#i want to see how those two interact

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

spoiler helaemond! aemond discovers that helaena is a dreamer.

[mellohiizz]

@saiintvalentiine hello. the npc fic left me absolutely in shambles i needed to draw them.

[buttercupshands]

Silly guys return now with me accidentally making a comic of how it took isat one month to get some characters to the special room

I'm not risking reloading of the page but there's a continuing thing of the couch characters progress

[biblicalhorror]

Aroace Riz real but also Fabian is SO clearly in love with him and Riz has no idea

[dykedvonte]

I hate the stretch lines in the front of Curly's uniform because that means the devs rushed to make a model in like a month or so and thought "They gotta at least know he has huge knockers, gotta know he's got back pain." Cause like what is the thematic importance of his tits having overhang?

What responsibility is that representing? Breast reduction? It shows an inherent greed in his character due to the excess and heshouldletmeholdone and that he clearly is blinded cause if he tries to look down his damn ladder all he's seeing is his own cleavage.

[ganondoodle]

i often really do feel like an .. unwanted part of the fandom, i dont draw beautiful landscapes, i have unpopular but strong opinions im constantly annoying about and rarely change, dont like/dont draw the pretty young popular twinks and hot gurls to fanboi over nor do i turn characters into one, the opposite moreso, draw only one ship no ones heard of really, got little energy to interact with the few people that are nice to me and send me asks so it probably looks like im ignoring everyone and unfortunately but still rarely get so stressed i get overwhelmed and emotional about pehaps seemingly minor things and spiral almost into a breakdown feeling super embarrassed about it afterwards but the damage is already done and i look like a freak or agressive weirdo

[quibbs126]

You know, it’s sad to me that Peach Blossom basically got nothing

He was only given one short scene in the story, and he only talks to one character, that being Dark Cacao. And most of their interaction was about Peach Blossom giving him food and directions, with whatever character work being pretty much Dark Cacao centric. And how he’s left, he’s probably not relevant enough to ever bring back in another update, he’s just a guy tending to a peach bao garden

I mean sure, other playable characters have been relegated to short cameos, like Blueberry Pie, but in Blueberry Pie’s case, she already has Ovenbreak, in which I believe she did have a small story, and she has relationship charts. She has a whole other game of context, and it’s similar with Peppermint (though I never finished Mermaid’s Tale so I don’t know all his scenes), but with Peach Blossom being a CRK original, he doesn’t have that luxury

He doesn’t even have interactions with anybody right now in game, which could be changed later and they hopefully give him someone else to talk to other than Dark Cacao, but as it stands he’s got nothing other than saying a Cake Hound bit him or that the thing on his head isn’t a peach

Heck, there are NPCs who have had more characterization in stories than him. Yes one of those is Smoked Cheese, but still

It’s almost like no wonder he just gets lumped in with Affogato despite being nothing like him other than more feminine appearances and being a new femboy, that’s the most characterization some people are willing to give him because there’s not much else to work with. I mean he does have a character, or at least things you can base one off of, but you generally have to look for them in his story description or some of his in-game lines, and I think most people aren’t gonna go out of their way to do that

[randomnameless]

Drankengard done (land 2!)

A lot of nice things in this part, so far it feels like the most FE-like land, and some characters from this land are really interesting!

l firstly love how the plot starts with "we have to rescue this midget prince from 100k soldiers" in one of the few defend maps of this game with various catapults and other engines to attack/defend against a cluster of loldiers coming at you - that was nice compared to the nigh useless ballistas and other engines in FE.

Granted, Gilbert's defining moment after being revealed is basically protecting his vassal from a gotoh-like character who's twice his size and more or less recruiting her for the defend map -

(localisation thingie : no "kisama" for eng/fr script Gilbert, sure it's kind of complicated to put it in words - like an agressive "you" - and yet it gives some nice characterisation, after Amalia rekts Leah and while Gilbert is standing seconds before being surrounded by 100k peons in front of someone who's basically stronger than anyone else around, he is still angry and pissed for his friend's sake) -

Just before being upset at asking our party - aka a foreign nation who was at war with his for the last few decades and revealing that his dad only granted asylum to the princess of said foreign nation to marry her to his heir to conquer it later on - for help.

Hopefully for him his game is no Triangle Strategy, so no one will actually tell him to eat shit because he wasn't the one who liberated the land even if he participed to instead worship the "foreign" person who led the liberation army.

Hell, idk what kind of PR campaign Gilbert and his few loyal soldiers pulled out, but some NPCs are really acting as if he liberated his kingdom single handedly lol

His relationship with his elder brother was sort of developed in the main plot - but more in the equivalent of the support convos - but as I said in another post, I really loved that part where he feels like he's still a second prince, and if his older brother returns, older brother should get the crown even if older brother feels like dirt for failing his country and his father, and became a wandering... mercenary who's busy saving priestresses from jails (and leaving them in the middle of battlefields).

Ultimately, they reunite and more or less solve their issues, and Ludwig manages to tell him that he wouldn't be half the king Gilbert is, because Gilbert is the one who led a rebellion and ultimately led Drakengard free, is loved by this people etc etc.

TBH, while it was short, this was a nice character arc -

(complete with the support/rapport convo just after the final map I unlocked where Gilbert, wanting to know how the common people live in his kingdom, gets plastered with the a random worthless bandit/merc who's freaking out from the entire situation lol)

The other major character from Drakengard is Virginia, the MC's older cousin!

We first see her being kind of pushy and overbearing, sometimes taking the initiative to do rather extreme stuff (wanting to fetch her axe instead of recruiting the earlier worthless bandit/merc), but she's still deferring to the MC, save for a certain mission - because, and kuddos to the game for going there, while Virginia's story is basically a tragic Marth's, aka, when her kingdom was invaded she had to run away to a foreign state for asylum but without any Jeigan, she believed for 10 years and never stopped believing that she was the only one who survived, and thus it was her role and duty to restore the Cornian line on the throne and take back the country from the evil Empire.

And... MC pops up, as the rightful - aka the son of the late queen as opposed to her mere niece - heir thus Virginia's hopes of becoming the Queen and the one to restore her nation vanish.

So kuddos for the game to basically have Virginia tell her cousin that while she was happy to see him and learn he was alive after all those years... she also felt jealous, because the 10 last years she spent having this dream and hope to be the one to restore the country... vanished in 10 minutes lol.

She's not going to challenge Alain's claim to the throne and instead will support him.

Granted, this moment becomes ten times more interesting if you do her own mission before - aka the one where she zerg rushes against the dude who slaughtered her retinue against the advice of Jeigan Joseph and becomes a dreaded green unit (who loses her promotion somehow???), running in a battlefield full of catapults to have her vengeance.

Remember when I said one of her first defining moments is when she asks to be handed her axe to get rid of a worthless merc instead of recruiting him? Well, her words back then were something like "your men died for you, so you can't beg for your life" or something like that, we learn in her own mission that she was basically talking about herself.

Basically, kid!Virginia was supposed to have her Jeigans and Cain/Abel/Draugs and they were supposed to escape and run away together to Drakengard... but they were slaughtered by some general of the evil empire who thought bringing her head would make a good offering to the evil emperor, so the Jeigans, Cains, Abel, Draugs etc etc laid down their lives to allow her to escape - we have a voiced FB with a few images and a battle cinematic, where the knights basically say they will die to make sure she'll be able to escape, and will slow down the evil general with their corpses if needed.

The entire platoon of knights died, and Virginia has been carrying this trauma for ten years, dreaming of having her revenge but never once confiding in anyone from Drakengard about it - not even in her (Gilbert's) vassal Leah who she seemed to be close too earlier.

Short story, the general holds a fort and is supposed to be called back to the evil empire's capital for some reason, and instead of waiting for his departure to recapture the fort, Virginia storms at the general to have her revenge (accompanied by the knights who were just squires when she had to leave, and thus couldn't be there when their senior knights were slaughtered and want revenge as much as she does!).

You have to send Joseph to talk to her to have her turn blue again (and promoted again thank gods) and the re-recruitment scene is cool for 2 things :

1/it's Joseph, not Alain who talks to her because her beef and the one who talked to her and the one whose plan is ignored is Joseph - I love it when the MC isn't at the center of everyone's universe

2/Virginia during this convo notices her friends/knights are injured (they have the injured sprite) and realises she was going to send to their death the last remaining members of that platoon, chastises herself and her next battle lines are something like "I won't let them die/bleed anymore" or something and it's fucking powerful because hey, besides some "vengeance is empty" that she will get later on herself, part of what makes her see reason is the realisation that her allies are injured and were going to die in her quest, and she can't have that anymore (nice ludonarration moment here, Virginia is a tank, if her allies are injured, it's because she wasn't tanking well enough!).

"Vengeance is empty" moment : the evil general who slaughtered her former knights doesn't even remember the people he slaughtered, or the mission where he hunted her, aka, she's been obsessing for 10 years over something her so called "nemesis" forgot.

End of the map, the realisation that her vengeance was nothing + she put her close allies' lives in danger (+ the little bit of salt when she mentions that Alain is the Cornian Royal people should follow because he is royalty) make her want to leave the army as fitting punishment - which, you know, coming from a series where some lord basically goes 1VS1 against the guy who killed his dad and who was followed by his kid sister who put herself in mortal danger but only receives a scold from his not-mom and slap on the wrist just makes me side-eye FE Tellius' writing even more.

Anyways, while I read on redshit that some people were pissed because "wah wah Virginia is a character who does foolish things and there are consequences about it she should be exiled forever or something", she obviously doesn't leave the army because, all of her close allies ask her to stay. Hell, Alain only gives one or two sentences that are dispassionate compared to the other 4 - again to show that MC privileges aren't everything at least plot wise - but the main voice is Leah's - aka her (well) Drakengard retainer!

When earlier Virginia told her that this story and her choice had nothing to do with Drakengard - because it's about Cornian knights who died during her flight from Cornia - Leah now reminds her that she became someone important for Drakengard too, and you know, the 10 years she spent here ? It's not just only background to give some fluff for a teatime line, no, it has more implication, if not only to have this moment where Leah says that Virginia's pride, bravery and hope to restore her country also influenced and inspired people (Gilbert, the second son who had to assume the role of the King when no one else was left!) around her and made the people of Drakengard also hope to liberate their country - if she leaves now, the named character from Cornia will miss her, but also "Drakengard" in general.

To cement her words, after this map we can talk to some Drakengard NPC who's all "wow Princess Virginia is so cool she defeated the bastard in charge of this fortress!" and while idk if Leah's speech + that NPC were added to make the ending where she becomes the queen of Drakengard (save for Alain marrying his cousin) more plausible, but it was a really nice addition.

Adding to that the fact that Virginia is the one who's basically telling Alain (and informing the player) about various map hazards like geysers around the land, giving some backstory about the desert along with Leah and also the one who tells the party about a sort of shortcut/secret passage and yes, we get it that she lived for 10 years in that land and knows it enough to act as a guide, but also that the people around know her.

I mean compare with a game where some dude apparently went to a school in a foreign capital but when he marches on said foreign capital or talks to people who also attended that school he never mentions it - it's like night and day.

Final "daw" moment that is both tied to her character but also, another example that Alain isn't the center of the universe... Virgnia is the one who tells Alain to talk to Aramis (the eldest prince who became a merc!) and ask him to talk to Gilbert to put his worries aside about the throne and the succession and ust, to reunite with his younger brother.

The characters concerned (Gilbert and Aramis) thank Alain for giving them the occasion and push to talk to each other - not knowing this was something Virginia planned, because while hers and Gilbert's issues are sort of similar (the not "legitimate" heir who took the mantle of restoring their country to glory and believed it so for the last decade, only for the legitimate one to return), she has a good enough read on Gilbert to know that he needs to talk to his brother to put his doubts and questions about his legitimacy aside and accept that he is the King.

Coming from a series with "avatar scissors", the bonds and links between the characters was really something I enjoyed, Alain will not pop up and tell Gilbert that he is a good king and should get over/or deal with his doubts about his brother, Alain isn't the one who gives the most meaningful speech about why Virginia is important to Drakengard and hell, we don't even see the exchange we know he had with Aramis to convince him to talk to Gilbert, because the most important scene here isn't the Alain-Aramis dialogue, but the Aramis-Gilbert one. Gilbert doesn't want to free his Kingdom because he envies Alain or Alain told him to do so, it's something he wants to do being inspired by Virginia.

In a nutshell, Drakengard's major characters were a good surprise and their stories and quests were cool.

More minor character wise...

We get the Drakengard version of the same plague we saw in Cornia, but instead of having "clerics" perform experiments on infected people to find a cure, the accent here is put on a wyvern knight who was to enforce a lockdown, to prevent the plague from spreading and well... no fines in this setting, instead she runs them through with her spear.

IDK how that game would have been received just after Covid lol

All jokes asides, just like the Cornian version of this plot heavily suggested, the plague was devised by the evil empire to cut down the forces of the rebellion and make sure this land would be able to be conquered easily.

Why are the imperials killing people? Well, it might have to do something with the fact that the totes-not-gharnef old sorcerer guy is a necromancer...

Leah's quest explored a little more the background info that "Drakengard and Cornia used to be at war" thingie, with random green units also mounting a liberation army but refusing our help, and we know how this ends with green units, we basically have to save them.

Map ends with some Drakengardians - who swore allegeance to the evil Empire? - still willing to fight us, and Alain asking Leah to please ask them, as a Drakengardian (?) to surrender because if someone from Cornia asks them they will refuse.

Also it's a bit of a character exploration, for once the usually demure + always in the back behind Virginia asks the Liberation Army to do something and insists even if people refuse, straight up saying that in that case (if they refuse) she's going to help the green NPCs herself since she's strong enough to do so and it's cool because I think at one moment Virginia sighs/laughs, but not in a derogatory way, but more in some "damn she's becoming like me" way - which is alluded to in ther rapport conversation, Leah seeks to emulate her bold and fearless (being a green unit) behaviour.

I haven't seen a lot of convos with the desert people we recruit - thank goodness we're far from Hyzante's clichés even if the "people in the desert are bandits and former prisoners" trope is still here, but given how the ones who attack us were brainwashed by the evil Empire, it's not as aggravating as, well, Nopes or Hyzante.

Gameplay wise :

Damn if promoting your units cost medals, but it's so worth it to have more than one action (at least) per turn ! It also means we can use entire new strategies because now the turns are at least longer than one round each!

Drakengard fills the Jugdral quota with the group of units coming all at once at you sometimes lol, but I loved the aesthetic difference that ultimately became gameplay difference between this area and Cornia, basically we have more mountains to less space to manoeuver the non flying units, the enemies use AoE engines to ruin you or at times, AoE map abilities from their own units to deal some annoying amount of damage.

The cities are larger so instead of fighting in a meadow with one or two small buildings here and there, at times the fight takes place in an entire city, so again, it means reduced mobility and of course, desert sucks because, just like FE, you can't move well in the sand.

Lolcalisation wise :

Virginia "I have never been fond of court formalities" says a desert full of bandit isn't a place for "royalty like us"? When the "us" is both her and her cousin reknown for their martial abilities?

What the fuck does it mean ?

At least in FR it's "a lot of people avoid this place" and not just "royalty like us" - which doubles as ridiculous because in the "people avoid this place" it's again the trend of Virginia being a tour guide of Drankengard, telling Alain that people from Drakengard think about the desert, eluding this part is also, in part, eluding part of the knowledge Virginia has about Drakengard.

I think the localisation took the "royal pride" that defines her and exaggerated it to "royal arrogance".

IDK if the meaning is the same in english, cretin is an insult like in french, but damn if you say to someone the are a "crétin" they will feel offended and insulted because that's way more rude than calling someone an idiot!

:/

And I also have a bone against whoever thought it was a good idea to throw "pseudo elvish" words in the localised script (sadly we followed this :'() when the japanese audio doesn't use them at all, was it to pretend the evles from Fevrith have a different language because Tolkien shall be universal, or what?

Elf land doesn't see that interesting plot wise compared to Drakengard, and I'm not saying this because of my Alcina bias lol but I'll just have to wait and see!

(poor hodrick is being slaughtered by those pesky pointy ears and their hybrid attacks, tfw armor not withstanding magic is universal, I'll have to promote Miriam asap to protect him or just bench him :/)

[aria-allium]

i don't know how but i often forget that straight one piece fans exist. like earlier i was going through reddit posts discussing zoro's family tree bc i wanted to know how other people felt abt it being dropped in an sbs and i kept finding comments saying it's awkward that kuina and zoro are technically distant relatives bc she was his love interest. like 1) that is a gay man and 2) that thought just like. has never even crossed my mind before. life is so beautiful

[witchofthemidlands]

tales of the tardis is enough for me, it is, it really is, after all those years, jamie & zoe finally got their memories back & if that's the last we see of jamie mccrimmon that was fantastic, it was more than enough, there is & now will always be a conclusion

but

if i had to bring any classic who companion back to new (new?) who it would be jamie, it would always be jamie because the idea of jamie meeting a modern doctor sends me just a tad feral, just a a little bit balls to the wall feral.

[blackvahana]

i am really never going to understand why people post "shifting antis dni" in the astral projection tag. "here practice that constantly gets appropriated by us and used as a weird justification for a new set of beliefs that aren't really based in the same reality you work with, and that also gets completely misunderstood by our community because we don't care to understand what you do and just pretend we know it's what we do like christians saying other religions worship the christian god, have a post! Also dni if you don't like our practice that has nothing to do with the one whose tag we just shoved this into"

if you're not astral projecting don't put shit in the ap tag. if you don't even know the difference between AP and RS I dont think your opinion holds enough weight to counter the pushback against flooding a separate practice's tag with "if you dont like the practice I'm talking about in your tags dni"

[thats-my-passion-right-there]

I finally saw the mean girls musical (the movie one) I have so many fucking thoughts oh my god

[theactualsunshinechild]

I can feel in my bones that people are already fully prepared to ignore any and all aspects of Aventurine's character that don't fit into their "Dr. Ratio's sassy bottom" vision of him. Give me a break...

[partywithbrock]

this art meme was going around twitter so I posted it there first but I wanted to post it here too. I couldn’t decide on which one I wanted to do more so I did both 🫣

[goblin-enjoyer]

I swear why are half the things i like/fandoms im in made of mostly younger people while the other half are mostly older people? what are the zoggin odds with that?

How it feels being 20 in a fandom with a bunch of 30-40 somethings.

VS how it feels being 20 in a fandom with a bunch of 14-17 somethings.

like am do i just have extremely odd luck with things i like or is this just what being 20 is like?

[freebooter4ever]

i send my friend suggestions of tourist places to see in his new country (his contract was extended, lucky him!) or messages about friend of friends i have living there that he could maybe meet for fellow americans to talk to, and his response is always that he doesnt have time. and not in that exaggerated way that people do to seem busy. but in that bone tired way i recognize from him here in LA, that i recognize in myself.