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eirichele · 4 years

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a VERY in depth look at fire emblem: three houses and its grooming problem

OR: how this game managed to make an accurate portrayal of grooming and exactly how it made it palatable

(warning: really long. though to be fair, the length is mostly screenshots. you can also read this in google docs)

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SO i’ve been wanting to write something Formal and In Depth for a while, because this game’s reception has been a nightmare for me and other csa victims and quarantine hit, so i finally had time. i just really wanted to get all my thoughts in one place before i move on from 3h. i’m basically done talking about this after this one because... idk what else i could say that hasn’t been said here, really. fe has history with this, and the in-game excuses ring hollow when we know the fe devs disregard csa victims at every turn while pandering to male gamers who love sexualised teenage girls.

long, long analysis under the cut:

Some previous context: Fire Emblem games have a history of normalising harmful romances

It’s understandable for many to not know the history of the series since 3H was insanely successful and it brought a lot of new fans. Fire Emblem has always been a character driven game where making your units bond was encouraged both for gameplay and story reasons. Some end in special romantic epilogues, and some of those relationships were concerning to say the least: Sylvia, 14 years old, can marry every eligible man in Genealogy of the Holy War, Jill from Radiant Dawn, 18, can marry her father’s protegé who is 34. This is not a new phenomenon for the series, it just became more noticeable and malicious post-Awakening, because it became first person fanservice.

FE decided to rehaul the series sometime in 2011 by including dating sim elements, which made it explode in popularity. Avatars were introduced to represent the player in-game, allowing them to marry whoever they wanted. The first game to include a pseudo-dating sim was Awakening, released in 2012. The player can marry every named playable character, on top of the usual FE shipping mechanics . Donnel, Nowi and Ricken, all children, are part of your party. Nowi is a thousand year old dragon that looks like a child of 11-15. She loves playing, and throws tantrums, and overall acts very childishly, but the narrative insists that she’s really an adult feigning childishness.

In Fire Emblem lore, dragons are veeeery slow ageing people with the power to transform into dragons, which means they can be biologically still children even when they’re hundreds or thousands of years old. Tiki, another similar character, is considered a child in Shadow Dragon by her adult dragon family while explicitly being around Nowi’s age. Despite evidence to the contrary, Awakening treats Nowi like an adult who can marry. Fire Emblem had previously included many dragon child characters in the past, but none were romantic options for anyone, and they were considered a younger sibling of sorts. Nowi was a first in the series, and after her inclusion these romances became common with characters like Nyx in Fates and Flayn and Sothis in Three Houses. Worth noting is her design, which is incredibly sexualised. A (not so) fun fact is that the outfit designer of Awakening and Fates was none other than Three Houses’ future director, Toshiyuki Kusakihara:

Ricken and Donnel are just regular 13-15 year old boys. No magic. Other adult characters and your avatar just marry them, and it’s stated they will have children in the future. The next game, Fates, actually managed to outdo this somehow: Your pedophilic romance options are now five, and unlike Awakening’s avatar Robin, whose age was unknown and could potentially be portrayed in their mid-teens, Corrin canonically is in the 18-21 age range, making this unambiguous pedophilia. Fates is a very standout game when it comes to Fire Emblem’s worst parts: There’s no “children from the future” excuse for the avatar having children like in Awakening. The avatar impregnates all spouses (or gets pregnant) and has the child after an in-game time skip, which means you can canonically impregnate your approximately 15 year old sister in a Fire Emblem game. You really do not want to stan these devs.

pictured: definitely not 18, even if the english localization really tried to pull that.

Which is yet another thing in this game: Incest with adopted siblings is possible and even encouraged. Incest is constantly fetishized through the character of Camilla, who is an attractive and sexualized older sister obsessed with the main character. Another (not so) fun fact is that most characters will continue to call you ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ in the story even if you’re married because Fire Emblem rarely changes the story to fit with your marriage options. The most insidious thing about the incest and pedophilic couples in Fates is that they’re completely normalized. It’s not shown as abusive, and they look like normal couples that could even look cute out of context. They confess their love, tease each other, blush and have cutesy epilogues.

pictured: marrying your sibling and a literal child

All of this is to end with the conclusion that this is a constant pattern with Fire Emblem, especially the ones with marriage. Any potentially awful relationships portrayed are not outwardly abusive. You won’t catch Xander gaslighting Corrin, or anything. They’re a “cute” relationship that just happens to be incest. Their interactions are not outwardly unhealthy, and it’s tailor made for ‘’’harmless’’’ shipping, but in the end, it’s incest and pedophilia portrayed as a valid pairing that’s “healthy” by all means. It’s normalization of something that’s objectively horrifying to live through. As a CSA victim, Fates literally made me quit the franchise for all the years it was popular.

When Three Houses announced that it would take place in a school while you play a teacher, after seeing all of this play out all FE fans could feel was dread. When 3H announced even later that all romance would take place post-time skip everyone forgot about their reservations instantly— ignoring the fact that everyone being over 18 when marriage happens doesn’t absolve all potential problems with predatory writing. How you write a couple with an age gap is critical. Moving on with Actual Three Houses:

Byleth has a canon age unlike Corrin and Robin, but the game tries to hide it

Corrin and Robin were both avatars meant to be somewhat customized. Byleth cannot be customized. They have a set appearance and age. You can choose Byleth’s name, gender and birthday when you start up the game, but Byleth canonically cannot be born anywhere after September 20th 1159, their “canon” birthday, since their father states in his diary that they’re already alive. 3H starts in the year 1180, which makes Byleth 20 or already 21 depending on their chosen birthday.

All other Three Houses characters have their ages shown clearly in their unit menu, and all bios update accordingly when you learn new information, including yours. Byleth’s age is revealed in a cutscene, but despite this, the game tries to “hide” their age. This is all Byleth has in their bio even well into the endgame:

It’s presumably so the player can “headcanon” their age, as the player avatar, but they still have a canon age, because they’re not a customizable one. It’s a very odd design choice that makes no sense until you consider that the game is romantically pushing teenagers at you. Romanceable students range from 14 to 22 years old before the time skip, but the great majority are in the 15-18 range. Early on, when you introduce yourself to your students, they seem taken aback by how young you are and comment how you seem like you’re “their age.” This is your only dialogue option in response:

No sixteen year old has ever told a twenty/-one year old that they’re the same age, but this is anime high school dating sim logic. An addendum is that this game has incredibly shallow dialogue options to hide how linear it really is, and this is the first glaring instance. This comes up later on with the romance options—you have little to no options to reject a student’s advances. Boundaries as both a player and RPG protagonist are non-existent in this game.

pictured: “yes” and “sure why not” dialogue options to agreeing to meet with a student alone. linhardt just turned 17 last month

Byleth can flirt pre-time skip

Most of your units are students, thus all romance should in theory, stay in the war phase…. Which doesn’t happen at all. All the narrative framing of characters’ “closeness” and foreshadowing of romance are definitely a part of the school phase. The worst offender by far is an in-game event called the Goddess Tower, the school’s local romantic spot. It’s said in universe that a man and a woman who make a vow there on a specific night will stay together forever, and this is a prelude to the marriage scenes five years later, which will take place in that Tower. You can even pick who to bring with you to the Tower, and this is what Byleth says to themselves before the drop down menu shows up:

this is one of those lines that’s like semi-innocuous, since byleth is addressing the player here, but what the fuck is a teacher doing thinking about a student “that way”???? my girl doesn’t know there will be a 5 year time skip where they’re going to be legal she’s just saying this about a bunch of sixteen year olds.

The Goddess Tower itself is a mess of bungled flirting and unnatural romantic scenes, made all the worse by the fact that you can only trigger this scene with a student. Older characters like Seteth, Catherine and Shamir are locked out of the Goddess Tower. They can’t be picked from the menu, and if they’re your highest support, the game will default to the next highest supported student. Here’s some lines from Ingrid’s scene:

ingrid is 17 when this takes place. the youngest byleth possible is well over 21 and the oldest is turning 22 next month

Check out this post for more examples of the Goddess Tower. Byleth’s dialogue options here are right out of a god damn PSA about child safety. They genuinely come off as a huge creep here, especially “Just the two of us….” My dude.

Thankfully one of the few instances where you can turn the student down, but notable anyway. Dorothea’s C support, where you have the option of following her flirty lead, and her response will be the same regardless of your choice:

Another infamous bit of inappropriate flirting is Edelgard’s Japanese C1 support, which you’re likely to unlock before her 18th birthday in June because it’s her very first support:

This was thankfully removed in the English version (Though she still has the same flustered reaction), but the intentions are there. Curiously, I’ve seen many supporters of the Byleth/Edelgard ship say they were upset this was removed, while simultaneously denying the ship has any grooming connotations whatsoever— when an authority figure making ha ha, unless? 😳 sexual jokes in front of underage/barely legal kids to see their reaction is textbook grooming:

Once a trusting or special relationship is created, the offender may carefully test the victim’s reaction to sex. (x)

Not helping is the fact that Edelgard falling in love with Byleth during the school phase is practically canon judging by dialogue in CF of her missing you “more” than the others. Which leads to:

Some interactions pre-time skip resemble grooming tactics

In fans’ minds the lack of boundaries are somewhat mitigated by Byleth’s supposed good intentions, and it’s common to hear fans say Byleth obviously didn’t go to Garreg Mach intending to marry one of the kids they’re teaching because grooming must be malicious from the start. However, it’s well known that unlike premeditated abuse of younger kids, sexual abuse of older teens often happens by “accident”

In contrast, educators who teach at the late middle and high school level target victims in this age range. They might be outstanding teachers, although they may also be mediocre (Shakeshaft, 2003). Sexual abuse at this level may be less premeditated and planned and more often a result of bad judgment (Shakeshaft, 2004). (x)

In other words, by putting zero boundaries between teacher and students and enabling weird situations, which is 3H to a T. Many students flirt, but Byleth doesn’t say anything, or even flirts back.

Secondly, Byleth is like… barely a character, so this isn’t meant to be a callout post accusing them of being a manipulative abuser or whatever, because this is about the dev team putting teenagers in these flirty positions to satisfy the player that Byleth is meant to represent. Byleth is just the plot device they use to do so. People often say this flirting isn’t grooming because Byleth has “good intentions,” but they’re a self-insert, and a self-insert doesn’t have to have any in-universe intentions because the outside writing drives their actions— the thing is we KNOW these writers are not above writing pedophilia as harmless romance. People project good intentions on Byleth, because that’s the avatar. You’re supposed to project on them. This of course includes their “good intentions,” and when I play 3H I headcanon that too, but canonically speaking, these intentions are 100% ambiguous. They never voice attraction to another student, or disgust at the thought of dating them because they speak in small, limited dialogue options and thought bubbles. We don’t have a real, canon indication that they would oppose dating a student before the time skip nor that they would actually do it.

What we do have are the canonical interactions that make people uncomfortable, however. Byleth can think of students in “that way” when the Gatekeeper describes a romantic getaway on the Goddess Tower. If we take them at face value, then their dialogue options clearly establish that they’re okay with flirting with students as young as fifteen, at the very least. They “die” before potentially starting to date any of them for real, but the beginnings of an uncomfortable romance are there and the game fully embraces this as okay .

This is all a result of the writing. Fates never condemned you for picking your sister over any of the other thirty (?) romanceable characters, just like Three Houses doesn’t condemn you for picking Lysithea over any older women in the teaching staff. It’s just another S support option, and it even gets some sweet extra content. She’s touched that you care for her, and you do everything in your power to take care of her frail health, and you guys get happily married. No one ever mentions that you were her high school teacher when she was fifteen and you met at said high school, and she was your favourite student— and this is, you know, something of an important detail in any relationship. Just like Fates, it’s sweet and shippable out of context, which just encourages normalization. How dare you say this is unhealthy? It’s tender! Look how much he loves her!

The thing is that 3H initially presents your students as your charges in school. You’re unambiguously in charge of them as both tactician and instructor, even if you treat each other in a familiar way. Even if most students technically outrank you as nobles, Garreg Mach as politically neutral ground implicitly puts you above them as their teacher. The younger ones are vulnerable teenagers, away from home in a boarding school. Most have some sort of underlying emotional problem that they come to you for. They come to you for advice, and sometimes just venting. You can give them gifts, and have tea every week with them if you so wish in an off-screen conversation. Tea also serves as the “skinship” of this game where you get to see the anime boy/girl of your dreams from up-close, which is a pretty creepy thing to do with a fifteen year old anime girl even out of universe, but I digress.

Looking at this chart in the essay I linked earlier gave me a little bit of a stroke, because the “Strategies” aspects are all things you do in 3H prior to the time-skip:

This is obviously accidental, but still concerning because we know these devs have a twisted idea of what romance is, and that culminated in what I sincerely hope is an unintended but still eerily accurate portrayal of grooming.

Emotional confidence, teatime and gifts, flirting, making a vow together at the Goddess Tower, sex jokes, are all things you do pre-timeskip, and some student’s personal arcs make this even worse. Marianne, Dimitri and Bernadetta have mental illnesses, and they heavily rely on you for support. Edelgard and Sylvain express attraction towards you. You meet Felix’s father and he puts his full trust in you. Ignatz, Bernadetta and Marianne have very low self-esteem. Characters like Ashe and Annette have major parental issues that they discuss with you. In short, you see them at their most vulnerable as kids, and then get together as adults.

About the only thing you don’t do pre-time skip in that list is “Isolate,” but some character arcs post time skip have this distinct vibe nonetheless. Many students leave their homes in the war phase explicitly because of you and no other reason. CF Ingrid in particular outright betrays Faerghus and everything she knew for you, as she says she doesn’t really believe in Edelgard’s war. Knowing you as a teacher can string her along in her Goddess Tower scene while she’s underage puts this in an awkward perspective.

This is what makes the five year time skip hold little weight. Everyone is an adult when the relationship is consummated, yes, but it starts pre-time skip.

Emotionally vulnerable teenagers having a strong relationship and frequent alone time with their older teacher, who is a confidant and someone that makes them feel special is already looking bad, but the absolute loyalty, idolisation and close relationship when they’re adults only makes it worse, even if it’s probably just a result of poorly thought out game design and player pandering gone wrong.

It’s not just player pandering, however. The devs just clearly think these relationships are okay. Other non-Byleth student/teacher romances deserve a mention, too—Manuela is forty something and thinks of her romantic potential with some 19 year-old:

Thankfully, this support ends at B, but others don’t. She has romantic endings with Lorenz, Ferdinand and Dorothea, who she even canonically met before Garreg Mach as a child and who idolises her as an opera star. The game doesn’t stop at the normalisation of grooming with Byleth, they’re just the most noticeable example, especially since it’s a power fantasy for the player who can romance all of them, not just a few.

The time skip had the opportunity to fix some of the creepy implications, but it didn’t

People like to look at the time-skip as a justification of romance. That 15 year old kid is 20 now, after all, and your students are adults, who have matured and grown outside of your influence.... Except your interactions with them remain virtually the same. They still call you Professor and hold you in some extremely high esteem as an authority figure.

Three Houses has an avatar worship problem like all newer Fire Emblem games and this definitely contributes to the uncomfortable implications in the narrative, because literally everyone respects you and adores you to an uncomfortable degree. Even as grown ass adults, the avatar worship just makes it seem like your students still idolize you like when they were kids awe struck by how cool you are.

They don’t show the change from “mentor” to “peer” satisfactorily, like they intended for the romance elements to work. Byleth’s name is customizable, making a first name basis difficult, but they easily could have changed your war phase title to something that would make it seem like your students’ view of you changed, like a military title such as Commander, or even just Eisner, your canonical last name. All students still call you “Professor,” in the war phase, though. Some students even call you Professor when you’re about to propose to them in the S support, like Lysithea. Leonie, one of the oldest students who is actually your age, has this to say about calling you by your name… you know, like a normal peer and friend would:

White Clouds is also a whole year while VW, AM, and SS take place during six to seven months, CF during five. You spend more time as their teacher and mentor than as “peers,” so Leonie’s position is pretty understandable despite being like, barely a year younger than you.

To rewind, this game lets you pick a “special” student pre-time skip, who you’re encouraged to build bonds with through tea, gifts and the Goddess Tower. You’re their favourite teacher, as said by many other characters. They grow up and join you in your war regardless of who they have to fight, some even just to be with you. They still affectionately call you Professor, and look up to you. You can then marry them. This is unironically seen as both acceptable and even romantic.

Many of these interactions like tea are gameplay elements and thus come off as the devs not thinking too hard about it. Except, again, we know they have no problem in writing outright pedophilia, but Fates in particular had heavy backlash over this, which explains the need to tone it down a little. Grooming was their “compromise” between not turning off the casual audience while still cheekily pandering to that crowd. Everyone is technically over eighteen in Three Houses, even if they act extremely similar to their teenage selves. The “technically 1000 year old” romances like Flayn and Sothis were also left intact.

This is an important distinction, because a bit of a popular “it’s not grooming” argument when dealing with the war phase is Byleth’s weird dragon powers slowing their aging. Unlike the kids, all adult non-students in Three Houses undergo no portrait changes during the time skip, including Byleth. The thing is that in Chapter 10, they receive dragon powers as part of some plot nonsense, so it has different implications than just anime hating everyone over 25. There’s implications in the game that this definitely affected their ability to age normally, such as the Flayn ending:

However, we don’t know how their aging was affected and to what extent. Three Houses’ lore didn’t specify much about the way dragons age. Rhea undergoes dragon madness, so we can thus tentatively assume Fódlan’s dragons are similar to Archanea and Valentia’s dragons, which would mean there’s a chance Byleth even aged normally for a few years before slowing down significantly like Nah from Awakening did. It’s entirely possible they’re biologically 25-26 like they’re meant to be, because they didn’t physically die. They were just asleep.

Even if they really did not age a day over 21/22, it still makes the pre-time skip hold weight, however. Byleth can flirt with them as teens prior to any fantastical excuse, and they’re still a mentor figure in the students’ eyes, which goes on to colour every interaction with you in the war phase. Post-time skip everyone is legal, but they still have that history with you, and the game makes no real effort to change that whatsoever. It still fulfills the student/teacher fantasy despite the many, many technicalities it tries to pull out of its ass.

Intsys is self aware and knows that this upsets people

To say these devs probably didn’t mean it that way is not entirely impossible, but they don’t exactly inspire confidence. They even “acknowledge” their flippant way of treating teacher/student relationships in a DLC quest during school phase:

Of course, this is a silly complaint because a teacher being friendly with students is a good thing! Students learn better in a positive environment! The problem here is that it’s obviously referencing and mocking the people upset that this becomes romantic later on. I think anyone would have been able to forgive the overly friendly nature of Byleth and the students’ relationships if no line had been crossed regarding romance. This is Fire Emblem after all, and it wouldn’t be Fire Emblem without supports and relationships values.

But also, Intsys is very good at jokingly acknowledging when they’re being creepy rather than striving to do better. It’s not the first time they’ve done this. A really bold faced example is when the Fire Emblem mobile game widely known for fanservice released a ten year old child (no magic or dragons, either, just a child) dressed as a bride and had her say: “This outfit is just for the [bride] festival, don’t get any weird ideas!” when they were the ones who made a child bride for fanservice purposes.

this one was pretty fucked up even by their standards. comment sums it up

The devs also once called Camilla from Fates a “cow” in an interview for having huge breasts and a little tiara that looks like horns. They designed her that way, but then mocked her for looking like an oversexualized caricature. Any way you look at it, they’re well aware they’re being off-putting and cheekily being like, tee hee, I sure made a dating sim set in a high school! Which ultimately leads to the final point:

Though canon definitely has its problems, it’s less about canon and more about the devs’ bad intentions and the fans’ general lack of empathy for CSA victims:

This is not to diminish canon’s impact at all, because it’s outright malicious to portray an unhealthy relationship as cute and harmless. In short, they just pull technicality after technicality out of their ass to make student/teacher okay somehow instead of just..... not having student/teacher at all. After Fates having fucking incest, 3H and teacher grooming seems outright tame and that definitely contributed to the wide acceptance in the fanbase, because it’s less outrageously pandery. I can’t believe I have to say this in 2020, but…... that’s still not good, lads.

I will also admit there’s some nuance here regarding some of the students, especially those 20+ year olds who aren’t easy to manipulate teenagers like Mercedes. We can sit here and argue all day about whether or not this game legitimately 100% can be considered grooming because of those 20+ students, and all of those in-universe technicalities since there’s no real life academic journal on grooming who will talk about the offender being a dragon, but the end of the matter is that the devs chose to portray their pseudo-dating sim franchise in a school, while your MC is a teacher and most of the students are teens. These relationships are also 100% normalised and okay in-game. They did it with incest and with teacher/student, both topics that are majorly upsetting to CSA victims, and that alone is worth calling out. They even mocked people who were upset about it with a little DLC quest, just to rub it in.

This whole post was a critique of 3H and Intsys, but it’s impossible to critique the game without critiquing the fan culture around it, because the devs definitely had a fanbase in mind. We know they take feedback, since they toned it down after complaints about Fates, but the reason why they didn’t just get rid of pandering aspects, is because they’re popular. There’s a huge demand for this, and that’s exactly why they keep doing it, and it’s the simple reason that online anime spaces full of adults have always placed a particular interest in teens and sexualising and shipping them. A Fire Emblem game set in a school with a calendar and a lot of romantic and social elements that started development in 2017 just screams Persona 5 inspired. Fans obviously noticed.

”edelgard is soooo thirsty” jokes are a lot less funny if you know going for the thirsty kid is a legit strategy

Now, I don’t know shit about Atlus, and after seeing all these memes regarding Persona 5 and the fans’ positive reaction to them, I have zero intentions to play it, but I’ve unfortunately played every single FE game and watched the transition to classic FE to 3DS FE to 3H. I have my criticisms about modern FE’s writing quality for sure, and while I obviously can’t say it used to be perfect because it was still a fairly mediocre (but fun) game about teenagers beating up dragons, it’s now become one of the single most unfriendly fanbases if you’ve gone through any kind of sexual trauma. Incest shipping, pedophilic shipping, and sexualizing teenagers was always there to some extent, but it’s blown up now that the devs have emboldened those fans by doing it in canon itself. It’s rampant, especially on “waifu” circles, and now grooming ships are mainstream and everywhere. Even LGBT friendly “safe spaces” are unbrowsable. F!Edeleth in particular is commonly seen as the holy grail of wlw representation. Linhardt is the most popular M/M option despite the other two being adults. Doromanuela was given a shout-out by Dorothea’s English voice actress.

Old FE games had background things like that all the time, (Roy/Cecilia is Literally gender swapped Petra/Byleth) but the keyword here is background. Not like... 80% of the ships involving the MC in game, which means you weren’t bombarded with this every day. Worse, the discussion about this topic has been non-existent. Reddit has not touched this at all despite the community there being well known for meticulous criticism, Twitter and Tumblr have seen its fair share of discourse, but it’s quickly dismissed. Just click here to watch people dismiss the concerns of every single grooming and CSA victim, or even call them stupid like we can’t recognize this shit in every single fandom. Of note are the fans who dismiss grooming concerns by saying all flirting occurs post time skip (which is false, as we just said) and the characters are only 3-6 years apart anyway……………….. and then gleefully consume/produce pre-time skip content:

miscellaneous tags on a pre-time skip linleth comic (20/21/22 and 16/17 if you’re not keeping count) not posting the comic itself cause i don’t want anon hate lol

While there’s an argument to be made for romance with anyone who was 20+ pre-time skip, there is NONE for the underage kids. None. And like, even if you somehow still want to argue that 3H itself isn’t grooming because of the time skip, a huge chunk of the fanworks objectively are, and this is a huge problem that needs to be called out and nobody does so whatsoever. That comic has 2500+ notes.

This isn’t even a call to tell people to throw out their copies and riot, just to be aware of this and try to make fan spaces a little more bearable for CSA victims. A lot of people call this ‘toxic cancel culture’ and whatnot, but I personally can’t defend a dev team who I KNOW has done heinous things in the past, and continue to support the pedophilic mentality in online anime fan spaces but like, in a cheeky subtle way. They easily could have made Byleth a student who tutors the others because of their experienced mercenary background with Jeralt, or just not let them romance the kids at all. They could have pleased both the dating sim and high school camps by letting you choose to be either a 21+ teacher or a 17 year old student with the appropriate romance options, too. They didn’t do any of this, and their questionable past begs me to ask why, and none of the answers I can come up with are very encouraging. They also even blatantly gave you extra content when romancing students.

I hope contextualizing the 3H grooming at least makes some people understand why it’s so upsetting to see it everywhere. It’s just the decent thing to do to tag your posts, and to not dismiss any of these things. It’s just the decent thing to do to listen to people who are sharing their experiences and respecting their boundaries if they simply do not want to interact with you if you decide to continue supporting Intsys.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. Stan Claude von Riegan.

#t #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #grooming mention #csa ment

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crystalelemental · 4 years

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Oh man. GamePress apparently updated the offensive tier list to be AR exclusive, and boy have there been some changes. You know I have opinions on this one.

Okay let’s start with the obvious part: how in the hell is any Legendary hero considered above Tier 2? Like, are we not factoring in score? Or are we only accounting for if they score well? Because realistically, half the time, a legendary hero is an active detriment to the scoring. Also it turns out this isn’t just offense, but both offense AND defense, since Mirabilis is Tier 1. So that’s gonna be...honestly, a bit confusing. I’m sure some people can tell which is which, but I’m willing to bet others aren’t clear.

Let’s start with the biggest changes at the top. Eliwood and Brave Roy are now Tier 1, likely because Galeforce. Nothing else is different that I can tell. Maybe some demotion? But nothing substantial. Lysithea is finally recognized as Tier 1, and I’m certain it’s because of her power on AR-D. Girl is obscene. Otherwise, Fallen Julia is the only other T1 Red Mage, and damn good on her. Idunn demoted, but honestly, fair. AR is not for her. Armor units are not hard to handle, and are pretty bad on offense. Especially with Thrasir existing, armor dragons just have a rough go. Spring Idunn and Tibarn alone are T1. What I do find interesting is that Dancer Micaiah didn’t maintain. I guess the Hardy Bearing effect isn’t as impressive anymore. Also Karla stayed T2, that’s...astonishing, actually. Duo Byleth is also T2, which kinda makes sense. Defense can’t make use of her Duo skill, and her bulk is pathetic, so any typical ranged defense unit can handle her. On offense, it’s going to be tough. Desperation effect is good, but conditional on having a fast team, not to mention Galeforce sets can require the foe to retaliate, like with Eliwood/Brave Roy. So I can’t say I’m surprised she’s not on top.

Lance seems to just be B!Lucina, Duo Ephraim, and Trio Palla. Which is fair. Blue mages, though? Damn is this crowded. L!Azura and Peony, because obscene dancers. Ophelia, because bitch. Duo Alphonse, because immortality. Brunnya, because honestly Fimbulvetr is perfect for this game mode, and she’s got the infantry status and abilities to do whatever she wants. And L!Julia. I’m willing to bet she’s more AR-D focused. Rafiel and L!Chrom are also T1, of course. I think what really surprises me is that Reinhardt is T2. Is anyone else surprised about this? I guess he’s not the most threatening thing in the world anymore, but still. Actually wait, what’s REALLY neat is that Naga is T3. So clearly scoring considerations are not paramount.

Axes have V!Duo Alm, Annette, L!Edelgard, and B!Ike. Because of course. All of them are ridiculous. Mages have L!Celica, Thrasir, and Fallen Lyon, with beasts/dragons having Reyson. Which, again, makes sense. I’m glad Surtr demoted to T2. I really don’t think of him as the most threatening aspect of AR anymore, even on dedicated stall, so this feels overdue. Yune’s also T2, which..okay, fair. While I think she’s great, she’s a ranged flying unit who plays defense, and her debuff game is crippled severely by Eir’s bonuses. It’s super weird that F!Kana demoted, though. She was T1 before, and that was entirely based on AR potential, so...okay. Guess the meta has shifted hard enough against her. Also, big shoutouts to Julia for maintaining T2 status. That’s my girl.

Bows have L!Alm, L!Leif, V!Faye, and Duo Marth. I can’t speak for Duo Marth, I don’t have him, but I feel like the fact I’ve never faced one means he’s at least not good on AR-D. I can vouch for V!Faye, though, holy shit. In fact can we establish Tier 0 for the primordial beings that break the world over their knees? Anyway, Bernadetta and B!Lyn are T2, and I’m betting that’s for hit-and-run offense teams. Also Norne’s T2 now, which is super correct. I’ve felt this for a while, and the forum backs me up pretty hard on it: Norne’s the best common archer by a mile. But of course, you all know what I’m going to say. There is no way Faye is T3. I have played her ranged defense game long enough to know that she is really strong at it. While some threats like Lysithea can blow past her, and Thrasir isn’t always one-shot with my current supports, she is very capable of performing better than T3. Also, poor Clarisse. Finally gets a kickass refine that’s just not particularly great for AR, and instead of climbing the ranks of the offensive tier list, they change the conditions on her. Girl can’t catch a break.

Dagger/Mage combos have, of course, Bramimond, Leila, Eir, and Duo Micaiah. Absolutely no surprises here. What is surprising, maybe just to me, is that Winter Cecilia is down to T3. She was considered T2 for a long while, and I’d guessed that was based on AR potential. I guess Duo Micaiah is causing substantial problems for armors across the board? But man, Larum is T2. LARUM. Larum sucks, what could she possibly be doing that’s useful?

Dragons/Beasts have Fallen Female Corrin, Leanne, Mila, and Velouria. I love everything about this. Leanne makes sense for Defense teams, Velouria is a great Galeforcer, Mila is probably the best Light mythic for supertank strategies, and Fallen Female Corrin makes me happy because Fallen Male Corrin is only T2. Get fucked, loser. Your higher BST does nothing for your shit ass. I do think there’s an argument for Caineghis in T1 for an offensive supertank, but honestly, he struggles. To a degree I’d say he’s worse than Faye. We don’t have any beast Mythics, and the only offensive dragon is Mila. His DC is conditional on transforming, and he’s an armor unit. He can’t run Null C-Disrupt, or Null Follow-Up like she can, so there are defense teams that can beat him by exploiting this. I feel like Faye’s a lot better, but hey, what do I know.

And finally, staves. Bridal Fjorm is the only one in T1. Brave Veronica actually dropped, which is funny because she was T1 before solely on AR. She doesn’t place in Arena. I guess the meta has shifted away from Brave Veronica lately. I haven’t been scared of one in a long time. And hey, Maribelle is T2 as well, and Forrest got pushed up to T3! Unfortunately, Brave Camilla was reduced to T3, so she’s still below B!Veronica. Which in this game mode I guess is fair.

Now for the opposite end of the spectrum. There are now 6 tiers, which I like. I feel the subdivisions are appropriate, we have enough units that categorization was tough. T4 for lances and swords was like 60 units before, I’m glad it got cleaned up a bit. For red stuff, Alfonse remains at the bottom, but is no longer alone. NY!Camilla, Chrom, V!Conrad, Beach Fiora, Hinata, and NY!Hrid are also down there. Haha, Hrid, get fucked you loser. That’s for January 2019, you fuck. Mages here include Canas, Julius (ouch), Leo, Beach Leo, Raigh, and Beach Lorenz. No surprises. There are no dragons, daggers, or bows for red down here, the lowest they go is T4. Hysterically, every form of red Tiki is in T4. Also, maybe this is me not understanding something, but NY!Anna and NY!Eir in T4 surprises me. I thought their weapons were considered great team support. Are their stats just not optimized for it?

T6 lances are many. Too many, I’m not listing all of that. What I will say is, tell my Forma Finn running on the double cav Galeforce defense team that he’s T6. Considering I only lost two matches at all last season, and only 38 Lift, I’d say he’s doing alright. But there are probably better options out there, I’m just working with what I have. Mages are just Oliver and M!Robin. Man, I hope M!Robin goes up with the resplendent. Leave Oliver to die. No dragons, bows, or daggers, they’re all up in T4 where...where...no. No, there’s no way. Lilith has warp abilities from anywhere. NAESALA is considered T4, despite being paired with Tibarn for some of the nastiest offensive AR-D strategies out there. Mordecai has the Smite thing. I don’t agree with this at all. And Ninian is T3? Even though she’s one of the top picks for Infantry Pulse AR-D dancers? I know Nils exists and is better in every way pretty much, but that’s a bit much to me. I think the blue dragon/beast section is the most ridiculous by far.

There are also a lot of axes down in T6, but I agree with all of them. The green mages make me sad, though. Picnic Leo, Cecilia, and Female Robin. I do think F!Robin has a lot of utility within the game, but...honestly they’re super right, she cannot possibly compete in AR. Defense teams have no use for her, and offensive teams using her as a support are a bad idea with Panic Manor around. Mostly Cecilia makes my heart hurt. Come on, IS. Null C-Disrupt Raven Tome when? As with the other tiers, all dragons, bows, and daggers of this color are higher ranked. That said, L!Lyn in T5. Get fucked. There’s also...absolutely nothing controversial about their T4 picks. Green’s pretty well sorted, good job team.

The only colorless option with units in T6 are healers, where we have Azama, Mist, Wrys, Sakura, and Lissa. Nothing controversial here. In fact, nothing controversial in T5, either. What is sad but super true, is that F!Grima’s here. All the other colorless beasts and dragons are clustered in T1 and T2, but she’s down in T5. Expiration refine when? Felicia and Jaffar are the lowest ranked daggers, to no one’s surprise. None of the bows are shocking either, except I’m kinda surprised Niles isn’t at least a little higher. I feel like his massive Res must account for something when attempting to tank out the many ranged magic threats on AR-D, right?

Overall, I...actually agree with the majority of this. It’s a solid tierlist for Aether Raids. There are some things I don’t entirely agree with, but would have trouble arguing in their favor in the current meta. Like Micaiah. As we move entirely away from armor units, Micaiah becomes less and less significant. I do think the blue dragon/beast section could take some revisiting, given that goddamn Naesala is down in T4, but one area that seems off isn’t bad when you have so much to organize. I like it. Definitely a lot better than the previous list, because at least now we’re specialized. Before, there was always an argument that a certain unit was better or worse based on performance in a specific area. But here, it’s more stable. I’m not sure if there’s intent to make an Arena one, or if that’s even necessary since scoring is a lot more specific for Arena, but we’ll see.

#fire emblem heroes #gamepress #gamepress tier list

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metatiki · 7 years

Text

Life ramblings

Speaking about my life in any kind of public forum has always been exceptionally difficult for me. Even though I know to the most absolute degree that no one will care what I have to say, talking about something as simple as a haircut can make me nervous and make me delete/rewrite/never bother with a post.

Case in point: the reason I've been pretty much only slightly ghosting on Tumblr and nonexistent on Dreamwidth: changes in my life.

It's one thing to endlessly research and learn and analyze and wonder, but it's always another to actually begin the journey, especially when you start it so much later than most. Self-discovery for me is a winding trail with several side paths that I always want to explore, and that makes it a road which can take me quite a while to traverse to the next important crossroads.

For the one or two of you who might actually read this, buckle up. This really is a ramble.

Coming to the realization that I was transgender was both easy and gradual. Easy, because once that bulb turned on, it explained a myriad of different behaviors, preferences, and ideations. Yet it was also gradual, because I literally had no framework to even think it might be a thing for me until I met and RP’d in a group with an FTM a while ago. I suppose to younger people it might be mind-boggling that I’d never even considered it a reality until then, but without any media presence (and I have a very narrow view of pop culture as it is anyway) or literary examples, the idea that I might actually be a man rather than masculine-leaning woman was a foreign one, and certainly not something I could apply to myself in any substantial sense. So I had to realize it was a thing, and then research gender dysphoria to see if it was just a wild idea, or if I fit the criteria. And boy, did I, to a T. *cough*

Once I figured that out, I then had to decide if I want to transition or simply accept the diagnosis and see if I could just live the rest of my life. After all, it's been over twenty years since I was in high school, after all, and I've gotten college degrees, married, divorced, and been an employee at multiple companies in that time. I’d obviously been able to live this way for a number of years as an adult, so could I simply continue and simply make small allowances here or there? Transitioning at any age is never easy, but the challenges differ from one age group to the next. I had to carefully weigh my choices and make the final decision - which was that I absolutely did not want to finish my life as a woman.

I've been absolutely fortunate to have a supportive network of family and friends, and work so far has been accepting (though it's not generally public knowledge there yet). Still, there's a lot I have to sort out, from inside my head to determining how I fit in the outside world (not that I ever figured that out in the first place).

And with that new male self-identity in place, other aspects of my life have shifted in fundamental but subtle ways. I'm a feminist, but not a woman. I'm questioning my sexuality (again), but it hasn't really changed so much as the POV to consider it has altered. I'm re-centering myself in the world in a way that I completely ignored before because everything was wrong so it didn't seem worth it to try. I'm actually working on my health seriously for the first time in my entire life - again, never a concern because my body was completely disconnected from me prior to acknowledging what I truly am. I'm analyzing my ASD and introvertism and a myriad of other things, wondering what will change and what won't, what was me and what was the result of my social and gender dysphoria. All this while my body is literally changing and my psyche shifts to the most calm and *right* it has ever felt since before puberty.

It's fucking amazing and fucking terrifying, all at once. And I don't regret the decision for an instant.

As for fandom, I certainly identify more closely with male protagonists and mlm romances now. To be fair, that was building as I came closer and closer to my decision to transition, but now that all that is settling into place, I understand so much more about my writing and my preferred POVs, why my favorite characters are who they are, and why I feel so distant from certain characters and ships. I had to put my playthrough of Andromeda completely on hold because I'm hoping (against hope) that the mlm romances will be improved as they promised. Ironically, I was finally able to complete a run-through of the original Mass Effect trilogy because I stopped trying to play as a woman and just gaymanced my way through with an M!Shenko story that, despite its flaws, I absolutely adored. I'm even going to go back and replay DA2 with a male Hawke and see if I connect better. Oh, and my former canon Hawke? Yup. Transgender man, always was. I just didn't realize that either.

It has put a distance between me and Tumblr, though. It's subtle, but I notice it when I try to re-engage with fandom and utterly fail. I've distanced myself from my old blog and presence even further and pretty much abandoned the two sub-communities within the fandom that I tried haphazardly to belong to: writing and modding.

For writing, I have three major stories left open/unfinished: my Warden story, my Cullrian fic where Dorian becomes the Inquisitor, and my canon Inquisitor Martin Trevelyan story. I adore my Warden, but I feel so distant from her that I wonder if I'll ever pick that up again. I love my Inquisitor Dorian story as well - I had so much politics and fun with derailing the canon plot planned for that one - and of the three, it's the one I'm most likely to return to writing. The one I want to do the most is my Martin Trevelyan story, but I'm not sure I want to pour myself into writing that story when I'm feeling so distant from the fandom itself. I don't write for accolades, necessarily, but I do like to feel a connection between my readers and myself for fic, and the time for DAI has come and gone. It's hard to write when I feel that no one will read it.

As for modding, I now regret my involvement in that community. I don't have a suitable personality or a viable skillset to offer, and I should have just backed out early and let someone else take over and do what I did, but better. A couple of other blogs have stepped up to the plate, for which I am grateful, but it's a weekly debate with myself whether or not I should just delete that sideblog - heck, my whole Tumblr - and simply move on. The only reason I don't is that I know there are quite a few links to some of the tutorials and lists on the sideblog, and I feel it would be unfair to do so. Yet I tried and failed at Discord, and am completely disinterested in modding ME:A, so I think that ship will not sail again.

In addition to that, I've been in a constant re-evaluation of my online presence and what it means. The release of ME:A had me intrigued at first, but as time has progressed, I've come to realize that even though I enjoy and love the game itself, I feel no connection whatsoever to other fans of it. I don't like the fanart, I don't like the same characters as everyone else, and I simply don’t experience it in the same way I'm seeing it on my dash. People are leaving Dragon Age behind again (which is fine, fandoms are always circular), but I don't choose to move on. And it's getting harder and harder to find meaningful ways to interact with what remains of the parts of fandom I am interested in. Outside of my perennial RPs (which is still Dragon Age), I don't really maintain an online presence except for what little I've struggled to establish here on Tumblr - and the value is diminishing enough that I wonder how long I'll be around.

So. Anyway. Many ramblings later, I guess I just needed to get all that out and written down somewhere. My apologies if you actually read all this. And kudos, as well.

At least Tiki is a unisex name. That I don't have to change.

Tiki on Dreamwidth | AO3 | FF.net

#dw crosspost #Tiki rambles #dragon age #mass effect #transgender #writing #modding #life events

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