#I didn't mention FE5 because lol

[cat-denied]

1, 9, & 11 for the salty asks?

thanks for asking! gonna go ahead and answer these for fire emblem since thats the fandom im most active in as a fandom

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

oh man, a lot. a lot of heterosexual ones, i feel like? alm/celica. merric/elice feels so abrupt and meaningless in the way that basically any of the non-main-protagonist NES game relationships do, even when they try to retcon it in in the remakes, because it just...forget chemistry, they don't have any interactions! like what!!

felix/sylvain. like, i dunno, i just don't really feel any emotions looking at these two. they are fine? they're fine. i don't...that's it. lmao

also, honestly to an extent i don't really get tharja/robin in awakening. like, i love both characters on their own, but they don't really gel for me in the same way they seem to for a whole lotta other people lol.

ALSO! not fire emblem and i am not in a "fandom" as such for full metal alchemist but shipping roy mustang and riza hawkeye Does Not Gel For Me. i get why people do it but like...i do not understand it.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

i bear grudges especially towards Arvis FE4 (because the narrative treats him as noble and well-intentioned, and basically just tells us that he means good without doing literally anything to back it up) and Gray Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (because i am so fucking sick to death of "guy bothers uninterested woman until she relents into having a relationship with him" AND they always end up in a fucking relationship in their end cards even if you didn't unlock any of their supports).

also shoutouts to olwen FE5, who rules hard and who i love don't get me wrong, but whose supporting cast (fred and reinhardt) are like...way less cool than her. i especially do not vibe with reinhardt, considering he chooses not to defect despite presumably knowing about the child hunts (!), meaning the intended arc of "tragically you cant recruit this cool dude" falls flat because...is he really that cool if he can't be arsed to stop perpetuating tangible horrific evils in fiction? then again, he is working with ishtar, who is described as saving as many kids as possible--but also that only gets mentioned in her other game, which means it's not brought up directly with reinhardt--look the point is i'm not interested in him he's a boring man and i don't know why he has sixteen different alts in Heroes when olwen has one. olwen is the cooler fucking sibling get a grip lmao

i also hate virion (any man who is introduced chasing after a vocally uninterested woman is not worth my while, doubly so if he does not have any sort of tangible character arc), berkut (GOD. AWFUL man. somehow manages to fridge his own wife??? you should be able to recruit rinea in echoes i am forever peeved about this. he's an excellent villain all the way up until you can't recruit rinea about it), and perne (because the narrative apparently believes that kidnapping and torturing a young girl into doing your bidding via frightening her with insects is, like, not a big deal you guys don't sweat it).

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

i love Kris from new mystery of the emblem, i think she rules, she's a goofus. big fan. also all the new mystery gang tbh. i would say i don't understand why people hate her so much, except i do, and it's the same old same old "everything was better in the old days, when we didn't have support conversations or characters with more than 1 line of dialogue" that you get in every fandom, but i've certainly noticed in fire emblem.

i love edelgard, but i wouldn't say the fandom doesn't: i would say some of the fandom doesn't, but it's a split it would seem. i fucking adore monica but so does everybody else with taste. i really like wendy (inasmuch as anyone in the binding blade has a character), admittedly half due to her class as armored knight and half out of spite at how her wiki page says she's non-viable, but there's a solid half in there to appreciate her on her own merits also. this is again a mixed opinion and not a totally unpopular one, but i love ingrid, i think her story arc is fascinating. i LOVE jill i think her story arc is super compelling, she's one of my favorites. look, i don't know, who's unpopular? if you get me a list of "unpopular" fire emblem characters i will probably pick out every woman on there and be like "aw cmon she's cool/underutilized/worthy of appreciation". except camilla.

thanks so much for asking! this was very fun.

[randomnameless]

Sitri had no heartbeat?

I think I already replied in an earlier post regarding the poll (but if i didn't i apologise lol)

Anyways, it's mainly a supposition - Sitri is a construct, unlike Billy, and Billy's "construct heart", aka, crest stone, never beat.

Unless Sitri had a "heart" like the human organ, she wouldn't have had any heartbeat too - but Rhea's formal about it, the crest stone, Sothis's heart, was used as Sitri's heart, and then passed on to Billy. The crest stone didn't beat in Billy's chest, so I don't see why it would inside Sitri?

Also, because I recently re-read the paralogue, Hilda mentions Freikugel is "pulsating".

In JP, she uses this ピクピク動 which roughly means it twitches/wiggles.

She doesn't mention how it beats (like a heart) but the relic "moves" when a crest stone is in...

Add to that how the random monk wrote in a book - that was hidden in the Abyss - how the relics stop "moving" when you remove the crest stone.

So we have both characters, Hilda and the random monk, who notice the Relics "move" when they are equipped with their crest stones, but do not mention a heartbeat at all.

The theory goes like this :

Relic (aka Nabatean) + Crest Stone = no heartbeat.

Billy + Crest Stone + defective human heart = no heartbeat.

(Billy - Crest Stone + human heart that somehow works thanks to the power of Tru Piss = heartbeat.)

So, Sitri (a construct made to house the power of the Goddess heavily infered to be some sort of pseudo-Nabatean) + Crest Stone = no heartbeat?

It's only conjecture though, like, imo, FE5 implying Fergus is Beo's biokid but Nanna isn't.

[randomnameless]

The more people complain about self inserts in Fire Emblem the more evident it becomes that they're not holding the "not self insert" main characters (in FE games that don't have a self insert) not even halfway to the same standard

Sorry for the late reply anon, I tried to type something, then forgot, then retyped but wasn't satisfied, and they forgot again etc etc

For your answer -

I cannot really say I agree, because while some MC can be irritating and annoying and be seen as the second coming of Jesus in their respective verses (Ike) - the issue is mostly prevalent in recent games with avatars, especially in FE16.

Take Minerva.

She switches side because Marth'n'pals rescue Maria, not because Marth is really really rad. Minerva has strong bonds with the Whitewings, especially Palla.

Palla isn't fridged somewhere to make Minerva support Marth, or tell everyone how much of a great guy he is, Minerva can bounce off Palla, Maria and Michalis.

Sigurd? Is the protagonist of FE4, and how boys does it deserve him. All of his allies die, and I remember pointing it out in my LP, while Seliph and F!Lewyn all put the blame on Sigurd's allies's deaths on Sigurd himself, that's a load of crap. Quan died because Travant attacked, Eldie died because Chagall was a douche. Lewyn would most likely have died due to his uncles, or Arvis invading the land.

Claude (the FE4 one!) was branded a traitor and marked to die the second he went to Orgahill and learnt it wasn't Byron who killed Prince Kurth, but Langobalt'n'Reptor.

Did Briggid join Sigurd's quest because Sigurd is awesome, or because Aidean asked her to help them - and Siggy's group helped her against her former bandit friends?

Seliph is seen by everyone as the messiah - but he feels like he is usurping this role, because he is no Messiah, he just is the "Son of". Nonetheless, if this is the role the people of Jugdral need him to play/embrace, then he will do it. Seliph doesn't trounce people right and left with his awesome weapon, hell, Arvis is the one to give him Tyrfing.

Ephraim? Deconstruct the Chad Lord trope - it is (partly) because he was such a chad that Lyon turned to evil forces in hopes to impress him - post FE8!Ephraim is a mess. The strongest and chadest of all princes to have ever chaded out there couldn't protect his father, his country nor save his best friend.

Funny thing, Ephraim doesn't recruit everyone in FE8; Eirika recruits people too and is closer to the "future lords of Magvel" than Ephraim will ever be (Joshua gets his "true" ending on Erika's route, seeing his mom, and Innes sided with her instead of Leeroying Jenkinsing in Grado with Ephraim).

For all of the orange sucking FE15 had, Alm might be teh Hero (tm) but he is not the alpha and omega of every character - let Mathilda die and Clive will stop worshiping his oranges. No matter how rad he is, if you did not save Tatiana, Zeke won't join. Ditto if you killed Zeke, Tatiana will not join.

Even if Ike is my most disliked Lord (outside of avatars) from the franchise, he is not the everything to his verse (at least in FE9). Jill will ditch the Greil Mercenaries to join the enemy, unless she has a support, not with Ike himself, but with a subhuman or Ike's useless sister.

See where I'm going?

There's no scissors pulled out to sever the bonds existing between characters to insert a "self-insert" character.

Reyson and Leanne love each other, Reyson will rush to her when she is rescued by Naesala, he will not take a backseat for Ike to rush to her when she is saved.

During Rajaion's last moments, the close up is on Ena being by his side. Not Ike.

Rhea being freed from Gritnea? Billy CG. Rhea having her last (unless power of the A Support) moments in the cathedral? In Billy's arms.

What is Seteth, Flayn, Cyril or even Catherine? I don't know.

Ranulf is Skrimir's right hand man. Ranulf isn't put in a freezer for Ike to take his role, until he returns.

Games where the lord isn't a self-insert doesn't pull the awful "alone B4 U" nonsense, Eliwood might have recruited Nino and saved Jaffar, Jaffar's first and most important bond will be to Nino, and Nino will in turn support her uncle Legault.

Tatiana isn’t fridged so Zeke can only side with Alm because Alm is super cool and has warm hands, nope. Zeke will only side with Alm if Tatiana was, lel, de-fridged from Nuibaba’s abode.

I’ve kind of warmed up (a bit) about Billy and what they could have been, but what the game did of them (self-insert + avatar powers being a blackhole warping the narration and its characters) really sucks, and brings down FE16.

I think this ask was sent before the interview were the devs said they didn’t want to give a better ending in Nopes than any you can reach in Houses else the player will feel bad bcs Billy’s the self-insert...

-> here you have your validation. The world, and even the subsequent Fodlan games must accomodate to make Billy, the player’s avatar, the only reason why the world is saved.

it’s the Doylist explanation to all this Watsonian stuff I’ve brough, and it’s terrible.

I really hope IS will drop this “idea” because the avatar with his magic scissors remodeling characters to turn them in S-Support material is awful, and in a series that prided itself on its story+characters, if you remove the characters you’re not left with anything else.