do you have a guide for someone who wants to get into alyuri? like the stories and stuffs?
OH YOU ASKED AT THE PERFECT TIME because I literally was hoping to make a general guide about them and their stories across not just Granblue Fantasy but also their original Rage of Bahamut incarnations and their Dragalia Lost cameos because they're about to rerun the BEST ALYURI EVENT EVER on July 15 in GBF. Long post ahead!
As for where to START, I highly recommend going in with the Granblue Fantasy story (which is where I found them at first), as there is a clear continuity and story progression with dedicated setup, plot, character building, and (now that there's been plenty of events and fate episodes) some truly delicious payoff. In addition, they're fully voiced with some beautiful CGs and art, and are incredibly fun to just watch audiobook/VN style! Their voice actors breathe so much life into the story. Most of these are available to see on YT, but I can link them for good measure since this will be like, a diet resource post. I wasn't able to find the first two Light SSR Albert (I might go record them from my own game in a bit) or Summer Yurius episodes, and I don't have him in the game [screaming and crying] but the GBF wiki has full text transcripts of those.
For a reading order, it goes like this:
-Light SSR Albert Fate Episodes 1+2 (Not REQUIRED per se, but a good intro to his character)
-Eye of the Storm (Side Story) [Personally, I'd recommend to start here because it properly introduces Levin and the actual story]
-[Optional] SR Albert Fate Episodes 1+2
-Wind SSR Yurius Fate Episodes 1+2
-Light SSR Albert 5*/Lv100 Fate Episode
-[Optional, placed here because of the release chronology] Summer Albert SSR Fate Episodes 1+2
-False Heroes (Event Story, is getting rerun in a few days and is in my opinion some of the best content with them bar none, I HIGHLY recommend experiencing it yourself!!!!! GBF has an event rereading function, even if you skip through it, so long as you unlock it, you can read it later)
-Dark Albert Fate Episodes 1+2
-A Sweltering Eternal Getaway (yes, the summer event is lore relevant for several important Levin characters and important to Yurius's character arc. don't worry about it.)
-[Optional] Summer Yurius SSR Fate Episodes 1+2
-[Bonus!] Here's some crumbs of an official "Bad Ending" from the ...And You event.
Now, going onto Dragalia Lost, the easiest and fastest one to actually go through, which is ironic since the game itself has long since EoS'd. It's super simple--watch Albert's Adventurer Story, then Yurius's. That's pretty much it. I really like their Dragalia Story even though it's short, since it's a fun mix of their love-hate relationship in RoB combined with the sort of care and closeness of the GBF story. There's a few character crumbs here and there in their voice lines and Wyrmprints (available on the DL wiki of course), but nothing MAJOR unless you want to go digging. The DL fanbase did a good job of archiving the game though, so if you want to see the smaller bits, they're all out there.
Now, by far the most obtuse (from an English speaking standpoint) for the least amount of reward is the Rage of Bahamut story. RoB is not accessible in English, but a few dedicated fans have compiled story summaries of all that happens. Here's a golden Twitter thread of a lot of their plot-relevant and side content in the game. They've also provided some translations and videos for some of the voiced content in RoB too! Here's a link for some of the 4komas that some fans took care of as well. Their relationship in RoB is very silly, as they never really...make up? They stay frenemies as opposed to other stories where they reconcile their pasts. Each card in RoB also contains some flavor text for the characters they feature, and a few of those are covered in the thread. The other cards are out there, but they are in Japanese, but if you're interested I could see if I could compile a quick list of the flavor texts with real rough translations. It's mostly some flavor though, not incredibly important plot-wise unless you're hungry for more of the way their RoB relationship is written.
As a small aside about RoB--it's the first incarnation of these characters, and it's ... on the older side. I think it's perfectly fair to say that originally, Yurius was something of a homosexual caricature played often as a joke, and I think it's important to understand that when looking at the older content. The newer content, however, has come quite a long way, and as someone whose been following the way Cygames has been developing their relationship for half a decade at this point, I think it's certainly improved just overall.
Well. That should be enough content to at least get that ball rolling and keep ya busy. If for some reason you get through all this and want some more crumbs or fanworks, let me know! I have many a fic/doujinshi recommendation as well :] Here's some cute official art for making it this far and forcing me to write this mini guide in prep for the False Heroes rerun !
