#school work is temporary fire emblem fates is forever

[nowis-scales]

Regarding the Fates ask game...

9, 18, 26, 39

You can find the link for this ask game here!

Thank you for taking the time to send an ask, and sorry for any delay in my answering! I really was like “let me just wait out these bots”, only to stumble back into things right before a very busy academic period… siiiiiiigh. Why am I like this? Lol

9. “What’s your opinion on Azura?”

I would say that I like Azura! When I started playing the game I think I was more attached to her than I am now, but I think we can all agree that she’s kind of put in a weird position in the game. I wouldn’t say I necessarily like her less than I used to because her position is weird, but more so just because other characters surpassed her. Really, she’s interesting, she’s just very underutilized. I think she might’ve stuck in my brain more if she had a better place in the narrative.

Make no mistake, though, I do quite like her! Female characters that seem kind of stoic and cold at first are my bread and butter, so I knew early on that she was going to be a character I liked. Though she’s often there to exposition dump, I love the way our understanding of her as a character sort of unfolds over the course of the three stories. Learning that she truly is a princess of three kingdoms and has pretty much been tossed from every home that’s ever shown her an ounce of love is heart-wrenching, but it also makes it clear why she doesn’t let herself be vulnerable and tends to hold herself back from connecting with others. She’s a child of all three worlds amongst this grand conflict, and holding her tongue is the only thing she can do without risking death. She’s been thrust out of her home and into two places where she’s hated, to the point where just having the solace of a family’s affection in one is just enough to survive — and still she describes the time like she’s on a sinking ship, like she’s the only one who knows the party won’t be going on forever. It makes her such an interesting character to analyze because this is her core on top of all of the bullying she faces, so it’s no wonder she’s so withdrawn.

That being said, even if she is hiding herself away from her world in some way, you can see that there is still some fight in her. She has love for it nonetheless. She loves ghost stories and playing with her little sisters, she loves her nana and fluffy animals, and she’s so forgiving of the people in her life even when they’ve failed her. She can be blunt and she doesn’t like to talk about herself, but she’s very ride or die. Honestly, I genuinely really do like Azura, and in the Fates remake of my dreams, we’d really get to look into her more as a character. I think there’s just so much meat there, and I’d love to delve into her and her relationship to Valla, and how it affects her perception of the world and her personality. Maybe I’ll have to write a fic about her someday!

In conclusion: Azura good.

18. “Favourite VA performance?”

Alright, part two of these! Who are some more that I like? Well, let’s see…

Other performances I really enjoyed were Matt Mercer as… well, it’s hard not to enjoy a Matt Mercer performance, he’s another one of those actors that kind of just always brings his all to something. You can tell he genuinely really enjoys what he does! I think of the three he does, Ryoma is my favourite (and yes there is some bias because I like the character), especially because in Warriors, Ryoma’s voice gets even deeper and richer to help differentiate between him and Chrom and it just sounds really well-suited. Also because that little “errrr… hang out?” line sneaks up on me when I’m supposed to be making a neutral face lol.

Otherwise, I also loved Marisha Ray as Oboro! I think she is very underrated as a voice actress in general, to be honest, and I would love to see her in more projects. Her performance as Oboro is just so playful and silly, but it strikes the right tone of seriousness as well when it needs to. I feel like she perfectly captures Oboro’s youth but also her ferocity, and just makes her a genuinely fun character to invest in. I remember when I first started playing Fates I thought it was a shame we didn’t get to hear her talk more, just because of how satisfying I found it to listen to Marisha Ray’s performance.

Max Mittelman as Leo and Antony Del Rio as Silas are two more favourites from me, as they are another set of hard hitters who just come in there and know what they’re doing and commit to the roles. They both brought a lot of life to the characters they voiced, and made for a pleasing to the ear performance. I wish I could say more, but I can’t figure out how to express it beyond they play their roles really well and just have a great sound!

Last but not least I do want to give a shout out to Brianna Knickerbocker, who seems to have just always been having fun with her roles. She captures Sakura’s shyness and Charlotte’s strength so beautifully, and makes each girl feel unique and entertaining. Again, like Max Mittelman and Antony Del Rio, the words are failing me, but her performances? Those did not! Those were very very good!

26. “Your favourite cool details?”

There’s loads of just tiny things like how all the Hoshidan royal siblings have birthdays in the spring/summer except Takumi, who is born in December, showing just another way that he’s the odd one out. Or how some related characters actually make similar expressions, highlighting their familial relationship to one another. There’s also how it’s relatively easy to get money in the games when you’re playing as Hoshido, but you’re on a tighter budget when you’re playing as Nohr. A lot of the Hoshidan men’s emotional issues can actually be tied to the country’s problem with sexism as well, not just the women’s. Elise’s hair is actually deliberately streaked with purple dye, referencing her desire to be like Camilla.

I often see people referring to Fates as “a cash grab” by only referencing the fact that they disliked it — not even the split-in-three model, just the game’s existence — and when I look at all this stuff and all of the other things that we see in these games… I can’t help but roll my eyes. Detail like this doesn’t really show up in cash grabs.

39. “Do you have any headcanons about Fates?”

If the question is Fates headcanons, the answer is yes, always. I’ll probably just chuck a small chunk of them in a list here, as you are definitely not the only person who has asked me about this one lol. I didn’t realize how beloved my headcanons were until I slowed down on sharing them!

▸ Elise mentions that all Nohrian noblewomen are trained in an instrument, and that she herself is trained on the violin. Corrin, who can be of either gender (or transcend the typical gender binary if you’re not a coward) is also said to be a talented pianist. However, we’re never told what instrument Camilla plays, so it is my belief that she is a very talented flautist. It took a lot of time and discipline to learn how to play, but Garon (pre-goo) loved to listen to her play and would always encourage her.

▸ I know it doesn’t fully make sense, but I love to headcanon “Shiro” as a nickname for “Shinonome”. I mean, Hoshido is called the White Kingdom in Japanese, right? It could be a funny little joke. Anyway, I think it’s fun because Shiro is a sort of casual guy, and also I can’t help picturing an Alvin and the Chipmunks style cry of “SHINONOME!” from across camp any time Shiro messes up badly.

▸ It never came to fruition, but I had a set of headcanons at one point where I knew the Hoshido fam’s first words as babies. Ryoma’s was “dada”, Hinoka’s was “ball”, Sakura’s was “help” (as in “please help me with this, older sibling”), and Takumi was one of those kids who just didn’t talk for ages and then busted out a whole sentence. He probably did it once and then wouldn’t again for another week, so whoever witnessed it would just have no one believe them. He was that kind of kid.

▸ I also just remembered I knew Felicia’s: it was “uh-oh”. Kilma and his wife, Cerisa, used to say it whenever she fell and not make a big deal out of it so she wouldn’t cry. It… mostly worked, although that meant when Flora fell, they’d hear a tiny little “uh-oh!” from Felicia.

▸ Also, speaking of baby Flora and baby Felicia, there was a terrible point during their infancy where if Flora cried about anything, Felicia would start crying, and then there would be two crying babies. And it would be awful. This, however, was not the case with the other set of twins in the cast, Saizo and Kaze — if Kaze cried about something, Saizo had a habit of just looking at him with some serious judgement.

▸ I have names for several of the Fates moms that you would maybe only know if you were a regular reader of my fics, and I don’t necessarily expect anyone to be, so I’ll just share the names here. Camilla’s mom was called Hortensia, who I named prior to the announcement of Engage. Regrettably, the reason I chose this name was because I imagined she was very beautiful and had the attention of many men, so the other concubines habitually called her “Whore-tensia”… Leo’s mom was a woman called Maren, and Elise’s was called Odette. Azura’s father, often mistaken for Cadros, was called Milos. As I mentioned before, Flora and Felicia’s mom was called Cerisa, for her pink hair (cerise is French for cherry).

▸ Oh, and Jakob and Hana’s parents were Helena and Astor and Shinjiro and Tadame, respectively. I also had names for Gunter’s wife and son, called Laoise (pronounced Lee-sha) and Bernelle.

▸ Charlotte is really protective of Benny. He may seem like a strong, scary guy, but she knows he’s a gentle soul and she wouldn’t want anyone to take advantage of someone so kind and sweet like that. If you ever screw with Benny, you screw with Charlotte, and that’s not something you ever want to do. She’ll make you rue the day you even thought about hurting him. If you’re like me and you like Charlotte as the queen of Nohr, you may see Benny as one of her retainers someday, but I think a lot of people would find that hurting the queen herself would get you less punishment than hurting her beloved retainer.

▸ Azura probably has like, a huge emotional comedown period after the events of Revelation. Like, this is a woman who has lived her entire life in fear of this beast coming to destroy her and what few things she is still permitted to hold dear, so to finally be safe for the first time in her life and to have her kingdom back is too much to bear. There are probably a lot of big feelings surrounding all of this that take her a long time (and probably some professional counsel) to work through.

▸ I flat out just refuse to believe that Izana died in Revelation. After the events of the game, he totally just stood up and kept going, pleased with himself for having convinced Takumi to join Corrin despite his own feelings of hesitation. It made the next banquet that everyone was at together really awkward, because the leaders of two major nations were really convinced that the Duke of Izumo is dead, and now they look really bad in front of everyone else being surprised that he’s alive.

[girlsbtrs]

My Senior Soundtrack - Playlist

Written by Jen Moglia. Graphic by Allison Thompson. 

At the end of this month, I’ll finally be graduating high school. Typing that sentence definitely felt surreal. 

Years and years of hard work and stress, with some not-so-bad times mixed in, will culminate in the moment I’ve been waiting for for as long as I can remember. I had been told countless times that senior year would be easy and that high school would consist of the best years of my life, and while I did enjoy a lot of it, there were also some incredibly difficult times, especially this year. 

What follows is a list of songs that got me through some of those darker moments. I hope that they can be there for you too. 

“Roses” - Watsky

Favorite Lyric: “Leaving is supposed to be hard / Man, I thought it so was selfish of people I love to keep falling out of my life / But now I know / No, I don't take it personal”

This was a song that I connected with a lot when making decisions for college - did I want to move away and start a new adventure on my own, or did I want to stay home with all the people and places that I knew and loved? Listening to these lyrics helped me feel better about my decision to move away for school, learning that I wasn’t selfish for wanting to start fresh.

“Never Grow Up” - Taylor Swift

Favorite Lyric: “And you can't wait to move out someday and call your own shots / But don't make her drop you off around the block / Remember that she's gettin' older too / And don't lose the way that you dance / Around in your PJs getting ready for school”

Taylor Swift is one of my favorite artists of all time, and this song has been hitting particularly hard for me lately. For as much as I can’t wait to start this next chapter of my life, there’s so much about home and my family that I’ll miss more than they will ever know.

“Boston” - Augustana

Favorite Lyric: “She said ‘I think I'll go to Boston / I think I'll start a new life / I think I'll start it over / Where no one knows my name’”

Augustana’s most popular song, I listened to this track a ton when I was first starting high school, dreaming of running away someday. The fact that that day is almost here is crazy to me.

“Swim” - Jack’s Mannequin

Favorite Lyric: “You gotta swim, swim in the dark / There's no shame in drifting / Feel the tide shifting and wait for the spark / Yeah, you gotta swim, don't let yourself sink / Just find the horizon / I promise you, it's not as far as you think”

Another song that I loved in my late middle school/early high school years, this band and all of Andrew McMahon’s projects in general have been staples in my Spotify library for years. This track in particular served as motivation for me to keep going during hard times.

“North Hansen” - Bearings

Favorite Lyric: “I've got dreams, I've got needs / I've got things I believe / That I just can not let go / I still, think about you every single day / I still miss that old North Hansen Home / Sometimes I wanna go home / All I'm saying is the ending scares me every time / Your words replaying / Over and over I save them in my mind / Now I'm grabbing a hold / Of what's about to unfold”

On the flip side, Bearings has been a huge part of the last few years of my high school experience; their 2019 tour with Grayscale, Belmont, and Rich People was the first tour I ever did multiple dates of, and those days and nights I spent traveling and singing my heart out truly changed my life. I leaned on this band’s entire discography during my junior and senior year, but this song specifically reminded me that it’s okay to be scared of leaving home as the future approaches.

“Ribs” - Lorde

Favorite Lyric: “This dream isn't feeling sweet / We're reeling through the midnight streets / And I've never felt more alone / It feels so scary getting old / I want 'em back / The minds we had / How all the thoughts / Moved 'round our heads”

How could I make a “coming of age” playlist without this song on it? Lorde has been a big part of my life for a while now - her hit song ��Royals” was the ringtone on my first Smartphone in fifth grade, and I saw her live for the first time on the night before my 15th birthday on her Melodrama World Tour in Brooklyn, New York. Much like the last song, this track perfectly captures the fear of the future and getting older.

“Atlantic” - Grayscale

Favorite Lyric: “This place feels more and more like nowhere to me / I'm sick of waiting for a fire to ignite / I could just leave here without a goodbye / I'll burn down this bridge / And set my life up in smoke...I want to go / Run from this panic / I need the unknown”

As I mentioned earlier, attending four dates of Grayscale’s Nella Vita Part One Tour and six dates of the album cycle in total (bringing me to a grand total of ten times seeing this band) was a formative experience for me. Getting to end every night screaming the lyrics to this song, once again, dreaming of starting a new life as soon as I could, was cathartic.

“City Lights” - Emblem 3

Favorite Lyric: “Caught up in those pretty city lights / Wishing on a star for your direction / Thinking of a new and different life / Babe, I know this one ain't what you've been dreaming”

I choreographed my “senior solo” in my dance class to this song, one of my favorites for many years. Although I have a feeling it’s about someone moving thousands of miles away to chase dreams of stardom rather than moving two hours away to attend college, it certainly served as a source of comfort for me.

“Play” - Rich People

Favorite Lyric: “Because I know I'm beautiful enough / For someone to love / I don't know many things / But I feel everything / And I'm just too young to give up”

Rich People is my favorite band of all time, which you probably already know if you follow me on social media, and getting to watch them perform and connect with them was a major part of why following the Nella Vita Part One Tour was so pivotal for me. This song is my favorite off of their most recent album “Harmony”, and my graduation cap will have these lyrics in frontman Rob Rich’s handwriting on it later this month. This band and this song mean everything to me.

“Dream Envy” - Rich People

Favorite Lyric: “It's no way to live / Sitting on the fence asking myself ‘what if?’”

Another Rich People song, no surprise here, this is one of my favorites from their first release, “Jacob’s Ladder.” It reminded me that “sitting on the fence asking myself ‘what if?’”, is, indeed, no way to live, and it pushed me to make definitive decisions, leaving no stone unturned.

“Something Bigger Than This” - Trophy Eyes

Favorite Lyric: “I'm still flying through my twenties / Waiting for someone to say I made it / Golden boy, tiny paycheck / Big ideas and broken heartstrings / Waking up in the same old skin / It ain't easy to believe / We were born for something bigger than this / It don't make much sense right now / But it will all come together when the lights go out”

I saw Trophy Eyes live for the first time at the start of my sophomore year at the Stereo Garden in Patchogue, New York, leaving my last-period algebra class early to attend their show with Neck Deep, WSTR, and Stand Atlantic (sorry, Ms. Sloane). Their music has resonated deeply with me since then, and this song has especially been a huge source of motivation for me when I was feeling down about myself.

“Forevermore” - The Maine

Favorite Lyric: “Never really ever felt this type of vulnerable / Don't have to hide, don't have to fear / All you have to be is here...And I said, ‘I wanna feel like this forever’ / Even if forever's just for now / We're on fire, let us burn / As the outside world, it turns / We are here and alive / In our corner of time / Forevermore”

The Maine is another band that I feel has been here for me for as long as I can remember, remaining in my daily rotation since the summer before high school started. This song, off their most recent album “You Are OK”, has reminded me that wherever I am is exactly where I need to be at that point in time and to embrace every single moment.

“Flowers on the Grave” - The Maine

Favorite Lyric: “Feel the moment all around you / And the quiet that surrounds you / The time you have is sacred / Don't wait around and waste it / They can't take that away from you / Everything is temporary / Even the sorrow that you carry...'Cause you don't plan life, you live it / You don't take love, you give it / You can't change what is written / So when fate cries, you listen / And flowers on the grave / Of the child that I used to be”

The first time that I saw The Maine was at the New York City date of their “The Mirror” tour at Webster Hall. When they closed with this song, I was near inconsolable; my friends were practically passing me around to hug me and make sure I was alright. Similar to the last song, this track reminds me to live life to the fullest and not take anything for granted, not wasting any time mourning the past and only looking towards the future.

“Old Book” - Real Friends

Favorite Lyric: “It really weirds me out / Because I never thought I'd be where I am today...This isn’t where I want to be / Getting older scares the shit out of me”

On the topic of bands that were constants for me in my formative years, Real Friends was one of the first pop-punk bands that I truly loved. I wore a shirt with their “The Home Inside My Head” album cover on it on my first day of high school, and their 2018 show with Eat Your Heart Out, Grayscale, and Boston Manor at Irving Plaza in New York City was one of my first real general admission concerts; I don’t think I’d be where I am today if I didn’t go to that show. This song  always served as a reminder that I wasn’t alone in my worries about the future, and that it would all be okay, even if I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going.

“Satellite” - Rise Against

Favorite Lyric: “We'll come clean and start over / The rest of our lives / When we're gone, we'll stay gone / Out of sight, out of mind / It's not too late, we have the rest of our lives...This is a life that you can’t deny us now”

Four years ago this week, I saw Rise Against for the first time, opening for Deftones at Jones Beach in Wantagh, New York with my dad; at the end of July, I’ll get to see them kick off their latest tour at Pier 17 in New York City with one of my best friends. If that isn’t a full-circle moment, I don’t know what is. Rise Against is one of my favorite bands of all time, and their music has always made me feel strengthened and empowered. This song specifically inspired me to reclaim my own life, not letting anyone else determine the outcome and my mindset but myself - it’s also the perfect angsty soundtrack to a fresh start.

“Something Special” - A Will Away

Favorite Lyric: “‘Pull out your clothes / You're made for something special’ / If that's what it takes to get you out of bed / You think you're meant for California / But that's just in your head / I saw you howling at the street lights / Pressed against the skin you want to shed / You tore down all the walls for answers / And found this shit instead...Don't let the poison that surrounds you / Stifle out the life you want to live / Please know it truly doesn't matter / And truly never did”

Though I’ve been listening to them since my sophomore year of high school, A Will Away is a band that I really got into this year as a senior. “Something Special” is my favorite song off of their album “Here Again”, and while I know it wasn’t written about finding friends that feel like family, rejecting negativity, and starting a new chapter, that’s certainly what it’s about for me.

“Lead Balloon” - Vanna

Favorite Lyric: “This isn't how we die / You're not reading the ending right / You are meant for greatness / Open up your eyes and face it / Now to your feet and follow me / The road is hard but you're harder / Can't you feel your heartbeat starting?...You're weak but you can feel now / Your soul slowly getting out / You are so strong / And you'll have to carry on now / Cause I know that you know how”

Vanna’s “All Hell” was an album I discovered around this time last year, and I listened to it non-stop for all of summer 2020. It became one of my favorite records ever (and not just because of the pink aesthetic, though I do appreciate the use of my favorite color). When I was struggling a lot during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in more ways than I could count, this song really helped me through, these lyrics in particular. It gave me hope that I’d make it to the end of my senior year celebrating, which, thankfully, I did.

“Give Yourself A Try” - The 1975

Favorite Lyric: “Won’t you give yourself a try?”

While the lyrics of this song are a bit odd, frankly pessimistic, and hard for a teenager to relate to, its catchy, more optimistic chorus served as a mantra for me throughout my last few years of high school. If I couldn’t take a chance on myself, why would anyone else want to? This song’s refrain sparked a ton of self-love in me, and I spent many nights dancing around to it in my bedroom. Also, I couldn’t leave this band off of this list - I’ve been listening to them since their self-titled LPs came out when I was 10 years old, and the album that this song is off of, “A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships”, is one of my favorite records of all time.

“Garden Song” - Phoebe Bridgers

Favorite Lyric: “I don't know how, but I'm taller / It must be something in the water / Everything's growing in our garden...She told me my resentment's getting smaller / No, I'm not afraid of hard work / I get everything I want”

Much like A Will Away, Phoebe Bridgers is an artist that I had known of and had recommended to me for years, but I only really started listening to her as a senior in high school. “Kyoto” and “Would You Rather” are probably my favorites by her, but this song, along with “It’ll All Work Out”, helped me through feeling scared for the future and wondering how I grew up so quickly.

“Growing Up” - The Maine

Favorite Lyric: “We'll never lose what we had...Growing up won't bring us down / Graduate, what's a kid to do now? / Get away, yeah / We've got so much to prove / 'Cause it's time to move on / And I start to let go...We're in this together / Yeah, we'll make it somehow / Nothing's gonna stop us now”

Finally, to close it out, one more song by one of my favorite bands ever, and one of the bands that carried me throughout my senior year, as well as all of my high school years. I had to include this one - my graduation pictures were captioned “graduate, what’s a kid to do now?” At its core, this is a song about holding on to childlike energy and teenage memories despite growing up and moving on. Every time I listen to it (which has been a lot, lately), I’m reminded that I have the best friends in the world who have given me some of the happiest years of my life, and that doesn’t have to end just because we’re getting older. “Growing up won’t bring us down.”

For more songs like this, you can follow my Spotify playlist titled “senioritis” here. 

Congratulations to everyone who is celebrating this month, whatever you might be graduating from!