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Thursday, April 10, 2025

Bernadetta and Annette:

Fire Emblem Three Houses has so many great characters, it's hard to get to them all.  But it's about time I recognized the two cutest girls from the game I haven't recognized yet -- Bernadetta and Annette.

Bernadetta is a hikikomori scaredy-cat, the least likely person you would expect to grow into a great warrior.  But due to Byleth's tutelage and encouragement, as well as the support of the Black Eagle students around her, she gradually grows into an amazing person.  Bernadetta has many unique abilities that make her one of the strongest characters in the game.  Her high voice and messy short purple hair make for an unforgettably striking look.  She has many feminine traits like her love of painting and stuffed animals, but perhaps the most feminine trait is her willingness to put all her faith in her commander and obey him or her even if it means staring down death.  Her most classic line when you move her into the fray while at low health is "If I die I'm coming back as a ghost to haunt you!"  Not, "I'm scared so I won't do it."  She'll do it, but she'll be angry about it if you betray her trust.  That's how frail her protest against your leadership is, and how deep her belief in you stretches.  And this is coming from a girl who's scared of virtually everything on Earth.  It's a loyalty far greater than a brave person's loyalty doing the exact same thing.

Annette has her own unique charm.  She's small, like a squirrel, but wields an enormous legendary glowing ax like a berserker.  She has beautiful orange hair and blue eyes, and has a wonderful singing voice.  She's embarrassed to sing in front of others, but is willing to do it for people who beg her favor because she's too nice to refuse.  She works twice as hard as everyone else and studies twice as long.

I assigned the Fire Emblem Three Houses song 'Tempest of Seasons' to Bernadetta, and 'As Fierce as Fire' to Annette, which both seemed fitting.  Those songs used to belong to Mare and Aquamarine, so I gave those two more fitting songs as well -- Mare got 'Garden of the Gods' because she's a God (i.e., a death god, i.e., a shinigami).  Aquamarine got 'A Shot of Crisis' because he's constantly involved in crises.  As a side benefit, this finishes off the Chrono Trigger/Cross album, now every 5-star song from that franchise has a name attached.

Meanwhile, I also adjusted my anime wishlist.  Now it has a wish for 100 Girlfriends S3, SAOAGGO S3, and an extended version of Grisaia no Kajitsu that actually follows the visual novel.  I took out my wishes for Harmonia, Hanayamata S2 and Extreme Hearts S2 to make room.  I wish more strongly for the former than the latter.  100 Girlfriends S3 and SAOAGGO S3 would be much better than S2, when you look at what source material they'd be covering, so it's really frustrating that S2 was adapted but S3 wasn't.  It's like, why would you adapt S2 if you weren't going to adapt S3?

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