Are Avatars Hurting Fire Emblem's Romance? || 🏳️‍🌈 SRPG Sapphics 🏳️‍🌈

Avatars and dating are two big (and controversial) parts of modern Fire Emblem. With them, we get a whole lot of queer content. But does the queer avatar content take away from good gay representation? Here I discuss how (in my opinion) the way Avatar Romance is hurting not only queer representation, but also the overall characterization of the casts of Fire Emblem, in particular the cast of Fire Emblem Engage.
In SRPG Sapphics, I take a look at Fire Emblem's long history of queer characters(and queer bait) from a character and story perspective. If you have a favorite (or hated) queer person you want me to look into, please suggest them in the comments!

[@josephspradlin8403]

I know this isn't the point of the video, but the idea that Mark the tactician is a figment of Lyn's imagination is hilarious to me and kind of tracks when you consider that she was completely isolated for gosh knows how long. She made an imaginary friend and Eliwood and Hector just go with it when they meet her

[@Stachelbeeerchen]

Small contradiction: In Eliwood mode he finds Marc in the first chapter and talks to them before being able to meet Lyn. Also being able to select Marc's gender changes nothing besides Sain hitting on you. Non binary icon?

[@DaniDoyle]

Eliwood is simply sharing Lyns hallucinations due to uh uh uh look over there (runs away before I have to explain my poorly justified head cannon)

[@Ikrit122]

​@@StachelbeeerchenMark's gender also affects how Florina greets you (timidly for male or normally for female) when you meet up with Lyn again. Also very minor.

[@Stachelbeeerchen]

@@Ikrit122 oh yeah but its only one line. I totally forgotten about it

[@starryserenity2392]

i was watching johneawesome play awakening without robin and he made the same joke but with chrom and it cracked me up

[@elighannam2910]

I was a really big fan of the way they made Dorothea canonically bisexual in Three Houses. The way that she has other queer paired endings/supports (and even dialogue in Three Hopes that confirmed her bisexuality) really added depth to her character in a meaningful way.

[@hectorandrade8729]

​@@elise6894well, good thing she is neither then.

[@borjankosarac3645]

Or the fact that she has romantic endings with Petra and (implicitly) Manuela, neither of whom can romance a Byleth if the same sex. I actually like that a lot, too.

[@altruisticcomputer4706]

Robin doesn't actually have 100% same supports between genders. Chrom, Lon'qu and Flavia (for example) have notably different supports (and oh boy, Flavia's female Robin support is a whole can of homophobic worms).

[@sirkillalot9892]

Flavia was just silly. The Robins' unique supports actually show their distinct personalities. M Robin is laidback and reserved. F Robin is more sassy and aggressive. The second generation, Spotpass and other Robinsexuals have different supports too. It's just the Shepherds minus Chrom and Lon'qu where we get the copypaste.

[@Timbeon]

I don't know why IS expected anyone to believe that Dimitri and Dedue in 3H were straight after giving them those supports and that paired ending

[@borjankosarac3645]

Dedue has two paired endings that aren’t loaded with romantic (sub)text, those being Ingrid (which I appreciate for the Platonic Life Partners energy) and Ashe (which is awesome for how they vanquish racism through cuisine and dining); actually, did he have anything with Gilbert too? But really, while he might be only queer for Dimitri as far as we tell, the fact the writers apparently didn’t intend or predict this is incredible for how… y’know. As a small side note, I can buy that Claude and Dimitri would still need beards to continue their lineages (an issue which Edelgard has less given her goals) and still have children, yet also both being able to romance Byleth or whoever. Which of course only makes them not being so (especially Claude) even more aggravating.

[@madeleineevelinaguekguezia550]

To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of avatar units in FE from a story perspective… it’s not that I don’t find them a _charming_ way of entering the world but it can’t exist without over-emphasizing the player as the instrumental actor in the *story* and not just in the fact of the gameplay that must occur for these narratives to happen. The romance aspect is just one thing that suffers for this design as player-sexual characters are just pretty uninteresting and don’t allow for all that much depth to queerness in the world. And the incentives to make the entire playable cast attractive limits the types of people portrayed, like we’ve only gotten what? two characters in the entire series who are fat and good people who fight on your side (Oliver only fits one of those criteria) and it severely limits the presence of older characters which were already a rarity in the playable cast. I would trade an avatar with a fully s-supportable cast any day for (especially main) characters who are in their 30s or 40s, or not skinny/Hollywood buff, or have pre-existing relationships, or not Western/Northern European etc. etc. I love Fire Emblem and I think it’s better when romantic relationships are just part of the fabric of relationships in the story.

[@petrus9067]

Yeah honestly i do not understand the prevalence in the last almost 15 years of avatar protagonists in fire emblem. Not that having self iserts main characters is always a bad thing (one of my favorite games is final fantasy xiv which your character obviously is an avatar) but why make it in litterally every game? I want a fire emblem with a main character like Ike, or Alm and Celica, Marth etc. At least Chrom was like, still basically a main character duo with Corrin (and 3 houses main lords to some extent)

[@phoenixmesmer3396]

On the comment that "The Rhajat and Niles S-Supports are the same with either Corrin", this actually is only the case in the EN localization! In the original JP release, the entire support chain changes depending on Corrin's gender, and I've seen plenty of fans saying they much prefer those same-sex support chains (in both cases) over the other. And I find this...really odd? For a game with pretty basic characters, there was character depth in these supports that were just...removed in the EN localization. It's like how Alear can S-Support anyone regardless of the gender of either party, with supports nearly exactly the same on both sides. It makes these characters kissable action figures rather than potentially complex queer characters, except that the complexity was initially there, and trimmed away. I really don't know what to take away from it.

[@irony8280]

Banger video, but, the Robin and chrom support IS different based off of robins gender, the subject is entirely different, it goes from showers in the female, to chrom's recklessness and how Robin worries about his safety

[@cryguy0000]

I'm a believer in the Chrom and Male Robin bromance

[@mundanephysics521]

It's funny, this way the M!Chrobin support chain is far more interesting on the romance scheme of things than F!Chrobin, which is just kind of silly with how much it doesn't focus on their deeper feelings for each other.

[@troykv96]

It's funny, M!Robin has a Chrom support that technically could work regardless of Robin's gender, but the F!Robin support is one that definitely needs Robin to be a women. Though, the fact that F!Robin/Chrom support is more of a shonen comedic scene, meanwhile the M!Robin/Chrom support is more of friends talking... definitely changed how people perceive the relationship, specially because, well, IS have to be very careful about not giving F!Robin more fuel as a canon option for Chrom, but M!Robin can be alongside Chrom without any trouble because bros being bros is just that everyone (at least in theory) can accept. So they, unintentionally, gave more fuel to the M!Chrobin fans xD.

[@brightlight8852]

​@troykv96 They are way too late for that. The JP fanbase doesn't see Chrom's other marriage partners as an option. The horse has already left the pen years ago but IS still pretends that it's still behind the fence. Hilariously enough if you failed to marry Chrom to female Robin, Lucina pitches a fit and tries to get Female Robin to sleep with her dad.

[@Mercurialites]

Part of me feels like IS recognizes the inherent weirdness of avi-sexuality. I mean, they made Alear an unironic deity that people are supposed to canonically worship even outside of whatever combat prowess or tactical genius is present. Its a shame they removed paired endings though. Yunaka/Seadall A is basically a top tier S+++ confession scene, Etie spends two supports admiring Yunaka's physique then they go on a date and make flower crowns, Hortensia's A with Celine, Chloe, and Goldmary are all.....I respect Hortensia's willingness to compliment her peers. Timerra Jade A is also a confession in everything but name. Merrin tells Timerra that "From then on, I was your's. That was the day the clouds parted and my life was filled with sunshine" (paraphrasing). Alear definitely bottlenecked characterization. What a shame.

[@troykv96]

Well, at least with Yunaka and Seadall; it seems like their relationship didn't end after the war considering they worked together in one of the credits' CGs; but it definitely could have been nice if the stuff they did after the war together was expanded.

[@wisedum-dum2852]

Yunaka and Zelkov A support HEAVILY implies a shared ending between the two

[@StairFacts]

The main problem of Avatar relationships hurting queer characters in Fire Emblem is in the case of it being the litmus test of if a character is queer or not. Specifically in Fates and Three Houses, having queerness being bottlenecked by the avatar characters is really strange, particularly in the case of certain characters who are ABSOLUTELY queer or have queer relationships with other characters, yet cannot have a queer romantic relationship with the avatar character, who can have romantic relationships with the entire cast of the opposite gender. Forrest and Soleil in Fates come to mind, as well as the many, many characters in Three Houses with clear romantic implications to other characters of the same gender in supports and paired endings. Engage helped by virtue of making all S supports available to both flavors of Alear, taking a page out of Mass Effect or Dragon Age's book. At the same time though, they also have a bunch of "platonic" S supports in the game thanks to the localization changes. Anti-shoutouts to how they made Rosado friendzone Alear, I'm still salty about that one.

[@MythrilZenith]

One of my favorite way romances were handled was in Echoes, with preset character dynamics, relationships and endings that only changed if the characters died. There wasn't any picking and choosing and juxtapositioning of "I'm the avatar so I AM YOUR TYPE," it was just written into the characters' interactions and supports, be it the young budding romance of Boey and Mae, the knightly lovers of Clive and Mathilda or the lovestruck, naiive attempts at wooing Claire that Gray and Tobin attempt. That said (straight cis male opinion here), I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about Leon. Like, my own personal vibe of him felt very heavy-handed to the point of being in-your-face, though it didn't bring the level of "gay promiscuity" that we often see in media as his sole focus was Valbar. But the fact that Valbar seemed 1. oblivious to it and 2. was on this quest b/c his wife was killed kind of signaled to me that he wasn't interested, so I don't know if that makes Leon's fixation a tragic obsession failed to fail, a desperate longing for fans to interpret, or just an inserted one-note character into an otherwise bland archer that had no dialogue or character in the original. And yeah, I use the term "supposed to feel" because I recognize that my own interpretation of how gay people act is flawed considering that's not my own life experience and therefore I can only really take what other people say to know whether it's considered positive or negative representation.

[@Timbeon]

Echoes also had two canonically aromantic asexual characters in Lucas and Python... and then locked their supports where it comes up behind paid DLC.That can no longer be legitimately obtained due to the 3DS eshop closure. Win some lose some, I guess.

[@cryguy0000]

I don't like the Engage system at all. No paired endings aside from Alear is weird, and the pseudo romantic writing for certain characters is also strange. But making every character bisexual would be unrealistic tbh. While it does somewhat detract from the casts' characters I wouldn't say it outright ruins them. But when you have supports that feel like they should end in romance (like Alcryst and Lapis) and they don't it just feels wrong. I don't think we need half the cast to be bisexual or gay or lesbian, I think the biggest problem is not making supports between the protag and characters different to better suite them. One good example is Marianne in 3H who actually asks to marry Byleth in their A support if he's male

[@crocobae]

YEAH, the flashback to when queer S supports were revealed, I was excited to have two queer older men pairings in Three Houses, and both of which were bigger and not conventionally anime-attractive (and thus, more in line with my personal tastes), not the usual bishonen-type like Linhardt or even later Yuri!! That was amazing, groundbreaking!!! then lol Alois is married and has a family but he only mentions them in one throwaway line in the monastery and the support with Manuela. He's not daddy, he's our father figure now. And Gilbert is another entire can of worms. Nothing wrong with platonic S supports but in this case it made the already meager 5:3 ratio of f/f to m/m 5:1 (and later 5:2) which is a bit heartbreaking. At least Engage kinda came through haha

[@nigini6092]

Tbh in my head I just let Byleth be a homewrecker and snatch that dile up

[@EeveeFlipnoteStudios]

Just found your channel, I’m excited to see more of your discussions about the queerness in games. As a bisexual person, I definitely don’t think “everyone is bi” is the most elegant way to handle avatar-insert romance, but I feel like in this social climate, it’s the most palatable to the public. I think it is preferable for characters to decidedly BE a specific sexuality, or at least, having a variety of different preferences (not just mostly straight with a few bi-gay ones, but also ace, aro, or exclusively gay characters). It reflects on the diversity of relationships that exist, and make the romance aspect at least an important part to the character and not just a player fantasy. But that would require writing a character with the intention of making them queer, and then acknowledging it openly in the text. I don’t think major publishers like Nintendo, which want to go for a broad “family-friendly” appeal, are willing to do that. :( It’s easier to just have ambiguous-sexuality player fantasy romances that don’t actually talk about queerness. Three Houses Dorothea is probably the closest they got to that kind of writing, though, but I wonder if they could get away with it because she talks so much about getting married to a MAN, and her flirting with the women is playful. I acknowledge your criticisms of Engage, and the lack of paired endings also confused me. Personally, I thought many of the characters in the game have a lot of heart put into them, particularly the sibling relationships. They deserve a paired ending at least, if only to acknowledge their support chains. Where we differ, though, is that I think Alear felt very much like a district character- they have some personality quirks that make them unique and a character arc that was the central component of the story. While them trying really hard to be a Normal Person despite their divinity might make them more… identifiable with to players, it also comes across as just part of their humble, caring personality. However, the game focused a lot on platonic relationships, with the siblings and bonds formed between the Emblems, and trust. So the fact that the Pact Ring aspect felt rather forced in, from a character standpoint, might have been influenced by the fact that the story/characters don’t talk of romance, outside of a few stray A-supports. Then again, for many Pact Ring conversations, the nature of relationship is left ambiguous, instead choosing to emphasise the bonds and growth the characters shared. So, given that, many of the S-supports are at least far more than *just* a player fantasy, as they are relevant to Alear’s character (some more than others, I admit). I especially think Veyle’s S-support tied into the story so well, with them acknowledging events that happened in the plot and providing closure to their struggles in a satisfying way. As a side note, the GaMeRs complain about English changing the Japanese dialogue in Engage, but having seen both, they didn’t change much. English translation just toned down words like “i love you” to something more open-ended in some of them. What’s actually meaningful- the impact and core important of the relationship to Alear and the character- comes through in both. Mostly the complaints about English “butchering the characters” stem from the fact that the support isn’t as explicitly romantic as the Japanese version (which is still kind of ambiguous in some cases!) I guess that tells you a lot about where people’s priorities lie, huh. :P

[@FuriousHaunter]

This is a banger video, I'm so Tired of the every same gender option is bi/pan thing because of what it does like my god, Leon, despite being stereotypical, it was cool to see someone being openly gay, and not as a joke, and having it be a part of their character, you can argue the quality of Leon's character in this respect but I wish we could have characters be specifically Gay or straight, or whatever, and have it reflect in their character, I feel this really isn't seen much in the current romance system and usually isn't reflected outside of S and maybe A supports [Some exceptions apply such as Yuri or Dorothea]. I do also really miss the less conventionally attractive characters like Gonzalez, Niime or Brom [Someone will find these characters attractive anyway, so even in the current system so why not include them?] and married characters, Tatiana and Zeke [Insert Zeke is Camus joke here] or Pant and Louise, having a pre-built support is something neat that I wish we could see again in some form, Lindon almost hits this spot for me but *not quite* as he's still S supportable and you don't recruit his wife because she is dead [Mechanical implementation of marriage doesn't have to be a support, could be a skill(s) or personal weapons/Items or a game specific mechanic to reflect that they are together e.g. synced biorhythm]. That unique character relation is something that I feel FE could do very well but it limits itself unnecessarily in this way, and that makes me sad, because I would assume that most who care about the dating sim aspect would like good characterization and variety in characterization and characters in general, where you can't just date everyone, as is that not the crux of good dating sims [and visual novels in general] Those kinds of games do include non-date-able characters [in some cases even out numbering the date-able ones] anyway so it's not a dating sim restriction in any way so it's annoying Fire Emblem does it [Even if it was noting stops IS from just not following this specific aspect like most dating sims last more than 3 - 4 conversations]. It feels like IS is trying to both save their cake for next week's office party and eat it yesterday in this respect, by having same gender options and allowing the player to S support anyone, but not investing in broader concepts of characterization [such as purely gay or ace characters], or player army character concepts [Married couples, less conventionally attractive people, really terrible people etc], they end up loosing out on these areas of their writing. On an unrelated note only Alear having paired endings is very Binding Blade... Engage's engine in general gives me that vibe... FE6 Remake Reaaaaaaal [I called Pent, "Pant" on purpose, I will not apologize it's funny]

[@Stachelbeeerchen]

Would have been nice to have more aro/ace/platonic endings for the Avatar. How it is now its mostly sexual which I don't mind since Im a sexual aromantic but a toggle for the sexuality during creation would benefit my ace brothers/sisters/enbys.

[@blueberriesinmycoffee1234]

I really appreciate you talking about the ratio of female queer pairings to male queer pairings in Three Houses. I have a friend or two who I've introduced the series to, and it's something we've talked about a lot. One of them is a gay guy who, in a comment common to him but which also kinda assured me he was going to really vibe with Linhardt, proferred a "ah, yes, so this is the male gaze ive been hearing so much about." Very dry wit, cool friend. And awesome vid!!

[@haroohusky]

You probably know this already, but there's an interesting bit of text concerning the Japanese confession between male Corrin and Niles. Niles leans into his proposal, spurring Corrin to say, "B-but... I'm a man, you know," in which Niles says, "I'm aware of that," and continues with, "I'm sure you'd preferred it [the proposal] to have come from a woman, but hearing this from a man must be..." before Corrin answers to accept his proposal anyway. It's a small thing, but I think it's nuanced in that Corrin is initially shocked by a proposal from his same sex, which by itself means more than a copy + paste of fem Corrin / Niles and is the game validating your choice for shipping two guys together. (Niles being a kinky creepy stalker doesn't make him the best queer representation... but he's cute so I'll allow it) ... Also wdym Gonzales is adorable I'd marry him any day-

[@tomatosauce5775]

As weird as it sounds, fe4 has so much room to make this sort of thing happen. Just have the characters adopt the replacement kids and give them their items and maybe some skills. Hell, some of the replacement units are implied to be estranged or bastard kids of g1 characters (i.e Sharlow’s blue hair and paragon, or Fergus), so there is so much room for creativity with it

[@jacobkakyoin6882]

I'll at least throw Engage a couple of bones here, even if yeah the Alear-centric nature of its S-supports vs the game just before it straight-up not letting you directly decide who outside of Byleth gets paired endings is a downgrade. Its S-supports aren't all inherently romantic in nature, especially in the English release (though I honestly don't disagree with the people who feel like it overcorrected on this at points. Removing that stuff with Jean or Anna is obviously good, for example, but why so many characters closer to Alear's age?), which to me represents a possible angle for if IntSys is that absolutely desperate to have the avatar able to have a paired ending with everyone but wants characters for whom romance wouldn't make sense. I'd genuinely say Three Hopes handled this particular element better, honestly, though the payoff was so small, it also meant that each could have a vibe that actually fit how the character and Shez interacted (I'm not a Fodlanhead I swear...). Ultimately, though, short of blood-siblings like Veyle (when they can't pull a Fates), I do agree that we'll unlikely ever get a game with an avatar where they have the backbone to say "this unmarried character is romantically inaccessible to a player character of the opposite gender. You can bond very closely with them, but they just will not ever be into you like that." I'd respect the hell out of it if they did, but that our only full-out 100% gay non-spinoff character since New Mystery came from a remake of a game where they could not possibly hope to retrofit an avatar is telling. Anyway, right, second bone to throw. I'll also remark that, even lacking for paired endings and discounting Alear entirely, I still do think that Engage has some pretty hard-to-argue queer rep, and in fact, when dealing with a world where everyone is avatarsexual, non-Alear supports are the metric that matters most for if a character "counts" to me. Like there isn't any read of Alfred's other supports where he doesn't come off as loving men and specifically muscular men, as the first example to mind. Though certainly the presence of an avatar muddies the waters, I don't think genuine rep in it is ENTIRELY down to "they gotta be capable of being into Alear." Like a lot of the Engage cast's depths, it's there to be found in the right supports.

[@torashiki5646]

The answer is yes. Its not a coincidence that gay male characters and lesbian characters completely disappeared from the games, as they are antithesis to self insert pandering. Having characters not be readily available as sex dolls for cishet players is unviable in self insert emblem. But above all, the focus of both the games AND the fandom is so entirely on whatever or not You Can Fuck The Character With Your Self Insert that at this point it feels like characters can no longer be just... their own characters. And this causes massive issues with the game's writing where the plot and characters are like a tool for further avatar pandering than part of a story they want to tell. Neither its a coincidence that character relevancy fell down a cliff the moment self insert Emblem became a thing. Characters now need to be both disposable AND be always available for the self insert.

[@lostonessoul5154]

I think the best way I can answer this question PERSONALLY (As in I am giving my two cents on the matter.) is Avatars themselves aren't hurting Fire Emblem, but rather it's Avatars that didn't quite hit the mark that are the issue. I hear a lot of folks say that "They got it right the first time with Robin!" I.E. the avatar was more of a secondary character, less of a driving force and I...kinda agree...but also kinda don't. For me personally what makes a "Good avatar" and a "Bad avatar" is really hard to pin point. But if I had to I'd say a strong connection to the story, no matter how minor, and a decent design. The issue with avatars post-robin is they ether don't have a strong enough story connection, have a bad design, or both. Other then that it's really hard for me to have much of a voice on this topic.

[@niccarooo]

Been binging your channel thanks to a friend. Thank you so much for talking about this, especially in the 3H section. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was over there being only 3 gay options at launch and 2 of them were purely platonic (not that they're not valid, but more romantic options are nice). Being a bisexual man has made me very keenly aware about how most progressive representation leans very heavy on the saphic side of things because its more marketable to straight people, and I desperately want to see that mold broken in a way that isn't just "every character is attracted to you, and only you." That type of design in romance is a gross overcorrection in my opinion and, as you stated in the video, really doesn't change anything aside from pronouns and a very easy lampshade for explaining characters' sexualities. An FE where we have an actually diverse class that has their sexualities build on their characters is gonna be christmas for me. THAT BEING SAID shoutout to my girl Dorothea. Genuinely one of the best written bisexuals I've seen and she has so many good male and female supports that play off this. 10/10 would replace with Lysithea on my team again.

[@DaniDoyle]

Dorothea is such good bisexua rep. We stan a queen!

[@wolfx8751]

Honestly, I think avatars really just need to be less story-involved/important. Like, conceptually, Kris and early-game Robin are the best avatars, if Kris didn't become so prominent and Robin didn't have the Grima stuff going, they'd just be some people the lord kinda knows, putting them on the same level as the rest of the army. Then, you could have supports handled like the other characters, with some people just not getting together, some queer stuff, and so on... Plus, then you wouldn't have the weird power imbalance of being their teacher/lord/god

[@medalkingslime4844]

Fates' gay dating was a fucking slap in the face. You have to choose one specific partner and you have to give up on 1 or 2 child units. The fact that the game has no problem offhandedly justifying incest and going through plot complications to have your children of fighting age within moments of your marriage but same sex pairings couldn't magically make a child together is just too unrealistic? There's adoption. You could just not mention pregnancy whatsoever as it already isn't... or hell I'm a goddamn dragon let me lay an egg. As for the larger point(s) of the video, I don't disagree with much. I think it's *emblematic* of the rest of the issues the series has--each unit might be someone's favorite so they have to be able to do *anything*, date *anyone*, and can't be missed for recruitment. It's not that I think any of these accessibility/wider-appeal aspects are objectively wrong or anything, but they are resulting in a type of Fire Emblem that I just don't love in the same way that I love 3-10. It's clear that more people like the games like this so I'll just have to deal with that. How it relates specifically to queer characters? I think you really said it all. If everyone is avatar-sexual, then they don't have an identity of their own.

[@Zyaire286]

We went from having lack of conversation in Fire emblem Shadow Dragon to “EveRyOne HavE FeElings” of Engage. Considering they handle the support system well most of the time, It really does vary for adding additional lore for characters for players replacablity. Although I’m neutral with Avatar being a thing in Fire Emblem, they have to be very considerate with their placing in the story. It’s fine to have romance most of the time in Fire Emblem, but they do need to experiment on the way the characters interact with each other.If you ask me on romance, I wouldn’t be against the idea but needs to be very realistic on the character’s standing

[@TheBelt]

I guess I could be considered a pretty old school FE fan. I don’t like avatars in FE, I think they actually detract from the story and I could care less about the romance things.

[@ness6099]

I hate the idea that the Avatar/MC is the most important aspect of every character’s lives; not everyone is a retainer or romantic interest, or even vested friend/family, some are there for inspiration, experience, or are just straight up paid to be part of your forces. I mostly agree with your last point on variety, but I also think there’s merit to just having one canonical ship, regardless of orientation (unfortunately, that will more often than not lead to only straight main ships as it’s a hard sell for kid’s game company Nintendo to promote a queer icon on the front of the boxes in the “kid’s game” section). Sigurd and Deirdre (I know this is a video on queer relationships, let me cook) are pretty much made for each other and despite the game approaching 30 years old meaning there isn’t a lot of in-game support material, the relationship still has an impact. The devs know WHO Sigurd cares the most about, how to craft both of them from a story/gameplay perspective, and can even craft story beats around events that don’t have as much impact as they would otherwise if the characters weren’t dating. Just as an example, I know the Corrin/Azura pairing is sus, but imagine if they weren’t related and that they just always got together, something something eternally bound spirits, whatever. Imagine the context they could give to scenes together, including the ending, if they just knew they were going to be together. What would Conquest Corrin feel about her going behind their back? Would they feel comfortable fully around Azura’s occupation and life choices? Also a side note on Claud, him not having any male paired endings (as far as I know, at least none explicitly romantic) ironically could fit into characterization. Claud is a trickster and a manipulator, even if he’s a chill dude and fun to hang out with. The point is, I could see Claud seeing himself as attractive and trying to enhance himself to be appealing to both men and women wherever he can to be within character. Does this mean he HAS to be straight? No, I just find that’d be a cool characterization for characters to interact with. Like what happens if a character like that who flirts both ways but is only heterosexual gets called out by someone actually homosexual/bisexual; imagine Yuri ripping into Claud for using the heart as a tool rather than respecting how others feel and being honest with them. What if this reveals something to Claud that he didn’t acknowledge himself? This is a bit of a stupid idea, but I thought about how an Avatar character would work in FE4, and the best I could come up with were a pair of siblings, one male and female, who you got to choose skills and holy blood for, or just make them from Miletos. The reason why there’d be two is because kids are based on the mother, so you’d always pick female to get 2 extra units, even if there was some niche build you could only get with skill selecting like Wrath on non magic users. While I think making both of them bisexual is a bit of a representation bailout, I think it gives players gameplay freedom and gay representation in some fashion. But hold up, isn’t this just a Fates situation, where you’re punished for gay ships? FE4 allows for substitute characters, and who better to substitute for two siblings that were never born from the new mother than… well, the older versions of these siblings, fitted with the same exp and items they left with in Part 1 (spoilers, but at the Battle of Balhalla, just say they leave no matter what before the battle). The above is just rambling and thought clouding, but I generally agree with the consensus of the video; a bisexual avatar is not a problem, being so generic with who can be married across the board is limiting emotionally and awkward in general. Bring back the Quan/Ethlyns who already love each other, bring back messy relationships like Lachesis going from Beowulf to Finn, and bring back ugly mugs like Arden because damn it those guys are just trying their best! Mixing in representation works as long as they make me believe they care about each other, rather than “hey, ring before endgame.”

[@GleamingGarmore]

11:10 the topic of missing out on child units when you get gay married makes me SO ANGRY because like, you could literally say “oh, it was magic.” This is a game with a secret cursed kingdom that kills you if you mention it. You ride around on wyverns and attack with tomes. One of your units is a granny who’s cursed herself with eternal youth. If you told me that Rhajat and Corrin had a baby via magic I would just accept it. Have some FUN!

[@GleamingGarmore]

I’ve yet to play Engage but it really does feel kinda sucky to think about characters having paired endings but ONLY with the character that represents ME. Sure, the idea of getting married in a game is cute and fun, but if I’m The Only Option it just feels kinda lame, yknow? When I DO get into the shipping stuff in these games I’m usually a lot more invested in the characters that arent avatars. Like, I’m playing Project Thabes for the first time and I’m REALLY excited to see what Lissa and Mirabelle have to say to each other.

[@felikatze]

if henry and miriel get married in awakening, THEY LITERALLY MAGIC LAURENT. THAT'S THEIR SUPPORT. they want to discover if you can create life using magic, so the implication here is obvious. if the heterosexual romances can already just.. magic babies, then the gay ones can, too. so theoretically, any dedicated mage could probably do it. alternatively: the transgender agenda never sleeps. everyone is quantum trans now.

[@madeleineevelinaguekguezia550]

IMO it’s similarly weird that it implies that it’s a setting where magic and dragons exist but gay people couldn’t adopt a child? I mean I support magic baby-making and gender transition wholeheartedly but it seems like a very intuitive solution presents itself

[@IexistIguessidk]

I think this is a bad idea for multiple reasons. First this would imply that life and a soul are not that difficult to create after that point. So why not just create a ton of aum staves? It would make these items less valuable. Second: this now seems cruel, but it would lead to a nation in war to just make a ton of extra soldiers effectivly turning everithing into a battle of numbers. With such magic that would be the most logical move. Third: What would then even be the limits of magic? Where do you draw the line. Currently it is mostly restricted to combat, healing, golem creation and some smaller things. If we add creating sencient life to the list, why not add completely reshaping the world to that list. I think that the god like beings can have that ability, but they should not be available to everyone. Because if magic is so powerfull, why use anything else at all? Magic should, in my opinion, not be enough of an explanation.

[@CGFillertext]

@@IexistIguessidkThe first and second points could easily be concepts explored in the game, it could possibly be used as a vehicle for discussion about the ethicality of treating lives like statistics and the use of child soldiers. The third and fourth points could also be explained. My two ideas are that it’d either be a specific ritual that uses the love/connection between two people (which covers the third point). Or the baby could be created using divine influence, for example Seithr in FEH mentions the ability to magically create children with the Summoner regardless of the Summoner’s gender (which covers point 4).

[@bificommander7472]

Yeah, I agree that in romance playersexual NPCs shouldn't be a thing. I was happy that Mass Effect 2 added the option to let me romance Tali, since I thought she was the nicest character in ME1. But by ME3 it was getting kind of ridiculous, where everything with a pulse, and possibly some beings without, are romance options for Shepard. It helps the story if there are some characters that are just not into a given player character, even if it's a bummer if that was the player's prefered waifu/hudbando. Speaking of Dragon Age 1, I couldn't get through the game so this is hearsay, but I did like, compared to ME, that there were romance options that didn't follow the strict timeline of "get x relationship points by point y in the story, and you get a sex screen to show you won the minigame." I understood that there's a sheltered character who will have a casual sexual relationship with the player character fairly early, only to stop as the relationship points increase, as they are starting to actually feel seriously in love. That at least is an interesting trait, and helps a little with how weird the ME one-size-fits-all romance paths feel. As for Fire Emblem child characters and romance: I didn't quite like how the child characters showed up the second you S support in Awakening. I spend a huge amount of time finding the cutest pairings in 3H, and trying to get those characters together. In Awakening, I felt incentivised to rush the romantic pairings, so I could get those child characters ASAP, regardless if I liked their support interactions. And about missing child characters on gay pairings: You could have some late joining orphan character who joins with better stats and inheritted skills if you ran a gay pairing, because they got adopted by the gay couple. Or if you also have a lesbian pairing, you could get two child characters from the four of them, as they raised the kids with the two couples together. It would prevent gay couples being penalized by gameplay.

[@crystalqueen9711]

My take on supports is that so long as there's no children (as in child units OR pedophilia) then I don't really care because I just don't play Fire Emblem for the characters, but one thing I thought of is to bring back A+ supports from Fates, but tie actual supports to them AND make them appear as a paired ending, but let them be seperate from S supports and have seperate endings, so for example, if Pandreo and Panette get an A+ support, their paired ending would say something along the lines of Pandreo found their parents and Panette beat the shit out of them, but then Panette gets a seperate S support with Merrin where they both get into a polyamorous relationship with Timerra and Pandreo in an S support with Rosado says he went to Rosado's village and learned how to party even harder than ever before

[@Khrene]

> Only 1 mlm option as opposed to 3 wlw options. Perhaps this about fetishing lesbians. I think so, but I also wanna add another point to this: 1) One thing the two cultures were talking about share is that women are allowed to show affection - both to each other and other - without any projected or infferred ties to sex. This gives the "I wish you wouldnt rub it in my face" crowd plausible deniability "They were roomates" 2) Gay men and/or drag queens and their forced and/or projected proximity to sex work. This is a whole ass essay that my bi ass is not experienced enough to make any kind of headway in but yeah, if you know, you know.

[@Khrene]

I want ro clarify, projected in this context means **not real** or **percieved** And forced is... self explanatory

[@felikatze]

wholeheartedly agree with everything in the video. mandatory player romance options cheapens the cast so much because it hampers their ability to have interpersonal connections. you mentioned pent and louise in specific - character duos like that just can't exist anymore, and i hate it. this is fe6 bias speaking, but i love how interconnected character relationships are in that game. things like noah and fir's romance, or bartre grieving karla, or anything remotely similar can't exist. nino's insane family tree can't exist because canas can't have an offscreen wife. so many supports reference each other and you really do need to see all of them to see the full arc for side characters in that game (which makes it a shame that the only remotely viable way to do so is to look it up online.) mandatory romance misses out on so much. i agree 100% that romance options should be limited. married characters won't date others and some characters just should not care about marrying the avatar. in awakening, it works because it's the point. the cast and story are set up for the pairing mechanic to work. you're not just deciding who robin should marry, you're also deciding which side characters should smooch based on how cute you find their relationship (or how busted you want to make the child units). fates already catches enough flack for just co-opting the mechanic without putting the work in. three houses is an improvement in that side characters have paired endings with each other, but, MAN, as a biromantic man who just wanted to smooch boys in FE, i was FURIOUS when the game came out. Linhardt is the only viable option at base, with the other two seemingly male s support options both being married men. Fuck off, FE. Intsys is lucky i do love linhardt. to me there's just an inherent cowardice to making everyone playersexual. it's a fear of pissing of players who could hypothetically be mad they can't marry the married lady, when all it really does is cut down on character potential. i think the gba games actually do it better in the romance department, despite how horrendous the support system is. roy has 5 romantic options, but again. that's FIVE. that's not every woman in the cast. it's limited to women who would actually be interested in roy. (disregarding that one of them is his teacher and he's 15 because FE isn't FE if at least one thing isn't gross). i don't have as much experience with fe7, but even there, the romantic options for the lords are limited, and differ between lords. circling back though.... these characters not having confirmed romances does actually hurt them, because the games do push specific love interests (most obvious being roy/lilina and eliwood/ninian) but can't commit to them because of the mechanic, meaning the romance can't be developed in the main story and can't be elaborated on in additional content like heroes. take ninian - her plot revolves pretty exclusively around her love for eliwood, and the forces keeping them apart. no matter what romance you pick for eliwood, she always loves him and it's a driving motivation for her. she even has an alternate ending in the main story if she and eliwood reach A support - but all future content has to dance around their relationship for fear of canonizing it, when it was pretty damn canon already. everything has to retain that "what if" state because of what the writers wouldn't commit to in 2003. forever. this ended up a whole rant, but, yeah. romance in FE sure is a topic. amazing video. you're absolutely right.

[@samflood5631]

In my point of view, an avatar romance with one of the characters of the recent games can work if it’s done well. I mean the whole avatar romance has worked well with games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Baldur’s Gate and Divinity Original Sin. Here is a list of the best Avatar and Companion romances Awakening Robin X Cordelia Robin x Sumia Robin x Lon’qu Robin x Gaius Robin x Chrom Robin x Stahl Robin x Olivia Robin x Cherche Three Houses Byleth x Edelgard/Dimitri/Claude/Yuri Byleth x Dorothea Byleth x Hubert Byleth x Marianne Byleth x Sylvain Byleth x Shamir Byleth x Hapi Byleth x Ferdinand Byleth x Jeritza Byleth x Constance Byleth x Linhardt Fates Corrin x Felicia Corrin x Owain Corrin X Inigo Corrin x Silas Corrin x Kaze Corrin x Kagero Corrin x Flora Corrin x Subaki

[@Mariokemon]

Chrom is one of the few times the support changes with Robin's gender. the other times are when u support someone who can ONLY S support Robin, like Anna, Tiki, and the Spotpass characters. Anna in particular I really enjoy with male robin. it shows his sass

[@Kilo6Charlie]

I'm a pan, though primarily gay (cis) male, and frequently find myself in "straight" relationships as my Avatar characters simply because I play the Female MC. I tend to, like Forrest and Rosado (love them) prefer the female aestetics and options, so the FeMC works better for me than the Masc option. It's one reason I almost prefer a lot of games changing the body selct from Male/Female to A/B because it lets me be more effeminate without being explicitly called as Female, which I am not. Curiously, when I do find myself, as the Female Avatar, wishing or going for a Gay relationship, it's with the more Masculine females, or "Tomboys" like Soleil and Merrin (two of my absolute favs and it's a TRAGEDY Soleil wasn't S-Rankable by a Fem Corrin. Not to mention the tragedy that is her S-Support with MALE Corrin). Anyway the point was that, due to my preference in Avatar design and gender-locked classes (Females get the way better gendered classes IMO, though Dread Fighter is an ACTUALLY good Male one) I never realy felt unrepresented apart from the slight disconnect of my preferred Avatar not sharing my gender. I also believe I ended up in a Gay relationship in Three Houses because basically all the Male characters are just criminally uninteresting to me, with Lindheart being (ironically being very queer coded for me playing a Female Byleth) the only one that appealed

[@brightlight8852]

Robin does not have the same supports most notably with Chrom, Lucina, Tiki, the spot pass characters and the second generation units. That being said, yes the mandatory bisexuality does hurt the romantic aspect, but I'd also argue that it also hurts the avatar relationships in general. In terms of the romance linked to supports I actually think that 3 Houses did romance the best. Not everyone is bisexual and you also can't marry everyone either. I actually think that Byleth asking Alois to give them away at their wedding was just touching. Instead of making everyone bisexual which honestly adds nothing to either the romance or the characterization of the characters, they should make sure that the avatar has different types of relationships with characters.

[@DaniDoyle]

My two biggest problems with three houses is 1) the very limited number of queer romances and focus on WLW as opposed to including MLM too, 2) the fact that a teacher can enter a romantic relationship with their students it's just gross to me

[@brightlight8852]

@DaniDoyle Byleth is actually around the same age as their students and after the timeskip is the same age as them. Or even younger than them. There were 3 male same sex relationships and 5 female same sex with three of female same sex relationships being story related. To me that was preferable to the way how Engage handled it where everyone was made to be bisexual for the MC.

[@empressmako]

at first i was wondering why this video existed bc i was thinking "how does something like yuri being romancable with both byleths" matter? then i thoight about the idea that not every character should be romancable(at least by the avatar), and thinking about that, i agree. sure, some make sense(dimitri, dorothea), but a lot just feel tacked on. also i think shez has the most personality out of any avatar, including robin. shez, in my mind, is basically the only avatar who actually has some agency(robin MAY be an exception).

[@empressmako]

that being said shamir being male byleth locked(and some others but this one specifically) annoys me like it's not even queerbaiting she SAYS it

[@MM4TuT]

Linhardt and Jeritza being the only gay pairings for M!Byleth without having to pay for DLC legitematly pisses me off I also felt your little rant about Claude right there In general if they ever end up doing something like 3H again I think it would be best to make all the lords Bi and romanceable for the Avatar it's something that was seemingly cpnstitant among players who chose the F!Byleth that they would go mostly for the lords and M!Byleth would've probably been the same if possible Dateable Lords aside I think there should be more platonic paired endings for the Avatar regardless of gender and maybe a way to achieve that would be by using A+ supports the same way S supports are used it would also help to differentiate between platonic an romantic supports maybe some of the support chains could have both with the player being able to choose wether they want a romantic paired ending or a platonic

[@QueenVivi97]

i think most characters being bi/pan is good? recent fire emblem games are a huge time sink, and if u end up liking a unit alot, but cant S support them because u unknowingly chose wrong on the gender select screen, that sucks alot yk. i feel like a really easy solution is to just have non romantic S supports with some characters? I feel like S supports dont need to explicitly mean they got married lmfao, it can just mean they were close and stuck together after whatever war they just went through, and this solves the "every character needs to be fuckable" issue.

[@aubreyh1930]

S supports are meant to be romantic. You want more A+ supports which would definitely be greay

[@UniGya]

I think it would be very fun to still keep the avatar character able to S-Support anyone but give characters defined sexualities and they have bromance supports. While it shouldn't go down like this it would be funny if they reused the supports but if the character you are S-supporting isn't the right sexuality for your avatar they just insert extra lines of the characters saying "No homo"

[@drmajalis1583]

As a lesbian fe fan hearing people cry "BIPHOBIA, BI ERASURE" whenever we try to to discuss things from the faintest lesbian angle is so infuriating (and also distracts from actual biphobia) It got to the point where a gimmick account that just says characters are lesbians called Marianne a trans lesbian and an account called "Canon FE Bisexuals" *epic clapped back* with "Nuh-huh! Marianne is canonically cis and straight!" Abolish avatar characters, I'm so done at this point. The forced playersexuality isn't worth getting marginally more queer rep in general, imho

[@DaniDoyle]

I think that biphobia and bierasure are actual problems and deserve to be highlighted. We are in this together and punching down at bi people doesn't help the lesbian cause

[@drmajalis1583]

@@DaniDoyle i apologise if i gave off that impression, I agree that they're legitimate issues, I've just seen people who have asked for more lesbian rep in fe be accused of those things and that I have an issue with. Its to the point I don't even say the L word in most fe circles anymore because I fear even simply bringing up lesbians in the context of Fire Emblem will lead to someone accusing me of wanting to erase canon sexualities

[@DaniDoyle]

I'm sorry that happened to you that sounds like very toxic people

[@joeyjose727]

I love this series I’m so excited to see more! I definitely disagree with a bit of this though, when Three Houses had monosexuals they were all straight and to this day there are people upset that many characters aren’t at least bi. I definitely felt the burn as a queer man, because if you’re going to do romance at all, it feels shitty to have so many queer coded options out of reach. Like why aren’t most of the Blue Lions romance options when their house is so gay? Scientists, explain! I really like Engage’s system, and when I heard Alfred say “I love you” to male Alear i teared up. I never expected to see something like this in a game I play, it was exciting! I don’t mind that the supports aren’t different between genders always. If Intelligent Systems wanted to make a game with mono and bisexuals I would be interested, but I don’t know if I have faith in the execution judging from past titles. Monosexuals IMO means less queer options, because when they don’t make everyone romantic with everyone, the queer options are barely there. I believe that’s exactly what will happen when they return to monosexuals, that queer options will be left behind in the dust like usual

[@DaniDoyle]

As a lesbian, I want to be represented. Everyone being bisexual doesn't do that.

[@joeyjose727]

@@DaniDoyle I definitely understand and see value in that, but I don’t think IS have an interest in more queer monosexualty on a wider scale in their games Fingers crossed

[@cloudy978]

I don't think the date simulator aspect of the game isn'r inherently bad and it adds a lot of personal investment from players in general. But as a gay man I'd be much happier if they actually made queer characters with fully fledged personalities than playesexual ones. Like if I wanted to date whoever I want I could also just play the other gender avatar and just headcannon which is especially easy because of how quiet or boring avatars usually are so I like to just completely ignore them most of the time. But when I look at engages system it just feels bland. Instead of charavters naturally coming to love the player avatar rhey just become an s support because you clicked om the gay option. It's the same gay button problem a lot of games have where seemingly straight characters just turn gay for the player. Also yes we were robbed of Claude 100% worst part is he has one of thr more satisfying endings in 3H

[@seasaltsky]

9:49 that doesn't even happen in the Male Robin support. he has way better Chrom supports, tbh. and probably better supports in general, tbh.

[@seasaltsky]

the best example of male and female Robin supports being different, just off the top of my head, is Aversa x Robin. the difference is like night and day

[@S.I.L.]

Considering most of the Avatars are their own characters instead of just self inserts, they should do away with them and just have the "lord" or similar character be the focus of the story. Maybe a Mark style avatar as an in-universe explanation for the commands to units with no story presence or supports. Then there is no need to make everyone straight or bi and supports can be more specific to reflect each character's "type".

[@ranger24ff]

So I feel like there is a bit of a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation going on. Inquisition’s style of romance are great until you run into the Claude problem in Fire Emblem where you have a character who a lot of people want to be a gay or bi option but he is ironically the straightest of the three lords without any paired endings with male characters that even dip into queer tendencies and people get upset. So the developers then go “okay you can romance everyone now” and then we get the problem characters not really having a defined sexual identity. This is happening right now with Dragon Age as Veilguard is going back to the DA2 style of romantic options despite the praise inquisition’s options got.

[@dreamer9398]

If only they made Claude and Dimitri Bi like they did with Edelgard. It only fair to give players more option.

[@phiory_is_me]

4:38 yeah pretty pls. I personally am not the biggest fan of the selfincert avatar. I feel like the stories are kinda avatar focused? Which tbh might be me just not liking most of the stories of the newer fe games and blaming it on the avatar i already dont like. While i do like the fact that u can romance other characters regardless of gender as the avatar, I also kinda don't like it. Since i feel like most of the times they are just the same supports for the female and male variant and are just there for the purpose of "look gay supports!". I just want non selfinsert characters that are queer. And engage removing paired endings i find weird.. it was smth i liked a lot + it removes implied endings of characters paired together and it gave the characters more depth.

[@rhettmitchell]

I mean, I’ll say all the Blue Lions boys are definitely heavily implied to be gay, the knights of Faerghus just having very gay policies, culture, traditions and such in general. Three Hopes increases the blue lions gay exponentially. Sylvain and Yuri going on a date. Dimitri, Dedue, and Felix are incredibly gay, even in the main story (remember that scene in Crimson Flower where Dimidue die together on the Tailtean Plains?). Sylvain is less important, but still super gay. The endings among Felix, Sylvain, and Dimitri are all incredibly romantically suggestive, and outright stating it with Felix and Sylvain, seeing as gifting someone with a weapon is seen as a romantic gesture in Faerghus. And just their supports too, moreso in Hopes, but it’s still there in Houses. And then Dedue with Dimitri and Ashe Also: Dorothea’s dialogue does change depending on gender, talking about some gendered things and “lovely wife”, so I think that is a little better than a lot of other characters at least lol

[@cooperm4185]

Honestly the only reason I like avatars at all is because outside of them there's like 7 female Lords vs 15 male Lords and IS doesn't seem to want to change the gender balance of non-avatar Lords anytime soon. You could really see it in Engage when they tried for equal gender representation and a big complaint was how Lyn/Celica/Lucina/etc. weren't the actual main characters of the games. This isn't a knock against the male Lords it's just that when you like them all up with similar hair colors and similar genders Smash fans do have a point about how they blend together. Like as an example, across the first 6 games, there's literally 1 female Lord (Celica) and across all 17 games in the franchise there's never been a game les by just a female Lord with no male counterpart, which just rubs me the wrong way I appreciate romance in FE but it's more about just any relationship, platonic or romantic - Engage's lack of paired endings bothered me because on top of the base game making it extremely difficult to get supports they didn't even do anything if you got them besides stat buffs. I've also only met one person who liked no paired endings and it turned out they had only played the pre-Thracia Kaga games and Awakening and didn't know that they were a series staple and seemed to be bothered by anything being taken away from the gameplay including characters having personalities and I'm half convinced that was a troll

[@dougdoug2469]

I'm wondering if Tharja crushing on both MRobin and FRobin was what led to IS choosing Rhajat to be the lesbian option for Fates.

[@DaniDoyle]

I think so (I'm vaguely planning a Tharja Video eventually)

[@metaxu3305]

Ultimately the dating sim aspect is more fanservice than representation, and we queers are dying for fanservice in mainstream media. From this business perspective, Engage solution makes sense and is better than 3 Houses - at least we know what we get, and get what we want. "Monosexual representation" on the other hand will always translate into way more straight options, because an overwhelming part of the real world and audience is heterosexual. Not everyone has to be romanceable though, pair endings should exist and characterization should not be constrained by marketing.

[@mathematicalcabbage]

A shame to hear about 3H not really having gay options for dudes outside of dlc cause i was thinking about picking it back up recently after watching your content. Like it would be nice for me to play as male byleth and also get to romance a dude but instead like the other fire emblem before it games except conquest ima be stuck between the "ok do you want to play as gender or do you want to woo the pretty anime dudes at the risk of dysphoria". It cheapens the immersion that player inserts are supposed to give

[@DaniDoyle]

There's only three gay options for either gender however female gay options all three of them are in the base game, for the male ones there's one in the base game one is a free DLC and one is paid DLC. One slightly positive thing is that the script never uses any gendered terms for yourself insert so I always heaf cannon my character as non-binary anyway, but they are definitely intended to be gendered especially considering that there are gender locked skills and classes and the designs are very binary

[@ninjaydes]

Having an avatar makes the pairing experience worse... I had to choose between giving Claude to Hilda or Byleth, and Hilda is more deserved but the endings with Sothis and Rhea are just so weird. .-.

[@Placeholder501]

A few conversations are different whether your male or female Robin. Chrom, Tiki and Aversa are different. There might be more.

[@DaniDoyle]

Yep! That was a mistake on my part. the changes are less significant than new mystery but there are plenty of gender based changes I forgot about!

[@Dragonboy55564]

I hated Alois's S rank ending because the village maiden came out of nowhere. This might be a bit crude, but it felt kind of like cuckolding. We could have had poly representation here, especially since Alois is so dedicated to Byleth innately.

[@dumbghost3109]

Its not mandatory bisexuality. Its optional. Your avatar can be straight, gay, or bi. You dont need to interact with the straight options if you dont want to, and you dont need to interact with the gay options if you dont want to. Frankly, all rpgs, unless they are putting you in the position of a pre established character like geralt, should have male and female options available for players of both genders if there is romance in the game.

[@DaniDoyle]

I don't think you understood the video.

[@rubyrose6714]

Honestly having monosexual characters would be really cool but if they do that I don’t think we will ever benefit from it. It will almost definitely be straight characters who that happens to. Having characters we can’t romance I’m totes fine with but I don’t think I want mono for now because we will just lose.

[@DaniDoyle]

speak for yourself. I am a lesbian. I want to see people like me on screen. There are also gay men who want to see people like them on screen. Making everyone bi is bad for representation. Full Stop.

[@rubyrose6714]

@@DaniDoyle I am a lesbian as well, it’s not that I don’t want those things, I just don’t really trust the team to actually ever do it or at the least do it well. They’ve kinda almost always fumbled the bag if they say the word with only a few exceptions. I do think your video is great and has great points, I just don’t trust the FE team as it currently is to do this well. I enjoy your content greatly and I do hope we can get what you’re asking for one day even if I’m skeptical they’ll ever do it well.

[@DaniDoyle]

Gotcha, I misunderstood your point, I thought you were saying there isn't a benefit to monosexual characters. I apologize if I came off as overly harsh or critical!

[@rubyrose6714]

@@DaniDoyle it is 4 am for me so honestly my wording was not super great! And nah I was just worried I upset one of the only fire emblem KZbinrs I actively watch so was a bit frazzled for a sec XD I do appreciate you responding a lot and I’m glad we could clear the air

[@ilngsisfh]

three house probably isn't male gaze lesbians are more acceptable seeing as they hate when you try to discuss their waifus being sapphic or edelgard in general. Hell even bringing up that Dorothea in the JP original has dialogue that could be read as her admitting to being coomphet is hell on both sides. And let's not even start with discussing the transcoding of Hubert and FERDINAND VON AEGIR

[@rainingrotom]

true

[@veteranopsiquico]

roBIn... BYleth... ohh i get it

[@unstablepc5913]

I don't think a game like Engage was going to engage with gender in any meaningful way, so disregarding gender in the supports was fine by me. As I started to pay more attention to game design, the dating & shipping simulator started to grow on me (even though I hated it at first). Part of FE is bonding with your units (even if you don't have an in-universe proxy) and making up stories for them, so a relationship building aspect seems like a natural extension of the system. My biggest problem with the relationship system is that it's way too shallow. Support points go up & never down, you can just buy supports by pumping gifts into units and the romance only appears at the last moment when you will it. I really liked the goddess tower scene at the ball in 3H because you don't get to choose who you meet and it's a nice way to build the romance before the sudden wedding proposal. To me, I feel like part of the joy of building relationships is being chosen and accepted by people, but that only works if you get rejected by others. I'd love to see a relationship simulator reflect that. I think it could lead to something really special. The support system is just so shallow....

[@hisen3.146]

" I really liked the goddess tower scene at the ball in 3H because you don't get to choose who you meet" Who's going to ruin it for them? I don't want to be the one...

[@unstablepc5913]

@@hisen3.146 Didn't know you could talk to some NPC to decide :(

[@rapidriver]

You are being so mean to FE7 by just showing steal exp abuse. :')

[@yeasstt]

I love Fire Emblem Engayge

[@SapphicSara]

The reason that Three Houses had more sapphic content at launch was because they had already planned the DLC. They had always intended to give the same shitty count of gay content. Beyond that I am fairly confident the reason Mercedes in particular is a sapphic choice in Three Houses is Japanese lesbian players in particular were extremally critical of Fire Emblem fates and made sure their voices were heard. I feel the sapphic forward delivery was to basically please those fans to say "Look we're not putting in conversion therapy or having you fuck a kid, look one of your options is a catholic who is older than you." The who can be gay choices were pretty based in strategy but not based on characters internal sense of sexuality or whatever.

[@DaniDoyle]

Gotcha, interesting perspective

[@SapphicSara]

@@DaniDoyle I was pretty actively following the JP sapphic FE fans at the time of Fates so when I saw the roster of queer characters in Three Houses it felt like corporate said their allowed 3 gays for each gender, pick their poison and they had to pick what would put out the potentially burning bridge between queer fans and Fire Emblem. During this dev times in Japan fans had a ton of access to FE devs too thanks to Chiper devs were often at events in person talking to fans of the series so there was a lot of dialog about this stuff. I imagine Engage was Nintendo finally saying "okay, just don't lock the genders anymore, it's fine" and so they didn't really consider anything. Engage and 3H were developing at the same time so it is interesting to think about if it was a corporate limit or a difference in philosophy between the two teams.