#incoming fire emblem art

[yosjiefo]

[craykaycee]

sneaks onto ur dash to talk ab one of my aus with these magma doodles------

This is a Street Artist AU I-- basically adopted from @starrspice (thank you, lovelyy!!) This is a post-fire AU where the DCA escapes the fire themselves and into the city. They're stripped of the proper prompts and triggers for their childcare and entertainment programming, but are able to find something their coding can latch onto: a group of children who need entertainment. They modified their performance and entertainment programming with their arts and crafts protocols to create art as a performance!

More details (so many details-- I went off xDD) and designs of the AU, of which I've titled "City Lights and Paint Water", under the cut :3c

They're pretty beat-up from the fire, and without proper access to maintenance, they've retained the burn marks, splattered paint, and other grime associated with being outdoors. Over the months as street artists, passersby donate their old paints and other supplies, hence the oversized trousers and worn apron! (P.S.: cloth placement is more accurate in the magma doodles)

Sun and Moon each have preferred mediums and styles!

Sun prefers acrylic paints and spray paint, his paintings a controlled chaos with loud, scattered colors, large brushstrokes, and splatters. His paintings always have a lot of movement due to his freeform painting style, splattering paint and getting a laugh from the kids.

Moon like to work with watercolors and colored pencil, the colors more muted with small pops of brighter colors (such as lights within windows). He likes to capture the lights of the streets, wondering what the true night sky looks like, his art giving a soft and ethereal mood.

Then we have our Main Character (MC), the viewer/reader! They're a graphic designer for a big corporate tech company, tasked with making pamphlets, brochures, posters, et cetera for the company. Though they do good work as a graphic designer, their true passion is fine arts, but their work isn't taken seriously due to its "childish" appearance despite the real-life deeper meanings. In the meantime, they create for themself, crafting and making trinkets for their apartment. They even make some of their own clothes, made up of several different garments to make something one-of-a-kind. Their outfits are fairly chaotic, typically accompanied by a hair accessory, but the patterns and colors compliment each other well.

MC grew up in a rural area, and still love the open and free areas it provides, but they had to move to an urban city for work and better opportunities. It's a big step up from their small town, overwhelmed by the activity. At the start of the story, they feel disconnected from their work, drained by the cookie-cutter bland work of their graphic designer job, but it's the only way they can reliably earn income.

The story starts with Sun spotting MC beyond the crowd, rushing somewhere. He continues to see them in the distance, unable to approach them due to their haste. He's mesmerized by their appearance, drawn to their creative expression just in their outfit. Moon catches a few glances of MC in the evenings, but doesn't have the same draw to them as Sun, figuring them as just another "everyman" in the crowd. One day, in MC's haste, they lose a paper from their portfolio. When Sun catches it, he sees a presentation sheet of several different designs meant for a business card or a t-shirt emblem. Sun is astounded by them, making MC more interesting than they already were.

It's not until about a week later that Sun takes an opportunity to return the paper and give his compliments. When he does this, however, MC's face falls before forcing a polite smile, thanking him. Before Sun could say anything more, they're gone.

There's so many small moments I'd like to explore, but that's the set-up :3cc I nearly have chapter one (1) completed, two (2) chapters after that already planned. The chapter length is pretty short right now, but I don't know if I wanna beef them up or keep them at this shorter length. We'll see! :D

Welp, these are my boios! I hold them gently in my hands and present them like a proud parent

[yuri-is-online]

Hello hello! Anon here. First of all, congratulations on getting accepted for your courses! Don't worry about trying to balance work and the blog, we will always be here waiting for you. Second of all, your whole Yutu AU has been really fascinating to look through. (Though that may be because of my bias toward Fire Emblem Awakening, as it was what got me into the series) Sorry for the incoming wall of text, but it's been giving me THOUGHTS.

So imagine this: whoever Yutu's dad is (I'll pick Azul for this example because I headcannon his English voice somewhere between Matt Mercer's Chrom and Olivert from The Legend of Heroes games) finds out who Yutu really is. You remember that cutscene after Chapter 13 in Awakening, with the Lucina reveal and Chrom has this: "You deserved better than a sword and a world full of troubles. I'm sorry."? Imagine Yutu hearing something like that: the acknowledgement of everything he's gone through, the pain of knowing his dad couldn't do anything and can't do anything more than offer words, and the reality that it might now be really possible to change the future? I imagine Azul breaking down after hearing all that because the last thing he wants to do is hurt Yuu or his son after everything he's been through. Oh goodness, the two of them both need hugs.

Second: did Crowley tip off the Magic Marshalls (because I think he would) and force Yuu to take the blame for his negligence (because he absolutely would)? Now imagine Yutu finding this out and telling his dad. Now his dad knows Crowley is a cheapskate who fobs his work onto everyone else without a second thought. And now he's responsible for having Yuu taken away and starting all this? Knowing the boys and how far they would go for Yuu I'd imagine they don't take that well. In other words, to slightly alter a quote from Regina in Once Upon A Time: "I guess killing a crow suddenly made the top of my to-do list."

Sorry for the wall of text but that's been rattling around in my head for a few days (so make of it all what you will). Hope you're doing well and looking forward to what's next!

-The anon who loves Riddle & Azul

AHHHHH (i feel like I always take forever to answer your asks I am sosososososososososo sorry, this one just drove me crazy in a good good way)

Listen fire emblem awakening was my entire personality for like all of middle school.  The only thing i wanted to talk about was chrobin.  I celebrated Morgan and Lucina's birthdays by drawing them. I think I still have a Cherche x Libra fan art thing I drew on some sheet of paper somewhere in my things because I was SO MAD that no one shipped them and I couldn't find fan art of them anywhere and I just oooooooooooh.  THE WAY CHROM GETS A NEW CRIT LINE ABOUT HOW ANYTHING CAN CHANGE AFTER THE REVEAL???? BECAUSE OF HOW DETERMINED HE IS TO KEEP THAT PROMISE AND GIVE LUCINA A BETTER WORLD???? i just cant be normal about them i am so sorry.  R+A annon I love you, I love you so much for this you made my entire month and possibly my year.  Awakening is also what got me into the series and made me so many friends I just love her so much.  She's an icon and I hope she gets remastered with Sumia either deleted or with a fucking personality.

I should probably sit down and actually write a timeline for myself of events, but since I am free to lean in to the fire emblem pacing, I want to say that monsters from Yutu's timeline start showing up (similar to how the Risen do in Awakening) in the past and stirring up trouble, which leads to an event where Yutu panics and forgets himself in his desperation to protect his dad.  The main way the future kids always proved themselves was by showing their mother's wedding ring, but Yutu doesn't have that so really it's just up to his dad to see someone who looks like him and Yuu blended together, supposedly from Yuu's world using magic and above all else crying out and driving up his own blot levels to protect him calling him dad. For Azul! Yutu it's especially painful, he feels like he already knows what his dad is going to say. That he's disappointed in him. That he has no idea how they could possibly be related. That he hopes in this future he turns out to be different. But that's not what happens.

Before Azul overblotted he was quiet. There's a similar quiet over him now, a similar look of tense surprise, but Yutu- no- his child doesn't know that. His child is looking at him in fear, in worry for his reaction or his safety he doesn't know but he knows the way those tears start to form. Azul knows the quiver of the lip and the shriek, of all the things he could have passed on to such a treasure.

"You deserved better from me." Because it's true. He might think of himself as a work in progress but he still thinks he has quality; he would have done research, read every book he could get his hands on, taken classes, anything he would need to do to be a good father, a worthy partner. Anything. "You deserved to have the world within your grasp, not whatever shadow of a future and a father I left you with. I am so sorry." He does not expect Yutu to grab him and hold him like he's still somehow worthy of his love, but Azul can't fight the urge to grab back, to stroke his son's hair and let the tears fall on his suit without any care at all. I'm here. It's ok, daddy's here, daddy's got you, he won't let anything happen to you.

As for your second question, I did not really write Crowley like that no. It was more like he was the first person mysteriously arrested after the Magical Marshall's decided to finally do their job. I was writing it like they wanted to ship Yuu away to cover up for their own incompetence in preventing seven overblots instead of properly investigating what might have caused that. He's not completely innocent though, so yes. The boys do not take it well at all. And please do not apologize for sending in your thoughts, I am so so slow but I love hearing from you.

[2sgf]

Solstice ☀️ Sol ☀️ Sunny

he/him ⭐ they/them ⭐ she/her

28 years old ; tme two-spirit first nations wo/man

@mermen is my moonlight 🌙

★ minors do not follow or interact thank you

☆ white supremacists, transmisogynists, sex bioessentiallists, TERFs, and anyone who follow these kinds of beliefs will be blocked

★ if you notice i've interacted with anyone who follows the above ideology or they have interacted with me, please let me know! i might have not noticed

☆ feel free to dm me any donation posts or anything else you need boosted. i will do my best to boost it during the day.

★ i always read abouts, carrds, rentrys, & pinned posts! i might forget to like posts after, or might unlike them after some time to keep my likes clean

☆ i try to keep others' blacklists in mind but if i forgot to tag something, feel free to send me an ask or a message! i will do my best to remember but the dissociation might fuck with me so if it's something important but niche you need tagged, i might need multiple reminders so just unfollow if you're worried about it...

★ disabled, neurodivergent polyfrag system

☆ remade on july 18th 2024

art blog: @solsunbeam

more about under the cut! ^^ not necessary to read

☀ my socio-political beliefs: land back, pro palestine, anti-colonization, harm reductionist, anti-canada and anti-usa, anti capitalism, defund & dismantle the police, prison abolitionist, anti child family services, pro family reunification, better funding for social services, pro universal healthcare (including mental health resources, optometry, AND dentistry), antipsychiatry, pro universal basic income, decriminalize drugs, sex bioessentialism is rooted in white supremacy, and may all the catholic churches burn down thank you

☼ i don't 'debate' any of the above with anon asks. if you want more info on why i hold these beliefs, you can ask me privately via message. though, i may block you if your vibes are bad. if you deeply disagree with the above, then i rather you block me than try to convince me otherwise. i'll save us both the time and just block you.

☀ in general i block whenever i feel i need to

☼ i occasionally post about the above, but this blog will also contain a mish-mash of my interests, personal posts, fashion pictures, nature pics, and like.... idk whatever ✌🏽

☀ mutuals this is your sign to ASK FOR MY DISCORD! come. enter my dms. let me send you pictures of my cats.

☼ interests: poetry, art, films, fashion, video games, animation, plants, comics, child welfare, trauma recovery, disability rights, tarot, witchcraft, the occult, linguistics, lolita fashion, and all kinds of other stuff

☀ video games: kingdom hearts, fire emblem, legend of zelda, animal crossing, final fantasy, supergiant's hades, minecraft, mario bros, pokemon (mostly gens 1-5), sonic the hedgehog, undertale, deltarune, // anime/manga: witch hat atelier, dungeon meshi, sailor moon, revolutionary girl utena, yugioh duel monsters, card captor sakura, madoka magica, hunter x hunter, ghibli movies, and other stuff lol

☼ alters may or might not tag their posts as [alter name].txt feel free to refer to them as their name! but we all respond to the collective name as well <3

☀ my final message...... peas and lov on planet erth....... goodnight

[doctorcanon]

So mons are a bit tight right now for various reasons but the fact of the matter is I need some kind of income within the month and time is ticking down and the companies I've applied to don't exactly have the same urgency I do. And I've received a response on my art that I've never imagined in my life so I think it's time to put this out there.

I'm open for commissions!

Please bear in mind that my style is mostly cartoonish with flat coloring and shadows.

I do:

OCs

DND Characters

Fanart (I have a particular love of Zelda, Fire Emblem and Persona, and I will draw certain ship art)

Action Scenes (may add additional cost)

NSFW (Age Verification REQUIRED)

Maybes:

Furries (I am not good at them, so at your own risk.)

Don'ts:

Intricate backgrounds and armor.

Extreme Fetishes like Guro.

"Call Out" posts

Ship art of or with Real People

If you'd still like to support me with not commission, please visit my Ko-Fi page. Any profit will only be going to living expenses. Thank you so much for your support!

[l-egionaire]

My Hero Academia: America Headcanons

Here are just some headcanons I'd come up with for the Hero and Quirk system in the US of My Hero Academia.

There is a LOT less restriction on quirk usage. It's still illegal for untrained people to use powers to fight villains, but there's way less restrictions on quirk usage in differing fields including construction, art, medicine, emergency rescue, and even everyday life. It's not uncommon to see people using their quirks for more mundane stuff. People with mobility quirks use them instead of vehicles, chefs who have fire quirks use them in restaurants, and there's even specialized units of police, emergency service workers, and Firefighters who are allowed to use their quirks in their jobs to act as backup to Heroes.

Corporate superheroes, while a thing in other countries too, are much more prevelant in America. Lots of companies scout out heroes and offer them resources like equipment, training facilities, and nice offices in exchange for endorsing their products or organization. They especially focus on heroes from low income backgrounds but with skills and charisma who might have more of an interest in the money.

Emblems are a big thing in American hero society. All the top rated pro-Heroes have their own symbol, and many heroes try to make their own to catch on. What the symbol is depends on the hero. Sometimes, it's a letter of their hero/real name or an icon that represents their powers. Corporate heroes generally use their companies logo. Most hero schools have their own logos that the students usually put on their costumes until they graduate.

Since Rhode Island is the birthplace of the Hero system, Rhode Island is a pretty big tourist destination and hero capital, on par with places like New York or Tokyo. The American equivalent to U.A., the Rhode Island School For Heroic Individuals, is also located there.

Team ups and Hero teams are a lot more common in America. They're usually treated like celebrities or musicians signing on with certain labels or studios. Lots of kids who want to be hereos dream of getting recruited to join their favorite hero teams after they go pro.

[itsbenedict]

Alright, so- two months into the year, how much of my ten-item list is done?

Finish the first case of Justice/Arcana and revise the draft

Finish the SakuraPetalFantasy walkthrough portion of Datasouls (not with the whole combat toy situation, just the rest of it)

Do 24 TFJ recaps, two per month

Work through all the exercises in Genki 1 and 2, and catch up on WK reviews.

Date someone. I feel like I look decent and have a lot of desirable qualities that would make this not too hard to accomplish, but I have to put effort into looking or it’s never going to happen on its own. (I am unfortunately of the gender that doesn’t typically get asked out and has to take the initiative.) It’s gonna be tricky since I’m a weird person with weird life priorities and finding someone who’d actually be happy partnering up with that long-term is a tall order.

Actually get that standing desk walk-while-working workflow set up and establish an exercise routine that I keep to for more than half the year

Release a functional version of that Fire Emblem content authoring tool

Replace grody old kitchen sink that has weird white stuff growing out from inside the handle

Finish the games I’m still playing through from this post

Find some new source of income reliable enough to pay the bills without making me work more than 20 hours a week. (I’m a programmer, this is hypothetically doable.) Freelancing/contract work maybe?

One at a time...

I've done a few updates to Justice/Arcana, and have pretty much all the art assets I'll need done. There's a bit of a writing roadblock at the moment but I just need to take some time and work it out.

I did a handful of enemy icons for Datasouls but otherwise didn't work on it

Did four recaps, staying on course

No Japanese practice yet

No dating yet. From what I hear, there are no good dating sites anymore and it's all just swipe-right hookup apps, which are no use to me. I've written a date-me doc but I still need to have some nice pictures taken for it.

I ordered a new under-desk elliptical that you can actually stand on, and it just arrived, but I haven't set it up yet. I've been exercising regularly, though!

Made a bunch of progress on Medallion Works, such that the map editor is now bare-minimum functional.

No sink amelioration yet

Played most of those games- still need to get through The Sekimeiya, though. That one is long and dense.

Contract work for the company I quit has been manageable, but isn't quite paying the bills on its own- I made $3600 in February, which- setting aside probably half of that for taxes and other bullshit expenses- covers mortgage payments and utilities but not food and other purchases. And I'll be doing less and less work for them over time, as they get their environment stood up and running smoothly. That's still going to have to be replaced by real employment of some sort sometime this year, but not a concern just yet.

Overall, January and February were a bit more scattershot than I'd like- January was a whole lot of travel and finishing up stuff at work, and February still had a bit of work getting in the way. Plus I didn't really focus on any one thing, so nothing's fully checked off yet.

March... I think I need to focus on getting J/A's first case done, since it's in the home stretch. That and a couple recaps, and probably dealing with the sink situation if I can.

[selfships-and-bites]

« Blog Intro!! 🐍 || 2024»

  ❛ And what would I be if not devoted to you.~ ❜

[ F/o list. // S/i list. ]

🍵 ─ About me. ;

❥ My name is Joseph, and I go by he/she pronouns, for I am bigender.

❥ I am 21 as of making this post, so keep that in mind should you need to know as such.

❥ With that being said, I do keep everything sfw and try to avoid cussing, however I do not mind if you cuss yourself!

❥ From time to time I may slip into overly formal speech patterns, especially if I have yet to get to know you. Please take no offense.

❥ I enjoy drawing my selfships and self inserts and I happily draw for others, too, so feel free to send asks about doodles! Just know that I don't draw very often, so I may need time to get to posting art.

❥ I am fine with sharing any of my f/os, but if I follow you and that makes you uncomfortable, let me know so I can unfollow (or block me, of course, I take no offense.-)

❥ My main interests as of now are Catboys Paradise, Ensemble Stars, Fire Emblem, Tears of Themis, and Paradox Live!

[ 🕊️ ─ Under the cut.; main f/os, tags, social media. ]

---

🍵 ─ Main f/os. ;

Fennel (Catboys Paradise.), romantic, "Ship: At Your Service"

Yuzuru Fushimi (Ensemble Stars.), platonic, "Ship: Friendly Territory"

Vyn Richter (Tears Of Themis.), romantic, "Ship: In Your Dreams."

❥ Yanfei (Genshin Impact.), romantic, "Ship: Fundamentally Adorable."

---

❥ (I do feel the need to inform you that I have more f/os, and I shall be making a separate post for them in the future. Once again, I am more than fine with sharing any and all f/os, so worry not about me.)

🍵 ─ Tags and Blog Navigation. ;

My Posts - [Journal.]

Reblog - [Mailbox.]

Blog Navigation - [Compass.]

Announcements - [Incoming Call.]

My Art - [Family Gallery.]

Mutuals - [Royalty.]

Promo - [Trade Offer.]

Talking - [Monologue.]

Submissions - [Gifts.]

[jcmarchi]

Persona 5 Tactica Review - One More Uprising - Game Informer

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/persona-5-tactica-review-one-more-uprising-game-informer/

Persona 5 Tactica Review - One More Uprising - Game Informer

Persona 5 has become its own sort of mini-franchise within the Persona series. With many spin-off titles released over the years, such as Persona 5 Strikers, Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, and Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, Atlus seems to love using Persona 5’s popularity to explore new stories and gameplay ideas. However, I applaud Atlus for making all of these spin-offs in completely different genres from each other. The latest, Persona 5 Tactica, delivers an entertaining story, a colorful cast of characters, and fun combat mechanics within the context of a strategy RPG. Longtime Phantom Thieves can look forward to an enjoyable side adventure, but its uneven pacing and low enemy variety hold it back from being a true revolution.

Persona 5 Tactica’s story follows the core roster of characters from the original RPG. After finding themselves sucked into an alternate dimension, the group teams up with Erina, the local leader of the Rebel Corps, who wants to liberate citizens from the oppressive rule of the Legionnaires. Toshiro Kusakabe, an amnesiac politician from the real world, also somehow gets swept into the conflict. Their unknown connections to this alternate dimension have enough mystery to keep them interesting throughout the game. As the Phantom Thieves search for a way back home, the antagonists’ motivations intertwine with the origins of these newly introduced characters.

[embedded content]

The camaraderie between the cast members can be seen through optional conversations that naturally unlock as you progress through the story. Scenes like these are fun side conversations that allow characters’ personalities to shine, such as Erina’s natural leadership skills after a scene where she feels like a liability, or Ryuji’s role as the comic relief character when a treasure chest he’s seeking turns out to be useless villain-branded merchandise. Viewing these talks also gives the party members GP, which are skill points to be allocated to learn new abilities, so there’s a useful gameplay incentive too.

These conversations are bright and fun to listen to, thanks to the game’s excellent voice acting and art direction. The presentation style is more in line with an exaggerated cartoon style like Persona Q2’s rather than the more realistic proportions like in the original game and Strikers. This helps give Tactica a more lighthearted feel to balance out its darker themes, including illness, death, and trauma. The Persona series is also well known for its music, and Tactica’s soundtrack doesn’t disappoint. The soaring vocals and electrifying guitars will have your head bumping as the Phantom Thieves and Rebel Corp overthrow dictators in battle.

Tactica’s combat is more similar to XCOM than Fire Emblem in terms of strategic battles. Your team of three characters can hide behind cover and gain either partial cover, which drastically decreases incoming enemy damage, or full cover, which provides complete immunity. Tactica cleverly utilizes Persona 5’s main battle mechanics to fit the strategy genre. The most impressive implementation is the franchise’s signature “1 More” mechanic. In Tactica, instead of hitting enemy weaknesses or scoring a critical hit to trigger an additional turn, any unit on the field that isn’t behind cover becomes vulnerable. Being able to chain multiple 1 More turns and extending my movement range each time replicates the same sense of accomplishment that I felt when triggering multiple 1 More turns in the main game.

The 1 More mechanic is even more important when it comes to the game’s side quests. These side quests have restrictions, such as only being allowed to use certain characters or having to complete the battle under a fixed number of turns. I found these to be challenging but also incredibly fun, as they commanded me to think much more strategically than standard story missions. The side missions where I was required to beat them in only one turn were exhilarating.

I had to activate as many 1 More turns as I possibly could while also trying to keep my teammates in a triangle formation. Triangulating on a downed enemy activates Triple Threat, which is Tactica’s version of the RPG’s All-Out-Attacks, where enemies caught in the blast receive massive damage. Mastering these techniques to come out on top of these challenging side missions is rewarding, and they come with an equally amazing prize: Completing them nets you 20 GP as opposed to 2 or 3 when viewing conversations.

However, the gameplay suffers from uneven pacing when it comes to introducing new mechanics. This is especially true during the first 10 hours; you don’t receive the powerful follow-up mechanic until the second chapter. I’m confused as to why these highly effective attacks, which let teammates attack an extra time if you knock an enemy off a higher place, weren’t introduced earlier, as that would’ve kept the early hours fresh.

Enemy variety is also sorely lacking. Much of the time, you end up facing regular enemies with guns that don’t have any special traits to them. There’s also a bigger enemy that can only be downed if you hit it twice. Aside from some unique boss mechanics towards the end of a chapter, new enemy types are introduced sparingly. Enemy variety does improve later on, but not quick enough; it’s usually only a single new one per chapter. As a result, it’s boring to simply go through the motions when you’re repeatedly fighting the same kind of enemies.

Persona 5 Tactica is a fun time for someone who’s looking for a more casual strategy game. The Phantom Thieves are just as charming as ever, and the newly introduced characters mesh well with them. It’s not an essential experience in the same way that Persona 5 Strikers was, but fans who aren’t tired of Persona 5 yet will find plenty to like with Tactica.

[renisfan]

I believe @renisfan was the one who linked a Chinese review of the game once, where the reviewer looked at this moment and said "it's like hanging upside down on the cover art of Three Houses for 3 years made all the blood rush to his head and suffocate his brain" and howClaude blaming of Rhea made him go "do you think jewish people will stop worshipping if you hang Jesus from a gantry crane?" lmao

Sorry it took me a long time but here is the Weibo video post link! Additional bilibili link too so you can choose your preferred platform (?)

And since it's brought up again I think I may actually try doing a full (best effort) translation! Content below the cut (warning: it's very very long):

Fire Emblem Three Hopes, or maybe I should say, FE3H part II.

So this time it's also going to be a video purely talking about the story, for friends who mind spoiler let's meet next time.

First let's talk about the background of the story. All world building of Hopes is completely the same as Houses: the boar played with El in his childhood, the tragedy of Duscur bla bla all happened. But because of the volume of the game, in Hopes the academy phase is almost completely deleted. Those famous scenes in the original game like the ball or picking up tSoC, "the fell star can even consume darkness" are all gone. Players won't spend any free time at the monastery. It fast forward directly to 2 years later where the war begins within the first 2 hours. I can understand it's to unfold the story quickly (read: to save money) so there's no need to make the monastery setting again. But in other words, if you haven't played the original game, you won't be understanding anything that was elaborated in the academy phase. The meaning of Crests, the current status of Fodlan, the secret of the Church, hidden information in support conversations, all gone. Indirectly, it locked down the story's layout, making it limited to the 3 lords' war. So it's no surprise the whole story just looks like I fight here today and there tomorrow.

But war is war, you should at least come up with a legit reason to go war. If Houses El's reason is that she hates Crests due to human experiment, (not voiced: is sick of corruptions inside the Empire and wants to break the old framework of noble class) and thus wants to destroy the Church to overthrow the old faith, then what Hopes Edel felt to me is like: "It's Sunday morning and I can hear renovation noises from the monastery. So annoying! I must find a reason to kill them all". This plotline is even more confusing, because it literally goes to war without telling you anything. The Church took you in as student for several years, treating you well with tens of meals everyday, wdym the first thing you do after graduation is to blow the school up? Then after that she forced the Southern Church to break away from the Central Church, and took the chance to discredit the Church to move the center of faith away. Whenever someone ask it's just "Rhea lied to us, we'll have a bright future once we killed those of the Church!". A war without underlying logic, you may better call it a Holy War. One person stand on the stage shouting "Totsugeki!"(*"charge" in Japanese), and the soldiers below goes "Banzai!"(*"long live" in Japanese). The longer you fight, the more you feel the war is without logic. When Claude calls Jeralt's mercenaries to defend himself, I for the first time felt from the deepest of my heart that "Okay, now I'm the pure bad guy. I'm the one who ruined Fodlan's future".

This kind of situation exists in the Blue Lion's route too. The tragedy of Duscur is mentioned for countless times, but it's never explained clearly to you what happened. They just say it was a tragedy happened in Duscur. Then Dimitri went emo, saying that we can't hurry to reform or we will repeat the tragedy. But somehow when facing the incoming big army, he promoted Sylvain's brother, a guy who, in the original game, occupied a mountain to do killing and robbery, and eventually turned into a demonic beast due to overestimating himself and used a Hero's Relic. This guy, this guy is one of the first stepping stones you kill in the original game. So you'll see the boar on one hand saying the people can't accept big changes, yet on the other hand promoting a damned criminal, "because we need to move forward". Emmm? Simon Blackquill? The Dark Era of the Kingdom? If you're so short of people, why not hire mercenaries instead of promoting a criminal as your general? And then the slithers fought back, El fell into a trap, getting controlled by the bad guys and is hypnosis play-ed. In the Blue Lion's route, you can see a greasy uncle doing hypnosis play on Edel. They just released some smoke and "der"(*sound effect) she got hypnotized because the plot said so. I rubbed my eyes and looked closely, and found the sword in my hand not tSoC, but Raika Ken (*a Japanese adult contents creator).

The lack of some information made the characters' motivation and the plotline look weird. But, but, I've played the original game so I found it ok. If you view it from the foundation that you've already played Houses, then SB and AG are actually quite well written, both having differences and additions to Houses. El finally had a clear mind and didn't team up with the slithers to fight the Church, instead she put up strategy to get both of them. She is also more tolerate to the Church's existence, won't kill them all if they hand over their power. The boar didn't go crazy, walked halfway out of his PTSD and is able to accept others' love. The Blue Lion's route is even the biggest winner of Hopes. But, but there is this one guy, who allied with Edel in SB yet betrayed later and got himself killed, who stood close to the Kingdom in AG yet was hiding his true color and planning to betray. Every route has him asserting his presence, and in every route he seems to have some problem with his brain. Yes, that's our good bro Claude (*in jp/cn version Claude calls you "bro" in VW).

Hopes Claude is like he f*cking spent 3 years hanging upside down from a gantry crane, causing him cerebral congestion and mental retardation. Throughout the story he's either betraying or is on the way to betray.

After the Empire declared war, the first battle was an attack on the Great Bridge of the Alliance. Bridge, as an important military location that connects bases, has a famous saying "forts connect steep mountains, long bridges flatten the water"(*an ancient peom which I definitely translated poorly 🙃) since the ancient time. Defend, we must defend it. But what level is the Empire at? They have vast land and abundant resources, their people are in good unity and there isn't much foreign invasion either. Except that their core class is rotten to shit, their military power can easily crush the other two. How do you defend it? You can't. So Claude came up with a brilliant strategy, ordering Lorenz's dad to fake surrender, planning to bait the Imperial Army into a trap. But he refused to tell this strategy to anyone, putting all bets on that he can defend against the Empire's second wave of attack. Eventually this second wave left them a mess and almost made himself dead. It's like Zhou Yu beating Huang Gai (*Three Kingdoms story where Huang Gai is going to fake surrender and Zhou Yu beat him to make it more believable), but Huang Gai is beaten so hard that his skin was torn, that he nearly died to exchange for this victory, that Huang Gai (*Lorenz's dad) later says: "I can't get along with him. I'm leaving, bye."

Then after they beat the Imperial Army into retreat, he didn't strengthen his defense line, but had to chase the beaten enemy (*there's a Chinese old saying of don't do that or it'll do harm to yourself). He chased and chased but couldn't catch up, yet he's so frustrated he insisted on keep fighting. The protagonist says: "don't, we should strengthen our defense first". His classmates say: "don't, we should strengthen our defense first". He says: "no, CHARGE!" Charge charge charge, charge into the imperial territory, if we win this battle we can turn the tables. So they went chug chug into the imperial territory, even fighting the strongest warrior of the Empire. The last battle they just had the enemies almost knocking at their home base, to the point that Huang Gai left the group chat. You ask him where did he get the confidence to fight the Empire's strongest warrior with a tired army, he says: "I thought his fame is boasted, hehehe". Huh? Huh? It's not like they took off your head and replaced it with a Gundam head to scare people, there are actual records yet you just tell me "it's fake, it's to deceive his fans"?

To no one's surprise they couldn't win even after all their efforts. They turned around and found their ass got caught by the foreign cousin. So he again went chug chug with his people all the way from the south most front back to the north most front to put out fire. There's only this many people in the Alliance who are good at fighting, and you just see them, under Claude's brilliant leadership, exercising round trip running on the map without fighting much cohesive battles. If you know, you know they're at war, otherwise you'd think they are preparing for the Emperor's Prize (*horse racing). What exactly is he hurrying for? Look how anxious he is.

Just when I thought this back-stabbing could calm this young man down - well he did calm down - he calmed down and came to a conclusion: let's ally with the Empire!

Claude, allied with El?

Do you know how I felt when I first saw this?

SUPER OOC TIME

It's like, Three Body people carried 2-dimensional foil (*a foil that can reduce 3D objects to 2D objects, from the SF novel "Three Body") to the Earth to make peace with the president, and the president tapped on his forehead saying: "oh you like 2D stuffs (*referring to animes/games), I like it too!"

Then they fought the Kingdom together, killing Church people to gain coins (*Chinese net slang which came from a person who beat his parents to get money for games, described like the common game mechanism of defeating enemies to get money). The three factions weren't at equal power level to begin with, the Alliance can only barely keep the Empire at bay to slow down the invasion's progress, yet he turned around to hand the Empire a knife? Did the boar f*cking dig up you two's family graves in his last life when he wasn't paying attention, so you hate him this much? Hey, I mean, the first place that was attacked by the Empire was your Alliance's Great Bridge? You can't be counting on that the Empire would treat you with respect after defeating the Kingdom? You can know that enemy's enemy is friend even by watching Tom & Jerry, how did Claude read his strategy books? With his ass?

After watching all these my brain started buzzing, almost like it's something something "this way Taijun"(*a phrase typically used in WWII dramas by Chinese traitors as they provide directions for Japanese invaders). Or should I say, his hatred towards the Church has surpassed the country's interest and his plan for the future. Yes, the biggest difference between Hopes Claude and Houses Claude is he hates the Church. He thinks the Church is locking the country with faith, stopping foreigners from entering Fodlan, which isn't good, it's not open. Those over the sea are our friends, the ones inside the wall are our enemies (*playing on an Attack on Titans quote). So if we just slaughter the Church, Fodlan will be able to open its doors. Eh? Why? You hang Jesus Christ on a gantry crane, and the Jews will convert to believe in Sakyamuni? It seems that he, he took it as granted that religious freedom has higher priority over national interest. We can be lapdogs, we can be garrisoned, we can be colonized, but we must have free thoughts? Isn't it the other way around my bro? What are you knocking your wooden fish for when you are living under a bridge?

But with all that said, once the major international alliance agreement is signed, it's no joke and you'll have to take great responsibility. But in the following battle, Claude just watched the imperial general getting besieged by the Church. He didn't go save him, but want to weaken both sides as much as possible. So they just made a circle and watched the imperial general die. The imperial general went from desperation of being beaten to numb by the Church, to hope of discovering Alliance allies and ignited his courage to keep fighting, then to suspicion of finding out the Alliance is doing nothing, and eventually desperation of learning the Alliance only want to OMO (*Kamen Rider Blade reference where OMO is the emoji of a character who in the 1st episode did nothing but watch the protagonist getting beaten by the enemy). The writer used his death and screams to shove the whole process of a life burning out right to the player's face. This has a completely different nature from the previous fake surrender. It's something that would deserve getting dragged to the military court for a ten days loop punishment (*a punishment method in Tieba where the mods keeping doing "ban for ten days" on you) at least ok? His means are so dirty and he completely ignores the alliance agreement, I don't understand where's the necessity to follow such a leader. You follow him to war, you don't fear him stabbing you in the back? And after the stabbing he'd even dress it up as "It was you who volunteered to bring up the rear for the main troops. We will carry on your legacy." The protagonist is shaking their head watching this, acutely criticizing: "Sacrificing our allies in order to win... Is that really the kinda leader you are, Claude?"

So next chapter the general's sister hired Byleth to assassinate him. This story made me chuckle. Claude f*cking deserved it. And he had some great ideas in this battle too. He wanted to use his own body to lure Byleth out, yet Byleth won't bite his bait. They fought their way out directly to take his damned life, so Claude started: "Waaaagh I don't want such thing! I don't want to die! Purple head save me!"(*Attack on Titans reference) Really hard to imagine this is something a country's ruler could do, it's so low.

If to this point you still think Claude has some golden ideas reserved, that's just your hallucination. It's just because he has a handsome design. If you replace it with a greasy guy he'd long be insulted to death.

And then Edel is surrounded. Following previous logic, if this guy really wants to create advantage for the Alliance, then now he should pretend he didn't hear about this. After all the death of a country's ruler should be more impactful than the death of a regimental commander. Even his subordinates are telling him to not go, there's only blood and death. Yet he says NO. He again mobilized a lot of people to save Edel. It's like when he should save people he refuses, yet when it's his turn to be the treacherous hero he suddenly cares about his image. You ask him why, why he hurries to save Edel this time? He says: "Last time I didn't save the regimental commander, the assassin was so scary sob sob sob. If I don't save her either, I won't be able to laugh up my sleeve anymore sob sob sob." You... You are really...

If you're to guess Hopes Claude's thinking process, it's like "Little kitty went to fishing at the reservoir with his horse and his friend, but his horse and his friend both fell into the water, guess who he saved first?" Hum? Hum? Guess, guess you [redacted]. He doesn't need to save anyone, because he has neither mother nor friend (*"horse" and "mother" have similar pronunciation in Chinese).

As the story proceeds, the 3 lords had a chance to talk in person due to various reasons. Claude chatted with Edel, telling her the truth of the alliance: "I allied with you just for 3 things: get rid of the Church, get rid of the Church, and still f*cking get rid of the Church"(*playing on a quote from the movie "Let the Bullets Fly"). Edel couldn't help but shake her head as she hear this: how are you hating the Church even more than I do?

Chatting with Dimitri, the two surprisingly had a pretty happy conversation. Claude says: hey I'm going to fight the Church, wdyt?

The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus is a country that put great emphasis on legitimacy and blood relationships. They rely on the Church to establish the king's dominance. They value Crests and honor more than anything. To them the Church is their national faith. It's something they can't throw away. Moreso for Dimitri as Rhea has done him a lot of favor. She's almost like his second parent.

So Dimitri replied: "If you kill her will you stop going after me? Then sure. None of my business. Just be careful not to splash the blood onto me. But it would be a bit awkward if you directly go fight her, since we still have to protect them on the surface. Then maybe...emmm... I make the Church guard our home base, and you go to get her ass, this way everyone will be happy."

And the strategy just worked. Dimitri indeed sold Rhea out. I f*cking got amused. A picture emerged before me: "Claude is firing heat rays. The boar rushes forward as he lifting Rhea." Title: "Going 1000 miles to give out your own mom"(*written in the form of a Chinese couplet).

Eventually, the ending of the 3 routes are respectively - The Empire route: they had a decisive battle at the monastery. Rhea and the slithers scuffled with each other and fell off a cliff. The Kingdom is beaten to having only one breath left. Claude tried to betray but failed, ruining the alliance and died. The Empire continues to fight both sides with absolute advantage. The Kingdom route: they defeated the slithers at the end. El became retarded due to being hypnosis play-ed for too long, or her memory regressed back to her childhood, whatever. With most important generals dead, the Empire's power is way weaker than before. The Kingdom keeps marching southwards with absolute advantage. Honestly, both routes are at average level. Going forward it'd just be the map turning all red or all blue. You still have to go to our good bro Claude for the lolz.

After discussing with Dimitri, the boar really went 1000 miles to give out his own mom. The Kingdom Army went to the west to fight the Empire, while putting the Church at their home base. Claude rushed into the Kingdom with the Alliance Army to kill Rhea. And after the battle is over, the first thing he said is: "Hey you two stop fighting! Don't fight anymore!"(*meme from the drama "Top on The Forbidden City") But nobody gave a shit to him. The Empire and the Kingdom were fighting so happily. So Claude went: "Stop! Don't fight anymore! Stop!"

I highly doubt that if you now go ask Claude: "The war is still going on, where will the world be heading towards?" (He'd say) "Idk" "Will simply defeating the Church make Fodlan reform and open itself?" "Idk" "Will the Empire and the Kingdom be willing to cease fire?" "Idk" Complete ignorance. They fought the war for half year, stressing their mind and hurting their finances, even discarded all sense of shame, only to merely destroy the Church. In the end they figured out nothing. 3 people's stage with only him left out to dry.

You can, you don't have to give me a perfect ending, but could you not give me an all-shit ending to disgust me? I can accept that El went impulsive in the beginning, wanting to kill the Church without any prefacing. I can accept that Dimitri went 1000 miles to give out his own mom. But somehow it's Claude, the strategic wise general who could achieve great goal with little effort in the original game, who is written as a treacherous warmonger, a moron, and that's the case for every route. Even El in Hopes is able to take the big picture into account and get rid of the slithers. Even Dimitri in Hopes can control himself to not go crazy and lose an eye. I can't understand why only Claude has nothing but negative depiction in the whole story. In the ending movie of AG Claude is even blatantly standing right next to Rhea. How dare he stand there? Is it to get closer so it would be easier to stab her? He even straightforwardly said "everyone, I like war"(*Gundam quote).

When the theme song started playing while the camera pulls away in the ending, it's almost like they really have a bright path to the future. It's not like if your theme song is good it'll make the stupid story no longer stupid. What future should you really be expecting now? Here I'll play one for you:

(mimicking Edge of Dawn as if it's played by a kazoo)

See? Your path is leading f*cking straight to hell.

In Hopes, Claude's character is shaped into a vile person who has ambitions but uses extremely dirty means, and only look at the present without caring about the future. The difference between this and the original game is like one is on the sky, while the other is in the triple-linking solar system (*GaoGaiGar reference). It caused me to want to laugh whenever I see him now. Seeing him getting humiliated would make me so happy as if I won the lottery. Hopes made a political conservative walk the path of grand reforms, and the reformist walk the path of being impulsive, and the impulsive person walk the path of getting brainwashed. One word to conclude: F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck!

On the second thought: what's going on? How are all 3 routes persecuting the Church? Does everyone and their dogs hate them? Yes, the Church really is hated by everyone and their dogs. They guarded Fodlan for thousands of years, only to be rumored to be the bad guy by an impulsive little girl. The supporter they rely on doesn't care much about them, and even sold Rhea for his country. The foreign brat insists on going after them, thinking they will have openness of faith once they killed all aboriginals. Their own knights' former captain is hired by the enemies to attack them, and if things go wrong Rhea can even die to the hands of her own mother. The Church, taking hits in all 3 routes. Even if you have 3 senior monks to sing the Great Compassion Mantra for 49 days won't be enough to cleanse Rhea's resentment. Wow, if you're so good at writing, why not just write a golden ending? Just make all three open up and fight the Church together. You see even the colors match, red blue yellow. The red one is impulsive. The blue one will go crazy if you push him too hard. The yellow one had made ultimate sacrifice. Come on. "All three hearts come together! One person's justice is Million Horsepower"(*a song from Getter Robo, sung in Japanese)

Meanwhile, the protagonist, as the witness of all 3 routes, has neither Byleth's ability, nor Byleth's mindset. He doesn't have the majesty to teach students, let alone the foresight to open up the future. He's just simply a henchman. The house leader says today we're going to fight this guy, and you go "fight fight fight". The house leader says we're going to have Wallace for lunch, and you also go "eat eat eat". The protagonist has no growth. He doesn't need one. Because his goal is just that lame. Earlier it's "I want to beat the Ashen Demon", and after that it's just "I want to realize my boss's dream". What should I say about you, having so little desire? Even with a bunch of voice acting, plus interactive story, plus spotlight effect, still couldn't establish his character. Yet you'll have to raise bonds with your beloved students as this protagonist, watching the one who once pledged an oath of eternal love with you speaking shyly: "it's so good to have you at my side" (something like that). I f*cking, I f*cking - On one hand I'm so eager to see my love, to hear her voice. My lover who's so far away from me, who I haven't met for 3 years. But the cost is, the cost is I can only watch through this screen, as she grows attachment to someone that's not me. And I have to control this purple head myself to unlock my love's heart step by step, and beat myself to death right in front of her. I now, my whole being is like, I'm so confused playing this game. When I dreamed about Lysithea in my sleep, there's always some purple thing floating in the background, and I woke up with fright and bursted into tears. I lost, I lost so hard. I don't want to read Raika Ken anymore.

A lot of people say that hey, you are too subjective. You're just looking at the protagonist through a colored lense, and think they are worse than Byleth in every aspect. Yes, I AM looking at this purple head through a colored lense. On one side you have the dependable professor that everyone loves and a loli mom with naked feet and black stockings, on the other side it's a purple head with edgy haircut and a whitehead who would only repeat "we are partners in destiny" no matter what you ask, which side would you choose? Eh? This purple head can't even reach a single thread of the black stockings.

On the other hand, our favorite professor Byleth, whose head is so green it's glowing (*in China, "green hat" is a symbolism of being NTR-ed), only exists in this game to be the ultimate toolman (*a person who is being treated like a tool). Why haven't I mentioned Byleth at all while talking about the story? Because they're just that irrelevant to the main story. Jeralt's Mercenaries perfectly embodied the idea of flexible employment and flexible warfare. In the Empire route, I'm the good helper of the Alliance. In the Kingdom route, I'm the hired thug of the Empire. In the Alliance route, I'm both the hired thug and the strongest assassin. But as long as you pay enough, as long as my boss is dead, hey, it's not impossible for me to turn around and go with you. Answer me, professor Byleth, do you really like your students so much?

Of course you can go the hidden route to recruit Byleth, but after the recruitment she just disappears. There's nothing more to do with her. Next time you see her, it's when the protagonist went crazy and wants to kill her. And once the protagonist is done being crazy, Byleth disappears again. If the protagonist is a toolman for fighting, then Byleth is like a toolman for getting beaten. Either she's getting beaten right now, or is on the way to get beaten.

Byleth is the only character in the entire game, besides the protagonist, who can reach A rank support with everyone. But, except for her dad and the protagonist, she doesn't have any conversation with other characters.

She's even humiliated in her own standalone paralouge. Say Leonie, Byleth's dad and Byleth went out together to deal with bandits in Leonie's hometown, but the next village fell victim too, and Leonie said: "let's go save them". Byleth heard this and said: "ermm, I'm not very interested", which got harshly scolded by Leonie: "you heartless thing". Well then what do you want her, a mercenary, to do? As a mercenary yourself you don't know the principal of working as much as they pay? Then she turned around and asked the protagonist to go with her. I said I'm not going either, and she again started to stare at me. Well then what do you want me to do? How about a punch in your mom? Hey, if you're to use moral blackmail to force people into fighting bandits, then why haven't you thought about how many family members may be waiting for the bandits to come home when you kill them? Does your household register book only have one page (*i.e. she is the only living member of her family) so you just assume everyone else are the same? I don't understand how come this person have such great malice towards Byleth, and you get no apology afterwards either, as if I deserve to use my life for your bet on justice? And throughout the whole paralouge, Leonie and Jeralt talked all the way from the Big Bang to the cosmic annihilation, while Byleth just sit there watching, incapable of speaking a single word. Even the protagonist who's an outsider said more than she did. Three people's movie, with only two people having lines. Did Shizuka Ito only got paid half as much as others voicing this game?

Hopes' characterization for Byleth, is no characterization. She has no traits other than she likes to eat everything. Everyone when they mention Byleth can only come up with one sentence: "You must be the famous Ashen Demon (text: Ashen Succubus)!" The image of being ruthless with few words can not be broken, and the staff don't dare to break it either. After the mission of getting beaten is completed, they can only give a refrigerating treatment.

Above, is how the story develops if you manage to save Byleth. If you failed to do that, well then, you're destined to kill Byleth with your own hand during the process. Killing the Byleth who you have played as yourself 2~3 years ago, killing the loli mom, the great black stockings, the YOURSELF that would read your save data for name.

Her death is without any sense of beauty. She just lie there once the protagonist stabbed her, and the green light disappears. There even isn't a close up. Even when Joel died there was an Ellie to cry for him, yet in Hopes I bet there isn't even a person to collect Byleth's body. Her own dad was killed by you. The mercenary group didn't know she's there. Her employer treats her like a tool. She died like a wild dog on the roadside. If I learned a lesson from The Last of Us II, that "vengeance is an endless circle, only by forgiving others can one regain peace in mind". Then in Three Hopes, I indeed learned another lesson: that those talks about vengeance being an endless circle are all bullshit, as long as you kill everyone in their family you will never fall into that circle. What vengeance when there's no one left to avenge them?

Theoretically, the protagonist's former mercenary group was also killed by Byleth, so he has a grudge against them too. But just like how the protagonist has shown throughout the story, he doesn't care. It caused Byleth's death to give no feeling of finally getting the revenge, rather just simply making the former protagonist die to entertain everyone. "Yay! Be damned!" Who wrote this story? Neil Duckman? Honestly you'd better just don't write about this character, just let them go missing. What do you mean by this? Not only do I NTR myself, I also have to kill myself?

Looking back, the best written characters in this whole game are all dads, all elders who were mere backgrounds in the original game. Caspar's dad, Linhardt's dad, Hilda's brother, foul mouth(*Felix)'s dad. These side characters surely worth their resounding reputation, with their steadiness from battlefield experiences and the bonds between colleagues depicted with a rich and interesting flavor, and thereby expanding the relationship between the elders and the younger generation, filling in some missing characters details for the original game. On a second thought, what do you call this game Fuukasetsugetsu Musou for? May better just rename it to "My Dad Musou".

Overall, Three Hopes is a ~FAN DISK~ that you may not be able to comprehend if you haven't played the original game, but the more you like Houses, especially VW fans, the angrier you'll get. Hayato Iwata, the director of this game has explicitly said in the interview: that throughout the development he had always had a thought, which being he wants to erase his memory of Houses, then play Hopes before he goes back to Houses, this way he'd have more thoughts on Houses. HAHAHAHAHA. You are undoubtedly a new type (*Gundam quote, spoken in Japanese). So you understand? The official has explicitly told you that you've played the games in the wrong order. You should play Hopes first, see the most stupid story, before you then play Houses, and watch how Byleth lead the students towards a bright path of reforms and openness. It makes sense you see, play part II before part I. Especially when you finish SS, you'd feel it more from your heart that, f*ck, those guys in Hopes really were a bunch of bastards. How can you, how dare you all 3 routes team up to bully the Church? Even the bandit king (*Nemesis) would have his fists clenched after seeing this, and jump out of his tomb to do Rhea justice. Other things aside, first get a taste of my Sothis Spine Sword! (*Chainsaw Man reference)

(Score: PART II/10. Protect the best Rhea-sama)

Golden Wildfire Ch 11

On we go to ch 11. Things are . . . uh . . . interesting.

MAIN STORY

So if you didn't see ch 10, I failed to recruit Byleth. I retried the level a few time, but honestly I just want to finish this game so I didn't bother.

Plus, the reason I failed was that Claude just sat there instead of moving forward on the escort mission, which got really frustrating, and honestly I didn't want to bother.

Ugh, I don't want to fight the Kingdom.

So those Houses that wanted to defect to the Kingdom didn't because Claude's battle was that bloody in that fire map.

Poor Dimitri and co seems like he's just betting bullied for no real reason by two imperialistic maniacs.

I love how Arval is getting snooty over Shez getting credit for their tactics lamo.

Man, this dialogue is dragging.

So Nadar is going to cause diplomatic chaos by utilizing the Almyran army without getting real permission.

Wait, Claude riled up Sreng? So much for "ending racism" lamo. Wasn't having two cultures not be prejudice against each other like his MO? The writers really just threw him in the trash, hunh.

I feel so bad for Claude fans. He's really a piece of work in this.

MAP/SIDE STUFF

Everyone missing Judith has a lot more punch than Randolph. Even Monica was like "get over it" to Fleche (but nicely).

So, let me make sure I have this right. Mr. I Want to End Prejudice Between Cultures just provoked Sreng into attacking the Kingdom so Edelgard can take it over because Rhea is the reason for everything bad. Did I get that right?

Unlike SB, GW is entertaining as hell, but man is the logic here is just non-existant. And poor Claude RIP.

Like, I know I'm biased and all, but I don't see how you're supposed to be the heroes and not Dimitri here. The people just defending themselves are getting attacked on all 3 fronts for the crime of *existing.*

Not going to lie. I kinda wish Claude didn't side with you in AG either. It would've been hype to kick everyone's ass as Dimitri after getting cornered by all these land-grabbers.

GW!Claude is really just the mean girl's sidekick. 😂

If Felix and Rodrigue die in this chapter I swear to God . . . (I just remembered Rodrigue is dead in SB now 😭 - LET THIS MAN SURVIVE).

I had to fight Felix in a side mission. Lysithea said they had to "defend this place" - like, girl, you are invading.

When the challenge is "you can't dodge" but you're using Lorenz 😌👌 (FYI, he just does not take damage in this game)

SHEZ & HILDA A SUPPORT

They're talking about how Hilda exerted energy in a battle because she worried about Shez.

Hilda claims it's just self-defense bc she was cheering for Shez on the front lines and enemies were there (honestly, this is pretty boring so far)

It's the same-old Hilda claiming she's weak but that not being true.

SHEZ & CONSTANCE C SUPPORT

I know she's an Empire character, but whatever.

She wants to create new magics to restore her noble house and wants to research Shez bc of their weird magic

Lamo, Constance low-key called us dumb

Shez suggests she get her house back through military accomplishments.

Constance refuses to train right now, she wants to at night (it's her dual personality thing, right?)

CLAUDE & LYSITHEA B SUPPORT

Their first one. Claude's unhappy Lysithea charged in the last battle. But Lysithea kicked ass, so she's upset with Claude.

Claude calls her plan dumb and that he thought Lysithea was smarter than that. Lysithea still argues it ended earlier bc of her.

Lysithea doesn't back down.

Honestly, I side with her here. Claude's being patronizing. And it's rich of him not to care about all the other deaths dragging out the battle would cause and only Lysithea dying because she's *important*

CLAUDE & HOLST A SUPPORT

Oof, this one hurts. Claude accuses the church of creating all the systems to serve their own interests, because he doesn't know the truth here. That the Empire actually created most of it, and that all the church ever did was protect a genocided race from being murdered by more power-hungry humans.

It's also hysterical to hear Claude talk about wanting to improve foreign relations while instigating a war between two cultures.

Oof, Holst doesn't care about any of this. He's only worried Claude's going to send Hilda to marry a big, brown, scary foreigner. NOT a good look.

Holst says he cares more about Hilda's future than the whole Alliance. Yikes.

HILDA & HOLST A SUPPORT

They're preparing a feast.

Oh, it's nice to see Hilda's insecurities about Holst's "perfection" come up in this, bc so far she hadn't said much.

After that last support though, Holst is actually a pretty shitty leader.

Holst wants to make the feast all about Hilda instead of himself though. Hilda likes the attention.

Hilda basically had to set up her own feast lol.

HILDA & LINHARDT A SUPPORT

Hilda's cleaning, and Linhardt's honestly upset that he's lost a fellow lazy person.

Hilda claims she never pushes work on people. That, is a lie.

Linhardt is mostly worried how bad it'll look if he's the only one not working instead one of two.

All this support confirms that Linhardt is by far the superior lazy.

LORENZ & LYSITHEA A SUPPORT

Their only support.

So, not related to their support (and watch it counter it), but I find it pretty amusing how getting a leadership position faster matured Felix and Sylvain, but Lorenz is still a bit of a joke and the butt-end of every support he's in.

He's just bragging about how awesome his position and power is.

Lysithea says she's not inheriting her house. She claims it's because she doesn't like what comes with nobility, but we all know why.

She worried that the land will go to chaos without it's leaders though. Lorenz offers help (which, imo, he's actually mature here!)

Lorenz suspects she's turning it down for another reason and encourages her to rely on others to help.

RAPHAEL & LEONIE B SUPPORT

Raphael keeps snapping bows in half when he uses them. Leonie's shocked.

Leonie seems to actually make one and invites Raphael to test it while on guard duty with her.

IGNATZ & MARIANNE B SUPPORT

Marianne found his picture. He puts it down, but she likes it (it's a horse, well a pegasus, but of course)

Ignatz gets carried away talking about it, but Marianne finds it cute.

Ignatz finds Marianne loving pegasus cute. She blushes.

He wants Marianne's help, helping him paint a pegasus bc they don't like men, but if Marianne is around he can get closer and get a better painting. She's happy to help.

Honestly, this whole support is really cute.

MAIN BATTLE/STORY

It sucks having to attack the Kingdom over and over again when all they want to do is exist in peace.

Oh, joy, Nadar wants to plunder Faerghus. I can see why Fodlan is so evil for not wanting to let them do what they will.

GW really had a chance here to finally do something interesting with Almyra. It even marketed itself as a route that WOULD. But instead it's just doubled-down on Almyra being a one-note lawless place full of barbarians. At least we have Brigid and Duscur so the only brown country isn't some racist stereotype. Since it's only 1 of 3, it's not AS bad of a look.

Fuck. I don't want to kill Felix and Rodrigue. It would be one thing if the Kingdom actually provoked this, but Felix and Rodrigue haven't done anything to deserve this.

I get to recruit Ashe again. Is he miserable here too?

Ugh, I was hoping Felix and Rodrigue weren't here. It seems vastly unfair that it's only Kingdom characters who die for reel in this.

Wow. Claude's really an A-class asshole. He told Ashe to surrender because Dimitri wouldn't want him to die. Maybe don't invade for no reason then?

Is Claude also going to single Felix out as a citizen of Faerghus who deserves to live? Or does only Ashe count and not the nobles and unnamed grunts he's slaughtering because he decided to team up with the person who plans on taking over his rule? (not hate to Ashe at all, I honestly feel awful for him in this game)

Ok, so fighting Felix is just a side quest. I'd rather fail a side quest than fight Felix so, going to try to avoid having to kill him. Ugh, he's attacking the engineers. And he's damn right saying he has every right to kill the people who are invading his home.

Thank God, he just retreated.

I still love how Claude got bent out of shape over Ashe, but Lorenz alone has killed 500 citizens of Faerghus this chapter so . . .

Felix is so worried about Rodrigue. I swear the writers wanted you to feel like shit playing this route.

Oh, fuck. Just when I thought I was finished killing people for defending themselves, Daddy Gautier shows up :( He's sacrificing himself to safe Felix and Rodrigue, isn't he?

Oh, fuck. He died for real 😭

It's really hard to like these characters, making mindless chit-chat after killing Sylvain's daddy. I hope Sylvain fucks them up a new one.

I've never wanted to slap a character more than I'd love to slap Claude right now. The moron has the audacity to be surprised people are going to die while he's invading a foreign country. What a fucking stupid moron.

He's also blaming - get this right - chivalry.

I'm like. I'm speechless right now.

That's right guys. Margrave Gautier died defending his king, his country, his home, and most importantly one of his fucking best friends from an asshole invader. But it's CULTURE'S fault he died.

I'm really confused what the hell Claude thinks he's doing. Does he REALLY think killing Rhea will magically allow people to live as they please? Didn't he grow up in another country where they had princes and shit and NO Rhea?? All he's doing is making Edelgard's take over easier.

This is starting to feel like a borderline spoof. Look at us end the war by invading another nation!!! I mean???

What's his plan? Kill everyone in Faerghus - profit - "freedom" from Rhea - Edelgard takes over - no profit???

The writing in this route has gotten really fucking stupid. Like, I LIKE the idea of evil!Claude. Either a Claude who wants to take over all of Fodlan or one who's ruthless and will do anything to preserve Leicester.

But what I don't like is really fucking dumb Claude, which is what GW's devolved into.

Oh, God, now we get a flashback between father and son. Sylvain and Gautier :(

Sylvain better not be fucking recruitable in this route.

Now Sylvain's in charge 😭😭😭😭

I'm convinced someone who's a major Edelgard stan wrote the larger plot of this, but then a Dimitri stan wrote the actual dialogue 😅

We really go from one moment Claude being like - it's Rhea's fault Gautier died bc Kingdom culture bad because church bad to Sylvain being like, naw, he died defending his friends.

At the very least, I'll give Hopes credit here. At least they didn't write anyone opposing Edelgard as either evil or like they're idiots for resisting invasion, but I almost feel like they made the Kingdom especially too sympathetic which makes Edelgard look more interesting (since SB is more honest than CF) and Claude just look like a bozo. Rhea just doesn't look like anything since she's not even here.

Though, I REALLY wish Claude didn't side with us in AG. I really wish we got to see Faerghus backed into a corner and kick everyone's asses. They've very much the underdog and watching them do that would've been awesome.

Felix and Rodrigue are beating themselves up over this.

See, this is what I mean - Sylvain just said he's reserving all his hatred for the foreign invaders who take everything for no reason - I really feel like a Dimitri fan saw how everyone collectively decided to take a dump on the Kingdom in the big plot and got revenge by making everyone look like villains (or morons in Claude's case) for doing so in the writing.

xxx

[knivesama]

Poor Marianne.

[alayyae]

ok this is bound to happen at some point

[jullkz]

smug felix doodle

[fayesdiary]

You probably noticed this already but the blog is currently on pseudo-hiatus due to me being busy with the final coding project from my course and being too tired and unhinged to write something that remotely makes sense, and the executive dysfunction doesn't help

more tired and unhinged than usual i mean

it's gonna keep being like this for at least a couple weeks, hope you enjoy the queued art if anything else

[bitsofreese]

2019 Sketchbook stuff!!

[mint-chocobo]