#it’s kinda similar to fe4 but aged much better if you ask me

[silent-partner-412]

Small victory for FE5 that I don’t see talked about a ton is that the art style for the characters and portraits of this game is absolute top fucking notch. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed simply the way the characters look from a stylistic standpoint this much since the Tellius games.

[nobaettadr]

( meta meme ); becoming a master knight — what or who inspired leif and how did he learn them all so quickly?

+ @lordalmightywindsock​ asked : (meta about Leif being able to learn almost Every Single Weapon, god damn)

                                        send me a topic to write a meta on!

ooc. 

i could’ve sworn i wrote a solid hc post for this but when i went back and looked there wasn’t any orz it’s all in my head all in my heeaadd

in my bio, i mention quickly that leif decided to work toward the title of master knight because it’s the way he compensates for his perceived inferiority. if i can’t be born into excellence, i’ll carve excellence out of myself with my own hands – basically this is his mentality behind this particular pursuit and, in general, a lot of his motivation for many of the things he does. in fact, despite his depression and the fact that he p much goes through a spell of wanting to just lie down and give up every other week, he doesn’t – 50% because he’s just a tenacious little fuck, yes, but also 50% because it becomes a mentality of ‘if i just give up, it’ll prove everyone right; i wasn’t cut out for this and i’m not good enough to make it.’ and while sometimes he gets dark enough in his thoughts to respond to that with ‘well fuck it anyway who cares i won’t be around to know it anyway’, most of the time he forces himself to keep going in order to not be a failure.

that got completely off topic i’m sorry.

anyway, that’s what pretty much inspired leif to become a master knight – not anyone or anything, but his own desperation to make up for his blood deficiency any way he can. 

figuring out how leif actually managed to learn it all is a bit more difficult. presumably, realistically speaking, most people don’t learn how to use more than two or three weapon types because it’s just not doable in a reasonable amount of time. ( baron is the only other class that really comes close to master knight, and it’s fairly rare even in fe5. ) either people don’t have the potential to learn everything ( both physical weapons and magic, for example ) or it’s just….shit man, it’s too hard. if you can fight perfectly fine with a sword, why bother with 57438 other things?

leif has the answer to that, but the question still remains – fucking how? after all, lachesis had that stint in silesse to pick up the other weapon types, but that was during a time of relative peace ( the continent was kinda at war, but at least sigurd & co. were sequestered away from it for that span of time ) and she had like a solid couple years to do so and nothing else to do. with that in mind, leif achieved master knight status while fighting a full-time war with seliph & friends.

honestly, the only thing i can think of is that leif is a goddamn badass. i really can’t stress enough how indomitable this kid’s spirit is; if he puts his mind to something, he really digs in with everything he’s got and doesn’t let go until he gets it. he was training whenever he wasn’t fighting, or his fighting was his training ( nothing like plenty of first hand experience to get you faster ranks in a weapon you’re trying to get better at; you either get better or you fucking die ). i imagine leif is also a fast learner sensorially – he picks up tactile skills quickly so the learning curve wasn’t too steep for him, or he curb-stomped whatever learning curve there was into submission through sheer force of will. in terms of magic, it’s also worth remembering that leif has magic in his blood – ethlyn was a capable healer, after all.

ridiculous fe4 game mechanics gives leif A rank in everything but light magic right off the bat of promotion, but realistically of course that “promotion” happened over the span of many grueling months. also, he was surrounded by people who could help him; the liberation army had numerous people who would be able to assist him in his training. i headcanon personally that leif was able to pick up lances easily just from having watched finn all his life, among others. he mostly turned to othin and havan, probably, for axes. magic in general largely came from asvel, since mages in jugdral are similar to the gba games and aren’t separated by element. staves, mostly nanna. 

even with all of this though, it’s definitely still a serious accomplishment that leif was able to attain master knight status at the age of 16. i don’t think there’s much to say other than that where this kind of thing is concerned, leif is a bamf. he has incredible potential, and his sheer determination takes him a long way – he just doesn’t realize it because no matter how much he achieves, it’ll never be enough to him.