#[sephiran!! my whatever this is sephiran!!] | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theofficersacademy · 9 months

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Arval Sephiran Yuri Edelgard Nel Felix Jakob Kent Grima Ayra Veyle Lyn Diamant Sothe

TEAM TAG: #AOzayin2024 LOCATION: Lilium DURATION: First part Jan 8 - Jan 12 (noon), Second part Jan 12 - 14 (midnight)

You don't know when exactly you fell asleep, or how long you slept. All you know is that at some point you opened your eyes again and the sun was just rising over the eastern walls. And the walls were whole. And there was not the acrid stench of smoke in your nose, or the tang of blood in your mouth. You had dreamt of this place - of a Lilium before its destruction - and now it has been made real before you. You look around, realizing that you're standing in the middle of the street. A shopkeeper unlocking her door for the day stops when she notices you, then smiles and waves.

"Morning!" she calls. You absently wave back. The keys jingle until she opens the door and enters to start the day. The scene does not loop like it had when you dreamt of this place. The door remains open behind her and you can see her figure bustling around in the shadows within.

Where are you? You remember the question, and you remember your answer. Home. The past. A place to protect. A place you'll never have again.

You wander aimlessly for a little while. You had arrived here in the middle of a tragedy and your hands had been put to use immediately, but now there is no emergency. No destruction. Nothing to do.

Eventually, you come across a gathering in the square. By now the sun has risen to its midpoint and the city is alive. A man dressed in beautiful silk robes of pristine white stands on a podium in the middle of the crowd. His hair, which is also white, is brushed back from his youthful face, but when he speaks, he does so with the eloquence of age. A device in his hand amplifies his voice as he addresses the crowd:

"My promise to you is that war will not come to this land. This monument will drive away the beast; it will not even be able to look upon Lilium, in fact!"

The crowd murmurs with tentative interest.

"I have seen the destruction on the frontlines with my own eyes. ██████ aims to drive us to extinction, to destroy everything that we have built with our own hands, all because we refuse to bow our heads to the stars! We have tried diplomacy. We have tried compromise, but the beast cannot be moved to feel our pain. It continues to send armies to set fire to our homes, to kill our livestock in the dead of night, and to sabotage the "sinful" culminations of knowledge that have allowed us to defend ourselves so far. That foul creature has even tempted our own to join its brainwashed masses, and tragically they cannot see how they are mere fodder in its pursuit of total annhilation!"

The crowd grows more fervent.

"Our people deserve reprieve, in whatever form we can give it. Do you not agree?"

The crowd cheers.

"Then, my friends of the beautiful city of Lilium, allow me to set up my invention within your walls. Allow me to be your safeguard so that your energy may be better spent on your friends and family. If the beast turns its eyes upon this magnificent idyll, I promise you that they will be seared out of its hideous head!"

A rousing speech. By the end of the day, the Upright Man, as you have come to call him in your consciousness, has been allowed shelter within Lilium. In the morning, work begins.

WHAT YOU KNOW

You've found yourself in a city called Lilium. You remember it being under siege and nearly destroyed when you arrived, but now it's in one piece and the people here seem happy and whole, albeit anxious about the war.

The majority of the population seems to be women, children, and the elderly. The able-bodied have been sent to the frontlines to defend against ██████.

To Arval, Yuri, Sothe, and Kent, the enemy is some powerful, greedy figure unafraid of crushing others who have no means to fight back. They may have a name in mind. They may not. But their hearts are tugged just the same. To Ayra, this figure is an emperor leading an army bent on conquest. They want the nepenthe from the caves outside of Lilium for their own use. To Diamant, Veyle, and Nel, the army consists of friends and loved ones killed and then reanimated to serve a lord they never would in life. For Jakob, he knows his parents are among the traitors. For Felix, it's a former friend. To Edelgard, the enemy army is puppeted by a church. To Sephiran, it's led by politicians. For Lyn, however, they are simply bandits that will not stop until they have razed every town, village, and city in their way. Grima sees the face of god.

You have met the following NPCs: Celephais, 67 - a successful toymaker and inventor; their shop is any child's dream Keranes, 74 - a war veteran, retired due to injury in the last conflict with ██████; married to Celephais Electra, 21 - a bright and gentle soul, fond of fantasy; a new mother, her husband has gone to war Arke, 2 - Electra's daughter, hardly understands the world she lives in Tyro, 133 - one of the village elders, long-retired from his job as a miner; often cynical, believes ██████ is after the nepenthe in the caves near the city Zenobia, 36 - an engineer; called to war along with the rest of the men and able-bodied of Lilium, but was discharged when she became pregnant. her child has since died and she rarely has words for anyone Minos, 8 - Celephais and Keranes' son, doesn't understand why everyone can't be friends

Kent and Sephiran know the location of an abandoned manor with a painted pole nearby. This house seems to have been left mostly untouched by whoever used to live there.

The city is separated into four blocks. Block A, situated toward the southwest, is a residential area with small shops and boutiques. Celephais' toy shop is located here. Block B, in the southeast, is a factory district and the location of the Upright Man's temporary workshop. Block C, in the northwest, is the location of the infirmary. Lastly Block D, in the northeast, is a residential area where most of the elderly live.

WHAT TO DO

Note: When you choose a task for your character, they will not be able to leave the block until the end of the week.

BLOCK A (Risk: None)

Patrol beyond the walls (max: 3 people per thread) — Ever since the war began, the people of Lilium have believed that the conflict will eventually reach them — For every post, roll D5. If 1, enemies encountered. All else, nothing out of the ordinary. 　　　･　When enemies are encountered, roll D3. 1 is ██████'s followers, 2 & 3 is common highwaymen 　　　･　Each participant in the thread will then roll another D3. Ping Mod Ree for your enemies 　　　･　Proceed with traditional combat. The thread is completed once one side has lost all HP or runs away

Gather energy blocks (max: 2 people per thread) — Celephais has requested your help removing the magical energy stored in the toys they've made. They will be given to the Upright Man to fuel his "monument." Unfortunately, the machine you will be using wasn't designed to extract energy and often breaks down. — Roll D4 per post. — If 1, the machine breaks down. Roll another D4 to determine cause: 　　　･　Overheating. Roll D10 to attempt to cool it with water or ice magic. Rolling 6 or higher is success. Each full rank the character has in Reason adds +1 to the roll. 　　　･　Extraction error. The entire energy block has to be scrapped, and the toy is broken. Start over. 　　　･　Jammed machinery. Roll D10 to attempt to fix the parts. Rolling 6 or higher is success. Each point of Dexterity in the character's inventory adds +1 to the roll. — Gather 1 energy block every 3 successful posts (unless machine breaks down due to extraction error, then start over).

BLOCK B (Risk: None)

Repair automaton (max: 2 people per thread) — Under Zenobia's guidance, you help repair massive automatons in the factory district. These metal monsters can help with more difficult tasks, like lifting heavy objects, erecting buildings, and, with the right equipment, defending the city — One character will hammer out a piece of iron, the other character will weld them to the machine 　　　･　To hammer, roll 3D10 per post to determine score. The higher the better. Each full Axe rank grants +1 to each roll. 　　　･　To weld, roll D10 per post to determine score. The higher the better. If hammer score is 14 or lower, subtract 1 from weld roll. If hammer score is 8 or lower, subtract 2 from weld roll. — The machine is repaired upon reaching a score of 80. — Number of Scrap Metal gathered in Week 1 adds +1 per scrap to starting score. You may also destroy Iron, Steel, and Silver weapons for additional Scrap Metal. Iron = +1. Steel = +2. Silver = +5

Search warehouse for supplies (max: 2 people per thread) — Move and open boxes to gather materials. The Upright Man needs Spare Parts and Energy Blocks. Everything else will be yours to keep. — Roll D6 per post. Each full Heavy Armor rank grants an additional +1 to the roll 　　　･　if 1, box cannot be moved without help from your partner. Your turn makes no progress, and your partner must roll a 3 or higher on their turn to help. If partner has Backup, grants one reroll. 　　　･　if 2, you drop the box. Roll D10, where 6 or higher will allow you to evade. Every point of speed currently equipped on the character grants +1 to this roll. Failing to evade inflicts -2HP (subtract -1 for every point of defense currently equipped) on character instead, and partner must roll a 3 or higher on their turn to save them instead. 　　　･　if 3, 4, 5, or 6, you have a lead. Your partner must roll 3 or higher to add to your roll. Once the combined total equals 10, you have successfully found something. 　　　･　When you find something, roll D10 to determine what it is. Be sure to carefully log what you find and the amount, because it may be useful to you later. Items can be used immediately by the person who found them, or saved for next week. 　　　･　1. Scrap metal 　　　･　2. Iron Weapon (randomize: Sword, Lance, Axe, Bow, Gauntlets) 　　　･　3. Energy Block (x1) 　　　･　4. Spare parts (x1) 　　　･　5. Whetstone (x1) or Spare parts (x3) (randomize) 　　　･　6. Steel Weapon (randomize: Sword, Lance, Axe, Bow, Gauntlets) 　　　･　7. Scrap metal (x3) 　　　･　8. Medicine (x3) 　　　･　9. Energy Block (x3) 　　　･　10. Whetstone (x1) or Scrap metal (x3) (randomize)

Refine nepenthe (max: 2 people per thread) — Refined nepenthe is needed to power the Upright Man's creation. The ores mined from the caves around the city must be hammered down into a near-liquid state using a special machine. — One person controls the lever that raises and lowers the hammer. The other person must quickly flip and turn the ore inside the machine without getting struck. Once the ore is at the right consistency, it will automatically drain out of the machine through a grate in the bottom. 　　　･　To raise and lower the hammer, roll D10. The lower the better. Every point of Dexterity subtracts 1 from the roll. 　　　･　To turn the ore, roll D10. Every point of Speed adds 1 to the roll. If the roll is higher than the hammer's roll, then successfully turn the ore without being struck. Whenever the character is struck, they lose 0.5HP. — Score will be calculated at the end based on the pairs of posts where the second muse is not struck.

Test energy blocks (max: 2 people per thread) — To ensure that the energy is sufficient for the Upright Man's "monument," each block must be tested or else risk damaging it. To do so, place an energy block in a special machine, adjust the magnetic plate, and watch the 5 lights on the console change color. — For every post, roll 5D6. Every Reason rank that your muse has grants them one reroll opportunity. If you have reroll opportunities, select the numbers you wish to keep and then reroll the rest. For example, if you roll 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, and choose to keep both 2s, you'll reroll 3 dice instead of 5. —Possible combinations: 　　　･　No combos: you can't figure out if the energy block is a dud or not… maybe no one will notice 　　　･　3 of a kind: you're decently sure that the energy block is fine, but there's a 50% chance that it's a dud 　　　･　4 of a kind: you're pretty sure that the energy block is fine, but there's a 25% chance that it's a dud 　　　･　5 of a kind: you're 100% certain the energy block is fine. You can pass it without worry — Keep track of the combos you get for each post. Score will be determined at the end

BLOCK C (Risk: None)

Volunteer at the infirmary (max: 2 people per thread, at least one must have healing spell) — Consume staff uses to heal the injured in the infirmary. Roll as if healing during combat, affected by character's equipped stats. — Remember that your staves have durability, and you may not be able to recover their uses

Prepare meals (max: 3 people per thread, only one thread allowed for this task) — The infirmary hosts the largest kitchen in Lilium, with the greatest access to ingredients and resources. Cook for the Upright Man and his crew to bolster morale — Posts do not require rolls. Every post counts as 1 meal

BLOCK D (Risk: None)

There is nothing for you to do here

IMPORTANT NOTES

This event will be mostly driven by players unless otherwise stated. You will have tasks to complete throughout the week, the results of which may hurt or harm you in the long run. Every decision you make will impact you in one way or other, so choose wisely.

Content of a thread should NOT be limited to the requirements of a task. For example, if you choose to move rubble, you are not limited to writing your character moving rubble. Post counts and rolls are here as a way to score your progress, but that's all they should be used for. Focus on building relationships with your teammates. A post will still count for moving rubble even if you never mention rubble in your post.

We encourage thread replies to be short and quick, but still interesting for you and your teammates. While we won't be disqualifying anyone for taking longer than a day or so to reply, Mod Ree will be making sure that all threads are moving at a regular pace. Players who stall their threads will be skipped without their input.

IC failure will still progress the narrative, so use every action or outcome to build your character's immersion in the plot.

Team Zayin's team document is linked here. Please use it to take notes, log task outcomes, and keep up with threads.

If you have any questions or need more information, ping Mod Ree.

#toaapollyonouranos2024 #AOzayin2024

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sharpscion · 1 year

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✶ — › 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐒 ‹ — ✶

Here we have one prime Blue Lions student, ready to take on the new prompts of the month with vigor. Take a look and feel free to IM me here on Tumblr or message me on my Discord: rez#0206.

[ SWORD +1 ] - Swordsmasters of Elyos and Hoshido have long inspired people with their signature finishing move: the ability to cut through an opponent with dazzling speed, so fast that one can’t even perceive the blade leaving its sheath. The Battle of the Eagle and Lion reignites interest in learning these techniques. Determined students have made some progress but haven’t quite mastered the move. Think you can help them? TAKEN BY KATARINA !

[ LANCE +1 ] - During your brief absence, a powerful storm flooded Garreg Mach with what felt like an ocean’s worth of rain. The forested path that leads to Remire Village in Adrestia is still flooded, turning dirt paths into muddy swamps that even the horses don’t want to touch. It’s the foot soldiers who finally have their day, using their lances to vault over bogs and deep puddles.

As the Ethereal Ball is only a little ways away, students and staff are doing their best to prepare via dancing lessons, outfit shopping, and event planning. This year a vendor arrives in town with a wagon full of flowers from all over the world in full bloom. They’re quite the romantic though, so luckily for you, they’re even offering corsage and boutonniere lessons. gift your crush, significant other, sworn enemy, or whoever it may be a lovely floral arrangement that you hand-picked and handmade! They won’t judge if it looks ugly, but.. maybe the person next to you is better at arranging. TAKEN BY TINA !

There’s been an uptick in monster sightings in the Sealed Forest, coinciding with the decline of wildlife in the area. Crest stones found in animals’ mouths and embedded in their skins confirm the Church’s suspicions: bad actors, likely Agarthans, are turning these beasts into vicious monsters. One of the Knights of Seiros has plenty of experience with the Agarthans’ tricks. She’s asking for volunteers to help her gather whatever Crest Stones they can find and put the infected wildlife out of their misery. TAKEN BY SEPHIRAN !

NEW !

A baron claiming to hail from the southern lands has arrived at the monastery to offer “Spectacular Sparkly Spirits” to anyone willing to endure a round of his new magicks: festive eruptions of glittering smoke, a perfect fit for festive seasons like this one. Sounds easy, but those who once took the offer before you warn against doing so—they’ve suddenly found their trinkets missing and their newly hunted game gone. Are you willing to risk loss to see a few entrancing eruptions of colored smoke in the shape of boars and rabbits? They’re sure to make you the talk of the ball this year if you can get your hands on them.

[Grants Reason +1] - Your hoard of crest stones collected from the Sealed Forest beasts grows steadily the more you work, in number and in power. The stones sing a siren song that appeals to some instinctual, animalistic part of yourself. A growing desire to take them, hold them, make them yours. It’s hypothesized that this is the very influence that attracted the animals to the stones in the first place. After a rash of attempted robberies and disappearances, you and another are tasked with guarding the Crest stones through the night. The strange curse upon the stones tempt you, but you must stay strong…

#⌜ OOC . ⌟ ✦ * · ˚#toa plotting

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oysterie · 2 years

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sephiran is funny to me idc abt his actual morals or beliefs or whatever but like. this guy was like "yeah existence is suffering and I am working on my plans to destroy the world and let the goddess flood the planet again but also this 5 year old who's family just died ill step in and raise her" "all living beings are evil and we should let the goddess turn everyone to stone but also let me erase the memories of this horrible event these kids witnessed because nobody that young deserves to live with that kind of trauma" what was his deal

#also he became prime minister why did they give him that job. sry idr any of his endgame speeches so if im wrong </3

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zelgiusofbegnion · 2 years

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Legacy of a Bygone Blade

@bluestmoons

"Black Knight Zelgius. You were my father's killer. And my last teacher."

As Zelgius lie in the Tower of Guidance, beaten and bleeding, he could not help the smile that spread across his face. He had been defeated in this final battle, but what a battle it had been! Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined his end would be so exhilarating! Never in his life had he felt so fulfilled, so alive! Perhaps it was appropriate that it was only at the end of his life that he could finally say he had no regrets. He had spent his life living in the shadows, but he had died blazing in the light. Now that his life was spent and that last, greatest struggle finished...perhaps now he could indulge in peace.

As the last life left his body, Zelgius felt no pain or fear. He felt only a strange, comforting calm. He felt all the weight he'd carried all these years fade away into nothing, and an inexplicable feeling of relaxation spread across his being. He lie there, blissful in that serene timeless peace. Perhaps it lasted for but a few seconds, or perhaps it lasted for centuries. Zelgius couldn't tell; he only felt like he was drifting through the most soothing air he had ever known.

Yet that blissful void could not last. All too soon, Zelgius found weight return to him. The ache of muscle and tension of tendons dragged him from his serene stupor back into the inconvenient world of sensation. He struggled to keep still in this strange, ethereal dream he'd found himself; he'd spent all he had, after all. There was nothing left for him in the land of the living. There was no point in returning, and it would aid no one if he did so.

Yet whatever force was responsible for his current state would not be denied.

He suddenly felt himself lying upon some sort of grassy surface. He very much was not thrilled at this, and he almost considered just laying there and letting nature take its course. Yet, he was roused from his self-pity by something wooden poking his right cheek. He let out a light grown before slowly sitting up, regretfully opening his weary eyes.

He was...in a forest? Certainly surrounded by a bunch of trees, if nothing else. They lacked the ethereal vibrancy of Serenes, so there was at least one place he was sure he wasn't. Even so, that didn't exactly help him in figuring out where he was. He brought one hand up to soothe his aching head, but gave a start when he noticed something that made this situation even stranger: he was still wearing his armor, but it was the wrong armor. Rather than the black armor of Sephiran's Knight, he was instead wearing the red plate of the Apostle's General. His left hand quickly moved to his side, and it found his blade, but it was the General's blade, not Alondite.

Before he could begin to puzzle out what in the seven hells was going on, he noticed something moving to his right. He turned his head quickly, ready to strike at a moment's notice, only to find a little girl looking back at him. Given her clothing, she didn't appear to be a peasant, but in his situation, he couldn't be sure of anything. Slowly, he began to speak as he allowed his hands to leave his sword. "My apologies. You startled me, my lady. May I have the honor of your name?"

#bluestmoons #zelgiusofbegnion #zelgius #leonie #fire emblem #blazing sword #radiant dawn #fire emblem rp #fe rp #heyo #hope this was alright #and i hope to have fun rping with you!

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randomnameless · 4 years

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I don't know if this has been asked before, but I was wondering what your thoughts on Rhea are.

Oh, I don't think someone asked it, but I remember a character meme.

Rhea's in the Julia tier : you're expecting things and the game doesn't give you any.

you asked for thoughts so this is long and rather unorganised even if i tried a bit and i feel like i repeated myself a lot so meh

If Edel and Rhea have one thing in common, it's being shafted by the need to make Billy the most special being every with the monstrous "I was lonely before you player-chan uwu".

Seteth'n'Flayn ? In the same trashcan Hubert went in.

Catherine, Shamir, the randoms living in the monastery? Dgaf but still she's willing to die for them so does she really gaf or not? Rhea's willing to give her blood and crest stone shards (to this day I still don't understand what those are) to trusted randoms who would become cardinals? "uwu player-chan". I know I've written a bit about it with the seirelm anon, but with the Canon-ish info? Post Zanado Rhea told a random dude she could turn in a dragon, gave her blood to the same dude and remained in his empire/fighting by his side for at least 30 years. Still “lonely without U Billy <3″

I've written this in the meme entry, but Rhea has her own net of relationships. They're not as important as Dimitri and his childhood friends, but erasing them for the sake of "player-chan" feels wrong.

Role and goals

Rhea's in an interesting place, being a former "legendary hero" like Athos, Sephiran etc.

Still her fight isn't over, she only defeated Nemesis and couldn't end the mastermind behind (a bit like Seliph if you only kill Arvis or Roy when you forget to pick up every legendary weapon). Also, if Seiros killed Nemesis, she hasn't won. In the current Fodlan, she still has to pretend to be a human, the Nabateans as a culture/population are dead. They're still 5 (ish? I think the apostles are lizards), she's still afraid humans will dice them if they learn the truth. Has she won? Idk. Could she win and make a Fodlan were lizards and humans could live together? I don't think so.

Her role as the Archbishop? Well, the game really liked Rhea as a red herring during white clouds and the way FE16 is built, around the monastery, reinforces it. Rhea's the head of the monastery, so she's the head of your world. Everything wrong with the world is automatically linked to Rhea.

So, when Marianne complains about people wanting to kill/ostracise her because of her crest, thinking it's a curse, we of course wonder "why Rhea can't tell to the randoms that no Marianne shouldn't be killed/shunned because of her crest?". Completely forgetting that, hey, Marianne's from the Alliance and heiress of Edmund, so if some people should intervene, it should be her dad "why the fuck are you trying to kill my daughter" or the Alliance council "Duke Riegan, could you please make a public statement about my daughter and how she isn't some sort of demonic beast so stop throwing rocks at her?".

Same thing with the Empire, why should you blame the church and the crests instead of the people doing shit? Hanneman's brother in law? Like is marriage so absolute that a husband can force multiple pregnancies on his wife to the point of literally killing her? The von Essar aren't as important as the Bergliez, but Hanneman's sister dying like that should have rang some bells? Hanneman's dad didn't care? No one wanted to appeal to the Emperor or something? If Jane the random or Karen the peasant died this way, it’d be usual class nonsense. But a noble woman??

Rhea should have done more to prevent crest abuse. She wrote tenets in her Bible and apparently doesn't discriminate in her monastery. But in the other countries? Idk. Her tenets are interpreted like your shopping list by Gloucester Sr "and add a part where interacting with foreigners goes against Seiros's teachings what yes I know better than those dunces from the eastern/central church".

It's not because Riegan Sr and Ionius aren't doing shit that she should do nothing too, but ultimately it falls on the usual landmine about Rhea's influence and power over Fodlan and if we consider Fodlan isn't just the Monastery we see but a continent made up of 4 autonomous states...

The so-called status quo isn't upheld by the church alone (if it is upheld in the first place!), but also by the empire and the Alliance... Lambert was toasted before making any changes, the Alliance is that weird thing where money is anything and crests/old nobility doesn't matter anymore, and the Empire is... Well. The Empire.

Regarding this, I find it really strange that Rhea went to Goneril and rescued one of their slaves, with how much she cares about protecting her monastery and not antagonising anyone, picking Cyril up, risking the ire of house Goneril, feels really risky from her perspective.

Imo WC doesn't sell me the "church rules over the continent" take.

Ultimately it doesn't matter because Rhea thinks she should have done more, and abused her position as the archbishop to rez her mom - I understand the "abused her position" as regretting her various omissions, like helping more people around etc etc.

I also feel like Rhea’s got a big survivor complex, and tries to fulfill impossible tasks. "leading/guiding the world?" she won't take an active role in it, but still resents the state of current Fodlan and wishes Sothis could restore some order (crest abuse? Or relics popping up right and left meaning more sibs dying). She wants to :

1/ guide the world and make it a better place (why complaining about the wayward Fodlan otherwise?)

2/ protect randoms who live under her protection

3/ make sure no one learns the truth about her appearance and relics at the same time.

I don't think it's possible given her current role and especially not possible on her own.

About 3/, call back to FE9 or not, but Rhea's paranoia is... Actually, not proven to be exaggerated in the game.

Ranulf was lynched in Crimea when he was discovered to be a laguz? In a certain route, Rhea's called a cruel beast due to her appearance, accused of not having "human" feelings and is depicted as a creature masquerading as a human. Hate and attack the woman all you want for things she did or might have done, but getting rid of her because she's not human? Rhea's right about not revealing her true nature, because, relics notwithstanding, humans will try to kill her for being a nabatean. Relic wise, in the DLC, we learn Aubin was recently turned in a relic, so that's even more reason to hide.

On 1/, wanting to promote peace in the land? National bias at play with rewriting history “to promote peace” issue. Rhea also built the officer's academy (if nobles from different states can live and study together surely they won't try to kill each other when they return home because they might have become friends?) and with help from the everyone in Fodlan (even the empire iirc?) built the locket to fend off Almyrian invasions. Not saying this is the best way to protect your borders but at least she tried to help instead of staying holed in her monastery.

Imo if Rhea didn't care about Fodlan, she'd have followed her bros and fortified herself in her monastery without accepting random humans to live with her, wouldn't have written a book about how everyone had to get along "unless it goes against the goddess" and wouldn't basically run what seems to be the biggest orphanage/place for the needy/and whatever is the abyss in the continent.

Not saying she doesn't have a priority, but Rhea tries to care, on her scale, about Fodlan's randoms.

About said randoms (and 2/)...

Well there's this bout with Lonato's rebellion and another herring where Rhea's all "I will destroy anyone who takes arms against the church and its believers" and it's extreme, I can’t deny. But if Lonato took arms and mounted a militia to attack Ositia's castle and its randoms? Hector'd have Armads'd Lonato without a second thought. Elincia had qualms about taking her weapons against her own countrymen who were used by Ludveck, but in the end, she took up her weapons to defend her castle, even if it meant she had to kill militiamen. Rhea's line seemed random and cold in the context, but it's the same general idea, attack her people and she will kill you. Still, if you don't take weapons against her, she won't react violently. Duke Gerth is apparently dick waving with Aubin's relic, but Shamir wasn't sent to recover the thing or to get rid of Gerth.

Ultimately Rhea blows her cover and abandons her dream to reunite with her mother to protect the monastery and its inhabitants in 3 routes (arguably in CF too). Someone once made a post about the differences between Seiros's and Edel's crowns and the symbolism of wings - the IO's wings are meant to protect. The IO is the guardian/protector. Rhea tanks missiles and buys time for the students to escape at the cost of her life.

Relationships

Rhea and Sothis? someone made a post summarizing my thoughts about their relationship, or lack of, and if we can argue Sothis was shafted by the devs like Rhea and Edel, ultimately the only important person to Sothis is Billy.

Billy doesn't warp Sothis's preexisting net of relationships, Sothis doesn't have relationships with anyone save for Billy. Rhea wants to meet her mom more than anything else (save for protecting randoms) but Sothis will never address that plot point. She only does in SS and off screen, and it ends up with Rhea wondering if she should live... so take it as you want, but to me it mustn't have been the "hug and pat on the head" kind of reunion.

Ultimately we see Rhea is able to let go of her dream (rez mom) in several routes, she understands and acknowledges Sothis will never return and Billy has her powers now, so either she dies more or less at peace knowing she can trust Billy with Fodlan's future, or she can return to Zanado and live peacefully with Catherine.

Which leads me to the Billy relationship,

As much as I hate player pandering, it makes some sense that Rhea would support Billy and not, let's say, Caspar. I still hate it though because Billy exclusive support means we were robbed of Rhea's other supports with, idk, her fam, Cyril, Catherine, Shamir, Alois, Hanneman, Manu etc etc.

In the beginning of WC, Rhea's pretty sure Billy's Sothis but without memories. Then in the non-cf chapter 12, she tells Billy they know what they are and thus must guide Fodlan, also telling Seteth Billy's a vector for sothis's powers, but not Sothis herself. In SS's finale she calls them "mother" but in her S-support finally acknowledges Billy's their own thing.

In CF Rhea's vicious in her trash talk but immediately jumps to the conclusion that Billy cannot be or hear Sothis, because, to her, logically, Sothis wouldn't side with Edel and her Agarthian allies (stealing the crest stones, Flayn, etc etc). Billy is something that stole Sothis's crest stone and sword and wants to finish what Nemesis started. I don't think CF Rhea snaps because Billy isn't Sothis, CF Rhea snaps because, again, someone is using her mother to kill her.

Rhea's also supposed to have been fond of Citrus to the point of talking to her remains (something she does with her mom) which could explain her sympathy for Billy regardless of the Sothis project.

Jeralt's a different issue, apparently they worked together for more than 100 years but Rhea never told him the truth about her nature, only about how he was saved. Still, Jeralt betrays when his baby is "weird" and unlike regular human babies so... Would he have ran away if he learnt what rhea was? Dumped Citrus if he knew she was an artificial being? Idk.

Catherine Shamir cyril and pals (Alois)? We don't know bcs the game dgaf about anyone not named Billy. As I said above, It’d have been nice to get more interactions with randoms she is working with, or at least showed some care, but nope. “Player-chan uwu” strikes again.

Seteth'n'Flayn? Rhea's close to them, she gets out of her room to look for Flayn and Cyril and Catherine note how she seems close to Seteth (who's totally her bro), but again, the game hates us. FFS don't think she has a line with Flayn!

Secrets and explosions

Tied to 3/ and 1/ from earlier, Rhea keeps a lot of secrets which could justify her lack of relationships/supports with the others... but this argument falls flat, because she’s not the only one with a secret and if Flayn doesn’t seem to care that much about hers, Seteth does and is still able to support students and staff members. Which leads to tragedies.

The Christophe incident is not well documented, and while we learn Rhea was the target of Christophe’s attempt because Western peeps told him so, it is not very well explained why she didn’t execute him on those grounds instead of falsifying charges about involvement with the Regicide. We are told it was to stabilise the Kingdom, but I still don’t know how the Kingdom would have suffered backlash if Rhea told the truth (maybe it would have led to open conflict between the western church and the central church in the kingdom, when the kingdom needed stability at that point? idk).

Still, Lonato wants revenge for Christophe, not because he was executed on false charges, but because he died ; imo, if Lonato learnt the truth, he’d still be out for Catherine and Rhea’s head.

Aelfie’s gambit is more of a direct result of Rhea’s secrecy, because she had “no words” for him about why Citrus was still in pristine condition, he gave up and tried to rez her. Would it had been different if she told him what Citrus was (and by extent, what she was)? Idk. Maybe, maybe not.

Still, Rhea doesn’t keep secrets from everyone every time - she once trusted Willy and told him about her alternate form and it exploded 1k years later, when Willy’s descendants are out for her head because she’s a creature masquerading as a human (I know mole people also played a part, but I guess it sticked more with Edel and the gang who already knew Rhea was a dragon ; trying to convince a random that “hey, this woman is a dragon !” would be more difficult). CF-wise again, Rhea trusts Billy with the SoC and, again, it explodes. In CF Rhea feels betrayed, she trusted some people and now the very same people (or their descendant in Edel’s case) are trying to kill her.

So it’s not a case of someone never trusting anyone, it’s someone trusting some people and regretting it afterwards (in both routes + CF at least, even if I firmly believe the “evil lizards ruling over the world” spiel doesn’t come from Willy, but from later emperors influenced by mole people).

There can also be a point made for Aelfie, who might have been able to merge with Citrus to create an umbral beast because he had Rhea’s blood and a crest stone shard - Citrus being a fake Nabatean and Aelfie having a crest stone + blood might have produced CS’s final boss? Rhea trusted Aelfie with a crest stone shard and her blood, and he became an umbral beast.

Interestingly, Rhea is hell bent on keeping her secrets regarding her identity, in SS Seteth has to beg her to reveal everything to Billy when Billy is the most important person in the world “uwu” or at least, the only person Rhea supposedly opened to. Even the “uwu” factor isn’t enough, on its own, to make her reveal the truth about her identity.

She gives Claude half-truths, and has to be on death’s door to tell him everything - still occulting Seteth’n’Flayn, to the point where Claude later wonders if there are other children of the goddess around.

Vengeful Rhea?

Rhea isn't a stale piece of bread like Julia. She says mean words to Nemesis but also brutally kills him. Rhea cannot forgive the Elites. I know it's very different, but Julia "dad is the kindest man I ever knew" making a 180° “i must atone for what dad did eff him” will always make me throw up - she doesn’t have to be vengeful or try to stab Seliph with a butter knife, but no acknowledgement of “dad’s the bestest” after his death, or even, of his death is meh.

To Rhea, Nemesis and the Elites are a trigger point, and everything related to Zanado. CF!Billy using her mom’s powers is like Nemesis, CF!Billy + Edel pillaging what remains of her siblings in Nemesis’n’Dudes. Flamey doing his shit with Flayn also parallels that. There’s the usual “vengeance sucks” speech to be given, but also the Tellius verse where Laguz aren’t depicted in a bad light when they want to destroy Izuka or when Tibarn learns Lekain was responsible for Serenes’s massacre.

Still, unlike Tibarn’n’pals, Rhea, unlike Macuil, doesn't seem to hold a grudge against descendants of the Elites. Maybe she had faith in them when she told them not to abuse the power of their crests, but then their descendants forgot or didn’t care and we’re in the so-called crest system.

In SS, Seteth asks the BE students if they want to return home to the Empire and how he won’t hold it against them. Seteth’s being Rhea’s right hand bro in this situation, I doubt he’d have proposed this solution without her approval.

She is vengeful and ready to pursue for more 90 years someone to kill them, but she won’t target that someone’s descendants or potential allies. I’ve read some takes about the Western Church being razed to the ground after Catherine’s paralogue, but iirc, Rhea’s only going to execute the Bishop there ; they appoint a new bishop in hopes to ease the relationships between the central and western church. There’d be no point to appoint someone to rule over a body that doesn’t exist...

Grey waves

Wave 1 : Another parallel with Edel is the will to sink in troubled waters to reach their goals.

However, Rhea stays on the surface.

Aelfie thinks Seiros failed to rez Sothis with the chalice because she didn't take more blood from the apostles. Blood rituals are creepy and gave an umbral beast. Seiros didn't pursue and sought another mean to rez Sothis without killing her bros. Rhea makes homunculi to host Sothis's soul? It fails but the homunculi isn't destroyed asap to make another one, hell, Rhea cares about them (which is all kinds of fucked up on its own).

AM wise, iirc, Seteth and Catherine say Rhea'd never forgive them if they run to save her instead of saving randoms first.

Still, making homunculus to create a vessel for her mom - making artificial lives - is problematic, she’s ashamed of it “i did questionable things” and Seteth berates her on her “questionable” experiments.

CF!Rhea eats babies during the final map. She burns the city to make her last stronghold and refuses to run away. CF!Rhea, at the end of this route, completely abandoned goal 1 2 and 3. She wants to survive, yes, but to recover Sothis, no matter how. She still seems to care about humanity, but takes everything too literally and is persuaded humanity and humans are after her to hurt her and her mother (i’m pretty sure uncle Arry was waiting with his Agarthan tech suitcase for Edel to deal with the beast in the background). Contrary to CF’s chapter 12, Endgame!Rhea doesn’t have lines when Catherine and Cyril fall. She’s still siding with humans, but she’s in this for herself now.

Of course, CF!Rhea is special, because CF!Rhea lives again through her trauma, CF!Rhea lost her home, her bro and niece a few chapters ago, she lost her human allies, apparently some peons from her church are deserting and Uncle is waiting with his portable electric saw to turn her in a shiny sword, because she trusted a corpse with Sothis’s heart and spine and trusted a human 1000 years ago with her secret. And now said corpse follows someone who rings at her door with an army, wishes to obliterate her unless she surrenders (?) and works with Uncle and his dubstep pals.

In the other routes, Billy doesn’t want to killer her with her mother’s spine and tries to defend her home, Seteth’n’Flayn aren’t forced into exile or dead and depending on the route she gets to see Uncle and his dubstep friends being buried under rubble.

Troubled waters to reach her goals also include slowing Fodlan’s technological advancements (but was it really slowing down Fodlan’s R&D’s department or cliking “no” when Mole People offer a free (for now) new technology that makes you advance from bronze age to the industrial era in one go?)

Wave 2 : Rhea’s anchored in the past, she wants to return to happier days with her mom and her family, but also wants to help randoms in Fodlan

She doesn’t seem to mind the present where humans do whatever they want, and yet will protect her people and tries (or tried since it’s history) to keep Fodlan safe.

I think the game wanted to tell us Rhea’s stuck in the past, but she also manages to form bonds (albeit fickle) in the present with Catherine, Shamir and, arguably, Cyril. Seteth’n’Flayn accept the past and try to move forward, Rhea cannot and yet is making baby steps forward, or at least to live in the present. “uwu factor” is supposed to mean Rhea’s stuck in the past and can only see Billy for what they are once she accepts to live in the present, but Rhea’s already fond of Catherine, calls Aelfie her child, was fond of Citrus and Jeralt, makes time for Cyril, etc etc. It’s not as clear cut as drinking tea with them but it’s still something that quashes the “lonely B4 U player-chan uwu”.

Rhea thinks her biggest grey wave is how she didn’t do enough for Fodlan and feels inadequate to walk in Sothis’s shoes as the guardian/protector of Fodlan - she could have done more, but she’s busy juggling with three goals, rez mom, protect fodlan, protect the fam.

I think one of her main issue (but the game was also made this way so) is to try to reach those goals alone, save for the “rez mom” goal, everyone in Fodlan, especially the heads of the three states should be concerned with keeping peace in the continent!

Lambert was BBQ’s, Riegan’s busy shitting on Gloucester and Ionius is... well, Ionius. Add to that Mole People starting up shit all around the continent and you have the recipe for a disaster. I’m not saying Lambert and Ionius should have participated to the “protect her family” goal, but at least not trying to eradicate them to turn them in relics would have been nice, sadly Ionius’s bro in law was an Agarthan.

Even if she is nearly immortal compared to a human, Rhea can’t do everything on her own. That’s why I ultimately think a SS ending is doomed to fail, Billy will try to be Rhea 2.0. and in 1000 years it will fall apart again.

AM ending? Billy will become like Rhea was post War of Heroes, but when Dimitri’s descendants start to do shit, his Kingdom disappears and humans start to return to their usual shitty selves, what will Billy do?

VW ending is kind of the same, Claude wants to open the borders and make everyone able to live regardless of their differences, but what if 940 years later an Almyrian president decides to build a wall between Fodlan and Almyra and make Fodlaneses pay for it? What is immortal Billy, who knew Claude and his ideals, going to do?

Wave 3 (lol i nearly forgot but remembered when i was rambling in the tags) : Rhea and technology !

The DLC book and Word of God said she slowed advance of technology in Fodlan to protect peace etc etc. But there’s a book where a cardinal said “eff to autopsies else people won’t rely on us with faith magic” which is... kind of weird. There’s a reason why Rhea might have approved that ban (Why does Freikugel look like a hip bone?) but it still deprived Fodlan’s randoms from the scientifical advance of autopsies... and made people reliant on faith magic.

Actually, the book goes

“Though it is widely believed that this is medically relevant, such actions upon a corpse are considered desecration of the dead. Since white magic can be used to a similar end, autopsies were deemed taboo. A notable cardinal asserted that if medical science were to excel over faith-based white magic, it would destabilize the foundation of the church “

I already pointed out the WTF between faith and white magic (Seteth doesn’t believe his mom is real so he has no faith boon) but interesting to note “desecrating the dead” is still something of an argument nowadays, not regarding autopsies but other practices like anatomical theaters etc etc. Maybe White Magic isn’t intrusive and yields the same results? idk.

Interesting to note, it’s a cardinal who edicted/justified that ban (Rhea as the head of the Church would have given her approval oc). As pointed out with the Freikugel example, Rhea’d have a personal interest in preventing humans to know more about anatomy (goal 3/). Would people stop looking to the church to be healed if “medical science” progresses too much? Maybe. From what we see in the curren Fodlan, it doesn’t.

Also, French version translated the “foundation of the church” as “stability” of the church - would the church become unstable or challenged if people could heal without using white magic? Again, we ultimately know that it doesn’t, magical science and medical science coexist, Manuela gives a short summary of the two - they have different effects.

As for things Rhea herself banned : Telescopes, Oil exploitation and Printed Press.

Telescopes were banned because Rhea thought it would increase violence during wartimes and would make it too easy to snipe from afar (TFW mages with bolting can do the same without telescopes, but they’re limited by their range and if they have a gloucester’s crest by Rhea’s sister’s femur’s range or whatever is Thyrsus). We know the mole people use (and most likely used before during the Sothis war) this technology. The “lessening the mystery of the goddess” thing is noted by Edel herself who wonders if the Goddess could really have come from space since it’s super far away. Edel doesn’t know the Goddess is an alien dragon-thing though.

Oil exploitation : “Misuse could result in accidental death” tfw random Faerghus countryman thought it was water and died :’(

Used tactically by those lacking magical abilities - like gambits? Was Rhea thinking that a random human cannot set fire to an entire city (lol) on his own with his limited spell pool/uses, but if he uses oil then he would only be limited by the quatity of oil? So it’d be easier to cause mass fires? Or whatever Robin did in FE13 with the ships and the Valmese army? Also, if Rhea thought oil could replace humans with magic, does it mean humans with magic were supposed to do everything oil can do? Like making a lamp or they still used something else as fuel? “Competition for it could cause strife” Rhea acknowledged that if humans discovered this ressource they’d deem it as essential and try to get their hands on it, even if they had to wage war?

Metal molding Printing Machine : “after careful consideration” Rhea banned it because it’d be useless for illiterate randoms - well yes, but why should this be an argument? You don’t ban something because it’s useless, look, no one banned airpods - risk of mass circulation of false information or rumors : rhea wanted to prevent redshit from existing This is a way to control information, but funnily enough in the game, we see the results or someone deliberately using manifestos spreading misinformation - risk of “increasing disparity between church branches” (fr version has “rivalry” instead of disparity) what does it mean? The central church would have more means to print books than the eastern church so the eastern church would be jealous? Or the Western Church could mass print its doctrine and have more zealots than the central or the easter church?

Ultimately, all those bans were lifted with time, Manuela performs Jeralt’s autopsy, Edel’s imperial science division managed to guess the distance between the Blue sea star and Fodlan, Oil is apparently used in several gambits, Edel’s able to send manifestos around the continent and Seteth can write children books and sell them without difficulties. Hilda can also lose books which would be a big no-no even if you are a noble if books weren’t, kind of, mass printed.

So why those bans? To protect Fodlan and the fam, but since they were lifted with time, I don’t think Rhea abandonned her goals, most likely, she thought humans were making small steps to discover those technologies, slowly learning about them so they won’t have them when they’re not “ready enough” to use them.

The “ready enough” thing sounds paternalistic or what can be expected from a more technologically advanced alien, but technically Rhea’s part alien and she lived through (or not?) an episode where humans received technology and did shit with it (mole people) so maybe she won’t hand them the car with the keys this time, and instead let them figure out how to build the car.

Still, this is HC because, as usual, the game doesn’t let us talk or question Rhea about those things, so we can only infer, read between the lines or between pixels.

****

TBH, I didn’t care a lot about her when I played, but when she had to eat babies in CF I grew more interested. Other bloggers already pointed it out, but Rhea’s a Tiki, but also a “traditional FE lord” in the sense she avenged her mom who was killed by the king of another kingdom, lived in exile and raised an army to fight against the King.

Still, Rhea didn’t end up as the leader of the world, or as the first Empress of United Fodlan, or something like that. She let Willy do his thing. Why? How? Why didn’t she became an integral part of the Empire, if she had been politically important, or a kind of seer/oracle, it would have been difficult for the Empire to go against her!

But nope, Rhea figged away in her mountains to rez her mom, sprout some “doctrine” (she could have done the same as an Emperor/Seer/Oracle) and watched over randoms who made up her “church”. She sometimes tries to intervene in Fodlan’s best interests, but it failed. Because Rhea doesn’t want to rule. She feels like she has to be a guide, but when humans don’t follow her? Well, what can she do? FE16 doesn’t show us Rhea sending her knights against the Empire when the Empire kicked out her Church and basically said “fig” to her face. FE16 doesn’t show us Rhea being angry and punching Gloucester in the face because he doesn’t show “real piety” and sprouts doctrine out of his rear.

Still, when she has to take a more hands-on approach and cannot be a distant figure/guide, she complains about maintaining a certain image as the Archbishop and how she cannot socialise with students or even walk around without Seteth randoms guarding her. She feels her mother would do a better job and tries to act as a proxy. Imo, Rhea’s bound by duty to her mom, to her sibs dead and living, and to Fodlan. She doesn’t reject her role, she accepts it, she doesn’t like it yes, but if going Gandalf in non-CF chapter 12 shows, she will fulfill it.

What’s most saddening though, is how her duty is a self-imposed one. Rez her mom? She personally took the challenge, because she misses Sothis the most and feels ashamed of this feeling to the point of not telling Seteth about it (interesting enough, Indech seems to be aware Billy’s Sothis incarnation and didn’t jump to the “Billy must be one of Nemesis’s kids with the crest of flames” conclusion, as if he knew Sothis could “incarnate” one day, but was he thinking Sothis would incarnate on her own or Rhea would trigger it? Flayn also suspects a thing about Billy being related to them because of Rhea). Rhea personally thinks she has to lead/guide Fodlan and make it a better place, ignoring the heads of the 3 states who should also be concerned with this goal. Rhea will create a false history to protect her living siblings when Macuil and Indech won’t give a fuck and live in their bestial forms somewhere, and when Seteth hides, but made it clear his only wish is to protect Flayn and the apostles, if they were really lizards, disappeared in random villages.

FE16 isn’t interested by Rhea’s story though.

That’s why I’m desperately waiting for a War of Heroes DLC or prequel of BSFE or whatever because I don’t really care about Fodlan in 1180 and who can have a perfect tea time with Billy or not.

I’d like to know why Birdie and Indech figged away, why Rhea thought letting Willy control the entire continent when he knows she’s a dragon was a good idea, why the Apostles didn’t take part in the Nemesis fight, why Fodlan’s humans decided to side with Willy in his brand new Empire instead of staying with King Nemesis, did Sothis have a previous faithful and what happened when she disappeared, were the Nabateans tyrannical rulers over humans which made some with Nemesis’n’pals, what were they supposed to do when they left Zanado, etc, etc.

So just like Julia and the baijilions AU ideas I came up with, Rhea’s a fuel for AUs because her base game dgaf about her.

#anon #replies #long reply #FE16 #Rhea stuff #the julia tier #everyone hates that tier #it's when you have something interesting but you're not supposed to care about it #fuck the uwu factor ffs #burn it to oblivion #i really really hope next FE won't have an avatar #eff billy #tfw you could have Tellius' herons but Reyson's more interested in Billy than in explaining what happened in the forest #what happened in the forest will only be explained in an infodump at the end of the game #i hate it #relics? we don't care #the equivalent of AU where Julia gets her memory is AU where Rhea is playable and gets 10 chapters #i read somewhere that bar Edel'n'Hubert CF warps every character to their worst selves #Endgame CF!Rhea doesn't care about wanting to keep peace or protecting her fam she wants her mom back she litterally screams it #banana point though #depending on your PT she might not have any family left save for Birdie and Indech #i won't say rhea did nothing wrong though #but i hope i didn't forget a thing #i like her #less than hilda of course bcs Hilda is my fave #FE4!Hilda of course #give me a WoH DLC IS or even a manga at this point i'm desperate even a Seiros alt with 5 lines #Rhea parallels the 3 lords but won't talk to them #only claude could but then Nemesis rang at their door and we wasted that convo with a billy reveal like fuck idc #like 'relics were made from my family bones but also billy's not a human' and the only reaction is 'omg billy's not a human???'

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recurringwriter · 3 years

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this isn’t going to be very coherent but i like the parallels between Fodlan and Tellius. spoilers for both ahead:

so like, there’s Vague similarities between the two maps--I feel like the Fodlan map is not exactly accurate? anyway specifically what interests me is this:

Faerghus being in the upper right corner of the map and also a cold, martially-focused northern country, much like Daein. but unlike Daein, Faerghus is the ‘Holy Kingdom’ and isn’t the aggressor--that role goes to the Adrestian Empire, which sort of fills the bottom-left corner of the Holy Begnion Empire, Gallia, Goldoa, and Crimea--the last one there being the nation that gets invaded by Daein. Also people who care more than me have made comparisons between Edelgard and Ashnard, which is kind of neat.

Brigid for sure makes me think of Kilvas though and the role Kilvas had with Begnion--essentially in a hostage situation whether due to previous hostilities or blood pacts.

The Serenes Forest is Right in the Middle of Tellius--much like Garreg Mach, which has the Sealed Forest pretty close by (I think. again, the map is not exactly helpful). Interesting parallel, wouldn’t you say?

and it’s not just geography. i think of how Seteth and Flayn can’t transform. Why not? It’s never explained, but my theory is that they’re either a precursor to or a descendant of the Laguz--which means that Seteth marrying his human wife caused him to lose his ability to transform. He kept his longevity (like Sephiran) and some of his characteristics, and Flayn was born ‘Branded’ like the Begnion royal fam. Rhea didn’t have a child with the first Adrestian emperor--she did a blood transfusion, which never caused her to lose her transformation abilities.

And would you not say that the Red Canyon Massacre was similar to the burning of Serenes Forest?

Plus in general, Crests reminded me a lot of Brands--only instead of being a mark of shame, it was something sought after, often to extremes. Kind of neat.

also!!! Have you seen the giant wolves and giant hawks that we fight??? definitely gave me Tellius vibes.

One more thing. we sadly never got a line where Byleth’s Crest Stone was explicitly called ‘The Fire Emblem’, but i’m pretty sure that it was this game’s version of the series title. What I find fascinating is that the Tellius Emblem, Lehran’s Medallion, needed someone with a calm, steady nature to be handled--otherwise it would drive the holder to extreme violence. And Byleth is so steady as to make people think they don’t have emotions at all, which makes them ideal as bearer of the Emblem.

i’m sure there’s more little things and possibly someone’s already pointed them out but i didn’t get into the game until it had been out for 8 months and also don’t go to meta posts very often so like. whatever. but i just think it’s neat, especially how it’s kind of a Reverse Tellius.

#fe3h #fe9/10 #kind of incoherent but i have had these Thoughts for a long time #long post #meta #i suppose #eugh

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caeruleis · 4 years

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@hamartio

plots please. :3

Send me ‘plots please’ for three (or more) ideas I have || Accepting

★ ☆ ✮ ✯ ― ☽ ― ★ ☆ ✮ ✯

I wasn’t sure if I should keep this to Lucilius and Zelgius or if I should spread it out a bit so I just went with whatever came to mind!

1. Lancelot would get along famously with both Hector and Sigurd. I would argue he’s slightly more grounded than both of them (and I mean slightly and almost solely because he’s used to having to fill the role of the responsible one - he can very much be short-sighted at times), but their ideologies very much align with one another. He’s more similar to Sigurd personality-wise (or rather, he’s a bit more mellow than Hector), but he would compliment Hector well. And I think his own personal goals/dreams (making education as a whole more accessible to those in less than ideal situations) is something that would possibly interest both of them. I also feel that, Hector especially, would largely ignore the fact that Lancelot is a commoner by birth (if anything, I imagine the fact that he’s a commoner who managed to work his way up to knighthood would only give someone like Hector a favorable impression of him). Regardless, Lancelot is a fairly agreeable person who is incredibly dedicated to his country (and I could just very much AU him into FE as a knight for either of their countries, so I imagine that would make interaction fairly easy). I also think Hector would be able to bring out the more reckless/silly side of him (and Sigurd would probably worry him sick half of the time to be honest given how dedicated he is to his king in canon)!

2. We’ve already talked about Lucilius and Zelgius, but now that I’ve finally gotten a doc up about Lucilius I feel like I can delve into my thought process more haha. Survivor verse, obviously, and I’m thinking after he warped there, one of the Primarchs/or another one of his creations found him and I’m assuming he was still in somewhat less than stellar shape (possibly, if you want to go that route since you mention he waits to leave Tellius until he recovers) so they brought him to Lucilius for help - so Lucilius tends to him/cares for him (he can either start running experiments then and there or we can wait until they have a bit more of a relationship before he does - in which case I’m assuming Zelgius would agree to it because I’m setting them in a verse where he’s still a researcher/before his first I’m going to destroy the world moment haha and, therefore, Zelgius is going to be physically stronger than him). It might be, interesting, then, for Zelgius to be present to witness him deteriorating/get angrier and angrier with the world (I imagine that would trigger major Sephiran vibes) and watch as his research slowly goes from a desire to pursue evolution to destroying the world and the plots he comes up with to do so. I think it would be interesting to put Zelgius in a somewhat similar position he was in with the knowledge he has in his survivor verse and what he ends up trying to do as a result (plus I’m all for someone calling out/finding out about Lucilius’s massive inferiority complex).

3. And, if you wanted something more positive for Zelgius, Gran works well! He’ll pretty much take anyone in. But he also will not let anyone sulk in his presence so I imagine he will be an absolute menace to Zelgius - he will very much attempt to get him to relax, very much attempt to mess with him (in other words, play pranks on him - I don’t imagine it will go well, but that won’t sop him) if he joins the crew. Gran is also very much serious when he needs to be and is more than a capable fighter, as well. I also think it’ll be interesting to explore the fact that Gran also doesn’t believe people will stay with him so he prepares them, almost unintentionally, for a life/world without him in it. And boy that would be interesting conversation to have once Zelgius realizes what he’s doing.

4. I’d have to explore the idea more/think more heavily on it so I can better explain everything, but I do also think Shandra would work super well in GBF (plus she can jump Dimensions which is very much a thing in GBF haha)! Not sure with who, though. I feel like Lucilius might fit? I mean Gran is very much your hero character so he could also work with her trying to trick him (though I imagine he would get suspicious, especially if the thread is set later in his adventure).

#hamartio #| ☩ Keep the memories you make along the way close at hand ☩ (ask) |#| ☩ Out of Time (OOC) ☩ |#{ Thank you for sending this! }

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selemina · 4 years

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Now if i can also ask about some of the other characters, Who's your character in that winter campaign, is he the four armed guy in the art you showed? What's his story?

Aaaah, mister Sephiran Krauss, my necromancer and first ever wizard! :D

Krauss is a Vedalken! :) Those are essentially the Vulkans of DnD : Blue skin, four arms, an unwavering focus, and an absence of expressed emotions. That whole picture up there would make him look like an over-reacting lunatic to his own kind, to give you an idea. XD

Krauss has one, very simple, but very ambitious dream : Record and know all of the spells in the world. The limiting factor, for him, is time ; vedalkens live a long time, but not nearly long enough to reach that goal. So? Extending his life is a necessity. How? Well, there is the classical lich-dom, but he’s not too much about that, not really... That would make the rest complicated... As it turns out, somewhere in Europe, the scientific community says they’re about to discover the secret to immortality! That would be ideal... But as he is traveling there, in the middle of summer, snow starts falling from the sky...

30 years pass, with him working in the mall community where the adventure starts. He is the community’s teacher : those kids will learn to read, count and have a notion of history, damnit, snow or not! He is also in charge of keeping the treadmill farm going for electricity, by making skeletons run on them until they break. His focus shifted rather drastically on necromancy, with the urgent need to find a solution to the sudden risk of dying the next day, but he is very open about it, and freely discusses it with anybody that asks, without making it wierd.

He also quickly noticed that his lack of expression was causing problems between him and the other passionate races (which was : everybody in the mall”, so he has been training for 30 years now to express his emotions in a way that puts others at ease. He’s still struggling with his centuries of being told to hide everything and be ashamed of any show of emotion, but he is fighting it. We had a moment of him going temporarely amnesiac, and he reverted back to his purely logical self... I like that it freaked people out so much, in the long list of mental ailment everybody had, it was addressed very early! XD He was not about to be dangerous, but NOBODY liked cold and rational Krauss! XD

In this campaign, we have (now 2) warlocks of the Archives : a place where you can learn what you want, at a cost to your mental health. Temporary, but still scary... It’s where Krauss has been looking for the spell Clone, to have a backup in case he died, but anyways, remember the archives for later. ;)

FIRST, we need to talk about William of the Winter : the only person in 30 years to have a connection with the divine! The gods have been silent since the start of the winter, so realize : no healing magic, no clerical assistance, no resurrections or revivify! But here comes William, not even knowing he has clerical abilities as a divine soul sorcerer. People lose their shit. With the help of Krauss, he develops an imperfect resurrection spell, with a chance to fail and function as a Raise Dead spell. He then feels a pulse to go in an abandonned church where another PC used to live, where said PC’s husband, a cleric, was burried. Preparing for the resurrection, everybody does a little something to help, and Krauss heads over to the statue of the cleric’s god.

Now, as a logical individual, Krauss sees the gods as powerful entities, but not unfathomable or all-mighty. Faith is not his thing... but bargains can be struck. Without anybody to believe in them for 30 years, gods are almost powerless now, so Krauss “prays”, offering a deal : if the gods help in this resurrection, as a teacher he will teach his students about the pantheons, and see if some of them are interested in faith. A favor for a favor. And the offering bowl suddenly fills up with high quality gun powder (the temple was to a god of firearms, technolgy and community) as a sign.

The night before the resurrection, Krauss has a special dream : he’s on the plane of fire, and there is a big battle happening, in which a full group of heroes fights against an army of purple-coded invaders. Krauss manages to ask if this has anything to do with the Winter in some way, and he feels like the gods are saying yes.

The resurrection works fine, and they all go back to base with all of that in mind. On their next trip to the Archives, Krauss looks into those purple mages in the plane of Fire... and realizes there is no information there. Because the Void has swallowed this knowledge. The Void is, I believe, another reccurring element of @girugin‘s stories : a plane or something, that sometimes eats things : everything it eats gets erased from the world’s memory, aside from people with very direct, very intimate links with it. But if THEY forget it too, whatever the void has taken has no chance of escaping. Pulling knowledge from the void on something you’ve only seen in a prophetic dream sounds like madness... But Krauss starts working on it, driving himself up the wall for days to record into a book whatever knowledge he can pull from the void about those purple mage and their kind of magic he had never seen before.

His original intent, once he’s done with making the book, was to just read it and offer it back to the archives, as a gift (to make learning the clone spell easier), but there is another big player that is interrested by exclusive knowledge and its price : Newt, the patron of trades and deals. And more specifically, his representative in the community : an energetic Kobold called the Ecclectic. When trying to make a deal for a magical item to protect him, Krauss mentions the book he’s writting, and the Ecclectic immediately starts offering him a deal : Give HIM the book, instead of the archives. Pressed a bit more by Krauss he shares a bit more. He has a dept towards Newt that he desperately wants paid, and the archives might not be as safe to use as they seem... He’s willing to give everything he has to Krauss for the book, including a few items NOW before he decides who to give the book to. He also reveals a dangerous weak point of the Archives, and defense mechanism, that could probably end up killing Krauss if ever the Archives grew mad at him. Problem is, just by knowing of this defense mechanism, Krauss might be seen as dangerous by the archives...

Weighing all of it, Krauss decides ultimately to give the Ecclectic the book, and try to sell his knowledge of the Archives’ weak spot to Newt, insuring he wouldn’t be attacked by the archives if he went back. He’s still nervous about going back, sending one of the warlocks in with an offering of knowledge to test the waters. Apparently the Archives doesn’t mind him being around... but Krauss is VERY nervous still. XD He doesn’t remember why, but he knows he should tread carefully now.

Also, helping the Ecclectic made it so that he could regain his original form : an ancient metallic dragon (brass or copper, I never remember. XD) now more than happy to protect the community against the white dragon up north that was terrorizing the area! :) And that’s the story of how Krauss bought himself a boyfriend with knowledge from the Void! ;3c

The campaign is still ongoing, we should actually play it in an hour or so! :D But I doubt we’ll be getting anything new about the winter’s origins, I want the story to take some time to focus on other people now, Krauss has seen enough spotlight for the time being. :) Balance between players and screentime is very important, and getting A FULL-ASS DRAGON on our side seems like a big enough achievement for Krauss for now! XD

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gascon-en-exil · 5 years

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Lords and their Knights: When FE Chivalry Goes Gay

@mwritesink prompted me to write about my favorite tropes in FE and how they evolved over the course of the series. I already crossed a few others off in an earlier post, but this one is a particular favorite of mine where M/M romance in this series is concerned and one I felt had enough examples to constitute a piece of its own. Let it not be said that this is merely the gay variation on the well-worn heterosexual romance trope of a lady and her knight (ex. Eirika/Seth), because negotiating the fundamental power imbalance in this type of relationship takes on different dimensions when both parties are male. I draw a closer comparison to courtly love, which in the traditional sense is also socially transgressive (being adulterous) and not consummated via marriage or other public means...which in FE terms means an S support and possibly a eugenics baby. A vassal in love with his lord rather than his lord’s wife is not only cutting the female intermediary out of what can already be a very homoromatic scenario, but it’s directly tangling together a kind of martial romantic love and ideas about what knighthood/vassalage even is or ought to be - two topics FE loves to explore. I’ve therefore compiled a few of the most notable examples of this trope across the series to talk about in more detail, because if one is willing to be liberal with subtext there’s surprisingly quite a few to pick from.

(And yeah, this is also in part because I like hot rich men who take orders, and this series already has plenty of gay or otherwise ambiguously non-straight mages, thieves, archers, and their ilk without my help.)

The Sad Gay Knight: Quan/Finn

This one I’ve talked about before in a fair amount of depth, from my hopes for how a Genealogy remake will treat Finn to speculation on just what Quan got out of this relationship besides a devoted retainer and (we may assume) a nice piece of ass. The summary here is that Finn’s love for Quan supersedes anything he’s shown to feel for any of the various women he can hook up with and quite frankly astonishes in its ramifications for the future of Leonster and Thracia as a whole. It’s poignant, adulterous (but Ethlyn’s probably ok with it?), and messy as all hell once you factor in whatever’s up with Glade and whatever Lachesis wasn’t feeling about the whole situation. It is also, naturally, very sad; Finn loses his lord when he’s only around eighteen, and with their kingdom collapsing around him and the entire continent consumed by war he dedicates the next twenty years of his life to raising Quan’s son to be the king Quan himself had wanted to be. And for all his labor he apparently derives no lasting satisfaction, spending his epilogue wandering around the Yied desert and at last returning only to (possibly) pen the history he’s helped to make.

Finn is the embodiment of knighthood loyal unto and beyond death, and that paired with all the romantic and erotic subtext surrounding the two of them - Finn as Quan’s treasured favorite, his catatonia after Yied, the obsessive polishing of the brave lance that Quan gave to him, his inability to satisfy women in some vague way - makes them the defining example of this trope in Fire Emblem. I look forward to seeing how remakes will handle them; Finn’s presentation in Heroes is definitely cause for hope there. As for the issue of yet another story in media of gay men beset by tragedy and death, I did draw up a long headcanon on the technically crack pairing of Diarmuid/Tristan that specifically plays into the lord and knight trope while also allowing Finn a chance to pass his experiences on to a later, happier generation. IS is free to take notes, just saying.

Pretty Blond Twinks and the Men Who Love Them: Perceval/Elffin and their lasting influence

Moving on from Jugdral, I’ve got to say that I’ve really been sleeping on the original gay Elibean duo. Before Raven and Lucius (but chronologically after, because these games are out of order) there was another feminine young man with long blond hair beloved of a severe-looking warrior. Binding Blade gives us the bard Elffin, who in another life was Etruria’s Prince Mildain and Perceval’s liege. The Knight General takes Mildain’s alleged accidental death about as well as Finn takes the death of his lord and lady; he turns grim and humorless, and without a dying dream to guide him he follows the command of the corrupt revolutionary faction of Etruria with little protest. It takes learning that Mildain is alive and in Roy’s army for Perceval to drop the halfhearted Camus routine and switch sides, and the strength of his fealty not to his nation or even to his king but to the prince he’d thought dead is absolutely touching in the moment not to mention incredibly useful since the guy is one of FE6′s best units.

Binding Blade doesn’t give anyone but Roy and his harem paired endings, but there’s still a fair bit to be gleaned from their support lines, both what is in them and what isn’t. Perceval and Elffin each have supports with women, but nothing remotely romantic - Perceval’s support with Larum is particularly amusing since he clarifies that her, ahem, dancing does nothing for him. Also worth noting is that neither of them can support with Clarine, even though one would think they’d make fine romantic choices for her given their statuses and physical resemblances to her beloved brother. Their own support line is quietly intimate. Elffin has changed since his near-death experience, and Perceval is still struggling to accept that their relationship can’t be as it was, that in fact for the time being they can’t now be a knight and his prince. Perceval also frets over Elffin’s refusal to see his father the king, and he later extracts a promise from Elffin to come home to Etruria after he’s done traveling the world as a bard, in one of the series’s several instances of writing what sounds like a marriage proposal in ambiguous terms. Per Elffin’s ending, he’s only gone for a few months after the war, so their promised reunion isn’t long delayed. I’m interested to see what a remake would add to their relationship, because as it stands Perceval/Elffin has an established romance arc that deserves a paired ending or at the very least more suggestive epilogues.

Further compounding their underrated signficance, it’s not too difficult to trace a line from Perceval/Elffin to a number of other M/M pairings in the two later GBA games and in Tellius that present some variation on this theme:

As mentioned above, Raven/Lucius is physically similar and performs a nearly identical gameplay function, with the pretty blond waif again responsible for recruiting his surly but protective boyfriend from the ranks of the enemy.

Gerik/Joshua meanwhile borrows the character of the end of their support line and turns it into a genuine paired ending, with a prince incognito recruiting a swordsman to come work for him. They being who they are however, it’s all handled a bit rougher, with Gerik being impressed by Joshua’s “swagger.” Take that as you will.

Ike/Soren may be the defining seme/uke dynamic in Tellius’s overflowing fount of queer subtext, but Tibarn/Reyson smashes that trope together with this one and FE’s power couple unit archetype plus a dash of whatever the avian equivalent of furries is for wholly unique results. Although both of them are technically royalty, only Reyson is a prince by heredity whereas Tibarn presumably became king of Phoenicis by beating the crap out of any rival contenders as most laguz prefer to do. One can therefore read shades of a courtly relationship in Tibarn’s decision to zealously take up the cause of justice for the Serenes massacre in Reyson’s place. Combine this with Reyson’s characteristic edge that even Tibarn is forced to rein in at times and their relationship comes off as surprisingly more egalitarian than the sum of its parts. Oh yeah, and blond waif dancer + premade OP unit with ludicrous physical stats and movement again.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the conflict of the Tellius games Zelgius -> Sephiran explores what would happen if a gay Camus archetype chose instead to dedicate himself to an antagonistic lord. Sure, you can still recruit Sephiran via a convoluted and unintuitive process, but Zelgius is doomed no matter what.

They Can Say It, But They Can’t Do It: Awakening and Fates

Ugh. If I must....

I’ve made no secret of my ambivalence toward FE13 dragging the series into open acknowledgement that same-sex attraction is a thing that exists, handled as it was with a lot of explicit homoerotic denial and an assortment of cheap gay panic jokes and...whatever the hell Victor and Vincent are supposed to be. Chrom/Frederick, hot though it may potentially be in fanon, is one of those jokes, making a parody out of a knight enamored of his lord and leaving it to mean absolutely nothing since Awakening’s relationship endgame is invariably S supports for time traveling eugenics babies. FE has taken cracks at the overly dedicated knight before - see just about everything involving Kieran from Tellius, up to and including his overzealous devotion to his superior officer - but Awakening plumbs the depths of Frederick expecting Chrom’s nude image to raise the army’s morale. Just..what do you even say to that, apart from the awkward sputtering that comprises most of their support line?

FE14, for all its stumbling steps toward something less completely offensive, fares little better in this particular regard. Leo/Niles is a deeply troubled albeit thought-provoking callback to the subtextual lord/knight relationship, one where it’s hard to imagine them finding a healthy way to navigate the power differential. Then there’s Ryoma/Saizo. It’s nothing special in localization, but the never-localized festival DLC involves Saizo’s ardent desire to warm Ryoma’s clothing in his cleavage. That sounds like absolutely normal behavior for a servant and not a rehash of Frederick’s shenanigans, uh huh. Fates may indeed be said to be slightly better about playing palpable homoerotic tension for drama rather than comedy...but only slightly.

Paving the Way for an OT3: The Deliverance

This is, incidentally, yet another reason to appreciate Echoes for doing so much to redeem the 3DS games in the realm of (male) queer content. Yes, there’s a large and unaddressed divide between the openly gay and very modern Leon and the heavily subtextual faux-historical queerness of the Deliverance, but taken independently the two presentations work for what they’re each separately aiming to be. Among Clive’s gay entourage are not one but two men who’d dearly love to be the knight to his lord, and Forsyth’s strong desire to put Clive on a pedestal evokes the earlier spoofs of this kind of relationship precisely because Forsyth is that kind of vassal, the kind that would read Ribald Tales of the Faith War and cry like a heavily erect virgin bottom getting his first taste of dick at the brief interludes of tender manly love between Quan and Finn. He’s played for comedy just as much as Kieran or Frederick are, and yet Echoes comes across as less down on the concept as a whole for several reasons, being that

1) Python’s snark over Forsyth’s attraction to both Clive and Lukas is genuinely funny, much more so than when it’s the object of these affections quietly groaning his way through them,

2) Lukas is also there, and his desire to be Clive’s beloved knight is not played for comedy at all but is allowed to be unrealistic and unsatisfying because Clive will never get it,

3) everyone wants to screw Clive for some reason, not just his subordinates but also his sister and the estranged BFF who dies in his arms...and the guy is shown to be unworthy of all of them, and

4) all the characters involved are allowed other avenues for romantic attraction outside of a lord who’s just not that into them. Forsyth has Python, Lukas has both of them as friends and possibly more later, Clair has Gray (...at least he’s not her brother?), and Fernand has a bad rebound that goes to hell in the manner of Zelgius and Sephiran but at least ends with him getting to reconcile with his former friend before he dies.

The setup for the Deliverance’s overarching queerness is a bit strange as it rests on all these characters somehow finding Clive attractive, but nonetheless it makes for an unexpected and refreshing critique of the lord and knight trope, given a situation where the lord just isn’t that into it and in fact doesn’t seem to realize that he can be into it. It’s a good reminder that this isn’t a particularly good dynamic for a stable and lasting relationship, and that as hot as it can be it takes more than impassioned one-way devotion to make it work in the long term.

The good news if you’re into this kind of relationship like I am is that it’s a trope with some life in it yet. Echoes came at it strong, and prerelease information on Three Houses suggests a few possibilities for this dynamic in that game. I’m especially keeping my eye on Dimitri and Dedue, whose relationship appears to contain echoes of the original duo of Quan and Finn. I highly doubt there will be anything on the level of S supports acknowledging this type of attraction, but I’ll settle for some suggestive A supports.

#Fire Emblem

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