#Emblems

[diana-andraste]

Illustration from Allegorien, neue Folge, Martin Gerlach, 1900

[fitsofgloom]

The Cult of The Nightwing Avenger!

[daughterofposeidon27]

So…I’m trying art for the first (ish) time. Since I’m a massive Starkid nerd, I felt it only fair to try to make a kinda artistic (emphasis on kinda 🤣) emblem thing for the Lords in Black…

[chasingrainbowsforever]

~ Black and Gray ~

[stone-cold-groove]

Great Seal of Louisiana. Bond certificate detail - 1960.

[heraldryandemblemwars]

Welcome to a new Tumblr poll blog, Heraldry and Emblem Wars!

This account is dedicated to polls and tournaments related to heraldry and emblems. I originally held heraldry polls and tournaments on my other blog @flagwars, but I’ve decided to leave that account to flags and focus on coats of arms and emblems here. The winner of the Heraldry and Emblem Wars tournament held on Flag Wars was the coat of arms of Mexico.

This account was formerly the home of the Bisexual and Pansexual Monarch Tournament, a tournament to find the most popular bisexual or pansexual character. However, it has been almost two years since the tournament, so I’ve decided to rebrand it.

The coat of arms above is the arms of Flag Wars and the Heraldry and Emblem Wars. This is the blazon: Azure, a cross voided argent surmounted by a plate charged with a kiwi azure. For a crest, a globe proper. For supporters, two kiwis azure standing on a compartment of two fern leaves sable, issuant from their eyes laser beams vert.

[dexjarxenoengage]

Have you ever noticed that Alear and the Four Royals acts as a Five Man Band? The story may not show that well, but their gameplay, nations and represented Emblems demonstrate that they are this trope perfectly. Veyle acts as the Sixth Ranger (actually 11th Hour Ranger). They best represent this trope as well because Alear, the Royals and Veyle are the only playable characters that can’t die on Classic Mode (oh and Vander too, but he’s just a mentor kind of guy).

The Five Man Band is among one my favorite tropes in media. Why? IDK why, it just is. I used to be a Power Rangers fan, five is usually among the highest these teams get to. In which case it becomes a Three plus two scenario where a Power Trio becomes a Five Man Band (Ninja Storm, Dino Thunder, and Jungle Fury come to mind).

I bring up this trope to talk about Fire Emblem Engage specifically, Alear, and the Four Primary Royals fit this trope. And it’s not just in team composition, IMO, the Emblems they are best known for (specifically in the Prologue cutscene) best give idea on why they fit the role in the team.

Alear the The Hero/Leader of the team; because obviously they are the Fire Emblem Lord, they are the Divine Dragon: the only one who can summon the Emblems who can save the world from the Fell Dragon. And just like any other Fire Emblem Lord in the franchise, if they are defeated, it’s a game over. Pretty typical Fire Emblem knowledge.

Alear’s most common Emblem is Marth. Marth is the first ever Fire Emblem Lord in the franchise, the idealistic leader that his loved ones trust and follows. Marth is the first of many sword wielding heroes in the franchise. Swords are a very common weapon type for heroes (Micaiah is the only Emblem in the main game that canonically never uses swords).

Alfred is the Lancer. Who usually acts a foil to the Hero/Leader, usually is their first/best friend/companion, and/or is the first to question any decision the leader/hero makes. Not every character of the archetype has to be a rival or a jerk (or in most cases both), Alfred is one of those examples. Alfred is the first Royal to join. Firene has the closest ties with Lumera, and Alfred appears in more cutscenes than any other Royal in the game. (Double points for having Lances as his primary weapon type).

The Emblem he uses in the Prologue is Lucina. Lucina is the not the central protagonist of Awakening, Chrom is. Even still, Lucina is a character who acts as an emotional foil to Chrom. More importantly, Lucina is the descendant of Marth, who happens to be Alear’s most associated Emblem.

Diamant is the big guy/muscle of Alear’s team. Brodia is the Kingdom of Might after all. Diamant is the most physically imposing with his main stats being his HP, Strength and Defense. Diamant is also the tallest and oldest member of the team (age being 25, Alfred is 21, Ivy is 20, Timerra is 18 and Alear is physically 17).

Diamant’s national Emblem is Roy, who gives Sword Power as an inheritance skill that allows Diamant to hit harder with a sword, but at the cost of avoid. Rise Above (Emblem Roy’s Engage skill) increases his level and stats along with them. Ironically, Roy was 15 years old in his games, Diamant is the oldest Royal, yet Roy is one of the younger FE lords next to Leif.

Next is Ivy, befitting of Elusia’s title of the Kingdom of Knowledge, she is the smart girl. Ivy has gone to school and was at the top of her class. (Studying is also one of her hobbies and likes items regarding them) Ivy is the most level headed of the Royals. Ivy is the only member of this main team that uses magic, and her ability to fly and heal is invaluable in a Fire Emblem game.

Ivy is associated with two Emblems rather than one. Lyn (the Emblem entrusted to Elusia) has the ability to summon doubles that can be used to distract the enemy. While Leif is an Emblem that switches between your current weapons it best suit the situation (often for the worst, unfortunately). It’s also worth noting that Soren is the DLC Emblem entrusted to Alt. Elusia. Soren is the Tactician of the Greil Mercenaries.

Finally, Timerra acts the emotional core to the team as the heart. Despite being far more politically savvy than what her peppy personality might suggest, she still is a genuine mood-maker in her supports where she attempts to get Ivy to open up and give perspective to Diamant on their ways of leading their countries. Her Queendom represents Freedom and is a very accepting person.

Her Emblem is Ike, and even if people mainly see him as a snarky guy, Ike is a very compassionate person. I mean, Ike would have to be a nice guy if he is the only person Soren is unfailingly kind to and is devoted to above everyone else. Ike’s Resolve (pun intended) is the thing that keeps the Greil Mercenaries from falling apart after his father’s death. Gameplay wise, Timerra with Ike act as a Critical Hit fighter with Wrath and Sandstorm. It takes a lot of effort and a bit of luck to make the most of her.

And finally, Veyle rounds out the team as the Sixth Ranger (doubles as 11th Hour Ranger, she is the last recruit in the main game). Sixth Rangers often comes joining in the team after a rivalry dispute and or brainwashing (Tommy Oliver (trope namer) and Zuko from Avatar comes to mind), Veyle is no exception. Veyle is the only other Non DLC Dragon units in the game. Most Sixth Rangers often (like the Red Ranger) have a power no other Ranger does.

Veyle doesn’t have a designated Emblem outside of Marth (who her evil self used, and she has boss dialogue with Emblem Marth in his Paralogue), but I consider Emblem Alear to be the closest thing Veyle will get to a designated Emblem. Her evil self also wears Alear’s Ring in the bad ending.

The major difference between Alear’s team, and the Four Hounds led by EVeyle is that the Hounds were already formed long before the story began. Alear and the Four Royals don’t officially form until more than halfway through Engage’s main story chapters. And yet these guys became a real team where the Hounds failed.

[prosthetic-placebo]

Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon emblems art

[taritoons]

In order to please my old followers and my new followers in one go: Have some MGS heraldry. (Thus pleasing no one. I can't be bothered to write blazons this time around, sorry.)

☕ Support me on Ko-Fi ☕

[superlinguo]

New gesture Emoji in Unicode 15.1: Head Shaking Horizontally and Head Shaking Vertically (aka shake and nod!), and (finally) right facing emoji

Unicode 15.1 will be rolling out to phones and computers across this year. It will include lots of new CJK (Chinese Japanese Korean) ideographs, some new line-breaking rules for syllabic scripts, and a handfull of new emoji! There's a phoenix, a breaking chain, a lime and a brown mushroom, as well as new family silhouettes and a handful of existing emoji, but now facing rightward!

Below are illustrations of the set from a recent Emojipedia summary of the 15.1 update.

The two emoji I'm most excited about are Head Shaking Horizontally and Head Shaking Vertically. That's head shaking and head nodding to you! I wrote these proposals with Jennifer Daniel and the Unicode emoji subcomittee team.

Why the more elaborate names? Well, Unicode tend to describe emoji by form, not function. That's for very good reason, because a head nod might be agreement for you, but in other cultures a vertical movement of the head can mean disagreement. This has provided a double challenge for emoji designers, who have to both show movement and also facial features that aren't too positive or negative. Below are the Emojipedia pair. They've done a great job.

These two emoji are actually made by combining a classic emoji face wtih the horizontal (🙂‍↔️) or vertical arrows (🙂‍↕️ ) using a special Unicode character called a Zero Width Joiner (ZWJ, 'zwidge' to it's friends), which means that even though they're two characters they smoosh together to create one emoji. It's the same process that makes all the different flags, as well as the gender and skin tones.

In fact, all of the emoji in 15.1 are combinations using the ZWJ mechanism; including the phoenix (🐦‍🔥), lime (🍋‍🟩) and brown mushroom (🍄‍🟫 ). Those new right-facing emoji are a combination of the usual left-facing emoji and a rightward arrow🚶‍➡️ .

It's exciting that Unicode have decided to try this set of right-facing characters. Many emoji are left-facing, which is a legacy of their Japanese origins (the word order in Japan means that right-facing makes sense). I've been complaining about emoji directionality since 2015, and I'm glad that this update will mean that lil emoji dude can finally escape a burning building for those of us with a left-to-right writing system and Subject Verb Object word order. They've started with a bunch of people in motion. It will be interesting to see if this set is where it stops or not.

(no no buddy!! To the exit!!)

The use of the ZWJ is an elegant solution because it means that you don't have to make a whole new codepoint for the emoji, it just uses the old one. If someone doesn't have their phone or computer update to 15.1 then it should fall back to just showing 🚶‍➡️, which somewhat conveys the intent. That's the magic of a good ZWJ combination.

Earlier posts on emoji gesture

Gesture emoji: contributing to the Unicode standard

New Publication: The Past and Future of Hand Emoji

Gender Variations for Person in Suit Levitating Emoji - Emoji Proposal

New draft emoji include 3 proposals I co-wrote!

Emoji as Digital Gestures in Language@Internet [Open Access]

Earlier posts on emoji directionality

Emoji Deixis: When emoji don’t face the way you want them to

Don’t run towards the fire (the on-going problem with emoji directions)

[mysticpink]

Just a random skit in my head from seeing Anna’s bond supports with the Emblems.

Anna: *being a tiny gremlin child*

The Emblems, minus Celica: *has Anna flashbacks* who lost their sassy lost child?

Celica: ???

[nerdneeds]

[uwmspeccoll]

Staff Pick of the Week

We hold several editions of emblem books from the 16th though 18th centuries, including several early editions of Emblemata by Andrea Alciati, the progenitor of all printed emblem books. It was quite by accident that I encountered this little emblem book, Idea de un Principe Politico Christiano Representada en Cien Empresas (Idea of a Christian Political Prince Represented in 100 Maxims) by the Spanish diplomat and essayist Diego de Saavedra Fajardo (1584-1648), published in Amsterdam by the noted map and atlas publisher Jan Janszoon (1588-1664) in 1664.

I was quite taken by the 103 emblematic copperplate engravings illustrating the book's 101 (not 100) anti-Machiavellian essays on the education of a young prince intended for the son of Philip IV of Spain. The first edition was published in Munich by Nicolao Enrico in 1640, and was subsequently published in several editions (including this one) and translated into several languages. It is often thought that the first edition was published in Monaco, as it appears on the title page, but the Latin name for Munich is Monacum.

The choice of the emblematic form by Saavedra follows the example of Erasmus that, in order to teach the maxims to the prince, one must "present them to the memory intently, at times with a sentence, at times with a simile, at times with an example, at times with an apothegm, at times with a proverb." I am charmed by all the engravings, but I think my favorites are the beehive with the epithet Nullipatet (Null and Void) and the last image with the epithet Ludibria Mortis (Games of Death).

View more posts with Emblem Books.

View other Staff Picks.

– MAX, Head, Special Collections

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[fieriframes]

[Mirror and the obolus were the emblems of these new schismatics.]