#she should but I don’t trust IntSys

[yusuke-of-valla]

“why is Katarina here” she was Sharena’s first girlfriend despite also trying to murder her

Round 3, Group 1

[iturbide]

Emmeryn?

How do I feel about this character?

Glorious.  Magnificent.  Inspirational.  Emmeryn is a fascinating character for the fact that she took over a failing nation from her warmongering father at the age of ten, adopted a purely pacifistic set of policies, suffered through years of distrust and outright abuse from her own people, and not only managed to maintain her kindness and optimism in people, she managed to foster her people’s trust and love for her as a leader after the disastrous reign of her father.  She was already a force to be reckoned with in canon when they decided to unfairly drag her off the stage to spur her brother’s character development; had she lived, I’m absolutely certain that she would have continued to be an absolute powerhouse of a ruler because the affection of her people is one of the most powerful weapons a leader can have in their arsenal: Ylisse wouldn’t let anyone take her easily, as beloved as she is.

Fire Emblem doesn’t have many leaders like her, and I can’t think of any that live long, sadly.  Which is a shame, because they’re frankly fascinating, and I think the game could be improved by having them survive and thrive even in the face of war, rather than “inevitably” falling to it. 

Who do I ship this character with romantically?

Grima.  It’s Grima, okay?  I know that Phila is a popular ship for her, and I like that well enough, too, but my guilty pleasure and OTP for Emmeryn is with Grima.  Yes, I’m fully aware it’s crack.  That’s not going to stop me.

Who is my brOTP for this character?

Frederick, weirdly enough!  I’m not generally a fan of Frederick in any way, but I find his loyalty to her endearing, and I like the idea of them being contemporaries and friends; Emmeryn did trust him enough to watch over her siblings, after all, which implies to me that she knows his general character.  Also, she does have two siblings, of course I love their interactions...but I also love the idea of her bonding with Robin.  Robin doesn’t usually have an older sibling figure, and Emmeryn really does give off that sort of vibe, and seeing her take Robin under her wing is just a really warm sort of thought.

What’s my Unpopular Opinion™ about this character?

Are there popular opinions about Emmeryn?

...I guess if I had one unpopular opinion it would be that she did, in fact, mess up big time.  It wasn’t malicious, I don’t think, but the fact that she never reached out to Plegia in the roughly fifteen years after the war ended is a huge problem, because it gave Gangrel the ammo he needed to stir up public sentiment against Ylisse again.  Was it her fault that her father’s "Crusade” resulted in the genocide of the Plegian people?  No -- but as his successor in heading up the halidom of Ylisse, it should have been her responsibility to handle the aftermath of those atrocities, including admitting that Ylisse was in the wrong for doing that at the absolute minimum. 

There is value in focusing her attention on healing her own nation, of course.  Ylisse was in a terrible state when she called an end to the war following her father’s death, and work absolutely needed to be done.  But Ylisse has clearly bounced back and is now thriving again; there’s really no excuse for her to have sat on such an important diplomatic gesture for so long.  The fact that she canonically does not deny that Ylisse was in the wrong, but doesn’t directly admit to them either except to say that she’s made the halidom a “realm of peace” makes it feel like she’s trying to put the past behind them without thinking about the fact that Ylisse did direct, irreparable harm to another nation, and that’s not something that can just be swept under the rug (as much as Awakening on the whole might try to). 

I love her dearly.  But she made a big mistake with that, and I wish that more people would acknowledge that Gangrel really did have a point when he berated her.

What’s one thing I wish would have happened with this character in canon?

NOT DYING??? 

No, that’s really the big one.  I really, really wish that she hadn’t been killed to serve as character development for her brother, because it’s really gross the way IntSys fridges its characters (and especially its female characters) to serve as development for its (usually male) leads.  I think the game could have been really interesting if Emmeryn survived to see through the actual events -- and given who she is as a person, I think she of all people might have been able to convince even Grima to stand down from the fight by trying to understand the fell dragon’s pain, rather than inflicting more on them. 

Give Me a Character 

[fic-art-blurbs]

How “Lost In Thoughts All Alone” Connects To Each Route Of Three Houses

OKAY. SO RIGHT OUT THE GATE. I KNOW THIS SOUNDS MONUMENTALLY STUPID BUT HEAR ME OUT. I KNOW THERE IS 0% CHANCE OF THIS BEING INTENDED BECAUSE INTSYS IS INTSYS AND ALSO THESE ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT WORLDS BUT THESE VERSES ACTUALLY FIT SOMEWHAT AND IMMA TRY TO BREAK IT DOWN. FAIR WARNING THERE’S GONNA BE SO MUCH STRETCHING THAT YOU’RE GONNA THINK YOU’RE IN A YOGA CLASS.

You can listen to the song itself in its entirety here, I’ll be going by verses and talking about the routes/characters I think each fits. And I’ll be putting this under a read more because I know this is going to be long also @iturbide​ here’s the essay

Also spoilers

First Verse/Opening Verse - Byleth/Sothis

You are the ocean's gray waves, destined to seek Life beyond the shore just out of reach Yet the waters ever change, flowing like time The path is yours to climb

This one isn’t too difficult to talk about. This is the opening verse of the song, and the first verse Azura sings in Fates. This verse also plays in between almost all of the verses in the song - note I said almost. It also plays at the end of the song. This fits Byleth, and by extension Sothis rather well. Byleth is the driving force behind how each route, behind each character’s growth. They manipulate time, constantly going back in time over and over again, whether it’s to take another path, or to try and save a life. Byleth is the one with the power here, and no matter how many times they go back, no matter how they make time bend to their will, it always flows back - the “Golden Route” so many desire is always out of reach, no matter how many routes they play. 

And yet no matter what, you keep going back. Byleth, though I guess at this point I’m talking about the player, is destined to continue trying to reach that happy ending, they’re destined to keep searching for a way to make that happy ending a reality.

The path is yours to climb indeed - as many choose to try and make one, unaware that the path they create is one treaded many times over.

Birthright’s Verse - Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd (Azure Moon)

In the white light, a hand reaches through A double-edged blade cuts your heart in two Waking dreams fade away, Embrace the brand-new day Sing with me a song of birthrights and love The light scatters to the sky above Dawn breaks through the gloom, white as a bone Lost in thoughts all alone

I imagine the white light being referred to here being the reunion scene, and the hand as being Byleth’s. Remember how Azure Moon’s reunion scene left Dimitri shrouded in the darkness, and Byleth in the light? The double-edged blade here could refer to Edelgard herself - he may have been happy to reunite with his step-sister, but it was the reveal of her being the Flame Emperor that “cut his heart in two”, breaking his heart and making him fall victim to his rage. His “waking dreams fading away” to “embrace the brand new day” may refer to his ghosts, how they grow quieter (not quite disappearing entirely, but fading away for now) in the wake of Rodrigue’s death and Byleth’s words finally reaching through to him. 

“Sing me a song of birthrights and love” I think could refer to Dimitri’s mindset. He feels bound by his birthright as the future king of Faerghus, and the love he feels for both his family and his country. When Edelgard’s deception is revealed, a good chunk of the reason his breakdown is so bad is due to the fact she seemingly betrayed that love, betrayed the love that was shown to her by his father and her mother. He views it as her willingly betraying them and directly causing their deaths along with Glenn’s and the genocide of an entire country. He feels it is his birthright not only to right the wrongs committed by his country, but to avenge what happened to his loved ones. 

The next two lines I think reflect his finally quelling his rage, no longer letting it consume him. That “white as a bone” line I can imagine talking about his path - his intentions may have been honorable at the beginning, but his path is no less gory than the one he wanted the head of.

And the final line? It describes Dimitri for a good portion of Azure Moon. He’s lost in his thoughts, all alone, pushing away his support because he believes himself unworthy. 

Conquest’s Verse - Edelgard von Hresvelg (Crimson Flower)

Embrace the dark you call a home, Gaze upon an empty, white throne A legacy of lies, A familiar disguise Sing with me a song of conquest and fate The black pillar cracks beneath its weight Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone Lost in thoughts all alone

No I did NOT just pick this verse for Edelgard because of the conquest thing I PROMISE. I SWEAR THERE’S MORE TO THIS THAN JUST THE CONQUEST LINE I PROMISE

ANYWAY I imagined that first line referring to Edelgard marching home and assuming the throne. The Empire is far from a bright place, and she’s embracing it as she declares herself emperor in order to declare war on the church. The “empty white throne” line? It could mean one of two things, if not both. The first thing could be telling her to gaze upon Faerghus’s empty throne, the throne she made empty by killing her step-brother - even if she didn’t remember him being her brother. The second thing could be referring to Sothis’s empty throne, as she’s unknowingly following in the footsteps of Nemesis by killing the Goddess and her followers - first with the death of Seiros, and then the dissolution of Sothis’s crest stone (even if she didn’t directly play a part in the latter, Edelgard’s route is the only route where the crest stone disappears for good). If you stretch, you could also make it so that this refers to if you kill Claude, but the throne of Almyra wouldn’t be empty - it would just be angry and ready for war.

The next two lines could refer to the Agarthans. “A legacy of lies, a familiar disguise” could refer to Patricia and Arundel respectively. Edelgard’s mother was revealed by Cornelia to maybe having a hand in the Tragedy of Duscur and making that image of Patricia as a kind woman a lie - though this is in the Azure Moon route, so this could be handwaved. This line could instead refer to how Edelgard views Rhea and the church - they’ve passed on a “legacy of lies”, hiding the horrific truth behind the Relics and the Crests, claiming them to be gifts from the Goddess. The latter line, “a familiar disguise”, could be about Arundel. It’s revealed that Arundel is actually Thales in disguise, and Arundel is Edelgard’s uncle - someone she undoubtedly would’ve been familiar with. 

“The black pillar cracks beneath its weight” could be talking about the weight of Edelgard’s war. Even if the game states that Crimson Flower had no consequences in the end, there are undoubtedly consequences scattered across the land. The newly “unified” Fodlan would be cracking under that weight, with new cracks appearing with every new rebellion, every new attack. Every instance that could tell Edelgard that perhaps declaring war so hastily might have been a mistake. 

“Night breaks through the day” can very easily be equated to Edelgard’s war in conquering all of Fodlan. “Hard as a stone” would be her resolve - no matter what route you choose, Edelgard is steadfast in her belief that she is in the right. She never falters, never once wonders if she was wrong. Her only regret when you kill her in Azure Moon is wishing Byleth walked at her side - not regretting her war, regretting that Byleth was not on her side.

And of course, the final line. Edelgard is alone in her thoughts, even with Hubert seemingly knowing everything. She’s lost in her thoughts of conquest, and similar to Dimitri, vengeance. She may not be haunted by ghosts like he is, but she’s certainly haunted by her ticking clock and the deaths of her siblings as they fell in the experiments, one by one, until she stood alone. It could also refer to the ending of Crimson Flower - now that she’s won her war, what now? Stability would not come right away, and the increasing attacks and rebellions depending on certain choices could have Edelgard lost in her thoughts, perhaps wondering for the first time if she should have chosen differently.

((Fair warning, this is where most of the stretching begins - Revelations is strange in that it actually has 2 verses of its own - it has an opening to replace the “You are the ocean’s grey waves” verse, and a verse more similar to the other two routes.))

Revelation’s Verses - Claude von Riegan & Rhea/Seiros (Verdant Wind/Silver Snow)

The path you walk on belongs to destiny, just let it flow All of your joy and your pain will fall like the tide, let it flow Life is not just filled with happiness, or sorrow Even the thorn in your heart, in time it may become a rose

A burdened heart sinks into the ground A veil falls away without a sound Not day nor night, wrong nor right For truth and peace you fight Sing with me a song of silence and blood The rain falls, but can't wash away the mud Within my ancient heart dwells madness and pride Can no one hear my cry?

Again, there’s gonna be a LOT of stretching. I think that first verse might not actually be for Claude or Rhea exactly - that verse sounds a lot more like it’s meant for Byleth. Telling them to accept that they’ll not have their golden route, accept that life isn’t just happiness - but it isn’t just sorrow either. And yet Byleth persists. 

The second verse though - the first half I think fits Claude more, and the second half fits Rhea more. Though you could argue those last two lines also fit Nemesis emerging from Shambala in Verdant Wind - I don’t think so, but it’s there.

Claude’s definitely got a burdened heart - he’s got so many trust issues that if you could build with them, you’d have a skyscraper. But it’s through his interactions with the Deer, and by extension Byleth, that the walls he put up to protect himself slowly fall away. The mask he put on of a carefree individual silently gets dropped, and by post timeskip, you can see that Claude trusts his Deer - and Byleth, if this is Verdant Wind - with everything. He’s the neutral route in this, he doesn’t choose to fight for either side, his fight isn’t for either side. He’s fighting to destroy the borders between lands, fighting for the truth (in that his route is the one where you learn everything), and for peace, equality. He may be the funny upside down meme to most, but he’s the only one of the three to actually fight for truth and peace, the real versions of both - you don’t get to learn the truth in Azure Moon, and in you only get to see what Edelgard believes is the truth in Crimson Flower. 

Rhea’s the one who knows everything. She knows the truth behind the Relics, the Crest Stones, Crests, everything - and yet she stays silent. She stays silent, afraid that more would follow in the footsteps of Nemesis and bring more bloodshed - hence the “sing me a song of silence and blood”. The next line could refer to how no matter what she does, the darker parts of history wouldn’t be scrubbed away. Even if she did succeed in her attempts to bring back Sothis, in an attempt to wash away the dirt from their past, what then? Did she really think Sothis would welcome her back with open arms, with what she’d done to achieve her goal? And the last two lines...those are rather self-explanatory. Say what you will, for a time, Rhea did indeed go mad. She believed herself to be in the right, much like Edelgard did, and became furious when anyone said otherwise. That’s shown in her ruthless execution of those who opposed her, and her downward spiral in Crimson Flower. The final line, “can no one hear my cry?” may refer to how, even if one of her brothers and her niece were there by her side, neither knew what she had become. Neither ever knew what lengths she went to, nor did they know how much pain she was in to have driven her to madness, driven her to the belief that creating and killing at least twelve vessels in an attempt to create the perfect one for Sothis was right. Perhaps if someone had heard her cry, things would have been much different.

Interestingly, this is the only verse to not end with “lost in thoughts all alone”. If you think about it in the terms of Claude and Rhea, this may be for different reasons. Claude is remarkably well-adjusted for someone thrown into war - he gives a “power of friendship” speech during the final fight for crying out loud, if anything, he’s actually grown for the better. He’s not lost in thoughts all alone because he’s learned to actually lean on others for support. In Rhea’s case, her not being lost in her thoughts all alone would be for an entirely different reason - she isn’t lost in her thoughts. She’s not thinking clearly, but she isn’t lost like Dimitri or Edelgard. She isn’t so lost that she can’t command troops outside of “KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM”, nor does she question if she was in the wrong like Edelgard might’ve had the latter won her war at the cost of stability. To the very end, she doesn’t regret her decisions - she may not have made them with a clear mind, but she knows what she did, and she isn’t lost thinking of what might have been. 

((TECHNICALLY there is one more verse, sung by Shigure in the Heirs of Fate DLC. The reason it’s not brought up? That one is much more context sensitive - the only line I can really think of fitting anywhere is “Endless dawn came but not without a price” possibly referring to the end of the war in every route, with “dawn” here referring to peace, and the price being the countless lives lost in the war. Then again, each route’s definition of “peace” is rather shaky, some more so than others, so it could refer to each individual leader’s goals being reached in their routes at the cost of a war.))

[butwhatifidothis]

Rant, potentially me just bein’ stupid, under the cut

There are so so so many reason why CF just feels like (as someone who writes fanfiction) poorly thought out fanfiction and one of the ones that gets to me the most is CF!Claude.

So in three out of four routes, the Empire has the Great Bridge of Myrddin under their control, which is the main reason Gloucester and Ordelia are pro-Empire due to them being under the most immediate threat of Imperial attack should they not swear fealty. This makes Claude unable to make any blatant moves against the Empire due to two of the houses under his watch being both against him and under threat, and so he uses House Riegan’s power to force the Alliance into neutrality. He can’t ask the Kingdom for help due to 1) it being under chaos due to Dimitri being presumed dead and Cornelia essentially taking charge and 2) again, this being a blatant move against the Empire even if he could ask the Kingdom

Okay, makes perfect sense, these all leads into each other just fine.

In CF, the Great Bridge is under Alliance control

what.

Gloucester is still unwilling to help fight against the Empire, as shown partly by Lorenz making no appearance as an enemy unit in CF if he was unrecruited,   despite having its main reason for doing that be basically obsolete.

what.

Despite being able to take the bridge under his control and despite Dimitri being king and therefore having the Kingdom under much more stability than the other routes, Claude at no point makes any sort of alliance with the Kingdom despite the now available means and the common enemy throughout the five year timeskip. Likewise Dimitri makes no effort to team up with Claude and in fact does not react to news of his death whatsoever, making it the lord matchup where that happens (Claude reacts to Dimitri and Edelgard’s deaths, Edelgard reacts to Dimitri and Claude’s, but Dimitri only react to Edelgard’s)

what.

What kind of sense does this make? Maybe you can argue that Edelgard has less means to take over the Great Bridge due to the war against the Kingdom being more even in CF, but that doesn’t explain why Claude doesn’t take this chance to team up with the Kingdom and Church - even though he knows doing so will definitely sway Gloucester into being anti-Empire due to the Church’s influence. Maybe you can argue Claude didn’t want to team up with Rhea, but that’s assuming that Claude would rather Edelgard potentially win the war Claude didn’t plan for and which he himself says ruins his dreams over Rhea getting back in the position Claude would have had to have planned for somewhat beforehand - and on top of that, teaming up with Rhea would have almost certainly given him some major headway into negotiating shit over about Almyra. 

Edelgard is canonically weaker in CF. Her attention is not fully on the war at hand, she is barely holding a stalemate with the Kingdom and can’t even take hold of Myrddin, her forces are now known to be full on starving (as in, Ashe explicitly states this in an explore dialogue), so if Claude did literally anything to team up with Dimitri and Rhea at any point in CF - you know, that thing he at least tries to do in all the other routes (in VW/SS succeeding only with the Church, in AM full on supporting both) - Edelgard would have been fucked. But see, now Claude doesn’t trust the Church and Kingdom enough to team up with them according to the fandom - in this route only though. He’ll help Dimitri and be instrumental in finding Rhea in all the other routes! Just not here. Because he doesn’t trust them. Now. The game makes no effort to say this in the route this happens in, but trust me, it’s totally there. Claude saying that he wonders what a world without Rhea would be like in the route where he has someone he can rely on to lead Fodlan in her place completely and totally justifies him not doing anything to help the now only people he could ever rely on to lead Fodlan from having that power fall into the hands of people he deadass doesn’t trust to wield that power at all, I promise

Look, when 3H wants you to know something they’ll just tell you, especially for something as game-changing as this. Claude not teaming up with the Kingdom during the course of the war is what let Edelgard win - period. No cap. End sentence. Send tweet. Edelgard could not have been able to fight a two sided battle with her attention diverted on Byleth on top of fighting the literal rest of Fodlan. CF, as it presented itself, only can exist if Claude doesn’t do something he does in every. single. other. route. 

And that what makes it so low-tier fanfiction-y, because it doesn’t even try to explain, in a self-contained way for CF, why he doesn’t do this. It’s like if the author went “I don’t think Claude would do that so he’s not going to!” in their author’s note but makes no attempt to give a reason why they think that or try to write their fic’s plot in a way that explains how that can make sense. 

Claude going on the defensive and staying makes inherit sense in the other routes; he can’t rely on the shambling Kingdom and the scattered Church to help him take on the Empire at the start of the war, so he takes his side who is too divided to properly help itself, out of it. But in a situation where the Kingdom and the Church are around and strong while Dimitri and Rhea are still around to provide their strength? It’s almost a no brainer to team up with them to stomp down this threat before it gets anymore powerful than it is. Obviously, with Rhea being there and Dimitri not going through any of the shit he does in the other routes, and with them holding up in any way against Edelgard’s prepared forces, it would make sense for Claude to have joined the Kingdom and Church at any point after Edelgard started to lose out in strength. But oops! This is the author’s first story so they don’t quite know how to set up the scenario they want, so they just handwave it away with “Claude doesn’t like the Church” without even so much as having Claude say that himself. 

Like I said, this is someone’s AU. It accidentally got submitted instead of the actual script for CF, and IntSys is just too forgiving to new authors and doesn’t know how to give proper criticism without coming off as flaming the newbie and they let it slide. Also explains all of Edelgard’s cringey one-liners and all the character inconsistencies with the BE students

But hey, maybe I’m just full of shit lmao. Have your interpretations if you want, I just don’t buy CF!Claude’s reasoning for staying out the war during the timeskip personally

[patricia-von-arundel]

Why did you choose Patricia as your user name? Even if she was trick by Slither to thinking it was a good decision, she still did something truly awful since she knew about the attack and knew Dimitri was coming and even if she hated Lambert by the end, Dimitri was an innocent child.

Same anon, I should have added, I might be biased though since I have both a step mother and a step sister and the idea of my step mother murdering me and my father for the chance to see my step sister (not allow me to fall if we are both hanging over a cliff, that I understand), but knowingly and willingly be involved in our murder just to see her really bothers me.

Hi, anon! I had to think about this one for a few days. I hope that’s okay! Sorry for the delay, though. 

I’m honestly surprised I don’t get this question more often. The short answer: I had very personal reasons when I found out about her, but didn’t yet know her full story. Just that she was Edelgard’s mother. I’m not going to divulge what those reasons were (though many here know), but just trust me - it was a good reason. 

Since then...

Well, let me first address the actual cold, hard, canon facts about Anselma: we have very, very few. Facts, I mean. And that is the coldest, hardest fact. The people who claimed she had a hand in Duscur, Cornelia and Gilbert, both have seeeeeeerious issues with telling the truth sometimes. You have to admit that’s true. ;) Cornelia was being deliberately manipulative. Gilbert was speaking of rumor. Could Anselma have been involved with Duscur? Absolutely. Do we know for sure? No. 

To move on to speculation... Edelgard got her backbone from somewhere, and it sure wasn’t from her father. Edelgard will go to very extreme places to do what she thinks is right. Would it be that much of a surprise if Anselma would have done the same? Especially if she was being fed lies by TWSITD? If they told her Edelgard and her siblings were being tortured (we don’t know when the experiments started, after all - it could have been while El was in the Kingdom, for the others; it almost certainly was already going on for Lysithea and her siblings), and this was the only way to try to rescue the daughter she’d been kept from... Or maybe they promised her Edelgard, if she cooperated. Promised to keep her safe from what was happening. Hell, they might have promised to keep Dimitri alive, too, if it would get her to cooperate in orchestrating the Tragedy (and they kept that promise). She could have both her children, even if she was still a pawn of the Slitherers, if she cooperated. Instead, they took her, either to hold her prisoner or execute her. 

(I will never fully forgive IntSys until they tie up that loose thread!)

(And again, that is pure speculation on my part. I am not claiming any of it is canon.)

Do you not feel a bit more sympathy for her, at that point?

She spent her whole life another victim of the nasty, misogynistic system in Fódlan that ultimately leads to the death of one or both of her children. Canonically, she’s got military training (she was at the Officers Academy, after all!), but she was then tossed around the whole continent like a ping pong ball. She was in love with a man who could not save her, any more than he could save his children. They took her daughter away. They sent her into a loveless marriage where she rarely got to see her husband and was being manipulated by a “friend” who was now a meat puppet. Her brother was also turned into a meat puppet. Canonically, she’s also kind: Dimitri and Hapi both clearly loved her a lot. Nowhere is she presented as a bad person... except in accusations of Duscur. 

You speak as a stepchild, and I understand. Your perspective is very different from mine, because I see Anselma from the perspective of a mother. A mother who went through a situation not entirely unlike hers - I know the psychological torture it is. On an entirely different scale, and for different reasons, but I do know. When I ultimately learned her whole story, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I already had the name. Now I had a character I didn’t necessarily agree with (but again, we don’t know what she did or did not do before, during, or after Duscur), but did deeply, wholly understand... and admire. She fought back. 

Just like Edelgard, Anselma fought back. 

And I like her. 

Though I respect entirely anyone who does not. So long as they respect me in return. 

I hope that helps clear up my viewpoint!  

[ihavesomethingtoaskofyou]

Not related to Seteth that much, but just wanted to say regarding this new chapter in FEH after reading your post about it- 1: I agree with all your points. 2: If you haven't played it yet, please do. It clears up a few things you've mentioned, though the story is still confusing as ever

YEAH I did actually. I’m still... Man. This story just threw me into a loop. I never Made a post after he actual chapter came out. because I’ve still been trying to figure out how I feel about it.

But thank you so much for sending this in! I’ve really been thinking about making another post discussing this but never got around to it because I didn’t want to turn this into a “Lin has feelings and opinions about FEH” blog. Though there is an Alfonse ask blog if y’all want my opinions on FEH there.

To also just mention this- I live where FEH resets is midnight but atm where I am it’s three am and I deadass stayed up until three for this chapter and BOY do I have opinions. Last time I stayed up for FEH reset where it was at three intentionally was Mila banner so I could summon for Líf. As much as I always say FEH bad and FEH stinky, I’m so attached to Alfonse that I’m the fool here.

This is going to be long because I’m going to mention a few things I’ve thought about since the midpoint and just going back to it. But basically, a whole bunch of things relating to Book IV and Book III because those are the only two really relevant anymore (thank you IntSys for at least attempting to make Veronica relevant. Maybe we should get her and Bruno as units and not their alts and more about them-)

ALSO WHEN I WENT BACK IN THE CHAPTER FOR THIS LET ME JUST SAY

Why does when you’re engaging an enemy does it look like you’re in front of the summoning stone. At least in the last part of the chapter. Please IntSys, this chapter already brought me enough pain.

A lot of this is may seem like “Wow that’s obvious” but still.

Starting with the beginning of the book, and all of it really. It’s so confusing. And what did this really... Have to do with the “plot”. It’s like IntSys forgot about the Embla and the conflict with Askr. Sure, Book II was somewhat related, and Book III was actually pretty related with the whole Líf/Alfonse and Thrasir/Veronica thing. Book IV finally doesn’t feel as disconnected from the rest of the “plot” (I say “plot” because it’s a tough subject on what the plot of FEH is) as the whole, “He died because of what happened in Hel/with Hel” thing. Book IV is literally some fever dream.

Alfonse being dead did not hit me well. Now this may sound childish, but when FEH first came out, I had finally moved back to my home state yet was still alone and all. All the friends I had left me one way or another over the years so when I first started playing, Alfonse was instantly one of my favourites. It wasn’t an “Oh haha he’s hot” thing but more of a “He gets it”. So with the whole Kiran is actual Alfonse detail?

Yeah me too. 

With Kiran being from our world, you’d assume shitty things happened to them. It’s our world after all. So one could assume, going to Zenith was probably nice for them. Again, we don’t have any information about Kiran because they’re supposed to be us, but by the way Kiran hasn’t tried to leave yet (Unless they have and IntSys just. Didn’t show us until sometime later to fuck everything over) they wanted to stay. It makes sense they would want to stay, and have grown attached to the Askran trio and other Heroes as the summoner support exists (I say that as if my summoner supports aren’t Alfonse and Líf). So you could say that’s one reason they became Alfonse for his book, but honestly I  say there’s more to it than “I didn’t want you to live without Alfonse/I wanted him to keep being able to go on adventures with his friends”. I definitely don’t think it was Kiran being selfish though, just putting that out there. I think it really does have to do with Alfonse and the game isn’t just saying that to not be like “Oh well in reality Kiran doesn’t want to leave”. 

I went back to through the last part of the chapter again and I’m not wrong.  Freyja’s line to Kiran saying they were all alone further supports the whole “Kiran finally has friends” thing.

I’m not going to quote Alfonse’s lines again, but I will quote Líf’s. Many of the things Líf says suggests that he was close with his Kiran. And obviously that means Alfonse and Kiran are close and the likes yeah yeah but. Looking at Líf’s lines...

“Get close to someone, and the pain of parting will be much more acute. You and Alfonse must remember this.”

“If you want someone to patrol with, ask Alfonse. I am not your comrade. But...be careful. Please.”

And then his whole level 40 conversation honestly.

“I once made a vow to Kiran... The summoner of my world, I mean. We trusted each other. I swore that I would keep Kiran safe... But in the end, I was unable to keep that promise. Alfonse must not make the same mistake I did. And I will protect you myself. Yes, I will continue to fight. Not as Alfonse, but as Líf. For your sake.”

Since Líf is technically still Alfonse, even with different futures, it suggests that no matter what, Alfonse and Kiran has a strong relationship and deeply care for each other. I’m not saying it’s something romantic because again, Kiran is the player and some people may not like Alfonse, but you can’t deny the in game relationship between the two is important to each other. So in all reality, part of the real reason could be that Kiran couldn’t cope with Alfonse’s death. Again this is just me speaking here but. I dunno.

I don’t think I need to say this but. The whole “changeling is Sharena” was to get everyone to focus on Sharena so Kiran being Alfonse was more surprising. With what happened, there’s no way they’d pull that too. Or they would but I feel like that would be more annoying than anything? IntSys definitely is aware how people feel about this chapter. There’s no way they wouldn’t.

Now to compare that part from the midpoint to the chapter!

Earlier, I started theorizing why “Alfonse” was in our world. I mentioned how close Alfonse and Kiran are, why Alfonse would be there, why “Kiran” came at “Alfonse”, but it’s really proven now. This may not have been noticeable because it was short, but “Alfonse” doesn’t seem phased at what “Kiran”’s doing. When Kiran comes towards Alfonse, we never knew the motive but for that short time you can see Alfonse’s face (I suggest watching the midpoint in .5 to catch it) and he just. Seems like it’s not really a shocker to him. He only just looks so dumb and needs a small bap in the face. So it’s like Kiran was aware they were going to see Alfonse again. 

I’ve put this in my writing about this chapter but, there’s a possibility Kiran also wanted to lead them all to him through this to try and help him or whatever. Though that’s more just me writing angst off of my feelings of him being dead.

But as Freyja said, this is just one whole dream. So that would imply next chapter everyone will wake up and Alfonse would be alive.

Yeah.... I don’t think that could work. Because then Hel would have to be a dream. 

Or you know.

They could break the fourth wall in a terrible way. Where everyone learns about FEH. And that’s what she could’ve meant by “everything is a dream”.

But I highly doubt it.

I hope the next chapter isn’t disappointing and that Alfonse can come back. Perhaps the Light’s Blessings can come into play? Become story relevant too.

This all may have not made sense but, I really do have opinions for the chapter.

Apologies if this doesn’t make sense, I’m still trying to wrap my head around a lot of things.

[echoedfates-archive]

Oh and also. I mentioned I had something to talk about yesterday. This is more for my own nerves rather than actually changing anything about how I’m writing.

Lately, I’ve seen post bringing up Hilda’s attitude towards Almyra and I was wondering if that would ever come up since the fandom is so quick to bring up Ingrid’s racism. That was always something I found weird because whilst they’re problematic in different ways, both characters have prejudices yet only one is hated. Hilda is actually incredibly popular among fans.

So when I first saw posts about Hilda I was like ok, that’s fair. But then I saw some that got a bit harsher, something along the lines of “Oh, don’t think we’ve forgotten about you, Hilda.” or maybe it was third person. Either way, it sounded like someone calling out a certain author or other real person, rather than a fictional character. I’m not saying that we ignore characters’ bad traits, but fans get so heated. Not just on this topic: the hate towards Edelgard or Dimitri (depending which side you’re on) goes too far too often and carries over to hating their fans. I don’t know what’s brought it on; I’ve been here since Awakening and never saw such vile attitudes. I almost miss people just moaning about Camilla getting another alt.

That wording with Hilda is a minor issue, but just the idea of referring to her as if she’s a real person that needs to be called out is... Icky. Because it feels more like fans of her are being called out through her. Hilda is interesting! Ingrid is interesting! IntSys are bad writers when it comes to racism! We can acknowledge that and still like them, and in our fics and comics and threads have them be better! Either remove that part entirely bc if IntSys can’t be bothered to write the topic respectively, then maybe it shouldn’t be there to begin with. OR. We can write about them learning to be better!

But on that latter topic... I don’t want to say that Hilda isn’t prejudice. But I also don’t want to write a post now. I’m word vomiting here bc that takes less thought that deciding how to make Hilda grow. And... I currently feel like I’m forced to write such a post. It’s not the fault of mutuals so if you’re reading this, you’re probably fine. But there was something on the dash the other day that got me upset because it felt like gatekeeping. Like I wasn’t good enough because I hadn’t made such a post my priority. It wasn’t about me specifically, but it still hurt.

“But Katya, you’ve had Hilda for more than half a year!” Well, guess what? I sometimes add muses before I read all their supports and whilst I knew about House Goneril involvement with Fodlan’s Throat, that feels very mutual to me. From Claude, it seems that the hatred between Almyra and Fodlan may be mutual and he’s stuck there as a child of both... Which as a dual national (well, culturally. HOPEFULLY I can finally get my other passport this year) myself, I do appreciate him being there and wish we got more of his explicit feelings and thoughts on the matter.

But anyway, my point is that I didn’t notice anything odd. I saw a mutual conflict and general tensions bc they’re constantly fighting. So what about Cyril’s supports?

...I don’t like Cyril. He bored me compared to the rest of the cast. I’m sorry to his fans, maybe I’d change my mind if I actually saw his supports, but my point is that I didn’t see his supports with Hilda. Even now, I’ve only seen their C support.

So I added her without knowing. And yeah, now I know there’s racism there. Not the direct “I hate Almyrans and think they should die” kind, more the stereotypical biases kind. Like, nobody will ever tell me that I’m a 2nd class citizen, but I do hear people and the British media, particularly 5-6 years ago when a certain racist politician got popular talk about how “Bulgarians are thieves and crooks” and I’ve had people tell me to my FACE how they hate them, after learning I’m half Bulgarian. Kinda sounds like Hilda claiming Almyrans are brutes, so trust me. I’m not excusing her.

BUT. Coherent thought written out in an intelligent manner takes a lot more effort than this word vomit where I’m just typing whatever I’m thinking at the moment. And now that I’ve seen these aggressive attitudes and gatekeeping, I don’t even want to make that post. Headcanon posts should come from a place of inspiration of a desire to develop my muse. Especially a topic like this, where I should be talking about Hilda becoming a better person, because that’s what I want from her!

Not because I feel like I can’t come to the dash without justifying having Hilda on my muse list first. Let alone use her.

I know where Hilda got her shitty views from. I know how her thoughts are working. I know how she unlearns those biases. But. A sour taste has been left in my mouth, so I’m going to write that post of my own accord when I’m no longer feeling pressured, because this is a hobby and the moment it becomes a chore is when any of of us should stop.

I’m not ignoring her behaviour. I’ll only write it plotted though because it’s such a sensitive topic, even if the plotting is just me dropping a quick message asking “are you comfortable with this” if we’re not already friends, because trust is important. Pre-skip and post-skip Hilda will have different attitudes, but the explanation will come at another date, or maybe it won’t. Right now, I don’t want to write it.

If that is a problem and a deal breaker for you, then just unfollow me. It’s fine. My comfort is more important than, what, having the moral high ground to write about a fictional character I don’t even own? Given the hatred I’ve seen towards fans of certain characters however, I feel like I need to make a disclaimer.

This isn’t a debate. This also isn’t an excuse to take my words out of context and make it look like I’m defending racism. I’ve been a victim of Hilda’s particular brand, so don’t even try it. I might say I’m tired bc I’ve not been on my iron supplement long, but if I catch anything written about me, or any aggression in the replies to this, self care will go out of the window and I am not the type to be the “better person”. I basically trust my mutuals, so this is just a pre-cautionary warning as opposed to an explanation.

“But Katya, this post is longer than a headcanon post would be!” Yeah well brain juice says no no to the latter. If anyone wants to talk about Hilda and this topic, I’ll do so privately in relevant topics e.g. She learns Claude is half-Almyran and says something she shouldn’t.

...

Bloody hell. This was an essay. I’m sorry. I should stop typing my literal thoughts.

[thestarryskiesofpalaven]

after finishing por/rd and having two new fave fe games just after awakening i had many Thoughts but the premier of them is like. one of the few things i wished was different (like the lack of actual supports in rd lmao thats a biggie) was for something different to have kicked micaiah out of her ‘im getting much too comfortable with using the ‘its all for daein’ excuse for every horrifying atrocity im ordered to do’ state.

like i get what the game wanted to do w tibarn pretending to threaten sothe’s life and it obv works as it is (altho DON’T get me started abt the game having her and sothe become romantic w an a support after she talks the whole game about practically raising him lmaooooooo perish intsys!!). but micaiah. srsly. only when u and ur loved ones are directly threatened by ur actions is when u start to maybe think u shouldnt just go along w what pelleas says? u only found out abt the blood pact right before 3-12 so the 3-6 indiscriminate slaughter of retreating laguz soldiers is all on u bro lmaoooooo there’s only so far ‘i trust in my king’ can go and the worst part is u obviously know it.

but i digress. i just think it would’ve reflected better on micaiah’s character, bc she’s obviously a genuinely good person, if it wasn’t only one of her loved ones being threatened that could have caused her Realization™️ that she’s already hovering one foot over the moral event horizon, but some kind of piercing statement from sanaki/tibarn/etc. something to the effect of

micaiah: ‘... i have to do this. i have no choice! daein will die if i don’t!’

that someone, ofc not knowing about the blood pact: ‘........... if this is what it takes for daein (the country) to live, then perhaps it should perish.’

smt like that. the kind of thing that would hit micaiah real deep and finally make her hesitate and lead to the rest of the events of part 3

[nanigma]

About Sylvain

So I am pretty sure you guys know by now that I am a big fan of Sylvix as a pairing. Meaning I consume a lot of fanfic about them as well of course. Their dynamic is very cute and I appreciate them both as characters (particularly Felix of course).

But there is one line in a great many of their fanfics that makes my toe-nails roll back and inevitably reminds me of something that really bothers me about Sylvain’s character. The line in question? Usually some variation of:

“I can trust you, unlike those greedy, shallow women who used me.”

And well, why wouldn’t he say that, you say. After all, he’s been pestered all his life about marrying for crests and these girls only want him for that and his status. 

To which I ask, well, why would these girls care so much about crests and marrying their way up in life? Could it be because their parents have raised them to value such things and place expectations on them to do that? Might they actually have experienced a lot of the same pressures as Sylvain himself did? Ingrid certainly did, even if she is very much not into the whole affair. Maybe some of those girls are similarly reluctant, but don’t feel like they can afford to say something or maybe they just don’t realize the toxicity of their upbringing.

But surely you can still blame them for flocking to Sylvain with such shallow intentions, right?

Except he is usually the one approaching them. The one instigating things without any intentions of seriously following through. I know we are meant to believe “Oh, those girls should know what they are in for with his reputation. Only the immoral ones follow through”, but I am kind of uncomfortable with how close this seems to victim blaming. It’s still Sylvain dating multiple women without their consent of such. It’s also not hard to see how a teenaged girl might naively believe things like “I am special to him!”. That’s pretty much the appeal point of his character type anyway. “He could have anyone, but he chose me!”. Again this is still ignoring such motives as “My family needs to see me try at least.”.

And the game itself does note one thing: He really hates those girls. 

Which as we established is pretty unfair to them in general. Now I am not saying that him having these toxic tendencies makes him an all around hateful person or we should all cancel him and anyone who likes him or whatever. Considering both his age and upbringing it would make sense for him to be focused on his own situation and take his pain out on others. My problem isn’t his character set-up. In fact, when I first wrapped my head around it on my BL playthrough, I was massively intrigued by him, especially in his initial supports with Mercedes. I was like “Wow, Intsys finally showing that serial flirts often have massive issues with women and it’s not all played for laughs. Can’t wait to see him realizing it and growing past it in different ways!”

Much as I am aware of how ill-suited to this the support system often is

Except they didn’t do anything with it. In fact, looking at the Mercedes A-Rank, instead of the takeaway being “Sylvain’s issues hurt both himself and others.” it’s all “Poor Sylvain, being abused and misused all his life by everyone around him. Let him cry about it into Mercie’s bosom!”

Of course, Sylvain experienced fucked-up shit in his life and he does deserve to cry about it. But no, taking it out on those girls is not okay. 

Considering the harshest responses Sylvain’s flirting gets him from his friends amount to an “Oh you, Sylvain. *finger wag*” and never get through, with the final message usually being “It’s fine, they are greedy skanks anyway.”, it’s no suprise most fans would simply accept that and write fanfics with this mind-set as fact.

And don’t get me wrong, I am not demanding every Sylvain fic has to include a complex deconstruction or exploration of this topic, but please please can we not treat sentences like the examples I listed as the most romantic thing ever?    

[strawberryybird]

So whats your favorite thing about each of your fe3h favs? Anything you could just go on a long rant about for any of them? or interactions between them that you wish had happened or wanted to happen.

Waking up in the morning and going through all of the drunk blogging and “-thank-u-for-weathering-my-deep-need-to-be-liked-and-given-attention-off-main-I-guess” if this isn’t a whole mood on its own I don’t know what is. Anyways it sounds like you had fun and it was definetly fun reading everything. I hope you are feeling okay the day after everything. And to tack on a random question which fe3h character would you want to get drunk with if it was just the two of you?

Hi Hello!! thank u for enjoying my drunk blogging !!! and for the asks!!! (and the lovely comments on my fics actually hi there ur wonderful!!!) i’m currently cursing the damage i’ve done to my sleep schedule and suffering under my (truly deserved) hangover lmao ;p apologies u don’t get drunk me, only uncaffeinated hangover me, but we talk to the same degree and make the same spelling errors lol

ah yes.. im a fountain of moods (all of u still with me here are saints hhhh)

ok content time:

the second one first: i absolutely want to get drunk with ferdinand von aegir. the man’s a hop, skip and a vodka shot away from a mess. i love him. he’d be full of conversation and would buy the rounds every time as a true nobleman should !! he’d probably be really good at instigating drinking games but horrible at playing them.. i love party gay ferdie von aegir.

i’m going to LIMIT the faves i list because truly i love them all very much but i have to at least pretend i have some restraint and i don’t want to make this even More of a wall of text it’s going to become . SO 

edit: ok i started writing this at like. half ten pm. when the fuck did it become monday. 

edit edit: Disclaimer time: these are my conclusions and my conclusions alone. I’m not saying I’m objectively right or correct. I’m very much approaching this from an English Lit-ish point of view because that’s just how I look at a lot of media. I’m not asserting my opinions or conclusions as the only viable to interpret this media, and if anything I say offends you then I am sorry, it was not my intention but I acknowledge that I have hurt you. This is not the exhaustive list of my thoughts on the whole thing, there’s a lot more depth and detail I didn’t go in to.

My favourite thing about Edelgard is the Everything, but notably I really love her proud nature and how in VW it quite directly gets her *spoilered*, and in CF it’s integral to her success (bc it’s her own rigidity within herself that keeps her standing i think) and I Like Tragic Characters (and it’s very elinor dashwood). because it’s one of the qualities that can throw her character into a villainous light & it’s really interesting !! but at the same time.. it’s not quite ‘pride’ purely, and it’s kinda the wrong word. it’s some mixture of determined/stubbon, anger, self-reliance, and that really hard veneer of personality u develop when you’re around people who aren’t healthy for you to be around, and the very very critical need to be right about the choices you made because the weight of the  consequences would kinda ruin you if you weren’t. (the dean winchester effect huh) and wrap that up together with a big scoop of ‘i believe my way is right’ (’and my way Has to be right’) and then u get a lot of what i LOVE about Edelgard’s character

My favourite thing about Dorothea is really how she was the character that Hated the war. genuinely the contrast between white clouds dorothea & timeskip dorothea Breaks My Heart EVery Time I See Her !!!!! that and Spoilers!!! (her last words in AM unrecruited is edelgards name and i literally had to stop and cry about it for five minutes.) she’s one of the characters that post-war doesn’t have a Massive political stake in the war - like there’s her anger towards the current class system (another reason i bloody love her PLEASE give me angry feminine characters) but i think it’s her bonds with edie (or byleth&whoever if recruited) that keep her actually fighting in the war & it’s kinda different and i like that (actually i think she parallels/sends up/contrasts really really nicely with mercedes in that way)

my favourite thing about Marianne is just everything. how she finds worth within herself if you play VW (and the very very harrowing hc that she didn’t if you don’t), how she’s full of a quiet rage for the crest system but you eek it out of her as you play the game. how she’s still loved by the deers despite her appalling mental health (fight me on that canon) and the game essentially has her ‘save’ herself by finding worth and life within herself. i love her so much ok. (i also love her because she committed identity theft.. she and i share a name with the second dashwood sister oho (but i don’t use that name on the internet hhh) (also because my favourite shakespeare play is king lear (no really it is), my birthday is in red wolf moon too, i used to have very long hair i wore in a plait most days for school, little 11 and 17 year old me acted Exactly like white clouds marianne did & genuinely i love marianne von edmund to pieces but God it hurts to see her in game sometimes bc her journey mirrors a lot of mine & i love this character. so much.) WOW that was a lot. am i sure im not still drunk

so claude is not only one of my favourite characters in the whole damn game, but also shares the name of one of my favourite painters so i simply have to love him ;p however i can’t give a proper opinion on him yet because i haven’t finished playing deers yet :( but !! i love how (as is with all the lords) he has a veneer of personality to him, but in contrast to Edie where it’s quite seemless with her actual personality, Claude’s veneer of personality seems very opaque and plastered on. i may or may not just be wildly imagining things but he’s a very different personality in his lower supports with Lysithea than he is in his B support with Marianne, for instance. like, i love characters that are obviously a lot more socially intelligent than i could ever be, and claude is *chef kiss* BEAUTIFUL ON EVERY LEVEL.

i’d wax lyrical about Ingrid too but honestly there’s many better people out there with the good ingrid content than i could do. shortly, i love the New Take on the pegasus knight archetype she brings, and i really like her perspective on femininity !!! she’s such a good character & she brings so much to the game and to the pegasus knight character too!!!!! she’s such a bright personality and altho i wish so many of her supports weren’t centred around make-up (hhh dorogrid fans i pray for you), i think she’s really going to pave the way for whoever’s next in that character slot. (like, you can’t tell me she’s not an offshoot of Phila from awakening lmao)

no ok i’m adding in Hubert because i love this vampire man. i really really love the devoted servant archetype and we all know i love edelgard’s tragedy. and i love hubert. so much. the way he enables edelgard in pretty much everything is just so so interesting to think about, and i love his intensity about it. he’s like the ever present reminder that edelgard’s will kinda has to work otherwise the potential consequences of her being wrong are personified in hubert imo. it’s only touched on in VW in his letter but like. god i wish we got more but it’s a wonderful starting block. i love his comic relief as well, he’s such a fun character to have !!!! and also i have so many hubert fics in my bookmarks that just Get him. i love hubert. oh i love hubert.

i’m going to cut myself off there because . that’s just a LOT. 

as for characters i would sell a limb to have them talk to each other, honestly it’s Edelgard/Marianne. (and only 51% because of all the projection i have going on with those two ok don’t at me i  k n o w). that support chain would be too powerful and honestly i wish they had one becuauese it would have gone so Hard about what Edelgard was doing and what Marianne thought about it, and how they connected over it & they probably would have had their supports set over cups of tea or smth .. it would have been amazing. 

(but i’d rather have nothing than an awakening-level-content support where they talk about eating fucking bear meat instead of talking about how they grew to trust each other with and their ability to save the fate of the world HUH AWAKENING. (i’m salty about fredrobin forever)

also hilda/dorothea supports . we were robbed. they’re best friends and you can’t actually tell me otherwise. they run the disaster bi chat of garreg mach. honestly i just would Love a support chain for them that starts with them talking about self care routines and something really small like accessories or perfume and it goes into how self-esteem and how dorothea has to find the same worth in herself as hilda so easily can. (hilda’s the queen of self esteem she’s a babe) and in CF they could have dialogue and then we cry about it. and in SS they talk about how they both chose their place with Byleth and not at edie/claude’s side like i’m just free balling here it could be Anything and i’d love it. 

also big shocker .. dorothea/marianne supports . they both hate themselves in their profile CAN THEY PLEASE CHAT. 

also i accidentally fell in love with the claude/edelgard ship and i desperately need them to interact on the same level that edie and dimitri get to because.. aren’t there supposed to be three main characters huh intsys .. and like i get what the game goes for with two of the lords embroiled in a personal war against each other at the heart and the third actually finding something close to the truth because he’s not involved in age old grudge matches but at the same time That’s one of the things that really really falls flat for me in the game. dimitri’s villain is edie, edie’s villain is big dragon wife, claude’s villain is the lack of communication that everyone in fodlan suffers from apparently. lack of communication and lies. ymmv with what im saying rn but i would have preferred if all three lords had strong personal ties to each other and in Each Route it was brought up. or just snip dimitri’s dialogue out of CF because i have beef with how that WHOLE moment went down on so many accounts hhhh honestly it makes me angerey to think about lol

.. back on topic- can the lords pls talk to each other because it would be SO interesting in white clouds and i like seeing how their personality presentations clash

also . can i marry manuela yet. my crops are dying here.

.. im so sorry about this but it’s midnight and i’m too tired to edit so. have this. thank you so much for the questions!!!! very kind (and brave) of you to ask me!!!!! i had a lot of fun writing all of this & as always if anything you didn’t quite /get/ i’m happy to re-explain myself!! :)

[wolfhednn]

♥️

send me a ❤ for what i love about your muse! | @minorindech

ooc. okay. this is where i turn on Confession Hours With Rai and prepare myself to get pelted with rotting tomatoes. i’m not really a huge fan of bernadetta. hhHHHHGJSHFG. to be honest i feel hyper weird saying that when, by all rights, knowing why so many people in the fandom like her, i should be in the same boat haha. i understand her anxiety wholeheartedly, so you’d think i’d sympathize with her. and i do feel her, in a lot of ways. and yet i…….. just, can’t. orz i’m gonna be dead honest: preskip bernadetta kinda grinds my gears.

and i get it. i really do. and i know that her behavior is really explained by her parents’ treatment. i don’t fault her for the way she is. but i just don’t have the patience for that level of high-strung.

but!

playing AM and then VW, i trusted in intsys’ ability. i trusted in 3H’s character creation and trusted that, like they had with so many others, they would show me there was a lot more to bernadetta than met the eye. i held out hope that once i played the BE route, i might warm up more to her.

truth is, i did and i didn’t. preskip bernadetta still kinda grinds my gears kjshkjdf but what i was super happy to see was how she grows after the timeskip. she really comes so far, and i really just…. got so happy, seeing that. her byleth A support, and her monastery lines during the war… they all show how much she’s grown. how even though she’s still struggling with the same fears as before, she’s got a better handle on them now, and is just… healthier. i love what i saw there.

so, from a narrative standpoint, bernadetta is a very well-done character. i just have a subjective difficulty stomaching her during academy phase orz

[semi-imaginary-place]

fe3h blogging 6 because organizational skills are for losers

oh hey yuri get to join chess club[3:24 PM]balthus DID go to the officers academy twice I’ve been trying to reconcile the route differences... it should be that everything that happens in a different route is also possible in the route you are looking at which ever one that may be. Now all there is is figuring out why those differences exist. or alternately to come up with a probability model to explain those differences. Let’s take the major difference of CF vs VW, AM, and SS. In CF unlike the other routes, Rhea is not captured, she organizes the knights and joins with Faerghus. In CF unlike other routes Byleth chooses to side with Edelgard and Rhea attacks them in the Holy Tomb, this is the only difference. Rhea is incredibly entitled when it comes to Byleth and so takes Byleth’s choice as a deep betrayal as the one who was supposed to be on her side chose not to be. In the battle of Garreg Mach, Rhea then also doesn’t entrust the Church to Byleth. Now how does this connect to Rhea avoiding capture in the battle? It could be she was more on guard after the Holy Tomb in BE, it could be that overall Rhea is likely captured but there is a chance she isn’t. Either way because she isn’t captured, she is there to rally and organize the knight’s of Seiros. In the other routes why didn’t Seteth do it? idk man. The Knights and Faerhgus together are better able to fend off the Empire and with the added security, keep Cornelia, the Agarthans, and Edelgard from framing Dimitri with assassination. Thus in CF Faerghus is in a more unified and powerful position with Rhea running the show. Never quite got why Garreg Mach was abandoned by all the sides given how much the characters talk about its strategic location etc. etc. In SS Rhea degenerates and causes the church to become a rampaging hivemind. Rhea is assumedly also in the palace in AM, but we do meet her in VW. This leads to a few possibilities, either she also dragon degenerated in those routes but the credits roll before we get to see that or she doesn’t. Either way she hold the potential to do so. This is probably the strongest probability argument in the game as we are shown no reason why she does in SS but does not in VW. Rhea is like a ticking time bomb. Maybe they should have blood minstrated like half the church. And then the Agarthans, are they just chilling around underground in AM? yeah, probably. They’re probably back to biding their time just like they have the past 1000 years.

I would like to talk about the three categories by which I evaluate how much I like a character in a series. 1. Personal preference: how much does the character's personality appeal to me on a personal level. Would I want to be friends with this person in real life. Do I just really wish they were real and want them in my life? 2.  Character writing: how well written is the character. How good is their character arc? What is the grade of execution? 3. Role in the story: what do they bring to the series as a whole. If they are a villain, are they a good villain? Comic relief. The Bro character. No matter the archetype, how well is it done. What is their narrative and thematic significance.

Let's look at the 3 Lords of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Please note that due to the branching story line and the ability of the player to choose the cast, I will not be focusing on a character's role in story as much as I usually do. Edelgard Personal preference: low. Her personality clashes with mine Character writing: high. Three Houses characters in general are well written. Edelgard feels like a person, her behavior is internally consistent, she's always herself. One of her main flaws explored in the game is how Edelgard will tunnel-vision and double down on a decision, a path even when it is no longer the best option. Role: high. In Crimson Flowers and to a lesser extent Silver Snow Edelgard acts as the central character, she drives the story. As the villain in 3/4 routes, Edelgard is incredibly interesting, acting as a counter point to the other Lords as well as to Byleth in Silver Snow.

Dimitri Personal preference: low. At first I didn't care, and then he was just annoying. He was solidly #2 on my to-punch-list in Azure Moon after Gilbert. Character writing: high. Dimitri has the easiest to notice character arc in the game as it is the main focus of Azure Moon. As such the most time is spent on his arc and it is very strong. The journey Dimitri goes on as he struggles with himself and his trauma is well written, its only weakness being that it hinges on the player (me) caring about him (which I do not). Role is the story: medium high. the overarching story of the rightful king reclaiming his throne nicely parallels the story of Dimitri reclaiming himself. Thus the external journey mirrors the internal one. Azure Moon most strongly brings the human element to Three Houses and this is both a strength and a weakness.

Claude Personal preference: very high. I wish I had a Claude in my life. His personality meshes well with mine and my life would be enhanced with the addition of his company. When I say Claude is my favorite, this is the category I am usually talking about. Character writing: high. Claude has the subtlest characterization and character arc of the Lords, this is further obscured due to mischaracterization by the English localization team and English voice actor. The characters in Three Houses in general are brilliant and Claude is no exception. He's complex and multifaceted as any real person is, and seeing him grow in to his own in Verdant Wind is a beautiful thing. Role in story: high. Claude's role in the Three Houses is also very interesting, his objectives especially in White Clouds turns the game into a mystery thriller which is breaking edge for a Fire Emblem Game. Claude's background is also a bit different from the others and so following along his story, you are able to gain perspective and see all of Fodlan for what it really is.

Jeralt personal preference: meh writing: good role: dad

wait. wait. so are the 4 apostles are called saints in the intro, but were they also children of the goddess?  so i can see indech and macuil dipping after the war of heroes and cethalenn went into a regenerative coma so that takes her and cihol out of the picture, but where were the 4 apostles during the war?  and why does balthus' pants have a specially colored patch for his crotch.  ... did balthus go to the academy twice?  dimitri really went “i’d be nice to just sink into the earth you know” huh. i just started cindered shadows so i can't really comment but... the whole "abyss is necessary for garreg mach" is such horse shit. like oooohhhhh we must have an oppressed underclass to maintain our standard of living.  why do the ashen wolves even exist. its not like there's a school down there and yet a bunch of people have uniforms.  its not like they took some of the officer's academy uniforms either. why waste resources making custom uniforms? oh hey yuri get to joisn chess club. balthus DID go to the officers academy twice. I wonder what happened to Constance. Also hello??? Intsys you have a kidnapping and torture as backstory problem, especially when its happening to female characters. Hapi get’s kidnapped, tortured and then imprisoned, no wonder the life has left her eyes. Also I don’t trust this Aelfric dude. He set up the ashen wolves “house”, but wouldn’t those resources be better spent on food and medicine. nepotism ho! your parent were good so you must be too

anyone else find Jeralt and Sitri's relationship a little weird. Hundreds of years old dude romances incredibly sheltered 19 year old with little life experience. and she and alfric idolized Jeralt when they were young. sitri was born in 1139 and died 1159 from childbirth.  I mean yeah Sitri's an adult and totally consenting and loving, and the relationship is pretty cute and sweet, but.... its kinda weird.... Like when you hear about a 30 year old dating a 60 year old, everyone's well into adulthood, they're consenting adults who can do whatever they want,  i have no objections,... but its still kinda weird. WHAT'S WORSE IS THAT THEY DEVS HAD LITERALLY NO REASON TO DO THIS they could have made her any age they wanted to. She could have been 35. but nooooo they didn't do that

the part that bothered me about maneula's writing. Is how the writers talk down on her for having emotions. You see this strongly in the hanneman+manuela paralogue. Where they make her do something impulsive which has negative consequences, which is fair. But then the game punishes her for being too emotional. "being too emotional" now where have i heard that critique before. This is especially in contrast to the game praising hanneman's intellectual rationality. how do i say this... whenever hanneman and manuela argue the game always takes hanneman's side and is overly harsh on manuela.  Oh hanneman is right that she should not have run off after a rumor about the death knight like that, but its the framing of the scene that bothers me.

the way people talk about the abyss reminds me of the goldfish bowl metaphor. the abyss provides sanctuary, but in it thye are also trapped. huh so edelgard doesn’t recognize dimitri. people sure do like aelfric, reminds me of a cult of personality, but it seems so genuine... A great rhea’s golems are back. they talk!! I was just joking about people’s souls being bound in there!!! aelfric is one of the cardinals!!!!! I've been trying to find these dude for months!!!!! you hear these lines going on and on about the cardinals. oh. he’s part of the seiros hivemind then. hey kids. if he’s a cardinal than the church probably already knows. this don’t tell the church stuff sounds like a trap. that letter is suspicious af. yuri clearly wants something, but what is he up to,,,

Yeah.. it really sounds like the 4 apostles were nabateans, but if that were so are constance, hapi, balthus, and yuri really descended from them? the 4 saints bloodlines in adrestia are from those gifted blood by the saints. yet i do believe the 4 apostles fled to different corners of fodlan, what remains in question is only if there in their new homes they gave blood (like rhea did to save jeralt), or actually did have kids.

i cant believe balthus got put on the bus via giant bird. ah so aelfric and yuri are cooperating with the agarthans. thats what they were up to. wow yuri really is fandom claude, i can still hear those idiots complaining that claude wasn’t up to anything and that he didn’t betray byleth. huh so yuri is struggling with split loyalty and the solution he came up with was to help aelfric but give byleth hints. 

constance calling the holy mausoleum a wretch hovel in on par with sylvain calling the dining hall filthy. huh so that was what yuri was planning. wasn’t expecting the double agent ploy.

so this does not take away from aelfric's decisions, but if rhea hadn't been a coward and just buried sitri instead of keeping her is storage where anyone could find her, this never would have happened. who know's maybe aelfric would have still made horrible decisions, but not this one horrible decision.

wait wait wait. rhea, what happened last time you used the chalice to try and resurrect sothis. what beast was created then? wait wait. nemesis dies and sothis’ heat and bones were retrieved in 91. the blood chalice ritual happened in 185. That’s enough time for rhea to have conducted her first experiment implanting the creststone into someone and having them live out their full life.

 prior to cindered shadows i thought claude had 2 given names much like many real world people of dual identity do (multiracial people, chinese americans, japanese americans, etc.), so claude is his name but he also has an almyran name. now though I am leaning towards the idea that claude is a name he took up upon entering fodlan given what he says to balthus at first and the presence of a claudia riegan in the past. from the feast of decadence: where is boramas? and i hope the bit about watching northern swordsmen ripped apart by wild animals at dinner was a play or something. why do books end up in the abyss anyways. why not burn them throughly. rhea certainly knows people have been living down there.  i wonder who built abyss. its older than garreg mach for sure.  real ironic how the blue lions idolize loog when he was an agarthan pawn not unlike edelgard.  rhea's choice contributed to the power imbalance between sreng and duscur compared to faerghus chevalier became village elder and gave everyone blood during wars. half got crests half turned into demonic beasts. that solves that. 1/4 down

i can’t believe aubin almost died in a ditch before yuri’s mom saved them. well that’s one more person with a really long life span

balthus: describing "bashbros" me: its called a life partner. "Balthus became son-in-law to the great commander, Nader" ... what. also why is the balthus yuri pairen ending the only one balthus ends up broke and on the street in. also where's my holst supports. scratch that. WHERE IS HOLST. oh yeah and you all were crying about byleth potentially outliving everyone, well yuri does too

ashen wolves supports that should have happened. Balthus: Manuela. Yuri: Mercedes. Hapi: Ignatz, Petra, Claude. Constance: Lorenz

Also let judith be a playable character. Claude and balthus already have like half a support with her.

why do feel like yuri and sylvain would be a disaster. and disaster in that they'd hurt each other's feelings

claude whenever balthus opens his mouth: shut up shut up shut up. shut up and go away. goddess. please. no. i enjoy seeing claude annoyed more than i probably should

me taking the fe3h developers by the shoulders and shaking them furiously: WHY DON'T CLAUDE AND HAPI GET A SUPPORT. THEY EVEN BOTH HAVE CELESTIAL MOTIFS!  claude would also empathize with hapi as an outsider of sorts, as well as both sharing a desire to explore the world.  i think the riegan crest and timotheus crest got mixed up in development. in tarot readings the moon is associated with darkness, an unclear mind, madness, creativity etc. it suits "dark dragon" far more than "star dragon". but that doesn't explain why claude gets the unique combat art Fallen Star me one again taking the fe3h developers by the shoulders and shaking them furiously: WHY DON'T YURI AND ASHE HAVE A SUPPORT!! THE APPARENTLY ALREADY KNOW EACH OTHER. THEY HAVE SIMILAR BACKGROUNDS. THEY'RE BOTH FROM FAERGHUS. THEIR BATTLE DIALOG SAYS MEANS THEY WANT TO BE FRIENDS

No bathus/manuela support either LET THEM MAKE POOR LIFE CHOICES TOGETHER. Balthus can have a little milf, as treat

...  yuri is very pretty in part 2

Edelgards biggest flaws are her desire for control and her stubborness or the way she will double down on a decision and refuse to budge. Claude's biggest flaws are his inability to trust, and showing his hand too late. A bit more on that last part. A large part of Claude's strategies involve downplaying his side and biding his time. This strategy is especially weak though to an aggressive opponent like Edelgard who can bulldoze him before he has time to play out his plan. Part of the problem is that Claude is very reactive but not very proactive (its one of the reasons I like pairing him with Edelgard and Petra). He won't just go for something the way Edelgard does, he's wait for the right opportunity. This difference you can also see in how the deal with the Church. Edelgard declares war on them because she thinks they are the root of Fodlan's social problems and need to be taken down. She makes a decision she believes in and readies herself for the consequences. Claude actually believes much of the same (The Church is the root of Fodlan's problems) but would much rather avoid those consequences (fall out with the Church). You see in Verdant Wind he will make use of the Church because the are useful. He's even willing to spout Church rhetoric and propaganda (Byleth as a Church symbol) if it suits his end goal of transferring power to an individual who will shape Fodlan's future to his liking (he does have an altruistic and humanitarian goal much like Edelgard). However in doing so he risks empowering the Church even more. In short Claude will put up a facade that he doesn't agree with on an ideals level and so is always in danger of that facade becoming real and failing his goals. yeah so claude character development has him learning to trust and being more proactive in his goals. so i like pairing him with characters that put him on a similar growth trajectory

wait how are the Fetters of Dromi (Aubin) and Vajra-Mushi (Chevalier) around simultaneously with Aubin and Chevalier. Aubin was last seen 20 years ago and the tales of elder giving blood don’t seem ancient, so were they recently killed?

ok if the vajra-mushi is a replica, what’s it a replica of? that implies an original. and its still able to turn people into demonic beasts. how????

unpopular opinion: I hate seteth. his face pisses me off and every time he opens his mouth I want to punch him. please die.

You know... i'd expected someone to have written a modern au of felix and sylvain being roommates with unresolved sexual tension.... but no its been 9 months and I haven't seen anything. Oh I've seen roommates where its like the new and uncomfortable experience of sharing space with someone you dont know and I've seen modern au where they are childhood friends. But i seriously have not seen the specific scenario where they are childhood friends AND roommates. Like... uuugh its just sylvain. But also uuggh its just sylvain?!? Maybe I'll just have to do it myself... but im no good at writing... 

What if glenn was 160cm but the kids never noticed (except sylvain) because they're so much younger

I want a spin off fighting game starring ferdinand and caspar. Honestly i just wanted to see ferdinand get into a fistfight with someone like in his support

On a fandom level I think the golden deer are the least popular for a number of reasons:

1. some of the characters only reveal their depth in supports and paralogues. Or in other words you must seek out these character to get to know them. Ex: Lorenz, Leonie, Ignatz. I mean without doing their supports you'd never know that Ignatz is the smoothest out of the Golden Deer the the most likely to get a date. If Sylvain is a poser, Ignatz is the real deal 2. Related to the above the writing sometimes relies too heavily on a character gimmick. Ex: Raphael, and Lysithea to a degree 3. Compared to other houses there are less established dynamics. Other characters (Linhardt and Caspar, BL childhood friend squad, etc.) can play off of each other and this can make them more emotionally accessible to a player. In the beginning especially the golden deer act more like co-workers than friends, they are the least cohesive as a house (which means their growth is that much more delicious). 4. the golden deer route in general is less popular and some characters don't appear in other routes so the sheer amount of exposure these characters get is less than other houses. a lot of people in the "fandom" have only played one or 2 routes and those usually include either azure moon or crimson flower/silver snow. people will also just delete or add things to characters.

OK Jp audio thoughts: tiny grandma sothis Alois is gravelier and yells a lot  I've been replaying the line where claude giggles in the jp audiio. How do i record audio ignatz is such a BABY in the japanese version. Like a small bunny Edelgard sounds more princessy Claude is more light hearted, less sassy more... boyish? like that one old school boy character trope that used to be a main character thing and is now more a side character thing eng dimitri more yell-y and feral.  jp dimitri is a lot more subdued and dead inside. but the delivery of the lines makes what he is saying all the more disturbing. dissonant serenity.

your path lies across my grave is such a raw line

Why did yuri get a different part 2 sprite.  he should age the same rate jeralt did. And in his paired ending with byleth? He apparently looks about the same after decades

Hilda and catherine would be EXCELLENT war masters if the devs weren't sexist

So almyra's big. We don't know how big. Fodlan is 2/3 of europe and almyra is bigger so i imagine there's a diverdity of biomes. I imagine the south coast is mediterranian. But that hinges on how subtropical adrestia is. Medditerranian climates are most common at 30-40 lattitude. The map of almyra we can see on the map is the same lattitude as faerhgus. This could be the greenest part of Almyra. I imagine almyra has both hot and cold deserts with a large plain covering the center. The rest would be scrubland/chaperral. All we know is that claude grew up somewhere with no big trees. I imagine that almyran government is more meriocratic than fodlan but that may vary region to region. I have an idea for both a centralized and decentralized almyra. Each regions leader is like the strongest most organized person around. A bit of nepotism may be involved. The exception would be the coast region which is more sedentary (some parts of almyra are semi nomadic) and may have a republic. Decentralized almyra would work kinda like the eu or us with seperate nations and a mediator for when almyra needs to act as a whole. That mediator aids negotions between regions and keeps things together. Mediator would be a council/appointed position. In a centralized almyra there still wouldn't be a monarachy. The king would choose a sucessor. So the king's kid would have a better chance than anyone but its no garuntee. I like the idea that like the 30 closeat relatives has a last one standing system as part of the selection system. This would allow for a dynastic style if ruling where there's a ruling clan but not direct line of descent 

Everyone keeps drawing older felix with long hair but I'm half convinced that 3 years post game he just lops,it off one day or gets a buzzcut

So a lot of people including me have long suspected Claude had an Almyran name and the validation right now just feels so great. Khalid!  Given his dialog in cindered shadows I think its more likely Khalid is the name his parents gave him and Claude is the name he took up upon coming to Fodlan

Things have never been easy for Claude, he says in his s support that he's going, to do it (the whole game/war) all over again. It's heavily implied that things to not end well for Claude outside of VW. i don't think the Almyrans would value a surrender to a fodlander tho. Claude in VW proves his competence as a military commander and leader by controlling all of fodlan. Its stated in some of his paired endings that the current king has some say in who the next king is as Claude had to earn his father's approval to ascend the throne. Don't forget that the general Almyran populace hates Claude. He has to prove himself by their standards before any respect is given and in SS/CF/AM he doesn't do that. Remember that the Fodland stereotype is of cowards and that Almyra values spectacles of strength/fighting prowess over tactical efficiency (invading fodlan's throat isn't for the purpose of gaining land/etc. its for the warriors to show off how strong they are), so they wouldn't value strategically weakening your nation (leicester) to stave off imperial invasion, to them that just looks like cowardice and incompetance. not only that he endangered and wasted Almyran soldiers in fighting a foreign war. Remember that no one really knows about Claude's plans outside of VW, he keeps his cards (too) close to his chest, and in non-VW routes the facade of weakness becomes a reality and all his schemes crumble. and he has little to show for his time in fodlan. Claude is less likely to experience character growth outside of VW, but I think there is potential for Claude's character growth outside of VW. One reason for this I'm just not a fan of Byleth's dating sim powers where everyone just falls head over heels for them. For every character and especially the lords, Byleth acts as a catalyst for the character's growth, but Claude (of the lords) is the least dependent on Byleth so I do believe he could have found some of the connections seen in VW if not to that extent. (also I'm a sucker for found family)[4:22 PM]But Byleth does act as the heart and glue of the golden deer so things wouldn't be that great for Claude and co 

So we cam see both turkic and persian influences in almyra but I've always wondered at the balance. From the turkic side we have the warrior culture and horse riding. This is also where my speculations on a nomadic society and non monarchy forms of government come from. Also note turkic (central asia, like the mongols) and not turkish (one of the turkic ethnicities). On the other side is ancient persia which was a center of science, technology and learning, a materially wealthy empire with imperial dynasties. These are very different and so balancing headcanons has always been challenging to honor both sides. You can see people are all over the spectrum in fandom.

Me shaking dorothea by the shoulders: YOU ARE VALID. I AM PROUD OF WHAT YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED. EAT THE RICH

im a caught between the dual desires of seeing sylvain succeed at something and be really cool, and seeing sylvain publicly make a fool of himself. sylvain miserable for mundane reasons is such a good look. I pin Sylvain in a headlock and force 2 gallons of respect women juice down his throat

In any universe. Claude's weekly schedule would fill me with terror.

Leonie and dorothea both have "I know a guy" vibes

A while ago I complained that the fodlan calendar doesn’t make sense. Why does the year begin on month 4? Well I recently got around to reading through the abyss library and it confirms that fodlan used to be on the gregorian calendar with months 1-12 lining up with our january-december which in a lot of countries are just month/moon 1-12 and then seiros and the church brought in a new calendar system (imperial year and "___ Moon" naming system). so combined with the other hints from the agarthans (un symbol, ICBMs, etc.), pretty much confirms that fodlan is indeed a post apocalyptic modern world. So the weird calendar system DOES have an in universe justification!

[reuska]

@lunartailsteffi replied to your post: “Or they might be saving it for E3? But seriously...we don't even have a title for the game yet and it's supposed to be released this year...>> Also love how everyone thought that one dude was speaking the gospel truth...well he (or she?) was wrong.“

I do trust that one dude. I’ve been following him for a while and and I hold him in very high esteem. It’s hard to explain, Oscar is a very nice person to follow. He also gave us several intel already that one could VERY hardly guess out of nowhere and that proved correct. I have no problems believing that INTSYS occasionally feeds some lower positions with fake info to find leaks. To me subjectively it feels more likely (and kinda logical) than Oscar lying. And if he says it was not intentional, I believe him. Perhaps I’m naive and you can laugh at me if it proves to be that way, but I really do trust that guy. :)

As of E3... it feels late for an announcement of such a huge title. I tend to believe they should announce it sooner. IF they still plan 2018 release that is.

[capitainecorbeau]

You hate Fernand too? Thank GOD I hate him and Burkett. Rinea deserved better tbh

OH BOY FERNAND AND BERKUT

Hope you don’t mind if I go on a rant anon, but I have a lot to say about these two assholes.

(spoilers for fire emblem echoes, death mention)

My problem with Fernand and Berkut isn’t that they’re terrible people, it’s that the game doesn’t treat them as terrible people.

Like, from a characterization standpoint, they’re really interesting and well-written. They have motivations that make sense, they act in a way that makes perfect sense for what was established about them. they’re believeable as villains and as people, and they’re a very mundane type of evil that I think makes for very good bad guys. because you could see real life people acting like that and it makes them much more threatening.

Like, choosing your own violent bigotry over your loved one and spitting in the face of everything that is important to them (Fernand), being absolutely evil to a woman who didn’t want to date you (Fernand again) ? Thos are some completely morally bankrupt acts and i could read about them in any newspaper. Same for Berkut murdering poor Rinea. That’s what i mean when I say they’re a mundane type of evil, they don’t have any sort of grand scheme, they’re just horrible people who harm other people because they feel they’re justified in it, and they’re people you could meet in real life. They’re good villains.

But, the game treats them as misunderstood lost souls, sending out a plethora of terrible messages (you should always Forgive Everyone, Murdering your girlfriend isn’t that big a deal it’s ok she forgives you, violence against women isn’t that big a deal, violence is actepptable if you have a Tragic Past etc) and undermining their character completely. Most worrying is the fact that, again, Berkut litterally murders his girlfriend and she forgives him. Like, violence against women is horrifyingly normalized in media, and Intsys thought they’d contribute. Ugh.

And when i say the game treats them as misunderstood lost souls, let me add a few examples :

-Clive and Clair repeatedly tell you that Fernand has An Excuse and you shouldn’t be too hard on him, even though he does nothing but hurl abuse your way with no sign of remorse

-Alm goes off on a tengent saying that he doesn’t understand Fernand, but he’ll gladly welcome him back, even though Fernand betrayed them and left Mathilda to fucking die because she chose Clive rather than him.

-Clive completely forgiving Fernand because he sorta apologized and admitted he was wrong just as he’s about to die. Even though Fernand let Mathilda, Clive’s fiancée, to die because he was a jealous fucker.

-Alm acting as if Berkut could totally be his beloved cousin, even though he tried to kill him several times, invaded is country, and murdered his girlfriend (actually he forcefully tore away Rinea’s soul to give to Duma so he’d gain more power so it’s even worse).

-That fucking cutscene you get after you kill Berkut when you see him treating Rinea somewhat decently (which is undermined by the fact that if she hadn’t been a noble he would’ve treated her like garbage in that scene), to show you that it’s so tragic because he wasn’t so bad !

And poor Rinea. She deserved better, better than being barely more that a plot devise to further Berkut’s character developpment, better than being fridged for cheap drama, better than having all her screentime revolve around Berkut, better than Intsys forcing her to forgive the man she loved and trust for killing her in one of the worst way you can imagine. She deserved to be an actual character, not an extension of Berkut. And she didn’t deserved to be murdered.

And so it feels like the game wants me to like them, to forgive them, even though they are absolutely aweful. It feels like they’re pointing to the actual real life people who are like Fernand and Berkut and saying ‘They’re not that bad !”. Fuck you, they are that bad, and it’s hard to appreciate them as good villains when the game keeps insiting that’s not what they are. Like, really, if instead of the stuff I listed above, we had stuff like Clive and Clair saying Fernand’s gone too far and can’t be redeemed now, or Alm’s army being horrified at what Berkut did to Rinea and deciding to kill him to avenge her, or even Mathilda getting to be furious about what Fernand did to her, it would be so much cooler ! Fernand and Berkut work so much better as evil bad guys that poor misunderstood hurt bishies.

Holy shit that was longer than I expected. But yeah, tl;dr, Fern and Berk are evil and the more the game insists they’re not, the more I want to forge weapons to stab them in the eyesocket.

[nanigma]

Can I ask more than one or should I make a different ask? Anw if you're not up to it you may choose just one ! :) 1)Ryouma or Hinoka 2)Leo vs Takumi and 3) Leo + Sakura ! (Or if you want nonfates related then maybe Naesala + Reyson?) Thanks in advance!

Hoo boy, I’ll try and answer all! :)

1. Hinoka

While I obviously don’t adore the older two Hoshidans as much as their baby siblings, I still enjoy both of them a lot. Between the two, Hinoka does come out on top though. I just enjoy her tomboyish attitude a lot, as well as how powerful of a pegasus knight she is in the game. I also think she had a lot of potential as a character, with some very intriguing flaws that the game sadly never explores. There’s a lot I like about her that I basically extracted from bits and snippets of material, so how close my image is of her to canon is unclear at this point. haha;; I also think her design is very very appealing and attractive. haha

Ryouma mostly loses out, because he is a bit too trapped in the traditional role of Samurai Prince. There’s more to him than that, especially some traits to his character I enjoy. I also did some “extracting” when it comes to his material, but Intsys is much more up front with paving over that potential to uphold the standard Samurai image. (ie. him being a bit neglectful towards his younger siblings as an interesting character flaw, which was shown to be unintentional when Warriors just had him shown to be perfectly considerate of them all. Because he is just that flawless, guys. *yawn*).

2. Leon vs. Takumi

Oh gods this actually a very interesting one.

Let’s look at it purely from a gameplay perspective:

Leon’s max stat as a Dark Knight (with Brunhilde) vs. Takumi’s max stat as a Sniper (with Fujin Yumi)

Takumi’s Res stat is pretty pitiful, but still not low enough that Leon could take him out without doubling. Which is unlikely to happen under normal circumstances, since Leon’s max speed is just awful compared to Takumi’s. Meanwhile, Takumi has to go up against Leon’s very good Def stat if he wants to win, but he has the advantage here, because he is A) almost definitely going to double and B) very very likely to crit too because of the Fuujin’s bonus. While Leon critting isn’t out of the question, it’s much less likely to happen. 

So I’ll have to give the gameplay round to Takumi.

In the story though, Leon is described as a very powerful mage, who could probably stomp Takumi with a single spell. Likewise though, the Fuujin’s power is made out as such that Leon’s armour probably wouldn’t protect him adequately from it. In a situation like that, it all comes down to who hits first. We aren’t given a good indication of how much time it takes Leon to cast a crippling spell with Brunhilde and since we can be very sure that Takumi is going to shoot extremely fast, I am leaning sliiiightly towards the pineapple prince making it. Again, a very very close outcome that could be influenced either way by multiple factors, so don’t take this as me saying Takumi’d definitely win at all times. haha;; (like imagine Leon having Brunhilde’s trees shield him and then attacking at the same time)

Just for fun: If it came to melee combat, it’s an even more interesting question. Of course Leon actually comes with a sword built into his class-set, so he’d be more used to using it in battle. However, the way it’s framed in story, it seems like his sword training is mostly just there to augment his primary fighting style of magic. I doubt he’s a slouch with it, but it’s not something he tries to master fully. Meanwhile, Takumi is shown to be training with Ryouma almost daily with a fervor normally reserved for actual battle. He is very invested in becoming good enough to beat Ryouma and does manage to hit him once. However, we get no indication that he has learned how to fight someone who uses a Nohrian sword-fighting style. Meanwhile Leon probably has some experience engaging Samurai on the battlefield. I’d say Leon would have good chances at winning the first couple of times, but if they continued to spar Takumi would triumph more often than not.

 3) Leon + Sakura

Platonic. 

I think they have a good chemistry and potential dynamic. However, I felt Leon was a bit pushy in their support and I guess that impression has just stuck with me. Most of what I get out of their interactions (Leon developing a good amount of respect for Sakura and being considerate, while Sakura comes to look past his somewhat aloof exterior to see kindness) is something I can get out of a friendship between the two or being in-laws cough  just the same. I just don’t feel the need to ship them romantically, however I have read some nice fics with this pairing

4) Naesala + Reyson

Yes Tellius!

Anyway, this is a complex relationTM for me. I actually like to imagine that they may have had something of a history with each other as more than friends. Not outright lovers, but I imagine there was potential for it. I guess I just have a weakness for young Naesala having a crush on both young heron siblings. haha;;However, Reyson staying with the Hawks after the Serenes massacre put that one on hold (since Reyson was too deeply into grieving and Naesala isn’t exactly the most welcomed guest in Phoenicis). Over time, I feel they both just moved on and then Reyson fell for Tibarn. And then... well the whole deal with Oliver happened.

Look I understand that Naesala couldn’t have just blown off a member of the senate, but he treated that situation very... flippantly. In chapter 19 of PoR he’s just like “Gosh Reyson, it’s not like I wanted to sell you into slavery permanently. I was planning to come by after an unspecified amount of time and pick you up, no need to be so dramatic!” And Reyson quickly comes around to forgiving him for it, without even knowing the real reason, but just because it helped find Leanne. Which is not exaclty an achievement Naesala should be credited for but whatever. I just think that’s a massive betrayal of trust that could have been resolved better and I have trouble shipping them romantically afterwards.

I do still really like them as friends though. Like, they obviously care for each other. Naesala is still concerned for Reyson’s well-being, while Reyson can’t quite seem to believe that Naesala would just betray them out of cruelty. I especially love how when Naesala sees all the herons collapsed when the medallion is about to blow, he shows concern for both Leanne and Reyson. I think it’s a very interesting and often heartwarming dynamic, just marred by one big, ugly incident.