#fe 17 spoilers

[hosshi027]

[didsomeonesayventus]

Hey Brodia fans do we think there's a nonzero chance some fuckhead noble ends up thinking the Morion Incident was a covered up/conveniently timed coup so Diamant could take over

(This is, ofc, Bullshit™️, and it makes both Diamant and Alcryst understandably incredibly upset)

[neymiiie]

I just want to see him again.

[silvergarnet12]

An ink piece I coloured digitally.

[themanicmagician]

[azelle-intermisson]

how have i used pandreo for two playthroughs and i'm still learning crazy shit about him??? he's a priest who howls like a wolf, loves to party and apparently has such an amazing singing voice that BIRDS flock to him. i love him so much.

[creativesplat]

Flower Crowns.

So, you know me! I can't resist a little bit of symbolism, so I used flower language on the flowers used.

Both:

Chamomile Flower: Energy in Adversity

Yarrow Flower: Healing and Love

Forget-Me-Not: Respect, Love, 'please don't forget me'

Alear:

Edelweiss: Courage, Devotion

Red Chrysanthemum: I love you (Alfred made the crown for Alear, you can't tell me he wouldn't put those in)

Thyme: Strength and Courage

Sage: Immortality

Dark Red Rose: Mourning

Delphinium: Big Hearted, New Life

Nasturtium: Victory in Battle

Alfred:

White Windflower (the flower Lumera gave him (Vander B support)): Sickness, Luck, Protection

Hibiscus: Delicate Beauty

Gum Cistus: Ill health, Death, 'I shall die tomorrow'

Centaury: Simple (as in a little foolish), Delicate

At the start of my game-play, Alfred was nicknamed 'sacrificial Alfred' for a little while since he took all the damage because he could move quickly to the main villains, so popping in the 'delicate' flower was a little amusing nod to that 😂 < I eventually put him with Sigurd and changed his class, which helped!

[musical-dash-trash]

I've been scared to ask. But please explain newsies to me, and tell me if I spelled it right too. I wanna learn about this :3

you don’t need to be scared to ask, i love talking about newsies/things in general!!

okay!! so. newsies is a musical (or movie) about the 1899 newsboys strike. newsboys/newsies are children who used to walk the streets selling newspapers. they would buy the papers (in this case, for half a penny) and then sell them for double that.

then, joseph pulitzer (i think that’s his name… anyway, he owns the newspapers that our main characters sell for) decides that he needs to raise the price that the newsies pay by one-tenth of a cent.

that seems like it’s just a little, but it adds up, and these kids are poor.

slight change in topic to introduce our main characters:

jack kelly: 17, leader of the manhattan/lower manhattan newsies, wants to go live in santa fe, new mexico.

david/davey: of ambiguous age (but probably around jack’s age), gives the newsies the idea of striking, one of the strike leaders. les’s (and sarah’s, in the movie) brother.

les: 10, almost. davey’s younger brother.

crutchie/crutchy: of ambiguous age, one of jack’s closest friends, walks with a crutch (probably because of polio)

katherine plumber: of ambiguous age, reporter, gets the strike into the newspapers, jack’s romantic interest. only in the musical.

racetrack/race: of ambiguous age, manhattan/lower manhattan’s second in command. has a larger role in the movie than the musical.

denton: of ambiguous age (but an adult), reporter, gets the strike into the newspapers. only in the movie.

okay yeah back to the story!!

so, the newsies strike. specifically the manhattan/lower manhattan newsies. of course, that just makes the newspaper lose money, so it hires new newsies to sell papers. the striking newsies end up getting them to join their cause!

the rest of the musical is about the difficulties and successes they have while striking! (spoiler: they succeed :D)

anyway! i hope this was helpful, i tried not to spoil the plot too much. i would absolutely recommend watching it (both the movie and the musical are on disney+, there are also bootlegs of them) if you’re interested!

[annot8]

Top 20 RotE Moments

(Would love to know what everyone else’s favourite moments are! 20 is probs a little bit overkill but there are so many!)

Spoilers for all of RotE under the cut

20. Chade tells Fitz to go after the Servants - Fool's Quest

- Chade infuriates me to no end. But I can’t bring myself to hate him. This moment, where he only has sparing of lucidity, he subtly tells Fitz to go after Bee, even if the King doesn’t allow it. It’s a really lovely moment of two old assassins planning to deceive everyone one last time :)

19. The Quarrel - Golden Fool

- What a scene. This was crazy. Fitz’s rampant denial and homophobia was building up the whole book, and everything came to a boil here. Fitz was ready to give the Fool a piece of his mind, and the Fool completely destroyed him. Deserved. The bit that breaks my heart tho is that the Fool thought the flowers were from Fitz - I can’t with these two.

17. The night in Aslevjal - Fool's Fate

- I was dreading Fitz and the Fool’s reunion after Fitz left him behind, but I was pleasantly surprised by how warmly they greeted each other. After the Golden Fool Divorce, I was so relieved to see them get along. And who doesn’t love a ‘stay with me’ moment?

16. Alise and Cedric reject Hest together in Kelsingra - Blood of Dragons

- Hest kinda went through it in this book and I was worried we were heading down a redemption route. Thank god we got this instead. This was such a satisfying moment.

18. Fitz and Ketrricken mourn Nighteyes - Golden fool

What a lovely moment. I had been waiting for Fitz to fall apart from Nighteyes’ death, and this was probably the healthiest way to deal with it. God, I love Kettricken. I always loved her friendship with Nighteyes and I’m glad she was allowed to mourn as well.

15. The Traders come together to clean the concourse - Ship of Destiny

- Such a small but impactful moment. The traders had really rejected the Vestrits (mostly due to Davad Restart bulldozing their reputation along with his own). And in this moment, they returned to their ruined hall, and they see a lone old woman - whose family is missing and maybe dead - sweeping and continuing their traditions. And slowly, one by one, they all join in and help. No matter what else divides them, they are all Traders.

14. Fitz 'steals' Shrewd's knife and stabs it into Chade’s fireplace - Assassin's Apprentice

- My baby’s first proper act of defiance. I was very proud of my boy. And while Chade can be quite a cold character (the events that led up to this moment are proof of that),, the fact that he never moved the knife also says something about his feeling for Fitz. God, Chade makes me feel so many things.

13. Molly gives birth to Nettle - Assassin's Quest

- “and as prefect as she is, what would she have to cry about?” Why don’t you shoot in the face? This scene broke me. Molly being pregnant was admittedly the most obvious plot twist of all time but the payoff was beautiful. Burrich acted exactly the way I thought he would. And what can I say, I love Molly.

12. Fitz shows Patience his drawing of the dog - Assassin's Apprentice

- I think (it was over a year ago) but I think this was maybe the first time I cried at this series. Fitz is so desperate to do something Patience will be proud of, then he suddenly feels foolish, holding his little piece of paper with a dog on it. And then Patience sees it, asks who drew it, and is so proud of him when he says he did. You should have been mind! Ahh, kill me!

11. Fitz and the Fool reunite - Fool's Errand + Fitz and the fool reunite in Jhaampe - Assassin's Quest

- I had to put these together. They’re both so good, and both are followed by these warm times of relative peace. In AQ, the Fool doesn’t realise it’s Fitz, and in FE, Fitz doesn’t realise it’s the Fool. These bits parallel each other so beautifully and in both, their peaceful time together is broken by a calling from the Farseer crown.

10. Malta negotiates independence for Bingtown - Ship of destiny

- SHE IS THAT GIRL. Malta’s arc was so unbelievably satisfying and I was proud of her here. She had released Tintaglia, saved the satrap and his companion, learned from Kekki, held her own on that ship, and stood up for Bingtown before Kennit and the Satrap. Love Love Love.

9. Bee burns down the scroll library of clerres - Assassin’s Fate

- Ahhhhh!!!!! That’s my baby!!!!! My destroyer!!!! Bee goes through so much for someone so young, and she’s the only one wise enough to know that they must let go of the past. She begins the dragon’s vengeance and brings about the destruction of Clerres. Good for her.

8. You're not dead son - Royal Assassin

- Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!! I cannot do this!!!! The days as the wolf were so well written and this was such an emotional conclusion. Burrich, the man that you are. To see him momentarily set aside his absolute hatred of the Wit to save his boy just showed how much he loved Fitz. It’s the devastating culmination of Burrich’s parenting skills and it broke me in a way that no other scene in this entire series has broken me!

7. Burrich and Swift defeat the stone dragon - Fool's Fate

- if Burrich is gonna do one thing, it’s accept the Wit in order to save a son. This display of strength and love was so beautiful! And I was happy to see Swift have his moment!

6. Kettricken's Speech before the Forge Hunt - Royal Assassin

- Such an underrated scene. Kettricken really comes into her own here. She really becomes the Queen-in-Waiting of the Six Duchies in this moment. She impresses everyone - even Chade. I think this is where Verity falls in love with her, and of course, we get to see Verity slap Regal.

5. Prince FitzChivalry Farseer is welcomed home - Fool's quest

- I WEPT. I could not believe what I was reading. We get Starling’s song - which was such a brilliant moment of payoff for her character. And then, of all people, it’s Chade to walk over to Fitz. A man who is obsessed with secrets is the one to tell Fitz it’s time to do away with disguises and secrets. Oh my godddddd.

4. Nighteyes' last hunt - fool's errand

- I had to reread this scene because I had not at all processed what had happened. I was in public! I was on a train, sat next to a stranger, and there were silent tears running down my face. I love Nighteyes and I knew it was coming eventually, but I was not expecting it in this book. His ‘I was sure you would want to come with me,’ is one of the saddest lines in the whole thing.

3. Fitz, Beloved, and Nighteyes become go into the stone wolf and become one being - Assassin’s Fate

- what am I supposed to do with this? This was perfect and devastating. It was where they were always heading towards. Love without limits.

2. Fitz brings the fool back from the dead - Fool's Fate

- Imagine merging souls and calling him by your own name and calling him your dream, believing you can’t go on without him, and uprooting fate with love and passion and bringing him back to life. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

1. The Stone Dragons awake / Fitzloved kiss - Assassin's Quest

- The moment the first trilogy built up to. This moment seared these books onto my heart. From Verity’s sacrifice, Kettle’s redemption, Starling getting the story for her song, Kettricken fully becoming Sacrifice and getting pregnant, the Fool seeing his prophecy become fulfilled and kissing Fitz, and Fitz using the Wit to awake the stone dragons and saving the Six Duchies from the Red Ship Raiders!!!!!!! A perfect ending!

[tuhbanbuv]

Ode To Ouroboros Headcanons

This turned into a massive ramble but anytime I have the chance to infodump about any of my fics or AUs I will take it.

So enjoy some Ode To Ouroboros headcanons/lore because yes:

Cutman “Cutty” considers himself a cousin to the Light trio. Not exactly a sibling but not as distant as the other masters.

Blues is the closest thing you’ll get to an autistic robot master, sensory issues, not getting social cues and all before and after getting repaired.

Blues has PTSD and low self esteem from…well, everything. But he’s a better big brother than he thinks.

Rock has a crush on Bass, though it’s probably 89% not gonna be reciprocated…sorry, Rock, you can’t fix him.

Roll and Kalinka definitely have crushes on each other and it definitely started out all cutesy like a spontaneous kiss before having to part ways without another word Owl House style.

Tango was intended to be a sort of therapy animal for people with animal allergies or patients with low immunities that couldn’t risk any type of contamination. He sensed that Blues wasn’t well even when Roll repaired him in the Archie comics and helps to aid in his emotional recovery.

The twins (Rock and Roll) and Bass are 14-16, while Tempo and Blues are 17-20. Though Bass is on the older end of the 14-16 age range.

Rock has some slight resentment against Blues for leaving and coming back, especially since he still feels the weight of being Megaman is still on him despite his older brother returning. This will probably lead to things being said that he’ll regret…

Roll doesn’t hold any ill will, however. She just sees Blues as troubled and regretful for everything, and is secretly happy to get another brother. The two have a somewhat stronger relationship.

Light and Wily used to be a couple before and during Blues’ creation, but it was especially toxic on Wily’s end. Until the events of Chapter 4, Light truly believed he could’ve changed. Now any chance of them rekindling anything is long gone.

Adachi has a somewhat positive history with the Sniper Joe line, to the point they influenced a good part of their love for robots and misanthropy.

Blues knows some Spanish and Japanese, but usually sticks to Spanish.

Tempo was accidentally made tall due to a typographical error on her blueprints. She’s twice as tall as the Light siblings and doesn’t hesitate to carry her Blues any chance she gets.

Tempo and Blues got engaged shortly before the events of Ode to Ouroboros. They just figured that they’d rather do romantic stuff with each other rather than anyone else so they basically got engaged then and there. Tempo wears her ring under her glove and on her civilian form and Blues wears it as an earring so he doesn’t lose it. He does get a wedding band to wear on his new civilian form later on so people aren’t confused though.

There’s a good reason why Blues can contact X in his dreams but that’s a major spoiler. Just know that his dreams aren’t just dreams…

Roll loves fanfiction and reads it as much as she can. Light regrets introducing the internet to her.

Blues secretly looks up to Rock, but is somewhat protective of him. If anything bad happens to him he’ll immediately blame himself.

Rock and Roll introduce video games to Blues. Blues prefers slower or quieter games like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon, but also enjoys rhythm games (especially with Vocaloids, his favorite is Kaito). Roll loves Kirby and Rock loves racing games. Roll has never won against her brothers during game nights.

Light thought Blues’ injuries were from his core corroding his body. He was wrong…

Blues’ scarf is his comfort item. He loves the thing dearly and will cuddle with it like it’s a baby blanket.

Blues loves music, it’s basically his coping mechanism and love language. Tempo knows this and will sing to him if he’s having a panic attack.

Tempo definitely calls Blues her “short king” and would hold him over her shoulder, bridal style, etc.

Bass (before the infection) hid a lot of his feelings underneath his ego. At one point, he was just as naive and innocent as Rock. Roll teaches Blues how to sew and bake to help distract him from his anxiety/depressing thoughts. It’s become a nice bonding activity between them.

Blues would definitely throw down if someone even remotely insulted his siblings. Any previous jealousy has been replaced with genuine love and protectiveness for the twins. He considers X a baby or son of sorts.

Guts-man is pretty much friends with everyone. Unless you’re Wily he’s nice off the bat.

Cut-man is pretty much best friends with Roll. He loves the kid and would do almost anything she’d ask. Almost, he has some standards.

Wily was planning on giving Bass a sister. Was.

[didsomeonesayventus]

lord the way i can write in circles about Alear and the visceral experience of [redacted]

(or, the wordbarf of “I am very unhinged about Alear how dare you assume im normal” ft. copious spoilers for like. chp 21 onward because I need tumblr to know I’ve already said most of this on twitter to some extent)

he finally got to experience love and how he finally started recovering from his trauma and how he was at his desperate, frantic wit’s end probably when he first struck sombron down how he probably felt cornered and would rather risk his life and everything else to simply be free of his father how he went in without an emblem and all alone and likely not telling Lumera the full plan probably terrified if he would come out alive 1v1-ing sombron with nothing but fuck it he would rather fight for a chance to live in peace than wait for his dad to find out how “defective” he is and dispose of him like so many siblings and lumera was probably going to stop him because it’s crazy it’s stupid it’s risky it’s not worth it she loves him and promises one day it will end don’t be rash and please hold on but!!!!!! god damn does someone have to try and he is tired of waiting for the chance to get better he cannot fucking take it anymore!!!!! he can’t sit there and wait and worry and be strong he has a sister out there who is at risk every second they carry on their little hidden charade! 

How PAINFUL it is to finally receive kindness and be forced to realize all these scars and all these days spent walking on eggshells is for NOTHING for even what had been kindness before pales in comparison how WOUNDED to realize how damaged you are simply trying to survive and how unfair it all must feel when kindness and love was simply that easy to choose and yet knowing your father would never, EVER be kind.

and contrary to having a gentle and honorable nature that only carried out sombron’s will to survive, coerced into such violence and desolation, the nature that is stilted and a thoughtless machine so he, too, does not join the ranks of failure, the nature that the hero king himself recalls as “You were kind, as you are now.”, despite that gentle, gentle core that somehow survived he has such malice for his father there is no mercy there is no kindness dare I say he- with only a little conflict and concern -relishes the opportunity to personally do his father in because after years of abuse and trauma there is finally catharsis and it pours from him like he is finally vomiting and coughing up the vile dregs of the poison in his system

finally hope that is so disgustingly blinding right in front of him and how he was SO CLOSE he was SO CLOSE to walking away from this he was sick and giddy and the thought that he was going to get away and be free and live happily with his mother and go find veyle and be SAFE and HAPPY FOR ONCE IN HIS LIFE and then ITS JUST. TAKEN. IN A SINGLE MOMENT.

how even saying himself the war is over and they don’t have to worry still accepting that he’s a Fell Dragon this is just WHAT HAPPENS as if he is not sitting there dying, struggling to breathe, having just ended a war that nearly wiped out the Divine Dragons, no doubt caused terror across the land, HAVING DONE A GENUINELY OBJECTIVELY GOOD THING THAT HE HIMSELF RECOGNIZED and still saying that Fell Dragons die in the end. how he is no better than the father laying only feet away who treated his children like tools and only spoke his name once when he was born. Lumera says he’ll just sleep and he’ll wake up and it will be fine and how he so subtly doubts that and still speaks as if this is his last chance, simply speculating how, if he does wake up, he wants to be like her AS IF HE ISN’T ALREADY FOR. YOU KNOW. ENDING THE WAR AND SLAYING THE PROBLEM DRAGON.

the way i pull at my hair and scream at the top of my lungs over how AWFUL alear had it and how VINDICATING it is to see him grow and love and rage and scream and cry and find his own way anD KILL HIS OWN SHITTY DAD WITH A LASERBEAM OF LOVE AND ALL THE FRIENDS HE’S MADE AND GETS TO BE DRAGON JESUS HAPPILY EVER AFTER

[youkaigakkou-tl]

why why do i feel like the reason haru is a target for ebisu and *spoiler* is because of something he did in the past? Is haru why ebisu hates youkai? Is he the reason behind ebisu getting closer the current? Did he do something to *spoiler *?

ohhhhhhh haru somehow causing Ebisu to become jaded would be nuts but idk how likely that is....

we've really only seen how Ebisu acts at 3 points in time: present day, 10 years ago (ch26) and 120 years ago

and i feel like he acts about the same in the present and 10 years ago, being "hates youkai but acts nice", so it's really just "likes youkai, acts like haru" -> "hates youkai but acts nice"

Sano knowing about it wouldn't be that strange, could be that he heard about it from someone else, and it's possible that he said something so spot on without knowing just how spot on he was (his reasoning for it was "soft hearted, reckless, trusting, only sees the good in people" which could all just be things he heard, or that's how Ebisu presented himself to Sano when he was a kid)

i'm inclined to believe Sano is actually 17 and hasn't been around to see more of Ebisu than we think, mostly because he says so himself in ch35, sensei has a tweet saying so, we've seen him as a little kid, and he gets bogged down by too many teenager problems to not be an actual teenager (like homework, problems with his powers and being bothered that he's tone-deaf)

Renren musing about how gods age and how he's seen the Ogatas look like little kids Could be disproving this, but i think that line was more to retcon/explain the Ogatas showing up in the yoseito culture fes chapter, or maybe establish that at some point gods can decide how old they want to look, or maybe that something happened to the Ogatas??? idk lol

[yellowocaballero]

i'm having yellowocaballero withdrawal so am attempting to read weekenders without knowing anything about fire emblem and so far it's working out pretty good and i'm having fun! quick question - how old are these children? no idea if i should be picturing 12 year olds or like 17 year olds and the vibes are very different on those. i'm enjoying it so far, especially seeing a character with schiz depicted sympathetically AND actually having psychotic symptoms.

Yay thank you for reading! :D Sorry I haven't written for any of your (?) fandoms lately, I go where the wind takes me. With Weekenders - it's one of those fics that scaffold the actual plotline itself, so some big stuff is only casually dropped and then we move on, but post time-skip I do go almost completely off the rails. I'm sure it's perfectly understandable but there's a shitton going on there beyond the fic because FE lore is nuts and the games are complicated.

The kids are different ages. Starting the game, Ashe and Annette are 16. Felix, Ingrid, and Dimitri are 17. Sylvain is 19. Mercedes is 22. Byleth, believe it or not, is 20. Spoilers for later on in the story but highly relevant joke:

*shrek voice* She wasn't even 23.

And thank you, schizophrenia spectrum disorders are not a very common headcanon diagnosis for Dimitri and I really have no idea why (I do know why). A lot of people guess he has depression and PTSD but some of his canon behavior is just...there's really only a few explanations for it and none of them are due to depression, lmfao. I won't spoil a ton for you here by going into detail, but basically he has a lot of psychotic symptoms in the game and I went ahead and added a few of the extra symptoms of schizophrenia and schizoaffective w/BD disorder myself. The game can be pretty iffy with its representation, so I wrote around and changed that up too. None of it's obvious yet, so we'll see.

Also thanks for the AU idea of the kids being all twelve. That's hilarious. Thanks for the ask!

[fe-smashorpass]

Fire Emblem Character Ages are Weird

So I was looking at the Serenes Forest forums to find out about character ages, and I did find them, but some of these ages felt off...

(I'm going to use the jugdral games as an example because they are the worst offenders)

So generation 2 takes 17 years after the 1st gen and, (spoilers ig) many of the male characters die just before the time skip, so it's going to be borderline impossible for a gen 2 character to be younger than 16 at the very least. But, according to Serenes Forest, some of gen 2 is.

Although the canonicity of these characters ages are contentious due to them being from the manga, I still have a conundrum. Do I abide by their "canon" ages and not include most of gen 2, or do I ignore it and include all of gen 2? Well what I did is a little bit of both.

If a character looks too young (ex Coirpre or Tine) they are excluded but if they look old enough, then they are included.

This also applies to other FE games, but I'm more leaning towards taking their ages at faces value because those games don't have a massive continuity error when it comes to ages, so Alear and Fogado and others will be excluded for being under age.

Finally if a character doesn't have a clear canon age, I'm just going to judge them based on their looks and how they act. Unfortunately, I am just but a singular human, so if you think a character should or shouldn't be here, I am sorry.

[technicolorfamiliar]

Technicolor Familiar Watches Too Many Conrad Veidt Movies Part 1 of ?

Apropos of nothing, I find myself wading around waist deep in Conrad Veidt's filmography, at least the titles I can easily find online.

I've been writing down my mostly brief impressions after each movie, mainly for my own entertainment since I know exactly zero other people who would care lol. I actually created a Mastodon account especially for this purpose, since my primary socials aren't really for this sort of thing. But the character limit on Mastodon is seriously cramping my style, so I'm going to be annoying about this on Tumblr, my self-imposed blog expectations be damned.

I'm not doing plot summaries, but there are spoilers. I'm not watching these movies in any particular order other than what I'm in the mood for on any given day. I'm half trying to keep the thirst levels to a minimum, but no promises; all bets were off after watching A Woman's Face. And tbh, this whole thing has turned into an Emotional Support / Coping Mechanism / Escapism Tactic because hoo boy is my brain bad these days. But be forewarned, I'm not a writer, I'm not a film critic. I just like movies and turns out I like Conrad Veidt a lot too. I'd probably have more and better things to say about a lot of these upon a second or third watch.

So as of late November, I'm 15 films deep with a lot more to go. I'm thinking about splitting this up into multiple posts, maybe like 5ish films/post. Originally I was going to see how many of these movies can I watch before the end of 2023. But I'm just going to keep going until I run out of available titles or I get sick of Connie's face (unlikely).

The Man Who Laughs, 1928 Dir. Paul Leni ⭐4.5/5 Watched mid-Oct, Archive.org Nothing could have prepared me for this. Of course I was aware of TMWL, but more vaguely than I guess I realized. It's really ahead of its time. The production quality is astounding, it's an absolutely beautiful film. The whole cast is pretty great, too. The Duchess? Total smoke show. Homo the Dog? Queer icon. And Connie really swings for the fences emotionally and physically as Gwynplaine. Bear in mind, this is literally only the third Conrad Veidt movie I've ever seen (other than the basic, intro level Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Casablanca), so I was really floored by what he's able to do in this role with the use of really only half his face. There are several wonderfully haunting and heartbreaking visuals and moments throughout the nearly 2 hour runtime that will stay with me long after watching. Half a star got knocked off because the score was a little bombastic and there were one too many clowns for me personally. But those are small complaints for what may otherwise be a pretty perfect film.

Unheimliche Geschichten (Eerie Tales), 1919 Dir. Richard Oswald ⭐3/5 Watched mid-Oct, Archive.org A romp. The version I watched had no soundtrack at all, making for a totally silent viewing experience. The vignette structure and old school effects are fun. I enjoyed seeing Anita Berber in action although maybe I was expecting more because of all the hype surrounding her/her image. But Connie, Anita, and Reinhold Schünzel seem like they had a good time working on this project. "The Black Cat" and "The Suicide Club" were my favorite sections (and I actually watched this when I was in the middle of Netflix's The Fall of the House of Usher, so yay for extra Poe content in the spookiest month). As for Connie Content, what can I say, he's stunning.

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, 1920 Dir. Robert Wiene ⭐3.5/5 Watched Oct 17, Archive.org I went hard with the silent era when I started this journey. Caligari was my intro to Conrad Veidt almost 15 years ago, and as a lapsed goth art student, I remember being bewitched by his strange and off-putting presence on screen. My rating for this one is kind of low compared to how undoubtedly iconic and important of a film it is. It could have been my mood but upon rewatching, but the story fell a little flat for me. I did like the updated score in the version I watched, and I would love to see this one on the big screen maybe with a live orchestra some day.

Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac), 1924 Dir. Robert Wiene ⭐4/5 Watched Oct 17, Archive.org Loved. It's so horny and bizarre (the scene with the maid crawling on the floor? same, girl, same). And visually the most pre-David Lynch Lynchian-looking movie I've ever seen. The shots that linger on highly stylized, cavernous, empty rooms before a character enters? So David Lynch. I'm also a big fan of the psychological body horror and crime thriller genre mashup. It's got twists, it's got turns. Conrad Veidt's your man if you ever needed a Hand Actor. Like the handsiest Hand Actor who ever had a pair of hands. Someone who could really work those mitts.

A Woman's Face, 1941 Dir. George Cukor ⭐4.5/5 Watched Oct 18, Vudu & TCM Jumping way forward in Connie's career. This movie did things to me. This was, I think, the point of no return. It's extremely underrated, I'm legitimately surprised I'd not heard of it before diving down this rabbit hole. That said, it is strange and pretty spicy for a Hays Code era picture. It's so good, I actually watched it twice (it aired on TCM as a part of their creepy cinema series). Visually beautiful and narratively interesting, if maybe a little long despite the rushed ending. Shout out to Joan Crawford for giving what's probably the best performance of hers, at least that I've seen (Mildred Pierce who?). And then there's nasty, nasty Conrad Veidt. He very nearly steals the movie from Joan, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He's beautiful, he's TALL, he's scary. Genuinely shocked he doesn't have second billing. But what else can I say about his Torsten Barring that hasn't already been said more eloquently by others? It's such a great character, and I believe he said it was one of his favorites during his entire 100+ film career. A Woman's Face is the only title on this list so far where immediately after watching I wanted to buy the dvd. Ugh, we deserved several more decades of Connie in roles like this.

I'll probably post the next few one day soon, where I finally get into some titles from the 1930s.

[silverjojo08]

On video games and writing and Fire Emblem Engage

Mainly just me musing about how I don't think the story is bad. Sorry for being annoying tbh. This is meant for my personal circle of mutuals, but maybe other people can get something out of it. Please be nice to me; I am not a professional reviewer and don't claim to be writing anything objective or anything lol. I'm also not really editing heavily for grammar or anything (if anything I try to keep a bit of order structurally but I love a comma splice idk lol).

This piece has gone through many versions in my head as I try to nail down exactly what puzzles me about the perception of the writing as being "bad".

Initially I think I was going to do a full plot breakdown and point out how logically every moment fits together and how foreshadowing + late reveals enhances certain previous moments. As I write this down, I don't think that I'll be doing that here. I almost considered a deep dive into the themes of motherhood and found family presented in the game. Not sure I'm going to do that either. At one point I also considered fully getting into common complaints (particularly some brought up from one of my folks who I deeply respect, Mr. Forte himself), but also I don't think I'll really do that.

So, what am I writing here? Maybe it's a mix of all of the above. Maybe it is none of the above. I don't really know. But I do want to talk about how this game just really vibes for me; and while I don't intend on necessarily changing anyone's mind, I want to at least provide some perspective on why I personally enjoy it so that others can understand my perspective at the very least.

Perhaps I will succeed in that. Perhaps I will fail. Let's find out together. (Again I'm doing like very minimal editing. Please excuse grammatical errors/typos. If anything is unclear, ask and I'll try to clarify. But I'm bad at tumblr so either tweet at me or send it through an ask please.)

Prologue: Who? What? Why?

To start, I'm in my early 30s. The video game that made me love video games was Super Mario RPG, and my earliest gaming memories include me watching my dad beat up the robot evil Santa at the end (also him playing some NBA game on SNES). FE games I have played start to finish: 8 (Ephraim), 11, 12, 13, 14 (all 3), 15, 16 (all routes), and 17. FE games I have played a bit of but didn't finish for various reasons (mainly I got distracted and forgor 💀): 1, 4, 5, 7, and 9. None of this actually matters that much, but maybe there's a generational and/or fandom divide of some sort and this provides useful context.

I am not a writer by trade nor hobby. Writing is actually one of my least favorite things to do (this is potentially related to OCD brain "just right" stuff), to the point where I chose my college major specifically based on which had the least amount of classes that I could actually complete without having to write essays. I am a math person. I do like consuming and dissecting written fiction though.

This piece is meant to be mostly explanatory. I want to give my perspective as best I can. I decided other writing styles would be too combative for what amounts to something we're consume for enjoyment. I just want to pass on some understanding of how I feel.

I think the best way to do this is generally avoid spoilers, but I will include a specifically marked section where I discuss all spoilery things that come to mind (anything that I intend to come back to in this spoiler section will be marked with a *). Any non-FE games mentioned will not be spoiled beyond kind of a general "a reveal happened in a way that bugged me" type of stuff, if even that is a concern here's a list of the games vaguely mentioned so you can crtl+f: Tales of Zestiria, AI The Somnium Files: Nirvana Initiative, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies. It all happens within two paragraphs, so you can just skip them if needed.

(Also I may accidentally use he/him pronouns for Alear because M Alear was the one I played with first, but I do generally think of FE avatars as the same being regardless of gender and try to use they/them when speaking to things both versions experience, which is like everything besides the hair colors being flipped and class options?)

Chapter I: What Is "Bad Writing" To Me?

Ok if you're reading this I assume you are at least in high school, and for that reason I'm not going to walk anyone through that level of analysis. In no way is this meant to be a lecture and I'm not trying to give any particularly deep literary analysis. That feels kind of like a pretentious thing to do in this situation.

So, bad writing? To me the biggest thing I consider bad writing is when an idea is not communicated well. This could be contradictory messaging, poor delivery, puzzling execution, etc. Obviously this can happen to various degrees of "bad", but I will not consider a story to have bad writing unless the writing breaks the experience in some way.

A broken experience is not the same to me as a negative one. To me a negative experience is just a matter of taste in the end and not a matter of "bad writing". Boring writing is not the same as bad writing even if it makes the experience painful. A broken experience has to be bad to the point where you just do not understand what they were attempting at all.

One game that comes to mind on this is Tales of Zestiria. I loved the characters in that game, and the main story itself is largely logical. But it was written so messily that there's a point where it becomes truly incoherent. To this day I have no idea what was going on with Dezel and Rose's personal histories despite a major climax of that game being built around the moment things get revealed for them. Again, it was overall a fun game, but it was definitely one I would claim had some bad writing.

Another situation that comes to mind that can be a spark for bad writing is when a reveal sours previous experiences. Misleading an audience can work really well in some ways. Ace Attorney 5 (Dual Destinies) has a reveal that has made me not want to replay it at all, but I don't believe the reveal is poorly done. Conversely, Somnium Files 2 (Nirvana Initiative) had one reveal that invalidates a significant part of the playing experience in a way that's hard to describe without going any further, but I think playing with audience expectations can only go so far until you make the audience feel like you've stolen part of the joy of the playing experience by severing an emotional connection.

I've been trying to describe this all in objective terms, but obviously it is very subjective. It's totally a "I know it when I see it" thing in the end. This section might be pointless. I don't know.

(There were too many blocks of text so look at Alfred; he's so nice and funny and good. I will give him the pact ring every time I play as M Alear lol.)

Chapter II: What about Fire Emblem Engage?

I guess this is kind of my point. I don't understand how any of this is applicable to it. The plot is fairly simple especially to start. You go from point A to point B with plenty of easy to follow narrative. Characters behave in logical and understandable ways. There's nothing functionally "wrong" with the story.

I think there are some pacing issues with the last stretch of chapters in that things happen too quickly for the player to properly respond even though the concepts are cool*. There's a lot of infodumps in these last chapters too that feel a little misplaced*. I agree that the tea supports (and shared gimmicks in general among certain groups of characters) are a bit overwhelming to unlock in succession. The DLC sucks* and only small parts of it truly add to the main story's narrative. There's the usual Fire Emblem incest and pedophilia grossness trying to peek its head through*. It's not a perfect game by any means.

I think I need to break up overall story discussion and character usage discussion, so I'm going to do that right now. If you've read to this point you generally get my point maybe on why the writing works fine for me and can stop here if you don't want a full peek into the deepest and most illogical recesses of my mind?

If you're not stopping here, together we ride or something idk did the title for this song come from Smash? Whatever.

Chapter III: The Story

***SPOILER WARNING, SKIP TO THE NEXT PART IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS***

Alright so I lied when I said I wouldn't go into this fully dissecting the plot or other people's criticisms. I'll do that a little bit here.

The biggest moment of "controversy" I think that happens early on is the loss of Lumera. What I've seen is that many people feel it didn't land well with them due to the game having not built up the relationship all that well. And I intellectually get that perspective. If a story beat doesn't land well to you then I can't tell anyone they're wrong for feeling a particular way about things. But while I understand people may feel this way, I truly do not understand that viewpoint. That we don't know Lumera is kind of the point. Alear also doesn't know her well at that moment. You're supposed to feel like it came too suddenly and is weird for it. The full gravity of the moment is not clear until later on in the game, and I think it was executed very well because the entire game revolves around this specific concept of chosen motherhood and family.

But maybe I'm moving too quickly. Backing up a bit, another criticism of this early game situation is I've seen people say they don't "have reason to care" how Alear is feeling this early on. And like, I truly don't know how to help you with that. When I start a game I generally don't start at 0 waiting for the game to make me care about the main character. I am already on their side and hoping for the best for them? I went in mainly thinking Alear looked goofy but like a nice kid who deserved nice things and the game did build well on it for me.

I think there are some questions on the nature of the emblems and the rings that go somewhat unanswered. There's a lack of clarity on how the rings function, and how stealing the rings after winning a battle works. Given that we see them levitate at numerous times, I suspect that is mostly the answer. But I do understand if that's a point of contention for some since it's not directly clarified.

The emblems are similarly somewhat explained as kind of heroic essence put to form, which genuinely is enough of an answer to me. But I do understand some may find that lacking. There are also many issues with the writing of the emblems which I sympathize with especially as a comic book fan who hates it when my faves are misrepresented in other titles. That's a genuine flaw that could have been corrected by having people working on the script who cared more about accuracy.

The pacing absolutely becomes an issue in the later chapters of the game. The Zephia and Griss death scene is extremely touching and well-written, but to have a scene that long and that complex in that moment of the game is very awkward. It would have been better suited as a Memory Prism type of bonus scene like FE15 had (for several characters there were scenes that added context but did not exactly fit in the main story such as a flashback discussion with Emperor Rudolf). It is necessary to understand the characters, but there's not a truly comfortable place to put it that doesn't seem insane especially given the length. This deeply ties into how I feel about the DLC as well, which is that Good!Zephia/Zelestia gives crucial insight to the effects of positive nurturing and actively choosing to build bonds, which is perhaps the strongest and most important theme of the game. Every instance of chosen family in this game is framed and shown to be a truly critical event for the individuals, as are the instances of chosen neglect. The usage and execution of this theme to me was extremely powerful in execution and just worked without feeling too cringe or forced. It's good stuff. I love love love what they did here, and I say this as a person who has never wanted to be a mother of any sort.

To go on a bit more about this: Griss (and by extension Gregory, but focusing on Griss here for simplicity) and Alear are such strong reflections of one another. There's some obvious aspects like how Griss is visually edgy and Alear is visually bright, Griss is rude and confident while Alear is kind and doubtful, etc. But the strongest comparisons and contrasts between them involve their mothers, and I think it's just incredibly well done. Comparisons include both of them get their sense of fashion from their moms, get their unit classing from their moms, somewhat blindly follow the words of their moms, had terrible upbringings and cling to their moms as their first emotional support, etc. But the contrasts? Oh baby. Zephia adopts Griss because he's a standout while Lumera adopts Alear because they're a failure (by Sombron's measure, not literally). Griss spends years by Zephia's side learning from her while Alear has to mostly guess at what Lumera had planned for them. And perhaps most starkingly: Griss gets to die alongside Zephia while Alear and Lumera are always mourning one another. Griss is such an incredibly well done rival character. It's no wonder he's the one who gets the special cutscene where he reveals the truth to Alear. Forever my GOAT!

Sadly though it's time to switch gears and talk about the DLC: it truly sucks. I said it on twitter after beating it, but I really think that they messed up on anticipating what would be a compelling scenario for the players to play through while also coaxing themselves into a snafu regarding spoilers. There's some good stuff there, but it's almost directly undercut by necessitating that it can be played early in a playthrough before the player has gotten to the revelations about Alear's biological parentage.

The DLC does attempt to carry over the themes of the main game, but without being able to openly acknowledge that these are some of the last of Alear's siblings (even if not by blood exactly) it becomes hollow. The only real payoff on the theming is the Nel and Veyle support chain where even if they aren't sisters in the traditional sense, Veyle is desperate for that kinship as she is so young and has spent so much time alone. It's very touching and something that could have been touched on with Alear as well if only the writers weren't forced to write a detached arc to avoid spoilers.

Yes this is probably where I should get into the alt Alear being the "twin" of the main one. They needed to either go all in with that and have Alear confirmed as sort of a multiversal set of twins or back up off it and confirm that they're only narrative parallels because doing literally all of this and then having Nel have feelings for the other Alear is gross. They did so well avoiding weirdness with Veyle in the main game, and then completely blew it in regards to Nel. It makes no sense you can romantically S support her and invalidates all the themes about family presented to that point if characters who literally share a father and share similar traumas don't find healthy kinship with one another.

But beyond all that, we don't really get to see enough of Nel and "Nil" to be convinced by their dedication to one another especially in comparison to other familial relationships like between the recruitable royals, Four Hounds, and Four Winds. It feels like things are just happening to happen without feeling the gravity of terror that we are told Sombron caused them. Again, the obvious parallel to Alear being forced to fight Veyle purely due to their father's machinations isn't allowed to be explored due to the spoilers thing. Subtlety can be a structurally clever thing, but this doesn't even feel like the DLC writers were aware of that basic fact. This is the only aspect of the whole game that I feel truly misses the mark for me. It feels like a bland copycat of the main game written by someone who only skimmed a wiki article of the main story. I truly really believe they would have been better served making it a proper postgame arc because then maybe the emotional connections could have been fully explored.

I also almost feel as though they'd have been better served writing a story set in the past around red Alear. I understand that would have made it difficult to have playable units from the DLC in the main campaign, but I would have gladly missed out on them if that meant adding to the main universe instead of mostly meaning nothing in the end besides an edgy boy (and I genuinely like Rafal, he's funny) realizing he isn't as edgy as he thought he was.

Back to the main game though. Alear becoming Corrupted and begging their sister to not give up was extremely cool and dangerous and insane in a GOOD way (though again, the cutscenes were somewhat long but long for the sake of the main characters is different than long for side villains). Then you play the actual chapter and nothing truly significant is happening that makes the experience feel noteworthy. I think the design and gameplay are more of a problem with this than the specifics of the writing itself, but both of those generally work to the benefit of storytelling in this game so to have an obviously contradictory moment like that undercuts the drama of the scenario. It's a great idea done in kind of a "just ok" way. Would have been better off omitting that chapter entirely and just jumping to the emblem-izing of Alear immediately. Maybe the writers were just too ambitious with the idea of using the Corrupted for a good reason, and couldn't bear to cut it out? I don't dislike indulgent writing, but I dislike when I can tell the writers are just doing something because they thought it was cool and no one felt like being the one to say "ok this doesn't quite fit".

Another gameplay and storytelling problem is the final boss fight. Bringing back the other final bosses as evil emblems was brilliant, but to not bring them back as recognizable models, not give them their portraits, and not give them their voice lines (and correct me if I'm wrong, but they all have voice actors from their own games or Heroes) made it difficult to identify who was who without looking up their classes online. That really undercut most of the drama in them being used in that battle. I understand this may have all added costs to the game that they maybe didn't want to pay, but that lack of detail made a very cool inclusion feel kind of middling.

And the boss himself? Sombron is actually an interesting dude to me. But again, all his backstory and evil plans probably should have been dumped in a monologue separate from the final battle. I think this is yet another case, similar to the Zephia and Griss scene, that would have worked better as a memory prism than as just a character telling the audience directly in what sort of feels like an inappropriately detailed explanation. I appreciate that they did not force this into being another story centered around multiversal crossovers in a media landscape that is currently overwhelmed by such stories, especially if the "Zero Emblem" hook has no intention of being followed up on. Though arguably that's yet another thing the DLC needlessly complicated. Is there just an infinite number of Sombrons looking for an infinite number of Zero Emblems? Even more proof that the DLC should not have happened as it did.

Last thing worth addressing in detail is the pedophilia that has been sadly very prevalent in the series and arguably emboldened by the introduction of the S support system. Even if one wants to disregard the internal age data, characters like Anna, Jean, and Hortensia should not have been romanceable in any language. I thank the English localization team for scrubbing out most of this and making them as platonic as possible.

Ok I think that's basically everything about the plot I can think of right now to address directly. Solm royals could have gotten more, but whatever. I thought they were fine as the hyper-competent Batman-like country that's like 5 steps ahead of everyone. I don't have any other things to speak about on the main story events.

*** THE SPOILERS ARE DONE, CONTINUE READING HERE ***

(Your reward for reading all those paragraphs is a nice picture of my daughter Veyle, who is precious and good. I was so worried they would be weird about her and barefeet aside they thankfully were not.)

Chapter IV: The Other Characters

There's a couple of obvious social groups of characters who have largely overlapping gimmicks. Tea time enthusiasts (Celine, Louis, Jean), aesthetic obsessives (Goldmary, Rosado, Hortensia), gym rats (Alfred, Etie, Boucheron sort of). Firene has perhaps the biggest problem of having so many gimmicks done so close together. There is still a lot of depth in those supports still (notably in the A levels after many might have given up, such as Alfred-Etie, Alfred-Celine, Celine-Alear, etc). I don't really have a defense for this, but I do understand why especially early on it would cause people to write off the cast of the game. It didn't bother me much maybe because I benched everyone but Alfred and Louis right away (I needed to keep Clanne and Framme around, they're really funny lol).

But overall I didn't mind any of the characters for their gimmicks besides Seadall (his disordered eating being treated as a joke was just extremely offputting and it was really 50/50 on whether a support might focus on it) and Goldmary (she is just an asshole and to me it wasn't funny, not every joke will land for everyone I suppose).

The cast felt extremely likeable and well-rounded. I will sound like a broken record here, but again they really reminded me of what I enjoyed about the FE8 cast. Just pretty much all likeable and good characters.

Chapter V: Everything Else

Here's like everything else that comes to mind but I don't have enough in my brain to properly write sentences on them and I kind of want to be done with this lmao:

Yes, I think it's a little silly how some characters manage to get away without the game directly stating how. Alear and co are nice and not brutal so you can assume they allowed the escape, but it's still weird at times. Poorly choreographed.

I will never unironically use the term "ludonarrative" (no shade if you do, but it's not me). However the introduction of the Lucina ring bringing back hope to the crew while being a supportive ring for gameplay purposes and all is just really special stuff. It's good. Similarly, the ring you get at the end of chapter 17 is an amazing moment.

I'm not particularly bothered by the rings being former characters. I don't feel they were used poorly or anything. They're wise old heroes helping the new gen, and they serve that purpose well. Only Marth has a bit more to him than that due to his history with Alear, and I think it plays out well without being reliant on prior knowledge. Again very sorry to Eirika fans, I've seen the essays there on the inaccuracies and you're all valid.

The time travel is very clean and properly defined imo. Much more limited than in Three Houses in-universe which is good, however the best explanation for the rewinds will continue to be Mila's Turnwheel (in that there is no time travel, just some premonitions that allow the characters to evade danger).

I love Pandreo and Zelkov so much. Oh my god. They're so funny and just good men. Excellent dudes. Amber, Rosado, YUNAKA. The cast is just lovely. I love them.

Sommie is so cute for real. Just brilliant idea to include a nice pet for your home base. If anything, they should have given it more wigs for the main royals or some of the emblems. Also Sommie is totally the Zero Emblem.

Chapter VI: Conclusion

Let me get TMI here. I do understand that personally I experience and perceive emotions in an unusual way compared to most people. I've not been diagnosed with anything specific to that level of wiring (just OCD and anxiety), and as far as I feel it doesn't seem necessary. But it is what it is, and I am who I am. Maybe all of this is pointless to write and it truly is just a matter of taste and personal emotional expectations. I don't know. I just know I liked the game, and what worked on me really worked. Hope this was fun to read even if it doesn't give any particular insight.

I did not intend to compare any other FEs in this piece mainly because it's not about them. Legit sorry if I inadvertently cause some sort of discourse.

tl;dr It's Peak Fiction™