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    Fire Emblem Dire Emblem: Awakening - Chapter 13.4

    June 21, 2020

    Fire Emblem Dire Emblem: Awakening - Chapter 13.4

    Dire Emblem: Awakening - Chapter 13.4

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 02:14 PM PDT

    Ashe and Petra at the Goddess Tower [Commission by @AutumnSacura]

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 06:13 AM PDT

    Post Timeskip Constance Reference

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 03:55 PM PDT

    Alternate Summer Lucina

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 02:02 PM PDT

    Happy Father's er--Brother's Day!

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 11:15 AM PDT

    An alternate Crimson Flower ending

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 11:46 AM PDT

    Finished Edelgard and Dimitri (OC)

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 07:43 AM PDT

    Robin Fanart (Fire Emblem Awakening) [OC]

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 08:04 AM PDT

    [OC] Jeralt in his free time!

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 12:23 PM PDT

    [FE4] Oifey, Shannan, and Seliph - Respite on the Road to Tirnanog

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 05:42 PM PDT

    Flowers for the Fallen: Edelgard

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:35 AM PDT

    (Commissioned) Byleth and Shamir by TheSkullSlums

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 03:00 PM PDT

    I drew Corrin!

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 05:06 AM PDT

    [OC Animation] “You are NOT my father...”

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 01:04 PM PDT

    Painting a portrait of Edelgard... (can be difficult)

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 06:18 PM PDT

    Tried my hand at making a fire emblem gba sprite

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 03:30 PM PDT

    Gerik in his Promoted Cipher Art Design!

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 08:15 AM PDT

    Lysithea & Makoto from Persona 5 together! (Commissioned by @Takanoez)

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 08:23 AM PDT

    Seteth and the Potats (Pasha Saga Gaiden, aka baby wyvern comics)

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 01:29 PM PDT

    When you're Hapi and you know it - an analysis of one of my favorite characters.

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 07:09 PM PDT

    Since her addition to the game 4 months ago, Hapi has become not only my favorite character in Three Houses, but one of my favorite in the series. While I had some concerns (and even confusion) about where they were taking her character at first, once I finished her supports and fully understood why she is who she is, I came to really like her.

    Surface-Level: Design and voice

    Before I even played the DLC, Hapi caught my eye. If you were to ask for a checklist of visual features I'd like to see in a 'waifu': Tan skin, red hair, red eyes, a toned body, slightly mismatched clothing, and casual posture would all be up there.

    And on top of that, Hapi's gifted with the vocal performance of Christine Marie Cabanos. CMC's doing a restrained voice recognizable to her role as Chiaki from Danganronpa - but with an added layer of dry sass. This or her design alone would've been enough to make her my frontrunner choice before Cindered Shadow's release, but both? I was excited and anxious to see what her actual character would be like.

    First Impressions: Misunderstandings and confusion.

    Her first two lines in the DLC are as follows:

    To Constance after she chides Balthus for rushing into a fight: "You're excited to fight too. You've been waiting for a chance to try out your shiny new magic."

    And then to Dimitri at the beginning of the first map: "Wow, does it hurt to take yourself that seriously? Answer the man's question, B."

    Although it's a bit disappointing at first that she gets no interaction with the cast in that first scene meeting the sewer kids (the first line is when the wolves are alone, and the second isn't until the map begins), her lines already set her up as a snarky quipster who likes to take people down a peg, both through keen observation and silly nicknames. This isn't the part where I got concerned – this is all effective stuff.

    But there's this standout line from her fight in Chapter 1:

    "Is it too late for me to back out of this fight? I don't want to hurt anyone. But in this case, I guess there's no avoiding it."

    And then before the battle in chapter 2 we get these lines:

    "Why do I have to go? No matter what we do, we're all just gonna die in the end anyway."

    "Excited, are you? Fine. we could use more bodies to throw at our enemies. Thanks for volunteering."

    While not necessarily contradictory, this immediately struck me as odd. She expresses some degree of pacifism, seemingly she doesn't want to hurt people. But then in the next scene she comes off as nihilistic and flippant about the value of life. It didn't sit well with me, and any benefit of the doubt I was willing to give the writers would be shaken when Yuri suddenly whips this line out:

    "If Hapi sighs, monsters come running. No, I'm not kidding."

    That is, uh. Certainly a character trait. By far the most wacky and cartoonish character gimmick Three Houses has shown us by now – and honestly probably sillier than most Awakening/Fates character gimmicks too. It's only rivaled by Constance's split personality introduced next chapter – but even then, Constance's quirk gets some more build-up and focus at first. Hapi's sighing thing is just sort of brought up and then you just kinda have to accept that it's a thing for a while.

    The pieces come together

    The play-by-play of DLC lines stops here. Hapi continues to get some funny, snarky lines, still delivered excellently by CMC. But the weird sighing thing just kinda sits there like a specter, hovering over her character at all times.

    It's not until seeing her supports that I started making sense of it. The sighing monster trigger thing is still odd, sure – I think something might have been lost in translation? But the idea that the writers are trying to convey is that Hapi's forced to bottle up her emotions. If she gets too excited, too happy, too annoyed, too angry, too sad, too tired, too anything – she sighs, people die.

    I can't speak for everyone, but personally I associate sighing with just being tired or annoyed, not with positive emotion, which explains some of my early hang-ups with Hapi's strange ability. But when I actually tried to keep track of my sighs, I found that I did so fairly regularly. Although it's more "expressive exhaling" than vocalized sighs, I imagine that even exhaling funny could trigger Hapi's ability. But that wouldn't come across very well when it comes to voice acting, so they stick to more exaggerated sighs.

    Sighing might not be the only trigger. Hapi's not sure if yawning might summon monsters in her support with Balthus, although through her Byleth support we see that it's at least possible for her to yawn without summoning monsters sometimes. I'd go so far as to infer that, although she insists "It's easier than contending with a full day of boring stuff", Hapi actually enforces her sleep schedule on the fear that yawning COULD summon monsters. Her Byleth support shows that she's at least aware yawning would scare people who mistake her yawns for sighs.

    Linhardt's supports link Hapi's condition back to Timotheos, known for his sonorous sigh, but also a seemingly-separate call that would summon deer and wolves to surround him in battle. This leads more credence to the idea that sighing itself might not be the only trigger.

    But at the end of the day, you need to treat sighing as an almost-inevitable byproduct of having strong emotions for Hapi to work. Hapi could likely show more emotion than she does without too much risk of sighing. But she's so afraid of hurting people that in her mind, the best solution is to bottle up all her emotions as much as possible. "Did you know people can sigh simply because they're happy? Not much risk of me doing that." To Hapi, she needs to earn everyone's trust in her that they won't die for happening to be in her vicinity at the wrong time, before she can even think of forming a friendly relationship. And we can see in her S support with Byleth that she's long since given up the idea of marriage as a pipe dream, given her condition.

    I do think the writing could have addressed the details of her condition in clearer terms. Again, I'm guessing that the sighing thing is based off of, or localized from, something that might be more clear in Japanese? But either way, despite my best attempts to dive into it these past few paragraphs, I'm actually less interested in the mechanics of how it works, and more interested in the effect it has on Hapi as a character.

    A tragic tale

    Hapi was once a vibrant, excitable girl living in a remote village. Her people were stargazers, which no doubt was what incited Hapi's desire to go out and see the wider world. This immediately goes poorly, as she's captured by Cornelia and experimented on for her rare crest, just like Edelgard and Lystithea. Only somehow, Hapi's left with her sighing quirk instead of a shortened lifespan or double crest powers.

    And as random and silly as her power comes off at first, I think Hapi's curse is insidiously worse than even Lysithea's shortened lifespan, as Hapi has to worry not only about her own life, but the life of everyone she loves. If Hapi is ever, well, happy, she could get people killed. Or if she's sad. Just think of how ANGSTY and ANGERY Lysithea is, and realize that Hapi's got those same emotions – but she can't dare express them, because doing so risks making her situation worse.

    That's got to be some sort of hell. This contextualizes a lot about her character. That contradiction I highlighted earlier makes sense, because it's supposed to be contradictory. Hapi is at heart an expressive girl who doesn't want to hurt anyone, but her condition forces a lack of caring onto her. Her dry quips and nicknames aren't just funny – they're some of the only ways the real Hapi can poke out of the emotional prison she's locked away in.

    With this context, a lot of her lines become really sad, actually. I've once again got to praise CMC, as you can almost feel Hapi's true nature trying to break free from her detached, sarcastic facade.

    She funny tho

    So yeah, being Hapi is to have an existential misery foisted upon you. To have to be constantly vigilant and restrained enough to put on a show of being aloof and relaxed. But despite that, Hapi doesn't come across as a brooding or miserable character. Quite the opposite, she's endlessly fun, constantly teasing, nicknaming, and quipping at the other characters. I'm not going to list examples here, because if I did I'd be copy-pasting pretty much everything Hapi says, but suffice to say that, even if there's a tragic reason Hapi is the way she is, it doesn't undermine how fun it is to listen to what comes out of her mouth. If anything, it's heartwarming that she can retain a jokey, sarcastic demeanor after what she's been through.

    An actual morally-grey dilemma.

    Hapi's circumstances create one of the more interesting (and sadly not-fully-developed) conflicts in the game, between her and the church. From Hapi's point of view, the church is almost as bad as TWSITD. She's not the only one in the game who seems to think this, but I think it actually makes sense for Hapi, because her reasons for feeling this way are purely personal. The knights of Seiros rescued her from Cornelia, but ended up forcing her underground. In her own words, "all the knights did was move me from one cage to another". Hapi's totally justified to be upset at this. She didn't choose any of this, she had her terrible powers forced upon her by painful experimentation. And then she was finally freed, only to be trapped again?

    But from the Church's perspective, what else can they do? They're making the best possible decision in their eyes. Unlike Lysithea, who the TWSITD/empire mages just forgot about after losing interest in her, Hapi was apparently rescued by the knights somehow or another. Presumably, Cornelia would have wanted her back. Consider that the Empire's whole reason for raiding the Holy Mausoleum is to steal Crest Stones to create monsters. Letting someone free who can summon monsters at will (And even learns to control them in her solo ending) would not be safe for anyone, least of all Hapi herself.

    Hapi rationalizes her placement in Abyss as: "They didn't want to put anyone important in danger. As for me, my life was expendable." But in my eyes, it's about all the Church could do for her. Locking her up alone wouldn't be a great option, as Hapi's got a built-in escape plan. The safest option for the church would have been to just kill her - but clearly they DO want to help her, as Hapi mentions tried (and failed) to find a cure for her. So while it's true that Hapi's been placed where she's less of an immediate threat to the church's upper leaders if she sighs, there's reason to believe that the church's motives aren't so cynical.

    It's an interesting dilemma with no great answers. Even if I think the church picked a pretty good answer from a list of shitty ones, it's clear that, at the very least, they've failed to gain Hapi's trust that they have her best interests in mind. A lot of this is probably Aelfric's fault, as throughout the DLC he's manipulating the wolves to distrust the church's intentions – but still, the church could have done a much better job at making Hapi feel like a person they trust, instead of someone they shoved underground and forgot about. And although a lot of knights like Alois feel for Hapi and want to help her, her supports with Ashe among others depict knights that fear her. It's hard to blame them entirely, but it certainly didn't help Hapi's opinion of the church at all.

    All of this also leads into some equally-understated but nevertheless fascinating character growth, with Hapi admitting over the passing months that there at least some good members of the church. She doesn't completely change her mind or anything – in her S-support with Byleth she calls the church hollow and hypocritical – but it's a nice bit of nuance.

    TL;DR

    I don't have a great way to wrap this up. Hapi's a character who surprised me by taking one of the strangest concepts I've ever seen in a FE game and creating a character that expresses tragedy with some masterful subtlety and authenticity. Her situation may be ridiculous, but it's played straight to great effect. But she does so while always remaining witty and charming in her dialogue. She's funny, she's got a great design, an original concept, and an amazing vocal performance.

    I guess I'll leave on a random note that I couldn't fit anywhere else:

    "That guy Alois was nice to me, though. And he told me a bunch of hilarious jokes to cheer me up... I was being sarcastic. Alois wouldn't know a good joke if it landed in his mustache."

    "Did you know people can sigh simply because they're happy?"

    So yes, if Alois weren't so bad at puns, someone could have died.

    submitted by /u/IAmBLD
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    Does anyone have any chapter bosses they really like?

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:28 AM PDT

    It could just be me, but I tend to grow attached to one or two bosses that only appear in the chapter you defeat them. Even though they have really small roles, some of them leave an impact on me. Mustafa is an obvious example of this, but I was curious if anyone had any other personal favorites. Here are some of mine.

    Sigune from FE6 - I kind of like the Ilia pegasus sisters from this game, so it's neat seeing someone they knew on the other side. It almost makes it a bit disappointing that Juno doesn't show up until the next chapter, as she and Sigune were rivals, but it doesn't kill the character for me. It is a nice touch that Juno brings her up in her support with Noah. The situation kind of reminds me of Deet'var and Pamela from FE4, but those two are far more actively antagonistic towards Erinys. Sigune has a more tragic air to her. Plus I really like her design.

    Kotaro from Fates - Besides being a walking reference to the historical Kotaro Fuma, Kotaro really sticks out to me due to his connection to both Saizo and Shura. Saizo is my favorite Fates character, so I really liked having context to parts of his character. The mini-plot with Kotaro and how he has ruined people's lives also kind of helps flesh the world out a tiny bit. Like, it certainly isn't enough, but I appreciate the little bit it does. Like Sigune, I also really found his design striking.

    Xaizor from Echoes - I was probably always going to like the guy whose Japanese name is just Saizo with different characters and whose design looks like they made the Galarian form of him. But Xaizor really seems like the best example of the complete contrast between the antagonists of Rigelian Army and those of either Zofia or the Duma Faithful. Xaizor is really just a loyal supporter of Emperor Rudolf. And while I always liked him, the fact that his voice actor went on to play Dedue kind of means that his death quote gets sadder. Just change "Emperor Rudolf" to "your majesty" and it fits so well. I just really like Xaizor and it probably helps that Dread Fighter is one of my absolute favorite classes.

    submitted by /u/DeadmanV2
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    Roy Fanart Hope you like it.(It would mean the world if you checked out my intagram @Vizoninc)

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 06:07 PM PDT

    [OC] Quick Lysithea and Claude I drew for a ship week thing

    Posted: 21 Jun 2020 09:42 AM PDT
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