#rearmed!robin

[femuirdris]

Chrobin Week 2023, Day 2: Plegian Royalty!Robin AU

Or, what if they were both hot AND evil??

[the-priestess-of-dawn]

Grima and Final Blows

The other day I mentioned that I had an essay about Grima to write that I'd been putting off, and between that and all the great essays my fellow Grimleal scholars have been putting out recently, I decided to sit down and finally get it done.

So here you go. An analysis of Grima's difficulties with directly killing people.

Okay, so I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, because one of my favorite things to explore when it comes to Grima is the gap between their villain act, which they actively play up in front of others in both Awakening and FEH, and their true feelings, which are hinted at in Awakening (particularly through the Future Past DLC) and made even clearer in FEH— their own evil actions are repulsive to them, and they wish they could live normally among humans, but they don’t believe they have any choice but to be the monster that “the fell dragon, Grima” is supposed to be. They are committed to this “fell dragon” character, to putting on a show for everyone, and they are so good at it that it’s easy to overlook that they… uh… aren’t very good at killing anyone important. Not directly, anyway.

Sure, Grima is responsible for numerous deaths. But what is their actual kill count? Well, in Awakening’s main game… zero. (Unless you count Chrom, but, as we witness, that was not a voluntary act on their part; Validar took control of their body. You could also make the argument that Grima “claiming the sacrifice” at the Dragon’s Table counts, but the problem with that is, although it’s obvious that Grima accepts the life force of the Grimleal members as a sacrifice, it’s not at all clear whether or not Grima personally kills them. Although it’s possible that they did off screen, it’s also possible that Validar killed them, or that they were ordered to take their own lives; there’s no reason Grima would have had to lay a hand on them.) In the Future Past, it’s… one, maybe one and half (Naga’s spirit, and Tiki, but only in body. More on this later.)

And it’s not as though Fire Emblem shies away from showing villains directly murdering people, Even in Awakening itself, the intro to Chapter 9 shows Aversa killing a Plegian soldier for delivering an unsatisfactory report, so it wouldn’t have been out of place to let Grima stab a few NPCs as a show of brutality. Especially seeing as Grima is the evil dragon final boss. As early as Mystery of the Emblem, we can see Medeus killing his cleric hostages to restore his own health if you fail to rescue them before trying to defeat him, and as recently as Engage, we get a whole cutscene of Sombron eating Hyacinth. Fantasy violence my beloved <3

Anyway, the point is, Grima could have been written to be much more violent and I don’t think anyone would have complained. Instead, though, Grima repeatedly— and consistently across the series— tries to avoid engaging in direct combat.

Let’s start with what Grima does in the main game of Awakening. We know that Risen pursue Lucina into the past, because we see them fall out of the portal with her in Chapter 1. We also know that those Risen, as well as the others that are appearing throughout the land, are not being directly controlled by Grima, because later in Chapter 13, as the Shepherds are leaving Plegia after meeting with Validar, Aversa, and the Hierophant, they are pursued by more skilled Risen, and Frederick notes that “Either they are learning our ways, or someone is commanding them…” So… It seems that sending the Risen—with or without specific orders—to attack while Grima is not themself present is a favored tactic.

But what about when Grima is present? Take a look at the Endgame: Grima chapter. Yes, you eventually get to engage Grima in direct combat. But not immediately. What Grima does first is…

Grima attacks the Shepherds with dark spikes from a distance, reducing everyone’s hp to 1. Now, here’s what happens next: Grima attempts to possess their past self, Robin hears the voices of their friends and breaks free, Naga heals everyone back to full health, and then the fight against Grima begins… Except actually, the Shepherds have to get to Grima first, because they’re at the top of the map and they’re not budging. Naga warns them that “Grima’s servants will beset [them] to no end.” and she’s not kidding. Grimleal reinforcements will spawn infinitely, and they can hit pretty hard. Even with everyone starting at full health, it’s possible to lose units to these Grimleal soldiers if Grima isn’t defeated quickly. Can you imagine what would happen if Naga hadn’t healed the Shepherds first?

Well, I’d guess that they’d probably all die to the Grimleal without Grima having to face them up close. Which was probably what Grima was going for.

This isn’t the only time Grima tries the dark spikes trick, either. Grima attempts this exact same move in the Future Past 3 when they face Lucina, Severa, Laurent, and Gerome.

Grima announces “With the next blow, I will kill you.” and then demands that they hand over the Fire Emblem as well as the gemstone they hold. The threat is very real. But…

Given that at 1hp, a gust of wind could take the kids out, would it not have been easier and faster to kill them and just loot their bodies immediately? And yet Grima lets the kids have an extended discussion about sacrifice, and even suggests that Lucina would indeed buy a little more time by running… Again, I cannot stress enough that Grima should be able to finish them off in one hit at this point.

So the plan was almost certainly to back off and let the Risen do the actual killing, even though that would be a lot less efficient under the circumstances. And when Chrom and the Shepherds arrive, Grima immediately turns their attention to them, saying “If it’s a reunion you seek, my soldiers shall welcome you on my behalf.” Then they once again pick a spot at the back of the map and refuse to move from it, forcing the Shepherds to fight through the Risen in order to engage Grima in combat at all.

And sure, Grima has some excuses. “I was hoping not to have to flex any muscle,” they say right before the dark spikes attack, as if to justify why they didn’t do it sooner. And of course they taunt Lucina over having to choose to whether to run as her friends sacrifice themselves for her or to stay and fight and die with them. “I must say I shall enjoy this either way!” Yes, Grima, we get it, you’ve made it very clear that you’re an arrogant asshole.

But is arrogance really all there is to it? If we look at what Tiki tells Grima in the good ending of the Future Past, it looks as though Grima’s arrogance has brought their own downfall. “If you had left Mount Prism alone, Grima, you might have stood a chance. Instead, you have brought the Awakening right to your feet.” However, when you think about it… Is Tiki’s continued existence not in itself a result of Grima’s repeated pattern of not really wanting to land a finishing blow? The game states that Grima did in fact kill Tiki… but only in body, not in spirit. This is, according to Tiki, because Robin intervened.

Now, the question I have is… Is it really possible that Robin could have intervened both against Grima’s will and without them having any idea? Honestly, it’s hard to tell exactly how aware Grima is of Robin’s resistance, because they lie about it a lot, e.g. stating that Robin’s spirit perished in sending Chrom back to his own world, even though just moments later, Robin is once again overpowering them. So, keeping in mind that Grima is a liar, was Grima really arrogant to leave Tiki’s body in Ylisstol, and to not make sure that her spirit was fully destroyed? Or was Robin simply able to capitalize on Grima’s propensity towards backing off?

Because surely the only way Grima could be unaware that Robin had acted against them is if Robin hadn’t actually acted against them. I don’t think I believe that Grima really wanted Tiki gone. Naga, sure—longtime nemesis and all. But if Grima had truly cared about seeing Tiki’s existence destroyed… Well, I doubt Robin could have interfered that much.

But maybe it could still be a matter of arrogance. Maybe Grima just didn’t think Tiki’s spirit could do anything with Naga’s spirit gone, and thus didn't care to pay attention to her anymore once she seemed dead enough.

If that’s true, it doesn’t explain why Shadows of Valentia Grima exhibits the exact same habits when fighting Alm and Celica, despite never having been outside of the Thabes Labyrinth at this point in their life. As opposed to the various Terrors throughout the rest of the Labyrinth, which chase Alm (or Celica) down in the overworld to force a fight, Grima is immobile in their room, and will wait patiently there indefinitely until the player chooses to engage. You can even evacuate from the dungeon.

But if you do choose to fight Grima, it proceeds much like the battles against them in Awakening go. The main difference is that they actually will move from their starting position this time, if you position someone in their range. That still requires a fight against (proto-)Risen who are spawning in from the sides to stop your party’s advance.

So… Now it’s starting to look like Grima actively prefers this one particular trick… And it’s a fundamentally defensive maneuver, which makes perfect sense from SoV Grima’s standpoint (they were attacked out of nowhere, after all), but is not really an obvious standout strategy for Awakening Grima, whose taunts and threats suggest an aggression that would be better supported with a more offensive strategy… Consider, too, that Awakening Grima is in fact being even more defensive than their SoV iteration, since they don’t move towards you at all.

With all that in mind, it really, really looks like Grima doesn’t want to fight, especially in Awakening. Not that they don’t intend for the Shepherds to die—on the contrary, they’ve set everything up so that the Shepherds will eventually be overwhelmed—but that they don’t want to land the killing blow.

(And gee, I wonder what might be fueling their reluctance? Being controlled and made to kill your best friend by your own hand wouldn't be totally traumatic or anything, right?)

And then... Funny thing here, I’ve been procrastinating writing this essay for a long time. I originally started thinking about it shortly before the Depths of Despair banner was released in FEH, so imagine my surprise when I saw this characterization hold up in the writing of Fell Exalt Chrom’s Forging Bonds as well… The Grima there says that Chrom was the one to kill the rest of the Shepherds. Now, it’s pretty clear that it was through Grima controlling him, but that’s not the point. The point is that once again, Grima didn't have to do any direct killing.

Look, if it had only ever happened once, I could buy that maybe Grima was just underestimating their opponents, that maybe they thought they could get away without having to put very much work in. But for Grima to operate this way so many times, so consistently, and to their own detriment? No...

Grima doesn’t like direct combat. Grima has trouble even when it’s a fight they asked for.

And when you think about it, that makes their reaction to Robin choosing to land the final blow themself in the sacrifice ending all the more understandable.

“…YOU WOULD… NOT DARE!”

Because Grima would not dare. Grima has always preferred to let someone else land the final blow.

[chat-le-chat]

Okay man

[sotiredmostnights]

pros of CYL 8: free f!robin

cons of CYL 8: no lon'qu to pair her with

[aestheticitii]

Terrible, terrible idea: for CYL propaganda, I write Chrobin fics based off of what seasonals they have in FEH

[oh-cool-a-burning-sword]

it's May and about a week away from the next story banner, you know what that means!

Who do y'all hope'll get a Fallen Alt this year?

[iturbide]

(reads the A!Tiki post) It's *clearly* because she wants to make baby Grima as their older sister :D

Lots of eyes are almost certainly going to impress the baby, this is true.

[a-pale-azure-moon]

To me, it feels like SoV challenges are the worst, but thankfully this map isn't quite at evil as some of the more recent mythic/legendary ones. (I swore at the Bold Fight lance armor and the red mage with Canto Control several times though.) I knew investing in a HoF Mila would come in handy for one of these!

[katfreaks-hidyhole]

[felikatze]

there's five grimas. i geniuenly forgot rearmed grima. yes she is literally my icon right now. she's claiming dibs because they're both rearmed but base m!grima keeps asserting that he's canonical

When female V!Robin saw duo V!Chrobin, she said that she's jealous of them. Imagine Groom!Robin saying the same thing, feeling the same way if he ever saw the duo together.

Valentines F!Robin teaming up with Groom M!Robin to defeat their nemeses: Valentines M!Robin and Legendary M!Robin

the anti-chrobin robin support club

meanwhile there's FOUR grimas bickering over the one chrom they have to share. no, listen guys, that's MY zombie I'M the one who resurrected him. get your paws off him you dog.

groom robin would probably feel like absolute dogshit seeing them. valentines f!robin seems to have made her peace, but she does have bonus dissonance as her gender hammers home the "alternate universe" aspect. though if she IS married back home then it double sucks that she doesn't get to keep her husband when valentines M!Robin does, whereas groom M!Robin is explicitly single in an universe where Chrom is married to someone else.

You can never convince me legendary M!Robin isn't married to Chrom though. You can't.

Still thinking abt how groom M!Robin's damaged art looks like Grima. This guy is headed to the bad future timeline FOR SURE.

[femuirdris]

Resplendent Adult Tiki is a fantastic design and I'm SO hyped for it in this essay I will

So first of all, I know the álfar themes are a bit overused on female resplendents HOWEVER miss Tiki is always sleepy!

And Dökkálfar works especially well because when she was a child, she was suffering from nightmares of becoming an evil dragon :(

As TheShadowKing66 pointed out, her top is taken basically directly from Rearmed!Plumeria. HOWEVER... she also has design elements reminiscent of course from her base art, as well as Naga! (The cut of the top/collar, the little spiky floral skirt bits)

And LOOK AT HER WINGS those are GRIMA EYES 👁️ in them! And the wings come to a point like a Plegian crown! phantom-miria also pointed out when I was screaming in our DMs that her boots look like a Plegian mage's

And the parallelism between the álfar and dragons is just SO good... especially since this is the Divine Dragon, VOICE OF NAGA, wearing nightmare realm and Plegian-inspired clothing. It's basically saying:

Dökkálfar = Fell Dragons, Ljósálfar = Divine Dragons

AND LEST WE FORGET Lucina—who has the Mark of Naga in her eyeball from a pact her ancestors made with Naga, and who seeks out Tiki's help as the Voice of Naga to defeat Grima in the game's timeline—has a butterfly motif in Awakening

On a different note, I've seen a lot of people complaining about how many álfar designs we've gotten, and it's true! We've gotten 20 álfar total (10 of each), all women, of the 55 women designs (versus 38 males). But, I think the fairy favoritism is starting to wane based on the last few months of designs. Plus, we have the possibility of designs from Yggdrasil and, of course, Vanaheimr. I would love to see a Resplendent Stahl in fairy garb since he's always smeepy, or Forrest since he's very fashion-forward. But for what it is now, it looks like we're starting to get some diversity back (especially compared to the earlier half of the year. We had 3 álfar in a row before this LOL...)

Anyway, I love Resplendent!Adult!Tiki. She is gorgeous, and I love how she has elements combining Dökkálfheimr, Plegia, and her roots as a Divine Dragon. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Here's the Twitter version if you prefer.

[byuuli]

rearmed robin

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

No character in fire emblem pisses me off as much as Grima in the body of female Robin. Let me explain. First the fucker took the legendary slot and male Robin gets to be himself which fine maybe female Robin can get a legendary as herself in the future but if that’s not enough I can’t even hate the stupid damn lizard because he’s so FUN when he’s in the body of male Robin. He’s snarky, he’s having the time of his life being an evil little shit causing trouble while if in the body of female Robin ALL OF A SUDDEN there’s this personality shift where now the evil is all subdued because girl and it’s all it’s not like I like candy or anything Baka!!!! Instead of looking scary I’m going to wear hot shorts!!! And then THE REARMED ONE holy shit the tehehehe I’m an evil mistress pose? Are you kidding me?!?! Whispering seductively because someone has a domimatrix fetish how the FUCK is this the same character?!? But Robin isn’t sexy enough as herself to market to coomers therefore they have to evil is sexy her despite having 50,000 feh ocs that can play that role, Freyja? Hell Guilveig is basically the same thing as Robin becoming Grima with Seidr’s arc but with bigger tits. And I swear there will be hell to pay if they make her Grima after winning CYL Put the lizard in the male body only at least he’s a consistent character and not slapping you in the face with you can only sell if you’re a sexy woman but as yourself you can’t go be evil and be a skin suit!!!

.

[the-priestess-of-dawn]

This actually still holds up...

hear me out… robin ALWAYS has something around their neck… what if subconsciously they don’t like it to be completely bare because that’s the fell dragon’s weak point?

[fehtism]

Hi,

Do you have any advice on how to build Fee? I like her a lot, and I tried to bs a build with what I had lying around but it's far from ideal... I can't really afford to pull Marth (the new Lyon is taking all my orbs how foul), but I'm grinding codices to give her vital astra, probably? I sometimes run her with regular astra instead of galeforce

Last time I tried to properly read what skills do in heroes was years ago and the wall of text genuinely hurt my eyes, so I'd really appreciate the help!

Thanks in advance

hello ! thank you for your ask

i'd like to let you know that vital astra is only inheritable by /infantry/ axe lance and sword units.

here is a pretty premium build but i will give some other options for skills

the +atk iv isn't so important to bother using trait fruit for it

arcane devourer is infinitely better for her than arcane eljudnir but it is not the end of the world if you cannot get it. eljudnir is good enough for the cooldown acceleration alone

please refer to this post for a more in depth explanation of the difference between the two arcane swords : )

no quarter as a special is the definitive best choice for any melee unit that 1) cannot access damage reduction pierce (i.e. flier/cav without dr pierce in prf weapon) and 2) is not running a gambit build

it is however extremely contested fodder and incredibly hard to acquire currently due to it being locked to winter dimitri. iceberg is a good option in the meantime as well as moonbow, glimmer, and ruptured sky (scores high in arena).

i cannot recommend running galeforce on her without arcane devourer's special charges as she will have an extremely difficult time having more atk than her opponent to get the extra cooldown charges from heavy blade 4. this mostly locks her options for extra special charges to legendary hinoka. as a flier she is unable to get the effects of infantry pulse or run a skill like flash sparrow (outspeeding would be far easier for her) or atk spd pledge or a tempo skill. this makes it extremely difficult to precharge her galeforce without the usage of like . velouria or askr combined with the quickened pulse sacred seal.

atk/spd unity allows her to boost her most important stats in both enemy phase and player phase as well as turning debuffs into buffs. this can be stacked with legendary robin's grand strategy effect. you can inherit atk/spd unity from a few units but i would recommend inheriting from rearmed tana as you can get guidance 4 at the same time (probably a better option than rein snap for her c slot).

atk/spd unity is also available on attuned peony (allowing you to inherit atk oath echo attuned skill), fallen maria who is in the standard pool, and on some other limited units.

a cheaper option for her a slot would be atk/spd catch as it is available in the divine codes.

atk/spd catch 4 is available on the summer dimitri combat manual in divine codes 4.

guard bearing 4 is fee's best damage reduction b slot option as it doesn't rely on a difference in stats and it allows her to run low cd specials. guard bearing 4 is unfortunately locked to rearmed ingrid (arguably a waste of her fodder due to just how Good arcane luin is) and nabata juno, neither of which are in the standard pool.

until you can acquire guard bearing 4 feel free to stick with flow feather 3.

fliers have a lot of c slot skills they can run currently and her best options are guidance 4, soaring guidance, and s/d rein snap (not in any particular order). the guidance skills allow for warping for allies and s/d rein snap both debuffs foe's spd and defense and combat and grants +1 movement to some allies.

other options she can run in her c slot are: pretty much any tier 4 smoke skill (i.e panic smoke or fatal smoke), def/res or atk/spd ploy (ONLY WITH STILL WATER SACRED SEAL), and atk/spd oath 4 (available in divine codes.

atk/spd oath 4 can be inherited from the m!shez combat manual in divine codes 4.

she should run either distant counter sacred seal or atk/spd catch if on the same team as a far save armor. still water 3 should only be used with ploy and it will hurt her already middling defense.

hope this helps !

[aestheticitii]

do you think rkc has a preferred grima

do you think he prefers rearmed grima over l!/h!grima because she's more in line with the grima he knows

do you think he avoids l!/h!grima because she reminds him too much of robin so if he closes his eyes and pretends the stench of death is coming solely from him, he can imagine it's actually his wife

do you think he feels that's an insult to her memory because the other chroms might warm up to l!/h!grima and recognize that their wife still lives eventually, but he's so used to the grima who tried to kill his daughter (but never did and does that mean anything?) and took away his son to be raised in the same way she would've if validar kept her that he can't

do you think he would slightly resent the other chroms for choosing the lesser of two evils in a custody battle for fell morgan, even though he knows that's the logical choice?

because i think a lot about how rkc is portrayed and he's so much of an opposite that it kind of hurts in the best way. and i think a sign of that would be that he's much more inflexible about grima and robin that perhaps even them, especially if their thoughts on it are "you are me but i am what you could've been (anger/pity)"

if og/horse chrom are of the mind that any grima is robin so long as even a piece of her cares about him and the shepherds, and l!chrom/brave chrom are somewhere in the middle and think that l!/h!grima ought to be counted but the ones they faced off (and rearmed) shouldn't, then rkc completes the trifecta