Took a stab at the ending-sentence meme the rest of y'all are doing and realized a few 'fics in I end things with dark/light imagery waaaaay too often. C'est la vie.

Anyway, how 'bout this: closing sentences to WIPs I would rather like to finish some day?

( Stuff. Spoilers for 'fic that may not get published, in a sense. )

The last of these being a piece of period-appropriate sentimentalism IMO.

Technically speaking, "Infinite Regalia" contains a wealth of information that can be used for meta on Fire Emblem's bad endings, afterlife and resurrection meta, and stuff like this. I just can't bring myself to discuss it because it's presented in a manner that jacks the Disturb-O-Meter past FE5 levels of Fucking Disturbing.

And FE5's "Deadlords" are really, really disturbing.

The text is all here. Basically, the interaction with the Gen 1 characters is mostly funny while the interaction between the Deadlords and the Gen 2 characters is anything but, and the overall effect is more like the modern tongue-in-cheek self-aware zombie phenomenon. I don't even know where to begin applying this stuff.

Then there's the Lost Bloodlines series (the Marth vs Seliph stuff), and I don't really know where to begin with that, either. It's kind of all over the place. In some places the Einherjar show glimmers of awareness and I get the idea there's supposed to be something more to them than just puppets (Chrom and Co. also get that feeling-- it's pretty explicit). In some places they feel like one-dimensional actual cardboard figures they're purported to be (I don't like how Ethlyn's written, for a start). Some of the Einherjar feel pretty alive and, I don't know... themselves? I think the "new" characters from FE11/12 feel pretty vivid, which may be telling. They were, after all, made up out of whole cloth. Some of the Jugdrali sound more alive than others. IDK.

( Good stuff and bad stuff )

Really the Einherjar are really the best weasel device in fandom. If something in the DLC bolsters your pet theory about a beloved NES/SNES character, you can point to the DLC and go "See? See? Word of God!" If you don't like their new speech quirk or personality transplant, you can wave it off with, "Eh, it's not really them-- it's an artist's rendering of the real thing."

And then, after all, this is merely canon fanfic, right? Some scriptwriting intern could've been plopped down with the 20th Anniversary Artbook and told to compile a three-to-five word description of every relevant character and then produce dialogue based on the lists. So you get a fairly bland Arthur without his moments of towering rage and this really wussy Nanna who doesn't match up to her FE4 counterpart. Not to mention an Ethlyn who apparently belongs in the kitchen. So yeah... they're artists' renderings.

Maybe.

So.  We'll hear no more about Latka and Scrabblebits 'round these parts.

And not Luchtaine and Scathach, either.  Despite the mythological bent showed in the localization overall, Ayra's mini-me daughter has been localized as... Larcei.  I think I like it.  Meanwhile, NoA completely and utterly punted on the raving mess of a name that is Sukasha/Skasaher/Scathach and came up with... Ulster.  Despite the fact that they've been assiduously erasing real-life place names from the game script overall (x-ref Leonster, Silesse, etc).  I'm guessing this means that if Shanan gets localized in anything ever he will indeed be rendered as "Shannon" to go with his cousin.

"Ulster" is not a very good name but I have to laugh about it, as it just seems like NoA looked at "スカサハ" and went, "Fuck it. Where's a map of Ireland? Pick something!" 

( The rest of the Jugdrali names are under the cut )

I'm reeling from "Quan" and "Arvis" and "Ulster" but I'll get over it. 

Guess who just played the FE13 demo?

Y'know, I don't play Fire Emblem to deal with stuff like "the Exalt of the halidom." I don't. Sorry. Also, I HATE voice acting. This isn't bad, but god it's annoying. However, my main takeaway is that FE13 seems really clearly aimed at making new people comfortable with the series.

That double-attack gimmick rocks, though. And a couple of Chrom's lines have been laugh-out-loud funny in a good way. I like Sully's VA, too, as such things go. Virion, OTOH... blech.

All in all... I'm looking forward to more. And I already scored Hector's Axe, LOL.

-x-

So. We have NoA official names for all the legacy weapons users in FE13. This means some FE4/5 characters make their "debut" for the first time along with some more FE12 and FE13 characters.

( Spoilers ahoy! )

Wow, Cain.

I think you just won the "Character With No Life" award for all Fire Emblem.  Given some of your competition, that's damned impressive.

In a horrible way.

And FE11 gave you a backstory of such potential.

No, really.  I think I may have to take back everything I ever wrote about you.  That's, like... 35,000 words?  45,000?  Yikes.

OTOH, after reviewing my Rody-centric stories I decided he was actually pretty much on the money and it's Cecil(le) that's wobbly in light of New Canon.

Maybe I don't want an FE4 remake after all.  :P

This is a good game.  Good game, nice game, everybody ought to give it a whirl.  It combines things I really love about FE11 with all the things that people whined about NOT being in FE11. 

( Except canto-- it doesn't have that. Or rescue. You can't have everything, people. )

OK.  Last time I was complaining that Jugdral didn't offer me nerds I could identify with.  Today, imma complain about something else, of more recent origin.

The current conception of a SRS BZNS knight.  [FE12 data obtained from playthroughs by shimizu_hitomi , Big Klingy, and others.]

FE12 gives us "Chris," Marth's invaluable source of support, alter ego, etc.  Chris expresses her devotion to Marth by getting all up in his business being obsessed with training.  And sparring.  And training.  And challenging people.  It's pretty dull, actually.  Even worse, Cain-- a character who was set up for some beautiful characterization in FE11-- appeared to have been sketched in the same way, as this really bland training-obsessed sort of guy.  It was a real disappointment, as FE12!Cain seemed to have less depth than FE3!Cain.

Then we get FE13.

( Oh, come on now, IS. (Spoilers) )

Gimme back Seth and Titania and conceptions of being a dedicated knight that didn't involve doing calisthenics 24/7.

PS: Please comment at DW if you have a DW account.  Otherwise I'm going to start locking comments from LJ again.  I re-opened it to be inclusive, but I don't want the majority of my content at LJ.  Thanks. 

In my SRS BZNS Valencia fanfic, I characterized Valencia as the New World, a place of maize, sweet potatoes, beans, and alpacas, as opposed to Archanea's Old World with its wheat/rice/nuts&chickpeas diet (and no alpacas).

Looky here.

If that's what everyone thinks it is, I'm having a good laugh down here on the floor.  The resemblance wasn't as obvious with the actual FE2-era maps of Valencia.

Logical flaw here, though.  It took Marth & Friends a solid year to fight the War of Heroes.  The Civil War of Valencia all took place in the year 606, and the Peg Sisters had time to go there, fight in it, and get back in time for Est to marry Abel and help MyUnit train recruits in the FE12 Prologue.  Which also takes place in 606.  I'd followed Hitomi's line of speculation that Valencia therefore had to be tiny, about the size of the isle of Dolhr/Macedon.  If these continents are the same size, well... not really buying the logistics here.

Archanea gets slagged off a lot for not having "good" or "well-developed" characters.  Er... I'll grant you there are a lot, and I do mean a lot, of characters who didn't have much dialogue save a death quote up until FE12.  And I remain skeptical of the brand of development presented in FE12.

But, as a counter-example, may I present Character #3: Palla.

( I dare you to say she's a lousy character. Triple-dog dare you. )

You should be grateful to this guy.

Characters as diverse as Innes, Shinon, Joshua, and Levin all can trace their lineage back to him.  He's both the original Snarky Sniper and the original Wandering Noble, at least as far as FE goes.

I refer, of course, to #5: Jeorge.

( I love this guy. )