#and Ivy and Yunaka for women’s

[teaveetamer]

Considering Bernedetta is still up there while Alcryst isn't the top 5 of Engage characters but Diamant is, you can infer Bernie fans and Alcryst fans aren't merging. Ironically Leo and Takumi being in the top 20 could mean you're correct and fans of Takumi and Leo intersect with Alcryst thus he's not getting as many votes because Leo and Takumi are getting them. Look as a Fates fan I really don't get the Bernie love because Fates is a bunch of anime tropes but she's fine just rubs me the wrong way, but she has a hardcore base I suppose

Leo and Takumi have always maintained a top 20 position/top 5-10ish Fates characters so I can't say conclusively if there's any sort of real vote siphon going on. If anything, Alcryst is probably siphoning their votes because people probably figure he has the best shot to win this year.

Also keep in mind, the top 5 is not divided by gender. There are three women taking up three of the spots (Ivy, Yunaka, and F!Alear) so for all we know Alcryst could be the #3 Engage male character behind M!Alear and Diamant. The top five rankings are neat but I wouldn't take them too seriously.

But yeah I'll be completely honest: everyone who was predicting Alcryst would siphon votes from Bernie clearly do not understand the demographics of FEH/the primary target demographic of Bernadetta. And I don't mean this to be demeaning, but Bernie-as-a-character is written in a way that indulges in a fantasy primarily held by straight men. She's the "broken girl who only trusts you and needs you to protect her". That's why her Byleth supports go all in on "omg I'm usually such a mess but I feel safe with basically zero effort around you professor because you're special!" Alcryst, I would guess, was not written with that demographic in mind. He definitely has his appeals to his specific demographics, but I highly doubt there's a lot of overlap between who he was designed to appeal to and who Bernie was designed to appeal to.

Even if they were a 1:1 comparison just with the gender flipped, that doesn't mean they're going to appeal to the same people. The way they're perceived is going to be affected by their genders. For example, a lot of straight men probably find Alcryst whiny or feel like he needs to "man up". If we went back in time about 10-15 years I'm sure they'd even have some choice slurs for gay men to call him. That's no doubt because in our society we view men who are shy, overly apologetic, jumpy, lacking confidence or self-esteem, etc. as weak and shameful. Whereas with women, lacking confidence and self-esteem is not only expected but often desirable. So you can wind up with two characters who are exactly the same but one will be perceived differently based on gender norms and socialization.

Something similar happened with Corrin back in the day. While both Corrins got flack, M!Corrin, particularly M!Corrin in Conquest, got hit particularly hard with criticism complaining about how he was whiny, he was weak, he was stupid, he was overdramatic, etc. while F!Corrin (who Conquest was likely natively written around) slid under the radar more.

Honestly you could do a whole essay on Conquest v. Birthright, the way they were written/localized with a particular Corrin in mind, and what that says about how society treats gender (particularly how F!BR!Corrin doesn't get shit for taking on more """masc""" traits of being headstrong and violent, but M!CQ!Corrin gets shit for taking on the more """femme""" traits of CQ, such as making an "emotional" decision to side with Nohr, being all about pacifism and cooperation, and openly expressing strong emotions of sadness and regret). But idk if I wanna be the one to write it.

[saficswrites]

Do you happen to have any sapphic ships for Engage? A lot of the girls are pretty gay most of the time

Thank you so much for the ask, this one is actually a bit tough since I’ve only played Engage twice and done so using uh… questionable rosters of units, so the supports I’ve seen ended up a bit limited.

There are also just SO many amazing sapphic ships, since like you said the girls are gay as fuck, so narrowing it down to favorites without listing absolutely everything is a bit daunting lol.

First and foremost I think Ève and Seforia should kiss, perhaps even kiss me if they’re feeling a bit spicy.

I also think Saphir is just outright, one of the most attractive women in the game. I do sadly lack outright ships for her though, but I read a Saphir x Goldmary fic that was absolutely incredible.

(Sidenote if anyone has some sapphic Saphir ships they love, please tell me, I want them.)

On my first playthrough of Engage the big sapphic ships that popped out at me based on supports were, Goldmary x Etié, Yunaka x Citrinne, and Chloé x Merrin.

Also honorable mention to Goldmary x Merrin, I’ve written it for my lovely friend more than once, and it is safe to say I’ve been converted to her ways.

Also also the amazing Solm polycule with Merrin, Timerra, and Pannette. I love all of them!

My second playthrough when Fell Xenologue came uh… was a reckoning of Ivy ships. Nel and Zelestia both are just, so high up there for me, and I really really love either or both of them with Ivy, or even just with each other for that matter.

Nel actually is probably my engage best girl, because I am not immune to that voice of hers.

The big elephant in the room here is probably the lack of Alear ships. I actually do like Alear, like way more than I expected to going in, and do think that her sapphic ships are hella cute, but a lot of them don’t pop to me as much as some of the other units.

[yanderefairyangel]

I honestly think the sexualization claims about the manga are a bit overexaggerated, especially when it comes from those who don't even read it. Dislike the manga if you want, that's fine, but it IS annoying that the criticisms ("damsel" Ivy, whitewashed Saphir??) seem to ALWAYS come from those who don't read or bother to give it a chance. Kind of like Engage itself in the fandom, hm?

Because if they did, they would see that scenes focus more on characterization than blatant sexualization, and that the ladies, when they do have spotlight (which is already hard for the manga to give evenly, because of the amount of characters) are treated as characters first and foremost. Celine is great. Ivy has had some wonderful exploration so far, and Hortensia? Has been amazing.

While I do agree that the proportions of characters like Lumera and Chloe were RIDICULOUS in the earlier chapters, that has absolutely improved over time. And as you said, none of his bonus artworks do this. The women get suits! Pants! And are honestly presented quite tastefully!

And this ask is coming from a woman herself, thank you. I'm sorry, but there have definitely been FAR worse (and actual, look no further than Heroes itself) examples of gross sexualization in this series.

Thank you for your perspective Anon !

"I honestly think the sexualization claims about the manga are a bit overexaggerated, especially when it comes from those who don't even read it. Dislike the manga if you want, that's fine, but it IS annoying that the criticisms ("damsel" Ivy, whitewashed Saphir??) seem to ALWAYS come from those who don't read or bother to give it a chance. Kind of like Engage itself in the fandom, hm?"

Remove the "a bit" I think it's exagerated period. And I agree that having people crying out loud they don't read it comment on things to offer criticism is... not good, especially as (your rightfully point out ) THIS A THING CONSTANT WITH ENGAGE EVEN GAME. Like ? Someone even called Timerra's and Lapis's design fanservice and complained about them not being appropraite for fighting...I had to bite my lips to not say "like 999% of the design in this franchise" like do you really believe Marth would survive without his pants on ?! And the ignorance is really showing, most people who were worried about "damsel in distress" didn't even knew what happened, they just ad it being on hearsay and failed to recognize that Ivy does gets captured in chapter 9 of the game. They also showed they don't know why, how and when the tropes is sexist. Yes, damsel in distress is just a trope, it can be done, it's not necessarily sexist. And the whitewashed Saphir was ??? Like ???? I remember when I first saw the picture I though it was Mrs Brodia but wasn't sure, how the heck do people believe she is Saphir was beyond me, the woman had shorter hair than Saphir, straigh hair unlike Saphir's longer and wavier hair, Saphir has WHITE hair and her tips are not the same.

"Because if they did, they would see that scenes focus more on characterization than blatant sexualization, and that the ladies, when they do have spotlight (which is already hard for the manga to give evenly, because of the amount of characters) are treated as characters first and foremost. Celine is great. Ivy has had some wonderful exploration so far, and Hortensia? Has been amazing."

Oh yeah, the mangaka does a good job with ladies and I am tired of pretending it doesn't, which makes the whole "objectifying" accusations worse. How it objectfying if the female character are still written with respect ? The manga even managed to integrate Yunaka's past in the story. Now granted, the manga is mainly feed off the game who already had great characterization but it does an amazing job at using those data.

I also remind people that none of those scene were aimed at being sexual, like I said many times; sexualisation is the entire set up. It's not just the "boobs and buts" or the "design", it's the entirerity of it. Which is why reading the manga is important to know the full context before idk pointing to a scene where a character is being threatened and said it's "sexualisation" because.... chest....

"While I do agree that the proportions of characters like Lumera and Chloe were RIDICULOUS in the earlier chapters, that has absolutely improved over time. And as you said, none of his bonus artworks do this. The women get suits! Pants! And are honestly presented quite tastefully!"

Oh yeah, Like I said though, I think it's more "he drew women with large cup like that" than wanting to sexualise since none of the scene in question are in such a context, in fact the manga and Engage have a similar tone which makes any actual fanservice impossible and by that I mean ... look at Awakening and Fates...

And I agree, now they do look normal, ironically enough swimsuit Chloé (as I pointed out) is less extravangazza of proprotions than the first time he drew her. Also, I talk about this with a friend and he reminded me that most of the outfits are OFFICIAL outfits, such as the swimsuits. All the original outfits Kyo designed for the cast are very modest, and he even made them to help sell the manga because he is really into this project. Like, he commented on how he frenquently replay Engage to gather informations and use them in the story.

"And this ask is coming from a woman herself, thank you. I'm sorry, but there have definitely been FAR worse (and actual, look no further than Heroes itself) examples of gross sexualization in this series."

Oh yeah I agree, heck if we are to talk about problematic depiction of Ivy, do we talk about how they wrote her freaking FB ? That for example is giving me bad vibes. "but it is with F!Alear, it couldn't possibly be sexist !"

The issue is that they are taking one side of Ivy who in the game isn't her entire character and doesn't manifest like that to make it her entire character, we are so close to have flanderized Ivy and I do'nt like that at allll. Like it says a lot that the same people who screamed sexism towards the manga for the capture scene despite Ivy not being reduced to one aspect of her character and having actual introspections are complete silence radio mute to heroes putting her in a fight against her but in a swimsuit for Alear... and I wouldn't even imagine the damage if it had been M!Alear instead of F!Alear.

Do we remember how people argue that if F!Alear was the protag of the manga this wouldn't have happened ? Do we remember ? I do remember !! So yeah seeing people cheer on that type of flanderizing writing but throw a tantrum at the manga for how it wrote Ivy and also ignore the other side of the argument cannot make me look at all of this with good faith. At all.

Like, if you are not confortable with how Kyo draws women, just stop reading the manga and that's it but accusing of objectifcation the official manga is just...like, taking things tooo far ? Don't you think ?

Also, it's worth noting that Engage might not be perfect, but it's waaaaay better than how FE used to be. We aren't anymore in the Kaga era were out epic fight with the Evil dragon had this random saving the pure brainwashed maiden plot from the dragon who wanna eats popping up, with the worst offender being Maria and Elice has both had no personality alone other than being saved by MarMar until the remake came and decided to try to fix the mess (it didn't, but at least it tried), we aren't anymore in the era where you would have Jamke show up with an arrow, a bow and getting married because "he is one of the good ones", now in Engage, there is a balance between female character and male character, there isn't weird sexist or racist prick in the cast, Solm is actually respected and not treated as barbarians, there isn't weird random fanservice that actually hurts the integrety of the plot or the female characters tangled in it (kof kof Camilla, kof kof Thraja), we don't have a damsel in distress to save every 30 seconds and the evil dragon don't only eat pure maiden's blood and the brainwashed maiden is more than just a plot device since it's actually rooted in her characterization. So far the manga respects this spirit, and I think accusing it of ojectifying the female character just because of wonky drawings in the early chapter that have now calmed down is very unfair

Don't read it if you don't like it, but don't expect everyone to agree with you, this is a much more complex issue than it seems

[aboldone4]

I saw this post and it got me thinking of who among my favorite characters from Fire Emblem Engage would make the best pair with my favorite character from Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Ivy x Edelgard - As a friend of mine said, Ivy’s story is about how faith can save you, while Edelgard’s is more about how faith can lead you astray. They both seem intelligent, so it would be interesting to see how they meet halfway regarding their viewpoints.

Yunaka x Edelgard - I feel like the first time Edelgard and Yunaka have to battle enemies, Edelgard would be surprised ay Yunaka’s proficiency in murder. I think both could relate to having to put up a front to achieve their goals. They would also probably both conclude that they have blood on their hands due to their past and present.

Timerra x Edelgard - Timerra’s openness and carefree nature would provide a nice contrast to Edelgard’s guarded and deliberate personality. Edelgard would probably enjoy Timerra’s company and appreciate how she doesn’t have to put her guard up around Timerra.

As a bonus: Merrin would probably be enamored by Dorothea. Both are women who like women, what else can I say?

[alexissara]

A Strategic Guide To CYL Voting Guide For Sapphics

As we prepare for The Chose Your Legends Voting Era I wanted to share my thoughts on how I am going to vote in the event and how I think we could combine our powers to have a sapphic character once again win Chose Your Legends. Sapphics Winning CYL isn't new with Lyn being a winner in the first round and being the first FF paired ending in the series with Florina that counts for something and obviously later we got the queen of Sapphic's Hearts Edelgard with the most votes of any CYL ever. However, CYL voting stocks are majorly majorly down which means a hand fool of queer women can turn the tides if we're banned together.

Dorothea and Monica are the most textual, most canon queers still on the table with a shot to win. While others on this list have strong subtext, strong paired supports, strong endings, Monica and Dorothea are both unavoidably queer and unlike Heather who now is finally in the game have a shot at winning this CYL. Dorothea fell 7 places last year in CYL7 going into 22nd place but with 4,529 votes as an already entrenched voting base having our bisexual icon come up on top is not unviable. Monica ended up in 63rd place but got that rising star award giving her even more momentum for all we know that gives them like a buff in voting a gimmick or something next year. I personally love the idea of Monica and Dorothea both winning in 1st and 2nd ready to follow Edelgard into Brave Hero territory

16,941 votes is ultimately our goal to beat assuming Engage doesn't raise votes [and it isn't that popular, sold worse then the last 3 proper games, and of those people who bought it a lot of impressions were negative]. I do think Engage is likely to have a bit of a buff and Yunaka and Ivy both have a strong chance at a strong showing in CYL but I don't think Engage will fundamentally be the trick to revitalize CYL voting in all honesty we'll either get less votes or new innovations on botting. All that is to say we would need 2421 people to commit all 7 votes to hit past Gulvegs first place win. 2053 to get past Corrin's voting threshold in second place.

However, voting to win isn't the only way to vote in CYL. The highest voted characters will end up in the game the next year, not sure fire but very often they grab some of the most popular characters left from any given game and then place them on a new hero banner. However, those all important slots are getting smaller and smaller as banners now have the option of releasing 5 different types of units that can go inside of a banner. New OCs, Rearmed Hero, Attuned Hero, Ascended Hero, and any of these variants but an OC from FEH who already exists. Often these come with the other units being auto demotes but demotes are ridiculously rare and suck so increasingly praying for a favorite to be in an NHB is coming a less smart thing. I do think just preforming well with a favorite who is popular maybe is better in terms of getting one of those alts for them. Although OCs do seem to be mostly going in order so unlikely voting for like Eir will give Eir yet another alt or something inside of a NHB.

That said, I think it's still a valid way to go I want a standard version of Heather and while this year I am going to pivot my vote I do think I could return to Heather voting in the future and maybe even this year Heather could see a boost from just more people being aware of her. If I saw enough Heather love I would pivot to trying to get Brave Heather.

Who are you voting for? Why? Will you join the Monica or Dorothea army? Personally, I think putting my money on the Monica train sounds good especially since Dorothea still doesn't actually have a base alt which means her CYL winner is likely to be a boring just normal Dorothea as they have done with Three Houses characters in the past.

[adelle-ein]

mean feh thoughts

lucina always gets such lame and ugly alts in feh....(except maybe valentine's). and now they've stolen her pants. people like "but it's great knight!" great knight is ugly. so what.

it's genuinely funny to me that the plot of the last book hinged on "all of these identical women are the same character except one who is the clone-daughter of that character" because like. yoshiku is so fucking bad at art that you can't even tell. all the fairies look exactly like that too. those cartoonishly hourglass figures and bland empty faces. and guillveig's awful little baby hands lol just such a hideous book

that being said i'm glad to have kozaki back but why are the only options him vs just terrible terrible art and designs. why can't mayo or someone do a book

and these designs are still quite ugly. all feh designs have trended on the uglier side at best. it's just not AS bad as last book and at least the art is skillfully done even if the outfits are just awful

can't wait for one of the big tiddy oc ladies we barely know to win cyl again. seriously i'm expecting freyja to get UP there. i'm so tired of people insisting gullveig won bc of any other reason when like she'd only appeared briefly and had no character or backstory yet??? but yeah cyl is a wash all the options suck at this point. brave avatars and other boring fan favorites for the boys, brave Fanservice Ladies for the girls til the end of time or until a new game i guess. idk if engage can sweep but even if it does the frontrunners are the brodian princes, ivy, alears, and yunaka which. bleh

it is very funny how for the last solid month the feh subreddit has been "male ocs where are they why do they die so much IS are misandrists waaaa" interspersed with gullveig and co hornyposting. the self awareness is just gone lol

as usual the rewards are shit especially if you don't want whoever the freebie is

anyway yeah idk these new book celebrations haven't been any fun since...3? i liked 4 too only bc i got fairy sprite assets to play with but that's about it. ultimately i know a lot of people loooove the feh ocs and stories but i'm one of the ones who's just started hitting skip constantly so i don't have to see uwu make babies with me summoner anymore. the game is just so...tired at this point. i wish they'd ever do something genuinely fun again.

[goddessalexissara]

I looked at Fire Emblem Engage Leaks So You Don't Have To

This is a thread of vague statements to answer questions, these basically are just answers to questions I had before looking at leaks I figured others might have too.

The game has a few surprise characters left

The game has more then one potentially ehh to a marginalized group characters

The game seems to have a lot less VA work than 3H

The game does seem to be doing things to keep the difficulty up even in normal mode.

Enemy recruits are back in some compacity.

The pace of get units is more spread out then in Three Houses.

Emblem Rings get a little more spotlight then their debut.

I've been avoiding story spoilers where I can but it seems like there is a tiny bit more to it then evil dragon bad but like it seems like it is mostly that. Don't expect PoR/RD/ or Fodlan levels of engaging their worlds politics. It's probably under New Mystery TBH.

S ranks are back despite what previews said they simply aren't in the Support Menu. Like in three houses you get a ring and can give that ring.

You can S rank anyone regardless of gender but some are explicitly platonic in English likely to avoid minor characters from having implications with Alear. Apparently in Japanese they are basically all explicitly romantic no matter what, every singe character even characters in pre established relationships. The ring is apparently like a promise ring so it's not a getting married now thing but a promise of romantic love in the future thing at least on the JP end.

I will put under a read more the list of sapphic s ranks I personally find romantic or not based on the English side of things, I do not read Japanese or i'd also score that.

Main story is about as long as awakening but with less paralogues.

The DLC emblems are in the games code, these could be just wave 2 but are likely all the DLC, we'll have to see. Spoilers I guess but not really: Hector, Veronica, Soren, Camilla and Chrom. We simply won't know until they announce wave 2.

That's all I have for now, if you want to know something in these kind of vague terms, I can try and answer but I am not really going into numbers or looking to find out every plot point, I do want a tiny bit of surprise when I play.

The list of romance with women. Very Romantic: Merrin, Ivy, Chole, Goldmarry, Panette Pretty Romantic: Timerra, Citrinne. Jade More Subtexty: Yunaka, Lapis There Is Something There: Spoiler Woman 1, Hortensia We Can Be Besties Forever: Celine, Framme, Etie, Anna, Spoiler woman 2