31 and 35 for the Engage ask game!
31) Are there any easter egg-esque details in the game that you really like?
I really like the meta reference of Lucina and Lyn being the Emblems who save the day in Ch11, given their games saved the franchise from oblivion.
Also specifically, Corrin reciting what Xander said in the Fates prologue during her Paralogue.
Something about she who was once a scared, unsure child who was constantly plagued by uncertainty and guilt for her choices being the one who act like a mentor now.. gets to me for some reason.
I know it's the same for all the other Emblems, but something about Corrin repeating what Xander said to her makes it even more clear.
Also, something I just realized- the stone Veyle gives Alear in their S support to meet each other again- it's a magic trinket she could make due to being part Mage Dragon!
35) Spoiler slot! Talk about whatever spoilery thing you want and how you feel about it. (Ask this one at your own risk.)
Ok, huge ramble incoming.
Something I found particularly interesting about Alear is how they never actually become a full fledged Divine Dragon like you would expect from Engage's story beats. Sure, they are 100% Divine in their Emblem Form, but that's just that- a form. Not to mention even in that, you can find red everywhere from their partner to their combined attacks.
In their regular form their red hair, symbol of their Fell heritage, stays even in the credits and during their coronation.
Their Fell nature is an inextricable part of who they are.
And what I like about it is that it's never treated as baggage after their friends instantly refuse to let them leave after the reveal. In fact, Alear just becomes even more resolved to rescue Veyle, and you could argue it's what makes Mauvier finally decide to help Alear save her.
And every other comment the Hounds and Sombron make about being a Fell Child is met with a figurative eyeroll (and a roast in Sombron's case)
After all, so what if they used to be a Fell Dragon?
Veyle is a Fell Dragon and she's one of the sweetest people they've ever met, to the point they had to overwrite her entire personality to get her to do Sombron's bidding.
Actually, about Past Alear- it's really telling that even at their literal worst, as an emotionless, mentally broken, Corrupted-like puppet, you can still see evident glimpses of the person they'll become despite, well, all of the killing they've done.
And what's really telling is, they extend this acceptance even to their past self. You know, the literal face of their nightmares.
And yet they keep being worring about their mental state and safety, ignoring the fact they're... well, them, so they reasonably shouldn't worry.
They actively risk their life by giving Veyle, a little sister they've just met, their Dragonstone to comfort her and hopefully see her again, despite how terrified they are of being labeled a defect and getting Sombron'd and how lacking a Dragonstone would make them significally weaker and so... more prone to being called the d-word.
So it's evident that for me by the end of the game they've grown to accept their Fell heritage especially since it's a symbol of their bond with Veyle. And who knows, I have an hunch that when the Fell Twins join their family they might even grow to be proud of it.
And when they see a stranger holding an Emblem Ring, first they ask them to hand it over multiple times instead of ambushing them, then when the stranger very evidently retreats they let them regroup, challenges them and their allies to a fight and lets them prepare for battle.
For a so-called mindless puppet terrified of being discarded, these are two strangely kind gesture to make, literally the best they can do in their situation which puts their life way more in danger. No wonder Lumera saw something special in them.
Edit: Also the irony that in the world where Alear was born a Divine Dragon from the very start everything went to hell.
In this I actually have to give the localization a rare W- while in JP the species is apparently called "Evil Dragon", in English the title of Fell Dragon gives it a bit more nuance, because it symbolizes an affinity for darkness. Sure, this often overlaps with being evil, but it doesn't have to.
Just because Sombron is a complete monster doesn't mean his children or tribe (you know, from his home world) have to be.
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Hmmmm if Annie fell and how would the Andromeda 5 react :))
Like what, she tripped? Fell out of bed? Jumped off a cliff?
Annie while being an adopted daughter to 5 aliens that don't know humanity inherently, she's a 16 year old who's first introduction to the 5 was through P'andor which I will state (if you're a long time follower, this is a reminder, if you're new, this is some context) she was immediately trying to mug him with a knife. He also probably looked like his human ID at the time which is... well, the picture of a large Slavic man who takes no shit.
But I'll indulge, I'll indulge, but prepare to be underwhelmed.
So if Annie fell (in the tripped context, maybe she fumbles a dance or just falls ass over teakettle on something), P'andor already has the impression she can take tougher shit than the ground. Might bark a short laugh especially if she gets right up and brushes the dirt off herself, depending on the dramatics of the fall he might jokingly award points for style, but not unless she got genuinely hurt P'andor does the quick 'You good' and move on when Annie starts walking as usual. Bivalvan would disapprove of P'andor's dismissiveness but less out of instinctual parental response and more from the fact he's grown up as a species with an exoskeleton, and Annie being human she has an endoskeleton which the soft fleshy bits on the outside. He takes a glance at whatever skin deep lesions Annie gets and puts in a bit too much stock than necessary into them, but his big main problem with that would be that Annie damaged the parts of her that would have been well protected under armour that humans don't have, and trying to associate the damage to scrapes in shell is building up his ability to cope that Annie would know what hurts or not.
You might expect that Galapagus would immediately baby Annie, but I don't think that would be the case. Aside from having the same instinct as Bivalvan (squishy shell-less human got skin damage), as a species with an unconventional method of flying, that being literal air propulsion, well there's a little bit of his cultural mentality that views children as baby birds or what have you. You could piff a geochelone aerio child (not in the least because they can be held in one human hand like Earth turtles and tortoises) and while still being an asshole, not an irredeemable bastard, the shell doing a lot of lip service (it's built in naturally to compensate for a fall, especially with all the weight of the shell itself contributing to the intensity of said fall) thanks to the inherent learning curve of 'oh yeah you're going to have to fly' children are gonna fall over anyway and heck, an adult too who would be much heavier is going to inevitably drop out of the sky like a rock. Not to say Galapagus wouldn't at least still hover over Annie for a hot sec or too, but if anything given that geochelone aerios have at least some areas of endoskeleton, so long as Annie isn't actively bleeding or straight up broken a bone he's not going to get too worked up about it.
The person that will really get worked up about it would be, of course, Ra'ad. Having absolutely no bones to actually break (his gladius doesn't count and his beak is hard to break at all) you might think he's the most prepared in dealing with skin lesions, but this is the man that grew up in an ocean and lived on land floating around like no one's business, people just don't get hurt by gravity! Not to mention, injuries in the sea are bound to attract predators, or injuries in stagnant water are bound to attract infection, or injuries are (in his culture) the first sign that you will be the next to die and dying isn't a thing his people are concerned with WHY AREN'T THEY CONCERNED WITH DEATH! It's only really his mind reading that tells him to stop right before he panics over Annie ensuing she dies... from embarrassment. If she fell and she's fine if slightly humiliated, Ra'ad will suppress his anxieties and kind of explicitly change the subject to hopefully make it clear he isn't thinking about her falling anymore (if it works it works, if it doesn't well...). And if she's legitmately hurt, Ra'ad would be actually the first to clock it since Annie like to be tough and infallible even if only for herself instead of being someone's stone, so if mentally she's wincing and grumbling etc Ra'ad will be the one to ask 'Are you actually okay?' and attempt (keyword: attempt) to be as low key about it as Annie is.
And finally I think out of all the Andromeda 5 I think Andreas is the only one who has experience with children, both in raising them and with the [alien] to human comparison to what a child is. I've mentioned my piece a whole bunch about making talpaedans ant inspired, and part of that is because Andreas would be the 'male' of an ant colony or the tradie of a talpaedan, which would mean Andreas grew up learning to parent the children of the colony's Queen and other architect/tradie pairings, expecting to in adult do the same in the colony Andreas had been married to if Aggregor didn't cause a divorce instead. So unlike Bivalvan who would claim with 100% certainty he was a father but only because he's a broadcast spawning species, Ra'ad who would claim complete opposite else he'd be actually dead to a herd of zooplankton young, Galapagus who would really be in human translation in his early 20s only remembering being a child, and P'andor that doesn't even know what sex is because prypiatosian-bs literally don't have sexual reproduction, Andreas would have nearly a life's worth of knowledge of childhood development (which is still only the equivalent of being 25ish years old, it's just Andreas being essentially a male ant) and have the most experience with a child falling over.
Which - because Andreas has experience - Annie falling over is not a big deal and if in arms reach, Andreas would lift her back up and brush her shoulders a little bit before letting her run off again and move on from the whole thing. The worst thing any parent can do is coddle their teen like a toddler and damn, Annie falling over is not as bad as what happens to talpaedan youth, it's a breath of fresh air.
This is hardly a 'P'andor exposes Annie to radiation' moment, but I did use this as an excuse to shoot forward some brief biology and culture headcanons about the Andromeda 5.
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