#WOOF remind me never to make a big rambly post like this again

[citree]

I finished the golden deer fe3h route and i have. so many feelings. huge rambling mess under the cut lol

First off, I kinda messed everyone's endgame pairings because i was support grinding, so everyone basically loved each other which was fine but the amount of reknown needed by the wayseer to bind characters fates together is like, insane?? 10,000 reknown for one pairing?? in the end i had barely enough for one, and it went to lysynthia because she deserves to live an actual life... I like her with cyril, and they were paired in my blue lions run, but I HAd to make sure she got a long life this time. I just had to

in the end i had lysynthia/lindhardt, manuela/hanneman, Raphiel/ignatz, Lorenz/mercedes, catherine/shamir, dorothea/felix, and ferdinand/hilda... among others. a surprising amount of characters ended up being on their own, even after all the grinding it did. But I mostly just wanted to get pairings i hadn't before-- I did most of the big popular ones in my first run (and then redid manulea/hanneman &catherine/shamir a second time because i screwed it up last time) but one of the things that stuck out to me was how some of the fanon pairings were sooo much better than the canon ones. for example, Hilda/Marianne? I LOVE them together in fanon, but the supports in the game kinda left things to be desired, and it kinda sucked how often hilda said how useless Marianne was without her :/ like i get what they were going for, but i felt so bad!! If it were up to me i would've had hilda compliment her way more-- something she's reportedly good at-- instead of laughing and teasing her. Like sure it was cute, but still. Maybe that's why fanon's totally changed up their dynamic... aesthetically, they're like a 10/10, fanon-wise, 12/10, but i felt like their actual supports were like... a 6. i had high expectations and it left me a bit disappointed. im still probably going to draw them together tho Since getting the game i still think the golden deer route is best overall, answering questions and tying things up and whatnot. Claude's probably the most capable and charismatic lord and he really grows into his role over the timeskip, which I really enjoyed seeing. his relationship with byleth is solid, but I wasn't obsessed the romance like i was with dimitri... (Claude actually asks how byleth is doing after the timeskip and acting like Person though, so I have to give him that.) platonically they're 10/10. super good best friends to lovers vibe, very wholesome and healthy. with dimitri's romance, it felt a bit unbalanced and that byleth was the center of his whole world-- which is fine, but i really enjoyed how Claude still had things to do outside of just being byleth's partner. It felt a lot more real. I still feel like I enjoy the fanon shipping more, but maybe I've just been spoiled by a lot of great writing and art... regarding Edelgard, It HURT me to finish her off, like, way WAY more than it did in my blue lions route. In azure moon she's gone to such lengths its harder to sympathize with her, but in verdant wind when she says "I wanted to walk with you--" before being cut off... man. owch. i look forward to playing her route, but i disagree so much with her methods, i know it's gunna be rough. Double owch for how Dimitri is handled in this route too. He's like completely written off after appearing in one single battle. And seeing Dedue and Dimitri separated is just. so sad. Honestly its not a fresh take but the kingdom and alliance should've joined forces-- I know the writers didn't want that to happen, they wanted 3 separate routes with 3 separate forces, but in both azure moon and verdant wind, it just make so much more sense?? tactically?? A better writing decision to make at least would've been to have Dimitri have more of a presence so he actually feels like a part of the game, rather than a one-off extra boss thrown in for nostalgia's sake. Edelgard takes up so much of the spotlight (and i do love her for it) but it is called 3 houses for a reason...

I know in the end I'm just gunna be daydreaming about an AU where nothing hurts and everything is fine, but oof. if I could've dug my little writer's hands into the story I know I would've changed a couple things. I'm sure i'll feel even more strongly once i play silver snow, but that'll be a while still. For now, i guess it's back to support grinding in CF🤔

#fe3h spoilers #verdant wind spoilers #long post #WOOF remind me never to make a big rambly post like this again #i just felt like letting my thoughts out #part of me really wants to do a whole silver snow rewrite with an extra lord OC but i feel like that'd be a lot of work #i think its just up to how insane CF makes me wish for a happy ending #and then silver snow not delivering on that :/ #verdant wind gave me basically everything i expected save for the nitpicks i made in this post lol #canon critical #txt #i should do some art huh