#fire emblem community

[skelezomperman]

Random thoughts the second - On Hostility in the FE Community, Part 1

This past weekend, more or less, marked a year since an incident that took place here on Tumblr regarding the Fire Emblem: Three Houses community. Specifically, it involved an artist being run out of the fandom due to harassment. Even as a relatively uninvolved person, this incident has stuck in my mind for the past year as perhaps one of the most egregious things to come out of the four years of discourse over this game. If you, my audience of two or three, will indulge me, I have a few rambles - so much in fact that I have to split into two parts. The first part will focus on 3H specifically, and the second will be on the broader FE community.

As I was saying, about a year ago – towards the end of September 2022 – there was an incident which took place on Tumblr. This incident involved a fanartist for Three Houses who was a fan of the Blue Lions. They were rather obscure, or at least obscure enough to where I had never heard of them before this. The artist deleted their social media after allegedly experiencing harassment from Edelgard fans which was allegedly over a comment over Sitri. Afterwards, their Tumblr URL was hijacked by someone else and used to reblog a rant from a prominent Edelgard fan. In that post, the person denied responsibility but they said that the artist “got what they deserved” and that they “fucked around and found out.” While the posts in question have been deleted, I do have screenshots of this happening in case anyone wants to examine what was actually said rather than taking my description as fact.

Generally, this person and their followers have been held responsible for what happened to this fanartist, and this story has been passed around as fact to this day. I was personally angered when I heard of what happened, especially because of the brazen URL stealing, the lack of shame regarding what happened to this person, and how irrelevant they were in the grand scheme of things. (It's one thing if this happens to someone who compared Edelgard to Putin or called Dimitri a racist or something like that - as poor of an excuse it is to point to that, it's at least an excuse. This was beyond the pale.) It pains me to admit that I allowed anger to get the better of me, and I apologize that I did so.

Since then, there’s been an interesting allegation. 

I’ve seen that when this story has been brought up, other peoplehave claimed that the artist was harassed off the Internet by “their own fans” and that members of the…we’ll say “anti-Edelgard” group had framed Edelgard fans as being responsible.

Sadly, I cannot immediately disbelieve this allegation. Some of the reaction to this incident was quite exaggerated, especially with the attempt to drag Edelgard's VA (Cristina Vee Tara Platt) into this drama and with the digging up of years-old Discord posts. While I won't elaborate, I also have reason to believe that the anti-Edelgard crowd also has a complicated relationship with the truth. It may be simplest to believe that it is the Edelgard fans who are lying and that whoever stole the URL sympathized with them or collaborated with them, but as things stand, it's a he said-she said situation. I am not God and I don't know for sure what the harassment entailed or who stole the URL, so I cannot make an impartial judgment.

(As an aside, while I'm not interested in debating this incident publicly, my conscience does weigh on me for having possibly spread calumnies in the past. If anyone per chance has evidence that there really was a conspiracy to frame Edelgard fans as responsible for harassment, I ask that this evidence be emailed to skelezomperman@gmail.com. If you convince me that there really was a conspiracy, I will publicly apologize. If you send evidence but it doesn’t convince me, I won’t say anything in public, so don't feel afraid to reach out.)

So this is where things stand, one year after moonlitboar was run off Tumblr. It would be one thing if this quietly faded into the background, but to this day I still see people spread this story (probably because nothing happened with any of the people involved, as far as I know) and to this day I see people play the blame game over this. To me, the fact that this incident happened and that it continues to linger is symbolic of the fact that an entire section of our fandom has been turned into a wasteland where people are fearful to speak their mind. It was egregious, but certainly not the only incident. And I do not mean to be an "enlightened centrist," but this kind of thing certainly does not exclusively happen to BL fans and it is not exclusively perpetrated by Edelgard fans. Many different people from many different cliques are responsible for this petty conflict and I would say that it has left a negative impact across the broader FE community. At the very least, I hope we can all agree that this shouldn't have happened and this person did not deserve this, regardless of what they actually said. I freely admit that I am naïve, but I hope that one day this will be resolved - that not only will the actual truth be known, but that all those responsible will apologize and turn a new leaf.

I will address this last part to everyone who continues to be involved in debates over FE3H, whether it is here on Tumblr or elsewhere. I recognize that with some of you, I have lost credibility due to past actions, but I hope you will still listen. When we are at the point where there are accusations of conspiracies being lobbed between cliques, there is something wrong. Some people may be more to blame than others, but I do not believe anyone who continues to be involved can truly claim to be innocent. I recommend that you do an examination of conscience: in other words, to review if your activities to fandom are truly bettering yourself and others or if they are detrimental. Those who are fanning the flames of conflict are quite possibly hurting themselves more than other people! I will get more into this in the second half of the post, but please, I really recommend stepping back and taking a long look at what exactly you are bringing to our community.

If you are spending inordinate amount of times getting into arguments with other people about 3H, or if you see yourself as part of some kind of war, or if you are looking down on other people, or if you see yourself as a martyr, you should take a step back and consider if you actually being a positive influence or if you are part of the problem. Yes, some people do say really stupid, mind-blowingly dumb things, and I understand the temptation to rebut it - I feel it a lot. But it’s worth remembering that sometimes it’s best to just leave them alone and lay off. Lack of discretion is a big reason why many people have been made to feel unsafe in a community discussing a game that they love. Let me say this again: this entire conflict has made people feel unsafe to discuss a game that they love. Putting everything else aside, this alone should be enough to make anyone in this community feel ashamed. It is very regrettable and we should all review to see if we have contributed to that and what we can change to prevent that in the future. This includes being a bystander - if you see stuff like this happening, even if it's from someone you consider a friend, do not be afraid to step in and say something! Your small, humble action could make a huge difference for other people.

To those of you who have made it to the end...congratulations? You are probably asking: how is this thing that involves a few dozen people at most relevant to the broader FE community? Tomorrow or Friday, I will post the second half of this ramble in which I address hostility across the entire spectrum of intensity, from a simple backhanded comment to outright harassment like this. From there, we can perhaps truly discover what it means to be a welcoming community and better ourselves and each other.

Edit: The second part is finished! Go take a look. It's much more positive and uplifting than this post, a reflection more about how everyone can help solve the problem of hostility.

[creativesplat]

So: fire emblem community! I have a question (also this is assuming you like the art-style or writing or whatever it is being posted)

Please reblog for sample size!

Headcanons could include the height or weight of a character and therefore how they're drawn, or their favourite style of clothing, friendships they've made etc. so to random examples:

eg. M!Byleth is very tall, slim, and wears dark academia clothing and is good friends with M!Robin and Sumia

eg. F!Alear is married and has a dog, M!Alear is a cat person and both are good friends with Dimitri

[baconplasm]

(hands them over)

[flagwars]

Video Game Flag Wars: Finals

[latinosoles]

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE COMM TAMMAA @lovelymessybubbly

This is the first Act of a three parter Edeleth tk comic Tamma is working with me on. You can check out the following link to see all the pages, since it has nsfw hehehe.

Act 2 will have Edelgard get her karma >:3

[crimsonkingg22]

here it is! the comic that's been keeping me busy ;3

this was My first comic commission.. i'm very proud to Say that the client loved it (⁠｡⁠ﾉ⁠ω⁠＼⁠｡⁠)

i have another commission to do now but i'll try to post more about jjba soon! <⁠(⁠￣⁠︶⁠￣⁠)⁠>

renember you can ask for commissions on private chat! i do almost everything, if i can draw it i Will do it

byebyeee!!!

[squeaky-potat]

Happy Pride Month! 🏳️‍🌈

feat. Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude

[whumpusgumpus]

Give Dimitri one sneeze for every time Felix calls him a boar

Sorry this one’s messy was mad tired drawinv it last night but had to feed y’all

[milkahia]

Fire Emblem Rally for Gaza | Collections of illustrations

Ullr – Genealogy of the Holy War

Seliph and Larcei – Genealogy of the Holy War

Azura – Fates

Robin – Awakening

[rubindraws]

Last drawing style test + a whoooole bunch of ms paint memes and drawings from early 2024 that I legally couldn't post until revealing said characters in a campaign LMAO.....

Only important context here is that the setting is 2000+ years after the end of the old world and mr. catboy maid is looking for anyone in this godforsaken world that knows what anime is. After some wild adventures he ends up finding folks who's who job is to dig up/restore/document/preserve old communication methods and media and well,

needless to say their dynamic is very funny to think about

[skelezomperman]

Some random Thoughts the first

Here's some random thoughts about Fire Emblem that I'll post here since the Opinions Thread on Reddit is a bit late. Negative first, then positive.

Firstly, I've said this before but I think that the biggest casualty of incest being discussed in Fire Emblem is that it means that people cannot treat a brother and sister being affectionate to each other normally. Every time they do so much as share an embrace, you are sure to see someone claim that there is some kind of romantic undertone. I really, really just hate this. Can we just...not?

Secondly, there's a pattern I've noticed, a sort of temptation to get addicted to looking at other people's bad takes. It is certainly not hard to find people saying things that objectively make no sense, not especially on social media sites like Tumblr, Reddit, or Twitter/X. Sometimes it is so funny that you have to say something to someone else. But at the same time, it's easy to fall into this addiction to looking at bad takes. To make it a full-blown habit of spending so much time at looking at terrible things said on the Internet is extremely unhealthy! I am not saying this to laugh or to proclaim myself as better, because I too am guilty of gossip. But we are called to greater things than circlejerking off other people's faults.

---

We are honestly blessed to have so much talent in our community. Obviously, there's artists, but we also have talented writers, talented cosplayers, talented translators, talented analyzers. I see it when I see the subreddit, I see it on Twitter, I see it on Tumblr, I see it on Discord. My talent is nowhere near the talent that other people have. I can't draw, I can't really speak Japanese, and my creative skills amount to some middling writings. So to everyone who has this talent, I thank you for all you've done, and if you want to use your talents to enrich the community, I say go for it! I support you.

Have I mentioned before that I like Ivy from Fire Emblem: Engage? I will spare you the details of my months-long angsting with the fact that I like her. I've said repeatedly before that I would not die on a hill defending that character, but for once I'll say that I appreciate her. I appreciate that she isn't one-dimensional (contrary to popular belief, ghosts are not mentioned in every support she has). She's adept at maneuvering around many different people, whether it's with Alcryst who clearly still has bad feelings about what happened in Chapter 10, with her sister whom she wants to support despite the enmity between their mothers, or with someone like Mauvier who is in a similar situation to her. Yes, the worldbuilding in Elusia rings hollow just as it does throughout the game, but I still felt that she was fine with regards to fitting into the plot, perhaps more-so than any of the other royals in the game.

(In general, I think my enjoyment of Engage increases when I turn away from looking at posts where people say they dislike it. Then I feel less bad about liking Engage even if it went against a lot of what I was wanting out of future Fire Emblems.)

One last thing is that I want to just say that I like how many little things there are to discover about FE4. I'm in the process of building a group of docs comparing the various translations of FE4. It's been three years since I went through the work of putting together a script for Project Naga, and I'm still finding lines that I never knew existed. Who knew that there's actually a line for if you seized Lubeck (first castle in Chapter 5) with Byron somehow still being alive? Or that Ishtore's boss dialogue changes if you fight him before killing Liza? So many little details to appreciate from this game even if it does show its age.

[mairinsgale]

Repost of the very first Permafrost (Timairin) doodle from my self ship/yumeship blog <3 since it’s gone now

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

You know, as you wait for this Fire Emblem 4 remake of yours, you could always play In Stars And Time in the meantime, Stardust~

.

[atomeequark]

🤔 I had an impulse to make this and.

Byleth mod credit: histy

[dpsisquared]

Dimileth community update!!

Awesome news! Tumblr has finally allowed invite links for communities, so you can join the Dimileth community without having me add you manually!