#implied whatever ingrid/ashe is called

[allie-writes]

Word of Mouth

Rating: General Audiences Warnings: None apply Category: Gen Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Ashe Ubert (implied), Sylvain Jose Gautier/Felix Hugo Fraldarius (implied) Word count: 1866 Language: English Read on: Fanfiction.net | AO3

Ingrid, Sylvain, and rumours.

Ingrid sits with her back exemplarily straight, her prim posture at odds with the grime in her hair and the stains on her clothes. That much is almost nostalgic—Sylvain vaguely remembers the Ingrid of his youth being constantly covered in more filth than the rest of them combined, and terribly proud of the fact as well.

 “I’m honoured you’d think to stop by here, honestly,” he tells her, pouring a generous shot of brandy for Ingrid before putting the stopper back on the carafe.

 “You know I try to visit whenever I can find the time,” she replies in that fondly chiding tone Sylvain misses sometimes and leans back into the plush pillows of the lounge chaise she is occupying.

 Sylvain walks over to her and offers her the drink. Ingrid’s small smile is grateful as she accepts it. “I take it the knightly life is still doing it for you, then?” he asks.

 “Of course it is.”

 It’s easy to tell just by her expression, if Sylvain is being honest. She seems awfully comfortable in her skin nowadays, like she’s found the place she’d always been meant to be. Looking at her makes something terribly warm bubble up in the pit of his stomach.

 A log cracks in the fireplace; the salon is almost stiflingly warm. Still, Sylvain sits right next to Ingrid, leg up in her space as if he was twenty again and trying to get a rise out of her. She seems entirely unfazed now, and it’s a bit disappointing. “And you? Are you doing well, Margrave?”

 Sylvain snorts a little laugh at the title. “Oh yeah, all that official business is absolutely riveting,” he replies. “As you can imagine.”

 Ingrid rolls her eyes with a smile and takes a sip from her drink. “If there wasn’t more to your life, I’m pretty sure you would have gone insane by now,” she says, gently knocking her knee into Sylvain’s thigh.

 “Totally. Securing the border is a real blast.”

 This actually earns him a shove. “Oh, come now!” Ingrid scoffs. “I know for a fact you’ve been to Fhirdiad a few times over the past year!”

 “Then why do you ask?”

 She sighs. “I want to know how you are holding up, not what you’ve been doing, Sylvain.”

 It’s curious how much his name can sound like a mild insult, coming from Ingrid. He feels a bit dense, anyway. “I’m alright, really. Better, now that I got to see my dear friend Ingrid again, of course.”

 “We missed each other, the last time you came to Fhirdiad,” she replies, almost bashfully. She swivels her glass and watches the brandy lap at the walls. “It’s a shame, really. It was only for a supply-run, and yet I couldn’t be there.”

 Sylvain considers throwing an arm around her shoulders for a second or two but ultimately thinks better of it. Instead, he makes sure his words come out in the worst drawl he can manage. “If you started slacking on your duties to see me, I’d tell His Majesty that you’ve been kidnapped and replaced by an impostor.”

 Ingrid huffs, pretends not to smile, and leans into Sylvain’s side. It’s unlike her; she must really have missed him. “Thank Sothis that’s not the case, then,” she says, grinning fifteen years younger than her current age.

 She’s shockingly pretty like this, and some impulse born out of a bad old habit compels Sylvain to sling that arm around her after all. “I talked to Ashe. Did he tell you?” he asks, and feels rather than sees Ingrid nod.

 “He didn’t tell me what about, though. So, what did you talk about?”

 “Oh, you know, all the fun things Ashe likes. Knightliness, chivalry, politics, books... girls.” That earns Sylvain an elbow in the ribs. He laughs in order to hide the wince. “Really!” he insists.

 “I kind of have an inkling that you were to one to start with that topic,” Ingrid replies, and Sylvain can’t see it, but he could swear she’s battling a smile in that exasperated way of hers.

 “Well, we did talk about you.”

 “O-oh,” she mutters. That, apparently, makes more sense in her book. “Well, I hope he only had good things to say.”

 Sylvain hums. “I don’t think Ashe could badmouth anyone if he tried.”

 That earns him a laugh. “I agree,” Ingrid says and leans forward, twisting in her seat to meet Sylvain’s eye. There’s something mischievous to her expression. She puts her glass down before she continues, “And did you glean anything worthwhile from what he said?”

 “Except for the fact that you’re the most exemplary knight serving under His Majesty, a beacon of bravery, chivalry, all that is good and that you’re an inspiration to all? Not really.”

 Ingrid flushes and averts her eyes. “Coming from him,” she mumbles, more to herself than anything. She wets her lips and glances back towards Sylvain. “Nothing else, apart from that?”

 “What do you want me to say?” Sylvain asks. “That he told me something embarrassing? That he decided to tell me he was madly in love with you?”

 Swallowing, Ingrid stares off into the fireplace. She seems to be debating whether she should go on before she says, “Well, there are rumours about that.”

 She’s still leaning forward, and the distance between them suddenly feels like a mile. “There’s always rumours,” Sylvain replies. A hollow feeling settles into the pit of his stomach. He gathers his hands into his lap. “But it’s just people talking.”

 The gaze Ingrid fixes him with is downright painful. “That’s easy for you to say.”

 Which is—fair, Sylvain concedes. He’d used gossip and rumours to cultivate an image for the longest time. Something shallow, something dumb, something of a whore, something that was one hell of a lot easier to explain than the mess buried underneath.

 But still.

 “Are they true, then?” he asks, maybe to be a bit cruel. “Are you and Ashe—“

 “No, we’re not,” Ingrid says firmly, brows knitted together. Her eyebrows have always been much darker than her hair. Right now, they look ugly. “It’s none of your business, anyways.”

 The air between them stills. Ingrid’s shoulders are tense, her mouth in a severe frown. Sylvain regards Ingrid calmly, just watching her breathe until the crease in her brow eventually smoothes out.

 “I didn’t think it would get to me like this,” she admits, apologising after a fashion, as the tension is drained from her system. “People talking behind my back, more concerned about whether I am courting someone than my accomplishments...”

 There’s a glassy quality to her eyes as she stares off into the middle distance, voice shaky and frail. She feels tiny next to Sylvain, suddenly, and he’s acutely aware of where he misstepped. “See, Ingrid, that’s why all I do is try talking to Sreng without getting stabbed and visiting the capital every few months,” Sylvain says, forcing a lightness he doesn’t feel. But it gets Ingrid to snort a laugh and look at him again—forest green and fond—and it feels like a win.

 “Here I am, working every day of my life,” she says, her lips quirked into a smile, “only for the esteemed Margrave to earn more praises than I for botching diplomacy and being lazy.”

 Sylvain puts a hand to his chest, gasping. At the gesture, Ingrid snorts again. “You wound me! I don’t botch diplomacy. I’m just that charming.”

 She grins now, resting her elbow on the chaise’s armrest to prop her head up on her hand like some religious painting. “You know, I’m kind of surprised I don’t have to clean up after your scandals anymore.”

 “Should I break a maiden’s heart for old times’ sake, then?” Sylvain offers, only for Ingrid to roll her eyes. “Anything for you, you know.”

 “I don’t think I’ll ever hold ‘consoling crying village girls’ in fond memory,” she replies drily.

 Sylvain slides down in his seat, picking up Ingrid’s abandoned brandy and taking a swig of it. Her whole face scrunches up in disdain. “Fair enough,” he replies, licking his lips. “Doesn’t the rumour mill of Fhirdiad have some choice opinions on me?”

 “You know I don’t care for gossip.” She tries to sound blasé, but Ingrid has never been good at lying or hiding things, earnest as she is. “You probably know more than I do.”

 “Really,” Sylvain says, flatly. “C’mon, Ingrid, you know I’m used to worse. You don’t have to coddle me.”

 She sighs, seemingly relenting. “How’s Felix doing, Sylvain?” she asks, though, slow and deliberate and pregnant with meaning and—

 “Oh,” Sylvain breathes before he can catch himself, probably—tellingly—flushing all the way up to his hairline. Ingrid’s brows shoot up in surprise, eyes wide as dinner plates. Sylvain looks anywhere but her and slaps on a smile that fools exactly no one. “Oh, I haven’t heard from him in a while. Maybe you should pay him a visit on your way back, too,” he blathers, shooting for normalcy, really, but his voice comes out strained.

 “Y-yes, that’s a good idea!” Ingrid agrees, equally as flustered.

 A beat, then.

 “Maybe don’t share your gossip with him, though,” Sylvain suggests, “Goddess knows it might upset him.”

 There’s a very clear admission between the lines here. Ingrid plucks the brandy out of Sylvain’s grasp and downs the entire rest in one go. “I won’t,” she says, slamming the empty glass down on the coffee table. “He doesn’t care for it, anyways.”

 “I’m sure he’d listen if you decided to tell him that you and Ashe—“

 “For Sothis’ sake Sylvain, let it go!” she scolds, swatting at his arm. She looks pinker in the face now, and Sylvain has a hard time deciding whether it’s from the brandy or something else. “I was being delicate, and yet you—“

 “I know, I know. I’m impossible, nay, incorrigible.”

 Ingrid huffs and crosses her arms, yet seems satisfied with that answer. “As long as you know it,” she says, not without humour, and stands up. She offers Sylvain a hand to pull him to his feet as well, smiling something pretty and lopsided. “I think we should turn in for the night.”

 Sylvain closes his hand around Ingrid’s wrists before he finds himself dragged up way too easily considering Ingrid is a whole head shorter. “Maybe we should,” he agrees, so of course, neither of them moves.

 Ingrid sighs, looking up at Sylvain. “Don’t let what others say get to you,” she says, only two decades late. Then, more quietly, “I know rumours are worse when they’re based on some semblance of the truth.”

 “Ingrid,” Sylvain exhales, and has to shake his head to prevent himself from shoving his foot in his mouth. That’s all she’s going to tell him, and that’s fine. He smiles at her. “I’m sure they’ll be done preparing a room for you by now.”

 “Then we should be going.” Ingrid gallantly offers Sylvain her arm, and he loops his own through it with exaggerated words of thanks.  She smiles mischievously, then. “Can’t have any rumours spreading about us, after all,” she says, and Sylvain can’t help but laugh.

[kendrixtermina]

The Recruitment Freebies: Thoughts on Sylvain and Felix

Now when it comes to recruiting characters, there are 2 who kind of stand out and are, in their own way, somewhat ‘easier’ to get.

Sylvain joins you automatically if you’re playing fem Byleth, whereas Felix actually requires high stats/abilities that no one else does but since your primary weapon is most likely going to be a sword anyways and he requires sword skill, he’s actually not so hard to collect. Given that they’re both handy units (Felix kicks butt like no tomorrow, Sylvain is pretty customizable and gets a relic early on) you’re sorta encouraged to snatch one or both.

If you’ve seen them in their original environment, you’ll easily notice why: They’re kind of the kingdom’s token cynics. 

[Longer Essay Under The Cut]

The Initial Situation

One thing that stands out right away is that the Blue Lions are one of the tightest-knit groups: The Black Eagles have sort of vaguely heard of each other because most the imperial nobility lives in the capital and the one commoner used to be famous, but that’s it, only Linhardt and Dorothea really express any regret over betraying Edelgard if they do, and their fates don’t differ that much by whatever faction they’re in - Ferdinand is certainly sad to see the Empire itself go down (see that amusing line about an ‘Adrestia-shaped hole in [his] heart’) and has a minor existential crisis when his family’s lands are confiscated after he spend his whole life preparing to rule them, but while he gets that line wondering what might have become of him if Byleth had chosen a different path, he pretty much always becomes a statesman no matter who winds up on the throne.

The Golden Deer, meanwhile, are from wildly different backgrounds and even Claude just showed up last year. If they stay together, they eventually become a tight-knit group under Claude’s leadership (except Lorenz, if Byleth’s not with them), and if you recruit em,  they will largely pursue their own interests as they were never too unified to begin with, with most of the commoners saying they were never that involved in politics, and most of the nobles acting out of self-preservation or opportunism.

By contrast, most of the Blue Lions know each other personally and will be pretty conflicted about defecting from the Kingdom if you recruit them, and it’s no wonder:

Sylvain, Felix Ingrid and Dimitri were childhood friends and all big weapons enthusiasts, Dedue has followed Dimitri everywhere he went for the last few years, Anette’s father worked for Dimitri’s, Mercedes is Anette’s BFF from magic school and while Ashe didn’t know the others before since he was a poor village kid before Lonato took him in, he becomes fast friends with the rest of them due to their shared admiration of knight stories.

So in this more idealistic and old-fashioned groups, Sylvain and Felix can be thought of as the token cynics or more independently-minded characters. This is most obvious with Felix: He sticks out like a sore thumb, vocally expresses his dislike of the others and their values and basically keeps to himself on the training grounds, and its only through the other’s doormatsey dispositions that they seem determined to ignore his hostilities and continue considering him a friend whether he wants to or not. He doesn’t fit in with the other Blue Lions at all.

Sylvain, meanwhile, doesn’t stand out that much at first glance, he seems like another fairly common character archetype in the silly childhood friends lineup and gives Ingrid plenty of cause to get into Mom Friend mode,  but the whole thing with him is that while he pretends to be a hedonistic oaf, he’s actually something of a brooding intellectual type underneath, very ‘byronic’ overall.

Ultimately, both of them are motivated by a desire for, and love of freedom. (which is probably why a lot of ppl think they’d be a compatible and interesting as a romantic couple - for all their outward difference, they have a common ‘core’ there)  Sylvain has been treated all his life like his life and power don’t really belong to himself and he desperately strains against those binds by acting out, and Felix finds his countrymen to have a bit of a grostesque lemming mentality and wants no part of that.

At the same time both show their ‘cynism’ in very different ways, and neither of them is a ‘complete’ cynic, but the areas where you find their residual idealism are also different. I would say that Felix’ cynism is more apparent, while Sylvain’s runs much deeper, but more on that later.

Though he cares little about maintaining a reputation and indeed seems to sorta seek out or get a kick out doing what his father would hate, calling himself a ‘good for nothing/scoundrel/ someone who’s going to hell’, to sorta go against that pressure to be a good kid, when it comes down to it he’s actually still pretty honorable and does actually believe in The Power Of Friendship (as noted by both Ashe and Dimitri - it’s probably why they like him) He’s inclined to be a Good Guy, he just doesn’t want the pressure that goes along with it.

It reminds me a bit of that one Fiona Apple song: “Do I wanna do right? Of course./ But Do I really wanna feel I’m forced to/  answer you?/ Hell no!”

Felix meanwhile - well. Some might say he’s tsundere, and I suppose he is, stock phrases wise, but to put it more specifically what he is is counterdependent.  Which is a word commonly used to describe that teenage behavior of always doing the exact opposite of what your parents or the mainstream do, thereby being just as influenced as a dependent person. It’s closer to being dependent than indepedent - He wants badly to be independent, but doesn’t really know how. He still very much has attachments to his father and his oldtime childhood friends, he just rejects them fiercely, because between Glenn’s death and his first deployment to Sreng, he came to see that attachment as something that will destroy him, something incompatible with self-preservation. He still dearly loves Rodrigue, Dimitri and the others, but he doesn’t want to be like them. He wants to be free, he’s a reasonable man and sees that they’re all walking off a cliff and he doesn’t wanna jump of of it, but his opposition is so absolute because some part of his kind of wants to.

At the same time he’s not entirely a complainer for complaining’s sake. Though very fighting-focussed he has his own strong code of ethics and standards- Dimitri markedly falls short of them. They’re not that different, Felix too feels the wide open wound of being still bonded and attached  to people who aren*t there anymore (”Training for a duel with a corpse”, as he puts it) - But while Dimitri let it eat his life (though there’s more complexity here of course but that would derail this into a whole different essay), Felix kinda errs on the opposite side of pushing down all attachment, but at the same time, he does it because he’s concerned with saving the ones who are still alive. That’s the point he stresses in his paralogue where he argues with his father, “We’re here to protect our subjects”. He wants to protect himself, yes, but he also wants to protect other people. He’s all about that.  He wants people to protect themselves not glorify throwing their lives away.

Which is why despite all his vocal complaining he still ultimately hangs out with the others, cannot help but worry about their wellbeing etc.  They might be negative bonds now but they’re still very much bonds.

Meanwhile, in Sylvain’s case the cynism comes not from rejection but disillusionment and distrust. He’s a good guy but his ability to form bonds is almost completely destroyed. All his life he got showered with fake conditional love while being presented with an example of what would happen if he didn’t stay in ppl’s good graces: His brother, who’d been dropped like a hot potato. I don’t think he can think of himself as good; He kinda got treated as an unfair existence the moment he came into the world.   At least if you get no love, you still have the hope that you might eventually get love. But fake love? Fake love poisons everything. It’s disgusting wrong, it’s not really for you and it just makes you wanna get rid of it by any means neccessary. Speaking from experience here.

Apart from the bonds he got with his childhood friend and those with exceptional people skills like Byleth, Mercedes and Dorothea, he doesn’t really trust anyone beyond a certain level.

But that’s a subtle distinction.

At first the most apparent difference, and the first contrast to come up in their support chain, is focus. Felix responded to the unpleasantness in his past with absolute laser focus, particularly on fighting and becoming stronger, whereas Sylvain avoids ever the appearance of focus like the plague, downplays his capabilities and chases distractions in a way that may be rather relatable to those of us who had the whole weird-ass Gifted Child Experience. Hence, Sylvain might come off as extravagant/frivolous while Felix appears disciplined, even ascetic.

This is also apparent in how its implied that they “jump ship” - Sylvain does it on a whim because of fem Byleth’s ample bosoms, (whereas man Byleth needs to impress him with reason skill which ties more into his hidden dephts) whereas with Felix it would tie into his pursuit of strenght and how he focusses on that more than anything else. Byleth stands out as a badass, so Felix juins his class or that’s his reasoning in the dialogue he gets.

But at the same time what we see here is that both were born with great natural power but don’t want that defining their lives. Sylvain downplays and refuses to use his, while Felix is determined to get straight that he actually “earned” through his harsh discipline and dedication, and vocally disavows conventional wisdom (”Crests, lineagle, knighthood... all trifles. Only strenght and skill matter”)

Post-Timeskip

So while a lot of characters like, say, Dorothea, get alot of the same dialogues in each route, others kind of get different little arcs depending on where they end up - for example if you recruit Lorenz for the empire he will at first join out of pure opportunism (that, and trying to get mercy for his corrupt-ass father), but then towards the last few months, he’ll actually come around to Edelgard’s way of thinking.

Felix is one of the characters whose dialogue differs the most by route - church & Alliance overlap a lot though with a few pointed differences, and his ending narrations are totally different depending on whether you recruited him or left him with the Kingdom. Of course, this would have to differ to an extent as he can’t exactly become Dimitri’s right hand when there’s no Dimitri, but the outcomes are starkly different to the point that even his paired endings with different characters all have two versions.

In the Kingdom route he generally succeeds his father whereas in the other routes, he typically renounces his title and becomes a mercenary unless his partner or BFF convinces him otherwise.

Unlike, say, Ferdinand, who does about the same thing regardless of who he ends up working under, for Felix the decision to ditch his classmates is a big big turning point, a choice

Sylvain by contrast has rather more similar endings wherever he goes and his dialogues are more similar - one highlight being how he has the exact same “history is written by the winners, whoever wins will say they’re right war will probably always exist...” lines regardless of whether he’s fighting for or against Edelgard. Whenever he isn’t commenting on the weather of their next destination or the general suckyness of the war, he remains mildly sceptical of whatever side he’s on, including one memorable instance where he refers to poor Hubert as “Edelgard’s idiot sidekick” and thinks they should try more negotiating, though he’s not blind to Dimitri’s flaws either when they go fight him.

Not really a big joiner or believer, this one, no illusions about how they could always be wrong, which perhaps makes it more touching how he invariably ends up becoming a peacemaker and activist after the war, basically becoming a fulltime do-gooder.

Since the inner mechanics with Felix are quite different, so are his outcomes. Sylvain’s gonna be like “I’m not optimistic but I gotta try doing the right thing”, no atter who he’s following, but you get a whole different Felix depending on what route you’re playing.

Because for him, wether to stick with Team Kingdom or not kinda represents a choice between his lingering attachment and his drive to reject that.

In the Kingdom route, he stays a lot more like he was in his academy days: Complains a lot, but still sticks with everyone to the end. He sort of fills the role of the contrarian number two, the one providing a contrastic viewpoint (while, Sylvain, while not optimistic, is no less stubborn about sticking with a friend in need than the rest of Team Kingdom)

He comes across as the Only Sane Man at times, esp. when he calls Titanic on the whole Revenge Trip to Gronder, “Iceberg ahead? ya’ll seeing the iceberg right?” but of course if you’re just complaining you’re kinda part of the problem - He muses that he must be crazy too, if he’s going along with everybody. Can’t bring himself to leave. Eventually that attachment wins out and he doesn’t even bother hiding it especially once Dimitri gets his act together. At that point he figures that the best he can do is to keep him on-course. Though they don’t go back to the same dynamic they once had, they go back to being BFF and the new dynanic is probably more useful to Dimitri as a counterpoint, they pretty much each succeed their fathers in proper Kingdom Manner and stay an A-team for the rest of their lives just like their das were. Idealism triumphs, though it’s a more matured, well-thought out one that is less about high standards and more about forgiveness/redemption.

It seems like he kinda became what he didn’t want to be early on (in the paired ending with Dimitri he even winds up in one of those chivalric tales he used to hate!), but it also looks like that made him happy. Maybe because it resolved the contradiction and tension within himself, all the energy he expends in rejecting his feelings of attachment, to like, actively not care about Dimitri.

I mean in their B support at one point he almost accidentally lapses back into Nerding Out About Swords Like Old Times - He needs to actively remind himself that he’s supposed to hate Dimitri now, and he does an even worse job at No Longer Liking the others.

Indeed when he gets what he ostensibly wanted, or rather what he wants to want, it doesn’t seem to make him all that happy - This was indeed the realization that prompted me to do this analysis. He goes full lonesome cowboy and marches off and he doesn’t sound all that happy about what he’s done, and his paired ending with Sylvain is one of the ones that makes it very obvious - In the Kingdom route, they stay Together Forever as they were in childhood, like they never got estranged at all. In the other routes it’s a sad, melancholic, darkly romantic thing about how Sylvain inherited his title, Felix came to help him out once and they never saw each other again, and Sylvain eventually gets a keepsake from Felix... and this is if you recruit them both. They get a sad enough dialogue if you grab only one and make them fight each other, but even if they run away together, essentially, they don’t become happy together.

The circumstances aren’t that different, if they still wound up in the same faction - But Felix is different.

Because he doesn’t just leave because of Byleth’s heroic charisma like many of the others - He  goes because, in essence, he is putting his pursuit of strength over his lingering attachments for his friends. To leave the kingdom means to actually become what he pretends to be. To actually become a lonewolf warrior who cares only about strenght rather than an ultimately loyal tsundere.

Which is where the above rambles about counter-dependency come to bear: He says he doesn’t care but he does, so much he can’t stop. So to take this step, which at the time seens reasonable and sane and free to him, is to cut off part of himself.

Though even here there are different gradations depending on where you recruit him to.

In the Alliance and church routes he simply jumps ship on the kingdom out of self-preservation. Sanity before Honor, just like he was always talking about. The kingdom’s in horrible shape, it can’t win, or so he sees it, Sylvain’s reasoning is pretty much the same but more resigned/sad (”There was nothing I could do”), after all for all they know, Dimitri is long dead (though Felix, always one with keen insight, suspect him to be alive a bit before he shows up)

Then Dimitri turns up alive, but promptly gets himself killed, and Felix regrets it. Every bit as much as other kingdom characters. He wonders if he could have stopped Dimitri if he’d been with him. He channels this into avenging Dimitri first on the empire and then on TWSITD, and starts using his name at this point.

Tellingly enough, he refers to the local afterlife beliefs that are so prominently featured in the Kingdom route. The ones that Rodrigue taught to both Felix and Dimitri and that likely played a role in the latter’s inability to forgive himself for all that Rodrigue is largely a good man who was a positive influence. He talks about “facing” Dimitri in the afterlife or allowing him to rest in peace much like Dimitri’s own talk about appeasing the dead - As much as he’d like to be Felix was not actually immune to his upbringing. basically he really regrets it.

The church and alliance routes differ somewhat in the dialogue before the last stage in a way that makes the church route seem “milder” - He considers working under Byleth once they become King/Queen, so he doesn’t seem quite as “lost”, whereas in the alliance route he expresses interest in dueling Nemesis. Not that far beyond his usual “must fight worthy opponents/ blood knight attude” but certainly more of an embracement of it and also very reckless, since as far as we knew the zombie horde is blazing an almost unhindered trail through the land and pretty much had Hilda’s renowned invincible brother for breakfast.

The empire route, of course, requires him to go even further - it’s one thing to evacuate a sinking ship, another to go a path where there’s a good chance that he’ll have to go against, and even fight/kill his former comrades. The game sure included tons of unique dialogue for this. You can even have his feud with his father end quite lethally, and Dimitri will even comment on it when you engage him. Ouch!

Right after the holy tomb scene most the recruitees’ dialogues are either some variation of “I’m scared but I trust you sensei” or “Now that she’s actually explained her reasoning, Edelgard’s got a point” - Felix’ is neither.

Though he’d presumably agree that Crests and Status are overrated, that’s not what he talks about. He says he wants to forge his own path, one that isn’t his father’s or Dimitri’s.  

He may or may not be doing the right thing but it’s for the wrong reason.

It’s a decision that’s perfectly logical if you feature in all factors except for his own heart - by which I don’t mean some bullshit 19th century “head vs heart” contrast but simply self-knowledge, which is necessary to make choices that you won’t regret, especially when the ‘correct’ path is ambiguous.

He wants to be free, deeply and desperate but, there’s also the counterdependency in play. He’s not going with the Empire because he wants to go with the empire, but because he wants to go against Rodrigue and Dimitri. Rejecting them to prove to himself that he can.

And turns out he can. He can cut em all down, with fairly unfazed Dialogue about how he’s going his own path, will never bow to the likes of Dimitri, will pursue strenght no matter who stands in his way etc.

They all curse him for betraying him, only Sylvain who’s not the sort to have much certainty about being right, gets more of a “sad/tragic” line about their childhood promise.

But that’s on the battlefield. Back at the monastery it’s a different matter. In this route he shows significantly LESS regret about what happens to the kingdom peeps - after all, he knew he’d be fighting them. He’s just completely embraced the ‘living to fight’ thing here and you get the sense that some other parts of his may have been lost in the process.

Ironically he says he killed more ppl than he can count and that he’s practically as bad as Dimitri now (”Your better world better be worth this”, indeed...) and while he’s completely unflinchingly resolute he’s not exactly unphased.

You can certainly understand why he’d end up as a restless sorta wandering mercenary  (interesting, too that if you pair him with Byleth they’ll go with him - interesting enough in its own right since that’s the sort of life they use to have before coming to the academy)

So I guess this could all  ultimately be seen as a parable on ‘be careful what you wish for’, or, more accurately, ‘know yourself before making wishes’.

[ncfan-1]

I keep thinking about Felix, and traditional masculinity in Faerghus (what’s implied of it), and the chivalric and knightly ideals, and the way these things are tangled together.

I think of Felix as a little boy who loved the same stories Ashe and Ingrid loves, Felix who looked up to his older brother and wanted to be a knight like him. I think of Felix who was described as a meek, emotional child who cried easily, and I still don’t think Faerghus is the Toxic Masculinity kingdom the way Rigel is, but the more I look at it, the more off it smells. I think of the parts of masculinity as a concept in Faerghus that have turned rancid, and I think of Felix, the boy who cried easily, and Felix, the teenager who seems now to struggle with expressing emotions freely, and I wonder.

I think of Glenn dying. I think of his death being so horrifically violent that all that was left of him to bring home was his armor, and I know that if whatever happened to him was so violent that they could only bring home the armor, his armor can’t possibly have been intact.

I think of Felix staring down at his brother’s armor, rent and twisted. The breastplate is badly dented with a ragged gash of broken steel running up the middle of it. There isn’t a square-inch of the armor, breastplate, vambraces, gauntlets, or greaves, that is completely clean of blood. His father looks at the ruined mess and says, tearful and proud, “He died like a true knight.” But all Felix can think of is what must have happened to Glenn for his armor to be in such a state, what must have happened to him for his armor to be all that’s left of him, what it must have felt like to die in such a manner, and all he can think is that being proud of such a death is absolutely grotesque.

I think of Felix feeling trapped. He’s not given the space he needs to mourn his brother properly, because his brother “died like a true knight.” He can see the ugly underbelly of the knightly and chivalric ideals, and now that he’s seen it, it’s all he can see, as he pries apart more inconsistencies with each passing day, as he finds new things praised as virtuous to be horrified by. He can’t see anything honorable about killing people like a rabid animal, just because the people you’re killing happen to be on the opposite side of the fight from you. He can’t see anything honorable about killing men and women and children just because it happens to be on the order of your liege lord. There is nothing glorious about battle, or blind obedience, or wanton slaughter.

What the ideals of chivalry and knighthood really seem to glorify, all they seem to glorify, is death—the death you suffer, or the death you mete out. And Felix knows. He remembers that mangled suit of armor, and he knows that there’s nothing glorious about death. Honor and glory, these things won’t bring back the dead. Glenn’s still dead, at the end of the day. At the end of the day, his death was still so terrible that his body couldn’t be recovered, and no amount of honor will erase the pain Glenn must have felt as he died. He’s seen it. He can’t see anything else.

He’s angry. He lashes out. He still cares about duty, and about protecting people—he’ll call out his father in a heartbeat for protecting his people because it’s what a dead man would have wanted of him, instead of protecting them because it’s his duty as their lord to do so. (He still values protecting people, even if he’s very chary about admitting it, because he can’t find a way to admit it that doesn’t make himself sound like a knight.) He’ll fight, and he’ll kill, but what he’ll never do is pretend that it’s honorable or glorious to do these things. He’s not going to play along with that narrative, never again.

There is a part of him, a small part, that wants to once again be a person who can actually find something worth valuing in the knightly ideal. His support chain with Ashe indicates as much. I said that post-time skip Dimitri reminds me of Sandor Clegane, but in this, Felix reminds me of Sandor much more strongly. A boy who loved stories, and knights, and wanted to be one, until something horrific happened that shattered his idealism and made it so that all he could see was the ugly underbelly of something society held to be so valuable.

He still carries one of Glenn’s knighting spurs around with him. It’s one of his lost items in the Academy Phase, so he carries it around with him everywhere he goes. To me, it’s not clear if this plays into his lingering desire to back to those days when he could associate knighthood with anything but death. The alternative is that he just carries the spur around with him because it was Glenn’s, and it’s symbolic of his attempts to move on from his brother’s death, and he can’t, because of what the spur itself represents, and what no one will ever let him forget.

Where all this gets Felix is him being Othered in the eyes of Faerghus society. When you’re a nobleman, concepts of chivalry, knighthood, and masculinity all seem to be tangled up with each other. The latter is never explicitly spelled out, but to me, it’s pretty clearly there by implication. If you don’t perform the ideals of chivalry and knighthood, you inevitably fail also to properly perform the norms of masculinity. In short, in the eyes of this culture, unless adhere to chivalric and knightly norms, you’re not a “real man.” Felix performs masculinity in ways that are likely considered atypical, or, frankly, abnormal, by the standards of the culture he grew up in—or that culture just regards what he does as not performing masculinity at all.

(It’s interesting to compare him with Ingrid, one of his childhood friends, who struggles with conceptions of traditional femininity as much as Felix seems to with conceptions of traditional masculinity, and like Felix, seems to have quit bothering trying to perform it years ago. Especially considering the way they clash in their B-support. It is, of what I’ve seen of Felix thus far, his lowest moment, when he tries to shut her up by drawing attention to the obligations she can’t escape as a noblewoman in their society.

“You’re not meant to be a knight. Go find a husband.”

He does it try to make her go away and leave him alone, by aiming at what he knows, as her childhood friend, to be her sorest of sore spots, and it was a really jarring moment to me, because I hadn’t seen Felix express similar attitudes in his other supports, and I haven’t seen him express them again since then. It doesn’t sit naturally on him at all. It’s still gross, but it’s a different kind of gross than if he genuinely bought into what “traditional gender roles” are supposed to be. But the real conflict between Felix and Ingrid here is their difference of opinions on the value of the knightly ideal.)

Basically, what I’m saying is that it’s fascinating to me that Three Houses took a character that in other works could easily have been, and probably would have been, hyper-masculine within his cultural context, and instead gave us someone who does not perform traditional masculinity in a typical manner within his cultural context. Or at all, really. And I could get into how this plays into potential queer-coding for Felix’s character, or how this plays into his strained relationship with his father, but that’s not what this post was about. And honestly, I wrote this because there’s a tendency among a lot of the fandom to just write Felix off as a jerk (when a lot of the stuff he says is 100% true, even if presented in an unpleasant manner), when it’s so much complicated than that.

[thugnan]

The Haunted Carousel (PC 2003)

Story: 8/10

Characters: 9/10

Puzzles: 8/10

Chores:8/10

Final Rating: 8/10

This is another game I always come back to because I can get through it within a couple of hours. The setting is so fun and it was well executed, a haunted amusement park that didn’t try too hard to be scary. They world wasn’t as big as Ghost Dogs, but it worked really well in my opinion and the characters are some of the more memorable ones in the series. The history they tied into the game was interesting and unique. The puzzles (i.e. the arcade games you have to play to move the plot forward) aren’t too difficult or annoying like some of the later games (looking at you at Trail of the Twister). 

Plot (spoilers obviously)

Thug Nan is back at it again with the sleuthin, Paula Santos, is a friend of your fathers and owns an amusement park, how fun! Except there’s a whack ghost carousel that be a haunting. Thug Nan ain’t about that supernatural bs tho, and neither is Paula so we best be investigating. 

The carousel isn’t the biggest problem on the table, it’s the rollercoaster that stopped mid-ride and gots the park shut down. Paula is being sued and that’s not cool. 

You get straight to work and meet:

Harlan Bishop: It takes a thug to spot a thug, I don’t buy his “I’m just a security” story. Brother has done time. I know it and he knows it. He’s the current park security, extremely eager to help out and extremely Brooklyn, many much Brooklyn. He even took a pay cut to work at the park. He hooked a homie up with a fun pass to the arcade, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have my eye on him. 

Joy Trent: My precious Joy, I have clear bias when it comes to this child. She could do no harm. Everyone describes her as boring but I love her. She’s the park’s bookkeeper, she only got the job because her dad, Daryl Trent used to own the park with Paula. He wasn’t the greatest with money however, and died broke af. My wonderful Joy obvs has all kind of childhood trauma but shh es okay, we can work it out together. 

Paula: Daryl Trent was p bad with money

Also Paula: *hires his daughter as a bookkeeper*

Ingrid: She’s the chief engineer who hustles essential oils on the side. I don’t understand how a woman of science can buy into the “curse” shizz, but whatever. She reads auras and pawns off all her actual engineer work on me. Can’t say I’m crazy about her. She blames the curse on the person who stole a super vintage horse from the carousel.

Elliot Chen: Homeboy gives a bad name to us artsy types. He’s the park’s art director. He procrastinates a ton and never meets his deadlines, which yes that is me but R O O D of you to assume. The park being shut down is awfully convenient for him. 

Tink: He operates the Carousel normally, but rn he’s on vacation in Canada, which you would think would be more suspicious, but no one questions it. 

Whilst investigating you discover: 

that the person who built the stolen horse (Rolf Kessler) was super famous and his horses are considered priceless or something

during a previous heist from the hotel next to the park, the thieves involved stashed moula all over the park. 

the horse that was stolen was a replica, so jokes on whoever stole it. 

Rolf Kessler was an artist and by default filled with angst and many much suffering. His waifu died of TB and he disappeared off the grid shortly thereafter. 

During all this, you get in touch with Detective Perris, who was the original detective in charge of the hotel heist. It was partially unsolved and he gives you some dirt on one of the peeps that was arrested for the crime. He died in prison, but his cellmate was from brookyln… SUSPICIOUS

Naturally, this means we gotsa snoop on Mr. Bishop. HOME BOY HAS AN APPOINTMENT WITH HIS PAROLE OFFICER, BRUH DID I CALL IT OR WHAT? It’s okay Harlan, Thug Nan has also done time in Alibi in Ashes, cos we ball hard.

More important than this new information, is my girl Joy. We are going on a journey to rediscover her childhood. And I can’t think of a more romantic wholesome way of getting to know each other. We do this with the help of Miles the Magnificent Memory Machine, which is a robot/toaster oven that Joy’s dad built her (I think I forgot to mention that her dad was an ‘inventor’), whose sole purpose is to remember things for Joy, because the passing of her mom was so traumatic that she blocked everything from her childhood behind a wall of extreme blandness. 

This. is. Perfect. The fanfiction is writing itself. Thug Nan also lost her mom as a child and now they’re connecting. What was I supposed to be doing again?

Oh right! Our love will have to wait Joy, I gots a mystery to solve. 

While you’re helping Joy recover her memories you also learn:

Mr. Bishop has been spying on Ingrid, but this helps you break into Ingrid’s office. 

Ingrid is ballin, like more than engineer money balling. It’s also implied that she’s in cahoots with the guy suing the park. 

Elliot is buying a lot of wood for no apparent reason, and horse tails, like if he were building a carousel kinda deal. Weird yes? 

Anyway Thug Nan is really prioritizing this Joy soul searching project. But then… B E T R A Y A L. Joy confesses to having stopped the rollercoaster that caused the park to shut down. How could she? How could she do this to us? She says she had a lot of pent up resentment after the death of her father and thought Paula didn’t deserve his half of the park. I will be the first to admit that this girl has baggage, but I STILL BELIEVE. We will get thru it. 

We still don’t know who is responsible for the ghost carousel. We also accuse Ingrid of being in cahoots with the guy suing the park, and she’s not lying to us but I still don’t like her. Allegedly her monies is coming from her “designing a roller coaster”, likely story. 

WHATEVER, I’m gonna finish the epic side quest of figuring out Joy’s backstory and making her love me. I honestly don’t know why we’re still at the park, I think Paula only cared about the roller coaster bit? I’m just saying that a carousel that turns on at night ain’t harming anyone. If anything she’s getting major publicity. 

We find out that Joy’s mom bought her a horse off the carousel for her birthday (I feel like that defeats the purpose of the horse but aight), AND SHE DIED THAT SAME DAY. Holy cow that’s harsh. We’re able to track down the location of the horse, which conveniently has the jewels from the hotel heist years ago, and a picture of Joy’s mom. Let’s just say that homie can get it too.

Incidentally, we stumble into Rolf Kessler’s workshop in the midst of this. We totally solved this mystery on accident, cool. But yeah we find the horse that was stolen (yeah, did I forget to mention that it was a different horse, I also had a hard time keeping track of the horses) and discover that someone has been making replicas and selling them on the black market. They’re been using the hype from the “hauntings” to up the value. 

The game tries to be sneaky by not dropping names here, but we all know who it be behind this…. Elliot. Naturally, in classic Nancy Drew fashion, he tries to murder(?) us, but we best him and the day is saved by Thug Nan, once again. Joy call me. 

THE END.