#custom byleth

[kiochisato]

𐙚　ⵧ　F!Byleth Layouts　☆ ⵧ　self indulgent ! ♡　rb & cr to use　...⠀click me !

[stormiebreaks]

Somehow, I’ve still not figured out how to properly shoot these guys… but these shelf shots actually did work out nicely.

I made my wife the War Phase figures (Dimitri for Christmas, Byleth for Valentine’s Day), then decided I need a set for myself, so followed up with the Academy Phase Dimileth figures.

Just have to keep working at it until I’ve managed some shots to really be proud of.

[chickalitta-dolls]

Professor, isn’t that outfit too cold for this weather?

[jordieeeee]

uhm. I don't think he would. He might be the bored-est employee ever while wishing for a fight to break out so he can take it down. But who knows I'd love to see it

[nebbybrush]

IM ON MY BYLETH PLUSH ARC SHE IS SO CUTE OMFG

I LOVE CUSTOM PLUSHIES ON ETSY LOOK AT HER SHES SO SILLY !!!!!!! (HER STANCE TOO LOOK AT HER THE ULTIMATE SILLY!!!!)

[letsriddlemethislucifer]

-- So I lied to u

I added both + Jeritza.

[iunctura-arch]

"I didn't know having pink hair was a crime." At least she didn't fully look like a March. Just maybe... like her older sister or something, maybe.

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

FE3H does character build customization well, but at the same time FUCK genderlocked classes.

Pegasus Knights are whatever for me. You could easlijust say that men can ride them but have a weird societal stigma or something. Plus,there is a precedent for that in the series.

But why are Heroes locked? Women could be Heroes in the previous and next game, os there's no point.

Why are Gremories locked? If you don't want them to have dresses, just call them something else and give them a different outfit.

Why are dark magic classes blocked for women? On that note, why is it that women get forced to suffer the pains of TWISTD's...twistedness, giving them dark magic, but they aren't allowed to gain any of the skills for it? Why do men get to just use it for free?

And the most egregious of all to me: WHY WOULD YOU MAKE IT SO NO BRAWLINT CLASSES CAN BE USED BY WOMEN?

Rhea specializes in brawling. So does Catherine. So does Female Byleth. It's so fuckin dumb that they can't do anything with that boon because they won't gain the benefits of class skills.

!

[wayfinder-wolf]

Yall know those memes where a bunch of fictional characters gather around a TV to hear bad news? Well, I thought I'd give making one of those a go, and here it is!

Each character was submitted by a friend. Characters featured include (left to right):

Bojack Horseman from Bojack Horseman, Elmo from Sesame Street, Megaman.EXE from the Battle Network games, Byleth from Fire Emblem, a custom Chao from Sonic Adventure, Robo-Ky from Guilty Gear, Wolffe from Star Wars, Ralsei from Deltarune, the Red Among Us Guy, Neco-Arc from the Tsukihime series, Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil, Ventus from Kingdom Hearts, Lefty from FNAF, and Phoenix Wright from the Ace Attorney games.

[calamitaswrath]

Honestly though one aspect of Xenoblade X not being as much in the eyes of Xenoblade fans/Nintendo that I actually enjoy is that it means that Cross is actually allowed to stay the player avatar.

Like, Fire Emblem got really popular after Awakening, which further leaned into the whole player avatar thing that FE12 already introduced, and then followed up on that with Robin and Corrin. But because Fire Emblem really went in on spin-offs once it got popular, the player avatars started appearing in stuff like Smash, Warriors and Heroes, which meant that they just had to pick one appearance for them. Which, y'know, is fair enough. But it also means that all the customization options they had in Awakening and Fates are just completely swept under the rug, to the point that Byleth, Shez and Alear don't even have any customization anymore.

What I'm getting at here with regards to Xenoblade X is that I'm just glad that default male and female Cross haven't really solidified themselves as proper character into the fanbase, because.

Look at these. They just look so boring. Sure, male Cross has a sorta interesting colour scheme, but he's just so generic. And female Cross looks like she's meant to be around the same age as Lin, which I'd really rather not have be the case. X has so much customization for your player avatar, and I'm just really glad that that still exists in the minds of X fans.

[fantasyinvader]

Part of the discourse, I believe, is rooted in Byleth being Schrodinger's Player Character. Who is Byleth supposed to be: their own character or an avatar for the player? Byleth's a silent protagonist, much a Link, and while we can't customize their appearance we can change their name and birthday. However, that birthdate is fake and Jeralt's journal gives Byleth's actual birthday separate from what the player gives them (unless the player puts in that date themselves). Likewise, it's also implied that whatever name we give Byleth isn't the name they were given at birth, Rhea's the only one who could actually give them their birth name.

In a way, the identity we assign Byleth is just whatever false identity Jeralt gives them.

The game makes Silver Snow the natural progression of Byleth's story, that Byleth would reject working with Edelgard and her allies at the end of White Clouds. The decisions that unlock Flower instead are framed as “changing the story” within the game itself. As the story is meant to progress, Byleth wouldn't abandon their teaching duties to go to Enbarr at Edelgard's request. Hell, Byleth gains a paralogue by have a support level with Rhea and loses it if they turn on her. Regardless of class taught Byleth being a teacher is shown to be good for them, allowing them to actually experience emotions, and at the end of every White Clouds Byleth's would turn their sword against Edelgard unless the player has them act out of character and do things that change the story. They go from a mercenary who cuts people down without feeling a thing, with Hopes making it clear they don't enjoy such a life, to someone who wishes they could peacefully solve things unless they side with Edelgard and abandon Byleth's character.

Rhea though Byleth was an empty vessel for Sothis, only to learn they were their own person. Yet players treat Byleth as an extension of themselves, their own empty vessel to shape Fodlan as they see fit while complaining you can't “betray” Dimitri like you can Edelgard (never mind the devs said she betrays you) or that Claude doesn't go after the Church. People talk about how your choices matter in Fodlan, but the first choice you get is simply which class to teach which includes two routes without any real variation to them, and the third class has it so that the player can either stick to the script or join the villains. What kind of sense does that really make if that first decision will lock me into supporting the Church over Edelgard before I get to know anyone or anything about the setting?

Instead, our choices only seem to matter when we go against the story and side with the people we were supposed to fight and in the process kill/exile the heroes. Despite the clues that indicate how out of character it is for Byleth to join Edelgard, how they regress as a person, this is held up as a good thing because it seemingly validates not Byleth's choice but that of the player's. They see Byleth not as a character, but as an extension of themselves and therefore want Byleth to fight the Church despite all of what Edelgard and TWSITD did during White Clouds because the player believes they are the bad guys. The devs even said that Flower was thematically tied to having different beliefs... in a world built to support Silver Snow's story. Even when Edelgard is shown to withhold information or spread lies to her allies, people still choose to believe her and think that's okay because this path was their decision.

From a Buddhist perspective, their “self” has ended up leading them astray, yet they believe their “self” should be celebrated because they misunderstood the setting and acted based not on what the story was telling them but what they believed instead. Going even further, this way of thinking is pretty apt for the Asura path. It's the path of the Agarthans.

[kiochisato]

𐙚　ⵧ　Edeleth Icons　☆ ⵧ　rq by @demeurel ! no kin / me 4 edelgard unless u're whisper ! ♡　rb & cr to use　...⠀click me !

[stormiebreaks]

Awakened Byleth, built for @allowmetodemonstrate Valentine’s Day 2023 present to match her Savior King Dimitri from Christmas 2021. If you’ve never played Fire Emblem: Three Houses you’re missing out on an incredible game. I honestly can’t rave enough about FE3H. Hell, if I had an entire year off from work, I would make the academy versions and then time skip versions of every character, that’s how much this game means to Sai and I.

[chickalitta-dolls]

🎄Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays 🎄

Academy Dimitri is here to bring you some holiday cheer!

[pastelricky]

Remember how people would make Robin and Corrin versions of themselves in fe art? My favorite kind was when the artist would alter the outfits to make them more their own style. Well, I have never really seen that done with Byleth even though they literally are a blank slate for us to project onto!

I know we could customize Robin and Corrin, but come on....its fun.

So have how I would design myself as Byleth. This was fun to do. I should make some self insert art.

[randomnameless]

tbh, I stopped caring about houses that much when I found out that it's an otome/dating sim game with srpg gameplay sprinkled on top. In other FE games, you either gather supports by pair ups or by having units standing against one another. And mechanics like cooking in Fates were done to get some more stat boosts. And even if the avatarization of the game started with New Mystery, Robin and Corrin feel more like customizable characters than an avatar for the player.

In houses, Byleth is like every typical dating sim protag, that does not speak and the few times they do is by having the player choose options that may raise heart points with a character or lower them, you have to find lost items and when you give them back you gain heart points, you have to give them gifts to gain heart points and cooking now doesn't give you any beneficts in battle and only works for, you've guessed it, getting heart points. And let's not kid ourselves, tea time is like the "dates" in otome games, in which you can spam gifts till you raise the affection to the max. The only thing that distincts those points from the otome ones, is that those are necessary for proficency and for unit classes.

Heck, we even have a ring to give to the chosen blorbo in order to get a special custom made cutscene, when in pasts games getting an S support gave you a broken unit to deploy and a little blurb of text during the credits. And of course, calendar/day systems are also common in these tipes of games too.

People complained about awakening and fates for turning the franchise into a dating sim, but 3Houses is literally one in and of itself, and yet is praised as peack FE experience and as peack srpg.

(I could also argue that is because of this otome nature why the characters are "tell don't show" with their given trauma, unlike in pasts games when it was "show don't tell" (Nino, Reison, Camilla, Leif, Soren...))

Well,

When you put it like that, it becomes obvious that the other games (FEH, Engage) mentionning Fodlan are stuck on the uwu monastery part of the part 1 and not the, y'know, events happening that will lead to part 2 because as you said, the SRPG aspect is just "sprinkled on top" lol

However, the "pair up your units and build their relationships!" has been a non gameplay mechanics for decades now (FE4's was a gameplay mechanic, it had no support convos - FE6 added the support convos and gave a small gameplay boost but it didn't commit and we had no endings, FE7/8 had endings, FE9 had convos but FE10 removed them and yet had endings depending on the pairs, etc etc) even without avatars.

Then we entered the avatar era and if it added the "my waifu and my bae" shenanigans, FE13/14 were still more centered on the story aspect that on the "dating sim" aspect, as in, even if you could raise affinity with a character by doing X or Y, it wasn't really coded in a minigame - came FE16 which you analysed perfectly : tea time, gifts, eating, S-support CG, etc etc.

That being said, FE is a RPG, meaning it has characters : you play FE for the solid gameplay but you also build characters, and imo the best way to develop and write characters is to interconnect them with other characters, and/or with the plot/lore.

Sure, Arden functions as a wall/tank. But through the 5 lines he has, you learn that he is part of a group of knights, has friends who often tease him but is relied upon by those people and takes pride in that, he'd also like to find a wife someday and has self-esteem issues.

Is he as developped as, say, Xillia's Alvin? Hell no! But they're characters from two different genres, Arden has those 5 lines that puts him above any "generic" armor.

(I find it interesting how UO and in a way, FE11, gives you the opportunity to play with generics instead of playing with named characters, in UO generics will turn out to be better since you can change their growths, but they're generics. Do you want the RPG of the Tactics/Strategy aspect?)

So, I'd say that support conversations are important, I love Saias and Ralf to bits, but I'm sure I'd love them more if they had more lines. And since support through battle can be a chore (hello FE GBA and trying to get Bartre and Karla's supports when she joins 2 chapters before the end!), I initially welcome any way to grind those supports faster lol.

However, it can quickly spiral in, well, the otome mechanics we have in FE16 - if you want to build support then why not have an entire mini-game for that, and meals and chorals and whatever else?

It's all about finding balance between developping your characters without turning your game in a dating sim or what I'd call "playing the sims and pairing those dolls with those other dolls you like".

Still, let's not kid ourselves, nowadays the "dating sim" aspect of the series is, while decried by some, very popular - and FE is first and foremost, a series that has to sell.

3H is not peak SRPG not peak gaming experience or even in FE gameplay that'd be FE5 but I can't ignore the fact that its dating sim aspects might be part of the reason why it's still very popular.