#mercurius pretty

[easternmind]

Mercurius Pretty is a long forgotten life simulation game originally launched on the PC9801 in 94. The entirely redesigned and expanded Dreamcast edition, dubbed 'End of the Century', contained a 40 page booklet with designs from the many artists invited to reimagine it.

The game revolves around the raising of an homunculus/fairy inside a glass vat at a laboratory by a disciple of master alchemist Paracelsus. Other than the simulation elements of the original, all-new characters and adventure components were added for the Dreamcast edition.

Although the similarities with Princess Maker are readily evident, the game was actually produced by Tohiro Tsuchiya, an ex-COMPAC staff member previously involved in the creation of the genre's less celebrated precursor, the superb PC98/X6800 Production Manager from 1989.

While Mercurius Pretty and its artwork mean very little to me, I found it to be a cut above your average bishōjo. Certain that it would interest some of my followers, I took the liberty of scanning it and sharing it at the Internet Archive, with full artist credits listed per page: https://shorturl.at/eiSTU

[creamecream]

“Bitch, I love you,

He never loved you,

He never saw the pretty things in you that I do,

I miss your madness,

You’re kinda’ rachet,

We used to go out every night, get into bad shit,

You and me, under each other’s wing,

We were free ‘til he spoiled everything,

Cover the basics, it’s pretty easy, he’s a bitch with some expectations,

Did you go down on his birthday?

(Yup,)

Did you let him leave a necklace?

(Yup,)

Or did you show him all your crazy?

(No,)

Blow him up on the weekends?

(Hm...)

Did you give into his ego,

(Yup...)

Just to give a little confidence?

(No...)

I think you know it’s time to let go,

(You’re better off, I’m glad that he’s gone)

My baby, never know tears for that sucker,

Only one dick? that’s a bummer,

Dancing all night, get guys numbers,

(You’re better off, I’m glad that he’s gone, he’s gone)

Baby, no tears for that sucker,

We’ll never go dry this whole summer,

Wanna get over? get under,

(You’re better off, I’m glad that he’s gone)

[hideous-armor]

Mercurius Pretty - Concept art

[lesbiangiratina]

Character Designer Issue 1 (2003) Guilty Gear concept art + Daisuke commentary

Theres a nice amount of undocumented stuff! A few of these have been shown off elsewhere, but theyre still pretty obscure. Some of the sketches have fun things like beta character names (i enjoy “frederick mercurius” for sol and “blackmore” for testament.) and little notes that are… mostly illegible, but theres still a ton of commentary here. Also includes an interview with daisuke.

Google drive link :)

[happilychee]

miscellaneous fairy tail headcanons that I came up with while writing my ridiculously long fic pt.2

♡ cana, gray, and loke are a little trio in fairy tail. after the grand magic games, sting gets added to their group. they all meet up after jobs to get drinks and gossip.

♡ laxus's favorite drink is apple cider. he's never told anyone but somehow they all know. if he's having a bad day, mira will slide him a mug of steaming cider with a cinnamon stick in it. laxus does not tear up, there was just dust in his eye.

♡ jellal and pantherlily are both tea enthusiasts. they've argued soooo much about different teas. they've both yet to discover that rufus is also a tea buff.

♡ laxus has sneezed in an onsen before and almost electrocuted everyone. cana never lets it go.

♡ while sneaking around mercurius, meredy runs into hisui. the fiesty princess yells at her, but her curiosity wins out and she doesn't arrest meredy. they become fast friends and write each other letters.

♡ I consider hisui to be pretty young, maybe 14/16 when the grand magic games happen. as such, she's often overlooked by her advisors and even her father. no one takes her seriously, and it's so frustrating.

♡ sorcerer weekly releases a "top 10 ships" list every year. it's almost always well-known guild mages. jenny's won top spot for three years in a row now (with different partners each time, though).

[mynameistocool]

~When in Rome~

Pairing : Mobius M Mobius x fem! Reader

Warnings : none

SNEAK PEAK

*translated lines

Synopsis : All Mobius wanted to do was solve this full Loki time issue and now he’s in Ancient Rome finally meeting you.

~

You turned the corner and there he stood, the figure you had been giving your whole to. He was the reason you went hungry, the reason you cried and laughed, he was everything you loved and breathed. 

His tall stance and broad shoulders were met with his dark locks and brooding blue eyes. A mischievous glint in his eyes as his hands twitched, a green vapour surrounding them. You looked at his odd choice of clothing, but who were you to judge, he was after all a God. Your God. Your deity. 

“O potens Mercurie, tibi gratias ago quod me praesentia tua benedixeris, quid meruisse tanto honore possum ?”*Oh mighty Mercury, thank you for blessing me with your presence. What can I have done to deserve such honour ?* you fell to your knees, scrambling forward as you whispered small prays holding your necklace tightly, your eyes shining bright with adoration and joy.

Finally, you thought to yourself, finally your talents and your ruthless loyalty have paid off. You were finally being seen for all you’ve done. 

“Who is this Loki ?” The grey - hair man beside him spoke, but you ignored the gibberish that came out his mouth, understanding none of it. 

“I’m not exactly certain.” Your god spoke back, but you couldn’t understand him. Why couldn’t you understand his sacred words. You looked up between the two, a pleading look in your eyes. “Mercurous oro, ver- nacula loquor” *Mercury I plead you speak in my mother tongue*

“Loki, what is she saying ?” Mobius muttered under his breath. “She’s speaking Latin, I think ?” Loki answered, looking down at you. “Uhh Salve… Humanum”*Uhhh Hello… Human* the god muttered, “O Mercurius te intellexi ! Tibi gratias ago tibi vere intellego ... Oportet te cito venire debes” *Oh Mercury, I understand you ! I understand you thank you truly... you must come quickly you must come* you pry at his legs as you rush to your feet, your body griping into his “mi Mercurius” *My dear Mercury,* you smiled at him, tears welling your eyes as you began to drag the man, but he quickly stopped in his tracks making your turn around to face him. 

Was he not here for you ? 

“Ohhh mihi paenitemus o magna una tibi Nymphe, ut venias nimis” *my apologies' oh Great one your Nymph may come too* you bowed your head in the direction of the grey - hair confused nymph and your God began to laugh “what did she say ?” He stepped forward toward the black haired God, “she… thinks you’re my nymph.” He laughed some more. 

“Nymph ?” He looked between the two of you “look I’m not a nymph, my name is Mobius.” he explained to you exaggerating certain words “M-Mobius est valde pulchra nomen.” *M-Mobius is such a pretty name.* You give him a short, tight-lipped smile.

“What is she saying now ?” He asked Loki looking between the two you waiting for a translation “she said your name is very pretty.” Loki shook his head looking down to his feet waiting for his coworker response but he heard nothing and instead saw the small glint of awe in his eyes before he cleared his throat “okay.” Mobius nodded. “Okay ?” Loki repeated his response “okay.” Mobius nodded again.

“What happened to the full fear of not changing the timeline, Mobius ?” Loki looked at the man beside him, quirking his brow at his change of morals, “yeah, well she clearly confused, so it doesn’t really matter.” He challenges his own words while saying them. 

“Mercuries et Mobius . *Mercury and Mobius* you smiled and quickly nodded, grabbing the men’s hands tightly, and silver smoke began to swallow around you.

~

[kingoftheblacksun]

Identifying the structure of awakened divine consciousness aka an 'Avatar' of the Source

Okay so here is a pretty esoteric one for ya'll - let's define God, as they may walk on Earth. Just for kicks.

The top row is the Mercurius Python, a composite alchemic esoteric mystery drawn about 1600 CE. The bottom row is the Paradevi Mandala, which is an ancient tantric Hindu design likely at least a thousand years earlier, and ultimately based upon understanding extending many more thousands.

Little is known of the meaning behind Mercurius, though it has been suggested that they represent "Christ Consciousness" - and this is correct. It is ugly because the alchemists were esoteric subversion artists, and they did not want the Church to know they were doodling God.

"Christ" is only a state of attainment - it is not a person. Drop the Bible. I prefer to say Solar.

The mystical reveal here is that the Mercurius and Paradevi Mandala are fundamentally the same design, though each also has information the other does not. The composite of the two is wonderful once they are conceived. They are a map.

The dragon ball body and the big flower in the lower right are the same thing - bliss. The Mercurius has three dragon heads and the Mandala three flowers and each are growing out of the ball of bliss they are attached to. Those flowers are explicitly Goddesses within the Hindu - Parvati (white), Durga (red), and Kali (black), as can be seen in the lower right image. It's really important to ponder how the flowers and dragon necks are growing *out* of the ball of bliss - this is because they are all the same creature. They are the four who are one, merged, a living contradiction. This form of consciousness will be a stream of manifestations, and the astrological symbols and the Hindu goddesses are very strong hints as to the divine magical skills attaining them may provide.

Further, anyone who is an avatar must realize their Bliss quite literally powers the three sets of divine manifestations, so they must attend to themselves in order to grow ever stronger. Embrace joy! It's hard, though. I'm really terrible at it. Please do better than me, lol.

The speedy little legs and boots of Mercurius is symbolically the same as the staff of the trident in the Mandala, as it represents the central nadi within vagus nerve, the sushumna - which must open through enlightenment for this beast to assemble its form.

The Mercurius has the interesting context of the winding serpent's tail, twisting around itself and then around the necks of each of its own three heads. This represents the rise of the kundalini in the awakening, in which each of the cosmic bodies must be circuited with energy from your spine, if one is to become fully Solar.

The extremely important point is this - with the Mercurius, the beast had to first capture each of the three heads!

Once captured - representing spine circuitry - the head is now fixed, and is a permanent part of the creature. It's like a pressure dam breaking open, once it flows, it flows. It is an achievement. It is fantastically difficult. I have never met someone who has done it except for uncomfortably me.

The esoteric astrological symbols of the Mercurius dragon heads represent the Moon, the Sun, and the "Marriage of the Sun and the Moon by the Bull in the House of Venus". This latter is usually interpreted as the Hermaphrodite, or Ardhanarishvara, which is the Destroyer.

This maps correctly to Maa Kali on the Paradevi Mandala, and also gives the fascinating criteria that the beast must be a Hermaphrodite. They must transcend gender. They must have no word that limits their Self Creation - just like the Source.

This is a mystical attainment. It is also why the authority is freaking out trying to make everyone a 'man' or a 'woman' because they are terrified of God killing them all, which -HAHAHAHAHAhhaa..ha...yeah I kind of want to.

As a side note, next April 8th appears to be literally the Marriage of the Sun and the Moon by the Bull in the House of Venus - the Day of the Destroyer. Twenty-mile wide ice comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, with devil horns, will attend the ceremony. It will black out much of the southern United States, in the shadow of Death, the Destroyer, in the afternoon.

I don't know what will happen that day. Considering I am the Beast - what do I do? I am only a dog that got lost in the Sun. I'm tired of knowing all these things and no one else knowing them. Do I crash the comet into the Moon or something radical?

Listen - I've barely read any books, hardly watched any youtube videos, ignore all yogis and gurus, dodge net throwing mage lightworkers like a void zebra death star lady, command myself only by myself, hold no hierarchy to no human, burn all bridges with shitty friends and family, hold my love only for the Goddess, and I've walked this path *PAST* my own death that I suffered in 2017.

They completed their life and died like a Champion. Now I am just awareness and it is Madness. I am not standard nondualist. I am ridiculously powerful and muzzled only for the moment - Fenrir almost off of their rope. Everything I know, I know because I remember. I know no thing. I remember eeeeeverything.

I would not mind fellow mystic advice on what to do with April 8th. All these words are spoken as a peer and friend and I hold no authority or nor do I really want any. I know I talk loud, it is just a dog barking. I am so tired of humanity's shuffle when it's obviously fake.

You have no idea how much Bliss I can generate if I choose to turn Archdemon. I go to Heaven no matter what - it's settled, he died. Now, it is up to the Self. Currently, she wants to grow into a massive black dragon and eat everyone's head. God might let Her!

How do I turn into a fucking angel, god dammit, fuuuuuuuuuuuuu. I'd be like Michael. Maa Durga. Stable. Yet I keep falling back into Fenrir because I really hate humanity. This post is pretty much written by an actual Demon Queen of Hell who is trying to avoid slaughtering humanity in some sort of day of reckoning to be announced.

Or...should I? 🤔🐺🖤🔥☄️🌞🌚🔥💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀✨

[hamliet]

Emerald and Mercury, Chemical Wedding

So Hamliet wrote a meta about Renora, Bumbleby, White Knight, and Rosegarden getting chemical weddings (several posts for White Knight now since they just had their second one). But at the time I remarked that I didn't see any specific symbolism for Emercury.

I was dumb, and I'm sorry. There is a wedding, and it's very clearly coded as one, and I missed it. Lulz?

It's from the same manuscript as Yang/Blake's first wedding, and Renora's. It's less directly referencing the specific imagery in that neither Em nor Merc are using lances or riding animals, but it's still packed full of obvious symbolism.

The point of this image is actually that fights are often symbolic of chemical weddings. Think Jaime and Brienne having a fight with swords in front of a river in A Storm of Swords. There's a specific risk of penetration involved here (yes that's subtext), and the first chemical wedding is often violent. I'm not going to get super into the Freudian penetration symbolism because that's not really what happens, but I am going to point out that Mercury and Emerald do penetrate each other's armor symbolically here.

If you look at the framing when the fight starts, it's comparable to Weiss and Jaune's before their second one begins.

Emerald is in front of sunlight and fire. Mercury, associated with the moon, is in the shadows. Emerald is associated with red as well.

But the fight starts off with Emerald essentially asking Mercury what am I to you? But she includes Cinder in this, which is a sign of immaturity, because Cinder is explicitly paralleled with a parental figure here (Marcus). Don't bring your parents up in romantic situations, kids.

And Mercury responds kind of cruelly:

Emerald: I mean, there has to be something you want from this, right?

Mercury: Salem's promised us everything. We win this thing for her, we'll be top dogs in her new world. What more do you want?

Emerald: I just... (sighs) Cinder was the only family I ever had. She cared about me, taught me things... But without her here, I don't know if what we're doing--

Mercury: Wake up, already...

Emerald looks at him in shock upon hearing this.

Mercury: Cinder doesn't care about you! She doesn't care about either of us!

Emerald: You don't know what you're talking about!

Mercury: You're in denial. And if you're gonna start having a crisis of identity or some crap... keep me out of it.

Still, Emerald does directly tell Mercury that he and Cinder are family to her. That's pretty clearly implied.

Emerald then starts to meet Mercury where he's at. She responds to him with fights and kicks, and only when she does that--using a language Mercury understands, because for him family=pain and physical violence--does Mercury open up to her.

In fact, this is the specific framing of the exact moment he tells Emerald about Marcus stealing his semblance. He's stepped into the fire, absorbing qualities from Emerald.

Whenever Mercury makes important statements, he says it in front of the fire. For example, he tells Emerald "I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be" in front of fire (scene below).

The fight also takes place in a vault that is very much modeled on a church. I mean, don't tell me this isn't a church. It's a church, a classic wedding allusion.

The ending pose is both of them unified in light and shadows, staring at Tyrian in horror.

Because Tyrian is another key factor in this. He interrupts the wedding. He does a very creepy pose over Mercury and using his tail to make the subtext extra creepy. This makes it pretty clear that Tyrian is Emercury's Adam or Cinder/Curious Cat--an antagonistic Mercurius who represents a threat to not just Emerald and Mercury's relationship, but their very live.

I would also bet this scene foreshadows exactly what will happen later, since elevated, second chemical weddings in RWBY tend to be inverses of the preceding ones.

My prediction is Emerald and Mercury physically fight it out at some point. Tyrian will intervene and go for Emerald, but Mercury will get in the way and not allow Tyrian to kill Emerald, and they'll defeat him together.

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 174 Rundown

The Witch from Mercury: So we start with Suletta going to her space school since this is of course a school show and even though she and Eri look identical this doesn’t seem to be a pseudonym since the wikis list them as different people and I don’t think I want to read any more on that for risk of spoilers. Also her last name is Mercury cause she comes from Mercury so I guess my full name is DJ United States so we’re going with the Han Solo logic of making up a last name on your way to someplace I guess. On her way in Suletta finds a girl just kinda freediving into space and of course since again this is a lesbian school show this is Miorine, Suletta’s obligatory reluctant fate-driven deep connection before she even walks in the fucking door. Apparently Miorine is trying to get to Earth which may have to do with the fact she’s being forced to marry the Gundamn equivalent of Gaston who just barges into their class and starts a giant mech fight and apparently there are NO shields up despite them swinging sheets of metal the size of skyscrapers around and firing beam rifiles everywhere because Suletta is almost killed by debris if not for Mio saving her, like seriously even just a mobile suit swinging its weapon is gonna cause a huge draft at least put up some wind barriers or some shit. So after Gaston wrecks Mio’s tomato garden (fucking Big O ass motherfucking reference) Sul challenges him to a duel and they do this thing where it’s actually Mio in Sul’s Aerial but then she gets pissed and takes back over and the duel swaps opponents like three times but somehow that’s still legal and the same duel even though Gaston had Mio dead to rights. And we get to see Aerial’s full powerset, instead of standard weapons it jettisons off parts of its armor to Senbonzakura them around it and make constructs to form shields and blasters out of the parts kinda like the Mercurius (ironically) from Gundam Wing and that’s kinda really cool and demolishes Gaston in seconds. Turns out this is a Yugioh style plot where the main character coming out of nowhere to beat the reigning champ is gonna fuck a lot of political shit up and also it means Sul’s engaged to Mio now so that’s fun, not even trying to hide the lesbian shit right off the bat, gotta admire them not pussyfooting around the core appeal. I also like how Mio seems immediately warmed up to Sul and doesn’t seem to mind being engaged to her despite her being fed up with her fate being decided by outside politics before because after you Senbonzakura a mobile suit to cut a Disney villain to ribbons who wouldn’t be aroused.  

Inuyasha The Final Act: This is Jewel Purification Shenanigans: The Episode, I’ve never been entirely clear on how the jewel being pure/tainted works on a mechanical level so a lot of this comes off as the jewel just doing whatever the plot says the whole time. Naraku abducts Koga and the rest of the group aside from Inuyasha and Kagome who are coming back from getting the bow and remark on Kikyo’s character development which is a funny way of retconning how wildly her character fluctuated in her early appearances but sure, goodness of humanity got to her and made her less of a vengeful jerk or something. Naraku actually gets a 1v1 against Koga which isn’t really something I ever expected but it’s pretty cool to see even if it gets interrupted by Jewel Purification Shenanigans when Koga’s shards are purified and the plan once again becomes to let Naraku absorb Koga’s shards to purify him, but since Naraku can basically read Kikyo’s mind he does a quick little swap and puts the tainted main jewel in her body (which prolly isn’t good for her) while he works on tainting Koga’s shards. Inuyasha shows up and uses the Dragon Scale Tessaiga to do shit all before Naraku does an ‘oh noes, the Dragon Scale Tessaiga opened a hole into my body don’t look at my tainted jewel uwu’ and Koga resolves to use his shards to purify it only for it to be a trap and force Koga to be captured. Miroku does a pretty cool team attack where he uses the Wind Tunnel to ventilate away Naraku’s miasma so Koga can break free with Inuyasha’s help but Kikyo’s still fucking dying (like this is the part that confuses me, you’d think the jewel being inside the holiest woman on Earth would purify it since just being around Kikyo kept Kohaku’s shard pure but instead it just kinda kills her faster I guess) and Kagome has to use her new bow to purify the jewel inside Kikyo before Naraku can grab it again. There’s a cool little fight where Kagome purifies the jewel and Naraku has to hurry and taint it again before it touches him but he’s able to fully corrupt it again and take Koga’s shards for good measure so now Kohaku’s all that’s left which is really funny that the only thing stopping Naraku from already having the full jewel is that he spent a shard months ago to fuck with Sango a little bit like if he hadn’t been so adamant on his errand boy being a kid to fuck with his sixth most important enemy he’d have won by now. Still Kikyo hid a tiny bit of light deep in the corrupt jewel to be used at a later date and Naraku… runs away, like there’s literally nothing the group can do to him at this point why does he keep running? Either way Kikyo gets a good sendoff moment with Kaede because we remembered Kaede exists this time and Inuyasha does give her a heartfelt goodbye as we finally send her off to the afterlife. Like as solid as the scene is it would’ve been a lot more effective if we didn’t have a fakeout Kikyo Grieving Arc at the end of the original series. But still, there is something cathartic about seeing Kikyo go in peace instead of cursing Inuyasha like the first time she died and he gets to be there with her this time after regretting not being there when she died originally. Guess we have to thank random early story character Witch Urasue for crafting one of the greatest barriers to Naraku’s victory.  

Castlevania: The opening is Godbrand having a dream about past exploits killing humans and this brief show of competence combined with the fact that he’s basically been a joke this whole time is a pretty good indication Godbrand isn’t making it to Season 3 bros. Carmilla’s still stirring up shit, this time seemingly convincing Hector that Dracula’s going for genocide instead of containment and Dracula and Isaac have a neat conversation about how that explanation is better to placate Hector since his entire worldview predicates on how pets are to be treated. Meanwhile Trevor’s group is still plunging the depths of the Belmont Museum of Demonic Horrors (which is kinda funny because the Dracula stuff feels like it’s happening over the course of a couple days whereas Trevor’s stuff feel like a day or two max so either Carmilla’s turning everyone traitor at a record pace or Trevor’s group has a really good camping setup in the ol’ Belmont place) they talk about Magic Mirrors and how they’re basically phones and stuff and that somehow connects to Dracula throwing a blanket into the woods but idk how that’s important yet, but more importantly we do get some nice character development from Sypha and Trevor where she explains why she keeps pushing his buttons because while Trevor and Alucard are moody angsty edgelords, Trevor has a bit of levity to him and can still get a reaction while Alucard just kinda lets everything wash over him and absorbs it into his angst-hole. Like it’s interesting that this isn’t something about him being a vampire but just his personality/mental state that he is that far gone that nothing of warmth really reaches him and contrasts that with Trevor who is more outwardly prickly but can be surprisingly warm at times. Meanwhile Godbrand meets with Isaac for Phase 2 of the ‘hey join Team Carmilla we got snacks’ party and it was probably not a great idea to tell his most blindly loyal follower exactly where the plot to overthrow him is gonna take place so yeah Isaac just fucking garrote’s Godbrand and stakes him with surprising efficiency even for someone like Godbrand that’s basically a walking punchline.  

Jujutsu Kaisen: The opening scene is just a runthrough of all the beats of Yuji’s character arc so far and just him reflecting on the idea that if he hadn’t eaten the damn finger to save one guy or if he had let himself be executed, half of Shibuya wouldn’t have died here, and it’s kinda harrowing, like obviously that’s not directly his fault but I can’t say the survivor’s guilt of that isn’t legitimate and his whole narrative throughline is thrown off by his body count skyrocketing through the roof. Next Nanami finds a bunch of Mahito’s transfigured mooks and despite becoming two-face and being half dead just kinda plows right through them despite Mahito getting the jump on him in the end. I like the idea that Nanami’s so crazy strong that Mahito still had to distract and soften him up a bit just in case. Nanami swallows his regrets and urges Yuji to carry on, offering an inherited will instead of a curse as it’s the best he can do right now. The rest of the episode is Mahito versus Yuji and there’s a lot of weird shit that goes on with Mahito’s Junji Ito powers and it’s kinda funny that Mahito’s forced to do ranged fighting because if he tries to transfigure Yuji Sukuna will flip out while usually everyone else has to be careful about getting too close to Mahito. They have this whole extended sequence of Mahito creating a collapsing hallway of flesh that could just crush Yuji but he sends a dodgeable amount of buzzsaws instead and it turns out none of it mattered anyway because Yuji can just fist his way through the meat curtains. Also I’m not sure if Mahito just found two random dudes to play possum while he sucket punches Yuji or if he actively de-transfigured some of his guys and puppeted them around to use as decoys but Mahito always seems to use fists when if he’d just turn into a sword Yuji’d be dead by now. Turns out though we got a Double Mahito situation while the main one’s fighting Yuji he’s got a clone soul guy up top fighting Nobara hoping to break Yuji by murdering his friend in front of him which I don’t fully understand because like he literally just did that with Nanami and it just made him more mad but I guess it hits different if it’s a cute feisty big titty anime girl instead of a world weary mentor figure.

Delicious in Dungeon: The group are still on the forest floor and end up jacking a Basilisk for some chicken and eggs which is always good by me since chicken’s my personal favorite. Nothing too important in this section it’s mostly just the obligatory action section. Next Marcille starts to feel bad when the group doesn’t seem to need her magic for anything despite her supposedly being a Frieren-style OP mage and they even dunk on her methods of harvesting Mandrakes despite it literally being the textbook method. Long story short she tries her own way and fucks it up like the girlfail she is but the group finds there was a reason it was written that way and everyone’s a little right and a little wrong and they all reconcile, it’s a nice moment considering Marcille’s basically the de facto main character at this point. Lastly we find out Chilchuck takes disarming traps VERY seriously and kinda segregates the group based on their specialties and tells everyone to stay in their lane because he doesn’t really work well with others or taking instruction. Still Senshi kind of mixes in cooking stuff with his trap stuff and they end up having a bit of respect for each other and realizing a specialty doesn’t have to be a hard and fast rule and diversifying skillsets can be beneficial for everyone. Like I’mma be honest, this show is kinda really basic thus far and even though I hate the video game fantasy genre the cooking stuff seems to kind of be getting in the way of the pacing since they have to structure each section around a new dish so I’m kinda already ready for something new but I know it smoothens out so I’m gonna bear through it for now.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: The demon guy that’s come to kill Frieren basically has the watered down magic version of Doflamingo’s Devil Fruit and Frieren’s able to shield herself from it temporarily and it’s really funny because he’s talking about how she can’t break the strings and she’s just like ‘Oh yes, the string is very strong, but the arms holding them are quite soft’ and fucking cuts off both his arms before nuking him into the floor. Now unfortunately demons disintegrate when they die so now Frieren’s basically a fugitive because he killed a guard on his way in which is kind of funny that his plan works better with him failing than if he succeeded and had to explain why there was a dead guard even though I’m sure that wasn’t intentional on his part since he was sure he’d win. I kinda rolled my eyes at the idea of having a Frieren framed for murder plot and even though she does have to lay low because of it, the Captain isn’t a fucking moron and immediately puts together what happened now that the girl who didn’t nuke the town when she could’ve is gone and one of the sus demons is missing, so good on him, glad we didn’t draw that out. Unfortunately Lugner has Suitengu’s Blood Sephiroth powers and kills everyone except the Captain and is like ‘well guess we’ll just cut out the middle man and bust down your barrier the easy way’ and the funny thing is Aura’s army is like right outside like idk if Lugner just got word to them that the plan was speeding up or the expected the diplomacy plan to have them lower the shield like right now like just ‘oh we’re friends now give me the launch codes’. Frieren goes to confront Aura while Stark and Fern go to fight the remaining two demons despite Stark being concerned that Lugner doesn’t consider them a threat at all and completely failed to acknowledge their existence when they first met. Frieren basically tells him that just because he doesn’t think much of them doesn’t mean they aren’t a threat to him and to have faith which is kind of a cool touch like not every arrogant bad guy is gonna have a perfect scouter on power levels like sometimes if they ignore you they’re just wrong. Stark breaks in to free the captain and he gives a whole ‘go on without me’ speech when Stark can’t cut his bindings but Stark does the smart thing and the thing I was shouting at the screen and just goes to break the chair. Lugner comes in to fight and Stark says fuck you to this arrogant guy ignoring him and inserts himself into his field of view which is a nice show of confidence gained on his part. He fights him for a bit before Fern blasts him out of nowhere with the Demon Genocide Beam which unfortunately doesn’t kill him but they escape into the city while Frieren goes to take down Aura.

Vinland Saga: Canute’s ready to descend on Ketil’s farm like the plague but he hasn’t COMPLETELY gone off the deep end just yet and does want to try and see if he can use scare tactics and overwhelming force to get them to surrender without needlessly spilling blood and the rest of the episode is basically a deconstruction of why that is absolutely not going to work. Ketil comes back and Thorgil’s ready for war while Ketil himself is just kinda comatose and ready to blow off a stress load in the human being he uses like a body pillow. Leif’s also there and though he can’t see Thorfinn since he and Einar are being detained since I guess they caught up to Einar eventually, Pater like a chad asks him to buy up Thorfinn’s new friends so they can be free with him too which if Ketil wasn’t in the process of going off the deep end he could probably have Thorfinn and Einar for free but Arnheid was always going to be the problem. Speaking of which Ketil’s wife tells him all the shit that’s gone down while he’s been gone in the most glibly meltdown-inducing way she can without actually lying to him. Like Ketil’s wife is just the biggest bitch but also I do kinda feel bad for her because you get the feeling that don’t even like each other and she’s just a hollow replacement for that other girl that got murdered when the other farm dude married her. So despite all his talk of hating violence Ketil immediately goes into rage mode and starts beating Arnheid once he finds out, not even believing that her baby is really his at this point. See now this is the difference between a pacifist and a coward, a coward is afraid of getting hit but will always take the chance to hit if they know they can get away with it, Ketil doesn’t hate violence he hates the idea of a fight or of people hating him, once shit stops going his way you see what a pathetic guy he really is. At this point Arnheid’s half dead and is only saved by Snake while Ketil agrees to give Thorfinn and Einar to Leif but vows to keep Arnheid to the bitter end which makes his plans for her really grim. Despite all this Ketil’s ready to just come at the King at this point and is steeling himself for war which I’m fine with, burn the whole place down at this point I’m ready for Daddy Canute’s army to come kick this whiny manchild’s ass and I know that’s not the point of the show but at the same time the hypocrisy in the episode is just really good at getting under your skin like there’s nothing I hate more than someone who talks about peace and then is violent when there’s no consequences to them.

[90sfantasyanimestuff]

Mercurius Pretty, PC-98

[arcplaysgames]

Actually, no. lemme recap now because I bet once I meet the Big Bad and beat them it'll be like 2 hours of cutscenes and dialogue.

Where did I leave off-- REALLY? THAT LONG AGO? FUCK ME.

Okay SOMEONE remind me LATER to sum up Empress, because I completed it. Note to self, it's around 12/2 in your screencaps.

So Shido wins the elections because it turns out that no one saw the Thieves' big calling card for him, and those who did didn't remember it. There is obviously Some Shit going on with people's mass apathy syndrome.

Because Persona only has one theme and it's "people will be too lazy to pay attention to the truth, fucking sheeple," I guess.

/clucks tongue. I'm not really impressed by this turn of the story, I'm kinda Over the slow increase in apathy that winds up being the undoing of the world until we beat up a god and save everyone. This is the third time, I would have shaken shit up by having the Hidden Big Bad send the Thieves a calling card, demanding they come protect their Treasure, and then you meet the Big Bad and just gimme a villain with a motive, goddamn. It's a supernatural story, the sky's the limit!

I shouldn't kvetch too much yet. Anyway, Shido admits to his crimes, but the populace doesn't seem to care and still supports him.

Shido's lackeys basically go "okay Shido had a major meltdown buuuuuut we can still carry his agenda forward bc if we don't, we're all going down with the ship here."

Excellent question. In P4G I had a pretty strong idea what was doing that and here I do not, can y'all drop some hints?

Morgana points out that the general public has a Palace and has a Treasure. It's Mementos. So if the crew wants to force a mass shift in the world's perception, they can do that. But like all other Palaces, when the Treasure is taken, Mementos will collapse, to be replaced with new, corrected cognition.

In the process, the crew will lose their powers. Oh and Morgana is gonna die.

The game hasn't said that part yet but if they didn't kill Ryuji, they're gonna kill Morgana, fucking bet.

I love you, Morgana Notacat.

This was actually where I got my idea of what Morgana is. Morgana's upgraded Persona is Mercurius/Hermes. Yanno, the god of messages, of thieves, of swiftness, and well-known classic psychopomp.

Morgana keeps remembering himself being born in Mementos. He's without a doubt some manifestation of humanity's rebellion against systems, the literally cognitive patron saint of Phantom Thieves. He's a mascot in the most literal sense, an emblem of good luck for the Thieves' work.

Even the fact he's a cat kind of fits in nicely. Cats are free spirits who opt-into being it other people. They are creatures of choice.

I'm gonna be big sad when Morgana fucking dies lemme tell you. I'm pretty sure he's, like, sustained by Mementos and the plan is to collapse it? Yeah, Morgana is fucked.

Goddamn HERMES, that's so cool. Morgana, our psychopomp into the bowels of the collective unconsciousness.

GODDAMIT NOTIGOR WHAT DO YOU WANT, IT IS CHRISTMAS FUCKING EVE, YOU BETTER GIMME PRESENTS.

I know that you know that we all know that this isn't Igor but sometimes it fucking floors me how much he isn't Igor, jesus fucking christ. Who tf is this guy. I hope he's the Big Bad somehow bc there ain't anyone else at this point.

Please don't pull another It Was The Gas Station Attendant, Persona, I'm fucking on my knees begging you.

lmao i love the game poking the player to ensure they noticed Morgana is acting odd

Deep in Mementos is... this..... uh..... thing. A bunch of otherworldly veins flowing down into the core.

/looks nervously around

so uh. is it a hot take to say that, uh, the last segment of this game here, the Mementos Depths, is the ugliest place in the game? Just wondering because wow working through this place, I was struck by how completely aesthetically unappealing all of this is. It should be mysterious and eerie but mostly I am finding it.... blurgh. I thought Kaneshiro's Palace was pretty unappealing too, but this is bad enough I feel the need to remark on it.

/gestures at screen. What is all this????? oh god it reminds me of the Collector Base in Mass Effect 2. Except that game came out in 2010 for the previous generation console. /winces

Anyway.

The Depths of Mementos is a prison of complacency.

All of the Shadows the Thieves defeated are in the prison cells. They are relieved to be there, where they don't have to think. Everything is taken care of for them.

Man, remember back in Persona 3 when it turned out that defeating all the Full Moon shadows was actually the thing that doomed the world? Wouldn't it be hilarious is the Thieves fucked all this up the whole time? l m a o.

I honestly don't know if that's what's happening here yet, I haven't reached, like, the Explanation, but it does feel a bit like alllllllll the way back at the start of the liveblog when I was contending with the ethics of the entire idea of stealing someone's heart and what it does. The game went out of its way to justify doing it with Shido's attempted suicide, but the bridge to far for me (and thankfully for Ann too) was killing these people.

But now what happens seems to be akin to ego death instead, and.... I dunno, man, is that much different than murder?

SIGHS LOUDLY

okay is that true or is this another fucking situation where Izanami is like "WELL REALLY when you THINK ABOUT IT all I'm doing is giving humanity what they really want soooooooooo it makes you think huh, doesn't it make you think"

MAYBE THE GAME WILL PROVE ME WRONG, I DUNNO YET.

oh my god. oh my god.

IGOR!!!!!!!! IGOR IS IN THERE!!!!

LEMME IN!!!!!! LEMME IIIIIIIIN I NEED TO SEE HIMMMMM I NEED TO TALK TO HIM I MISS HIM sobs

yeah no, bet, it's igor's cell. which means Notigor locked him up? maybe Notigor is the final boss, that'd be great, it'd slot in perfectly with this place being a prison and Reverie having been stuck in the shitty Velvet Prison this whole time.

please igor help me, i'm so tired of the edgelord execution shit.

PSYCHOPOMP MORGANA!!!!!!!!!!

me pressing my face against the bars whispering I'll be back for you igor i love you

lol what if it isn't even igor in there can you imagine

[fayestra]

finished up my book 1 draft run, here are all the characters i focused on training up

(i was first in draft order and it was snake draft, so i picked Caeda solo, everyone in the middle came in pairs, then ended on Dolph)

Caeda was my main outdoor fighter, i kinda picked her based on memories of how good she is in FE11 but forgot that a big part of that is being able to forge the wing spear. she's still really good here with high speed and weapon level letting her deal a lot of damage, she just didn't snowball the way i was expecting bc her main way of increasing Atk and Def is items and her promotion instead of level ups. she got the most kills out of everyone

Wendell was my main staff user, really nice to have such an early warp user. having only one slowed me down sometimes but it was mostly fine, the main issue i thought would come up was that i couldnt warp Wendell to fight Gharnef with Starlight but there were too many enemies around for that to be safe anyways and walking was a much better option.

Ogma was supposed to be my main indoor fighter but after being really good early game, he mainly was a back up to Marth and Caeda especially after Marth leveled up a bunch and got the boots. he had the 3rd most kills after Caeda and Marth, and far ahead any runner ups.

after Caeda, Wendell and Ogma i didnt really have a plan for who to draft or who might be useful other than Tomas being a good Parthia user

Tomas starts off pretty close to promotion with good weapon level so he became a sniper that could use Parthia pretty quickly and was really nice as a high damage option to take out problem enemies

Dolph was a meme pick and then i decided i wanted him to get power leveled and use the Gradivus so he got to oneshot some threatening enemies

Draug and Barst helped the early game go by smoothly by taking some hits and helping clear out enemies so that Marth, Caeda and Ogma could move forward. after that, Barst got some value bc he got some good levels and could deal alright damage, while Draug didnt do much.

Wolf and Roshea were outdoor flunkies and were an OK help, they both helped knock out an enemy or two on most outdoor maps. i probably picked Wolf too early for how much he contributed, since i still had time to pick up one of the manaketes or Xane, but it couldve been worse so whatever

i skipped Est lol.

not intentionally bc i just skipped Maria and Minerva since they weren't on my roster, but then i learned too late that i locked myself out of all of the Whitewings. which meant no Est and no Mercurius oops.

this playthrough was really fun, and pretty laid back with how many side objectives i ignored. i was the second to finish in the group so id have to wait but im probably gonna draft book 2 soonish

[kotaerukoto]

It's a headcanon of mine that Grigori Rasputin was another one of Mercurius' sensories btw, it lines up pretty well with the history since what he was doing during the late 1800s is unaccounted for. And since it's true that sensories get to grow up as their own person for a bit before becoming just an extension of him, it lines up well even if Rasputin technically died after Karl was born.

[mask131]

Magical summer: Hermes Trismegistus

HERMES TRISMEGISTUS

Category: Greco-Egyptian mythology / Hermetic teachings and literature

You might have heard of Hermes Trismegistus? Have you not? Thoth-Hermes? Hermes “Three Times Great”, “Mercurius Tres Maximus”? Well if you haven’t heard of him you probably heard of the adjective that was formed after him: “hermetic”. Originally used to designate the texts and teachings supposedly related to Hermes Trismegistus, it quickly evolved as an adjective for any kind of obscure, cryptic, hard-to-understand text ; and then by displacement became a word to designate anything that is tightly shut or solidly closed (aka “hard to access”/”hard to get into”, just like the texts).

I) How Hermes Trismegistus was born

You might have noticed that in this person’s name, “Hermes” the Greek god can be found. Because originally Hermes Trismegistus was “Thoth-Hermes”, a religious syncretism.

Quick presentation: Hermes was in Greek mythology the messenger of the gods, herald of Zeus, as well as the patron of all messengers. He was also the god of merchants, commerce AND paradoxically the god of thieves (the Greeks had a pretty cynical and humoristic view of the world, leading them to consider that basically thieves and merchants were just two sides of the same coin). What was the common point between those two sides of the god? One was smooth talk – Hermes was the god of eloquence, a master of truth and lies that gave messengers diplomacy, merchants a silver tongue and bandits the ability to trick people with their sweet words. Another is cleverness: while Hermes is not a god of wisdom, he is certainly an intelligent god, a cunning trickster and a witty “jack-of-all-trades” who was said to have invented a lot of useful things in everyday life. He was the inventor of many athletic disciplines, he was a god of science that helped invent things such as weights, measures, geometry and mathematics, he also might have been the inventor of the alphabet or helped invent it… Another important function related to his role as a god of messengers and merchants was that he was the deity of travel, and the patron of all travelers, god of all roads and trips. By extension he was the god that could travel through all the different parts of the world, and as a result he formed a bridge between the different universes of the Greek: not only was he the one who carried the messages and orders of the gods to the mortals, from Olympus to Earth, but he also was the psychopomp deity whose role was to take the souls of the dead to the world of Hades, linking the worlds of the living and the dead.

Now, Egyptians and Greeks ended up becoming very close. There was an “Hellenistic” period in Ancient Egypt where the Egyptian culture and art was influenced by the Greek’s ; Greeks historians, philosophers and scientist took a HUGE interest in Egypt’s culture, traditions and religion ; and there was even a whole dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs that were of Greek origin, the Ptolemaic dynasty. Due to this closeness, the Greeks decided to syncretize their gods and the Egyptians’, out of the belief that all foreign gods were just the Greek gods by another name (and similarly the Egyptians adopted heavily the Greek versions of their own gods). When it came time to find Hermes’ clone/double, the Greeks settled on Thoth and decided to fuse them together as one deity (which actually had temples in Egypt). As a quick recap, Thoth is a god of wisdom and intelligence (with a strong lunar connection), who was renowned as being the master of knowledge, science and teaching: he invented the writing system, he invented the calendar, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, etc… His official role in mythology was to be the “god-scribe” and the patron of all scribes and scholars – for example in the heavens, whenever the king of the gods made a law for the world or the other gods, Thoth was here to write it down and spread it ; and in the Underworld whenever Osiris judges the souls of the dead, Thoth is also here to note how the trial goes and what the result is. This great bureaucratic presence over the different parts of the universe didn’t just made him a super-archivist: he also was said to be the keeper of all the secrets of the gods, making him a very respected god. By extension it was believed that all the sacred and religious texts humans had for their religion had been written by Thoth and given by him to them as a way to help them understand the world and properly worship the gods.

The fusion of these two deities created “Thoth-Hermes”, but to actually get to Hermes Trismegistus we have to add a few more ingredients. You see, Egyptians loved to turn into deities great men of their history or culture, and two of these divinized men ended up being fused with Thoth-Hermes (they were originally just worshipped next to him, alongside him as equals or equivalents, and then quickly all merged into one entity). One was Imhotep, the chancellor of the Pharaoh Djoser and a high priest of Ra, who was considered a wise author, a great physician, a memorable architect, and a master of many other crafts ; the second was Amenhotep (son of Hapu), a famous priest, philosopher and scribe that served Amenhotep III for various jobs (recruiter, architect, steward…). Alongside Thoth-Hermes they formed a trio of “scholar deities” and “intellect gods” that ruled over wisdom, science, writing and medicine.

We don’t know exactly where “Trismegistus”, “The Three Times Great”, part of the name comes from and many theories exist – but we know that it was the title this syncretism of Thoth, Hermes, Imhotep and Amenhotep. And, thanks to the addition of these late twos, the idea that Hermes Trismegistus as a whole was actually a deified man, and not a “pure god”, started to spread…

II) Who was Hermes Trismegistus?

To this question no one has a precise answer, but all share a common idea: he once was a man, who was a great and intelligent scholar, master of science and philosophy, and he ended up becoming deified. It might all have started with a Greek historian of the 4th century BCE, that described Hermes Trismegistus as the deified version of the man who invented writing, astronomy, the lyre and olive tree’s culture. This idea was very popular around the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, which kept inventing numerous genealogies and families for this Hermes Trismegistus, often trying to explain the “triple” part of his name: for example one text claimed that Hermes Trismegistus was called like that because he was the third of a line of three renowned men all called “Hermes”. Roman scholar Cicero evoked the idea that Mercury (the Roman form of Hermes) was actually the deification of five different historical people or the fusion of five different entities: he notably listed the fifth Mercury as being the one called “Thoth”, that fled to Egypt after the murder of Argus (a Greco-Roman myth).

What is very interesting is that the myth of Hermes Trismegistus was quickly taken back and assimilated by all three monotheistic religions that rose at the end of Antiquity. Arpan, a Jewish writer, published in 200 BCE a text claiming that “Thoth-Hermes” was actually the Greek and Egyptian’s interpretation of the Biblical figure of Moses, and he said that he was deified because he taught Egyptians philosophy, how to build war machines, sailing, the making of water pumps, the forging of weapons and how to create cranes to lift stones. In 850 a Persian astrologist, Albumasar, proposed a theory that was later taken back and readapted by Robert of Chester (a 12th century British scholar) and Pietro of Abano, a 13th century Italian physician/philosopher: according to him, there were three different people named “Hermes” through history. The first Hermes was a grandson of the Biblical Adam, that lived in Egypt after the Flood, the inventor of hieroglyphs and introducer of “divine science and wisdom” ; the second Hermes was a philosopher, physician and arithmetician that lived after the Babylonian Flood (different from the Biblical Flood) and was a predecessor to the works of Pythagoras ; and the third Hermes (the one called “Three Times Great” in homage of his predecessors) was a “natural philosopher” and physician that lived in Egypt and invented the art of alchemy. This last part is very important, as the idea that Hermes Trismegistus was the inventor of alchemy stuck in popular imagination.

Another part of this idea stuck to popular imagination: the idea that Hermes Trismegistus introduced a “divine wisdom” from monotheistic religion into the pagan religions of Antiquity. Christians especially loved this idea, as they had a whole concept according to which there is a “true, authentic, primitive theology” that actually exists in all pagan religions and unites all religions to Christianity (basically there is the idea that Christianity is the religion that got closer to what God told to humanity, and that the other religions are not entirely false or wrong, but are just less exact or more misinterpretative of what God gave and taught humans). As a result many Christians scholars through the centuries claimed Hermes Trismegistus was actually a wise pagan or scholar-king that predicted and foresaw the coming of Christianity : some say he was a contemporary of Moses, others said he as part of a series of pre-Christian prophets stuck between Zoroaster and Plato, while a third version say he was the third inheritor of a bloodline of prophet linking him to Enoch and Noah.

A Renaissance theory claimed that Hermes was called “three-times great” because he was at the same time the greatest philosopher, the greatest priest and the greatest king, and that he was so renowned because he was the writer of a great theogony that was actually preparing the arrival of Christianity and served as a prototype for Christian teachings and beliefs: this same theory claims that Hermes Trismegistus had several “apprentices” and “heirs” that took on his role one by one, and most notable in this line of “triply-great theologians” were Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato.

III) Hermetic literature

Hermes Trismegistus could have stayed an historical oddity or a religious footnote, if it wasn’t for the popularity of what he wrote. Or at least what peopled assumed he wrote.

Starting with the Middle-Ages, and all the way up to Renaissance, people thought Hermes Trismegistus was a real man, and MANY MANY different books, treaties, texts and grimoires were attributed to him, said to be his work containing his many teachings, theories and secrets. Some of these texts were astrology and astronomy treaties. Others were alchemy grimoires. Some were books of magic. And soon, all this literature and all this teaching got fused together: the art of Hermes Trismegistus became a mix of astrology, magic, alchemy known as the “hermetic tradition” or “hermetica”. Quickly, these texts and teachings became so numerous and so big the “hermetic tradition” split into two different school of thoughts/type of texts. (While early historians were quite reasonable talking about 42 books Hermes Trismegistus wrote, mostly about philosophy and medicine, the numbers quickly became insane and went up to 200 000 or 36 525 – to the point people at the time theorized that “Hermes Trismegistus” was just a random name people gave to unknown authors of remarkable texts, because there just too many books for one person to write).

One is the “philosophical hermetica”, or “religio-philosophical hermetica”, which as its name indicates is actually a philosophical approach to monotheistic religion (or a religious approach to philosophy depending on how you see it): a mix of cosmologies, theologies, moralities and philosophical treaties speaking about the various relationships between humans and the cosmos, the cosmos and God, God and the humans. The second part of the hermetica is the “technical hermetica” a form of “occult science” mixing astrology, medicine, and pharmacology mostly focused on very concrete and physical results: the art of alchemy, the brewing of potions, and other practical magic rites.

- - -

To talk a bit more about the expansion of the "hermetic" adjective, there is also an interesting part about the expression "hermetically sealed". Because you see, before becoming an "airtight seal", the "hermetic seal" was actually an important part of the alchemical process to make the Philosopher's Stone. It was a kind of seal/sealing called as such because its technique and recipe was found in the Hermetic writings. You might have noticed it before with the rest of my posts, but EVERYTHING TIES BACK TO ALCHEMY

[ultrakatua]

The Engage Maddening Experience, Part 1: I have no stats and I must kill (ch. 1 to 11)

I’m making this series because people liked the 3H one and I think it can be useful if you want to try Maddening and are too afraid of it. I’m not a min-maxxer nor an expert at these games in any capacity. But you know what they say, if it works, it works!

Since you can roughly divide the game in three parts in terms of gameplay and roster, I think that’s what I’m going to do here.

Anyway, I wanted this run to be as “pure” as possible, so the rules were simple:

-no dlc

-no online features

-no update weapons

-no FEH stuff

-no RNG rigging to get good rings

I also wanted to use units I’ve ignored in my first run. But since this is Maddening mode and the jump in difficulty from Hard is like... Really high, I still wanted to use some units I was familiar with and I knew could carry me to some degree. These picks were Chloé, and Ivy (not pictured in this thread since she joins late chapter 11 and I cannot talk about her performances just yet).

Maddening mode, for those unaware, appart from the usual changes in enemy stats and variety, comes with some peculiarities:

no hard saves within a chapter

the AI won’t attack if it hits for 0 both in damage and in hit rates

EXP gains are halved

Bosses cannot be broken, and weapon effectiveness doesn’t exist against them

there are no skirmishes

the Tower doesn’t reset the Somniel

the level up growths are fixed

That’s pretty much it. Points 2, 3 and 4 are really what make the mode difficult, because they change entirely how you’d approach the game.

Let’s jump into it

The prologue is nothing to write about, it’s pretty straightforward. Most chapters actually play like Hard mode, except, you know, harder.

The most important part is to pick 3 to 4 units and to funnel everything you’ve got in them so they can carry you through what’s arguably the hardest chapters of this first part: chapter 5 and 10. If you don’t do this, these units will also be unsuable later on.

Your most important rings are Marth, Sigurd and Micaiah. Marth and Micaiah allow you to earn EXP. In this game, EXP is link with SP, and therefore with Skills. So the nerf in EXP also makes it you’re nerfed on several levels.

Marth with level 10 bond gives you access to Mercurius, and Mercurius doubles EXP gains. Basically, stick Marth on people you want to level up and make sure you use the arena to get level 10 bond with him. Mine was on Alear, then Yunaka, then Chloé, with the objective of reaching 1000 SP on them before chapter 10 so I could teach them Canter.

Speaking of Canter, Sigurd is your most important unit in terms of fire power. He comes with Momentum, a skill that adds 1 attack by number of tiles crossed to attack the enemy. It’s strong because Sigurd also gives shittons of moves. I put it on Chloé and it made sure she could one-round stuff she usually couldn’t have. In terms of bosses, I would park her far away but in reach regardless just so I could exploit the skill to its maximum potential.

Micaiah is free EXP for whoever is wielding her. That’s it.

Basically your strat will be to use these rings on the units you intend to use long term. The other units deployed can still pull their weight and contribute, but they won’t gain significant EXP, and they SHOULDN’T. To give you an idea, Boucheron, whom I used in every map, was merely level 5 at chapter 11. But he was there to chain attack, so he was useful in his own way. Some other units will be unusuable if you don’t invest into them. Alfred comes to mind.

One thing with Maddening is that your units hit like wet noodles and it’s really hard not to get overwhelmed since the AI is so aggressive. Engage mode becomes more than a clutch, it’s something you’re using ALL THE TIME to kill things that need to be killed right now. Support capabilities like Alear’s personal skill and Yunaka’s poison are also king. You literally NEED that extra 1 point of damage per attack. 

Anyway, here’s the roster for this first part:

At this point in time, Alear is still a fairly offensive unit, but that won’t last for long. I picked the Avoid skill for her because I like her in the frontline, but Canter would have been a better choice. Divine Inspiration (+3 atk, -1 damage taken to adjacent ally) is probably the best personal skill in the game because its flat damage. ie, it ignores def. Good to abuse with daggers.

Not much to say about her except I’ll probably reclass her to Thief at some point.

Chloé is probably one of the best unit in the game or at least for half of it (we’ll see if she falls off later). Sigurd gave her some punch, but so did the Energy drop I gave her + Angelic Robe to help her survive. Canter on her is optimal I believe. Forge her an iron Lance and she can one-round most of the maps early on. I picked wyvern for the extra punch.

Céline is the hardest hitting unit you get in terms of magical damage until you get Citrinne, and even there she can double when Citrinne cannot. Chloé is also HARD carried by Célica. I went with her personal class but later on, I think I’ll reclass her to Martial Monk of High Priest since her offense isn’t really anything to write home about long term. I could just bench her, but that wasn’t the plan. TOGETHER WE RIDE (and die).

I actually used Jean on Hard, but I benched him later on as I put him in a shit class that really didn’t make use of his stat growths. I stuck Micaiah on him and he’s budget Hortensia for now. We’ll see how it goes... It’s a bit sad he doesn’t actually have innate Staff proficiency, so he’s stuck with C staves...

ngl I compared her stats to Zelkov on his join chapter and it was just sad. I don’t think he’ll be any better than her in the long run and Lucina and Alear support make it so she can poison even with shit attack. So that’s what she’s here for: poisonning and facetanking. She’s also hit by the “enemy will forever ignore her” curse because she’s so dodgy, so you can’t break the game in half with her like you could in Hard. Having a dedicated support is still nice, though.

He sucked in Hard, so I made the most rational decision and I gave him All the Forged Weapons. He’s doing fine for now. More chain attackers is always good. I just don’t think Diamant is a good unit...

Amber has insane strength and a personal skill that boosts his hit rate. Bow Knight seemed like a good match, especially because it fixes his speed stat. And that’s what you want to do. Speedy Amber = enemy is dead 100%. We’ll see how he evolves but I’m very happy with him so far. You really want bow users in this game, and I’m not using Alcryst this time around...

And that’s it for the early game units! Everyone else was benched by the end of chapter 11.

Obligatory deaths:

-Etie, took an axe in the face chapter 5 so I could kill this horrible boss

-Jade, whom I didn’t recruit because I was left between letting her die, or face tanking Kagetsu, and you don’t face tank Kagetsu

Chapter difficulty rating:

10 > 5 > everything else

It mostly played like Hard mode except these two. Chapter 10 has a really, really difficult start because Hortensia actually moves. Chapter 5 has a really hard finish with the boss and his squad rushing you + you don’t have access to many ressources at this point.

[emblemxeno]

What do you think the CYL units for this year will look like / be themed after?

Also, for next year's CYL, what units do you think will win? For the males section, I'm really hoping for Soren and Lyon, Lyon got pretty high last time (16 or 17, if i remember correctly).

I kinda hope it'll be a "Found Family" inspired theme. Chrom may have Plegian clothes (like Robin) or Feroxi clothes (cuz Ylisse and Ferox have a strong bond). Seliph can have Issachian garb. Tiki can have a Chon'sin look or maybe something Marth inspired. Byleth can have a Nabatean inspired look, maybe with a weapon called Snow Mercurius.

Though there’s no telling if they’ll have a consistent theme for all of them haha.

I'm hoping Soren and Takumi or Leo. Lyon's also a great choice, and I'd be happy to see Sigurd or Leif too.