CategoryVideo Games

My Pokemon Gym: Steel

Welcome to the fifteenth iteration of the My Pokemon Gym series. If you’re new to this series, I take a Pokemon type then build out my team of six Pokemon of that type as if I were the gym leader. Here are the rules:

  1. I can’t use legendary/mythical Pokemon
  2. I can’t reuse Pokemon I’ve used in previous gyms in this series.
  3. Forms of the same Pokémon can be reused, provided they have different typing. For example, if I used Rattata in a Normal gym team, I could use Alolan Rattata in a Dark gym team.

Want to read my other My Pokemon Gym posts? Go read the Fighting, Ice, Psychic, Grass, Dragon, Fairy, Electric, Bug, Fire, Flying, Normal, Ghost, Dark, and Rock type posts when you’re done here. All images courtesy pokemondb.net unless otherwise stated.

Magnezone

For as much as I like the Magnemite line, I genuinely never know how to use it properly in competitive play. It’s a bulky special attacker in my mind, even though everyone plays it as an anti-Steel Pokemon. As much as I know what the right way to play Magnezone should be thanks to the existence of the internet, I just roll with it the same way I have for generations now — Tri Attack, otherwise Rain Dance then spam Thunder.

Ability: Magnet Pull
Item: Shuca Berry
Moves: Rain Dance, Thunder, Tri Attack, Flash Cannon

Skarmory

The Skarmory/Blissey defensive core was downright terrifying in earlier generations if you didn’t know how to handle for it. And while Blissey is one of my least favorite Pokemon ever, I have a soft spot in my heart for Skarmory. So much so that I’m still just a little annoyed that instead of getting an evolution for Skarmory in Sword/Shield, we got Corviknight. Which, yeah, good Pokemon. But Skarmory deserved better.

Skarmory is on this team to be bulky and to try to flinch opponents. That means Roost, Rock Slide, and Iron Head were guaranteed spots in the build. The last spot came down to Aerial Ace or Toxic. I decided on the former just in case there were ever a situation where I needed a guaranteed hit.

Ability: Sturdy
Item: Leftovers
Moves: Roost, Rock Slide, Aerial Ace, Iron Head

Scizor

One of the unfortunate things about the Steel typing is that it has two Pokemon that I love using Mega Evolutions for1The more I play Shield, the less I like the Dynamax concept. — Scizor and Metagross. In deciding which of the two to have as a mega on this team, I thought about my history with using each of them. And while I’ve used both in their mega forms on my teams before, only Scizor managed to stay useful to me in its base form. This is thanks in large part to its Technician ability, as well as an array of moves that get a boost from it, such as Bullet Punch, Vacuum Wave, Aerial Ace, Thief, and Bug Bite. This set lacks recovery, but that could easily be fixed by dropping Aerial Ace for Roost.

Ability: Technician
Item: Metronome
Moves: Swords Dance, Bullet Punch, Bug Bite, Aerial Ace

Mega Metagross

On the list of non-legendary Pokemon abilities, Tough Claws has to be near the top of the list in terms of most overpowered, right? It powers up ANY move that makes contact. That includes things like Grass Knot. Yes, Grass Knot is powered up by Tough Claws, despite being a special move. Anyway, Mega Metagross is OP, please nerf.

Ability: Tough Claws (Light Metal before Mega Evolution)
Item: Metagrossite
Moves: Meteor Mash, Zen Headbutt, Ice Punch, Grass Knot

Alolan Sandslash

As much as I love the concept of the Ice/Steel typing, even I’m willing to admit it’s not a particularly practical nor useful type. When you have a 4x weakness to both Fire and Fighting — two of the best offensive typings in the game — you’re gonna have a bad time. That said, I just really like Alolan Sandslash. It’s not going to live long. I know that. But if it’s able to switch in on something it can set up on with Curse, it becomes hilariously hard to stop thanks to Gyro Ball.

Ability: Snow Cloak
Item: Focus Sash
Moves: Curse, Flail, Poison Jab, Gyro Ball

Empoleon

Can we take a moment to talk about how so many of the starter Pokemon have terrible hidden abilities for what they’re used for? Empoleon is an example of this. Instead of getting an ability that benfits its excellent defensive typing, its bulk, or its special attack, it gets…Defiant? Defiant works well on a Pokemon with good attack. But unless you’re dead set on making your Emploeon a mixed attacker, there’s not much point. I decided to use it because why not. But what the hell?

Ability: Defiant
Item: Petaya Berry
Moves: Surf, Power Trip, Steel Wing, Double Team

The Best Shiny Pokemon by Color

Shiny Pokemon: the reason everyone still taps on trash Pokemon in Pokemon Go even though they’re getting bored with the game itself.

All kidding aside1I’m not kidding., ever since shiny variants of Pokemon were introduced in Generation II, they have captured the attention of the Pokemon fan base. For those not familiar with the concept, shiny Pokemon are Pokemon that have a color variation different from the main color scheme for that Pokemon. For example, here we have the regular version of Gyarados (all images courtesy pokemondb.net)

And here we have shiny Gyarados.

Got the concept? Good.

I got into a discussion with Lola from the blog That Little Lola regarding some of our favorite shiny Pokemon. I’ve wanted to do a post about shinies for quite some time now, but ultimately didn’t land on the right topic until after that conversation. What follows in this post is my thoughts on the best shiny variant for each color that’s part of this list. Here are the rules.

  • What color a Pokemon is listed under below is dictated by the primary color of its shiny variant. Gyarados would fall under red rather than blue for this reason.
  • Mega evolutions, forms, and regional variants are all considered for this post.
  • I’ve chosen to limit myself to a maximum of three honorable mentions for each color.

Got it? Good. I’m also doing a blog post with the Pokemon I think have the worst shinies by each color as a Patreon reward2By the time this post comes out, the Patreon post will have already gone live., so if you’re interested in seeing that list too, go support me on Patreon.

Red – Dhelmise

We begin with arguably the hardest color on this list to cut down the honorable mentions for. While there aren’t a ton of good red shinies in earlier generations, we more than make up for that from Generation V onward. Even Hoenn gave us Solrock’s criminally underrated shiny form. That said, one of my favorite Pokemon designs, Dhelmise, also gives us my favorite primarily red shiny. I really like how the red seaweed accents the rusted anchor, making for one of the better color contrasts of all shiny Pokemon.

Honorable mentions: Solrock, Clawitzer, Yveltal

Orange – Shellder

While orange has the shortest list of honorable mentions on this list3The day before publishing this post, I realized I completely skipped Gen III when making my orange list, meaning I’d forgot about the amazing shinies belonging to both Seedot and Linoone. Only one makes the list, but I’m adding this note instead of changing the paragraph because of how much it annoyed me that I did that., it does have my single favorite shiny in all of Pokemon, Shellder. Shellder’s orange sprite is so much better than its normal purple coloration that I wish this was the regular form. Of course, if Shellder had a purple shiny, it would make so much more sense for Cloyster to have the weird blue shiny it has. As a side note, orange also features the only Gen VIII appearance on this list. Most of the Sword/Shield shinies are pretty lackluster, but Cramorant’s is nice.

Honorable mentions: Chandelure, Cramorant, Seedot

Yellow/Gold – Drifloon

I combined yellow and gold in part because it was hard for me to draw the line on certain color distinctions — as you’ll see when we get further down the list. Either way, Drifloon was the easy winner from this group, with both it and its evolution having awesome yellow shiny forms. Lucario’s shiny is a bit underrated, though I’m sure that’s driven by the fact that Mega Lucario is just so ugly.

Honorable mentions: Azumarill, Lucario

Green – Taillow

I adore lime green. I really do. I cut four lime green shinies from the honorable mentions section of this color. Not picking Scizor or Beedrill here hurt a little. But of all the green shinies in existence, my favorite is Taillow. The adorable tiny bird has a shade of green that doesn’t show up in many shiny Pokemon. Though PokemonDB’s sprite doesn’t show it off well, trust me. It’s awesome.

Honorable mentions: Beedrill, Espeon, Scizor

Blue – Simipour

This might be the first time Simipour has ever been at the top of a positive Pokemon list. That said, I quite prefer Simipour’s shiny to its regular coloration. Hell, that’s the case with all of the Pokemon in this color’s section of the post, though I think Simipour’s is the biggest improvement over its regular sprite. Of course, the less said about the downfall of the Gible line’s shinies as you get further along the evolutionary chain, the better.

Honorable mentions: Shuckle, Gible, Xurkitree

Purple – Pupitar

Speaking of Pokemon evolutionary chains that have one good shiny amid a sea of not good shinies, I give you Pupitar. Larvitar’s shiny is fine. Tyrannitar’s is underwhelming. But the purple shiny on Pupitar jumps off the screen. It’s striking in a good way. You’ll notice that Murkrow makes my honorable mentions, as I went through quite the mental debate whether or not to classify it as purple (a color it didn’t win) or pink (a color it would have won). To me, it looks more purple than pink, so I chose to put it here. That said, I’m also bad at color theory.

Honorable mentions: Murkrow, Tentacool, Rogenrolla

Pink – Dragonair

Good lord, that’s a good shiny. The pink and the white work really well together. The gold accents are amazing. It’s just beautifully done. Despite pink being a middling color to me outside of the world of Pokemon, there are a TON of good pink shinies in the games, particularly from early generations. I can’t wait for Furret to be allowed in Sword/Shield for shiny Furret sweeping shenanigans.

Honorable mentions: Furret, Mega Mawile, Crobat

Brown – Cacturne

There’s not a ton of brown shiny Pokemon in general. But of the ones that do exist, it really came down to Cacturne and Kantonian Sandslash for this spot. If I’m being honest, a small reason why Cacturne got the nod here is because what makes Sandslash’s shiny so cool is the red spikes and their contrast against the brown, not the brown itself. Cacturne wins out here as a result, but this was the closest choice of any on this list.

Honorable mentions: Sandslash (Kantonian Form), Liepard, Lopunny

Black – Umbreon

Black shinies just look cool. That’s all there is to it. But of all the black shinies in existence, the one that’s my favorite is one of the ones with the most subtle changes from its base coloration, Umbreon. Going from the yellow to the blue accents against the black is just a great touch. It’s not as drastic of a change as Mega Gardevoir or Oricorio Balie go through, but it’s extremely effective.

Honorable mentions: Mega Gardevoir, Palossand, Oricorio (Baile Form)

White – Victini

Like black shiny forms, white shiny Pokemon often also follow the Rule of Cool when it comes to their coloration. That said, white shinies are much harder to come by, which I have to assume is because it’s really hard to color them if you’re a child4You may think I’m kidding, but this is intended to be a child’s game after all. You have to take your target audience into consideration.. That said, of all the white shinies in existence, it’s really Victini and then everything else. It’s too bad getting a Victini is literally impossible now — not that Game Freak intentionally has it that way or anything.

Honorable mentions: Eevee, Litten, Pelipper

Silver/Gray – Fennekin

Hahahahahahahaha. It’s a silver fox. Get it?

Honorable mentions: Metagross, Ferroseed, Vikavolt

Ranking Fire Emblem: Three Houses Paired Endings (Ashen Wolves/DLC)

Welcome to one of the blog posts I wrote during our shelter in place time. Most of the posts I wrote during this period are not particularly high thought level posts. If anything, the entire point to them is to be able to not think heavily for a little while. As such, I’m immersing myself in things I like (read: video games, mostly). apologies for anyone that finds this boring. This is how I’m coping.

A while back, I wrote a post talking about my headcanon relationships for all of Fire Emblem: Awakening characters. I spent a good bit of time thinking about how I’d write such a post for Fire Emblem: Three Houses, only to come to the following conclusions.

  1. Even people who read my blog AND care about Fire Emblem would not read such a post, as it’d be insanely long.
  2. There are so many characters who can end the game with so many others that it’d be impossible to do a true headcanon post for most characters1The exceptions to this rule are Hilda X Caspar, Flayn X eating fish, and Dorothea X my friend Stephanie..
  3. The age gaps in certain cases (Hanneman, Manuela, and Seteth, in particular) makes that a much weirder exercise than it was in Awakening.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to provide a ranking of the best paired endings for each character in the game. These posts will be divided by the character’s starting house. My hope is to do all five of these posts over the course of a week, though we’ll see how quickly I can get them done. When they’re all completed, you can click below to access each list.

Black Eagles | Blue Lions | Golden Deer | Church of Serios | Ashen Wolves/DLC

For this list, I’m only including endings where a character pairing has a support of A or higher to end the game. Additionally, because Byleth could hypothetically end up being paired with any character in the game depending on various circumstances, they are included in each list. That said, I’ll only be considering their paired endings with characters of the house I’m focusing on within that post. You’ll see how I handle their potential same-sex endings in each post.

To be clear, these lists will focus on the endings these characters can have with another character, rather than strictly on supports. Supports are a topic better saved for another time with a less cabin-fevery mind. Also, spoilers ahead. Clearly.

Pairings that are directly stated or at least heavily implied to be romantic in nature are in bold. Pairings that vary whether or not they are romantic depending on what story path you’re playing on, or are ambiguously romantic, are denoted with an asterisk (*).

Sothis

  1. Byleth (M/F)

Apparently I forgot Sothis in the Church post, so I’ve decided to add her here. Unlike the Rhea ending which is just creepy and weird, the Sothis paired ending with Byleth is pretty much Byleth just being by themselves as the ending. Which is fine. Sure, this could have been done without having an S-support ending with a character that exists inside your character’s head. But…eh?

Jeritza

  1. Mercedes
  2. Constance
  3. Byleth (M/F)
  4. Bernadetta

Jeritza’s ending options are very limited by nature of the fact that he’s only accessible in one route in the game. Even with that in mind, his ending options are all pretty underwhelming. The best case scenario reunites him with his estranged sister, but even that ending is somewhat out of character for him. Jeritza is one of the few characters where ending up alone makes far more sense than any paired ending he could have.

Anna

Anna cannot have a paired ending in Three Houses, despite being eligible to have them in Awakening and Fates. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Yuri

  1. Bernadetta
  2. Constance
  3. Byleth (M/F)
  4. Ingrid
  5. Balthus
  6. Hapi
  7. Dorothea

Much like Manuela and Lorenz, Yuri has some really good endings despite being a character I’m not a huge fan of. In particular, his ending with Bernadetta gives her a lot of growth as a person — which makes a ton of sense considering their supports. His ending with Constance is also really touching, if for no other reason than it’s one where they’re both allowed to be themselves.

Constance

  1. Ferdinand von Aegir
  2. Yuri
  3. Edelgard
  4. Hapi
  5. Mercedes
  6. Jeritza
  7. Balthus
  8. Byleth (M)

Sigh. I really hate that the Constance/Byleth pairing is so similar to some of Tharja’s post-timeskip interactions in Awakening. It really ruins her ending with Byleth for me. And I get why then ending’s like that. But just…no. The rest of her endings are fine, though I do particularly like how sweet her ending with Ferdinand von Aegir is. But I’m hung up on that Byleth ending.

Balthus

  1. Hilda
  2. Claude
  3. Byleth (F)
  4. Hapi
  5. Lysithea
  6. Yuri
  7. Constance

I really like how — with the exception of Hilda — nearly all of Balthus’s endings are just gender-flipped versions of either Leonie (most of them) or Marianne (Byleth). Yet he can’t have a paired ending with either of them. No clue why this is so funny to me. That said, I feel like Balthus not having a paired ending with either of them is a missed opportunity. On that note2And since I haven’t done this yet., here are my top 5 missed opportunity paired endings in Three Houses.

  • Balthus and Marianne
  • Claude and Byleth (M)
  • Ingrid and Dorothea
  • Alois and Ashe
  • Annette and Lysithea

Hapi

  1. Byleth (M) (Crimson Flower)
  2. Yuri
  3. Balthus
  4. Linhardt
  5. Constance
  6. Byleth (M) (Other Routes)
  7. Ashe
  8. Dimitri

For as much as I like Hapi as a character, I’m not a huge fan of most of her endings. Aside from her endings with Byleth in the Crimson Flower route and Yuri, her paired endings either seem weirdly contrived or unrealistic. In most cases, the endings take away who she is for sake of…normalcy? And doing so defeats the whole purpose of Hapi’s backstory.

Byleth

  1. Hapi (M) (Crimson Flower)
  2. Yuri (M/F)
  3. Balthus (F)
  4. Jeritza (M/F)
  5. Hapi (M) (Other Routes)
  6. Sothis (M/F)
  7. Constance (M)

Pretty sure Constance is Byleth’s worst paired ending in the entire game. Which is frustrating on my current playthrough, as I started that playthrough without knowing their paired ending, only to learn it in researching these posts. Since the route is an Azure Moon playthrough, the clear answer here should have been Annette or Shamir (I’m male Byleth in this run). But I digress. Byleth’s Crimson Flower ending with Hapi is legitimately one of the more underrated endings in the entire game. So much so that I’m going to use the rest of this post to give you my 10 favorite Byleth paired endings across all routes. Because it’s my post.

  1. Shamir (M)
  2. Annette (M)
  3. Alois (M/F)
  4. Ingrid (M)
  5. Claude (F)
  6. Hapi (M) (Crimson Flower)
  7. Ashe (F)
  8. Mercedes (M/F)
  9. Dorothea (M/F)
  10. Sylvain (F)24

Ranking Fire Emblem: Three Houses Paired Endings (Church of Serios)

Welcome to one of the blog posts I wrote during our shelter in place time. Most of the posts I wrote during this period are not particularly high thought level posts. If anything, the entire point to them is to be able to not think heavily for a little while. As such, I’m immersing myself in things I like (read: video games, mostly). apologies for anyone that finds this boring. This is how I’m coping.

A while back, I wrote a post talking about my headcanon relationships for all of Fire Emblem: Awakening characters. I spent a good bit of time thinking about how I’d write such a post for Fire Emblem: Three Houses, only to come to the following conclusions.

  1. Even people who read my blog AND care about Fire Emblem would not read such a post, as it’d be insanely long.
  2. There are so many characters who can end the game with so many others that it’d be impossible to do a true headcanon post for most characters1The exceptions to this rule are Hilda X Caspar, Flayn X eating fish, and Dorothea X my friend Stephanie..
  3. The age gaps in certain cases (Hanneman, Manuela, and Seteth, in particular) makes that a much weirder exercise than it was in Awakening.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to provide a ranking of the best paired endings for each character in the game. These posts will be divided by the character’s starting house. My hope is to do all five of these posts over the course of a week, though we’ll see how quickly I can get them done. When they’re all completed, you can click below to access each list.

Black Eagles | Blue Lions | Golden Deer | Church of Serios | Ashen Wolves/DLC

For this list, I’m only including endings where a character pairing has a support of A or higher to end the game. Additionally, because Byleth could hypothetically end up being paired with any character in the game depending on various circumstances, they are included in each list. That said, I’ll only be considering their paired endings with characters of the house I’m focusing on within that post. You’ll see how I handle their potential same-sex endings in each post.

To be clear, these lists will focus on the endings these characters can have with another character, rather than strictly on supports. Supports are a topic better saved for another time with a less cabin-fevery mind. Also, spoilers ahead. Clearly.

Pairings that are directly stated or at least heavily implied to be romantic in nature are in bold. Pairings that vary whether or not they are romantic depending on what story path you’re playing on, or are ambiguously romantic, are denoted with an asterisk (*).

Rhea

  1. Literally never supporting Rhea at all
  2. Byleth (M/F)

Alright. Let’s address this one right now, because it’s fucking weird. Rhea is kind of your mom. Not your biological mom. But in that she gave you life by fancy goddess powers. But you’re also her mom/dad. In that the how she gave you life involves giving you the heart of her mother. It’s fucking weird. It’s best just not to do it.

Manuela

  1. Ferdinand von Aegir
  2. Edelgard
  3. Hanneman
  4. Lorenz
  5. Dorothea
  6. Byleth (M)
  7. Seteth

For as much as I dislike Manuela as a character — she’s one of my two least favorite characters in the game — over half of her paired endings are pretty good. Her ending with Ferdinand von Aegir is one of his best endings in the game. That’s saying something, because he has A LOT of good endings. That said, Manuela also has multiple endings that make her or her partner come across as just kind of…there. In particular, I could have lived without reading her ending with Seteth.

Hanneman

  1. Lysithea
  2. Byleth (F)
  3. Annette
  4. Edelgard
  5. Marianne
  6. Manuela
  7. Dorothea

A ton of Hanneman’s endings involve him doing mad-awesome sciencey things, which is neat. The fact that he actively saves Lysithea’s life in their paired ending is pretty awesome. That said, everything 2-6 on this list could be thrown in the air and land in any order and I’d be fine with it2Okay, maybe 2-5. The ending with Manuela is just…odd?. Just keep him away from Dorothea, please?

Seteth

  1. Leonie
  2. Bernadetta
  3. Ingrid
  4. Hilda
  5. Manuela
  6. Byleth (F)
  7. Catherine
  8. Flayn

Remember how earlier in the post I said how much I disliked Seteth and Manuela’s paired ending? The fact that there are three endings on Seteth’s list below that one should give you an idea of how much Seteth’s endings annoy me. His paired ending with his daughter is the single worst ending in the game — period — because he literally learns nothing even after all they go through in this game. Seteth does have some good endings, particularly the simple life ending he has with Leonie and the author/illustrator ending he has with Bernadetta. And he has some really good supports. But good lord his endings are rough.

Flayn

  1. Dedue
  2. Dimitri
  3. Ferdinand von Aegir
  4. Byleth (M)
  5. Raphael
  6. Felix (Azure Moon)
  7. Linhardt
  8. Ignatz
  9. Felix (Other Routes)*
  10. Claude
  11. Seteth

Flayn, on the other hand, has eight good or better endings, two meh ones, and her one with Seteth. I particularly like her endings with Dedue and Dimitri, which are sadly locked behind the Azure Moon path. In the case of Dedue, he manages to help turn Flayn from a horrid cook into a very good one. And in the case of Dimitri, it doesn’t matter because the man literally will eat weeds. Special shout out to Claude for being the only romantic ending Flayn has that’s afraid to tell Seteth about their marriage, despite becoming king of a nation. Not like royalty is known for having public lives or anything.

Cyril

  1. Lysithea
  2. Shamir
  3. Hilda
  4. Ashe
  5. Petra
  6. Byleth (F)

Cyril is Manuela, but with worse endings. Sure, his ending with Lysithea is tragically sweet, the one with Shamir is him being on par with his idol, and his ending with Hilda shows a lot of growth from both of them. But considering Three Houses has no child units to pass Aptitude down to, I rarely ever both recruiting Cyril. Feel free to completely ignore my list for him. I don’t care about Cyril.

Catherine

  1. Shamir
  2. Alois
  3. Caspar
  4. Ashe
  5. Linhardt*
  6. Dimitri
  7. Lorenz
  8. Byleth (M)
  9. Seteth

We’ll talk a lot more about the Catherine and Shamir paired ending a bit further down this list. That said, Catherine’s endings are kind of like Felix’s, in that they’re very dependent on other circumstances as to which one you get. That said, they’re also largely consistent person to person that I didn’t feel the need to split them. With the exception of Caspar and maybe Ashe, most of Catherine’s blatantly romantic paired endings are underwhelming. Her support with Alois is the one that gives her the most personal success, regardless of how much she’s protecting Rhea in the post-script of the game. That said, her best paired support is with Shamir by a large margin — meet me down at Shamir’s heading if you want to know why.

Alois

  1. Catherine
  2. Byleth (M/F)
  3. Mercedes
  4. Leonie (Crimson Flower)
  5. Leonie (Other Routes)

For those of you who didn’t immediately skip over Alois’s endings, they’re all platonic. Yes, he’s the only character in Three Houses for whom this is true. And most of them are perfectly acceptable endings for Alois. Which makes sense, as he’s already married. That said, his endings with Leonie just aren’t great. Especially the one where he’s essentially an enabler to her budding alcoholism.

Gilbert

  1. Annette
  2. Byleth (M/F)
  3. Dimitri

Gilbert’s best ending is the one where he reunites with his daughter. Nothing else matters.

Shamir

  1. Catherine
  2. Byleth (M)
  3. Claude
  4. Caspar
  5. Cyril
  6. Leonie
  7. Dedue
  8. Hubert
  9. Raphael
  10. Ignatz

Alright. Let’s get the others out of the way first. Nearly every ending Shamir has is about growth and development for the other person she’s paired with. I love that. There are some where she grows and develops too — and they tend to be nearer the top of this list for that reason. That said, Shamir just has good supports and endings. Her Robin Hood ending with Raphael would be a top three ending for nearly any other character. Similarly, her ending3Note: Not her SUPPORTS with Male Byleth. Everything other than her S-Support is not good. with male Byleth is fitting for both of their characters that it nearly made the top of this list4It is Byleth’s single best S-support scene by a mile. I would argue it is the best S-support scene in ANY Fire Emblem game that I’ve played, though Lon’qu and Cherche’s scene in Awakening is a close second..

Let’s talk about Catherine. It’s why you’re here. For everyone that says their ending isn’t romantic at all, I would strongly suggest you re-read their supports. Taken by itself, what is described as a ‘lifelong journey together’ makes them sound like best friends. That said, it’s clearly best friends in the way that historians tend to not recognize same-sex relationships way of best friends. Their A+ support is a fucking love confession. Their paired ending is romantic, even if the focus in on their lives outside of their relationship. It’s such a good ending that I’ve actively avoided marrying Shamir off to Byleth in most5Though not all. of my playthroughs just so Shamir and Catherine can be together6As an aside, I have a love-hate relationship with the If It’s You, It’s Okay trope. If it is done poorly, it’s one of the worst things to see in a game/book/movie, to the point where it’s borderline insulting to watch. When it’s done right, it’s like a drug. Shamir/Catherine (and to a lesser extent Petra/Dorothea) is this trope done right..

Byleth

  1. Shamir (M)
  2. Alois (M/F)
  3. Flayn (M)
  4. Hanneman (F)
  5. Gilbert (M/F)
  6. Seteth (F)
  7. Manuela (M)
  8. Catherine (M)
  9. Cyril (F)
  10. Rhea (M/F)

I’ve already talked about Byleth’s pairing with Shamir at length, as well as my distaste for some of their other endings here. That said, I want to take a moment to call out father/child relationship that develops between Byleth and Alois if you pick their paired ending. Considering how much it destroys Byleth when their dad dies in the first part of the game — and considering they never know their mother — it’s really sweet to see Byleth have family. Sure, there are plenty of endings (see: Shamir) where Byleth starts their own family. But giving Byleth a father figure for an ending is really sweet.

Ranking Fire Emblem: Three Houses Paired Endings (Golden Deer)

Welcome to one of the blog posts I wrote during our shelter in place time. Most of the posts I wrote during this period are not particularly high thought level posts. If anything, the entire point to them is to be able to not think heavily for a little while. As such, I’m immersing myself in things I like (read: video games, mostly). apologies for anyone that finds this boring. This is how I’m coping.

A while back, I wrote a post talking about my headcanon relationships for all of Fire Emblem: Awakening characters. I spent a good bit of time thinking about how I’d write such a post for Fire Emblem: Three Houses, only to come to the following conclusions.

  1. Even people who read my blog AND care about Fire Emblem would not read such a post, as it’d be insanely long.
  2. There are so many characters who can end the game with so many others that it’d be impossible to do a true headcanon post for most characters1The exceptions to this rule are Hilda X Caspar, Flayn X eating fish, and Dorothea X my friend Stephanie..
  3. The age gaps in certain cases (Hanneman, Manuela, and Seteth, in particular) makes that a much weirder exercise than it was in Awakening.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to provide a ranking of the best paired endings for each character in the game. These posts will be divided by the character’s starting house. My hope is to do all five of these posts over the course of a week, though we’ll see how quickly I can get them done. When they’re all completed, you can click below to access each list.

Black Eagles | Blue Lions | Golden Deer | Church of Serios | Ashen Wolves/DLC

For this list, I’m only including endings where a character pairing has a support of A or higher to end the game. Additionally, because Byleth could hypothetically end up being paired with any character in the game depending on various circumstances, they are included in each list. That said, I’ll only be considering their paired endings with characters of the house I’m focusing on within that post. You’ll see how I handle their potential same-sex endings in each post.

To be clear, these lists will focus on the endings these characters can have with another character, rather than strictly on supports. Supports are a topic better saved for another time with a less cabin-fevery mind. Also, spoilers ahead. Clearly.

Pairings that are directly stated or at least heavily implied to be romantic in nature are in bold. Pairings that vary whether or not they are romantic depending on what story path you’re playing on, or are ambiguously romantic, are denoted with an asterisk (*).

Claude

  1. Byleth (F)
  2. Annette
  3. Petra
  4. Shamir
  5. Lorenz
  6. Hilda
  7. Ingrid
  8. Balthus
  9. Marianne
  10. Leonie
  11. Lysithea
  12. Flayn

Claude has a lot of really good endings. Nearly all of his endings are either romantic ones where the partners are equal or non-romantic ones were both partners go on to do great things. Which kind of makes sense, what with his whole equality storyline and everything. The only two I really can’t get behind are Lysithea’s2Her living doesn’t make a ton of sense in this ending. and Flayn’s3You mean to tell me that Seteth NEVER finds out about her marriage to Claude? Ever?. That said, pretty much everything 8th place and above on this list is a great ending for Claude. I’m partial to his endings with Byleth, Annette, and Petra, but there are a ton of possible favorites here.

Hilda

  1. Claude
  2. Caspar
  3. Ignatz
  4. Raphael*
  5. Marianne
  6. Cyril
  7. Ferdinand
  8. Lorenz
  9. Byleth (M)
  10. Seteth
  11. Balthus*

Much like I mentioned with Caspar, I hate that the Hilda/Caspar pairing doesn’t top this list, as I adore their supports. That said, Hilda’s ending with Claude is the lone ending that allows her to be an equal to her partner, use her cunning nature, and allow her inner artisan to flourish all at once. I also weirdly like how many non-romantic endings Hilda has, even if not all of them are good. For as much of a flirt as Hilda is, it still makes sense that she doesn’t need to settle down with someone. Though if the internet is any indication, they’d love if her pairing with Marianne was more romantic.

Lorenz

  1. Claude
  2. Manuela
  3. Lysithea
  4. Byleth (F)
  5. Marianne
  6. Hilda
  7. Catherine
  8. Mercedes
  9. Leonie
  10. Dorothea

I don’t like Lorenz all that much. That said, he grows up A LOT in his endings. So much so that it’s somewhat at odds with his character in much of the story. I do want to particularly call out the fact that in Lorenz’s ending with Byleth, we get a direct mention of the fact that Byleth transfers control of whatever they’re leading to their son — the lone instance talking about power transfer post-war that I recall seeing in any of the endings. It’s also notable that for a character whose focus in his supports is often on finding the right person to marry, his best paired ending of all is actually one where he remains unmarried. That said, I really like his paired ending with Manuela, in part because their supports make two characters I dislike very likeable.

Lysithea

  1. Linhardt
  2. Hanneman
  3. Byleth (M)
  4. Edelgard
  5. Claude
  6. Cyril
  7. Raphael*
  8. Lorenz
  9. Balthus
  10. Felix (Other Routes)
  11. Felix (Azure Moon)
  12. Ignatz

Lysithea’s endings can be divided pretty cleanly into two groups — ones where she lives (1-5 on this list) and ones where she dies quite young (6-12). I’m particularly a fan of her endings with Linhardt and Hanneman, which are extremely similar in nature. That said, Linhardt’s gets the edge, as part of what Lysithea wants in a full life is love (per her supports), regardless of that life’s length. Her ending with Cyril is also particularly touching, though still lower on this list because of her untimely death. Congratulations to Lysithea on being the one character that has endings with both Hanneman and Cyril without either of them being creepy.

Ignatz

  1. Raphael
  2. Petra
  3. Hilda
  4. Marianne
  5. Shamir
  6. Leonie
  7. Flayn
  8. Ingrid
  9. Byleth (F)
  10. Mercedes
  11. Lysithea

Ignatz’s bottom five paired endings on this list are nearly identical. There are similarities within all of the character endings, but Ignatz specifically has a ton of copy/paste endings. His best ending is a romantic one, though it’s not with the person he has a paired ending with, as he marries Raphael’s little sister, who had a crush on him since they were children. Ignatz’s entire gimmick is that he’s an artist, so I like the endings where he’s able to do that well in varied ways, as is shown in his endings with Petra, Hilda, and (to a lesser extent) Marianne.

Marianne

  1. Dimitri
  2. Ferdinand von Aegir
  3. Claude
  4. Hilda
  5. Lorenz
  6. Linhardt
  7. Raphael
  8. Ignatz
  9. Hanneman
  10. Ashe
  11. Byleth (M)

I still hate the Ashe/Marianne ending. That said, congratulations on the Byleth ending on being the only ending for Marianne that downplays how important and smart she is. Even the Hanneman and Ashe endings give her credit for that directly, even if she is reduced to being a sugar mama. For that matter — Marianne has quite the number of sugar mama endings. It’s kind of weird considering how reserved she is. That said, her ending with Dimitri is still one of my favorites.

Raphael

  1. Ingrid*
  2. Shamir
  3. Marianne
  4. Flayn
  5. Hilda*
  6. Byleth (F)
  7. Leonie*
  8. Bernadetta
  9. Lysithea
  10. Ignatz

I love that Raphael only has two directly romantic endings in all of his possible options. What I don’t like, however, is that nearly all of his options focus more on whoever his paired ending partner is more so than Raphael. This is particularly true in the case of Ignatz, whose paired ending with Raphael focuses almost totally on the marriage between Ignatz and Raphael’s sister, Maya. Raphael’s endings with Ingrid and Shamir are by far his best. Even if the endings aren’t romantic — which they don’t need to be to work — I wish he had more of a focus in them.

Leonie

  1. Seteth
  2. Byleth (M)
  3. Raphael*
  4. Shamir
  5. Claude
  6. Lorenz
  7. Ignatz
  8. Alois (Crimson Flower)
  9. Felix
  10. Alois (Other Routes)

Despite most of the Golden Deer having a lot of really good endings, Leonie has one great ending, three good endings, and a whole lot of downer or what the hell endings. She even becomes an alcoholic who goes severely into debt in her non-Crimson Flower route endings with Alois. Leonie was one of the characters I was most excited about before the game released, only to be disappointed in her once I played the game. Most of her endings are the same. At least her ending (and supports) with Seteth is amazing and wholesome.

Byleth

  1. Claude (F)
  2. Leonie (M)
  3. Lysithea (M)
  4. Raphael (F)
  5. Lorenz (F)
  6. Marianne (M)
  7. Hilda (M)
  8. Ignatz (F)

The Golden Deer endings for Byleth are a bit of a mixed bag, as you have Claude’s awesome ending with Byleth, some good endings courtesy Lysithea, Leonie, Raphael, and Lorenz, and then some bleh endings otherwise. In most cases, Byleth’s endings are generally the same, so you have to take into consideration the ending for their partner more so than other paired endings. And with that in mind, the Golden Deer endings for Byleth are much like the quality of endings for the Golden Deer house as a whole — either incredibly balanced and wholesome or extremely one-sided.