#fire emblem doesn't let me do that much | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

panda-writes-kpop · 10 months ago

Text

twin flames ~ yours is bright, mine is smoldering - ng. y.

a/n: apologies for the thirteen day wait between the two fics - within that time, I got obsessed with and then finished one route of Fire Emblem: Three Houses (golden deer house my beloved), got sick and had to call off one day of work, had a family member experience a medical emergency, and then had to prepare for another college semester and an internship as well. I'm... tired to say the least. gonna take a few days to mentally regroup and then I'll get to requests and anon asks, I swear. ❤️ also last pirate! aespa fic wooo!! loved writing these four fics so much 🥹

tw: mentions of alcohol, violence, and weapons, but reader doesn't partakes in anything, reader is bad at their job but it's kind of charming, reader's a jailor but one that's actually doing their job of reforming their prisoners

related fics: Oh Captain, My Captain, Second Chances, your home is the sea, my home is you

summary: ningning, the famed mercenary, is caught by winter's pirate crew after a botched attempt on winter's life. after she's caught, she's your prisoner - and you're nothing like she expects.

♡ Masterlist ♡

“Bombs away!”

The sound of revelry, fighting, and pirating comes from the upper deck as you sit, alone, in one of the lower deck cabins. You sigh, fidgeting with the key in your hands, as you admire the empty jail cell across from you.

Being the ship’s only jailor could be considered a lonely, miserable job, but you didn’t see it that way. It wasn’t like you weren’t a fan of your fellow crewmates, but combat was not your strong suit; therefore, your Captain, Winter, had found a suitable job for you.

“I need someone to watch any captives that we take.” She explained as she took you to the lower deck, where the holding cell was.

“And you want me to do this? What if I have to physically restrain them, or if they try to escape-”

“-they’ll be disarmed before they get to you, I’ll make sure of it.” Winter reassures you with a hand on your shoulder. “You belong here, just as much as the rest of my crew. I want to make sure that my crewmates are in suitable positions for their talents. If this doesn’t work out for you, then we’ll look at other options.”

You scoff at the memory, as if any of Winter’s other options were any better - scrubbing the decks and scrounging dinner from food scraps weren’t jobs that you were keen to take.

She was right, however, this position suited you, oddly enough. Most of the prisoners, if you could call them that, weren’t particularly violent. They were resigned to their fates, and you often found yourself trading stories with them once they realized you wouldn’t rip their tongue out for looking at you the wrong way.

Cruelty wasn’t your style, anyway. It might be the way of the pirates, or your Captain at times, but it didn’t have to consume you as it did to some of your other crewmates. Sure, Winter course-corrected when they went too far, but those occasions were few and far between.

Somehow, through meaningless chatter, you managed to convince a few prisoners to join your crew - with your Captain’s permission, of course.

“I knew you were made for this,” Winter offers you a proud smile, “and I knew my plan would work. It was never simply about holding them in a cell, after all.”

“I’m not just a jailer to you, am I?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Nothing would prepare you for the woman who would be carried through your door on this night, after the fighting above you had ceased.

“Let me… go!” Ningning weakly cries out as a pirate holds both of her arms behind her back.

She struggles against their iron grip, but they don’t even budge as another pirate ties her hands together with a spare piece of rope.

Think, Ningning, you’ve been in worse binds than this. How can I make it out of this in one piece?

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite rogue mercenary!” Winter says with a bit too much cheerfulness in her voice.

“Minjeong.” Ningning growls as she stares at a plank on the main deck.

I will not give her the satisfaction of seeing me beaten and bruised, within her clutches.

“No one calls me that, not anymore.” Winter shakes her head as she approaches Ningning from the captain’s quarters. “How much did your guild pay you for my head?”

Ningning stays quiet as Winter places her hand on the mercenary’s cheek.

“Don’t touch me!” She yells and thrashes around, but it’s no use.

That pirate must be inhuman, to resist someone of my strength and fighting prowess!

When she tires herself out, Winter roughly grabs Ningning’s chin and forces her to look her in the eyes.

“You’ll talk soon enough, believe me.” Winter smirks to herself. “Take her downstairs to see my friend.”

“You won’t get anything out of me!” Ningning yells as she’s carried away. “I’d rather die than give away my secrets!”

“Death is the easy way out, Yizhuo.” Winter chuckles as Ningning shivers at the mention of her name. “What? You’re not the only one who’s done a bit of digging.”

“I will have your head one day, I swear!” Ningning screams before she’s dragged down to the lower deck.

To meet my torturer, of course.

You find yourself nearly falling asleep as a loud knock on your door brings you back to the world of the conscious.

“What is it?” You mumble as you rub the sleep out of your eyes.

“We have a prisoner!”

“Fuck.” You grumble as you quickly open and clean the cell in front of you. “You may enter!”

You nervously stand by the door as two of your crewmates enter with a black-haired woman in their grip. Her hands are tied behind her back, but they’re still holding on to her for dear life.

She must be an assassin or a mercenary of some sort. The crafty type, by the look of her.

The woman looks you in the eyes for a moment, trying to read your emotions and intentions in one go.

Good luck with that.

“You…” She mumbles as the two pirates set her in the cell and close the door behind her.

“Yes, me, that’s who you’re stuck with.” You crack a small joke as you lock the cell door from the outside.

“I could kill you.”

“Let’s hope you don’t, huh?” You smile as the key slips into your pocket. “Oh, and don’t try to escape, this cell was built by our genius Captain.”

“Genius?” The mercenary looks astounded. “She’s a liar, a thief, a murderer-”

“-Everyone’s done those first two things once in their lives, and Winter, to my knowledge, has not murdered anyone that hasn’t tried to kill her first.” You feel the need to defend your Captain, as she would fiercely defend her crew without hesitation.

The mercenary pauses as an argument dies on her lips – she’d be a hypocrite to argue any further, as someone who has done quite a bit of lying, thieving, and murdering.

As the two of you talk, the two pirates quietly exit the room. You find yourself enjoying the comfortable silence as you look back to your dinner. It hadn’t struck your fancy, especially since the ebb and flow of the ocean waves made you a little nauseous, so you decide to extend an olive branch to the imprisoned woman in front of you.

“Here, take this. It’ll be a long night for the both of us.” You hand her the plate along with a wooden fork and knife (one that couldn’t be used as a lockpick, you and Winter had both tried and failed).

She lets out a dry laugh as she grabs the bars of her cell.

“Why would you do this? Why would you offer me food when I just tried to kill your captain?”

You stand, unwavering, with the same brilliant smile as always.

“Everyone deserves kindness.”

Everyone deserves kindness.

Ningning was scared of you. When she looked you in the eyes, she didn’t see the hatred, anger, or disdain that most people held for mercenaries like her; instead, she saw empathy and the smallest shred of curiosity in your eyes.

Curiosity about a killer? Seems ironic.

That curiosity is what gets you killed in her line of work. You stick to what you know, and you get the job done.

Well, curiosity wouldn’t hurt her when she was already in prison, so she decided to indulge her curiosities for one night.

One night to stay here and plan my escape.

What intrigued Ningning the most about you was your behavior as a jailer. You weren’t trying to physically torture her with knives or water, as she was used to, nor were you trying to push her to mental collapse with starvation or a lack of proper rest.

You, instead, were the least intimidating person she had ever met as you peacefully slept on your cot. She could’ve easily, if she had her knife and a hair pin, picked the lock, sliced your throat open, and then went on her merry way.

But you had the smallest bit of trust in her, enough to give her food when you had just met.

What is wrong with you?

She asks herself about you, as well as her own thoughts.

You chuckle as you spot the girl peacefully sleeping on the floor of the cell.

I’d offer her my bed if I was more sure that she wouldn’t kill me.

After a quick midnight nap, you had awoken to your hunger and the curious sight of a sleeping mercenary in front of you.

As to not disturb her, you carefully crawl out of your cot so as to not make a noise. Your feet gently brush against the ground before you fully commit and plant both of your feet down.

A small creak rings out in your cabin, but the mercenary shows no sign of waking up soon.

Good. She’ll need her rest if she’s not used to the sea life.

Someone knocks on your door once, pauses, then knocks three more times in succession.

A light smile appears on your face as you recognize the knocking pattern - a secret code for a friend who liked to visit you on occasion.

One knock, a pause, followed by three more knocks meant “Hello, may I come in?”

You respond with two quick knocks, a pause, then three more knocks: “Yes, you may, but I’m busy tonight.”

One knock.

“You sure?”

You knock back.

“I’m sure as shit.”

You open the door to see Giselle grinning back at you.

“You remembered the code.”

She looks pleased as you make room for her to enter.

“How could I forget? I helped you make it, after all.”

Giselle carefully observes the sleeping prisoner before softly chuckling.

“Hard to believe that this is the same girl that tried to kill Winter earlier.”

“I don’t think they are the same girl.” You quietly say as Giselle leans in to get a closer look at her.

“You think she’s putting on a mask?”

“It’s a hunch, really. You’d have to, in her kind of business.” You explain as Giselle nods along.

“Well, if anyone can get her to come around, it’s you.” Giselle presents you with a bundle of papers. “Here - it’s Winter’s research on the girl. Turns out that she’s been looking for Ningning for a long while. I just don’t see the merit in recruiting a girl who would happily remove your head from the rest of your body.”

“Winter’s mind works in mysterious ways.” You take the bundle of papers and set them on your cot.

A bit of night reading couldn’t hurt, I guess.

“I’ll drink to that.” Giselle shrugs before looking at the door. “I just finished polishing all of the weapons, and there’s a nice bottle of whiskey waiting for me in the my cabin-”

“-I’m alright, Giselle, but thank you.” You decline her invitation, but she doesn’t look surprised.

“A pirate who doesn’t drink, shoot a gun, or participate in any schemes. They should write a novel to dissect you because I certainly don’t understand you.”

You let out a hearty laugh before Giselle leaves you alone for the night.

“Be careful!” She says before closing the door.

“I will, I promise.”

“You’re strange.” Ningning comments as you stare out of the only window in the room. “What kind of pirate doesn’t carry a gun?”

“What kind of mercenary doesn’t know how to escape a jail cell without any help?” A teasing smile plays on your face as Ningning physically recoils.

Ouch.

“Shit, I didn’t mean it like that, I swear!” Your panic causes you to grab the bar cells in front of Ningning. “I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this… jailer thing.”

“I can tell.” Ningning dryly says. “Why does Winter trust you with this job? Did you pay her off?”

You have to repress a snort as you hide your smile with one of your hands, as the other continues to hold onto one of the bar cells.

“There’s no amount of money that could make her change her mind. It’d take divine intervention for that to happen.”

I remember Winter being like that when she was younger.

Ningning softly smiles.

“I remember her being like that in her youth.”

Your mouth hangs agape as you take in her words.

Did they not know? I thought it was in that bundle of papers that appeared two nights ago.

“I thought she told you-” Ningning gestures to the papers behind you, but you shake your head as you close your mouth.

“I didn’t want to read anything about you - I want to hear it directly from your lips.”

Something stirs with Ningning - compassion and camaraderie, perhaps?

You think differently than I do - interesting.

“I still think you’re strange - your behavior and your way of thinking.” Ningning repeats her earlier statement, desperate to get the conversation away from the secrets of her past.

“I suppose I’ll never change your mind, then?” You tilt your head at her.

The rare smile on Ningning’s face only grows bigger.

“Never.”

“Come on, up you go.”

It’s been a week since Ningning has been entrusted to your care - a long yet fruitful week of trying to pull any information from the girl in front of you.

You do have that handy bundle of research papers, but even hours of research can’t explain why Ningning chose to be a mercenary, why she chose to attack your captain last week, or why she’s so tight-lipped about any information pertaining to her at all.

Odder still, your Captain won’t tell you a word about her past with Ningning. Any account of their earlier interaction when Ningning was captured would tell you that they seemed to know each other, despite referring to each other as strangers.

What’s going on here? Why won’t either of them tell me the truth?

If there was one thing you could do, despite any limitation, it was getting answers to unsolvable questions. You would get one of them to crack, Ningning or Winter, so you could figure out what was going on between them, or rather, what had happened between them.

A bit of shock therapy is in order, then.

Ningning looks at you in shock as you pull yourself out of your thoughts.

“What do you mean, ‘up you go’?”

“We’re taking a trip around the ship, so you should prepare yourself.” You play with the keys in your hand for a moment. “Hope you have your sea legs.”

“You think I won’t kill you?” The surprise in her voice is evident as you unlock the door.

“It’s more of a hope, really.” You move out of the way as Ningning gets up from the floor and approaches you.

Her eyes meet yours as the distance between you closes. One of her hands lingers behind her back as she stands mere inches from your chest.

Have I made a mistake? Was I too trusting? Is this my bitter end?

“You’re lucky I like you.” She quietly confesses before pulling a wooden knife from behind her back and handing it to you.

“I…” You pause while looking down at the knife in your hand. “You didn’t?”

“Why would I?” She smiles softly. “You have somewhere to take me, right?”

“Winter’s going to fucking kill you.” Giselle emphasizes the potential murder that may happen, as if you weren’t aware of the potential risk of your plan.

“I need answers, and someone has to start talking.” You shrug before grabbing Ningning’s arm with your hand. “C’mon, it’s time that you, the captain, and I had a chat.”

Giselle chuckles as you climb the stairs to the upper deck.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you about Winter.”

“Don’t say you didn’t warn them about me?” Winter parrots as she stands at the top of the stairs.

“Nope, fuck this.” Giselle quickly gets out of dodge as you haul Ningning up the stairs.

You can’t read the expression on her face but you can tell that she’s hesitant about this.

She’s not used to her secrets being out in the open, out of her control. Can’t blame her though - secrecy is how she keeps her head as a mercenary.

“I can’t say I’m surprised at this.” Winter offers you a weak smile. “I thought you’d connect the dots and come to see me sooner.”

“I respected my captain’s privacy until I had concerns on behalf of my prisoner.” You look over to Ningning, who glares at Winter.

“I’ll talk to you,” She stares down Winter before looking at you, “both of you, in private. Not out here - there’s too many eyes and ears for my liking.”

“Alright, you have my word. I’ll lead the way.”

Winter’s quarters are a bit cozier than you remember - an improvement made by their partner and first mate. A small candle that smells of lavender sits in the middle of Winter’s desk, along with a few maps scattered around the table.

You let go of Ningning’s arm as you sit down on the left of your captain, but her hand quickly finds yours as she takes a seat on your left. You bite your lip before hiding your interconnected hands under the table - you don’t need your captain getting the wrong idea, after all.

She won’t sit next to Winter. The bad blood between them runs deep.

“So…” Winter trails off before grabbing a glass of brandy. “Where do we start?”

“I don’t want to talk to you. I want to tell the truth.” Ningning harshly replies as Winter offers you a glass of brandy.

You shake your head before passing it to Ningning, who happily sips from the cup with her free hand.

She’s cute when she’s not insulting me or my friends.

You allow the thought to quickly pass by your mind - now’s not the time for those types of thoughts.

“You never were one to talk about your feelings.” Winter shrugs before taking a sip from her glass. “Why don’t I go first?”

“Why, so you can try to justify why you left me with those people?”

Your eyes widen as you look between the two girls. Ningning, who looks oddly justified by this reveal, and Winter, who’s trying to gauge your reaction as you’re trying to find hers.

Why is she worried about what I think? Is this about her past?

“Yes, your dear Captain,” Ningning spits out, “was a mercenary. A damn good one, before she up and left me. She stole from them too, and guess who took the blame for that? A person near and dear to her heart that she once called a friend.”

“I-” Winter looks away in shame as you look up to the ceiling.

I feel like I’m intruding on something that should be said in confidence.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what they did to you after I left.” Winter quietly says as she stares into her glass of brandy. “That’s why I left, you know. I couldn’t take the cruelty of it all. Satisfied, Ningning?”

“I should be,” Ningning takes a deep breath, “but I’m not. I imagined this exact conversation happening over and over, and yet-”

“-it wasn’t how you hoped it would go?” You finish her thought as she nods.

“I thought that it’d happen with a knife to her throat,” Ningning continues, “but I never could’ve killed her. Not you, Minjeong. No matter how much I hate you, I can’t find it in my heart to kill you. I had so many opportunities to kill you when I snuck onto this ship, but the only moment I could truly do so was when you turned your back. To watch life leave your eyes… it would’ve been torture.”

“I knew you didn’t want to kill me, and I didn’t want to torture you for your-” Winter pauses in thoughtful contemplation, “our betrayals of each other.”

“So what now?” Ningning asks as she squeezes your hand for comfort.

“We start over, as friends, and this all stays between the three of us.” Winter looks at you. “Has your curiosity been satisfied?”

“Most definitely.” You give her a teasing smile as she nods.

“I figured, but let’s make this all official.” Winter stands and walks over to Ningning.

She offers the mercenary her hand - an olive branch.

“Come join my crew. Start anew. You won’t have to go back to those mercenaries, I promise. We’ll take care of you.”

“You promise?” Ningning lets go of your hand before her hand hovers over Winter’s hand.

“My word’s as good as my gold.” Winter smiles as the other girl shakes her hand.

“I’ll join your crew, but there’s only one thing I ask.”

“Anything, Ningning, name it.”

“They,” Ningning points an accusing finger at you, “have to learn how to fight with weapons.”

“Did you really have to sign me up for fighting lessons?” You whine as Ningning settles herself in her new quarters.

“Can’t have someone I care about getting hurt, can I?” She chuckles to herself as you fold your arms in protest.

“First off, I can fight with a knife just fine, and secondly, when did you start caring about me?” You ask half-heartedly, hoping that she won’t joke with you just this once.

“When you started caring for me first.” She shrugs before walking towards you.

“I can’t believe I got you to care about me after you threaten to kill me.” You tease as her eyes meet yours.

“Neither can I,” She says before leaning in to whisper in your ear, “but fate must’ve had something different in mind for both of us.”

With a quick kiss to your cheek, Ningning leaves her room while leaving you in shock.

She… kissed me?

“Wait, that’s not how you did your work as a mercenary, right?” You call down the hallway, which only causes her to loudly laugh. “Answer me, Ningning!”

Although she’s (hopefully) tugging at your heartstrings, you can’t help but want to know more about Ningning. She’s a treasure trove of secrets and stories, waiting to be uncovered.

Maybe, in time, you’ll get around to telling her some of your secrets as well.

97 notes · View notes

pumpkin-chairs · 2 months ago

Text

My girlfriend agreed to let me play fire emblem awakening for her tonight so to celebrate let's break out my second ina11 au where I just assigned fire emblem awakening classes to the characters I like !

Endou - lord

Kidou - tactician

Gouenji - great knight

Fubuki - manakete

Aphrodi - dancer

Sakuma - taguel idk I can kinda see it

Genda - Griffon rider

Fudou - dark knight

Hiroto - Pegasus knight previously dark flyer/wyvern rider

Midorikawa - cleric previously dark mage

Kazemaru - thief

Tachimukai - armored knight

Tsunami - myrmidon

Burn & gazel - our 2 cavaliers

Haruna - bow knight

Aki - mage

Natsumi - troubadour

Shindou - tactician

Tenma - lord

Tsurugi - great knight

Kariya - dark mage

Kirino - mage

Ibuki - mercenary

Yukimura - manakete

Taiyou - falcon knight

Hakuryuu - myrmidon

Shuu - hear me out dark knight

Fei - wyvern rider

Saru - taguel

Nosaka - lord

Nishikage - great knight

I haven't finished Orion yet so I don't have everything but my friend and I talked specifically about nosaka and nishikage so they made the list

Which brings me to some headcanons I have made for some of the characters, nothing crazy as of yet

Yuuka was raised in the castle alongside Gouenji and Endou bc Endou is basically Chrom, so she's kind of like the unofficial princess everyone loves her

Hiroto and Midorikawa were raised in an orphanage operated by a fell church and Hiroto was adopted by the head priest while midorikawa was raised in the church to become a priest, so when Endou and co absolved the church they decided to go with them bc they know stuff about fell dragon revival rituals

Tenma is Endou's son but doesn't know it and he starts out as a villager turned lord (who's his other parent? That's between Endou and the gods) and yes this does make Haru his younger brother

Ibuki is Haruna's kid I'm sorry I make the rules she gives single mom vibes

Nosaka is a half human half fell dragon prince that is dying bc of the fell dragon blood in his body. He is not recruitable you do have to kill him and yes you will be sad about it

Aphrodi comes from a people that worship the dragons and believes he can become closer to divinity through dance

Kariya is suspicious of his parents being okay with him being a dark mage and tries to pry into their past because why does Midorikawa know so much about how to be safe about using dark magic

Kirino is Kazemaru's kid my friend suggested it and they are correct

Yes I know manaketes are female only but have you considered I like to fuck around. Fubuki left the dragons bc he didn't want to just take care of temples all day

If I had the ability I would totally make like a ina11 version of fe:a bc it's my favorite game to ever exist. Okay sorry for rambling again bye !!

#inazuma eleven galaxy #inazuma eleven #inazuma 11 #ina11 go #ina11 #inazuma eleven go #momo's au's #fire emblem #fire emblem awakening #i have too many thoughts please help me #if anyone has class suggestions for their favorite ina11 character id love to hear it

17 notes · View notes

hulloitsdani · 6 months ago

Note

I have another thought bunny or rat and it involved lif from book 3

So assuming from book 3 we know that his summoner die being Kiran fire emblem heroes or whoever you name the summoner do you think it's oddly suspicious that we never even fight the undead version of the summoner other than the fact that the summoner feature would be in book 4 but not counting the meta reason to me it doesn't make sense that hel the literal goddess of the death can't make the summoner rise from the dead because to me it will be good to mess with alfonse and give lif more of a chain to kill the askr tro to fullfil lifs contract

It's almost like lif thought his summoner is dead but for all we know his summoner could be back at their own world alive in some pocket dimension or whatever

Something to think about

*cracks knuckles* Book 3 rambles let’s go.

So, to answer your question, no. I don’t think it’s particularly odd. In text, it’s implied that Líf and Thrasir technically haven’t “died.” They were the sole survivors of the blood rite, made their deal with Hel, and she has run them both ragged ever since. She hasn’t granted them rest. The only time they truly achieve it is when our heroes finally put them out of their misery and THEN Hel raises their empty bodies (found in Ch13 Part 3). Our heroes kill them once more and then their torment is finally over.

This does raise a question however; what happened to everyone else when the blood rite was activated? Does Hel not have control over them? Well, on an in-story level, I imagine the magic rite used to create a weapon powerful enough to kill Hel wouldn’t also give Hel more power. It is death she cannot use, because all those souls are being used to power the weapon. It’s why it killed everyone and everything around it. It needed them as fuel. This would explain why Kiran might not exactly be available— in activating the blood rite, they were killed by it first.

But then, on a writing level, each season of FEH has a limited run time and they only include so much. By opening that particular Pandora’s box, you would be calling for answers for everyone in the cast. If this world’s Kiran is still here, even if it’s just their empty body, then where is Anna? Where is Sharena? Hell, is Bruno around? This is not a bad thing per se, but it would require a lot more words, more art/resources, and potentially snipe the effectiveness of how crippling alone this Alfonse and Veronica are. In my opinion, it’s a smart decision to leave it as is. All we need to know is that they’re dead, they all failed, and Líf and Thrasir are DESPERATE to fix this. It’s a lot more sad that way! Which is good! No need to hold back punches in the season about death.

Now, my personal brand of analysis loves treating Kiran as less of an avatar and more as an individual. Our pov character being the silliest little guy brings me joy. So, one of the reasons why I love thinking about Líf’s Askr is because the remains we find imply a Greek tragedy chain of events that culminated in Kiran of all people having to activate the blood rite. Based on what we know about these characters, that’s the last person they’d EVER want pulling the lever on that trolly problem. It’s not a fair ask! Kiran was ripped from their home, summoned to an alien world, asked to fight in wars on Askr’s behalf (they have never fought anyone in their life), and is now being asked to sacrifice themself and millions in order to maybe kill a goddess of death? No! That’s not fair! None of this is, but that’s a step too far. Asking for them to spill their blood in this way for a country that is not their own would be cruel. A blatant abuse of their generosity. These are not the types of a characters who would do that. I wouldn’t be surprised if despite the circumstances, there might have been an effort to find a way to send Kiran back once it was clear how screwed everyone was. No one wants to see them hurt. Everyone, but Alfonse in particular, makes it their mission to protect Kiran. So, for things to end this way, it would imply a lot of people being dead and million things having gone horrifically wrong.

It would imply Kiran, scared and alone in a Emblian blood temple, having to make an awful choice.

#feh Ted talk #A cute little mini one for the soul!#Man I should draw that scene in the blood temple. Twisting the knife on that sounds really fun.#feh #fire emblem heroes #fire emblem #feh kiran #kiran #feh summoner #fe kiran #fe summoner #ask answered #fe lif #FE Thrasir

33 notes · View notes

lena-cant · 2 years ago

Text

I started replaying fire emblem: path of radiance earlier this week after recently really only playing modern (awakening onward) FE for the past 5 years and it's really hitting home for me how much of modern fe's script is taken up by useless minutiae. camp conversations in por are the thing really hitting it for me. In more recent fe games, there's a lot of little bits of dialogue in the between-level hub but it rarely ever adds to our understanding of a character or interact with the story. It's just there because the characters are in the hub and therefore they need a sentence or two to say to the protag.

meanwhile path of radiance has these wonderful little conversations in the camp. they're not all like, peak fiction or anything but they almost always deliver on short nuggets of story that let you know how specific characters are reacting to what's going on in the story, or otherwise just something about them. I can count on my hands the amount of moments in three houses and engage where characters outside of the "main cast" of those games actually react to story events but they're doing it left and right in path of radiance.

this, along with the fact that most characters only have 3-5 supports means that the characters all feel sharper, more present, and like they're a part of the story. I'm not gonna pretend that every character in por is a masterful study or anything but even the weak characters in por feel less annoying than some of the strongest characters in three houses or engage because they're just inserted into the world more elegantly.

so much of the dialogue in the newer games just feels superfluous by comparison. xander doesn't have checks notes 12 romantic supports because the devs/writers felt that he as a character needed that much fleshing out. he has them because they needed him to have that many girls to kiss for the eugenics mechanics to work! part of the reason why characters in the newer games feel significantly more one note in comparison is that they're stretched thin. there's so much pointless shit they have to say, decided by quota before the writers even got their hands on the characters and it all builds up into a weaker end product

anyway this has been one elitist whinging about the new games that I like less

#anyway you cant get mad at me for hating the new games because i dislike change #awakening was my first fire emblem and i played it when i was literally 13 so ill always love it despite its obvious flaws #fire emblem #fire emblem 9 #fe9 #fire emblem: path of radiance #path of radiance #im too much of a coward to tag this with the names if the games i insult in this post #btw do people in the fire emblem fandom still call people who like the older games better elitists?#i disconnected from this fandom when edelgard discourse got bad so i have no clue what the culture is like #and i refuse to learn

341 notes · View notes

four-loose-screws · 1 year ago

Text

Full Henry (Fire Emblem Awakening) Personality & Support Conversation Analysis Post - English Localization vs. Original Japanese

So a while back I stated I wouldn't be doing full character support convo analyses any more because they are very time consuming, but... well, I can't help myself. They're just too much fun. And Henry himself is just too much fun, too.

The Olivia / Henry's support chain got several translations and conversations about it in the early years of Awakening's release, but I don't think I have ever heard much about any of Henry's other support convo chains. So how do their localized versions stack up to the original Japanese? Let's walk through his entire support convo list and find out!

This post will be a discussion of select snippets of Henry's support conversations - whatever I want to point out. For balance, sometimes, that will be sections changed from the Japanese, and other times, sections translated pretty closely.

Since I will only be covering bits and pieces here, if there's any support chains you would like to see translated in full, please send a request to my inbox! Support convo translations are usually pretty easy for me, and a great way to add more activity to my blog between novel translations uploads, so I love getting them.

Henry / Robin

Henry / Robin just has minor changes. "Minor localization changes," as I define them, are when the localization team adds or takes away small bits of dialogue, in a way that does not change the overall theme, tone, chain of events, etc. of the conversation.

Discussing minor changes doesn't make for much conversation, but it's fascinating to see how localization teams "spice up" video game dialogues to make them more fun to read in English, and analyze how well the succeeded in fulfilling that goal.

(Also, when talking about Robin as a general character and not the female / male incarnation specifically, I use "they/them" pronouns.)

C Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Robin: Ugh! D-don't wave that thing in my face! I don't want it anywhere near me.

Original Japanese:

[ルフレ]いいよ！(Robin: That's fine!) 僕は遠慮しておくよ！▼ (I'll pass!)

In this example, the localization added to what Robin says. There's no indication in the Japanese that Henry waves the Risen arm in their face. But the same basic flow of events is present in the conversation: Henry is experimenting with Risen -> propositions Robin to join in his experiments -> Robin flatly refuses. This is a great example of a minor change. It follows the events and tone of the Japanese support, while further showcasing the morbid humor Henry is displaying here.

B Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: If I get it to work, we can have them all fight on our behalf! Then we can sip tea for the rest of the war and collect the accolades once it's over. Robin: Well I understand the idea in theory. It could reduce casualties on our side... But there is one slight problem... Have you given any thought to how you'll control these soulless warriors?

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]これを使えば戦いを屍兵に任せて、(Henry: If we use this, then we'll leave the battle to the Risen,) 僕たちはお茶でも飲んでいられるよ～。▼(and we can even drink tea~.) そしたら戦死者も出なくなるし、(Then, we will have no casualties, and) いろいろと便利だよね～。▼ (they'll be convenient in many ways~.) [ルフレ]うーん…いくら戦死者が出ないといっても、(Robin: Umm... even if we won't have any casualties,) 屍兵の力を借りるのは…▼ (Borrowing the Risen's powers is...) それに、召喚した屍兵を (And the summoned Risen,) 操ることができるとは限らないよね？▼ (we won't necessarily be able to control them, right?)

Here's a change that's even smaller than the previous one, really. Robin doesn't say directly that the Risen are soulless in the Japanese, just summoned.

Henry / Lissa

S Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Hey-o! Need your human pillow again?

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]あ、リズ。こんにちは～。(Henry: Ah, Lissa! Hello~.) 今日も枕が必要？▼ (Do you need a pillow again today?)

As you will continue to see going forward, sometimes what surprises me about localization Henry is how little he was changed! What I mean is, I thought something as goofy as Henry calling himself a pillow would have been some silly fluff the localization added, but nope! He does indeed refer to himself as a pillow in the Japanese too.

Henry / Frederick

C Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Okay, fine! Geez, careful not to twist your smallclothes there...

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]は～い。ごめんなさ～い。▼(Henry: Understooood. I'm sorrrry.)

The English changed the Japanese line here, but I think it was necessary - without the nuance of the Japanese tilde (~), I think it's not as obvious that Henry is being sarcastic. So the localization added a sarcastic joke to bridge that gap. (Also, get ready to see the tilde A LOT going forward in Henry's Japanese text!!)

that Also, this is a bit off topic, but fun to point out anyway. If you ever hear anyone say Japanese has no sarcasm, you have some good proof of the contrary now. Japanese Henry can be quite sarcastic too! It's a common claim that Japanese has no sarcasm, because they don't use it anywhere near as much as English speakers use. But in actuality, Japanese speakers just don't utilize it in the exact same ways English speakers do!!

Now back on topic! :)

B Support

Snippet No. 1:

Eng. NA Localization:

Frederick: Because I know that anything can happen on the battlefield. I do not want my dying thought to be "if only I had trained a little harder." Henry: I want my dying thought to be about blood! ...Or maybe ichor.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]ふ～ん。▼ (Oh, really~?)

Snippet No. 2:

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Whoa, easy there, Frederick! You're bruising my arm! ...Oooo, look at the colors!

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]ちょ、ちょっと～…▼(H-Hey~...)

We see the tilde again! I'll explain it in proper detail this time.

In short, Japanese video game dialogue uses the tilde A LOT to convey the tone of a character's speech.

I find that it can be used very broadly, and in a number of situations. Humor is the number 1 situation though, I think. It is used when characters are joking or sarcastic; or when characters are speaking in a lighthearted, happy, or whimsical tone. You'll also see it when a character is speaking in a sing-song voice, or just actually singing (See: a character like Engage's Timerra!).

In the case of Henry, we can understand in the Japanese thanks to the tilde that he is always joking around, being sarcastic, having fun with everything, lighthearted and never serious, etc. etc..

However... there's no singular symbol that can cover all of that tone in English! I mean, I do think dialogue could use the ~ and some people would get it, but I certainly don't think it is standardized enough to rely on in a video game released to a mass audience.

So what was the English localization to do? Well, a lot of the time, word choice and laughter alone can get Henry's meaning across just as well on its own. ...But it can't always be that straightforward. This is where I think it was obsoletely necessary for the localization to add jokes to Henry's dialogue to maintain the same meaning and tone as the Japanese. The above two samples I pulled from the Henry / Frederick supports are great examples of that. They help get the point across about just how much Henry jokes around, and how sarcastic he is.

That's all I have to say about the tilde for now, as I'm sure it won't be the last time I point one out in Henry's conversations. :)

Henry / Sully

B Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: That's 'cause you WERE! ...You totally still had five or six solid minutes left, though.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]そうだね～。あと数刻もすれば (Henry: It was, wasn't it? After a bit longer,) 死んじゃってたと思うよ～。▼ (you would have died, I think~.)

Again, wow, it really surprises me what lines are very direct from the Japanese sometimes! Henry really just is that morbid, and candid about death!

A Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: I can't remember BEING upset. Folks here are so nice, and even bad guys are pretty great when they splatter. When life gives ya lemons, use 'em to ward off scurvy. That's what I say!

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]僕は怒らないよ～。▼ (I don't get mad~.) 怒るほど嫌なことを (And something so bad it makes me mad) 人にされることも滅多に無いし～。▼ (people hardly ever do to me~.) 大抵のことは笑って済ませられるよ～。▼ (I end most things with a laugh~.)

Even in a case like this, where the localization was a bit more liberal, Henry's tone still didn't change much. "When life gives you lemons" and "I end most things with a laugh~" can boil down to a same sort of connotation. Again, the localization is playing up Henry's humor and morbid optimism to fully get it across, in the absence of the Japanese tilde.

Henry / Miriel

C Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: You always have to know exactly how things work, huh? Want a demonstration? I could turn Robin into a toad or something. Miriel: No. The experiment is not of such import that our comrades need be imperiled. Henry: But it wouldn't be forever! Just a few days at the most. Miriel: If we were suddenly called to battle, a toad tactician would be most disadvantageous. Henry: Oh yeah. I hadn't thought about that. Well, maybe I could cast a different kind of hex. Miriel: So long as the risk is within acceptable parameters.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]仕組み？　あはは、(Henry: How they work? Ah ha ha, 勉強熱心だな～、ミリエルは。▼ (you're so passionate about your studies, Miriel~!) じゃあちょっと見本を見せるから (In that case, I'll show you a small example, so) そのへんの誰かを呪ってみるね～？▼ (I'll try cursing someone around here, alright~?) [ミリエル]その辺の誰か･･･？ (Miriel: Someone around here...?) 味方を呪い殺すおつもりですか？▼ (Do you intend to cast a deadly curse on an ally?) [ヘンリー]あ、ダメだった～？▼ (Henry: Oh, would you not like that~?) [ミリエル]えぇ･･･。戦力が減るのは (Miriel: Um... A decrease in our forces) 軍にとって良くないことですから･･･。▼ (would not be good for our army...) [ヘンリー]そっか～。じゃあ死なない呪いにするよ。(Henry: I see~. Then I'll pick a curse that won't kill them!) それならいいでしょ～？▼ (That will be okay, right~?) [ミリエル]はい、そういうことなら･･･ (Miriel: Yes. If that is the case,) じっくりと観察させていただきます。▼ (then allow me to observe carefully.)

Henry decides to target poor Robin specifically in the localization, but otherwise, the support chain has no significant changes.

Henry / Sumia

C Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Nya ha ha! Looked at all the smashed crockery! That's hilarious!

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]ほんとだ、すご～い。全部粉々だね～。▼ (Henry: You're right, woooow! They're all in pieces, aren't they?)

Another example of how the English made up for the lack of the tilde's Japanese connotation - Henry just outright says he finds the current situation hilarious.

Henry / Ricken

B Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Oh! And Campari used to make little birdhouses for homeless—

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]あと、ポモドーロ様はね…▼ (Henry: After them there was Campari...)

In another one of Henry's stand-out support conversations, in the Japanese, he stops before sharing what made Campari such a great guy, but otherwise the conversation is overwhelmingly the same as in JP.

A Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Judging by your expression, I'd say it's a serious one. Nya ha ha!

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]うん、いいよ～。(Henry: Yeah, that's fine~.) そんなに真剣な顔してどうしたの～？▼ (Why are you making such a serious face?)

Another great little example of how the localization made up for the lack of tilde - in place of the tilde, to convey that he is joking around, the localization has Henry laugh out loud.

Henry / Maribelle

C Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: I'm not feigning anything. I'm just really in touch with the natural world. I can talk to any living thing you want. Trees. Flowers. Maggots. Ooooooh... Maaaggots... Maribelle: That is a remarkable talent, if a shade disturbing.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]合わせてなんかないよ～。▼ (I'm not feigning, or anything of the sort~.) 僕はねぇ、自然に満ちているあらゆるものと会話できるんだよ～。▼ (You see, I can talk to all things filled with nature~.) [マリアベル]そ、そうですの…。(Maribelle: C-Can you...) 本当なら、すごいことですわね…。▼ (If that's true, then it is remarkable, indeed...)

The localization added in Henry's little pause on the word "maggots," (and added in the word "maggot" to begin with) but otherwise, this is another rather directly translated support chain.

Henry / Panne

C Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Panne: THAT was your reason?!

Original Japanese:

[ベルベット]…呆れたわ。(Panne: ...I'm astounded.) そんな理由なの…？▼ (Your reason was one such as that...?) 人間は理解しがたいけど、(Humans are difficult to understand, but) あなたは中でも極めつけよ。▼ (you are especially so.)

This exchange from Panne at the end of the C Support was actually longer in the Japanese. I don't see any particular stand-out reason why this is. Perhaps it was even an error, and the localization accidentally left out some of the text.

S Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Panne: We're too alike, you and I. We both lost our families and lived alone too long. But no more. I accept your ring. From now on, we are each other's family.

Original Japanese:

[ベルベット]あなたは似てるの。(Panne: You are like him.) 人間に殺された、私の弟に…▼ (My younger brother, who was killed by humans.) いいわ、受け取らせてもらう。(I will accept your ring.) あなたのそばにいてあげる、ヘンリー。▼ (I will be by your side, Henry.) これからは、私たちは家族よ。▼ (From now on, we are family.)

In the Japanese, Panne does not compare Henry to herself, but to her brother. Her brother is removed entirely in the localization, which at first seems like a pretty big deal. Perhaps it is because he is never mentioned again? It is odd that her sibling (who would seem important to her) is such a throwaway character in this one line of her supports with Henry.

Henry / Cordelia

C Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooh. Say, what if the wife was dead? Could you give it to him then?

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]ふーん…よくわかんないなあ。(Henry: Huh... I don't really get it.) 奥様がいると襟巻きが渡せないんだ。▼ (He has a wife, so you can't give him the scarf.) じゃあ、奥様が死んじゃったら (So, if his wife was dead,) 渡せるようになるの？▼ (would you be able to give it to him then?)

Here's another example I included not because it's changed from the Japanese - but because I was surprised to see this confirmation that Henry really is this morbid in the Japanese as well!

A Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: I asked Lissa for advice, and she told me to take you on a big shopping trip. She said a few hours trying on dresses and armor would fix that broken heart, pronto! (skip a few lines) Henry: Then how about some comfort food? Fruit pies and cream? Candy apples? Macaroni and cheese with fried boar crisps and crumbled horse—

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]リズから聞いたんだ～。(Henry: I asked Lissa~.) 女の子の胸が苦しい時は、▼ (When a girl's heart hurts,) 買い物したりやけ食いしたりす��と (things like shopping, or eating a lot) 治るんだって～。▼ (will cure it!) (skip a few lines) [ヘンリー]そうなんだ～。(Henry: I understand~.) じゃあ、やけ食いの方が好き？▼ (So you like overeating more?)

In the Japanese, Lissa's advice to Henry includes not only retail therapy, but also... overeating / binge eating. That's an understandably sensitive topic for the localization team to dodge.

It's true the localization does have Henry propose some comfort food food at the end of the convo... but I think Henry asking if Cordelia wants to eat a treat or two is different than proposing she full-on binge eats.

Henry / Nowi

C Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Nowi: No! I'm an adult woman who's more than a thousand years older than you! Henry: Oh, right! Nya ha ha! Sorry, short stuff!

Original Japanese:

[ノノ]ノノは子どもじゃないもん。(Nowi: Nowi's not a child!) 千年以上生きてる大人の女なんだから！▼ (Because Nowi is an adult woman who's lived for over 1,000 years!) [ヘンリー]あ、そうだったね。(Henry: Oh, that's right!) あはは、ごめんなさい、お姉さん。▼ (Ah ha ha, sorry, big sister!)

Ah, the 1,000 year old child-looking adult dragon. An FE classic.

But actually, the Japanese line was the same in this case! A young-looking character reiterating that they are totally an adult, isn't always an addition of the localization. (I say this because it was so in the main Fates script with Elise).

B Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Yep! They're probably quivering in fear under their beds and crying like babies. But no worries! There'll be more victim—er, that is, village kids—at our next camp. (skip a few lines) Henry: If they exchanged fire breath with you, they'd end up as little clumps of charcoal.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]うん、たぶん無理だと思うよ～。▼(Henry: Yeah, I think it's probably no use~!) でも、いいじゃない。ほかの土地にも (But that's okay, isn't it? Because in other areas) 子どもはたくさんいるんだから。▼ (there's also lots of children.) (skip a few lines) [ヘンリー]うーん…僕には空を飛んだり (Henry: Hmm... I can't fly in the sky) ブレスを吹いたりできないしなぁ。▼ (or blow fire breath, or anything like that.)

Here, the localization added a bit to Henry's morbidity. In the Japanese, he didn't joke around and start to call the children he and Nowi played with victims, or go so far as to describe that her fire breath would turn them to charcoal.

While Henry is morbid and sarcastic in the Japanese, this is further proof that the localization did add in some extra. Which again, makes up for some of the gap left without the tilde ~ in English.

Henry / Tharja

C Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Sure! You want me to cast a death curse on someone? Tharja: Someone in camp? Mmm... No. That could be problematic. Henry: Hee hee! Yeah, I guess. Too bad, though. See, 'cause I've got one that makes blood come out your—

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]そうなんだ～。(Henry: Did you now~?) じゃ、ちょっと呪いあってみる～？▼ (Then shall I try casting a teensy-weensy curse on them?) [サーリャ]結構よ…。仲間同士で (Tharja: You don't have to...) 潰し合っても、不毛なだけだから…。▼ (For allies to kill each other, would be meaningless...) [ヘンリー]あはは、それは残念だな～。▼ (Henry: Ah ha ha, that's too bad~.)

The morbid joke about exactly what kind of curse Henry wants to try out - one that involves making blood come out from... somewhere - was a small add-on in the localization. This chunk of the exchange otherwise follows the Japanese.

Eng. NA Localization:

Tharja: Ugh... Hale? Hearty? Have you no respect for our ancient profession? We're supposed to be harbingers of pestilence and famine and doom! Henry: Mm... I love doom.

Original Japanese:

[サーリャ]健全で純真ですって…？(Tharja: Healthy...? Pure...?) …呪いを使う者が、よく言う…。▼(...Well said for a spellcaster of curses...) …まぁいいわ…くれぐれも (...Whatever... don't keep) おかしな真似はしないことね。▼ (acting weird, alright?) [ヘンリー]は～い。▼ (Henry: Okaaaaaay.)

The exact ending of the C Support is ever so slightly different. In both, Tharja basically says to Henry to act more like a dark mage, but the little joke about "doom" was added.

B Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Hello, Tharja! Tharja: *Mumble, mumble* *hiss* Henry: Heey! Did you just put a curse on me? Tharja: Yes, Now, if you do not speak the truth, you will DIE! Answer me clearly and without hesitation. Are you a foreign spy? Henry: Nope! Not me! Although I do own a cloak and a couple daggers. Tharja: Who do you serve? Ylisse or Plegia? Henry: Aw, I don't get into politics. I just want to toss fireballs at bad guys.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]…あれ？　これって…。▼ (Henry: ...Huh? This is...) [サーリャ]…思ったよりあっさりかかったわね。▼ (Tharja: ...That was much easier than I thought it would be.) [ヘンリー]あ、やっぱりサーリャだ。(Henry: Ah, I knew it, it's you Tharja!) 僕に呪いをかけたね～？▼ (You cast a curse on me, didn't you?) [サーリャ]えぇ…これで私の前では (Tharja: Yes... Now, before me) 嘘や隠しごとはできないわよ…。▼ (you cannot lie or hide anything...) 正直に答えなさい… (Answer me honestly...) 貴方、誰かのスパイじゃないでしょうね…？▼ (You aren't anyone's spy, are you?) [ヘンリー]うん、スパイじゃないよ～。▼ (Henry: Nope, I'm not a spy~!) [サーリャ]じゃあ、貴方は…ペレジアと (Tharja: So you... between Plegia) イーリスと、どっちの味方…？▼ (And Ylisse, which are you an ally of...) [ヘンリー]ん～…味方とか、よくわかんないな～。(Henry: Hm~... I don't really know who's ally I am~.) 悪いと思った奴と戦うだけじゃダメなの？▼ (Is it wrong to just fight whoever I think is bad?)

A few little tweaks here. Tharja is in the middle of casting her curse in her first line in the localization, whereas in the Japanese, it was already over, and she was making a comment as to how easy it was to do. And then, Henry's quips were added onto a bit in localization.

A Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Hecka-necka, jimma-jamma, woozle-wazzle! Aaand presto! Curse dispelled! Actually not dispelled. I tossed it back at the original sender. Hee hee!

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]あ、それなら大丈夫だよ～。(Henry: Ah, if it's that, that's fine~.) 僕がもうはね返しておいたから～。▼ (Because I already bounced it back~.)

Henry's "chant" was added in localization. In the Japanese, by the time Henry says his line, he's already sent the curse back to its caster.

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Well, usually I disarm foes by removing their arms. But your way sounds impressive, too!

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]あはは、だから最初に言ったじゃない～。(Henry: Ah ha ha, that's what I said in the beginning, isn't it~?) 僕は健全で純真な心の持ち主だって。▼ (I have a healthy and pure heart.) でも、嬉しいなぁ～、(But I'm happy~.) サーリャに褒めてもらえて～。▼ (I was complemented by you~.)

And the localization was just taking advantage of an opportunity to make a disarming pun here, it was not already in the Japanese.

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Wizard fight! Wizard fight! Yaaaaaay!

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]わぁ～。サーリャ、こわ～い。▼(Henry: Eeeeek~! Tharja is scaaaary~!)

In the Japanese, Henry doesn't get excited to have a wizard fight with Tharja, but he still does act pretty goofy by pretending to be scared of her.

S Support

Somehow, I don't have anything to add to this one! Henry really does run off to have an engagement ring made after Tharja says she will accept his proposal if he agrees to protect Robin.

Henry / Cherche

C Support

The C Support adds a number of little bits to Henry's dialogue, again just to play up his goofiness more, because English lacks a symbol like the Japanese tilde ~.

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Sure have! She's as cute as a button, that one. ...Well, if buttons were cute. We had wyverns in Plegia, you know, and also the occasional fell beast. But we didn't have a single wyvern that was as pretty as Minerva.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]うん！(Henry: Yeah!) かわいいよね～、ミネルヴァ！▼ (Minerva sure is cute~!) ペレジアにも (In Plegia too,) ドラゴンナイトはいたけど、▼ (there were wyvern knights, but) この子くらいかわいい飛竜はいなかったよ～！！▼ (There weren't any as cute as this wyvern~!)

There was no mention of buttons in the Japanese version, Henry just says Minerva is cute.

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Yep! I make four-legged friends wherever I go! And even some two-legged ones. I'm also pals with a three-legged bear, but that's a story for another time.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]僕は自然と友達だから (Henry: I'm friends with nature, so) みんなと仲良しなんだよ～。▼ (I get along with all of them~.)

No mention of a three-legged bear friend in Japanese. Not that Japanese Henry wouldn't be excited to befriend a three-legged bear.

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Yowza! Sh-she tried to bite me! Look, I'm bleeding! Mmm, blood...

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]ひゃあっ！　噛まないで～！▼ (Henry: Hyaaah! Don't bite me~!)

And the localization added in the fact that Henry was bleeding, and excited to see it.

B Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Aw, it's fine. I bet I just give off some kind of animal aura. Or maybe she thought I was a big ham? I do smell kind of ham-like.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]あはは、僕って (Henry: Ah ha ha, I) 獣っぽい気配がするみたい～。▼ (it seems I have an animal-like aura~.) だから獲物だと勘違いしたのかもしれないね～。▼ (So maybe she mistook me for prey~.)

Henry doesn't propose that maybe he smells like ham, rather, in the Japanese, he thought that maybe Minerva mistook him for prey.

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: Well, when I was young, my best friend in the entire world was a giant wolf. My parents ignored me most of the time, so that wolf became my whole family. Then one day she came to visit me, and some hunters in the village... They shot her full of arrows. Killed her on the spot.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]うん！　実は、昔仲良しの狼がいたんだ。(Henry: Yeah! Actually, long ago, there was a wolf I was friends with.) 僕、親に放ったらかしにされてたから、▼ (I was neglected by my parents, so) 小さい頃の親友と言うか、(You could call them a friend I had when I was young,) ほとんど家族みたいなものだったんだけど～▼ (or something like family, but~) ある日その狼が僕に会いに来たとき、(One day, when they came to see me,) 周りにいた大人たちに殺されちゃって…。▼ (they were killed by the adults around us...)

In the Japanese, Henry doesn't refer to the wolf's killers as "hunters," but "adults."

Also, the Japanese doesn't hint at whether the wolf was male or female, so I went with neutral pronouns.

A Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Cherche: I'm very happy that you like Minerva and you two get along so well. But I think you need to spend more time with human friends—namely, me. So I'm going to carry out my patrol on foot, and you're coming with me.

Original Japanese:

[セルジュ]ミネルヴァちゃんと仲良くなってくれるのは (Cherche:) とっても嬉しいんだけど、▼ (I'm very happy that you've become friends with Minerva-chan, but) あなたは本当の意味で人と接することをもっと重ねるべきだと思う。▼ (I think you should have more experiences getting truly close to people.) 偵察は私たちふたりで行きましょう。(Let's go on patrol together.) 私、あなたともっと仲良くなりたいわ。▼ (I want to become better friends with you.)

The localization of the A support was a pretty straightforward translation of the Japanese for the most part, but this bit of Cherche's dialogue from near the end is subtly different.

I think the localization subtracts a little from the real meaning of what Cherche is trying to get across to Henry - it's not that he doesn't spend time with people, its that when he does, he doesn't form meaningful relationships with them. The exact nuance is different.

S Support

Eng. NA Localization:

Henry: I figured the old dogs would be barking, so I brought a homemade bunion salve. Cherche: Why, thank you, Henry! But how did you know? Henry: We've been on so many patrols together, I've memorized your whole routine. After this, you'll put a cold towel on your head and drink a cup of hot elderberry tea.

Original Japanese:

[ヘンリー]はい、これ。(Henry: This is for you.) 薬に漬けた湿布だよ～。▼ (A wet compress soaked in medicine~.) [セルジュ]あら、ありがとう。(Cherche: Oh my, thank you.) 脚が張っていたの、気づいてたの？▼ (You noticed that my legs are swollen?) [ヘンリー]うん。だって、あれから毎日 (Henry: Yup! After all, since then, every day) 二人で偵察に行ってたんだもん。▼ (we've gone on patrol together!) もうセルジュのことなら (If it's about you) なんでもわか��ようになっちゃったよ～。▼ (then I already know everything there is to know~.)

Henry's treatments for Cherche after their patrol together were a bit different in Japanese.

The localization even added in elderberry tea when no mention of drinks was made before. Who on the team was such a fan of elderberry tea that it's the only tea anyone on the Awakening cast drinks? I'll always wonder.

Eng. NA Localization:

Cherche: Goodness, Henry, but this is sudden. However, I have found myself...thinking about you a lot lately. Ever since we met, I've wanted to know the real man behind that jolly facade. And this would be a chance to do just that. Very well, Henry, I accept your proposal!

Original Japanese:

[セルジュ]ふふ…やっとその笑顔を (Cherche: Tee hee...) 私にも向けてくれるようになったのね。▼ (You're finally in a place where you make that smile at me!) …私も、あなたが好きよ。(...I love you too.) 友達になりたいっていうのは嘘。▼ (It was a lie when I said that I wanted to be friends with you.) 本当はずっと、あなたの心が知りたい、(To be honest, I've always wanted to know your heart,) 誰よりも近くにいたいって思ってた。▼ (and to become closer to you than anyone else.) 毎日変わっていくあなたを… (You've been changing bit by bit every day...) これからも一番傍で見ていたいわ。▼ (I want to continue to see you at my side more than anyone else is.)

The localization left out the full extent of what Cherche was saying - that she's had romantic feelings for Henry for quite a long time before this conversation.

Henry / Olivia

So I saved Henry / Olivia for last and went a little out of recruitment order, because I remembered this conversation being pretty different in localization vs the Japanese. So I wanted to save "the big one" for last.

First, I want to point out that I did a full translation of this support chain several years ago now (*Checks post history* Wait... EIGHT years ago?! Dang!), so I don't really need to talk about specific lines. You can read and compare for yourself! I also posted the localized version below the Japanese in each post, so you you can save yourself an internet search.

C Support - B Support - A Support - S Support

Instead of discussing specifics, I'll just wrote some of my general thoughts in a few paragraphs.

In the C support, I think it's unfortunate that the localization downplayed Henry's original intentions for choosing to kill the dog. He does not try to fight the dog's death, if it is the only way to relieve its pain. If death is its fate, he accepts it. It's great nuance for his character, that I think was the highlight of the convo.

In the B support, I remembered thinking that the localization really changed this one, but that's not as true as I thought it was. In summary, Olivia thinks that Henry's sense of humor is a coping mechanism and his smiles aren't genuine. But Henry rejects that interpretation and says he just is who he is. That's same in both versions. The biggest change is to Henry's backstory at the "wizarding" school. Now that I look back on it, I actually see a good possibility as to why the localization chose to make this change. Saying that Henry experienced brutal pain and injuries because of "experiments gone wrong" still conveys that his teachers were terribly abusive - because healthy teachers would not be assigning magic training that could be so easily dangerous - but it isn't as graphic as "bad children were beaten senseless!" Child abuse is a pretty common trigger, so I get why the localization team would want to tweak this part of the convo a bit.

For the A and S supports, I don't have anything major to mention.

Also, throughout the entire support chain, Henry calls Olivia "crazy lady." I don't know exactly how I feel about this, because it feels a little out of place with the rest of his sense of morbid humor. But he does get a little sarcastic and sassy with people when they get on his nerves in any way - which Olivia very much is doing, by trying to say his outward personality is trauma coping and not genuine. So the more I think about it, the more I think it fits his personality fine.

So as my final conclusion, I can say that Henry / Olivia is the most changed of all Henry's supports in localization, but even then, that's only saying so much.

-----------------------------

And so, that's that! Generally speaking, Henry's conversations were pretty faithfully translated; with minor changes here and there, mostly to convey his sense of humor due to English's lack of the ~ tilde symbol used in dialogue. I only found a couple of more major changes, none of them particularly conversation-altering.

Henry's such a fun character to begin with that the localization team only had to make some subtle changes here and there to get his exact sense of humor and personality across, wherever it might have otherwise been lost in translation. And they did a pretty good job with that! Only a small selection of changes made me scratch my head a bit. Overall, good work all around.

Thanks for reading! :)

#fire emblem #fire emblem 13 #fe13 #awakening #fire emblem awakening #fe awakening #japan #japanese #support conversation #henry #henry fire emblem #support conversation analysis #translation #localization

56 notes · View notes

isa-ghost · 9 months ago

Note

Hey Isa, you wouldn't happen to have any head cannons back there would you?

Also, I hope you're doing well

Yeah hold on lemme check in the back *glass breaking* *metal clanging* *vine boom* *BRUH.mp4* *more glass breaking* *cartoon boink* *high pitched scream* *Taco Bell dong*

Okay got em here ya go

Phil headcanons masterlist

Quesadilla Island gave him SUCH a taste for Latin food and he can't fucking just Get That when he's home in the Hardcore world. Can you imagine him asking Rose to open a portal to another world for a 2am Taco Bell run. That's not even real/good Latin food but can you imagine.

Actually that's another thing he misses, Rose doesn't communicate with him directly when he's home. I don't have an idea of what the reasoning is for that but :(

Goddess of Death likes to tease him about his perching. She makes him so self-aware of it and he hates it but in that "god fucking damn it Kristin. I'm doing it again" way.

Ender King is just a bitch. Phil was scared of him on Quesadilla Island because there was no control or way of predicting what he'd do there. Or why. Or how. Phil generally isn't scared of a long-dead bitch baby. No, there's a hardcore deity we haven't met yet that he's scared of. And if Apollo doesn't dodgeball me on this the day Phil does a new build to introduce one of the two we haven't met yet, I might make a fan deity.

👆🏻 I mentioned this on stream Friday 9/6, I'm already cooking on the fan deity LMAO.

As a chronic overthinker who's way too insistent on constantly mentally firing on all cylinders in order to survive, this dumbass frequently forgets that taking walks (or more commonly: flights) help him unwind and actually organize his thoughts. He's so bad at walking away for a bit and returning to something with fresh eyes and a clear head. And then he remembers to do that finally and is like 🤯 about it.

Honestly, the same could be said for his emotions. I might have made a hc to this effect before, but he has such a bad habit of clinging to distractions or stubbornly trucking on from things instead of just letting himself Sit with his emotions, processing them and letting them just exist and then pass. He's a very proactive coper, but sometimes action isn't the answer and that's something he hasn't quite learned yet (Rose is trying to teach him this). He absolutely fucking hates doing it, but sometimes the best solution for him really is to just. Sit and cry it out, or seethe, or ride out the panic attack. Whatever it is.

Sitting in the warm sunshine, the sounds of leaves rustling in the wind, and the sight of flower pedals floating in the air fill him with deep, somber nostalgia for comfortably sitting and chatting with Chayanne & Lullah. Watching sunsets too. This is one of few times he'll actually do something to the effect of the previous hc and just let himself sit and Feel. He just can't do it alone, he needs the Murder to sit with him & chat.

Some things he'll do when he actually let's himself sit somewhere & vibe: chat with the Murder, fish, sketch something he sees (often Dorothy), organize his inventory (rarely).

Nowadays he also sketches things of Chayanne & Lullah, sometimes Missa, occasionally Techno. He also really likes doodling random emblems and sigils, often meant for the gods (minus EK) or Techno.

Btw he still gets paranoid about resource gathering, inventory management, and collecting cool stuff ever since his possession. :) Even now that he's back in the Hardcore world, where it's ironically more unlikely that Ender King can/will hurt him, he gets anxious about over-indulging his crow brain.

He's not ALWAYS treating the Murder like it's on sight. Sometimes he'll sit and preen their feathers (or his own while they do their own), he has a massive feeder full of any treat a crow would find yummy imaginable, and half the time they go on those walks/flights he should take to de-stress more often, it's for them because they're the little shits that love to travel so much. He's an explorer and historian/archivist, sure, but he tends to stick to the structures of the gods that he's discovered.

Which btw calling back to that Deep Dark Deity, if they end up existing in canon (and if not, this will be canon for my AU or whatever), he hasn't met/discovered them or their structures yet bc he's too cautious to explore the Deep Dark thoroughly. :)

Honestly this feels like a low-hanging fruit hc that I'm sure tons of people have, but Phil desperately wants to bring Missa to the Hardcore world some day to show him the builds and teach him about the gods.

When he got back to the Hardcore world after QSMP, he took some time to recover emotionally and then anxiously visited Endlantis to add some,, security to the cave Ender King's corpse is sealed in. Will it work? Probably not. But it makes him feel safer.

He has a journal/scrapbook type thing documenting everything he sees & learns about the deities and their associates (ex: He & She). He wishes he could've brought it with him to Quesadilla Island so he could've taught Chayanne & Lullah more about them in detail. But they're somewhere in the world with him now, so he's sure they've learned more over the last 4 months. :)

#philza #qsmp philza #q!philza #hc!philza #philza hardcore #hardcore philza #hardcore season 4 #qphil headcanons

30 notes · View notes

itsbenedict · 2 months ago

Text

I had mixed feelings on Dark Deity, an indie Fire Emblem knockoff that came out a while back. While extremely fun to play, it was chock full of bugs and its story was a hilariously aimless mess that sorely needed a writer.

There is now a Dark Deity 2, for which they hired an actual writer this time! And... I'm... not entirely sure it's better?

Story

Like- okay, on a nuts-and-bolts level, it's a lot more competent. There's nothing on the level of the infamous brother death scene in DD1. The character arcs of the core cast are executed decently well, and the choice to make Irving a Bad Dad and the source of a lot of the protagonists' grief was pretty fun. Almost every choice the characters make in the game is understandable and pushes the story forward, the pacing is a lot better, and the focus on regional geopolitics is really welcome and shows a lot more thought and effort put into the worldbuilding than last go-round. I felt like I did get a decent sense of what Verroa is like as a world, and how the nations related to one another. In particular, the main antagonist had a believable motivation and believable flaws that tied into themes that the game did a good job building up.

Which... makes some of the structural choices it makes really bizarre.

The main thing of note: it does not resolve any of what it sets up. There's all these weird subplots that really hooked me- a tearing veil between worlds, a secret organization with an agenda around manipulating it, Arthur's weird maybe-demon-something origins and how they're affecting him... all of that built up, and then left as sequel bait or something. The actual story is just how you Fightgood a War-do against Big King Evil Badman.

This is continuing in the footsteps of DD1, which also set up a bunch of mysterious magic shit, only to sideline it in favor of having you kill Big King Evil Badman. But at least DD1 had you ever even encounter its shadowy magic chessmaster badguys! Even if their plot made no sense, you got to fight them about it!

But it's not just the magic plot stuff. DD2 wants to give you choices, this time- big, difficult, interesting choices with far-reaching implications! And they are interesting choice points- which of this conquered country's institutions are you going to rescue from destruction? Will you destroy this country's border wall to pressure them into joining the conflict? I had to give all of them some serious thought!

None of them matter though. This is a linear story, and none of these decisions can be allowed to affect the outcome one way or another. One closes its narrative branch immediately, others only affect which NPC shows up later to pretend to matter but not really, and another gets literally no resolution at all and has no consequences beyond which loot you get at the end of the map. For as interesting as they are, the structure of the game doesn't let them be anything more than narrative cul-de-sacs.

There's also an odd decision made structurally here- a blog post by the game's new writer says:

I've talked about before, in mostly unofficial capacities, how SRPG players frequently mention wanting to see the entire cast chime in during the main story, taking issue with how many units become sidelined after their recruitment. I think this is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper, but is terrible in execution.

Nnnnno? No, it can be good in execution, too. It's harder to do in execution, but, like... even DD1's slapdash writing was greatly improved by having its cast all have a stake in the conflict, a reason to be there, and recurring plot relevance. It was pretty much that game's only saving grace, narratively- it did an ensemble cast pretty successfully.

Obviously this can be done badly. And DD1 wasn't perfect in that regard- in particular, there were scenes like the temple puzzle situation that seemed to only exist to give some comic relief characters a little time in the limelight. And a great deal of the middle of that game was just contriving reasons for new characters to show up- it can be tough to juggle in a satisfying way, particularly in this genre space where gameplay permadeath is a mainstay and your army kind of has to be designed to be disposable. And you do want to give your core protagonists room to breathe, so they can have character arcs and stuff.

It's difficult! Not a no-brainer! How does DD2's writer tackle this problem?

DD2 aims to thread the needle on this problem with its act-specific character introductions. Now, even though a character like Zuhair might not be exactly plot critical, he still gets multiple scenes to bounce off the protagonist, show off his charisma and give an idea of who he is, maybe even exert some influence upon the plot before he, inevitably, has to take a backseat so the protagonists can get the attention they need.

Nnnnno, though. Like, that's not threading a needle or balancing the needs of the ensemble cast- that's just The Problem. The same problem that people say they want to not have. It's not a compromise option- you're just doing exactly the thing people don't like. It can, theoretically, be done worse than this- see FE Engage, which has the bulk of the cast join you as rando retainers to rando royals with no character introduction or narrative relevance- but you haven't exactly hit on an innovative solution to the problem. You just surrendered to the problem without even trying and called that a compromise.

Theoretically, you could ameliorate this issue by moving the supporting cast's subplots to the support conversations. That's classically how FE handles it, and it works well enough... but DD2 has some gameplay issues that got in the way of that.

Gameplay

I'll start with the issue that got in the way of the story- the supports system. I really liked the supports in DD1- there was a large cast, and everyone had ten support chains. On top of that- I'm not positive what the mechanic was, it's a passive thing I never really paid attention to- but it seemed like I was always getting all the support rank-ups I needed to get all the interactions between the characters in my army by the end of the game. It took no effort, and had no mechanical relevance I could detect.

DD2's situation is a lot more dire. First off- each character has exactly four supports. Are you not using any of the four characters this character has a support conversation with? What a shame! I guess you get to never hear from this character again for the rest of the game.

Moreover: it's fucking hard to level up supports in this one! It works on the classic FE model, sort of- it's built around being within three spaces of the unit you want to get support points with. But... uh... is this a bug? Nearly every action in the game does not increase support points. You only get support points if you click Attack and attack an enemy that way.

(And the way this game is designed, you want to be doing that as infrequently as possible. More on that in a bit.)

This may have been... like, to discourage players from grinding support points by hanging around on maps Waiting next to each other until the time limit's up? But it doesn't explain why healing or using direct-damage abilities don't proc it- those you still need enemies alive to use. And even if that were the case- a better way to design to avoid that is to do what DD1 did and not require you to think about grinding support points during maps at all. Just give us the rank ups basically for free as long as you've used them together on enough maps! Problem solved!

Anyway, because getting supports is so hard for no apparent reason, and there are so few of them... even by endgame, I'd only reached like four or five S supports. Despite actively trying, and there being only four options per character (leaving half my army with only one or two viable picks), a lot of these mini-stories and character arcs were just left unfinished! It's really anemic compared to DD1's system.

So- the other thing. One of several other things. This game has abilities for each class- not just passives (which it also has), but active magic spells cast with MP. One innate to a unit, two for their base class, and two for their advanced class.

This is a cool fucking system. I like it a lot! Most enemies in this game are a serious threat- if you try to just walk up and hit Attack, you're likely to take nearly as much as you dealt unless you've picked your matchup well. To mitigate this, lots of units sport direct-damage abilities that let you remote-nuke foes without risking counterattack damage. You go in, soften them up or pick them off with spells, and then have the rest of your army clean up the weakened foes with their basic attacks so they have time to regen their MP and pop off with spells later. Weird AOE heals and positioning abilities like reusable Warp/Rescue give you a lot of options for how to structure an engagement to keep your army alive against what would otherwise be an evenly-matched foe.

This is... kind of the only thing DD2 has going for it mechanically, I'm sad to say.

First off- DD1 had this really fun weapon system I liked a lot. Each unit would have four weapons- a big damage one, a risky crit one, a reliable hit one, and a lightweight defensive one. You'd spend weapon tokens earned from maps to choose which ones to upgrade, specializing in particular approaches while always leaving your other options open to adapt to specific combat scenarios.

DD2 completely discards this system. Instead, you have one weapon. You can customize this weapon by slotting in up to two runes which give minor stat bonuses.

That's the weapon your unit has. Is it not good enough to safely deal with an enemy? Tough! It's the only one you have! Your only other option is to spend MP on a skill instead- and this will usually be your only option for oneshotting an enemy unit, because a lot of your army is going to struggle with offense otherwise.

This is just a step down. It's not fun, you never really get more toys to play with, it cuts down on your tactical options- and no combination of runes will ever make "Just Attack With Your Weapon" an adequate approach unless you're out of mana to do something interesting and effective with.

Another weird decision: this game has no mounted classes. Zero. Every single class in the game has the exact same movement range: 5. It's always five. You don't get more on promotion, you can't sideclass to a horse or a dragon or whatever- it's always 5 and only 5. This is pretty limiting! Movement advantages are huge in SRPGs- being able to position yourself outside an enemy's range but still be able to move in and attack them next turn is key to building momentum.

Your options instead come back to Use Skills again. And there's some pretty potent movement options in there! Two-tile shoves, position switching, various flavors of teleport- I definitely had fun arranging some cheeky hit-and-run tactics and dramatic long-range rescues with those. But they're the only game in town, so you've got to be careful about conserving MP for when you need it.

(Actually that's not strictly true- there's a ring that gives one unit +1 movement. (Rings are this game's equivalent of Eternal Aspects from the last game, only now instead of getting a giant pile of them dumped on you for plot reasons, you spend resources to get the ones you actually need, which is better.) You can only make one of each ring, though, so one unit in your army will have six MOV instead of five.)

There's a weird and kinda samey dynamic to engagements in this game. Combine a few factors:

Enemy units are very strong, and most units can't survive being attacked by more than two in a single turn

Everyone has 5 movement, including enemies

There's an "exhaustion" mechanic that makes dodge tanks completely impossible by reducing evasion for every successive combat in a turn (plus enemies usually have high hit rates anyway)

and you have a situation where every single turn boils down to "how do I pull the enemy out of position while ensuring none of my units can get hit by more than two guys?" Which... is pretty solid as a core tactical challenge, honestly, since they give you so many tools to make it happen. Skills that generate "block stacks" to negate enemy hits, various teleports- and my favorite, a Necromancer ability that summons a disposable mook to charge heedlessly into danger and get killed immediately (but still pull the enemy out of position for a safe charge the next turn).

Still, it wears on you after a few maps- especially lategame, where they give up on having fun optional challenges for bonus rewards on maps and just say "win in X turns".

Oh Wait Story Again

Hahahahaha, okay, so- I have a few more nitpicks I remembered.

First- SoundCadence usually does pretty good VO work! And... while the performances as a whole were good, and they knocked it out of the park with the core cast, it seems to have been a pretty sloppy/hasty job with a lot of the supporting cast. I counted like four or five line reads that were just... clearly delivered wrong, like no one was there doing voice direction. Lot of occasions of obviously-wrong emphasis that would've been caught in an instant if anyone was sitting down across from the VAs with the script.

Second... oh, man. This one's a hoot.

So remember Dark Deity 1 did not have a fucking dark deity in it? Like they completely forgot to feature the thing the game was named after?

THEY DID IT AGAIN, BAYBEE

THEY MADE A DARK DEITY 2 AND IT STILL DOES NOT HAVE A DARK DEITY IN IT

This time- they got closer, I think? There was a demon warlord guy, who sorta considered himself a dark deity but never said as much explicitly and then got murked. There was an octopus god in an early arc, but it was kind of small-potatoes and not hugely plot-relevant- and the darkness was just like, it lashing out at some sort of unexplained external evil corruption; it wasn't an inherently dark deity. And the final map takes place in some sort of extradimensional death castle that ostensibly belongs to some sort of dark deity, but said deity never actually shows up and you just fight Big King Evil Badman there after it's already become obvious that he was a pawn of a mysterious cult you never learn anything about.

Incredible. Incredible work. You had a whole-ass sequel in which to finally put a dark deity in your game called Dark Deity and you flawlessly dodged it again. I'm honestly impressed!

Anyway- final verdict: slightly more competent writing than DD1, had a cool skills system, but kind of did everything else worse and was a lot less enjoyable overall. Still fun if you've really got the itch for this sort of game, but eminently skippable.

#game review #dark deity #dark deity 2

10 notes · View notes

quarterlifekitty · 5 months ago

Note

Hi I just RAN through all your writings and little drabbles and such and I am about to chew through the bars of my enclosure friend I swear to fuck.

Just dropping in to let you🫵🏻know some of my favorites

Can NOT stop thinking about the drabble/head cannon you did for konig where you meet him online and he helps you get a skin in your game when he surprises you at your place. It's so good. I want to gnaw on it (and him). He didn't technically lie! He just.....didn't exactly say how old he is. Sure he's like....double your age but hey! Do it for the plot! (The plot is now your entire life, konig is the plot.) It doesn't help that he's really just a good guy, he just happens to have strong emotions! So just let him provide for you, don't ask what he's doing in your country or why he needs to know if you have a passport. Totally for no reason. Absolutely none.

And then the thing you did about coercing you into anal? 😮‍💨Brother......focusing on Simons bit specifically for this one BUT him trying to play off almost thrusting into that hole as "an acciden', jus' slipped lovie" when he was in fact doing it on purpose makes me DIZZY. He wants it so bad, it's right there....if he just gets you cockdrunk enough ....maybe it'll make the burning stretch a bit easier to handle. Easier to work his way into the hole that is so tempting.

BUT ALSO! the fuckin. The goddamn baby trapping. Oh my god. It's. I'm. They just want chunky fat babies with their sweetie! Don't you think they deserve at least that? A family to call their own after all they've given? Years and years, scars and wounds and trauma, but no thanks? Nothing for their sacrifices? Well, it's about time that changed, isn't it? Just think about it, what a joy it would be if they came back from deployment to see their sweet thing with a big baby bump, waddling to greet them at the door ? They just love you so much, they have to show the world that. A fat baby with their father's eyes sitting on your hip as you grocery shop will do just that, won't it?

Anywho, I'll stop myself here. Just discovered your blog and. 🤭😗Enjoying it greatly.

Thank you soooooo muuuch! Seriously. This is like the kind of comment I dream of receiving. Also you’re so fucking correct about all of that. We love men that trick youuuuu lol

Honestly, I also love the gamer boyfriend König thing so much. Love the idea of König with like a NEET femcel type gf lol he would love that. No job, no school, no plans and horny with no outlet!! It’s perfect for him!! I’ve thought about doing a continuation for it. Maybe him getting you to move back to Austria. Fingering you on the plane while you’re focused on your switch (you’re showing him fire emblem. He usually sticks to online games, so he hasn’t played many JRPGs, but he’d like to get into them. Doesn’t escape him that you usually choose to marry the tallest, buffest bachelor available).

I am always down to write dubious Simon AND baby trapping!!! Love that shit lmao. Thank you again for your message!

#almost writing

16 notes · View notes

raxistaicho · 13 days ago

Text

Getting angry at Angrynon

Hey all! Recently, Fewix Fwadawius Emblem Xeno got an anon ask outlining some of Fire Emblem Fates' depth. Normally, I wouldn't have cared about this (Fates is a guilty pleasure of mine), except that anon also took the time to start randomly laying into Three Houses. And I certainly can't let that stand!

It doesn't exactly help that Xeno gets... really aggressive, angry anon asks all the time, tinged with enormous Casual Elitism in the gameplay department in particular. Also, I haven't done a longpost in a while, so I thought this was a great time to get back into the swing of it :)

Full post under the cut, 'cause this gets pretty long:

I thought on your discussion of the parallels and how much Fates relies on there being subtext to talk about the story in-depth and how much relies on being willing to interact with the story and the cast,

This is a fairly recent claim I've seen from defenders of Fates' story, that it's actually so #Deep that people just missed it. Who cares that we don't know where the countries' borders end, look at all that symbolism. This is convenient, since you don't have to actually defend a point that purports to be self-evident by its very nature, and it also lets you big yourself up as some sort of intellectual for noticing it, while simultaneously tearing opponents down as missing the point.

Furthermore, without any corroborating evidence from the devs, this definitionally cannot be anything more than headcannon on the part of fans to patch up the writers' fumbles. It's no different from fans of the Prequel trilogies trying to justify the writing of Padme and Anakin's relationship for George Lucas.

and then I look at how 3H and even Awakening are overall more popular.

And Xeno and his ilk remain very bitter about it to this day! I don't love how people like Tales of Vesperia more than Tales of Berseria, but I haven't dedicated my life to tearing down Vesperia.

3H especially, which irks me because 3H is about as discordant and downright anarchic as a story can get with nothing of value to say about things that aren't mealy-mouthed apologetics for its characters who are in the wrong, and yet it gets all the credit because it's delivered better.

Yup, Three Houses has no message and is bad because it doesn't condemn the Bad Red Lady enough, is anyone surprised? Fire Emblem stories, especially from the GBA era onward, had always been about a Bad Person causing the war pretty much single-handedly. Zephiel, Lyon, Ashnard, Sephiran behind Ashnard, Anankos. Three Houses tries to show how the war was bigger than simply Edelgard and her ambitions, and her haters predictably got furious about it. She might have pulled the trigger, but it only happened because of the foundation of Fodlan's deep corruption within the aristocracy and the clergy.

Fates really is a story that's excellent yet delivered in quite possibly one of the worst ways imaginable to audiences,

A story terribly conveyed is a terrible story. End of.

which is frustrating given people have been pretty consistently dismissive of anyone who points out these depths do exist and that it's apparently just being "cliche" despite the sentiments all interconnecting?

Spoiler... but these "depths" are just standard Eastern media setting cliches.

Like, Fates has an absolutely massive amount of parallels, symbolism and themes.

Anon's gonna share some soon. It won't go well for them.

It doesn't need a name for the continent even, because it makes itself clear through visual context, subtext and clues throughout the story how much everything interconnects into a bigger story that genuinely means it when it says both sides of the conflict are victims in a terrible, pointless war, and ties into its bathos, ethos and logos flawlessly.

A war one of those "victims" initiated unprovoked upon the other. It's rich how often Xeno and his anons will scream about Fates whitewashing Edelgard just to turn around and whitewash Nohr.

"But the royal family is just so SAD :("

Also, ethos and logos, fine, but bathos?

Fates starts off with a lofty tone that suddenly descends into absurdity?

I think anon used the term in the sense that it's the Greek word for "depth", but that's not the way the term is used with regards to literary analysis. This really just makes anon come across as pretentious, in my opinion.

Also, back to the point on the name. The usual argument is that Fateslandia doesn't have a name because Hoshido and Nohr have only ever been at war with each other, so they never collaborated to make a name for it. Even if I believed that statement, for which there isn't much support, wouldn't the two kingdoms logically have their own names for the continent? And you can't just argue they call the continent "Hoshido" and "Nohr" because Hoshido and Nohr aren't the only two countries in the land, or even the only ones on their own sides of the Bottomless Canyon.

Hell, a little known fact that illustrates what I mean: Fire Emblem Fates takes a lot from Chinese geomancy as a whole. I mean, straight from TV Tropes: If one catches the connection to the First Dragons' power in the Dragon Veins and their relation to the practice of Feng Shui, it becomes readily apparent why Azura, the Avatar, Anankos, and other associates of Valla have such a strong water motif. One of the central ideas behind Feng Shui is that among the parts of nature making up the world, Chi (analogous to Dragon Vein power) flows best in water (shui). It also ties in with why Takumi is so powerful when possessed by Anankos that he becomes a Final Boss: second to water, the next best part of nature to gather and read the flow of chi is the Fujin Yumi's element, wind (feng).

It's very easy to miss, but the symbols that appear when you activate a Dragon Vein aren't made-up.

Anon's going to continue on for a while, but yes, they're based on the Four Gods, a frequently recurring motif in Eastern media. So frequently recurring, in fact, that Three Houses has shades of them too in the four saints of the Church of Seiros.

They actually represent the Fire Dragon, Ground Dragon, Water Dragon and Wind Dragon among the First Dragons; the Fire Dragon represents an avian bird of some kind and is depicted as destroying structures and being strengthened by nature,

When Anon says "nature", he means wood. Also, the literal first time we see the Fire Dragon in action, it's when it evaporates the river in the prologue, and then when we see it again in ch4 it's used to melt the snow mountains. Rivers and snow aren't structures, and in the Chinese element wheel, water's supposed to restrain fire, not the other way around.

the Ground Dragon represents a felid-like creature who can warp the ground around it to move nature while being strengthened by the earth,

Byakko, the White Tiger, represents the element of metal, not earth. The Ground Dragon controls the ground when summoned via Dragon Vein, but in Feng Shui, earth creates metal, metal doesn't have control over the earth. Metal strengthens (or creates, I've seen both used) water and restrains wood, but the Ground Dragon is called upon to control the earth, not to make water or influence weather, trees, or air currents.

the Water Dragon is a tortoise wrapped around a snake and responsible for the manipulation or receding of water and also putting out flames and is given shape by metal,

Genbu indeed represents water, but Byakko represents metal, and anon failed to explain any link between them in the context of Fates.

Also, it's "responsible for the manipulation or receding of water," except in the prologue, where the Fire Dragon evaporates the river, or in Conquest chapter 10, where Takumi quite famously uses the Wind Dragon to pull back the tide and expose the lower levels.

It does, however, melt the ice lake in conquest chapter 8, though if we were being consistent you'd think the Fire Dragon would do that. Also, water in the Chinese elements restrains fire, but the Fire Dragon is used to control the flames in Revelation chapter 16 when you'd think the Water Dragon would do that. Also, the Water Dragon is never used to create trees.

and the Wind Dragon is a Eastern dragon who represents using wind to control the physical spaces around it while being strengthened by water.

Wind is not a Chinese element. Seiryū represents wood. Also it seems more to me like the Wind Dragon beats water, rather than getting strengthened by it, but no, wood restrains earth, not water, yet Takumi uses the Wind Dragon's influence to overcome the goddamn ocean.

If one hasn't caught on, not only is this is exactly what The Four Gods represents — respectively Suzaku, Byakko, Genbu and Seiryu — but it's also the fundamental principles as reflected in game of what element strengthens which

I wish Anon would list some examples of these elements strengthening one another in the context of Fates specifically, because while I do know how the elements link to one another in the context of the five Chinese elements, Anon hasn't really done much other than assert that they're related to the Four Dragons in some way. And as I've pointed out a few times, Fates doesn't properly convey those relations.

and what element controls the other in Feng Shui!

Except Anon failed to show how the elements relate to one another. The reality is the elemental dragons are generally just used in a rather rpg way, doing what you'd generally expect to see from the elements in action. The four dragons don't properly relate to the elements they're supposed to, going by their visual appearances and how they relate to the Four Gods, nor do they interact with each other's elements in the way they're supposed to.

This is what we call window dressing, not depth. It's not dissimilar to how Three Houses uses the Major Tarot to represent the various Crests, except Three Houses at least had the Crest bearers' stories or personalities relate to the Tarot associated with their Crest.

Justice, for instance, is represented by the Crest of Blaiddyd, and is about balance, accountability, and reflection for your actions throughout your life. This perfectly relates to Dimitri's story.

The existence of Anankos completes this by giving an extra trifecta to the five sacred weapons and his role with the other dragons.

A trifecta is three things, not five.

Takumi's weapon obviously represents Wind,

Once again, wind is not an element in the Chinese elements. I guess you could argue it's associated with wood, but it's not an element in and of itself.

while Ryoma's Raijinto is actually tied to Fire in Feng Shui,

...No, it's tied to thunder. It's right there in the name, Raijinto, meaning literally "thunder god sword".

while Xander's dark sword represents the winter and is tied to Water,

No, how is it tied to water? He attacks using waves of darkness.

while Leo's ability to manipulate the earth and gravity is tied to Metal.

Brynhildr manipulates wood, Leo creates a grove of trees when he attacks with it! Metal restrains wood (by cutting it down). And, AGAIN, Metal doesn't manipulate earth in the Chinese elements, and also earth and wood are separate elements! Anon's being incredibly sloppy with his wording.

And meanwhile, at the center of it all is Yato — and what does Anankos and Valla represent?

I thought they represented water? Anon said so themself in the intro to this section, Anankos, Corrin, and Valla have a strong water motif.

A land below the ground and the center of the Earth, and represents the land below. And then you realize Earth controls Water... then you recognize how not only is Anankos represents Earth and is Kohryu,

Except the Ground Dragon is the one shown to have power over the earth (despite referencing the White Tiger, which represents Metal, which shouldn't have power over earth), while Anankos has power over water. Also, the Water Dragon also has power over water, but only sometimes.

but also makes literally all of the rest of the five elements fall into place with it as a direct result.

Sure, chief.

So to summarize:

Brynhildr is metal because it controls earth (even though it creates trees, meaning wood), so by anon's logic, element A which, in the Chinese elements is strengthened by element B, controls element B. Gotcha.

Siegfried is water... presumably because anon says so. They don't even try to justify this one. Also, Siegfried is never used to control metal or water, it controls darkness.

Fujin Yumi is wind, (which isn't a Chinese element), because it controls... wind. Wouldn't Brynhildr control metal if it's supposed to be metal? By the logic Anon established with the Brynhildr, Fujin Yumi should represent fire because it controls wind, which I guess you could loosely associate with wood. Also, we now have two sets of standards: Brynhildr logic means an element controls that element which strengthens it, and Fujin Yumi logic means an element controls only its own element. Neither logic is consistent with the Chinese elemental wheel, mind you.

Raijinto is fire, also because anon says so. It also doesn't control wood.

And lastly, Yato is earth, even though it never displays earth powers (Fujin Yumi logic) or fire powers (Brynhildr logic)

God, if I had a nickel for every time I had to dissect a tortured Chinese Elements argument, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?

What's maddening is that the game routinely displays this kind of foresight and depth throughout the story and how each of the narratives details all check out, the logos, pathos and ethos each.

Anon threw out the baby with the bathos water.

"Why is it that Garon is so cartoonishly evil?" Because he's a literal warped parody of a dragon god that has been isolated for thousands of years after having committed genocide on his own people, maddened into misanthropy and thus not quite knowing how to behave like a human being;

Nobody's asking why Garon is cartoonishly evil, they just say it's shit writing that he is.

the Nohrian royals know something is very wrong with Garon, they're just too scared to confront the issue due to their once-noble father being turned into such a horrible monster.

So they're a pack of cowards. What heroes!

"Why is it that Iago and Hans are even allowed to do what they do?" Because Garon - and by extension, Anankos's - whole goal is to destroy the world. Having two psychopaths run it to the ground would be an excellent way to hasten that process.

Nobody's asking why they're allowed to do what they do, people just say they suck as villains, because they do.

"Why is it that Hoshido is so pacifistic and Mikoto so perfect?". Because it isn't; it was a warrior culture that had conquered just like Hoshido (the Great Wall of Suzanoh is just a testament to it existing to ward off invasions from likely Nohr), Sumeragi comes from a long line of samurai

If having a warrior culture means Hoshido sucks, then so does Faerghus. At least Hoshido hasn't recently committed genocide.

"Why is it that the story never comments on Mikoto being sisters with Arete?". Because Mikoto is almost assuredly an adoptee from a Hoshidan branch in Valla that was given the blood of the First Dragons like the Vallite royals; her namesake, hair color and genealogy all clash too much from most of the Vallite royals having Greco-Romanic-Vedic names and aqua hair colors.

There, right there. "Almost assuredly an adoptee". Anon has to speculate that because the writers never clarify the point. Also what does that have to do with Mikoto being Arete's sister? People only lambast the relationship because it sloppily and awkwardly makes Corrin and Azura cousins for no reason at all.

And these are just the common criticisms Fates has;

So common that Anon didn't understand a one of them!

there's so many more little details that makes perfect sense when you actually think on it a little,

Then go ahead and share them, and make sure the game actually conveys these ideas and they're not something you had to headcannon.

because the entire game is a deconstruction of superficial black-and-white morality by showing that both sides are human and you have loved ones on both sides.

I'm sorry, but showing that there's gewd peeple in Nohr doesn't change the fact that one nation is just minding its own business, while the other is trying to invade and conquer it as a naked landgrab and nothing more. The Nohr royal family (minus Elise, who isn't in a position to really do anything about it and is honestly the bravest of all her siblings) being SCARED of Garon is a pathetic effort to absolve them of their Camus behavior, especially Xander.

Garon IS what the Edelgard haters think Edelgard is.

The Nohrian royal family IS what Edelgard haters think the Black Eagles are when they're on her side.

And the infuriating part? People continuously dismiss Fates like it somehow has no debt.

...Debt? Did you mean "depth"?

Even when you show supports and scripts showing the full picture, they just go "this didn't happen in my playthrough, so it doesn't count." Oftentimes insulting the person's intelligence for "not admitting Fates is bad," effectively.

Fates discourse was a long time ago and I don't really remember it so well anymore, but that's definitely not happening with Engage, which is catching about as much flack as Fates did in the writing department (honestly, while I think Engage's characters are generally better-written, I detest the main story even more than I do Fates', because Fates was at least trying to do something novel. Engage put in zero effort and still fucked up).

Nowadays, I don't really see people jumping down most peoples' throats when they say they like Fates, unless the Fates defender is being a petulant brat about it. Here's a good example of it in action:

I'm covering names, but I'll use a consistent coloring for each person.

Red over here gets upset at people trashing on scenes from Fates and Engage, so they launch into an indignant diatribe against Three Houses.

But anyways, those of you familiar with Fates/Engage writing discourse are probably checking your watches, wondering when the Three Houses whutaboutism is going to begin. Well rest easy, because that's next.

There's just something strange about defenders of Fates and Engage, they so very seldom defend their game, they just go "but Three Houses was worse!"

Even if that was true, it's just whutaboutism. The reality here is the bitterness that Three Houses' writing is well-regarded (for the franchise at least) and Fates and Engage's are not, and the writing is the most prominent albatrosses around both games' necks.

The truth is, people hated Fates' writing before Three Houses came out, and they would have hated Engage's if Three Houses never existed, and honestly, I suspect with the hypothetical triple-whammy of Fates, Echoes, and Engage all coming out and all being terribly-written, people might start to just check out on Fire Emblem being capable of having good writing anymore at all. I know I'm nervous about the future of the series, when a remake of a SaGa game from the 90's is genuinely better written than Engage (the memory walk at the end of Revenge of the Seven makes me tear up every time, dammit).

Meanwhile, 3H has people so enamored with the idea of what it is that if you actually analyze what it says versus what's actually happening in subtext, context and implications, it completely falls apart and shows the "grey morality" isn't remotely grey.

I'm just going to let anon ramble for a bit because... they've got a very strange definition of gray morality.

The only lord who's even remotely decent people are Dimitri and Claude, and Dimitri had his phase as the Boar following the Duscur massacre and even Claude is a slippery weasel who sides with the strongest faction any time he's not the focus (and sometimes even when he is). Rhea is a traumatized genocide survivor and a cosummate liar trying to make meaning of an abusive system and is just a horrible person that even Seteth becomes afraid of, and Edelgard is willing to kill thousands to burn down a system and is openly a revanchist tyrant who makes cheap, palsy claims of guilt or "regret" for the lives she's taken, but willingly let what happened at Remire happened and still sided with Those Who Slithers.

...So apparently gray morality is when everyone is perfect?

(And yes, we're just gonna ignore the exhausted Edelgard slander).

And unlike what people say about Fates and Valla, the existence of the Agarthans completely destroys any moral nuance 3H is.

I wouldn't say they completely destroy the moral nuance, but they definitely fuck it up. The Agarthans are such a strange group to have exist in a story that's otherwise really good at showing everyone having a point, even if only a small one. Maybe they're supposed to be the extreme end of everyone thinking they're the hero? The Agarthans certainly do.

Fates's point was "even though these factions seem good and evil, they're so much more complex than that and nations aren't first appearances; they are full of people too, good and bad".

Yeah, Garon's super complex.

3H's point was a measly-mouthed attempt at acting like nobody is the right, conveniently having whatever faction Byleth chooses being the moral victor even when all evidence should show the contrary,

No, 3H's point was certainly not that nobody was in the right. The point was that Edelgard, Claude, Dimitri, and even Rhea had good and bad parts to them. Whichever character you choose to support has their best traits show all the brighter, and the others slide into deeper darkness. Be it Edelgard turning herself into a monster, Dimitri becoming a murderous monster who leads his people to ruin, Claude looking out only for himself at the expense of all others, and Rhea going insane and burning a city down as a last grasp at killing Byleth.

but while Fates is reviled for being a sensible work with an awkward delivery,

But it's not a sensible work, it's been analyzed ad nauseum for almost ten years. There's a reason EmblemXeno and anon have retreated to just bitterly stewing on Tumblr: they lose whatever arguments they get into the instant they step outside their echo chamber.

3H is loved for being a nonsensical mess of conflicting details

Anon, just because you didn't understand the point doesn't mean there was no point.

because it figures it might as well not care about actually making a point and instead saying what people wanted to hear

I'm really curious to see what anon thought was supposed to be Three House's point. Red Lady bad?

because it's, sadly, completely correct that fans only look at the first impression regardless of if it has any weight to it,

In Three Houses, especially, that's super ironic, seeing as how all three lords subvert their first impressions.

because they've invented depth that does not exist. And that results in a fandom that cannot agree on basic facts and details;

Partly, that's because people get things wrong and keep parroting their wrong ideas as though they were correct, and then others don't fact check them. For a while there, people were insisting that Hapi's ending in Azure Moon states definitively that she helps Dimitri find and defeat the Agarthans in Shambhala when it most certainly does not.

The issue is that Three Houses hides a lot of its details into the depths of its worldbuilding and leaves a lot to interpretation. To people who demand clear answers, I suppose that would be a bad thing, but I think it's part of the game's strength.

ironic for the fandom that focuses so much on being "objectively correct" with their analysis in dismissing Fates altogether, while they are blind to their own headcanons dominating the sphere because they're chasing phantoms.

Ironic that anon is whining about headcannons.

Anon then whines for a little bit about Awakening, and far be it for me to gainsay them on that because I fuckin' hate Awakening, its gameplay is dumpster tier and its writing peaks in chapter 10 out of a 26 chapter game, not counting gaidens.

But [Awakening] at least feels like an FE game to me, with all the love, empathy, kindness and kickass swords. 3H is so unlike an FE game in spirit and essence

Sure, anon. Whatever you say.

Emblem Xeno tends to get a lot of anons (or just the same anon constantly reiterating the same point) saying that Three Houses "doesn't have the spirit of a true Fire Emblem game" but they can never explain what that means.

I guess it's not a true Fire Emblem game if it ponders, "but what if the godly dragons weren't flawless?" or, "actually should the nobles be held to certain standards?"

Oh well, we all have to start somewhere.

that I would legitimately accept it more if it actually was a brand new series altogether,

People would still be calling Fates and Engage poorly written even if Three Houses was part of the Water Sigil franchise it was, Anon.

but as is, it tethering to the FE brand as the most popular FE game proves you can get away with any shitty sentiment in your works as long as you honey your words enough;

"Maybe people deserve to live the kinds of lives they want to live" is a shitty sentiment?

doesn't matter how right you are or how much you have depth and meaning, it doesn't matter shit if your delivery is shit,

I'm still waiting to hear about all that depth and meaning, Anon, and hopefully they can manage something better than a horribly-mangled reference to the Chinese elements.

because most people only look at first impressions and not if it's actually true or not.

Fates has been analyzed, discussed, and retrospectived so many times that we're now on the three-thousandth impression, and it hasn't exactly improved over the last ten years.

And it's fucking disappointing seeing the average person be so incapable of that, while people like you or I are rare.

Anon then closes by talking about Dragon Age: Veilguard and the recent Harry Potter game, neither of which I've played or am interested in, so I guess we'll just close this here.

So yeah, that was some impressive whining!

But before we go, Emblem Xeno had a few things to say in response to the ask:

Hoshido and Nohr are themselves Yin-Yang, darkness within light (Hoshido being peaceful yet having cracks underneath) and light within darkness (Nohr being antagonistic yet full of good people)

Supposedly good people, yet it's also where Iago, Hans, and all of their genocidal soldiers come from. Who from Hoshido is as bad? Haitaka? Emblem Xeno talks about Hoshido having "cracks underneath", but generally this is just "there's a lot of rout maps, so clearly Birthright Corrin is bloodthirsty", funny how the lack of rout maps in Crimson Flower never gets brought up; "Hoshido never helped Nohr with their famine", we don't actually know what sort of relation the two nations had prior to Sumeragi's death, and after that Hoshido naturally wouldn't be helping Nohr with anything; and also "Hoshido is isolationist and that's bad" though I don't recall any evidence of it being that.

Takumi has heavy darkness within his heart, hence why he's able to be warped by Anankos.

The bit about his beloved stepmother (rip Ikona again, gotta make sure the player can bang their siblings) dying in a shocking tragedy, his kingdom getting steamrolled thanks to Corrin, losing both his beloved retainers thanks to Corrin, and his beloved little sister (Sakura's one of the only people he's completely friendly with, they're pretty cute together) getting captured by a Kingdom of vicious murderers had nothing to do with it.

Nah, it was because he had darkness in his heart, kinda like Riku, y'know?

The Japanese version of his solo ending even says that seeing the good in people after peace is attained was able to suppress that darkness.

Whatever, I'll take Xeno's word for it, I can't confirm or deny that one.

And Elise is constantly compared to being a light in a kingdom of darkness.

I think that only comes up once, when she's first introduced?

Plus, those two are also parallels to each other in terms of story roles (alongside being opposites of Leo and Sakura as well of course), given how both were pushed to death through no fault of their own, and were suffering through external circumstances! Takumi gets corrupted through his existing hatred, and Elise gets depressed when the light of her life-her family-is dimming.

Do they really work as parallels, though? Takumi ends up at his worst on the route opposite the one where he's playable, while Elise just ends up the same as always. Now if she was the final boss of Birthright, that'd totally work. And also it'd be fucking incredible, imagine that shit! Like if she went full zealot somehow and became some sort of light-based evil? I dunno how that'd work, though.

Either way, I don't really see how Takumi and Elise are foils when the only thing connecting them is they fuckin' die and both get sick.

Like... aren't these things worthy of discussion?

Well, it's just really shallow and not terribly interesting. It'd be like pointing out how the Tales of series so often references the big four elements and acting like that's depth, when it's really just recurring series trappings.

I honestly think that people don't talk about them because they have the notion that Fates' writing is bad, so there must be nothing deeper.

Well you sure aren't going to convince people of this by hiding in a little hole on Tumblr, Xeno. Oh, but we know why you hide: you make a fool of yourself whenever you try to argue points elsewhere.

No! Execution of a story can fuck things up greatly, and the fact that some are unwilling to even admit that? Makes me sad.

Admit what, that execution of a story can fuck things up greatly? I don't think anyone's doubting that. In fact, from what I've seen generally people agree that Fates had an interesting idea, it just wasn't executed very well.

Though honestly that last line just reads like "why can't they all admit that I'm right and they're wrong?" which is depressingly common from Xeno's crowd on tumblr...

#fire emblem three houses #edelgard discourse #Fire Emblem Fates #Chinese elements #Emblem Xeno #longpost #analysis

10 notes · View notes

yanderefairyangel · 3 months ago

Note

I feel like what's making Lumera, and the Divine & Fell Dragons work for me is that they're essentially Sothis, Rhea, and the Nabateans if the writing allowed them to TRULY haunt the narrative in terms of what they went through and lost.

Like, so much from Lumera feels like a realised Rhea & Sothis combo, which is wilder when you realise she's dead for most of Engage's story, but IS lets her (again) HAUNT THE NARRATIVE extensively.

Enough of her influence and death fleshes out Alear's existence and motivation in the story, and the people who surrounding them.

That even applies to how Rafal and Nel from the Fell Xenologue adds that extra love for Fell Dragons that Veyle already had beforehand.

plus there's just how Engage in general treats and explores its dragon and divine cast, kinda fills the void that both 3H titles just didn't commit to filling with the Nabateans outside of Heroes giving Rhea and Sothis more love than said 3H titles.

I genuinely can't stop thinking how much Engage really makes up for how little Fodlan's setting DEPENDED on not doing much with one of Fire Emblem's core aspects, its dragons.

Yep my thoughts exactly !

The issue with 3H is that it refuses to explore the Nabateans even though the whole Nabatean/Agarthans conflict is literaly at the heart of everything that happens in Foldan !

This weakens greatly the Nabateans, especially characters like Sothis who just straight up doesn't do anything in the mid game anymore even thought the early game gave you the impression there would be a greater role for her (but nope)

So while everyone complains that Lumera "dies too early so we don't have the time to get attached" what they misses is that : IT. IS. THE POINT. When Alear meets Lumera, they don't remember anything, the point is specfically that when you lost Lumera you don't realize the loss right away but with her haunting the narrative you grow to care about her only to discover WHY Alear cares about her, I have talked about it but

Ludo- narrative dissonance CAN be used to enhance the narrative and since Alear's amnesia is heavily implied to be dissociative in nature it makes sense that the player and the character are put in states where they aren't in harmony : because Alear themselves aren't in harmony when Lumera dies. They forgot everything when in comes to episodic memories but they still retain subsoncious memories, which is why they still fear the Corrupted at the begining of the game, but the player doesn't know why they dislike the corrupted yet, it's only later they do. This is the same reasoning here, Alear cries because they still love Lumera subconsiously, but at the same time they like episodic memory they don't have the full context, it's as I explained, their past selves manifesting when seeing the only person who cared for them dying, but we the audience, we don't know anything when this scene happens. But later moments allows us to look at this scene differently, and by the time we reach chapter 25, we have grown to care enough about Lumera to feel in harmony with Alear when she dies this time, meant to also reflect how by this point, Alear made the peace with their past, and when replaying the story this recontextuallization only makes it better !

Engage doesn't simply let Lumera haunt the narrative, it plays a game of sprinkling elements here and there which makes the re-experiencing the story even better, because every bit becomes recontextualized and shows the amount of care but into every of Lumera's lines. Each one of them reflect what happens to the story later on and set the outline for chapter 25.

Meanwhile 3H gives us dragons but does nothing with it. I know people complain about Alear and Veyle but I never thought they would argue that Seteth and Flayn conviniently losing their power to turn into dragons is somehow a better diegetic excuse than Veyle getting rid of her stone because of her trauma and complicated self acceptances issues and Alear losing theirs because they gave it to Veyle and then the stone breaking when it serves as yet another element liking Alear to the notion of hope (since Veyle search for them and that their stone being intact means they are still alive so she can still hope)

Flayn and Seteth's relationship is cute and all but is that all there is ? If the Nabateans weren't ... idk KINDA IMPORTANT DUE TO HOW THEIR HISTORY AND THE AGARTHANS WANT TO TAKE REVENAGE ON THEM CAUSED 99% OF THE CURRENT SITUATION IN FOLDAN that wouldn't be such a problem

This is very frustrating when you take into consideration how many games that have dragon as an important lore but actualy dont shy away from exploring everything about them, and for game where they are more minor like Sacred Stones, they still got their moment and it's at least justifiable

But the Nabateans are way to important to just be left like that yet 3H just doesn't want to use them

15 notes · View notes

cherry-flavoured-thot · 2 months ago

Note

Helloooo I was wondering if I could ask for headcanons of Grima with a severely anxious s/o if that’s fine with you (also maybe Clorica, unless you don’t do multiple fandoms in one request)

☽ ◦ ◦ ◦ ✩ ❤ ✩ ◦ ◦ ◦ ☾

Fire Emblem:

Grima:

✩ Grima doesn't understand why you fret so much. No harm will befall you as long as you have their favour. They are the one who will decide your fate not the worms that linger around you. So needless to say that aren't exactly sympathetic, but they do provide reassurance in their own way.

✩ If there are certain people or types of interactions that cause you anxiety to be more severe then normal, they will tell you not to bother doing them if such tasks cause you distress. Unless they are incredibly important then they are going with you to ensure you are able to do it.

✩ "How soft and feeble you are, it's a wonder you haven't broken yet." They mean their words. The world is capability of as much cruelty as they are and even as you're own mind seems to work against you, you carry on nonetheless. "Fret not I have deemed you worthy, human, so your worries, no matter how insignificant I find them, will crumble beneath me."

☽ ◦ ◦ ◦ ✩ ❤ ✩ ◦ ◦ ◦ ☾

Rune Factory 4:

Clorica:

✩ Clorica worries about you. Especially when you seem to hideaway from the world when your anxiety really becomes unbearable. She is patient when it comes to you letting her in and come sit with you when you're really struggling.

✩ She's a really good listener and she doesn't judge either. If you just want to say whats making your mind race or what's set you off, she is happy to just sit there and listen. If you want her input she'll provide it, if not she'll just be as understanding as possible.

✩ "When was that last time you actually slept?" You grimace at her question. "Maybe you should. I'm happy to just talk about random stuff until you doze off." She knows distraction is key, so she does just talk softly. She tells you about how many dishes she cleaned today. The weird dream she had in her latest nap. How she hopes it rains soon because she thinks the sound of it against the castle roof is super relaxing. And when you finally fall asleep, she does too.

☽ ◦ ◦ ◦ ✩ ❤ ✩ ◦ ◦ ◦ ☾

#my writing tag #fire emblem #fire emblem heroes #fe #feh #grima #fe grima #clorica #rune factory 4 #rune factory

7 notes · View notes

1ofthemcomics · 4 months ago

Text

Smash Rivals Roster

So a lot of people have been enjoying Marvel Rivals unfortunately I can’t because all I have is a Switch. And that got me thinking what if Nintendo made a game like Rivals with their own wide array of characters. What would the roster look like? So I made one using exclusive Nintendo characters. I decided to make the starting roster 36 to make it even. Let’s go through them and explain starting with.

The Duelist or the DPS

Mario: An obvious pick. He be an easy to play all round fighter being able to get up close with big jumps to move around or fight at a mid range distance with fireballs.

Link: Another obvious pick with a large assortment of weapons that give him a lot of mix up options. This character would be a challenge to get good at. We can even give him a passive that gives him a high damage sword beam when he’s at full health. As for which version technically all of them because we have skins that can reference the other Links

Pickachu: Pokemon of course is another big name, he be a fast character able to stun enemies temporarily but with a trade off of having lower health.

Captain Falcon: while F-Zero isn’t a big name for Nintendo we needed an Iron fist type character that get all up in the enemies face and Captain Falcon is that guy and we would need the falcon punch as that move that would just insta destroy your opponent

Meta Knight: A popular character form the Kirby franchise be a hard character to learn and always in the sky and be able to dive attack opponents but always being in the air would make him an easy target.

Krystal: Starfox is another name that’s just not big for Nintendo but I still wanted to include at least one character from it. But one reason Marvel Rivals got so big was because of certain characters and Nintendo doesn't have a lot of those except for Krystal. She can use the standard star fox gear in addition to her own stuff giving her a much more range of abilities

Marth: The Smash games got backlash a lot for having too many Fire emblems characters so I wanted to limit that. So let’s just focus on the mascot of the franchise Marth and we can reference the other protagonists in skins

Inkling: Spaltoon is a big new face that we got to have and have an interesting playstyle being able to do more damage the more ink is on the opponent similar to smash or slow down enemies by placing ink on the map.

Bayoneta: Now I know technically this isn’t a Nintendo character but her games have always been Nintendo exclusive so if there’s one guest character we can get it’s her and like stated before we need those types of characters. And there’s no character more than Bayo.

Pit: We need a sniper character and honestly Pit is basically the only good option I could think of.

Shulk: Xenoblade has become well known enough. I feel like it earned a couple spots so let’s include Shluk who would be an interesting addition with the ability to change his stats mid fight. I sort of picture him as this game's Magick if that makes sense.

Pyra and Mythra: Xenobalde needed another character so decided to include these too we’re gonna do something similar to their smash version and Cloak and dagger form rivals where you can swap between the too. Pyra would be stronger but sower and have a burning affect to attacks that do a bit of damage over time while Mythra would be faster but weaker and be able to stun enemies with attacks.

The Vanguards or Tanks

Bowser: an obvious pick he be a basic vanguard able to get up close and personal

Donkey Kong: Another obvious pick and simple to learn he be like venom able to climb up walls and do big damage like the gorilla he is.

Ganondorf: Ganondorf would be the Magento of the game. He would have a lot of raw power but be difficult to master.

Samus: This may seem like an odd pick for vanguard and not duelist but I almost have a Bruce banner/Hulk idea for her where she can start in her zero samus form and then transform into her full suit after filling in a meter. Then she have a lot of armor blast, and missles and you know she move around in the morph ball.

Kirby: If you know Kirby you know this makes sense he be able to shallow enemies and just throw them off the map like Jeff and for his ultimate he shallow an opponent and copy thier entire kit.

King Dedede: Another big Nintendo villian I see him as our Groot being able to block enemies approach with gordos and pull them in with inhales and beat them with his hammer.

Wario: Wario would have an interesting vanguard being able to cover an area with stench that do president damage for whoever’s in for the period of time it last and being able to have the best vanguard movement with his bike.

Charizard: We needed a least one Pokémon in the vanguard and with how much the Pokémon company loves him Charizard was the easy pick. He be another flying character with a lot of fire power.

Wrestler: Rivals isn’t just about the easy picks or the big names as it puts a spotlight on lesser known series and characters and I wanted to do that by pulling form the rhythm heaven series and I thought the Wrestler form it would be the funniest to play around with.

Ridley: I almost didn’t put him in as I’m worried he play too much like Charizard but I wanted another Metroid rep and the only other option that thought could work for a vanguard would be Mother Brian the problem with that is again this game needs skins and Mother Brian Doesn't have that, but Ridley does. So let’s add him and make him faster but less powerful then Charizard and have him focus on being up close and personal with his targets

Midna: I wanted another Zelda character outside of the main trio and I believe Midna is the best of that. She could be the Dr.Strange of the game, able to make portals via the twilight realm, grab enemies with her hair and ride around via her wolf buddy.

Yoshi: I almost made him a duelist but the more I thought about it the more clear I realized he fit vanguard able to shield being in an egg and if we do team ups like rivals he can have others ride on him or scoop them in an egg and do a fastball special.

And finally the Strategist or Supports

Luigi: You might think this should just be another duelist like Mario but I want Luigi to be as different as possible let’s focused on his ghost hunting and have him pull from that

Pauline: That’s right no Peach, it’s not just about who’s on the roster buts who’s not. I originally had Rosalina for this spot but then later I remembered Pauline, Nintendo has been pushing her lately and she could be our Luna Snow using her songs and music to empower and heal allies

Bowser Jr: He would be the Rocket Raccoon in the game as he be able to fly around in his clown car, and have a lot unique tricks that make him hard to master.

Zelda: a simple choice with a lot of magic at her disposal making her a natural healer.

Ashley: I wanted a representative form the Warioware games and Ashley was the perfect pic her powers of magic can make her a wacky support.

Greninja: Greninja according to multiple polls is the most popular Pokémon of all time so I had to toss him in here. We could make him a duelist that works like Psylocke but I think we could focus on his water for healing ability to make him a sneaky support that could ninja run alongside walls

Robin: I wanted another Fire Emblem character and one from Awakening snice it’s the game that revived the franchises and Robin your avatar in the game is a stragagist and making him one in this game was way too tempting.

Isabelle: Needed an Animal Crossing rep and Isabelle was the perfect pic that could be our Mantis focus on boosting and damping the stats of others

Tom Nook: I wanted one more Animal Crossing pick and I have a fun idea for Tom Nook where he was a big health pool and he could give a big portion to an ally to heal and then after a set amount of time that amount of health would return to him from the player he healed I call it Loan Healing.

Andy: I wanted one more pick form a less recognized series to I went form Andy form Advanced Wars. He could be basically a turret fighter focusing on healing allies or giving them extra ammo while he summons mini tanks to fight for him.

Huisian Zorarak: I wanted a mythical Pokémon and my original thought was Mewtwo but then we would have too many Kanto Pokémon. But then I recalled a Pokémon from my favorite gen. Zorarak would be our Loki or Spy from Team fortress where he could disguise himself as an enemy team member and sneak around dealing damage or support allies in tough spots. I also want it to be the Huisian version as I prefer that design and we can have the original as a skin.

Magolor: For our last character I wanted one last villain someone with the potential power that could bring these characters together and that brought me to Magolor. Who has gotten back in the public eye thanks to having his own story in the recent remake.

And with that we have the roster. I know there’s a lot of characters I didn’t add or cut and I be happy to discuss them, Other roster ideas, or different ideas for how characters may play.

#marvel #marvel rivals #nintendo #super smash bros #super mario #legend of zelda #metroid #animal crossing #pokemon #fire emblem #rythm heaven #advancedwars #xenoblade #f zero #kid icarus #kirby #bayonetta #Nintendorivals

7 notes · View notes