#if I never see the Dimitri and Edelgard videos every again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lumentears · 2 years

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Garreg Mach students ranked by how popular their tumblr blog would be, from least to most

Popularity is measured not only by follower count, but also their general notoriaty in the tumblr dot hell ecosystem.

Ashen wolves sadly excluded because this list is long enough and I wish to see the sun again sometime today.

24. Leonie

I say this with a mind free of judgement and a heart full of love, but Leonie is a Facebook user. She doesn't really get tumblr, since for her social media is mainly to keep up with her people back in Sauin village, and you can not tell me that a community of mainly hunters uses anything other than Facebook to show off their latest game.

Most popular post: Her introduction post. Liked by Byleth and Byleth only.

23. Dimitri

He uses his tumblr as a personal vent blog whenever he is having a Mental Health Moment™ and deletes everything he posted the day later. He sits on an ask box full of concerned anons he can't bring himself to either acknowledge or delete.

Most popular post: His posts get liked in the """"traumacore"""" space but since he immediately deletes them it's hard to gaige exact metrics.

22. Hubert

You fool! He has 70 alternative accounts! And he uses all of them to send anon hate to his enemies and publish callout posts on those who seek to oppose Lady Edelgard.

Most popular post: "Lord Varley is a terrible person that deserves to be deplatformed and beheaded and here's why"

21. Ashe

His tumblr is for things he personally enjoys, he doesn't really post much original content. He reblogs from Bernadetta and Ferdinand and every single credible gofundme he can get his fingers on.

Most popular post: That time Felix baited him into a lengthy argument over the ethics of shoplifting.

20. Raphael

Reblogs warriormale like it's his god damn job. Occaisonally posts workout videos too, but for some reason Ignatz is REALLY bad at getting the camera to focus whenever Raphael is on screen.

Most popular post: Raphael was very enthusiastic about warriormale's drop that towel!!! post, much to the amusement of many immature people online.

19. Petra

Petra has a travel blog, mostly to document her experiences in Fódlan and get her into the habit of writing in her second language. It's mostly for her own sake, so she isn't fussed about getting followers.

Most popular post: A video titled "Me and my best girl friend at the beach". Every single one of the notes are a variation of "girl is that Dorothea Arnault 👀👀👀". She never confirms or denies this and her next update is about her catching the cold for the fifth time this year.

18. Linhardt

No queue, no tags, no system, Linhardt posts whatever holds his interest. An absolute nightmare for the novice to follow, but students with a little bit of patience can unearth many a pirated textbook.

Most popular post: A masterlist of crestology textbooks. Reblog to save a student's life!

17. Ingrid

Mostly vaguely feminist theory and book recs. Sometimes extremely personal ventposting. People who know her irl pretend not to know it is her as to not make her uncomfortable.

Most popular post: That one time she got kungpowpenised on one of her more...problematiqué opinion pieces.

16. Lysithea

Okay folks hear me out - she totally has a super secret fandom blog. She pretends that it is for the sole purpose of pointing and laughing at fandom drama as she herself is above that fandom-brained nonsense, but Goddess have mercy on your sinful soul if you provoke her into sharing her hot takes.

Most popular post: A 14k word essay on disability in the warrior cats book series.

15. Annette

Annette also has a fandom blog, but shame? Not on her good christian site. She takes great pains to keep her blog a space of positivity and unabashed joy in being cringe. In all honesty, it feels a bit like falling through a time portal into pre-dashcon tumblr, and I say this with equal parts nostalgia and condemnation.

Most popular post: In this universe, she is the person that birthed the "my homophobic dad became an ally by watching Sherlock" fake tumblr story. It was a bit of wish fulfillment when she was younger, and it haunts her to this day.

14. Ferdinand

Writes mediocre poetry and reblogs scenery panoramas and history posts. Regularly has to fight accusations of being a tradcath blogger, and he fights them to the death.

Most popular post: A picture of him on horseback went semi-viral once, akin to the ridicoulusly handsome marathon runner.

13. Lorenz

Writes mediocre poetry and reblogs scenery panoramas and history posts. Is actually a tradcath. Alas, people live for the drama and Lorenz gives them no shortage of it.

Most popular post: That time Lorenz went defcon as he was accused of sneaking into women's dms to ask for feet pics. He vehemently, desperately denied being into feet.

12. Felix

Felix has been banned from every other platform but tumblr, and he uses it for PVP only. He's become infamous sitewite for always starting shit and getting into arguments, almost in the same vein as human pet guy, just a bit less horribly morally bankrupt.

Most popular post: A legendary colour-of-the-sky length feud with Sylvain that ends in Felix posting a screed that has become the next "what the fuck did you just fucking say about me" copypasta.

11. Marianne

Has one of these "is the animal media cute" blogs. She tries to stay nonjudgemental and positive, but something in these blogs just seems to make people go sicko mode - she has to block at least a dozen people every single day. Secret star of the blog is Dorte the horse.

Most popular post: A video of her singing happy birthday to Dorte. It wold probably have gone unnoticed if Hilda hadn't reblogged it to her ravenous audience who can't get enough of pretty girls.

10. Dedue

Is most active on youtube, but he still has a woodworking, cooking and gardening blog that attracts the most wholesome audience of old people. You know, the „great work, Dedue, it’s nice to see the younger generation still picking up these kinds of hobbies“ kind.

Most popular post: I feel like he’d dabble in the kind of „cooking hack debunking“ videos Ann Reardon does in our universe, because he respects the craft and doesn’t want young people getting hurt trying dangerous viral hacks.

9: Ignatz

If you’ve ever been on the internet at all, you’ve probably seen one of his artworks. Sadly, those artworks are probably reposts of reposts of reposts, and Ignatz is still struggling to make comissions – he is still to shy to just become a furry artist but give it a few months and he might not have a choice anymore.

Most popular post: A post begging tumblr users to reblog his art.

8. Dorothea Arnault

She absolutely could be in the top 3 of this list if she wanted to. She just ABSOLUTELY doesn't want to. She's incognito on this blog and, once you've dug your way through reblogged gofundme's of folks in need, you'd find that her content is mainly her singing in places you wouldn't expect great audio in - stairwells and basements, mostly. Sometimes, people will ask her "has anyone ever told you you sound like Dorothea Arnault?" and she'll answer "I don't know who that is, sounds like a bitch though".

Most popular post: Her blog really took off during the sea shanty stage of quarantine - in fact, her sapphic shanties might have kickstarted the era.

7. Sylvain

Hornyposts all day every day and still finds a way to get all up in everyone's business. Was determined to outlast the titty ban and by now, the algorithm as pretty much thrown up its hands and given up on him. Totally the kind of guy who reblogs nsfw pics or videos from other blogs with unwarranted commentary.

Most popular post: His legendary tiff with Felix, in which he pulled off smooth shark levels of playing dumb to piss off his opponent. The resulting mythic copypasta is now his bio.

6. Mercedes

Mercedes posts daily on her affirmations and positivity blog. Reminders to relax x muscle, unclench y joint, and afford yourself the same grace you afford others. She also gives advice to troubled anons, and it's not neccessarily good advice but it's nice to see someone sincerely cares. People somewhat parasocially call her the "tumblr mom".

Most popular post: Her coming out post where she announced she is bisexual.

5. Caspar

Okay this might be a hot take but i feel like Caspar is a tiktoker – detractors call him a thirst trap but honestly he doesn’t show off his abs to make money off of horny viewers, he shows them off cause he's proud and wants everyone to know about them. He reblogs all his stuff to tumblr because he knows Linhardt is most active (most being a relative term) there and Linhardt liking his new post is a highlight of his day.

Most popular post: He’s gone viral a few times with a genre of tiktoks tumblr would describe as this is what boys will be boys should mean. In this universe, he ist he originator oft he vine of a guy pushing his friend, who’s fallen asleep on an air matress, out into a lake.

4. Bernadetta

Has a gajillion sideblogs she can’t bring herself to part with – she lives in constant fear someone will discover her abandoned onceler sideblog. Her most popular blog is for writing reader insert fanfiction. Whenever her blog gains enough followers to make her feel nervous about posting, she drops off the face of the earth for a few months until her follower count has shrunken to a managable size.

Most popular post: shamefully, an 18+ onceler rp from the olden days.

3. Edelgard

Your one-stop shop for protest tactics, world news, guilt-trippy posts about today's calamity and what you can and MUST do about it, and organisation to donate time and money to.

Most popular post: So she let her guard down once, ONCE, and reblog a slew of topless buff woman gifs to main on accident, and tumblr still clowns on her for it.

2. Hilda

She may be an insta gal, but she took to tumblr like a duck to water. Yes, tumblr as a whole hates the idea of being sold things, but sometmies they are willing to make an exception if the girl selling things is a delightfully lazy and aggravatingly cute #girlboss.

Most popular post: Technically, it's a selfie with her tiddies almost out. What draws people to the post is Marianne in the background, clearly hypnotised, pouring a herself a nice cup of tea...into her lap.

1.Claude

You think he's a tumblr funnyman? Wrong. He's ALL the tumblr funnymen. He is gaud, he is pukicho, he is all the other's who's names I can't be arsed to look up. It began as him sockpuppeting on another account to set up a punchline to a shitpost, it snowballed from there and now he is roleplaying several different tumblr blogs with an incredible amount of dedication. Right now he is planning for two of his personas to stream a game simultaneously.

Most popular post: If you ask him, his most popular post has not been made yet, but it sits in his draft, just waiting for the day they pull the plug on tumblr, so he can end the charade and dramatically unmask himself at the last possible moment.

Bonus: Byleth

Reblogs every single post her students make. Regardless of theme. Regardless of content. Always reacting with a couple of emojis. Nobody is sure whether her blog is a bot or a real person, and scrolling through it the closest one could come to browsing r/all on tumblr.

She is, of course, not a bot, this is just the way she makes her unconditional support of her students known. Even if that means reblogging hardcore porn, an essay on the canonical treatment of Brightheart in The Prophecies Begin, more hardcore porn and a deeply personal account of trauma within seconds of each other.

#fire emblem #fire emblem 3 houses #listen if i was mean to your fave on here there is a good chance i actually love them #i am just shitposting #black eagles #blue lions #golden deer #fuck im not tagging every student in this if this is a 2 note post then so be it #fe3h

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teaveetamer · 2 years

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I was gonna add this to my last reblog but the images were messing up so I guess it's gonna be its own post now. Anyway, did you know that some people have actually gone to the trouble of creating complex algorithms to map the relatedness of subreddits??? I won't pretend to know the exact science behind it, but it's pretty interesting. Basically how it works: the algorithm looks through a sample of user comments across Reddit in order to determine which subreddits have significant user overlap. Subreddits are also sorted into clusters based on relatedness. The more shared users across subreddits, the closer their dots are. You can also look up a subreddit's individual maps independent of clusters.

So for fun, let's take a look at r/Edelgard! First off, this is what the website spits out initially if you just type in the name of the sub:

Its major connections are other FE3H waifu subreddits and FE porn subreddits. The size of the dots are proportional to how big the sub is in terms of subscribers, by the way.

Neat, right? Let's zoom out a bit and see the kinds of subs included in the same cluster!

It's basically all video game and anime porn sites. Why is that you might be asking? Well...

Apparently the algorithm decided to cluster r/Edelgard in with a porn cluster lmfao. I don't know if cluster proximity to other clusters has any particular rhyme or reason to it, so just ignore that for now.

For the subreddit specific connections, here's just a snapshot of r/Edelgard's personal map:

It can be a bit hard to read so I tried to mark off major points of interest here. But basically, it's more connected to the horny FE subreddit than it is to the main sub for the series from which Edelgard hails. It's about equidistant from the 3H sub and the horny sub. Which is kind of funny considering people tend to comment on horny subs less than they do SFW subs. Remember, this isn't the number of users who use both, it's the number of users who comment in both.

Anyway I skimmed the rest of the sub-specific cluster and it's entirely video game related subs (FE or other), waifu specific subreddits, or hentai subs. There might have been, like, a cat pics sub in there somewhere.

Now, take this next thing with the disclaimer that, again, this analysis was done based on a sample of Reddit comments and therefore will probably not catch every connection, but I find it interesting that none of these connections were to any LGBTQ or women-specific subreddits (e.g. no connections to r/LGBT, r/ainbow, r/GirlGamers, etc.) At least not that I saw, I did my best to look at all of the dots but I'm only human. Obviously there could be a lot of reasons for that. I personally don't comment on a lot of LGBTQ+ subs on Reddit for safety reasons. But I do find it curious that we didn't even get, like, a wayward shot toward one of those categories considering how frequently Edelgard stans love to claim that her audience is "primarily queer women".

Anyway here's the link to the website if anyone is curious about a specific sub.

And for the record, I did attempt to look up the Dimitri specific sub to do a similar comparison, but it is not even on the map. This is pretty unsurprising considering it was never that popular to begin with (less than 1,000 subscribed users currently and there's a new post maybe once every couple of months with very few comments, so not much for the algorithm to pick up on).

#long post

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strawberry-crocodile · 2 years

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I posted 33,485 times in 2021

398 posts created (1%)

33087 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 83.1 posts.

I added 1,243 tags in 2021

#dalucomment - 414 posts

#dalucaray - 281 posts

#perfection - 201 posts

#blogodile - 174 posts

#edelgard - 42 posts

#fire emblem three houses - 34 posts

#fe3h - 33 posts

#fe16 - 32 posts

#dalucommenting on my own post - 20 posts

#jeritzaposting - 12 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#also people see edelgard processing that grief in a different way than dimitri and see it as wrong to the point of her being heartless or de

My Top Posts in 2021

i fucking hate how “wholesome” is so often placed as directly opposite sexual content. I hate puritanism you’re not being “wholesome” you’re shaming something completely healthy. A lot of people are sexual. Let them fucking express it in their own space.

605 notes • Posted 2021-10-24 20:05:17 GMT

White Clouds: Rhea is creepy as hell, if you're a noble crests have fucked up your life, if you aren't a noble you're poor as shit Edelgard: I want to kill rhea abolish crests and fix poverty, through violence if necessary Three of the four routes: Edelgard is evil and needs to be stopped

630 notes • Posted 2021-07-02 03:41:53 GMT

Maybe a controversial take but. Children are probably gonna casually see a penis now and again in changing rooms and bathrooms and with each other and whatnot, and we need to come to terms with that. Trans women will never be safe until idea that the mere sight of a penis is some sexual scarring thing- something I never see claimed about vaginas- is destroyed.

It’s a human body part. Your dad probably has one. Also, if your parents raised you as a boy, you may have gone into a public men’s changing room and seen a few as a child, but somehow no one’s raising the alarm about that.

877 notes • Posted 2021-07-20 00:38:56 GMT

“Animal Lover” starter pack -Knows nothing about animal body language -”Here’s a video of a lion playing with these dogs! Isn’t it cute?” -”A centipede? If I saw that in my house I would kill it!!!” -”God I wanna go to an owl cafe” -Thinks zoos are evil -”Look at this cute couple with their rescue mountain lion!” -”Wasps are literally evil haha” -”A snake? If I saw that in my house I would kill it!!!” -”A spider? If I saw that in my house I would kill it!!!”

4419 notes • Posted 2021-01-08 17:01:27 GMT

TERFs really out here thinking that male privilege comes from like. The overwhelming aura of the penis and being told not to wear skirts as a kid, and not the fact that manhood is an in-group that trans women are absolutely stricken from.

6513 notes • Posted 2021-08-11 22:10:31 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#this is so fucking funny lol #dalucomment

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fireemblems24 · 3 years

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Hey! It's the anon who sent the ask about the imperialism thing.

I guess it's kinda ironic because uh, the country that did the whole imperialism shtick to my country is the US. The saddest part is that it's barely acknowledged and I'm pretty sure it's not even studied in your history either. If you're curious, look up Benevolent Assimilation. Yup. That's what they called it.

Anyway I had a realization when you mentioend about why not Edelgard try to enact the changes on her Empire first? And I realised... Yeah, why not???

A possible thing she could've done that's less bloody than a war is to change her Empire first. And then befriend the future leaders of the Kingdom and Alliance while they were in school. That would've made things fairly peaceful between them and also if the changes in the Empire are working out well, she could've promoted the same methods to Dimitri and Claude for them to establish in their own countries. She doesn't need to conquer them. I mean, yeah this is a very easier said than done situation (especially since there's still TWSITD) but again, less bloody alternatives.

To be fair, Edelgard handling this entire affair in a flawed manner such as a war is also fine by me. Seeing imperialism in media is fine especially if it highlights the flaws of it because yes, it and its long term effects need to be acknowledged. But the game just feels like it's condoning her... And there's also the ton of people who agree with her who just make me uncomfortable really because it feels so close to real life. Not only that seeing as this is a Japanese game and the Japanese have a... history with imperialism (in which they also occupied my country... we don't really get a break) it's just uncomfortable.

Again, I like Edelgard and the morally grey potential of her decisions. My problem really is in the execution. I would definitely tolerate CF much more if the BE had more prominent roles as critics? I think that's the only way they'd really fit in CF tbh. Criticise Edelgard, question her actions, make her question her own actions, make her realise the damage she caused. Stuff like that would've made CF into such a good route. Like, if AM is Dimitri's character study, why couldn't we have had Edelgard's character study in CF?

I guess in the end, the main reason why I'm really talkative about the whole Edelgard issue is because I really want to love her? I see the potential in her character — I love her design, her general personality, her voice actress, the fact that she's actually different from the usual female character in these games. But I just end up liking her and not really loving her because sometimes the games feels like it's forcing me to love her so much that I just eh. I still don't like her Byleth attachment.

But yeah I think I'm going to stop bothering you all about this since I think I'm just repeating restated points again.

I briefly looked up “Benevolent Imperialism.” Sounds exactly like the kind of phrase an Imperialist would label their conquest as. I’ll have to learn more about it because surprise, surprise, our history lessons do leave that out.

As for your comments on Edelgard, I agree with everything you said. I cannot believe her actions are wholly benevolent and in the name of bettering society only because she never once attempts to work with other leaders. She’s either so far up her own ass she legitimately thinks killing every other major power in Fodlan except herself is really the best option for everyone or there’s more to her actions than her ideals - like killing all the dragons/forcing them into hiding forever or getting back what she thinks is rightly hers because the Empire ruled those territories hundreds of years ago.

My issue, like yours, is that this game acts like she’s some kind of saint. She’s sacrificing her own soul by bloodying her own hands for the benefit of all. Whenever she talks about all the damage the war causes, it’s not about the victims, it’s about how sorry we should feel for her because she’s dirtying herself so everyone can live in her future utopia.

It takes a grey, interesting perspective and makes it not only very uninteresting (and at times irritating as a player who doesn’t agree with her but it forced to act like she’s the biggest victim in all this), but problematic. To say nothing of how this glorifies war and skips over any and all negative side effects, it’s far more concerning in it’s presentation of Imperialism as a good thing, as a “liberation” of the countries who are getting violently taken over against their will.

Like you, I don’t mind Imperialism in fiction. I don’t even mind seriously entertaining the question - but what if the conqueror really does improve things? What I do mind is this really black/white presentation where Imperialism is framed as liberation, like the Imperialist actually knows better than the countries she’s taking over. What’s super uncomfortable when analyzing things deeper is how unapologetic CF is at spinning the same propaganda used to devastate other countries, many still reeling from the effects.

You could just write it off as fiction. It’s just a Fire Emblem video game no one should take too seriously. And I’m always torn about this argument because I don’t want to police fiction - at all - but I’m also aware of how fiction can change your worldview. You’d think people would be smart enough to separate fiction and reality but they often either don’t or use fiction to reinforce their own world views.

I’m not surprised at all people agree with Edelgard. She’s presented as a liberator, her route presents war like its only victim is the perpetrator because she’s just oh so sad everyone else is forcing her to kill them. But I’m very alarmed if anyone wholly agrees with her and thinks she’s right to invade the Kingdom and the Alliance. You can love a character and not agree with their actions. I love a character who’s quite similar to Edelgard on the surface, Reinhard von Lohengramm, but I do not agree with his actions at all, even if I root for his victory at every turn in his own story anyways, because sometimes it’s fun to watch a magnificent bastard crush everyone under their heels.

And yeah my main frustration with her is that I really want to like her. But her presentation is so bad that I’m struggling to enjoy her in her own route.

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airlock · 4 years

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so, I’ve been showing people this for a while now, but I was thinking today’d be a good day to expose this wretched creation to the world

it was roughly a month shy of a year ago now when Brian David Gilbert did a video where he rated Mortal Kombat characters on the quality of their cuddling, and I’m nothing if not forever smitten with making silly graphs, so I attempted the same thing with the FE16 gang (although I made this before we had the ashen wolves so bear with me on that one)

(for those who aren’t looking to have one of the best 15 minutes of their lives yet: the vertical axis is for emotional availability, the horizontal axis is for physical risk, and a great cuddler lands as close as possible to the middle.)

under the cut I will provide a brief rationale for each of them (and it will be gently spoilery at times, but nothing very major; if you’ve cleared the pre-timeskip on any route you’re good to go)

The Body Pillows (low emotional availability, low physical risk)

Cyril: look, it’s not that he’s not entirely touch-starved deep down, it’s just that he still is supposed to be handling some chores and you’re interrupting him

Gilbert: the only way anything exciting is going to happen with him is if you lean in close to his ears and start speaking heresy

Hilda: she could hypothetically reach the zenith, y’know! but that would be haaaaaard

Ingrid: the good news is, you’ll probably get a great deal of constructive criticism if you cuddle ingrid. let’s leave it at that

Leonie: come for the cuddle session, stay for the advice on how to get a mattress as good as this one but a lot cheaper. like, if you do choose to stay, that’s what you’re getting

Linhardt: you see the name of this archetype? it was made for linhardt

Marianne: she’s really sorry. she knows you said you wanted to cuddle with her, but she thinks you’ll just have a bad time and get disappointed. she's afraid bad things will happen to you if you touch her

The Michael Ceras (high emotional availability, low physical risk)

Alois: ever wonder what happens to a himbo when he breeds? like, dadification? well, you don’t have to anymore

Anna: imagine someone trying to cuddle you and, every single time they move around or try something, they ask you, “IS THAT THE ONE?”

Ashe: if so little happens as, say, you shift and rustle something and a draft blows in at the same time, he will assume it’s a ghost coming for him. if you really wanted to, you could scare him on purpose. oh god, you’re going to do it, aren’t you. you bastard. you villain. you meanypoop

Ferdinand: “am I, ferdinand von aegir, cuddling you better than edelgard? am I, ferdinand von aegir, cuddling you better than edelgard? am I, ferd”

Ignatz: don’t be fooled into thinking he’ll make a canvas of your body; he gets ideas for sure, but they’re all too scandalous for his shy little hands

Mercedes: why cuddle with her when you could get roughly the same effect by falling asleep to an ASMR compilation

Petra: to have honesty, she tries with a small amount of too much hardness

Raphael: aw, he might be a big guy, but he knows not to hurt you! just don’t expect him to know a lot of other things

Sylvain: as easy as it is to get him into a bed, you’ll really be wishing you’d taken him to a therapist’s couch instead

brian didn’t name these (low emotional availability, high physical risk)

Catherine: those calloused hands might feel nice until the part where they’re abruptly zooming into your face

Edelgard: you know what it means to cuddle with someone who “dislikes losing control”? it’s just not an experience designed around the idea of you having a good time

Felix: watch him find some way to turn this cuddle session into a spar session

Hanneman: cuddling hanneman is all fine and well until he goes for the blood sample extraction

Hubert: he nasty

Jeritza: “why are we cuddling? why won’t you spar with me?”

Lysithea: are you the kind of person who always hoped to die comfortably laid on a bed? if so, there’s exactly one thing that’s going the way you wanted it to in this scenario

Rhea: this isn’t even speculative, it’s empirical. you can, in actual canon, on any route, witness a scene where Rhea cuddles you and it’s fucking terrifying

Shamir: the least you’ll want to do if you find yourself cuddling shamir is to telegraph your every move; if she feels something unexpected, she might assume it’s a bug, and your finger will thus be pest controlled

The Scissorhands (high emotional availability, high physical risk)

Annette: cuddle annette and you will experience things you could never have imagined. things she could never have imagined either, because she didn’t mean for them to happen, and yet, somehow, they did.

Bernadetta: at the very least, she’s the girl to ask if you want the ultimate range of possibility. anything can happen, from her fainting to you fainting

Caspar: don’t mistake this shrimp for an ordinary himbo; given enough provocation he can and will jump into the nearest fight with you still attached to his shoulders

Dimitri: so needy, and yet, so likely to break your everything with so much as a hug... an archetypal scissorhand

Flayn: you’d think it’d be a decent time, besides the fish smell, but if you touch flayn you get vaporized by seteth, that’s just how it goes, it’s a law of nature

Lorenz: say what you will about the man, he’s open to experiments. for better or for worse. ever wonder which new and exciting places you don’t want to find a rose in?

Manuela: if you remember spending the night with manuela, you will wish you didn’t. if you don’t remember spending the night with manuela, you will wish you did

Tier List Rodrigue: look at how close he already is. you will never be apart from him again. it’s too late

The Cuddler’s Zenith (perfectly balanced)

Dedue: the strength to make dimitri look like a twink, and the wisdom to tell you not to eat the weeds -- what’s there not to love?

Dorothea: she’s full of youthful, bisexual energy; one day it will expire into a manuela-esque deposit of issues, but if today’s not that day, best not to wait until tomorrow

Gatekeeper: greetings, professor! nothing to report! nothing to disturb our calm, dreamy night

Seteth: don’t be fooled by all of that stiff hardass act he puts on; he’s stronger than he looks... and even softer

Sothis: hang out with her, and you might feel like you could touch the sky, or rip it a new one

Claude: look, I’m not going to explain this to you. just touch the nearest object around you. do you experience a sensation when you do so? if you do, then you have everything you need in order to understand, all by yourself, that claude is the most sublime cuddler in all of Fódlan and beyond

#Fire Emblem is tagged in this post #Fódlan FE is tagged in this post #alas I can no longer feed my dog any constructive criticism I get for this #so I will have to eat it myself

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incorrectsmashbrosquotes · 4 years

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Things Dharkon Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The Smash Mansion

1. Our motto is not “What could possibly go wrong?”

2. Do not replace all the food with plastic replicas.

3. Do not blare music through the PA system 24/7.

4. On the topic of music, the Smashers are not wrestlers. They do not need you to play their leitmotif every time they enter the room. 4a. Disregard the above. -Joker

5. If the stunned silence lasts more than ten seconds, do not proceed with what you were doing anyway.

6. Things the League of Villains are not: The Fun Police, the Galactic Empire, Team Rocket, HYDRA, the Injustice League, the Illuminati.

7. The League of Villains does not need a PR department. 7a. That’s not a terrible idea, actually… -Ganondorf

8. Do not scream “GUARDIAN!” around Link. Too many buildings have been destroyed by the Ancient Arrows.

9. Do not perform evasive maneuvers with Vah Medoh.

10. Do not ask Samus and Ridley “When’s the wedding?”

11. The same goes for Edelgard and Dimitri.

12. Please keep away from the decorative duct tape. You know why.

13. We do not have an HR Department.

14. Do not organize a Fire Emblem: Three Houses musical. 14a. Too late. -Byleth 14b. I think I’m going to have nightmares. -Claude

15. Do not yell “SPIRITS BEGONE FROM THIS HOUSE!” whenever you see Galeem. You’re a Spirit too, you don’t get to judge.

16. Do not drink LeBlanc coffee. Never again.

17. Do not lace Kirby’s food with LeBlanc coffee.

18. Do not lace anyone’s food with LeBlanc coffee.

19. It’s probably a good idea to just stay away from LeBlanc coffee.

20. I saw it in a movie once” is not a reason.

21. Neither is “I saw it in an anime”.

22. On occasion, “I saw it in a video game” will be accepted.

23. Do not sing the Mission Impossible theme if Snake is on the battlefield.

24. Do not sing along with Last Surprise if that starts playing.

25. Do not sing in general.

26. Super Stars and the Fierce Deity Mask do not mix.

27. Neither do Fire Flowers and Superspicy Curry.

28. Just because you have multiple limbs does not mean you can wield everyone’s weapons. Stop stealing them.

29. Do not change the stage every five seconds.

30. Do not add Icy Hot to Pit’s floor ice cream.

31. Do not steal Master Hand’s credit card so you can buy all the Three Houses DLC.

32. Do not throw rocks at Ridley.

33. Do not throw Rock-Types at Ridley.

34. Do not encourage Joker to check out your Palace.

35. Do not start a Monty Mole Uprising.

36. Simon’s holy water is not for drinking.

37. Neither is Richter’s.

38. While we’re at it, don’t mix Superspicy Curry in with the holy water either.

39. And especially don’t trick Galeem into taking a sip. 39a. That was actually really funny, can we remove this rule? -K. Rool 39b. No. -Master Hand

40. Do not make puppy dog eyes to get what you want.

41. Smashers—please stop falling for the above.

42. Do not quote DJ Octavio. Ever.

43. Do not bring a Gyarados into the swimming pool.

44. Do not bring twelve Gyaradoses into the swimming pool.

45. Master Hand can commentate on matches just fine, he doesn’t need your help.

46. Do not play the Orne music at random intervals.

47. Do not ask Master Hand who died and made him boss.

48. Do not ask Shulk for lottery numbers.

49. Do not ask Young Link to turn back time whenever you spill your drink.

50. Byleth has a Crest. You do not. Please remember this before attempting to 360noscope with Failnaught.

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electricprincess96 · 3 years

Note

The three lords try to play a persona game. What happens?

Now this is a complicated question because on there surface i could see Edelgard believing that the plots to some of these games validate her anti Church mentality.... but you're never meant to take Altus games at face value because they're fucking Atlus games behind the Penis Demons and the ridiculously fucking hard as shit gameplay these games plots (while I won't say every Atlus plot is necessarily amazing or groundbreaking) are never as they first appear.

Both Persona 3 and 4 are about facing off against Gods who want to cause harm to humanity in some way however the reason YOU have to be the one that does this is because the Protagonist of these games are connected to Gods themselves, Personas are manifestations of your own being, you own inner soul and Persona 3s Protagonists ultimate Persona is literally called Messiah and Persona 4s Protagonists Persona is Izanagi which counters Izanami the villain of that game.

Modern Persona (so everything from 3 onwards since thats when the story team changed) is more so about you being the Avatar through which Good Gods are able to push back against the evil ones, like fuck Persona 3 has you sacrificing yourself like Jesus to protect humanity the symbolism isn't subtle and why you may ask would a Japanese Company reference Christianity that much when we say 3H shouldn't be viewed through that lense? Simple, its Atlus. Atlus, unlike IS, have always reference Mythologies and Theologies from around the world in their works, Christianity has been a common point of reference for Atlus work in the past, quite simply Atlus are a completely different company that is much more open to drawing from International Influences compared to IS which the most International Influence IS often draw from is for location and character design and rarely anything beyond that at least for Fire Emblem.

So Edelgard if she was to take these games at face value might feel like they validate her when in reality they probably don't.

On a lesser note Claude would likely find the stories of Lisa Silverman and Ann Takamaki interesting since in Lisa's case she's a foreign girl born and raised in Japan, her father even refusing to teach her English since he's obsessed with Japan, and how that caused her to grow up resenting her father and the culture she grew up in because she's been denied access to the culture of her parents (I'll repeat her father refused to teach her English growing up so she's a foreigner in Japan who only speaks Japanese so the native Japanese find this very odd and picked on her for it), in order to lash out she started learning Mandarin i believe as a way to rebel again the strict Japanese upbringing she experienced at home.

Ann is mixed race like Claude, because of this she's seen as desirable but also an easy target for bullying and rumours due to her status as a mixed race person.

I think Claude would find both of their stories interesting.

Dimitri.... I'll be honest I don't actually know what Dimitri would find interesting about Persona, he seems like the Lord least likely to be into just sitting and playing video games in my opinion.

#princess answers asks #fantasyinvader #persona blogging #fe3h blogging #edel discourse #golden dearest #the boar king

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kendrixtermina · 5 years

Text

Sorry but hearing ppl say “I would like CF more if Edelgard was either treated like a full-on villain or as a manipulated groomed victim of TWSITD who had no choice” and just generally seeing ppl trying to shoehorn her into one of those two takes, it’s hard not to think the words “Madonna Whore complex”

I kinda abhorr the latter more than the former (Not the crowd calling her Hitler and clown-emojis, but I’ll take someone who considers something she actually did a moral dealbreaker over someone who defends her because “she’s just lashing out cause she’s traumatized”.. That’s Dimitri. you’re describing Dimitri.) because it goes against everything her character is about, which is mostly:

a) A tendency to think in the big picture, focussed on mainly the end result, especially on the temporal axis (”The nobility system has only existed for 1400 years”, “This is all part of the ebb and flow of history”, “This is the path that leads to the least casualties in the long run”)

She’s always playing the long game - so dealing with the Agarthans later (once the church is taken care of) is the same as dealing with them now. She never went against the church instead of them, she’s playing them against each other.

b) A rejection of tradition as a reason to keep things the way they are

c) An emphasis on self-reliance and proactivity instead of surrendering yourself to your circumstances. See the speeches she gives to Petra and Lysithea.

She generally believes in ppl’s agency, she gives everyone an out, and likewise her generals and the non-recruited ppl are all shown as believing in her cause (Something even Seteth notes) - they’re fighting to abolish hereditary Feudalism and clamp down on corruption. You’re fighting a bunch of people who wanna abolish Feudalism and Theocracy.

Claude wants the same but he’s hiding it because he thinks he can avoid confrontations that way (There’s pros and cons to both their approaches, and I’m not saying that Dimitri or Seteth are bad, either, especially not in the context of the world they live in)

She’s basically a Nietzschean Superman but in the original sense not the cheap bastardized version mixed up with pseudoscientific misunderstandings of evolution: Someone who proactively lives according to their own beliefs regardless of the mainsteam in greater society.

And herein lies another factor, I think,like I’ve often noticed a tendency in modern fandom that people can’t seem to emphasize with anyone who isn’t in some way marked as an underdog - Leading ppl to argue that characters who are definitely not underdogs like , say, Tony Stark, are definitely underdogs.

Of course in reality things aren’t so simple that you could make a clean split into “underdogs” and “not underdogs” - Some ppl clearly demonstrably have it harder than others but ppl can have it hard in one way and have it easy in others. (Dimitri clearly struggles alot - but he’s also a king. One doesn’t negate the other.)

There’s nothing wrong with underdog stories, they can be very inspiring and cathartic - but they shouldn’t be the only kinds of stories.

Even the most powerful can see themselves as victims because we’re all just squishy meatsacks who can still be hurt, and even the most powerless might see themselves as in-control if that helps them feel better.

It also goes into the trolley problem and the human illogical tendency to view harm done through action as heavier than harm done through inaction. A tendency to not want to rock the boat, to confuse stability with peace.

There’s no difference between harm done through action vs inaction.

It’s at best, a failure of object permanence - to understand that things still happen and change even if you dont act - and at worst selfish pride and ego (I want to keep MY hands clean I don’t care if people are suffering and dying as long as no one can say it’s my fault... the counterproductive puritanical idea of morality as “good person vs bad person”)

This leads to this attitude where if they can think of someone as a “victim” then it doesn’t matter what they do, because, after all, it was just circumstance, but the moment someone makes an active, deliberate choice, all empathy goes out the window and they’re held to some impossible standard.

For the opposite extreme, see Dimitri (mind you I’m not saying he should be judged either im saying that mindlessly hating both is equally nonsensical... the dimitri haters are fewer but they do exist), or worse, Rhea... who regardless of her backstory has objectively been in a position of power and privilege for a literal thousand years. You know Dedue and Seteth are right there? )

Something similar is to be said about ppl who call “bad writing” or “waifu-ism”, or consider her a “manchild” because she... opens up around people she trusts? Expresses relief when an ally validates her in a moment of self-doubt? Gets into comical situations in everyday life? That’s just kinda consequence of living in close-quarters with her.

“How dare you not fit into “misguided victim” vs “ridiculous bitch” dichotomy don’t remind me that some character I don’t like is a human being”

They pressed that any deviation from that is “ridiculous” or “extreme”. Tell me again that someone who’s consistently calm, collected and intellectually-inclined is a “manchild” for telling her closest ally that she would like to take a day off sometimes and liking stuffed animals.

I for once really like that she’s tough and proactive and makes decisions that really impact the plot without being a flat over the top amazonian stock character with no emotion other than “grrr! men dumb” which is then never taken seriously as a threat.

Actually this part alone would not even preclude her from being a victim even Osama Bin Laden had a favorite color and liked disney movies. Hitler liked his dog. Stating this is just acknowledging simple facts, not saying that you should have sympathy for them (which for the record, you shouldn’t) - I think a work geared at ppl over 15 shouldn’t have to explicitly remind you that “this is an evil person” every time one shows up, people can distinguish for themselves, and those who can’t won’t be convinced by a video game. No one can “make” you like or empathize with a fictional chracter peeps.

#edelgard von hresvelg #edelgard #fe3h #fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses

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theoretical-tactician · 4 years

Text

Okay, so I was sent that video about how Rhea did mostly nothing wrong a week back and now that I’ve finished all the routes, I want to give my own thoughts in this. I’m looking at this as someone who completed Crimson Flower first and is very atheist. All of this is going under a read more because it is very, VERY long and I don’t want to subject people to too much.

First, I’d like to bring up that a reddit post was brought up to me responding to this video. I’ve actually read through it before and I agree with points brought up in it (thought I forget bits and pieces b/c it was days ago). Anyhow, here’s a link to the reddit thread if you want an interesting read.

Still, I want to give my own ideas and opinions on this front. For easy reference to what I’m responding to, here’s the video:

youtube

The first thing I will state is based on the talk of impressions at the start of the video. It should be noted that while first impressions can be strong, a person’s mind can be changed. I’ll be honest that my opinion on disliking Rhea has not changed, but that came before even starting Crimson Flower because Creepy Lady is Creepy. My opinions on other characters has changed throughout, though as I learn more of them. It should also be stated that Verdant Wind is a copy of Silver Snow, but even more pro Rhea (which I have my own beef with, but deserves its own analysis). As such, the writer of this video would likely start off with a strong pro Rhea bias (not to mention how they speak of Rhea, so).

But that aside, I want to talk about the actual points in this video. The first aspect I will agree upon is that both Rhea and Edelgard make mistakes. Both are flawed characters. And both do things right. The two are opposite sides of the same coin, in my opinion. They have tragedies that back their stories and actions. They do some things similar. It’s just they way they decide to approach such things and their reasoning is very different and leads to very different results. Since this is about Rhea, I will focus on her. Perhaps another time I will talk about the flaws and merits of other lords.

The first major point the video brings up is Edelgard talking about the church wishing to rule the world. Which, yeah, they don’t want to rule the world, instead acting as extremely isolationist. Rather, what the church prefers to do is having an iron grip on Fodlan. That is in fact another version of the use of the word “world” as world can also just refer to a region or group of countries. I believe that in this speech and every other of Edelgard’s, her use of the word “world” is meant to refer to Fodlan alone. That is what is meant to be taken away, at least.

Fodlan is a group of three countries and is the world Edelgard talks about in her speeches, as she talks about it in terms of the goddess, church, nobility, etc. These are things she speaks of as specifics to Fodlan, conveying that “the world” is Fodlan. One way to take complete control of an area is to enforce isolationism, something Rhea VERY much does.

It should be noted that after the division of the Empire into three countries, they were forced to band together beneath the church due to the threats of other countries invading. This suggests the church having isolationist policies which keep foreigners out of the country, fighting them and not welcoming them as brethren. Not only that, but people must obey the church. Look at Claude’s supports. There is legitimate fear in him speaking out against the goddess because doing such a thing is heresy and he could be put to death for saying such things in Fodlan. At least, I would assume this much, otherwise, that fear wouldn’t exist.

The next point I wish to speak on is about whether or not the church actually split up the Empire into three countries so as to weaken the power of humans and put down her authority in those countries. Now, I’m no politician--even if my friends want me to be one--and I definitely don’t know everything about politics, but I can definitely say that the church wasn’t totally neutral in these conflicts.

I, being the nerd I am, actually spent the time to read all of the books within the monastery library to get an idea of the history of Fodlan. Of course, these books do have lies and half-truths themselves (especially since Seteth chooses what to censor (shit, I’m getting war on Protestantism vibes again)). Anyways, we can’t actually tell what the full truth is of what happened in the past as history is written by the victors. And the church. But I’ll do my best with what information there is.

First, there was the war of the Eagle and Lion. This went on for years until the church intervened as a “neutral” party to end the conflict and allow the creation of the Kingdom. The thing is, the church isn’t exactly neutral in this. The result of the negotiations is that Loog gets crowned the first king of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. Rhea made a deal with the Kingdom that they would get their independence so long as they followed the teachings of Seiros. As a result, all of the nobles of the Kingdom are required to be devout followers of the church.

This in’t neutral at all as it acts as a gain for the church who wasn’t even involved in the conflict as far as we know, just benefiting off of giving Loog the crown. I would also note that it makes sense for Rhea to do so in order to gain control, considering that the Empire’s relationship with the church strained over time, eventually leading to the destruction of the Southern Church 100 years before the start of the game. While the war of the Eagle and Lion happened long before then, there was likely still some strain between the Empire and church which would lead to Rhea making such a decision to take control of the Kingdom in this way.

The second part is with the Alliance. As far as I am aware, the church did not involve itself in any way with the conflict, but the effects of Rhea’s negotiation with the Kingdom does affect the Alliance in the long run, as it split off from the Kingdom with some of the ideals of the nobles carrying over. You can see this most clearly in Lornez. If you talk to him early on in the game, he actually comments on how the nobility are required to show faith to the church, even if he himself doesn’t necessarily believe in the faith. This is interesting because he is an Alliance noble, not a Kingdom noble, and ONLY the Kingdom was directly given this requirement to follow the faith. This means that when the Alliance did offshoot from the Kingdom, they kept that same die-hard religious stuff. So perhaps Rhea didn’t work in splitting off the Alliance, but her work still lingers there, digging its claws deep in controlling the people.

We don’t know the full events of either split, so Rhea could have been subtly involved, but we would never know. And while the person in this video says Rhea is never subtle due to how we see her act in game, we must keep in mind that people change with time. She likely could have been more stable then, but perhaps not. So past history is kind of up in the air. Though, it also could have been those who slither, like the video suggests. The truth is, we never learn what happened during those conflicts as they are not the main drive of the story, and, as such, we will never know the full story of such events, leaving us only to walk circles in speculation.

I will make a small comment that it’s interesting how Garreg Mach is perfectly in the center of all the regions, though. Like, why was there no country that cut off and had no borders next to the church? 🤔

Onto the next point in the video. There’s a relatively quick part on the church exploiting people for gold and living in extravagance. The creator of the video says there’s no proof of such, but there is a very, very tiny bit. Due to Dimitri’s research on Lord Arundel in Blue Lions (this part can easily be looked over b/c Arundel isn’t spoken of much in BL), it is discovered that Arundel would give very large donations on a regular basis to the church before suddenly stopping (which was likely when Thales replaced him).

Looking at this, we can take it that the church gets its money via donations and the very, VERY expensive fees for entering the Officer’s Academy. I don’t actually know where all of the money goes and what it’s used for, but it seems apparent that the church gets quite a bit of money from the nobility across Fodlan and through the academy. And with the nobility across Fodlan, look back to what I said about the founding of Faerghus.

Many of the nobility are required to follow the faith and making donations is likely a great show of faith. And money can act as a great way of gaining power. So all I’m saying is that the nobility are giving quite a bit of power to the church (because they feel they must or are required to) and we have no idea what this money is being used for.

The next point is about the hypocrisy of the church leading Fodlan when they can’t lead an era of peace. Now, I can agree that the church has led a long era of peace within Fodlan for quite some time. But if such peace was held in a similar fashion to how we see Rhea holding it (i.e. sentencing people who rise against the church to death without providing them a trial), then I would consider it a false peace. That would be a peace upheld by fear.

Of course, there weren’t many large wars within Fodlan for quite a long time, but there were other conflicts that the church has done nothing about, allowing conflict to destroy the borders of Fodlan. See, if it’s true that the church is isolationist, the locket can’t be torn down and the Almyrans can’t be reasoned with. As a result, we have this eternal conflict in the borders of the Alliance with Almyra, a war without end. The same can be said of Sreng, as The Gautier house is at constant war with Sreng to keep them out of Fodlan. Again, no peace could possibly be negotiated if it’s true that the church has isolationist ideas.

For true peace to exist in Fodlan, there must be no conflict with the outer world as well. But to end such conflicts, the church should help work to create a resolution of conflict with the outside world in a more peaceful way. So, no, the church does not entirely keep peace, and while I have no clue whether Edelgard would, too, she at least seems to wish to make an effort to speak with other countries to try and end conflict.

The next point is about the Crest system and governance. Rhea enforces feudalism, which is not a fun form of government and is very oppressive. I will also admit that Edelgard does not change the government from that of the Empire. But it should also be stated that the Empire isn’t an Imperial dictatorship. See, after the insurrection of the seven, power was taken away from the emperor, giving it to the most powerful nobles, who became ministers.

The emperor can’t actually do much without the support of the ministers. We see this through comments from people like Linhardt and how there are subtle details about Edelgard going off to talk to certain ministers, likely so they would join her side and allow her the power to start this war/help prepare for it. Without the ministers, Edelgard doesn’t actually have the people and resources for what she needs to do. So this isn’t a dictatorship, but rather an oligarchy. This is even further highlighted as ministers who didn’t support Edelgard were forcibly put under house arrest or killed and another would take their place.

I’m unsure of exactly what power the emperor does hold, so Edelgard was either able to put ministers under house arrest due to her power as emperor or through force (considering the people/soldiers seem loyal to her/her ideals and has a few soldiers of her own). Though it seems she cannot strip ministers of their power, as it was rather taken by family of said ministers who then vowed support to Edelgard (i.e. Ferdinand, Hubert, and Count Varley’s wife).

Edelgard wants to put a meritocracy on this existing oligarchy, which either would work, or would fail. The video points out that feudalism is far preferable to the fall of a meritocracy and I’d actually say otherwise. See, if there’s anything I’ve learned from this semester in my classes that spoke on the world and human rights, it’s this: progress can’t happen without change.

Rhea keeps the system stagnant, unchanging. Fodlan is to remain with feudalism eternally. Or at least so long as Rhea and her church have power. With Edelgard’s meritocracy, either one of two things will happen: (1) a change for the better where the government will be more inclusive or (2) the complete collapse (fast or slow) of the government and Empire, which will lead to a new era of change where the people will pick up the pieces and create their own government that will improve the world. This is simply how progress comes about.

I should also note that this is a theme I see within Silver Snow itself. When you follow Rhea and choose to support the church, everything remains stagnant. This is noticeable among the Black Eagles as they don’t get their full development. I don’t want to make this too long, so I won’t go in-depth, but the greatest example is how SS Bernie remains a recluse, unlike CF Bernie who has learned to be more outward. A lot of Silver Snow shows the church using people in a way to try and keep order, creating an unchanging and stagnant world. This is what Rhea does. And this creates more harm than good. Sometimes the best thing to happen is when all falls apart and the people build something new on the cleared foundation.

Next, the video states that Rhea isn’t enforcing the Crest system at all, but that’s not exactly true? Rhea, in a way, is enforcing the Crest system by giving the nobles access to the Relics. These are powerful weapons that can easily be used to hold people at bay or kill them. To provide such power to a select few ensures they hold their status high-up as nobles. I mean, we have an entire chapter which ends with us being required to give the Lance of Ruin back to Rhea so she may bestow it upon House Gautier. And if you don’t give it back to her, she gets PISSED. She is actively enforcing this system.

Not to mention that once again, she requires many nobles to follow the Seiros faith, and follow her as a result. She asks that the commoners have faith in the nobles, which is another hit at her basically enforcing the Crest system. I’d also like to note that the only place where she has less control is in the country that has no nobles with crests of the ten elites (and as such, no relics). Crests seem to matter less in the Empire as we can see many powerful nobles who lack Crests (like, our minister of military affairs has ZERO Crests), which may be part of the reason the church has less control. It just seems that the Crest system is so heavily tied to the church, and it’s only strengthened with the lie the faith spreads about Crests.

I also want to add that Silver Snow shows that the most powerful people within the church are actively given Rhea’s blood and Crest shards??? So she is actively providing Crests to people in power which would only further fuel those with Crests being higher/mightier/more important than anyone without Crests.

The next bit that the video speaks on is how the one major wrong Rhea does is her creation of a false faith and outright lying to people about the past. Here’s what I have to say: Rhea can think of Sothis as a goddess all she wants, but she then forces this upon humans. The forcing of humans to celebrate Sothis as a goddess is partially what led to Nemesis killing off the Nabateans (as far as we are aware, though even that could be a lie, but it remains consistent across routes (Seiros was not the one enforcing faith then, but likely Sothis herself)).

After Seiros killed Nemesis, she created the church of Seiros, which seems odd. Why would you name your faith after a saint (and yourself) and not the goddess you celebrate? It seems odd. I mean, Christianity is called Christianity, not Peterism or whatever (I do realize that there are subdivisions of Christianity like Lutheranism, but that is, again, part of Christianity).

By covering everything up and creating a religion, Rhea simply makes a new way for people to worship her mother as she so desires. It allows her to take control of Fodlan slowly so she might have complete religious control over the people, as that seems to be one of her desires.

There’s a statement in this ending part of the video that really struck a chord with me. The video states that if the church put its beliefs closer to reality, those who slither would have nothing to manipulate Edelgard with. But it should be noted that they aren’t manipulating her. In fact, they weren’t the ones to tell her this. She gained this information from her father, the emperor. This was information passed down to her through the generations.

Her tipping point was being experimented upon so that she might have a second Crest which is also a major Crest. The only way this could have been averted is if the church never took control of Fodlan and enforced the Crest system, preventing Edelgard from possibly being harmed by it and obtaining a secondary Crest. But the only way to do so would be to destroy the Crests and Relics, which I doubt Rhea wants to do (since those are her siblings). In fact, she herself ADDS to this problem as she and all of the saints (excluding Macuil) gave their blood to the nobles who assisted them, which would further assist the creation of a Crest system.

The last bit of the video I wish to comment on is about Rhea’s questionable experiments. No matter how you look at it, what she did was wrong. We don’t know what the first dozen experiments were like, but we know how Byleth’s went. Sure, at first it was to save their life. But then Rhea became obsessive, wishing to turn the child into the progenitor god.

The video states that it seems like Rhea simply wanted Sothis to be reborn in spirit outside of Crimson Flower. But I don’t think so. In every route, Rhea makes comments on Byleth being a vessel and wishing for the power to overcome them, making Sothis return. It seems that the entire time, no matter the route, Rhea has desired for Byleth to be a sort of human vessel to sacrifice for the return of her mother. It is only when this fails and Byleth fights against Edelgard that Rhea gives in and just sees Byleth as being the progenitor god in spirit, Sothis having had passed down her powers to her vessel.

Since the video speaks nothing on anything of the war phase, I will also speak nothing of Rhea’s actions during the war phase. It is then stated that many of Edelgard’s accusations towards Rhea are either outright false or missing context, but I believe otherwise. All of them are true in some form or another, and we never know everything Edelgard does. Edelgard does in fact know the truth of Rhea, but we never know how much of the truth she knows of the Relics (though it’s highly likely she does and just never speaks on it).

It should also be noted that the video says Edelgard is walking the same path as Rhea, though from a different direction. And I do agree. They are two sides of the same coin. People struck by tragedy who wish to right this wrong. The difference is how they choose to pursue fixing this. Rhea does so by becoming some almighty power. Edelgard does so by becoming a tool for her people.

After writing all of this, I will say that Rhea is one of my favorite characters in Three Houses for her writing, and that is due to her tragedy. She’s of so much interest because she’s someone stuck in their past, wishing for nothing more than what they used to have. But they can never have that back, dragging other people down with them as a result.

Rhea may have done some good things in her time, but if she did, I have yet to see or hear them. Perhaps the church has done things to help Fodlan, but it cannot be ignored how much harm Rhea has done as well.

#rhea #fe16 #fe16 spoilers #golden deer spoilers #black eagle spoilers #church spoilers #long post

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azzandra · 5 years

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Boy, do I tell you guys the goofy chain of events that got me into Fire Emblem: Three Houses even though I don’t even own a Switch? Because here it is.

I play Fire Emblem Heroes, which is a free mobile game and has all the shitty monetization practices of one, but that’s a rant for another day, and anyway my brother got me into it, it’s a long story.

So like before FE3H launched, Fire Emblem Heroes had a summoning event where you could get units from the game, and you could get either Edelgard, Claude or Dimitri, and I tried my luck and got Edelgard.

Which, ok, don’t know a thing about this character except I love her little shorts. Looks cool.

Later after the game launched they introduced a few more characters from Three Houses (as I recall, Hubert, Mercedes, Hilda and f!Byleth). And I tried my luck again, and the only character I got from that banner was Hubert. Even though I spent a lot of orbs summoning that event, like probably way more than I should have.

And like, all of Hubert’s flavor text in Fire Emblem Heroes is about how he’s loyal to Edelgard (which I also had, so that was kinda cool)

But look, after I got Hubert, and the game had been out for a while, I just kinda pulled up his image and stared at it because

this was the most Stereotypical Evil Vizier looking motherfucker ever. The fuck. He looked like every Jafar-knockoff asshole who ever stabbed a beloved monarch in the back to usurp their kingdom.

Like. He looked so treacherous that I was absolutely motherfucking convinced the real twist here was that he wasn’t a bad guy, and that he was honestly as loyal to Edelgard as all his dialogue indicated.

So I was like, you know what. Youtube can sort this out. I’ll just look up game footage to see what his deal is.

And I watched a bunch of Hubert’s supports, first with Edelgard and then other characters, and then I watched Edelgard’s supports, and then a whole bunch of other characters’ supports, and then, like, for the past two months I’ve just been going through FE3H character videos.

I’ve never played the game. I, ostensibly because I do not have a Switch, lack the physical capability to play the game even if I so desired.

But I’m in this fandom now, I guess?? So here we are. The dumbest way I’ve ever fallen into a fandom up to this date.

#*shrug emoji*

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earthdeep · 5 years

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ok so

having finished silver snow I've now done all the story content easily available to me, even tho the two music tracks in the extras menu that are ???ed out still do worry me

and tbh I don't have much to say abt silver snow itself bc it is almost identical to verdant wind HOWEVER I'm taking this opportunity to ramble my thoughts on the game as a whole, in a format that will likely not make sense to myself let alone anyone else

I guess I'll start on my thoughts on the lords? + rhea bc she's basically a fourth lord. so like, personal fave is still edelgard bc I am gay and angry with the state of the world, followed by claude bc he's fun and also probably the best person out of all the major players in this game, then rhea further back for being fucking terrifying to me and yet also woefully incompetent at the act of doing anything important, and dimitri is waaaaaaaaaaaaay down at the bottom of the barrel bc I am not here for angry white boys. I'm incredibly disappointed in the fandom wrt how much they adore dimitri. not surprised, mind you, since I've seen the cullenites in the dragon age fandom and their years of bullshit. but still, el and claude have so much more going for them (and are hotter to boot lbr) that it makes it suuuuuuper difficult to claim race and gender has nothing to do with it. but I'm totally sharing some of that blame with the game too, bc dimitri did get brought up in a good light more than, say, claude did in the eagles routes. which is super shite since claude's the fucking helpful one. srsly I had to sit through dream!dimitri in silver snow and you couldn't give me another claude scene- oh my god I just realised I didn't here from him again after he went missing. son of a fuck my dude just disappeared. like I assume he ran off to almyra like every other time but I just never saw him again.

actually, since we're on the topic of claude not being widely beloved enough by the fandom for me not to side eye them, leeeeeeet's point out a little smth smth with 3h's darker skinned characters. bc.... eesh. dedue? absolute life debt mode to the whitest of boys, hobbies include household chores, big brawny lad who's only recently literate. if disney wrote this character he would currently be locked in the vault out of shame. but I guess if it's not a pattern- oh hello cyril. at least HIS life debt is to the whitest of ladies instead! literally, her dragon form is the actual colour white. at least catherine used to be a noble, even if it's in danger of being cancelled out by her also being a brigand. and I don't think she's any good at chores either which is good. but like, the devotion...

we have claude and petra too, who thankfully have lives of their own. but it's hard not to wince when claude is called some variant of sneaky for the hundredth time (he's all talk yo...) and petra's post timeskip outfit makes me feel kinda gross if I look at it too long. it's annoying bc her face makes me feel gay things and then the camera pans and I'm back to oh yeah, they really wanted the tropical princess halloween costume huh.

at least judith's cool. and even wears trousers. I've never seen her in action in my game bc I overlevel and get through fights too fast for her but we stan her on this blog anyway. and this is already the third 3h lady I've had this response to but I am super gay.

anyway that elephant has finally been ushered out of the room, time to ramble about narrative things. bc what the fuck was three houses doing? verdant wind and silver snow were the same but for the final boss (and BOY is that final boss an asspull in both routes) while azure moon is similar but with entirely different factions being discussed, then crimson flower is just HALF A ROUTE?? and tbh crimson flower was I think the best, not only bc it was p unique and let me hug edelgard but also bc it was as short as it was. all the other routes dragged to hell and back as a result of being restrained by the calendar. you have so much fucking energy by endgame that it's a fucking chore to use it all, and you can only go two weeks before you've taught everyone on your main team and need to go explore and feed them or give them shit and then you need to use up all your energy and collect some more ingredients for the meals you keep having and then decide what you're going to do with your free day now all your paralogues are done and you don't want for ore or gold or levels so do you- ugh I know I could just skip but it feels wrong to do when not story appropriate. the calendar system works during the academy phase and fits the almost slice of life feeling it has, but once there's a war on it just destroys the narrative tension. war isn't hell in three houses, war is purgatory.

and now for something completely different: the church n stuff. it sure is very based on the real life church! as an agnostic lesbian maybe you can guess how high my hackles raised whenever anything particularly churchy came up. I do wonder whether IS underestimated how heavily that could sway the viewpoint of the player. bc I walked in ready to burn that fucking monastery to the ground if I'm honest. it's rare to be able to do that to christianity allegories in video games (*cough*dragonage*cough*) so crimson flower appealed to me a lot in a way I'd guess wouldn't to certain others (*stares at the white boy stans*) and it's kind of a kick in the teeth to be railroaded into worrying abt rhea in verdant wind. I purposely avoided support with her during that run and yet my dialogue options the moment she vanished were byleth caring abt her well being. game, the most I care at this point is that she is alive enough to give me some fucking answers on the shit she's been doing this past millenium. and that specific factor makes me wonder whether silver snow was done first and basically copy pasted to serve as a different route, forgetting that the player may not have the same objectives since they've been rolling with claude the visionary for the past year.

honestly the golden deer in general get kinda shafted by the game. I've seen others point it out too, but they get like no exposure outside of claude unless you seek them out. of the eagles, edelgard and hubert are always major characters appearing as bosses multiple times, although the others do fall to the background. then dear god the lions. both ashe and sylvain have entire month's missions dedicated to a part of their backstory during the academy phase! and even while dimitri dies after a single battle away from his route, there's a good chance dedue's coming back for more. claude gets a couple letters and a single battle and then he's out. let us ally with claude you bastard of a game.

I got sidetracked there but like the ashe and sylvain getting prominent story beats in all routes I think was a bit of a lost opportunity. and also probably is the reason sylvain is actually as popular as he is. dude's kind of a scumbag and it really does take being contextualised by his obscene amount of trauma to start understanding or liking him. it also helps he's easy as fuck to recruit and a very viable unit so u have a gameplay route to getting attached to him (legit 3/4 of my playthroughs had me fielding him as one of my regulars).

but think of the potential to add that to other characters! imagine seeing the conditions that led leonie to obsess over jeralt! meeting all these (completely alive!) siblings we keep hearing about then not seeing! killing bernadetta's father! the possibilities are endless and could be easily explained by rhea assigning tasks to students who already have relevant context or whatever. just ugh some of the choices made by the writers annoy me.

sfdlkdfkjdj I don't know how to connect this last bit at all, bc it's just observations abt like the models n stuff. I like how they've obviously set materials up for all the models to easily change clothing colours to differentiate factions. that's cool. they did that with skin tones too, so if you zoom in on like the agarthans you can see their weird super pale complexion (tho for some reason their battalions have regular skin?). tho it does make it weird when the 2d portrait is always the same. this duscar soldier sure doesn't look like his profile pic.

anyway that was the last thing on my mind abt this game. kinda anticlimactic to end on, I know, but rather in the spirit of things. only crimson flower knows what a satisfying conclusion is, after all :) long live lady edelgard yo.

#earthdeep does life #ire femblem #I keep tapping on my screen at buttons that have been moved for no reason I hope ur happy staff

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dlamp-dictator · 4 years

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Allen Rambles about Ashen Wolves

To my followers, sorry for posting this a second time, but I need to test something. If it helps, I edited out some of the grammar issues.

I finished up the Ashen Wolves DLC for Fire Emblem Three Houses about a week ago and man, do I have some feelings about it.

There was honestly more I disliked about it than liked, but at the same time I don’t think it was a complete waste of my time either. The fact that you can only get this DLC if you had the season pass is also something I don’t like, even if I got the pass months ago. I don’t think I could recommend this DLC save for the bonus features and extra classes in the pack, but… Well, let me break down my thoughts a bit here.

The New Classes

Let’s start with something easy like the classes. Overall I think the new classes have their utility, but are in general pretty niche. Mind you, I say this as a casual player just looking at basic utility unit and effort it takes to get them, so it’s possible the more hardcore players will say that War Monk Raphael is the new meta, but to break things down a little…

War Monk

I’m glad we finally have a female-brawling class, or at least class for females to get into, but it comes at a cost. You need a a decent rank in brawling and white magic to use this class, and very few characters have the stats for the that. This has that Mortal Savant problem of a physical or magical character grinding in stat they’re weak in to become a middling hybrid class. Granted, unlike Mortal Savant you can get these classes at level 20, but would anyone really power-level your healer in brawling just to punch things? Or spam characters like Petra or Ingrid in Faith just to have weak heals? I mean, there’s meme-ing and New Game +, but realistically this class feels pointless. Balthus’s heals were pathetic in the DLC and didn’t sell me on this being a hybrid class, or at least not a good one. You’d either get a healer with weak punches, or a fighter with weak heals. (Edit: I’ve just made Lysithea a War Cleric and it’s absolutely hilarious how busted she is with Aura Knuckles. However, that’s one New Game+ so my point still stands.) And while I’ll admit Holy Knight Ferdinand’s weak heals honestly saved me a few times on my Crimson Flower campaign, statistically it’s kind of pointless.

Trickster

Trickster is actually pretty good since it’s a mid-game class that most magic and physical classes can reach, as most magic users also have a decent to high ability in swords as well for some odd reason. Manuela finally has a class to naturally spec into around mid-game that works for her default weapon line, you could also sneak Marianne and Lysithea in there too if you wanted, but overall this class is pretty good. It’s not too niche, it can be worked into during the early and mid game, and while you do have at least unlock thief, that’s not a difficult class to spec into at all. The only real downside is wasting a intermediate certificate to unlock the thief class, and that’s not much of an issue save for time. Overall a good class.

Valkyrie and Dark Flier

Valkyrie and Dark Flyer are female-only classes in a game where I’ve already complained about gender-locked classes. That said, they’re okay. Nice to have a mid-game caster that has more than four movement, but this is still gender-locked, so I can’t have Lindhart flying around spamming warp, canto, and the like. Valkyrie also gives Lysithea something that compliments her dark magic use, but nothing else I can say aside from that. They’re glass canons. Powerful, but can’t take much of a hit. Their canto abilities make keeping them safe a lot easier than most casters.

The Ashen Wolves themselves, as units in the DLC, were a little underwhelming outside of their utility. Like I said, Bathus has weak heals, but his self-healing made him a tank… but that’s a skill most brawlers can get naturally. Yuri was the most useful thanks to his Canto Ring and Foul Play, but Constance and Hapi just felt like more mobile Lysethias, and while Lysethia is great, these maps didn’t really let them one-shot anything like their class functions want them to.

But moving on.

Story

So… a story about the secret fourth house in Fire Emblem Three Houses…

Okay, to make it short, the story is bad.

It’s not terrible, it’s not Fire Emblem Conquest levels of dumb plotholes, but it’s still bad. This game jumped some hoops make the Ashen Wolves work into the lore and story, only to stumble and fall. But before I tackle all that, let’s at least open with something nice, so…

The Good

I’m doing the good in list form because, frankly, there isn’t a lot of good to begin with, but I do want to acknowledge the good that’s in here.

Having a side story involving all 3 house leaders is a good idea. The lack of interaction between them in the main game made it hard to believe the three were friends.

The designs and personalities of the Ashen Wolves themselves are great. Everyone feels unique and don’t bleed into another character, an amazing feat given the size of the cast.

I surprisingly like Yuri quite a bit as a character, if a little annoyed by his blatant secret-keeping and obvious heel-turn later throughout the story.

Abyss in general is an idea I can get behind. Garreg Mach already had secret underground tombs and sanctuaries, so I can buy it having a secret society of undesirables underneath too, as well as protectors in the form of the Wolves.

The final boss was actually pretty fun, both in terms of challenge and mechanics… not a story detail, but it’s also something good.

The Bad

Okay… where to begin?

The actual plot stuff… dear lord.

For context, Cindered Shadows revolves around three things: the Rite of Rising, a botched resurrection ritual during the early days of Garreg Mach. The Four Apostles, four mystics with special crests that conducted the Rite of Rising and were exiled after failing to resurrect Sothis. And Byleth’s mother Sitri, a nun of the church that died soon after having Byleth who also had a secret admirer in the form of Abyss’s benefactor. All three of these points feel tacked on for the sole purpose of having a fourth house exist. The descendants of the four apostles just happening to be in the same place? Byleth’s mom just happening to have a random admirer as the main villain? The fact that a second type of resurrection ritual existing that just happened to never to be mentioned? Now, I’ve only finished Crimson Flower, the route that did the least amount of world-building and setting explanation, but even I recognize that some hoops are being jumped here. It feels like there’s a lot of world-building either being ignored or retconned so that the Four Apostles make sense within the lore. Especially since all four Ashen Wolves just happen to be descendants of the them. That’s just poor writing to me.

Yuri pulling that double heel and face-turn at the end was also dumb. Yuri being a rouge and scoundrel with secret motives is fine, that’s basically his character at a glance. However, that makes the heel-turn obvious, especially when it happens within the last three chapters of the side story. Again, it just feels like bad writing to have the obvious rouge character turn on you at the last minute. Yes, there were some hints that he was playing both sides, but still. The shady guy being shady isn’t really much of a plot twist, and while that isn’t bad in itself the fact that the writers try to frame it as clever, or at least as an honest surprise just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall, it feels like what was going to be a simple story about Abyss and the people there turned into something more complicated for the sake of giving it more importance, and that irritates me.

And the gameplay? The maps themselves? Let’s talk about that next.

The Maps and Gameplay

There’s a video by a Bismix that summarizes my feelings perfectly:

“So how was Cindered Shadows?”

“Foul Play was cool.”

And you know what? Foul Play was cool. A special movement skill that swaps places with a unit at decent range. Combined with the Canto ring it was a damn handy tool to move around Edelgard and Lindhart. But aside from that, I have a question for the Old Guard of Fire Emblem. The folks that have been playing this since that old GBA title that featured Eliwood.

Do you like getting kicked in the dick? Repeatedly?

Because that’s what these levels felt like. A map full of Assassins with high Avoid, magic users with high damage, and every unit having Silver Weapons. Is there a reason for this aside from challenge? Is there a reason to be this disadvantaged after chapter 3? And the reinforcement, don’t even get me started on the reinforcements. Chapter 2, 3, and 4 were complete bullshit because of them. Three waves of reinforcements and the Death Knight? A 1-in-3 chance of summoning reinforcements with a stats debuff for pulling the wrong lever? An escape map that features an entire army of reinforcements at the very last section? There’s challenge, and then there’s this.

I’ll ask again Old Guard, do you like getting kicked in the dick repeatedly?

Because whenever I see nonsense like that I remember the complaints about current Fire Emblem games being too easy. And while I’ll admit to not being a hardcore fan of this series, I doubt that the game was meant to induce so many unfair advantages and rage-inducing moments toward the enemy for the sake of challenge. I had to set this game down at least five times while playing through this DLC. I don’t find it a challenge to face a mountain of enemies that only four characters on my team can realistically fight, and only 3 of them actual able to hit said enemies. I don’t see feeding half the map to Byleth, Dimitri, and Balthus because they’re the few units that can take the hits and get kills to be skillful. I don’t get how spamming reinforcements after a long and difficult map is adding challenge.

The only map that had an interesting gimmick was the final boss. Their map-wide attack displaced your entire army and summoned two phantoms that would be sacrificed to heal the boss at the end of your next turn if you didn’t kill them in time. However, the phantoms could be killed by most of your party in one or two rounds, and they dropped heal potions for your party to share and use to prep for the next phase. That map was a matter of prioritizing which units to tank the phantoms damage, trade blows, heal with the potions obtained, and get into position to do major damage to the boss when it was on cooldown. It was fun once I learned the pattern and a challenge as you couldn’t just spam the same units to take out the phantoms due to the party displacement. It was fun, interesting, and required on-the-fly strategy, the only map to really do so.

This… is leading me down something off-topic, so I’ll simply say that adding challenge in a turn-based RPG should always be based on gimmicks and special rules to keep the gameplay interesting, rarely should raising numbers be the main way of adding challenge.

With that out the way I’ll get to my last point, which is…

Small Nitpicks that Only Bug Allen

I’d usually state this portion first, but this DLC had so many bigger issues that I feel it’d be best to use my nitpicks as a cooldown rather than a warm-up. Thankfully my nitpicks are more so my preferences than actual nitpicks, as most small issues I have with this DLC are issues that came from the original. That said:

I feel like Ashe and Hilda should had been switched out for Mercedes and Raphael. We really needed at least one more decent healer in that group, and as I said before, Bathus and Yuri’s heals are pathetically weak. Either that or Lindhart should have had the Warp spell. Raph would had another decent tank that wasn’t as much of a glass canon as Hilda. Yes, we had Edelgard, but I would had preferred Raph do the tanking.

Jeralt and Sothis should had been involved in this DLC. I don’t care that they were trying to keep the canon point ambiguous, it should had happened. If Byleth wasn’t going to react to their mother’s dead corpse then I sure as hell would had liked to see either Sothis or Jeralt do so. Again, I don’t like Byleth, but that lack of emotion on their part really kills moments like this.

I would had liked it if they didn’t lock skills. Chapter 3 and 4 wouldn’t had been so suffering if Lindhart could warp Edelgard a few times. Again, getting kicked in the dick isn’t my idea of fun or challenging.

So, with all that out of the way I think I can move on to my last point, which is:

In the Future

Like I usually say, I find it pointless to try and “fix” a story that’s already been told, but I see nothing wrong with make suggestions for the future.

That said I’d like to see the next story DLC focus more on the culture and world of Fodlan. We only know about these places by name and their students, not much else. A DLC that covers the five-year gap would be nice, something that doesn’t have Byleth in it would be nice too. Fire Emblem Fates had a few Corrin-less DLC maps, and Fire Emblem Echoes had some side stories without Alm and Celica. I think it could work. A story DLC on the church and specifically Sothis would be great too. A story map that showed how Dimitri lost his eye. A prologue map showing all the houses meeting up before Byleth came into the picture. A playable map of the Battle of Red Cliffs, things like that.

If we get more classes in future DLC then please no more gender-locked classes is all I have to say. Anyway, that’s all I got for now. Maybe now I’ll actually finish the Gacha Rambling…

Or maybe I’ll do a thesis on Granbelm, which ever comes first.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses

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emperordeathsatan · 4 years

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What can i say about this game that you have not all heard, over and over again. To keep myself coherant, i will focus solely on the gamplay, and aesthetic factors. The simple, basic improvments over the last few fire emblem games, make all the difference. Archers and magic users have more utilities, and just straight up better skills. The complete revamping of magic opens up so many new opportunities, amd gives them way more use than just beingThe ability to use any weapon on any class, completely changes the game, and opens up an infinite amount of new ways to experiment. Although i enjoyed the children/parent system from the last two games a lot, removing it allows for a lot more openess in how you build your characters and supports. The introduction of gauntlets is something that i found to be very pleasing, although i wish they would've had more than one class line for them. The game is still bogged down by rng level ups, critical hits that come of nowhere, and gender exclusive classes and all that, but the former of those are no worse than they've ever been.

One of my main problems with the game is that the the houses division is by no means equal, it is incredibly slanted towards the blue lions, despite people thinking that that honor would go to the black eagles, at launch. The amount of variation in routes, however, is extremely impressive. All three routes clearly have some reused maps and bosses here and there, but they make the best out of the double treading, with some of the maps that you have to do twice being placed at pretty interesting points in the individual stories. The sheer amount of unique dialogue programmed into the game is absurd, and absurdly entertaining. Every character has different dialogue for every route they can be recruited into, and all of it is fully voice acted. The thing that really interests me is that the characters actually develop differently in alternate routes

Golden deer was an adventure and a half, my first route through, i didn't know anything. I kind of awkwardly fumbled around the game just grasping at the concepts that it had to offer, slowly gaining a fascination with the story and watching the events unfold. I could not count the amount of things in my first playthrough that really didn't feel like they would ever belong in a fire emblem game. Meeting characters as allies, enemies, and third parties, it really gave me an interesting perspective. The route ends up going places that i never thought i would see in a fire emblem game. By the end of the game, i had throughly fell in love with claude, and had a wide smile across my face during the final boss.

Black eagles is not a route that i like, i do not like the way that any of them are written, i do not like the intense lack of any interesting events, i do not like that the entire story could be reduced to "You beat the enemies", with the plot being hilariously one track, i do not like the incredibly little prescence that the other house leaders/retainers have, i do like the final mission, i absolutely hate the way that Catherine and Cyril are written. I barely even consider it a "real" route, because it tells you arguably less about the empire and edelgard than blue lions does. It doesn't even have an ending! It's not entirely bad, because it contains some of the most emotional moments in the game, and hubert and edelgard are strong characters, and the game gets damn interesting when you put felix and sylvain on your team, but this was not the finest outing of my game of the year.

By the time i had shacked up with the blue lions, i was always well versed in the game, the world, the characters, the ideals, the combat, the training, all of it was routine by now. That allowed me tonget through blue lions pretty fast. Goddamn this route for being the one that was clearly given the most focus by the developers, you notice that pretty quickly based on how important the blions characters are to the overall story, especially in part 1. So i begrudingly say that this route is the best one. The character of dimitri, and the way the player and their students interact with him, is completely different from claude and edelgard. There's nobody else that can properly replace dedue. This route gives the most amount of screentime to a highly underutilized antagonist. It is a classic fire emblem tale of love and loss.

It may seem like i'm just rambling or spewing nonsense, but if you've kept up with me at all you'll know that this game makes me feel things to a degree that i rarely get to see in a video game. I laughed, i cried, i fought, i died i won, i lost, and i enjoyed every second of it. Fire Emblem: Three houses is the most fun i've had with a strategy game since XCOM2, maybe ever.

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kendrixtermina · 5 years

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SUBJECTIVE OPINION TIME re: Rhea

Me: * Finishes Empire Route * Maybe it’s just because both dogmatic zealots and quasi-parental figures than only love you “conditionally” tend to set me off personally, but man, Rhea is scary

People: “Well she goes off the deep end there, in the other routes she’s much nicer”

Me: Alright then lets see what nice Rhea is like * waits for it *

[...]

Me: ...where is it?

Rhea: *Is barely IN the other routes* *Never once talks to any of the people who are so loyal to her* *it looks more and more like Edelgard did everyone a solid by removing her from the equation and they dont even know it*

Rhea’s support chain: is nothing but major creepo vibes (and some Jeralt backstory I guess) - you do get “personal space plz” dialogue options so this isn’t entirely unintentional

Rhea’s S support: “I fabricated a false history, deceived everyone and was literally giddy about the prospect of you becoming a meat puppet until you offered me your tits/dick”

the vibe is very much “This character was basically evil until just now, but sinse she’s somewhat (sym?)pathetic we’re letting you redeem her if you’re really comitted to it” - and why not? Video games are all about freedom. And it makes total sense that she could be swayed by someone acting as a strong protector to her since she has a very childish, self-centered mentality and basically wants her mommy.

Just saying, none of the lords require you to screw them for them to listen to reason. You could run off with their best friends if you wanted.

Alliance Route: Edelgard was right about the censorship and shady meddling... actually, it’s even worse, because she’s to blame for the rampant xenophobia and closed-mindedness too!

I already suspected that Nemesis wasn’t going to turn out to actually have been good/ that there must be a bit more to it, but I’d had a lot more sympathy if she hadn’t basically enslaved 1000 years worths of humans for something their distant ancestors did. Nemesis and the elites were dead. In fact she killed them, and rightly so! But even if she could kill them again and again it wouldn’t bring back Sothis. And what did the commoners ever do to deserve this?

All while the actual Culprits go unchecked, cheerfully inflicting similar slaughter on, say, Edelgard’s and Dimitri’s families.

They had sad backstories too. Almost the same one (”Agarthans killed my whole clan”). What did Edelgard do with it? Decide that she will uproot both the meddling shadow factions, end inequality and give power to the people even if she has to give up everything she cares about, so the same never happens to anyone else. Sure, she had a much harder time trusting or connecting with people and dealt poorly with being cornered but she recognizes that her classmates aren’t to blame for what their fathers did. What did Dimitri do with it? Well he struggles alot, but he definitely developed empathy for the downtrodden and other victims of violence and he makes an effort to be aware of his shortcomings and be a good person most of the time. He never believes that trying to do good or fight evil means that hes perfect or cant be criticised. At some point he definitely held some resentment against Adrestians as a whole (not just Arundel or Edelgard themselves), but he got over that and became a dedicated peacemaker.

Both of them have more maturity and self-awareness at 23 than Rhea has at 23 hundred.

Church Route: Well, at least Mama Eisner actually DID die of natural causes and there’s no indication that she mistreated her ‘experiments’ in anyways, but it can’t have been great for Byleth’s mom, to grow up knowing that she’s considered a ‘failure’, that her mother figure would so much rather that someone else take her place and is just waiting for her to die of old age so she could repeat the process.

And then there’s how she made all the higher ups of the church drink her blood/ crest stones

Would this have happened to Jeralt if he hadn’t died when he did? Heavens could she have monsterified anyone who disagreed at any time?!

And just to twitch the knife she just HAS to call poor Byleth “mother”to their face at the very end after they went through all the trouble to rescue her and forgave her for the meat puppet thing.

Kingdom Route:

- The Ashe/Cassandra support DEAR GOD

...did she just get off scot free?

It’s not like I want her dead, per se, just not-a-threat-anymore.. She lives in her S support but she also partially recognizes her wrongdoings and that she’s unfit to rule and even goes on to atone, so, no objections from me. Whereas here we never see her realize that she was wrong in any way. Sure she’s stepped down but she’s probably discarded and assumed new identities a bajillion times. Just because she CAN cause trouble again doesn’t mean she will but if it were me I’d want some minimal assurance that she wont...

People: “But she has a sad backstory/sympathetic motivations/characterization other than muahaha”

Me: That’s decent writing, not morality.

By “evil” I don’t mean “cackling disney villain”, I mean that a certain critical mass of badness is present and that her motivations are mainly selfish at other’s expense. Sanctimonious delusions just make it worse.

Like you might feel sympathy towards some guy who was beaten by his father until you find out that he then went on to beat humiliate and mistreat his own children. It’s the same principle, though I recognize that this is by naturally subjective.

She’s clearly intended to be tragic/pitiable and I’m certainly not going to get on anyone’s case for feeling sorry for or emphatizing with her (let alone liking her - you’re allowed to like antagonists and not every opinion has to be some great act of moral value)

But wether or not one wants to use the label “evil” which by nature is a subjective emotion-charged thing, or the entirely separate question of what one would or wouldn’t view as appropriate countermeasures, there’s no denying that the results of her actions were net negative and that she was just plain incompetent and accountable to no one. And she wasn’t ever gonna stop.

It’s hard to give her a pass for being childish when Edelgard, Claude and Dimitri (eventually) take on so much responsibility and determinedly pursue altruistic goals though they are young and inexperienced.

As I see it, Rhea’s a “rule the world” villain whereas the Agarthans are a “destroy the world” one. Lawful vs Chaotic evil. Out of the two you’d probably prefer to be subjugated by Rhea because she’ll act as a benevonent tyrant as long as you do not openly defy her but both view the surface-dwelling people as lowly animals. In Rhea’s case, you get to be the pet cat, and she may even protect you like a pet cat. But pet cats dont get any say in how they are governed.

#fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #Rhea #archbishop rhea

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