#also bless hidari art style

[artsyvii]

the alchemists of dusk

[seasaltmemories]

FE echoes or 5d's for the meme?

how about both?

FE Echoes

Popular Opinion

The art and general aesthetic is amazing, I love Hidari’s style, it’s very elegant, the OST is also great, Heritors of Arcadia stands out for coming with little warning in the credits yet really capturing the bittersweet tone of the ending (and the meta connection of Silque’s VA singing it only adds to the feels)

Unpopular Opinion

For the most part I love the gameplay, part of the appeal is that it is something fresh and weird in comparison to the rest of the series, so I understand it not being appealing, but just so many elements clicked for me, magic costing hp balanced out in that you could depend on items like the blessed ring and nosferatu to help make it a fun risk-reward sort of game, clerics with shields are especially fun as they can make semi-tanks who self-heal, the range of archers made up for any difficulties I had with accuracy and it is just nice to have more flexibility with positioning them, same goes for mages with increased range

I don’t know a lot about map design, so i won’t contest the complaints about it (and on my second playthrough I’ve noticed more repeating and all) but that hasn’t outweighed my love for turning my squishy units into cold blood killers

Share a song that makes me think of the series/a certain character

The Violence by Rise Against really captures the conflict between men and gods, how both Duma and Mila have failed Rigel and Zofia specifically and so much of the different conflicts are about humans trying to surpass and overcome the systems they left behind and both failing and succeeding in different ways

Ramble on about OTPs/characters that make me giddy and/or rage

I’m a hoe for celicalm bc they’re both adorable and love each other but you can play with cool and angsty ideas surrounding being the children of fate and kinda how tragedy almost seems to be unavoidable

but 99% of the canon couples in echoes are adorable: 

Clive/Mathilda are like always like seconds away from making out and Clive worshipping the Valkyrie goddess Mathilda is, is such good shit

Tatiana/Zeke have that same constant heart eyes though while less pda-ish they are still very in love and good

Mae/Boey are a great arguing pair bc at the end of the day it is obvious they care about each other and are best friends, also their ending is A+++ with going home and having tons of kids

Gray/Clair kinda tread cliche ground but I still enjoy their dynamic and Gray for all his faults is truly into her and cares about her as a person

just like while fandom is fun to ship crazy ships and come up with all the thousands of ways they could get together, just getting to see couples be couples is something I love as romantic material often leave out that one detail

gotta say tho the only canon couple I could not get behind was Berkut/Rinea, I don’t want to shame others for liking it but I really can’t believe he would hurt her like that if he loved her, FE plays with the the trope of loved ones being forced to fight/kill each other (it happens with Alm and Celica not long after these two) but even if he was tempted by Duma and having a breakdown over losing his birthright, he still made the conscious choice to sacrifice his girlfriend for his selfish gain, those are explanations for why, not excuses, regardless of your thoughts on the ship we have to accept the straight canon facts because I don’t like seeing literal abuse rhetoric trying to explain away the damage and pin the blame on anyone other than Berkut

besides that big elephant in the room, they never had super romantic scenes until after they died, and I might have been able to enjoy the tragedy if I was at all invested, and so I can still enjoy works for it by the fandom, especially the darker stuff, but I can’t help but side-eye too fluffy stuff

5ds

Popular Opinion

Yusei can be a pretty reactive character and seem too perfect so I went in a bit hesitant about him but alas even I was unable to keep from falling for his charms, I don’t want to deliver a critique of s2 just yet as I am still in the middle of it, but in S1 Yusei can get away with being more reactive and not losing really bc holy shit is the world set on making him suffer, he’s a great underdog who just wants to take care of the ppl he loves and do the right thing, especially with how ensemble-like S1 is he is perfectly serviceable as a protagonist and just a really likable guy

Unpopular Opinion

5ds is simultaneously overhyped and undeappreciated

Like often ppl who don’t like the spinoffs will say that DM and 5Ds are the only YGO’s that matter and regardless of your feelings on each individual installment that’s just a shitty attitude to deal with

But at the same time, 5Ds’ fandom is like the least active, at least here on tumblr, I see more content for even GX, which is also a spinoff and older, like even before I got back into it was really sad to see fandom events where each installment was represented except for 5ds

And when it gets mentioned at all it is the same old beats glorifying/trashing it, like it making card games on motorcycles cool, s2 being horrible, being the “darkest and most mature” ygo (which is arguable and not as important as presumed), Aki’s the greatest, Aki was ruined and irredeemable, Dark signers is the peak of ygo, WCP was horrible and drawn out

I agree with statements on both sides but man I am just so tired of the same discussions and I wish there was more appreciation for just what we got and general love for the characters and all

Share a song that makes me think of the series/a certain character

People Like Us by Kelly Clarkson is a good signers song, especially with the fire motif

Ramble on about OTPs/characters that make me giddy and/or rage

Scoopshipping gets its own mid-season romcom and is so good and canon and while I understand why they retcon it, my heart is still broken

Faithshipping is also good and pure and I think you can have a discussion about Aki’s mistreatment without pinning the ship as irredeemable 

Feeding into that, Aki is still an amazing and iconic female lead, I do have criticisms of her treatment but man I want to celebrate her as much as we mourn those choices

I really can’t see the Yusei/Jack/Crow trio as romantic in any combination, they feel like brothers, the closest I can get is some lowkey onesided feelings Crow might have had for Yusei, but all in all they feel like family

Also we got good f/f content with Misty/Carly and Sherry/Aki

Kiryu is Yusei’s ex and you can’t convince me otherwise