#fe16 imagine

[cparas-art]

Reunited

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[spadefish]

Steward, Jarl, Housecarl

[tiabwwtws-art]

FEH nonsense

[fayesdiary]

Rhea for the "send me a character" w/ the "first impression, impression now, etc." ask game!

Cringefail pope my beloved💚

First impression

The days of 3H pre-release are long gone, but from what I remember I didn't think much of her beside her being another Mikoto archetype which I didn't have any interest in. (especially because this was back when I was still on Reddit and by extension the Fates Bad™ circlejerk)

Then I think I remember seeing a screenshot of an official tweet that went something like "fight/destroy the Church of Seiros in Fire Emblem Three Houses" (nevermind it happens in only one of the four routes and the most villainous one at that) so I was something like "welp. guess she's the villain of another Evil Religion™, whatever."

Impression now

fgdgdfgdfgdfgsdfgshfgifuhg

She's my favorite Fodlan character, something I never saw coming.

While I have my issues with how she's treated as a character (mainly being relegated to the red herring for Edelgard in Part 1 and the late Nabatean infodump only to then die in Part 2. You know, when she's not completely absent or treated as the scapedragon. In general she's treated with the "tell don't show" approach Fodlan writing loves) they are definitely mitigated by all the small details that make her so interesting. And while I find her lack of spotlight and moments where she shines at her best incredibly frustrating, I'll admit that digging beneath the surface and starting to see who she actually is as a person is quite fun in its own right.

She's a truly kindhearted, deeply flawed and quite cringe woman. Of course I love her.

Favorite moment

Funnily enough, her weed quest. Not just because the sheer concept of the pope indirectly giving weed to her students is hilarious, but because if you look closer you'll notice that every herb she gives seems to fit the specific students a bit too well to be a coincidence (for example Bernadetta's herb is said to give her the courage to strike a conversation, Marianne's gives her a more positive outlook on life and Ignatz's boosts his self-confidence).

This shows that while she feels unable to get close to the students on a deeper level, she's clearly paying enough attention to them to know the general things they struggle with and tries to secretly help them, and it's really sweet!

Idea for a story

I've been entertaining the idea of a Silver Snow rewrite (AKA a scenario where getting an A support with her changes the entire route instead of just the ending) where Rhea is rescued early and becomes the de-facto lord. Featuring character development where she finally starts to actually talk to the students and her loved ones, Dimitri in a secondary role because I think the dynamic between her and early-timeskip Dimitri, not to metion in a context where Edie's already dead, has some insane potential (also makes for a nice foil to CF).

Also changing from her requirement to survive from being A Rank with Byleth to being A rank with all of her support partners. AKA overcoming her fatal flaw allows her to not only survive, but live.

Basically her learning to stop compulsively keeping secrets, openly talk and get close to others again and rely on other people on a deeper level. You know, the good stuff!

Don't count on it ever actually getting written beyond a few posts though. I know my limits :(

Favorite relationship

Romantically with Catherine, platonically with Cyril!

Unpopular opinion

I mean, this is Rhea we're talking about.

Liking her to begin with and not treating her like she's responsible for everything wrong in Fodlan is already unpopular to begin with.

Also people severely overestimate the political power she actually has.

Favorite headcanon

As a joke headcanon: Rhea has been every single archbishop in the past as well, so to keep humanity from finding out she's a dragon she faked her death every few decades... in increasingly ridiculous ways.

It got to the point where the Seiros faithful believe the position of Archbishop is cursed, and whenever people act concerned about her because of it Rhea is grateful for it but at the same time is internally laughing her ass off.

[askferdinandvonaegir]

Clown. Juggle for me

Why do you call me a clown, in such a derogatory manner? I am no clown. I also do not know how to juggle, so I could not juggle for you if I wanted to.

[usaigi]

you know what, I'm just going to hype my own fic. I'm going to post the next chapter on Monday 2/26 so until then I'm going to yap about it.

It's a Dimileth (plus Rhea) fic so unfortunately Shez doesn't play a huge role. But, I find their dynamic hilarious and had to include it somehow. I just think it would be funny for Shez to have such an intense one side rivalry with a girl who doesn't even know his name. Shez is over here writing "I hate the ashen demon" with little heart all over his notebook meanwhile Byleth is like "I hate to say it, I hope I don't sound ridiculous, I don't know who this man is. I mean, he could be walking down the street, I wouldn't… I won't know a thing. Sorry to this man."

[dazzlerazz]

You think Ashe would read all throughout his breaks and well into the night via candlelight?

[onyxedskies]

actually ashe is a swimmer

[violasgamingpalace]

Been theory crafting a version of Three Houses where Byleth makes the route choice at Chapter 12 instead of the prologue, and as part of that imagining the students picking their professor instead of the professor picking the house they want to teach. This is my attempt at figuring out your starting class. Wanted to keep characters similar to their canon personalities. (not the biggest three houses nerd so let me know if you disagree on placements)

Hanneman's Class

Linhardt- Crest research

Edelgard- crests research

Hubert- follows edelgard, but hanneman also knows reason magic.

Claude- Hanneman because he figures he'll learn the most secrets that way? (I'm sorry but no way he picks Byleth, merc knows NOTHING)

Hilda- follows Claude

Annette-Has a support with Hanneman?

Mercedes - Wants to go Hanneman to be with Annette

Ignatz-is here to be a Knight and Hanneman could help with that???

Manuela's Class

Ferdinand- looks up to Manuela

Dorothea- looks up to Manuela even more, obvious choice.

Lythesia- no to hanneman for crests, She likes Faith, so Manuela.

Lorenz- Noble man wants to go Hanneman, but does have support with Manuela? And means he can be with Ferdinand.

Dimitri-goes Manuela to follow Ingrid/Sylvain

Ingrid-manuela, I guess? No knight professor

Sylvain- Manuela? I guess? He has a support and does auto-join F/Byleth. Sylvain wanting to see boobs brings the Blue Lion friend group along

Caspar-Manuela, but just to have a place to be

Byleth's Class

Petra- Sword connection, and dont think petra REALLY would learn much from other profs?

Bernie- too anxious to sign up, so ends up with Byleth

Raphael- forgets to go to signups, Byleth it is!

Leonie- Byleth for sure. Jeralt connection and she wants to be a Merc.

Dedue-Wants to go Manuela to Follow Dimitri but the school said the class was full (Feels vaguely racially motivated)

Felix-Byleth no question

Ashe-no Knight professor, but Ashe is just happy to be here, doesnt really care about professor.

Marianne- Horse girl wants to go with Hannerman but crests are to blame for going Byleth

Things I like- Wanted the Byleth class to feel like the weirdo group with very little going for them, and thats def this class. Everyone is either anti-social, a commoner with low expectations, or racially marked as other. Now white clouds focuses on you replacing them by recuiting the elite of fodlan society teaching to your student's strengths and making them capable.

Three black Eagles in class ensues that Byleth will have to fight their old students if they go on most routes, and if they go Black Eagles they'll still fight old students they taught

Ashe in class for Lonato Chapter

Things i dont like- skill proficiency wasnt set up with this in mind. While we have 1 tank and 1 mage, no one else can REALLY be trained as a reason mage, we have fourish archers, twoish lance users, two speedy sword users (three if ashe goes thief!), and a lot of units that want to go riding.

Its really hard to imagine Dimitri being so casually cruel to Dedue. Maybe we get a scene where Dimitri heroically sacrficies hanging out with Sylbain and Ingrid so Dedue can be with Manuela for a bit?

Edelgard and claude in the same class despite their total lack of connection. But! Edelgard and Hilda in the same class? Let us see how much Hilda HATES edelgard. It would be funny.

[prnsn001]

Battlefield 'Detachment'; Redemption Reapers

[randomnameless]

Uncle Arundel, before being body-snatched, spearheaded the Insurrection of the Seven, with Vestra and Aegir iirc.

Given how he made sure to secure Supreme Leader and Anselma to Faerghus, aka a place Ionius would never be able to reach (since apparently he can waltz in Leicester, experiment on members from an important house, and return home without any consequences).

Now, we know the Insurrection started because Ionius wanted to centralise power on himself, and remove privileges accorded to the consort kin like... Volkhard himself (who's the bro of a consort). I already mentionned how those privileges were most likely checks to prevent Ionius from, uh, seducing a woman, then throwing her away thus ruining both her and her family - given how Volkhard spirited Anselma and Supreme Leader away, was he afraid for their safety... at Ionius' hands?

We won't know, because the Supreme narrative paints the Insurrection as "fatso's falt daddy did nothing wrong" and Fodlan is not interested in telling the truth about said insurrection (Vestra Sr is killed off-screen in both games, when Leopold'n'Waldemar don't even mention said Insurrection at all in Nopes) so we're left with fog...

But from what this fog seems to appear, it looks like Volkhard, before being Agarthan'd, was someone who wanted to protect his family, even if it meant challenging Ionius himself and seeking help in Faerghus.

As for what Supreme Leader would think of him... since Daddy's the Greatest Ever, Volkhard was trash to take her away, and even if he did it for her sake, I supposed she'd adopt some "Hubert in his Hanneman support" reasoning and call him trash, or either don't care, because her path and blah blah blah so Volkhard should never have turned against Ionius.

Cornelia seemed to have been someone who genuinely wanted to help people and did so, before being Cleo'd which is why, despite doing, uh, Cleobulus things, we still have people following her.

Tomas was indeed recommanded by House Ordelia, then returned to Ordelia around the time Ionius sent his besties there for science, and returned as Solon.

Tomas was supposed to be a kind librarian and all - and Solon at least pretended to be that "kind Tomas" because Cyril mentions once iirc that Tomas was always kind to him and gave him sweets or something?

Granted, given how we see Tomas try to suggest that Church BaD bcs the Immaculate One and Cardinals exist... Solon-Tomas' acts of kindness ultimately had another objective in mind.

But yeah, post game(s) no one cares about the real Cornelia, Volkhard or Tomas (or Monica but... Nopes kind of soured her to some people) and it's kind of sad that their names and legacy is thrown in the mud because of what the Agarthan did while wearing/using their bodies, but hey, it's not like someone knows about the bodysnatching or how Agarthans change their appearances and could have told people that those people weren't the same people as the hosts they've hijacked.

Shaking everything like you don't understand I hate how 3H does not CARE about the people who the Agarthans took the place of !!! I hate that no one grieves for Arundel, Cornelia or Tomas !!! I hate that all that will be remembered of them is their desecrated corpses moved around like puppets and vomiting the worst shit known to man because the Agarthans do not care !!! Even the ones who do some sliver of effort to act in a similar manner to the ones they stole the identity for !!!!

Arundel was probably truly one of the rare person who cared for Edelgard and no one will know it because he's DEAD and THALES took his place !!!! This is fucking insane to me !!!!!!!

[randomnameless]

Something pretty interesting I missed in my earlier Supreme Bullshit reading.

When Supreme Leader is upset at Lonato, she wonders if going to help him would be feasible, which leads to this convo with Hubert :

You want to save the man, Your Majesty? If I may, we would march all that way for...what, exactly?

Hubert, imo, thinks Lonato as basically already done and dead, Supreme Leader earlier was pissed at Lonato not following their plans, he acted on personal enemity and will most likely have to fight both the KoS and the Kingdom so...

Imagine the consequences of leaving him to die.

Here we have an example of the Supreme Leader who made this route, so interesting : it's not Hubert who has all the dastardry in their duo, Supreme Leader too, participates.

When KT forgets that they gave her a sailor fuku to be "more free", they write her to be in a similar vein as the other red Emperors like Arvis, or, Gustadolph from TS.

It's not "we must save him" or "we can't let him die", but Supreme Leader directly evacuates all that pathos, and thinks, rationally, about the consequences of leaving Lonato reap what he sowed.

We need our vassals to believe the Empire will always come to their aid. Always.

It's PR!

Going to save Lonato is not about Lonato himself, she can't give a fig about the dude, but it's all about public relationships and keeping a façade for her war of conquest : her vassals need to believe the Empire will always come to their aid.

Whether they actually do, or not, is irrelevant - they need to believe Adrestia is "trustworthy enough" to come to their help when called.

And the sheer "we need them to believe" coming from Supreme Leader herself? It's really neat, she's lying/manipulating the events to build a perfect image for her vassals, or the ones who will become her vassals (by choice).

Compare this to the Kingdom/Church "we need to help the ones who need help!" and here, instead, we have "we need to make people believe we're going to help them".

Lonato doesn't act following the plan ? It doesn't matter, Supreme Leader will seize this new opportunity to advance her own goals : aka, making people believe the Empire is "trustworthy" and "reliable".

Good. Now make our plans known to the others. I'm counting on you, Hubert.

What plans? The "we must rescue Lonato because he is our ally" or the true "we must pretend to rescue Lonato to make other nobles join our cause and believe in us"?

And what is intereting is how this exchange, of course, only happens when she is alone with Hubert.

In the following event, where Barney is here and they talk about their powers :

Ah, you should see the look on your face! Did Hubert threaten you? Don't let it get to you. Yes, he's quite good at that kind of thing, but it comes from a place of caution.

Hm... Sure. It's Hubert's way of caring I guess.

But then comes the manifesto :

I want to transform the world into a place where no one has to feel trapped by where they came from.

What's that about the place they come from? Aren't we later in this route trashtalking Annette and the Kingdom peeps because they believe in outdated values like chivalry and sacrifices to protect their loved ones?

When I am done, it won't matter where you are born, whose blood you have, or what powers course through you—everyone will be treated as equals.

When she means equals, she means people will "believe" everyone will be treated as equals, just like Lonato was supposed to "believe" Adrestia was coming to back him up and not just, play minimal part to guarantee their PR but not much more?

That's what we're fighting for, and that is what this war is going to achieve.

But Hubert said this war is a war of conquest ?

So believe me when I say this—I don't care who you are.

And yet Barney is still a nobody commoner, even if pal with the Emperor, when Linhardt is a general?

I only care about what you have done and what you have yet to do.

And what Barney can do with that power you said you don't give a crap about right? But what if Barney's abilities are basically the result of their weird powers, can we still say their power/abilities are irrelevant ?

And, hm, maybe someone can translate this for me ?

人の力に拠る未来を創るため、 すべて���犠牲を私は負って立つ！

She says this when she defeats 1k peons, and Googl'd it gives... "To create a future based on the power of people, I will bear all the sacrifices!" - so what this line about not giving figs about "what powers course through you everyone will be treated as an equal"? Could Amelie the lady from Mittelfrank who couldn't end up as a diva be treated like Leopold, or what?

--

Supreme Leader's words being treated as gospel is always imo hilarious, because Supreme Leader has some instances where, when KT's not busy dressing her up with some "Scarlet Blaze Power! Make Up!", she plays the role Arvis already played before her, the dastardly red emperor who manipulates and seizes every opportunity to reach her goals.

In Tru Piss we got the Javelins - but in Nopes? We get those "heart to heart" moments with Hubert that lampshade even more how much of an unreliable narrator Supreme Leader is - she still maintains care to have a level of PR and only confides to trusted people (yay Hubert!) or, in FE16, when, curiously, she has her mask on (Flamey doesn't need PR).

That's why we still have so many pretzels over Rhea's fate in Tru Piss, yes, Supreme Leader claims she wants to spare her when she adresses her in Firdhiad, in front of her allies and the people she has to lie to about her War.

But when she was with Billy? Nah, she can safely tell them that path lead to the death of Rhea and her people, something she rejoices about in their S support.

Too bad Nopes doubled down on "Sailor Adrestia" instead of giving us more of that "Arvis with a skirt" they teased us with (seriously that power move of betraying Rhea in the third chapter was just, that awesome from her part).

[airlock]

so I found myself thinking about Byleth

I should make myself clear: Byleth is not a character that I find interesting or compelling. thing is, though? the more I think about it, the more I realize that there's a point of view from which to argue... that making Byleth a boring character was a feat. an accomplishment in shitty writing that defies the sheer potential of the premise.

I'll start rambling under the cut

let's get one thing out of the way promptly: I am not, whatsoever, referring to the way that Byleth's Mute Protagonist Syndrome is diegetic and woven into, even justified by, the plot. this is not a new thing that Three Houses did. it is, in fact, an observable and increasingly common tendency in games these days, because audiences still generally like their silent protagonists, but not if they don't have some spark of actual character somewhere to distinguish them from the myriad other silent protagonists that the medium is peppered to the gills with. this is even, in fact, one of the things that draws comparisons to/accusations of bandwagonry of Persona 5, whose Joker is as silent his two predecessors in the series, but absolutely oozes personality through motion alone -- and is, multiple times in the story, described by others as quiet, but determined.

but if this isn't the part of Byleth's character that I'm referring to, then, well... what's left? but again: what I'm increasingly finding mystifying is the empty space that ended up where something more substantial would very easily have been. and it starts with this: Byleth is a teacher.

we never thought much of this idea, did we? the premise of Three Houses is that this is Fire Emblem, but (partially) in a school setting. obviously, if you're going to be inserted into that story in the role of strategical leader, a la Robin; if you're going to have mechanics that turn this school setting into the ultimate unit customization gameplay -- then making the player insert character a teacher is such an obvious idea, it borders on braindead, right.

well... is it actually that obvious?

there's an endlessly immense amount of media that takes place in a school setting -- but very little of that media is about school. which makes sense. school is, famously, not interesting. school is something that the primary target audience for media with school setting is actually looking for an escape from. school settings are relatable, but relatability without adventure is, what -- a sitcom? not even that. even mundane, slice-of-life stories draw their adventure from somewhere -- but studying for midterms is not an adventure that can trivially be rendered exciting to watch.

(in fact, even if we once again look at FE16's ostensible inspiration in Persona 5, we're not really looking at a school story. the first arc of Persona 5 is about school; after that, though, the plot's scope expands, and school becomes a small appendage of the game. Joker stops attending school altogether in the final arc (as he goes into hiding), and the only difference it makes is the removal of three minuscule and intermittent mechanics -- of which one is the commute.)

all of this is to say -- despite all of the school settings, how many modern stories do you know, where the main character is a teacher?

I'm not saying there are none, but I'm just saying, I can only think of three off the top of my head, and I never actually watched the other two.

makes sense, after all -- teachers are almost invariably satellite characters. if the story is absolutely only using school as set dressing, it will make the teachers uncomplicated and competent, the sort of person you can imagine putting in charge of children without scratching your head, barring maybe one funny quirky to prevent them from being completely boring. if the story does want to dig its fingers into the school life somewhat, then the natural move is to take a look into when relations between students and teachers are tense, whether it be because the teacher is in fact a cartoon villain, or because the teacher is not readily well-liked but has hidden depths. in every piece of this equation, though, the teacher is an Adult as seen from afar, and not the Human who must embody this Adult in spite of all the adversity.

Byleth, of all people, is put in the unique position of embodying that struggle. and that's not a peculiar reading of the text or a fanonical backfill; it's something that the game actually tries to pitch as a conflict, for a brief lull.

say we forget for a moment that Byleth is Byleth, and picture this: a story about a young manwomanthing, given work as a teacher because of the, let's call her that for simplicity, headmaster's ulterior motives. work that our womanmanthing keeps being told they can do just fine, because they have a relevant skill that they've honed and could instruct the students in -- but they're sheltered and inexperienced in much outside of that one skill, so being a guide to others is not something they ever imagined themself doing. as the days go by, though, they take to the role with a natural affinity, finding it even to be something of a true calling; indeed, the longer they put in the work, the more alive they feel. by teaching others, they become enlightened.

how did intsys manage to make that story suck?

[gascon-en-exil]

Camp/drag Ferdinand headcanons hit so much harder when nearly every single person who's played FE16 on Maddening has wished at least once that he had access to the genderlocked Falcon Knight class, due to its synergy with Swift Strikes. I know you don't play Maddening, but I figured you'd appreciate some story and gameplay integration to match your character readings. (Now, they say the same of Sylvain and Seteth too, for the same reasons, but I digress)

I also think one potentially underrated element of FE16 trans headcanons is how name changing is embedded into the culture of Garreg Mach. All the Nabateans at the Monestary use chosen names, as do several Knights of Seiros (Gustave and Cassandra) and Yuri in Abyss. So I could see Seteth giving a Trans Felix, for example, advice on choosing his name and making sure none of the other students deadname him. In addition to my "genderlocked classes as gender affirming care" headcanons.

I knew about the falcon knight thing in Maddening. It might also apply to Dimitri even if he doesn't get Swift Strikes, since male characters don't really have a solid option for a lance-using master class. In 100% that's great knight since it has both Lancefaire and the +3 skill bonus, but it's outclassed by paladin in any scenario where you don't care about grinding up heavy armor.

I'm sure there are Houses fics out there that work with the game's worldbuilding when coming up with trans headcanons. Just looking, there are nearly 600 fics in the trans Felix tag on AO3 alone, so there's lot of room for variation. It's just that it's also a lot of smut...which I don't consider a bad thing, to be clear. Smut is good; I'm currently publishing some myself, in fact. It just depends on what you're looking to get out of fic.

One last comment: I really appreciate you and all of your commentary, both on Tumblr and YouTube. You're really cool and insightful and interesting, and I REALLY hope your YouTube and Patreon really take off. I can only imagine how filled your inbox and comments sections are with negativity and... unsolicited grindr-adjacent messages? But I swear you're reaching way more than just trolls!

Thanks, but the trolls have never bothered me. I learned years ago that if you get even slightly popular anywhere on the internet you're bound to attract people who don't like you. Best to just have a laugh at them where it's warranted, and move on. Houses fandom has been especially vitriolic compared to others I've been in, but after nearly five years even the more toxic elements have lost a lot of steam.

[randomnameless]

Jumping in,

I know AM ends with Dimitri trying to take her hand but come on, I'm not talking about Dimitri from the debate club offering his hand to someone who beat him last semester.

Dimitri is the leader of the allied forces who bonded together and revolted against her imperial subjugation of Fodlan that lasted 5 long years and killed thousands.

Even if Elincia offered her hand to Ashnard and, assuming he hit his head on a rock, he accepted - what was going to happen next? Letting him scot-free? Wouldn't Dheginsea immediately call for him to be brought to Goldoa to be Ire'd to oblivion for destroying his family? Would Tibarn offer him fruits and nuts after witnessing Gritnea? Hell, how would random Crimeans/Begnion/Laguz people react?

Back to @slotumn's post, while Nopes gives the AG cast some semblance of what you mentionned, aka self-awareness that they are invading and Adrestians will most likely despise them for generations to come (even if, iirc, the plot tells us that apparently Adrestia became a lawless place where people are killing each other because Agarthans are promoting chaos and destruction or something??) the game encourages the player can compare their reaction to the ones the Deers and the Eagles have in their respective routes (special mention to Lorenz who wants to visit the Firdhiad's School of Sorcery, as he is invading the capital!).

But I agree that there's no way the war can end without any "counter-invasion" or at least taking the capital/seat of the Red Empire who invaded.

AM (and FE16 in general) can't be assed with showing and telling us how characters feel about invading lands, or how the ones being invaded feel, but AG does (a little bit, we're still in a Fodlan game after all!), and yet, fwiw, I'm pretty sure the random Adrestians in AM also feel the same as they do in AG regarding the Kingdom's forces.

I mean, the Kingdom, in both routes, rolls over Adrestia and heads to Enbarr.

The only difference is the focus... on Supreme Leader.

AM!Dimitri doesn't want to kill her while AG!Dimitri dgaf about Lobotogard.

Guess which one is ultimately called the "Saviour King" and which one is a "worse version" of himself since he wasn't enlightened by the Goddess' avatar?

Honestly I think one thing a lot of 3H fans, especially the ones I suspect are American, underestimate is: how badly attacking and taking over another country will sour that population's opinion on you.

Doesn't matter how righteous the cause is. Doesn't even matter if it was a counter-invasion to another invasion/aggression. If you invade another country and bring bloodshed to their soil, people there will fucking hate you. Maybe they'll also blame their leaders for being incompetent or losing too, but they will definitely hate the invaders. Even if they understand that not all the people from the other country supported the war, whichever leader was heading the assault will be despised for decades to come, if not centuries.

And I know canon endings themselves push for this/not everyone wants to see or depict the more fucked up parts of losing a war/people can make whatever fanworks they want and blah blah blah, but the whole "my fave wins (militarily) and everyone on the continent more or less accepts their rule bc they're obviously morally correct" thing is like

no they fucking wouldn't.

They really, really, wouldn't.