#coming right after the Tellius saga

[randomnameless]

I’m mad on Billy’s behalf. Their background is so interesting but intsys shat the bed by making them into an avatar just because kris, corn and robin were. Their premise could have also been great! I guess I should’ve known better when merch started to include shit like the Tharja and Camilla statuettes because we know who those are marketed towards

Kris slaughtered a game to become its hero, Robin was the beginning of the end, and Corrin had some "avatar privileges" but the cons (for some) of actually being a character.

Billy is both the player-UI, sometimes a character whose consistency depends on your stance on the "uwu hammer" and has the pesky "avatar privileges".

At the cost of Billy themselves!

How to make a story centered on Billy?

I'd have focused more on their nature as a hybrid who wants to live and embrace their two heritages, the Nabatean one coming from Citrus and the human one from Jerry.

Yes, Citrus was a homonculi made by Rhea to house Sothis, and it didn't work, but Billy wasn't born because Rhea willed it, Billy's born because Citrus and Jerry sat under a tree.

Are they human, nabatean, the avatar of the goddess or something else entirely? The final answer would be "yes", they are all of those things, but most importantly are Billy.

Rhea would thus see Billy not as Sothis but as her avatar - but first and foremost as another Nabatean, a member of her family. Billy could exchange with other Nabateans and wonder why they don't out themselves as Nabateans, even meet Birdie and Turtle and learn their POV on humans - they think humans are children and Nabateans cannot live with them. Humans are always waging senseless wars, even if Rhea tries to guide them, they are hopeless and will always seek violence and strife.

As for humans? Maybe through interactions with students Billy could understand that what defines them could be something like "their will to move forward" even at the cost of peace and stability, and they'd feel closer to them after all, since they grew up with Jerry.

But if Garreg Mach exists, with both humans and nabateans, maybe some sort of coexistence is possible - a place without strife but where people can learn new things to better their lives home? A world without strife and a world where everyone wants to better everyone's tomorrow isn't contradictory

Flamey does their thing - encompassing the worst of "humanity" as derided by Nabateans, the need to crush everything and to war for no plausible reason.

Were the Nabateans right then, Humans cannot guide themselves and the World needs Sothis’s return?

Through the course of the game, Billy’s conclusion will be much like Rhea during her “Seiros the Warrior” days, Humans and Nabateans can live together and guide/lead Fodlan, it is not up to only Humans to do so (rip to Supreme Leader) or to Nabateans or to the Goddess (Rip Rhea), but everyone must play their part.

Rhea’s biggest mistake wouldn’t be to let states deal with their own internal affairs, but to have lost hope in a Fodlan where “teh people” can work together to achieve great things, thinking only Sothis can lead the land.

But when the inevitable “we say this now but who can say humans will not war again in 1000 years to destroy this land” comes, Billy, who has faith in Fodlan and its people, let them be humans or lizards, will insist that no matter what they won’t give up, and for one warmongering human out there, there will always be humans who will strive to restore peace and order, and it’d be their job to support and guide them.

[pangtasias-atelier]

This is not ask about kinks (No offence btw i don't which word to replace kink with). in previous ask, you said you didn't like the canon of Tormod and Muarim origins right? so i would to ask what type of canon would you give them if you could? I also like ask, if the Tellius saga ever get a revamp/remake, what would be biggest wish fullfill? for me its Tormod reclassing into a melee class / Laguz Army to availability more...

Oh, it's okay! No worries lol, this is a kink blog after all.

As for Muarim & Tormod, I would honestly just prefer it for Muarim to have literally found Tormod out of nowhere and took him in. Like that's just so much better than the wierd little dynamic of Tormod basically being the son of Muarim's ex master and Muarim taking him Tormod in when the noble house falls.

Honestly, my biggest wish fulfilment would just be getting supports in RD. Like, that alone would be so beautiful. Hell, they could even keep the mini supports and make it so that those are a super small in battle bonuses.

And although a remake with both games would be phenomenal, let's face it, Nintendo is a company and they are as greedy as all hell just as every other company so they'll be their own remakes

Though there's a lot more to help RD. Even though it's already really damn great imo. But if the legitimate fixes, I'd say this:

Fix availability. Tormod, Muarim, and Vika really have no business joining for like 3 chapters before leaving until the last 6 chapters with their stats from part 1 lmao

Also, BALANCE. When people say RD is the second most unbalanced game, they mean it. The difference in usefulness in characters is astounding. Also, Dawn Brigade still in tier 2 classes while Greil Mercenaries are already hitting tier 3 is ridiculous and pretty dumb

Laguz gauge. It's not terrible but I still feel that PoR gauge would work much better, especially with olivi gras and such. Also , Laguz being locked to single range hurts them so much since RD is pretty enemy phase heavy.

Weapon balance. Magic is pretty bad and also had terrible caps. Laura has amazing speed growths but can't take advantage of it since her caps are awful.

Difficulty balance: Part 1 shouldn't be the most difficult part of the game when there's three more parts after it.

Writing: part 3 aside, (I don't know how to fix it without making Pelleas look ever worse than he already did by signing that blood pact lmao) part 4's writing kinda comes across as a generic "series crossover game" it's not bad and it also serves in showing tensions between characters. But it also highlights favoritism, Skrimir praising Micaiah while ready to murder Naesala. And also Pelleas getting off the hook easy from Tibarn.

And as for personal wishes:

I wanna save Zelgius. He's by no means this innocent character people love to paint him as, but it bothers me that you can save Lehran but not Zelgius

Change Pelleas's "death" scene in part 2. The fact that the only difference is suddenly getting the option to have Micaiah jump in the way just feels so cheap. I will say Pelleas' death is kinda just a punch on the first playthrough since the option kinda does give some false hope to sparing him. And it ultimately becomes a complete waste. (though Pelleas does get forgotten afterwards sadly)

Give more screentime to Skrimir and Sanaki. The two are great characters as is, but it would've been fun getting a chapter or 2 with them to help solidify their arcs.

Also, give Pelleas and Elincia some more screentime

Ike. He's great and I love him, but godamn is he just this absolutely perfect child that can do no real wrong and everyone praises him so much. Granted, his growth was already in PoR but still. (Praise Micaiah's lines dissing Ike, it's just such a great fresh view in seeing how the losing country sees the game's hero after that other FE games don't do)

Speaking of Ike, it honestly would've been cool seeing him get a more supporting role instead of just blindsiding everything and taking over. But that never goes well in games. Look at the fandom with Micaiah lmao. (And also Tales of with the Symphonia sequel)

Stop the whole Astrid x Makalov thing. I just hate the ship lmao

And that's just for RD sjdhsjnsksb it's really obvious how much I love Tellius. But admittedly, they're all nitpicks than any actual true flaws.

As for PoR, it's been so long since I played it, but it honestly has like no real narrative flaws that I can find? I just vastly prefer RDs ambitious scale of writing vs PoR's take on the whole basic FE plot.

As for gameplay stuff

Balance magic a bit, lightning is too good. And that not, bring back tier 1 light mages and also bring back dark magic.

Give us Maniac Mode!!

RD's improved UI and models alongside the skills

Make knives way better and let Sothe promote. Unpromotable tier 1 classes is the worst idea ever. Unless you're a dancer, you should be able to promote.

Let Laguz weapons rank up

FIX THE AWFUL WEAPON RATE GAIN

OMG SERIOUSLY THAT WAS SO AWFUL

I DON'T EVER WANT SUCH A SLOW WEAPON RATE EVER AGAIN

Give Elincia more screentime. I love her and like yeah, not every women needs to be this badass warrior, but the Nyna archetype is just so done at that point. (But hey, she still turns it on it's head by the end. And so does Pelleas)

And that's all I can think of really.

Again, I'm such a huge Tellius nerd lmao. Though I currently believe FE6 will get remade first. Tellius is still too recent, and intys probably doesn't wanna touche the incest plot shit in FE4 and FE5 also has to get passed up for a remake due to being in Jugdral.

God this is so fucking long sjdbjsvavsvs

[gascon-en-exil]

A Not Actually Definitive Ranking of Fire Emblem Games

So after a lot of deliberation I’ve decided not to revisit last year’s Zelda ranking project on a full scale for FE, but that doesn’t mean it’s not something I really wanted to do. 2018 is the year we’re going to get alternatively hyped for and disappointed by FE16, after all. With that in mind have an abbreviated list that will end up being one very long post. I’ve got games to gush over and an anon or two (and very likely actual followers…eep) to piss off, so here we go.

The “personal favorites of the series, love revisiting them” Tier - FE10, FE2/15, FE4

I’m never going to argue that Radiant Dawn is a perfect game or even just a perfect FE game, but damned if it doesn’t manage to do so much right all at once. An extremely ambitious story that builds off its mostly conventional predecessor in a variety of interesting ways, deconstructing a bunch of series narrative standards (life in a defeated country kind of sucks and there are people that don’t warm that quickly to young and inexperienced rulers, go figure) and taking an eleventh hour hard right at Nietzchean atheism as read by a Pride parade. Kind of falls on its ass by the end, but every experimental FE story does the same thing so I can’t fault this one. I love the army switching as motivation to try different units almost as much as I love the oh-so-exploitable growth and BEXP mechanics. Its Easy mode also hits a sweet spot for me of being challenging enough to not be a complete snore while also allowing the freedom for all manner of weird self-imposed challenges that don’t even require grinding. By all accounts Hard mode is one lazy design choice after another, but I don’t play at that level so no complaints here.

Never played Gaiden, but to its credit around half of the unique gameplay mechanics I like in Shadows of Valentia were also in the original: the modest army size, the novel approaches to inventory management and magic, the pretty basic class system with just a hint of nuance. The remake threw in some hit-or-miss questing, dungeon exploration, and achievements, but all the rest was either a solid addition or a continuation of NES-era annoyances that I could live with. And the story…SoV makes me dislike the DS games even more just because this game does so much with so little. Even leaving aside the mostly great voice acting there’s a bunch of new content that characterizes almost everybody and makes half of them (the men, anyway, because this is a remake of a Kaga-era game and therefore misogynistic as can be) gay because why the hell not, and then some development that constitutes the only solid attempt at worldbuilding Archanea-Valentia-Ylisse has ever really gotten and also retcons some stuff from Awakening into making sense. It’s even got some solid DLC with lots of character stuff for the Deliverance, the least sucky grinding of the 3DS games, and probably the only context in which I’ll ever be able to comment on anything from Cipher.

No remake needed for Genealogy of the Holy War to make it competitive with the rest of the top tier - just an excellent translation patch and the standard features of an emulator. I’ve never watched Game of Thrones and probably don’t plan on it, but I gather that this game provides the same essential experience with less blood and female nudity and marginally more egalitarianism for all. I can forgive it for being the original Het Baby Fest since you’d be hard-pressed to find a single entirely healthy and well-adjusted individual anywhere on Jugdral and I relate to that just as much. Screwed up family dynamics for everyone! It’s also arguably got a more fun breeding meta than either of the 3DS games, lacking Awakening’s optimization around a single postgame map with very specific parameters or Fates’s high level of balance that ironically stymies analysis. This is another game for interesting inventory management and unit leveling that isn’t too obnoxious, which mostly makes up for the maps taking an eon to play through even with an emulator speeding through those enemy phases. This would be a strange game to remake, but if it got a localized one of the same caliber as SoV I fully acknowledge that this could climb to the #2 spot. SoV would probably have the queer edge though unless they do some strange things to the plot or just make Gen 2 really gay…but then again Gen 2 is the part that’s more in need of fleshing out as it is. (Also, this game has So. Much. Incest. That’s not even really a kink of mine especially as it’s all straight incest, but I just find that hilarious in light of how Tumblr’s purity culture speaks of such things.)

The “good games, but don’t come back to them as much” Tier - FE7, FE9, FE8

Blazing Sword is not here for nostalgia purposes, especially since when I first played the game at 14 years old most of what I like about it didn’t really register. It was just that game with RPG elements that I liked and permadeath that I didn’t, and it took a few games after that for me to become an established fan of the franchise. Massive props for putting such an unconventional spin on a prequel to a textbook FE; this is a game in a series about war in which no war is fought, how crazy is that? We actually get to see the backstory of FE6′s tragic antagonist, even as it’s completely tangential to the plot of this game and so just feels like random Jugdral-esque family drama without context, and on top of that we get the first hints of interdimensional travel and kinky human/shapeshifter sex several years before either of those became controversial talking points about how they were ruining the series. I am so there. Lyn doesn’t matter to the saga, but her character arc is distinct and self-contained and also she picked up a disproportionately large fanbase while being bisexual and biracial so go her. Eliwood is sympathetic and homosocially-inclined even if his growths frequently make me want to cry (at least he gets a horse unlike his similarly-challenged son), and I can live with Hector even if I could have done without his lordly legacy. Throw in some average-for-the-time gameplay with just enough variety across the two routes and even more good character work *waves at Sonia and Renault and Priscilla -> Raven/Lucius and Serra and…* and it’s all in all a solid experience. The ranking system can go die in a fire though, which funnily enough it did after this game. Yay!

Like most early 3D games - except on Gamecube so it’s even more embarrassing - Path of Radiance has aged terribly by every aesthetic measure aside from the soundtrack. It’s also painfully slow, and my computer can’t run Dolphin apparently so an emulator’s not going to fix that for me. Those obvious flaws aside, it’s still an entertaining game, and more importantly it’s the prologue that had the crucial task of setting up all the pins RD knocked over in stellar fashion, whether we’re talking about the basic storyline that actually isn’t or the many het relationship fake-outs (more so in localization…I guess we’ll never know if NoA was actively planning that when they pushed Ike/Elincia like they did). PoR is also a love letter to Jugdral in both gameplay and themes, albeit an occasionally critical one. The jury’s still out on whether Jugdral or Tellius succeeds the most (fails the least?) of the FE settings at developing a complete world with a nuanced and resonant saga narrative, but that Tellius manages to be competitive while being kind of clumsy overall with racism and shifting the series’s overarching motif of dragon-blooded superhumans to one of kinky interracial sex is pretty impressive. The less I say about Ike the better since it’s only his endings in RD that save him for me; suffice it to point out that his worldview and general personality were clearly designed to appeal to a demographic that does not include me.

And finally comes The Sacred Stones, truly my average benchmark FE as I like it but struggle to have any particularly strong feelings on it one way or the other. The story is standard but has a few intriguing quirks, like the light vs. dark magic meta, surprise necrophilia, and how the main antagonist’s sexuality sort of depends on which route you take (except he’s still never getting laid so does it really matter?). It also seems to have been the first game to have made a legitimate effort toward the kind of replayability that’s normal for RPGs, what with the branched promotions, the route split, and the actual postgame. That’s all much more engaging than just filling up a support log. The gameplay is also more polished and (I think?) more balanced than the other GBA games, if one is willing to overlook the minor issue of Seth. Let’s see…something something twincest that’s now an IS running gag, something something guys talking intimately about their lances, something something SoV did the whole dungeon crawling with monsters bit better but I can forgive SS for not taking it that far. Moving on….

The “they have Problems” Tier - FE14, FE13

Probably qualifies as a fandom heresy, but yes I’m putting Fates first of these two. Fates is in every conceivable way for me the “You Tried” game, because I had such high hopes for it from the moment we got the earliest promotional content. I was expecting a World of Warcraft-style conflict between two morally grey factions with myriad convoluted grievances against each other messily resolving themselves one way or the other according to player choice (though note that this is already somewhat damning with faint praise as no one’s going to call WoW a storytelling masterpiece), with Conquest in particular a true villain campaign that I imagined might play out as European Imperialism: The Game. What we actually got was…not that, not at all, but amid all the complaints about plot holes and idiot balls and moral myopia most fans seem to have forgotten just how much there is to this game. It’s three full stories that together average out to be just about passable, with possibly the biggest gameplay variety in the series that fixed most of Awakening’s more broken elements (pair-up, children being unquestionably superior to the first generation) while also adding in new features that undoubtedly appealed to someone or other like Phoenix mode and the castle-building aspect. I can even mostly forgive the obvious growing pains Fates exhibits in terms of queer content, as they were pretty much inevitable once the developers realized that (almost) everyone was picking up on the subtext and that that approach just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Again, they tried, and if the results included face-touching fanservice and plot contrivances left and right and two-way cultural posturing that inevitably crosses over into real world racism at some point I can still step back for a moment and acknowledge that Fates began as a distinctive, high-concept setting on par with Tellius and Jugdral that was willing to do something different with the narrative norm (for two of its routes at least, and even so I’m not begrudging Birthright its conventionality because that grounding is important overall). And who knows? Maybe a later game will come along and retroactively make this setting coherent.

Fates might have more sexual fanservice, but if there’s any FE that I feel ends up a slave to fanservice in a broader sense it would be Awakening. Yeah, I get that when it was in development everyone thought this would be the final game, so it makes sense that the finished product turned out to be a nostalgia-laden greatest hits piece. It’s still hard to forgive Awakening for feeling so insubstantial, doubly so since it ended up revitalizing the franchise and now it and Fates are everywhere. It’s got a plot that only makes some sense in light of SoV and possibly on a meta level (following my theory that the plot structure is meant to mirror FE1-3 in sequence), the first iteration of an Avatar dating game heavily coloring the characterization and support system, and a queasily feel-good atmosphere that allows almost no character to actually remain dead and centers everything around the self-insert and the power of friendship. So much for the series’s traditionally dim view of human nature and recurring theme of the inevitability of conflict. What’s more, in spite of its theoretically broad scope (including a criminally under-explored time travel plot with a bad future) and numerous call-backs to older games Awakening does surprisingly little for developing the series’s most frequently-visited setting. I think it was in large part how generic this game has always felt to me even before release that I never got very hyped for it and as a consequence was never very disappointed by it. It’s just….there, with its nostalgia and its chronic “no homo” and its host of hilariously broken mechanics. I wonder if we’d have ended up viewing Awakening more favorably if it really had been the last game? Eh, probably not.

The “needs a remake or needs a better remake” Tier - FE5, FE6, FE3/12, FE1/11

I don’t have a specific order for these, except that FE1/11 is almost certainly the bottom since 5 and 6 have remake potential and, lack of localization aside, New Mystery was a better remake than Shadow Dragon.

I still haven’t fully played Thracia 776, but I’ve watched and read through Let’s Plays and have read more than enough analysis and meta on the game to where I can definitively say that I wouldn’t enjoy playing it too much and don’t feel all that emotionally connected to the story except insofar as it relates to the overall Jugdral saga. The concept of a standard FE plot that ends with the playable cast losing is an intriguing one, though they really could have done better than the weird non-ending that is this game’s final boss. I’m also not as invested in Leif the fallen aristocrat as I usually am those types of characters, possibly because it’s a foregone conclusion that he eventually gets his kingship anyway. I would like a remake, hopefully one that smooths over some of the original’s mechanical roughness and also makes a bunch of characters gay because the material’s certainly there in places, but I also admit that I’d rather have a remake of Genealogy first. Or, for that matter….

Binding Blade doesn’t have the potential for an amazing story-driven remake that Thracia does; after all, it’s basically a soft reboot of FE1 with an equally bland lord saved by his Super Smash Bros. fanbase and possibly his weirdly large harem. That said, there’s a fair amount of character potential and worldbuilding opportunities what with the series’s first true support system and the content of its unorthodox prequel. Even by itself I feel like BB does more to sell Elibe as its own distinctive world than any of Marth’s games ever did for Archanea, and that’s even with the reality that like the Archanea games this playable cast is inflated with some really forgettable characters (that seem to have followed a semi-rigid numerical quota by class in this instance. It’s weird.). This game never really stuck in my mind as a good playable experience either, not helped by the fact that it feels simple and antiquated compared not only to the GBA games that followed it but to the Jugdral games that preceded it. Good on them for throwing out some of Thracia’s more unwieldy mechanics, but did they have to throw out skills, hybrid classes, and varied chapter objectives too? The space limitations of the GBA couldn’t have been that severe.

While I’ve been spending much of this post ragging on Archanea, I will say that (New) Mystery of the Emblem has some interesting character beats, like the resolution of the Camus/Nyna/Hardin tragedy, Rickard and the situationally bisexual(?) Julian, and some of the antics of Marth’s retainers. I did like bits of the remake’s new assassin plot even if most of it is cribbed from the Black Fang; Eremiya’s no Sonia, but Clarisse and Katarina have their moments. Also, Kris isn’t that offensive to me since I was never all that engaged in Marth’s inconsistent personality and from what I’ve seen his/her supports don’t all devolve into a dating sim. New Mystery has a broader array of characters than either the original or the previous remake, without requiring the player to kill off characters just to get some of the new ones. That said, the reclassing in the DS games is still broken and allows the player to strip even more character out of their personality-deprived units. I’m getting to the point where I’m having trouble separating the two actually, so I’ll just go ahead and remark that I think everyone can agree that Shadow Dragon is the worst of the three remakes so far, with no supports, the aforementioned killing of units, a prologue that adds to the story but only exists on Normal mode and also requires you to kill someone off (seriously, what is it with this game? Is it commentary on the necessary sacrifices of war that they tried forcing on the player for one game until they realized it was a terrible idea?), the needless removal of features from earlier games like rescuing even as others like weapon ranks and forging were left in, that first clumsy iteration of reclassing, and little to nothing that I can see as elevating the story above the standard fantasy adventure fare of Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light that might have been good in 1990 but didn’t look so hot in 2008. Archanea just feels so lifeless overall compared to every other setting in the franchise, to the point where I don’t even feel that guilty about putting the first game in the series way down at the bottom when over in the Zelda ranking I raised the NES games above ones I found more fun to play solely because of their historical significance. Isn’t FE1 arguably the first tactical RPG? I feel like I should appreciate it more, but I just can’t. *shrugs*

[markoftheasphodel]

Not-So-Brief thoughts on the FE Power Couple (+1) in the wake of FE15:

I have shared my thoughts on this before but with FE15 out, here we go again. While not really an archetype, the Happy Power Couple is one of my favorite recurring motifs in Fire Emblem. I used to call ‘em Pre-Promote Power Couples but they’re not necessarily 100% pre-promotes. Power Couples often come with a third wheel, either a wingman sort of adult friend or tagalong kiddo. Power Couples actually tend to be POWER couples, and their presence in the hero’s army adds some luster or even legitimacy to the hero, who may be from a middling state (Altea, Pherae) or raised in a humble village away from the levers of power. Here’s a brief rundown of Power Couples I like and their assorted Plus Ones:

Note: playable characters only. No Hilda/Bloom or whatnot, sorry. Expect character-relevant spoilers for FE15 and everything prior.

Marth Saga: 

Power Couple: Midia and Astram. Plus One: Jeorge. The original pre-promote power couple; Midia is a highborn paladin serving Princess Nyna and Astram is her dumbass boyfriend (sorry, he is). They are VERY much in love. Meanwhile wingman Jeorge is Midia’s fellow noble and was supposed to marry her except Astram happened but Jeorge seems totes OK with that. They all hang out after the war together in Jeorge’s Rangers, kind of a freelance Justice League outside King Marth’s actual chain of command. All three got a lot of development in FE12 plus Midia and Astram got commemorated with their own expies (see below). Jeorge meanwhile founded not one but two expy lines of his own, the gameplay&storyline Snarky Sniper/Asshole Sniper and the storyline Wandering Noble.

Jugdral Saga:

FE4 Power Couple: Quan and Ethlyn. Plus One: Finn. So bound together they arrive as a trio. Quan’s the only pre-promote here, but he and Ethlyn are canon-married with one kid apparently extant and another arriving in a few years, and Finn in this case is Quan’s apprentice, which gives Quan the chance to do one of the most consequential mentoring jobs in Fire Emblem history. All three of them are among the very first characters in the franchise to have plot armor; if either Quan or Ethlyn gets KO’d as a playable character, the other retreats with them. They’re a package deal. Quan and Ethlyn come to a bad end but they had fun while it lasted, and then Finn gets to spend the next two decades taking care of their son and upholding their legacy.

FE5 Power Couple: Selphina and Glade. Plus One: Finn, again. Another couple who arrive canon-married, with Glade in this case the pre-promote. Selphina is a bow knight, the daughter of old-guard Leonster noble count Dorias, and mentors quite a few younger knights including standout unit Carrion. Glade is apparently low-born (seen this cited a lot, never seen it with my own eyes) but was one of the most talented young knights of Leonster’s pre-apocalypse trainee pool. Anyway, dude married up. He’s also Finn’s BFF and essentially written as a foil to Finn, who fits uneasily in the mix thanks to some weird tension with Selphina. Double dates are hard when your wife is a lawn ornament. Glade becomes the Great General of the new Thracia after the war and turns it into an innovative war machine. Selphina steps down from her position as a knight to care for orphans, becoming the legendary “Mother of Thracia.” Not bad for the Least Loved Character in FE History ™ and his bride.

Elibe Saga:

FE6 Power Couple: Zelot and Juno. Married pre-promotes with a newborn daughter. Zelot (Lord of Edessa) leads the Ilian mercenaries, Juno used to be an Ilian squad leader. After the war Zelot becomes Ilia’s first king while Juno retires from public life and is proclaimed Grand Flightleader only in death. Note this “retires from public life” thing is gonna be, well, A Thing. Anyway, they don’t have a specific Plus One that I see; Juno has two younger sisters in Shanna and Thea, with whom Zelot supports. Zelot also supports junior knights Treck and Noah; Noah’s conversation line is the more substantial of the two IMO but then again I think out of the FE6 gang Noah comes closest to the sort of “Baby Cavalier” role who often gets mentoring from a senior unit (see: kiddo!Finn and Carrion above). 

FE7 Power Couple: Isadora and Harken. Pre-promotes engaged to marry. Obvious expies of Midia and Astram except not happy. They’re both knights of Pherae, Harken’s REALLY messed up, and unlike all previous examples who are fixed canon they only actually do marry if they reach an A-support in the game. If they don’t reach A-support Isadora can instead fall in love with the Black Fang member Legault, which does NOT end well, or she can A-support with Renault and eventually enter the clergy.

FE7 Power Couple: Pent and Louise. Plus One: Erk. Ah, back to normal. Canon-married pre-promotes with an apprentice along for the ride and a baby on the way. Pent’s the Mage General of Etruria who adds some real luster to Eliwood’s oddball army. They’re deeply in love tho there are signs Pent’s a little too distracted to be the world’s best husband. Since FE7 is the prequel to FE6 and their kids Klein and Clarine are running around in FE6, they have “retreat” scenes VERY similar to the ones used by Quan and Ethlyn if they get KO’d. On the other hand apprentice Erk has no FE6 presence and thus either is of little consequence or meets a very bad end, and Pent is succeeded as Mage General by Cecilia, who ain’t in FE7. 

Magvel Saga:

As though to compensate for FE7, the small and tight-knit cast of FE8 has no canon-marrieds or canon-engaged adults. You can opt into Gerik/Tethys and Tethys comes along with her irrepressible little bro Ewan, so there’s your Plus One if you want it, but they don’t really add any authority to the dream team of royal heirs that Eirika and Ephraim have assembled to take on the Demon King. 

Tellius Saga:

I haven’t finished either of these games so I’ve seen arguments for Calil/Largo that are pretty compelling and also I’ve had friends put in a word for Lucia/Bastian. Lucia/Bastian would fit the pattern nicely ‘cause they’re pre-promotes who, like all their predecessors, are VERY well-connected and influential people and they have a definite Plus One in the form of Lucia’s brother Geoffrey, but apparently their torrid affair only comes out if you A-support them in FE10, which isn’t that easy to do, so eh. Tellius mixed up a lot of patterns anyway, like in not handing you the Xmas Cavs as a set. YMMV.

Ylisse Saga:

No canon marrieds we’re all here to bang the Avatar, right? But dueling Khans of Ferox Basilio and Flavia are pre-promotes with a wonderful dynamic and you could view them as a platonic version of the pattern. Their Plus One is all too likely to be you, the player. 

Fateslandia Saga:

Didn’t play it but there’s an Avatar involved so nobody’s canon-married.

Valentia Saga:

Power Couple: Mathilda and Clive. Plus One: Lukas, although Forsyth is jumping around & waving his hand going PICK ME SIR CLIVE! Mathilda and Clive were a thing from the get-go in FE2; Mathilda as a beloved and legendary paladin echoed Midia, while Clive as a cavalier seemed a little less illustrious than his future bride. Then surprise, he leads the knighthood post-game while she retires from public life (AGAIN)… unless Clive dies, in which case beautiful and tragic Mathilda leads the knights. Got it? Anyway, FE15 keeps both Mathilda’s legendary awesomeness (as a founder of the Deliverance) and her “good” ending away from the public eye intact while building up Clive a great deal more. This golden couple has a slew of potential Plus Ones vying for their attention– Clive’s sister Clair, their friend Fernand, Clive’s lieutenant Forsyth– but all of those three have something else going on (boys, betrayal, Python) in their lives whereas Lukas, as Clive’s most trusted advisor and the guy on whom Clive offloads his emotional burdens per Rise of the Deliverance, appears to be the actual wingman here. The support chain between Clive and Lukas is more of a mentoring opportunity gone sideways, though, and if Clive kicks the bucket and leaves Mathilda in charge of the knights, it’s Forsyth carrying the torch for him ever after.

[se-housman]

Ch 71 ‘The Sestohl Plains’

Tellius Saga chapter 71 is available now! 

Now that the Laguz Alliance have taken the fortress cities of Flaguerre and Mugill and marched across Telgam hold, they find themselves on the Sestohl Plains, about to cross the Ribahn River into Seliora hold. Ranulf and Skrimir have designed this attack, and Soren reluctantly agrees that it is a good strategy. What could go wrong? 

Wattpad | Ao3 | Quotev | MediaMiner

I love the Aimee scenes. Here’s another:

“No Ike!” Soren shouted, louder than intended. “Don’t say another word.” He was running before he even realized he’d moved his feet.  

“That voice,” Aimee pouted. “It’s-”

Soren came around the back of the wagon in time to see Aimee disentangle her arms and legs from Ike’s. But she still didn’t let go of his hand, and she may even have gripped it tighter—like a child with a toy she didn’t want to share.

“C’mon, Soren.” Ike didn’t seem surprised by his sudden appearance. “She’s going to give us everything! For free.”

“Nothing in life is free, Ike,” Soren countered, eyeing their intertwined fingers with disgust. “Suppose you said what she asked you to say, what then?”

Ike just shrugged, and Aimee rested her cheek against his arm with a villainous smile playing across her lips.

Soren resisted the urge to demand she release hm and instead continued with his explanation: “You’d hear it all over the camp. In nearby villages. Eventually, the entire country would be saying it: ‘Ike, the hero of the Mad King’s War, is in love with Aimee the shop girl.’ Rumors can quickly spin out of control.”

“Come off it,” Ike chuckled. “You’re exaggerating.”

Soren was exaggerating, but it was the only thing he could think of to try to separate them. He glared at Aimee, and to his surprise, her cruel expression disappeared.

With a slow blink, she seemed to give up. “Oooh, don’t be so sure!” she said, pulling her face away from Ike’s arm. Her voice was lighter now, as if she were merely playing a game. “With my network of merchants, I’ll spread the word to the four corners of Tellius! Within half a year, everyone will know. Then you will be mine forever, Ike! You’ll have no choice at all!” Putting her opposite hand on her hip, she released a haughty laugh.

“Man, you go right to the neck, don’t you?” Ike stared at her now as if she were some sort of wild creature holding his hand. “Alright, Soren. She’s all yours.” With that, he pulled his arm away, and Aimee let go this time. “Finish the negotiations for me?”

“Yes, sir,” Soren replied soberly. “What I do now, I do for the good of the company.”

Ike flashed a grateful grin before he sauntered off.

“No, Ike! Don’t go! Don’t do this to me!” Aimee reached for his shrinking back, but she didn’t grab or run after him. When he was gone, she plopped herself on the step of the wagon and crossed her legs. She didn’t look terribly heartbroken, but she didn’t look happy either.

“Well, now. Shall we get on with our business?” Soren stepped closer and wondered what in Tellius Ike had been buying to land himself in this situation.

Aimee tilted her chin away from him in a pout, but then she raised one hand and made a beckoning gesture.

Soren realized what it was she wanted, and after ascertaining that none of the mercenaries were within earshot and that the merchants were fast asleep, he gave it to her: “You’re looking more beautiful than ever, Miss Aimee,” he began, trying to make his voice convincing. He was not particularly good at giving compliments—and he didn’t actually care what Aimee looked like—but he would play along for Ike’s sake. “A true delight for the eyes.”

After struggling to keep a straight face, Aimee snorted in laughter and turned back to him. “Oooo, now you’re talking, you little lady-killer,” she teased.

“I know you won’t discount the goods to nothing, since it’s coming from me. So…how about you cut your prices down by three-quarters?” He threw out the number, not at all surprised if Aimee refused to honor the deal she’d only proposed because she’d been flirting.

“Oh…decisions, decisions,” she said, clearly wondering the same thing.

Since Soren was already debasing himself, he decided to go further: “You’re a diamond, and other beorc only glass beads, Miss Aimee.” This made Aimee grin widely, and Soren wasn’t quite sure whether she was laughing with him or at him. “I’ll buy more than enough to justify the discount,” he added.

“Half-price, maybe,” she replied, tapping her finger against the side of her mouth.

“A touch less than three-quarters, then.” Soren negotiated. He decided he would have to channel his inner Bastian if he was going to show he meant business: “What do you say, rose of Tellius? O goddess of desire?”

Aimee kicked up both her legs and clutched her stomach in laughter. “Alright, you win! Just this time, mind you.” Settling down, he took a wrapped package off of the step behind her. “Here, take this,” she said, and while it rested in her lap, she looped a cord off her neck and placed it on top. When Soren accepted the package, he saw that the cord’s pendant was a rectangular piece of silver imprinted with the seal of Aimee and Muston’s merchant company.

“A Silver Card?” Soren asked, honestly surprised she would give it to him. When the mercenaries had travelled with the Begnion caravan, not even Roark’s family had been willing to let them use their clan’s card. “I can buy anything for half-price at any shop?”

“That’s right,” Aimee sighed, perhaps surprising herself with the gift. “Remember what I said, though. It’s a limited-time deal. I’ll have to take it away soon.” In answer, Soren looped the cord around his own neck. “Oh, and while you own this card, you won’t be able to sell your weapons as raw material. Got that?”

“Understood, Miss Aimee,” he replied, then adding: “…Stay beautiful.” He didn’t need to keep stroking her ego at this point, but he did appreciate the gift. Taking a look at the package, he asked. “What is this anyway?”

“Oh, just a box of vulneraries, Ikey-poo was buying,” she said with a careless wave of her hand. “With that card, you now own me…a hundred gold.”

“I’ll go get the money,” Soren said. Moving the package to his hip, he turned to go, but then Aimee’s voice froze him.

“I’ll stop pursuing him, by the way,” she said. “So you don’t have to protect him from me anymore.”

Soren turned around, and he was surprised by her small, sad smile. “What changed your mind?” he asked suspiciously. Aimee was being too nice.

She shrugged one shoulder noncommittally and then drew her shawl tighter. “The look on your face,” she offered. “I didn’t realize he was taken; you should have said something sooner.”

Soren’s neck grew hot with embarrassment. “Ike isn’t ‘taken’ by anyone.”

“Of course not.” Aimee waved her hand dismissively, as if to say she didn’t want to debate the subject. “Whatever the case, take good care of him.”

“He is my commander,” he replied carefully. “It is only natural that I look out for his best interest, including his reputation. What occurred tonight was nothing personal.”

“Right, right.” Aimee continued to wave him off. “I’m not offended at all. Now do be a dear and get my gold.”

[randomnameless]

I'm very dragonpilled right now and 3 Houses/Hopes refuses to scratch the itch despite arguably having one of the best takes on manaketes in series history(used loosely here ofc since not all dragons are made equal in FE). God, the Nabateans are right up my alley and yet we get crumbs. It got me thinking about Laguz vs Nabateans, seeing the dragon fam drama in Tellius be touched on, TONS more than Rhea, Seteth, Flayn, Macuil, Indech, the Relics siblings, and even Sothis.

I know this is about to sound like I'm asking "lol what's the difference between night and day" here, but I genuinely would like to know just how much better IntSys did with the dragon shifters in Tellius from a person more knowledgeable about it, and how they could've done the Nabateans much better in hindsight, especially since both games do a very interesting twist on dragons for the series. I'm thinking of watching a playthrough of Tellius to literally just FINALLY get my dragon fam/race fill instead of asking the Fodlan series to give me anything (I'M STARVING DAMMIT), and would like to hear your thoughts on what you think of the Laguz overall and how their race enhances the plot. Spoilers welcome btw.

Oh.

(ugh i forgot this in my drafts i’m so sorry!)

Let's say Tellius starts and breathes with the racial angle/card - we have two kinds of humans, beorcs who are random humans and laguz, humans who can shapeshift.

Through the course of the saga, we see Laguz. Not just here as mere place holder and infodumps, but we see the various leaders of the different tribes, we go to Castle Gallia, Ike talks and learns from all kind of Laguz around.

For the dragon Laguz living in Goldoa, their first appearance, iirc, is when Ike's boat crashes on their shores, dragons are isolationists and ask him to get the fuck out, we can't because no boat, and the situation is dire until the dragon prince, Kurthnaga, pops up and defuses the situation.

Afterwards we see Deghinsea talk to the other Laguz Kings about the plot.

But for the dragon laguz? The most important about them isn’t their scale or anything, but the familial drama associated to Goldoa’s royal line. They are not only dragons and here to give a backstory to someone - nope, they are characters with arcs.

It ultimately touches the greater plot and one of Tellius’s most destestable themes - but such is their verse, and they are fundamentally a family screwed by their world.

Sister goes to hold the hand of the worst human alive, worst human alive use the kid they got as a barganing chip, older brother goes to rescue her and ends up as a drugged and tortured being, younger brother is sheltered but lost about what is happening, and their father is enduring the loss of his two children and also the fate of the world on his moustache, until he cannot anymore. Older brother’s wife sides with worst human alive just to get a chance to see her beloved, and her own grandpa has to betray his country for her sake and her unborn kid.

Meanwhile? Rhea is a lizard in hiding because her siblings became toothpicks, but Seteth ? Doesn’t have anything to do and or reaction when the truth is revealed, or when people are trying to turn them in toothpicks again. He won’t talk to Nemesis, and player pandering forces him not to give more fucks than needed about his sister.

Like, gosh, Rajaion only appears in a cutscene (bar his, uh, alternate form) and I get more about his relationship with his siblings, dad and lover from Tellius than Seteth’s 10 supports and 2 games where he could be interacting with his siblings, but, uh, never does in a meaningful way.

And that’s not to say Seteth BaD or anything like this, really !

Just to say the lizard family from Fodlan didn’t receive even a tenth of what the Goldoan royals received, even if they have much more screentime.

Quality > Quantity.

What they could have done with Fodlan to make the dragon family act more like a family rather than the clusterfuck we had?

Well, for starters, the Nabatean AG paralogue is a step in the right direction, because they interact without using Billy as the “center of universe” prop everything must tend to.

Maybe Fodlan could have started by at least naming one (maybe not all 12) dragon who was turned in a relic.

Maybe we could have had a confirmation about Flayn’s status, as a pure blooded Nabatean or as a hybrid.

They could have given us more breadcrumbs about what it means to share “blood” with humans, and if it was something that is supposed to be common, or reserved to “very special humans”. They could have developped more about what Nabateans felt seeing their current “allies” use relics, or even their enemies engineer fake “hearts” to turn humans in grotesque abominations supposed to mirror them.

I’m not saying we should had playable Indech’n’Macuil, but at least see and interact with them more, or give more info about them, why did they escape after the WoH, did they even meet Rhea once in 1k years, etc etc. Do we know if Nabateans are still surviving outside of Fodlan (it’s implied by Petra iirc) ?

That’s why I would have wanted more War of Heroes content, I know the Nabatean civilisation is already razed but we could have had the content I wanted and expected since day 1, about Nabateans, their place in the world and how they are supposed to work/live/coexist in peace with humans (and agarthans?) - we could have had some Nabateans who thought they were superiors to humans and were tyrants, and Nabateans who wanted and worked with them on an “equal” basis or some who were just consulted as oracles or seers...

Can they still live with humans ? Did they disagree on what to do next, after the Red Canyon, did some wanted to hide until the end of the times, or some wanted to rule over humans, or some only wanted to guide them?

All those things, and we will never know.

Bear in mind, we don’t know Deghinsea’s tax policy (still his country is isolationist to an extreme degree so...), but we know he loved all of his children, we know Almedha feels like dirt because she feels like she is the catalyst for the destruction of her family and expects Ena, her sister in law, to despise her, we know Nasir’s love for his granddaughter is stronger than in loyalty to his King and his own morals...

And we see Kurthnaga trying to do the “right thing”, only to realise the “right thing” isn’t the thing we always want to do, and how he ultimately has to walk in his father’s shoes.

It’s a tight group, take one of them, and you would find bonds and links to another member of the group.

In Fodlan, if I look at Rhea’s bonds (even if I take Nopes because remember, player pandering means “alone b4 u since zanado”) I still don’t know how she feels about Indech, how he feels about her, or what is going on in the state of the world.

Fodlan really tries to sell us a story where the Nabateans aren’t that close to each other, where Indech will not give a fuck about his sister being turned in a pair of daggers and where Cichol doesn’t think it is important to warn his brothers that Supreme Leader and her friends want to erase every Nabatean from Fodlan -

Hell, again with Fodlan’s main issue (or one of its main issues) - the Nabateans cannot collectively react to an event like a second attempt at ousting them from Fodlan, or in Supreme Leader’s words, create a “Nabatean blood-less world!” because Hresvelg Tea needs to be sold.

Almedha might have hold Ashnard’s hand, Kurthnaga, Deghinsea, Nasir and Ena are quick and fast to call him an asshole. I’m sure Rajaion did too. And there’s no need to have some “maybe we could have walked with him” or some “maybe he had his reasons??” when a member of their family is/was being tortured under his care.

Compare this to Seteth’s “well i know you don’t want to kill Supreme Leader but we have to put an end to the war!” when Rhea has been in her dungeons for 5 years, when he knows she’s in Enbarr and when he knows what happened to Flayn in the span of 1 month.

Fodlan cannot develop Nabateans without making Supreme Leader look like a fool, and Supreme Leader is Fodlan’s cash cow.

That’s, I think, the main difference between Fodlan’s Nabateans and Tellius’s dragon laguz.