#literally straight up in every route went ''not a single territory trusts the other and they all secretly hate each other''

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

okay so like two things about this particular line.

one: i like the irony in claude telling someone to trust more.

two: HOWEVER, dimitri has literally absolutely no reason whatsoever in the name of yeehaw fuckity to not trust claude. i hate the way the game tries to absolutely force the things gw/sb claude does into ag when it doesn't even exist at all in ag. he never made a single hint of planning to just betray/harm the kingdom and this is literally at their first war meeting. not just that, but claude chose to go to faerghus himself and didn't ask them to go to leicester (which he specifically states being the one to choose to go to faerghus), so there wasn't anything indicating he might be up to something at all.

then we've got this stupid nugget:

each side lacks trust and is expecting foul play? the church expects foul play from the kingdom? from the alliance which has done nothing to them in this route, and that's bad enough... but the fucking kingdom too?

the kingdom and alliance watching for foul play even though they're allies and never had a history of being aggressive toward each other?

i know i've talked about it before but... i just hate how they tried to force this "claude is always scheming something terrible" plotline, even where it doesn't belong. then they also added in the dumb bit here about even the church not trusting the other armies, even though they've... literally been helping them, gratefully, this whole war. they also didn't have to fight but chose to out of gratitude for being sheltered.

suddenly after the timeskip they just... don't trust each other?

like i totally get just being in it to reclaim gm and go home and not really in it for someone else or anyone else, but the distrust is just an asspull to make the church seem BaD as usual.

claude just walked in and wasn't trusted. they also keep hammering it in right through the whole second half of the route with lots of kingdom allies (including playable ones) not trusting him. even if they relatively trust the alliance and the soldiers helping them that were integrated into their army, they specifically do not trust claude at all and are apprehensive about him.

dimitri agrees here if they can't be trusted, but he doesn't mention just personally distrusting them a whole lot. he agrees that they should be cautious if what the others say is true, but he also just shrugs it off as "they'll be enough to deal with the alliance if so". he seems unsure at first and kinda goes back and forth, but by the end he's the only character who faithfully believes that claude isn't just fucking around and leading them on (which literally, right to the very very very end, every single character except him is still very vocally doubting claude).

but like... why? there's... just... nothing to distrust him because of in this route. man literally exists and the game wants us to believe he's untrustworthy.

yeehaw wtf??? why would anything happen between the kingdom and alliance after the war? why would anything need to happen? even if you try to argue that claude is gonna try to uwu depose of the top church officials, if the church is watching the kingdom like hawks like dimitri is apparently aware of, why would the kingdom get involved? why would they care? clearly the church doesn't trust them all that much after all, or at least anymore since the timeskip for some unknown reason, and the kingdom has now, after this war, paid back any debt it owed the church.

so like, why would they suddenly rush to the church's aid and help them if the church doesn't trust them? if they were friendly/allied it would make sense if they still wanted to help, but if the church is expecting foul play from the kingdom, why would the kingdom even care what happens to the church? they could turn a blind eye and pretend they don't have the resources to aid them anymore and that their own territory is still busy recovering.

even if you argue what they discussed at the very beginning of the war, the church either A: didn't ask for aid in this second conflict, or B: even if they did, the above stands. i don't think there would be any riots or anything like that in those cases if the kingdom didn't help the church. it's one thing to help, but it's another to just fight at the back and call of another territory, which dimitri clearly expresses he won't do in gw because he puts the safety of his people first. no matter what his feelings are on the matter, he knows he's a king and that he has a responsibility to his people first and foremost, as would be expected of a king (to protect his own people first and foremost).

while i could see claude wanting to talk after the war and get things straight, and while i could see dimitri there as a mediator, there's just... literally no reason for bad blood after all this. even if they don't trust each other, there's just no reason - and that's aside from the fact that it's total bs that they all just don't trust each other.

lorenz just asks if shez has confidence in them. doesn't mention claude. shez though just... randomly is like oh yeah btw just not claude. totally unprompted.

lorenz distrusting claude has been part of his character since houses so his part of it is reasonable. normally i'd say it's really pushing things with claude not being trustworthy for someone to say they feel bad for shez/the kingdom army for the implication of having to deal with claude even as an ally, but the only reason i give this a pass is because it's an understandable and reasonable character who says it.

still though, it's like the game throws it in at every single possible opportunity for no reason at all. they don't give us any indication that claude is this big bad evil guy. he doesn't trust the church. like... that's it. he made that clear even in ag (even without the zaharas chapter), and that's just... it. the rest of this makes it seem like claude is going to just up and invade the kingdom after this war and try to unify fodlan (i.e. just go what edelgard's been doing this whole time).

it's just like... here, nobody trusts claude at all in this game just for simply existing. you don't even have to bring him up, because someone else will do it for you and shit talk him to remind you he's the biggest piece of shit the game can offer! meanwhile, we've got marianne who is concerned about edelgard (implication is her well being no less!) because the empire's army ain't doing so hot. poor indading aggressor! sure hope she's doing okay! fuck our leader though, he's the biggest steaming pile of bullshit garbage to ever exist (marianne didn't say that, but that's what the narrative is going for: poor edelgard, it's so sad that the invader is having it rough right now. anyway fuck claude he's literally as evil as tws).

i love ag but i'd say this is one of if not the worst hiccup in the writing. when it comes to faerghus itself and its characters, it's mostly fine and even great, but when it starts going into other territories/characters it ends up taking a nosedive in quality.

siiigh

#DCB Three Hopes Run #it's actually super ironic how ppl were lauding this after the trailers as #''it's gonna be the golden route game!'' like to begin with there was zero actual evidence of that #so idk why ppl just jumped to that conclusion based on snippets of in game events #but also like??? this game tore that apart like it was ripping up sensitive documents to be thrown out #literally straight up in every route went ''not a single territory trusts the other and they all secretly hate each other'' #which. again. totally fucking stupid. but also hilarious that they went so far out of the golden route zone #and yet it's the game everyone was SO SURE would be the golden route #(even after they'd said they'd never make a golden route lmao) #but yeah the writing is just trash every single time they involve like anything outside of in-territory fighting #like the empire turmoil was fine. the writing wasn't really bad with the whole ludwig versus edelgard thing #and the stuff that was like leicester against almyra was fine. nader was even written well for that! #but once it gets into mingling territories however they're mingling be it fighting or allies #it gets so muddy and stupid and it's like what was even the point of doing that in EVERY route #hell by logic caspar would've been a recruitable character bc he'd see the bullshit going on in the empire and be like #wait this is fucked up nah im outta here i ain't fighting for this shit #but he just... stays??? bc he wants to fight for... edelgard??? who he is CLEARLY AWARE is not in charge anymore??? #like if you were fighting for edelgard you would've fought against the ppl using her so... tws #even if you argue he didn't directly know it was thales and not ludwig at the helm caspar as he's supposed to be would never have #condoned what the empire was doing and would've left. if he thought it was ludwig in charge and hated what was going on he would've left #he's an idiot if he still thinks he's actually fighting /for/ edelgard at that point. his father even basically told him to get out of ther #but evidently once territories mingle in any way the writing just SKYDIVES out the window from the top floor of a skyscraper

[cow6thegenius]

EPISODE 11 - SPY RESCUE

Winners: Brian & Toby

Losers: Kate & Luke

Eliminated: Kate (Cooper, Black & White II)

TOBY

Okay, I didn't make any confessionals yet because, well....a lot went down that round! But at the end of it, after several strategies were scrapped and redone, I was still able to develop a winning one and grabbed the Token of Life for Brian and I! So, that's great. It also turns out that my instincts about this round being a double elimination were also good (I bet you MONEY that Tactical Yutnori would've been the DM), and given I won it's kind of a shame that the double got cancelled!! But it's also definitely the most fair option LMAO it'd be very weird if anything else happened here, and F7 isn't something to sneeze at!! But, with another double coming up, it means the Token of Immortality is SO important to me. There's a good chance it's already been taken, but that code is *really* difficult. Like, I've tried genuinely dozens of options, I've run every textual analysis I can think of, ruled out as much as possible and I'm still at a loss. Hopefully this clue from winning (which is en route at the time of writing), plus a clue I'll almost certainly buy with Garnets will help me out, and hopefully it's not taken!! (I'm bolstered in that hope because Jack was the first person to buy a Clue and he didn't get it, so that's hopeful). If I can find that Token I'm literally guaranteed top 5, which would be INCREDIBLE. It also would mean that I'm a single token of life away from FINAL FOUR????? I don't want to get ahead of myself of course, but it's showing why this Token is so important to me because it'd give me so much security, albeit not much power (Next round, if there are only 2 Tokens of Life, if a Token of Immortality gets played too, then the other 4 just go into the death match by default lol). But who cares!!! Because the SECURITY is just so valuable holy shit. So I'll be spending as much time as I need on these puzzles, know THAT. Anyway, with the win (It was honestly a pretty boring win, the main strategy was using the Bunkers to prevent hideouts from being placed on our territory, which was a good strategy that was upended by miscommunications somewhat), Brian and I are now in the position to pick between Luke and Kate. My preference is definitely Kate, but I know I don't make that choice alone, and I think I slightly shat the bed with Luke by being cautious and not wanting to overpromise. So now I think he's worried that I'm not 100% with him (this is accurate, I'm not), and will be looking out a little more. So it's *very* important that I sway Brian because I don't see Luke being eliminated for a lil while, and I want to have as many allies as I can in the game, especially going into the next MM which will almost certainly be a bloodbath. I reeallllly don't know who Kate is going to pick, but my gut says they'll just straight up both pick Cooper LMAO. Mans is not very good socially....so hopefully he can win the DM! That'd be very nice, and would continue this lil pattern of alternation the "sides" have in winning and losing DMs!  But yeah, a lot of this is about my plans, and right now my plans hinge on working my little tushy off to find the Immortality Token and waiting to see what the heck Brian wants. Overall, glad to win the MM! I had a ~vibe~ that I'd be eliminated this round, so I'm glad that's wrong!!

NELE

I really hate Pancake.

CROW

been a hot minute since i've done one of these again, but the game has started moving a lot faster with lesser and lesser options and surprisingly I'm still positioned okay??? Cooper reached out to me and we've been building trust rapidly so that's an unexpected, lowkey relationship I don't think anyone is onto or expecting to happen which is cool! Right now he's in elimination against Kate though so it looks like I'm losing an ally either way :( it's ironic though because I was only able to save Kate (initially) from the DM bc of the info Cooper gave me. (Cooper was trying to make sure Govind would go in, so that he would be safe from the DM). But I couldn't expose that relationship so it's just a tough spot right now. I DID FINALLY FIND THAT SILLY LITTLE TOKEN OF IMMORTALITY THOUGH!!! and if next round is indeed another double elim, I'm guaranteed f5??? which is so wild to me but. I'm hoping a threat (or two!) can be eliminated next round bc I think I'll def have to go into a DM before the finale to have enough garnets to compete (plus it'll be really hard to avoid anyway) I haven't told anyone yet - even Nele, just because there's alternative motives for anyone to leak that I have it :( I feel awful but I hope they can understand and are thankful it's in my hands and not in Toby's.... but yea! Toby and I have this rivalry going on and frankly I'd like to see him out before too long, and I'm sure that the feeling is mutual, but people seem to keep trusting him and getting burnt and at this point...idk. I've said my piece, I've shared my feelings/lack of trust about him, so if people wanna jump in the viper pit with him to get bit, that's their choice. I do think it'd be kinda funny if Toby and I stayed in this game together for the long haul but I don't see us working together ever again as that bridge was kinda burnt when he went around telling everyone I was after them so :(

BRIAN

Let's be honest here, I had zero clue what was going on for most of this challenge but it worked out in the end. Something about how charming I am I guess, they just gave up the hostages like that But then we get to the not-so-fun part of deciding who the death match candidate will be, either Kate or Luke. It's a pretty obvious choice for me. Luke has pretty much cut off his game relationship with me (since he only ever texts me when he needs something or just to say "hey") whereas Kate I've been actively building up a very strong relationship with for the past couple rounds. I saved her over Govind and she owes me big time, especially if I save her again. But nope, Toby decides that Luke is a better asset to us than Kate is. I tried to convince him but he wouldn't budge. I don't think he realizes that Luke is never going to help him in a death match scenario (unless they have some sort of secret relationship) whereas I can 1000000% get Kate on our side if we need her, or at least on my side which, let's be real, is all I care about. So Toby forces the randomization and PF COURSE Kate picks Cooper. And Cooper is 100% correct that he's better for my game than Kate is, but now either I lose my closest ally or I never get to cash out on a relationship I betrayed Govind for :( Look what happens when other people think they know how to play this game socially. Katie didn't listen to me and went home, and now Toby didn't listen to me and Cooper could go home because of it. I'm fuming

#cowthegenius #episodes