single perspective while not offering any criticism. When you have no endgoal for your grand war story beyond "war is bad, isn't it tragic that good people fight each other", to me, that reads as pretty infantile and lame. Especially when it's obvious that avoidance of proper criticism and analysis in-universe is done in the name of protecting the good reputation of certain characters over others.

What I like about most FE stories, is that after establishing that there are differing perspectives, the heroes communicate where the root cause is for this war, who is responsible, who profits off of it, and solve it. Is it often a Problem Dragon? Yeah. But a) the Problem Dragon is often a metaphor for a bigger theme and so shouldn't be so easily dismissed and b) a story that just says "well war happens because humans disagree and that's always gonna be the case, feel sad about it" fucking blows. It's banal and empty, giving the illusion of depth because people say "it doesn't shy away from grim tragedy", when in actuality, it's just a whole lot of nothing.

What are you providing in your story when your big picture rests upon a supposed "perpetual truth"? Because not only is that not inspiring, it provides no meaningful answer to the big "So What?" question that is asked of any literature.

Fates, on the other hand, answers those questions handily. If the game's actual prose was written better, I have no doubt that more and more would consider my belief on that.

[moltz23]

That one time Fire Emblem Lied to its players [Fire Emblem: Three Houses Analysis]

Have a picture of Rhea, for no particular reason.

The Fire Emblem franchise is no stranger to games having multiple routes with various perspectives. FE Fates’ whole gimmick was about how Corrin’s view of the Hoshido & Nohr war changes depending on whom they chose to (potentially not) support; their Nohrian siblings, or/and the Hoshidans. And as a less-drastic example, Sacred Stones also has a choice midway through the story, in which picking Eirika or Ephraim as the main lord changes both the next few chapters and how the main antagonist is portrayed.

Meanwhile, even though Fire Emblem: Three Houses technically continued this tradition, unlike past games, it took the choice of making sure there would be no story branch with an unbiased view of the world, history, and events. As a result, we ended up with a game that, compared to previous entries, lies to its players.

Why Three Houses of all games got hit with this treatment? Well, that’s exactly what I’m set to show everyone here, so sit tight, and grab a drink and a snack or something, because to understand this, we first need to talk about Biased Storytelling. 

What even IS Biased Storytelling? 

In the context of Three Houses and this analysis, I refer to “biased storytelling” as the narrative technique in which the story’s perspective is so rooted in the chosen faction, that it impacts the perspective taken of its events.

Toshiyuki Kusakihara, Three Houses’ director, alludes to it in a 2020 Nintendo Interview, making clear this was a deliberate choice from his end:

Kusakihara: For me, I think games are a way to simulate a world and its story as if the player were experiencing it themselves. I’m personally the type of person that gets absolutely sucked into things like movies and games. I tried setting up a prank using how the game itself is structured: the player would go through the game once and really experience the world, then they’d talk about it with someone else and be like, “we played the same game right? Why are we talking about two different things?” I thought that it might be interesting where even if you picked the same house as somebody, your experience could differ from somebody else’s based on who you recruited. You might even say to yourself, “hey, I didn’t even see that scene!”

With just this decision, Three Houses became free to have each of its plots tackle whatever ideas it wanted. And with no golden/true route on sight, players became forced to make sense of everything themselves, pin-pointing every potential detail which could explain notorious divergences and similarities between narratives.

Accomplishing this does come with many challenges. Through understanding what the game does to make each story feel different though, one detail of its writing stands out:

It’s all about Perspective:

3 nations. 3 future rulers. 4 perspectives.

Perspective is, simply put, Three Houses’ main bread and butter. In spite of heavily recycling its content whenever possible, it’s what ultimately makes each route feel different from one another. Silver Snow and Verdant Wind for example, might be infamous for sharing a good chunk of story beats and maps ‘til the near end, but neither of them feels the same in terms of themes and perspective as a result, more so with the titular supporting cast each story features.

To set up its various perspectives, the narrative did the following:

First, it had the story take place in a world with a vast history.

Second, it had a particular character (Byleth) act as an audience surrogate.

And third and most importantly, context on the world & events was provided by characters who have unique backgrounds and strategic roles in the setting. Most notably: Rhea; Edelgard; Dimitri; and Claude (there are also a few auxiliary ones like Sothis which do contribute to this cornucopia of POVs though), some of which are route exclusive.

I simply cannot stress how much Rhea and the House Leaders’ involvement in the plot colors things for players. One of the better examples where their differences are exposed in full is arguably Chapter 5: Tower of Black Winds. 

As a brief recap: In it, Rhea assigns Byleth & their class the task of eliminating Miklan - disowned son of House Gautier - and his gang, who had recently stolen a Hero Relic.  Prior to the mission itself, Blue Lions and Golden Deer introduces the player supporting figures that played key roles in the chosen House Leader’s past: Rodrigue for Dimitri; and Judith for Claude (for those wondering, no equivalent exists for Edelgard in Black Eagles).

Then the Miklan mission happens and… Let’s just say people have thoughts about it:

To break things down, in all routes:

Sothis is puzzled by the whole thing, and feels she has seen the demonics beasts before…

Meanwhile, Rhea believes Miklan deserved to get screwed over. After all, unlike Byleth, he was not chosen nor deemed worthy of wielding their crest and Hero Relic. Also, she tells Byleth to keep Miklan’s transformation a secret to prevent mass hysteria.

Meanwhile, the House Leaders - whom the player gets only in certain routes - are the ones who truly make things interesting:

Even though both Edelgard and Dimitri agree that Crests shouldn’t hold so much importance, each one’s solution to the issue provides a clear image of how they see the world and how much they ideologically contrast one another, and their thoughts on Miklan’s predicament as well hint at their different backgrounds and past experiences. Then we have Claude, who by contrast is unfamiliar with Crests - not unlike Byleth* - and discloses nothing about his dream or, in other words, “his ideal world”, only confiding it’s something only connections and power can achieve. 

Ladies and gentlemen, this is quite exactly where the heart of Three Houses’ deceit lies. More conventional stories wrestle with the fact they need to provide information about the world which must be accepted as fact, which is where the act of exposition comes in, usually from an ally or from some character well versed in the setting. Conversely, others like Three Houses blatantly lie to its players by simply having their characters provide exposition based on what they realistically know about the world they’re in, and how their backgrounds color the perception of the events witnessed. At best they provide a good guide for understanding things but taking them at face value does come with a few risk.

*As a bit of an aside though, I do wanna drive attention to how Claude assumes double duty in Three Houses’s story (and ONLY Three Houses) in a way no one else does. Unlike Rhea, Edelgard and Dimitri, whom are very much familiar with Fódlan’s idiosyncrasies (sometimes, far more than they’ll let you know), Claude’s own unfamiliarity with Fódlan means he ends up working in practice as a second audience surrogate, and thus has his story be the most “lore exploring” narrative of all given how much of a driving force Claude’s avarice for the truth is, his biases aside.

Varying Knowledge on Events.

Moving onwards, one of the risks caused by the characters having realistic human knowledge is that understanding and perception of events wildly changes depending on the character relaying the information. Chapter 5 was a good case of this already, but another solid example can be seen in what happens to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus post-timeskip outside Crimson Flower. 

For context’s sake: one way or another, Dimitri is unable to assume the throne due to the Faerghus Dukedom being established by Cornelia, Faerghus’ Court Mage, and isn’t seen again for a long while.

My vague recollection of said events was done deliberately, and I feel the evidence below speaks for itself:

Both Seteth and Claude’s knowledge on Dimitri’s fate and how the Faerghus Dukedom came to be are very surface level. Meanwhile, Gilbert’s perspective is a lot more intimate, which fits since he was there when it all happened.

And on the note of characters being there when things happen-

Scenes (not!) shown to the Player

This one’s by far the most sneaky trick the writers pulled (and also more of a lie by omission than anything). I mean, If the player doesn’t choose the Black Eagles/Blue Lions/Golden Deer, it makes sense they’re not shown what Edelgard/Dimitri/Claude are up to respectively, yeah? But that comes with a consequence: the player misses scenes providing context for their actions and motivations.

Case in point: Dimitri’s whole vendetta against Edelgard. Outside of Blue Lions, Dimitri eventually develops an unhinged hatred against Edelgard, but the player is never shown its source. And all because the scene introducing this isn’t relevant to the story being told in those routes.

After Jeralt’s death in Chapter 9, in Black Eagles & Golden Deer, Alois visits Byleth in Jeralt’s room as they mourn their loss, giving the mercenary-turned-teacher some words of comfort. And in those routes, Edelgard and Claude get their own chance to do so in a early scene in Chapter 10 which is juxtaposed with TWSITD & the Flame Emperor having a villain moment™.  

In Blue Lions however, Dimitri visits Byleth instead of Alois in Ch. 9. In turn, Byleth, instead of remaining mournful, does a walk at night the next day and finds Dimitri eavesdropping the whole conversation between TWSITD and Flame Emperor. This shows players what happens after the villain moment™ ends, and how Dimitri eavesdropping on it and getting the Flame Emperor’s dagger convinces him that Edelgard was the mastermind of the Tragedy of Duscur.

Also the moment where everything goes to hell for Dimitri.

The way the Blue Lions' version of the scene was handled also raises interesting implications when considering the timeline of events. Not only does it suggest Dimitri eavesdropping that moment is canon to White Clouds, but also that it’s purely through slightly different circumstances that the story allows it to be shown to Byleth (and by proxy, the player). And this is not even the only case - Crimson Flower for example, implies the explanation Rhea gives to Seteth about what Byleth truly is - in her eyes, that is - always happens even when the titular surrogate isn’t present where it takes place.

When even the lore is biased.

Finally, I want to wrap this up with the most elaborate and confusion-inducing stunt the game pulls to the player: The War of Heroes. 

The tl;dr, as far the Church/Rhea claims - per Part 1, White Clouds - goes as follows: 

Goddess bestows blessings and weapons to humans to fight evil. 

Humans defeat evil. 

Humans misuse blessings and grow corrupt. 

Goddess is sad and leaves.

The Goddess’ prophet arrives, makes miracles, creates the Church of Seiros, co-founds the Adrestian Empire with Wilhelm I, and gives other humans - along with other fellow saints - Crests. 

The Adrestian Empire expands, and fights Nemesis’ forces. 

The War of Heroes happens.

Nemesis is slain in the Tailtean Plains.

Goddesses’ weapons are retrieved as the Ten Elites fall, and their clans are assimilated into the Empire.

War ends sometime later.

As for what took place in reality? the game provides us 2 POVs from 2 different sources:

Both perspectives share that the Church’s history records of the events were a textbook example of propaganda - yet also differ on one key area: the motive behind the war, which begs the question: What happened here? 

Well, this is one of those things that I hinted that we would need to pierce ourselves as the game’s never upfront about it. Which means that, to make sense of everything, we have to take into account the evidence at hand the game gives us: 

Rhea was there when the Tragedy of the Red Canyon happened, and knew her species was being killed and harvested for power by humans (which should not have known how to do what they did).

It’s well documented that Seiros and the Saints used their dragon forms against Nemesis’ forces in battle. Warrios: Three Hopes’ intro movie even shows a battle in which Seiros switches forms in the battlefield.

Wilhelm (The First) is the human that found Seiros after the slaughter and supported her fight with Nemesis. And as Edelgard’s claims, he did this knowing she was a dragon, and that her victory would subjugate humanity to her.

Part 1 is very unsubtle over how Rhea has a lot of secrets, to the point not even Seteth knows why she does things sometimes. 

One of Abyss’ banned books heavily implies no one in Fódlan – sans a select few - know what a dragon is, when examining the bone composition of the Hero’s Relics…

Taking all evidence into account, it should be easy to grasp how Wilhelm the human, despite being one of Rhea’s biggest supporters versus Nemesis, ultimately ended up getting a completely different idea on the motives Rhea had for her whole crusade against the murderer of her kin. Understandably yet tragically so, all points out Rhea didn’t trust Wilhelm enough to tell him the truth of her cause, so she let him come up with his own conclusions. Conclusions, which later made their way into his descendants in secret, and eventually, to Edelgard.

But wait, what about the other faction involved in the war? Nemesis and co.? What was their take on the whole thing?

Well, we technically do know their POV, but it’s not openly discussed in the main story. Instead, it’s spread around in breadcrumbs in the game itself:

In short, not only Nemesis’ most important men were ignorant of his most heinous acts (or perhaps, it would be more accurate to say they didn’t perceive them as heinous?), when Nemesis found out Seiros was publicly framing him as a good man turned bad that needed to be put down for the greater good - all to rally allies for Wilhelm’s Empire - Nemesis’ ensuing statement was something that could be very well summed as the following: 

Actually uncanny how this fits.

There are so many more examples that I want to bring out right now (both from Three Houses and Three Hopes), but I feel that by this point there’s not much left that hasn’t been said already. That is, other than the questions the whole Biased Storytelling stunt caused: Where does the truth lie when everyone is missing pieces of the puzzle? Can someone truly lie when they're unaware such missing pieces even exist? In a story, how canonical truly is the context not shown to the reader? Should one be allowed to know the circumstances of every important event in a story, even if it's irrelevant to the key narrative? 

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

i have a proposition to make to the fire emblem fandom in regards to ai bullshit: we makalov the face of the anti-ai movement depending on how different systems are set up, be it for those who write, those who draw, etc, there are likely ways to rig the system to overload the systems with specific things which is why i suggest we use makalov for this those who have played the tellius duology know he isnt exactly the greatest guy, and also know that mod goldmary seems to be the exception not the rule when it comes to how people view him as a character, so when people try to cheat by using stolen work feed to an ai to create some garbage about fire emblem? they can never escape that piece of shit no matter how hard they try, they'd be lucky if they even see marth no idea if it still applies but i know tumblr had it set up where each specific blog and side blog needed to go into settings to disable ai feeding, if that is still the case then it should be easy to just create a side blog just for the purposes of fucking with the systems when it comes to art just go nuts, don't have any specific things aside from putting so much makalov dna into the system that it thinks fire emblem lords have pink hair instead of blue, maybe purposefully fuck up the hands and other limbs and whatnot so they can never fully fix that issue meanwhile for writing, oh boy i got ideas, smut writers this is your time to shine! make the most nasty vile shit imaginable(while still being legal ofc just gross) and always include makalov in it, heck maybe mess the system up by ruining the lore on purpose and putting him in games he's not supposed to be in, want to have an ai write a fanfiction about awakening? too bad you lazy sack of shit you'll never escape this pink haired horse man no matter what timeline you try seeing as the purpose of these writings is to mess up any bot trying to create fanfiction this also means those who are horrible when it comes to writing can also join in! purposefully misspell and misuse words, throw proper grammar out of the window, and act like this is just how human language naturally works! also those who are good at writing can also purposefully not write good, though as a writer myself i know that is easier said then done at this point, it isn't meant to be posted to your main accounts but rather an extra expendable account just made for the purposes of ruining ai for fire emblem, or if we're lucky ai in general! tl;dr: it would be really fucking funny if this wretched bastard of a man named makalov became known for being the anti-ai symbol of the fandom

Terrible idea. There's already hundreds of thousands of fe images and fanfics in their database, a few pieces of makalov art and fics will not change much. Also making stuff specifically to ruin ai is just not a smart idea. Make something bc you enjoy it instead.

I know you mean well, but please do proper research before you suggest something like this :(

If you really wanna troll with makalov, then join the makasweep for cyl9 and vote for makalov!

[myenterpriseisparked]

Rank the Star Trek captains based on whether or not they're expert road trippers

Archer - He tries. So hard. He burns a CD mixtape to listen to and rents a huge RV that only kind of works. He plans out a bunch of stops but "leaves room in the schedule for unplanned adventures :)" and then proceeds to not follow the plan at all and everything goes wrong. Actually, now that I think about it, Archer on a roadtrip would probably just mostly be the plot of the movie "RV."

Pike - He lets Una plan the stops and he METICULOUSLY plans the food. He and Una take a survey about what all their crew wants to see along the way and try so hard to integrate them all into the trip. He plays LOTS of car games, like Eye Spy or that one game where you count animals on your side of the vehicle until you see a graveyard and have to start over or that other game where you describe a movie plot badly and everyone has to guess what it is. He lets Uhura control the music and Spock read the map and Ortegas drive. The plan for the trip goes off the rails, of course, but everyone ends up having a blast anyway. Overall a SOLID roadtrip.

Kirk - Kirk takes everyone to see every single tourist trap they can find and, you know what? It's fun. Is the World's Largest Truckstop really all that special? No, but the memories they make there are. I also imagine his roadtrip largely takes place in Iowa and other parts of the Midwest so a lot of the trip is rolling cornfields. Overall not a terrible trip, if a little slow and nutty.

Picard - Due to being European, Picard's idea of a roadtrip is a little... different. The crew is a little confused as to why they are only doing about 3 hours of driving a day, but they do appreciate that it's through Wine Country, where the rolling hills are lovely. I imagine Picard plans a "themed trip" (wine tasting and touring) and Riker is the one to throw in the fun tourist traps they do end up visiting. Q is somehow at every single place they stop. Lwaxana is at a few of them too.

Sisko - Sisko takes everyone on a tour of the MLB baseball fields. He meticulously plans places to eat (mostly cajun places that he critiques as 'not as good as his dad's, but acceptable.') and fields to visit. In the meantime, Jadzia picks some more... colorful places to visit in the evenings. Different groups of people get lost but they always find each other. Everyone is a little wary of visiting baseball fields, but once they find out that it was Jake's idea to cheer his dad up, everyone acts like each field is the most fascinating thing they have ever seen. In the end, the trip is a little tedious, but they have all bonded over the solidarity of making Sisko feel better.

Janeway - Janeway drives through the middle of nowhere. Absolutely no cell signal ever. Google Maps will not work. They stop every hour or so to look at the sights. At several points, their van gets robbed and they have to craft new supplies as they go. They make some "road enemies" (other roadtrippers that get competitive about parking spots and camping areas and stuff) and get in several fights (that they win). They camp alongside the road instead of staying in hotels and it's kinda miserable but it builds a lot of relationships and character. Their van breaks down a lot but they always fix it themselves. B'Elanna ends up souping up the engine about 4 different times. In the end, they all get home pretty much dead on their feet, but the whole crew is planning the next road trip anyway.

Freeman - She has a schedule that no one follows and she yells about it a lot. The road trip keeps getting completely derailed. They absolutely do not hit any planned stops and they have to replace each of the van's tires 3 times. Good news, however, is that they got a GREAT sale on all the trinkets and stuff that they bought along the way so everyone is still having an okay time.

Dal - Barely has a plan. He basically piled everyone in a vehicle one day and started driving. They stop whenever they feel like it and do odd jobs to earn enough money to keep going. The end goal is to reach San Francisco by the end, but Dal has to keep them backtracking for various reasons and they're having a heck of a time understanding exactly how this brand-new Chevy Silverado with a fancy computer system that they accidentally stole works. Everyone has fun anyway, even though they are also kinda lowkey running from the cops.

Burnham - I don't honestly know enough about Burnham as a captain to say for sure but I think she and Saru would plan a pretty chaotic lil road trip that kinda jumps all over the country in a strange order. Lots of zigzags and backtracking and stuff. I think they have fun though?

FINAL RANKING:

1st Place - Pike

2nd Place - Kirk

3rd Place - Janeway

4th Place - Sisko

5th Place - Archer

6th Place - Burnham

7th Place - Picard

8th Place - Dal

9th Place - Freeman

[t0bey]

Nobody invited me to the conversation but I'm here to butt into it without permission (? 👍

I think the problem with the 3DS FE is that each one tried to create a new experience for the player and that is what ends up causing so much discordance between them in structure and narrative.

With Awakening the detail is that it was the last game that IntSys was going to release from the franchise and they decided to put everything on the table and say: well, this is as far as we go, let it be what fate wants.

And they did well. It's not the best story, but as a player you enjoy it and end up liking the game.

Someone commented on this before in another post, and I agree with what they said, the timeskip is not felt in Awakening and that's what bothers me the most, because how old is Lissa at the end of the game?! /j

damn this is taking too long... sorry 🙏

If you take Awakening, and cut it into three unconnected pieces, that ends up being Fates. If Fates had been a single route and without the Avatar as the protagonist, it would have had the success that IntSys wanted it to have, because in the game they divide the narratives SO MUCH that in the end they don't explain anything. because I played Revelations and it was a pleasant experience as long as you skip the dialogue. (it's really funny how in Fates they tried to recreate the dynamic of the children and it went wrong)

As for Sov, at least on the Spanish side of the fandom, nobody takes the game very seriously precisely because the narrative doesn't help it. The first thing I heard about SoV is that instead of fixing bugs from the original game they only upgraded it to HD with cutscenes of certain events, and that Twilight of the Gods was the best final boss song, but if there's no narrative capacity to explain the plot holes, the narrative is going to falter A LOT (what was the cost of not making the protagonists so clumsy and reinventing the story??? They even created Berkut and Rinea for a plot that completely took a backseat).

Along with this, after SoV came 3H, and FE purists hated 3H for "not being like the other games" when what's wrong with SoV is that it's the same. oh, the irony 🫠

i agree i think while awakening is nowhere near a flawless game, it definitely earns its status as a trailblazer for where the series ended up going. and fates main problem is that it tries to replicate too much of fea's beats even if it doesn't realize why it actually worked on a narrative level. i do wish there was at least timeskip designs between act 1 and act 2 but also like, i think it mightve also done a disservice considering everyones designs r already iconic.

i dont really consider an avatar being the mc inherently the root of fates problems tbh, i think its moreso the overall story is so lackluster that it doesnt really do them any favors. i think its not even something unique to them, and i think other characters like ryoma are arguably blander. perhaps if they just let corrins conflict between nohr and hoshido be not so black and white theyd be more compelling.

i didnt really even notice any outstanding plot holes in my first run of SoV, i just think its story overall kinda flopped by the end based on it jumbling its themes and shelving celica for alm HARD, as well as majority of its characters being pretty shallow due to a criminal lack of supports and no screentime given aside from a few. its just harder to notice cuz of the better presentation and characterization

tho at the end of the day i dont hate any of these games even if fates is the worst one ive played, i was mainly just surprised at how hyped up SoV was going into it bc of its characters and writing when i honestly preferred the gameplay more by the end of it 😭

[kudzucataclysm]

author quastions...

tagged by @cream-and-tea!! had to sit on this for a bit but ultimately realized that im lowkey shit at articulating my thoughts so you get Brain Dump Yappery. about my terminal brain fungus Shattered Earth ofc :3

What is the main lesson of your story? Why did you choose it?

iiiii do not have a lesson with SE tbh jfjfjf. or…okay well, i dont mean to impart a lesson on the audience for SE i suppose. if anything i would want someone to come away from the story with their own?? interpretation of a lesson, or having realized/learned/realized something about themselves. or even if its as simple as “this shit is insane” i’d be genuinely happy with that

i chose it becuz ive more or less always wanted a cast full of heinous ass losers/villains/anti-villains/criminals who actually ARE fucked up and do actual bad things instead of being just simply misunderstood or simply SadTM. also cuz i just sort of love weird and unconventional forms of storytelling and worldbuilding. like the weirder/wackier or insane things are the better 💯. SE is the ultimate self-indulgent project fasho….

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding?

GOD…mangas like Gangsta. and Black Lagoon…the movies MFKZ and AKIRA and Bullet Train and Blade Runner and Snatch…Dorohedoro, Hunter X Hunter, Sakamoto Days….War of the Worlds….Mr Inbetween…Cloudpunk and Fallout….Umurangi Gen…so much….

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, or help the reader grow as a person?

Desmond is simply trying to achieve a place where he feels like he belongs or at least to have people who appreciate/like/love him as he is unconditionally- this goal is somewhat hidden at first by his stated intention to help his dad pay rent ie GET MONEY but that drive for belonging is ultimately what gets him into The Shit with the rest of the cast. then the story happens lol

aaaaaand idk what to achieve with him tbh im not good at articulating my thoughts…but look at ‘im. hes just a little guy; in all seriousness tho i think…? im at least hoping to showcase that the initial doormat/people pleaser/super empathetic type* of character is absolutely capable of evolving (forcefully in this case) into someone who’s like. capable of change. of doing things. of learning to not take people’s shit anymore and to finally be able to do something about it. violently and amorally but still with the best intentions in mind. teehee

and once again i dont mean to enforce anything on anyone with SE but maybe the just-stated above counts…? uhhh yknow what ya i would like people to grow. and learn 🌞

*i hate this type of character who is still this by the end or even halfway point of the story. like literally the only thing changed abt them is that they r Tired and Traumatized now but r still effectively doormats and r emotionally stable who Talk No Jutsu out of shit like that GENUINELY!!! makes me pissed kfjfjf like NAAAUR!! GET ANGRY! WHERES YOUR RAGE!! WHERES YOUR FUCKING RAAAAGE??!!!! BLOW SOME SHIT UP ABOUT IT!! FLUSH YOUR MEDICATIONS DOWN THE TOILERT! NOOOOW!! ok /endrant

How many chapters is your story going to have?

SE is become One Piece atp and everyday i suffer for it-

uuuh idk how many chapters. but as of rn the story is split into two Acts, each consisting of several Parts, each which consists of several story arcs. one arc now involves cowgirl francis fighting a bioengineered bigfoot in a martian terraformed shrubland desert so. idk how many chapters. i meant is become OP very seriously

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

ORIGINAL CONTEEEENT RAAAAAAAA rips shirt off

i def plan on making SE its own website lmfao. im willing to put the money in to purchase a domain and everything, i’ll even force myself to learn basic coding before i ever use something like webtoon or tapas. that shit’s for GODDAMN sure lol

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow writers of writeblr? What other writers do you follow?

DO WHATEVER YOU WANT FOREVER THE WORLD..:IS YOUR OYSTER...WATCH MFKZ...MY FINAL MESSAGE…GOODBYE….

I HEREBY TAG @vacantgodling, @calicohyde, @transthadymacdermot, and @careful-pyromancer...NO PRESSURE....

[no-charity-case]

Adding on to my 'Crutchy/Crutchie's experience with polio' post.

I don't really know if you can reblog reblogs (and even if I could, I think I prefer doing it this way).

I will discuss the interesting tags these two users (@midnight-drip and @tipsandtrixx) have included in their reblog (yes, I read all tags on reblogs, but I'm making a post on these two as they made me realise there's more to say).

I began this post before the second user reblogged, and they present completely different topics, so I've discussed them one at a time.

@midnight-drip put some thought-provoking hashtags when she reblogged my post, so let's talk about it. (I've put a screenshot below in case you haven't yet checked it out). I have also typed every tag out for those of you who use screen readers.

I have also seen the theory that the prologue takes place a few years before Newsies. For anyone who hasn't yet, you can read about it here.

Also, since this is only referencing the musical and musical Jr Crutchie, I'll only use 'Crutchie' throughout most of the post (until it's a comment on the overall character).

I actually haven't read the Newsies Jr script, so I've found myself the extract I needed (still haven't found a full version), and I've looked at the line you were referencing.

JACK Hey, Crutchie, where you going? Morning bell ain't rung yet. Get back to sleep. CRUTCHIE I wanna get there before everybody. Ever since I got the polio, it takes me extra time to warm up my leg. JACK That bum pin of yours is a gold mine! You know how many newsies fake a limp for sympathy? That's why they calls you "Crutchie,"'cause they wish they had one too! CRUTCHIE Yeah, "pretend" is one thing, but Snyder gets the idea I can't make it on my own for real, they'll lock me up in The Refuge for good. JACK Don't worry about nuthin', I got your back.

Now, I interpret Santa Fe (Prologue) to have taken place shortly after Crutchie initially joined the newsies. So in 1894, when he was 10 (based on my last post).

Crutchie's line "I wanna get there before everybody. Ever since I got the polio, it takes me extra time to warm up my leg" to me seems like he's explaining to Jack why he needs to wake up early (as Jack's never had the illness, and maybe hasn't come across someone with polio before either).

Him explaining this to Jack makes just as much sense contextually as Jack explaining Santa Fe to Crutchie. In 1899, they'll both know this personal information about each other, but in 1894, they wouldn't yet. So it makes sense for the prologue to take place years before the main Newsies story begins.

So yes, it was a recent development as Crutchy/Crutchie had just been abandoned in Manhattan, found the newsies, and began selling with them.

This is reinforced by Jack explaining, "That bum pin of yours is a gold mine! You know how many newsies fake a limp for sympathy? That's why they calls you "Crutchie," 'cause they wish they had one too!"

This is probably the first time Jack has actually told him why they gave him that nickname (yes, it's because he has a crutch, but also because the newsies see it as a selling advantage). Obviously, Crutchy/Crutchie would have known this in 1899, but he may not have known so early on after joining them.

@tipsandtrixx also used interesting tags (again, I've added a screenshot below in case you haven't yet checked it out)

Firstly, I need to elaborate on something. I purposefully omitted anything regarding 'how' he contracted it since my post was more about Crutchy/Crutchie's experience after contracting it rather than how he caught polio. So, I'd say you are adding on to and improving my post rather than disagreeing.

Here is an extract from the NHS polio page, specifically from 'How polio is spread':

Polio is caused by a virus that spreads easily from person to person. It usually spreads through contact with the poo of an infected person. For example, from not washing your hands properly and putting them in your mouth, or from contaminated food or water. It can also spread through coughs or sneezes, but this is less common.

I'm fully in agreement with you that Crutchy/Crutchie contracted the disease from consuming something (or at least from touching something he shouldn't have and then eating/drinking with those same contaminated hands). Although my theory is that he didn't contract polio in New York (because of the 1984 Vermont epidemic), poor neighbourhoods and slums were unsanitary and filthy outside of NYC too.

And yes, the water supply wasn't as bad as it was in New York, but it was still contaminated, so Crutchy/Crutchie still could have consumed contaminated water in Vermont.

Thank you both for your reblogs; they were very interesting. Thank you for calling my posts 'well-thought out' and 'dedicated' respectively, I really appreciate it! And thank you for giving me more topics to explore.

[stxss-art]

Here's Xane and Duma from Fire Emblem!

Xane is probably my absolute favourite FE character of all time, even if he is a little obscure. As for Duma, I think he's a very complex character, and drawing melting zombie dragons is VERY fun, 10/10 would recommend.

It's such a shame these two are so unpopular, I wish I could see more fanart of them!! But have my rough sketches in the meantime :)

Also sorry for the incoming long rant under the cut, but I have FEELINGS about Fire Emblem I need to get out, and this post might as well be it, sorry in advance if it offends anyone 😭

I've loved FE since playing Sacred Stones and Binding Blade, and I still loved FE even with the massive change to the franchise after Awakening... (though my absolute favourite game is SoV, which replaced Sacred Stones) but the final nail in coffin that killed my hyperfixation was the new FE Engage... honestly what even was that shit... I'm sorry to the fans, but I couldn't even finish that game, it was so. Bad.

Why are the characters so one-dimensionally quirky like they're from a trashy dating sim?? What even was up with the ring concept?? I was cringing so hard through the entire gameplay... maybe I haven't given the story a good enough chance? 3H had me thinking we were recovering from the dating sim tragedy of IF (shoehorned romancing babies... seriously wtf)... what happened??? And why do we NEED an MC self-insert avatar that can romance everyone and their mothers??

I loved FE for the multi dimensional lore, the back stories between the side characters, the world building... the strategy gameplay!! I never needed to have parasocial romances with the characters to appreciate them. In fact, they were the most interesting when they interacted with each other!

I'm just sad about the direction of FE since the success of Awakening, it wouldve been fine if the quality was there... but half the games are now just barely-concealed harem games that does strategy rpg on the side. Fire Emblem is all about the writing! The story drives the gameplay, terrible writing is forgivable in gameplay-focused games, but not FE.

I just feel we lost so much good writing and world building, like the lore about the divine dragon tribe (a source of my hyperfixation). There's very little, but so much is said from the little we do have. I love the complexity of their situation, their actions, the tragedy and choices of the divine dragons throughout majority of the games that affect the entire world... and I'm still sad that we never got the 3rd game after Mystery of the Emblem, that Kaga expressed would have more story and focus on Xane, who has an interesting contrast to Tiki. This is also the reason why I enjoyed Rhea's backstory from 3H. It also plays on the tragedy and choices of divine dragons in the age of man, and the inherent struggles for power and survival; it was well written in comparison to whatever Engage is. I would go on a tangent about divine dragons since I used to obsess over the lore and analyze it, but I've taken enough space for something that probably isn't an issue for most people lol

My only hope is that any new addition to the franchise would be well written, I wish I could make more fanart, but FE feels kinda sour now...

Extra:

I was so obsessed, I even played the hellish FE Heroes gacha (had to stop after 4 years because of their awful powercreeping that would have destroyed my wallet). But look at some of my lovely +10's that are totally competitively non-viable now!

[yansimstorythatiwillnotworkon]

Megami Saikou

Name: Megami Saikou

Gender: Female

Class: 2-2

Club: Student Council

Persona: Lovestruck (Devoted)

Reputation:

Overall: +100

Liked: +100

Respected: +100

Feared: +100

Crush: ???

Strength: Invincible

__

I'm not entirely sure about how I feel about Megami. I think she might be kind of dull, but that's only via the fan content. She's widely known as the most beautiful rival, but that's all the art about her is. Either that or changing her race and whatnot (which I never understood, personally). I feel like too many people focus on how Megami looks and what they want her personality to be, instead of her general lore that makes up her character.

This is probably why, despite consuming so much YanSim content, I never knew much about Megami. I think that despite YanSim being such a dark story, the majority of the fandom being built up of minors keeps the interesting fan content to an unrealistically vanilla standard.

Enough about the fandom, though. Regarding game play, I think that during Megami's week, the Student Council will really be justified to be as threatening with everyone as they are with Ayano. Possibly even leaving them vulnerable to bullying, rumours, humiliation, and being fired. Much more beneath the cut.

I feel as though everyone knows that Megami and the Student Council could be on close terms, but I also feel like people constantly forget about how dark their relationship with her could be as well. As much as I'd like to touch up on that, I didn't add the student council up above due to having limited space and having the ability to touch up on them in their own post.

I think that each rival should have a different relationship with their suitor, and it shouldn't copy the whole "guy in love who will not talk to his crush without the help of the main character" schmuck that placeholds the matchmaking system currently. With this in mind and considering that Kaga (supposedly?) is already in contact with Megami's father, I think that it isn't too far off to believe that he's also in contact with Megami herself and is aware of her goals once she arrives in school. How he goes about his actions while knowing this information is a complete enigma to me, though. I feel like if I were to look at Kaga and Megami in a more romantic light, I'd say that the two of them are completely compatible, but only other vastly different circumstances. Without all the Ayano-loathing madness, Megami would probably come to terms with the fact that, psychotic or not, a smart guy is a smart guy, and a smart guy is her type. Additionally, considering Kaga's overall madness, I'm sure in his mind "a future as the head of Saikou Corp" has always been "a future with Megami", regardless if at first it was a romantic attraction or not.

Regarding Taro, I'm sure that regardless of his mental stability in the future game play, Megami's approach in this week would not be giving him a lunch, borrowing his book, or going on a date with him. If anything, her entire week might just be her standing buy him until club time, where she and the student council can have a meeting. Taro himself, after the events of the past nine weeks, feels obligated to some degree to comply with her. Hell, if not to assist in the capturing of a supposed psychopath, then at least to become the hero he couldn't be for any of the past victims. If Megami were to gain feelings for Taro, then she likely wouldn't act on them unless Taro was in a more stable mindset. But if that were the case, I feel like Taro would grow - if not suspicious, then confused of Megami's intentions after she went completely overkill just to confess to him in the end anyway. If he wasn't in a stable mindset, Megami would likely transfer him to a safe and stable school and environment in order for him to continue the rest of his life like normal. Or at least, as normal as a traumatized boy can get.

Ayano will be "assigned" a trusted member of the school (most likely a student council member or female) to watch her at all times. This could essentially force Ayano to kill her chaperone or force her to do a 100% friendly route- which might not even be available in Megami's week all things considered. Several other students (like surviving rivals and close friends of Ayano) will likely be followed for the sake of believability of Megami not targeting Ayano as well as wanting to keep others safe and away from suspicious material. I imagine that if Ayano has kept to a peaceful and friendly route throughout the whole game, even befriending everyone (maybe the SC included), Megami will be forced to tolerate Ayano and not treat her harshly since at that point all her feelings would have just been due to judging her ancestors' actions. This would work far better than Ryoba's game (good and bad ending included) because Ayano has never canonically killed anyone, and can 100% make a change in order to normalize herself and her kids for the sake of Taro. I also think that the only way to peacefully defeat Megami if the peaceful and friendly route was taken would be to snatch Taro's heart before she can.

Raibaru's case could possibly just be an oc-implemented case since regarding her canon information, her being attached to Megami wouldn't make any sense, but I'll still explain a tad bit to you lot anyway. In the story, a reason why Raibaru is so attached to Osana is because of a loss in middle school. Due to this and an oc, she's become suspicious of Ayano and still thinks that Osana's life is possibly at risk. Hence why she partners with Megami.

[op-smash-or-pass]

Welcome to One Piece smash or pass

This is based off of @fe-smashorpass except with One Piece characters here are the guidelines:

-Each day we will have 2 characters be chosen for smash or pass. The polls will last for a week.

-Obviously I am skipping: Animals/Minks, Children, characters that look like children, and dwarfs(Any character that is over the age of 18 after the timeskip we will use those designs)

-You guys can send me asks! Honestly I don’t know how quick I’ll respond to them but go ahead! It can be about anything (yes including headcannons + ships)

We also have a popularity poll going on! Here

Some important tags: #OP smash or pass (where you can find all the current and previous polls)

#Inbox trick or treating- the trick or treat event that went on

#Rosi’s holiday exchange- Holiday event that went on

#Pirate Crew ask game- Year long event!! Going on now

Below are some FAQ’s that might pop up:

Q: how are you keeping track of the characters? How will you prevent from repeats?

A: I spent four hours making a spreadsheet and tried to weed out all the characters we can’t post here. If a character I missed pops up and I post it I’ll take it down and post a new one.

Q: What else are you a fan of?

A: I’m really into Coral island as of late. Fire emblem has always had a special place in my heart. I also have been playing a ton of Identity V as of late. (I’m a college student so I can really only watch anime)

Q: Are we allowed to ask you things not about One piece?

A: Yes but please keep it to a minimal, I love answering questions but remember this is a One Piece gimick blog first

Q: Are you gonna make a spreadsheet of the most smashable characters?

A: Yes! I have a friend who is willing to do it! Plus at the end I have something else planned :]

Q: Are we allowed to request characters?

No, I’m going in alphabetical order, but if I miss someone please let me know! Though if you want people to smash or pass your One Piece OC’s I can do that!

Q: What characters are we including?

A: As long as they fit in our categories and have a photo of them, they are welcome in this. So yes we have some movie characters but not a lot.

I have decided Momonosuke will not be in this poll because he has the mindset of a child

Q: Why are you doing this?

A: I’m jobless, bored, and hyper fixating hard. Also I thought it would be fun. Plus I wanna get a consensus on characters

Q: Do you have an age limit on this blog?

A: Not really, though if you are a minor and try to argue about this being NSFW then…unfollow idc it’s just a silly poll

Q: The series is still running what about future chapters with characters?

A: I’ll add them to the end of the list and we’ll circle back to them once my main list is done.

Q: How many characters are in this poll?

A: 1000+ most are male there’s only about 250 women in this poll. And yes I checked EVERY big mom child

Q: How are we incorporating Zoan devil fruits in this?

A: As long as they have a human form we will be using them. But the lab made zoan fruits were gonna go with how they look

Cheetah for legs: ❌ Ox for stomach: ✅

Q: Why are people smashing XYZ?

A: Idfk it’s Tumblr man, have you seen the bitches these people are into??

Q: I came from TikTok are you redo’ing any polls?

A: Nope! As long as I didn’t mess up the photo or made the poll one day we aren’t redoing any characters.

Q: I have a friend who you blocked why did you do that?

A: They probably shipped Coralaw, DoffyCora, or some other illegal ass ship, we’re a pornbot, or straight up being racist. Just don’t be fucking weird man and I won’t block you. I love shipping but if your shipping something illegal I’m gonna block you.

Q: Why is Corazon the profile photo?

A: I think he’s hot + idk heart theme kinda fits. And he has some good alts so I can do Halloween and spring themes

Info about OP:

Hello! You can call me Deer/Rafiel (Raffy) /Michael/ or Rosinante!!

I am trans masc and use He/they/it/thing pronouns! Though just He/they is fine too!

I am in my first year of college majoring in creative writing leaning towards video game scrips with a minor in digital art.

This account is run by a DID system and the fictive host Rosinante. Though please do not ask questions about our system due to privacy reasons.

I’m still catching up on the One Piece manga (caught up on the anime), so I apologize if I don’t know the manga characters

https://ko-fi.com/rosicora45 <- Kofi to support me in other ways!

Dni:

-Homophobes/transphobes

-Proshippers (fancy way of saying illegal ships)

-Racists

- People telling me how to run my blog

-Coralaw shippers

-Trump supporters

[puhpandas]

I still see fans use the glamrocks dismantlings against greg! which is crazy cuz the game makes us do it and we’re never faced with an alternative ever. It’s not like greg was presented with a faz wrench, realized he could reboot the bots, then turn around and said nahh. He had maybe 3-4 hours left on the clock and I doubt any kid could make a plan to reboot 3 violent robots while also worrying about vanny within that amount of time

Their dismantlings, while sad in ruin, feels like a cheap attempt at glamrock angst when the glamrock angst should’ve been focused on how FE treats/neglects their robots. Why are we blaming the child over the greed/carelessness of men that put him, and everyone else, in that situation? Sotm better pull through and show how evil big corporations are so fans can parallel it with FE smh

YEAH I've actually never really thought about that second part. I think that's actually why I was so miffed by it in ruin and it didnt hit, and I love the glamrocks so it really should have!! it felt too cheap and thrown in, like there wasnt any buildup. and jtop literally SAID in the john interview that they put in chicas rebeakening as fan service to be able to feel that satisfaction at fixing her. he pretty blatantly either said or implied idk which but pretty sure it's the former that it was so you could fix what Gregory had done, which is. kind of strange

I understand it from an outside player perspective, bc it's like everybody felt bad breaking them, but I feel like this wasnt the way to go about it, especially because Gregory himself was not even involved when they were being fixed. theres nothing about the actual situation being expanded upon, just one part being put back into place by the "kind" child to fix what the "other" child had done

I think that's why I was miffed by cassie and roxys relationship too and it didnt hit like Gregory and freddys. it felt so sanitized, like, the whole point of roxy is that she isnt at all what a perfect character for the brand would be like and shes insecure and mean and lashes out, but then as soon as cassie finds her under the forklift shes suddenly back to being a soulless entertainer robot that's nothing but kind? her voice acting LITERALLY turns robotic!! it's like her entire personality was stripped away for her to be more likeable, even if that wasnt the intention, and it just didnt make it feel genuine

that's what it feels like with 'fixing' chica too. theres no real genuineness to it, it's just slapping a bandaid on it and not talking about what really matters about the situation. PLUS in the process it just paints Gregory who's already in an atrocious light from another event from the exact same game in an even worse light, especially with how jtop implied it in the interview that he was the "bad" to Cassies "good".

it feels like less to actually make you care or think about chica being sentient trapped in this building and broken and STILL under the virus and just. heres a bandaid, hope you guys feel better about (gregory) breaking them! isnt cassie a sweetheart for doing this? (theres an unlike unsaid there)

no hate to cassie or anything /gen. I have zero problem with her, it's just how it all as a whole was handled. this feels like a mistake theyve been making a lot recently with focusing on the wrong things. not focusing on the sentient Fazbear ent characters and how they each dont fit into their boxes for one reason or another and instead just the "look roxy and cassie are friends and shes back to acting like her animatronic performer self and now you as the player get to experience satisfaction but nothing about the situation actually changes". it's like this with mimic too, where they keep focusing on the boring mortal parts of mimic of it just being an old ass rusty robot instead of the glitchtrap AI virus parts of it, which are the actual dangerous scary parts that make it feel powerful and hard to beat in any capacity

ur so right about the Fazbear ent stuff not being focused on enough, especially since it's one of the most prominent amazing storylines in sb!! Bonnie in ruin should have served that, but it didn't, it just added more kindle to the fire in our own minds to make the story better. they didnt actually talk about the implications of bonnie being there and dead and phased out but it's there. the implication is good enough I guess, but it's just another thing about how it could have been expanded upon. like cassie could have had a little dialogue putting it into perspective like "omg he was here the whole time? it looked like someone killed him! it's so unfair that they just phased him out like that :(" or something then boom, makes the player think about it

ur so right about all the things u said in ur ask about the "glamrock angst" instead of focusing on the actual sad parts of their story that are AMAZING. especially since they're framing them being broken as the most terrible worst thing to ever happen to them and the ONLY bad thing when it was done by Gregory and not the mistreatment and abuse from Fazbear ent that made Freddy abandon the place (bc of bonnie) which was done BY the company. its framing Gregory as being the bad one twice in the same game when he didnt need another player while Fazbear ent, who is already the culprit of the glamrocks story that isnt expanded upon enough, isnt emphasized so players only focus on Gregory breaking them as being their worst fates

[emblemxeno]

I think what frustrates me the most about canon FE is when a certain subset of fans praise FE for its amazing representation. Don’t get me wrong on the surface it does look like it’s good representation but then you think about the reasoning which comes down to the same basic outdated views. Let’s start with a fan favorite. Yes Edelgard is bi (though most call her a lesbian which I’m sorry isn’t true? If anything she’s straight with a Byleth only preference.) but why is Edelgard bisexual? Is it to state a message? No. It’s because there was no way to write around her massive player crush meant for the male player that they might as well let her marry the female model of the player too. Dimitri didn’t have this problem. Dimitri and Claude had more to them than an obsession with the player. Also they’re only for the girls the men don’t want that. That was the reason and no that’s not good representation. Then again people also see her as a rebel leader when there is no better example of what’s going on in the world than this character so obviously they’d miss the mark.

Let me give you another example I love Chrobin to pieces and yes I prefer them as platonic life partners if Robin is female because female Chrobin feels very doomed family focused which as an aroace who is tired of amatonormativity that’s not my thing. So instead I love the idea that despite their different romantic partners they are still each others most important person and platonic soulmates. But male Chrobin? That one I like as both romantic and platonic because there are much less amatonormative tropes associated with it. They’re just a very close duo who would do anything for each other, half the time you don’t even see Morgan.

But also Chrobin is not canon. I can see why people are beginning to think that, the reason Chrom and MRobin specifically are always paired up both in FEH and their own Emblem ring and have the most heartfelt conversations compared to the female counterpart isn’t because IS likes MChrobin more than FChrobin. No it’s because they see that relationship actually as inferior. Pairing a male character and a female character together automatically is assumed as romantic in their eyes but a male and a male? Well that’s fine, it’s never romantic it’s just friendship after all. I guarantee if Awakening is remade Chrom will stop not be able to marry MRobin and I’ll be mad about it lol.

My final example is the character of Plumeria. She’s basically a sexy fairy gives you wet dreams. But she hates it, and she hates mortals because of it. She reiterates this every time she gets a new alt or any attention in the game. Like I said I’m asexual I can relate to that mindset. Plumeria would be a fascinating character to go into sex in society and how it’s just expected and has to be a part of her but nah. She exists to give into the fetish of but you special player are the only one who can change her mind. And though she may call you disgusting and reverting you like it, this is for you you naughty little pervert *wink*

FE is getting much better at representation (I will die on the hill Fates was better gay rep than 3H, which felt like lesbian fetishization while the men had crumbs but argument for another day) and Engage allowing just the Avatar no matter their gender to “engage” anyone was an excellent step but it has a long way to go and until it stops trying to cater to a straight male audience which I fear it will keep doing looking at the success of Edelgard and skimpy FEH alts and realizes its views on women is very outdated and covered in sexism which affects their LGBT representation with it, I see it staying this way. Hidden gems you can find as representation but underneath it all it’s all because they treat women different than men. And is that really honest to goodness representation or just a side effect?

EDIT: This is me after writing everything below, I deeply apologize for the lack of cohesion in my response, I kinda just started yapping after a bit lol

I agree, the representation in FE has a long way to go.

While I'd give it grace because the devs have different societal values and norms, and the balancing act between catering to multiple countries must be hell on earth, I think they're still pussyfooting around the issue a bit.

Fates, specifically the Japanese version, having a few characters be queer in a het-dominant world felt better because it written with all the mess and internalized homophobia that it might entail that feels pretty appropriate for the game's setting. The primary issue is that, yeah, only Niles and Rhajat being options, and only queer romances for Corrin and not between other characters, would rub people the wrong way. Compare to 3H and Engage where, as you say, the former kind of feels as if they wrote themselves into a corner for some characters, there's a fetish aspect lingering underneath, and the imbalance for male options makes it apparent that it's still catering to straight men more than anyone; and the latter having the entire cast be available for Alear, but doesn't solve the problem that's being discussed.

There's also the fact that 3H has a lot of queer subtext with non-Byleth ships (especially Faerghus, like jesus christ lol) but functionally it's a bitch to get the endings you wanted unless you got the DLC, and Engage has no paired endings aside from Alear and their partners.

The fix isn't to just let anyone be options, the fix IMO would be to just... write some characters from the ground up as queer and not wholly dependent on the Avatar for a relationship.

The issue you'd run into is some players not getting to marry their favs because they aren't compatible with their avatar's gender, but we honestly need to let go of the fact that FE Avatars aren't actual self inserts. They are characters in their own rights that you get to alter more than others, hence the Japanese "My Unit" moniker.

Being quite honesty I'd love if the next game just didn't have any kind of self insert type of main character, as we haven't had one from a non-remake game in... almost two decades ughhh (turns to dust)

And same on the Plumeria point! She kind of has the same rough deal as Ann from Persona 5, where both both have problems with sexualization in game yet are constantly forced into that role anyway because Sexy = Sales, which is kinda shitty? It's one thing to be Camilla and have your sex appeal be part of your character's fucked up/warped perception of love, but to write a character one way and then not respect it? It makes little sense.

Thanks for the ask!

[renaisguy]

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Ashera

Pronouns: they/them

Birthday (no year): 6th June

Where are you from? What is your time zone? England, GMT

How long is your roleplay experience? I think it must be like 10 years technically

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? Naruto OC roleplay on Google+

How were you introduced to TOA? I played FE4 and the brainworms took over, so I started following the genealogy tag on tumblr. I kept seeing posts about X character being accepted to the officer's academy, so eventually I looked into what that was all about.

Do you have any pets? No.

What is your favourite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) My wardrobe is minmaxed for warm weather, I hate layers and I like having my window open, and having hours and hours of daylight. So summer.

What is your IRL occupation? IT.

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? Pixel art and cross-stitch, card games, social deduction games, doctor who, long walks.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Zero escape, Aitsf, puyo puyo tetris, balatro, slay the spire, ace attorney, umineko, other vns.

Favourite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Delphox. I like dragon, fire and dark types.

Tell us some fun facts and trivia about yourself! (Optional bonus challenge: if you filled this out last year, try not to repeat what you said back then!)

I like dressing fancy. I regularly go to hang out with my friends wearing floor-length gowns, my grandad's boat cloak, and heels. I have a drag queen friend who sometimes gives me clothes he doesn't want any more, and it's great.

(Apart from the wrinkle where RD is technically my brother's and not mine) I own every FE game that got an English release.

I will always spell things the British way.

How did you get into Fire Emblem? At the time feh was released I was just playing every nintendo mobile game that came out. I thought the characters were cute and I found a second-hand copy of birthright sometime later. I then had to wait until Christmas to play it cause my brother's 3DS was broken.

What Fire Emblem games have you played? Beaten: Genealogy, Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn, Shadow Dragon, Awakening, Birthright, Conquest, Echoes, 3 Houses, 3 Hopes, Engage Played a decent amount of: FE1, Binding Blade, Path of Radiance, Warriors

First & Favourite Fire Emblem games: First: Heroes/Birthright. Favourite(s): Genealogy, Sacred Stones, Radiant Dawn

List your 5 favourite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Laylea, Dew, Forde, Larcei and Jeritza. Maybe. I have too many faves.

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! I liked M!Robin's art in heroes and he was the first 5* I summoned. Also I fell in love with Kaden the instant I met him cause he's cute (unfortunately my Corrin was already married)

Any Fire Emblem crushes? Like so many. For brevity I'll give the biggest one from each game: Wolf, Sonya, Arvis, Karel (FE7), Joshua/Cormag, Nasir, Reina, Jeritza, Zelkov. Shout out to Arvis for being the reason I played FE4 to begin with, and Jeritza cause the morning he became playable and bisexual I went insane.

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? I prefer to S support a new character each run cause I like filling the support log. The only time I've S supported a character more than once is the bisexual ones in 3H. So instead I'm giving my first and my favourite. Also at this point I've played 3H so much there's only like, 6 characters I haven't S supported. - Awakening: First: Miriel, Favourite: ??? - Fates: First: Jakob, Favourite: Kaden, Reina, Mozu - Three Houses: First: Jeritza, Favourite: Jeritza - Engage: First: Zelkov, Favourite: Zelkov

Favourite Fire Emblem class? Swordmaster

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? Mage cause they have cape. I'd have great stats (delusional)

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) Black Eagles.

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons: Reason, Axes, Authority. Banes: Heavy Armour, Riding, Faith. Budding talent: Faith.

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) Firene.

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) Tee-Oh-Ay

Current TOA muses: Forde

Past TOA muses? Larcei, Tine, Dew, Yune, Laylea

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? I had Larcei for over a year and honestly I'm really happy with what I did with her (even if rereading her stuff makes me cringe). So as much as I love her I have no strong reason to pick her up... apart from that swordmaster drabble I never got around to.

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) There's overlap between the 'old' and 'new' gens of my muses. There's a hotheaded sword girl, a mage with issues :tm: and a cute blond guy. I think I have an easier time writing characters that have a positive outlook, and say what they mean.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Idk really. I don't think I'm that good at writing sad shit, so muses that have heavier stuff going on I'd struggle with.

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) I like being a little silly. Some of my favourite posts have been where I've just thought up some nonsense, and allowed myself to write it.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? I want Forde to be obliterated emotionally. I do not care if these emotions are positive or negative.

Favourite TOA-related memories? SO many this group is awesome. I loved coming back after some time off and seeing what muses were still around. There's one in particular that Larcei and Forde are both close friends with and it cheeses me so much. Anyway happyland was my favourite event ever thank you mods.

Present or past tense? Present usually, but sometimes I use past don't worry about it.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? The most formatting I do is the occasional italics.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? There is *someone* who's been on my mind... (but really I have no strong muse thoughts at the moment, and I don't think I have the energy to double muse rn)

[anruraiocht]

TOA Anniversary Munday

from neffi (thank you neffi!!)

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: limit

Pronouns: they/them

Birthday (no year): 3/8 (thats march 8th for my non-americans)

Where are you from? What is your time zone? US | EST

How long is your roleplay experience? 10+ years

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? i was doing warrior cats roleplay on scratch dot mit dot edu at age 10 brother

How were you introduced to TOA? n was talking about it on call and me and the oomfs decided to play a little prank on him when he went to the bathroom. it was really funny to be fair

Do you have any pets? three dogs (australian shepherd, shiba, chihuahua mix) and a cat (stupid)

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) fall; i have pollen allergies that give me really bad headaches and live in a pollen bowl you can imagine my suffering.

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? i like to play and draw

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? i'm a visual novel (otome, yuri, general non-romantic) and rhythm game type of guy. jrpgs and action rpgs when i'm in the mood

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: the only pokemon type that matters to me is Dog

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! i used my wisdom teeth fun fact last yeah so uhhhhh did you know i can clap one handed but only with my right hand

How did you get into Fire Emblem? i think i saw awakening in gamestop and was like yeag i'll play that. my brother and i had just finished playing virtue's last reward together so we named our robins sigma and phi

What Fire Emblem games have you played? i've at least touched every game except for 1-3 (ymmv how much that means for each game)

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: Awakening first, FE6 or Engage for fave

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! honestly just look at my muse list for this one i only write my faves

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! lyn was the first fe character to really get me excited about fe i was writing essays about her in n's dms while in the middle of classes haha

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 i am in love with nel like /srs /gen i opened engage on my birthday so i could hear her say happy birthday to me

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays?

Awakening: Chrom (on purpose); married Olivia in my male run. i would still choose chrom Fates: kaden and keaton for birthright and conquest respectively. i stopped playing once i had my furry daughters. LMAO. Three Houses: never got that far. dorothea and mercedes probably. Engage: i have commitment issues and this is why i dont finish games

Favorite Fire Emblem class? Dark Mage(s)

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? sticking with what i said last year; a mage that just completely sucks ass. repping my special girls by also being a character that makes people say "why would you use them"

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? i apparently said golden deer last year. yeah sure

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Reason boon, Heavy Armor and Faith Banes, bow budding talent

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? i was gonna say elusia but then i remembered solm is partially brazil inspired and i felt my father breathing down my neck to not betray his country

How do you pronounce TOA? TOE-uh

Current TOA muses: Miranda, Marni, Reginn

Past TOA muses? Volug, Lyn, Sophia

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Volug; he's comfortably retired.

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? the three limit muse genders are as follows:

-depersonalization and/or self-isolation (we're not the same and never will be) -my siblings are all i have (but i dont know if love is enough to save us) -oh god where does the anger go after everything is over ..............the bonus limit muse gender is "man who is funny" ftr

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? i think i could do anything if i tried hard enough (hubris speaking) but i would have to become obsessed with them first which is the hard part because i feel like i'm pretty picky

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? i've really gotten back into my complicated sibling relationship era lately. i like non-traditional family relationships in general and having to work to keep that connection alive. i like relationships between women (not necessarily romantic but also yeah i'm a lesbian so romantic too) and the nuances that come with that. Honestly i like talking about gender in general HAHA

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? just happy to be here tbh :)

Favorite TOA-related memories? my friemds :)

Present or past tense? present tense but honestly i think im really bad at tenses. LMFAO.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? normal size is my default. i'll match whatever my partner prefers

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 wouldnt you like to know weatherboy

[arkus-rhapsode]

Let's Talk About Fire Emblem Supports: A Discussion on the State of one of Fire Emblem's Iconic Mechanics

So I'm sure if you are someone who is keyed into the Fire Emblem community, something that has been discussed for some time is the current state of the support system. Arguably Fire Emblem's defining feature which in recent years has almost come to eclipse other facets of the gameplay.

However, with that has come some pretty noticeable backlash. Lets back it up for a second.

This is not going to be a "This is the right way to do this and if you disagree you are wrong" post. This is me as a long time fan of the franchise giving my honest opinion on how I feel about these aspects of the game and why I think they are the way they are and what I think could be improved and what I think works as is. I don't think Fire Emblem or InSys are gonna go be "diluting" themselves if they don't make these improvements, nor do I think someone who has different interests in how the support system should be implemented is wrong. I'm just a fan with an opinion.

So Fire Emblem's support system has been with us since FE4 in a primordial state, but its modern day form really started in FE6. While entries after that varied in terms of things added to it, it was around Awakening with the franchise on dire straights did making it so every character could support and marry for their prime future baby. This pairing mechanic brought on a bunch of new fans that enabled them to get a bunch of character interactions that resulted in loads of content for fans to then take into transformative properties. But the thing is that a lot of Awakening worked in context. What was assumed to be the last FE means its flaws were less evident and were built with the child mechanic in mind.

Now, Awakening's supports are seen as okay supports plagued with a bunch of redundancies due to the fact that one character interacting with everyone character can only produce so much dialogue. That and each support's length could also lead to loads of padding. The child units were also discarded after Fates basically proved that the mechanic without some proper context can feel more intrusive. But that still leaves us with games with many many characters and a lot of interactions.

The criticism of modern FE Supports can vary but the general points are

Too many characters

Too much repetition in interactions

Length of each support

Separated from the events of the narrative

The supports themselves are just poorly written

This is also not ignoring the ways this has been shaken up like Shadows of Valentia's use of memory fragments, the base conversations of the Tellius games, the monastery scene of Three Houses etc. So any discussion of how these support systems could be improved often calls back to other variations of the support system. And that's at least how we will be trying to examine FE's support system, using its other systems and variants for reference and comparison.

So firstly, I think the stance people take on this will actually be different depending on what aspect of the game you value most. If you are a gameplay fiend your focus will be more on integrating supports into the gameplay the way a Persona game might. If you are a more narrative fan of Fire Emblem you would more take the stance that the supports are relevant and reactive to the plot. And if you're a character fan, you likely want the content of the supports to be plentiful but endearing to the characters. So I want to at least establish that where you fall on how supports are implemented will be of personal preference.

As this is my post, my personal stance is Fire Emblem is a narrative game with supports acting as ways to elevate the characters. As such, that is why I feel confident in saying that I am personally not a fan of the idea of making every FE character support relevant to the narrative. The narrative is important to me, but critical world building and character motives shouldn't just be buried in the supports or battle conversations. I shouldn't need to play with certain character combinations to find out vital information for the plot you are writing. In my personal opinion, the best remedy for this was the creation of the base convos. These were interactions the played out when certain conditions were met at certain points in the story.

This had allowed for a lot of side characters to feel as they had some relevance even if they weren't plot relevant. To contribute to how far along this journey has been and how a map scenario may relate to them. A small version of this was done in Garreg Mach Monastery where each chapter would allow for Byleth to walk around the hub world and speak with characters who would provide their thoughts on the previous chapter or what might be coming in the next chapter. These weren't as long as base convos, much shorter. But it still gave the idea of everyone contributing a new insight. That said, as much as I think base convos are good in games like FE9, they should not be a replacement for the current support system but rather an enhancement. These I would consider as narrative moments that often hinge on events that happened in the narrative. With character commenting and interacting off of it. But I feel that if we were to remove the support system and only have base convos we would be distancing a lot of the casual fans of FE who want to see characters interact, but not always as serious. And because FE is often a war story franchise, the tone of base convos are often serious in subject matter.

With Engage and the implementation of the somniel and even walking around defeated battlefields, I actually really would have liked base convos to be implemented this way. Perhaps after a battle you may be able to walk around a camp and see an indicator of who you can talk to about an event that just happened that would trigger a more fleshed out cutscene. I say camp, because while I appreciate the monastery, but one of the issues I have is that it is a stationary location and makes FE not so much a journey but rather just able to fast travel to certain conflicts. Making the world feel smaller and repetitive.

Most likely than not, you will not unlock every support in game on your first try. This to me adds replayability and an incentive to grind with characters you may not regularly use. However, in the case of base convos, unlocking them often hinges on them just being alive at the time. So if you were someone like me who impulsively starts over even on casual mode to not lose a character, when you see all base convos, you have seen them all. You can only walk around the Monastery and ask Sylvain what he thinks about fighting Miklan only so many playthroughs before you just don't bother. The replayability will then come from difficulty spikes and not character or story incentives. So I do believe base convos should return but as an enhancement not a replacement.

(Some may suggest that one could implement a support system lock like FE3H did with its time skips, but that suffered from an issue of not accounting for everything interaction when the time skip happened. So it actually feels very bizarre to watch Ashe and Petra have a lunch time excursion in Faerghus when the country is apparently under occupation. So I think weaving supports with narrative dependency for some supports but not others will actually be more confusing.)

In fact I daresay, supports that are disconnected could actually add levity. Mia and Ilyana's support is almost completely comedic, and it feels more endearing than watch the two of them brood over Daein and Crimea.

Speaking of repetition, lets talk about support redundancy. This is part of another issue in FE's supports which we will get into, but let me at least try to establish what people mean by redundant. I find saying FE characters are "too anime" rather lazy and dismissive. At their core a lot of side FE characters are stock characters with some limited traits. So when you hear Sully talking about working out, or Rosado's obsession with cute things, or Raphael loving food, a lot of the supports they have can come back to or revolve around these topics. And when you have games with the other issue of many many characters hearing them have these convos around these topics again and again can be very boring.

Some could say that this is an easy fix by simply reducing the number of characters. Focus more on say the size of a persona cast. Well the difference is that FE is a tactical RPG with permadeath while Persona is an RPG with a focus on time management. The smaller sized cast benefits the player in ways that help them interact with every character, but not having to worry about one becoming unplayable after you spend a lot of time on one. FE however as a tactical RPG where the mass amount of characters is so you have options to solve strategic map scenarios. Reducing the number of characters to only plot relevant ones would be very difficult. Hypotethically, if we reduced Engage to the characters who have to be around for the plot that only leaves you with Alear, Vander, Clanne, Framme, Mauvier, Veyle, Alfred, Ivy, Diamant, and Timerra. Not exactly a plethora of options for making interesting maps.

Now InSys seems to have begun implementing changes to this already. No longer are we going full Awakening or Fates with supports. Supports are much more limited in scope but not quite as anemic a line up as Shadows of Valentia did with who could support who. 3H and Engage have honestly made far more strides in lowering the number of supports and honing in on who may be relevant for a character to interact with and who outside of that circle could they interact with. Three Houses often relies on the house members each being to support each other with maybe one or two students from other houses or the monastery staff. Engage seems largely to focus on characters from countries having the same interactions with a few from others. This is a good thing, honestly if we were to get a remake of Radiant Dawn, I would love for something similar to be implemented between the Ike, Elincia, and Micaiah casts with some crossover supports when you get to the back half of that game.

So if this is already something InSys is improving, why is it something people are still critical of? Well I think what some may miss is that even if we compact a cast to more manageable interactions, that still leaves the interactions themselves.

Remember how I said Fire Emblem characters are stock characters with some limited traits? Well that is often done with identifiability. When you meet L'Arachel as a holy women but she has a snotty attitude or Sylvain the noble who hits on every woman, its done so you can recognize this character. But when you get into their supports, you often see that there might be reasons for why they act this way or it makes them more fleshed out and rounded characters than how they may seem at face value. This is where I think some Fates fans will often argue that Nohr's cast is very compelling in their supports even if the game's narrative had made many come off as one note. But you can see the flippside with Engage where its supports are more manageable, people didn't think supports were elevating the characters in ways that you had known them. That's not to say all of them, Yunaka is a stand outing how her supports both inform her as a non plot relevant character but also endear her to the audience. This to me is a sign that supports will ultimately be cases of writing. And there can just be poor writing and utilization of characters. This can also hinge on context as well as 3H has recruitment of characters far different from any FE game and just hands you your house with the expectation your interactions with them will make you learn more about them rather than just playing and recruiting on a quest like some may want.

I may have been a bit snide to Shadows of Valentia as even by the account of wanting less quantity of supports, I still found it almost too small. But even then some of the supports are the best in the franchise. Particularly Python and Clive's. But I don't think this was good because SoV had less character supports, I think it was good because the writers had looked at this pairing of characters and what each one was about and what depths could the reveal about each character. I would very much like to see that for a majority of supports.

Last point is length, and honestly we've seen this improved with games like 3H. Some supports can just be short. In fact some people can have only two support chains. Honestly, just doing more of that would've probably led to less issues overall and hope for that to cut down on padding.

So with all this in mind, what is my final take away. Well I ultimately think it comes back to what I usually want out of a Fire Emblem game. The narrative should be all there in the campaign with characters arcs for plot relevant characters, but the supports should be used as a way to enhance these units. Adding dimensions to characters who ultimately don't factor into the plot as a whole. I think 3H did make a lot of these improvements particularly because it was made with the social aspect in mind with that game practically carried by all of its characters and their depths. But I did feel as the narrative of 3H had suffered and wasn't all that tight. Post Engage, I think we are seeing a system I'd like to maintain, but I think what was lost was some of the added depths to cast members that supports can provide as well. Yes, Engage was made with a lot of celebratory fun in mind so it wasn't all that serious, but it would be nice to get more Yunakas and Pandreos in that case than say Ambers. Another aspect is the pairing, and I really hope that pairing characters without the need for child units returns as well.

I am all for the return of base convos like FE9, but I don't think it should be a replacement. Again it is another form of enhancement not replacement for supports. I think completely junking supports in favor of the base convos would be a bad idea especially with newer fans of the franchise. Overall, FE supports I feel are where they should be, but there are plenty of minor tweaks that could be implemented, if just more utilization of the characters beyond their face value.