Fire Emblem: Last of the Manakete

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

This is a great update. More of Siri in the future, I love her already.

I was waiting all week for this and I wasn't disappointed. Now I can't currently decide on whether to dash and hug or be more reserved...

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

SoaringHawk218 said:

You frown. "I thought all mages were trained at the Marble Hall?" you say.

"All accredited, official mages with mage-names, yes," the Archduke says. "However, it is permitted for them to take their own apprentices to aid them. Particularly talented apprentices can be sent to the Hall themselves, while others simply become hedge-mages: not fully accredited, but useful to those who cannot afford a more skilled magic user."

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Ryza is slowly learning that this human world takes the distinction between having the skill to do something and having a title saying you can do something very seriously.

For all that you're welcomed here, for all that you like and love some of the people here… this isn't your home. This castle doesn't have nearly a century of memories built up. Maybe one day, you will truly be able to call this place home, but not today.

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Hopefully in less than a human lifetime.

Clara nods. "You're a good girl, Ryza," she says. "I can show you a few tricks. Do you want to try channeling through the staff-"

"No!" you say, sharper than you intended. "I… no. Please, I don't want to use that, I want to heal without it."

Frowning, Healer Clara pulls a chair over and sits down, brining her to eyelevel with you. "You don't like the staff?" she says quietly.

You squirm a bit. "You… know what I am, right?" you say. She nods. "Well… you know what goes into those staves and other magic things, right?"

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Yeah...sometimes humans are gonna be kinda boneheaded. It sucks, but it's something Ryza has to put up with.

"She didn't tell the guards. She simply presented herself under the flag of parley and asked to be allowed to speak with her."

You frown. "That's what Robert tried to do, right?"

Artemis growls. "Yes, that's what he tried to do," she says.

"… please don't shoot an arrow in front of her. I actually want to talk to her."

That gets a laugh out of Artemis.

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Yeah, that's hilarious. It's a reasonable consideration for Ryza, considering that Robert's the only context she has for that flag, but it's also completely wrong.

She nods slowly. "Manakete," she says, opening her book again and flipping through pages, fiddling with a wood-wrapped piece of charcoal. "How do you spell that? If you don't mind me asking?"

You start to open your mouth, only to pause. "I… actually don't know," you say.

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I guess that means you get to decide how "manakete" should be spelled.

The Archduke clears his throat.

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Later. You get to decide that later.

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[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."

Ryza shouldn't be angry, but "complicated" feels more right than "overjoyed".

[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."

i kinda want for them all to see a brief flash of grief before game face

Hmm. We're of two minds on this one, having collectively decided that anger isn't a useful emotion here and now.

On the one hand, pushing down the pain seems most true to Ryza's character to date. She's a young girl wrestling with a great many complicated feelings about humans and their use of magic, and this seems the most fitting towards that specific character arc. It's thematic and appropriate.

On the other hand, speaking cynically, Flarestone already feels guilty about her part in this mess. Having a gratitude-fueled breakdown in front of her seems likely to make her even more guilty because gods, this is a child and she's thanking her for doing something that she should never have been in a position to do in the first place. That guilt can then probably be made useful to Ryza by making Flarestone more likely to help us out as a way to try and assuage her own guilt.

Less cynically, it's probably also healthier for Ryza to not keep having to shove down her emotions in situations where it isn't strictly necessary.

So yeah. For now we're leaning towards "gratitude", but not so much that we're ready to vote yet. Probably gonna wait a day or so, see if any outstanding arguments come in on either side.

SoaringHawk218 said:

As he pours the win into the cup,

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"wine"

SoaringHawk218 said:

the White magic begins to cleans the liquid.

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"clean"

SoaringHawk218 said:

pointing to the point where you see magic bleeding out.

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Technically not an error, but this feels repetitive to me. I recommend changing "point" to "spot".

SoaringHawk218 said:

It takes the two of you nearly three hours to figure out how to fix the chip into feedback amplifier.

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"into the feedback amplifier"?

[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."

Leaning towards this at the moment because, as Shadowhisker said, complicated feelings right now.

I'll go with this one, I think.

[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

It's not that I think Ryza wouldn't have complicated feelings, but I think that finally having a piece of her family brought back to her, something that she's been longing for since she woke up, is something that would take precedence over everything else.

edit: I think this is how approval voting works?

[X] Write-in: A deep sadness wells up in you. To wake up knowing your parents must be dead is vastly different from holding proof. "Please excuse me, for just a few minutes," you say quietly. Your eyes are already filling with tears.

[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."

[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

JAGwin said:

"clean"

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I'd have guessed "cleanse".

GreatWyrmGold said:

I'd have guessed "cleanse".

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In hindsight, you're probably right.

[X] A flare of anger weaves its way through the hurt; for all that she brought this to you, this human should not have been in your home! "What do you want?" you ask sharply. Your tolerance for niceties is exhausted.

It's okay for things to not be okay, and this is very much something of that nature.

Whatever else she did, Flarestone still went digging around in Ryza's home and brought her father's stone as a peace offering.

Well intentioned or not I don't a purely positive reaction is reasonable. If someone brought you your father's severed head in a bag it'd probably be pretty upsetting. Especially if the person doing so is actively carrying stuff decorated with the bones of other people.

Even if it's not totally rational to hold the state of the world against her specifically, I think being unrelentingly understanding and positive about what the humans are doing as a whole is unfitting as a response.

Having a negative reaction that underscores how screwed up what they're doing is and then working through it to reach mutual understanding seems closer to the reactions real people might have, and more interesting as a story dynamic.

Or that's how I see it anyway.

[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."

I am always exited when this quest update.

[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

Honestly, kinda hard choice. I could see myself going for any of these depending on the day.

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

Siri is adorable, and I look forward to seeing more of her.

Any of these are possible. Depends on the day, depends on the feeling...

The fact that Flarestone had the sense and decency to go "I'm in her home. The normal thing for people to do upon discovering a dragon home is to turn it into magical wealth, but I'm not going to do that. We have done so much awful to her, I am going to take my very first opportunity to try to make this right the best I know how" is something I want to pay off for her.

Possible I might just really like her design--the designs for all of these characters have been really really good.

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

WanderingTwix said:

Honestly, kinda hard choice. I could see myself going for any of these depending on the day.

[X] You dash forward and hug Mistress Flarestone. "Thank you thank you thank you…" you whimper into her shoulder. She brought a piece of your family back to you, she kept it safe, and you're so grateful…

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Personally I find gratitude to someone grave robbing and then feeling bad about it a strange response.

"I didn't steal your dad's skull when going through your stuff" isn't exactly a moral triumph.

Not saying we should fry her in the spot but more awful stuff keeps coming up from Ryza's perspective, and this particular instance is really personal for her. If some stranger came up to me with looted bits of my family they were returning my first thought would be something to the effect of "why the hell do you have this to give back?".

In my experience you can't keep poking someone in a sore spot and keep getting a positive and understanding reaction. It also kind of undercuts Ryza's visceral horror at all of this if it basically stays inside her head because we always vote to ignore it in favor of something cute or universally understanding regardless of context or personal pressure.

We don't need to be a bitter jerk about it, but expressing some of what Ryza's constantly experiencing about this directly to someone involved in it seems more fitting for someone coming from where she's coming from. Reasonably unreasonable if you will.

It's also probably healthier long term because how we act signals how we feel.

One big snap is a sign, but if Ryza mentions it's unsettling to her but never really reacts negatively when confronted with it directly like this it becomes easier to downplay and avoid thinking too deeply on for people that already want to do those things on some level.

I mean, Flamestone couldn't get through an introduction to someone she thought might react to her presence violently without stopping to ask questions. Being curious isn't a bad trait to have, but reinforcing from the outset that's she's dealing with people and that what she's party to causes them real pain strikes me as an important point to make.

Ryza isn't her pet anthropology project, and her family's remains deserve more respect than they were offered when Flamestone stole bits of them and carried them around in a sack.

[X] Swallowing your pain, you push all the feelings and hurt into the back of your mind. You have to be strong. "Thank you," you say, tucking Father's stone into your pocket next to yours. "We… should talk elsewhere. There's a lot to be said."