Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Awakening or any of the songs I parody/use here, all rights to the owners.
Minor: Dark Flier, Immortal, Boxer (Pugilist), Exploitive, Swordmaster, Angry Cinnamon Roll, Tripping, Perpetual Cheer, Chef, Blacksmith, Pegasus Knight, Teacher, Librarian, Masochist, Literal-Minded, Authoritative, Middle Age, Wyvern Rider, Aromantic, Phobia, Thicc.
Standard: Elemental, Deaf, Foreign, Future sight, Tiny, Nurse/Medic, Valmese Tactician, Medusa, Amazon, Genderfluid, Gift from Validar + evil to good, Mind Control, Banshee, Dancer, Mimic, Emotionless, Crippling Overspecialization (Idiot Savant), Coward, ESP, POW, PTSD, Magician, Mute, Savage, Handicapped, Secret Helper, Crazy, MPD, Morpher, Dreamwalker, Motherly, Lich, Twins, Regenerating, Animal Whisperer, Naga/Tiki Assistant, Sleepless, Plant, Fairy, Deadly Touch, Mind Reader, Doppelganger, Arachne, D&D magic, Umbramancer, Historian, Horror Monster, Detective, No Sense of Personal Space, Shota, Dominatrix, Songstress, Kinky.
Unlikely: Chrom's child, Minotaur, Paladin, Werewolf, Assassin, Future Soldier, Bounty Hunter, Weather control, Kleptomaniac, Druid, Steampunk, Shadow Familiar, Magic Augmentation, Lucky, Exile, Piper (Charmer), Gladiator, Witch Doctor, Centaur, Drunk, Demon, Punk, Harpy, Revenant, Luck Manipulation, Demon Summoner, Megalomaniac, Kitsune, King of Plegia, Mood Ring, Reverse Aging, Hammerspace, Prostitute, Demon Hunter, Cyborg, Maid/Servant/Butler, Deadlord, Rebellion, Einherjar, Trap, Yandere, Living Weapon, Size Shifter, Queen of Plegia, Gluttonous, Stretchy, Ninja, Alchemist, Protoss, Spirit Manipulation, Invisible, Plegian Honor Guard, Mecha, Kryptonian, Creator, Orc, Memory Stealing Respawn, Racer, Khan, Elder God, Misfortune, Vampire Hunter, Geokinetic, Imaginary Actualization, Death, Resurrection, Arachne, Force, Merchant, Background Music, Variable, Civilian, Natural Disaster, Mental Noise Projection, Hidden OP, Summoner, Cyclops, Teleporter, Cryokinetic, Genie, Judge, Intangibility, Fortune Teller, Future Vision, Serial Killer, Pervert, Stalker, Magic Fixit, Drakengard Restoration, Ying-Yang, Childhood Friend, Cyberpunk.
Other: Pokemon Trainer, Self-insert, Second Generation replacement, Dimensional Walker, Cycle, Fates.
Anyways, this is an idea I've had for a while: Communication Disorder Robin. Based roughly on Global Aphasia (I'm using artistic license, and I'm hardly an expert on this to begin with). This is not going to be nearly as well-portrayed as I did with Autism, this is a bit more… glorified? So yeah, disclaimer, don't take this as accurate to the condition at all. I've having fun here rather than trying to be 100% faithful to the condition, and no offence is intended to those who actually suffer some sort of aphasia.
I know I should probably be doing another suggestion, but let's be honest, I'm never going to get through this list. At some point though I'd like to hold some sort of contest (or maybe just a challenge, contest implies a 'winner') for other people to take some of these ideas and make stories out of them. As I've mentioned before, I've always wanted this collection to be something others could pull from for inspiration. It'd be cool to see what everyone else could do with these ideas… though I'm not sure there would be enough entrants for any challenge/contest I could make.
It was hella hard to find a place to start with this idea.
"Holy shit, run!" The brigand yells as he desperately backpedals from the Shepherds. The tell tale pounding of hooves and clank of armor give two possibilities. Either it's Frederick-
-a dark shape shoots past Chrom, and a war hammer comes down to smash the brigand in the head, crushing it. The rider, dressed in a dark cloak with built-in armor plates and wearing a black mask that covers the left side of their head, eye included, wheels their horse around to strike at the other brigands-
-or Robin. Clearly it's Robin this time, unless Frederick and the tactician changed clothes. Considering Robin stands at an extremely tall six foot six though, Chrom doubts Robin could fit Frederick's armor.
Either way the short, bowl-cut black hair gives Robin away, as does the one visible red eye. Her reputation alone as the "horseman of death" is enough to send superstitious brigands fleeing the instant they see her which is equal parts useful and inconvenient. Useful because they rarely put up a fight, and inconvenient because they scatter too much for the Shepherds to know if they got everyone. That's why Robin usually only joins the battle near the end, and spends the rest of the battle giving commands from the backline.
'Giving commands' by the way, means hand signals. Robin can't speak, can't write, and can't understand other people's speech and writing. She relies on whoever is next to her to shout her commands (usually Virion) to others, as obviously not everyone can be looking at her at every given moment.
In this case, Robin must have judged the battle was close enough to over that she could charge in and clean up the stragglers. Chrom finds grim satisfaction in the way the brigands run in terror of her.
The battle ends swiftly after Robin gets involved. The Shepherds easily mop up the rest of the brigands as they flee into the woods away from the open path. Hopefully this route will be free of harassment for a while.
"Alright everyone, let's clean this up!" Chrom barks. "Remove the valuables and weapons from the corpses before burying them! Keep an eye out for anyone who might have gotten away!"
The Shepherds pair off and start doing as he ordered. And Chrom beckons to Robin so they can do the same. For all her inability to communicate, the girl has learned by watching what is usually expected after a fight. She dismounts her horse and hands it off to Emmet, and then joins Chrom in searching and lugging bodies to the mass grave being dug by Frederick and Vaike.
Virion counts all the corpses as they're tossed in, and records everything they obtain from the brigands' pockets in a list to be given to Emmet along with whatever they obtain.
Most people don't realize the work that goes into cleaning up after a battle. Sure, they could just leave the bodies there, but then the bodies would stick around for a month and that would both look disturbing and smell horribly, so the Shepherds have to bury the bodies whenever they take them down.
In some ways Risen are much less of a hassle. At least they vanish into smoke when defeated, and hence Vaike's nickname for them: "smoke zombies".
###
Chrom isn't sure if he should feel bad for the servant or laugh. She must be new, because all the other servants know better than to stand too close to Robin when they need her attention. Robin is fast, and keeps at least five hidden daggers on her person at all times. Startling her usually means having a dagger at your throat a moment later.
This poor servant made the mistake of tapping Robin on the shoulder when she was absorbed in her mapmaking. Lo and behold, the girl now has a dagger pointed at her face and is pushed up against the wall by the startled tactician. The servant wears a look of utter panic while Robin is breathing hard, trying to calm herself.
"You really need to calm down." Chrom calls with an amused grin. "You're in the castle. Not everyone here is out to kill you."
Robin huffs, but steps back and lets the sacred servant act out his message (a poor imitation of eating, which of course is a signal to the tactician that it is time to eat) and scampers out of the room.
The prince chuckles as Robin quickly organizes the things on her desk, such as putting away her quill and capping her inks so that none of them are ruined. She pulls on her armored cloak, and it's at this point Chrom slings an arm over her shoulders with a cheeky grin.
"Come on Rob, if you keep doing that you're going to scare everyone away from you." Chrom says, poking fun at her. "I know you have this whole 'brooding genius' persona you like to keep up, but aren't the daggers a bit overkill? When Lissa says you're 'edgy' she doesn't mean you need to carry around blades everywhere!"
Robin snorts and tries to push the Prince's arm off her in response to him poking fun, but Chrom keeps a firm grip.
"And now you try to reject my company, I'm hurt." The prince jokes, his grin growing wider and wider. "You're too deep into this act Robin. You're not some sort of bad adventure book prota- ack!"
Chrom is cut short when the girl's left arm promptly pulls him into a headlock, cutting off what he was just saying. The girl stares flatly at the prince as he tries in vain to pull himself free from her grasp.
"Okay, okay! I give!" The prince says, still grinning and laughing. "Sorry Robin!"
Her grip tightens slightly, and Chrom has to remind himself that she can't understand his words, only his tone.
"Ah, right, uh…" Chrom coughs, and then taps her arm twice in a sign of surrender. The tall girl releases him, and he stands up straight with a sheepish grin. "Sorry, sorry."
Her eyes narrow, and he holds up his hands as a sign of peace. The prince is fighting to keep a stupid grin off his face, because he still finds this whole situation funny but doesn't want to annoy his tactician. Instead he spends the rest of the walk to dinner trying not to smile, which is very difficult, and the deadpan glare Robin directs at him probably isn't that unwarranted.
###
Blue is trying to tell her something and failing, badly. She can't tell if this is some sort of warning, or a reassurance, or… she doesn't know, and that's sort of the problem.
He keeps pointing at himself, and then miming the presence of others. So there are others like him… but in what way? She doubts he's trying to tell her about the presence of an identical twin, so this clearly means something else. Others like him in terms of station or power indicates another price of some sort… or maybe he's referring to his older sister? At least Kestrel thinks the calm lady with the symbol on her head (just like Blue has on his arm) is Blue's sister. The peppy girl seems to be his sister too, but as far as she is aware the peppy girl doesn't have the symbol on her anywhere.
Kestrel hates not being able to understand speech. She knows she's missing out on so much context because of it. She knows at some point she could, she understands the idea of words and such, but for some reason she just can't anymore. The memory loss doesn't help. The idea that the people around her probably don't even know what her name is is rather frustrating. Sure, she drew them a crude picture of a bird to try and get the idea across, but there's no guarantee they got the right bird.
However, Kestrel remains calm. Getting frustrated won't help anything. Be calm, analyze as much as you can from context clues, body language, and tone of voice, and you can usually make a conclusion.
Blue being able to draw would help though. He's really bad at acting.
Eventually Blue gives up. His shoulders sag when Kestrel shakes her head once again, and instead he takes a seat next to her with an audible sigh. He massages his face, clearly stressed, so Kestrel awkwardly pats him on the back. The boy chuckles weakly and gives her a nervous grin. He says something, and judging by the tone it's probably a joke.
Kestrel just rolls her eye and shakes her head. Whatever this is can't be that important if Blue is joking about it.
###
Chrom is worried. He's presenting Robin to the council today, but he also totally failed at explaining that to Robin. He just has to hope Robin doesn't do anything to offend them, because it'll reflect poorly on him and Emmeryn if she does.
Thankfully Robin doesn't actually have to do anything other than bow and act stoic (which she is plenty capable of doing), so as long as she follows his lead this should go fine… hopefully. She just has to go through the introduction, stand there for a few minutes as Chrom explains things, and then she can leave. Simple.
"Chrom, are you ready?" Emmeryn asks, stepping into the council room. They're a few minutes early, as one would expect of those leading the council. Emmeryn takes her seat at the head of the table, right next to Chrom. Robin stands just behind the two next to Frederick, and both riders look equally stoic as they stand with arms crossed and a serious expression. "Robin understands what is going to happen?"
"No." Chrom admits sheepishly. Emmeryn raises an eyebrow, and Chrom rushes to explain. "I tried… but it's hard to explain this without words, and I can't exactly draw."
"Ah." The exalt murmurs. "But you expect this to go well?"
"Yes." Chrom says, not feeling nearly as confident as he's pretending to be.
"Well then, I trust you to handle it." Emmeryn nods.
The other councillors file in a few minutes later, and Robin is obviously scrutinizing all of them as they step through the door. Some of the councillors, namely the women, do a double-take at seeing a tall, black-clad, mask-wearing, serious-looking Plegian lady in the council room glaring at them.
The first few minutes of council are spent going over the agenda. Chrom struggles to focus and not cast constant glances back at his tactician. He can tell she's probably still scrutinizing people based on how thoroughly uncomfortable the people close to him look.
It feels like forever, though it's probably only a few minutes, until the agenda is agreed upon and they finally move on to the first matter. That matter, of course, being Robin.
Chrom stands up, clearing his throat, and glances back at his tactician. The girl meets his eyes and raises an eyebrow, and when he motions to her to step up next to him she does so without question. "If you haven't heard, I will explain. Robin here is the new tactician of the Shepherds, and has already proven herself competent several times already. This introduction is to formalize her rank as such."
"So you're instating a high level tactician, who isn't Ylissian, and who you've known for all of a few months?" The duke Albenion questions. "You say she has authority over the Shepherds, but as your personal military force the Shepherds in turn have situational authority over much of the military if need be. You're giving a Plegian girl power over a large portion of our forces."
"Yes." Chrom says bluntly. "I am not discriminating against race as you are. So long as she is loyal and competent, I see no reason why she shouldn't have as much power."
He could have worded that a lot more politely, and the subtle look Emmeryn gives him makes it clear she disagrees with his antagonistic tone, but she doesn't scold him openly. It's no secret Chrom doesn't like the duke of Albenion, and he doesn't like the prince in turn, so perhaps Emmeryn expected this.
The duke of Albenion's brow furrows, and he makes to speak again, but Maribelle's father, the duke of Themis, places a hand on the man's shoulder and he goes quiet. Instead the duke of Themis takes up the questioning, knowing Chrom will be far less hostile towards him.
"As good as that is, there are other potential issues I have heard mention of." The man says calmly. "I have heard say that Robin here is both deaf and illiterate, is that true?"
"Not exactly." Chrom says slowly, trying to remember the term Miriel used. "Miriel thinks she is aphasic. She is unable to understand or employ speech and writing."
"I see…" The man frowns. "And how does she command troops in battle?"
"Military hand signals, which someone next to her then relays to others. This is helped by extensive pre-planning." Chrom says. He consciously stands up as straight as he can to appear as confident as possible. Robin, for her part, is eyeing the duke of Themis carefully. The tension in their voices hasn't gone unnoticed, and the tactician has one hand subtly slipped into her cloak where she hides one of her five daggers.
"And how do you communicate intent with her?" The duke pushes. "What if you are searching for an object? Or need a particular objective? Or have complex demands? How do you communicate all that without speech or writing?"
"Pictures, maps, and hand signals." Chrom says. "Her disability is limited to language. Anything that can be communicated with words can be established through a series of quick sketches and hand signals. It's not quite as quick as speaking, true, but her military skills are great enough that I think this small hurdle is worth dealing with."
The prince is fairly sure the duke disagrees with this being a 'small' hurdle, but as the man thinks it over he nods reluctantly. "She has produced results already, correct?"
"Yes."
"There have been no miscommunications in battle?"
"Never." The Shepherds are all trained to understand standard military hand signals, and even then the signals Robin uses are pretty easy to understand without that knowledge. A quick thumb backwards or a sharp jab in a certain direction are fairly universal for "get out" and "go there" after all. "As I said earlier, we keep someone with her to shout her orders to others specifically so that doesn't happen."
The duke mulls it over again, and then gives his acceptance. "All right. I put my trust in your ability to help overcome these issues." He gives a small smile. "You have yet to let us down Prince. You have my tentative trust."
Chrom bows stiffly, feeling very relieved. Robin cautiously copies him, keeping one eye on the duke as she does so. With all the gesturing in her direction she got the idea very quickly that this conversation was about her. At the same time she's also annoyed that this conversation about her didn't include her in the slightest.
Thankfully the rest of the council don't feel the need to comment. The duke of Themis is a well-renowned for his own military prowess, and if he agrees to this there is very little the others feel they can offer to deny that assessment.
"One last thing." The duke says, looking directly at the tactician. "Why do you support us?" The duke is surprisingly eloquent in his movements to convey this question, starting with a shrug of the shoulders, pointing at her, clasping his hands firmly together with one upside down as if mimicking a handshake, and then gesturing to everyone in the room ending with Chrom.
Maybe the exact wording escapes her, but Robin seems to understand the question. Her brows furrow as she thinks for a moment, then she acts. She points to Chrom, guides his hand to Falchion (which he grabs), and then raises that hand straight up so the sword almost scrapes the ceiling. She's put him into a recognizable heroic pose, and that tells everyone exactly what they need to know. It's not so much that Robin believes in them or Ylisse so much as she believes in Chrom to do the right thing.
At least, that's what everyone assumes she's saying. Saying "this guy is a hero" in response to "why do you support us?" is a bit abstract. Robin can communicate in battle better than she can in social situations after all, so this is perhaps to be expected.
"I see." The duke nods, a faint smirk on his face. He looks now at Chrom. "Take care Prince, it seems you are held in high regard."
"I will." Chrom coughs as he sheathes Falchion. He nods to Robin and then gestures to the door. "Thank you Robin, you can go."
Robin nods her head to him, turns sharply, and strides out of the room with her armored cloak flaring behind her. At least half the council breathes an audible sigh of relief as she leaves, to which Chrom holds from glaring at those people in question.
###
It's not easy to take down Robin. She usually goes toe to toe with Frederick in spars with the two often trading victories. So when Chrom sees her get knocked from her horse and dog-piled by a dozen Risen he's naturally panicked. He immediately breaks off from his own fight, shouting for Frederick to be careful, and charges in her direction.
His reaction proves to be a bit unnecessary. Robin slashes her way out of the Risen with two of her daggers in hand, and as soon as she has breathing room she swaps those daggers for her backup iron sword. Chrom reaches her in time to help clean up the few Risen still threatening her, and while she reclaims her horse he picks up her dropped hammer to hand to her.
And at that point he realizes her mask has been knocked off, and he understands why she wore it in the first place. The left side of her face was clearly gouged at some point. A deep slash scar goes all the way from her eye to the back of her head, and Chrom would have to guess by the severity that the blade cut deep enough to go through the side of her skull.
How she lived through an injury that bad is beyond him, not that he's complaining. He quickly finds her mask on the ground and hands it to her along with her warhammer, and she nods curtly, reattaches the mask, and points him back to where he was before.
Chrom complies, and rushes back to help Frederick.
###
"Come on Robin, you can't work all day. This is supposed to be a day off." Chrom huffs as he peers over the girl's shoulder to see her work. The girl gives him a flat look and tries to shoo him off, but Chrom refuses and stubbornly takes a seat across the desk so he's always in the corner of her vision. He awkwardly tries to gesture out what he's saying, and regrets internally that he isn't as eloquent as Maribelle's father in this regard. "Everyone else is going to the bar, you should come too." He makes a large sweeping gesture, mimes drinking and eating, and then points at her.
Robin snorts and shakes her head, and keeps focusing on her work. She's drawing a map that Chrom can recognize is of the main border pass between Plegian and Ylisse, and judging by the troop figurines, string, and pins she has beside her she must have been gearing up for a strategy session.
As important as that is, Chrom firmly believes getting some fun in is equally important, especially for someone with as heavy a workload as Robin. He reaches out, grabbing her writing hand, and plucks the quill from her grasp. The girl scowls, giving him a disapproving glare, but Chrom is unphased. He sticks the quill back in its case and caps her inkwell, and then firmly motions for the girl to follow him.
The hardest part is keeping a stupid grin off his face at this whole situation. This is Robin at her best and worst, her determination to keep working no matter what is both amicable and a bit of a hassle. Chrom finds her stubborn attitude endearing, especially because he's one of the few people that can actually get her to give in if he tries hard enough.
The girl reluctantly follows him out of the room, keeping up her glare the entire way out of the barracks. At some point during the walk to the bar her glare devolves into a pout, something Chrom never thought he'd see one someone as serious as Robin.
He pokes her in the cheek and smirks when he notices the pout, and the girl huffs once more and looks away. The prince can swear he spies a smile on her face when she looks back though.
Even the mighty Robin has a sense of humor, and can recognize her own childish pouting.
###
"Wait, that's Robin?" Chrom blinks in surprise.
"Of course it is!" Lissa huffs. "Come on Chrom, you knew she was going to be here! Just because she's not covered in metal doesn't mean she isn't the same person!"
"Sorry, sorry." Chrom coughs. "Right, uh…"
He doesn't want to admit he thought Robin was a boy. She's wearing a fancy dark vest, a high-collared purple shirt, polished brown boots, and dark pants. It's actually not to different from her battle attire but this being Robin didn't register with Chrom at all. She even has the mask! How could he not recognize the mask?
At least she seems to be doing fine. He was worried this strange party (part of a meeting between Ylissian and Plegian nobility in between meetings of a peace treaty) would be trouble for her because of the obvious communication issue, but she seems to be getting along just fine with her current conversation partner (a dark-skinned lady with a very skimpy dress).
They converse so naturally through quick actions that Chrom wonders if this lady has done this before. He shouldn't interrupt though, Robin rarely converses with other people, he doesn't want to take this from her.
That proves rather pointless when Robin sees him and beckons him over. He nervously pushes his way through the crowd to her side, ignoring the many attempts of both Ylissian and Plegian nobles to get his attention.
"So… this is the prince I've heard so many tales about." The dark-skinned lady hums in way of greeting. "Hello prince Chrom, my name is Aversa."
The prince hastily bows, forgetting for a moment that this lady is probably of lower rank than him, and judging by her smirk she recognizes his discomfort.
"I see you've been taking good care of Kestrel, though it would seem she no longer recognizes me." The lady says with a calm, but clearly suspicious tone in her voice.
"Kes…" Chrom trails off as he makes the connection. Robin… Kestrel...? Whatever; she drew them a picture of a bird when Chrom finally got the message across that he was asking for her name. Not recognizing the drawing as any particular species, he'd assumed it was the most common bird-related name: Robin.
Apparently he was wrong. Kestrel… that's going to take some getting used to.
"You know her?" Chrom asks, and then grimaces. "Or, well, knew her. She seems to have been stricken with amnesia."
"I see." The lady sighs. "That certainly explains why she never returned from her diplomatic mission. That's a large reason why Gangrel has been so furious at Ylisse."
Huh. Chrom never considered why Kestrel was in Ylisse. That certainly explains it. "She had no guard?"
"You've seen her fight. Does she look like she needs a guard?"
"Fair point." Chrom acknowledges. He can't imagine petty brigands taking her down. "Were you her friend?"
"Adopted sister." Aversa corrects with a smile. "So if you ever hurt her…"
"She'll bash my head in?" Chrom jokes.
"Well, that too I suppose." The lady laughs.
"I think you're reading too much into our relationship though. We're friends at best."
"Of course." Aversa nods. A faint smile plays around her lips. "For now?"
Chrom shrugs rather inelegantly "I'll admit I never gave it any thought, being so wrapped up in the war and all…"
"Well then don't let me influence you, I've been told I tend to notice things that aren't there." She smiles. "The instincts of a gossip hound I suppose."
"Noted." Chrom says with a serious expression, and the lady lets out a loud laugh.
At this point Kestrel decides she's tired of being ignored, and firmly puts a hand on both of their shoulders to get their attention. Chrom gives her a sheepish grin to which she responds with a huff and a half-serious glare.
"Well, you're certainly less serious then you were before." Aversa says in a teasing tone and pokes Kestrel's cheek. The tactician rolls her eye to the sky, probably thinking both of them are poking fun at her.
"Sorry Kestrel." Chrom says as he tries to force down his smile.
Chrom spends the rest of the part hiding in a corner with Kestrel and Aversa, hoping to avoid the hassle his status as prince usually affords him. Lissa might thrive in such a social situation, but Chrom isn't a fan. Sure, he feels awkward fumbling through conversation with Kestrel as he (badly) tries to convey what he's saying with actions. He's comically inept compared to Aversa, who is clearly used to doing this.
The prince is fine with this though. Kestrel's company is infinitely preferable to those of other nobles regardless of communication issues, and watching Aversa poke fun at the usually stoic girl (and joining in himself!) is great fun.
Even when Kestrel decides she's had enough and pulls them both into headlocks, Chrom can't help but grin. (Emmeryn does scold him for being so unprofessional at a diplomatic party though)
A bit of a strange ending point, but this feels good enough. I was fully intending this to have the usual romantic plot but it never seemed to fit so I just left it out.
For those curious, Global Aphasia is a certain type of Aphasia that can occur after traumatic brain injury or stroke (and for other reasons, but these seem to be the primary ones from what I can find) and is usually temporary. Rather than a total inability to communicate like I've shown, Global Aphasia (from my understanding) usually manifests as extreme difficulty, though not total inability, to understand/produce speech, though reading/writing is usually impossible. It results from damage to the language centers of the brain and does not affect a person's abilities that aren't tied to language and talking and writing and such. If you want a more accurate and detailed idea of what aphasia is than what I've shown, there's a website for it (just search for "National Aphasia Association" I'd put a link but FF net doesn't like that).
Just to repeat, this is not at all an accurate to actual Aphasia. I took liberal artistic license here to make the chapter more fun. No offense is intended to those who actually suffer some sort of aphasia, and I'm well aware Global Aphasia doesn't work as I've portrayed it here. I probably won't label this chapter as "Aphasic Robin" because it doesn't even attempt to be accurate.
whitefri2z: To be fair Pink Panther and Darkwing Duck are both before my time. I saw them on 'retro' channels when I was growing up, so that's how I know of them in the first place. I Can Swing My Sword struck me as being Chrom incarnate, so I just had to include it.
Guest(x4): Okay, I'll get to watching some video on that at some point, but just from that description it seems incredibly powerful.
Ying Yang is a concept I barely understand. Maybe I'll get around to doing research on it, but don't count on it.
I think Tobuscus still makes videos, but he's changed. Descendant of Ike poses a problem because I've never played Ike's games, so I'm vetoing that. Sorry. Serious Ninja Robin is fine.
Glad you like the collection! I'm personally a fan of the female Robin chapters as well, I think I'm just bad at writing male Robin. I think that's been suggested, but I'm not sure I've noted it down… hmm… I'll put it on the list if it's not already up there.
G: That's a difficult request, but I'll put it up there. Don't expect it though.
Darkness is complete: Yeah, that's already on the list under 'unlikely'. OP powers like that can be difficult to manage without shifting the focus off combat so they don't trivialize the entire story.
I hope you know I appreciate your constant enthusiasm and creativity, even if I don't use your ideas all that often. You've thought up a few gems that I will do and just haven't gotten around to yet.
CorEagle: I was hoping the story gave off that impression! Wacky characters are seriously hard for me to write despite my tendency to exaggerate everyone's personality traits.
Hmm… I'll look into it. You might be right.
LoveGlutton: Hey! Not sure if you've reached this chapter, but it was fun reading your occasional comments as you went through this collection!
Wrathie Winsre: RobinXLucina has always been weird to me. Maybe because of the inter-generational thing, maybe it's because I never paired them in my own playthroughs, or maybe it's because I could never really get invested in any RobinXLucina fanfic (and my main inspiration for how I write characters is other fanfic so Lucina is a bit of a blank spot for me), but I was never really drawn to the pairing like so many others were. I'll try writing it eventually, I want to touch on a lot of pairings for Robin, but it'll definitely be a struggle to write when I do get too it.
Lack of fluff? Yeah. I love fluff, but keeping a limit of about 5000 words in a chapter means there isn't really space for it. Even in a romance chapter I have to put focus on Robin's quirk and the romantic arc has to be played with leaving little space for proper fluff.
Stringcutter was my first attempt at an outlandish combat ability, and what really drove home to me that I suck at writing combat. I can't do action scenes for the life of me, it just devolves into people taking in the middle of battle. That said, Stringcutter is one of my favorite powers in concept. Can't remember exactly where I got the idea, but you're right in thinking it isn't original.
Oh I understand. I spent a lot of my good ideas right at the start before I really started diving into requests. My personal favourites (Succubus, Mirroreye, Stringcutter, Hairweaver, Timesnap) are all within the first ten chapters, so I totally get it. I'm not sure if it's the time pressure or just that I've just run out of good ideas that lead to the decrease in quality…
I was going for that horror vibe! Yes! It worked! :D
Huh, I was worried that particular paragraph was too confusing and way too melodramatic. Guess not. Also yes, a lot of chapters aren't properly complete because proper completion would take way too many words or feel jarring if I tried to force it into one chapter. Not that it really justifies how incomplete some chapters are, but all these chapters are little more than an amalgamation of snippets. (I tend to liken the reading of this collection to looking at the highlight reel of a dozen different movies. There's more than what you see, but I can't make a dozen movies in a short time so I give you the parts that give you a basic understanding of the movie as a whole. That's what each chapter is: a highlight reel of a unwritten bigger story unique to that character that people are free to take inspiration from, or just use outright in their own stories).
Sorry for the digression.
The ending was weak? I usually considered that chapter one of the stronger endings... If you don't mind me asking, where do you take issue or see a weakness? Does something feel rushed? Was the payoff not big enough for the buildup? Was someone acting out of character? Something else? I'm biased towards my own writing, so I can't see an issue that might be more visible to you.
No, please, write more. I love long comments. You'll definitely see more of this collection, and of Varied Awakenings. I still have a massive list of others' (and still some of my own!) ideas to pull from, and I'm not tired of it yet!
Hope you stick around! I loved reading about your thoughts.