#I need to make a post rambling about Brawler soon

[hisredhysteria]

Terms of endearment or nicknames // pet names with the Akudama

Note: Random post as I've always thought about this kind of thing with Cutthroat. These are entirely my personal opinion though, so if they seem out of character, that may just be why. I don't think it's too jarring though.... I THOUGHT WHY NOT POST IT

Swindler

Oh my, I love her... I'd like to think she gets a little flustered at first if the roles are reversed and she's on the receiving end of being called something endearing.

She probably gets flustered trying to use terms of endearment at first too.

After a while it may come naturally to her and be something she uses as a tease.

Swindler using cutie as a term of endearment is the first thing I thought of when thinking of her in this context— I'm not too sure why..

Swindler feels like someone who'd call you a nickname more so though, if not just your name. Especially when the nickname stems from an inside joke or conversation—

She forgets it's just a you and her thing too, so people are confused when she first talks about you and she forgets to use your real name—

Brawler

I feel as though nicknames are something Brawler may use kind of often once he gets used to using them? But he's not using anything too cutesy sounding.

Bro if you're by any chance Hoodlum..

As far as terms of endearment....not often.... definitely just a nickname kinda guy.

He probably calls you a nickname related to food too....

This one isn't gender neutral, but "My girl" oddly feels like something he'd use...it's not necessarily a term of endearment either, but it's definitely something I'd see him using when he's referring to his s/o..

If you use any term of endearment on him he'll likely feel as though you're questioning his strength in some way...but more likely than not confused..

"What's with the frilly names?"

I'll add these at the end as they're definitely just personal perception, but the term sweet cheeks came to mind with Brawler....as well as him using meatball as a nickname—

Doctor

Oh goodness, she's really good at describing words when she's referring to people... she'd likely use nicknames or endearments often in some context. Insult, sarcasm, or not...

Sweetheart or dear....not always in a kind way either, but...

Self-indulgent perhaps as it's one of my favorite words...but doll?

"Well aren't you just a doll?"

Your nickname more often than not with her may have something to do with your appearance or her personal feelings towards you...

She sees someone else using terms of endearment as somewhat revolting I feel like...or maybe just demeaning in a sense to her as that's what she can tend to use them for...

Use something unique enough though and maybe you'll pique her interest.

Hacker

He calls you by your name and that's how he likes it. There's really no need to come up with a pet name when yours works perfectly fine.

Although some of the options do interest him a little...

I could see him calling someone his player 2

Or you two would have an inside joke and that becomes your nickname for a little while.

Calling him anything though...

Depending on the term of endearment and how close you are to him, he may not even acknowledge you said it by letting it happen and then continuing to talk.

...Or he'd find it straight up cringe worthy...why are you doing this to him?

Demeaning even...

He may like it though...only if it's something that'll make him raise an eyebrow. Unexpected, you could say.

Hoodlum

He's tried out at least every term of endearment ever....hit or miss.

I feel as though Hoodlum has potential to use several terms of endearment and rarely sticks to one... but it's like a rotation. Maybe one he'll use a little more than the others or he'll go through phases where he just uses one.

He also feels like someone who'd use them with strangers depending on how confident he's feeling around them...only to possibly regret the choice of words after thinking about it for too long....or maybe he thinks he sounded really cool

This is absolutely soul crushing, I don't know why either, but I can see him using babe...

I wanted to say dude or bro, but I just can't see Hoodlum using that in a romantic sense...unless it's with Brawler..

Darlin'

Toots... (like Jinx uses from Arcane...)

I'm putting honey and pumpkin on the list too. Honey // Hun feels like something he'd use. Pumpkin though? A little...

Hoodlum gets flustered at anything endearing you call him, but he definitely doesn't want you to stop calling him it...

Courier

I can just barely see him using someone's name if I'm honest...he seems like the kind of person to refer to you as shithead and only that....or just not refer to you at all and expect you to know he's talking to you...

Who else is he really talking to anyways though...?

He tends to use things that can be seen as insults. They're like a different way of telling you he cares about you....

When he's calling you a nuisance, he's doing it because he cares. Can't say the same for anyone else he's saying it to though...

Courier doesn't mind too terribly if you call him any sort of terms of endearment either and it always interests him a little to see what nicknames you come up with. He's not gonna stop you with terms of endearment, but an annoying nickname may earn you a tongue click.

At some point, if you just call him Courier after using a nickname long enough, he'll be a little put off guard..

Cutthroat

No one could have guessed, but angel.

Emphasis on the my before it though. It always has to have MY in front of it.

I, myself struggle to see Cutthroat using any other sort of terms of endearment if I'm honest... probably because I like angel so much that I'm somewhat blinded to the others. Although, I have seen others use my dear, my dearest, (my dearest may work, especially in the circumstance he uses angel afterwards...)

"My dearest angel..." ....yeah I can see it—

Possibly "my flower" ....but maybe he'd just compare you to one instead?

"Looking at you is like watching a flower in full bloom..~ .....Ah-! Do you bloom like one too..!?"

I think Cutthroat seems to be a nickname kind of person as well, but it's a play on your name if it's not short enough already.

He'd also like to be given a nickname! It makes him feel special to you. Just make sure they're nice....I feel like he'd be a little upset if you pulled a Courier on him—? He may just ignore it more often than not too...

#I need to make a post rambling about Brawler soon #IGNORE ME NEVER SHUTTING UP HERE but #I also wanna talk about Doctor although I'm not sure when the next manga release is so maybe I'll hold? #Okay but I was thinking about The Shining as its my favorite horror movie...yes way before Akudama Drive— #.....okay nevermind it was a silly idea but I was just thinking #I know technically the scene where Jack is limping through the halls with an axe was the inspiration for that episode... #but what if....I wrote a story where the reader was the mother and Cutthroat was in a sense Danny in the story— #that would be super self-indulgent but there's never a shortage of that with me #Stop I just realized my friends name is also Danny omg hi Danny if you're reading this I PROMISE TO MAKE THAT BRAWLER RAMBLE #did I ever mention on here that I was almost not gonna watch akudama drive #I saw an edit of Cutthroat and was hoping he wasn't a murderer when I looked him up #the first thing I saw too was that his name literally translated to murderer.... #I was so disappointed that I wasn't going to watch it #But I couldn't stop thinking about it so I told myself if I was still thinking about it 5 hours later then I had to watch it #and well literally right at the 5 hour mark I caved #oops #I just enjoy talking to myself a little too much here

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles about Ashen Wolves

To my followers, sorry for posting this a second time, but I need to test something. If it helps, I edited out some of the grammar issues.

I finished up the Ashen Wolves DLC for Fire Emblem Three Houses about a week ago and man, do I have some feelings about it.

There was honestly more I disliked about it than liked, but at the same time I don’t think it was a complete waste of my time either. The fact that you can only get this DLC if you had the season pass is also something I don’t like, even if I got the pass months ago. I don’t think I could recommend this DLC save for the bonus features and extra classes in the pack, but… Well, let me break down my thoughts a bit here.

The New Classes

Let’s start with something easy like the classes. Overall I think the new classes have their utility, but are in general pretty niche. Mind you, I say this as a casual player just looking at basic utility unit and effort it takes to get them, so it’s possible the more hardcore players will say that War Monk Raphael is the new meta, but to break things down a little…

War Monk

I’m glad we finally have a female-brawling class, or at least class for females to get into, but it comes at a cost. You need a a decent rank in brawling and white magic to use this class, and very few characters have the stats for the that. This has that Mortal Savant problem of a physical or magical character grinding in stat they’re weak in to become a middling hybrid class. Granted, unlike Mortal Savant you can get these classes at level 20, but would anyone really power-level your healer in brawling just to punch things? Or spam characters like Petra or Ingrid in Faith just to have weak heals? I mean, there’s meme-ing and New Game +, but realistically this class feels pointless. Balthus’s heals were pathetic in the DLC and didn’t sell me on this being a hybrid class, or at least not a good one. You’d either get a healer with weak punches, or a fighter with weak heals. (Edit: I’ve just made Lysithea a War Cleric and it’s absolutely hilarious how busted she is with Aura Knuckles. However, that’s one New Game+ so my point still stands.) And while I’ll admit Holy Knight Ferdinand’s weak heals honestly saved me a few times on my Crimson Flower campaign, statistically it’s kind of pointless.

Trickster

Trickster is actually pretty good since it’s a mid-game class that most magic and physical classes can reach, as most magic users also have a decent to high ability in swords as well for some odd reason. Manuela finally has a class to naturally spec into around mid-game that works for her default weapon line, you could also sneak Marianne and Lysithea in there too if you wanted, but overall this class is pretty good. It’s not too niche, it can be worked into during the early and mid game, and while you do have at least unlock thief, that’s not a difficult class to spec into at all. The only real downside is wasting a intermediate certificate to unlock the thief class, and that’s not much of an issue save for time. Overall a good class.

Valkyrie and Dark Flier

Valkyrie and Dark Flyer are female-only classes in a game where I’ve already complained about gender-locked classes. That said, they’re okay. Nice to have a mid-game caster that has more than four movement, but this is still gender-locked, so I can’t have Lindhart flying around spamming warp, canto, and the like. Valkyrie also gives Lysithea something that compliments her dark magic use, but nothing else I can say aside from that. They’re glass canons. Powerful, but can’t take much of a hit. Their canto abilities make keeping them safe a lot easier than most casters.

The Ashen Wolves themselves, as units in the DLC, were a little underwhelming outside of their utility. Like I said, Bathus has weak heals, but his self-healing made him a tank… but that’s a skill most brawlers can get naturally. Yuri was the most useful thanks to his Canto Ring and Foul Play, but Constance and Hapi just felt like more mobile Lysethias, and while Lysethia is great, these maps didn’t really let them one-shot anything like their class functions want them to.

But moving on.

Story

So… a story about the secret fourth house in Fire Emblem Three Houses…

Okay, to make it short, the story is bad.

It’s not terrible, it’s not Fire Emblem Conquest levels of dumb plotholes, but it’s still bad. This game jumped some hoops make the Ashen Wolves work into the lore and story, only to stumble and fall. But before I tackle all that, let’s at least open with something nice, so…

The Good

I’m doing the good in list form because, frankly, there isn’t a lot of good to begin with, but I do want to acknowledge the good that’s in here.

Having a side story involving all 3 house leaders is a good idea. The lack of interaction between them in the main game made it hard to believe the three were friends.

The designs and personalities of the Ashen Wolves themselves are great. Everyone feels unique and don’t bleed into another character, an amazing feat given the size of the cast.

I surprisingly like Yuri quite a bit as a character, if a little annoyed by his blatant secret-keeping and obvious heel-turn later throughout the story.

Abyss in general is an idea I can get behind. Garreg Mach already had secret underground tombs and sanctuaries, so I can buy it having a secret society of undesirables underneath too, as well as protectors in the form of the Wolves.

The final boss was actually pretty fun, both in terms of challenge and mechanics… not a story detail, but it’s also something good.

The Bad

Okay… where to begin?

The actual plot stuff… dear lord. 

For context, Cindered Shadows revolves around three things: the Rite of Rising, a botched resurrection ritual during the early days of Garreg Mach. The Four Apostles, four mystics with special crests that conducted the Rite of Rising and were exiled after failing to resurrect Sothis. And Byleth’s mother Sitri, a nun of the church that died soon after having Byleth who also had a secret admirer in the form of Abyss’s benefactor. All three of these points feel tacked on for the sole purpose of having a fourth house exist. The descendants of the four apostles just happening to be in the same place? Byleth’s mom just happening to have a random admirer as the main villain? The fact that a second type of resurrection ritual existing that just happened to never to be mentioned? Now, I’ve only finished Crimson Flower, the route that did the least amount of world-building and setting explanation, but even I recognize that some hoops are being jumped here. It feels like there’s a lot of world-building either being ignored or retconned so that the Four Apostles make sense within the lore. Especially since all four Ashen Wolves just happen to be descendants of the them. That’s just poor writing to me.

Yuri pulling that double heel and face-turn at the end was also dumb. Yuri being a rouge and scoundrel with secret motives is fine, that’s basically his character at a glance. However, that makes the heel-turn obvious, especially when it happens within the last three chapters of the side story. Again, it just feels like bad writing to have the obvious rouge character turn on you at the last minute. Yes, there were some hints that he was playing both sides, but still. The shady guy being shady isn’t really much of a plot twist, and while that isn’t bad in itself the fact that the writers try to frame it as clever, or at least as an honest surprise just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall, it feels like what was going to be a simple story about Abyss and the people there turned into something more complicated for the sake of giving it more importance, and that irritates me.

And the gameplay? The maps themselves? Let’s talk about that next.

The Maps and Gameplay

There’s a video by a Bismix that summarizes my feelings perfectly:

“So how was Cindered Shadows?”

“Foul Play was cool.”

And you know what? Foul Play was cool. A special movement skill that swaps places with a unit at decent range. Combined with the Canto ring it was a damn handy tool to move around Edelgard and Lindhart. But aside from that, I have a question for the Old Guard of Fire Emblem. The folks that have been playing this since that old GBA title that featured Eliwood.

Do you like getting kicked in the dick? Repeatedly?

Because that’s what these levels felt like. A map full of Assassins with high Avoid, magic users with high damage, and every unit having Silver Weapons. Is there a reason for this aside from challenge? Is there a reason to be this disadvantaged after chapter 3? And the reinforcement, don’t even get me started on the reinforcements. Chapter 2, 3, and 4 were complete bullshit because of them. Three waves of reinforcements and the Death Knight? A 1-in-3 chance of summoning reinforcements with a stats debuff for pulling the wrong lever? An escape map that features an entire army of reinforcements at the very last section? There’s challenge, and then there’s this.

I’ll ask again Old Guard, do you like getting kicked in the dick repeatedly?

Because whenever I see nonsense like that I remember the complaints about current Fire Emblem games being too easy. And while I’ll admit to not being a hardcore fan of this series, I doubt that the game was meant to induce so many unfair advantages and rage-inducing moments toward the enemy for the sake of challenge. I had to set this game down at least five times while playing through this DLC. I don’t find it a challenge to face a mountain of enemies that only four characters on my team can realistically fight, and only 3 of them actual able to hit said enemies. I don’t see feeding half the map to Byleth, Dimitri, and Balthus because they’re the few units that can take the hits and get kills to be skillful. I don’t get how spamming reinforcements after a long and difficult map is adding challenge. 

The only map that had an interesting gimmick was the final boss. Their map-wide attack displaced your entire army and summoned two phantoms that would be sacrificed to heal the boss at the end of your next turn if you didn’t kill them in time. However, the phantoms could be killed by most of your party in one or two rounds, and they dropped heal potions for your party to share and use to prep for the next phase. That map was a matter of prioritizing which units to tank the phantoms damage, trade blows, heal with the potions obtained, and get into position to do major damage to the boss when it was on cooldown. It was fun once I learned the pattern and a challenge as you couldn’t just spam the same units to take out the phantoms due to the party displacement. It was fun, interesting, and required on-the-fly strategy, the only map to really do so.

This… is leading me down something off-topic, so I’ll simply say that adding challenge in a turn-based RPG should always be based on gimmicks and special rules to keep the gameplay interesting, rarely should raising numbers be the main way of adding challenge.

With that out the way I’ll get to my last point, which is…

Small Nitpicks that Only Bug Allen

I’d usually state this portion first, but this DLC had so many bigger issues that I feel it’d be best to use my nitpicks as a cooldown rather than a warm-up. Thankfully my nitpicks are more so my preferences than actual nitpicks, as most small issues I have with this DLC are issues that came from the original. That said:

I feel like Ashe and Hilda should had been switched out for Mercedes and Raphael. We really needed at least one more decent healer in that group, and as I said before, Bathus and Yuri’s heals are pathetically weak. Either that or Lindhart should have had the Warp spell. Raph would had another decent tank that wasn’t as much of a glass canon as Hilda. Yes, we had Edelgard, but I would had preferred Raph do the tanking.

Jeralt and Sothis should had been involved in this DLC. I don’t care that they were trying to keep the canon point ambiguous, it should had happened. If Byleth wasn’t going to react to their mother’s dead corpse then I sure as hell would had liked to see either Sothis or Jeralt do so. Again, I don’t like Byleth, but that lack of emotion on their part really kills moments like this.

I would had liked it if they didn’t lock skills. Chapter 3 and 4 wouldn’t had been so suffering if Lindhart could warp Edelgard a few times. Again, getting kicked in the dick isn’t my idea of fun or challenging.

So, with all that out of the way I think I can move on to my last point, which is:

In the Future

Like I usually say, I find it pointless to try and “fix” a story that’s already been told, but I see nothing wrong with make suggestions for the future.

That said I’d like to see the next story DLC focus more on the culture and world of Fodlan. We only know about these places by name and their students, not much else. A DLC that covers the five-year gap would be nice, something that doesn’t have Byleth in it would be nice too. Fire Emblem Fates had a few Corrin-less DLC maps, and Fire Emblem Echoes had some side stories without Alm and Celica. I think it could work. A story DLC on the church and specifically Sothis would be great too. A story map that showed how Dimitri lost his eye. A prologue map showing all the houses meeting up before Byleth came into the picture. A playable map of the Battle of Red Cliffs, things like that.

If we get more classes in future DLC then please no more gender-locked classes is all I have to say. Anyway, that’s all I got for now. Maybe now I’ll actually finish the Gacha Rambling…

Or maybe I’ll do a thesis on Granbelm, which ever comes first.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses