Medeus

Just finished Golden Wildfire, I have a few thoughts but one thing has stuck in my mind about it:

Definitely going for Claude, he's my favorite of the three and the fact that he's the demote makes him even more appealing as an option to pull. I'm probably not going for the others, but if I don't get Blue on my circles I'll probably go Red to pick up Edelgard. It's the face, the goggles and the wider eyes in particular make him look five years younger.

I'm still at a loss right now, I was looking through the FEH reddit when the news dropped and I couldn't believe it when I first read it. RIP Billy, you were a talented voice actor who gave a great performance in characters like Ferdinand and Blue, and my heart goes out to your friends and family.

I think they should've split the book up. The Embla political plot and Askr/Embla war could've easily have been their own stories, but they crammed them together and that's hurt both plotlines as Ash and Elm did almost nothing in the first half and Letizia's plotline had to be rushed for the Midpoint. The only thing really left for Letizia at this point is to reconcile with Veronica, and that can easily be done in a Chapter considering FEH's usual pace. Probably cow dragon and bat dragon as you said. With Embla in particular we already have Elm as a Bat Beast unit and the generics are coming too who'll be in Red, Blue, and Green varieties. So they may want to differentiate her from both, and making her a dragon with bat-like elements would be a good way to do so.

About time, it was weird how after over five years this guy was still MIA. Looks cool and I'm definitely pulling him because obviously I'm not bias, it also helps that the only Colorless unit I got in that pool is one L!Micaiah and I don't mind pulling more of her or Elimine along the way.

Assuming it's a Dark Colorless Mythic, my best guess would be Medeus, Anankos, or Dragon Fafnir as all three fit the criteria along with being possible picks for Golden Week (Medeus is the weakest link, but the Archanean games are more popular in Japan so he could still slot in). If it's not Dark then Hanon as I could see her being Anima, the only thing that holds her back is the lack of a defined appearance but they could rework the silhouette from FE7.

To be fair, with Hilda she fits in very well with the banner characters as three of them are related to her and two of them just would love to give her a Wrath boosted Thoron for what she did to Tailtiu. Banner's OK, I'm glad Tine and Arthur are in the game, but I'm not happy that Arthur and Scathach got lesser kits.

You can be a fan of Mareeta and not like Galzus, they are linked to each other by relation and history, but they're not so joined at the hip that it's a requirement to like one if you like the other. Secondly, Mareeta has been around in FEH for over two years now and has two versions, if you grew to like her through those versions rather than through Thracia (which is still one of the least popular games) you're not going to have much familiarity with Galzus going into the summons. Thirdly, people may just pull for her design or liking how her weapon sounds, it may be uninteresting to us but there are many players to the game, and some may have more interest in it then we know. Obviously, these are just examples and may not apply to everyone, but Mareeta has reasons for why someone may pull her that doesn't involve Galzus. Fair point, so unless your strategy is geared around sacking, he's probably too restrictive.

I played Thracia, so yes. I think it may also have use in Summoner Duels, but that's about it.

Not happy with how Galzus was handled. Making one of the 5* basically fodder was never an idea I've been a fan of, and Galzus in particular was done pretty dirty here. What makes it worse is that he color shares with Mareeta so the poor guy's going to get some hate for pity breaking fans trying to get her. Speaking of Mareeta, I wish they gave her a different weapon. As said before Idunn was a different color despite still being a dragon, and Fjorm, Joshua, and Lagjarn also changed weapon types in their Ascended forms, so Mareeta not doing the same makes her look rather bland as an addition.

Glad to see Maria and Sonya getting alts, but I'm still not a big fan of the Spring theme. They mostly stick to the bunny theme so they doon't differentiate the appearances much and they end up looking a little... samey for the lack of the better term. I wish they'd mix it up a little as you could do more with a theme celebrating the coming of Spring.

Then that's a difference of opinion, so we'll leave it at that. It was also mentioned in interviews by the director and developers that the wanted a stronger story and IS even went as far as to get a professional writer in Shin Kibayashi to help draft Fates' story. So it wasn't just marketing, IS definitely gave a hoot and were trying to make a better story by taking steps to improve on their mistakes with Awakening and put out a stronger narrative. You can prefer your read, but you have to understand that it's not supported by IS' own words or actions on the matter.

That's true, but either way the Bible still wouldn't be approached in the same way a video game's story would.

Considering the bible is a religious tome I'd assume people would be reading it for vastly different reasons then a video game. As for your second point, IS made a big deal about Fates being a grand story with a major political and familial consequences that would be vastly superior to Awakening and would improve on its faults and mistakes. To say that it didn't give a hoot I'd say is probably taking your own read of the situation, not of what the writers and developers intended.

I can't say I agree with that. Takumi's descent into being the final antagonist is something Conquest does highlight and not understanding how or why Takumi gets possessed in Conquest is a pretty major plot point to not explore as it means if you don't play the other two routes you're almost completely left in the dark to why he became the way he is. Same with Garon who has the entire plot warped around revealing his true nature and we get little explaining how he got to that state in the first place. Additionally, the game nudges you into wanting to know about those details that aren't explored, with Valla in particular might as well have a 'curious, buy Revelations' sign plastered all over it for how much it leaves the player wanting. In the end, I don't see how Conquest went about withholding plot details is any better than TH doing the same. Azura, Takumi, Garon and the like are just as central to Conquest, if not more so, then Rhea and the Agarthans are in Azure Moon, yet they're given worse treatment in how the plot handles the progression of those storylines.

I have to disagree with Conquest being a more complete and better narrative. Fates' story wants you to play all three routes to get the full package and as a result a number of details are intentionally locked out until you get them, and that hurts all three games to varying extents with Conquest getting it the worst. If you don't play any of the other two routes you miss out on much of the context to plot elements like Takumi's possession, Gooron, the visit to Valla, why Azura is cagey about Valla, why Azura outright disappears at the end with no explanation, and so on. Additionally, some of those affect how the plot progresses as Azura being forced to not talk about Valla means she's forced to dance around telling Corrin about Anankos and thus you have to concoct the infamous plan to conquer Hoshido to expose Garon as a workaround to solve the issue, which leads to a number of other issues like Hinoka easily forgiving Corrin for destroying her homeland. That's not to say that TH (or Echoes for that matter) didn't have a number of narrative flaws. I could list you a number of problems I had with each of the individual routes of TH and how they fall short in different ways. That said, I still hesitate to put Conquest anywhere above them when it suffers the most from having key details locked out of it and even ignoring them still has narrative failings in its own progression and character handling.

Yep, never doubt the power of a strong fanbase and incentive. As soon as I saw A!Tiki was Top 8 I knew she'd get a big push to get into the Top 2 if not close to it, though I have to admit I didn't think she'd blow past even F!Byleth for the Top spot. Considering she's made it this far I have no doubt she's keeping first place, and while second place is a bit more contentious, I wouldn't be surprised if F!Byleth keeps her spot as well. As for males, Chrom is expected, but Seliph was a surprise. I figured he'd get a rally as well as he's a character many wanted a better alt for, but his overlap with Sigurd made me feel he'd just miss the Top 2 in the midterms. It seems like both groups pooled their votes together earlier then I thought, and like A!Tiki I'm pretty sure he's got his slot locked down. In terms of the rest of the Top 20, I'm really happy to see Elincia made it. She's one of my favorite characters from the Radiance saga and I always wanted her to get higher on these pools, so I'm glad she's finally getting that push.

Keaton is a type of flannel, so that one definitely keeps the naming theme. Kaden's probably like Selkie, a pun on the word cotton.

This is going to make things a little interesting. While they already said they'll give us Midterm results, doing this daily update format is going to make a lot of the rallying behind characters happen much earlier as I'm sure fans of those characters are reading those results, seeing their favorites that high, and start swapping over to push them over the top. In particular I can see A!Tiki fans making a push as her lacking an alt after nearly five years is a sore point for them and seeing she's potentially in spitting distance of getting a Brave alt is bound to get a fire lit under them. Other characters I can see benefitting in a similar way would be Soren, Sigurd/Seliph (can't see both as they have overlap), and Hilda. That said, I'm sure fans of characters like F!Byleth and Chrom are going to see these results and fear them getting dethroned from their high spots, so there's probably going to be a rallying from their groups to keep them afloat and not risk getting overrun. I can also see the same happening for Azura and M!Byleth due to people misreading the Twitter post and assuming they're on top.

Assuming the Mythic is Dark and Green/Colorless, then the candidates I can see are Medeus, Nal (if Green), Durbans (if Green), Formortiis, Deghinsea, and Anankos. Maybe Veronica if they really want to throw in an OC but I feel they'll hold on to her until closer to the end of the book.

I like the idea of using Hatari, but this is an easy skip. No one sticks out to me aside from Xane and even then it's not enough to make me pull. Nailah was 346 on the most recent CYL, so pretty middling. Even of the beasts she's lower then 14 of them, and if you ignore the characters that weren't in the game at the time she's still behind six others, including Ranulf, Caineghis, and Reyson who haven't got alts yet. That said, this is a themed banner so it makes sense to have her. My bigger issue is the lack of Volug since he's one of the more popular remaining Laguz and would've fit in perfectly.

The only ones that could really fit the left is Ranulf, Ymir, or Volug. The hair doesn't quite match the latter so I think it's one of the other two, but I'm still considering him since he would fit a desert theme.

1. Skrimir 2. Deghinsea (regular) 3. Nasir 4. Medeus 5. Volug 6. Nergal 7. Nyna 8. Tine 9. Formortiis 10. Dean 11. Shin 12. Arion 13. Hardin (regular) 14. Forseti (using Lewyn as a base) 15. Glen 16. Muarim 17. Vanessa 18. Nolan 19. Fafnir (Regular or Dragon) 20. Limstella

1/4, not the best and only one of my Top 5 got in, but with characters like these I didn't expect many of them to get in.

To add to the previous post, if they start doing villains again I could see them go for the Black Knight. He's a very popular character and notable throughout the Tellius duology, and he still holds a good amount of presence as a solid F2P character in Heroes. So I could see them pull him out alongside characters like Arvis and Lyon if they want to increase their options, especially since...