Surprise update !

not expecting it , were you ?
the story behind this post- i took 2 days of leave to refresh and rejuvenate myself , to prepare for the upcoming tasks ahead , and also as a reward to self for working really hard the past few weeks .
truth to be told i haven't been making full use of my weekends plus leave cuz for one i have been heading out , for two i have been really busy with Fire Emblem Awakening :D
 
since i'm not exactly in the mood to talk about my social life ,
let's move on to Fire Emblem Awakening (played on my NDS console)

in my opinion , this game shouldn't be played without reading any guides if you would like to optimize your characters . there are a total of 3 things to consider in the game: class , skill , and parenting .
class and skill are correlated , so we'll look at class first .

you have the option of using second seals or master seals once your character hits lvl 10-

second seal to reclass (say you want to reclass a 'fighter' class to a 'thief' or 'babarian' class) and master seal to advance their class ('fighter' class can be advanced to either a 'hero' or 'warrior' class)

advanced classes are of course much stronger , but base classes give you more exp .
if you are not in a hurry to get skills , you can opt to use second seal first to stay in a base class to level and improve your stats before using a master seal to advance the character . for me i always get my characters to max their lvl (20)- to gain stats , before using any seals .

as for skills , generally base classes learn the skills exclusive to their class at lvl 1 and 10 , and advanced classes at lvl 5 and 15 . so depending on which skill you would like to get , you can train them up and then reclass to learn skills for another class .

lastly on parenting , any 2 units that achieve an s rank support will be married so you can pick who you want a character to marry (including your own avatar) . just pair them up and use them together in fights . you can try serenesforest for the list of which parent equals to which child .

as for the best pairings , just look up on some guides :)

(because the opinions are really really varied and i haven't played that far/too lazy to ascertain the pairings for myself)

you can choose virtually anyone for your character to marry though ,
no prizes for any correct guesses which one is mine :p

just an excerpt of the full conversation because i hardly want to spam the lovely people of Miiverse .
p.s. my Miiverse ID: Reihaku611

this is hardly strategy but other than skills and stats , i also like to plan based on hair colour
(because children take after their dad's hair colour)

my pairings for your (and my) reference:

Vaike x Avatar (F)
Chrom x Sumia
Donnel x Sully
Ricken x Panne
Lon' Qu x Cordelia
Gregor x Nowi
Gaius x Tharja

Libra x Olivia
Henry x Lissa
Stahl x Cherche
Federick x Miriel
Virion x Marribelle

the ones in plum haven't happened yet :x

ok that's all i got for fire emblem . i think this is most likely my longest game post as of yet .

my agenda for today:

2 hours- work on project
3 hours- write gifts and what nots
2 hours- fire emblem
2 hours- swimming

hope you enjoyed this !
will aim for more outfit/makeup photos next post :)