#avlora/maxwell

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Avlora x Maxwell from Triangle Strategy

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Trying to motivate myself to work on the next chapter of my fic, so here we are with an Avlora/Maxwell ship chart!

And for fun, a non-comprehensive list of plot parallels that I've been putting together:

They both serve as the leaders of their respective militaries.

They both act as mentor to one of the Glenbrooks and have a really close relationship with their respective royal (to the point that they're willing to sacrifice their lives to ensure that royal's safety and success).

They both independently do that thing where they hold back during the tourney and THEN dramatically reveal the fact that they held back during their later duel. They do this by unleashing devastating, flashy moves that they presumably developed and practiced in secret specifically just in case they found themselves in this exact situation. Related point: they're both insane

They both have doubts concerning their respective ruler's honor (Gustadolph and Regna respectively). Despite that, they both spend a considerable amount of time serving those rulers and consequentially develop complex feelings around it. Those thoughts generally revolve around thinking that their respective Glenbrook royal (Cordelia or Roland) would do a better job.

They both end up washed down the Norzelia River following an invasion, but manage to miraculously survive regardless and come back to help finish the war.

I am looking with incredible respect at both of their character designs.

So, in conclusion, they should fall in love about it! QED, thanks for coming to my TED talk, until next time

[kelbunny]

I have a favorite meme haha. Lookit them, the blorbos.

[cullensart]

It's been a minute since I drew these two...

I am very tired so please forgive my rough coloring job.

[soup-for-ghosts]

world’s fairest tournament

[pathetic-gamer]

nothing will ever make me as angry as the moment I learned that young Archibald is like top 5 hottest character in the game

[tristrattournament]

[cullensart]

I made a comic for this zine. It’s good. Buy it.

But for real I’m one of many super skilled creators in this project, and there’s so much love poured into this project for this silly little game and tiny fandom. It would mean the world. 💖💖💖

To a New Era!

Norzelia awaits in this stunning full-color, 75+ page fanzine. This sales period is your last chance to acquire a physical copy. The storefront will close after Oct. 12th (Thurs). Use the link below for direct access.

【 The store is now OPEN 】

[randomnameless]

Fates unironically did the "muhritocracy" schtick better than 3H lol; the vast majority of the playable Nohrian characters are commoners who got into high-ranking positions in the Nohrian army due to being exceptional soldiers and getting rewarded as such, whereas the only commoners on Adrestia's side that aren't turncoats (or fodder soldiers that are stated to exist only in throwaway dialogue from faceless NPCs) are Ladislava (non-character with no screentime, personality or even feats to support that she did anything to help the Adrestian army in any significant way), Fleche (slightly more of a character, still does nothing to help Adrestia), Randolph (does nothing to help and isn't even particularly well-recognized or rewarded for his skills, if him being jealous of his superiors is any indication), and Dorothea (only got to a high-ranking position due to prostituting herself in order to get into Garreg Mach, befriending the crown princess of the Empire, and being made into a general of the Adrestian army due to nepotism from that same crown princess).

What makes it even worse is that Nohr rewarding merit for anyone and everyone, regardless of social class or status, is an irrelevant bit of background worldbuilding, whereas Edelgard wanting to reward commoners' merits is one of her most consistently-repeated ideals, but the only non-nobleborn CF playable character only got so far in life due to (literal) peepee-sucking and nepotism, and even the NPCs are either featless non-characters (Fleche and Ladislava) or complain about not being recognized enough despite his skill/is recognized enough and Edelgard just decided a power-hungry, immoral dumbass was meritant enough to be made into a general in her army (Randolph); shouldn't the order have been reversed? Like, the game where one of the main characters' principle ideals is to recognize and reward anyone who's skilled should be the one to have most of her allies be commoners, whereas the one where the concept of merit is completely irrelevant to the story, themes and characters could have just had the characters be mostly nobles instead of consistently making them commoners just for subtle worldbuilding? It's weird.

Want to see an upstanding posterchild of Nohrian muhritocracy?

Chaos will always topple the ones who don't earn their status. It's folks like you and me who rise to the top. And the way we do that is by cutting down all our enemies.

I won't stop at captain. I will keep on climbing!

I'll be a king someday. I'll make it happen—you wait and see.

More seriously -

It's all about the what is actually rewarded.

I've already joked a bit about it, but basically Randolph and Nopes!Caspar want to demonstrate their muhrit by... invading countries, killing refugees or randoms who returned in their home after being ousted by the Imperial army.

Much muhrit, very uwu.

Take Whodislava, as you mentioned, bar being a named NPC who as less screentime than Kronya and is supposed to be a sad casualty for war, while being the posterchild of Supreme Leader's muhritocracy, we don't a thing about her. What has she done to be granted the rank of general? What are her achievements?

At times I'm pretty sure TS was partly written to laugh and mock FE16, but Avlora is basically in the same situation, save that Avlora has more plot relevance and exists bar being a sign the devs hold that's written "please feel bad about this character you've never interacted with and only has 5 lines of dialogue and is only here to garner sympathy when she dies I mean even Fates!Candace had more presence than her".

Avlora was an orphan, trained under Groma - a famous general - who continued to train even when Groma retired, became Adre- Aesfrost's top general and defeated Maxwell in a duel. We have her story - she came from nothing - her feats - she defeated the strongest warrior in Glenbrook - and the entire meritocracy angle sticks : Avlora was a nobody made general because she kicked asses.

The meritocratic Adrestia NPCs?

Randolph... tries to get muhrit, but fails as we protect people and only laments about his status in his House (as he is fucking killing people to gain more status, like dude, priorities?) - so in way, both Randy and Flèche are imo, counterexemples of Supreme Leader's muhritocracy : Randolph kills peons and invades an orphanage to demonstrate his "muhrit" because, otherwise, without any muhrit, iirc it's implied he and his sister will be demoted to randoms in House Bergliez (even if Flèche is supposed to be younger than Cyril iirc? Like how the frick do you want a kid of 12 to demonstrate her muhrit, else she'll be kicked out of her house?).

Whodislava... dies heroically, at least that's what we're supposed to get from her very "please cry" cutscene when she dies in front of Supreme Leader in Tru Piss - as Rhea and her family + knights tried to retake their ancestral home and she prevented them from doing so - or it's the same nonsense as "we killed Ferdie professor :(", we are supposed to feel bad about people who were fighting alongside a demonic beast when, in FE16, we fucking know what they are.

Since the FE5 banner released earlier this week, FE5 paints "honorable" Reinhardt as a pitiful man, because no matter how honorable or kickass or kind Reinhardt was, when it came to defect to protect children from being kidnapped or stop the general nonsense the Empire was pulling in Thracia... Reinhardt refused to do so, pretexting remaining by Ishtar's side, and when that became impossible, he choose death over rescuing toddlers. His situation is supposed to be compared to his sister's Olwen, who, when she discovers the truth of what is happening in Thracia, ditches the Empire to help Leif rescue the children - and, imo, Amalda (who's not in FEH yet!) who is also, basically, a commander who plays a larger Camus role as in, she tries to appeal to her Lord to stop the child hunts, her Lord tells her to eat shit, and when asked why she still fights and why she doesn't defect, Amalda says if she does so, her knights will be killed + Amalda appears as a NPC allied unit in a map to hunt bandits to save a village.

So, compared to those ladies who defect or try to protect whoever they can protect - their soldiers AND civilians who are being trampled by their own army - Reinhardt who doesn't do a thing and picks "death" is, as Olwen's ending puts it "pitiful".

Back to your ask anon, even if I disgress from the meritocracy angle - Flèche, Whodislava and Randy are such non-entities compared to characters with 6 lines from FE5 that even if they try to pull the "I have to do this for my family" or the "I came from nothing and still help my emperor because I am thankful to her for having raised me from being a commoner to a general", our Adrestians NPC feel very, very flat.

Are we supposed to cry for Hans's failed dreams of becoming a king when we kill him? No, but Randy and Whodislava's deaths are overplayed with so much pathos that the game is basically telling you "and here you should feel bad because they died" but... what is more important, the fact they tried to unlock a lot of achievments to demonstrate their "muhrit", or what the hell they were ready to do to unlock said achievments?

As for Doro needing to befriend people to enter Garreg Mach, remember that Doro, being touted as another example of the muhritocracy Supreme Leader's Adrestia aims to be, had to engage in sex work from a young age, to reach the diva status - which has very disturbing implications, that are glossed over because that's FE16 for you. Are we supposed to believe Doro "worked hard" to be able to catch the eye of some deranged fucks when she was a pre-teen to become a diva - or, as Manu puts it in a support that cannot be achieved in Tru Piss, muhrit alone doesn't work to become a diva, and it's actually a pretty font to hide the "dark" deeds young singers in Mittelfrank have to do to reach the "diva" status?

Minor tidbit though, Doro is famous enough for being Supreme Leader's dearest friend but she isn't promoted to "general" in Tru Piss, she's only BESF who's not, at least in her bio, a general Post TS.

Imo the question you raise is actually relevant to how empty Supreme Leader's muhritocracy's ideal is - in both game Ferdie has to remind her that to build "muhrit" or for commoners to be able to gather "muhrit" as nobles do, they have to start at the same lever, and receive education as nobles do.

IIRC, in Supreme Bullshit, despite their feats, Hubert tells Barney they're only a commoner - not even a worthy commoner like Doro - but a fucking random - when muhrit wise, Barney should at least be named general!

In both games, Linhardt is a general... but we don't see anything from him, bar his tropey "i want to study crests and nap and i dgaf about anything else" traits - if that's all there is to him, how and why the crap was he made general??

Why, it's almost as if "muhrit" is a smokescreen to hide the fact that the one who chooses/picks who gets to be important from who isn't does it on their own terms just like irl

What is merit, really? Who gets to decide what is merit from what isn't? Or who is the "best" at doing things, from another?

It's another instance of, imo, Fodlan's artificial feel, the game raises a question/issue, and starts some smoke about it, but without tackling said issues seriously we're left with "I agree and think starvation shouldn't exist anymore" milquetoast and cliché opinions that give the illusion this game is "very deep" when it's just, a puff of smoke.

[triangle-strategy-notes]

TriStrat Artbook Translation Requests

Now that I'm through with translating the pages for the main characters in the artbook, just wanted to throw out another opening for requests! If there are any characters you want to see the concept art for, or any locations/items you'd like to see art about, feel free to send in an ask/leave tags/comment/etc.

Here's a list of what's in the artbook and what's been translated so far (updated as of November 2024):

General

Foreword (x)

Some concept art for the title/the game as a whole

Some concept art for each of the countries

Playable Characters

Serenoa (x) (x)

Roland (x)

Benedict (x)

Frederica (x)

Geela (x)

Anna (x)

Hughette (x)

Erador (x)

Rudolph (x)

Corentin (x)

Julio (x) (want to do a cleaner version)

Milo (x)

Cordelia (x)

Hossabara (x)

Narve (x)

Medina (x)

Jens (x)

Maxwell (also want to do a cleaner version) (x) (x)

Archibald (x)

Flanagan (x)

Ezana (x)

Lionel (x)

Groma (x)

Piccoletta (x)

Travis (x)

Trish (x)

Avlora (x)

Decimal (x)

Quahaug (x)

Giovanna

NPCs

Destra (x) (this was the first one I did, and I want to do a cleaner version at some point)

Symon + Regna + Royal family in general (x) (I've done parts of this one, but haven't touched the parts with Symon yet)

Landroi (x) (want to do a cleaner version)

Rufus

Silvio and Pattriate

Gustadolph, Thalas, and Erika (x)

Svarog, Dragan, and Sycras (x)

Idore and Kamsell (x)

The Hierophant and various automatons (x)

Sorsley and Exharme (x)

Lyla, Booker, and Tenebris (x)

Clarus, Plinius, and Jerrom (I've done the Clarus parts, but not the rest) (x)

General NPCs

Environment

Map of Norzelia (x) (tbf I didn't actually scan this one in, but I do have an image of it that I hacked together from screenshots. Scanning probably won't work super well because the map spans two pages)

Whiteholm - Castle (x)

Whiteholm - Gardens (x)

Whiteholm - Crown City (x)

Whiteholm Bridge

Telliore demesne

Falkes demesne

Wolffort demesne - Town

Wolffort demesne - Castle (incl. interior)

Rosellan Village

Specs of the various boats

The Encampment

Aesfrost - Twinsgate

Aesfrost - Ironstone (incl. interior of the palace)

Aesfrost - Aesfrosti Archives

Grand Norzelian Mine

Deathsknell

Hyzante - Hyzantian architecture/Goddess's Shield

Hyzante - The Source

Hyzante - Rosellan homes at the Source

Hyzante - The Hierophant's Palace

Hyzante - Hyzantian interiors + environment

Some WIP 3d renders of different maps

There's also some other stuff I haven't gotten around to scanning yet (feel free to ask if there's something you're curious about! a lot of it is the other little pieces of art like the pixel sprites, some chibi sprites, and concept art for the various items/weapons)

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Some quick silly Halloween doodles with the tri strat crew :)

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This is unrelated to anything but I was thinking about it earlier and I do love the idea that Avlora and Hughette would end up being really weird sort-of-friends at the end of the golden route. Like. coworkers who regularly get into shouting matches but also write in each other as their medieval version of an emergency contact next of kin because the person they're both actually the closest to is royalty and what are they going to do? CALL their SOVEREIGN whenever they get into trouble?

Most people would still generally hold the belief that they shouldn't be left in a room alone together (which is fair given the aforementioned shouting matches) but also if/when Maxwell eventually steps down as Master of Arms, Hughette would likely take his place, and it kinda makes sense to appoint Avlora as her second-in-command given that she's the princess's main guard and also just a really experienced military officer. Everybody's like ?????!?!?!? didn't you want to kill her like a month ago and Hughette just goes "no see I still want to kill her. but since I can't do that I might as well get her to plan guard rotations for me." Avlora is aware of this but also is 100% cool with it and is honestly kind of touched by the amount of trust Hughette's put in her.

I also like to think that Hughette would at some also point request that Roland give Avlora the honorary title of general again purely because she can't stand calling Avlora by only her first name. Avlora, again, is aware of this but cool with it because yeah okay honestly it's a little weird for her too.

[kelbunny]

Bravelys your Triangles

Anyways classes:

Serenoa (Catmancer), Frederica (Summoner), Benedict (Astrologian), Roland (Charioteer), Cordelia (Bishop), Avlora (Dark Knight), Maxwell (Valkyrie)

[cullensart]

Warmup sketch from earlier today. This was fun.

A nsfw sequel may or may not exist in my brain.

[avlora-dialogue-bot]

Avlora: Release him to me and there may be mercy for you yet‚ Maxwell.

[canniballa]

That feeling when you spend months in work hell/not looking at tumblr/keeping your head down while working on your incredibly niche zine comic assuming that nobody else ships your ship…and then months later realize that at least 2 other people ship them with equal ferocity.

I guess the Twitter implosion is good for something.

Anyways, hi. 😂