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givemeafish · 2 years

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A Very long winded conjecture about Three Hopes' potential as a Golden Route

So I've never thought to write anything up on this bc I'm not sure if it was like,,, super obvious to everyone else, but for a quick refresher here before I start conjecturing, throughout the base game, Edelgard is like, really associated with the sun/dawn/light. The main theme (written from her perspective) is called The Edge of Dawn, and the verse that references her route also specifically mentions sunlight ("I look to you / like a red rose / seeking the sun no matter where it goes"). CF is also the only route with its own end credits theme, which is called The Color of Sunrise. She's also pretty heavily associated with fire, bearing the Crest of Flames, being known as the Flame Emperor, etc. You get the idea.

Personally, I've always interpreted this to be because Fodlan, in its current state, is in a dark age of sorts. Corruption, poverty, and discrimination run rampant; there's an increasing amount of civil unrest, and the people are revolting. Fodlan is stalled developmentally, and also it comes off a lot more like an oligarchical dictatorship than just like any continent with three countries given the whole militarized Church thing. Things are bad. To go further with this, the game's sinister, "big bad" organization is quite literally named Those Who Slither in the Dark. Tldr, Fodlan is in a dark place, and Edelgard wants to remedy that.

Lastly, although Edelgard is associated with sunlight/sunrise/what have you, every place in the game that references that outright more frames it as being the future she's striving for, not her herself, which I feel is an important distinction. Just like the darkness represents Fodlan's current state (again, note that TWS are specifically Slithering in the darkness, rather than being said to embody it), so too does the light. For example, the edge of dawn is start of the war, and the dawn itself/sunrise is where Fodlan is at the beginning of her reign as emperor as she begins work to reform it. Cool? Cool.

With that out of the way, here's what I've noticed about Three Hopes. Looking at the names of the routes, there's a kinda weird distinction in the imagery when you compare their titles from Three Houses to Three Hopes.

Crimson Flower to Scarlet Blaze is straightforward enough. Edelgard's verse in The Edge of Dawn justifies her route's use of a flower motif in the title (the sun represents Edelgard's ideal outcome for Fodlan, Edelgard reaches for it as a flower does); Scarlet Blaze drops that specifically for whatever reason and instead references her fire associations. The full route isn't out yet, so I don't really know why or if that change even means anything at all, but it's far and away the most congruent seeing as it still clearly mirrors her association with fire.

Now, in 3h, Silver Snow and Azure Moon also seem to correspond to Edelgard's flame/sunlight motifs, but they do this by subverting them. Edelgard represents fire, so the route where she outright loses to the Church references snow. Azure Moon, wherein she is the main antagonist, contrasts the game's connection of sunlight to her the fulfillment of her dream. I'd also argue that the title, Azure Moon, symbolically communicates where Fodlan is at the end of the game as a nation, under Dimitri's rule. Symbolically, the continent is still in darkness (given that the moon is only visible at night), but his association with the moon itself also acknowledges that he still does something to light its way; Dimitri is a benevolent king, but he doesn't address all of the reforms that Edelgard considers necessary to Fodlan's development. Where Crimson Flower is about Edelgard reaching for the sun, the conclusion of Azure Moon is Dimitri lighting up the night.

Here's the thing about that when we get to Three Hopes. While there is no SS equivalent here (that we know of?), the one for AM is called Azure Gleam. Whether or not that seems like a big deal at first, it makes for a notable departure in imagery from the first game. While Azure Moon endeavors to contrast with Edelgard's sunlight motif, Azure Gleam… Doesn't do that. Instead of drawing on the idea of the moon, of night, it includes a synonym for light. In Three Houses, the contrasting motifs in Edelgard and Dimitri's routes was not only indicative of the conflict between their characters, but also of the state that each one ultimately led Fodlan to when you chose their respective route. Assuming Three Hopes will do the same, the use of two synonymous words implies that Edelgard and Dimitri may find themselves on amicable terms, or at very least that both of their routes will conclude similarly.

Now, onto Claude. His 3h route is… less cut and dry (which I suppose is just par for the course with him). I can't make out a reason for it being called Verdant Wind in itself. I'm still finishing up the last few chapters, so maybe the metaphor there will be clear eventually? Idk, I used to have a very long paragraph here of me going through possibilities, but honestly it's not really to the point. If anyone else has an idea, I'd be interested to hear it, otherwise I'm just gonna move on.

Whatever it is that VW is supposed to be alluding to, Golden Wildfire, as a name, doesn't quite seem to be following through on it, either. It now, even more strongly than AG does, matches Edelgard and SB's flame and sunlight imagery. I mean, come on, blaze, wildfire? All three of these are basically just words that you Google and type in instead of each other when you're doing creative writing and you know you can't use the same one over and over again. Tell me I'm wrong.

TLDR, the titles of Three Hopes' new routes have made a notable shift in their imagery from their 3h counterparts. In the original game, the implications of their titles could help us extrapolate broad details of their conflict and even their outcomes, and if this holds true for Three Hopes, the congruency of each route's title should now indicate an increased harmony amongst them. On top of that, their particular association with fire and light also corresponds to base game motifs associated with Edelgard herself and her reforms to Fodlan's infrastructure. All of this seems to suggest that Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude are going to get better at Not Killing Each Other in this game, and that Fodlan is going to be better for it. So, basically. Golden route.

Anyway I know a lot of us are already Pretty Sure that this game is a golden route but I figured that might be interesting to point out.

#But that's just a theory #A game theory #This was really annoying to write sorry it's like 1000 words #My lil tagline thingy promised ramblings and finally I delivered #I rewrote this thing like seven times trying to shorten it and it just wasn't happening so now I'm making all of ur problems #fire emblem #Fe three hopes #few3h #fe16 #Fire emblem three hopes #Maybe a spoiler idk?#edelgard von hresvelg #Edelgard positive #I'd tag Dimitri and Claude but I don't think I talked abt them enough n I don't wanna clog their tags lol

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todayisafridaynight · 1 year

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Sorry for ruining your posting kfjdj I also didn't know such a person existed but I ended up finding the post where they defended him because it was the same one in which they said they hated Park cos she was abusive and manipulative to Haruka 😭😭 like. The dissonance between what they can't accept and what they CAN just cos they find a guy hot really gets me

OH NO YOU'RE GOOD THE TIMING WAS JUST REALLY FUNNY the halo effect and misogyny can hold grimy ugly hands unfortunately

oh damn i aint readin all that. i skimmed it just for you but if i read it any more i was gonna feel my eyebrows merge as i pinched them together perplexed

#snap chats #i always feel weird jumping straight to misogyny for hating a character or person but. but i have eyes. Sometimes #also edelgard was my favorite lord in 3H ok so i. i understand.#the halo effect is one of my favorite phenomena tho because of how true it is sorry i quote it every other post #like im not gonna lie i'm not the biggest park fan either but that's just cause she reminds me of my mom but even then shes less shitty #she's still compelling as a morally-grey character tho. also she's hot #ALSO WHAT PARK DOES ISN'T NEARLY AS BAD AS ODA???#like. threatening to shut down a kid's orphanage so she pursues your dream and becomes an idol ? p shitty but like #compared to sex trafficking that led to a physical ailment- nonetheless everlasting mental scars- yeah idk #the scale is SURE hard to measure on that one golly gee i just don't know which is worse #also i wanna try to clear the other anon's name cause i haven't seen this person in my notifs #i generally keep track who visits my blog or i recognize frequent visitors #tho i did just get notif spam from two people but still i'd recognize a name like that #unless fam's lurkin... i dont mind lurkers tho but this do be a crazy take #man all this bonkers shit makin me kinda hungry but i dont wanna eat any more meat or rice that's all i got #actual scurvy moment #they got mango juice for two bucks next door.... hmmmm mango juice.....

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nebulaleaf · 2 years

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god im so excited for the hello smile figures. I wanted the promare ones a while back but ultimately passed on them because im not Too into it. BUT AHH. THE MORGANA AND JOKER....... THEY’RE SO CUTE I NEED THEM

#im like trying to manage what figures im buying here #deciding to give up on edelgard felix and lysithea #claude and the smile figures are all im getting in the forseeable future now #eeee i wanna talk about merchandise

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yanderehsr · 6 months

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Imagine being in a relationship with a yandere and not knowing that they're yandere but you think that they're unhappy in the relationship so you break up with them

Sure, you didn't specify a fandom or characters so I'll mix it up a bit if that's okay

Hope you'll enjoy😄

Trigger Warning: Yandere, Obsessive behaviour, Possessive behaviour, Kidnapping

Alhaitham: It isn't a surprise that you don't know he's a yandere, he is perfect in hiding his darker thoughts, it isn't a surprise either that you think he doesn't like you, even as a yandere he will be distant most of the time, he just doesn't know how to deal with his strong feelings.

The break up doesn't happen, Alhaitham's studies you so well that he can predict anything you do before you do it, he is like an akasha terminal with only information about you. He will admit that knowing that you think he hates you actually hurt him a bit, but it's all okay, all missunderstandings are cleared now, and you wont leave him again.

"Why would you think I'm unhappy, I'm never happier than when I am with you, remove such silly thoughts from your mind, dear"

Signora: It's not hard to imagine why you would think she is unhappy, she views herself as above you, that you should feel honored to be with her. No matter what she does or what she says, she never feels unhappy being with you.

Signora's reaction to you trying to break up is rage, how dare you leave her, it will take a while for her to calm down and hear you out. After hearing you think she is unhappy, she will start to be softer towards you, she doesn't want this to happen again. You will recieve more compliments even if she isn't the best at them.

"You aren't allowed to leave me, how could you ever think that I'm unhappy after all I've done for you"

Jingliu: She acts cold even to you, sure she may keep an arm around you at all time but it wouldn't be a surprise if you think she is forcing it for you, her face barely ever changes even to you and her blindfold always stay on, she gives a lot of mixed signals.

A break up with Jingliu would never end well, she wouldn't hesitate to remove a few limbs to make you stay, even if you explain it to her that she seems unhappy with the relationship she will still remove the limbs, she loves you so much, she can't risk you ever leaving her, you can't leave her if you don't have any legs now can you.

"Stop crying, you brought this upon yourself... did you really think I didn't like you, I guess I need to show you just how much you mean to me"

Hubert: He places his loyalty to Edelgard above even you, even as a yandere that wont change, Edelgard has been his whole life and sure he may love you but to put you above the empress is something he would find hard to do.

But it hurts Hubert however much he tries to hide it when you tell him he looks unhappy in the relationship, it hurts him even more when you tell him you wanna break up. He isn't unhappy, far from it, you are someone he wishes to spend the rest of his life with. You will feel a cloth over your mouth and nose as you start to black out, the last thing you see before waking up the next time is Hubert's eerie smile.

"Did you sleep well, my apologies if you feel any side effects, that wouldn't be my intention, now lay down again, I'll be back in a short while, have to make sure there isn't any way out"

#yandere #yandere honkai star rail #yandere hsr #yandere genshin impact #yandere genshin #yandere fire emblem: three houses #yandere fe3h #yandere male #yandere female #yandere alhaitham #yandere alhaitham x reader #yandere signora #yandere signora x reader #yandere jingliu #yandere jingliu x reader #yandere hubert #yandere hubert x reader

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most-datable-datable-bracket · 4 months

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ROUND 2 MATCH 5

Hook propaganda:

“I can go on a rant about this guy that'll make me look like Charlie in that one red string board meme image but I'll try to keep it brief- I wasn't sure about this guy at first but by the end of the novel he won me over completely. Mf has a lot of depth to him that a lot of other Genius INC characters don't have. He's a pirate that has a big heart for his crew and eventually for the protag as well. While he's smug and cocky and confident he has body image issues due to his disability bc his past girlfriend left him over it, but you can help him see that his disability isn't a bad or ugly thing and that he isn't less of a person because of it. He likes mind games and teasing but damn if this guy doesn't fall hard for the protag as soon as they show they genuinely care about him. He tries to play it off like they're foolish for caring about him or anyone but he always tries to jumps to protags aid when something bad happens to protect them. He also tries to coax protag out of their shell a little and get them to loosen up and have fun in life and gets happy when they fo wanna tag along with his ideas. His ending is super sweet too, he chooses to stay with the protag in their world instead of going back to his oen and becomes a photographer after learning about more about the protag's world.”

Edelgard propaganda:

“to summarize, she started a war but she was right. maybe her means weren't the best, but I'll always support my wife to tear down the church and end fodlan's reliance and discrimination on Crests”

#avth hook #a villain's twisted heart #edelgard von hresvelg #Fire Emblem #Fire Emblem: Three Houses #FE:3H #Round 2 #MDDC 2

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azelfandquilava · 1 month

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Unhinged Azure Gleam RW ideas

Alright, FE3H musing time again.

I've been floating a bunch of ideas for a hypothetical rewrite of Azure Gleam. Trying to summarise it in neat paragraph is proving harder for me than I thought it would so I'll just bullet-point drop all the ideas I had in rough chronological order:

Keeping a big focus on Dimitri's viewpoint of "Reform Over Revolution". In the official game, this is brought up a few times early on but basically dropped just as soon as the Western Lords arc wraps and the mindcontrol nonsense begins.

Cleobulus is the end villain, usurping Thales as leader of the Agarthans. Her tactics end up being much more chaotic and violent but with a greater cost to TWSITD's numbers. Odesse would act as her version of Myson, Kronya would also be given a bit more prominence (cuz who doesn't wanna see Agarthan Girlies having a bit of fun?)

In keeping with this, I really want to explore the idea of Dimitri and Edelgard forming a truce to take down TWSITD. It'll take some contriveances admittedly, but hear me out.

I'd keep Part 1's layout and premise roughly the same but with a lot of specifics changed. I’m juggling whether to keep Rufus alive for longer, or to just make Kleinman more prominent later on in his place.

The Western Lords are given more explanation of their motives for betraying Lambert, the specifics of his supposed reforms are explored more instead of just aluded to. Even if its a retread of the case with Ionius and the Insurrection of the Seven, that'd be better than the complete nothingness we get of it in the final game par Viscount Elidure's one line about the subject.

Rather than dying in Elidure’s territory like she does in the official route, Cleobulus retreats to Arianrhod where a three-way battle between in the invading Empire led by Edelgard, the remnants of the Western Lords (represented primarily by Count Rowe here, still being kept on a leash by Cleobulus) and Dimitri’s pursuing forces ensues.

The Western Coalition would be snuffed out here, with them no longer of use to her Cleobulus finally ditches her Cornelia skinsuit.

During the fighting Edelgard is badly wounded, prompting Thales to try his "mind-control" ploy from the official game (or maybe he's just going for the kill here, whatever works best). He is stopped by Hubert, who is mortally wounded in a vicious exchange covering Edelgard and the Empire's retreat. This would effectively be a mirror of Ingrid's death in Scarlet Blaze, but with a much bigger impact on the Empire's military capabilities.

Thales himself is badly injured and warps away, leaving him exhausted. Cleobulus uses this as an oppurtunity to finish the old man off and claim leadership of the Agarthans.

From here the Empire is left to lick its wounds, as a much more violent version of Ludwig's attempted coup from Scarlet Blaze occurs. Likewise the Kingdom is suddenly hit with more Slithery nonsense as Dimitri tries to recover following the Western Coalition's sabotage.

That's roughly where I got to, but I do have a few more ideas that I'm not sure where to fit/or if they'd work but here we go:

Rhea is pretty much a non-presence in Azure Gleam as is, apart from popping up for expo at a few points she doesn't really do much for the majority of it. I'm floating the idea of her being kidnapped by Cleobulus during Part 2 with the intent of bodysnatching her/using her blood for Slithery reasons. There's a risk with this tho in that I'd basically be changing the Route Damsel from Edelgard to Rhea. That said I do think Rhea needs to be moved out of the way for the potential truce to even remotely work.

Claude's the odd factor here as I'm not sure how exactly I wanna have him play out here. Both of Dimitri's routes handle the Alliance quite lazily imo as both times they end up siding with him, granted AG doesn't just have Claude give the entire faction to him but still.

Thats all I can muster typing up atm. I'll leave ya with a cool drawing of Cleobulus holding Thales' cut sword just to convey the idea of an Agarthan Girlboss end-villain (credit to @card-queen for the art). Please feel free to poke holes in my ideas or offer any suggestions of your own for this silliness.

#fire emblem three houses #fire emblem #azure gleam #blue lions #fire emblem warriors three hopes #rewrite #au idea #fe3h au #fe3h fanfic #unhinged #cleobulus fire emblem #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #edelgard von hresvelg

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raxistaicho · 9 months

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Reyna’s not at the end of dealing with Edelgard yet! Edelgard in Thracia, chapter one

So who’s familiar with ReynaAtTheEnd? She (I remember reading Reyna’s a she from some of her mutuals, I’m going to assume that’s accurate, but if not I’ll swiftly correct it) wrote a fanfic called The Savior King, The Master Tactician and the Queen of Liberation, a sort of Azure Moon/Verdant Wind fusion fanfic that are all the craze with Dimiclaude shippers, in which they form a polycule with Byleth.

Oh and also Edelgard Takes a Level in Dumbass and Jerkass, and only generally makes appearances when it’s time for her to get her shit kicked in by the heroes.

Well, Reyna decided to try her hand at giving Edelgard a redemption story, and we all know how wonderful it is when Edelgard haters try to “redeem” her. And she did this by thrusting Edelgard into the plot of Thracia 776, so uhh...

But before we go any further:

DO NOT, I REPEAT: DO NOT, under any circumstances, harass Reyna! I don’t wanna hear about people leaving her insulting messages, folks! I mean it!

EMPEROR. IT’S EMPEROR. Edelgard is never called an empress, Reyna!

From the summary:

Edelgard lost everything - her country, her ideals, her life - to Agartha and to the choices she made.

No, she lost them to Reyna’s hatred for her. And also to Byleth, Dimitri, and Claude being the biggest god-mode incarnations of themselves I’ve ever seen and commanding a kickass army including both the Kingdom and Alliance unified against her, alongside basically all the Relics, and even Rhea and the Immovable. Yeah, Reyna wanted Indech to kaiju it up on Edelgard so bad she wrote him out of character and had him fight on Byleth’s side.

Queen of Liberation was also the story where Edelgard, after being beaten, was captured by Thales, subjected to her trauma again, beaten, tortured, turned into an enslaved monster, and subsequently dispatched like an enemy of the week with no fanfare.

Just so everyone’s aware of where Reyna stands.

Upon awakening in another world ruined by war, she despaired and began going through the motions; only for another cult of evil and a very different dragon god to force her hand - and, perhaps, truly turn her into the revolutionary leader she had wished to be.

No, she was a revolutionary leader. I know Edelgard detractors don’t like it, but,

Her detractors have long tried to twist things do that Edelgard can’t be a revolutionary because she’s someone in power herself, but Rhea and Seteth don’t appear to have gotten the memo on that.

On to the first chapter proper:

So we open with Edelgard suddenly waking up and trying to work things out. Very sadly, at that.

Consciousness came to her one bit at a time. It was cool, wherever she was. The pain was gone – the spire of the Viskm ramming through her is the last fragmented memory that she has.

Yeah she died when the Wandering Beast slammed her through a Viskam. Reyna has a weird habit of making her fight scenes grizzly affairs like something out of fucking Akame Ga Kill!, but still permitting Claude to get paragraphs-long breaking speeches in the middle of a fight because Claude is just so awesome~

It didn't make sense. She died, hadn't she? The miserable joke of her life, her broken ideals and woeful attempt to change the world had ended when the Wandering Beast did her a kindness and slammed both of them through the floor and impaled her demonic body. Wasn't that enough? Wasn't it enough, Sothis?!

Sothis may forgive you, but Reyna never will, Edelgard. Bolding mine, btw, we gotta get Edelgard nice and miserable before everything else begins.

Myson had brute forced the procedure that she and her loyal mages had been looking into and the transformation had ripped her apart and reassembled her into a parody, a sick combination of the myths of the Crest of the Beast and those dragons.

The word “dragon” doesn’t appear to exist in Fodlan. Demonic Beasts are always called Demonic Beasts, and Nabateans are always called Children of the Goddess. The only instance we see of the word “dragon” comes from the name of the Dragon Claw gauntlet weapons.

Edelgard soon realizes she’s alive and has her free will again, but her body’s too weak to move. She wonders at first if this is some punishment from Sothis, but no, it’s punishment from Reyna, Edelgard.

Thales's horror. The instinctive reminder felt like a joke, making her feel sick as soon as it rushed up. No, she had participated in that horror and turned her nose up at those who expressed their qualms about it. Horror had been too useful to reject.

Time for Edelgard to castigate herself, folks :)

Useful! Oh, it had been so useful in the end, it turned her people against her and reduced her to a monster, a pawn sacrificed to buy a little bit of time.

Reyna wants to make damn sure Edelgard knows she was never in control.

The suffering had fuelled the machine of war, alright

That “alright” is taking me out, I can’t picture Edelgard talking that way.

– consuming all that she'd tried to build. Maximus Varley, Ladislava, Randolph... everything they had done had only made the Alliance and the Kingdom more determined to defeat them. Had only caused her own people harm; burning in wild fires in front of the monastery,

Ahh, yes, that was one of the instances of Claude’s ~~brilliant scheming~~

So, see, he had Constance bolting the Imperial forces because Claude’s ~~brilliance~~ in Queen of Liberation generally came in the form of having access to knowledge the actual Claude didn’t have or telling people to do things they were already going to do and being given the credit by the narration, such as when Constance hit some “dry grass” and started a fire:

The problem with this?

This is at the tail end of the Winter. I know it’s Always Spring in Three Houses, but this is meant to be happening in Winter, as all the monthly narration cards show lots of snow. Further, Garreg Mach is always shown to be quite lush, indicating they get plenty of rain there. I’m from California, I know what dry grass looks like :p

Oh yeah, and the people with Crests doing awesome shit is a recurring theme of Reyna’s work, thus proving Edelgard right about Fodlan!

Ironic.

starving in the fields as the spring seeds died without farmers to tend to them,

Because Edelgard Took a Level in Dumbass and levied farmers who needed to tend the fields.

subjected to kidnapping and experimentation and stripping of their humanity.

Because Edelgard Took a Level in Dumbass and Jerkass and kidnapped rando citizens to turn into Demonic Beasts instead of using prisoners or something.

Hey, I’m not saying the latter would be any more moral, I’m just saying it would be the smarter move, meaning the kind of evil pragmatic Edelgard her detractors believe in would go for it.

Edelgard angsts some more:

She had presumed so much. You would think that an emperor would be immune to fanciful thinking.

Fight Reyna’s control, Edelgard! D: You’re better than thiiiiiiiiis.

After everything she'd experienced, she had thought that her perspective had changed enough that she was. After seeing the rot in the world, she should have been more clearheaded, not less. After seeing her siblings suffer and die, Justine holding on only to be a prisoner in her own body.

...It should have made her care more about the people who's lives she was responsible for, not less.

She does care, Reyna. Stay mad.

That was why she forced herself to use the Agarthans, threw her whole kingdom into the chance of changing that system for good -

Empire, Reyna, Edelgard’s not in charge of a Kingdom. Dimitri is.

...and became the reason her people suffered instead.

It’s funny how the actual Edelgard comes to terms with this before her war even starts, but because that doesn’t leave room for Edelgard being surprised by her ineptitude and castigating herself we need to just edit that out of her brain so she can feel bad, as Reyna wants her to.

This is true despair, isn't it?

Was this what Dimitri felt after the Tragedy? What Byleth felt, after Kronya and Thales were able to kill her father, because she had given the, them easy access to the monastery?

(weak laughter) Reyna, you really are on the Edelhater best hits collection.

Thales and Kronya would have gotten in even if Edelgard weren’t around, Solon already proved that.

Then, Edelgard starts thinking about Dimitri! Oh boy.

Her step brother. How had she forgotten...?

...Trauma.

He...had remembered her, hadn't he? That's why he had hovered around her, had acted protective in a way she had found bizarre and patronizing coming from a stranger – because he hadn't been a stranger.

Edelgard, honey, that didn’t happen. Dimitri in Queen of LIberation doesn’t think about you. It takes until the week after Flayn’s kidnapping - a full half a year around her - before he starts thinking about the time he shared with her. Everything before that? Dry and clinical, no thought for his time with you or any thought about you.

Even after his own pain, he'd remembered her and cared; her pain had taken all those memories away and left her feeling nothing.

Even when Dimitri isn’t around, we have to be reminded how great he is.

We could have destroyed Agartha together, Edelgard thought in a shining moment of clarity, coming out of a sleeplike moment yet again. Him, I, Byleth. Even Riegan, infuriating as he would have been to deal with, we... together, we could have...

It’s a ~~moment of clarity~~ for her that she could have just talked things out worked with Byleth and Claude like a good girl.

Sad. Sad and pathetic. Why was she only realizing this now?

Because defeating the Agarthans wasn’t your objective, Edelgard. Overthrowing Fodlan’s oppressive Crest-based aristocracy was.

Edelgard asks Reyna Sothis why things gotta be this way, then,

She doesn't expect a response. Edelgard expected less than nothing, really; the active goddess was with Byleth, after all.

Oh yeah, Sothis doesn’t fuse with Byleth such that she can’t talk anymore in Queen of Liberation, because it’d be off-brand if she wasn’t around to convey her Nabatean wisdom against Edelgard’s cause, but she DOES grant Byleth her... life force or some shit to give Byleth a powerup.

Look, Reyna wanted Byleth to get her shounen mid-season powerup, and she also wants Sothis around as a mouthpiece for how great the Nabateans are. She gets things both ways and you can suck it!

Why would [Sothis] have any sympathy for her at all? Naming her children monsters and ordering their deaths,

That thing Edelgard doesn’t do!

allying with the Agarthans who hated her.

I wonder how Reyna feels about Sothis having no problem with Byleth going CF?

It’s implied Sothis reaches out to Edelgard, and she falls into unconsciousness. Edelgard wakes up in what is described to be akin to a peasant house somewhere, then,

“...poor dear.” A woman murmured, her hand brushing along Edelgard's forehead again.

“I just found 'er on the side of the road...” A man – no, a boy. Maybe Ashe's age, his voice heavy with an unfamiliar country lilt. “Couldn't see any sign that anyone was comin' back for her, so I couldn't just leave her there...”

“Must have been running from bandits, or Lifis's pirates.” The woman decided. “Or even the army. She's not old enough to have been in one of the Hunts, do you think?”

OH NO, did Edelgard get saved by Ronan? Did she get saved by Mekkah’s favorite RNG meme unit? Probably-Ronan and his mom talk a bit, Ronan implied Lifis’s goons might’ve sexually assaulted her, but his mom assures him there was no sign of it when she bandaged Edelgard’s wound, then she namedrops Heim and the gods.

Heim? Gods, plural? The people of Fodlan would have prayed to the Goddess and her alone. Oh, Sothis had done something to her all right. Brought her back to life and dumped her in some strange place...?

I’m sure we’re gonna see Edelgard take umbrage with the Jugdral gods, but given they’re distant except in times of great peril she probably wouldn’t really care about them.

“I've just about got the tea ready, Ronan.

Oh no T_T

Imagine getting saved by a low-tier scrub unit whose only notable trait is he might move around and attack a lot or he might do nothing valuable on the turn.

Her body aches faintly, but otherwise the bed she's on – while rough and wollen – is comforting in a strange way. No hard operating table, no too-soft mattress that felt increasingly like an embodiment of hypocrisy.

This is some weird tense jumping, I have to say.

Also we’ve just gone full on, “Yet you participate in society. Curious!”

Edelgard mostly just pretends to be unconscious and wangsts while Ronan and his mom care for her.

Edelgard could count on two (three, three, Dimitri had-)

Again, Edelgard didn’t remember Dimitri and Dimitri was too busy gushing about Claude to remember her.

people after her sibling's death and her father's crippling

Crippling? Oh no, does Reyna believe in that nonsense “Ionius tried to give himself the Crest of Flames!” theory that’s supposed to “explain” why he looks so sickly?

who'd given her companionship and kindess. And where had that gotten them? Hubert died because of her

No, he died as collateral damage to Reyna’s punishment of her.

and she spurned Byleth for the sake of her vision because how could she understand when she was hosting the goddess -

Byleth didn’t care about Edelgard either.

Edelgard gets up, Ronan and his mom mention she’s in in Iz, in Thracia, neither of which Edelgard knows, naturally, then asks her where she’s going:

“You wouldn't,” Ronan reassured her. “We're a small village; I doubt most Thracians could point us out on the map.” Thracians? A people who's name she'd never heard. But what else did she expect after dying? “We're right up on the ocean; most of us are fishers, and nobody important lives for miles. We're on the way to some important places, but you'd be in for a bit of a hike to get to them. Were you headed somewhere specific?”

Edelgard thinks briefly of some things she might tell them, and dumps them all immediately. She didn't have a life to go back to; she was a failed conqueror, a villain in a cautionary tale that would last in Fodlan for all time, a... a pawn of greater evil. She felt so numb when that thought circled her mind. Empty and hopeless.

“Not really.” She said with a slight shake of her head. “I had been captured by cultists, and in my efforts to get away from them, fled for as long as I could in a random direction. I lost any sense of where I was, only that I got away.”

This whole fic is going to be Edelgard lamenting her actions and coming to Jesus, isn’t it.

Also, this is some weird tense.

Also also, Edelgard describing the Agarthans as cultists is kinda contrived so we could bring up the Loptr Cult.

Ronan and his mom immediately assume the Loptyrians targeted her for their Child Hunts, thinking maybe they branched out in age, and I have to wonder how well common people knew the Loptyrians were involved? Obviously they’d know the Grannvale Empire was behind it, but the church? Idk.

Anyways, Ronan’s mom promises Edelgard is safe because,

“We aint got no Belhalla bootlickers or Travant's sycophants in Iz. They won't know you're here and none of us are gonna talk.”

First off, what medieval peasant would know the word “sycophant”? Also, considering both Grannvale and the people of the Manster District hate the Thracians, I seriously doubt Trevant has many fans at all in northern Thracia.

Edelgard asks why they’re helping her, and she’s gobsmacked to learn it’s just because they think it’s the right thing to do, because evidently Edelgard in this universe has never considered doing a kind thing for the sake of it, pleaseignorehersupportstheyruinReyna’spoint.

Edelgard offers to help Ronan and his mother around the house in repayment for their help and we get this,

“Oooh...” The mother's brow furrows, wanting to refuse but unable to resist the offer of an extra pair of hands. “You're a kind girl, Edelgard.” Edelgard nearly chokes on absolutely nothing, thankfully managing to pull up her solemn mask in time. It would be rude to laugh in this woman's face over her misplaced compliment.

After seeing how often butwhatifidothis got mad at how self-loathing Edelgard is in The Emperor and the Goddess, it’s ironic as hell that Reyna is doing the same thing in this fic. Just for wildly different reasons.

Anyways, Ronan and his mom just urge her to rest for now.

The twosome leave the room... allowing Edelgard to bury her face in her hands and tangle her fingers tightly in her hair, and wonder what all of this was supposed to mean. Why hadn't she just been allowed to die? Why did she have to live when her ideals had failed her and her empire?

Your ideals didn’t fail Adrestia, Edelgard, the deck was just stacked inordinately against you because Reyna had a point to make in the previous fic.

Was this some kind of messed up trial?!

Ahh, yes, I can totally see Edelgard calling something, “messed up”.

What is voice, Reyna? What is voice?

Then we end the chapter with a whopper:

She gritted her teeth and lifted her head out of her hands. And that's when she noticed that the strands between her fingers are a vibrant heather brown. Not white. Her heart almost stopped in shock. After a second, she reached inside herself and tried to pull power from her unwanted Crest, from the blood of the Goddess.

Nothing. It's gone. The Crest of Serios was still there, dormant and lethargic to her calls, but the Sword of Damocles that had hung above her...is gone.

Edelgard slowly ran her fingers through her hair, restored to its natural colour, and slumped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling with wide eyes.

You are no one's pawn now. What will you do?

Edelgard never was anyone’s pawn outside Reyna’s fic.

I’m a bit curious why she left the Crest of Seiros intact. I could guess it’s better because it’s “natural”, or maybe Edelgard needs to turn to Jesus embrace her Nabatean origins, or something. Guess we’ll find out, huh?

Now that’s the end of the chapter, but before I let ya go, there’s the Author’s Notes:

So! ...I woke up today and wrote multiple pages of this after figuring that I disliked Edelgard too much to write it.

Disliking her didn’t stop you dedicating entire chapters to Edelgard and her laser-guided karma in Queen of Liberation, Reyna.

Clearly I underestimated my desire to

make her suffer more

write this plot and all the thematic parallels within. Some readers felt that I was too harsh on Edelgard in The Savior King,

GEE, YA THINK?

Time to show you folks what Reyna thinks is a fair portrayal of Edelgard.

But as a warning, some of this shit gets pretty brutal and if you don’t want to see Edelgard’s in-depth, lovingly-described suffering, scroll down a bit.

That’s one of the Ten Elites calling her a fool. Yeah the Ten Elites are in Queen of Liberation btw, can’t have a Battle Shounen without a recurring miniboss squad!

Ditto.

Also none of the Ten Elites would call Seiros a hero. They didn’t even know why she was fighting them!

Here’s Edelgard getting bricks tossed at her by rioting citizens, and of course all she can do to restore order is scream “I’m your emperor >:(” at them.

With an added helping of the same rioting citizens telling Edelgard how fuckin’ amazing Claude and Dimitri are!

Here’s Edelgard getting a brick dropped on her by the citizens of Enbarr while she’s getting epically pwned by Byleth’s god mode army at Enbarr. Because medieval peasants will just trust that the invading army has their back :)

Here’s Edelgard getting PWNED by Failnaught so bad that metal bits get stuck in her eyes.

~~Bonus round~~ The metal shards get healed permanently into her eye :)

You know whenever I feel like maybe I don’t portray Dimitri or Rhea as fairly as I could in On Black Wings, I can just remind myself I stick to them losing arguments or losing battles they canonically do lose. I don’t fucking torture them physically while I’m at it.

We’re not done yet!

Of course Lysithea has to also pwn the fuck out of Edelgard, dropping an Abraxas bomb on her (who the fuck gets Lysithea to A faith?) and of course she had Thyrsus because this is a Battle Shounen fanfiction and as such the only way to make Lysithea look impressive is to have her use the Relic everyone staples onto her and have her drop TEH BIG MAGICZ.

And of course, even the Agarthans have to get in on saying Edelgard’s a gigantic fuck up and Thales should’ve totally went with Claudlouch vi Yagami-Britannia instead.

...”Just as planned” is a short-lived catch phrase of Claude’s. I told you Queen of Liberation reads like a shounen.

Anyways, we’re not done yet.

Here’s Myson planning to place Edelgard under mind-control once they take her back to Shambhala.

And here’s Edelgard again being subjected to her childhood trauma by being shackled underground once again.

Here’s random Agarthans insulting her as though she’s not around. One of the random Agarthans is named Matt.

MATT.

M A T T.

Oh but of course Thales has only praise for god-mode Claude:

“There were other factors involved, of course. That boy Riegan... Solon had spoken a number of times about inviting him into the truth, yet in the end he found it all by himself. From what I've learned from our spies that were able to get close to him from time to time, he created this Alliance, he planned the attacks and counterattacks...he knew about our partnership with her before he even knew it was her behind the mask; not by yet another act of stupidity on her part, but solely through guile and extrapolating from what little that deserter was able to tell him.”

Here’s Odesse beating Edelgard.

Here’s Odesse beating Edelgard again, and also calling her such lovely gender-charged insults: “Bitch, useless bitch, pig, inbred cretin”.

In German.

Yes, German is used for the Agarthan language in Queen of Liberation.

You see, the Agarthans may all have Greek-originated names, named their tools after Greek figures, and use Cyrillic, a script derived from Greek script, but eh, what’s the difference, when you get right down to it, they’re both from Europe!

This isn’t even the worst case of Reyna carelessly using one language or culture as a replacement for another: she has Japanese serve as the language of the very obviously middle-eastern inspired Almyra.

The fic that’s supposed to be about racism being bad has racist elements in its narrative, how ironic.

Anyways, back to Reyna’s treatment of Edelgard.

Here’s Edelgard realizing she was a foolish foolish girl and being told what by some rando Agarthan kid.

And to top it all off, Thales turns her into the Hegemon Husk and she’s summarily dispatched without much fanfare like a Monster of the Week.

And to finish it up (though there’s plenty more I could share), here’s Edelgard having a Villainous Breakdown because zomgCLAUDHLID!!! beat her:

As I (paraphrased) put it in a comment,

That’s not Edelgard. That’s Dimitri playing the role of Edelgard and constantly breaking character.

Content warning ends here!

and while I still feel her portrayal is grounded largely in canon

You had Edelgard behave like an idiot who derided Dimitri as a worthless madman and scorned Claude for being mixed race. The only semblance of Edelgard’s pre-existing character in the sad caricature you crafted for Queen of Liberation was that she waged war on the church.

But yeah, this creature isn’t Edelgard. At least not the Edelgard from Three Houses. It’s the one Reyna wanted to fight, a foolish would-be tyrant duped into war on behalf of the Agarthans who then folds and fails like all the red emperors to come before her. A fool who has a breakdown and is punished for the things she did so that Reyna could feel oh-so-superior for having bested her.

Edelgard is not the strawman you crafted for your fanfiction, Reyna. She’s a compassionate revolutionary who makes the hard decision nobody else is willing to make. Graceful and strong, capable of out-planning Claude (recall that in the actual Three Houses, the real Claude, who can lose things, admits that Edelgard was fooling everyone) and beating Dimitri in a fight. And in the end, she’s poised and accepting in defeat.

Reyna doesn’t want that Edelgard. Much like most of Edelgard’s detractors, Reyna doesn’t like the Edelgard that actually exists in Three Houses. She wanted the strawman she could beat and feel good about beating, so she crafted this sad creature for her fanfiction and tried to pass it off as the original. And then, for all that she said she felt bad for having put her through torture at the end, she still did it. With loving detail, with determined consistency, and with zero mercy she heaps just about every indignity and torment one can imagine upon this fictional character. And why?

It’s fairly normal for a villain to undergo some suffering and breakdown once their karma houdini warranty expires, but I’ve never seen such karma run for so consistent a length, nor go so far, as to compare to what Reyna does to Edelgard. She could also have done it to express why she thinks Edelgard will fail in Crimson Flower - which would likely to be actual excuse if asked - except if that’s all she wanted she could have had Thales express how doomed Edelgard was to the heroes instead - as a way to puff himself up, for example. But no, Reyna wants it all expressed to Edelgard’s face, to punish her and put her in her place.

You don’t write torture in the vivid detail Reyna did out of obligation, folks.

This story will be quite different in that regard, as you can probably guess by the premise!

Really? So far it feels like much of the same, only instead of other people calling Edelgard a stupid failure, this time she’s doing it to herself.

I really wanted to like Edelgard. She makes me sad as much as angry because she's so close to being a really good complex character, but the writing really fell down on her parts.

Might’ve helped if you actually understood anything about her and didn’t try to simplify her into a tyrannical racist who just wanted power.

I guess a part of me really wanted to give her a chance to be that character, and develop into something more.

Oh boy, can’t wait to see what Reyna’s ideal Edelgard is. It sure won’t involve cunning or guile, given her standard method of making a character look smart is to beam knowledge into their heads or provide them an OC to give them information they wouldn’t otherwise have, and she writes her fight scenes like something out of a Battle Shounen.

There will only be minimum references to The Savior King and the events thereof, and they'll be fairly spread out.

Please let that be true.

As a final note, here’s some choice excerpts from the comments:

I feel like I should reiterate that I think that Edelgard had immense potential to be a very complex and very interesting figure

“So I simplified her and made her a stupid villain.”

but that potential got lost in how selfish and self-serving she is in the games proper.

As I put it in a tweet that surprisingly blew up:

Imagine taking Edelgard, who only wanted a normal life but instead dedicated the entire rest of it in painstaking service to the people of Fodlan, who honestly believed her path would end with her alone and maybe even hated by all, and saying she's SELFISH. Good god.

Anyways,

Her backstory is very tragic, and with a little tweaking in regards to the Seven's role in it - emphasizing religious zealotry on their part, have the Agarthans step back to let the nobles seem like the instigators - would have made it perfect.

Reyna thinks Edelgard was unjustified to target the church, so that’s another thing she didn’t understand about Three Houses.

Edelgard targeted the church because the church upholds Fodlan’s obsession with Crests, which was the root of her and many others’ suffering.

I will go to my grave insisting that Edelgard could have been a great character.

She is, stay mad.

I still dislike her portrayal in the games and very much dislike how Three Houses and especially Three Hopes coddle her and refuse to let anyone criticize her meaningfully

That’s because it’s never in doubt that she’s right about Fodlan’s broken status. The only thing that’s ever in question is her methods.

And here we go with the usual “nobody says she’s bad to her face enough times!”

They almost certainly were!; though I think Arvis was a better realized character than Edelgard in the games proper.

I swear, Edelgard haters insisting that Arvis was so great has made me like him less. I mean, in the end he was just a man with a complex over having lost his mother and really just killed Sigurd out of petty romantic jealousy. His big plan to reform the land has few details beyond, “I will be a better king than the past one” and, unlike Edelgard, he was genuinely being used by his dark mage allies. Also, there should be no situation that sees Arvis involved in any of these events as he never goes anywhere near Thracia.

Lastly, from someone who isn’t Reyna:

The bad thing about this (for Edelgard) is that she just literally ended up in fire emblem HELL. I've played every single FE game, and short of Fates: Lunatic Conquest, with no DLC to boost your exp. This world right here, is the absolutely most horrifyingly painful one to survive in.

Thracia is definitely gonna be a hell of a culture shock for her.

Does this person think Edelgard is unfamiliar with suffering?

Uhh, so yeah. That was bad! I’m just going to take this as a prelude to what the entire rest of the fic will be about: Edelgard hating her past actions, regarding herself as a failure and a pawn, and learning to embrace True Justice by basically learning she should have done things the Dimifan Headcanon way by embracing God and giving to the needy without disrupting anyone’s lives too much. We might even get to see some more abuse heading her way if Trevant, Manfroy, Veld, or Raydrik get their hands on her. I’ll consider it a home run if Reyna somehow fucks up Leif while she’s at it, and considering her earnest love for god mode protags that don’t screw up unless it’s dramatic and said screwing up doesn’t take too long to get undone, she probably will.

It’ll be terrible. And we’ll go through all of it :)

#Fire Emblem Three Houses #edelgard positive #edelgard discourse #fire emblem thracia 776 #reynaattheend #Sporking Reyna's fic #Content Warning

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teaveetamer · 9 months

Note

I think I missed some context. What fic is it whose author is getting harrassed?

Oh our old pal Raxy decided that he was going to spork a? Dimiclaudeleth I think? Fic. It's called the Savior King and the Master Tactician or something like that and I think it has a spinoff fic called The Flame Empress in Thracia that he's also decided to shit talk.

Not only did he decide to "spork" the fic (self proclaimed spork by the way), he decided to link to the fic itself on every post. So you're basically saying "look at this piece of shit here! Here's why it fucking sucks and here's exactly where to find it so you can go shit on it!!!!!" and now he's trying to be like "wait guys plz don't harass the author I never meant for this 🥺"

Like again, if you really didn't want the author to get harassed you'd think you'd stop doing the thing that's getting them harassed but he hasn't afaik.

Which like you know. If this was the first time he'd ever done something like this then I could forgive it as an honest mistake, but he's literally an experienced sporker. He even made his own little TV tropes entry for himself on a sporker page where he gasses himself up and calls himself a "chivalrous pervert" lmfao (Wait I thought y'all hated toXiC MaScULiNe cHiVaLry?). And this has literally been his MO for the last half dozen people he's bullied. Plus like, dude isn't some dumbass 14 year old who doesn't fully think through their actions or fully grasp how their actions may affect others. He's like 35. So I have to assume it's intentional, unless he's just never been on the internet before.

Naturally, the author got a deluge of harassment, some of which was just Raxy's buddies copy + pasting things from his posts in the comment section to own the haterz so he can't even argue that they didn't come from him.

Again, I assume he's doing this because he thinks we care as much about this fic as he does about the one BWIIDT is criticizing when like. I literally couldn't care less lmao. I've never even read the fic. I wouldn't even know it existed if he didn't start harassing the author. Heck he could critique my own fics and I probably wouldn't care as much as he seems to care about his Edelgard fic, cuz I don't really hinge my self worth on whether or not random internet strangers agree with my takes. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway I'm probably not gonna answer any more asks about this, I think I said it all there. If you wanna do anything send some love to the author getting harassed, not to me.

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shiny-jr · 7 months

Note

ooh wait have you played three houses?? i saw you mentioned it in one of your recent posts and i got curious. can i ask what are your thoughts on it if you have played it?

also also, have you played pokemon scarlet/violet at all? i’d really love to hear your thoughts on it, especially with its latest dlc ^^ (super sorry i’m grouping two different games in this ask, i didn’t wanna send messages back to back, but feel free to only answer one if you want!)

Oh boy, more opportunities for me the spout nonsense and my odd opinions. I will gladly take it. Buckle up, anon and others reading, because I have a long history with both franchises.

I've been playing Fire Emblem since Fire Emblem: Awakening, then Fates, Heroes, and eventually Three Houses. My take: Awakening is still the best one, but maybe I'm biased. I remember playing it and marrying Chrom on accident, whoops.

Anyways, Three Houses was alright, better than Fates but not better than Awakening. I remember it came out, and I was actually upset because I was in another country on the US release date so I didn't get to play it until I got back. Even when I saw the trailers, I knew I was Golden Deers all the way. Odd, I know, most people prefer the other teams. Claude, Hilda, Marianne, Lysithea, my dears. OH, and before I go on, I just want to say, I hate the female MC. And no, it's not what you think, I only hate her because literally why does her outfit look like that compared to the male MC? Robin from Awakening was always the better protagonist anyways.

After completing the Golden Deers route, I decided I wanted to try and complete all the routes because at that point I disliked a huge majority of the characters. I tried Blue Lions next. At first I didn't really have much of an opinion on Dimitri, but he grew on me eventually, because how could I resist such a miserable brooding man that later gets a soft spot for one person (plus his design was kinda badass)? But I will admit, his behavior immediately post-timeskip was kinda annoying. I thought I would dislike Felix, but shockingly, I didn't, I actually liked him. And you know what? Dedue is CRIMINALLY underrated, he's literally probably the nicest and loyalest dude of all time. He got some hate for his race from some characters, and I actually got heated.

After Blue Lions, I knew I had to play through Black Eagles twice if I wanted the last two routes. However, here's the thing. In both previous routes, Golden Deer and Blue Lions, I had loathed Edelgard. But, I thought to myself, I just needed to try her route and maybe I'll change my mind... Well, I was wrong. Edelgard is probably one of the characters I HATE most in any franchise. And I tried so hard to like her, like I would give her gifts and answer dialogue truthfully, only for the relationship thing to go down. Like damn, okay. I just couldn't stand her. The others in her route were mostly fine, I liked Ferdinand, Bernadetta, Caspar, and Petra. But because of Edelgard, I couldn't even finish her route once and it's still uncompleted to this day.

Now... onto Pokemon.

Fun fact, I completed Pokemon Black and White when I was in first grade and couldn't read everything. Don't ask me how I did it, because I honestly have no clue. I've played every gen since then: Black and White 2, X and Y, Sun and Moon, Ultra Sun and Moon, Sword and Shield, Arceus, Scarlet and Violet. I did indeed preorder the game when it was announced, as I have done for the generations before. Where do you think my username comes from? In most pokemon games, I love collecting shiny pokemon. Shiny.

I was hyped for Scarlet and Violet since the first day it was announced. I lost my mind the day it was first announced and eagerly waited months for it. When it came out, I dropped everything for several days. As a regular fan, I always set this tradition for myself to defeat new pokemon games within or around 24 hours and of course, I did so.

The game itself has a lot of issues, namely the glitches and quality of the frames. But, it's on the switch, so that's to be expected. It felt really rushed in that aspect. I just feel like they could do so much better if they really wanted to, like on par with BOTW or TOTK (those games have bad frames too but at least they look a lot better). As for mechanics, I really missed the mechanics from Arceus, but at least Scarlet and Violet improved upon the poor excuse of the open area that was in Sword and Shield.

Story and characterwise, I'm torn.

Here's what I like: (1) the multiple split routes, (2) certain characters.

(1) It made it feel like you really had a lot to do, and that combined with the open area of the entire map made it seem like a lot. It is a lot. So it's really fun to explore and try to complete everything. Even just walking about, you're bound to get distracted, lost, or find something completely new. I was just playing it a while ago after completing everything and there were still little secrets I didn't notice the first time around.

(2) Arven, my god, do I love a guy with mommy AND daddy issues. And he has a dog? I'm hooked. I didn't expect to get attached to him, but I did. I actually prefer his route purely because of the story within it with his companion. I didn't see that coming, and I was so worked up over it. Another character I like, Director Clavell. A good supporting professor, you love to see it. Wish he showed up more though.

Here's what I dislike: (1) the villains, (2) the gym leaders, and (3) other characters, (4) the leveling system. (5) I'll talk about the dlc last.

(1) We haven't had a good villain team in a while. Black and White was super memorable with N, X and Y's Lysandre with Team Flare was a joke, Sun and Moon's Team Skull with Guzma was actually good because they were funny and non-threatening, Sword and Shield with Team Yell was actual trash, and this Team Star being bad guys but not really bad guys was actually so boring. Let's roll it back to Team Aqua literally planning to recreate a great flood or Team Magma planning to create havoc with volcanoes, Team Plasma that wanted to liberate Pokemon, or Team Galactic that were going to harness the power of time/space/universe and their leader is trapped/died in an empty dimension. They don't make Pokemon villains like they used to, huh?

(2) The gym leaders are very forgettable this time around. Like, they don't play much of a role aside battling, and after that you don't really see them again at all. It's a shame, because some of them have potential for greater use and have really good designs. Not to mention, they were all weak as hell.

(3) The Champion was a let down. Geeta (I had to look up her name). I was iffy when I first saw images of her, I didn't like her design but I just decided to go with the flow and I'll probably change my mind. I didn't. She's as forgettable of a champion as Alder and Diantha were. At least we saw Leon in the SwSh a lot and we got to hear from characters about how strong he was. Geeta wasn't like that at all, her team was a joke. Nemona as a rival was annoying, she got on my nerves from the first few moments we met her. I think Penny had potential, but I just didn't like her.

(4) The leveling system was really annoying. What happened was, I tried to complete the other two routes first and save the gym leaders for last. However, when I did this, because I didn't have any gym badges, new pokemon caught wouldn't listen even if my other pokemon were like 20 or more levels above them. So I had to pause the other route, just to do some of the gyms that way I could actually use new pokemon. I know they tried the system to prevent people from just cheating the system by automatically getting high-leveled pokemon from friends, but it just got in the way.

(5) DLC so far... not a fan. I mean, it's something. It's there. It's a thing. But it has nothing so far that makes me like it. The rivals are meh, and the region confuses the hell out of me. I don't get why do Scarlet and Violet region of Paldea based off Spain, but then have a DLC with an island that's so very obviously based off Japan. They could've picked anything around Spain but go back to Japan when 4/9 of the regions are already supposedly based off Japan? Idk, it was kind of a let down to be honest. I haven't completed the dlc, so I still have to do that. The new map is small, but I heard the next dlc is supposed to be huge so here's to hoping that one is better?

#shiny rants #fire emblem #pokemon

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dragongutsixofficial · 2 years

Text

On the topic of Rhea, Byleth, Crimson Flower and abuse

I see a lot of people saying Crimson Flower is a bad route for Byleth, and I'm always a little confused about it, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter. This post isn't at all to invalidate their opinions or how they view the game- this is just offering my perspective on things. Please forgive any possible mistakes, as English isn't my first language. Also, I will be criticizing Rhea's treatment of Byleth, so I'll tag this appropriately of course, but I'm still warning any of her fans beforehand in case you just wanna skip. ^^

For a little bit of context, when i first played the game, Rhea creeped me out THE MOMENT she looked at Byleth from the balcony in the cutscene when they arrive at Garreg Mach monastery. So, I was already wary of her-I dunno, I just had a feeling she wasn't as honest as she was pretending to be.

And I mean, this isn't completely wrong. She desperately wants to be able to relax and be truthful, sure, but she also has a great deal of responsibility in putting in place and maintaining a really unfair theocracy based entirely on lies, because she wants to protect her family, the last of her kind. While her behavior is, of course, understandable given the horrible trauma she went through, it still doesn't sit right with me, but that's not really my point here. The thing is, she has problems with not being in control at all times because of her story. Her despair even pushes her to try and bring back her dead mother by crafting her a vessel- something she fails at several times, including Sitri.

And, then, there's Byleth. Byleth, who disappears for twenty long years, along with all her hopes, and when they reappear Rhea immediately sees the possibility for her to achieve her goal is not totally lost. She was desperate and now that she's found them, she wants to keep them.

That's why she places so much trust in Byleth from the start, but also why she grows cold every time they step out of line- like when they refuse to give her Miklan's spear. She allows them to live their life, but only so long as they do not disappoint her in any way or deviate from her ideas- because for the longest time, she struggles to see them as their own person and puts unreasonable expectations on them.

And that, sadly, is when that becomes psychological abuse on her part. This is really obvious to me when Byleth's hair and eyes turn green after fusing with Sothis, and she sings to them and puts their head in their lap while they're asleep- it just makes me want to run far away in the opposite direction every time, and her giving them the prophet outfit after that makes me so sorry for Byleth because what she's essentially doing here (albeit maybe unvoluntarily) is chipping away at their developing self and bodily autonomy by turning them into literally what she physically wants to see-and that isn't them. She wants them to become what she wants of them.

And then, in the Sacred Mausoleum, Byleth chooses Edelgard. All hell breaks loose because Rhea's hopes are shattered- and she also realizes her affection for Byleth is (partly) unrequited which, to me at least, makes sense- I don't really see how they could care as much for her as they do for their students when they spent every day with them for a year, and their actions seem to be made more out of love for their close ones than anything else. Byleth breaks out of the mold and confronts her directly. They make the clear cut decision to deviate from the path she had laid out for them. From that moment on, Rhea considers that all forms of violence against them is allowed (which, fair, they just declared war on her lol) including taking their heart out by force, which is physical abuse obviously (then again, violence is to be expected in a war but you get the idea). She now hates what she's created and sees it as her duty to destroy it.

Now. Byleth choosing to walk down Edelgard's path does not equate cutting themselves from their divine part, and I think that is a very important point. I see a lot of people make that criticism, especially since Byleth loses Sothis' powers at the end of CF. But to me, it's a totally different phenomena that occurs.

In every route, post-timeskip Byleth embraces their divine side. They use the Creator's sword and they go back in time as they wish to protect and further their and their lords' vision for the future of Fodlan. Heck, their main class is literally "Prophet". But something strange and, I think, beautiful happens in Crimson Flower that always made me feel disappointed in the other routes' plots: Byleth has a chance to stand up to their abuser and cut ties with them explicitely and directly. To fight back against them with all they've got.

Now, don't get me wrong. Rhea apologizing for her wrongdoings and bad treatment of Byleth is good, sure, but it just… doesn't seem like enough to me. Sure, that's a nice thought… but it's not like anything can be done about it now: they're stuck with body modifications and a position as an Archbishop reforming the system she helped put in place that they never really asked for in the first place. But what makes it ok is that they embrace those fully and voluntarily, and that's beautiful on its own- however, that resolution leaves me a bit disappointed and honestly feeling like they let Rhea walk all over them.

The thing is, when you get out of an abusive and toxic relationship, you are left changed from the experience. You lose a lot of things, but you also get some things. It's like you're left with a random object your abuser gave to you once. You can either keep it and give it a new story of its own, or discard it if keeping it just doesn't feel right. But in the end, it is your responsibility, your thing, and you're not a bad person for not using it. The metaphor is broken, I know, but I hope you get my idea. You're not a bad person for moving on for that thing- You don't resent the thing, you can thank it and appreciate it for what it brought you while you used it, you don't hate it, hell you might have even learnt from it.

In the other routes, Byleth chooses to keep everything and use it equally. In Crimson Flower, Byleth "regaining their humanity" doesn't in any way, shape or form mean they reject all that Sothis brought to them or their enlightenement. It's just them choosing that they'd rather not use that from now on, or not engage with it to the same degree. They might go back to it later, might help rebuild the church, I don't know-just not in the same way. On new terms that make them more at ease with who they became following that route.

They're still the same loving and caring person who would do anything for their students. They still go to the ends of the Earth to give someone a random thing they lost. They still spend hundreds of coins on their loved ones' favorite teas. But… they do not have to forgive Rhea. They do not have to accept everything that happened to them because of her actions, even if some of it was good. They've made their peace with it and they've let it go of their own volition.

They do not become a lesser version of themselves because they chose to deal with the abuse they went through in a different way than in the other routes.

And I think a lot of people underestimate how powerful CF!Byleth's narrative can be.

#fe3h #byleth eisner #byleth discourse #lady rhea #seiros #rhea discourse #rhea critical #tw abuse #tw mentions of abuse #tw physical abuse #tw psychological abuse #crimson flower #this is no hate towards rhea's character you love who you want #byleth #fe16 #archbishop rhea #fe3h spoilers #edelgard von hresvelg

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