#this one is for YOU FE Fates and FE Engage fans!!!

[krazieka2]

big things happening on my twitter rn

[emblemxeno]

Hot Take Time!

I think the breakthrough revelation that the Sonic fanbase had about the series' reception during the 2010's, where full-force sincerity in its stories was mocked for being cringe and willingness to stand out in both a gameplay and artistic sense resulted in beloved games being panned retroactively, can be easily applied to FE Engage.

Engage is the most fucking sincere plot the series has had in over a decade. Yes, despite being the guy whose fav FE game is Fates, I think that game was still bogged down by the prospect of following up the blowout success of a game like Awakening and had too many instances of putting in a lot of ideas to see what worked rather than putting the full weight behind a select few core elements.

SoV had the baggage of being a remake while still needing a modern appeal, and ended up with a lot of contradictory aspects. And 3H doesn't know what it wants to be and never did from the ground up.

Engage is different. It wanted to be a grand celebration of 30 years of this great series. It wanted pizazz. It wanted spectacle. It wanted to say "we fucking love this series and we love the fans who supported us."

The characters are flashy and striking to make you remember them. The music is bombastic, with a wide variety of styles so anyone can find a favorite track. The presentation is beautiful, with great visuals and phenomenal sound design. New uber powerful mechanics balanced out by incredible map design, supberb flow, and responsive game feel.

But the sincerity shines brightest with its narrative. The core messages are well written!

Sometimes knowing when to retreat is better than foolhardy bravery. It's always worth considering someone's background and feelings before casting them away. There's never a single easy solution to your problems, and if you think there is, you'll end up repeating the same mistakes. You can find family with anyone, and are not bound solely by those who you're born to. To live authentically as yourself is beautiful and should be celebrated.

The game believes all of those things to a degree which really hasn't been seen since the series was on the brink of death.

But that sincerity was treated as unpalatable, cringe, and plain awful.

The fandom for a series that routinely and infamously has terrible armor designs now suddenly throws a fit because "flower girl has silly dress" or "these characters have face paint/tattoos."

The single laziest form of criticism for FE casts that has permeated the community since Awakening released, that being "the cast is one note tropes that have no personality or development outside of them", came back in full fucking force with Engage.

And it's pretty damn sad. In my opinion, sincerity shouldn't be mocked. Sometimes, you should take a minute and ask yourself "Is it bad, or is it just not my thing? Am I writing off an entire cast's writing because I don't like some character designs? Do I have personal preferences that aren't being met in this instance, and should I learn to grapple with saying that instead of just writing off the product as fundamentally terrible or, at best, half-assed?"

At some point, looking inward and considering community wide commonalities has to be recognized as a factor for why products are received the way they are, rather than just laying blame at the devs' feet for "not making a good product that people wanted." After all, word of mouth is the reason why FE even got this far, considering FE1 was effectively a sleeper hit because people who played it spread the word despite mixed reviews.

TL-DR, Engage isn't cringe, YOU ARE!!!

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

To any 3h fan who feels like their side of the fandom gets overhated, I'm sorry, but the resentments been building up for years and the reality is that not enough of the fandom has actively attempted to combat it. I'm not saying I agree with all of it. I'm just saying it's not a problem that came out of nowhere

Let's just be honest

There is always a point where it doesn't matter how good it is or isn't. Getting an excessive amount of attention compared to everything else is gonna piss people off

There's also the repeated comment that props up 3h as being better because it's so different from everything else and that this is what the "true fe" should've been all along. Yes, there's a problem of other fans co-opting that statement to say "3h fans aren't real fe fans" but that's not entirely on them

There's also a constant issue of people viewing 3h as THE fire emblem game instead of the most popular one. There's a difference between recognizing its success and constantly shilling it as this golden child that the rest of franchise should uphold as its only means of success. That's not an uncommon statement

More seriously, there is a problem of the more toxic side of the 3h fandom actually insulting other games, not just fates and engage, but I've seen hate for shadow dragon and tellius for not having the same themes as 3h. I've even seen 3h fans saying that it's the only game with genuine character writing which is completely false

I'm not saying all the hate is justified nor am I saying all of you are at fault for it. I'm just saying the red flags have been building up for at least 4 years now. If someone has dealt with too much of the toxic part of the fandom, that's gonna be their view of the whole fandom unless the better part really fights to change that perspective

.

[four-loose-screws]

your translations are so interesting to read so thank you for posting them!! are there any relationships in fe you think come across differently in one version than the other? its interesting to think of how my faves might be taken totally differently in overseas fandom :3

Thank you for the feedback, knowing that I am helping people find interesting stuff is a complement of the highest order for me! I personally love learning things for no other reason than they are interesting.

For canon Japanese vs. localization pairing differences, I can’t think of too much off the top of my head, that I haven’t covered already - like Ike / Elincia, and the changes to underage characters’ S supports in the ‘3DS and beyond’ era (i.e. Kana, Engage’s Anna). Other changes have already been thoroughly explored by other fan translators too, like cousin relationships (i.e. Lucina / Owain) being labeled in localization as “companion” instead of romantic.

As far as fandom goes, I don’t know anywhere near as much as I would like to. I’ve dabbled in Japanese fanfiction and doujin here and there, but sadly there just aren’t enough hours in the day for me to read much beyond what’s needed for my translations.

If I knew more about Three Houses, I might have a lot more interesting things to say. Japan’s 3H discourse was much like the West’s at all. That has a significant impact on which pairings became popular for Three Houses. For example, I’ve heard that there’s waaaaay more Dimitri/Dedue shipping in Japan, because the discourse between the two characters was nothing like that in the West. However, 3H is personally one of my least favorite FEs, so I wasn’t very interested in delving into the fandom for it, even before considering the discourse. (I don’t like the gameplay of 3H at all, it’s painfully obvious that the game was outsourced to a dev team that’s never made an FE game before. The team did their best as newbies to the genre, but as a longtime fan, I was bored as heck.)

Moving on from Three Houses, pairings popular in the West are commonly the popular pairings in Japan too. Favorite pairings tend to involve the main characters, this never deviates much. I find it very boring, but understandable. Main characters get the most development, so there’s more fans can do with them. The best example I personally have for this is a Fates Xander-centered Japanese doujin I own. It’s a collection of several short stories and comics written by many different artists, and each work is supposed to be Xander shipped with someone different. Yet well over ⅓ of the works ship Xander / Ryoma. Even when we’re showcasing Xander / anyone, the fans still can’t help but mostly be horny for prince-on-prince action.

All that being said, there is one pairing I know of that was popular in Japan that I’ve never really seen in the West: Marth / Navarre! There was a whole Marth / Navarre shipping culture in 90’s Japan that didn’t travel over to the West, because of course, during the Famicom and Super Famicom eras, the West was still years away from knowing what Fire Emblem was. My Marth / Navarre doujin are some of the most neat ones on my shelf in my opinion, because not only are they in the beautiful 90’s anime art style of the time, but it’s also a rare opportunity to see Navarre drawn in his original brunet pretty boy design. (For those who don’t know, he became black-haired and more edgy over time. FE Warriors did bring back brunet Navarre, but I think he’s still edgier there than his original 90s art portrayed him.) 

…I don’t feel like I can offer as much to answer this ask as I’d like, but I hope those little bits of info were interesting at least!

If you have questions about a specific pairing, etc., go ahead and ask! Maybe a specific example will bring up something I know that I couldn’t remember off the top of my head.

[amitieos]

toa anniversary munday!

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Nic

Pronouns: they/them

Birthday (no year): 14th July

Where are you from? What is your time zone? UK, GMT (or BST but don't get me started on daylight savings I'll explode)

How long is your roleplay experience? Does playing A Bug's Life on the playground when I was 5 count? If not, I started with rping HP characters with my friends when I was like 11-12 over MSN after school and whilst there have been breaks it's something I've always found myself coming back to.

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? As above, I made a couple of friends on (unrelated) forums and we all just thought it'd be fun.

How were you introduced to TOA? I thought I missed rp and looked for an FE based rp.

Do you have any pets? Yes, all hail Catcat the Great.

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) Summer. I hate the heat and humiditiy but once there's no daylight the seasonal affective disorder bass boosts my chronic mental health issues and it's just a bad time really.

What is your IRL occupation? I've gone back to uni to study Law :)

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? I love reading, I'm fascinated by linguistics and astrophysics, enjoy DnD and playing video games in my spare time. I'm a particular sucker for the Sims franchise.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Recently I've been playing BG3, Stardew Valley, The Sims & Fields of Mistria but I'm a big fan of the Persona series and really, really excited about Dragon Age The Veilguard

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: I don't really play Pokemon much anymore but I'll just say Sylveon I guess

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! I met the fourth Doctor when I was 11 and he complemented my vocabulary lmao. I once got published in a poetry anthology with a poem about Shadow the Hedgehog and my parents we so proud of me.

How did you get into Fire Emblem? I think I saw a review on TV

What Fire Emblem games have you played? I've attempted to play every game except 1/2/3/5/11, although I've really wanted to play Thracia I just *need* some QoL updates and controls. I haven't finished every single one because of lost/deleted saves and stuff but I've watched playthroughs and read up on scripts on everything I haven't actually played myself.

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: My first was Fates but Jugdral, Magvel and 3 Houses are my favourite

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Elincia, Mercedes, Franz, Myrrh and ughhhh I can't choose between Chole/Yunaka/Sylvain so I'm cheating

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! I saw Ryoma in all that red armour and it grabbed my attention.

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 Miss Mercedes if you're free Thursday night

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: Chrom, originally be accident but now on purpose :D - Fates: My first was Takumi and I didn't know what an S support was and was very confused. Nowadays usually Kaze or Laslow if playing F!Corrin and Orochi, Nyx or Charlotte if playing M!Corrin. Niles for either. - Three Houses: Mercedes. She's still my go to ofc but I'm also fond of Dorothea, Dimitri and Sylvain. If I'm playing M!Byleth Yuri or Ingrid - Engage: Yunaka was my first and now it's either Yunaka, Diamant or Chloe. Or Mauvier maybe hahfsdgfsd

Favorite Fire Emblem class? I love Pegasus Knights!!!!!!!

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? Probably a reluctant recruit who accidentally gets involved. Weirdly magic based armoured character.

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) Either unaffiliated civilian or Blue Lions probably

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons: Lance, Reason, Heavy Armour Banes: Bow, Faith Budding Talent: idk Axes or Flying?

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) No idea! Probably Elusia or Firene. The Solm heat would literally kill me.

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) TOA ;) (like Noah)

Current TOA muses: Elincia & Mercedes

Past TOA muses? A lot but most memorable to me are Sylvain and Julia, though I'm so excited to see Sylvain in good hands <3

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Elincia and I still have her.

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? White magic girlies though I'm trying to change things up.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Hm, I wish I felt I could write more of the male characters I enjoy effectively. In most other fandoms I've written in most of my muses have been men but it's just not so in FE. I'd also love to write a villain okay I once genuinely considered Hilda FE4 lmao

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) I like writing dialogue and characters bonding but I'm starting to like more action oriented scenes too.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? For Mercedes in particular I get excited to write her steel and strength, especially when it's combined with her gentleness rather than opposed to it.

Favorite TOA-related memories? Every thread I've writen with Elincia and Rua's Byleth <3

Present or past tense? I tend to default to present in TOA but usually past tense. I'm flexible though and will try and match my partner.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? I actually find small text easier to focus in on and read (I can find normal a bit too cluttered and it can send my eyes wandering lmao) but I'm perfectly happy to use normal text, it just takes me a bit longer to comb through.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 I can't see a shake up happening soon but... Zephia or Chloe are probably forerunners. I've thought about Palla and Astrid too but I'm not sure if I can see the longevity. Also Neimi, Myrrh and Rodrigue have sparked.... ideas. For muses I've written before, Julia is the most likely but I think she's having a nice break right now :)

[mmoneystones]

𝐓𝐎𝐀 𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲 M𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲!

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Neku

Pronouns: he/they

Birthday (no year): Feb 24th

Where are you from? What is your time zone? North-Eastern NY with an EST time zone!

How long is your roleplay experience? About 2+ years now likely, with about half a year on indie and the rest from Discord RP (AKA just TOA)

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? Okay this is always a really funny story because when I was around 15 or so I was really getting into Puyo Puyo, both because funny puzzle game but the characters were actually really cool! Then like one of my random friends from that community had the idea for RP/worldbuilding and the rest is history I guess?? I don't do Puyo RP anymore but it was a nice start. c:

How were you introduced to TOA? After my indie experience went down the drain I stayed in contact with most of my close Tumblr FE RP friends and that included gamer N. He told me about TOA a while back before, but I only considered joining really after I started getting used to college life.

Do you have any pets? No, my only pet were like carnival goldfish that....yeah :(

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) Start of spring because while I like the colder seasons I feel sick AGAIN so I think the spring period is just my safest one.

What is your IRL occupation? University student until I learn what the hell I want to do with my life.

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? Small interests in music theory, game design, mathematics, musicals, uh....gaming. Yeah, gaming.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Smash Bros, Splatoon, The World Ends With You, Touhou Project, Trails/Kiseki, Celeste, a lot more Nintendo, honestly insert a lot of roguelikes here

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: I'm such a fake pokemon fan I stopped playing after Gen 6 but the Steel type is cool and Empoleon my beloved.

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! (Optional bonus challenge: if you filled this out last year, try not to repeat what you said back then!)

1) I have moderated a Touhou gacha server. Am I proud of it? No. 2) I can do a T-spin. I think that's pretty cool 3) I can beat Punch-Out on the Wii in a single session. It's probably easy to do but I love that game okay.

How did you get into Fire Emblem? Brother showed me FE7 on a totally legal GBA and I was like "wow cool!" Also Smash.

What Fire Emblem games have you played? It's on my mun page but I've played every (remade) FE game outside of FE5 (which I'm currently completing), 3 Hopes, and TMS. Quit FEH after like year 2.

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: First would be both FE7 and Awakening, favorites are FE15, FE9, and (until I lose the adrenaline) FE4.

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Okay 5 is a large ask when you say favorites but uhhhhh Mae, Ike, Anna, Flora, Shamir. They can fight over the top 5 spots like a battle royale.

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! Going off FE7 being my first I'd probably call out Marcus because haha strong earlygame prepromote go zoom. Fortunately that almost works depending on the FE game.

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 Ayra. Yeah.

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? I don't really care much for the S Support mechanic so I'm just writing these to call out my tastes. Probably no one I'd really consider to do with nowadays. - Awakening: Tiki - Fates: Honestly I cannot remember for the life of me for my sake I hope it was like Setsuna. Edit: fuck it was definitely Kagero. - Three Houses: Shamir - Engage: Ivy

Favorite Fire Emblem class? Pegasus Knight!

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? I don't want to be one but I'd likely be some armor class with axes or swords. I'd be playable with really middling stats so I'm either benched or the subject of a FE video essay on "why splorgius the axe knight is UNDERRATED???"

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) Golden Deer YIPPEE

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons: Lance, Gauntlets, Flying; Banes: Axe, Faith, Heavy Armor; Budding Talent: Authority

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) Brodia so I can convince Citrinne to donate to the commoners (it won't work.)

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) N has made me say To-Ah but if I am not being hypnotized it's separate letters.

Current TOA muses: Citrinne, Lene, Yuzu

Past TOA muses? Mae, Shamir, Sonya, Faye, Anna (FEH), Flora

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Mae, and I honestly could see it but only if other muses weren't picking so hard at my brain right now.

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) N has called me out for my sadgirl schtick, and...yeah. I think I've strayed from women that outright have traumatic moments define them, but it definitely is a sore spot in their lives. Unless you're Yuzu. You'd win.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? So this used to be like any single noble muse due to the inevitable struggle of writing around politics but I think Citrinne has been doing well sooooo let's just go with what the people want. Neku the male does not think he can write other men.

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) I still don't feel like I gravitate toward any real scenario but nowadays I have gotten less scared of dialogue to the point where I enjoy moments that allow muses to just talk to one another and bounce off each other.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? Nothing sticks to my mind right now for Citrinne; for Yuzu I need her mind to implode from Fates' route shenanigans; for Lene I need her to meet her mother :)

Favorite TOA-related memories? At this point it'd be Ball 2024 and Happyland since those are my most recent event memories. The mini-event I did with Sonya was very precious too.

Present or past tense? Try my darnest to keep it to present and I'm so sorry when it flops.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? I prefer to keep it to normal text when writing on my own end, never really saw the point for small, but I don't mind what others use.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 You know who you are.

[nowis-scales]

I'm too much of a coward to go off anon, but that reply to the FE fandom post of yours resonates with me a lot, especially the bit about going on a fandom rut due to FE's fanbase. Something similar happened to me in 2022 - I was active on FE Twitter, but had to leave because I was tired of pretending I liked games I did not and hated games I did like, just to prevent people from dogpiling on me and accusing me of truly heinous shit. I still haven't recovered either, and nowadays I just lurk on Tumblr from time to time.

There's a huge difference between expressing dislike for a game of a franchise you like (which is fine and completely normal! not everything has to appeal to you and that's okay), and actively insulting, harassing and stalking fans of said game (not okay). Certain parts of the Fire Emblem fandom (mostly Twitter, serenesforest and Reddit, but I've seen shit here on Tumblr too) seem to be unable to distinguish it.

We are more than allowed to call the fandom as a whole out over these behaviors. It's been going on for more than a decade (at least since Awakening's overseas release - probably even longer). This fanbase needs to chill and quit it with the animosity already.

No worries, I completely understand your concerns about anon! Still, if you're comfortable, you're welcome to interact off of it any time :)

I'm sorry to hear that you've had such a negative experience with other players. I've mostly only engaged with FE fandom on Tumblr personally, but I've definitely heard how rough the other places can be. Like if we were like "the incest in Fates is fine actually", maybe I could see people being reasonably upset, but me being like "yeah actually I like Fates and I think the Valla narrative is kinda cool" is definitely not grounds for being told I'm a homophobic incest lover who can't read or something like that.

You're very right though that some people just have such poor media engagement styles and skills that they just can't understand that a differing opinion is not grounds for middle school bully behaviour. I think fandoms who do this kind of shit should be called out on their behaviours, because when they do it, they stalk, harass, and shout down people for not following a vocal group's lead... and then whine about how their fandom is soooooo bad. Like whose fault do you think that is, exactly? Maybe if you don't want a fandom environment where everyone's a dick, maybe don't normalize fandom environments where it's okay for people to be dicks? Sorry, I'm cursing a little, but my patience in regards to this matter is rather thin at this point lol

I guess at the end of the day, it really just comes back to the fact that FE fandom never learned from its "you're an outsider" behaviour. It was blatantly clear to me when I got into this game series that as much as new fans have added to this fanbase, people still want to gatekeep the same way the veteran fans did when the new ones came in. Everyone just wants to feel like they're in the in-group, so they create an out-group. It's honestly kind of sad to see with a bunch of grown adults, but I think the key thing to remember is that everyone else's reaction to you enjoying Fates or Engage or any other game is literally their problem, and their problem alone. If you're not doing things that could seriously hurt someone else and are just embracing your own happiness, then you can be confident that these people just have way too much spare time. That doesn't mean, of course, that the way they act can't be hurtful... but it pays to remember that even with taking breaks, you shouldn't let a couple of people who could probably use a hug rather than access to a Twitter account make you feel less than. Chances are, they are not worth it.

[alexissara]

Why An FE4 Remake Cannot Happen

The Fire Emblem community has collectively decided because leaks have happened since the 3DS that Fire Emblem: Gemology of the Holy War is surly the next Fire Emblem Video Game and since then Genology Of The Holy War has surly been the next Fire Emblem video game we've had Three Houses, Three Hopes, and Fire Emblem Engage. However, I am here to say that I am sure that this is not the case and we will likely never see a remake of Fire Emblem 4.

The leaker on reddit who said FE Remake was coming along with other information about Engage said Gust worked on Fire Emblem Engage which was untrue, in fact no one from Koei worked on Engage. It is to say that outside of having screen shots from the Chinese localization and clearly some knowledge of the actual game that they likely simply talked to someone working in QA about they probably knew nothing else about the game for a fact. So we are simply going to disregard the rumors in this post and this is as far as I am willing to take it and instead focus on the reality and going over each reason why I do not believe a remake will happen.

Money

Fire Emblem Remakes do not make a lot of money. Shadow Dragon and New Mystery Of The Emblem were such big flops they almost killed the franchise and Echoes simply did not sell particularly well. The had a trajectory that was number go up then they did echoes and numbers went down that shot right back up for Three Houses higher than ever before before shooting way back down just above echoes with Engage.

It is likely that Echoes however was not a big failure for the series because it was in the same engine as Awakening/Fates and the development costs for a 3Ds game were pretty low. However, developing a game on switch is significantly higher especially when you consider the modern standards of Fire Emblem they would need to meet on a remake. Full Voice acting is extremely expensive for this game that would require full voice acting for Gen 1, gen 2 and gen 2's replacement characters all with supports and more. The amount of models and everything that would have to be put into the game is pretty big and making sure these massive maps look good is not going to be cheap either. The game is fundamentally not a cheap game to make in the current standards of quality that IS is holding the series too.

That is before anything new they add too which could add even higher costs to development with new writing, new characters, etc since it is unlikely to be the exact same script or the exact same gameplay. All of this on the backdrop of Engage objectively underperforming for recent series trends means that this game is a big money risk at a time where money resources are likely lower than normal or at least will be if this failed.

Audience

Who is the audience for FE4? Nostalgic Japanese players and the most hard core nerds everywhere else. However, that simply will not result in the sales needed so we need to think of what the current FE Audience wants and expects from their Video Games. If we just gauge fire emblem fans we know that Fire Emblem Heroes player base declines every year and so the small amount of players are typically dedicated Fire Emblem fans and even inside the small niche of dedicated FE fans banners based on Fire Emblem Holy War Adventures preform among the worst of a year. They almost never reach even the middle of the pact. We see this further represented in Chose Your Legends where Holy War characters even with a focused effort over multiple years have struggled to make it even near the top.

There was a time where maybe in a Game Of Thrones world where people would have devoured genealogy but that audience has died down from a cultural phenome to a dedicated fan base and casual, well a new season of house of dragons is something fantasy to watch crowd. I don't think this is going to court new players and while some FE fans who currently don't care for it might give it a shot if presented with a remake will it be enough to justify making the game? As it stands it seems like it could justify a 3Ds scale game maybe with reused assets but there simply isn't the same kind of infostructure of the switch with Houses and Engage being build in different engines entirely. So this game would need to find who it is for and then market it and marketing a remake is extra hard.

Story

The plot of FE4 is a massive hurdle of FE4 one so big I have a second section to cover it more but we'll cover it in broad strokes here. I am not a big fan of FE4 so forgive me for any inaccuracies but I intend to be broad and brief. FE4 starts as fairly typical fire emblem fair blue hair lord fights some baddies but we get into the death of most of your main party, not in some alternative future like in awakening but their on screen deaths. During which time our main lords love interest is brainwashed and made the bride of the villain who kills her husband and father of her previous child, she will go on to have sex with him under mind control multiple times producing multiple children. All the while many children are sacrificed to a dark god in child hunts. You fight back against this in a second generation of units embodied with holy blood of nobles with differing levels of how holy and important their blood is.

So you know, it's a lot, we'll touch on it more later, just ya know let that one cook while I write the rest of the stuff in between.

The Series Position

Fire Emblem is currently in a very delicate position of being a series on decline. With Engage selling worse than Awakening despite the switch having a much bigger install base and not having great word of mouth it is very unlikely the game will surpass Awakening let alone Fates or Three Houses. At current it is looking competitive with Three Hopes a spinoff game built in the same engine as houses that was a strange midquel and a warriors game. Fire Emblem Heroes player count is seemingly going down if we look at CYL voting year over year. So Fire Emblem as a brand, as a thing that makes money needs a big boost right now. The reality is a sales flop could tank the franchise. It was not that long ago that the series was on life support and Awakening was going to be the final FE game. At the moment Heroes is a massive money maker and they want to keep that money going they need new characters to get people hype about. The advent of Echoes did not provide a long term boost to the popularity of FE2 characters and those banners are not particularly high performers as made clear by their insistence on running the same few characters over and over. It is highly unlikely that FE4 remake would provide any kind of boost to heroes ability to take cash from people to gamble on JPEGs or make a ton of money for the franchise.

So what's left for FE4 to do is simply to damage the franchises reputation. If someone is a 1st time FE fan from buying Three Houses and they didn't like Engage which is just a fact that many people who bought Three Houses did not like Engage it is at the point where the FE subreddit banned talking shit about Engage [which is ridiculous] and the next game with the Fire Emblem game is likely make or break for the FE fans who loved Three Houses on if this series is for them or if it was a one time great game in a series that is otherwise not for them. Would FE4 appeal to a fan of Three Houses you need to consider that with your heart and soul, if the majority of people who loved Three Houses are excited for big maps with a lot of cavs, no avatar, tons of unit death, mustache twirling evil, etc. Right now the series needs to establish it's reputation and decide what it is that people should think when they think Fire Emblem.

Of course even if we think outside of Three Houses fans does it sound like something that awakening fans or fates fans might want and I don't really think that sounds right. The series is moving away from permadeath as a whole and having narrative permadeath is well a pretty big jump in the other direction for the game. Perhaps it's possible to do a smaller scale remake but that isn't what IS is known for doing given their schedule for game releases and the scale they like to release games at.

Controversy

I've touched on this in other sections but it bares repeating that this is probably the biggest factor of them all. Monster 3 is a very fan demanded game that has a full English translation at Nintendo they can use if people are to be believed but has not and will not ever be released in English. Why is this despite the fact that it would literally just be free money and press? Well it's because Nintendo does not want to be caught up in a controversy. The one element of the plot, one set of characters that are kinda racist and kinda transphobic are by themselves enough to hold back a full games release in the west. And the thing is that if they wrote them as intended the people who hate "woke" people would hate the same set of characters by calling them woke too and then their in a double hated situation and well it's a full fucking thing.

So then why then would they want to publish a game that is so loaded with potential controversies especially one that would need a bigger budget, one that would automatically have a smaller audience, and that would take IS's resources? Can you picture it now "New Nintendo game has beloved party member sexually assaulted and made to give birth to two children." It's like the Arieth sword scene for sickos. Not to mention all the child murder and everything potential other thing for negative press. It would be a really shaky ground to be working on even if it was locked in to make fates level sales, they were sure of it, it might not be worth the press they will get for it.

Then there is the controversy of what the game lacks. The series has a big queer fan base, that's just reality, and these people want to be reflected, it's clear because each FE game since awakening has increased the amount of queerness in it even the SoV remake. The game as it stands has no queerness, it's a eugenics simulator in act 1 where you are trying to build the most holy blood so you simply cannot do adoption unless you make the replacement units their adoptive kids but then do you just make gay people have an objectively harder time? Now you could say they have kids visa via magic if their gay or simply have gen 1 be straight but gen 2 be really queer since they don't need to have kids but these all require changes, additional work, and potentially more controversy. Once again put in a situation where queer fans might be upset and also the raging bigots will be mad. Now clearly the bigots don't really matter, they literally get mad about every video game they would say idk it's woke to ride a horse or something but it does put Nintendo into a position where the romantic elements are this massive pressure point.

Conclusion

If you love Fire Emblem Genealogy of The Holy War then the best you can hope for is that they release an offical translation one day maybe paired with 776 and it's a nice port. I want that for the games of these games but I do not think they can release a remake for all of the reasons above and I think it would actively be the worst decision for the future health of Intelligent Systems.

While this game is beloved by many and those fans deserve a way to play it officially in their native language, I simply do not see a future where it is a game that is remade. I personally wouldn't buy it so maybe I am biased in some way shape or form because I hate FE4 but in the end I don't think it would be so hard to simply translate FE4 and release it on switch online or something so people can enjoy it.

That said, you should give up hope for this, it is nothing but cope, it simply is not going to happen, I feel confident enough to make this post and I've thought about this for many many years because we've had rumors it was going to happen since Echoes came out [hence that first image from around the time FE4 remake on 3Ds leaks started]. It's simply not going to happen and what you can hope for instead is another game that brings the same things that you love about FE4 to happen be that in the indie space or from the Fire Emblem series. Talk about what you love about FE4 a lot and share how they are awesome and could help the FE series as a whole and SRPGs because that is the most likely juice to really get the sparks of someone's heart going into development.

And if your a hater like me we can simply sit back and enjoy the show, see what Fire Emblem brings us next be that a remake of some other game or a brand new Fire Emblem game. Maybe it will suck, maybe it'll be great, but I look forward to the future of the series even if hesitantly after Engage.

[synergysilhouette]

Remaking Fire Emblem: Awakening

I kinda did a remake with "Fates," so I thought I'd make one with Awakening. To be fair: this is all subjective. I'm not saying my choices would make the game more enjoyable for everyone or that it'd be objectively superior. And most of this is plot-related, based on my understanding (or lack thereof) of the game after playing it. I changed a lot, and I've experienced gatekeeping within the community before back in my Reddit days, so be nice with your feedback!

Fell Dragon relevancy and the reduction of villains--It's revealed in retrospect towards the end of the game that certain villains aren't what they seem. Aversa was brainwashed by Validar as a child, Walhart was actually trying to prevent Grima's revival (albeit earning everyone's ire in the process) and was being manipulated by Excellus. Along with this, Grima and Walhart aren't really villains who affect the overall story, moreso placeholders for the main event. Because of this, I'd prefer to keep the focus on Validar and the Fell Dragon Grima, without there having to be those "well, in actuality" moments (as a Kingdom Hearts fan, I'm tired of those)--though we could keep the Aversa being brainwashed subplot; in fact, I'd re-work it so after Validar kidnaps her, she's raised by him to become a friend/servant to Robin (more on that in a sec), so they're the only one who can truly break through to her. Walhart is less aggressive with his approach to destroying the Grimleal, asking for cooperation rather than trying to take over the whole continent and forcing everyone to help him (he'd be allies with Chon'sin and actually have Say'ri and Yen'fay join before later joining our ranks himself), and Gangrel is a begrudging ally to the team because it inconveniences him greatly if the world is destroyed, as it would anyone--plus he realizes his troops are planning to revolt against him and wants to make nice with the people of Ylisse in case he ever needs to abscond.

Robin's background--First off, keep in mind that "Fates" was my first game, and while it copied a lot of "Awakening" (and "Engage" would do the same), the latter will always be my second FE game, and thus I wanted to avoid some tropes. Robin being the child of Validar is kinda burying the lead, and their mother is an unseen NPC, which is a big pet peeve to me with customizable characters; I adore a backstory. Seeing how Corrin, Byleth, and Alear's backstories follow similar beats to Robin's, I'd prefer if we switched it up. I'd enjoy if, rather than going the "nice, mostly absent mom and evil dad" route the succeeding games would go, we instead make Validar a bit more grey. He is still a devout follower of Grima, but not by choice. Coming from a family of worshippers, he plans to defect with his wife and child, but when they are captured and threatened with death, Validar agrees to become a vessel to Grima. This fails and corrupts him, and he raises Robin as the next vessel, his love being twisted with a fixation and obsession with them. His wife helps Robin escape shortly before the events of the game, but she disappears shortly thereafter and is presumed dead. Robin no longer has amnesia here, but has been kept a secret from the outside world, and thus Frederick is correct in being hesitant to trust them, and Robin understands, slowly revealing their origins to Chrom and co. (the full of which is done before the end of Act I).

The confusing paradox/Lucina's Mission--If you weren't mad before, you probably will be now. I kinda found the explanation of "Grima from an alternate future came to the present, gave Robin amnesia and went back to square 1" explanation kinda confusing and convoluted. Given the fact that the future children don't return to their time period anyway, I'd rework the story so that the alternate future that they came from is destroyed, and the children are the last remnants of it. No Grima going back in time with them; he was a being of destruction that brought about his own demise, eventually. The children were simply given a new lease on life, as well as wanting to spare their past parents the heartache of it all.

Making the children from the same timeline--This would mean a lot of extra work, but I'd enjoy it if the story and support convos reflected each character's unique heritage depending on who their dominant parent married. This INCLUDES CHROM ACKNOWLEDGING HIS KIDS HAVING BRANDS. If you recall, that's a family trait, and Lucina (the daughter he has regardless of your choices) has it, and Inigo (a son he could potentially have with Olivia) also shows that he has it. Any other possible kids Chrom can have should also mention having or not having a brand, imo. Morgan's backstory also changes. Here, Morgan comes from the same timeline as the other children (which can potentially happen in the OG game, but mainly if they have a sibling to confirm this), and they maintain a bubbly attitude, albeit not as moronic/silly as in the OG game.

(Art found on Etsy)

Emmeryn and Philia survive--Since I've already reversed the (seemingly) deaths of Walhart, Aversa, and Gangrel, I wanted to focus on Emmeryn. In the game, Philia is killed while trying to save her, and she commits suicide to prevent Chrom from giving up the Fire Emblem. Emmeryn can survive in one of the paralogues, though how this is possible isn't stated, and she has amnesia that makes her somewhat child-like. In my rewrite, Philia and her knights--or at the very least, Philia--doesn't die, and manages to rescue Emmeryn, though she has been roughed up in the process (IDK if I'd still make it because of Gangrel or if it'd be from Validar; probably the latter), forcing Chrom to take the role as king.

Romance options are more flexible--This includes same-sex options for Robin. Obviously this is more of a bonus aspect rather than something that largely affects the story/gameplay, but as a gaymer, this is something I'd enjoy, as well as STILL having kids in this (Fates mentioned same-sex couples adopted, but they don't get xenologues or get to be part of the story at all). Of course, this doesn't mean we can have Robin/Chrom since there's emphasis on heirs and Chrom has a big wedding with a bridge (unless you wanna have them get married and have an offscreen surrogate, which would be neat). Concerning Chrom, I'd enjoy Miriel, Anna, Panne, Tharja, Phila, Say'ri, and Flavia being additional romance options for him (which could come with interesting consequences).

Olivia joins earlier--This is a nit-pick as a Olivia/Chrom fan (mainly because of him acknowledging Inigo more than his other extras kids), but I also enjoy having a dancer on the team earlier.

Perhaps a bit more background/attention for some characters--In games like "Fire Emblem," most of the characters' personality and background is shown in the form of their supports with other characters. This might be unachievable in the game, but I would like more inclusion of the characters who join; the ones who join earlier definitely feel like they fade to the background as the story goes on, and things like Ricken's admiration for Chrom, Tharja's obsession with Robin (cue "obsessive dad" flashbacks), and Stahl's training under Frederick are some of the things I wish the mains story would bring up here and there rather than confining it to convos.

It'd also be nice to have an open-world, exploration-style story like 3H and "Engage," but it's not a necessity; it's just a fun thing I'd enjoy. Plus actually letting us replay our convos like we're able to do in later games would be awesome.

And that's my take! I'm almost certain that I'm forgetting something, but I can always edit this later. Lemme know what you think!

[mild-lunacy]

The Women in Refrigerators

I've been reading a fantasy that's not a romance by an author I didn't know for decades (for whom I make exceptions), and it's the Tuyo series I recently talked about considering. I was thinking further about books I used to read before my romance fixation began, many more of which had been written by male authors, and the issues that led me-- again and again-- to quit those books in disgust. These are books I really enjoyed-- I considered them well-written, fun, engaging. I'm still a fan of Jim Butcher and Robert Jackson Bennett and haven't written them off entirely in my mind. I plan to come back to them, but. But. The trust has been broken, with these and other male fantasy and sci-fi authors, more than once. More than twice. Many times.

Thinking about how they broke my trust-- Bennett and Butcher specifically, but also others-- I realize what they have in common is the use of fridging, or the Women in Refrigerators trope.

If you read the book(s) in question, it's not like it stands out so horribly-- I mean, there's a plot reason for what happens to kill the female love interest. (Though in one egregious case I remember, the female main character dies after she actually has a baby, with the man who becomes the male main character after her death). It's not like I can't see why the woman 'has to die'. And yet-- mysteriously-- the male best friend almost never dies. The male love interest almost never dies in a non-romantic fantasy/sci-fi that nevertheless has a love interest, written by a female author. It's always that the men feel the need to do this. It just never clarified itself to me that this is what led me to quit reading and retreat to fanfic and/or romance, again and again.

In the case of Jim Butcher, this is an author I had trusted for decades (since the Dresden books are an old series). He has killed a love interest before, but she wasn't a major character, so it wasn't so bad. It's okay to kill minor love interests-- to be clear, plenty of female authors, even female authors writing fantasy romance do this. By 'minor', I mean they aren't super integral to the series, the books don't set them up at any great length, and they're 'just' a love interest.

For example, Sarah J Maas really loves killing off early male love interests in all her fantasy book series-- like clockwork. Same with Kim Harrison. The thing is, though, these early lost love interests-- while painful-- are nevertheless very clearly not that important overall. I don't even know how to explain this properly-- but there's a way to kill off love interests that doesn't feel gross. I don't know if I'd call it 'respectful'. Maybe? The Kim Harrison Hollows books have Rachel's vampire boyfriend, Kisten, die early on. It's a big character impact moment for Rachel, just as Dresden's girlfriends die and have an impact on Harry Dresden. But not so much of an impact on him. Or perhaps it's just a more self-centered kind of impact, possibly.

I don't want to tempt fate, but I'm reasonably certain female authors in general, and Maas or Harrison in particular, wouldn't kill off one half of an 'endgame' pairing. They'd face a reader rebellion, of course. But it's not even that.

I think it's the way these women die, and how they die no matter how important they are. No matter what, the feeling becomes, a woman is just not that important. Not even if she's the main character (though that's going a little far, to be fair).

It's not that I'm saying endgame pairings should have to be sacred or untouchable. It's more subtle than that, although maybe I'd even argue that. If you've spent book after book setting up a character arc and a relationship and built many arcs on top of it, to just discard it is disrespectful both to your characters and your readers, who've been there every step of the way. I guess it's just this sudden realization that they're 'just' characters, and on top of that, 'just' a love interest, and even, possibly, 'just' a female character. That last part is almost certainly uncharitably harsh-- it's just impossible to avoid the feeling.

The thing I like about series about a single character-- the thing I look for entirely outside any interest in romantic pairings-- is just this feeling of being with characters in other worlds that I know well, that I'm enjoying spending time with. They're my friends, almost. I'm 'friends' with Harry Dresden, in a sense, moreso than a 'fan'. And this is the context in which things happen. It's not that I take things personally, but rather that I want things to resolve in a way that's satisfying and comfortable, even if death is involved. With the death of Kisten in the Hollows series, that comfort is about the main character's memory of Kisten, the way he's framed and understood and contextualized later on. Just like in real life, death exists as part of the tapestry of life, and sometimes it's sudden, shocking and raw. But in stories I enjoy, it is... appropriate.

It's a hard thing to explain, except that I know when there's a lack of that respect, that sense of appropriateness. And I know this happens with some regularity with male authors writing about women. How very cliche.

[emblemxeno]

Honestly, the thing I hear so much of on Reddit FE is how much more "consistent" 3H is than Fates and how bad Fates's story is, and I'm like... when? Fates is infinitely more consistent in regards to its theming and consistency with how the characters' motivations clash with each other, while 3H feels inconsistent as hell! Fates wanted you to be curious enough to dig beyond a surface level and understand the whole picture! 3H didn't even expect people to play beyond their chosen route! Fates wants people to be willing to understand beyond their world and empathize with the other side, 3H wants to feed you a specific fantasy that it never challenges, subverts or breaks out of fear of incuring the wrath of people so emotionally immature they see any kind of portrayal as them not winning for the right inputs as a failure on the game's part than their ability to read into context.

This is something that, especially in hindsight, really bugs me with Odovakar. I'm done thinking about him for the most part, but one of his biggest capstones was that Fates told you one thing yet showed you another, like that was one of the biggest sins of the work. When... the dissonance was intentional in a way that actually interconnected between various snippets and details to construct a bigger picture, it never wasted a single line of dialogue to illustrates how fucked up the situation with the Nohrian royal family was! The siblings and their dead kin were forced into a death game and only four survived, with the good King Garon being warped from a reasonable figure into a twisted revenant with dementia who's not even a character so much Anankos impersonating as him! Everything in Fates's economy of details expects you to be paying attention and looking into things enough to get the full picture, and so many people are so bad at media literacy with games that they just cannot comprehend the story telling them something if it isn't spoonfed directly addressing the player! It's INFURIATING!

It's not a failure of Fates, it's a failure of people's willingness to use their imaginations and infer what's going on with the story and its world beyond what's being explicitly said using visual and detail clues for the full picture, this is what they literally teach in media literacy classes! And what do you think pisses me off the most? The storyline of two kingdoms full of good people being engaged in a pointless war where the Avatar has to side with one family of his or the other or risk everyone he loved dying, or a story that coddles and never challenges the notion the player has that they're always correct and justified in what they do even as we see blatant contradictions in the narrative just from subtext alone? 3H gives a comforting lie that's well explained, Fates gives an awful truth it expects you to get. And in a killing blow for any kind of comprehensive media analysis and what ruins my faith in the "hardcore" FE fandom, they choose the comforting lie because it's "executed" better... even when it really isn't, it just presents itself in a way that's more superficially appealing to people. They see the forced, unskippable scenes of your classmates talking about things where they really do not have any purpose in contributing to the scene other than the game shoving them into cutscenes and reminding you of their depths without having to do any interaction, then they see the mentions of pointless lore fluffings for things that don't matter, they soypog, and then they leave.

FE has always been about the humanity, love and emotions of the soldiers you control and learning to understand them better through social interaction and the camaraderie that overcomes hatred. It's always been about love, empathy and kickass swords. 3H is about so antithetical to the heart and soul of the series that I'd legitimately be less mad if it was its own series than trying to make FE into something it never was, but the hardcore fans want it to be, because I sincerely think they don't actually like this series, they just like the feeling of winning and being rewarded for the "correct" inputs as if FE isn't fundamentally a subjective experience in terms of gameplay and RNG and it being one of the most "use whoever" RPGs in existence. Unfortunately, those same fans are so belligerent and smug they basically control all forms of discussion in pretty much every dedicated FE fandom that isn't Tumblr, Mastodon or AO3. I've spent years of my life feeling isolated and shut out despite wanting to gush about this series to other people, only to be told I wasn't "admitting" Fates was somehow bad or that I had bad taste or whatever. It's insane how ass-backwards the fandom is, and 3H's cynical pandering to the group so terminally uncurious they refuse to actually see beyond their perspective and understand the world they play in being so dominant and toxic and centralizing is something I will never forgive that game for.

I don't think that it's where FE is destined to head. Intelligent Systems clearly gets the heart and soul of the franchise, and they have been at odds with the hardcore fandom in that respect almost ever since the start of Awakening. There's a reason why IntSys wasn't happy how popular 3H turned out to be, and that's because it's so against the core of their spirit ethos that I fell in love with. And if that ends up being the direction the series takes, I will never in posterity enjoy another FE ever again, especially when these hardcore fans represent so few among them compared to the majority of people who pick up and play these games.

Consistently awful maybe, OHHHHH GOTTEM

But being serious for a second, you're right. 3H at it's core is inconsistent, deliberately so at that. There one connecting theme of that game is "we have differing ideals" which is a fancy way of saying there isn't anything else.

Differing ideals is good for minor character subplots. It's the pathos behind the entire Camus/Tragic Loyal General archetype. But IMO it's not at all substantial when looked at with further scrutiny, because then you realize the game isn't saying anything. Your main character is a silent self insert whose main goal is supporting the actual main character in 3 of the 4 routes, all of them being dedicated to muddying any kind of moral, social, or logical coherence.

You're fighting Edelgard but she's not that bad! But also the other three factions are against her so we need a contrived excuse for why they aren't working together. And also we can't have Rhea be active in the plot anymore because that'd require quicker turn arounds on our mystery plotlines. And also we need to legitimize Edelgard's points on the church sometimes and never comment on the elephant in the room that she's invading two other nations because I guess that doesn't actually fucking matter.

Like, see where I'm heading? All of this stuff should be salient but it's treated as something to brush aside because there isn't a core to follow anywhere!

Fates had a core, mostly because Corrin was written with great intent and his character was crucial to the message of the game, that endless war and violence is foundationally nonsensical and destructive, and it should not be the norm.

There's an entire small country in Fates where it's so rock solid on anti-warring policy, that the two major countries respect it! Like, Izumo is a blip in Fates' overall narrative linearly speaking, but its autonomy is given more respect than any fucking major nation in Fodlan. The ELEMENTAL TRIBES have more respect given to them than Faerghus or Leicester.

3H's plot is essentially intricate character moments stuck together by extremely logically inconsistent and morally questionable chewing gum found in the gutter. And the character moments aren't even that much better than what was found in previous games!

And I agree, 3H's plot is kind of antithetical to FE as a whole. Which isn't to say that I'm scornful to anything that tries to be different, but it's the fact that 3H sacrifices cohesion and the basics of persuasive/captivating storytelling that irks me.

I'll never understand how people are so enthralled, because to me, characters having neat backstories backed up by well written prose does not make up for the glaring issues everywhere else. In fact, it only makes it seem worse than it might actually be.

[felikatze]

WGAT FAN EMBLEMS DO YOU HAVE. ARE THEY MAIN VERSE OR XENOLOGUE

I HAVE A LIST. I explained in the other ask i answered uhhh just now (link here) these are technically xenologue by virtue of being AU. Veyle-Alear roleswap that I have insane thoughts about thank you Salem. Once again Berkut & Rinea are the most well baked from a gameplay standpoint but I have other ones....

Quick n dirty AU rundown: Veyle-Alear roleswap! Alear is with Sombron and an alternate set of Four Hounds (Lapis, Kagetsu, Pandreo, Zephia. Salem's blorbos), and Veyle was taken in by Lumera. I also took the liberty of making the younger royals the plot important ones.... teehee

My fan emblems trend antagonist and/or possessed for thematic reasons and because it's fun. HOWEVER I excluded most main antags from the pool because I don't think Emblem Medeus would be very interesting from a character standpoint.

I actually made a list!! So I'd have one from every game (this was also brainstormed with Salem lol). I don't have full knowledge of every FE ever and a lot of FEs I am significantly less insane about than The Usual Suspects (Binding Blade, Awakening, now Engage), so you do notice a lot of bias in what has the most detail, lmao.

Anyway. You get the list.

Archanea: Maria. (100% inspired by fell Maria in heroes, lol. LISTEN IT'D BE SO THEMATIC FOR VEYLE THO. Little girl who just wants her big siblings back. Maria would be Veyle's Marth - her first Emblem, and the one closest to her. I still gotta play the Archanea games but... the potential.)

Valentia: Berkut & Rinea (Firene Emblem. Elaborated on in the other post!!)

Jugdral (Fe4): I am not wise enough just yet.... probably Julius.

Jugdral (Fe5): I don't know <3 Ishtar? Reinhardt? Mareeta? I like the thought of Mareeta from what I know abt her actually.

Elibe (Fe6): IDUNN MY GIRL IDUNN. (She'd be Lumera's Emblem as Sigurd equivalent. Sleeping dragon guided by Sleeping Dragon... I love Idunn... I have Thoughts about her.... okay....)

Elibe (Fe7): Ninian (She's Elusia's Emblem!! I have thoughts about her & Hortensia...)

Magvel: Lyon (this was the one and only pick, really.)

Tellius (Fe9): Black Knight (Salem's suggestion, but it works! God I need to beat Radiant Dawn...)

Tellius (Fe10): My initial suggestion was Pelleas but Sothe is also tempting (god I need to beat Radiant Dawn.... 2!!!)

Ylisse: GRIMA. WHO ELSE. (i'd put him down where Corrin is, as the second Solm emblem. Haha Grima you got trapped in a desert temple again.) (Either that or I swap him with Lucina for funny points)

Fates: Takumi (conquest flavored! he is not doing too hot! He's Brodia's Emblem same reason as Berkut: it would remind him of Nohr and he hates being here. Has a soft spot for Alcryst, though. OF COURSE I gave him to Alcryst.)

Fodlan: Shez. For the funnies. (shez's super form is obviously the engaged look. I'd make them Solm's primary Emblem, because I feel like they and Fogado would be friends. But then Shez goes Revenge Mode and Fogado is like. dude. chill. you're scaring the hoes.)

And that's my full list!! The only ones who have gameplay ideas attached to them so far are Berkut & Rinea, Idunn, Takumi, and Shez, for a perfect gender ratio as I've non-biney'd Shez. Because of course I have.

[burr-ell]

What are your thoughts on the backlash 3H has been getting nowadays in the FE fandom? I can understand where some of it is coming from; discourse, Fodlan fatigue/overexposure, people nonstop comparing the game to Engage to bash the latter, and some of the people bitter that Fates got hate, but at the same time, some of the backlash feels like a retaliation and bordering on gatekeeping.

Honestly? About the same as what you said, pretty much. What with the massive newbie boom it sparked (I would know; I was one of them), 3H brought a lot of new fans into the series that probably wouldn't have gotten interested in it otherwise—but that increased popularity also brought in more people who are inclined to project a narrative instead of engaging with the one they got, not to mention more of the stupid purity discourse and moralizing. (Fun fact: I don't have a problem with people who ship Byleth/Students or Corrin/Royals because it's not that deep and I'm also not an evangelical.) Add to that the fact that it was massively successful and therefore sells banners in FEH, and it's not surprising that it's tiresome for people.

Someone else was talking about this earlier today in a different fandom, but the thing is, if I already like something? A terrible fandom won't make me dislike it. But if I'm neutral-to-negative on something, I'm more inclined to have an obnoxious fandom inform my opinion on it. I think it's totally understandable that people who weren't even all that jazzed about 3H in the first place would start to turn on it for the reasons you mentioned. That's why I think it's important to post about things you enjoy! It's why I like to reblog fanart I like as much as I see it, and post the things I like when the mood strikes me, and still do that thing people used to do in the Before Times and have personalized tags for my faves. Because I see the flaws in 3H, absolutely, but it's still my favorite game in the series, and I'd rather vocally enjoy it than get bogged down by people who haven't known the touch of the sun since before the pandemic.

I guess my thing is, at the end of the day Fates and Awakening got hype backlash too; in a couple years people will wax lyrical about how great 3H was. Until then, I'll enjoy it by myself if I have to.

[swiftscion]

TOA anniversary munday!

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

tagging: you. yes, you.

Name: Orokara

Pronouns: he/they

Birthday (no year): February 3

Where are you from? What is your time zone? Canada; EST

Roleplay experience: I have no idea but probably something like 7 or 8 years at this point

Got any pets? Just a few fish, if you can count those

Favorite time of year: Spring! It feels really nice when the days start to get longer

Some interests and things you like: Mythology, music and playlist making, reading, animanga, cooking, random video essays, biology

Some fun facts & trivia about you: I used to moderate a few roleplay groups and a Pixelmon server myself, though those interests all died. I share a birthday with Hilda Goneril. I have an awful habit of starting things and then never finishing them. I like wearing bracelets and golf clothing. I crack my neck like all the time.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Currently, Honkai: Star Rail, League of Legends, and Flight Rising. I'm also a big fan of the Pokemon series (and fan games), Project Moon games, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Ultrakill, and Omori. Currently looking for people to play Stardew Valley with me ehe

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Ghost and Grass. I used to be a grass-type gym leader on the Pixelmon server i helped run, and Appletun was my ace. Did you know that due to its ability thick fat and partial dragon typing, it actually resists fire moves? Many of my challengers didn't ;) my other faves are Hisiuan Zoroark, and Altaria!

How did you get into Fire Emblem? I liked Ike from Smash Brothers Brawl and on a whim decided to play Path of Radiance one day. It was one of my first emulator experiences. I let Rhys and Soren die on the first map they were available and never reset for them. It was bad.

What Fire Emblem games have you played? All mainlines at least once, plus feh

First Fire Emblem game: Path of Radiance!

Favorite Fire Emblem game: Blazing Blade, Binding Blade, and Genealogy in no particular order

Any Fire Emblem crushes? Kagetsu, Shannan, DIECK, Tibarn, Gerik, Selena/Severa

If you’ve played the following games, who was your first S support? Awakening - I don't remember but most recent is Chrom. Fates - Selena. Three Houses - Marianne. Engage - Mauvier

Favorite Fire Emblem class: Swordmaster but I use early game pegasus knights and thieves religiously. Dodgetanking is my favorite thing ever

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class? Navarre archetype myrmidon

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? Fear the Deer baby!

If you were an Engage character, which Emblem would you Engage with? Emblem Ike so I can run into an entire pack of enemies and slap the great aether button

How did you find TOA? Got invited after i was struggling as like. the only fe4 fan in a discord group that mostly wrote modern fe titles

Current TOA muses: Larcei, Owain, Sain

Who was your first TOA muse? If you don’t have them anymore, could you see yourself picking them up again? Larcei! Though she has come and gone

Have you had any other TOA muses? Ough I might not remember them all but I think the list is: Lewyn, Elm, Sirius, L'Arachel, Ryoma, Idunn

Do you think you have a type of character you gravitate towards? This might sound crazy considering my muselist but edgy swordsmen... I think people who grapple with feelings of revenge, hatred, and guilt are so interesting to delve into the psychology of. Lif is probably my all-time fave, if that says anything about me

What do you believe you enjoy writing the most? Slow and steady character growth. I like it so much when my muses become long-term friends with other ones. Owain and Julius, Larcei and Edward, Sain and Caeda, etc etc. Gaining a new reason to wake up in the morning and all the implications of that is always a joy to hash out over the course over multiple posts

Favorite TOA-related memory: The time Sirius and Est kept being forced to attack eachother by an arena boss, but whiffed all their rolls. Darcy and I wrote it with this little tongue-and-cheek bit where they kept saying "now isn't the time for sparring" before misdirecting yet another attack and writing Sirius' feelings regarding her, his past in Archanea, and the present state of that arena was real fun. Shoutout to N's Leif for the incredible setting of a really dark cave, too!

How do you pronounce TOA?: Sometimes I pronounce each letter individually and sometimes I say "towah". I am mad inconsistent sorry

Got any delusions that didn’t see the light of day in TOA that you’d like to share? Fuck it have my whole delusion list: Rutger, Fergus, Lif, The Vaike, Lewyn (again), Osian, Melady, Orson, Zihark, Louis, Kagetsu, Libra, Lon'qu

[tinnictheguardian]

Ideas for new Fodlan Fire Emblem games

Okay, so Fire Emblem Engage is out, and it's set in a whole new World. However, it should be noted that Fire Emblem has released additional games in the same world entries apart. Notably, the worlds of Archanea, Jugdral and Valentia are all connected and set on the same planet but are thousands of years apart. Also, Fates and Awakening are set in the same world at the same time, just on different continents.

So while I think that the chances of us getting a DLC for either Three Houses or even Three Hopes that continues one or more routes is less likely, it is possible we can get more Fire Emblem games set in the world of Fodlan. This is in keeping with how IS has operated in the past, and the world of Fodlan is popular enough to warrant a second look.

So here are my ideas about when in time new Fire Emblem games set in Fodlan could take place.

The War of the Eagle and Lion

This is the most obvious period in Fodlan's timeline given that, based on the information we have FE3H, Loog and Kyphon used special weapons and soldiers provided by the mysterious tactician Pan. So Pan is your ready-made protagonist for an FE game. They were supposedly from the TWSITD, and it's made very clear that Loog and Kyphon were NOT used relics because the Church had their relics and only returned the relics to the Kingdom families after they became independent so they had the fighting strength to stay independent from the much more powerful Empire. So the potential FE game could have its own gimmick that's not relics.

Furthermore, the game set during the time of the War of Eagle and Lion would have at least two returning characters: Rhea and a youth Jeralt, who is pretty much confirmed to be from Faerghus and joining Rhea around that time initially as a bodyguard and then joining a knight of Serios when she shared her blood with him, thus giving him his crest, in order to save his life.

Other characters, such as Aubin, who we know lived long enough to share his blood with Yuri so as to give him his crest, would have been younger and potentially a unit you could play with. I don't expect to see Flayn because she was still sleeping or Seteth because Jeralt confirms he never met Seteth until his return to the Monastery. But the devs could maybe give Macuil and Indech non-beast forms and have them play a role... there are options, is all I am saying!

The story, in this case would be as linear as Engage because we know how it ends, Kingdom becomes independent from the Empire.

The Almyra Tales

Claude has the potential to live in all four routes and leaves for Almyra in all four routes. While he only gives his relic to Dimitri explicitly. You could just add a few lines of dialogue to explain why he doesn't have his relic at the beginning of a story about how Claude Khalid works with plucky Almyran tactician to secure the throne of Almyra.

IS could do this would out confirming a canon route for FE3H and have the potential to having branching stories because this isn't the past. Three Hopes Character Shahid would, of course, be able to make an appearance in this game.

Saint Serios

Go back in the time to help Rhea fight Nemesis or side with Nemesis and bring about a what-if world... I frankly don't see this one being on the cards because I don't think this would be of interest to the general FE fan. It could be a great Warriors edition because fans of Fodlan would pick-up a title like this to see what the world was like when Rhea got her revenge. It's also not a time which has a built in protagonist because we know Seteth was the tactician. But then again, would anyone cry foul if IS created random character X to be the protagonist of such a title?

Distant past/Distant future

Awakening and Fates was set 2000 years after Shadow Dragon, Gaiden etc, while Genealogy and Thracia are set 1000 years before Shadow Dragon, Gaiden.

Now we all know that Fodlan is that FE3H is a post-apocalypse world where in the distant past, humanity was much more advanced. Ballistic missiles advanced. So if IS wanted to bring FEH Niðavellir style mechs, or revisit the steampunk idea they were exploring for Awakening in the world of Fodlan. They could potentially set it in the distant past of Fodlan, when Sothis was alive and walking among mortals and humans as a whole had a lot more magi-tech.

Alternatively, we could have a game set in the distant future of Fodlan and it could be science fantasy plus sword and sandals like Harvestella or like they did with Awakening and Fates, just stick to more medieval stuff.

The game I want but won't get

So I did list these ideas roughly in "most likely" to "least likely" and this is the least likely but the game I want the most. That is, just acknowledge Azure Moon as the canon route, which means that almost all the characters, except for Hubert, Jeritza and Edelgard, have the potential to live. Just assume they all lived and procreated and you get to play with the kids.

You can import your saves from FE3H into the new game and the child characters have different stats based on who you S-supported, Awakening style. Also obviously if you played classic and didn't recruit/save X, you don't get X's descendants. But if you start a new clean game, the world assumes all characters were recruited, maybe you can some default S-supports or it's implied they all married off-stage characters and the child units therefore have default stats.

This incentivises new players to go back and buy FE3H, without making it impossible for this FE instalment to be a persons' first FE or at least first Fodlan FE.

As for who would be the enemies, well I heard some devs say that with Engage, they were exploring the idea of FE as not a war game but an adventure game. So just send the kids on an adventure!

Alternatively, given that homunculus technology exists in Fodlan, just bring back Edelgard as a homunculus and build her a faction with what remains of TWSITD, Impedial royalist + a Foreign power that aims to topple United Fodlan.

As I said, this is the most unlikely but it's the one I would want the most.

[gascon-en-exil]

In your opionion is there things that Engage did better than 3 Houses or things they did worse than 3 Houses ? if that is the case, which one and why ?

Those are two different questions, and ones that people have been bandying about online for months now. I thought for about five minutes about turning this into a video prompt, but there's already plenty exactly like this on YouTube - plus I'm currently working on way too much as it is.

What FE16 does better than FE17:

In general, character work - I say in general because there are characters I like in Engage and characters I very much don't in Houses, but the more substantive supports and other side interactions in the latter help the cast stand out more. They're also broken up more, so it's easier to focus on the groups you enjoy.

Non-Avatar queerness - So much lovely subtext, so many paired endings. I've done multiple videos centering around them, even. I said in a video a few months back that I dislike how so many of Engage's non-Avatar supports end with bland affirmations of friendship, which in combination with the lack of endings really kills the potential of pairings like Fogado/Bunet and Timerra/Merrin. Dimidue though? When their A support pivots around the word "friend" you just know that it's a euphemism, and that they'll be calling each other that mid-coitus that evening. Throw in around a dozen other pairings who've gotten big based on subtext and you've got a bunch to choose from.

Cozy life sim elements - The Somniel may be more streamlined and its loading screens slightly less agonizing, but the monastery better nails the feel of a persistent hub area - even if its coziness kind of undercuts the tone of the game's second half. This isn't something I'm really into, but I know a lot of fans get into stuff like gardening and fishing and tea time, and the calendar system and (weird) time progression does make Houses feel more like a life sim in contrast to the Somniel and its randomized character loadouts. Also, Engage has way more to grind for if you want to see everything, which is annoying. This is in contrast to...

100% Completion - It may be something only I care about, but Houses goes above and beyond any other mainline FE if you're a completionist. Of course there's the support logs and event gallery and such (features Engage doesn't even manage correctly), but there's also the in-game journal which provides a ludicrous but still doable 100% target in the form of watching a whole bunch of bars fill up very slowly over dozens of playthroughs. This requires so many spreadsheets to keep organized - love it!

What FE17 does better than FE16:

Story originality - Yes, really. Houses's story is three variations on the series standard plot, plus one other option - side with the conqueror -that Fates came up with first. Engage is the least politically-interested game in the series, and it barely even teases at a mundane war between nations before it's back to fighting zombies and collecting rings. Original doesn't necessarily mean good, but at least Engage knows exactly what kind of story it's trying to tell and what it can feasibly expect to do.

Tangible, linear worldbuilding - Engage isn't as ambitious, but it's more successful thanks to more traditional FE worldbuilding tools like talking to NPCs around the world as opposed to gathering them all in hub. The single story also helps keeps everything orderly and easy to understand, rather than going for an unreliable narrator + mystery box approach across multiple routes and half-assing the execution.

The Avatar - No contest here. Alear is an actual character with an identifiable arc, and while it's not the most compelling thing in the world it's leagues ahead of anything Byleth can claim. Byleth is a blank vessel for the player (and also Sothis for a while, lending them some facsimile of a character in the form of her reactions) with a ludicrously contrived backstory to justify why they are the way they are; Alear has fears and development and a backstory that's coherent even if it relies on a fair amount of cliché. Also, even in localization Alear as a god complex fantasy is undeniable, whereas Houses bends over backwards to act like a main source of its appeal isn't teacher-student sex. Speaking of -

Avatar queerness - Again, no contest - not that I especially care. Byleth's same-sex S rank options are limited, while Alear can give their not!engagement ring to every character regardless of gender, a huge step up in open-ended self-insert romance that gets mostly overlooked because they can also give the ring to preteens.

Understanding of FE's camp appeal - The above only underlines how much better Engage can be when it comes to the campy and the tasteless. From the ridiculous outfits to the Emblem stuff being compared to Saturday morning cartoons or Power Rangers or such to Zephia/Zelestia to the AU dragon incest wank nonsense, Engage wears its silliness on its sleeve. Houses doesn't totally lack that element, with stuff like the Proper Conduct Tournament and Manuela's...everything, basically, but like the teacher-student fetish it's hidden beneath this veneer of respectability that begins to grate after a while. Most of that is probably just overcorrection for the poor response to that sort of content in Fates, but it obviously didn't stick...not even for Fódlan content in Heroes. Look at the new duo Cathmir, and tell me these characters still aren't being sold on sex appeal aimed primarily at straight men.

Handling of characters of color - Not something I discuss often, but it has to be said. Solm is as developed of any of the other main four nations of Elyos, with just about as much of a role in the story and a presence in gameplay (i.e. you spend around half a dozen chapters there). There are still some oddities, like how the royals and NPCs are all dark-skinned but the retainer characters aren't, but compared to the various periphery nations of Fódlan it's a real standout and actually feels like a part of the world. Sreng is a plot device in Hopes, and even less than that in Houses. Duscur, Brigid, and Dagda basically only exist in relation to Dedue, Petra, and Shamir respectively. Even Almyra, from which we get two playable characters including one of the lords, barely appears at all, and most of Claude's Almyran heritage is left out of his writing because he spends the whole game disguising his identity.

Standard gameplay - I play on Normal and freely abuse time rewinding so my opinion here isn't going to be held in any regard, but go check out anywhere Engage is being discussed online and you'll see tons of tier lists and comparisons of builds and chapters and Emblems and whatever else. You know, the things that people ordinarily talk about when it comes to FE, and not -

Less enabling of toxic fandom elements - The inbuilt faction drama in a faux-serious war story, the continued growth of the anti phenomenon first seen when Fates was current, and a years-long global pandemic fostered endless division and conflict that persists to this day. It somehow even continues a year after the release of Hopes, now in the form of bashing Engage because it didn't sell as much (while still talking about its gameplay way more than I could ever bother, go figure) and IS is being more conservative with its Heroes appearances. There's still pointless nonsense to argue about here - like the aforementioned incest wank - but there's far less of it in a linear story that doesn't encourage players to latch as hard onto their favorites.

Non-100% replay value - Related to the gameplay, if you're not going for all the supports/bonds/achievements there's much more variety you can pull out of repeat playthroughs of Engage via the standard ways to mix up your runs in FE: using different characters, allocating resources differently, limiting yourself in certain ways etc. Houses's gameplay is so freeform and has such clear best options that for replays you're relying on the story...and there's exactly four stories. Worse, White Clouds is almost the same regardless of house, and there's a bunch of crossover content among the Part II routes as well, even Crimson Flower, which leads to it all feeling quite repetitive even if the narratives technically go to different places.

Nostalgic throwbacks - Not only the Emblems, but also the many legacy paralogues. These were a fun element of Awakening and Fates's DLC, and it's nice to see them brought back here with a bunch of callbacks for fans of those older games. Houses has...its batch of DLC classes all coming from Awakening, and the Archanean regalia appearing as random drops. Oh, and probably the least notable playable version of Anna ever.

Absurdly cute mascot factor - Could have talked about this under the camp factor, but some players get really into how adorable Sommie is. It's a fount of memes and goofy videos if nothing else. Is IS taking notes from Pokémon?

And yet I still prefer FE16 overall, because it better caters to my specific interests (gay stuff that doesn't involve Avatars, spreadsheets). The years of fandom toxicity are unfortunate, but I've grown accustomed to laughing at it when it amuses me and ignoring it when it doesn't.