Notes and Errata of Mark of the Asphodel

But hey, I guess the game developers felt the same way. :P

 
Same goes for Leaf/Nanna, but for slightly different reasons. Leaf and Nanna each have perfectly compelling alternate mates in Tinny and Aless. Tinny's a drip but she has the whole Alster backstory to mine. The foundation of a relationship between Aless and Nanna appears to consist of "Keeping It in the Family LOLOLOL!" but that's actually something to go on by FE4 Gen2 standards.

[Note the game does not appear to "want" you to do either of these in spite of lovers' conversations; even though I was working for both these pairings in my current run, I still ended up with Leaf/Nanna. And Tinny won't stay with Leaf or any other lover if she inherits Freege, which seems to be the game saying "Don't Pair Her!" if you go with any of the conventional, canon-blessed, Tiltyu matchups (Lex, Levin, Azel, Claude).]

FE5 also puts Sara the creepy staffchick and Homer the male prostitute skeevy bard into the mix, leading to some very interesting scenarios. 

Splitting them up makes me uncomfortable, though, in a way that fanfic shipping nonsense normally doesn't. Yeah, part of it is Leaf/Nanna being canon in FE5 (not kinda-sorta canon--it's as canon as Caeda and Marth, with the same constraints). But that alone has never stopped me from alternashipping, as my Archanea stories illustrate. I guess it's the way the relationship is written... sibling vibes and all... because the idea of Nanna going off with Aless, Celice, or anyone else leaves me feeling SO BAD for Leaf. So bad. I don't feel that way at all based on FE4, but in light of FE5, I can't feel that Nanna going off into the golden Agustrian sunset with her Mystletainn-swinging cousin would be anything other than hurtful for Leaf-- hurtful in a new and previously unprecedented way, and this after a lifetime of being Jugdral's kicked puppy. You want "embitterment"? I think you'd find it there.

 
[J!fandom does acknowledge this to a fair extent, and I kind of get the feeling that Aless is sometimes given to Nanna as a sop when writers want to indulge their Leaf/Sara tendencies, etc. Leaf's busy with his batty priestess or moe mage girl, and that frees up Nanna to head west. Or Nanna does indeed ditch Thracia and Leaf does a slow burn, forever.]

 
Yeah. I just haven't found a pairing that makes me so gosh-darn uncomfortable to split in a long, long time.