FE4 family drama my beloved

...

It was not shown in the direct or in the JP game website but in this random nintendo article site about FEFW???? Anyway detail under cut

I'll list these in bullet points as I'm rewatching the Direct

Intro stuff first!

-Miss thing has a goth lip, that's extremely funny

-Sothis: You'll never win the battles ahead without them. *camera pans to the statues of the four heroes*

Okay... does that mean the whole "take on the undead forces alone" path with Eshmel is an intentional dead end? A bad end perhaps? Or is it just Sothis warning them?

-Theodora's statue having her head lopped off probably means people were angry with her and her devotion to the eventual resurrected god of death... but since she's still considered a hero or a protagonist, she gets a chance to redeem herself most likely. Hopefully. Otherwise the optics of the dark-skinned female protag being the one responsible for everything horrible are... rough.

-"The Dagdan Empire is a land at the peak of prosperity under the rule of the gods." That CAN'T be true!!! Immortal, inhuman beings being in charge can NEVER BE GOOD FOR DA PEOPLE!!!! /s

Anyway Dagda was himself the ruling Nabatean god and named the land after him? If the games are a tribute to his rule, then he must have good publicity

...Or going by the statue maybe he killed people! Who knows.

-Idk why this makes me emotional... It reminds me of my relationship with my own dad ;-;

-I'll give my life for them

-Monster Hunter: Fortune's Weave

-"Theodora represents a culture that worships the keeper of death and night. A goddess loathed throughout the land." So this goddess is called Yu Phas? Is she different from the person called Balor? Are they related? Could either of them be who Sothis called "the Darkest Dark?" Perhaps Theodora and Saramis were framed/misblamed, with her goddess being held responsible for another's deeds? So many mysteries.

-YEAH SIS GO CRAZY GO NUTS HAVE MORE LINES OF UNHINGED DIALOGUE THIS IS THAT GOOD SHIT

Gameplay stuff next!

-So do gauntlets still have the brave effect, or are they only the "easier to dodge with" weapons now? Also all spears being effective against cavalry is pretty neat. Same with durability with weapons only reducing with combat arts, it's an interesting compromise.

-"REMEMBER FIRE EMBLEM THREE HOUSES? DIDN'T YOU LOVE PETRA FROM HIT GAME FIRE EMBLEM THREE HOUSES? PLEASE CONTINUE TO LOVE THREE HOUSES!"

-This shit cracks me up

-"REMEMBER FIRE EMBLEM THREE HOUSES? DIDN'T YOU LOVE MARIANNE FROM HIT GAME FIRE EMBLEM THREE HOUSES? THIS ONE NOT ONLY LOOKS LIKE HER, BUT SAYS 'BLOOD COMPELS ME' AS A CRIT QUOTE ISN'T THAT EXCITING???"

-The specific wording of consuming one's soul has interesting implications. Is it just a fancy way of describing losing HP, or does it have broader story meaning.

-Rewind is back. Connected to the goddess Fortuna this time instead of Sothis. Looks like it might be something you need to have blessings for? Or at least enough of this Divine Sand. I never had a gripe with rewind mechanics themselves, mostly just how they're incorporated into the narrative.

-A streamlined and more structured version of 3H's class system, thank god!!! Presumably commoner and noble still exist as a baseline, but every class above those limits the weapons used. Besides beginner classes only being the five seen here, there are more specialty and advanced than the ones pictured. I very much like what I see from the new classes, even the new names for pre-existing ones.

-New white magic spell, love the animation for Starlight (reference to Archanea games perhaps?)

-The funniest possible class for the new Anna to be introduced as

-"REMEMBER THREE HOUS-" oh it is literally Seteth this time, okay. A whole new game to slut him out in, that's fun.

-This level of explicit advice is interesting. Reminds me of the Augury in FE7's normal mode.

-Arena for skill training is limited to once per week. So it thankfully doesn't seem as vital of a thing as instruction in 3H was. That said motivation also returns... but it too looks to be simpler at least, so here's hoping it doesn't hit the lows of skill building.

And spectating seems to be this game's version of Seminars, only this time it applies to every unit instead of those who have enough motivation. Neat.

-Shopping Arcade is the bog-standard armory, shop and forge. Nothing new.

-They got my queen doing chores oh my lord. Anyway temple volunteering to get blessings/boons in battle seems pretty neat. I don't think anything to this degree has been seen in mainline Fire Emblem before? The closest thing I can think of is actually the Temple mechanic in Fire Emblem Warriors, ironic given KT is not working on this game.

-MORE NABATEANS/POINTY EAR GODS INCLUDING DARK SKINNED ONES YAAAAY, I LOVE THEM

-Ugh, while I'm fine with the idea of certification exams returning due to the Heroic Games setting as a ludonarrative thing, it looks like to reclass you also need to talk to the exam proctor? In 3H you can reclass on the fly in the inventory menu, so this change will be annoying.

-Solel disguises himself to ask for help with favors, that's really fucking cute lmaooo. High potential for Gap Moe.

-This Inn mechanic is a bit worrying. So HP and magic may not be auto restored anymore? It only costs 1 turn and a tiny bit of gold, and we've seen the amount of turns to spend in free time go well beyond 100 so it's not like... expensive, but it's reminiscent of the 3H design philosophy of bloating things that didn't need expanding. Hopefully in practice it feels better than it looks.

Auto-Activities seems to be the "skip" function seen in instruction and the calendar in 3H, only this time you can dictate how much you want to skip. A good improvement to make things decidely more free and catered to one's specific taste.

Lastly... can you only activate supports at the inn? That seems like an unnecessary change :/

-Well Eshmel's bird form is pretty darn cute at least

-Parallel stories??? Fucking awesome! This dramatically decreases the worry I had of FW repeating 3H's gameplay loop. Even if there are some repeated maps, I can at least switch at will to speed things up rather than playing entire games again. Amazing news!

-The world map exploration seems incredibly involved and dense. I, for one, think that's a good thing. If you're gonna have a hub or a traversible world map, there should be things to do to make this option worth one's time. Getting unique stuff from towns, dungeons, ruins, and other locales will also help story wise to make Dagda feel more alive.

-Instead of entering a grid based battle with dungeon enemies like in Echoes, you fight in a Turn-Based Clash remiscent of typical JRPGs. I wasn't excited about this at first, but thinking about how many enemies may be in a dungeon... yeah it might be for the best to have these scaled down fights instead of going in and out of the grid.

-So each Hero not only have unique Blaze Arts, but also unique map abilities. Dietrich can reveal foes in hiding, and Theodora can recruit Battalions from towns and send them to gather materials or deploy them in battle. It seems like Cai can tame/capture animals to improve mounted class stats and Leda can do performances to receive gifts. Neat.

Ending stuff last!

-The timeskip being specifically 5 years, oh my GOD, WE GET IT, YOU LOVE TO REHEAT 3H'S NACHOS!!!

-Wow Sothis is singing her lullaby but to someone that isn't Rhea, worst mom behavior continues /half joking

-So what does Sothis being here mean for the timeline? If Sothis calls for Eshmel when Dagda is facing its ruin 5 years after the Heroic Games are done, then that means Sothis is either alive or her soul at least has some awareness/omnipresence... but Dietrich still has a Hero's Relic, so it's after the Nabatean genocide. Is this confirmation that she is, in fact, divinity and will always exist no matter what happens to her? Is this post-3H or pre-3H but after the Nabateans were killed? Geez, my head is spinning.

-"You are given two choices. Face the forces of the Demon God Balor on your own, with the knowledge that it's no easy task. Or use the time traveling powers of the Goddess Fortuna to change the fates of the four heroes." Okay, so unless there's an actual chance of being able to defeat Balor with just Eshmel, then there really isn't two choices. If it's a case where you try to do it alone at first before being forced to time travel anyway... then again, it isn't two choices. What's the deal here?

-So is Balor, the demon god, different from other Nabateans? Is Balor a different name for an existing Nabatean god? And why is she a goth mommy?

-One thing that's undeniable is the aesthetics and artistic direction of this game are stellar.

-Cool that Nintendo Music will have tracks from the game. And hooray for a Fire Emblem theme for the Nintendo Today app! Excited to use it from now on. Looking forward to seeing the interview a couple days before the game releases as well, will be nice to see the inner workings of the devs.

What I mean here is that, so often I see pairings enacting romance tropes to the point of heavily altering or downright replacing their original dynamic - as if the people behind it only understand romance as a series of checklists to tick off. Couples like to kiss and sleep in the same bed and flirt with each other, so it doesn't matter who the characters are, if they're a couple then naturally they'll do those things, right??

And that's where the whole thing starts to lose me, because I would assume that the appeal of shipping characters is, y'know... the characters? Rather than just, the idea of a couple? If I'm thinking about how it'd be cool for them to be in love, my first thought is always "so how would they show it," because just like everything else about a person, the answer is going to be different on a case-by-case basis.

Maybe the characters involved aren't really into kissing, but they like arranging date activities. Maybe they aren't committed to the structure of dating at all, and just want to be around each other whenever they can. And even if they are the types to like doing traditionally romantic things, that doesn't suddenly erase whatever else they had going on before they started adding that on top of it.

despite their respective orientations and genders generally being acknowledged, they're often treated as what is most convenient or acceptable. that is, treated the same as alloromantic and allosexual or binary gendered characters.

aro characters are being shipped as though they are alloromantic. ace characters are portrayed in sexual relationships as if they are allosexual. how often do you see people portraying these characters' orientations beyond the surface level?

nonbinary characters are referred to with gendered terms based on whoever they're being shipped with. with a woman? they're called "yuri", "sapphic", etc. with a man? it's "yaoi", "mlm", etc. how often do you see people using nonbinary-focused terminology for these pairings? why is the binary-gendered partner a priority in most cases?

when the problem is brought up, the "rebuttals" are the same: "aros/aces can still date/have sex!", "some nonbinary people identify with [lesbian, wlw, sapphic, yuri]/[gay, mlm, achellian, yaoi]!". neither of of these address the issue that this is what fandoms with these characters default to.

If you read old poems, diaries and books you'd know that none of them were made using perfect grammar or even perfect imageries and languages. And the reason is simply because it's human, it's not supposed to be perfect, their flaws are what draws us in. Authors would pour their whole emotions, as convoluted as they may be, into their work and that used to be the main selling point;

We read to feel something. We write to feel something. We draw to feel something.

Feel free to download and use, I had a lot of fun making these!

The boys are linked below

Feel free to download and use, I had a lot of fun making these!

The girls are linked below

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

Fairy tale dimimari for myself for FE art scuffle <3