#this route is pretty good

[actual-haise]

You guys weren't lying about that tree

[fishyartist]

Combined Hyperfixations as per usual

[ryuichifoxe]

This is legit the most I've drawn in over a month and I had to get it out of my system before I set about finishing comms :')

[mx24]

Hold on to something stronger than blood Something stronger than words Something stronger than empty air we breathe When weaker is all we seem to be

[arttsuka]

I had a funny idea about Nick telling jed and octy each in private that mouth kissing is the way to greet a "good friend" in both their cultures, and since they probably don't know anything about eachothers culture so the next time they meet eachother in public they'd kiss and since they both lean into it they actually think it's the way to greet ,until one of the Roman soldiers ask jed about it and Jed's like "ain't that how y'all say hello?" And the soldier shake his head 'no' and ofc they go:

"why didn't you tell 'bout this sooner octy" "pardon? But isn't this the way YOUR people greet ,Nicholas told me himself- oh" then they play a trick on nick as revenge (they still countine to kiss but they're mad nick lied to them)

So, I was trying to figure out a design for Nicky and I was pretty confident in what I came up with so I started coloring it etc. Only to have a flash or realization that 'wait, we know what he looks like, his hair is brown not black' but it was too late. I had already used black in 3/4 drawings.

I was too lazy for actual dialogue so the ask itself should fill in the gaps

I did use brown in the last drawing tho, in a futile attempt to erase my past mistakes

[mintjeru]

it probably wasn't the smartest decision to start an ongoing 1000+ chapter webnovel when i know it'll consume my every waking thought but here we are

open for better quality | no reposts

[sketching-shark]

Been a couple of years, but I still think fondly of Grace Monroe from Infinity Train for achieving that very rare redemption arc narrative of "the people you hurt are allowed to sever all ties, and you can still become a better, happier person."

[thegreatyin]

giggling kicking my feet blushing madly

[what-is-it-to-be-pk-esque]

Ok I know I'm heavily biased here but like I kinda love that Astarion's romance is one of the few in this type of video game where you basically end up canonically unmarried and childfree in his "good" ending? Just travelling the world??

Like it's honestly the millennial dream lmfaoo cannot believe i chose what would undoubtedly be my favorite option, first try

[your-ne1ghbor]

Asha design reference I think idk (TKORAT AU)

She kinda reminds me of young Amaya unironically lol

(probably bc Amaya gave Asha her old clothes 💀💀💀)

(Or that I was playing with my style again for the millionth time)

I FORGOT HER FUCKING FRECKLES NOOOOOOOOO

Also been thinking about changing her sidekick animal to smth different but idk what tbh 🐀

HEheh ofc I had to draw silly angst and moment together

For her dress, Im not even done with it. I wanna add patterns that represents her and the kingdom but idk how to execute it outfit wise atm. Plus, I wanna fix some problems I have with the dress, mainly the middle and top part as well since it really reminds me of FS! Asha and I dont really want that and wasn't trying to go for that 😭

The hair was pretty fun ngl. I got to see a ton of styles in box braids and they're all really pretty :D. I simply went for the pulled back box braids since I thought it fit her well design wise.

The crown was the easiest. I was just simply looking at crowns from medieval times and I kinda got reminded of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And the Wardrobe. Specifically the ending where the kids got their crowns.

I felt like it just fit her design wise. But that probs just me being a sucker for flower crowns right now smh 🤦‍♀️

Going back to the dress, I was heavily looking up Spain Outfits from medieval times including some other ones, like the French outfits for example, mainly as inspriation for the outfit so I can come up with my own design of a dress for Asha :D

The rest of the dress kinda came from my pencil, I was just sketching until the design looked right to me and then was like: YES haha

I did look at her early concept version's of Asha as well, but it was only for her hair, since it is always the hair I have trouble with

(plus this is one of my fav styles I see Asha in from the art book lol)

Idk if this will be her ACTUAL FINAL design, but ig it is a part of the process of my overthinking :')

Annnnnndddd ofc thinking how I am gonna traumatize her in her childhood. Hell yeah...

...

:(

[koka-mi]

I'm trying to replay kyoko's route in pmmm portable and it is so much harder than I remember it being :'D

[monotone-artist]

[id in alt]

marivam my new child marivam!!!!! adopt i got from @dieselpvnk i am VERY excited about them!! thinking that they're a kind of witch character who brews magical potions, not 100% sure yet though

[lastdivantruther]

undertale yellow (watching flowey suffer behind a smile) is very fun

[pieravane]

fun fact, i actually hated shin when i first started yttd, not his character/writing i just thought he was a little shit

anyway i fell in love with him literally overnight as soon as the scene where sara can high five him occured. that literally altered my brain chemistry because in my head i just immediately went.... shin is Literally saras olrer brother wow...... and i became obsessed with him since. and then literally in the next trial i had to kill him

[randomnameless]

The quintessential problem with Claude and the deer is that they should not have been involved in the war at all, or at least not Claude. What does he have to gain participating on it? Nothing, and he makes it even more explicit in azure moon when he dissolves the alliance. He could've pretty easely given the power to Lorenz or Hilda and nope out of there (what he does in silver snow), as it is clear througouht white clouds that he doesn't have as much of an attachtment to Fodlan as he does Almyra. And it isn't like the devs couldn't take the deer studients out during post-TS, when Marianne unless recruited is pressumed dead, and Lorenz unless recruited joins the imperial forces and dies helping the empire.

Outside of the problems with racism and the bigoted tropes related to "savage cultures" the Fodlan games perpetuate, the devs did not know how to use one of their house leaders for the main plot of "church vs empire", and idk if that's because they bit more than they could chew, or if it was intentional taking into account who gets the short end of the stick in both games happens to be mixed and from one of those "savage cultures".

TBH...

It's on the devs for having wanted to add a third lord to their game, but failing to, well, link him to any of those plots.

Supreme Leader's war of unification?

Well, Nopes gave him a part this plot - and yet there's no third choice in this plot : you bend the knee or you die. Nopes' wise, Clout decided (in his route) to bend the knee with his "alliance" that is totally supposed to make Supreme Leader reconsider her desire to roll over Leicester and make it part of Adrestia again!

(Granted, Nopes don't tell us how his plea to stop the war after killing the evil lizard lady will play out and leaves an open ending...)

In Houses, well, he doesn't want Leicester to be flattened, and goes on the offensive (counter offensive?) when Billy pops up with basically what is the plot events of Silver Snow (down to using the same strategy with disguises) with the Gronder Map.

And that addition radically changes... well, everything regarding Claude's relevance : he cannot form an alliance with the Blue Lord or the Kingdom to get rid of the Empire because "plot convenient myopia" and apparently Dimitri BaD enough that he attacks Alliance troops for no reason.

Forget SS, GW (and AM, in a way) is just using plot contrived excuse to... not have an united from to face the Empire. Why? IDK. Each Lord must be the hero of his story, or the unification boner means only one of them can "win" an unified Fodlan i'd guess.

Nabateans and the plot ?

No one gives a fig about that "plot", so it's basically pursuing a side-quest for no payoff.

Now, as @fantasyinvader wrote, Claude's story and journey as one who is ignorant and gets to learn and clear his misconceptions + the background of the land we're living in could have been interesting, doubly so given how Billy is voiceless and cannot play the "protag discovers the world at the same time as the player does" role.

But it has... no payoff.

Much like Rhea's infodump about the World, Relics and Nabateans... Claude reacts to the mention that Billy has a rock for heart, and not about his crest, his shiny bow or the fact that Rhea also had a vested interest in, uh, getting rid of prejudice against people who are perceived as "different" because her family was genocided for that.

Hell, the entire "prejudice" angle from Supreme Leader's war is swept under the rug, so we can have the Deers say nonsense like wanting to rekt Thales for Supreme Leader's sake, while only Flayn and Seteth can hear her "nabateans shouldn't have power over the people"...

There's no parallel drawn in the game about Claude and Rhea's situation - since she's at the center of this subplot - about being perceived as "outsiders" and not being able to do various things from existing to "rule over the people" because of what they are, or even faking their identities and building metaphorical walls between them and the people they're living with because they are afraid of rejection.

Nah, we can't have that, Rhea must be irrelevant to the possible, while also being the biggest scapegoat/dragon of this saga at the same time as a nebulous red herring to sell pots of tea.

Ihthe "fight against prejudice and make people accept each other" angle was that relevant to his route, Claude would have most likely talked or interacted with Dimitri and learnt of his plan to cleanse Duscur's name in his Father's assassination, raised a brow at Petra being a hostage and done something else than give a surprised pikachu face at Rhea's infodumps.

He could have reacted at her reveal that if you might want to live in peace with some people, if those people don't want that and label you as nothing more than fodder or things to be looted, it's not going to work.

And of course, gave a reaction at your second in command (unofficially?)'s reveal that, uh, her house keeps identured Almyran children as war prisoners?

Some people already made some AUs or "what ifs" routes for a proper Claude route and not the nonsense that we got in FE16 where it's basically "I react to the same plot events that happen in the other routes but top it all with a zombie".

The Deers could have been "better introduced" in a plot about getting rid of prejudice, or learning the causes of this prejudice : Marianne was/is hunted because of her blood ties to Maurice - not because what she did, but because what Momo did back then! - Lysithea was treated as a guinea pig and her house rolled over by Adrestia who has a less than rosy views about the "offshoots" that are called Leicester and Faerghus, Lorenz could explain that prejudice, just like piety, are tools used by people whenever they're relevant, like, some people being pissed at foreigners and some who aren't because they make money through international trading like Margrave Edmund does, Hilda justifying her House's animosity towards Almyrans because they lost many people in those pointless skirmishes (maybe a closed ones? Her mom or Uncle or whatever?) which would make Claude realise that "ending prejudice" is a much more difficult quest than, idk, just killing one or two randoms.

The commoner trio might share Claude's views about prejudice and welcoming foreigners, but have more "mundane" worries like being able to have a roof and food to eat, which might be the case of some people in Leicester, or tell us more about Leicester and how it works (give us more insight about the different countries if Fodlan ffs).

Maybe we could have add a Claude who learns and discovers Fodlan, and along the way, starts to love the land as much, if not more, than Almyra and really wanting to protect this land from whatever Supreme Leader's cooking, or becoming an Almyra v.2.

I don't think making Claude the third wheel of the plot was maliciously intentional because of the, uh, implications with RL cultures and Almyra, but more like they didn't know where to put him.

I noticed you wrote the conflict as one that is "the church vs the empire", but I do not really agree - if that was the case, the war would have stopped in VW/AM/SS the second Rhea was caught.

The main conflict is Supreme Leader's war of conquest - with the twist that the devs were really banking on their brilliant idea of making the red emperor the titular waifu of the game that each person/lord/whatever Rhea is must find a way to excuse and/or justify her actions.

With this in mind, AM is basically Dimitri's fall (and rise!) because of his ties to Supreme Leader.

In VW? The game cannot explore too much outside of the Supreme Leader scope so we're left with.. well, what VW was.

Claude cannot go on a journey to discover Fodlan and get rid of his misconceptions... because part of those same misconceptions are used by Supreme Leader to start her war, or the sheer concept of a conquest, aka a nation being rolled over by another is anathema to his, supposed, ideal of wanting people to accept each other despite their differences.

I ranted about it since day 5, but the Nabatean subplot (and Fodlan in general) is accessory to Supreme Leader war, there is no point aka no payoff for learning all of that, because you cannot challenge the one who wants to unify the continent.

As such, Claude cannot deviate too far from this plot - while receiving infodumps about "the lore" - and we end up with third wheel of a bike and characters who, at first and second glance, appear to be irrelevant.

Fodlan ends up unified despite starting as three separate countries, we feel bad for Supreme Leader and mourn her unknown ideals, Rhea is gone and the Agarthans aren't a problem anymore.

the second the devs said leicester was a republic, claude was doomed. Merchant republics are always irrelevent or straight up useless in the FE series!

[harvestmoth]

hi spoiler embargo ended. get rejuv blasted