That Fire Emblem Meme

[mark_asphodel]

Looks like that's what everyone else is doing today...

 

 

1. The first character with whom I fell in love / to whom I was drawn (game play / personality, where applicable):

FE2: Peg Sisters and I don't care if that's cheating.
FE3: Marth, because I was drawn to him before knowing what Fire Emblem even was, thanks SSBM!
FE4/5: Finn, thanks to some fanart and second-hand fangushing I stumbled across looking for more FE3 stuff.
FE6: Perceval and Cecilia thanks to fanfic.
FE7: Pent and Louise, ditto.
FE8: Ephraim and Kyle/Forde because the game bored me until they showed up. Then Innes when he turned up.
FE9: Soren because even having a fan-cult couldn't obscure his unique prickly charm.
FE10: Nolan, because thank god for reasonable adults and for axe users who can hit things.
FE11: Cain because of the prologue, Norne because she was so damn cute, Abel because holy shit he destroys things.
FE12: RODY
FE13: I honestly don't even remember other than that I approved of the Stahl/Cordelia and Henry/Olivia supports pre-release thanks to fan-translation and I was hoping I would like Frederick.

 

2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:
FE2: Zeke because initially I kind of hated him for existing.
FE3: Grust twins. Initially thought of them as just plot-device props. Also Roshea, who was a shitty unit but I still love him.
FE4: Azel, probably.
FE5: Eyvel. Felt nothing whatsoever for the sniper chick in FE4 until I realized that the deal actually was with her.
FE6: Roy. Melee fandom made me dislike him a lot but kyusil

made a good case for him.
FE7: Serra, because she was so goddamned annoying in fanworks. Oswin in general.
FE8: Franz and Amelia probably.
FE9: Tauroneo. Took a while to warm up to the resident Lorenz.
FE10: Eddie and Leo. Had no feelings on them to start with but d'aaaaaaaaw, so cute.
FE11: Barst won me over despite a total lack of personality. He kilt stuff good.
FE12: Nothing in this changed my mind about anyone in a good way.
FE13: Inigo. Not really my usual type.

 

3. The character(s) I enjoyed when I was still learning the game:

Special shout-out to the FE11 ballisticians, Orsin from FE5, Lute in FE8.

 

4. The character (most) everyone else loves that I do not:

I despise all player Avatars and am not much impressed by most of the silent, brooding sword-slingers. That covers a lot of ground. Also, don't give a shit about most thieves. Never got into the Black Fang. Dislike half the Greil Mercs. Not into laguz or taguel or other critter-people. Don't like a whole vast bucketload of FE13 characters. Etc.

 

5. The character I once loved, but no longer do:

Joshua took a big hit in my esteem thanks to shipping bullshittery. Same goes for Chrom and m!Robin, whom I never loved but did find quite likable on my first playthrough. FE12 impacted my feelings on Michalis and Minerva in a bad way. Hell, FE12 impacted my feelings on the entire Archanea-verse in a bad way. All my Alm feelings got turned upside down by FE13's DLC.

 

6. Pairings that I favor:

Three per continent or we'd be here for a year.
Valentia: Alm/Celica, Celica/Palla, my headcanon Jesse/Est crackship
Archanea: Marth/Caeda, my headcanon Draug/Norne, the Peg Sisters and their various problems
Jugdral: Finn/Raquesis trainwreck, Leif/Nanna, Oifaye/Fee. Bonus Finn/Eyvel because if FE5 is going to shove Beowulf in my face I am gonna pretend that's canon and bite me. Also Quan/Ethlyn for best canon pairing.
Elibe: Eliwood/Fiora, Hector/Lyn OR Hector/Farina, Oswin/Serra.
Magvel: Just about everything but a special shout-out to Kyle/Lute, Eirika/Saleh, and Innes/Gerik.
Tellius: Edward/Leonardo is pretty cute, yo. Also the only human/critter pairing I can tolerate are the Ike ones. Titania-->Greil.

Ylisse: Frederick/Cordelia Alpha timeline trainwreck. Sully/Stahl. Lucina/Inigo and I don't care if no one else likes it.

7. Pairings for which I do not care:

Any one involving any goddamned Avatars or self-insert Tacticians. Anything involving humans and critter-people, and that includes manaketes. Fluffy renditions of canon trainwrecks. Parent/child anything and playing the adoption card won't fix it. I mean I could seriously be here all day, especially if we bring stuff that isn't canon-supported (Ogma/Navarre zzzz, Rath/Wil zzzz, Soren/Ilyana wtf are we even doing here?). I would like to echo some of blankspectrum

's dishonorable mentions: Sigurd/Deirdre is bad. Colm/Neimi is a hot mess. And the Dean/Linoan/Arion business in FE5 is just kind of weird and a non-starter and I'm not even sure what's going on there really. And I will add Lester/Patty and Arthur/Fee because I'm sorry those just hit my personal NO buttons for boy/girl dynamics.

8. Favorite characters:

9. Least favourite characters:

IDK a quick skim through my FFNet archive will give you an idea, though I will say that Lewyn/Fury is very underrepresented because I don't honestly know what to add to it. Least favorites? If someone's attracted a defense squad or a pack of apologists I probably like them a lot less than I otherwise would. I found a couple of FE13 characters utterly intolerable beyond the bounds of anything I'd seen before in FE-- namely, Yarne and Miriel.

 

10. My deep, dark fandom secret:

If I hate something y'all probably know it by now. As far as kinks and stuff go, getting into Jugdral basically allows to me contemplate kinky brother/sister hijinks and dubious lord/servant goings-on with no qualms. :P

 

11. The character I would:

(Not feeling this at present, sorry.)

 

12. Favorite / least favorite boss: Favorite? Probably Travant. As far as random minor bosses go I maintain a soft spot for Aias. Least favorite? Shit, pick some random chapter from FE13.

 

13. Favorite map theme: "Disturbance in Agustria."

14. Favorite non-map tune: IDK. I actually played most of the handhelds with the sound off. I liked a lot of the Shadow Dragon music. FE8 and FE13 annoyed me a lot. FE10's pretty good so far.

 

15. The character you feel the most sorry for:
FE2: Sonya :(
FE3: Roshea & GrustTwins
FE4: Tiltyu/Tinny. I don't even like them that much but sweet christ on a biscuit what a horrible situation. Thanks to tumblr meta (runespoor7 & demoiselledefortune) I feel a lot more sorry for Oifaye than I used to.
FE5: Miranda and Sara because holy shit poor little girls. Finn because holy shit everything else.

FE6: Eliwood
FE7: My sad little girl cards are all used up so probably Lucius
FE8: Knoll. I mean really come on now.
FE9: IDEK
FE10: Pelleas?
FE11: Marth his own bad self.
FE12: Wolfguard all got redeemed, so everyone who was loyal to Nyna and put their lives on the line for her LOL.
FE13: Lucina for having to deal with two timelines of bullshit

16. One unit you always use in every playthrough, no matter what:
Lute in FE8. Caeda and Catria in FE11/12.

 

17. Give us an example of your personal headcanon:
FE2: Est fled to Valentia, crash-landed her exhausted pegasus in Jesse's desert kingdom, and he took her in and they later fell in love and married. Meanwhile Nyna also got to Valentia, found Zeke and Teeta living together with their kid(s), and moved right on in. Zeke lived a long full life and died in his own bed surrounded by two wives and many descendants because I said so.
FE3/11/12: Yumina married Ellerean when she grew up and spent the rest of her life trying real hard to be a thorn in the side of Marth and his descendants. Marth's heir was a fairly passive young man and Cain basically ran the country for several generations until he died at his desk at a very advanced age. Meanwhile Caeda retired to Talys and had a glorious second-act romance with Ogma.
FE4: I think y'all know my conviction that World War III is just around the corner, so hmm. Oh yeah. So Finn, being the ordinary human caught up in this whole mad battle of divine warriors, didn't end up there by accident because nothing in Jugdral is accidental. Once he was orphaned and taken in by Quan's parents (who did NOT raise him as a son and kind of forgot about him a lot of the time), he spent many hours in the church praying to his Earth Goddess that he'd grow up to have an awesome military career, kill a lot of Thracians, make the king and queen happy, that kind of thing. Since Nova is kind of a terrible goddess she granted his wishes but the way it came out was "You get to be the designated witness to the destruction and rebirth of civilization." Thanks, Nova. You suck so much as a deity it's no wonder the Edda Church took over after the war.
FE5: Linoan never married but she and Arion did have a kid to cause trouble for future generations.
FE6: Eliwood/Rebecca happened after their respective spouses died.
FE7: (Insert the madcap adventures of Serra, Marchioness of Ostia here)
FE8: Ephraim never marries and is succeeded by his niece, the daughter of Saleh and Eirika. Lute works for the government of Renais after Kyle dies in Ephraim's service and either discovers radium or invents chemical warfare. Franz and Amelia have the most ass-kicking uber-paladin daughter on the planet.
FE9/10: Nothing really
FE13: IDEK anymore

18. Favorite / least favorite elements of the game:
Hmm. FE has been through so many changes over the years it's hard to even say. I mean, I love the implementation of the arena in FE4 and never use it otherwise. I love the FE5 Capture system. I hate GBA-era turn-based supports and their limitations even if the supports themselves are well-written. I think FE13's skill system got out of hand. I understand why the bare-bones nature of Shadow Dragon upset people but I find that game really fun. A lot of the things I liked about the franchise are things it seems to be moving away from, possibly forever, and frankly I don't really see anything promising in FE14 that outweighs all the things that look repellent about it. The world-building/mythology elements I liked are not in play anymore and haven't been for a while. The character designs I enjoyed are not anything like what the series now uses. The underlying morality appears to have changed. Any degree of serious thought into the political/military side seems to be absent of late. Etc.

Comments

[samuraiter]

Kaga: "... I don't know whether to laugh or cry at what my baby has become ..."

[queenlua]

i had no idea you were sweet on edward/leonardo, eee. they are adorbs. how far are you in fe10 at this point?

[mark_asphodel]

Got to the end of Part I, heh. I am painfully slow to progress with console games.

But Leo and Eddie just feel natural and very cute. I don't have much to say about them except "yes, good."

[thenicochan]

Soren because even having a fan-cult couldn't obscure his unique prickly charm.

Agreed. Though damn if they don’t try.

FE6: Roy. Melee fandom made me dislike him a lot

And removed him so very far from his canonical portrayal. It’s been a really long time since I even attempted to touch that fandom, but I recall Melee!Roy as a hotheaded, rough-n-tumble pyromaniac with a jealous streak. (I’m actually a big fan the way Awkward Zombie portrays him though. This is an example of a fun alternate interpretation)

FE7: Serra, because she was so goddamned annoying in fanworks.

Doesn’t the fandom generally hate her?

FE9: Tauroneo. Took a while to warm up to the resident Lorenz.

Tauro is boss. Respect.

FE10: Eddie and Leo. Had no feelings on them to start with but d'aaaaaaaaw, so cute.

Right!?

Special shout-out to the FE11 ballisticians

Right, redux!? I love those dudes.

the Peg Sisters and their various problems

The best way to phrase that whole…thing. That they’ve got going on. That hurts.

Finn/Raquesis trainwreck

*popcorn*

Frederick/Cordelia Alpha timeline trainwreck.

Curious. How does this work out for you? The idea is appealing.

Ogma/Navarre zzzz, Rath/Wil zzzz, Soren/Ilyana wtf are we even doing here

Two of these I agree with 101%. One of these I actually kinda like a bit haha. Don’t judge me!

Yarne and Miriel.

What is it that you hate so much about these two? Yarne can be a bit annoying, I agree, but I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Miriel. She’s like a more tolerable Lute, IMO.

FE13: Lucina for having to deal with two timelines of bullshit

Word x 13

17. Give us an example of your personal headcanon:

Love for most of these. The WWIII/Finn ones are especially notable for being awesome and tragic and ouch.

[mark_asphodel]

I’m actually a big fan the way Awkward Zombie portrays him though. This is an example of a fun alternate interpretation

Haven't followed that comic in a long time but it used to make me laugh, yeah.

Doesn’t the fandom generally hate her?

I don't honestly know. I never quite got what large chunks of FE7 fandom were smoking and I've given up trying to figure it out. I just remember browsing a good many fics where Serra was ruined because the writers didn't grasp how damn vulnerable she is. And then there were the ones that tried to compensate by making her a hyper-competent person instead. Nope.

Curious. How does this work out for you? The idea is appealing.

Well, it kind of doesn't work. See, if FE13's big contention is that the bonds that are formed during the in-game timeline help save everyone, then IMO the lack of those bonds in spite of rushed marriages and various children effectively help doom everyone. Cordy loves Chrom but settles for Freddy, who also loves Chrom in THAT way but doesn't have the leeway to even express himself the way Cordy does because of Ylisse's special "wink wink no homo" attitude. They try to make a go of things but they don't really gel and the world around them is going to hell in any event. Cordy goes off to war alongside Chrom and dies, leaving Frederick to raise Severa until the apocalypse catches up with him.

What is it that you hate so much about these two?

I don't even like the concept of Taguel but Panne's actual personality has its good points. Her son is just one-note not funny, not sympathetic, not anything. As for Miriel, I hate hate hate that this walking talking Thesaurus is presented as, of all things, FE's conception of a goddamned scientist. Like, Lute as the prodigy with social issues? I've met Lutes. I get Lute. She can be awful but she feels real to me. Miriel as a SCIENTIST? No. I (really) don't like Kellam, but he doesn't personally offend me in his execution the way Miriel does, and the fanworks I've read that try to redeem her have only made me like the original less.

Love for most of these. The WWIII/Finn ones are especially notable for being awesome and tragic and ouch.

Aw, thanks. With Finn, two things out of the Treasure artbook that I found out last year caused me to tinker with my headcanon-- first, that he was definitely from a high-ranking noble family to start with and not plausibly a truly ordinary kid who ends up in the Holy War (which is what the Oosawa manga ran with), and second that he was intended all along as basically the designated witness to the apocalypse. Once you get the sense that this role of witness-to-history existed and he was either born for it or somehow selected to it (or self-selected by wanting a piece of the action a little too much?), it puts a new pin on everything from the Miracle skill to the appalling human cost of protecting Leif between the wars. When Finn dodges a hit in-game that would certainly have killed him otherwise, it's not pure luck (or Lck). Some higher power actually is rigging the cosmic RNG in his favor. @_@

[thenicochan]

…Okay, so your Fred/Cordy Alpha Timeline totally works for me (and bonus points for massive shades of how I see Cain/Marth/Catria) and it hurts and I love it. The romantic in me likes the idea that those two get to experience real affection and the like in the Prime Timeline (I’ve gone and confused myself by not being consistent with timeline naming) when compared to their more tragic forbearers…alternates.

Yarne

Some of his supports work a little better, but really what sold him to me what his numerous convos in the Scrambles and the ‘Bad Future’ DLC. When he starts to branch away from his more one-note personality (We get it, you’re a coward, shaddup) and he starts to grow a bit more of a backbone he becomes much more tolerable IMO.

Miriel

I feel like Miriel is a scientist in a very disinterested way. Like, she doesn’t really care about much outside of her own curiosity which is almost completely consuming to her person. She can’t really function like a normal person, and lacks that desire to use science to really enhance people’s lives (if she does it’s more by serendipity than anything else) which is what really differentiates her from the more social, though still quite awkward, Laurent (whom I love a bunch). When she delves into her history with her mother, though, we see a little more of per personality…but I honestly think she’s got such a one track mind she can’t conceive of anything outside of what it directly in front of her.

I guess I like that she’s not insufferably arrogant like Lute. *shrug*

Finn

Yes! Love this. You realize that 85% of my headcanon for this ‘verse is adopted from you, right? Because, dude.

[mark_asphodel]

and bonus points for massive shades of how I see Cain/Marth/Catria

Yeah, that's part of it! I mean, to a large extent I feel like the set-up with Cordy and Fred took a lot of things that already intrigued me about dysfunctional knight pairings and unrequited love and basically said, "Go for broke. They die horribly anyway leaving a traumatized child behind."

AW YISS.

She can’t really function like a normal person

I'll say. I'll also add this-- my circle of friends includes brilliant scientists, including particle physicists, which is a pretty out-there field of science. All of them are perfectly capable of communicating in a down-to-earth fashion to lesser humans. Nobody vomits ten-dollar words at people like they spent all night bingeing on SAT prep guides. Miriel feels to me like a deeply juvenile take on what a "smart" person sounds like. No like. As I said-- it's personal. I recognize Danved is waaaaaay more objectively troubling. But it's personal.

You realize that 85% of my headcanon for this ‘verse is adopted from you, right? Because, dude.

Aw, man, that's both touching and dangerous!

I think with Finn part of what I find so fascinating about him is that it really, REALLY seems to me like the dev team was taken enough with him that they kept tinkering with their own collective or personal headcanons for literal years, tweaking this and bending that and never getting 100% done by the time the door shut on the Jugdral era. So we end up with this character in whom a great deal was clearly invested but little bits don't fit together and ARGH.

Mind you, someone on the team was obviously taken with Beowulf as well and caught flat-footed when it turned out fandom didn't like Beowulf as much as they did! I was going to make a comparison to Lucas and Jar-Jar Binks... and as it happens, the world rejecting Jar Jar and the great Fire Emblem Shipping Fiasco of '99 went down in the exact same year.

[thenicochan]

Cordy and Fred took a lot of things that already intrigued me about dysfunctional knight pairings and unrequited love

I think you've unintentionally sold me on this. It adds even more issues to poor ol' Severa. (And seriously, the fact that this girl knows that, canonically, her mother had a huge thing for Chrom seems to already be a huge sense of contention for her. Yikes)


I recognize Danved is waaaaaay more objectively troubling

Ahh....Devdan "Slavery is Wrong" Danved. That happened.


As for Finn...I really would like a Kaga-run Judgral remake with extra scenes/supports. The world building is, frankly, pretty insane.

[bookofholsety]

I think FE13's skill system got out of hand.

i don't think i'm even capable of properly expressing how much i agree with this and how this is what shits me about 13 on a mechanical level most of all. the fundamental ideas behind 13's handling of skills would've worked out just fine on their own, at least after heavy pruning, but its grindtastic fate was sealed the moment reclassing entered the mix. on one hand i'm relieved that 14 tweaked things slightly so at least the grinding is finite, but on the other hand, jesus fuck you cannot be serious intsys

[mark_asphodel]

Yeah.

I mean, I am SO not-interested in the game as far as storyline and characters go that mechanics are the main thing left to pique my interest and stuff like Too Many Skills just pushes that interest back down into the basement. I am glad they reined in reclassing, though.

[bookofholsety]

for a while i was of the opinion that no fe game had ever really done a competent job with the skills system, but on replaying 9 and 10 i've grown to be very fond of their handling of them even if mastery skills were probably also the start of Modern Overhyped Skill Hell

[mark_asphodel]

Yeah, my overall feeling for a long time was "skills, who needs 'em?" because the GBA games and FE11 were perfectly enjoyable without them (I do not count FE8's half-assed implementation of Pierce and whatnot). But over the years I've come around to seeing the appeal even if FE4 is a crude implementation and FE13 is... stupid about it.

[bookofholsety]

imo the big strength of how 9 and 10 handle them is that capacity recognises that not all skills are created equal, which in 9 at least was a big encouragement to play around with combinations of lesser skills and to consider that a serious alternative to just slapping on a mastery. modern fe's skill bloat only really exacerbates the problem; after all, why the hell am i supposed to care about skill +2 when i could put counter or galeaforce or w/e in the same slot for the exact same cost? while i can't see any permutation of the current state of skills in modern fe working out well, capacity might be a step in the right direction and could help make the skill system a little more interesting than "apply limit break, grind for the really broken skills and ignore all the others forever"

[hilow]

[FE13: Lucina for having to deal with two timelines of bullshit]

HAHAHA. True and real.